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[Aila Gilb]

Severaltheories, in great extent mutually exclusive, address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireček Line" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in Southeastern Europe) in Late Antiquity. The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the Romanians are mainly descended from the Daco-Romans, a people developing through the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in the province of Dacia Traiana (primarily in present-day Romania) north of the river Danube. The competing immigrationist theory states that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in the provinces south of the river with Romanized local populations (known as Vlachs in the Middle Ages) spreading through mountain refuges, both south to Greece and north through the Carpathian Mountains. Other theories state that the Romanized local populations were present over a wide area on both sides of the Danube and the river itself did not constitute an obstacle to permanent exchanges in both directions; according to the "admigration" theory, migrations from the Balkan Peninsula to the lands north of the Danube contributed to the survival of the Romance-speaking population in these territories.

The Illyrians were the first to be conquered by the Romans, who organized their territory into the province of Illyricum around 60 BC.[6] In the lands inhabited by Thracians, the Romans set up the province of Moesia in 6 AD, and Thracia forty years later.[7] The territory between the Lower Danube and the Black Sea (now Dobruja in Romania and Bulgaria) was attached to Moesia in 46.[8]

The Byzantine authorities introduced new taxes, provoking an uprising in the Balkan Mountains in 1185.[45] The local Bulgarians and Vlachs achieved their independence and established the Second Bulgarian Empire in coalition with the Cumans.[46] A chieftain of the western Cuman tribes accepted Hungarian supremacy in 1227.[47] The Hungarian expansion towards the Pontic steppes was halted by the large Mongol campaign against Eastern and Central Europe in 1241.[48] Although the Mongols withdrew in a year, their invasion caused destruction throughout the region.[49]

The unification of small polities ruled by local Romanian leaders in Oltenia and Muntenia[49] led to the establishment of a new principality, Wallachia.[50] It achieved independence under Basarab the Founder, who defeated a Hungarian army in the battle of Posada in 1330.[50] A second principality, Moldavia, became independent in the 1360s under Bogdan I, a Romanian nobleman from the Voivodeship of Maramureș.[51]

Romanians, known by the exonym Vlachs in the Middle Ages,[52] speak a language descended from the Vulgar Latin that was once spoken in south-eastern Europe.[53][54] Inscriptions from the Roman period show that a line, known as the "Jireček Line", can be drawn through the Balkan Peninsula, which separated the Latin-speaking northern provinces, including Dacia, Moesia and Pannonia from the southern regions where Greek remained the predominant language.[55] Eastern Romance now has four variants,[56] which are former dialects of a Proto-Romanian language.[57][58] Daco-Romanian, the official language of Romania, is the most widespread of the four variants.[57] Speakers of the Aromanian language live in scattered communities in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and North Macedonia.[57] Another two, by now nearly extinct variants, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian, are spoken in some villages in North Macedonia and Greece, and in Croatia, respectively.[57] Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian are spoken in the central and southern regions of the Balkans (to the south of the Jireček Line), indicating that they migrated to these territories in the Middle Ages.[59][60]

The territories south of the Danube were subject to the Romanization process for about 800 years, while Dacia province to the north of the river was only for 165 years under Roman rule, which caused "a certain disaccord between the effective process of Roman expansion and Romanization and the present ethnic configuration of Southeastern Europe", according to Lucian Boia.[70] Political and ideological considerations, including the dispute between Hungary and Romania over Transylvania, have also colored these scholarly discussions.[71][1]

Accordingly, theories on the Romanian Urheimat or "homeland" can be divided into two or more groups, including the theory of Daco-Roman continuity of the continuous presence of the Romanians' ancestors in the lands north of the Lower Danube and the opposite immigrationist theory.[53][54] Independently of the theories, a number of scholars propose that Romanian developed from the tongue of a bilingual population, because bilingualism is the most probable explanation for its peculiarities.[72][73][74][75]

