20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

808 Tănase BujduveanuWallachia and MoldaviaCommercial interests brought the inhabitants of Moscopole tothe Romanian Principates. Some of them were merchants, othershad good relations with the Ottoman administration and were givenpublic office positions in Wallachia and Moldavia. Most of them had Greeknames.TransilvaniaRomanian, Hungarian and German records in Transilvania mention thenames of merchants from the Balkan Peninsula that connected south-easternEurope to the Orient and took part in the trading activities in Transilvania.Due to its geographic position, Transilvania was the ideal place to transitfor the commerce between Central Europe and the Balkans. The merchantswere organised in corporations similar to the ones in England, Holland orFrance and were an important source of income for the state. This is whythe Transilvanian princes and later the Austrian emperors granted privilegesto these commercial companies.AustriaDuring the 18 th and the 19 th centuries an important number ofAromanians emigrated to the north of the Danube because of the frequentmilitary conflicts between Russia and Turkey. The wars made the Balkansan instable area for the inhabitants and for commerce. Austria, with itseconomic development and relative stability became the destination ofmany Aromanians.HungaryIn Hungary there were Aromanian colonies even at the beginningof the 17th century. Tombstones in towns in Hungary contain namesof Aromanians from Moscopole and other Aromanians settlements inthe Balkan Peninsula. A document belonging to the church in Miskolcmentions the first wave of Aromanians in 1606. In 1728 there were about300 Aromanian merchants and in 1788 the number of Aromanians who hadcome from Moscopole and the surrouding region reached 350.PrussiaImportant colonies of Aromanians settled in Prussia. They settled herebecause of their commercial relations with Poland, Germany and Hungary.Nicolae Iorga discovered in the archives in Poznan a codex presentingnames of wine merchants and librarians coming from Moscopole and fromother towns in the Balkan Peninsula. Among the manes mentioned thereare Antonius Roza and Thomas Roza, ancestors of the Aromanian writer