Nicolae Densuşianu was a Transylvanian-born Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n ethnologist and collector of Romanian folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

. His main work, for which he is chiefly remembered, was the posthumously printed Dacia Preistorică (1913), with a preface contributed by C. I. Istrati; in Dacia Preistorică Densuşianu combined the studies of folklore and comparative religion

Comparative religion

Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...

 with archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 to construct a theory about the Prehistoric

Prehistory

Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...

 cultures of Dacia

Dacia

In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...

. The work has drawn criticism for unprofessionalism and evidence of nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, and for standing at the source of Protochronism

Protochronism

Protochronism is a Romanian term describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretations, an idealised past to the country as a whole...

.

His works theorize the existence of a Dacian-centered "Pelasgian

Pelasgians

The name Pelasgians was used by some ancient Greek writers to refer to populations that were either the ancestors of the Greeks or who preceded the Greeks in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world." In general, "Pelasgian" has come...

 Empire", created in the 6th millennium BC

6th millennium BC

During the 6th millennium BC, agriculture spread from the Balkans to Italy and Eastern Europe, and also from Mesopotamia to Egypt. World population was essentially stable at approximately 5 million, though some speculate up to 7 million.-Events:...

, and which, he claimed, was governed by Uranus

Uranus (mythology)

Uranus , was the primal Greek god personifying the sky. His equivalent in Roman mythology was Caelus. In Ancient Greek literature, according to Hesiod in his Theogony, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth...

 and Saturn

Saturn (mythology)

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Saturn was a major god presiding over agriculture and the harvest time. His reign was depicted as a Golden Age of abundance and peace by many Roman authors. In medieval times he was known as the Roman god of agriculture, justice and strength. He held a sickle in...

 and comprised all of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. Densuşianu, who believed that Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 was a dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

 of Dacian

Dacian language

The extinct Dacian language may have developed from proto-Indo-European in the Carpathian region around 2,500 BC and probably died out by AD 600. In the 1st century AD, it was the predominant language of the ancient regions of Dacia and Moesia and, possibly, of some surrounding regions.It belonged...

, also argued that the Dacians

Dacians

The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...

 migrated to the Italian Peninsula

Italian Peninsula

The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale...

 in the Antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

, where they laid the foundations of Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

.

Biography

Born in the little village of Densuş

Densus

Densuş is a commune in Hunedoara County, Romania and the site of Densuş Church. It is composed of seven villages: Criva, Densuş, Hăţăgel , Peşteana , Peşteniţa , Poieni and Ştei ....

, in Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

, which was part of Austria-Hungary, he was raised in a Romanian

Romanians

The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

 cultural environment. Around 1867, he met the adolescent Bukovina

Bukovina

Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...

n-born Romanian Mihai Eminescu

Mihai Eminescu

Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...

, later known as a major poet, who had fled his father's home and was traveling aimlessly throughout Transylvania. Densuşianu and Eminescu were acquainted in Sibiu

Sibiu

Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...

, where the latter was living in extreme poverty. Soon after, Eminescu crossed the Southern Carpathians

Southern Carpathians

The Southern Carpathians or the Transylvanian Alps are a group of mountain ranges which divide central and southern Romania, on one side, and Serbia, on the other side. They cover part of the Carpathian Mountains that is located between the Prahova River in the east and the Timiș and Cerna Rivers...

 and settled in the Old Kingdom

Romanian Old Kingdom

The Romanian Old Kingdom is a colloquial term referring to the territory covered by the first independent Romanian nation state, which was composed of the Danubian Principalities—Wallachia and Moldavia...

.

Having received his law degree from the University of Sibiu (1872), he practiced law at Făgăraş

Fagaras

Făgăraș is a city in central Romania, located in Braşov County . Another source of the name is alleged to derive from the Hungarian language word for "partridge" . A more plausible explanation is that the name is given by Fogaras river coming from the Pecheneg "Fagar šu", which means ash water...

, then Braşov

Brasov

Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....

, then in other parts of the region. In 1877, at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War

Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 was a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the Eastern Orthodox coalition led by the Russian Empire and composed of numerous Balkan...

, he returned to Romania and received citizenship in the newly-independent state. In Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

, attached to the Court of Appeal, Densuşianu became involved with the nationalistic movement in favor of a Greater Romania

Greater Romania

The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...

. He published — in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, for a wider audience — L'element Latin en orient. Les Roumains du Sud: Macedoine, Thessalie, Epire, Thrace, Albanie, avec une carte ethnographique ("The Latin element in the east. The Romanians of the South: Macedonia

Macedonia (region)

Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

, Thessaly

Thessaly

Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....

, Epirus

Epirus

The name Epirus, from the Greek "Ήπειρος" meaning continent may refer to:-Geographical:* Epirus - a historical and geographical region of the southwestern Balkans, straddling modern Greece and Albania...

, Thrace

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

, Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

, with an ethnographic

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

 map").

In 1878 he received a commission from the Romanian Academy

Romanian Academy

The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....

 to research and collect historical documents in the libraries and archives of the Hungarian Kingdom

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...

 (Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

) and in Transylvania at Cluj

Cluj-Napoca

Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...

