The history of Romania as a concrete country is generally assumed to have started with the Romanian, or Danubian, principalities, similarly to how the history of Russia as a concrete country starts with Muscovy. Both of these histories are of late medieval origin, having come into being in the wake of the Mongol invasions of Europe.

In both comparable cases, however, the concrete starting point is not the same as the ethnologically related spiritual precursor from which the original states derived their patronage as states to begin with. In the case of Russia, the spiritual precursor was the Kievan Rus’, which was situated in present-day Ukraine.

For the Romanian principalities, it was the intrusive but foundational Latin-speaking element of Constantinople, which had originally ruled that city.

That their patronage originated in Constantinople would be a crucial, if now overlooked, starting point for the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia — and their enemies. For example, Mehmed II “the Conqueror” opposed the semi-autonomy of the Romanian principalities as vassals of the Ottoman Empire.

As long as Wallachia and Moldavia still stood as states in the 1400s, Mehmed’s work in overrunning Constantinople was incomplete. This is why he unsuccessfully sought to crush the principalities with armies larger than the one he had used to conquer Constantinople.

Stephen the Great of Moldavia did not really see himself as a crusader against Islam, but he earned that reputation by handing Mehmed the worst defeat the Turks had yet seen in 1475.

Officially, the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia both, in early modern times, held the status of what is known in traditional Islamic international law as a “house of peace” — which is neither a “house of Islam,” in the sense that either Islamic countries or thoroughly conquered areas like Bulgaria and Greece were, nor classified as an enemy “house of war.”

The Ottomans only had control of port cities on the northern bank of the Danube or the coasts of the Black Sea, not firm control of the land, as in the countries south of the Danube. The principalities were not considered outright Ottoman territory until the beginning of the 18th century. By the 18th century, the Ottomans, hoping to pacify a geopolitically ambiguous region that had caused them so much trouble, installed a dynasty of initially pro-Turkish Greek rulers called the Phanariots as puppet princes in the Romanian principalities.

Before the Phanariot rule, no mosques (nor synagogues) could be legally built in the principalities unless the Prince himself made an exception for temporary wooden ones, and the Romanian principalities were never allowed to be sources of janissary conscription. Wars between the principalities and the Turks had occasionally erupted when these terms were violated. It should be noted that Habsburg Austria officially held the same status for decades.

After the Ottoman Empire overran the Kingdom of Hungary (1526), Ottoman forces unsuccessfully besieged Vienna (1529). For the remainder of the 16th century, these two powers would be at war. Habsburg Austria, embroiled in other power struggles in Europe, would be content with appeasing the Turks, paying the Ottoman Porte to leave Vienna alone whenever possible.

This limited the struggles between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans to battles and skirmishes on the disputed Hungarian frontier for decades after 1529, but it also left Austria in an uncomfortable state of vassalage. The Turks continued to reject the Habsburg Emperors’ preferred title “Emperors of Rome.” “In previous centuries,” noted the controversial German jurist and philosopher Carl Schmitt, “a controversy existed between the German kaiser (and king of Hungary) and the Turkish sultan on the question of whether the payments made by the kaiser to the sultan were in the nature of a ‘pension’ or a ‘tribute’.

The debtor stressed that he did not pay ‘tribute’ but ‘pension’, whereas the creditor considered it to be ‘tribute’.”

The issue Schmitt refers to here is that Austria was technically an Ottoman vassal from the first siege of Vienna in 1529 up until the conclusion of the Long War in 1606, when the Ottomans humiliatingly agreed to address the Habsburgs as “Emperors of Rome.” This undermined the entire Ottoman mission since Mehmed II in the 15th century, which had been to conquer and destroy any state that claimed patronage from the Romans.

However, the amount of money paid to the Turks to leave Vienna alone actually increased in return for this Habsburg political victory, even as it was discredited as true tribute money. This contradiction wouldn’t be resolved until after the 1683 second siege of Vienna, or Battle of Vienna. Thus, the misnomer “Ottoman rule” does not apply all that much more, as a legal status, to the pre-18th century Romanian principalities than it does to Austria at one point — though the Ottoman vassalage had always been much more directly felt in the principalities.