Byzantine authors were the first to write of the Romanians (or Vlachs).[76] The 11th-century scholar Kekaumenos wrote of a Vlach homeland situated "near the Danube and [...] the Sava, where the Serbians lived more recently".[77][78] He associates the Vlachs with the Dacians and the Bessi.[79] Accordingly, historians have located this homeland in several places, including Pannonia Inferior and Dacia Aureliana.[80][77] When associating the Vlachs with ancient ethnic groups, Kekaumenos followed the practice of Byzantine authors who named contemporary peoples for peoples known from ancient sources.[81] The 12th-century scholar John Kinnamos wrote that the Vlachs "are said to be formerly colonists from the people of Italy".[82][83][84] William of Rubruck wrote that the Vlachs of Bulgaria descended from the Ulac people,[85] who lived beyond Bashkiria.[86] According to Victor Spinei, Rubruck's words imply that he regarded the Vlachs a migrant population, coming from the region of the Volga like their Hungarian and Bulgarian neighbors.[87] The late 13th-century Hungarian chronicler Simon of Kza states that the Vlachs (Blackis) were "shepherds and husbandmen of the Huns" who "remained in Pannonia".[88][89] An unknown author's Description of Eastern Europe from 1308 likewise states that the Balkan Vlachs "were once the shepherds of the Romans" who fled Hungary and "had over them ten powerful kings in the entire Messia and Pannonia".[90][91]

A legend on the origin of the Moldavians, preserved in the Moldo-Ruthenian Chronicle from around 1505,[104][105] narrates that one "King Vladislav of Hungary" invited their Romanian ancestors to his kingdom and settled them "in Maramureș between the Moreș and Tisa at a place called Crij".[106] Logofăt Istratie and other 17th-century Moldavian historians continued to credit "King Vladislav" with the settlement of the Romanians' ancestors in Maramureș.[107] Grigore Ureche's Chronicle of Moldavia of 1647[108] is the first Romanian historical work stating that the Romanians "all come from Rm" (Rome).[109][110] In 30 years Miron Costin explicitly connected the Romanians' ethnogenesis to the conquest of "Dacia Traiana".[111] The oldest Muntenian chronicle, the Letopisețul Cantacuzinesc, preserving significant popular tradition among Wallachians, wrote "But first the Romanians splitting up from the Romans wandered to the north, their chief being Trajan and his son Siverie, crossing the waters of the Danube, some settled at Turnu Severin; others, along the waters of the Olt, the Mureș and the Tisza; and still others in Hungary, reaching as far as Maramureș. Those who settled at Turnu Severin, extended along the foot of the mountains to the waters of the Olt, and others wandered downward along the Danube, and thus all places having been filled with them".[112][113][114] According to Grecescu, Simonescu and Djuvara, the author of the Letopisețul Cantacuzinesc is describing the conquest of Dacia by Trajan, which started with the crossing of the Danube in the area of Turnu Severin, arriving up to Maramureș.[113][115] Constantin Cantacuzino stated in 1716 that the native Dacians also had a role in the formation of the Romanian people.[109][116] Petru Maior and other historians of the "Transylvanian School" flatly denied any interbreeding between the natives and the conquerors, claiming that the autochthonous Dacian population which was not eradicated by the Romans fled the territory.[117] The Daco-Roman mixing became widely accepted in the Romanian historiography around 1800. This view is advocated by the Greek-origin historians Dimitrie Philippide in his work History of Romania (1816) and Dionisie Fotino, who wrote History of Dacia (1818).[118][119] The idea was accepted and taught in the Habsburg monarchy, including Hungary until the 1870s,[120] although the Austrian Franz Joseph Sulzer had by the 1780s rejected any form of continuity north of the Danube, and instead proposed a 13th-century migration from the Balkans.[121]

The concept of the common origin of the Romanians of the Habsburg Empire, Moldavia and Wallachia inevitably gave rise to the development of the idea of a united Romanian state.[119] A series of "Dacian" projects about the unification of all lands inhabited by Romanians emerged in the 19th century.[131][132] Moise Nicoară was the first to claim that the Romanian nation extends "from the Tisza to the Black Sea, from the Danube to the Dniester" in 1815.[132] After irredentism became an important element of political debates among Romanian nationalists in the 1890s, the continuity theory "added a considerable element of historical prestige to Romanian claims to Transylvania".[133] After World War I, the peace treaties confirmed Romania's new borders, acknowledging the incorporation of Transylvania, Bukovina and some neighboring regions in Greater Romania.[134] Debates about the venue of the formation of the Romanian people became especially passionate after Hitler enforced the restoration of northern Transylvania to Hungary in 1940.[135] Hungarian scholars published a series of detailed studies to disprove the continuity theory, and the Romanians did not fail to take issue with them.[135]

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