, Alba Iulia

Alba Iulia

Alba Iulia is a city in Alba County, Transylvania, Romania with a population of 66,747, located on the Mureş River. Since the High Middle Ages, the city has been the seat of Transylvania's Roman Catholic diocese. Between 1541 and 1690 it was the capital of the Principality of Transylvania...

 and Braşov. Over fifteen months, he discovered hundreds of original documents, manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

s, chronicle

Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...

s, treaties, manifestos, old drawings, paintings and facsimile

Facsimile

A facsimile is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of reproduction by attempting to replicate the source as accurately as possible in terms of scale,...

s. For his contribution, he was elected in 1880 to a corresponding membership and the position of librarian archivist. In 1884 he received the position of translator for the Romanian Army General Staff and published The revolution of Horia

Revolt of Horea, Closca and Crisan

The Revolt of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan began in Zarand County, Transylvania, but it soon spread all throughout the Apuseni Mountains...

 in Transylvania and Hungary, 1784-1785, written on the basis of 783 official documents; its sale was banned in Hungary, due to its nationalist content. Among others, the book composed a historical tradition linking the rebel leader Vasile Ursu Nicola

Vasile Ursu Nicola

Vasile Ursu Nicola, known as Horea, was a Transylvanian Romanian leader of the Revolt of Horea, Cloşca and Crişan in 1784-85. After the revolt was defeated, he was executed by being broken on the wheel....

 with Dacian prehistory.

In 1885 his Monuments for the history of the country of Fogaras

Fogaras

Fogaras is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is presently in central Romania . The capital of the county was Făgăraş .-Geography:...

 compared the ancient history of the Romanians

Romanians

The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

 of Transylvania to their repressed situation under Austro-Hungarian rule.

Densuşianu, who was planning to start researching his Dacia Preistorică, and, to this end, left for Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 in 1887. Along the route, he visited the Academy of Agram

Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts

The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the national academy of Croatia. It was founded in 1866 as the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts , and was known by that name for most of its existence.- History :...

, where he studied manuscripts regarding the Vlach

Vlachs

Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...

 population settled in the valley of the Kupa

Kupa

Kupa may refer to:*Kupa River, a river in Croatia and Slovenia*Kupa River , a river in Lithuania*Kupa River in Siberia, see Kuta River*Kupa Synagogue, a synagogue in Krakow*Kupa, Hungary, a village in Northern Hungary...

 (in present-day Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

); in Istria

Istria

Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...

, he collected material in local villages where the Istro-Romanian language

Istro-Romanian language

Istro-Romanian is an Eastern Romance language that is still spoken today in a few villages and hamlets in the peninsula of Istria, on the northern part of the Adriatic Sea, in what is now Croatia as well as in other countries around the world where the Istro-Romanian people settled after the two...

 was spoken. At Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...

 in Dalmatia

Dalmatia

Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....

, he studied the archives of the Ragusan Republic

Republic of Ragusa

The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...

. After reaching Italy, he spent seven months in the Vatican Archives

Vatican Secret Archives

The Vatican Secret Archives , located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, having primal incumbency until death, owns the archives until the next appointed Papal successor...

 and traveled through the Mezzogiorno

Mezzogiorno

The Midday is a wide definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the southern half of the Italian state, encompassing the southern section of the continental Italian Peninsula and the two major islands of Sicily and Sardinia, in addition to a large number of minor islands...

 before returning home.

Between 1887 and 1897 six volumes appeared of his Documents regarding the History of Romanians, 1199-1345, and in 1893 he wrote the study The religious independence of the Romanian Metropolitan Church of Alba-Iulia. He also contributed a collection of folklore (Vechi cîntece şi tradiţii populare româneşti: texte poetice din răspunsurile la "Chestionarul istoric", published in 1893-1897). In 1894, he retired to finish his large-scale work.

In 1902, Nicolae Densuşianu was named a corresponding member of the Romanian Geographical Society. Two years later, he published a study about the development of the Romanian language

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

, which, he claimed, traced its origins back to prehistorical times. Articles on Romanian military history appeared sporadically during the long years he spent readying his major work for the printer. It was almost complete at the time of his death.

Assessments and legacy

Densuşianu was the target of much criticism for his approach to Romanian history and to the science of history in general. Among his earliest critics was Titu Maiorescu

Titu Maiorescu

Titu Liviu Maiorescu was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the Junimea Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of the 19th century....

, leader of the conservative

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 literary society known as Junimea

Junimea

Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...

, who strongly reacted against amateurism and Romantic nationalist

Romantic nationalism

Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...

 discourse in the works of Romanian intellectuals of his day. In 1893, writing to geographer Simion Mehedinţi

Simion Mehedinti

Simion Mehedinţi was a Romanian geographer and member of the Romanian Academy. A figure of importance in the Junimea literary club, he was for a while editor of its magazine, Convorbiri Literare....

, Maiorescu spoke against what he defined as "phantasmagoria" in the works of Densuşianu, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu

Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu

Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu was a Romanian writer and philologist, who pioneered many branches of Romanian philology and history. Hasdeu is considered to have been able to understand 26 languages .-Life:...

, and Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol

Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol

Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol was a Romanian scholar, economist, philosopher, historian, professor, sociologist, and author. Among his many major accomplishments, he is credited with being the Romanian historian credited with authoring the first major synthesis of the history of the Romanian...

.

Part of Densuşianu's thesis was adopted by several official historians during the late years of Nicolae Ceauşescu

Nicolae Ceausescu

Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...

's communist regime

Communist Romania

Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...

, serving as inspiration for a new discourse, one autarkic

Autarky

Autarky is the quality of being self-sufficient. Usually the term is applied to political states or their economic policies. Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance. Autarky is not necessarily economic. For example, a military autarky...

 and nationalist in tone.

Nicolae Densuşianu's methods of study prefigured those used by the controversial archaeologist Marija Gimbutas

Marija Gimbutas

Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...

.

External links

• Nicolas Densuşianu, Dacia Preistorică; on-line English translation by Alexandra Ioana Furdui Eugen Ciurtin, "Dacia, tot mai puţin preistorică, an article critical of Densuşianu's aims and methods