Michael the Brave (1558-1601) attempted to do away with Wallachia’s vassal status altogether and turn it into an empire. This Wallachian prince was, as Hans Corneel de Roos has shown, the main historical basis of Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula — when the villainous vampire was still alive.

  De Roos’ research, even more than earlier arguments by Elizabeth Miller, has displaced the claim of Raymond T. McNally and Radu R. Florescu that Stoker based his character on Vlad Țepeș. Interestingly, McNally and Florescu themselves, in Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times, note that a certain character mentioned by the count appears to be based on Michael the Brave.

What they do not mention is one important detail it simply takes a careful reading of Stoker’s book to understand.  Namely, that the count is speaking in the third person about himself in life

In the count’s recollection in the third chapter of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the nostalgic rant that Jonathan Harker calls “the story of his race,” Count Dracula describes an ancestor of his, whom Stoker did indeed base on Vlad Țepeș. Stoker, as De Roos has shown, confused Vlad Țepeș, or Vlad Dracula, with his father (and Michael the Brave’s ancestor), Vlad Dracul.  In making this mistake, Stoker appears to have reflected his source, William Wilkinson’s 1820 book Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia with Political Observations Relative to Them.  Stoker, again like his source, knew more about Michael the Brave than Vlad Țepeș.

This shouldn’t surprise us.  After all, Vlad Țepeș was a late-medieval, pre-Columbian historical figure, while Michael the Brave was a figure from what Anglophone historiography remembers as the Elizabethan era.  Michael the Brave, a relative of Vlad Țepeș and a more successful military strategist, was more often written about in English than his predecessor until the 20th century. 

There is reason to suspect that Prince Michael was written about contemporarily in Britain. In Writing the Ottomans: Turkish History in Early Modern England, Anders Ingram writes: “The years of the Ottoman–Hapsburg ‘Long War’ of 1593–1606 brought an unprecedented flood of English publishing on the Turks.

A substantial portion of this material either directly describes, or explicitly refers to, the events of this conflict.”  During this time — which was also the age in which the plays of Christopher Marlowe, which likewise display a keen interest in Ottoman Wars, revolutionized English literature — England’s “contemporary news market was dominated by foreign news, or reports of English involvement on the continent, rather than domestic affairs.”

Michael the Brave was a central figure of the Long War.  Although not mentioned in Ingram’s study, it would be an interesting task to determine whether and to what extent the Wallachian prince is mentioned in any of “the fifty-four [English] items on the topic of the Turks recorded in the years 1591 to 1610,” of which “twenty-two relate either directly to the Long War, the state of Hungary, or Ottoman–Habsburg conflict, while numerous others allude to contemporary events.”

Considering Prince Michael’s outstanding role in the Long War, it would be more surprising to come up empty-handed in this endeavor than to see this question answered in the affirmative.

  During the Long War, until his 1601 assassination, he was both an accomplished military commander and a controversial political leader. A 1901 article entitled “THE JEWS OF ROUMANIA FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY,” published by the American Jewish Committee, offers a glimpse into what led Prince Michael to reject the status quo in Wallachia’s relations with the Ottoman Empire. “With the sixteenth century,” explains this study, “came new immigrations, composed of Polish and Turkish Jews…

This was exactly at the time when the Jews of Turkey began to play an important rôle in the State and to gain diplomatic influence at the court, in the harems, and with the pashas and the grand viziers; and the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia turned to these influential Jews to obtain the throne or to strengthen themselves in possession.

Commerce with Turkey was extended, and the Jews of Constantinople and other places frequently visited the principalities. Many established themselves there permanently. But the situation of the Jews varied with the prince, and depended upon the favor which he obtained from an influential Jew or Jewess at Constantinople.”

Before Michael the Brave came to the Wallachian throne in 1593, he had worked this corrupt system like any other ambitious contender. Upon his rise to power, however, the moneylenders who had expected to control him were fatally disappointed. “In 1594,” notes the above-mentioned Jewish source, “Michael the Brave of Wallachia assembled his creditors, Turks, Greeks, and Jews, and had them all massacred; and he then informed certain individuals that they would all be released from their debts.

