20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

768 Adina Berciu-DrăghicescuIsker. Few minor streams are added to these ones: Vardar, Struna, Koriţa,Neretva, Drina and Shkumbi.Despite the hostile conditions of the land, in these places could inhabitalong with Greeks, Serbians, Croatians, Slovakians, Bulgarians, alsopopulations descending from Thracians: Albanians, Balkan Romanians.The Roman origin inhabitants from the South of the Danube, knownunder various names, such as: Aromanians, Macedo-Romanians, Trans-Balkan Vlachs, Fărşeroţi, Epiroti Romanians, Megleno-Romaniansrepresented a special element from ethnical, social and especially culturalpoints of view in the civilization of the Balkan Peninsula.In the documents, most often are called Romanians, as in fact theycalled themselves, considering as being a part of the Romanian nation 3 .With respect to the Balkan Romanians, we hold information from theByzantine and Romanians chroniclers; they were also analyzed by therepresentatives of the School of Transylvania; the generation of intellectualsof 1848 and 1859 were especially dealt with the South Danube Romanians 4 .Beginning from the second half of the 19 th century, the history andthe existence of the South-Danube Romanians has become either a subjectof research or a controversy object among ethnographers, historians,linguists. Also beginning from the second half of 19 th century, the situationof South – Danube Romanians will be the core of the activity of historians,geographers, ethnologists and Western intellectuals who will travel to thisregion of Europe, furnishing us remarkable and even impressive, reports.Their life, under all its aspects becomes the center of the western and alsoRomanian historiography 5 .3Cristea Sandu-Timoc 1994, The tragedy of Romanians abroad (9-13 million).Timişoara, 24. Referring to the name under which the Romanians are known in theBalkan Peninsula, Mihai Eminescu considered that, “Greek – Romanian expression isas inappropriate as the assertion that the kid is the son of aurochs. There is no Greek –Romanian as well as there is no Greek – Spanish or Greek – English. Romanians of theThracian triangle are as Romanian and so little Greek as those in Maramures for instance.Either is someone Greek or Romanian; one of the two: both at once can no one be" – M.Eminescu 1998, Romanians abroad and national spiritual unity”, Bucharest, 104-105.4Nicolae Iorga 1913, History of Romanians from Balkans, Bucharest, 3, Romania.Foreign documents about Romanians, 1992, 2 nd ed., Bucharest, passim; South DanubeRomanians. Documents, 1998, Bucharest, 111-112 and the following.5The narrations of foreign travelers in the Balkan Peninsula were synthesizedby Valeriu Papahagi in the paper Romanians from Balkan Peninsula after Westerntravelers of the nineteenth century (published in Roşiorii de Vede, 1939). The author hasreproduced, in chronological order the impressions of the Western travelers who wroteabout Romanians, either, “those who appreciated and praised or those who had abuse "forthe Danube Romanians.