Digging Politics: The Ancient Past and Contested Present in East-Central Europe 9783110697445, 9783110697339

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Contributors
Digging Politics: The Ancient Past and Contested Present
Balkan Antiquity as Decolonial Eurocentrism During the Cold War
Thracian Archaeology and National Identity in Communist Bulgaria: The Ideological Pattern of Museum Exhibitions
Imagining King’s Landing: Dubrovnik, the Diegetic Heritage of Game of Thrones, and the Imperialism of Popular Culture
Slavic Archaeology as “A Special Obligation”? Researching the Early Slavs in Communist Poland and East Germany
Allies out of Ashes? Polish Ideas for the Refounding of Medieval Western Slavic States after 1945
Roman Heritage in Hungary: The Case of the Fertőrákos Mithraeum on the Iron Curtain
‘Eurasian Magyars’: The Making of a New Hegemonic National Prehistory in Illiberal Hungary
Beyond Radical Right Politics: LGBTQ+ Rights in Hungary and Romania
The Protochronistic Depiction of the Transylvanian Saxons in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s History Textbooks (1976–1989)
Dacian Blood: Autochthonous Discourse in Romania during the Interwar Period
Why Nationalism Survives in Romanian Archaeology and What Could Limit its Impact
Archaeology and the Challenge of Continuity: East-Central Europe during the Age of Migrations
Index

Citation preview

Digging Politics

Digging Politics

The Ancient Past and Contested Present in East-Central Europe Edited by James Koranyi and Emily Hanscam

ISBN 978-3-11-069733-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-069744-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-069754-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022941455 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: The rock sculpture of Decebalus located near the city of Orsova, by AttilaBarsan, Getty Images. Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

To our colleagues in Ukraine, and to scholars everywhere who are constrained by chauvinist claims to the past.

Contents List of Contributors

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Emily Hanscam and James Koranyi Digging Politics: The Ancient Past and Contested Present

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Bogdan C. Iacob Balkan Antiquity as Decolonial Eurocentrism During the Cold War

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Florian-Jan Ostrowski Thracian Archaeology and National Identity in Communist Bulgaria: The Ideological Pattern of Museum Exhibitions 45 Christoph Doppelhofer Imagining King’s Landing: Dubrovnik, the Diegetic Heritage of Game of Thrones, and the Imperialism of Popular Culture 77 Anne Kluger Slavic Archaeology as “A Special Obligation”? Researching the Early Slavs in Communist Poland and East Germany 107 Matthias E. Cichon Allies out of Ashes? Polish Ideas for the Refounding of Medieval Western Slavic States after 1945 131 Melinda Harlov-Csortán Roman Heritage in Hungary: The Case of the Fertőrákos Mithraeum on the Iron Curtain 157 Katrin Kremmler ‘Eurasian Magyars’: The Making of a New Hegemonic National Prehistory in Illiberal Hungary 181 Radu Cinpoeș Beyond Radical Right Politics: LGBTQ+ Rights in Hungary and Romania 217

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Claudia Spiridon-Șerbu The Protochronistic Depiction of the Transylvanian Saxons in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s History Textbooks (1976–1989) 241 Alexander Rubel Dacian Blood: Autochthonous Discourse in Romania during the Interwar Period 257 Gheorghe Alexandru Niculescu Why Nationalism Survives in Romanian Archaeology and What Could Limit its Impact 287 Emily Hanscam Archaeology and the Challenge of Continuity: East-Central Europe during the Age of Migrations 307 Index

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List of Contributors Matthias E. Cichon is a PhD candidate at the University of Münster (Germany). In his thesis ‘Poland and the Slavic Idea, 1918–1948’, he examines the imagination of ‘Slavdom’ in interwar and early post-war Poland, analysing how references to the alleged community of (all) Slavic people helped push political, cultural, and scientific agendas. His further research interests include German-Polish relations in the twentieth century, ethnic minorities in EastCentral Europe as well as the history of Christian Orthodoxy in Poland after 1918. Radu Cinpoeș is Associate Professor in Politics, Human Rights and International Relations at Kingston University, London. Growing out of his interest in nationalism and the politics of exclusion, his research has recently focused on two complementary directions: migration, mobility and refugee issues, on the one hand, and issues concerning discrimination and intolerance, on the other. He has published on the extreme right, nationalism, European identity and Romanian politics. His current research project investigates agential reflexive mediation of structural conditionings and the role of social networks in the context of transnational mobility. Christoph Doppelhofer completed a Leverhulme funded PhD in Visual Culture at Durham University. In his doctoral thesis ‘Travels from Winterfell to King’s Landing’ (2017–2022), he examined the impact of the diegetic world of the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones on the heritage landscapes of its filming locations. He is a visiting lecturer for Durham University’s MA in International Cultural Heritage Management, and has worked within the archaeological, museum, and travel sector. His research interests include (visual) representations and uses of the past in contemporary social, cultural, and political discourses, the impact of pop-culture and (digital) mass-media on heritage, and heritage in conflict. Emily Hanscam is a Researcher in Archaeology at Linnaeus University, Sweden, associated with the UNESCO Chair for Heritage Futures, the LNU Centre for Concurrences, and LNU Digital Transformations. She earned a PhD in Archaeology from Durham University (2019), researching Roman frontiers, archaeology, and nationalism in East-Central Europe. She was previously a Lecturer in Archaeology for the University of Amsterdam and Project Manager for Archaeology at Halmyris, an international volunteer excavation project in Romania. Her research focuses on the politics of the past, critical heritage studies, and the reception of the Roman past. Melinda Harlov-Csortán is an assistant professor at Apor Vilmos Catholic College in Vác, Hungary. Her research interests include heritage studies, public space research, cultural and social history of the twentieth century, identity and representation. Her PhD research focused on the establishment of UNESCO World Heritage sites in Hungary. She has published in English, Hungarian and German. Bogdan C. Iacob is a researcher at the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History in Bucharest (Romanian Academy). His work focuses on the study of East-Central and South-Eastern European experts (historians and doctors) in global contexts. He co-authored 1989. A Global History of Eastern Europe (Cambridge University Press 2019), and authored “Southeast by Global South: Balkans, UNESCO and the Cold War” in James Mark et al. (ed.) Alternative Globalizations and the Postcolonial World (Indiana University Press, 2020). A recent paper includes “Together but Apart:

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Balkan Historians, the Global South, and UNESCO’s History of Humanity 1978–1989”, published in East Central Europe (2018). Anne Kluger is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Eastern European History at the University of Münster, Germany. In her doctoral thesis, she examines the so-called ‘Slavic Archaeology’ in post-war East Germany and Poland, with specific attention to the entanglements of research on the Slavs of the prehistoric and Early Medieval periods within the context of state socialism. Her research interests include the history of archaeology and historiography, the history of the reception and different images of ‘the Slavs’, as well as German-Polish relations in the twentieth century. James Koranyi is Associate Professor in Modern Cultural European History at Durham University. He is a cultural historian of East-Central Europe and is committed to placing modern East-Central European history in broader global debates. He has published on German minorities of East-Central Europe, memory cultures in the region and travel writing on the Carpathians. His book, Migrating Memories: Romanian Germans in Modern Europe, was published with Cambridge University Press and traces stories and memories of Romanian Germans anchored in a transnational European history. Katrin Kremmler is a PhD candidate at the Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin, where she started her PhD thesis on Hungarian fringe extremism in 2015, to finish it about Hungarian mainstream politics in 2022. Her research focuses on the entanglements of interwar racial anthropology in East-Central Europe with colonial-imperial knowledge practices. Currently, she is preparing a Hungary piece for the section Culture Wars in Europe and Eurasia for Illiberalism.org; a study on the Natural History Museum Vienna’s skull collection, and contributions for the volumes Historicizing Whiteness in Eastern Europe and Russia and the Routledge Handbook on Sexuality in Central-Eastern Europe. Gheorghe Alexandru Niculescu was educated at the University of Bucharest (1974–1978) and has been a senior researcher at the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology since 1985. He has taught ancient history and archaeological theory at the University of Bucharest, as well as publishing on ancient ethnic phenomena, the impact of nationalism on archaeological research, and the politics of cultural heritage in Romania. He is currently working on the global asymmetries of archaeological research, on the properties of typological thinking, and on what virtue epistemology might bring to the understanding of archaeological research traditions. Florian-Jan Ostrowski is a PhD candidate and scientific employee at the Institute of History at the University of Vienna, he has previously also studied prehistory and historical archaeology. His PhD thesis is about the relationship between archaeology and the public through media. His general research interests include material culture, the history of archaeology, EastCentral Europe, and heavy metal music. Alexander Rubel, M.A. PhD, ancient historian and archaeologist, has a second PhD in German Studies, and has been director of the Institute of Archaeology in Iași since 2011. His academic writings include cultural history and literary studies but focus mainly on ancient history and religion as well as on Roman archaeology, geographically centred on the fringes of the Empire and the ‘barbarian’ people who lived there. He had been visiting professor at the University of Erlangen and visiting senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. He is the author of: Fear

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and Loathing in Ancient Athens. Religion and Politics during the Peloponnesian War, 2nd edn. Routledge: Abingdon & New York 2019, and Religion und Kult der Germanen, Kohlhammer: Stuttgart, 2016. Claudia Spiridon-Șerbu is a lecturer at Transilvania University in Romania. Her research interests are minority studies, minority literature, and German literature from south-eastern Europe. Her PhD research (2018) was about the mechanisms of communist censorship and its effects on German literature from Romania. She attended scholarly programs at foreign institutes both for history and educational media and she is now Project Manager for Literary Mapping at the Transilvania University in Romania.

Emily Hanscam and James Koranyi

Digging Politics: The Ancient Past and Contested Present Why Then and Why There? Standing in front of the Matthias Corvinus Monument, which commemorates one of the great Hungarian kings from the fifteenth century, on the main square in Cluj-Napoca in north-western Romania, an even deeper past impinges on the city’s centre (Fig. 1). A quick 180 degree turn reveals the ongoing excavation of a Roman and medieval archaeological site. The two claims, one of Hungarian primacy and one of Romanian primacy, stand in opposition to each other in the long-contested city of Cluj-Napoca or Kolozsvár, the unofficial capital of Transylvania. Even the appendix of ‘Napoca’, innocent sounding to untrained ears, was added to the city’s name in 1974 in an attempt to balance out the Hungarian character of the city. The city itself changed hands after the First World War when Kolozsvár, also known as Klausenburg in German, was officially incorporated in Romania in 1920. The ‘Napoca episode’ of 1974 was only one of many moments of conflict over the past. In the 1990s, the Romanian nationalist mayor of the town, Gheorghe Funar, had all the benches and public bins painted blue, yellow, and red, the colours of the Romanian flag. Still today, the site is contested by Hungarians and Romanians as the juxtaposition of the monument and the archaeological remains on public display reveals. Just a few streets down, the National Museum of Transylvanian History welcomes visitors to sights of archaeological remains from Antiquity scattered around the courtyard as a silent but powerful reminder of the claims laid on the ancient past in the region. The deep and ancient past matters in East-Central Europe, and debates about the historical primacy of one group over another have come into sharp relief at particular moments in the region’s history. While we acknowledge that representations of the past are always political, the ferocity and visibility of

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank all contributors to the workshop and all contributors to this volume. We are also grateful for Durham University and Castle College in particular for facilitating the workshop. A special thanks to Dr André Keil and Alex Faludy for their wise and helpful comments. Emily Hanscam, Linnaeus University, Sweden James Koranyi, Durham University, UK https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-001

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Fig. 1: The Roman/medieval excavation site in front of the statue of King Matthias Corvinus on Piața Unirii in Cluj-Napoca in 2019, photo by J. Koranyi.

political battles over the past fluctuates, as does the humanitarian cost. What we try to address in this book are two simple and guiding questions. Why then and why there did the ancient past become important? We use claims on the ancient past to think about wider implications for understanding the historical context, particularly the relationship between processes of identity formation and scholarship about the past. We try to avoid East-Central European exceptionalism and do not claim that East-Central Europe is inherently susceptible to nationalism. Instead, by showcasing examples from across the region and across a period of one hundred years, from the Interwar Period until the present, we embed East-Central European interest in the deep past in a broader European framework where developments in claims on the past are interdependent across Europe. In this way, we see moments of political contest over the past as evidence of broader European trends. Why then did the ancient past impinge on the present at certain times? The broader European framework helps with finding an explanation. The 1970s and 1980s, for instance, witnessed a broader European period of crisis and of identity soul-searching. If Thracian archaeology in late-Communist

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Bulgaria or the Dacomania craze in Romania during the same period look quirky at first glance, then this is only because these cases are rarely set against comparable pan-European developments. Likewise, we see examples from the early Cold War which seem to confirm the unusual insecurity of states during this time. Anne Kluger’s chapter is set in a specific context of German-Polish competition over land against the backdrop of socialist fraternity. The later Cold War, by contrast, witnessed an outpouring of a different type of uncertainty made possible by the economic and political decline in all East-Central European socialist and Communist countries. Marked by a sense of an ending, many of the political, social, and ideological certainties that had governed much of the Cold War era began to break apart. The erosion of one set of ideological dictums, in turn, led to a demand for new certainties, which were often found in the deep past moulded for the needs of the present. If countries in East-Central Europe were in an anguished state at the beginning and end of the Cold War, then their Western counterparts shared similar, often more fierce crises of identity, especially from the 1970s onwards. In France, in a frantic fifth republican identity crisis starting in the late 1970s, society seemed to be cannibalizing itself in public arguments over the ‘dark years’, 1940–1944, culminating in a series of very public trials that seemed to put the whole nation in the dock (Gildea 2002; Reid 2005). Klaus Barbie—the head of the Gestapo in occupied Lyon (1942–1944) earning himself the nickname ‘the Butcher of Lyon’—and Maurice Papon—responsible for the Vel d’Hiv round-up of Jews in Paris in 1942 and two massacres of Algerian protesters in Paris as head of the police in 1961 and 1962—became representatives of the past being put on trial in order to resolve deep-seated tensions and conflicts over identity in France (Rousso 1991). In West Germany, two similar developments took place: one, a rekindling of a regional medieval past and the famous Historikerstreit of the mid to late 1980s which emerged, in part, out of a longer trend in German academia revising post-war historical narratives about the Nazi Past (Stelzel 2019: 106–41; cf. Schmitz 2006). In East Germany, a rediscovery and celebration of the much-maligned Prussian past heralded the onset of the final stages of the GDR which was running out of steam (Keil 2016). When faced with political and economic decline, East German politics fed into public representations of an older past that had once been seen as the antithesis of East German socialism, but then was transformed into a celebration of East Germany and a nationalism based on a militaristic, aristocratic past. In the UK, the heritage turn in the 1970s also followed a rapid economic decline. Elsewhere, the great rekindling of the Hungarian-Romanian dispute over Transylvania in the 1980s became all the more heated the worse the economic situation became in the last few years of the Cold War (Kürti 1989). Competing claims over who had settled first in the Pannonian Basin and

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Transylvania became the hot currency for attempting to distract Hungarian and Romanian societies from the economic and political woes of the 1980s. Archaeological remains and historical interpretation no longer served the primary purpose of international charm offences and instead were focused primarily inwards towards local and parochial nationalist battles over the past. We do not argue for late-modern exceptionalism. Well aware that contested monumentalization of the past occurred from Antiquity to the present, this volume acknowledges that patterns of disputes over the ancient past are not unique to the late-Modern Era. Augustan memory politics in Rome, for instance, instrumentalized the then ancient Roman past in ways that look all too familiar to modern historians, consciously inscribing the past into a political present (Gowing 2005). Textual claims to an older, often glorious past are found in transhistorical, global settings, and often in surprisingly similar crisis-ridden contexts. The contributions to this volume, however, all raise salient questions about the specificity of a period—the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—that we see as strongly circumscribed by national and ideological contestation over an ancient past. This volume emphasizes the importance of the East-Central European setting without arguing for an East-Central European exceptionalism. If the ancient past has mattered from a transhistorical perspective, then the same holds true of transregional perspectives. The ancient past matters in East-Central Europe in very specific ways, but not uniquely so. East-Central Europe is not a region ‘trapped’ in ‘ancient hatreds’, nor is it any more obsessed with memory politics and the ancient past than comparable regions. But this volume does, in the end, have East-Central Europe as its focus and there are very good reasons for investigating the ancient past in modern East-Central Europe in some detail (c.f. Martirosova Torlone et al. 2017). After all, imaginings of the ancient past in the region had been part and parcel of engagement with the region for centuries, and this volume builds on existing scholarship and deepens our exploration of the uses of the deep past in East-Central Europe in particular contexts. Looking back beyond our period, there are traces of the ancient past all over the region. Johann Heinrich Schönfeld’s Sarmatians at the Tomb of Ovid painting from 1653 played on a budding Polish foundational myth of Poles as Sarmatians in an early example of the power of the ancient past in the region (Goldschmidt 2018; Fig. 2). Larry Wolff’s pioneering work on Inventing Eastern Europe (1993), too, is replete with references to ancient barbarians that, from an enlightened French perspective in the late eighteenth century, still seemed to dominate the present in ‘Eastern Europe’. Travel accounts in the first half of the nineteenth century also placed the ancient past onto the region: George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron) and John Cam Hobhouse (1813) imagined Classical Greece in contemporaneous Albania, Greece, and elsewhere in “Turkey-in-Europe”, while

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the Marquis de Salvo (1807), travelling in 1806, descended into the nether depths of hell from Book VI of the Aeneid in Wielicka near Kraków while eloping with an English woman from the Napoleonic authorities in Italy. Beyond early nineteenth century explorations, the ancient past remained a point of reference for encounters in East-Central Europe. Charles Boner (1865), the pioneering traveller around Transylvania and the southern Carpathians, searched the region for Roman traces, paving the way for successive adventurers to seek out ancient ruins dotted in-between the Danube and the Carpathian Mountains. After the end of the First World War, too, the ancient past continued to loom large over East-Central Europe. Walter Kolarz (1946: 177), a Czech scholar, referred to Romania as “Europe’s Thermopylae”, evoking the infamous Classical battle where Leonidas and his 300 Spartans fought the Persian Empire. Numerous “new histories” of “New Europe” during and after the First World War dutifully explained the political

Fig. 2: Johann Heinrich Schönfeld’s Sarmatians at the Tomb of Ovid (c. 1653), fair use.

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present by recounting a longue durée history starting in Classical Antiquity (e.g. Gibbons 1914; Robertson & Bartholomew 1915; Hearnshaw 1920). These moments of the ancient past impinging on the present appear fleeting and were often carried in from the outside. In this view, East-Central Europe holds traces of the deep and ancient past, but often without much agency. In this volume, by contrast, the examples reflect far more heterogenous and disputed claims that defy a clear border between insider and outsider. We encounter individuals who are difficult to pin down by nationality and yet are working simultaneously towards international political goals and national narratives. That tension between the international arena and the national framework repeatedly appears throughout this volume. Beyond those pressures, there is also the transnational dimension. Imaginings of an ancient past have also served as legitimating forces for and against groups that are transnational, or for and against ideas that are transnational. Homophobic political discourse in Hungary and Romania, as Radu Cinpoeș’s contribution in this volume demonstrates, reveals ways in which the deep past has been utilized for present political purposes. Likewise, in the case of the transnational Game of Thrones community, which Christoph Doppelhofer explores in this volume, an imagined ancient past cuts across national boundaries in Europe catapulting Game of Thrones enthusiasts into a virtual environment of an imagined deep history. Imaginings of ancient pasts are not always top-down orchestrations. If Game of Thrones allows for an interactive construction of an imagined past behind screens and virtual content, then far-right enactments of a socially conservative ancient past or the performative Turkic warrior past at the Kurultáj festival in Hungary give grassroots movements a complex meaning, as discussed in Katrin Kremmler’s contribution on illiberalism in Hungarian academia and society. We acknowledge the importance of the national dimension for imagining the past while arguing against the singularity of the national prism. Some cultural patterns emerge across national boundaries, such as the mobilization of the ancient past against marginal groups. From this perspective and as demonstrated in this volume, ancient pasts can be used as a tool for homophobic discourse or as an extrapolation of a deep and ancient conflict between, say, Hungary imagined as ‘the West’ and Hungary imagined as ‘the East’. But ancient pasts do not always conjure up simple binaries. As Matthias Cichon and Anne Kluger make clear in their contributions, ancient pasts often demand a tortured triangulation of ideas that are sometimes oppositional and sometimes complementary in their approaches. Polish nationalist fantasies and territorial claims on the German Democratic Republic may have seemed contrary to the post-war discourse of socialist fraternity, yet as both Cichon and Kluger demonstrate, shifting trends in archaeological research reveal more heterogenous East-Central European societies

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under Communism. Others, including Bogdan Iacob and Claudia Spiridon-Șerbu, highlight different levels on which demands for ancient pasts coexist, namely from international audiences to local myths and traditions. In both contributions, the ancient past served to bolster hierarchies based on political historical interpretations. In Iacob’s case, the International Association for South-eastern European Studies (AIESEE) both supported global attempts at decolonizing archaeological heritage while simultaneously reinforcing Eurocentricity. Spiridon-Șerbu’s study zooms in on Romanian efforts to utilize the Transylvanian Saxon past as part of the nationalist turn in the 1970s. In Florian-Jan Ostrowski’s chapter on ‘Thracology’ in Communist Bulgaria, we can see the importance of Bulgaria’s international image, but—as Ostrowski concludes—the Thracian past has been a constant for a domestic identity. Melinda Harlov-Csortán also considers the interplay between the national and transnational. In her contribution on the Austrian-Hungarian borderland region of the Fertő/Neusiedlersee Cultural Landscape, she reveals a parochial picture of a region that has seen very little impact both nationally and internationally.

Archaeology in East-Central Europe: The Case of Romania This volume, focused as it is on East-Central Europe, gives special prominence to Romania. In what follows, we briefly explain why Romania makes such a fruitful case study for a number of contributions and how it highlights some of the common threads and themes in other settings and contexts discussed in this volume. Archaeology in East-Central Europe generally began during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, although there are a few examples that date much earlier—Wolfgang Lazius (1514–1565), the official historian to Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, was the first to publish archaeological material from Dacia (the Roman province located in Transylvania), compiling a volume of inscriptions and coins in 1558 (Almási 2010: 99). István Szamosközy (c. 1565–1612), known as ‘Hungary’s first archaeologist’, published on the Roman ruins of Dacia in 1593. He called the Wallachians, a people living in the region of modern Romania, the “most vivid trace” of the Romans, demonstrating the longevity of one of the Romanian national origin myths (Armbruster 1972: 55). Romania, in fact, has three myths of origin, all of which are based on a claim to the past: the myth of Roman origins, the myth of indigenous origins, and the myth of Romanization. Archaeology in Romania has, since its foundation, been entangled

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with these myths—at times explicitly (Enea 2012: 94). Classical texts, history, and archaeology have been drawn on to provide the majority of evidence necessary to support the three myths of origin, as they have for many European national narratives (e.g. Dietler 1994; Smith 2016). Although there are a number of scholars today critiquing the way in which archaeology continues to support nationalism in Romanian history and archaeology (see especially the contributions by Niculescu and Rubel in this volume), in many cases there is either an uncritical acceptance of national myths (Ardevan et al. 2017), a continued case being made for the accuracy of those myths (Spinei 2009), or an assertion of “un-biased” research done by “the best specialists” (Pop & Bolovan 2006). Archaeology as a discipline was founded during the height of Romantic nationalism because of the need for material ‘evidence’ to support national myths and ancestral claims to territory. Alexandru Vulpe (1931–2016; 2004: 5) former director of the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology in Bucharest, specifically names 1834 as the “birthyear” of Romanian archaeology, the same year the Museum of Natural Science was founded in Bucharest, although there does not appear to have been substantial archaeological work until the mid-nineteenth century. The earliest archaeological work is likely that undertaken by Cezar Bolliac (1813–1881) in 1858, who began an (amateur) archaeological quest to find the remains of the ancient Dacians, emphasizing, “Our nobility is as old as the soil […]” (trans. in Boia 2001: 92). The mission of Romanian archaeology was to bring to light the Dacian substratum, previously overshadowed by the brilliance of the Romans, as a way of emphasizing the ‘pre-Ottoman’ Romanian past. Alexandru Odobescu (1834–1895) taught the first course in archaeology at the University of Bucharest in 1874 and was the first to use a more scientific methodology in his approach to archaeology (Enea 2012: 94). Archaeological efforts in Romania increased during the early twentieth century, especially with the work of Vasile Pârvan (1882–1927). Pârvan (e.g. 1928) did not deny the role of the Romans in the Romanian past, but rather elevated the Dacians, the ‘autochthonous population’, to new heights. The Romanian national narrative refocused on the ‘Romanized Dacians’ rather than just the Romans, or even the Romans combined with a native element. Pârvan also championed the ‘cultural-historical’ approach in Romanian archaeology, which, for the early twentieth century, was an innovative new approach to studying material culture. The theory of culture-history assumes that material culture (e.g. pottery) can be divided by typology, and each group can be equated with a ‘culture’ which also has a distinct ethnicity (Trigger 2006: 240). Culture-history must be understood within the context of nationalism and the need for ‘scientific evidence’ of the ancestors of the nation. It still greatly impacts Romanian

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scholarship—as discussed in more detail towards the end of this section and in Emily Hanscam’s concluding chapter to the volume—but briefly we would like to emphasize here that Spinei (2009: 20) who echoes much earlier arguments for “[…] the continuity of the Romanised population in the Carpathian-Danubian area during the troubled period of the migrations […]”, is an outlier in his continued dedication to culture-history. Madgearu (2005: 105) by contrast is an example of the more typical casual perpetuation of culture-history (and Romanian nationalism) by arguing that the presence of wheel-made pottery during the Early Medieval Period in Transylvania is evidence of the survival of the ‘Romanians’ or the Roman tradition. Returning to the narrative about the development of Romanian archaeology, during the Interwar Period scholarship flourished under the guidance of Pârvan’s ‘new’ school which followed German methodology and focused on the idea of a continuous ‘idyllic’ Romanian society (Anghelinu 2007: 6). Archaeology and patriotism went together, following the ‘new critical school’ championed by the historian Constantin C. Giurescu (1931) who unabashedly believed that scholars could be wholly objective in their patriotic support of the Romanian nation because the ‘evidence’ was so clear (Anghelinu 2007: 5). In this way, as discussed by Alexander Rubel’s chapter in this volume, nationalism and the improved empirical methodology introduced by Pârvan supported each other, as Pârvan and those he taught accepted and facilitated the Dacian ancestral narrative without question. A new period of scholarship began during the Soviet-led phase of Romanian Communism, which lasted from 1947 until the late 1950s. During this anti-national phase, the peasantry which had been the basis of Romanian nationalism during the interwar years were completely destroyed as a social group by Soviet collectivization (Boia 2001: 70). There was a sharp break with the ‘old’ historiography—many professors lost their university positions or were imprisoned—and a new Marxist order was born, led by Mihail Roller (1908–1958), a man called the “little dictator of history” by his peers and subsequent Romanian historians (Boia 2001: 71). Roller had no formal training in history or archaeology, but he appointed himself “archaeological inspector” and was responsible for determining the direction of research and excavation until the mid-1950s; his goal was to replace the traditional Romanian historical mindset with one oriented around class protests and the Slavs, both of which had previously been marginalized in Romanian scholarship (Stamati 2015: 82). During the Soviet-allied period, the Slavs were now understood to have arrived on Romanian territory during the third and fourth century CE, where they became the instigators of progress for the “proto-Romanians” (Roller 1952; Marinov 2015; Stamati 2015; 2016). The

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Roman past in Romania was reinterpreted along Stalinist lines, so that the Daco-Romans were the result of a class struggle—the bourgeoisie were the wealthy Dacians who allied with the Romans to oppress the “free but poor Dacian proletariat” (Boia 2001: 101). Frequently, archaeologists used a veneer of Marxist language to describe the past, while continuing with the old trend of culturehistory (see Niculescu’s contribution to this volume). Few publications about the Slavs by authors other than Roller exist from this period, and those that did cover Slavic material were often criticized by Roller for being overly technical and unideological (Anghelinu 2007: 12). In 1956, the Institute of Archaeology at Bucharest was founded as a centralized archaeological authority, replacing Pârvan’s National Museum of Antiquities which had previously fulfilled this role. Vladimir Dumitrescu (1902–1991), an ex-director of the National Museum and a former Iron Guardist, became the district chief of the Institute after his release from prison where he had been sent for his fascist activities during the war (Stamati 2016: 238). Other former fascists were appointed to prominent positions in archaeology, including Constantin Daicoviciu (1898–1973), professor of Dacian archaeology at the University of Cluj, and Ion Nestor (1905–1974), professor of prehistory at the University of Bucharest (Stamati 2015: 82). As Roller’s influence began to wane, these leading figures drove the original (Daco-Roman) interests of Romanian archaeology forward in an increasingly hierarchical system where Pârvan’s work was seen as the highest standard of achievement. Archaeology and Romanian nationalism went through several successive stages under the National Communist government led by Nicolae Ceaușescu from 1965 to 1989. During the early to mid 1960s, sources appear which identify historical materialism as the primary approach of what is inferred to be a unified state-controlled system (Condurachi 1964: 49–51). Beginning in the 1970s, however, as Ceaușescu shifted from détente to an increasingly closed society based on a personality cult, the role of the past in Romania changed. The past was now meant to provide the Ceaușescu regime with material for a national cult, rather than fuel for a Marxist worldview. There was now a demand for history supported by the science of ‘proletarian thought’ which led to a restoration of archaeology as something which supports the nation, rather than merely a pursuit of the bourgeoisie (Anghelinu 2007: 8). The official Communist party line emphasized Romania’s ‘Daco-Roman’ origins, but focused on the Dacians almost completely, with Ceaușescu becoming Burebista’s direct successor; in 1980 the government celebrated the continuity of the Romanian state for 2,050 years from Burebista to Ceaușescu (Babeș 2008). Meanwhile, in the mid-1970s, the protochronism movement charted new territory in Romanian historiography. Innocently begun by the historian Edgar Papu in 1974 with

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the publication of an article outlining several Romanian cultural “firsts”, it inspired a competition among Romanian historians who hoped to advance their careers through similar discoveries (Boia 2001: 80; see Spiridon-Șerbu’s contribution to this volume). Ceaușescu himself got on the bandwagon and announced that he’d “had ideas about factory self-management and perestroika before Gorbachev” (Deletant 1988: 88). During the 1980s, culture-history continued to reign in Romanian archaeology, partly because of the increasing isolation, and partly because of the survival of the hierarchy from the Interwar Period (see Niculescu, this volume). The official ideology of the Ceaușescu cult caused archaeologists to lean on what Anghelinu (2007: 22) terms “straight archaeology”, supposedly data-centric, un-ideological, strictly empiricist interpretations. The retreat into positivism as a strategy of maintaining academic integrity during Communism is also observed to have happened in Serbia around the same time (Babić 2002). The first duty of the archaeologist was first and foremost to excavate objectively, and then to order (and publish) the finds; theoretical interpretation of the data was largely absent (Dragoman & Oanță-Marghitu 2006: 62). Since the fall of Ceaușescu during the Revolution in December 1989, the Romanian government has slowly moved beyond National Communism, striving (at least on paper) to become a pluralistic, developed democracy although considerable remnants of the old guard remain (see e.g. Verdery & Kligman 1992). The old ideologies also remain embedded in the perception of the national past. The Daco-Roman continuity thesis survived the Dacomania of the 1970s and 1980s, and the myth of Romanization returned in force during the 1990s and is still going strong today (see Rubel and Niculescu, this volume). Almost immediately after 1989, the Institute of Archaeology in Bucharest published a report in 1990 titled, “Plan de măsuri al Comitetului din Institutul de Arheologie din Bucureşti al Frontului Salvării Naţionale” (The strategic plan elaborated by committee of the National Salvation Front in the Institute of Archaeology (Bucharest)). This report blamed archaeologists who had worked under the Communist regime of “moral and professional shortcomings”, and considered Marxist theory to be a “theoretical and methodological distortion of objective discourse of archaeology” (Anghelinu 2007: 1; Dragoman & Oanță-Marghitu 2013: 30). Romanian archaeology was meant to return immediately to the highest standard—that of the cultural-historical interwar school led by Pârvan. The most exaggerated Dacianist arguments that were products of the Ceaușescu regime disappeared, and the undercurrent of cultural-historical archaeology which existed beneath the centralized Academy discourse came to the forefront. Both continued to rely on early and late twentieth century research conducted under the premises of culture-history, which alongside the continued

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uncritical propagation of the Daco-Roman continuity thesis draws increasing criticism inside Romania (see e.g. Boia 2001; Niculescu 2002; 2011a; this volume; Iordachi & Trencsenyi 2003; Murgescu 2003; Dragoman & Oanță-Marghitu 2006; Purici et al. 2006; Palincaș 2006; 2008; Babeș 2008; Enea 2012; Popa 2015). Romanian archaeology is described by multiple critical Romanian sources as overwhelmingly positivistic and unconcerned with the social or political context of research (Niculescu 2002; Dragoman & Oanta-Marghitu 2006; Palincaș 2006; Purici et al. 2006; Popa 2015). This state was highlighted as something to take pride in by Vulpe (2004: 5) on the ‘170 Years’ anniversary of archaeology in Romania: The dominance of the historicist approach in Romanian archaeology has been and continues to be reflected in a site strategy relying on the excavation of narrow trenches. This allows researchers to identify archaeological ‘cultures’, as defined by pottery forms and decoration, and by their chronology. These pot styles are reckoned to have ethnic significance in the dynamics of prehistoric populations.