This was the signal for a general slaughter of Turks and Jews. The entire community of Bukharest [sic] perished.” Thus began the first stage of an anti-Ottoman crusade in which Michael and the allied Moldavians “massacred the Jews wherever their armies passed…” The final decade of the 16th century in Eastern Europe has been described as “the time when the fierce sword blows of the crusader Michael were striking against the Turks along the Danube.” And even far beyond the Danube, pushing as far south as Adrianople (today’s Edirne, Turkey).

It was thus that Mina Harker could say of Count Dracula in life that he “won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkeyland.”

Michael the Brave, later feeling betrayed by his Hungarian allies, the Báthory princes of Transylvania, turned his attention northwestward and controversially conquered that Hungarian-ruled principality, with the help of the Hungarian-speaking Szeklers.

His conquest of Moldavia in the northeast was similarly based on betrayal by a formerly allied principality. It was in Moldavia that he would recruit many Polish-registered Cossacks, who settled there. Making quite a few enemies from Turkey to Central Europe, from the Jews to the Ottoman Porte to the papacy, the outspokenly (though not zealously) Eastern Orthodox Michael the Brave was assassinated in 1601 by an Albanian-Italian mercenary general named Giorgio Basta.

According to one historian of Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia during the Long War, Basta later “likely accompanied the Pope, both in a ceremonial and protective capacity,” and probably “served as an emissary to the Papal entourage” as well.

Basta’s subsequent iron-fisted rule over Transylvania led to revolts among the Hungarian nobles, and the Christian side of the Long War was then reduced to the defensive, freeing Austria from official Ottoman vassalage at a high price by 1606.

However, the Ottoman Empire still had to defend itself from the network of Cossack raiders that Michael had helped build throughout the principalities, especially in Moldavia, by enthusiastically using Cossacks in his armies. Some of these Cossacks were also registered in Poland’s army, and accordingly they dragged Poland into wars with the Turks.

This would be a problem for the Porte for the duration of the infamous Thirty Years’ War in Europe (1618-1648), when the Ottoman sultans had to deal with constant Cossack raids and a rebellious janissary corps — and were thus unable to take advantage of the Thirty Years’ War and strike at Vienna. In Polish historiography, this period is known as the Moldavian Magnate Wars. By the time they belatedly and unsuccessfully besieged Vienna in 1683, the Turks faced a new, rationalistic system of Western international law.

On both sides of the English Channel, this new system of thinking about foreign affairs had been built in response to the 17th century’s bloody sectarian fighting within Continental Europe and in the British Isles. In this cold new order, the Ottoman rule of Hungary had no place, and the former Kingdom of Hungary was wrested from Ottoman hands by the end of that century. Thus began the two centuries of the receding of the Ottoman holdings in Southeastern Europe.

By this time, so much blood had been spilled that Michael the Brave was largely forgotten as one of the chief instigators of the Christian reconquest of Southeastern Europe on land, following the Ottoman Empire’s defeat at sea with the Battle of Lepanto (1571). In Romania, he is mostly remembered for uniting Transylvania with Wallachia and Moldavia for a brief time. His dream of a pan-Christian empire stretching from the Carpathians to the Mediterranean Sea, Orthodox in character but tolerant of Protestants and Catholics, had died with him. But it was an ideal that helped turn the tide of history in its time.

By Amory Stern, Michael the Brave, the Ottoman Wars, and Count Dracula

Articolul Michael the Brave, the Ottoman Wars, and Count Dracula apare prima dată în Glasul.info.

În secolul XX, o mare parte din gândirea germană s-a concentrat pe tehnologie. Literatura germană despre filozofia tehnologiei este bine cunoscută în America, Europa de Vest și Rusia, dar nu la fel de mult în România. Acesta este un scenariu trist, deoarece o mare parte din această scriere este valoroasă din trei motive. Este utilă pentru scopul construirii României într-o putere militară respectată, precum și pentru echilibrarea intereselor agricole cu reindustrializarea. În cele din urmă, este utilă pentru înțelegerea tehnologiei ca o armă puternică, care poate fi folosită fie pentru sau împotriva națiunii.