He furthermore bemoaned that although numerous excavations were underway in Romania, not all “meet the requirements of an anthropological—that is a cultural-historical approach to, and evaluation of, the material” (Vulpe 2004: 6). His statement aligns with what Niculescu (2011b: 405) identifies as the primary instigator of the development of Romanian archaeology in the nineteenth century —the hunt for material remains to support the territorial ambitions of the state. Palincaș (2006: 40) describes the state of Romanian archaeology as a “closed circle”: ideas originate in the archaeological material; when the ideas are poor, better material is sought through excavation; interpretations depend on how many classical texts the researcher is familiar with; senior archaeologists must approve all work; and culture-history is the condition a text must meet in order to be considered valid. Although Romanian scholarship is no longer explicitly in service to a regime or political goal (a few exceptions discussed above), cultural-historical and otherwise uncritical approaches to the past are frequently disguised with a veneer of ‘objectivity’ or work done by “the best specialists” (see e.g. Pop & Bolovan 2006). This is the trap that Randy McGuire (2008) highlights as the worst sort of bias in scholarship—those who attempt to hide their own views rather than recognizing the position from which they approach the research. In places like Romania, and indeed in Hungary under the Orbán regime (see Kremmler, this volume), this attitude persists; interesting parallels could also be drawn to attitudes towards the past in the contemporary United States. In Romania, however, the national narrative will remain unchallenged so long

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as the Daco-Roman continuity thesis continues to underpin research and discourse on the Iron Age and related periods.

The Trick of the Ancient Past Romanian archaeological and historical claims feature prominently in this volume, although Romania is just one example for charting the mobilization of the ancient past. The patterns and issues that emerge, however, are unbounded by a Romanian national framework. It is especially in the attempts to nationalize the past that we see commonalities. The trick of using positivist readings of the past to harness Antiquity for a hegemonic national story was repeated throughout modern East-Central Europe. The ancient past appeared confidently in museums and exhibitions, as seen in the Thracian mania in Cold War Bulgaria, and in contemporary Hungary’s focus on the Eurasian steppe. At other times, scholars would definitively assert that borders needed further revisions based on supposedly incontrovertible evidence of a continuous deep past, as the two contributions on Polish archaeology reveal. Elsewhere, seemingly internationalist efforts to ‘liberate’ heritage from the colonial straitjacket did much to cement cultural hierarchies that served nationalist ambitions in the Balkans. Throughout the region, however, we see a very crude use of the ancient past to simply tell a coherent nationalist story from Antiquity to the present. That the trick, used universally in East-Central Europe (and of course beyond), worked time and time again—and continues to work—makes the case for examining and explaining uses of the ancient past even more compelling. This volume aims to illuminate both past practices and current realities. Our hope is that by engaging explicitly with politicized pasts, we can facilitate resilience and awareness in scholars of the past globally today.

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Bogdan C. Iacob

Balkan Antiquity as Decolonial Eurocentrism During the Cold War Abstract: The chapter focuses on the cooperation between south-eastern scholars specializing in the humanities and UNESCO, highlighting and analysing Balkan discourses of ancientness in international contexts. Founded in 1963, the International Association for South-eastern European Studies (AIESEE) facilitated regional and global dynamics pertaining to the relationship between identity discourses, archaeology, and decolonization during the Cold War. Academics from Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Turkey embraced and participated in UNESCO’s drive to de-centre cultural hierarchies. By 1973, AIESEE became involved in the decolonization of archaeology in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. However, Balkan intellectuals displayed a Eurocentrism from the margins imbued with decolonial motifs. The similarities and interactions between south-eastern Europeans and their African peers underlines the need for globally historicizing both archaeology and the Balkans, beyond the established pattern of West and the rest. Keywords: Balkans; UNESCO; Africa; Decolonization; Archaeology

Introduction In September 1968, at the Romanian seaside resort Mamaia, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sponsored the conference “Archaeological Sources of the European Civilization”. The event was an epistemic counterpart to the on-going political détente on the continent, though preparations had been hampered by political tensions caused by the Soviet-led military intervention, a month earlier, against Czechoslovak reformists in Prague and the military coup d’etat in Greece from the previous year. Because of the second event, no Greek academics were present at the gathering

Acknowledgements: The author acknowledges the support of the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant no. 754513, and the Aarhus University Research Foundation. Bogdan C. Iacob, The Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, Romania https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-002

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in Romania. Nevertheless, scholars from socialist states joined those from the West in Mamaia to discuss common European traditions as they emerged in prehistory and the Classical Period. Researchers from fourteen countries attended the gathering, among them some of the most prominent names in European archaeology. The meeting also signalled UNESCO’s push for reconceptualizing the history of the continent and the world in the context of decolonization. The representative of the Director-General, Egyptian writer Moënis Taha-Hussein, affirmed this emancipatory reconsideration of the past. He underlined that the organization was turning its attention toward “regions, countries, even continents whose cultures, for obvious historical, geographical, political, economic and other reasons, have been ignored, insufficiently valued, or unfairly treated” (Taha-Hussein 1970: 12). UNESCO’s global programme of cultural and epistemic demarginalization included Europe. Romanian archaeologist Emil Condurachi (1970: 10) insisted in Mamaia that the moment had come to show that “each people and area of our Europe has been able to contribute to the formation of a common heritage”. His plea had a distinct target: the conference was a medium for the affirmation of the Balkans’ role in European civilization and of the original Europeanness characterizing the peoples in the region. The event was organized by the Association Internationale d’études du Sud-Est Européen (International Association for South-eastern European Studies, AIESEE), which had been created in 1963 with UNESCO funding. AIESEE brought together national specialist committees from Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Turkey as well as similar bodies from approximately twenty countries (from Europe and North America, but also Lebanon and Iran). This chapter argues that AIESEE and UNESCO created international opportunities for Balkan scholars to articulate, circulate, and validate discourses of ancientness that were foundational to national identity narratives in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Turkey. The process was premised on the emancipation of south-eastern Europe as part of UNESCO’s drive to de-centre world cultural hierarchies in general, and archaeology in particular.1

 In 1962 and 1963, during the founding of AIESEE, there were debates over the preferred designation of the region, whether it was ‘Balkans’ or ‘south-eastern Europe’. Romanian, Greek, and Turkish scholars opted for the second terminology, because it encompassed a wider, open geography reflective of contiguousness with the Near East and Central Europe as well as Pontic and Mediterranean spaces. Bulgarian, Albanian, and some Yugoslav scholars preferred ‘Balkans’ in a more self-centred understanding of the area. In Yugoslavia, the terminology ‘south-eastern Europe’ also held significant currency because it brought the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas into focus, which allowed for a more diverse, interrepublican activity in the

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This regional trend reflected a global shift in archaeological discourses as decolonization opened the floodgates for the reconsideration of the historical trajectories of peoples outside of the West. Scholars from newly independent states sought to counter representations of the past that insisted on their societies’ alleged historically low levels of civilization (Lydon & Rizvi 2010; Andersen 2022). Rather than seeing south-eastern European archaeology as singularly ethnocentric, I argue that a global perspective draws a different picture: Balkan scholars synchronized with broader initiatives to democratize the field by recuperating national and regional authenticity, relevance, and wholeness as a path to local and international awareness about marginalized cultures. My research shows the importance of “scaling the Balkans” (Todorova 2018: 74) through their inclusion into European and global spaces and processes reflective of the epistemic, geographic, and institutional interconnections established from the region during the Cold War—a recipe for heuristically and interpretatively overcoming their “ghettoization” in histories of the twentieth century (Calic 2019). AIESEE’s push for the recognition of the Balkans’ past rode on the coattails of UNESCO’s insistence on the universal character of all cultures and the reconstruction of national and regional histories from within (Advisory Committee 1957: 4). Such an approach reflected the collapse of colonial empires since the late 1940s and accelerated with the decolonization of Africa during the 1960s. Southeastern European scholars joined the chorus of Asian and African voices calling for the end of Western-centric historical and cultural representations of the world. AIESEE was part of a global offensive from the peripheries of this Western world that called for the reconsideration and the pluralization of humanity’s heritage. The association’s production of knowledge about ancestors resonated with global critiques of past discourses about “barbarians”, “primitives”, “savages”, and “civilizers” (Betts 2015a: 281). AIESEE’s successful internationalization of knowledge produced in the region transformed this institution into an exemplary

field. Since UNESCO insisted on transregional approaches to the study of civilizations, ‘southeastern’ ultimately won out. Still, scholars within and outside the region who participated at AIESEE’s activities employed the two designations interchangeably and sometimes even together to underline the existence of a core and of its geographical branching out resulting from the region’s character as the ‘crossroads’ of three continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa). I use Balkans and south-eastern Europe interchangeably for three reasons: it is a means of avoiding confusion; it was the dominant trend within the AIESEE; and, in contrast to AIESEE dynamics, the political initiatives for regional cooperation predominantly employed the term “Balkans” (Syme 1962). These debates also reflected the national genealogies of Balkan and south-eastern European studies in Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia since the nineteenth century (Mishkova 2018).

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case of using area studies for the symbolic empowerment of a periphery through local scholarship. The association’s activities intersected with discourses and scholarship produced by academics from the so-called ‘Third World’, especially from Africa. By 1973, AIESEE became involved in the decolonizing of archaeology in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. However, this chapter demonstrates that AIESEE, despite facilitating Balkan researchers’ alignment with an international framework imbued with decolonizing motifs, created its own Eurocentrism from the margins. Narratives of millennialong autochthonous continuity and cultural relevance underpinned the centrality of Balkan peoples in Europe and the world. Though AIESEE claimed to represent UNESCO’s democratization of the humanities and the symbolic deperipheralization of ‘small cultures’, scholars from the region did not question the civilizational primacy of Europe. This ambivalence was apparent in AIESEE’s programme for the specialization of young north African archaeologists. Within it, scholars from Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco benefited from academic and practical training in Romania, Yugoslavia, or Italy. Moreover, they were exposed to anti-hegemonic themes articulated in the Balkans. At the same time, this professional socialization remained firmly anchored within the European tradition of the Classical Period that continued to emphasize the centrality of Hellenic and Roman heritage in the Mediterranean space and implicitly in north Africa.

Balkan Indigenes in the Ancient Past Since the early 1960s, archaeology and the humanities more generally were called upon to assert the international civilizational significance of southeastern Europe and its peoples. This happened against the background of diminished tension in the region, as Balkan countries seemed to have reached a state of peaceful coexistence, despite lingering bilateral conflicts over Cyprus, Macedonia, or Epirus (Iacob 2020: 254–55). Yugoslavia’s non-aligned path since the mid-1950s represented a powerful example for other south-eastern European political elites about the importance of carving autonomous foreign policy positions beyond Cold War divides. It was an implicit catalyst for regional cooperation as a counterbalance to the hegemonic presence of the United States or the Soviet Union (Nikova 2002; Karamouzi 2014; Mavrodin 2019; Stanciu 2019). Reflecting on this situation, a New York Times article from August 1966 claimed that “in Balkan diplomatic circles there appears to be a spirit of optimism unequalled since the war about the opportunities for establishing closer cooperation across geographic and ideological borders” (Binder

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1966: 15). Scholars, however, had moved earlier towards collaboration, keen to take advantage of the new opportunities provided by UNESCO and the geopolitical climate of relative peaceful coexistence. While Yugoslavia, Turkey, and Greece had joined UNESCO in the early post-war era, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania became members in the second half of the 1950s, a consequence of the socialist camp’s recommitment to the United Nations’ institutional system. The crest of this wave of intellectual dialogue was the colloquium on Balkan civilizations that took place in Sinaia, Romania, in July 1962, which was assembled at the initiative of Romania’s UNESCO commission. It was the outcome of growing interaction among south-eastern European representatives during the proceedings of, and preparations for, the conferences of UNESCO commissions in Europe that took place in Dubrovnik (October 1957), Taormina (February 1960), and Sofia (June 1962). Delegations from all Balkan countries were present in Sinaia along with scholars from Austria, France, Hungary, Italy, Iran, Lebanon, Poland, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. The three countries that did not respond to the invitation to participate were Iraq, Egypt, and Syria. Nevertheless, the overriding idea behind the event was the region’s mediating role between the Orient and Occident. The colloquium had been funded and integrated by UNESCO within its Major Project on the Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values, created in 1957 in response to decolonization. According to Maulana Azad, India’s Minister of Education, the Major Project represented “an Asian and African point of view on the programmes and plans of UNESCO” and an important step towards overcoming UNESCO’s Eurocentrism (Jansen 2019: 202). This extensive programme emphasized the relative nature of the concepts of ‘Orient’ and ‘Occident’. It aimed to create a new framework for Asian and African states where national and regional identities would be presented as not only distinct from but also on an equal footing with Western identities (Wong 2008: 356). The decolonizing context articulated by UNESCO had its own Balkan counterpart in Sinaia. All the speakers from Balkan countries bemoaned the past injustice and marginalization that had misconstrued the role of local cultures and peoples and their interactions in European and world history. Aleks Buda (1962: 57), the director of the Section of History at the Institute of Sciences in Tirana, pointed out that scholars had often described the Balkans as the land of “a few barbarian peoples, without their own culture, always in conflict, a powder keg”. To overcome this pervasive practice of being assigned peripheral status on the continent and the world, local knowledge had to become visible and influence international epistemic and symbolic circulations. Oxford historian Roland Syme, at the time general secretary of the Conseil International de la Philosophie et des Sciences Humaines (International Council for Philosophy and

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the Humanities, CIPSH), proposed the creation of a committee of Balkan studies that would then be affiliated with this NGO. CIPSH was a global academic platform tasked by UNESCO with the coordination of cooperation within the humanities. AIESEE was founded in April 1963 as an associate institution within the Major Project. South-eastern European scholars were in firm control: its president, general secretary, and the relative majority of its vice-presidents were from the region. Nevertheless, the aim was to include as many specialists as possible. Upon its founding, invitations of affiliation were sent to institutions from thirty countries. AIESEE’s secretariat was in Bucharest, chaired by Emil Condurachi, at the time director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy. By the early 1970s, the association had established eight commissions of research for archaeology, post-Byzantine art, social-economic history, history of ideas, folklore, Ottoman archives, linguistics, and contemporary history. Its creation went hand in hand with the (re)institutionalization of South-eastern/Balkan studies as specialized institutes were founded in Romania (1963), Bulgaria (1964), Yugoslavia (1969), Albania and Turkey (1970); in Greece an institute had already existed since 1953 (Iacob 2018a: 378–81). The colloquium in Sinaia set the tone for the following decades by identifying the ancient past as a primary source for the Balkans’ emancipation in Europe. At the time, linguist Vladimir Georgiev (1962: 56), the vice-president of the Bulgarian Academy, insisted that ethnogenesis should be a central topic for intraregional academic cooperation. AIESEE quickly became an interface for national scholars who sought to show the formation and continuity of ethnic identities in the region, while asserting the central role of indigenous agency during and after Antiquity. The emphasis placed on ethnogenesis, a mid-twentieth century neologism, echoed western trends since the 1960s in archaeology, linguistics, and ethnography, especially in German-speaking academia. The latter sought to move away from the biological determinism of the Nazi Period by underlining how ethnic continuity and self-identification among ancient populations was socially and economically constructed. Nevertheless, this scholarship preserved the pre-1945 argument about the fundamental indigenousness of transformations in early European history by appropriating and subordinating the Hellenistic, Roman, and Christian origins of thought and institutions during protohistory, the Classical Period, or the Early Medieval Period (Gillett 2006). Since several prominent south-eastern European archaeologists, linguists, and historians had been educated in Germany or Austria during the Interwar Period, or were connected with German archaeology departments from the 1960s onward, the

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focus on ethnogenesis signalled pre- and post-1945 continuity within Balkan epistemic establishments as well as their internationalization.2 AIESEE’s commission of archaeology, created in 1964 in Sarajevo, was a who’s who of Balkan specialists. Its chair was Milutin Garašanin (arguably the most influential Yugoslav specialist in prehistory, professor at the University of Belgrade) and the initial list of its members included: Selim Islami (director of the National Archaeological Museum in Tirana), Spyridon Marinatos (former director of Antiquities and Historical Monuments at the Greek Ministry of Culture and rector of the University of Athens at the time), Anastasios Orlandos (secretary of the Archaeological Society of Athens), Alojz Benac (director of the Provincial Museum and of the Centre for Balkan Studies in Sarajevo), Duje Rendić Miočević (director of the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb), Hamit Koşay (consulting general director of Antique Works and Museums in Turkey), Ekrem Akurgal (the most prominent Turkish archaeologist, then distinguished professor at Ankara University), Ion Nestor (professor of prehistory at University of Bucharest and standing member of the Romanian Academy), Constantin Nicolaescu-Plopşor (senior researcher at the Institute of Archaeology in Bucharest and standing member of the Romanian Academy), and Dionise Pippidi (professor of ancient history at University of Bucharest and since 1971 director of the Institute of Archaeology). Lebanon was represented by Emir Maurice Chehab, the director of the Antiquities Service and curator of the National Museum in Beirut (Compte rendu 1964: 49). While no Bulgarian was listed in the commission’s original roster, Vladimir Georgiev (the chair of AIESEE’s linguistics commission) and his mentor Veselin Beševliev, the head of the section of ethnography and historical geography at the Institute of Balkan Studies in Sofia, played crucial roles throughout the decade in ethnogenesis-related debates within the association. The studies about the origins, formation, and continuity of ethnic identities in south-eastern Europe were interdisciplinary, a consequence of the emphasis placed by UNESCO on exploring histories and cultures within the Major Project on the basis of cross-fertilization among multiple research fields. The association’s commissions of archaeology, linguistics, folklore, and the history of ideas became involved in identity debates that linked up prehistory, Antiquity, and the Medieval Period with contemporary self-representations. AIESEE’s conferences

 Vladimir Georgiev had obtained a PhD from the University of Vienna before 1945. Aleks Buda was a history graduate of the same institution. In Yugoslavia, Vladimir Milojčić (who emigrated from Belgrade to Germany during the Second World War and taught after 1945 in Munich and Heidelberg) was a crucial intermediary between Yugoslav archaeologists and German academia. Similarly strong influences of German archaeology existed in Turkey, Romania, and Greece (Aydın 2010: 37–40; Novaković 2011: 366; Marinov 2012: 108; Idrizi 2020: 69).

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and congresses (which took place every four years starting in 1966 and gathered hundreds of participants from over twenty countries) involved even greater numbers of scholars, who were not among the members of AIESEE’s commissions. The association provided a platform for the internationalization of epistemic production about the region and its national spaces. AIESEE was created at a time when all Balkan academic communities and political regimes were in the process of establishing historiographical orthodoxies about their respective peoples. In the early 1960s, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania had issued new treatises of national history that signalled a growing focus on local forces at the expense of the role of Russia or the Soviet Union in local historical transformations.3 Around the same time, in Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey there was an upsurge in rethinking the relationship between the ancient past and ethnic identity. In Sarajevo in 1964, Yugoslav archaeologists led by Alojz Benac and Milutin Garašanin formulated the theory of the Illyrians as the people indigenous to the Roman province of Illyricum. Interwar migrationist theories were replaced with descriptions of Illyrians as a union of tribes of mostly autochthonous origins. Illyrians were the original Indo-European people in the Yugoslav lands, later absorbed into a wider Roman identity, over whom, after their arrival, the South Slavs were super-imposed as the foundational element for the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians. This was a projection into prehistory of the ideology of Yugoslav Brotherhood-and-Unity, of “different but akin peoples connected in a supra-ethnic identity structure” (Dzino 2014: 17–18). In contrast, in Tirana, Illyrians were confined to the territory of Albania and were seen as the original ethnicity that “evolved organically and without interruption” since the Bronze Age as the ancestors of the Albanian nation (La Commission 1962). In Romania, the first volume (published in 1960) of the treatise of the history of Romania placed the Dacians and the civilizational fusion with their Roman conquerors at the centre of local ethnogenesis, a paradigm known in the following years as the Daco-Roman continuity thesis (Daicoviciu et al. 1960: xxxv–vi). The Slavs, as the third, less important constitutive element, gradually disappeared in the subsequent years from this idiom of origins—a consequence of growing distancing from the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the role of the Dacians grew to the extent that their so-called “first, independent, centralised state” became, by  In Bulgaria, a treatise of national history in three volumes was published between 1961 and 1964; in Romania, a similar publication was issued in four volumes between 1960 and 1964; and in Albania, the second volume of the treatise of national history was published in 1965, reflecting the ideological split between Tirana and Moscow that had taken place four years earlier (Koleva & Elenkov 2004: 121–22; Iacob 2011; Idrizi 2020: 71).

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1980, the keystone for Romanians’ ancestry going as far back as two millennia (Popa 2015: 337–38; cf. Rubel, this volume). In Sofia, in 1964, the Central Committee of the Communist party officially proclaimed Thracians as the third ethnic ingredient in the formation of the Bulgarian nation, along with protoBulgarians and the Slavs. Local archaeologists expanded interwar theories that relied on German and Austrian Altertumswissenschaft (science of antiquity) and Indogermanistik (Indo-European) studies—a trend characteristic for the entire region (Marinov 2012: 113–17). Thracians were placed at the centre of Balkan prehistory and Antiquity. Bulgarian scholars, led first by Georgiev and later Aleksandăr Fol, created in 1972 an entire discipline, Thracology, which then spread to Romania, Central Europe, and even Greece and Turkey (Marinov 2017: 113; cf. Ostrowski, this volume). In Greece, there was a similar drive for bringing the Greeks into prehistory, less as an issue of ethnogenesis and more as a matter of extending the continuity of Hellenic civilization to the dawn of time. There was a renewed emphasis on the civilizing role of the Greeks during Antiquity and the Medieval Period from an indigenous perspective, as the first Europeans. This was a response to western scholars’ appropriation of ancient Greek heritage and rejection of the Byzantine Empire as either European and/or essentially Greek (Hamilakis 2007: 27; Kostakis 2015: 70–71). In Turkey, the interwar focus on the Hittites as the ancestors of the Turks evolved by the 1960s into a Europeanizing discourse spearheaded by Ekrem Akurgal. He argued for a new Anatolianism founded on the synthesis among Central Asian traditions, ancient Anatolian peoples, and Mediterranean or Aegean cultures (Aydın 2010: 44–45; Dikkaya 2017: 301).

A Regional Agenda in an International Context AIESEE facilitated the visibility and expansion of these new narratives of ancientness that had developed at a national level in the Balkans. It did so in three ways. First, its affiliation to the CIPSH and the International Committee for Historical Sciences created the possibility of an academic lobby, what Ronald Syme (1966: 1) jokingly labelled “the Balkan gang”. This influence allowed for the recognition of local knowledge production and the insertion of its agendas into UNESCO projects or in global showcases, such as the International Congresses of Historical Sciences. For UNESCO and CIPSH, AIESEE quickly became a model of writing the history of a region from within. At the CIPSH General Assembly in September 1963 in Mexico City, the question of the affiliation of the International Congress of Africanists, founded at the end of

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1962, held centre stage. Several western scholars feared that a region-centric organization would in the long run disincentivize the integration of African scholars in CIPSH’s other associations, committees, or federations of ‘established’ disciplines (e.g. history, literature, philosophy, etc.) Some even questioned whether “Africanism is fully representative of an independent branch of study” (Minutes of 1963: 21). However, AIESEE, founded three months earlier, had created a precedent, which was invoked by African representatives and Ronald Syme. AIESEE’s existence counteracted doubts about the legitimacy of affiliating the Congress of Africanists. Mexican historian Silvio Zavala, then vice-president of CIPSH, insisted on AIESEE as proof that UNESCO’s democratization of the humanities through thematic and disciplinary geographical extension would be best served by strengthening and proliferating regionally-based academic societies (Minutes of 1963: 26–27). Second, UNESCO tasked AIESEE with envisaging the Balkans within broader geographies, as the region that filtered and facilitated the Near East, eastern Mediterranean, and Eurasian connections with central and western Europe (Bammate 1962: 2). This idea of the Balkans as a bridge between multiple regions and continents had been formulated in archaeology during the Interwar Period by V. Gordon Childe, whose work had a significant influence in south-eastern Europe before and after 1945 (Hanscam 2017: 75). Such dizzying spatial relevance reinforced and legitimated claims from local scholars about the foundational character, within European and world history, of their peoples’ original civilizational syntheses. Antiquity was the terrain for the flourishing of all south-eastern European ancestors alongside the ancient Greeks and Romans, who had integrated them into spaces beyond the Balkans. The mosaic of ancestors that populated this newly found regional antiquity could move along interconnected developmental trajectories because, according to the president of AIESEE’s archaeology commission Milutin Garašanin, they had formed since prehistory “a Balkan-Anatolian complex”. This cluster of populations covered a territory that stretched from the eastern Mediterranean to the interior of the Balkans (Sources 1970: 62). AIESEE intellectually weaponized the inbetweenness of the south-east: the region’s positioning at the intersection of multiple geographies allowed Balkan researchers to project autochthonous agency into the dawn of history, thus demonstrating their ancestors’ significance in the founding of Europe. The continuity presupposed by ethnogenesis certified the uninterrupted Europeanness of societies in the south-east, obliterating any past claims about their barbarity, decadence, or peripheral role. Third, AIESEE’s involvement with UNESCO and CIPSH offered local academics a range of concepts that they could deploy in order to legitimize the centrality of ancestral agency. In 1965, at the International Congress of Historical Sciences

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in Vienna, one of the main themes was acculturation. In his opening report, French historian Alphonse Dupront (who had collaborated with Fernand Braudel in drafting his paper) underlined the inherent neo-colonialism of the concept, which he connected to Western claims of superiority over subject peoples in the colonies. However, he insisted that the term could be repurposed by historians to show the dynamism and continuity of interactions between cultures without premising them on hierarchies of value. It could facilitate the recognition of diversity by pointing to “circulations”, “permeabilities”, “exchanges”, “resistance”, or more generally the “conditions of encounter” and “different speed” of these interactions. Such mapping would reveal that “each culture authentically expresses its own genius and that exchanges transform without altering [its essence]” (Dupront 1966: 22, 29). South-eastern European scholars immersed themselves in the acculturation debate, adapting or rejecting the concept to emphasize Balkan peoples’ filtering of multiple influences, which showed the importance of local cultures in Europe. During the same session of the International Congress, two historians took up Dupront’s conceptualization to flesh out the region’s significance by way of broader spatialities. Emil Condurachi (1966: 63, 66, 70) talked about the Black Sea as a “crossroad of civilisations in antiquity”. Ziya Karal, president of the Turkish Historical Society (since 1973 until his death in 1982) and of AIESEE’s commission of contemporary history (since 1972), analysed the role of Islam in Anatolian-filtered transfers between Orient and Occident. Condurachi underlined the social, economic, and cultural development of “local tribes” (by which he meant Hittites, Thracians, and Dacians) in the Pontic space. They had already synthesized Mesopotamian and Eurasian traditions and their preexistent progress allowed them to expand Greek influence into the interior of the continent. Karal (1966: 75–76) pointed to the formative role of Egypt and Mesopotamia on the Greek world, then insisted on the synthesis between Islamic and Greek thought in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean, which “opened the path to the Renaissance”. Acculturation remained a suspect concept, as most Balkan scholars considered it a cover for the continued subordination of ‘small cultures’. Nevertheless, this discussion opened the path to underlining the multiplicity and multi-directionality of the cultural contacts that defined the civilizational in-betweenness of the Balkans in prehistory, the Classical Period, or in later historical periods. In 1966, at the First International Congress of Balkan and South-eastern European Studies held in Sofia, the term was employed by the then honorary president of AIESEE, Denis Zakythinos (member of the Academy of Athens and general secretary of the International Association of Byzantine Studies, later its president), to describe the crystallization of a Byzantine “civilization area”.

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The latter was the outcome of the “fusion” among Balkan societies through Hellenization, Romanization, and conversion to Christianity (Zakythinos 1969: 14–16). This vision was rejected by participants from other south-eastern European countries. They considered that acculturation implied, as Romanian historian Eugen Stănescu put it at the time, that there were “civilisations which give birth […] and those which are created […] natural and bastard civilisations” (Actes du Premier Congrès 1969: 179–80). Within AIESEE, regardless of the discipline or historical period researched, acculturation gave way to terms of consensus such as “synthesis”, “interaction”, or “contact”. These concepts signalled first the agency and importance of local peoples during their exchanges with “great cultures” such as the ancient Greeks, the Roman, Byzantine or Ottoman Empires, and second, the subsequent transmission of values and material culture deeper into Europe. AIESEE provided the platform for the international synchronization and legitimization of local visions about continentally-relevant ancientness emancipated from, but still connected to, Greco-Roman traditions. A defining moment for this role of the association was the UNESCO-sponsored conference on the archaeological sources of European civilization, organized in 1968. The gathering was envisaged as a follow-up of the Congress of Classical Archaeology organized in Paris five years before. This earlier event had focused on the peoples at the periphery of the Greco-Roman world. Or, as Pierre Demargne (member of École française in Athens and future president of Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres) put it during the proceedings in Mamaia, the congress had discussed the contacts between “the Mediterraneans and indigenous Europeans (how else can we call them?)” (Sources 1970: 17). In 1968, Demargne unabashedly argued for a Western-centric vision of Europe, which, in spite of carrying Greco-Roman legacies, truly came about when “the living centres” (les centres vivants) moved from the Mediterranean, “mainly because of the Arabs”, into “the barbarian lands, in our old countries of Europe” (Sources 1970: 17). Denis van Berchem (1970) (then rector of the University of Geneva) similarly claimed that only the organized Roman Christian tradition had a constitutive role in a unitary European civilization. These statements show the pan-European currency of ethnogenesis discourses. In the Balkans, however, they were employed to confirm the region’s Europeaness from the margins of the continent, a counterpart to affirmations about the West as sole heir of Classical heritage. Balkan participants rose to the challenge of underlining the importance of their own indigenes during the process of creating Europe. In contrast with Western peers, they extolled their ancestors’ abilities to synthesize and bring Mediterranean and ‘Orientalizing’ influences into the interior of the continent. For instance, Alojz Benac argued that Illyrian culture, “though on the outer rims of

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the grand Greek and Roman cultural currents and slightly underdeveloped” was still “a piece more or less great in the vast mosaic which is European civilisation” (Sources 1970: 31). This guarded statement reflected the fact that Illyrians were also claimed as ancestors, in a much more straightforward fashion, by Albanian scholars. Romanian archaeologist Ion Nestor (1970: 69) was less restrained than his Yugoslav colleague, for him, Europe was the region of the world that “after millennia of development” had reached “the highest material and spiritual progress”. The roots of this evolution went back to the Bronze and Iron Ages, when Europe acquired its first clear features. Within this European genesis, Thracians stood out as they underwent a process of “individualisation”, which had primacy over “Orientalising or Occidentalising influences” (Nestor 1970: 74). Another way of bringing ‘indigenes’ outside of the shadow of the Greeks was to embed colonies within local societies. In Mamaia, Dinu Adameşteanu (an Italian-Romanian scholar) and Massimo Pallottino (prominent specialist in the study of the Etruscan civilization and professor at Sapienza University of Rome) argued this point. They underlined the synthesis between local and foreign elements in the process of Greek colonization (Sources 1970: 111–12, 119). Already at the International Congress of Historical Sciences in Vienna, Condurachi had made a similar point about the colonies on the Black Sea. In 1969, in his volume Orient and Occident, Akurgal had gone further by insisting that the ancient Anatolian culture (a synthesis of Hittite, Sumerian, and Phrygian legacies) left its imprint on the art and thought of Greek cities in Ionia (western coast of Anatolia), which in their turn were the origin of the Classical Greek civilization (Dikkaya 2009). The conference in Mamaia shows that affirmations of indigenous relevance in Europe as rooted in Antiquity were not Balkan outliers. Scholars from France, Italy, or Germany also appropriated Greek-Roman ancient histories for their own identity narratives. In contrast to south-eastern European colleagues, they distanced the West from Mediterranean ambiguity, which could carry heavy doses of Asian (Persian or Arab) or African (Egyptian) influences. Balkan ancientness was founded on the ability of various Indo-European ancestors to flourish in the proximity of classical Greeks and Romans and other civilizations from the Mediterranean space and the Near East. This vision exploded the dichotomy of civilizers versus barbarians. At the conference in 1968, Milutin Garašanin proclaimed that “we cannot draw absolute [chronological] horizontal lines; there are always certain coincidences, fusions, moments when different civilizations can interact and prosper in parallel” (Sources 1970: 61). The epistemic discourse fostered by AIESEE presented Illyrians, Thracians, or Anatolian populations as interlocutors and carriers of syncretic traditions that resulted from the region’s status as the locale upon which multiple continents converged.

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The methodology of comparison and contact among ‘(paleo)Balkan peoples’, which was validated internationally through AIESEE, further catalyzed narratives of indigenous ancestry.4 A year after the conference in Mamaia, AIESEE’s commissions of archaeology and linguistics convened in Plovdiv for a symposium on the ethnogenesis of Balkan peoples (Asia Minor included). At the end of the event, the participants issued a resolution that reflected the degree of academic consensus within AIESEE on the topic. The document argued that “changes in the civilisations [of (paleo)Balkan peoples] did not always bring about ethnic transformations [within these populations]” (Résolution 1971: 330). Moreover, new facets of (paleo)Balkan civilizations were the outcome of adaptation, for they could be the result of local developments, transfers through migration, or cultural influences. The underlying conclusion of the symposium was the rejection of necessarily diffusionist understandings of Balkan prehistory, reflecting a more general trend in international archaeology at the time (Maran 2017: 19). Without excluding the role of migration and interactions in prehistory and Antiquity, the resolution enshrined the centrality of autochthonous substrata in local identity formation.

Ambiguous Archaeological Emancipation Balkan scholars’ regional and international insurgency of the local in the writing of ancient history echoed similar dynamics in newly decolonized territories. UNESCO and CIPSH constituted global environments where languages of epistemic and symbolic emancipation of formerly marginalized peoples and regions could be articulated and validated. In this context, it is not surprising that ideas deployed by the Congress of Africanists, for instance, were strikingly similar to those articulated in south-eastern Europe. In 1967, at the second meeting of the International Congress of Africanists, the founder of the journal Présence africaine, Senegalese writer Alioune Diop (1968: 12, 17, 21) argued that the gathering’s task was to bring about “a more profound awareness among

 The terminology ‘paleo-Balkan’ peoples was preferred in south-eastern European archaeology and within AIESEE for two reasons. First, it was seen as a more neutral formulation, replacing that of ‘Indo-Europeans’, which both diluted arguments about autochthonous development and had a checkered history linked to interwar discourses of Aryanness. Second, it reinforced the idea of millennial ethnogenesis because it connected prehistoric populations with those from the Classical Period and subsequently to the formation of ethnic communities in the years after the collapse of the Roman Empire and during the Medieval Period.

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Africans about their own cultures”. It also had to draw the attention of the rest of the world to African history and values. Moreover, the Congress was supposed to facilitate the process through which African academics would “take control over the scholarly production about their continent”. Last but not least, the focus of Africanist scholarship had to shift to “the endogenous resources of development”. Another speaker considered that this turn toward the indigenous would alleviate past representations of the continent that had been defined by “the distorting mirrors” which foreigners created to misconstrue the ethnic and cultural traits of African peoples (Seck 1968: 582). The conceptualizations from the Balkans and Africa about empowerment through the revision of formerly marginalizing historical representations sometimes converged. In 1964, Emil Condurachi, the general secretary of AIESEE, lambasted in his preface to Basil Davidson’s Old Africa Rediscovered claims that African cultures were “primitive”. Echoing the language taking shape in south-eastern Europe at the time, he argued instead that they were the result of “local features […] organically rooted in the developmental conditions of specific tribes and peoples, whose history and traditions must be first known in order to be properly appraised” (Condurachi 1964: 17). He also criticized the academic practice of explaining progress in Africa by emphasizing external influences (Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Arab, or Portuguese) over the continent (Condurachi 1964: 8). Condurachi applied to Africa the same principle of rehabilitating local and regional identities in ancient or medieval history that he, along with his Balkan colleagues, employed within AIESEE. The affinity between south-eastern European and African epistemic discourses was underlined in 1967 by Alassane N’Daw, the secretary of the International Congress of Africanists. That year he participated at the General Assembly of CIPSH in Bucharest, which also included the AIESEE colloquium “Tradition and Innovation in South-east European Countries”. During the event, N’Daw remarked that we [Africans], who currently experience, maybe with more intensity than others, the problems raised by the double imperative of preserving our cultural heritage while joining the general advance of history, we have been shocked by the analogies, similarities, and even sameness with the situations described here (Tradition 1969: 138).

CIPSH created the environment for south-eastern European and African academics to acknowledge the communalities of their emancipation agendas. AIESEE’s mission of reimagining the south-east in Europe by reformulating its history with local peoples at the centre mirrored the task that the International Congress of Africanists had set for itself. At the CIPSH assembly in Bucharest, Kenneth Dike,

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the president of the Congress stated that this organization had “to give Africa and Africans the possibility to address their own history” (9e Assemblée 1967: 40). Moreover, as shown in the previous section, the CIPSH leadership considered that academic cooperation within south-eastern Europe could be a model for decolonizing initiatives in the so-called Third World. In 1965, a few months after the creation of AIESEE’s archaeology commission, Jean d’Ormesson, at the time deputy-secretary of CIPSH, drafted a document for UNESCO’s budget during the 1966–67 biennium. He pleaded for programmes that would allow “Africans, Americans [and] Orientals” to break the Western monopoly over the study of their histories. One of the solutions to this “explosive situation”, he argued, was to develop in Mediterranean African countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya) a programme for the specialization of local archaeologists. This would allow local specialists to rescue “for humanity’s benefit, the monuments of classical archaeology” that existed in their countries (d’Ormesson 1965: 6). The leadership of CIPSH agreed that such an initiative would benefit from “the experience of countries such as Romania or Bulgaria […] Mister Condurachi would certainly have a lot to say about this” (8e Assemblée 1965: 20). The decision to target these two countries was more likely linked to their southeastern European location—at the crossroads of Orient and Occident—rather than to their status as socialist countries. After all, CIPSH nominated the general secretary of AIESEE as a potential liaison for this North African programme. The idea of using the experience of Balkan archaeologists in the Maghreb region was a recurrent one during CIPSH meetings until the end of the 1960s. Its fate mirrored the evolution of UNESCO’s plans to rescue the site of Carthage in Tunisia. Between 1969 and 1972, UNESCO created a special bureau in Tunis tasked with designing a double project of heritage preservation that focused on the medina (the old Arab section) of the city and Carthage (Ennabli 2006: 26–27). On May 1972, UNESCO director-general Rene Maheu launched the campaign “Save Carthage” that lasted until 1987. It emulated UNESCO’s programme to rescue the Nubian monuments in Egypt and Sudan (1960–1980) triggered by the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile (Betts 2015b). The same year the appeal to “Save Carthage” was issued, UNESCO officially instructed AIESEE to design activities that focused on the connections between south-eastern Europe and the Mediterranean space. In 1973, AIESEE and CIPSH launched the programme for the specialization of young archaeologists from the countries of Maghreb. Though not officially associated with “Save Carthage”, AIESEE’s partners in Tunisia were the same institutions and personalities that represented the country in UNESCO’s heritage preservation campaign: Azedine Beschaouch, director of the National Institute of Archaeology and Art, and Abdelmajid

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Ennabli, the head of the office for the conservation of the Carthage site.5 Moreover, in 1972, a group of thirty-four Bulgarian archaeologists (most of them students) was the first team of foreign specialists to arrive in Tunis. They probably emulated their Polish colleagues, who had been the first archaeological mission to Egypt after the Suez Crisis in 1956 and played an important role in mobilizing international efforts for excavations in Nubia (Carruthers 2016: 45). The Bulgarian team at the Carthage site was led by Stefan Boyadjiev and Aleksandăr Fol, the director of the newly created Institute of Thracian Studies in Sofia (Ennabli 1987: 411). In the following years, the connection between AIESEE and “Save Carthage” remained strong. However, UNESCO and CIPSH representatives were apprehensive about potential backlash from Algeria and Morocco because of Tunisia’s high profile within the young archaeologists programme. The issue became more pressing after Libya refused to participate in AIESEE’s programme because of tense political relations with other North African countries (ProcèsVerbal 1973: 11). The profile of AIESEE’s activity in North Africa was rooted in the networks and ideas that had led to the organization of the conference on the archaeological sources of European civilization in 1968. The discussions within CIPSH about the importance of a programme for African researchers of Antiquity and the plans for “Save Carthage” drove Condurachi to invite Egyptologist Kazimierz Michałowski to the event in Mamaia. Michałowski gave a talk on the origins of the Mediterranean civilization. The archaeologist coordinated at the time the excavations of the Polish team in Sudan (and the initial Polish mission to Egypt in 1957) as part of the international rescue of Nubian monuments. He had also created in Cairo the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw in 1959 (Rybicki 1982). Michałowski was a model for the AIESEE secretary in terms of exporting archaeological know-how from Europe’s periphery into post-colonial environments. In Mamaia, Michałowski (1970: 22) asserted that the origins of European civilization could not be solely linked to ancient Greek and Roman cultures since the latter had been heavily influenced by Egypt and Mesopotamia. His central idea that the Orient was the foundation of European culture, and particularly Egypt for classical Greece, echoed the contemporary decolonizing ethos encouraged by UNESCO. It also drew on more radical narratives articulated at the time by African archaeologists. Most famously, since the late 1950s, Cheikh  Abdelmajid Ennabli coordinated the Centre d’Étude et Documentation Archaeologique de la Conservation de Carthage (CEDAC) an institution modelled after the Centre d’Étude et de Documentation sur l’Ancienne Égypte (CEDAE) established during the Nubian Campaign (Carruthers 2016: 42).

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Anta Diop had argued that Egypt, which he saw as part of “Black Africa”, was the birthplace and model for Western Civilization (Eckert 2003: 258–62). Michałowski’s argument also resonated with the emphasis of south-eastern European archaeologists on the mediating role of (paleo)Balkan peoples in the transmission of Mediterranean, western Asia, and Eurasian influences to Greek, Roman, and Western European cultures. Michałowski’s emancipatory narrative had a twist: ancient Greeks might have been fundamentally marked by Egypt, but they, along with the Romans, gave “the universal value” of this tradition since “Egyptian art had [only] been national” (Sources 1970: 66). Michałowski’s narrative had its own Eurocentrism despite his call for acknowledging contributions of non-European civilizations. Similarly, AIESEE and Balkan scholars embraced the idea of connections with western Asia, Eurasia, or the eastern Mediterranean to channel these cultural entanglements into their own claims about distinctive Europeanness. AIESEE’s Eurocentrism from the margins imbued with decolonial motifs, driven by the imperative for recognition within international hierarchies of civilization, left an indelible imprint on the association’s involvement in North Africa. On the one hand, the programme for young archaeologists in the Maghreb region was an important contribution to strengthening the field in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. It assisted these countries’ representatives to take control over their history and heritage. The initiative sponsored by CIPSH and AIESEE supported the consolidation of the necessary personnel for “the restoration, conservation, and valorisation of archaeological site and artistic or historical monuments” (Condurachi 1979: 2). South-eastern European experiences of state-funded institutions designed to rescue heritage in the context of industrialization and urbanization were employed as examples of best practice for the countries in North Africa (Condurachi 1979: 3). AIESEE’s focus on indigenous ancientness resonated with Tunisian, Algerian, or Moroccan scholars’ push for the visibility of Punic, Numidian, and Islamic pasts as counterbalance to the persistence of Helleno- and Romano-centric archaeologies that had previously legitimized French colonialism (Altekamp & Khechen 2013: 478; Ortega 2013). On the other hand, AIESEE’s focus on the recognition of Balkan ancestral Europeanness led to a trilateral outlook of the programme: North African fellows were mentored both by south-eastern and western European scholars (mainly from France and Italy). The decolonial facet of the initiative was mediated by a subtext of ‘learning from Europeans’ from the standpoint of academia. For the first two years of its implementation, the programme had been envisaged as a series of training seminars organized in countries of the Maghreb region. For several weeks, young North African archaeologists would attend lectures by Balkan (usually

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Condurachi or Garašanin), western (mostly from France), and local specialists. These presentations focused on excavation and rescue practices, conservation, or museology. Field trips to archaeological sites would supplement this theoretical experience. The blueprint for the programme was the first seminar organized in 1974 in Tunis (Rapport 1974: 1–4). A year later, however, the outlook of the initiative was altered: it was transformed into one-month fellowships for North African archaeologists (between two and four researchers from each of the three countries over a period of two years) to Italy, Romania, or Yugoslavia.6 They visited and worked on sites from these countries, predominantly related to Greek and Roman Antiquity or the Byzantine Period, while also having access to local libraries—most importantly those of Rome (Condurachi 1975: 1–2). Sometimes they attended AIESEE’s events: a Moroccan fellow was invited to the symposium “The Art of Peoples from South-eastern Europe between the 16th and 18th Centuries”, organized in north-east Romania (Suceava) in 1976 (Condurachi n.d: 3). Two years later a young Tunisian researcher joined colleagues from Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia for a course on Ottoman palaeography coordinated by Ömer Lütfi Barkan at University of Istanbul (Condurachi 1978: 4). In Italy, AIESEE partnered with the Universities of Naples and Lecce as well as the École française in Rome. This collaboration went back to the 1968 conference on the archaeological sources of European civilization, where Italian and French scholars had enjoyed a high profile. It was further consolidated by the participation of these academic institutions, in 1973, at an AIESEE colloquium in Lecce about the Adriatic Sea as civilizational bridge between the Mediterranean and the Balkans during Greco-Roman Antiquity. Starting with 1975, the programme for archaeologists from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia had become a platform for these researchers’ socialization in the ancient traditions of Europe. To some extent, it recalled interwar and early postwar colonial visions of Eurafrica, where the region of Maghreb was assigned the status of cultural hinterland (Hansen & Ionsson 2014). The difference was that now Europe included its south-eastern part and the initiative formally acknowledged North African local pasts. The influence of AIESEE’s focus on indigenousness and liminality in prehistory and the Classical Period was preserved. While in Romania or Yugoslavia, North African archaeologists could learn about the role of local populations (Thracians, Illyrians, or South Slavs) in  It is unclear why this happened; it seems that there were disagreements among cultural officials from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. However, moving the programme into Europe was also convenient for western and south-eastern European scholars; they did not have to travel to and spend several weeks in North Africa.

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what Condurachi (1980a: 118) labelled “the Balkan-Hellenic synthesis”. They attended lectures on the Roman limes, the fortified border of the Empire, as a broad space of contact and cross-fertilization between imperial and regional cultures.7 This exposure to archaeological interpretations that revisited the role of peripheries in cultural exchanges with ancient civilizational centres (Roman or Greek city-states) provided a model for reassessing the status of indigenous societies in North Africa during the Classical Period. The general idea of subverting the dichotomy of barbarians versus Greco-Roman civilizers permeated the training received by North African archaeologists in southeastern Europe. Moreover, in Italy, they could visit sites of Islamic archaeology, especially in Sicily, or work at the Institute of Studies about the Maghreb in Naples. In 1979, some participated in the International Congress for Studies of Punic and Phoenician civilizations organized in Rome (Antit 1977; Bougibar El Khatib 1979; Abderrham 1980). The programme also facilitated the involvement of several of its North African fellows as representatives of their countries in two major international projects: the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC, French acronym) and the Tabula Imperii Romani (TIR, which from 1981 was coordinated by Condurachi) (Kahil 1976: 1–2; Frere 1977: 1; Condurachi 1981: 1). Such collaborations reflected UNESCO’s and CIPSH’s idea of democratizing the humanities through the participation of indigenous scholars in grand projects meant to capture the world’s cultural diversity after decolonization. AIESEE contributed to the inclusion of Tunisian, Algerian, and Moroccan voices in LIMC and TIR, instead of the projects being typified exclusively through western scholarship. Nevertheless, the emancipatory element of CIPSH’s and AIESEE’s support for Tunisian, Algerian, and Moroccan archaeologists remained ambiguous because of the programme’s heavy reliance on Greco-Roman sites. There was little involvement from Turkish scholars at a time when in Turkey the interest in Islamic archaeology was on the rise. There is no archival trail to explain why this happened. It is especially surprising since in 1979 Ankara hosted the fourth International Congress of Southeast European Studies and its main themes focused on the Near East and the Mediterranean. In 1973, the same year when the programme was launched, AIESEE organized a conference in Istanbul about the city and by extension the Ottoman Empire as “crossroad of civilisations”.8 The event involved North African scholars. In Italy, the fellows from Algeria,  For instance, a lecture by Djurdje Bosković (director of the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade) on the limes (Taouti 1976: 2).  The title of the event was “Istanbul à la jonction des cultures balkanique, méditerranéennes, slaves et orientales, XVIe–XIe siècles”.

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Morocco, and Tunisia predominantly worked in locations included in Magna Graecia, the area of the country that comprised former ancient Greek colonies. In 1975 and 1977, their residencies were timed so that they could attend the two international congresses of studies about Magna Graecia (Condurachi 1975: 1–2; Condurachi 1977a: 2). The Helleno- and Romano-centric element of the programme became overwhelming in 1978, when AIESEE stopped bringing in fellows to the Balkans, transferring the funds allocated for the fellowships directly into the account of École française de Rome (Condurachi 1977b: 2). The reason for this decision was that CIPSH could not adjust the grants to the inflation triggered by the economic recession. Since 1975, each beneficiary received on average $800 for their fourweek fellowships, an amount that included costs for international travel, internal transportation, and living expenses. By the end of the decade, this amount could not cover the costs of travelling to the Balkans and Italy; even for Italy the funds barely sufficed (Condurachi 1980b: 2–3). At the end of 1981, the CIPSH-AIESEE programme for Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia was scrapped. According to Condurachi’s correspondence with Jean d’Ormesson (by now general secretary of CIPSH) this happened because of bureaucratic issues: some fellows, after returning home, were not submitting their activity reports, which made the continuation of funding impossible. It did not help that UNESCO’s budget was severely affected by the global economic crisis. It is unclear why some North African archaeologists did not send their post-fellowship reports. According to Condurachi (1981: 2), the failure to account for their activity and expenses signalled a lack of respect toward CIPSH and AIESEE: “this indifference bordering on ingratitude […] their irresponsible behaviour has put an end to an opportunity from which other young colleagues could have benefited” (cf. d’Ormesson 1981: 1). Another explanation might be the grantees’ frustration with the financial and academic conditions of the fellowships. It should be noted that their reports only mentioned pecuniary problems. However, the programme increasingly relied on socializing them in the archaeology of the Greek and Roman periods. In this context, it is not farfetched to imagine frustration building up among the fellows. Condurachi’s assessment of the situation reveals strong European paternalism: the programme’s collapse had been the North Africans’ betrayal of their benefactors. What had started as an initiative aimed at strengthening the decolonization of archaeology, ended with the reaffirmation of the subaltern status of North African scholars, despite the emancipatory intentions within CIPSH and AIESEE.

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Conclusion: Global Balkans Several authors have argued that the primacy of indigenousness in southeastern European archaeology or historical studies during most of the Cold War was rooted in the isolation and the peripheral status of the region’s academic establishments, which reinforced interwar ethnocentric trends (Marinov 2012: 111; Kotsakis 2015: 73–74). The chapter shows that this argument about the limited internationalization of Balkan scholars should be revisited. AIESEE created its own (extra-)European circulations and exchanges that synchronized with the global emancipatory language promoted by UNESCO and CIPSH under the impact of decolonization as well as with pan-European debates about ethnogenesis. Through AIESEE, Balkan academics were recognized as legitimate voices in these organizations’ representation of humanity’s diversity and by their European and non-European peers. So much so that AIESEE became an actor in other UNESCO or CIPSH initiatives for regional emancipation—for instance, the programme for North African archaeologists. This recognition reached its apex in the early 1980s, when south-eastern European scholars were nominated editors and co-editors for the seven volumes of UNESCO’s History of Humanity: Nikolai Todorov (Bulgaria), Emil Condurachi (Romania), Michael Sakellariou and Yannis Karayannopoulos (Greece), as well as Halil İnalcık (Turkey)—all of whom had held leadership positions within AIESEE.9 The global immersion of Balkan episteme facilitated by AIESEE had its drawbacks. First, it was heavily dependent on UNESCO. Institutionally, the organization provided funds and access to international milieus, while symbolically, its validation incentivized regional cooperation despite historiographical and political conflicts in south-eastern Europe. By the mid-1980s, when UNESCO was hit by financial and institutional crisis, AIESEE quickly lost its appeal and influence within and outside of the region. Second, the recognition of Balkan peoples’ ancientness and originality within Europe and beyond triggered an upward spiral of competitive claims. Narratives about uninterrupted Hellenism, about the role of Illyrians, Thracians, Dacians, and of Anatolia or Turks in history came into conflict with each other. By the late 1970s and especially in the 1980s, a paradox had taken hold of south-eastern Europe. Globally, the cult of ancestors had achieved visibility both as scholarship and cultural diplomacy,10 while locally, this phenomenon fuelled sweeping waves of ethnocentrism that by  Other scholars from the region, such as Milutin Garašanin or Ekrem Akurgal, would author chapters in various volumes (Iacob 2018b: 260–65).  At the International Congress of Historical Sciences held in 1980 in Bucharest, Romanian and Bulgarian scholars were able to hold special sessions on the ethnogenesis of their nations.

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the end of the Cold War became an alibi for the region’s remarginalizing by the West. Lastly, AIESEE’s alignment with UNESCO’s emancipation of previously marginalized cultures, histories, and peoples created a Eurocentrism from the margins bearing decolonial motifs. The transregional connections that UNESCO and CIPSH instructed AIESEE to establish in its programmes were employed by Balkan researchers to reinforce their countries’ centrality in Europe. The association’s support for young North African archaeologists shows this ambivalence: it consolidated the field in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and AIESEE imparted some of its emancipatory focus on indigenous cultures during Antiquity. But it also remained anchored in Helleno- and Romanocentric visions of the Mediterranean space and implicitly of North Africa. With the help of UNESCO, the Balkan episteme affirmed civilizational relevance and ancientness, seeking international validation for the region’s Europeanness. Other subaltern spaces and cultures outside the continent were ultimately a means to this end. Nevertheless, this chapter underlined the multiple academic and institutional entanglements that undergirded the trajectory of discourses about autochthonous ancientness and emancipation, centre and periphery in south-eastern Europe, UNESCO, and postcolonial spaces, especially in Africa. The case of Balkan scholars’ international visibility by way of AIESEE and the association’s programme in North Africa point to the importance of a global perspective for the history of the Balkans during the Cold War that takes into account decolonization and the role of international organizations. The striking similarities and interactions between south-eastern European researchers and their African peers also suggests the need for a more global study of post-war archaeology, beyond the established pattern of West and the rest.

Archives 8e Assemblée générale. 1965. 15–18 September, Copenhagen. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 8. 9e Assemblée générale. 1967. 9–13 September, Bucharest. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 9. Abderrham, K. 1980. Rapport de fin de stage. 31 December. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 132. Advisory Committee – First Session. 1957. Major Project for the Mutual Appreciation of Eastern and Western Cultural Values. 2 April. UNESCO. Mapa 1/AC/3 Annex I.

Since the late 1970s, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece organized in multiple countries in Europe and beyond exhibitions about Dacians, Thracians, Anatolian culture, and ancient Macedonia (Dragostinova 2021; cf. Ostrowski, this volume).

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Antit, A. 1977. Rapport sur le stage. 1977. 27 December. UNESCO, Box CIPSH 132. Bammate, N. to R. Maheu. 1962. PHS/Memo/62.170. Romania-Participation Program, Part I up to 31/XII/74. UNESCO. Box 21 (498)AMS. Bougibar El Khatib, N. 1979. Rapport. December. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 132. Compte rendu des travaux de la deuxième réunion du Comite de l’AIESEE. 1964. 27–29 April. Box CISH-105AS123-AIESEE. Condurachi, E. undated. “Monsieur et cher Collegue” [letter to the heads of national committees of south-eastern European studies], Part I to 15 August 1976. UNESCO. Box 008A01 AIESEE. Condurachi, E. to J. d’Ormesson. 1975. 15 December. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 129. Condurachi, E. to L. Demaghlatrous. 1977a. 17 February. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 132. Condurachi, E. to J. d’Ormesson. 1977b. 10 August. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 132. Condurachi, E. to E. Pouchpa Daas. 1978. 20 July. Part II from 16 August 1976. UNESCO. Box 008A01 AIESEE. Condurachi, E. to J. d’Ormesson. 1979. 20 April. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 132. Condurachi, E. to J. d’Ormesson. 1980b. 3 October. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 132. Condurachi, E. to J. d’Ormesson. 1981. 21 July. UNESCO. CIPSH 132. d’Ormesson, J. 1965. Observations et suggestions préliminaires sur le programme de l’UNESCO pour 1967–1968. November. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 56. d’Ormesson, J. to E. Condurachi. 1981. 21 August. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 132. Frere, S. to J. d’Ormesson. 1977. 22 June. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 132. Kahil, L. to J. d’Ormesson. 1976. 1 October. UNESCO. CIPSH 132. Minutes of the General Assembly of the ICPSH. 1963. 21–25 September. Mexico City. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 6. Procès-Verbal CIPSH. 1973. 29th meeting of the Bureau, Dakar. 8–9 January. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 27. Rapport sur l’organisation et les activités du Séminaire pour la formation des jeunes cadres archéologiques des pays du Maghreb, 14 septembre – 6 octobre. 1974. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 129. Syme, R. 1962. Report on the Meeting at Sinaia. 18 July. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 152. Syme, R. to J. d’Ormesson. 1966. 9 April. UNESCO. Box CIPSH 25. Taouti, A. 1976. Résumé du rapport de mon séjour à Rome. 4 November. UNESCO Box CIPSH 132.

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Stanciu, C. 2019. A lost chance for Balkan cooperation? The Romanian view on ‘Regional Microdétente’, 1969–75. Cold War History 19(3): 421–39. doi:10.1080/14682745.2018.1524878 Taha-Hussein, M. 1970. Allocution inaugural, in Sources archéologiques de la civilisation européenne, Actes de la colloque international organisé par le Secrétariat général de l’AIESEE, Mamaia (Roumanie), 1–8 septembre 1968: 11–13. Bucarest: AIESEE. Todorova, M. 2018. Scaling the Balkans: Essays on Eastern European entanglements. Leiden: Brill. Tradition et innovation dans la culture des pays du sud-est européen. 1969. Colloque tenu les 11 et 12 septembre 1967 à Bucarest a l’occasion de la IXe Assemblée Générale du CIPSH. Bucarest: AIESEE. van Berchem, D. 1970. Le développement des voies du communication et son influence sur l’habitat, in Sources archéologiques de la civilisation européenne, Actes de la colloque international organisé par le Secrétariat général de l’AIESEE, Mamaia (Roumanie), 1–8 septembre 1968: 135–40. Bucarest: AIESEE. Wong, L. 2008. Relocating East and West: UNESCO’s Major Project on the mutual appreciation of Eastern and Western cultural values. Journal of World History 19(3): 349–74. Zakythinos, D. 1969. Byzance et les peuples de l’Europe du sud-est. La synthèse Byzantine, in Actes du Premier Congrès International des Études Balkaniques et Sud-Est Européennes, vol. III, Histoire (Ve-XVe ss.; XVe-XVIIe ss): 9–26. Sofia: AIESEE.

Florian-Jan Ostrowski

Thracian Archaeology and National Identity in Communist Bulgaria: The Ideological Pattern of Museum Exhibitions Abstract: Thracian research was first institutionalized in Communist Bulgaria during the 1960s and 1970s and became a national agenda soon after. In this context, the establishment of Thracology can be seen as a manifestation of National Communism in Bulgaria. The representations of archaeological objects attributed to the Thracians in the media played a crucial role within this process of identity formation. The comprehensive presentation of Thracian material culture in exhibitions was intended to create a positive image of Bulgaria, supporting national identity at home and the association of modern Bulgaria with ancient Thrace abroad. Today Bulgaria largely continues this practice, promoting the link between Thracian antiquities and Bulgarian national identity for tourism and profit, although we also see a broader diversification of interest groups involved in Thracian heritage. Keywords: Bulgaria; Thracian; Archaeology; Nationalism; Communism; Exhibitions

Introduction Archaeology has always had a proximity to politics and ideology.1 Archaeological sites, objects, and interpretations are used to establish cultural and religious

 This chapter is based on my undergraduate thesis submitted in 2018 at the University of Vienna and some aspects have been published in Ostrowski 2020. Acknowledgements: In addition to my supervisors, Claudia Theune-Vogt and Barbara Horejs (both Vienna), my gratitude goes to Alexander Kiossev (Sofia), Ivo Strahilov (Sofia), Veneta Yankova (Budapest), Bisserka Dakova (Vienna), Marion Bertram (Altes Museum, Berlin), Stephanie Rosenkranz (MAK, Vienna), and Rosen Spasov from the Bulgarian National Film Archive (Sofia), who kindly provided me with research material and assistance. More recently, I am thankful to James Koranyi (Durham) and Emily Hanscam (Linnaeus University, Kalmar) for organizing the inspirational workshop in June 2019 at Durham University and for their work on this volume. Finally, I wish to thank Susanna Gartler for her corrections. Any omissions or inaccuracies are entirely my own. Florian-Jan Ostrowski, University of Vienna, Austria https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-003

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hegemony, support national claims to territory, and create collective memory (Kohl et al. 2007: 12). Since its inception as a discipline, archaeology has been socially relevant precisely because of its political nature. As Emily Hanscam and James Koranyi state in the introduction of this volume, archaeology is made political by its subjects and practices. Yannis Hamilakis (2007: 14) has suggested that rather than ignoring or rejecting the political nature of archaeology, archaeologists should instead ask how the products of archaeology (archaeological narratives), the involved archaeologists, material culture, sites, and monuments serve national political interests. Since the 1980s, scholars have emphasized the link between archaeology and nationalism, including aspects of the politicization of objects, museum policy, and exhibition-making (see among others Kohl & Fawcett 1995; Díaz-Andreu & Champion 1996; Brooks & Mehler 2017). During the twentieth century, south-eastern Europe was composed of multi-layered ethnic populations with various religions, living in relatively young nation-states that later came under the influence of Communism. This was a powerful context for archaeological research (Kaiser 1995: 119). Scholars have long recognized the potency of archaeology and nationalism in these regions (Hamilakis & Yalouri 1996; Gori 2014; Popa 2015). For Bulgaria, studies about those connections and manifestations have mainly focused on the period after the fall of Communism (e.g. Mishkova 2004). In contrast, this chapter looks at the relationship between archaeology and nationalism in Communist Bulgaria (1944–1990). More precisely, I examine the political role of Thracian archaeology and archaeological exhibitions in the process of identity formation in Bulgaria, which started during the late 1960s and early 1970s in opposition to Moscow and in competition with other south-eastern European countries. This chapter looks at the engagement of Bulgarian Communist politicians, institutions, and archaeologists with the establishment and promotion of the new Thracian-based identity alongside Proto-Bulgarian and Slavic elements (Todorova 1995). On the following pages, I will expand on three aspects in detail: the utilization of Thracian archaeological narratives; visual representations of objects ascribed to Thracians (e.g. in terms of infrastructure, art, and film); and international archaeological exhibitions about the Thracians. I form my argument through a close reading of archival material, printed sources, and visual analysis. Because the Thracian exhibitions’ objects and their descriptions in the 1970s remained almost unchanged, I will focus on the 1975 Vienna exhibition. Considering that the ideas behind the exhibits, including the chosen objects, the texts, and the exhibition narrative was a Bulgarian initiative and product, the exhibition catalogue is an excellent representative source for Communist Bulgaria’s attempt to display Thracian heritage to an international audience.

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In the first section, I will describe how research about the ancient Thracians was institutionalized as part of Communist Bulgaria’s cultural policy in the 1960s and 1970s. In the second section, I will present the Thracian archaeological exhibition from Vienna, discussing the role such exhibitions played for Bulgaria’s diplomacy and the promotion of Bulgarian identity. Finally, I consider how the political changes of 1989–1991 affected Thracian archaeology, exhibition-making, and role of Thracian heritage in Bulgaria.