Ernst Jünger este un interesant punct focal pentru studenții filozofiei tehnologiei din secolul XX. Jünger (1895-1998) a trăit o viață lungă și fascinantă. Unul dintre cei mai distincți tineri ofițeri germani din Primul Război Mondial, el a fost probabil cel mai mare memorialist al întregului război. În anii 1920, el a scris mai multe romane interesante, bazate pe propriile jurnale de război, dintre care cel mai cunoscut este ‘In Storms of Steel’, mai bine cunoscut pentru cititorii englezi drept simplu Storm of Steel. Există două traduceri în limba engleză ale acestui clasic, bazate pe două ediții diferite scrise de către însuși Jünger. Ediția din 1920, tradusă de Basil Creighton, rămâne cea mai bună introducere în Jünger.

Relația lui Jünger cu ideologiile totalitare ale secolului XX este interesantă. Deși nu a avut niciodată o simpatie fată de comunism, în sensul  în care era prietenul său Ernst Niekisch, Jünger a considerat că rearanjarea bolșevică a puterii ține de un accentuat interes filosofic, din punct de vedere nietzschean. În 1986, în interviul The Details of Time, Jünger remarcă despre comuniști: „Ei se numesc marxiști sau improvizați ai lumii, dar sunt într-adevăr pur și simplu purtători de putere – pe care, întâmplător, îi prefer; o chestiune de educație!”

Și mai controversată a fost relația lui Jünger cu Hitler. Jünger a fost impresionat de „Beer Hall Putsch” de la Ludendorff-Hitler din anii 1920 și a sprijinit mișcarea național-socialistă până la sfârșitul acelui deceniu. Dar în anii 1930, când mișcarea lui Hitler a ajuns de fapt la putere, Jünger devenise mult mai critic în acest sens. În ciuda faptului că a fost un critic al regimului, și chiar gasit vinovat ca fiind inspirația intelectuală  pentru încercările de asasinat împotriva lui Hitler duse de către generalii săi, Jünger a fost protejat de un Hitler însuși sentimental. Dictatorul de origine austriacă, de asemenea un veteran din primul război mondial, le-a interzis acolitilor săi, ca să rănească o astfel de comoară națională ca Jünger.

În epoca interbelică, Jünger a scris numeroase articole și mai multe tratate filozofice, precum The Worker și On Pain. În timpul și după cel de-al doilea război mondial, el s-a orientat către scrierea  romanelor alegorice. Cele mai multe dintre acestea sunt de ficțiune științifică sau de fantazie distopică, care se ocupă de utilizarea necorespunzătoare a tehnologiei. Acestea includ The Glass Bees (1957) și Aladdin’s Problem (1983). Cele mai multe dintre romanele lui Jünger sunt remarcate pentru digresiunile lor filozofice, deși romanul său de mister din 1984, ‘A Dangerous Encounter’ prezintă o abilitate simplă de povestire.

Jünger a murit în 1998, la vârsta de 103. Viața sa lungă este surprinzătoare, având în vedere dragostea lui pentru tutun și alcool și experimentarea ocazională a drogurilor. La scurt timp după al doilea război mondial, el a încercat LSD („acid”) cu inventatorul său, Albert Hoffmann.

De-a lungul vieții, asociații lui Jünger au inclus alți autori germani care s-au ocupat de probleme legate de tehnologie, precum Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt și Martin Heidegger. De asemenea, s-a împrietenit cu Eliade și Cioran. Jünger ar putea fi un gânditor sălbatic și inconsistent, dar a avut un dar pentru ca această calitate să pară fermecătoare și atractivă, ceea ce de obicei nu se regăsește la intelectuali. Cu toate acestea, a rămas foarte mult un filozof al tehnologiei, de la memoriile sale de război din anii 1920 până la romanele sale din anii 1980.

În scopurile menționate la început – acela de a construi România într-o putere militară, acela de a echilibra agricultura României cu reindustrializarea românească și acela de a recunoaște tehnologia în general ca o armă puternică – Jünger este o excelentă introducere în filosofia germană a tehnologiei din secolul XX . Este inevitabil ca românii să citească literatură străină și acest lucru nu este neapărat un lucru rău. La urma urmei, Eminescu a găsit literatura și filozofia germană din secolul al XIX-lea destul de valoroase. Ceea ce contează este că această influență străină trebuie să fie o literatură bună. Ernst Jünger este cea mai valoroasă literatură pe care Germania de secol XX o are de oferit și o introducere esențială în filozofia tehnologiei.

articol scris de: Amory Stern

traducere: Márcio S. Forti

Articolul Ernst Jünger și filozofia germană a tehnologiei apare prima dată în Glasul.info.