Thracians, Thrace, and Thracology Greek authors, starting with Homer’s Iliad (X.435–575) in the eight to seventh century BCE, Xenophanes of Colophon (fragment 16) in the sixth to fifth century BCE, and Herodotus (5.3–10) in the fifth century BCE, among others, used the collective term ‘Thracian’ to describe foreigners who did not belong to the Greek world and lived around or among them. Graninger (2015: 28) recently suggested that ‘Thracian’ is a geographical term rather than ethnic. Therefore, ‘Thrace’ meant all places where Greek authors localized Thracians—as a synonym for foreigners— especially between the Carpathian Basin, the Balkan Mountains, the steppe north of the Black Sea, and Asia Minor (Theodossiev 2014: 157). The contemporary understanding of the term ‘Thrace’ relates more to the Roman definition than the Greek, as the Romans separated the eastern Balkan Peninsula during the first to fourth centuries CE into several provinces called Thracia with varying sizes in different periods (Soustal 1991: 48). Nowadays, the former Roman province Thracia extends over modern Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria (Marinov 2015: 11). The field of Thracology, or Thracian Studies, researches the ancient Thracians as identified in Classical sources and through the study of ancient material remains. The Thracians are, therefore, a social construct which varies depending on the historical context. The geologist and orientalist Wilhelm Tomaschek (1841–1901) was among the first to analyse Thracian linguistics appearing in Greek sources. In the context of political debates about cultural hegemony, race, and ethnicity in the late nineteenth century, Tomaschek (1893: 2) ranked the ancient Thracians as Indo-Germanic, but below the Greeks in terms of a cultural hierarchy, arguing that the Thracians derived all aspects of their art and civilization from the Greeks. The first archaeological work on the Thracians occurred around the same time, led by the anthropologist Moriz Eduard Weiser (1872) who was among the first to recognize the mounds in the landscape of southern Thrace (nowadays the borderland between modern Bulgaria and Turkey) as old Greek burials (tumuli)

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and to begin counting, measuring, and categorizing them. Gavril Kazarov (1874–1958) systematically compared written sources and Thracian-attributed objects (1916), teaching the first courses about Thracians at the University of Sofia (Marinov 2015: 82). In the first half of the twentieth century, archaeologists like Rafail Popov (1876–1940) and Bogdan Filow (1883–1945) conducted the first systematic excavations of sites attributed to the Thracians. Filow (1934) interpreted Thracian culture as independent but primitive and local; at the same time, he emphasized cultural relations between the Thracians, the Greeks, the Scythians, the Mycenaeans, and the Persians around the Black Sea. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the borders of Bulgaria were not congruent with the historic, ethnic, or linguistic criteria of imagined Bulgarian nationhood. After suffering defeat in the First World War, the territory of Bulgaria was increasingly narrowed, which is why in the Interwar Period Bulgarian intelligentsia changed what had previously been a primarily linguistic interest in the Thracians into a more spatial and revisionist approach. In the context of the political crisis following the First World War and territorial claims of the young nation-states in south-eastern Europe, the historian Gancho Tzenoff (1870–1949) published a text on the ethnogenesis of modern Bulgarians, stating they had Slavic and Turkic origins. In his polemical writing, Tzenoff (1930) equated the ancestors of modern Bulgarians, the “Thraco-Illyrians”, with the Huns, rejected Greek cultural supremacy, and postulated a legal and historical right for Bulgaria to reclaim their so-called Urheimat, their original homeland within the borders of the first (681–1018 CE) and second (1185–1396) medieval Bulgarian Empires. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, Thracian research was restricted in terms of resources and limited to individual scholars across Europe, whose interpretations (often for or against the Greeks) heavily depended on ideology, nationalism, politics, and the context of their time (Marinov 2015: 16). Archaeological fieldwork on the Thracians dealt mainly with burial mounds and stray finds. Prior to the 1960s and 1970s, the Bulgarian state had only a general legal interest in archaeological records ascribed to Thracians. A newfound interest of the state in Thracians and archaeology came after the establishment of Communist rule in 1944 and especially the proclamation of Bulgarian National Communism in the late 1950s. These changes in Bulgarian cultural policy eventually led to the institutionalization of Thracology in 1972. National Communism, as a new interpretation of Communism deriving legitimacy from the ancient past, emerged first in Bulgaria’s neighbouring states. Romania claimed a direct genealogical and ancestral continuity from an autochthonous Dacian population (Ermatinger 1992), Yugoslavia promoted Illyrian ancestry (Dzino 2014), and even the Soviet Union propagated Slavic

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and eventually Scythian origins (Shnirelman 1995; 1996). Todor Zhivkov (1911–1998), in power from 1954–1989, and the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) followed the example of Moscow and stayed loyal. Even after Bulgaria made an ideological reversion from Soviet internationalism to National Communism, the country was not fully opposed to the Soviet Union (Crampton 2007: 357). In the first instance, Zhivkov tried to combine national culture with international Communism and labelled this approach as “socialistic national culture” (Shiwkow 1973: 40). This new cultural policy resulted in travelling exhibitions like 2500 Years of Art in Bulgaria from 1958–1969, which presented medieval icon paintings, book manuscripts, and rural art, travelling through Western Europe (e.g. Neuchâtel, Paris, Essen) as well as in fellow Communist states (e.g. Leningrad, Warsaw, see Roumentchéva 2014). In the exhibition’s narrative, Thracians and Bulgarian prehistory played only a secondary role, whereas the art of socialism symbolized the final stage of artistic evolution (Villa Hügel 1964).

Introducing Thracians to the Bulgarian Ethnogenesis Communist rule in Bulgaria started under the weight of a long-lasting Ottoman rule (1396–1878) and lost wars in the twentieth century. In 1966 during the ninth BCP Congress, Todor Zhivkov claimed to have eradicated all Bulgarian inferiority complexes, which might still exist, and to be proud of the country’s rich and historic heritage, the power of the nation to resist against fascism and western capitalism, and especially of the new socialist life and culture in Bulgaria (Shiwkow 1986: 146). In Zhivkov’s Bulgaria of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Marxism, Bulgarian national culture, and patriotism went hand in hand. According to Bulgarian politicians, who followed the interpretations of Bulgarian archaeologists and historians, ancient Thrace was located in modern Bulgaria and should be associated only with Bulgaria (Slavova 2017: 407). Since the late 1960s, the BCP used the ancient past and archaeological objects as tools to establish and promote a ‘positive nationalism’ within the country. One of the most influential proponents of the new Bulgarian self-consciousness and Thracian heritage was Lyudmila Zhivkova (1942‒1981), the daughter of Party leader Todor Zhivkov. In her political roles, she supported science, culture, and the arts whenever she could, either personally or financially (Atanasova 2004: 278). Zhivkova was a driving force behind the institutionalization of Thracology in Bulgaria, helping her former professor at the university, Alexander Fol (1933–2006), to become the first director of the newly founded Institute of

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Thracology in 1972, which was created at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Dyer 2007: 41). At the Institute of Thracology, and later as the Minister for Culture and Education (1980–1986), Alexander Fol’s ideas about the Thracians gradually developed into a Bulgarian national doctrine (Ostrowski 2020). Fol (2014: 255) declared everything untypical to the Greeks—like Orphism, the spirituality of Zalmoxis (who is also present in Romanian nationalism), the Mother Goddess, the Thracian Horseman, the origin of Dionysus and Ares, legends of Hercules and lifestyle aspects including polygamy, alcoholic excess, music, and dance— as being “typically” Thracian. One of Fol’s most influential ideas was that of Bulgarian continuity from the Thracians, or the idea that Thracian culture has survived in geographical toponyms (like bria in Mesembria, modern Nesebar), in the Bulgarian language, in spirituality, in folk traditions, and ethnically until today (Fol 2014: 150). Although Fol was not the first to study ancient Thrace, he was the first to argue on a national platform for a Thracian ethnogenesis for modern Bulgaria. Since the 1970s and 1980s, scholarship about Bulgarian ethnogenesis included three individual components: the Proto-Bulgars, the Slavs, and the Thracians. Only the Thracians were supposedly ‘native’ to Bulgarian lands; the Proto-Bulgars and the Slavs had arrived between the fifth and seventh centuries CE during Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period. Although the Thracians predate the Proto-Bulgars and the Slavs in the area of modern Bulgaria, they were admitted last into the Bulgarian national narrative (see Angelov 1971). In the narrative of historiographical works like Dimitur Angelov’s Formation of the Bulgarian Nationality (1981: 15), the partly Hellenized and Romanized Thracians assimilated with the Slavs, who again unified with Proto-Bulgarians through warfare and Christianity to form a “monolithic ethnic cultural community” who could keep their ethnic originality during Ottoman rule. Referring to a medieval class model, the “elitist” Proto-Bulgars were responsible for warfare and military conquest, the majority of the “peaceful” Slavs for agriculture, and the Thracians for cultural customs, spiritualism, and folklore traditions (Iliev 1998: 14). With the combination of Thracians, Proto-Bulgars, and Slavs, Communist Bulgaria could argue for a prestigious and unique Bulgarian ethnogenesis and identity. During the 1960s and 1970s new archaeological research and its publication in specialized journals (Thracia; Expeditio Thracica) and monograph series (Studia Thracica), as well as new histories of Bulgaria, helped establish Thracian scholarship within academia. Scholarship alone, however, was not enough to promote the new Bulgarian ethnogenesis among the public. Language, visual representations, and popular culture provided helpful tools for spreading and

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circulating the new Thracian-based identity. Trakija, the Bulgarian term for Thrace, became a national emblem and common name for various buildings, places of leisure, associations, and institutions (Kiossev 2004). Strikingly, the Bulgarian postal service also issued several stamp series with Thracian imagery (Fig. 1). Inspired by the proposed continuity of traditions and folklore of the Thracians, music and dance festivals and singing competitions were organized annually by city authorities and local folklore associations. Some of these events were named after Orpheus, the singer, king, priest, philosopher, and perhaps most famous ancient Thracian, a figure who became increasingly important to the Bulgarian national narrative (Troeva 2015).

Fig. 1: Thracian Gold—The Valchitran Treasure, postal series 1970, Photo credit: StampWorld.com, with permission; https://www.stampworld.com/en/stamps/Bulgaria/ Postage%20stamps/1970-1979?year=1970 (accessed 19 October 2021).

Beginning in the 1950s, the legendary figure of Orpheus changed from a locally popular namesake (especially in the Rhodope Mountains), becoming a national ancestor by the 1960s (Sirakova 2017: 426). Spiritual and ritual beliefs about the Thracians also appeared in Bulgarian feature films, popular cinema, and documentaries. Documentaries like Zahari Zhandov’s Awakened After Ages (1964), Konstantin Kostov’s The Gold of the Thracians (1969), and Ventsislav Dinov’s A Land of Ancient Cultures (1973) promoted new archaeological

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findings and the new national identity to a broader audience (Krusteva 1981: 90); this was especially faciliated through cinema and international film festivals (see Stoyanovich 1985), as in the mid-1960s only 60% of the Bulgarian population had a TV at home (Ibroscheva & Stover 2017: 4). It is no coincidence that the national Bulgarian film industry discovered archaeology and the promotion of Thracian heritage precisely during the 1960s and 1970s. The institutionalization of Thracian studies as a process since the late 1960s can be seen as a manifestation of National Communism in Bulgaria, a national recollection on Bulgaria’s past that replaced the ideological class struggle of traditional Marxism (Marinov 2015: 95). The BCP actively promoted Thracian culture as a cultural policy, using Thracian archaeology and its linguistic, spatial, visual, and media representations for national identity building. This also led to the inscription of two Thracian archaeological sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list, the Tomb of Kazanlak (1979) and the Tomb of Sveshtari (1985). Thracian culture and objects attributed to the Thracians were infused with specific historical narratives, with the intention of associating ancient Thrace with modern Bulgaria. Archaeological exhibitions played a vital and previously overlooked role in this mental and spiritual awakening of the Thracian past, as will be shown in the following section.

Thracian Culture in the Service of the Bulgarian State Shortly after the institutionalization of Thracology in Bulgaria (1972), the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences started to organize international conferences to bring scholars together and promote the new field of study. The precise concept for a Thracian archaeological exhibition emerged during the 1st International Conference on Thracology held in Sofia in 1972. For Bulgaria, such archaeological exhibits would both normalize the new research field and highlight Thracian culture to audiences abroad, stressing the connection between ancient Thracians and modern Bulgarians. By organizing Thracian exhibitions in this way, Bulgaria was imitating a precedent set by Romanian nationalism and its attempts to promote Dacian ancestry. In 1971, Romania organized an archaeological exhibition in London with a similar concept, titled “Treasures from Romania”, which claimed an independent Dacian culture, the continuity of traditions for two thousand years, and an extraordinary Dacian contribution to European civilization (Trustees of the British Museum 1971). The Soviet Union organized travelling exhibitions

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with Scythian treasures beginning in the late 1960s and the People’s Republic of China’s display of archaeological finds from 600,000 BCE until 1400 CE was also travelling Europe in the early 1970s.2 The Thracian exhibition was a joint Bulgarian political and academic endeavour between highly ranked Bulgarian politicians, the Ministry of Foreign Relations (together with Bulgarian embassies and Bulgarian research institutions), the Committee of Culture, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (with the NAIM—National Archaeological Institute with Museum and the Institute of Thracology), and scholars from the University of Sofia. The cooperation between politicians and academics was successful because the Communist Party controlled academia, and scholars, like Alexander Fol or Peju Berbenliev (1923–1999), were politically active (e.g. as representatives on the Committee of Culture). Members of these institutions formed the Thracian exhibition advisory board as well as the scientific and honorary committees. They were involved in selecting artefacts, writing exhibition narratives, taking pictures for the exhibition catalogues, and promoting these displays (Venedikov & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975: 4). As archaeological objects were compared to art, they were presented primarily in national or art museums. Furthermore, many of the presented objects were metal artefacts—the focus on Thracian Gold or other finds considered as ‘treasure’ was intended to establish an image of a splendid Bulgarian past and a culturally rich present. The first trial phase in 1972 focused on presenting an exhibition about the Thracians internally in Sofia (Milev 2018: 205). Afterwards, the tested exhibition concept travelled the world as a series; the choice of Paris, Moscow, Leningrad, and Minsk as locations for the following displays from 1974–1975 was strategic. Since 1972, Bulgarian delegations led by Alexander Fol established academic contacts with France, reinforced by Lyudmila Zhivkova who in March 1973 personally lobbied the French Minister of Culture, Jacques Duhamel (1924‒1977) and Claude Arnaud (1919‒1999), director of the European department at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for the opportunity to display Thracian art in Paris (Milev 2018: 207–216). Whereas the presentation of the art and culture of a fellow Socialist state within the Soviet Union seems ideologically more obvious (e. g. the Thracian exhibitions were displayed within the Days of Bulgarian Culture events in the USSR, see Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts 1974), the display in Paris was the result of Bulgaria’s public relations and foreign policy since the late 1960s (Dragostinova 2018: 680).

 USSR: Rome 1967, see Carandente & Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia 1967; China: Paris 1973, London 1973/74, Vienna 1974, see Angeli et al. 1974.

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In the first instance, the Thracian exhibitions were displayed in countries which already had diplomatic relations with Bulgaria. In some cases, the display of Thracian exhibitions resulted from personal contacts between Party leaders and heads of states (e.g. Zhivkova with Mexico). According to Dragostinova (2018: 683) “ideological, political, economic, and cultural factors, all shaped the Bulgarian choices”, in terms of where and how to display Thracian art and culture abroad. On the one hand, with the presentation of Thracian material culture abroad Bulgaria tried to demonstrate its place among the perceived ‘high’ civilizations of the world with its Western European cultural heritage. On the other hand, it offered so-called Third World countries an alternative model for modernization, combining the ancient Thracian past with a glorious Communist future (Dragostinova 2018: 670). After the first displays in the mid-1970s, from 1977 Bulgaria expanded their strategic usage of archaeological exhibitions about the Thracians to a global audience beginning with the Havana and Mexico City exhibition, eventually stretching from the Americas to India and Japan (Dragostinova 2020). Thracian objects were used systematically in more than eighty exhibitions in twenty-four different countries around the world from the mid-1970s until late-2010s (Marinov & Zorzin 2017: 95). While the objects and the storytelling showed some continuity, the places where they were displayed changed every year, or even several times within a year.3 Beyond the first exhibition in Paris, Lyudmila Zhivkova continued to play an essential role in the promotion of Thracian culture to the world. In reference to the ancient drinking containers presented in the exhibitions, the attempts of Zhivkova to gain attention and affirmation for the new Bulgarian image became known as “Rhyton diplomacy” (Soubigou 2017: 17). Zhivkova personally established contact with other diplomats and politicians to arrange the display of the Thracian archaeological exhibitions. Bilateral talks, the exchange of gifts, awarding heads of state with the Bulgarian Dimitrov Prize, and invitations for heads of states to visit Bulgaria followed the arrangement and opening of these exhibitions (Roumentchéva 2014; Soubigou 2017). In return, exhibitions of host countries were often presented in Bulgaria (Fig. 2). In some cases, the Thracian exhibition responded to a previous display of a foreign country in Bulgaria, for example after Mexico showed “3000 years of Mexican Art” in Sofia in 1976, Bulgaria answered with the showcase of Thracian art in Mexico City in 1977. In the diplomatic competition for prestige and international cultural recognition, temporary exhibitions in Bulgaria followed the pattern

 For Japan, see Egami et. al. 1979; for India, see National Museum Institute 1981; for Italy, see Veneto et al. 1989; for the USA, see Paunov 1998 and for Russia, see Zhuravlev et al. 2013.

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of the Thracian exhibitions by focusing on the oldest periods and often presenting metal artefacts (like jewellery, weapons, bowls, jars, and drinking vessels). Year

Displayed in Bulgaria

Source



Scythian Art from the USSR

USSR



 Years of Mexican Art

Mexico



Celtic Art from Gallia

France



The Balts-Northern Neighbours of Slavs

Poland



The Art of the Aztecs

Mexico



Greek and Illyrian Treasures

Yugoslavia



The Gold of Eldorado

Colombia



The Art of the Vikings and their Predecessors

Sweden

–

Roman Treasures from the Rhein Region

BRD

–

Ancient Egyptian Art

Great Britain



Troy and Thrace

GDR

Fig. 2: Temporary exhibitions at the National Archaeological Museum in Sofia, 1975–1982 (Melamed 2006).

In Communist Bulgaria, archaeological objects attributed to the Thracians became strategic tools, with Bulgarian politicians stylizing them as “ambassadors” of their country (Loulanski & Loulanski 2017: 254). Modern Bulgaria used the ancient wealth of the Thracians as an indication of their new prosperity. Archaeological exhibitions about the Thracians were just the beginning—travelling exhibitions about Bulgarian village art (London in 1977–1979), Bulgarian icon painting (Munich and Mexico City in 1978), Bulgarian manuscripts (Tokyo in 1981), and Medieval Bulgaria (Paris in 1980) followed soon after (Dragostinova 2018: 680). In this way, Bulgaria used exhibitions about culture and art as a diplomatic strategy to escape the isolation of the Iron Curtain. Whereas the Bulgarian foreign policy officially followed Moscow, their participation in the international cultural sphere opened a new space for negotiations, interactions, and exchange. Under these circumstances, prehistory, the ancient past, culture, and art helped Bulgaria stay visible and connected to the global community (Dragostinova 2018). Since 1974, Bulgaria has used Thracian artefacts for diplomacy, for acquiring attention, to showcase Thracian culture, and to convince an international

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audience of the unique Bulgarian national identity (Valtchinova 2005). The following section discusses the 1975 Thracian exhibition in Vienna as an early representative example, highlighting exhibitions as diplomatic acts that build national narratives through the display of archaeological objects.

Archaeological Exhibitions as an Ideological Pattern—An Example from Vienna Following the Second World War, Austria positioned itself as a neutral but active mediator in the Cold War. Bulgaria, in turn, saw Vienna as a gateway to the West, and from the 1960s onwards, both countries cooperated on various economic, scientific, and cultural levels (Bachmaier 2008). In 1975, “Golden Treasures of the Thracians: Thracian culture and art on Bulgarian land” was presented in the MAK (Museum of Applied Art) in Vienna. The exhibition was among the first cultural interactions between the wider Austrian public and Bulgarian archaeology. The display in Vienna was the fifth international destination of the Thracian archaeological exhibition. Whereas the display was open for the public from 4 March to 19 June, the artefacts were present in Austria from 20 January until 10 July, 1975 (see: MAK Archive 50–75/ Zl. 441–75 and Zl. 379–75). The picture chosen for the exhibition poster and catalogue cover showed a fourth century BCE greave from Vratsa, discovered in 1969, which was made of gold and silver and decorated with a female head with snakes as hair, lion heads, and a stylized sea monster (Fig. 3). Although there was an Austrian Scientific Advisory Board, which was newly created prior to the exhibition out of employees from the Austrian Ministry for Sciences and Research, the Department of Prehistory at the Natural History Museum Vienna, and the University of Vienna, to help with organizational and scientific issues, the Bulgarians offered the exhibition “ready to present” (Venedikov & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975: 4). The political message of the exhibition was clear, that behind ancient Thrace stands modern Bulgaria, which should be culturally and politically acknowledged. In the preparatory meetings (MAK Archive 50–75/6 February 1975), Bulgaria insisted that the Bulgarian Ambassador to Austria, Vladimir Ganovski (1932–1997), should appear on the official invitations for the exhibition opening on 3 March 1975, next to Hertha Firnberg (1909–1994), the Austrian Minister for Science and Research. The Bulgarian embassy in Austria, which was responsible for the communication and preparation of the exhibition with the Austrian side, wanted to improve on the example set by the Chinese exhibition which was also travelling Europe in the 1970s.

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Fig. 3: Official exhibition poster “Thracian Gold” by Leo Netopil, Vienna 1975, Photo credit: Austrian National Library (ÖNB), Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung (P.O.R.), Nr. 16075070, used with permission (accessed 19 October 2021).

Whereas the Austrians and the Bulgarians agreed that the exhibition flyer should be made similar to the Chinese one, the sides disagreed on the scale of the opening ceremony and the number of press conferences prior to the exhibition’s opening (MAK Archive 50–75/ 28 January 1975). The costs of the exhibition itself were shared between Austria and Bulgaria—Bulgaria paid for the transportation of the objects to Vienna as well as their insurance, Austria paid for the import duty and the transportation to the next destination of the exhibition, in addition to the catalogue, posters, the exhibition rooms, and the exhibition guards (MAK Archive 50–75/ Zl. 122–75). The Austrians expected to be repaid by 3000 to

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4000 visitors daily, a dramatic increase of their usual 4000 monthly. In the end, 94,563 visitors came to see the Thracian exhibition, which was a massive success for the MAK but also fell short of their expectations (MAK Archive 5–75 & 50–75/ Zl. 188–75). On the other hand, the Bulgarian wish for publicity was satisfied by the equal engagement of Austrian politicians in the opening of the exhibition: Rudolf Kirchschläger (1915–2000), President of the Republic of Austria, appeared alongside Todor Zhivkov, Bruno Kreisky, the Austrian Chancellor, was present alongside the Bulgarian Prime Minister Stanko Todorov (1920–1996), in addition to Hertha Firnberg and Lyudmila Zhivkova.4 The exhibition catalogue is an essential source for understanding the narrative and political purpose of the Thracian exhibition in Vienna. In the introduction of the catalogue, Hertha Firnberg expressed gratitude to Bulgaria for showing “their treasures” outside of their country (Venedikov & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975: 7). Ivan Venedikov, the author of the catalogue, described the presented objects from burial mounds or deposit findings as items from “everyday use”, which complement the picture about Thracian culture deriving from written Greek sources (Venedikov & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975: 29). The exhibition itself was divided in six separate chronological sections, each focusing on one group of finds from a site. “Thrace from the Neolithic to Late Bronze Age” opened the exhibition, beginning with the Chalcolithic (5th mill. BCE) to highlight the necropolis of Varna on the Black Sea, a site discovered in 1972 containing several burials with gold objects. The finds from Varna are still thought to be among the oldest—if not the oldest—gold artefacts presently known (Leusch et al. 2015). The Varna finds and the evidence of early gold metallurgy helped Communist Bulgaria underline the prehistoric presence of ‘high’ culture on Bulgarian lands, thereby ranking themselves among the oldest civilizations worldwide. Bulgaria would later utilize the Varna finds separately in travelling exhibitions to promote their claim as “the first civilization in Europe” and the owner of the “oldest gold”, for example in Tokyo (1982), Saarbrücken and Fribourg (1988/89), Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1989), on the EXPO in Sevilla (1992) and the EXPO in Lisbon (1996), Jerusalem (1994), and in Montreal (2002–2003) (Vladova 2014). To the designers of the Thracian exhibition, however, the gold objects from Varna were meant to prove that in addition to influences  We should note that Bulgaria was not the only country honoured with an exhibition in Vienna at this time, Egypt also showed items from the Amarna Period (2800–2300 BCE) in Vienna, featuring nearly the same people on the Austrian honorary committee for the Egyptian exhibition (Satzinger & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975).

Thracian Archaeology and National Identity in Communist Bulgaria

59

from Asia Minor, Bulgarian lands had already developed a highly advanced autochthonous culture in the Chalcolithic (Venedikov & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975: 33). The Late Bronze Age followed the Chalcolithic; while there were several Early Bronze Age Tell settlements (e.g. Karanovo, Ezero) with outstanding stratigraphy from Bulgaria, they lacked a similarly impressive material culture to display. The focus of “Thracian Art at the Time of Mythical Kings” was the treasure of Valchitran (near modern Pleven). The Valchitran hoard consists of thirteen gold receptacles (including platters, jugs, cups, and bowls) with a total weight of 12.4 kg and is dated to the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE (Dimitrova & Čukalev 2017: 140). The hoard was intended to demonstrate that Thracians were both on par with Mycenae and Troy and had interactions with the Bronze Age Aegean. In the exhibition’s narrative, the treasure demonstrates by its valuable material, high-quality level of production, and imagined function for feasting the growth of social distinction resulting in an aristocracy (Venedikov & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975: 37). “Thrace in the Early Iron Age” followed, although the few great finds from the Early Iron Age did not quite reach the quality of the objects from earlier periods; one exception was the small gold vessel from Kazichene (near modern Sofia). According to the narrative of the exhibition, there was a cultural revival of Thracian art from the sixth century BCE, resulting in artefacts like the Varna finds and the Valchitran treasure, which constituted the “Rise of Thracian Art in the Middle Iron Age”. According to the exhibition narrative, during the sixth century BCE, the Thracians were able to escape the hegemony of Greek colonies on the Black Sea, with the southern Thracian tribe of Odrysians forming a kingdom, increasing economic and political interactions between Greeks and Thracians. In the exhibition, weapons and jewellery found in the necropolis of Douvanli (near modern Plovdiv), were used to signify the intensified economic relations during the late sixth to the early fifth century BCE (Venedikov & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975: 51). In the fourth century, the exhibition describes a political crisis in the Odrysian kingdom caused by the Macedonian expansion, which followed the earlier rise of Thracian art; accordingly, the next section is merely called “Burial Mounds from the fifth to the third century BCE” (Venedikov & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975: 63). Besides the hypothesized crisis, several burial tombs and treasure hoards from this period were unearthed between 1851 (Rozevets) and 1969 (Vratsa). The designers of the exhibition displayed finds from the Thracian settlement of Brezovo and the tomb in Rozovets (both near modern Plovdiv), burial mounds in Vratsa, the hoard finds from Letnitsa and Lukovit (near modern Lovech), jewellery from the Thracian settlement of Seuthopolis (near modern Kazanlak), and

60

Florian-Jan Ostrowski

the spectacular Panagyurishte treasure (found near modern Pazardzhik). Photos of these treasures were used for the catalogues and posters for the Thracian exhibitions, of which many showed details and profile perspectives of a specific item, often with anthropomorphic or zoomorphic elements. On the one hand, these pictures associated Thracian culture with splendid wealth, on the other hand, they were meant to evoke fascination and respect for Bulgaria’s heritage. The final section of the exhibition suggested a cultural decline for the region of modern Bulgaria with “The Decline of the Thracian Culture” from the third to first century BCE. The exhibition explained that Celtic invasions damaged Bulgarian lands in the third century (the Celts even established their own state with the capital of Tylis within the southern borders of modern Bulgaria from 279–212 BCE), which were finally conquered by the Roman Empire between the first century BCE and first century CE. From the third century BCE onwards, fewer grave goods are present, and the metal objects that do survive are mainly in the form of Celtic coinage or hoards like those from Yakimovo (near modern Montana), Galiche (near Oryahovo), and Nikolayevo (in the Pleven region). The exhibition’s compelling narrative was that whereas the Thracian material culture significantly diminished, the Thracian culture survived in spirit, citing evidence such as the continued worship of the Thracian Horseman under Roman rule, which was represented by other metal artefacts from graves like face-mask helmets, decorative horse panels, parts of a chariot, and coins. They additionally claimed that the Thracian language survived through the Medieval Period until the present, and that Thracian attributed practices and rituals (e.g. horse breeding, music, and dances) are still practised in Bulgaria (Venedikov & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung 1975: 90). It is clear that neither the idea of the exhibition nor the narrative structure was an Austrian initiative. As this example from 1975 shows, archaeological objects were used intentionally to create a positive image of a culturally rich Bulgarian past, linking the ancient Thracians with modern Bulgaria. The exhibition designers tried to establish continuity between prehistoric, ancient, and contemporary peoples and objects on Bulgarian lands, making them representatives of modern Bulgarian culture. The exhibition supported this narrative firstly by its focus on splendid metal-based material culture, secondly, by the objects’ functional (prestige, art, rituals) and archaeological (mounds, graves, hoards) contexts, and thirdly, by their places of discovery (modern Bulgaria). There were only a few published critics of the Vienna exhibition. Leopold Netopil (1975: 54), writing in a MAK magazine review, asked where the Thracian uniqueness was and critiqued the presentation for not adopting the visitor’s perspective. He also acknowledged, however, that the visitors were interested in the material. The message behind the Thracian exhibitions—the equation of

Thracian Archaeology and National Identity in Communist Bulgaria

61

ancient Thrace with modern Bulgaria—was generally successfully received by the international audiences, as can be seen in contemporary newspaper articles about the exhibitions. Gerd Prause, writing about the Hildesheim exhibition for the German newspaper Die Zeit on 20 June 1980, said that the presented goldworks and Thracian culture, mainly on the territory of modern Bulgaria, existed for two millennia before the Greeks. Thracian treasures also appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine in July 1980, with Colin Renfrew (113–117, 119), fascinated by the Varna finds and the early metallurgy, writing the leading story about “ancient” and “prehistoric Bulgarians”, stating that, “In the centuries after 1000 B.C. Bulgaria was the home of the Thracians, great gold smiths”. The Thracian exhibition in Vienna was neither particularly adopted for an Austrian audience, nor did it invite a critical engagement with Bulgaria’s prehistoric and ancient past. The displayed objects and concept of the exhibition, as derived from the previous exhibitions in Paris and the Soviet Union, was sent directly to London and afterwards to many other places worldwide.

Travelling the World—The Thracians Abroad Archaeological travel exhibitions were not a new invention in the 1970s and 1980s, but within the context of the late Cold War and National Communism, culture gained a new political dimension in south-eastern Europe. During this period, the utilization of archaeological objects as art and their display in exhibitions were not limited to Bulgaria’s attempt with the Thracians, as shown by the Soviet Union’s display of Scythian art.5 Considering the early Romanian or Bulgarian strategy to display Dacian and Thracian art abroad, the Scythian art exhibitions of the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s might also be interpreted as a political endeavour—as a ‘response’ to fellow Socialist states—but also in support of National Communism worldwide. The Thracian exhibitions are nonetheless distinctive because of their high financial priority in Bulgaria’s foreign policy (Dragostinova 2018: 663), in addition to their frequency and length of display (Fig. 4). As shown below, the exhibition name varied slightly, and the objects themselves were adapted over time—mainly new finds were added like the Borovo hoard (discovered near Ruse, 1974), the Rogozen hoard (near Vratsa, 1985), and the grave finds from Sveshtari (near Razgrad, 1982), from Shushmanets (near Shipka, 1996), from Starosel

 The Soviet Union sent a similar travelling exhibition of Scythian art to a number of European and American cities between 1975 and 1989.

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(near Hisarya, 2000), from Aleksandrovo (near Haskovo, 2001), and the Golyama Kosmatka mound (near Kazanlak, 2004). Despite this, the concept and storytelling remain nearly unchanged, with the purpose of displaying impressive metal artefacts and to portray the Thracians as the ancestors of the Bulgarians (Marazov & Fol 1998). In addition to the promotion of national identity, it is also possible that the Thracian art exhibitions were prolonged because they were financially profitable. Almost 95,000 visitors saw the 1975 Vienna display (see MAK Archive 5–75); 424,465 visitors attended the first exhibition about the Thracians in London in 1976 and 99,668 visitors came to see the 1986 display of the Rogozen treasure (Bowring 2012: 41–65). More than 220,000 visitors saw the Thracian displays in Japan in 1979 (see Gadjeva 2019: 157). The number of visitors offers only one clue about the profitability of the exhibitions, and in addition for the Vienna exhibition, for example, Bulgaria was allowed to have a souvenir and book shop operating alongside the display (see MAK Archive 50–75/ Zl. 122–75). For the exhibition in Hildesheim in 1980, no descriptions in the showcase were prepared, which is why a German newspaper article recommended that the reasonably priced catalogue or an audiocassette should be purchased as a guide (Prause 1980). Looking at the figure below (Fig. 4), it is possible to distinguish several distinct phases of the Thracian archaeological exhibitions. A marginal focus on the Thracians characterizes the preliminary phase (late 1950s to the late 1960s) prior to the flourishing of National Communism in Bulgaria, where the Thracians are only a part of many other displayed periods and objects in the narrative spanning the Neolithic and the contemporary Communist Period. These exhibitions furthermore remained in Europe. The second phase, starting with the institutionalization of Thracology until the death of Lyudmila Zhivkova (early 1970s to 1981), is defined by the massive support of the Bulgarian state in showing and promoting Thracian culture and archaeological discoveries abroad. Objects attributed to the Thracians (mainly metal) are presented several times per year in individual displays worldwide, spending more time abroad than in Bulgarian museums. Whereas the original objects were travelling the world, some regional museums in Bulgaria received accurate replicas and castings of Thracian treasures found nearby (e.g. the Archaeological Museum in Plovdiv with the Panagyurishte treasure). The cultural policy of the Bulgarian government did not completely ignore their own population but was clearly more concerned with their international reputation and representation abroad. After the unexpected death of Lyudmila Zhivkova in 1981, Bulgaria began restricting funds for culture and travelling exhibitions (Dragostinova 2018: 663). The introduction of two new elements marks the third phase (from the mid-1980s

Thracian Archaeology and National Identity in Communist Bulgaria

63

No

Place

Title of the Exhibition

Period

–

Neuchâtel Paris

Bulgarie  ans d´Art [Bulgaria:  years of art]

..–.. .–..