Of peasant ancestry on his father’s side and boasting aristocratic (boyar) maternal roots, the Romanian poet, prose writer, and editorialist Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) had not put his modest inherited wealth to waste. Educated in the German language since childhood, Eminescu was culturally—if not always geopolitically— an enthusiastic Germanophile. As a young man, he had studied in Vienna and in Bismarck’s Prussia, where he had learned Sanskrit and immersed himself in Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy. He had also been a student of Eugen Dühring.

Eminescu had intellectual precedents in his own country, but he often made radical departures from them. His ideas were influenced by a leading conservative Romanian cultural circle called Junimea, which originally reflected the interests of the old Moldavian boyar class that had been displaced by the liberal bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century. However, there are significant differences between Eminescu’s philosophy and Junimism.

“The Junimists,” notes Hungarian-Jewish historian Nicholas Nagy-Talavera, “wanted literature to be separated from politics; to remain l’art pour l’art, with no social content desirable.” Eminescu rejected this doctrine, and some of his poems are overtly political. Nagy-Talavera summarizes Eminescu’s worldview thus:

Eminescu’s goal—he defines it as his “supreme law” —was the preservation of his country and its ethnic identity . . . Consequently, the national interest must determine every political, educational, and cultural decision. Thus, in Eminescu’s eyes, what he called “American liberalism” (or Western humanitarian values) might imperil the uniqueness of the Romanian ethnic character, and should therefore be rejected . . . He rejected the incomplete and superficial Westernization of 1848. Eminescu recognized only two positive classes in Romania: the nobility, and, above all, the peasantry. Any development must be based on the peasant, and it must be an organic one . . . Eminescu was closer to the peasants than to the boyars.

Eminescu died as a result of medical malpractice in 1889. He was only 39 years old. Foul play has been widely suspected.
This volume showcases Eminescu the essayist. The first essay, “Old Icons, New Icons,” exemplifies his rejection of liberal ideas as alien to his country. He regarded Romania’s contemporary intellectual, political, and economic ruling classes as being composed of treacherous epigones of French ideas that did not fit the Romanian situation. This extended essay also reveals an impressive understanding of economics.

Next is an article criticizing his country’s management of the national finances. Here, in addition to his hatred of usury, is displayed an ability to apply philosophical concepts of time and space to different forms of capital. His critiques of what he considers fraudulent capital are pertinent in our age of debt-driven political economies.

Despite his disgust with key aspects of modern capitalism and his preference for the working classes over the rich, the next editorial places some of his social views on the Right. Eminescu had plenty of appreciation for American poetry, but this piece sheds some light on why “American” was sometimes a term of abuse for him. It should be remembered that he came of age during the time of the US Civil War and the ensuing botched social experiment known as “Reconstruction.” While not morbidly obsessed with race, Eminescu had no use for any kind of ethnic egalitarianism as a governing principle, arguing that such ideas would endanger Romania’s distinct national characteristics. Whatever one’s opinion of this position, a key to understanding Eminescu’s gift of insight is that he sensed plutocratic plots in places where they often lurk: under the cover of promises of vaguely-defined equality.

Eminescu was not one to follow trends. Unreceptive to popular French Decadent-influenced styles, he instead chose to model his verse after the golden age of German Romantic poetry. Whereas most other nineteenth-century Romanian literature was lighthearted, his was deep and often grim. This independent-mindedness also applied to his essays. At a time when other critics of capitalism supported the fledgling socialist movements, Eminescu rejected the latter on philosophical grounds—even as his pro-peasant and pro-worker worldview rendered him lonely on the conservative Right.

It is hoped that this volume improves the reader’s understanding of Eminescu the political thinker. Controversial in his own time, his non-fiction writings are not what would today be called “politically correct.” Whether seen as charming or downright repellent, this aspect of his work should not overshadow his impressive observations on subjects related to economics and political science.

—Amory Stern

This book is available in Kindle and paperback versions.

Articolul Editor’s Introduction to the English Translation Collection of Eminescu’s Articles, “Old Icons, New Icons” apare prima dată în Glasul.info.

I am an American Romaniaphile and the author of Michael the Brave, the Ottoman Wars, and Count Dracula, the first book about Michael the Brave written in English. It has been made known to me that a statue of Michael the Brave has been removed in the city of Oradea. At this, I am disappointed.

My book is the product of years of research. I had looked at probably every English source on Michael the Brave there is available online, including ones from the 19th century. I also taught myself to read Romanian – to an extent – by studying the works of Mihai Eminescu in English translation and in the original Romanian.

I do not claim my book is comprehensive or the last word on the subject of Michael the Brave. It is a work that I hope will inspire better scholarship. Yet, the fact remains that I am the author of the first English book dedicated to the subject of Michael the Brave.

My book explores some little-known aspects of Michael the Brave’s career, such as his struggle against the moneylenders, his close relations with the Cossacks, and his influence on Bram Stoker. What I’ve discovered is that Michael the Brave was actually much more of an influence on Stoker and his famous villain than Vlad Țepeș was. I also explain Michael’s achievement of saving a rather ungrateful Austria from the Ottoman peril.

This decision in Oradea offends me deeply. It sends the wrong message. It is not only the wrong message for Romania, but for Europe in general. After all, as my book shows, Michael the Brave is underrated as a figure in European history.

What is behind this insulting decision? I would argue that it is driven by the liberal narrative (repeated also by Karl Marx) that pre-capitalist societies were barbaric, shameful, and uncultured. This is the key to understanding Michael the Brave’s critics in Romania.

Michael the Brave’s views on economics have been cited against him since the 19th century as a flaw or a mark against his reputation. Supposedly, according to this narrative, Michael the Brave was an elitist whose feudalism precludes him from having the status of a “man of the people.” My book, which cites the most detailed example of the hostile Jewish sources on Michael the Brave I studied, uncovers the truth about his economic values.

It is true that he supported landowners, and that his social sensibilities were hierarchical rather than egalitarian. Does this mean Michael the Brave should be seen as emblematic of economic “inequality?” It does not, because Michael the Brave was an enemy of usury and plutocracy. Like Aristotle, and the great Roman dictator Sulla, Michael opposed usury because he believed that a hierarchy of wealth and power is only legitimate if it is rooted in the land.

Bankers are not the same as businessmen or landowners. Under the right leadership, agricultural or industrial capital can be made to work for the people. These types of wealth, as Eminescu realized, can conceivably be utilized by nationalism because they are concrete and rooted in a particular place.

Altogether different is “finance capital,” that is, money made only from money itself. Moneylenders ruin nations. I know that from living in a country that has always been particularly vulnerable to subversion by bankers, because in America we don’t have a pre-capitalist history. That is why, despite America’s great talent for discoveries and inventions, my country is plagued by the fact that it is a plutocracy. A proud pre-capitalist history, such as Michael the Brave’s enemies in Romania want to destroy, is a society’s immune system against the disease of “finance capital” and all the disgusting symptoms it brings.

In his book Revolution from Above, Kerry Bolton exposes how Wall Street supported the rise of Bolshevism in order to destroy the pre-capitalist elements that still existed in the Russian and Eastern European political economies at the beginning of the 20th century. To the bankers, that was the point of supporting Bolshevism. It is also why, as Bolton shows, bankers have also supported other unrealistic utopian movements, from the French Revolution to feminism. It might seem strange that bankers fund egalitarian ideas, but they do this as a tactic to destroy a society’s natural defenses against their evil influence.

Michael the Brave symbolizes, among other things, pre-modern economic and political values, which he defended from the influence of usury. On the other hand, his critics, those who scorn Romania’s pre-modern history, support the values promoted by bankers. As Eminescu realized, Romania can only gain economic strength by embracing pre-capitalist values in a modern context. It is fitting that the enemies of such a project hate Michael the Brave, for he is one of Romanian history’s main role models in the struggle to defend concrete wealth from fake capital and the kind of debt-slavery the latter is based on.

Having established that, I can conclude that the decision in Oradea is infuriating, but not surprising.

-Amory Stern, May 2019

Articolul Michael the Brave as a Symbol: The Oradea Scandal Viewed from America apare prima dată în Glasul.info.