–

Leningrad

Болгарское искусство с древнейших времен до наших дней



Warsaw

Sztuka Bułgarii od starożytności do współczesności [Bulgarian art from the ancient period to the present]

.–..



Essen

Kunstschätze in bulgarischen Museen und .–.. Klöstern [Art treasures in Bulgarian museums and monasteries]



Paris

Découverte de l’art thrace: Trésors des musées de Bulgarie [The discovery of Thracian art: Treasures of Bulgarian museums]

.–..

–

Moscow Leningrad Minsk

Фракийское искусство и культура Болгарских земель [Thracian art and culture on Bulgarian lands]

–



Vienna

Goldschätze der Thraker—thrakische Kultur .–.. und Kunst auf bulgarischem Boden [Golden Treasures of the Thracians: Thracian culture and art on Bulgarian land]



London

Thracian treasures from Bulgaria

.–..



Sofia

Тракийско изкуство [Thracian art]



Tesoros de Bulgaria. El arte Tracio [Bulgarian Treasures—Thracian Art]

early 

– Havana

March–April 

Mexico City – New York Boston

Thracian treasures from Bulgaria



Goldschätze der Thraker: thrakische Kultur March–April  und Kunst auf bulgarischem Boden [Golden Treasures of the Thracians: Thracian culture and art on Bulgarian land]

Berlin

.–.. 

Fig. 4: Overview of Thracian archaeological exhibitions, 1959–2020, based on Soubigou 2017. The figure gives an incomplete overview of the Thracian archaeological exhibitions based on the sources available.

64

Florian-Jan Ostrowski

No

Place

Title of the Exhibition

Period



Prague

Umení Thráku: Z pokladu bulharskych muzeí [Thracian art: Treasures from Bulgarian museums]

April–May 



Sofia

No known title.



– Tokyo Nagoya Okayama

Thracian treasures from Bulgaria

.–..

– Cologne Munich Hildesheim

Gold der Thraker: archäologische Schätze aus Bulgarien [Thracian Gold. Archaeological treasures from Bulgaria]

..–.. .–.. .–..



Stockholm

The golden paradise of the Thracians

.–..



Geneva

L'Or des Thraces: Trésors archéologiques de Bulgarie [Thracian Gold: archaeological treasures from Bulgaria]

..–..



New Delhi

Thracian treasures from Bulgaria

Feb.–March 

Troja und Thrakien

.–..

Троя и тракия

.–..

– Berlin Sofia

[Troy and Thrace] – Moscow

Троя и Фракия

.–..

Leningrad

[Troy and Thrace]

.–..



Rotterdam

Het Goud der Thraciërs: Archeologische schatten uit het bezit van  musea in Bulgarije [Thracian Gold: archaeological treasures from the holdings of  museums in Bulgaria]

.–..



London

The New Thracian treasure from Rogozen

..–..



Montreal

Gold of the Thracian horsemen: Treasures from Bulgaria

.–..



Madrid

Tesoros de la terras Búlgaras [Treasures from Bulgarian lands]

.–..

Fig. 4 (continued)

Thracian Archaeology and National Identity in Communist Bulgaria

No

Place

65

Title of the Exhibition

Period

– Bonn Mainz Fribourg Munich Hamburg

Der thrakische Silberschatz aus Rogosen [The Thracian silver treasure from Rogozen]

.–.. .–.. ..–.. .–.. .–..



Venice

Traci: Arte e cultura nelle terre di Bulgaria dalle origini alla tarda romanità [The Thracians: art and culture on Bulgarian lands from the ancient period until the Late Roman period]

.–..



Amsterdam

De Thracische koningsschat: De Nov. –.. zilverschat van Rogozen [The royal Thracian treasure: the silver treasure from Rogozen]



Sofia

Богатствата на тракийските владетели [Treasures of the Thracian kings]

–



Tour in Japan

The riches of the Thracian rulers

–



Vicenza

Oribulgari: Sette millenni di arte orafa [Gold from Bulgaria: seven millennia of gold-work art]

.–..



Florence

Glorie di Tracia: L’oro più antico, i tesori, i ..–.. miti [The glories of Thrace: The most ancient gold, the treasures, the myth]

– St. Louis Fort Worth San Francisco

Ancient Gold: The wealth of the Thracians treasures from the Republic of Bulgaria

.–.. .–.. .–.. ..–.. .–.. .–.. .–.. .–..

Muinainen Traakia: Kulta-ja Hopeaaarteita Bulgariasta  ekr.- jkr. [Ancient Thrace: gold and silver treasures from Bulgaria  B.C.—A.D. ]

.–..

New Orleans Memphis Boston Detroit Washington DC 

Helsinki

Fig. 4 (continued)

66

Florian-Jan Ostrowski

No

Place

Title of the Exhibition



Hochdorf/Enz

Thraker und Kelten beidseits der Karpaten ..–.. [Thracians and Celts on both sides of the  Carpathians]



Brussels

L'or des Thraces: Trésors de Bulgarie [Thracian Gold: Treasures from Bulgaria]

..–..



Bonn

Die Thraker. Das goldene Reich des Orpheus [The Thracians: the Golden Empire of Orpheus]

.–..

– Barcelona Madrid

Los tracios: Tesoros enigmáticos de Bulgaria [The Thracians: Bulgaria’s mysterious treasures]

.–.. ..–..



Varna

Тракийски богатства [Thracian treasures] .–..



Paris

“L’or des Thraces, trésors de Bulgarie” [Thracian Gold: Treasures from Bulgaria]

..–..



Basel

Die alten Zivilisationen Bulgariens: Das Gold der Thraker [Ancient civilisations of Bulgaria: Thracian Gold]

.–..



Tokyo

Golden Civilization of the Ancient Thracians Thracian treasures from Bulgaria

 .–..



Moscow

The saved treasures of ancient Thrace from Vassil Bojkov Collection

.–..



Sofia

The Other Museum

..–



Sofia

Thrace and the ancient World—Vassil Bojkov Collection

..–



Bourgas

The treasures of ancient Thrace

Summer 



Brussels (EU Parliament)

Treasures from Bulgaria. The Gold of the Thracian Warriors

.–..



Varna

The treasures of ancient Thrace

May–Summer 



Moscow

Фракийское золото из болгарии. ожившие легенды [Thracian gold from Bulgaria: The legends become alive]

.–..

Fig. 4 (continued)

Period

Thracian Archaeology and National Identity in Communist Bulgaria

67

No

Place

Title of the Exhibition

Period



Paris

L' épopée des rois thraces: des guerres médiques aux invasions celtes, – av. J.-C.; découvertes archéologiques en Bulgarie [The Saga of the Thracian kings: From Persian wars to Celtic invasions, - B.C.—Archaeological discoveries from Bulgaria]

.–..

– Tokyo Sendai Nagoya

The Golden Legend

..–.. .–.. .–..



Vienna

Das erste Gold. Ada Tepe: Das älteste .–.. Goldbergwerk Europas [The first gold. Ada Tepe: The oldest gold mine in Europe]



Bergen

Legends in Gold. Thracian Treasures from Bulgaria

.–..



Sofia

Gold & Bronze: Metals, technologies and networks in the eastern Balkans during the Bronze Age

..–..



Warsaw

Insygnia władzy–trackie złoto ze zbiorów Narodowego Muzeum Historycznego w Sofii [Insignia of power. Thracian gold from the collections of the National Historical Museum in Sofia]

.–..



Ruse

Тракийско въоръжение [Thracian Armaments from the st Millennium BC]

.–..



Plovdiv

 years of a Thracian exhibition around the world

.–..

Fig. 4 (continued)

to the early 1990s)—the display of singular treasures as representative of the excellence of Thracian culture (e.g. the newly discovered Rogozen treasure from 1985 to 1986) and collaborative presentations (e.g. the Troy and Thrace exhibition from 1982 to 1984). It is apparent, especially with the newly discovered artefacts, that Bulgaria gave priority to the display rather than the intensive study and conservation of the objects. The second part of the Rogozen treasure, for example, was discovered in January 1986 and by December of the same year it was already on display in London.

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The fourth phase, from the fall of Communism until the death of Alexander Fol (early 1990s to 2006) is characterized by a mythologization and mystification of Thracian exhibitions, focusing more on spiritual beliefs, the figure of Orpheus, and the glory of the Thracian kings. The fifth phase, from the mid-2000s until the present, is determined by the involvement of private collectors in Thracian exhibitions (e.g. Vassil Bojkov and the Thrace Foundation), topical exhibitions such as techniques of metallurgy or armaments, and international collaboration, based on equal partnership with institutions and collections from other countries (e.g. the Ada Tepe project and the resulting exhibitions in Vienna in 2017 and Sofia in 2018). There is also a geographical reorientation in this latest phase—Thracian exhibitions are still travelling the world, but the objects now spend more time within Bulgaria, especially in the tourist destinations of Varna or Bourgas on the Black Sea. Finally, since Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007, Thracian culture and Thracian attributed objects are now used to represent Bulgaria on an EU level, with exhibitions in Brussels or on EU-funded websites (Stoyanov 2011; Strahilov 2019).

Thracian Heritage and National Identity in post-1989 Bulgaria Archaeological research in post-1989 Bulgaria is no longer driven by state interests but by economic principles. Although a socio-economic crisis followed the political changes from 1989 to 1991, the practice of promoting Thracian (and simultaneously Bulgarian) culture through exhibitions did not disappear. The promotion of Thracian culture and heritage for identity purposes has even expanded in some circumstances; since the mid-1990s the Thracians have played an essential role in growing populistic, nationalistic, and anti-minority discourse within Bulgaria (Ostrowski 2020: 116). This can be observed in the erection of monuments for Orpheus in Sofia and the Rhodope Mountains, or on a drinking fountain in the form of a Panagyurishte treasure cup in Plovdiv, as well as in comments on the internet regarding Bulgarian history and diverse (political) re-enactment movements. Whereas the utilization of Thracian culture for national identity began in Communist Bulgaria, it seems to flourish today as shown by the number of popular books written about the Thracians, in a process which Ivan Marinov and Nicolas Zorzin (2017: 96) termed “Bulgarization” and “Thracianization”. Although, after 1989, Bulgarian historiography reviewed other periods and aspects of the past, prehistory (the seventh to fifth centuries BCE) and

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Antiquity (the seventh to fifth centuries BCE until the fifth to seventh centuries CE) have not received this same critical attention (Kaneff 1998: 33). The institutionalization of Thracology is still firmly established, and the research of Alexander Fol on the Thracian legacy is, generally speaking, unquestioned (see Kitov & Agre 2002; Berberov 2009; Gergova 2013). Many publications about the Thracians continue to focus on their spiritual beliefs and support the myth of Thracian continuity (e.g. Popov & Fol 2010; Mishev 2012), focusing on the master narrative of the glorious Bulgarian prehistory and ancient past (Marinov & Zorzin 2017: 86). Additionally, some archaeological interpretations draw media attention in their support for the utilization of the Thracians for politics or tourism. The historian and archaeologist Nikolay Ovcharov, for example, claimed that the grave found in Tatul was the tomb of Orpheus itself, and the archaeologist Georgi Kitov promoted the idea to rename the Valley of the Roses near Kazanlak as the ‘Valley of the Thracian Kings’ (Marinov 2015: 110–11). Outside of academia, Thracian heritage is also promoted by historical reenactment, in ‘Thracian’ festivals (Strahilov 2018), through popular culture (e.g. the Golden Rhyton Documentary and Animation Film Festival in Plovdiv), and commercial media. The rise of the open and free book market and the internet have helped spread the creative reimagining of the Thracian past and culture in Bulgaria (Tolia 2013). Additionally, there are privately funded plans for the re-emergence of the Thracian city of Seuthopolis, which was flooded in the 1950s under the Communist regime (Seuthopolis National Initiative 2007). Even the Bulgarian state welcomes those plans, and the potential for tourism is increasingly recognized, although the realization is still far away over a decade after the presentation of plans to reuse Seuthopolis as a tourist destination. In addition to private initiatives, the state itself has an ongoing interest in Thracian heritage. During the Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2018, the promotional website presented the Thracians as part of Bulgarian folklore (Ministry of Culture 2018), similar to how Romania highlighted the Dacians during their presidency in 2019 (see Rubel this volume). Very recently, the Bulgarian state confiscated the private collection of Thracian artefacts owned by the gambling tycoon Vassil Bojkov, in lieu of unpaid taxes and to save illegally gained ‘national heritage’ from removal outside Bulgaria (Albertson 2020). Thracians continue to feature in educational materials either as Bulgarian ancestors or as examples of ancient world civilizations (Spasov et al. 2019). The economic potential of Thracian tombs and archaeological sites for tourism is increasingly acknowledged; many sites are already open for visitors and offer an on-site information centre or museum (Ministry of Tourism 2020). In this way, Bulgaria continues to promote the relationship between ancient

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Thracians and modern Bulgarians. Instead of searching for a European perspective through archaeology, one that, for example, could use objects and stories to illustrate people coming together across nationally and historically constructed borders, the Thracians are presented as an inherent part of Bulgaria’s identity on a European level. Therefore, changes in the usage of Thracians in post-1989 Bulgaria are more structural, rather than functional. The most significant development since the fall of the Communist regime is that the state and specialized scholars are no longer alone in promoting Thracian heritage and culture in Bulgaria—the public have also begun to do so.

Conclusion In this chapter, I examined the political role of the Thracians in Bulgaria, from the institutionalization of Thracology in the 1970s, to the display of archaeological exhibitions abroad, through to the situation in Bulgaria today. I began by looking at the historical and geographical understanding of Thrace and Thracians, giving a brief research history until the 1970s. I showed that the Thracians are a social construct with their definition depending on the social and political context. Thracian research was first institutionalized in Communist Bulgaria during the 1960s and 1970s, soon becoming a national agenda. Under these circumstances, the institutionalization of Thracology can be seen as an expression of National Communism in Bulgaria, contributing to social unification and autonomy against Moscow, and part of the competitive reading of the ancient past with the neighbouring countries of Romania, Greece, and Yugoslavia. I then analysed the changes in Bulgarian cultural policy from the 1970s until the 1990s. I described how the Thracian past was used for identity formation, achieved, firstly, through the discourse between the new cultural policy of the Communist Party, history, and archaeology; and secondly, by linguistic, visual, and media representations of objects and legends ascribed to the Thracians. The state promoted its new identity within the country by renaming infrastructure, organizing festivals, and the use of images (e.g. on stamps), while deploying archaeological exhibitions for international audiences. I investigated the role of archaeological objects within these national identity formation processes, focusing on the 1975 Vienna exhibition of the Thracians. Archaeological exhibitions of Thracian artefacts were crucial diplomatic and strategic tools for the Bulgarian government. The display of valuable metal objects evoked a positive image of a culturally rich Bulgaria, ranking the country among the most advanced ancient world civilizations. The main political message of

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these archaeological exhibitions was, therefore, the continuity between ancient Thrace and modern Bulgaria. Finally, I analysed some of the similarities and differences in the political role of Thracian archaeology and the use of Thracian heritage in present-day Bulgaria. I demonstrated that changes in post-1989 Bulgaria regarding the Thracians are more structural rather than functional. More diversified interest groups like museums, organizations, amateur societies, and companies currently recognize the economic potential of Thracian heritage for tourism. As shown by this work on the ongoing role of the Thracian past in Bulgaria, it is vital that we study the political and social role of archaeology. To further our current understanding of national tendencies and the exploitation of the ancient past in south-eastern Europe, it is essential to look beyond the fall of Communism, bringing together a mediating archaeological practice, an interested public, and the political ideologies of the previous century well into the twenty-first century.

Archives Museum für Angewandte Kunst (MAK) Archive 5–75; 50–75.

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Strahilov, I. 2019. Beyond the treasures? Beyond the nation? Museum representations of Thracian heritage from Bulgaria. Available at: https://www.sylff.org/news_voices/ 26304/ (accessed 19 October 2021). The Gold of the Thracians (1969), Konstantin Kostov, dir. 35 mm, Vreme Film Studios. [Тракийски злато (1969), Константин Костов, dir. 35 mm, Филмова студия “Време”]. Theodossiev, N. 2014. Ancient Thrace between the east and the west, in C.N. Popa & S. Stoddart (ed.) Fingerprinting the Iron Age: Approaches to identity in the European Iron Age. Integrating south-eastern Europe into the debate: 157–60. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Todorova, M. 1995. The course and discourse of Bulgarian nationalism, in P.F. Sugar (ed.) Eastern European nationalism in the twentieth century: 55–102. Washington DC: American University Press. Tolia, A. Holy eyes, Vol. 2. Fire Rhyton. Sofia: Todor-Belev. [Tolia, A. 2013. Очите на светицата Кн.2: Огненият ритон. София: Тодор-Белев]. Tomaschek, W. 1893. Die alten Thraker: Eine ethnologische Untersuchung, Vol. 1: Übersicht der Stämme. Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften 128(4): 1–130. Troeva, E. 2015. The Thracians: Contemporary identifications and uses. Études Balkaniques 1: 217–28. Trustees of the British Museum (ed.). 1971. Treasures from Romania. A special exhibition held at the British Museum, January–March 1971. London: The Trustees of the British Museum. Tzenoff, G. 1930. Die Abstammung der Bulgaren und die Urheimat der Slaven. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Valtchinova, G. 2005. Le passé, la nation, la religion: la politique du patrimoine en Bulgarie socialiste. Études Balkaniques 12: 194–209. Available at: http://journals.openedition. org/etudesbalkaniques/118 (accessed 23 December 2020). Veneto (Regione), Comitato per la cultura della Repubblica Popolare di Bulgaria & Venezia, Assessorato alla cultura e belle arti (ed.). 1989. Traci: arte e cultura nelle terre di Bulgaria dalle origini alla tarda romanità, catalogo della Mostra allestita a Venezia dal 13 maggio al 30 novembre 1989. Milano: Art World Media. Venedikov, I. & Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung (ed.). 1975. Goldschätze der Thraker: Thrakische Kultur und Kunst auf bulgarischem Boden, Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst, 4. März–31. Mai 1975, Ausstellungskatalog. Wien: Österreichisches Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur. Villa Hügel, e.V. 1964. Kunstschätze in Bulgarischen Museen und Klöstern, 24. April–31. Juli 1964 in Villa Hügel, Essen, Ausstellungskatalog. Essen: Fried Krupp. Vladova, E. 2014. Le Musée archéologique de Varna. Available at: http://urban-route.com/ musee-archeologique/ (accessed 23 December 2020). Weiser, M.E. 1872. Thracien und seine Tumuli. Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien 2(5): 137–53. Xenophanes of Colophon, J.H. Lesher. 1992. Fragments Phoenix (Supplementary Vol. 30). Toronto: Toronto University Press. Zhuravlev, D.V., Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria & State Historical Museum in Moscow (ed.). 2013. Thracian gold from Bulgaria: The legends become alive. Moscow: Kuchkovo pole. [Журавлев, Д. В., Министерство культуры Российской Федерации, Министерство культуры Болгарии & Государственный исторический музей (ред.). 2013. Фракийское золото из Болгарии: ожившие легенды. Москва: Кучково поле.]

Christoph Doppelhofer

Imagining King’s Landing: Dubrovnik, the Diegetic Heritage of Game of Thrones, and the Imperialism of Popular Culture Abstract: Dubrovnik, Croatia, recently re-entered the global consciousness due to its role as King’s Landing in the successful fantasy series Game of Thrones. Within this series, numerous heritage sites across several countries were used as filming locations, with Dubrovnik and its monuments being among those most prominently featured. Dubrovnik, now King’s Landing, has become a popular destination for Game of Thrones fans; multiple locations in the city have been overcoded with their on-screen identity by fusing real places with special effects, narratives, and new spatial relations. This has led to the creation of an imaginary, transnational heritage space with its own signifiers and imagined deep past, a space sustained through newly invented traditions and banal performances. The re-enacting of scenes and use of different toponyms, mapping them onto the landscape through digital activities, thereby enables fans to take interpretative ownership and create a ‘coming home’ space. While this is profitable for the local tourism industry, which has adapted to meet demand, the reimagining of the complex memory space of Dubrovnik invokes dissonance among locals who feel that their heritage could be overtaken by this “imperialism of imagination” (Goldsworthy 2013). Using data obtained through ethnographic research, this chapter concludes that the creation of the transnational heritage space of Game of Thrones is, albeit unintentionally, emulating processes of heritage- and nation-building and their contestation. By imposing the ‘deep past’ of King’s Landing onto Dubrovnik almost instantaneously, this case study exemplifies the fluid, imaginary, and contested nature of heritage and identity. Keywords: Dubrovnik; Game of Thrones; Imaginary Geography; Diegetic Heritage; Transnational Communities; Popular Culture; Hyper-Tradition

Acknowledgements: This research was generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust through the Durham Leverhulme Doctoral Studentship in Visual Culture. I want to specially thank my supervisors and the editors who proofread the manuscript and provided insightful feedback, for my drafts were dark and full of errors. Christoph Doppelhofer, Durham University, UK https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-004

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A Day in King’s Landing When I caught my first glimpse of the magnificent walls in the distance, I could not help but quite audibly announce my arrival:1 “King’s Landing!”, I said almost too loudly. To finally arrive in the city felt like a dream come true. Fully prepared with screenshots and a list of must-see locations I found online, I had donned the yellow shirt bearing the Crowned Stag of House Baratheon, so everyone could see why I was here! For so long I had been envious, seeing countless people posting online about exploring these places. Now it was finally my turn! It was still early in the morning, but the little harbour outside the walls was already packed with people (Fig. 1). Flanked by the imposing Red Keep on the right and the monumental city walls on the left, I immediately recognized the waters of Blackwater Bay. Short of some digitally inserted towers, it looked exactly as I remembered it! Several tour guides, each surrounded by a group of tourists, were holding up screenshots from iconic scenes while retelling what happened here. Pair after pair of tourists walked down the pier to have their photo taken while staring toward the horizon, posing as Sansa Stark and Petyr Baelish. In hindsight I was lucky that I didn’t book a tour after all and chose to explore on my own—in the short time I spent taking photos, at least four more tour groups walked past, so I could overhear everything the guides had to say about this place and what happened here in Game of Thrones. When I finally entered the city, I felt like I was transported right into the series; I am almost embarrassed to say so, but it felt magical! Every nook and cranny felt familiar, as if I had already been here before. Turning around each corner, I was almost half expecting to run into Tyrion Lannister and Bronn strolling down the street. Discovering mannequins of show characters in front of several stores, it turns out that I was half-right. Almost every few meters there was a small shop or business offering some sort of Game of Thrones related items or experiences: Game of Thrones ‘Officially Licensed’ merchandise (everything conceivable from shirts to Monopoly), Game of Thrones tours, Game of Thrones inspired crafts, arts, and drinks, a ‘Game of Cones’ ice cream shop. There was even a place where I could have my photo taken on the Iron Throne! Which I did, happily, even though I had to buy a souvenir to do so.

 This semi-autoethnographic vignette is based on on-site observations, interviews, and the author’s own experiences as a fan visiting the sites. It aims to illustrate how Dubrovnik can be entirely experienced through a Game of Thrones lens. Thereby, all places are referred to by their fictional counterpart. The italicized sections indicate direct and paraphrased quotes taken from interview participants and overheard conversations which have been woven into the narrative of the vignette.

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Fig. 1: My Instagram snapshots from King’s Landing. Photos by author.

While strolling through a quieter back alley, I could suddenly hear someone shout “Shame! Shame! Shame!”, followed by the sound of a bell and laughter. I had to be close! Turning around the corner, I beheld the stairs and knew I arrived at the most infamous site of King’s Landing. I stood on the steps from which the Queen Mother Cersei Lannister undertook her Walk of Shame, a naked parade through the filthy streets undertaken to atone for her ‘acts of falsehood and fornication’ while a bell-wielding Septa (a female clergy member) repeatedly shouted the word “Shame!”. From the top of the stairs, I saw the source of the commotion. A group of tourists was taking turns playing Cersei and the Septa, while a third filmed their re-enactment. Some bystanders started to shout “Shame!” as well; I joined in, unable to resist. Moments after one group had finished recording their video, the next group in line took their place. I needed to

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have the same photo, so I approached someone, sheepishly asking: “I know it sounds weird, but would you be able to take a photo of the back of my head on the top of the stairs?”. To my relief, they knew exactly what I wanted. They had taken the same photo just a minute ago. This experience became the norm: everywhere I went, I saw like-minded travellers. There were those who were easily recognizable, re-enacting the same scenes or wearing clothing that showcased their allegiance to some of the Great Houses of Westeros, like my own House Baratheon. Often, I would hear someone humming music from the show, or I would overhear them make comments or remarks, naming familiar places and characters, when I passed them in the streets. And some, I cannot explain how, but you just could feel that they are here for the same purpose as you are. I end the day by climbing the walls to enjoy the marvellous panorama over King’s Landing. While not physically present, I could imagine the missing monumental buildings such as the Sept of Baelor as if they were right in front of me (Fig. 2). As the sun disappears behind the red roofs of the city, I swipe through the countless photos I took during the day. I select the best ones, adding hashtags like #WalkofShame, #IronThrone, set the location as “King’s Landing” and upload them to my Instagram. It takes only a few seconds until the first ‘likes’ start pouring in from people all over the world.

Fig. 2: Blending reality with fantasy: Dubrovnik in the foreground, King’s Landing in the background (photograph of Dubrovnik and editing by author; screenshot of King’s Landing from Game of Thrones S04E02, © HBO (fair use).

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Becoming King’s Landing While Dubrovnik can look back on a long and eventful past as well as holding the prestigious status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, this historic harbour town only recently re-entered global consciousness. This is not necessarily due to a growing interest in the history of the Merchant Republic of Ragusa or the turmoil of its siege during the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s, but because of its role as King’s Landing, capital of the Seven Kingdoms, in the fantasy world of the highly successful television series Game of Thrones (GoT, 2011–2019). Based on the books by George R.R. Martin, GoT has become far more than just a television programme; the show is a pop-cultural phenomenon with an impact reaching far beyond the screen. From colloquial expressions such as ‘Winter is coming’, citations in countless other pieces of media and popculture, to referencing its themes and imagery in social and political debates, the series has become a mass global phenomenon. A large part of GoT ’s success is attributed to its elaborate worldbuilding, the process of creating “imaginary worlds with coherent geographic, social, cultural, and other features” (von Stackelberg & McDowell 2015: 25). The highly detailed pseudo-medieval fantasy world of Westeros and Essos was crafted not only through extensive on-location filming across Croatia, Northern Ireland, Spain, Malta, Iceland, and Morocco, but through the creation of easily recognizable visual signifiers. Numerous heritage sites were used to portray this fantasy world; the sites were given new on-screen identities by adding narratives and place names and were visually enhanced with practical and digital effects. By utilizing the opening credit sequence to showcase a map of this invented world, highlighting the main locations and how they related to each other spatially, a sense of scale and geography is established and reiterated at the beginning of each episode. Imaginary peoples inhabit the imaginary realm of GoT, each with their own distinct cultural identity expressed through architecture, costumes, iconography, customs, and myths. Through these visual and narrative signifiers, the series emulates a deep past, expressed through heritage, traditions, and territory, resulting in an immersive and believable world. Within this world, Dubrovnik, a small Adriatic harbour town, has been turned into King’s Landing, the centre of political power of the continent of Westeros (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3: GoT filming locations and attractions around Dubrovnik Old Town. (1) Gradac Park— Garden of the Red Keep; (2) Fort Lovrijenac—Red Keep; (3) Kolorina Bay—Blackwater Bay; (4) Pile Gate—Gates of King’s Landing; (5) Rupe Ethnographic Museum—Littlefinger’s Brothel; (6) Jesuit Stairs—Walk of Shame/Sept of Baelor; (7) Rector’s Palace—Palace of the Spice King; (8) Dominican Monastery—Streets of King’s Landing; (9) Ploče Gate—Gate of the Red Keep; (10) Minčeta Tower—House of the Undying; (11) Iron Throne Shop Dubrovnik. Map data © Google (fair use), overlay created with Snazzy Maps CC0 1.0.

The following chapter will illustrate how the creation of this new imaginary realm greatly impacts how people see and experience these filming locations in real life, even mirroring processes usually attributed to nation- and heritagebuilding. The imagined community of GoT fans started to flock to the lands and monuments they had seen on screen (cf. Anderson 2006), reinforcing the newly assigned spatial and heritage identities by inventing traditions (cf. Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983) and banal on- and offline performances (cf. Billig 1995). These include identifying places of significance, using them for staging and re-enacting scenes from the series, and then sharing these experiences through social media photography, as well as (re)naming and mapping the fantasy realm onto digital maps. These performances are enhanced by the wearing of clothing bearing the iconography of GoT and through the repeating of catchphrases associated with the show. Many places have thus become synonymous with their fictional counterparts, comprising a new transnational territorial entity built using heritage sites across several countries, disregarding the national borders and cultural identities attached to them.

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By looking at the impact of the diegetic heritage of GoT on Dubrovnik within only a few years, this chapter shows how deep pasts can be (re)invented and attached to heritage landscapes almost instantaneously, thus illustrating the dissolution of national identities in the new digital age. The chosen case study will demonstrate that through global mass media and repeated on-site performance, heritage identities can be applied transnationally, disregarding previously assumed naturalized borders. This not only challenges established national discourses on the immutable, culturally exclusive heritage, but highlights how ideas of the creation of heritage as a top-down process are too simplistic as heritage can be (re)invented in multiple ways. Furthermore, this chapter will showcase how this process is a continuation and reiteration of asserting imaginary narratives onto East-Central Europe and the Balkans in particular, described by Goldsworthy (2013) as the “imperialism of imagination”, resulting in new hegemonial readings and conflicting memories, particularly in the context of post-war Croatia. This chapter showcases results of a visual ethnography that was conducted for six weeks between September and October 2018 at and around GoT filming locations in Dubrovnik, combining data from forty semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The interviews were carried out, either singularly or in pairs, with forty international site visitors and fifteen local stakeholders, such as tour guides, shop clerks, and heritage authorities. Local informants were mostly recruited in advance via email and social media, or through personal introduction and referral once in Dubrovnik, while participant recruitment of tourists was carried out on an ad hoc basis around filming locations and after guided tours (Doppelhofer & Todd 2021). The tourist interviews adopted aspects of photo-elicitation methodology (Harper 2002); at the beginning of each interview, participants would be presented with several images of filming locations across Dubrovnik, which they were then asked to identify and name. Using a visual stimulus at the initial stages of the interview acted as a gateway to ease participants into the topic and was aimed to elucidate a more in-depth conversation (Tinkler 2013). To fully understand how the diegetic heritage of GoT is deeply embedded in signifiers, iconography, and performance, participant observation was essential across filming locations in Dubrovnik. This includes re-enactments of scenes, GoT-themed tours, wearing merchandise that illustrates the individuals’ fandom to the public as well as repetition of comments, names, and catchphrases linked to the series and to particular places across Dubrovnik. These observations have been captured on film, both still and moving, and described in fieldnotes to identify patterns of behaviour (cf. Crang & Cook 2007; Rose 2016). All observations described and points of views expressed stem from 2018 at the height of the GoT

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craze. Any subsequent developments, such as pandemic-induced disruptions and ensuing destruction of these practices, as well as loss of interest in a fast-paced landscape of pop culture cannot be considered at this time.

Locating King’s Landing in the Balkans: The Many Imaginaries of Dubrovnik Dubrovnik has always been a place defined by its in-betweenness. Located on the southernmost part of modern-day Croatia, Dubrovnik, the former mercantile Republic of Ragusa, has been wedged between large empires for centuries in a constant state of territorial, political, and ideological negotiation (Harris 2006: 424). The most tangible relic of its past geopolitical position is the Neum Corridor, a narrow stretch of land given to the Ottomans in 1699 to create a buffer between Ragusa and their enemy Venice, to this day physically separating the DubrovnikNeretva province from the rest of Croatia (Pešalj 2010). Owing to its peripheral and liminal place, Dubrovnik provides a perfect canvas onto which various imaginaries can be projected. Even though the Republic of Ragusa ended over two centuries ago, ideas of freedom, identity, and nation are still strongly tied to this harbour town, both locally and nationally. The role of Dubrovnik within the Croatian national movement has always been a “baffling paradox”, as Robin Harris put it (2006: 416–19; cf. Kirchner Reill 2012). On the one hand, there has been a distinctive, recurring ambiguity about the national character of Dubrovnik since the early days of Croatian nationalism. Its existence as an “island on land”, as described by Ivica Grilec (pers. comm.), Director of Lokrum Island Natural Reserve until 2020, created a distinct local identity and a frequently observed “Ragusan exceptionalism” which has been described by outside observers and fellow countrymen both past and present (Harris 2006: 414). On the other hand, among Croatians Dubrovnik is often considered the cradle and safe haven of Croatian culture, language, and identity, thus acting as the embodiment of the shared “centuries-old dream of the Croatian people” of independent statehood (First Croatian President Franjo Tuđman, cited in Bellamy 2003: 32; Harris 2006: 416–19). Some interview respondents, such as tour guide Davor Majić, echoed this sentiment by referring to Dubrovnik as “the soul of Croatia”. This perception was particularly reinforced in 1991–1992, when the Serbian army laid siege to the old town. “When I saw the news of Dubrovnik being attacked, I couldn’t believe it, I was in shock. […] I felt a little bit worse about the news of Dubrovnik being attacked than my own

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hometown”, Davor sighed. Not rock and mortar were under attack, but Croatian identity itself. For years after the Yugoslav Wars, Croatia’s reputation as a beautiful tourist destination was tarnished by the image of the “war-torn” Balkans (Bellamy 2003: 126). Even now, interview respondents confessed their ‘Balkan bias’. One American visitor admitted that before seeing GoT they thought that Croatia “was just like an Eastern European country” only to realize how unexpectedly “pretty” it looked. The location of Dubrovnik within the Balkans, thereby removed from the global tourist gaze, was in fact a major contributing factor in its selection as the fantasy city of King’s Landing. The showrunners emphasized that some locations, such as Doune Castle in Scotland and the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, were abandoned in early stages or never even considered in the first place, as their familiarity to (American) audiences would prevent a suspension of disbelief (Cogman 2014). The unknown and thereby exotic perception of the Balkans and other filming locations thus could be used to convincingly facilitate their transformation into the imaginary landscapes of Westeros and Essos. This follows a long tradition of asserting Western-created fictional narratives and territories onto East-Central Europe and the Balkans as the perceived “Other within Europe” (cf. Todorova 2009). Anthony Hope’s Ruritania, Bram Stoker’s Transylvania, Marvel’s Sovokia, and many others are all figments of Western literary and cinematic imagination which “represent pastiches with varying degrees of Balkan plausibility” (Goldsworthy 2013: xiv). Even though they are based on works of fiction, many of these imaginations of real spaces and the fabrication of entirely fictional ones have had, and indeed continue to have, a significant impact on how heritage landscapes of the Balkans and beyond are perceived. One could argue that this region has been under so much reimagining for so long that it is impossible to see anything but a fantasy landscape shaped through depictions in literature and on screen. The real has long been replaced by the reel. And as Goldsworthy (2013: xiv) pointed out, “does it really matter which ones are real and which not?”. Vesna Goldsworthy (2013) described this phenomenon as the “imperialism of imagination”, a process in which culturally and economically dominant, outside groups ‘conquer’ the perception of foreign cultures, peoples, and countries by asserting their own visual and narrative fictions onto them. Thereby, fictional creations can become substitutes for real territories, influencing how consumers and producers of media view and represent places, countries, and societies in real life. Rather than colonizing physically, meaning and identities of heritage landscapes, peoples, and cultures are invented, imposed, and disseminated

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globally through media, often regardless of or even diametrically opposing the actual realities of the portrayed and invented landscapes. Goldsworthy (2013: 220) concludes that there is an “insidious strength born out of the western entertainment industry which dominates the market of imagination”. While Goldsworthy is primarily focussing on pre-twentieth century British literary representations of the Balkans and East-Central Europe, their (re)imagining has become even more pronounced with the increasing dominance of the American film and media industries from the second half of the twentieth century, as these regions remain important and popular spaces to be imagined.

Enter the Dragon: Dubrovnik, Tourism, and Game of Thrones After the Yugoslav Wars during the 1990s and early 2000s, Croatia tried to revitalize its image as a tourist destination by culturally reframing and repositioning itself “as being identical to its Western European neighbours” in contrast to “Balkan” or “Eastern Europe” (Rivera 2008: 614; cf. Hall 2002). As one of the world’s leading industries, and often the first and only point of contact between foreign peoples and heritage, “tourism exerts a powerful force on how countries are imagined globally” (Rivera 2008: 614). Tourism is not only deployed by the nation-state to promote itself globally and to gain social and diplomatic prestige, but it can also be used to craft, reiterate, and perform certain identities for its citizens (Pritchard & Morgan 2001; Edensor 2002). On a national level, the authorities often aim at shaping particular ideas, which are then staged and sold as a national narrative and identity. These include promoting particular readings of national monuments, history, traditions, and the selling of “authentic” souvenirs and experiences (cf. MacCannell 1973). The images and identities are highly curated and do not necessarily represent “what can be seen” but rather “what ought to be seen” (Koshar 1998), showcasing supposedly essential identity features, while underplaying or outright omitting certain parts that do not fit into the national narrative. As we will see, the nation-state does not always remain in control over the image and thus reputation of itself, especially when a different narrative and identity is more persuasive and profitable. Since 2012, a deliberately fostered and promoted national imaginary of Ragusan and Croatian identity has been increasingly over-shadowed, especially from outside Croatia, by a new, more profitable global imaginary—that of GoT and the city’s role as King’s Landing.

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Tourism growth pre- and post-Game of Thrones (in %) 120%

114% 100%

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40%

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0% Dubrovnik-Neretva

Croatia (total) 2003–2011

2011–2019

Fig. 4: Tourism growth in Dubrovnik-Neretva and Croatia (in percent) in the eight-year period before and after Game of Thrones. Source: Croatian Bureau of Statistics.

Since the early 2010s, Croatia and Dubrovnik in particular have seen a remarkable increase in tourism. This growth is largely attributed to the city’s role as a filming location for GoT (Tkalec et al. 2017). In the eight years after Dubrovnik appeared on-screen as King’s Landing (2012–2019), the Dubrovnik-Neretva district saw an increase in visitor arrivals of 113.66%, compared to the 50.24% in the previous timeframe (Figs. 4 and 5). Recent studies claim that between 2012 and 2015 at least 60,000 arrivals in Dubrovnik per year could be directly linked to GoT (Tkalec et al. 2017: 711–12). This number is officially endorsed by the Dubrovnik Department for Culture, and is additionally supported by data provided from tour operators who reported approximately 55,000 annual participants in GoT-themed walking tours. 2 Furthermore, ticket sales for Dubrovnik’s city walls, featured prominently in numerous iconic scenes, skyrocketed after 2012. While the walls were already the most popular attraction

 Source: Ana Hilje (Head of Department of Culture and Heritage Dubrovnik) 2018, pers. comm.

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Tourism growth Dubrovnik-Neretva (in numbers) 2500

Arrivals in '000s

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0 2001 2002 20032004 20052006 2007 20082009 201020112012 20132014 2015 2016 20172018 2019 Annual arrivals in Dubrovnik-Neretva

Fig. 5: Tourism growth in Dubrovnik-Neretva (in numbers) 2001–2019. Vertical dashed line indicates first on-screen appearance of Dubrovnik as King’s Landing. Source: Croatian Bureau of Statistics.

in Dubrovnik before 2012, visits increased from 775,636 (2012) to 1,251,182 in 2019 (an increase of 73.01%), peaking in 2018 with 1,305,994 tickets sold (Fig. 6). This astonishing boom stands in stark contrast to museum visits that stalled or even decreased during the same period. Dubrovnik’s four historical and archaeological museums and the Homeland War Museum have not seen the same upward trend of visitor numbers that Dubrovnik and the city walls have experienced. Whether these trends are due to the rise of short trips, selecting heritage experiences for their ‘instagrammability’, or Dubrovnik becoming a GoT site above all other aspects of its heritage and history, cannot conclusively determined. However, these figures combined with the data obtained through ethnographic fieldwork at least indicate that the increased on-screen presence of Dubrovnik and some of its monuments since 2012 might have strongly contributed to the clearly visible trends in visitor activities. This is further supported by numerous studies on the correlation of film and television and tourist numbers since the 1990s (cf. Connell 2012 for a comprehensive literature review). Furthermore, in addition to raising a destination’s profile and increasing visitor numbers, representation in popular media is influential in constructing ideas and thus identities of destinations (Reijnders 2011; Urry & Larsen 2011). As

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my research makes clear, King’s Landing manifested itself onto Dubrovnik in substantial ways, with on-site performances by tourists and tour guides reshaping and creating new heritage identities.

Fig. 6: Ticket sales by the Dubrovnik City Walls, Dubrovnik City Museums (includes Archaeological Museum, Maritime Museum, Ethnographic Museum, Cultural History Museum), and Homeland War Museum 2001–2019. Vertical dashed line indicates first on-screen appearance of Dubrovnik as King’s Landing. Source: Dubrovnik City Walls 2020, pers. comm.; Dubrovnik City Museums 2020, pers. comm.

Performing Game of Thrones “Shame! Shame! Shame!”; anyone who is walking past the Jesuit Stairs in the centre of Dubrovnik’s old town is likely to hear these words being uttered, said, or even shouted, often accompanied with the ringing of bells. Re-enacting and photographing the so-called Walk of Shame of Cersei Lannister has become one of the most popular activities for tourists in Dubrovnik. The stairs are crowded all day long with individual visitors and tour groups who are going to painstaking efforts to take the perfect shot. Staging photos often involves

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several people, attempts, and screens (Fig. 7); screenshots taken from the internet act as memory cues. There are even occasional sightings of those who are committed enough to recreate the Walk of Shame as accurately as possible,3 as reported by Ana, a local shop clerk: Yes, they take everything off and do the Walk of Shame. With a selfie. And the nuns get very cross, and the nuns come out and scream at them. Those are steps of the church! The Jesuit Church!

Several tour guides jokingly called GoT a religion and Dubrovnik its Mecca, supporting the description of modern tourism as a secular continuation of pilgrimages “involv[ing] a considerable degree of ritual behaviour”, particularly in heritage contexts (Franklin 2003: 5–7; Urry & Larsen 2011: 5–6). The participatory and repetitive nature of these rituals creates a communal dynamic, as bystanders recognize and react to the performances and often join in—they know exactly what is being done at this very spot and why. GoT performances repeated on-site and disseminated online have become part of the visitors’ habitus of the site. Visitors of GoT filming locations (sub)consciously know that they ought to behave in certain ways at these specific sites, and that acting accordingly will grant them privileged status among peers (cf. Bourdieu 1984). These performances and their visual documentation are not only aimed at the personal authentication, validation, and shaping of memories of this place, but to present to online audiences (Urry & Larsen 2011; Lee et al. 2015). Adding georeferenced place tags on social media sites such as Instagram not only show that the user has been there, but also “serve as markers of identity and lay symbolic claim to a place” (Boy & Uitermark 2017: 616). Reframing the fantasy of GoT and posting it online establishes a hermeneutic circle, reinforcing and reproducing the imagined place identities even further (Crang 2006). While the practice of travel photography and the (re)framing of places is not a new phenomenon, the scale, interactivity as well as the immediacy of social media photography has accelerated and intensified this process. The identity of King’s Landing is so etched onto the minds of those “media pilgrims” (Couldry 2007; Reijnders 2011), that they are baffled when reactions deviate from what they expect when visiting one of their ‘sacred places’. A group of Indian tourists were ecstatic upon realising that they just discovered the House of the Undying and could not believe when another person just shrugged and dismissively replied with “whatever you say”. The far-reaching

 Though readily available on social media platforms and travel blogs, the author has decided against showcasing photographic evidence.

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Fig. 7: A group of tourists tries to (re)capture the Walk of Shame. Photo by author.

impact of GoT on how Dubrovnik is now experienced and how social capital is bestowed on those performing King’s Landing can be showcased in an encounter with Jessica from Australia, who had never seen a single episode but was determined to re-enact all the scenes that she had seen on social media: I only did it because I’ve seen many other people [online] try and recreate the exact same photos. […] I’ve never seen Game of Thrones. But I know that I’ve got friends that will see these exact same photos. And they’ll be so excited for it and they will be jealous.

Re-enacting the Walk of Shame, staring at the horizon at Blackwater Bay or walking around the House of the Undying have therefore become a staple, if not the quintessential experience of Dubrovnik (Fig. 8). Those who are particularly dedicated sometimes even wear costumes to heighten the experience. Additionally, many interviewees participated in GoT activities because of their partners, or

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Fig. 8: Re-enactment and recreation of Cersei’s Walk of Shame (left), Sansa at Blackwater Bay (top right), and Daenerys at the House of the Undying (bottom right). Photos by author.

because they know family members and friends back home are fans. Going on GoT tours, sitting on the Iron Throne, or participating in staging previously shown practices, is ‘just what you do, when you are in King’s Landing’. Several interviewees pointed out the sense of comradeship felt between fellow tour participants and those who they assumed to have travelled to Dubrovnik for the same purpose. Giada, a young Italian woman, who has travelled to GoT locations across several countries with a friend, felt that there are almost primordial features one can sense in likeminded travellers: I mean, you clearly recognize people that are here for the same reason as you, because they all have the same face!

Similarly, Madhav and Ashit, two travellers from India, claimed to feel a connection with others: Madhav: Yeah, we can find some of our kinds. Ashit: We feel like we are connected. I mean, [many people] came for the same purpose and I came for the same purpose! Madhav: The feeling is amazing!

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Because of GoT, Dubrovnik, once again, became a communal memory space where people meet each other for the first time, project meaning onto it, and share a common identity—this time, not as national community of Croatians but as a transnational community of GoT fans. The similarities between Anderson’s (2006) “imagined communities” and Jenkins’ (2006; 2012) definition of fandom are quite striking, as both describe a shared sense of ‘who are we’. According to Anderson (2006: 6–7), the “nation” is an “imagined political community […] composed of individuals who will never encounter all the other members of the nation but nevertheless believe they share something with them”, share a “deep horizontal comradeship” but “otherwise have little in common”. On the other hand, fans are “sharing feelings and thoughts about the program content with friends, by joining a community of other fans who share common interests” (Jenkins 2006: 41). Finding one’s own kind, as Madhav put it, does not refer to fellow Indians, Germans, Italians, or Brits but to those who consume the same media, travelling to, utilizing, and experiencing certain spaces in a specific way while reproducing signifiers for others to recognize and interact with.

Walking from Blackwater Bay to the Walk of Shame: Guided Tours GoT-inspired performances are not only carried out by individual visitors but by highly organized and professionalized (local) entrepreneurs who are offering various GoT-branded products and experiences. Tour guides, who work presenting the heritage landscape to foreign visitors, are one of the most visible parts of Dubrovnik’s tourism performance (Fig. 9). Dozens of tours push through the narrow streets and lead visitors from place to place. Many established walking tour providers have expanded their portfolio to meet the new demand. According to Josip and Ivan, two local tour guides, about half of all walking tours in Dubrovnik are GoT-themed. A typical GoT walking tour lasts between one and a half to three hours, depending on the number of locations visited. Some guides will wear costumes. Group sizes vary, from private tours of only a few guests to large groups of up to thirty. They all roughly follow the same path: starting outside the city walls to visit Fort Lovrijenac (Red Keep) and Kolorina Bay (Blackwater Bay), followed by a walk through the narrow back streets of the old town towards the main attraction, the Jesuit Stairs (Walk of Shame). Here, some of the more elaborate and expensive walking tour experiences will hand out swords, shields, and other prop replicas from the series, which the guests can use to pose and re-enact certain scenes. Next, the group will walk

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Fig. 9: Tour guides at work across Dubrovnik. Photos by author.

past the Rector’s Palace (Palace of the Spice King), before being led to the only GoT souvenir shop in Dubrovnik with an Iron Throne replica, finishing their tour by having their photo taken sitting in said throne. All places on the tour are referred to by their King’s Landing names, with Dubrovnik’s history and heritage only featuring on tours where direct comparisons with GoT can be made. In this way, the Republic of Ragusa may become the Merchant City of Qarth. At every stop, the tour guide will hold up a screenshot from their flipbook asking, “Do you remember this place?”, as if the guests have already been there. The guide will then describe the scene shown on the picture. Tour participants usually take photographs of the screenshots with the background, trying to include both fiction and reality within the same frame. At the end of each of the two main segments, Kolorina Bay and the Jesuit Stairs, the tour guide might encourage the group to pose as characters of the show. In high season, approximately 300 people a day participate in such tours making the tours and the guides a crucial part of the site itself.4 Tour guides not only establish the ‘beaten path’ of a heritage site, but they also act as the

 Source: Ana Hilje (Head of Department of Culture and Heritage Dubrovnik) 2018, pers. comm.

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mediators and interface through which the symbolic meaning of the heritage space is produced, deciphered, and understood, “as theirs is the task of selecting, glossing and interpreting sights” (Dahles 2002: 784). They encode “preferred readings” and thus give meaning to cultural products (Macdonald 2006). In GoT tours, rather than the locally preferred Ragusan reading of Dubrovnik’s heritage, the visitor’s preference of viewing the site as King’s Landing dominates. They are in Dubrovnik to confirm and authenticate their already well-established image and knowledge of the fantasy version of the city. The filming locations across Dubrovnik are the “theatres of memory” for GoT fans to act out their fantasies and build a foundation for sustaining their fictional realm in the real world (cf. Samuel 1994). Thus, guides do not act as educators but memory workers, invoking already experienced collective memories through narration and visual references. The experience of an international GoT visitor is in fact similar to that of a domestic, national tourist, who brings cultural knowledge with them to not only be confirmed but further fostered. National tourist sites were often initially established to act as tools to create, discover, and subsequently confirm national identities (Koshar 1998; Edensor 2002). Similarly, travels to GoT locations confirm the identity of GoT fans. However, while national identity is typically performed and fostered through domestic tourism, GoT enthusiasts must go abroad to ‘come home’. Thus, GoT filming locations become the territorialized expression where this transnational imagined community of fans comes together and communicates with its own unique invented traditions and places of importance. The act of travelling itself territorialized the imagination, gave it a tangible home and anchored it in certain spaces, thus creating transnational space with monuments, visual language, geographical frame of reference, and ultimately, a new imaginary realm on the soil of real-life nation states. Thereby, visiting those sites of importance for GoT is not dissimilar to the role of domestic tourism which has long been seen as a means to foster national identities and belonging. It is not a coincidence that both New Zealand and Northern Ireland market themselves as the “Home of Middle-earth” and “Home of Thrones” respectively to harness these sentiments, while Croatian authorities, according to several local informants, have rejected the endorsement of any such notions as it might be seen as a trivialization of their heritage and identity. Nevertheless, official endorsement or not, visiting King’s Landing provides fans with the possibility to become, even for just one day, a citizen of Westeros. The phenomenon of GoT tourism is also causing the deconstruction of some of the fundamental understandings of national heritage. Having large numbers of international tourists take interpretative ownership over the identity of another nation’s heritage challenges the concept of heritage as rooted in single

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readings, exclusivity and ‘us’ and ‘them’ categories (Smith 2006; Lowenthal 2013). Creating a territorialized ‘heritage of Westeros’ is inherently dissonant, as someone’s heritage can be regarded as a disinheritance of another, even if this process seems “unintentional, temporary, of trivial importance, limited in its effects and concealed” (Tunbridge & Ashworth 1996: 21). This dissonance becomes particularly apparent when examining the seemingly trivial renaming of numerous places in Dubrovnik.

Renaming Dubrovnik: Toponyms and the Dissonant Heritage of King’s Landing The ubiquitous use of fictional names of places and monuments has ushered in a new phase of contested heritage in Dubrovnik. Manifesting themselves orally and visibly through signs, advertisements, and maps, toponyms impact how we perceive and identify spaces and places (Alderman 2008; Alderman et al. 2012). For many interview participants, various heritage sites across Dubrovnik became Blackwater Bay, the Walk of Shame, the Red Keep, and the House of the Undying. Just the fact that many of them would, and indeed could, only refer to them by their fictional name highlights how quickly the identity of Dubrovnik has been transformed. The persuasiveness of the new place names might be owed to a Western ignorance of how to pronounce names such as Lovrijenac; Red Keep just rolls easier off the tongue. The absence of Croatian names on (digital) maps as well as the repetitive use of these names by both tourists and tourist workers have reinforced a new heritage hierarchy. These new toponyms have even been adopted within the local community. Particularly those involved in guiding and presenting Dubrovnik to visitors have started to take over the new names—some of them out of habit, others out of necessity. Josip, a local guide described it accordingly: It’s a habit […] five times per day you say Blackwater Bay and only one time you say Kolorina. So Blackwater Bay is gonna stick more than Kolorina even to you, because this is how big the demand is for Game of Thrones tours.

While Josip adopted these names through repeated performance, Paula uses them, although reluctantly, as navigational tool: [The tourists] have no idea what the name of the fortress is. That’s why I’m always [using those] names because some of the guests are here just because of the Game of Thrones.

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Places associated with King’s Landing are used as landmarks throughout the city. Paula gave up on using Dubrovnik’s place names as reference points when talking to international visitors. Several locations such as Lovrijenac and Kolorina only became attractions, as it were, because of GoT as Josip confirmed: Kolorina has not experienced that sort of attention that it now does because of Game of Thrones, which is now known as the Blackwater Bay.

The typically colloquial expression ‘being put on the map’ can be used literally, as several locations across Dubrovnik have appeared, disappeared, and have been renamed on digital mapping tools. Searching for ‘Game of Thrones’ on Google Maps will not only highlight filming locations and related businesses but will also display “King’s Landing Dubrovnik” as an attraction right next to “Stari Grad Dubrovnik” (Fig. 10). Places like Kolorina Bay and the Jesuit Stairs, which did not have markers on Google Maps during fieldwork in 2018, are now described as “historic harbour and iconic film location” and “historic stairs” respectively. However, these digital maps are fluid and everchanging, as the now vanished attraction “King’s Landing” located on Dubrovnik’s City Walls which could be found on Apple Maps until 2019 illustrates. Furthermore, Instagram photographs can be geotagged as individual sites such as “House of the Undying” or “Blackwater Bay” which will, in most cases, exactly correlate with the location in the in-app map of Dubrovnik. Instagram has been identified as a strong tool for placemaking, not only through the visual framing of space but also the accompanying descriptive hashtags and geotags of locations (Boy & Uitermark 2017; Budge 2020). The repeated, banal performance of searching for places and tagging the sites has a direct impact on how the territory is displayed and represented in navigational tools, promoting and demoting places through spatialization of digital behaviour (Graham et al. 2013). While some might see user-generated mapping as a growth in digital authorship and cartographic agency, there are concerns about underlying biases and power imbalances through platform owners, algorithms, and user bases (Boulton 2010). When asked about the renaming and remapping of those places, some reactions range from bemused scepticism to rejection. One guide, Davor, refused to use the new place names exclusively without also mentioning the actual name, thinking it would be “problematic” and “disrespectful” to the place. I think that [local] people would find it maybe even a little bit insulting if they hear that that wonderful fort that guaranteed our freedom for so many centuries will be referred to as something from a TV show. I think that a lot of people would actually have a bit of a problem with that.

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Fig. 10: Screenshot of Google Maps search result for “Game of Thrones”. Bold text indicates Game of Thrones related locations and businesses. Search has been conducted signed out and in “Incognito Mode” to avoid personalized results. © Google (fair use).

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Paula goes even further, expressing strong disdain for those who exclusively utilize the fictional name of her beloved hometown: I hate if they call Dubrovnik King’s Landing. Oh, I really hate it. […] ‘King’s Landing! King’s Landing! I’m in King’s Landing!’—I hate it. When I hear that on the street I just … I get mad. Because I love my city. […] Dubrovnik was here even before, before King’s Landing. We have a far more interesting history than just Game of Thrones. No, we’re not only King’s Landing. We’re much more!

Naming, whether by intent and design, or through colloquial repetition, can be used to evoke certain images, narratives, and memories, create a sense of place and new mythologized spaces, but also to contest the (re)named heritage by establishing new mnemonic links (Crang & Travlou 2001: 165; Alderman 2008: 196). Croatians, as like many other post-conflict and post-colonial societies, are aware that renaming “has the power to wipe out the past and call forth the new” (Tuan 1991: 688).5 This perceived disrespect towards heritage through the act of renaming stands in stark contrast to Croatian efforts to “cleanse” Serbian place names and monuments after independence and the Yugoslav wars (Goulding & Domic 2009: 96; cf. Rihtman-Auguštin 2004). The introduction of new place names from an outside source, even if entirely imaginary, might be to some extent contesting these newly realized claims and reopening the fresh wounds of a recent memory conflict. Despite being aware of the economic benefits, Dubrovnik locals will almost always (re)direct attention to the long and proud heritage of the Republic of Ragusa. In an interview, Jelka Tepsić, the Deputy Mayor of Dubrovnik, told me, “People sometimes don’t understand that we are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and that people actually live here. We are not a Disneyland”. She vowed to never let “Game of Thrones take over the identity of Dubrovnik”. This is also reflected in the absence of any official marketing campaigns promoting Dubrovnik through GoT. Both Croatian scholars and local officials have expressed concerns that Dubrovnik could be outshined by its “movie copy” and that, additional efforts are needed to remind the viewers of the real locations [and] Dubrovnik’s identity […] to make sure that the race for attention or profit does not take away any of the unique aura that Dubrovnik has managed to preserve throughout history (Skoko 2014: 188; trans. by Dubrovnik Department of Culture and Heritage).

 Changing place names as political action has occurred across East-Central Europe as discussed by the contributors in this volume (see Hanscam & Koranyi, Rubel, Spiridon-Șerbu).

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However, interviews with various policymakers reveal that still years after this assessment (when GoT tourism was still in its infancy), there are no strategies in place to counter these unwanted narratives. They prefer to try and let ‘Dubrovnik speak for itself’ (cf. Kesić & Pavlić 2011). Others, such as Ivan Vuković, tour guide and self-proclaimed initiator of the local GoT tourism industry, have taken a pragmatic approach to the GoT conundrum of choosing between preserving the local heritage narratives while profiting from the increased interest of those who want to experience Westeros. Vuković expressed his disappointment that “everyone just wants to hear about Game of Thrones”, but he also saw opportunities for Dubrovnik: For me, this is great because a lot more young people come from all over the world, who will tell everyone what an amazing place Dubrovnik is. […] Fifteen years ago, they were still labelling us as a war zone. […] And now we are King’s Landing.

While local authorities insisted that GoT would not take over the city’s identity, this new tourism allowed Dubrovnik to step out of its image as a Balkan war zone. The East-Central European city was ‘knighted’ as Western enough, not only to become a major place of Western produced and consumed pop culture but indeed to be reimagined as the capital of the fittingly (some might say uncreatively) named western continent Westeros. GoT was the first time since the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars that Dubrovnik appeared on global screens, thus, finally changing the global imaginary associated with the region.

Epilogue: Imagined Fan Communities, Hyper-Tradition and the Transnational Heritage of Game of Thrones Although all the values, identities, and heritages invented by the writers of GoT were imposed onto the filming locations and fandom was fostered through marketing, there was no intention by the broadcaster to create any effect on the real-world locations that now embody Westeros. People travelling to the filming locations, re-enacting scenes, using the fictional names for monuments and places, posting their experiences online—all this were mere unintended byproducts. It nevertheless hugely benefited both the broadcaster by building more hype around the series and the tourism sector that capitalized on this demand. However, it also instigated memory conflicts among those who saw their heritage wrongfully appropriated. While the processes described in this chapter have

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not necessarily been a simple bottom-up phenomenon, as big media and tech companies have significant influence on how we engage with the world, the intention was never, as with nations, to create a spatial entity with physical heritage sites. At no point was there such a moment where somebody said “We have made Westeros. Now we must make Westerosi”.6 While the communal day-to-day performance and assertion of identity through actions, reactions, and phrases has been explored in-depth on a (sub)national level (Billig 1995; Smith 2006: 49), the case of the imaginary territory of Westeros shows that these processes can also occur on a transnational scale, where people from across the world start using the same easily identifiable performances to communicate and show that they are part of a larger group. Indeed, what can be observed are heightened, transnational expressions of imagined community, banal nationalism, and invented tradition in a globalized, digital world. According to Nezar AlSayyad (2006: 10) globalization, has intensified the process of de-linking identity and place, and, by extension, intensified the de-territorialization of tradition. This process has challenged the idea of tradition as an authentic expression of a geographically specific, culturally homogenous and coherent group of people.

From this, so-called ‘hyper-traditions’ emerge, which are references or practices delinked from cultural, historical, and geographical context. The fantasy of King’s Landing indeed denationalized Croatian heritage, dissolving both the regional and national nature of Dubrovnik’s monuments by closely connecting them with sites across Northern Ireland, Spain, Malta, Morocco, and Iceland, which in turn became part of the same spatial entity. Overcoding the filming locations with fictional yet familiar toponyms, hyper-traditions, and a perceived shared identity among fellow travellers created a transnational ‘coming home’ space for the GoT community, and thus a sense of ownership and belonging. However, creating such a ‘coming home’ space and a sense of ownership by repurposing heritage landscapes entirely or pars pro toto is an inherently dissonant process. Reimagining post-conflict nations such as Croatia, which only recently regained the authority to declare what is their community, heritage, and identity, and, more importantly, what is not, may invoke recent memory conflicts, especially in a complex and symbolic memory space such as Dubrovnik. In her writing on the “imperialism of imagination”, Vesna Goldsworthy (2013: 224, 227–28) concluded that due to the power imbalances between the ones imagining and the ones imagined, the “cultural identities of the countries themselves are largely disregarded” and  After Massimo d’Azeglio’s “We have made Italy. Now we must make Italians” (1866 in Killinger 2002: 1).

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“are forced to adapt to any number of templates thrown at them in the process”. Whether the recipients of the newly established imaginary geographies like it or not, it is often beyond their influence. Many, especially when presented with opportunities as profitable as GoT, arrange themselves with the new circumstances, such as offering products catering to the new fictional identities, thus further contributing to engraining it into the landscape. As it has been illustrated numerous times, heritage and identity are not fixed but fluid cultural processes, created and asserted through human action and embodied performance and practice (Smith 2006; Haldrup & Bøerenholdt 2015). However, especially when deep pasts are elaborately constructed and fostered over centuries, as with the “centuries-old dream of Croatian statehood” (Tuđman, cited in Bellamy 2003: 32), the artifice of these identities often become unquestioned and the narratives accepted as facts, exemplified by an anecdote told by the local guide Paula: Richard Lionheart shipwreck[ed] on Lokrum Island, that’s a legend. But everybody keeps saying [it] as a historical fact that he gave money […] for the cathedral. They say, ‘Richard Lionheart gave money for our Cathedral’. […] So, it’s not myth anymore.

Imaginary realms such as Westeros and King’s Landing provide a unique opportunity to examine how, with relative ease, and even without direct intent, an elaborate landscape of signifiers can establish itself, including inventing new traditions and forming new communities and heritages. The case of Dubrovnik and GoT has shown that nation-building and world-building are almost indistinguishable. Dubrovnik’s seamless transformation into King’s Landing is an opportunity to expose particular certainties on the nature of nation, tradition, and heritage. Some might (justifiably) label these assertions as the desacralizing, banalizing, or ‘Disneyfying’ of heritage and identity. Given that GoT ended in 2019, with tourism having been disrupted by the long night of the COVID-19 pandemic, and filming for the prequel series House of the Dragon (2022–) supposedly moved from Croatia to Spain, it is yet unclear to what extent the fantasy of King’s Landing will have a lasting effect on how the world imagines Dubrovnik in the fast-paced, ever-changing landscape of popculture. Yet if Dubrovnik and Game of Thrones reveal anything, it is that deep pasts are both imagined and real and always at the centre of identity conflicts.