Oare cum viața domnitorului Mihai Viteazul (1558-1601) a  influențat romanul lui Bram Stoker,  Dracula? Acest domn   valah a fost principala sursa istorica de inspiratie pentru romanul Contele Dracula, după cum a arătat Hans Corneel de Roos când era încă în viață. Cercetarea lui De Roos a contrazis afirmația lui Raymond T. McNally și Radu R. Florescu, anume că Stoker și-a bazat personajul pe personalitatea lui Vlad Țepes ¹ .  

Anii 1590 din Europa de Est au fost descriși ca fiind “momentul” în care loviturile de sabie feroce ale cruciațului Mihai au lovit împotriva turcilor de-a lungul Dunării”². Mihai Viteazul, mai târziu simtindu-se tradat de aliații săi maghiari, prinții Bathory ai Transilvaniei, si-a indreptat  atenția  inspre nord, și in mod controversat, a cucerit acel principat, cu ajutorul secuiilor.  Mihai a fost asasinat în 1601.  Ce a atras atentia asupra acestui om si a epocii sale, care a inspirit conceptia lui Bram Stoker despre  cea mai mare amenințare  amenintare a modului de viata victorian?

Interesant este că McNally și Florescu insusi, într-un loc, în cartea “Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times”  noteaza ca un anumit caracter mentionat de conte este insipirat de catre Mihai Viteazul. Ceea ce nu menționează este un detaliu important, fiind nevoie doar de o simpla citire atenta a cartii lui Stoker. Anume, cine vorbea la a treia persoană despre el însuși, în viață.

În amintirea contelui, în capitolul cel de-al treilea din  Dracula a lui Bram Stoker, rabufnirea nostalgica pe care Jonathan Harker o numește “povestea rasei sale”, Dracula descrie un strămoș al lui, pe care Stoker l-a inspirit cu adevărat de la Vlad Țepeș. Stoker, după cum a arătat De Roos, l-a confundat pe Vlad Țepeș sau Vlad Draculea, cu tatăl său, Vlad Dracul. În comiterea acestei greșeli, Stoker pare să-și fi consultat sursa, cartea lui William Wilkinson din 1820 “Insemnari asupra Principatelor Țării Românești și ale Moldovei, cu observații politice despre  acestea. Stoker, din nou, ca si sursa sa, știa mai multe despre Mihai Viteazul decât despre Vlad Țepeș.³

Acest lucru nu ar trebui să ne surprindă. La urma urmei, Vlad Țepeș a fost o figură istorică târzie-medievală, pre-Columb, în timp ce Mihai Viteazul a fost o figură din istoria numita de anglofoni a epocii Elizabetiene. Mihai Viteazul, o rudă a lui Vlad Țepeș și un strateg militar mai de succes, a fost mai des  mentionat in limba engleză decât predecesorul său până în secolul al XX-lea. Există motive să bănuim  că despre domnitorul Mihai s-a scris  in perioadele contemporane din Marea Britanie

În scrierea: “Writing the Ottomans: Turkish History in Early Modern England” , Anders Ingram scrie: “Anii războiului otomano-habsburgic” “Razboiul cel lung” 1593-1606 au adus un surplus fără precedent de publicari în limba engleză despre turci. O parte substanțială a acestui material fie descrie în mod direct, fie se referă în mod explicit la evenimentele acestui conflict. “În acest timp – care a fost și epoca în care piesele lui Christopher Marlowe, care manifestă un interes deosebit pentru războaiele otomane, au dominat literatura engleza – “piața contemporană a știrilor din Anglia a fost dominată de știri străine sau rapoarte despre implicarea englezilor pe continent, mai degrabă decât despre treburile interne”.⁴

Mihai Viteazul a fost o figură centrală a Războiului cel lung. Deși nu a fost menționat în studiul lui Ingram, ar fi o sarcină interesantă să se stabilească dacă și în ce măsură domnul muntean a fost menționat în oricare dintre “cele cincizeci și patru de articole pe tema turcilor înregistrate în anii 1591-1610”  dintre care “douăzeci și doua se referă fie direct la războiul cel lung, fie la statul Ungar, fie la conflictul otomano-habsburgic, în timp ce alții vorbesc despre alte evenimente contemporane”.⁵ 

Având în vedere rolul remarcabil al domnitorului Mihai în războiul cel lung, ar fi mai surprinzător să venim cu mana goala din cadrul acestui demers, decât să primim vreun raspuns la această întrebare. În timpul războiului cel lung, până la asasinarea sa din 1601, el a fost atât un comandant militar complet, cât și un lider politic controversat. Ce efect a avut acest lucru asupra dimensiunilor politice ale cărții lui Stoker?