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Rihtman-Auguštin, D. 2004. The monument in the main city square: Constructing and erasing memory in contemporary Croatia, in M. Todorova (ed.) Balkan identities: Nation and memory: 180–96. New York: NYU Press. Rivera, L.A. 2008. Managing “spoiled” national identity: War, tourism, and memory in Croatia. American Sociological Review 73(4): 613–34. doi:10.1177%2F000312240807300405 Rose, G. 2016. Visual methodologies: An introduction to the interpretation of visual materials. 4th edn. London: SAGE. Rubel, A. 2022. Dacian blood: Autochthonous discourse in Romania during the interwar period, in J. Koranyi & E. Hanscam (ed.) Digging politics: The ancient past and contested present in East-Central Europe: 257–86. Berlin: De Gruyter. Samuel, R. 1994. Theatres of memory: Past and present in contemporary culture. London: Verso Books. Skoko, B. 2014. Mogućnosti i Načini Jačanja Brenda Dubrovnika Uz Pomoć Filmske Industrije i Organiziranja Dogadjaja. Zbornik Sveučilišta u Dubrovniku (1): 175–91. Smith, L. 2006. Uses of heritage. London: Routledge. Spiridon-Șerbu, C. 2022. The protochronistic depiction of the Transylvanian Saxons in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s history textbooks (1976–1989), in J. Koranyi & E. Hanscam (ed.) Digging politics: The ancient past and contested present in East-Central Europe: 241–56. Berlin: De Gruyter. Tinkler, P. 2013. Using photographs in social and historical research. London: SAGE. Tkalec, M., I. Zilic & V. Recher. 2017. The effect of film industry on tourism: Game of Thrones and Dubrovnik. International Journal of Tourism Research 19(6): 705–14. Todorova, M.N. 2009. Imagining the Balkans. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tuan, Y-F. 1991. Language and the making of place: A narrative-descriptive approach. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 81(4): 684–96. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.1991.tb01715.x Tunbridge, J.E. & G.J. Ashworth. 1996. Dissonant heritage: The management of the past as a resource in conflict. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Urry, J. & J. Larsen. 2011. The tourist gaze 3.0. London: SAGE. von Stackelberg, P. & A. McDowell. 2015. What in the world? Storyworlds, science fiction, and futures studies. Journal of Futures Studies 20(2): 25–46. doi:10.6531/JFS.2015.20(2).A2

Anne Kluger

Slavic Archaeology as “A Special Obligation”? Researching the Early Slavs in Communist Poland and East Germany Abstract: In this chapter, I identify and compare the arguments used by archaeologists from Communist Poland and East Germany to legitimize their research on the early Slavs. I address both the conflicting prehistory of Slavic studies before 1945 (with its Polish-German antagonism) and the new conditions after the Second World War, when Poland and East Germany were seen as socialist brother states. The chapter focuses on two protagonists of prehistoric and early medieval archaeology: Witold Hensel from Poland, and Joachim Herrmann from East Germany. This microhistorical-comparative approach highlights the ideological frameworks of research, and the political positioning of Slavic archaeologists in East Germany and Poland in the Communist Period. Keywords: Slavic Archaeology; Communism; Poland; East Germany; Witold Hensel; Joachim Herrmann

Introduction This chapter identifies and compares the discursive narratives that archaeologists and historians in East Germany and Poland used to justify their research on the early Slavs during the Cold War,1 examining the extent to which their arguments

 The term ‘Slav’ must be treated critically. Like all ethnic identifiers, it reflects the problem of uncritically applying ethnic-linguistic collective terms to mainly archaeologically visible entities. I have adopted it here because it was used by Witold Hensel and Joachim Herrmann, the protagonists of this case study (and by most historians and archaeologists in Communist Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the University of Münster for the institutional support, the Equal Opportunity Office for covering the travel costs, and especially my supervisor Eduard Mühle for his professional advice and guidance during my dissertation. Above all, I would like to thank Emily Hanscam and James Koranyi for organizing the Durham “Digging Politics” workshop and the publication of the volume, as well as for their competent and always helpful advice in transforming my presentation into this paper. Anne Kluger, University of Münster, Germany https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-005

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were influenced by ideological premises and the political context. Numerous theoretical discussions in archaeology and history have clearly demonstrated the interrelations between academic research, politics, and ideology. The dated idea of all scholarship taking place in an ivory tower has largely been abandoned and it is widely recognized that research is closely embedded in multiple interactions, exchanges of resources, and negotiation processes that extend far beyond the academic sphere.2 Nevertheless, despite this recognition, it is still vital that we continue to examine the socio-political context of research in widely different times, spaces, and/or disciplines. This applies especially to Slavic archaeology during the Cold War, encompassing the archaeological and historical research on the Slavs in prehistoric times and the Early Medieval Period in the Communist regimes of East-Central Europe after 1945.3 Due to the importance of Slavic archaeology in these countries in the second half of the twentieth century, and because of the discipline’s potential for innovative insights into the issue explained above, it is crucial that we fill the existing research gap and examine the political and ideological context of Cold War Slavic archaeology. In view of our understanding of the subjectivity and contextuality of research, it seems rather plausible to suggest that East German and Polish research on the early Slavs throughout the Communist Period must be considered a product of its time and space, namely of the contemporary political, economic, and social conditions. That is why this chapter goes beyond finding evidence for political and ideological influences in Slavic archaeology, exploring in more detail which strategies and specific arguments were used to legitimize doing research on the Slavs in Communist East Germany and Poland, as well as the motivations behind their use. On the one hand, these two countries can be taken to represent the varying conditions of, and motivations for, Slavic archaeology throughout East-Central

East Germany and Poland), to define their research subject and discipline (‘Slavic archaeology’). In short, Hensel subsumed the prehistoric and early medieval in habitants of the territories that were later ruled by the Piast dynasty under the term, while Herrmann focused on the groups that were settling in the area between the rivers Elbe and Oder in the Early Medieval Period. For further information and different arguments regarding ethnic identifiers in archaeology, see Pohl 1999; Curta 2001a; Curta 2001b; Gąssowski 2003; Urbańczyk 2003; Brather 2009; Mühle 2020. For an overview on the current state of discussion, see Hardt 2015: 16–22; on the modern “invention” of the term see Mühle 2020: 7–39.  This is stated, for example, by Veit 2011: 38–40, 51; Ó Ríagáin & Popa 2012; Grunwald 2014; Ash 2016: 536–46; Höpken 2020: 16–17.  The meaning of the terms ‘prehistoric’ and ‘Early Medieval’ is based here on the way Hensel and Herrmann used them to define their periods of research, which range broadly from the fourth to the eleventh century CE, with extensions into earlier and later periods.

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Europe. On the other hand, both have a very distinctive history with regard to Slavic research that also concerns their entangled political and academic relations of the last centuries. Therefore, the comparative perspective on Poland and East Germany offers great potential to further understand the interrelations between research, politics, and ideology. This chapter focuses on two protagonists of Slavic archaeology that originated from these countries: Witold Hensel (1917–2008) from Poland, and Joachim Herrmann (1932–2010) from East Germany. Hensel and Herrmann have been selected as case studies due to their pre-eminence in Slavic archaeology within their countries as well as on an international level.4 As the directors of the Instytut Historii Kultury Materialnej (Institute for the History of Material Culture, IHKM) in Poland and the Zentralinstitut für Alte Geschichte und Archäologie (Central Institute for Ancient History and Archaeology, ZIAGA) in East Germany, they were in charge of decisions concerning personnel matters, financial resources, and the directions and design of research agendas. They were responsible for the composition and organization of conferences, and, as editors of collective publications, they influenced the lists of authors and tables of contents. Furthermore, Hensel’s and Herrmann’s own texts reached a relatively large audience—their arguments and interpretations therefore greatly impacted academic discussion on the Slavs. This also becomes clear from the fact that their arguments were often adopted by other scholars. Limiting our perspective on these two examples allows for an in-depth analysis of the sources, therefore holding great potential for a comprehensive comparison. The assumptions of discourse analysis can serve as a helpful methodological and theoretical tool to this end. This approach is based on Michel Foucault’s observation that, at a certain historical point, not all statements that would in principle be (linguistically) possible are actually made. Some things are considered ‘unsayable’, while others become manifest patterns and represent an unquestioned consensus of, for example, a society. The term ‘discourses’ defines these ‘spaces’ between the social boundaries that determine what can, or cannot, be said about a specific topic. From Foucault’s point of view, discourses are by definition closely related to power and knowledge, as they are understood as holding on to what is considered reality and truth (as explained, for example, in Foucault 1972: 21–39). That is why Hensel and Herrmann are used as case studies in this chapter. Due to their powerful administrative positions and their  For short biographical information on Hensel and Herrmann see Dekówna 2008: 55–60; Brather 2010: 211–14; Leube 2010: 144–50. In Kluger (2020), I argue that biographical studies is a valued approach for examining historiography and the history of archaeology, especially regarding the fact that Hensel and Herrmann have not yet been studied in greater detail.

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reputation as experts on the early Slavs, their arguments and interpretations were widely influential. They help us to arrive at conclusions about the political and ideological frameworks impacting research, and the positioning of Slavic archaeologists in East Germany and Poland. In order to dissect and compare Hensel’s and Herrmann’s central arguments, the forewords/introductions and final conclusions of their academic and semiacademic publications serve as the main sources for this study.5 In examining these parts of their texts, in which they elaborated on their research motivations and the purpose of their publications, the arguments that Hensel and Herrmann presented to explain their focus on the Slavs can be seen clearly. By considering texts ranging from the 1940s to 1980s, we are able to see how ideological shifts and changes in the political and social environment affected Hensel’s and Herrmann’s arguments. I will first provide a brief background on the wider context of Slavic studies in East-Central Europe, especially in (East) Germany and Poland, before presenting my two case studies. In each section, I will give a short biographical overview of Hensel’s and Herrmann’s careers, contextualizing them with regard to the situation and specifics of prehistoric and early medieval archaeology in their countries. I will primarily concentrate on analysing their publications and the arguments they relied on in their efforts to justify their research on the early Slavs. In the conclusion, I will summarize the main results of the analysis and consider remaining questions and potential for further research.

The History and Context of Slavic Studies in East-Central Europe In 1963, in an attempt to explain the need for further in-depth investigation of the prehistoric and medieval Slavs, Joachim Herrmann dredged up earlier German research on this topic. He distanced himself clearly from these older traditions by claiming that: The neglect of the history of these [West Slavic] tribes and their partly chauvinistic distortion for decades should be a special obligation for the archaeologists and historians

 In this context, the term semi-academic is used to describe Hensel’s and Herrmann’s publications that border between academic and popular contributions. In some cases, for example, the authors dispensed with meticulous footnotes and references to the sources of information, and/or the texts were published in series and journals that were not exclusively addressed to academic audiences but were intended to reach a larger public audience.

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of the GDR to present them in connection with the emergence of the German people (Herrmann 1963: 810).6

To understand Herrmann’s argument, it is crucial to consider the wider context, namely the history of German (or more precisely German language) research on the prehistoric and medieval Slavs before 1945. The German historical and archaeological investigations of the early Slavs started within the context of Romanticism and the emergence of modern national movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From the beginning (with a few exceptions) German Slavic research was strongly influenced, if not primarily driven, by the intention to prove the continuity of the proclaimed Germanic cultural superiority to the Slavs by tracing this presumed hierarchy back to the Medieval Period and beyond. This focus was further emphasized by the Ostforschung in the Interwar Period and during the Second World War,7 when research results served as a basis for racist classifications, as well as for territorial claims that primarily concerned the area around the Oder and the Lusatian Neisse (Brather 2001a: 731–35; Lübke 2003: 181–87). Polish-speaking archaeologists and historians responded to these findings with alternative interpretations of the archaeological and historical evidence; they aimed to demonstrate the continuity of Slavic settlement in the contested area throughout prehistory and the Early and Late Medieval Period, and to prove the equal cultural development of the early Slavs (Krzoska 2000: 297–311; 2003: 398–419; Hackmann et al. 2002; Piskorski 2006; Briesewitz 2014). After the Second World War, new forces came to power in East Germany— a Communist regime was established with the support of the Soviet Union. A continuation of pre-war policy and propaganda was impossible because of Germany’s defeat and the new power structures that followed. For the East German Communists, this was furthermore unthinkable in view of their ideological convictions and their experienced persecution under the Nazi regime, with some of them having actively participated in the resistance. Therefore, the newly founded GDR derived its legitimacy to a large extent in distancing itself

 This translation and all that follow are by the author.  The term Ostforschung refers to the Germanocentric research of German scholars in the history of East-Central Europe. Especially in the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, it was mainly led by nationalistic premises, for example by the intention to provide archaeological and historical evidence for the expansion of the German state territory to the east. It was due to this connotation that the term was avoided as a self-description in East Germany after 1945 and had also gradually been replaced in the West German academic landscape. On the history of the Ostforschung see Mühle 1997; Krzoska 2000; 2003; Hackmann et al. 2002.

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from Nazi Germany (Ash 1995: 906–10; Zimmering 2000: 37–38; Vom Bruch 2002: 370; Guth 2015: 324–36). The break with the past should be completed in all areas, including Slavic studies. As the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, SED) not only held political power, but also aimed to control all fields of social life, this also affected East German academia. Efforts to purge and reorganize the research landscape in line with the new system were put into practice in many cases. At the same time, the number of qualified researchers trained in Marxism-Leninism was not sufficient to meet the calls of the new authorities for entirely new academic personnel. This required pragmatic decisions, especially considering that, immediately after the war, the East German Communists faced challenges like the material reconstruction and the reorganization of basic economic and social structures, which more urgently required their input. Because of this, some historians and archaeologists—who had actually managed to keep a certain distance from the Nazi regime—could continue their work despite the system change, a decision also influenced by support from other scholars (Brather 2001b; Leube 2004; Widera 2009). It was, nevertheless, politically impossible to retain the old narratives about the early Slavs which had been developed to prove German superiority. From 1945 onwards, Slavic studies would follow completely different premises in East Germany. The Slavs were no longer automatically presumed to be inferior; a re-evaluation of ‘Slavic’ history and culture was sought not only by the Soviet occupying powers and the East German party authorities, but also by some archaeologists and prehistorians who quickly and determinedly argued for a rigorous reorientation of Slavic research. These academics were likely motivated both by a genuine interest in the topic, as well as by their desire to ensure the continuity of their scientific careers in the new system (Brather 2001a: 736–37). This led to Slawische archäologie (Slavic archaeology) forming one of the focal points of prehistoric and (early) medieval studies in the GDR. In general, the term ‘Slavic archaeology’ was also used in other countries of East-Central Europe (for example Poland, Czechoslovakia, the USSR) to describe historical and archaeological research on the roots, culture, and history of the supposed Slavic people, or peoples, in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period. The idea that some kind of ‘Slavic entity’ had existed throughout history formed the common ground of these different Slavic archaeologies, justifying the need for the discipline. 8 Although this assumption formally

 For a historical overview of Slavic research and its premises, see Brather 2001a; Lübke 2009.

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contradicted the Marxist-Leninist understanding of history, in which ‘classes’ instead of ethnic-national units are the relevant historical actors (Neustupný 2004: 225–26; Baberowski 2014: 82–99), we know from existing research that the Communists did willingly use ideologically incompatible elements such as national, or even nationalist, narratives connected with the ‘Slavic idea’ to legitimize their claim to power and to gain the people’s support (Behrends 2009; Górny 2013; Zaremba 2019). There were, nevertheless, also many differences between the Slavic research agendas of individual countries in East-Central Europe during the Communist Period. While some of the Slavic archaeologies established in regimes within the Soviet sphere of influence had common roots, others arose from separate traditions. Furthermore, archaeological and historical research was affected by the Communist Period differently in individual countries. This depended on their initial situations following the war, and later on their individual political and social developments in the years prior to the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and 1990s (Brather 2001a: 735–44). It seems plausible to expect, therefore, that these varying conditions likewise had an impact on how scholars in different countries justified the need for research on the early Slavs, as well as impacting their success with their research agendas.

Through Red-Coloured Glasses?—The East German Case To a certain degree, Joachim Herrmann’s academic career mirrors the specific developments of the academic landscape in East Germany. The initial situation after 1945 was characterized both by palpable tensions between de-Nazification efforts and the pragmatic disregard of these goals caused by other practical requirements. There was also a shortage of scientific personnel due to war losses and the apparent division of Germany. Furthermore, the training of ideologically conformist new researchers took time (Connelly 2000: 4; Brather 2001b: 475–504; Leube 2004: 83–129; Widera 2009: 194). Once a new generation of academics had completed their university education in the GDR, promising career opportunities frequently appeared for them. This is particularly true for Joachim Herrmann. After Herrmann’s studies of history and then of prehistoric archaeology (established as an independent institute in 1954, and as an official discipline in 1956 at Humboldt University in Berlin) in the first half of the 1950s, he worked as a research assistant at the prehistoric institute of the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (German Academy of Sciences at Berlin). There he gained

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practical experience in excavations and continued his academic qualifications, achieving his PhD in 1958 and then his Habilitation in 1965.9 As his career progressed, he became increasingly focused on the early Slavs. Herrmann’s professional path peaked in 1969, when the ZIAGA was founded at the Academy of Sciences, and Herrmann, who had been heavily involved in the planning process, became its director (Brather 2010: 211–13; Leube 2010: 144–46). After large-scale reforms from 1968 to 1972, the Academy of Sciences functioned as the central institution for all (non-university) research, and its leading executives were the primary contacts for the political authorities. In this respect, the ZIAGA is a suitable example of the close ties between academic research and the state (Widera 2009: 215).10 The establishment of the ZIAGA in 1969 and the appointment of Herrmann as director also confirmed the focus on Slavic research in East German archaeology and prehistory. Herrmann stayed in this position until 1990, when he resigned due to growing pressure from within the institute and its foreseeable dissolution in connection with the evaluation and restructuring process of the East German research landscape as part of German reunification (Kowalczuk 2010). The case of Herrmann can, therefore, highlight the developments in prehistoric archaeology in East Germany from the late 1950s/early 1960s on to the transformation processes of the late 1980s/early 1990s. This is particularly valuable, as this period has not been comprehensively researched with a focus on Slavic studies to date, while the developments immediately after 1945 are already covered by studies on archaeologists and prehistorians from the Interwar Period who managed to participate in the institutional (re)formation in East Germany, furthering their careers under the new conditions (Brather 2001b: 475–504; Widera 2009: 206–07).11 In consideration of Herrmann’s work on the early Slavs—especially regarding how he justified this research focus—it is important to take a closer look at the changing discourse within the prehistoric archaeology community in the GDR. After 1945, publications and debates within post-war archaeology were dominated by either vehement condemnations of the past, or almost complete renunciations of political and ideological statements with a focus instead on atheoretical positivist archaeological research. This was especially pushed by the scholars

 Habilitation refers to the qualification that is needed in German academia and several other European countries to obtain a professorship. Usually, it is acquired through the publication of a second book (after the PhD thesis). Concerning Herrmann’s career in the 1950s and 1960s, it can be added that he also joined the SED in 1954, see Kowalczuk 2010.  For more information on the role of the academies see Feichtinger & Uhl 2018.  Scholars such as Wilhelm Unverzagt and Werner Coblenz, for example.

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who aimed to continue their research despite the system change, distancing themselves from the National Socialists to make sure they seemed acceptable as reliable scholars and academic leaders to the new authorities (Brather 2001b: 475–504; Widera 2009: 206–07). During the 1950s and 1960s, the discursive patterns began to change, in part because of an increasing centralization of the East German research landscape according to the Soviet model, alongside changing requirements of the Communist authorities and greater ideological indoctrination. Increasingly, positive references to the added value of historical materialism appeared in research on the past, with a greater emphasis being placed on the importance of social and economic factors for the historical process (Gringmuth-Dallmer 1993: 276; Brather 2001a: 737; Coblenz 2002: 320). It was under these circumstances that Herrmann started his career as a professional researcher in the late 1950s. Explicitly distancing himself from German interwar research was an important aim of Herrmann’s whenever he demanded a reorientation of research on the early Slavs in the GDR. He rejected the earlier hypothesis of Germanic cultural superiority to the Slavs by claiming that the “bourgeois-aristocratic ideology” evident in German nationalist thought patterns, alongside an obsession with the ethnic affiliation of material finds, had led to “fruitless” and “prejudiced” debates and interpretations (Herrmann 1971: 8; 1984: 3). Herrmann (1971: 10) further elaborated on his obligation to turn “against the barbarism of the imperialistic German historiography about the Slavs” and to pursue instead a more balanced perspective. His writing shows how the condemnation of the old, mainly pejorative, research on the Slavs was combined with the antifascist self-image of the GDR throughout the Communist Period. The fact that Herrmann also included West Germany in his arguments makes it especially clear that he aligned his reasoning with the requirements of his political and ideological environment. Following the GDR narrative to define the other German state as the successor of Nazi Germany, Herrmann identified continuities of the Ostforschung in the FRG’s research landscape. He blamed the archaeologists and historians on the other side of the wall for using “almost the same value judgments” about the cultural inferiority of the prehistoric and early medieval Slavs as those made by scholars under the Nazi regime (Herrmann 1971: 9). Although there were certain continuities in terms of personnel and content in West German research on the early Slavs (Zernack 2005: 76; Lübke 2009: 188), in many cases, Herrmann’s accusations can be interpreted as clearly politically motivated. For example, this was made apparent in one of his books, published in 1971, when Herrmann linked his comments on West German Slavic research with Willy Brandt’s ‘Neue Ostpolitik’ (New Eastern Policy) which he classified as “imperialistic” (9). His evaluation corresponded with an initial East German scepticism towards Brandt’s approaches to East-Central

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Europe that were, at first, perceived as a threat to the loyalty of other socialist states to the GDR (Loose 2008: 953). In addition, Herrmann reproached West German politicians, as well as historians and archaeologists, for misusing historical research in political conflicts, namely for reactivating derogatory pseudoscientific narratives about the Slavs as tools to delegitimize socialism. This did not keep him, however, from openly defending socialism in his scientific texts himself, in one instance by highlighting how it finally guaranteed the “entire national development of the West Slavic peoples” (Herrmann 1971: 9). By the 1980s, these rhetorical attacks on the FRG research landscape lost much of their effectiveness. Traces of the Ostforschung in West Germany had been receding for some time, and the GDR profited from the more open West German political attitude towards the East, resulting in a collaborative atmosphere among scholars from the two German countries (Loose 2008: 953). This development is again reflected in Herrmann’s research; his 1986 edited volume Welt der Slawen (World of the Slavs) contained articles by two prehistorians from outside East-Central Europe. In his introduction to the volume, Herrmann restrained from any reference to the ‘imperialistic’ Nazi and/or West German research on the Slavs. Instead, he pointed to protagonists from the German tradition like Leopold von Ranke and Johann Gottfried Herder who were more distant temporally (and therefore less controversial) to show positive (Herder) as well as negative (Ranke) images of the Slavs that had been established by previous scholars (Herrmann 1986c: 9).12 In addition to his references to past and present German research, Joachim Herrmann used arguments that were more resistant to political changes for the importance of East German Slavic studies. He underlined, for example, the early Slavic presence in the areas that belonged to the GDR, and highlighted the relevance of Slavic culture and history for the development of this region: It was the north western Slavic tribes who economically opened up most of the territory of today’s GDR for the first time in history and laid the foundations for the cultural landscape (Herrmann 1963: 810; cf. 1970: 153–54).

As a consequence of this strong Slavic influence, Herrmann (1986b: 201) identified a “multitude of problems and events in the history of the Slavic tribes on the territory of today’s GDR” that were closely connected with German history and therefore required further research. To illustrate his assumptions about the Slavic impact on the East German territory, Herrmann referred to the Sorb minority living in the GDR as proof of the continuous existence of Slavic culture

 Additional references to Herder can be found in Herrmann 1971: 10; 1984: 3–4.

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and population in this region.13 In the preface of his compendium Die Slawen in Deutschland (The Slavs in Germany) from 1970, he explicitly combined academic and political arguments. Quoting from the eleventh article of the GDR constitution which ensured the protection of minorities, Herrmann (1974a: 410) claimed that in the GDR “for the first time in history” the Sorbs had found “their real fatherland”.14 He then based his case for the need for East German research on the prehistoric and medieval Slavs on this statement. Over the course of time, Herrmann (e.g. 1971: 8; 1984: 11) became increasingly aware of the problems inherent in ethnic interpretations of material finds. Despite this, he still continued not only to combine archaeological sources with ethnic-linguistic identifiers (such as Germanic, Slavic, etc.), but also linked these results with the geopolitical reality of his time, especially in the forewords and closing remarks of his publications. Herrmann (1971: 11) explained, for example, that the GDR (due to the Slavic settlements in the distant past), together with the Polish and Czechoslovakian states, had jointly taken over the West Slavic “heritage of the cultural-historical achievement”. By the 1970s, it is evident that Herrmann saw additional benefits of his work in the context of the Cold War, highlighting the value of Slavic research for solidarity and friendship in socialist East-Central Europe. For Herrmann (1971: 11), the purpose of investigating the early Slavs was therefore “to contribute to deepening the friendly relations between our socialist states and their citizens”. Herrmann’s explanations of prehistory and the Early Medieval Period as his preferred areas of research fundamentally reflect the ideological conditions of East-Central Europe. By constantly addressing the increasing development towards feudalism already in the Early Medieval Period (resulting in early medieval Slavic ‘class societies’), Herrmann (1971: 7–8, 249; 1984: 4, 30) referred to central paradigms of historical materialism which focus on social and economic factors as driving forces of history. This also becomes clear in his choice of words: in addition to “class society”, Herrmann (1971: 249; 1984: 29) used terms like “ruling class” and “the masses”, which faced each other “in the hard class struggle”, to describe the social situation of the Early Medieval Period in the initial and concluding remarks of his texts on the early Slavs. Consequently, Herrmann also derived the significance of the Early Medieval Period for his own contemporary time from these historical materialist assumptions. He argued that, as the events of the “revolutionary epoch” had

 The Sorbs are a (still existing) Slavic speaking minority located in Lusatia at the German-Polish border. Further information, also on the question of their origins, can be found in Stone 2016.  The Sorbs are also mentioned in Herrmann 1971: 251; 1974b: 5; 1984: 11–12.

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influenced the further “fate” of “human history”, their consequences would thus continue to impact on the contemporary world (Hermann 1971: 8). In this way, Herrmann once again linked the past to the present, by applying ideological narratives and political premises, which were firmly embedded in their historical context and its changes over time.

Something Old, Something New—The Polish Case In contrast to Herrmann, whose scientific career began in the 1950s, Witold Hensel of Poland had already worked in the Interwar Period, taking part in prominent excavations, before the German invasion and occupation interrupted his academic path. Immediately after the Second World War he finished his dissertation and started working first as a research assistant and lecturer at the Catholic University of Lublin, and then from the later 1940s onwards in Poznań.15 In order to resume his pre-war research, Hensel had to explain to the Communist authorities why Slavic archaeology was needed in Poland.16 Here, as with Herrmann’s case, it is necessary to broaden our perspective and to situate Hensel’s biography in the larger context of post-war Poland. Due to anti-Communist sentiments in the Polish population, the Communists who seized power after the war with the support of the Soviet Union initially avoided ideologically inspired rhetoric and instead relied on nationalist rhetoric to legitimize their claim to power.17 Hence, unlike in East Germany, the new rulers could more easily adopt a pragmatic approach when dealing with the scientific protagonists from the Interwar Period. From the Communist point of view, the educational path, theoretical background, and many of the interpretations of historians and archaeologists during the Second Polish Republic had to be regarded as ‘bourgeois’ and therefore were officially unsuitable. Nevertheless, these Polish researchers did not have ties to the Nazi party, and were therefore not considered to be as politically contaminated as in the case of German researchers. Furthermore, in Poland, scholars were needed because few archaeologists and historians survived

 In Lublin, Hensel also worked as responsible conservationist for the PKWN, which was established by the Communists in 1944 as the executive force. For more details see Kośnik 2007: 221–25.  For further information on Hensel’s biography see Dekówna 2008: 55–60; Urbańczyk 2008: 147–59.  This aspect is analysed in detail by Behrends 2009; Górny 2013; Zaremba 2019.

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the war, and those who did lacked Marxist-Leninist methodological training and conviction (Bursche & Taylor 1991: 588; Connelly 2000: 4, 8; 2003: 175–80, 183, 186; Guth 2015: 315–17). Hensel and others took advantage of this situation immediately after the war, publicly presenting arguments for research on the early Slavs, in their attempt to exploit the uncertain situation concerning the future of their research discipline under the new political circumstances. In his striking article Potrzeba Przygotowania Wielkiej Rocznicy (The Need to Prepare for the Great Anniversary) from 1946, Hensel laid the foundations for future research into the early beginnings of the Polish state.18 On behalf of the Polish archaeologists and medieval historians working in the Instytut Zachodni (Western Institute) and at the university in Poznań, still dominated by leading interwar researchers, Hensel drew attention to the upcoming millennial anniversary of the Polish state in the 1960s. In preparation for the great event, he demanded extensive research on the conditions and characteristics of the foundation of the ruling system by the Piast dynasty at the end of the tenth century. Hensel (1946: 205) justified this by emphasising the occasion’s “great significance for science and propaganda”. Therefore, in order to reinforce the importance of funding such research, Hensel encouraged the Communist rulers to use his research on the formation of the Polish state in the Early Medieval Period to their political benefit. He also explained why Poznań should become the organizational centre for research pertaining to the upcoming anniversary, citing the already established administrative structures and the expertise of the researchers based there; he referred to the “historical right” of Poznań as the “main centre of the disposition [of the first Polish state], and certainly the seat of the first Polish bishopric” (Hensel 1946: 205). He did not bring up incongruities like the fact that the exact location of the baptism of Mieszko I in 966, an act commonly understood as marking the foundation of the Polish state, could not be clearly determined.19 An analysis of Hensel’s writing shows that, rather than being driven by political conviction, the archaeologists and historians from the Interwar Period were pragmatic in their approaches toward the Communists, acting mainly to ensure the continuation of their careers and the financing of their research in post-war Poland

 In Hensel’s Polish texts, he used the term “państwo” (see Hensel: 1971). Today “państwo” is usually translated as “rule” or “power”, which avoids the problematic application of the modern term “state” to medieval developments. The reason to write “state” in this chapter is due to its use in translations of Hensel’s works into German at this time (see Hensel: 1960) and to the fact that the word “Staat” (state) also appeared as the most frequent term in publications on the early Slavs that were originally written in German in the Communist Period.  For a summary of research concerning Mieszko I and the formation of the Polish state see Mühle 2017: 39–52.

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(Loose 2008: 935–36, 955; Guth 2015: 460–61). The new rulers, firstly the provisional governing bodies, established immediately at the end of the war, and later the official government authorized in the rigged elections in 1947, were also pragmatic in their reliance on available research structures. They focused more on political and economic issues, and the material reconstruction of the country, in addition to having to compensate for their lack of legitimacy due to the unpopularity of the Soviet Union and Communism among the Polish population. They were very responsive to Hensel’s and other’s requests and provided the anniversary campaign with enormous financial and promotional support. In view of the financial resources and the number of academic participants, contemporary Polish archaeologists and historians still consider the project the “largest field archaeology campaign in the history of the discipline [of Polish archaeology]” (Urbańczyk 2009: 245).20 As one of the main initiators, Hensel participated in the research from the beginning, though not in a supervisory position, but as an ‘ordinary’ leader of local excavations. The project was officially coordinated from 1949 until the early 1950s by the newly founded Kierownictwo Badań nad Początkami Państwa Polskiego (Leading Committee for the Research on the Beginnings of the Polish State, KBnPPP). When the IHKM, founded at the Polish Academy of Science in 1953, finally started to work in 1954, it assumed responsibility for the project. Hensel’s potential for influence subsequently increased as he soon took over the directorship of the IHKM, staying in this position until 1989 (Reichenbach 2017: 26–27; Szczerba 2018: 251). Hensel’s research efforts on the millennial anniversary of the Polish state also benefited from the campaign the Communists waged against the Catholic Church in Poland. In contrast to other Communist states, the Church had a very strong position in Poland, as many Poles directly associated it with their national identity—loyal to the ecclesiastical authorities rather than to the Communist rulers. The Communists therefore wanted to prevent the Church, for ideological and political reasons, from establishing a religious interpretation of the millennial anniversary which highlighted the Polish Christian tradition by presenting the baptism of Mieszko I as the origin of Poland. Instead, the Communists preferred to support the archaeological and historical research campaign because it was easier to control as a centralized, state-organized research initiative (Brather 2001a: 736; Reichenbach 2009: 233; Szczerba 2018: 251). It is important to consider this background in an analysis of Hensel’s work on the beginnings of the Polish state in the Medieval Period. The effort to blur the singular status of the baptism by tracing it back to Mieszko’s political (and

 For more information on the extent of the anniversary campaign see also Reichenbach 2017.