Și dimensiuni politice sunt cat cuprinde. Contele Dracula al lui Bram Stoker, în romanul original, nu este o figură foarte atractivă din punct de vedere fizic. Obiceiurile sale vampirice sunt descrise ca respingatoare. Erotizarea caracterului, care a aparut cu adaptarea ulterioară a cărții, este absentă in romanul din 1897.

Cu toate acestea, există un anumit romantism atașat caracterului – deși mai degrabă militar și nu erotic. “Sângele este un lucru prea prețios în aceste zile de pace dezonoranta”, contele se lamentează. A fost un sentiment care aparuse în Europa la începutul secolului al XIX-lea și al XX-lea, în deceniile care au condus la primul război mondial.

De ce l-a ales Stoker pe Mihai Viteazul ca bază a unui personaj reprezentând pericolul adus de militarismul aristocratic din Europa Centrală și de Est  asupra valorilor victoriene? Și de ce Stoker a romantizat și a demonizat acest pericol perceput?

După ce am stabilit că Vlad Țepeș este mai mult sau mai puțin o “diversiune”, cercetătorii lui Dracula ar trebui să se îndrepte acum spre alter ego-ul sau indentificat corect istoric, pentru a căuta răspunsuri – și, probabil si mai multe întrebări.

[1] De Roos, Hans Corneel, “Count Dracula’s Address and Lifetime Identity,” collected in Crișan, Marius-Mircea (ed.) Dracula: An International Perspective, pp. 95-118

[2] Iorga, Nicolae, Byzantium After Byzantium, tr. Treptow, Laura, p. 149

[3] De Roos, Hans Corneel, “Bram Stoker’s Vampire Trap—Vlad the Impaler and his Nameless Double,” Linköping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science 14 (2012), no. 2.

[4] Ingram, Writing the Ottomans, p. 37

[5] Ibid, p. 37

Articol scris de: Amory Stern

Traducere: Adrian Ionescu

Sursa: romaniaimperiala.wordpress.com

Articolul Importanta lui Mihai Viteazul pentru Bram Stoker: O investigatie continua apare prima dată în Glasul.info.

Stilul lui Eminescu şi istoria limbii române

Una dintre cele mai stupide și mai întâlnite critici legate de stilul folosit de către Eminescu, este afirmatia că stilul său metric aparține epocii de aur a romantismului german fiind demodat în Franța în timpul in care acesta scria. Acest lucru fiind chiar în concordanță cu disprețul său față de francofili, respectiv cu germanofilia sa. Motivul pentru această afinitate a sa faţa de germani este însă argumentat istoric.

De secole românii foloseau o versiune destul de latinizată a vechii slavone Bisericeşti. Pr. Dr. Mihai-Andrei Aldea, un expert în limba română medievală și  relația acesteia cu limbile latine estice, a arătat că inițial  lucrurile nu au stat aşa. Mama limbii românesti o reprezintă colonizarea romană din Europa de Est.

[info]Eminescu si limba sanscrita[/info]

Stilul lui Eminescu şi istoria limbii române

Dar  în măsura în care re-latinizarea limbii Române  ar avea o mamă vitregă, aceasta ar fi Austria, nu Franța. Pentru a scăpa de influenţele slave, Școala Ardeleana din Transilvania secolulului al XVIII-lea, folosea la bază  limba germană, nu franceză.

Ca cineva ce era bine educat  cu privire la originile popoarelor și limbilor indo-europene, cel puţin atât cît era cu putinţă în secolul al XIX-lea,  Eminescu a considerat cu siguranță că aceasta era o decizie înțeleaptă.

Astfel, forma sa ritmică provenea  mai mult din  limba germană decât din franceză  din cauza unui adevar istorico-lingvistic, și nu numai pentru că simțea că francofilii liberali i-au ruinat ţara.

–  Articol scris de Amory Stern.

Sursa: adrian90blog.wordpress.com

Articolul Stilul lui Eminescu şi istoria limbii române apare prima dată în Glasul.info.