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not spiritual) motives, and to emphasize the importance of other factors for the formation of the Polish state, can also be observed in Hensel’s texts. He identified the roots of Polish statehood long before the baptism of Mieszko I by referring to the second half of the nineth and the first half of the tenth century as the period decisive for the emergence of the Polish state. He reached even further into the past when he explained that the previous centuries (before the nineth century) had also been of great importance for the later formation of statehood (Hensel 1950: 1, 15; 1960: 11–12, 205–07). Therefore, following his interpretation, Christianity alone could “not be understood as the main wave, but as one among other waves” that resulted in the expansion and consolidation of the rule of the Piasts (Hensel 1969: 176). Hensel thus provided an interpretation that aligned with the Communist view on the origin of the Polish state. Hensel’s work on the formation of the Polish state did not result solely from his adaptation to the political circumstances. His work also linked to the older tradition in Polish archaeology and historiography, dating before the Second World War, that concerned the frequently contested borderlands between Germany and Poland. After 1945, these regions became the focus of particular attention. The term Ziemie Odzyskane (Recovered Territories) was used to describe the territories in the Oder-Neisse area that, newly or again (depending on the interpretation), became part of Poland after the war. Historical arguments that had been established in Polish archaeology and history in the Interwar Period (including by Hensel’s mentors) were subsequently mobilized to justify the inclusion of these regions in the Polish national territory. As these historical legitimation strategies have already been quite extensively analysed by contemporary historians and were not central to Hensel’s main work, they will not be discussed in detail in this chapter (see e.g. Piotrowska 1997/1998; Friedrich & Zernack 2004: 312–13; Urbańczyk 2009: 243; Grzechnik 2017: 668–92). It is, nevertheless, important to notice that, in keeping with the spirit of the times and the political and social presence of the ‘Recovered Territories’, Hensel could utilize this topic in his efforts to promote Slavic archaeology. That is why a lot of his publications on the culture of the early Slavs contained chapters that he dedicated to the question of locating the alleged Slavic homeland (see e.g. Hensel 1960; 1971; 1974; 1988). He also frequently included it in his prefaces and concluding remarks, for example, in Die Anfänge des polnischen Staates (The Beginnings of the Polish State) he wrote that prehistoric and early medieval Slavic settlements and the beginning and development of Polish statehood can be located “over several centuries […] on the site [of the Polish state of his time]” (Hensel 1960: 205). It is evident that Hensel did not just profit career-wise from the fact that the Communist rulers, lacking the personnel required for a Marxist-Leninist scientific

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leadership of history and archaeology after the war, fell back on the old structures from the Second Republic. He also relied on this situation in his publications when highlighting the value of research results from the Interwar Period, taking up the established interwar narratives to counter prior German research on the Slavs. This is clearly illustrated by the title of his 1947 publication Kłamstwa nauki niemieckiej o Słowianach (The Lies of the German Research on the Slavs) and his remarks within the text. Hensel (1947: 16) often referred to the falsification of archaeological and historical evidence concerning the cultural level of the Slavs by German academics from the Interwar Period, accusing them of “not having strived for the truth but for current political needs”. In this respect, his argument was similar to that of Herrmann—the difference is that in Hensel’s case, the confrontation with German interwar research did not represent a break with his own national research tradition, rather it linked to older arguments, such as for the inclusion of the Oder-Neisse area in the Polish state. Criticism of German research continued in Hensel’s later work; in his monograph Anfänge der Städte bei den Ost- und Westslawen (Beginnings of the Cities of the Eastern and Western Slavs) from 1967, Hensel again referred to the deficiencies of older German research traditions. Similarly to Herrmann, he criticized West Germany, but he also highlighted the achievements of GDR research. Hensel (1967: 7) listed the names of the leading East German “Slavic archaeologists” (including Herrmann), who in his opinion managed to overcome the previous “one-dimensional evaluation of the sources”. Hensel (1969: 178) also acknowledged the research achievements of other socialist states in his texts, which was typical for scientific publications from East-Central Europe during the Cold War. In the late 1960s, the challenge to explain the value of Slavic research was renewed in Poland as the millennial anniversary campaign, which had provided Slavic archaeology with considerable amounts of money and support, came to an end (Kurnatowska 2000: 389). In 1969, Hensel stated that additional investigation was still needed (181). He demanded the opportunity to continue his research, aiming to legitimize the continuation of Slavic research after the celebration of the millennium, likely out of personal interests and concern for the future of the institute he headed. This stands to reason in view of his academic career and his early specialization in the Slavs, as well as his position as IHKM director and the responsibilities for staff and funding that came with it. As an additional argument for investigating the early Slavs, Hensel referred to general cultural Slavic similarities that, in his opinion, could not only be found in prehistory and the Early Medieval Period but also in the twentieth century. According to Hensel (1965: 460), the “strong ties, connecting the Slavic lands” were a reason for strengthening the alliance among the socialist states of East-Central

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Europe (due to their mostly Slavic language background and/or their connection with Slavic history). Hensel also explicitly mentioned the contribution of Slavic archaeology to transnational cooperation; in the preface of his 1974 monograph Urund Frühgeschichte Polens (Pre- and Protohistory of Poland), he argued that Slavic archaeology could further contribute to the “development of friendly relations” between East Germany and Poland (VII). The Polish case is unique in that Hensel expressly underlined the value of archaeological compared to historical research on the early Slavs, emphasizing, for example, the relevance of material sources over textual sources for understanding early medieval Slavic culture and the beginnings of the Polish state. Hensel (1950: 1–4; 1965: 457–58; 1967: 5, 8, 170) also stated on numerous occasions that material sources have a greater potential than historical documents to prove the cultural equality of the Slavs in comparison with other European peoples. The fact that he seemed to consider it necessary to emphasize archaeological research in this way can be explained with regard to the conditions of Polish academia. In the mid-1940s, for instance, it is important to recognize that researchers from the Interwar Period were having to justify the expense of continuing their archaeological excavations to the new government (Hensel 1949: 1–4). However, this discursive pattern remained and even increased in the 1950s and 1960s, after the millennium campaign had been approved and financing was secured (Hensel 1965: 457–58; 1967: 5, 8, 170). We must consider the specific organization and internal conflicts of the Polish research landscape to better understand this continued need to justify archaeological research. Unlike in East Germany, where academic structures separated archaeology from history more distantly, and prehistoric and medieval archaeologists were clearly the protagonists of Slavic research, in the Polish People’s Republic, historical research traditionally played a large role in investigating the early Slavs. Even though archaeological excavations formed a huge part of the millennial anniversary campaign, the selection of archaeological sites was at first mainly based on written accounts. According to Reichenbach (2016: 264–65), this was due to the fact that the KBnPPP, which was initially responsible for research coordination, was led by the historian Aleksander Gieysztor who pursued an agenda based on medieval history rather than an interdisciplinary or archaeological approach. Although this orientation changed over time, we can assume that this early emphasis on medieval history was one possible reason for Hensel to continually highlight the value of archaeology. Hensel (1950: 3) furthermore implemented elements of historical materialism in his writing quite early, describing a “state” as “a coercive apparatus […] that serves the ruling classes to force the obedience of the suppressed and exploited majority of the population” and applied this definition to medieval “statehood”.

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This turn to Communist ideology, however, was rather superficial (albeit presented with great linguistical fanfare). In contrast to these expressive initial remarks, Communist paradigms were deemphasized in Hensel’s actual interpretations concerning the early Slavs and Poles. In the same paper, he attributed the formation of the Polish state not only to economic and social forces, but also to political factors, and to the capacities of Mieszko I, thereby returning to the tradition of the ‘bourgeois’ Polish archaeology and history of the Interwar Period (Hensel 1950: 16). Although the tendency to integrate historical-materialistic elements into his writing increased over time, Hensel’s attachment to the interwar traditions persisted in later texts. In various publications from the mid-1950s onwards, he stated that the level of the early medieval Slavic culture and the formation of Slavic cities (equal to those of other Western European peoples) was mostly the result of autochthonous developments and “native forces” (Hensel 1960: 205; cf. 1965: 459), and could therefore be considered “the product of domestic forces” (Hensel 1967: 169). These references to autochthonous factors also signified the continuation of earlier traditions, used with the intent of rejecting German assumptions of the allegedly inferior Slavs. Paradoxically, focusing on local development also enabled the implementation of economic and social forces from Marxist-Leninist ideology, similarly understood as “autochthonous” elements (Hensel 1960: 205; 1965: 456). The manner in which Hensel and Herrmann both used the term “material culture” as an analytical tool to describe the characteristics of the prehistoric and early medieval Slavic culture(s) seemed to be ideal for interweaving arguments from such different intellectual traditions (Hensel 1965: IX, XII–XIII, 456; Herrmann 1986a: 346). In their view, material archaeological sources were more appropriate for drawing conclusions about ways of communication and interaction, economic relations, trade and traffic routes, or social structures, than, for example, about political developments.21 Of course, highlighting social and economic factors was not necessarily an indication of Marxist-Leninist influence, although both Hensel and Herrmann deliberately focused on these areas. This is seen in their general definitions of ‘material culture(s)’ and in statements explaining the analytical value of this concept for research on the early Slavs. Not only do they use historical-materialistic arguments, but also explicitly Communist terms and references such as quotes from Marxist-Leninist theory (Hensel 1965: IX, XII–XIII, 456; Herrmann 1986a: 346). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to fully explore Hensel’s and Herrmann’s understanding of

 This argument is also used in contemporary publications, as for example by Brather 2000: 171.

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‘material culture’. A closer analysis of the extent to which these assumptions also affected practical excavation work instead represents a promising starting point for future research.

Conclusion This chapter examined the arguments that archaeologists and historians in East-Central Europe used to explain the need for academic work on the prehistoric and medieval Slavs during the Cold War. The aim was to reveal whether, and to what extent, their strategies and arguments were influenced by their contemporary political and ideological circumstances. An in-depth text analysis was conducted, utilizing the work of Joachim Herrmann from East Germany and Witold Hensel from Poland, which concentrated on the forewords and closing remarks of their publications on the early Slavs. In this way, it was possible to discern many examples for politically and ideologically influenced arguments. The fact that diachronic modifications of certain arguments occurred simultaneously with significant political changes made this influence particularly notable. In both the East German and the Polish case, arguments were connected with political changes after 1945 and their specific national characteristics. This is evident by Hensel as well as Herrmann referring to the prehistoric and early medieval Slavs as confirmation of the unity of the socialist countries of East-Central Europe. Both explicitly distanced themselves from the earlier traditions of German Slavic research, highlighting the failures of this research in their call for a renewed focus on the early Slavs in their respective states. Especially with regard to the GDR, this aspect was one of the central arguments used to explain the need for Slavic archaeology—particularly in combination with the clear distinction from West German archaeology and history. The fact that, in the Polish case, Slavic archaeology was justified more as a continuation than as a break with national pre-war traditions was caused by the specifics of the Polish situation, therefore demonstrating that the individual contexts of countries in East-Central Europe have to be considered. The references to the uninterrupted presence of Slavic groups on national territories—the Sorbs in Herrmann’s case, and the continuity between the first Slavic settlements and the origin of the ‘Polish state’ in Hensel’s case—demonstrate the influence of the present on Hensel’s and Herrmann’s interpretations of the past. In the Polish case, this analysis also revealed the impact of specific academic structures and the inner conflicts between disciplines concerned with the early Slavs.

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Elements of historical materialism could also be discerned in Hensel’s and Herrmann’s texts, both in their choice of words and in their emphasis on social and economic factors. In Hensel’s case, the combination of these premises with ‘autochthonous’ narratives from the Polish research tradition showed how national characteristics were reflected in Polish Slavic archaeology. Despite the slight scepticism towards ethnic interpretations of archaeological sources that can be found in Hensel’s, as well as especially in Herrmann’s texts, both continued to refer to the Slavs as a single ethnic unit or group. In this way, a previously assumed ‘Slavic entity’ played a central role for legitimizing the existence of Slavic archaeology in Communist East Germany and Poland. In conclusion, the stronger ideological impact of Communism on the GDR, which has been previously argued in relation to history and other disciplines (Loose 2008: 935–37; Urbańczyk 2009: 246–47; Guth 2015: 460–61), is only partially seen in the analysis of Slavic archaeology in East Germany and Poland. Although the continuity of non-Communist narratives in Polish Slavic research could be demonstrated in Hensel’s texts, his writing also contained elements of Marxist-Leninist ideology. To examine whether this observation can be explained by the characteristics of introductions and closing remarks, or whether it also applies to the actual interpretations of archaeological and historical sources, requires further research. A detailed analysis of Hensel’s and Herrmann’s complete texts is an ideal focus for future work, this would also enable a more differentiated view of Werner Coblenz’s (2002: 333) self-defending allegation that ideological premises only appeared “in the forewords to books, collected papers and the like” in East German archaeology.

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Kurnatowska, Z. 2000. Badania nad początkami i rozwojem społeczeństwa wczesnopolskiego, in M. Kobusiewicz & S. Kurnatowski (ed.) Archeologia i prahistoria polska w ostatnim półwieczu: 381–412. Poznań: Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciól Nauk. Leube, A. 2004. Der Prähistoriker Werner Radig (1903–1985). Ethnographisch-archäologische Zeitschrift 45: 83–129. Leube, A. 2010. Joachim Herrmann, in A. Leube (ed.) Prähistorie zwischen Kaiserreich und wiedervereinigtem Deutschland: 144–50. Bonn: Habelt. Loose, I. 2008. Die Sprachlosigkeit der Ideologie. Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 56(11): 935–55. Lübke, C. 2003. Barbaren, Leibeigene, Kolonisten: Zum Bild der mittelalterlichen Slaven in der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft, in M. Hardt, C. Lübke & D. Schorkowitz (ed.) Inventing the pasts in north central Europe: 155–93. Frankfurt: Lang. Lübke, C. 2009. Aufstieg, Fall, Wiederbelebung. Osteuropa 59(12): 263–72. Mühle, E. 1997. Ostforschung. Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 46(3): 317–50. Mühle, E. 2017. Die Slawen. München: C.H. Beck. Mühle, E. 2020. Die Slawen im Mittelalter. Köln: Böhlau. Neustupný, E. 2004. The ideological environment of archaeology, in B. Gediga & W. Piotrowski (ed.) Archäologie – Kultur – Ideologien: 223–29. Biskupin: PAN. Ó Ríagáin, R. & C.N. Popa 2012. Introduction, in R. Ó Ríagáin & C. Popa (ed.) Archaeology and the (de)construction of national and supra-national polities. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 27(2): 1–9. Piotrowska, D. 1997/1998. Biskupin 1933–1996. Archaeology, politics and nationalism. Archaeologia Polona 35/36: 255–85. Piskorski, J.M. 2006. Polish ‘myśl zachodnia’ and German ‘Ostforschung’, in M. Fahlbusch & I. Haar (ed.) German Scholars and Ethnic Cleansing, 1919–1945: 260–71. New York: Berghahn. Pohl, W. 1999. Ethnizität des Frühmittelalters als interdisziplinäres Problem. Das Mittelalter 4(1): 69–75. Reichenbach, K. 2009. Die schlesische Burgwallforschung zwischen 1900 und 1970, in J. Schachtmann, M. Strobel & T. Widera (ed.) Politik und Wissenschaft in der prähistorischen Archäologie: 219–35. Göttingen: V&R Unipress. Reichenbach, K. 2016. Millionen für’s Millenium, in S. Grunwald, U. Halle, D. Mahsarski & K. Reichenbach (ed.) Die Spur des Geldes in der prähistorischen Archäologie: 259–79. Bielefeld: Transcript. Reichenbach, K. 2017. The research program on the beginnings of the Polish state between Polish western thought and historical materialism. Przegląd Archeologiczny 65: 19–34. doi:10.23858/PA65.2017.003 Stone, G. 2016. Slav outposts in central European history. London: Bloomsbury. Szczerba, A. 2018. From the history of Polish archaeology. Studies of the beginning of the Polish state 1948–1966 (“Millennium Program”). Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Archaeologica 33: 247–54. doi:10.18778/0208-6034.33.12 Urbańczyk, P. 2003. Do we need archaeology of ethnicity?, in M. Hardt, C. Lübke & D. Schorkowitz (ed.) Inventing the pasts in north central Europe: 43–49. Frankfurt: Lang. Urbańczyk, P. 2008. Wywiad z Profesorem Witoldem Henslem (roz. przeprowadził Przemysław Urbańczyk). Archeologia Polski 53(1): 147–59.

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Urbańczyk, P. 2009. Medieval archaeology in Polish historic-political discourse, in J. Schachtmann, M. Strobel & T. Widera (ed.) Politik und Wissenschaft in der prähistorischen Archäologie: 237–49. Göttingen: V&R Unipress. Veit, U. 2011. Archäologiegeschichte als Wissenschaftsgeschichte. EthnographischArchäologische Zeitschrift 52(1): 34–58. Vom Bruch, R. 2002. Nachkriegszeit, in R. Vom Bruch & B. Kaderas (ed.) Wissenschaften und Wissenschaftspolitik: 369–72. Stuttgart: Steiner. Widera, T. 2009. Werner Coblenz und die prähistorische Archäologie, in T. Widera, J. Schachtmann & M. Strobel (ed.) Politik und Wissenschaft in der prähistorischen Archäologie: 193–217. Göttingen: V&R Unipress. Zaremba, M. 2019. Communism – legitimacy – nationalism. Berlin: Peter Lang. Zernack, K. 2005. Mediävistische Forschungen zur Osteuropäischen Geschichte, in D. Dahlmann (ed.) Hundert Jahre Osteuropäische Geschichte: 71–79. Stuttgart: Steiner. Zimmering, R. 2000. Mythen in der Politik. Opladen: Leske + Budrich.

Matthias E. Cichon

Allies out of Ashes? Polish Ideas for the Refounding of Medieval Western Slavic States after 1945 Abstract: References to an (alleged) Slavic kinship played an important propagandistic role in forging a Soviet-dominated East-Central Europe after the Second World War. On behalf of the Kremlin, several governments adopted such narratives and these histories helped to explain the legitimacy of their country’s alliance with the Soviet Union. To win over the intellectual elites, so-called ‘Slavic Committees’ took up a central role in countries like Poland, the focus of this chapter. Despite being designed as a Communist transmission belt, the Slavic Committee in Poland (KSwP) was not solely a propaganda agency. The organization comprised several pre-war Slavophiles who created enough space to push very different agendas. Two particularly stark examples illustrating both the vividness of the ‘Slavic idea’ among Polish intellectuals, as well as the loose control over the Committee, were the publications edited by Karol Stojanowski and Władysław Kołodziej. Both the former national democrat, Stojanowski, as well as the neo-pagan activist, Kołodziej, pleaded for the restoration of the long-gone world of medieval Slavdom in Germany. As this chapter will explain, these ‘Slavic’ proposals were inspired by Western Thought1 and aimed at strengthening Poland’s position, although they were strongly out of line with the Communist Polish government’s official policy. Keywords: Pan-Slavism; Poland; Nationalism; Slavic Idea

 Western Thought is the collective term in Poland for various concepts aimed at acquiring territories at the river Oder and the Baltic Sea (Semczyszyn et al. 2013: 9). Acknowledgements: Hereby I would especially like to thank the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (German Academic Scholarship Foundation) for funding my PhD project on “Poland and the Slavic Idea, 1918–1948”. Moreover, credit goes to my supervisor as well as to Anne Kluger for their useful suggestions. Last but not least, I feel much obliged to the editors of this volume for amending both content and style of this chapter. Matthias E. Cichon, University of Münster, Germany https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-006

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Introduction By the end of the Second World War, most Polish parties argued in favour of shifting their country’s border towards the Oder-Neisse line in the west.2 After the severe human, cultural, and economic losses during the German occupation (1939–1945), they deemed it a moral, geopolitical, and historical necessity. Laying boundary markers at the Oder River should have provided Poland with an effective protective line against future aggressions from the west. Foremost, though, it was perceived to be an act of historical justice: after centuries of absence, Poland was to regain Silesia and Pomerania—considered two cradles of its statehood which had been lost by the early fourteenth century—as well as the north-eastern region of Warmia and the city of Gdańsk (Danzig), which had been annexed by Prussia in the second half of the eighteenth century (Fig. 1). Despite their predominantly German-speaking population (Fig. 2), these territories were considered to be age-old Polish and Slavic soil. Such narratives became especially crucial to the Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego (Polish Committee of National Liberation, PKWN), the Moscowsponsored counter-government. By spreading the slogan of the ‘Recovered Territories’ (Fig. 2), Polish Communists tried to distract public attention from the fact that Poland had forfeited its Eastern Borderlands (kresy) to the Soviet Union, a loss which would continue to play an unsettling role in Polish collective memory.3 Official bodies stressed the Polishness of Pomerania and Silesia, which had now, finally, come home. References to the Slavic past of the new territories and their autochthonous population played a pivotal role in post-war propaganda (Strauchold 2003: 62). However, such narratives were neither new nor particularly Communist. In fact, they heavily relied on Western Thought, an ideology aimed at legitimizing Polish territorial claims, cultivated by right-wing scholars in interwar Poland (Zaremba 2010: 142; cf. Piotrowski 1987: 18). Much has been written on the post-war careers of those academics from the Interwar Period, in consideration of how archaeological and historical arguments justified the new territorial status quo. By their very nature, these arguments had an overwhelmingly defensive character since the new western border was already beyond the dreams of most intellectuals (Briesewitz 2014: 290). For this reason, it comes as no surprise that recent research has paid significantly less attention to further ongoing territorial demands in the post-1945 period. In addition, links

 The Polish government in exile refrained from such demands as late as 1944 to avoid a pretext for the Soviet annexation of the Polish Eastern Territories (Briesewitz 2014: 295).  On the importance of the kresy in interwar Poland see (Kleßmann & Traba 2010: 30).

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Fig. 1: East-Central Europe after the Second World War. Poland’s ‘Recovered Territories’ (hatched area). Extract from Magocsi 2018: 156. Used with permission.

between these expansionist plans and the Slavic idea have so far only scarcely been touched.4 Yet it was around the state sponsored Komitet Słowiański w Polsce (Slavic Committee in Poland, KSwP), an institution that promoted the cooperation between the Slavic states and increasing knowledge exchange, where some of these plans evolved. In lectures, radio broadcasts, and publications the Slavic idea gained post-war traction within the KSwP. Former national democrat and anthropologist Karol Stojanowski (1895–1947) envisaged a Lusatian and a Polabian state in his 1946 work O reslawizację wschodnich Niemiec (The Re-Slavization of Eastern Germany). His vision included

 The Slavic idea here is defined as the collective term for the different approaches, concepts, programmes, and initiatives aimed at the political, cultural, or economic cooperation or unification (of parts) of the Slavic nations on the grounds of (supposed) ethnic, linguistic, cultural, mental, or religious kinship. In both scientific as well as public discourse, the term is frequently used synonymously with pan-Slavism and thereby integrating it into the larger family of supranational pan-movements (e.g. pan-Arabism) and macro-nationalism. In the Polish context, however, panSlavism is rather associated with a specific, Russo-centric nineteenth century approach of unifying all Slavic people under tsarist rule (see e.g. Fertacz 1991: 15; 2000: 10; Djakow 1993: 8; Pospišil 2004: 28; Obšust 2013: 7).

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Berlin as well as Hamburg. He claimed that both countries should serve as Polish satellites and by their very existence would remove the basis of Prussian expansionism. Stojanowski even proposed reviving the long extinct Polabian language and used Modern Hebrew as a successful example of reinvigorating a language. Equally fantastical were the ideas of Władysław Kołodziej (1897–1978), a neo-pagan activist and Protestant clergyman, who demanded autonomy for the island of Rügen. In the High Medieval Period, the island had harboured one of the biggest pagan Slavic shrines, which had been destroyed by Danish knights in 1168. Within generations, the Slavic culture on Rügen ceased to exist, which was a catastrophe to Kołodziej. However, after the defeat of Germany in 1945, he deemed the time was ripe to resuscitate this lost Slavic arcadia and to put it under Polish supervision.

Fig. 2: Ethnolinguistic distribution, ca. 1900. Sorbian-speaking areas (14). Extract from Magocsi 2018: 99. Used with permission.

As different as they might be, both ideas had a common core: they envisaged the foundation of Polish satellites states west of the Oder-Neisse line. Both dreamed, at least partly, of reanimating the long-lost world of medieval western Slavdom (Fig. 3), and both seem to have been anything but realistic to the contemporary reader. Yet, how unrealistic were these ideas really? What was the motivation of their creators? What political impact did they have? And, given their supposedly

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highly political character, why were they permitted in times of wide-spread censorship and lack of printing possibilities? This chapter argues, that although both proposals emerged around the state sponsored KSwP, they cannot be perceived as part of a concerted propaganda action by the pro-Soviet regime. On the contrary, the chapter demonstrates that both concepts were the result of local initiatives. By their very existence, they bear witness to the prestige the Slavic idea enjoyed among intellectuals. Moreover, both cases illustrate the limited control the Polish state exercised even over supposed propaganda agencies, at least initially from 1945 to 1947.

Fig. 3: East-Central Europe, ninth century. Polabian tribes: Obodrites, Ranians (Rani), Veletians, Polabians (sub-tribe), Havelians. Extract from Magocsi 2018: 11. Used with permission.

A Foot in the Door: Popularizing Communism in Polish Society At its very beginning, the pro-Soviet Polish government (the PKWN) rested on shaky grounds. 5 Apart from modest electoral successes of Communist

 Bolesław Bierut, at a Central Committee meeting of the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) in 1945, vividly pictured what would happen to the Polish Communists without Red Army protection: “They [the Poles] will chase and blast us like partridges” (Zaremba 2010: 146).

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parties in the industrialized Dąbrowa Basin and the centres of Łódź and Warsaw, Communism had not been very popular in interwar Poland. The same can be said about the popularity of the Soviet Union in Polish society, which further diminished after the Soviet invasion on 17 September 1939. Deportations to Siberia (1940), rumours about the NKVD’s murder of thousands of imprisoned Polish officers at Katyń, as well as the imminent loss of the Eastern Territories destroyed any feelings of goodwill towards the Soviet Union (Zaremba 2010: 130). If the PKWN, and later the Rząd Tymczasowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland, RTRP), wanted to increase its popular legitimacy, it had to do everything it could to counteract the (correct) impression of being scarcely more than a Soviet-controlled puppet regime (Borodziej 2010: 263). The PKWN therefore avoided any references to Communism in its name, was careful that only a minority of its top echelons belonged to the Communist Polska Partia Robotnicza (Polish Workers’ Party, PPR), and struck a decisively patriotic tone in its statements.6 This was already evident in the so-called PKWN Manifesto, which was published immediately after the committee’s foundation on 22 June 1944. Instead of talking about class struggle, the Manifesto highlighted a supposedly ancient Polish-German antagonism, praised the new Slavic solidarity, and called on Poles to fight for the recovery of the “old Polish Pomerania and Opole Silesia” as well as the “boundary-posts at the Oder River” (Manifest: 9).7 A self-styled independent, patriotic, and non-partisan political body, the PKWN made use of several slogans which were more in line with the traditions of rightist parties than with those associated with the labour movement and Communist groups (Zaremba 2010: 142). Rhetoric formed one pillar of how the PKWN and the Polish Communists planned to win over hearts and minds and anchor themselves in society. But even more important than possessing an attractive and non-committal vocabulary was the creation of a broad milieu of sympathizers who could act as the backbone of the new regime. Of course, supporters were to be found among the industrial workers and miners—the epitome of the proletariat. In contrast to Czechoslovakia, interwar Poland used to be a largely rural, agrarian state with a large intelligentsia, but with a comparatively small industrial sector. In 1921, only 24.7% of all employees earned their livelihood in factories or mines.8 Matters were complicated by the fact that in

 This reflected a strategy already employed by other pro-Soviet Communist organizations. When Stalin set up a loyal Polish mass organization in the Soviet Union in 1943, this political body was cautiously called Związek Patriotów Polskich (Union of Polish Patriots), not Union of Polish Communists.  Unless otherwise specified, all Polish citations in this chapter were translated by the author.  This share increased to 26.9% by 1931 (Stańczyk 2008: 295–96).

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regions such as Polish Upper Silesia most miners maintained strong bonds to the Catholic Church (Bjork 2008). These circumstances did not change much after the Second World War. Thus, even when the majority of the workers, their trade unions, and associations were won over, only a comparatively small urban group backed the new regime. Polish Communists started to woo different social and professional groups in an attempt to establish a more solid basis for their claims to power. At first, these efforts were directed at the elites, including journalists, teachers, and lecturers. But by 1948, after the Communists had marginalized their political opponents and Stalinization had begun in earnest, increasing efforts were targeted at the general public.9 For both the ‘elites’ and the public, organizations were founded which were to act as ideological transmission belts to influence society, either from the top-down by an intellectual vanguard or from bottom-up by mass movements. Generally, developments in Poland followed similar patterns as elsewhere in Soviet-dominated East-Central Europe, and most Polish institutions had their respective counterparts in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or Yugoslavia. Institutional homogeneity was also to pave the way for the formation of a politically united block east of the Iron Curtain.

Institutionalized Slavdom—The Slavic Committee in Poland (KSwP) The Slavic Committees proved to be a peculiar case for two reasons: firstly, they emerged solely in countries that belonged to the Soviet sphere of influence. Secondly, whereas most satellite organizations were national in their scope, the Slavic Committees emphasized and pleaded for supranational, Slavic cooperation in politics, culture, and economy, thereby epitomizing a preliminary step to proletarian unity across borders. Officially, the KSwP was founded in late August 1945 (Pręcikowski 2000: 178), but its roots can be traced back some years earlier, when, in 1941, shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Communist instrumentalization of the Slavic idea began. Since the early nineteenth century, the conviction of belonging to a linguistically, ethnically, culturally, or religiously defined Slavic community enjoyed some popularity in East-Central Europe; at least among parts of the intellectual elites. Due to an allegedly ever-growing threat by German, Hungarian,

 On organizations and associations in post-war Poland, see Jarosz 2017: 27–49.

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and even Ottoman imperialism, several attempts were made for political cooperation or even unification of these nations (e.g. the Prague Slavic Congress in 1848, Russian pan-Slavism, and Czech-inspired neo-Slavism). All of them failed. After 1918, due to ongoing territorial conflicts such as the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918–1919), the prospects for political cooperation did not improve. Nevertheless, during the 1920s, a number of societies for the promotion of mutual Slavic assistance emerged. Additionally, numerous professional, scientific, and cultural exchanges tried to strengthen Slavic bonds with often clear political statements (Fertacz 1991: 30). The inception of a Slavic political movement and the foundation of an All-Slavic Committee during the Second World War was thus not that surprising. The fact that it was set up in the Soviet Union, however, was perhaps a little unexpected (Fertacz 1991: 30). Initially, ideological concerns had left no room for Slavic or pan-Slavic elements in Soviet political thinking or propaganda. Deemed “reactionary” and equated with the Tsarist past, any form of Slavism was univocally rejected in the multinational Soviet Union (Behrends 2014: 88; cf. Kohn 1952: 699). Things changed after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and a series of crushing military defeats, after which Stalin and the Politburo had to take up new measures in order to mobilize all available forces. Out of necessity they fell back to Russian imperial traditions,10 loosened their grip on the Russian Orthodox Church, replaced class-based catchwords with patriotic slogans (‘Great Patriotic War’) and let the idea of Slavic solidarity enjoy a comeback (Behrends 2014: 85; Troebst 2014a: 46; 2014b). As early as autumn 1941, the All-Slavic Committee made a first appearance.11 Grouped into six national sections and financially well-equipped, the committee fulfilled primarily propagandistic tasks. Through newspaper articles, radio broadcasts, and congresses, it called on the ‘oppressed Slavic brothers’ to fight the Germans and huddle around the Soviet Union. Prominent writers, politicians, and artists such as Aleksey Tolstoy (1883–1945), Oleksandr Korniychuk (1905–1972) and Alexander Fadeyev (1901–1956) enhanced the committee’s reputation. Most activists were Communists out of conviction, but Slavs out of duty (Djilas 1962: 33, 38). It was thus hardly surprising that their enthusiasm for what they understood as an interim ideologeme remained rather modest

 Nationalism and imperial Russian traditions had become partly rehabilitated already in the mid-1930s, when officer ranks as well as orders were introduced in the Red Army (Zaremba 2010: 75–78).  Whether by chance or intention, the organization’s name came close to that of a famous conservative aid association in tsarist Russia, the Slavic Charity Committee (SCC), established in 1858. On the SCC see Nikitin 1960; Rolicz-Chyra 2016: 25.

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(Fertacz 1991: 43). In this regard, Wanda Wasilewska, the chairman of the Polish section who was a left-wing politician and a famous pre-war author of children’s novels, was an exception (Fertacz 1991: 44).12 In essence, however, the All-Slavic Committee resembled a Potemkin village. Despite being largely a façade organization, the Soviet leadership had some interest in maintaining its activities even after Germany’s defeat had become only a matter of time. The Slavic idea became a tool for implementing Communist rule in East-Central Europe. Therefore, the national sections of the All-Slavic Committee were replaced by a network of Slavic Committees in all the Slavic-speaking countries (cf. Pręcikowski 2005: 296). In this vein, the Slavic Committee in Poland (KSwP) was to act as an umbrella organization coordinating the Slavic activities and organizations between the rivers Oder and Bug, and, at least theoretically, supervising the Slavic friendship societies, including the eminent Towarzystwo Przyjaźni Polsko-Radzieckiej (Society of Polish-Soviet Friendship, TPPR) (Gruszczyk 2019: 73).13 Comparable to the friendship societies, the KSwP underlined its independence from party authorities, ascribing itself to public interest (cf. Behrends 2008: 184; Gończyński-Jussis 2017: 56–57). Although it had formally reported solely to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the presence of several prominent politicians in the executive committee, such as the ministers Henryk Świątkowski and Jan Grubecki, put a question mark over the very nature of this autonomy.14 Those decision makers filled the ranks of various bodies. In practice, therefore, they could only dedicate a little time to Slavic issues and were often absent at important meetings; a fact that inhibited the organization’s work and was mourned by other members (AMSZ 14: 48). The situation was further aggravated by the committees’ chairman, Mieczysław Michałowicz (1876–1965), a surgeon by profession and co-opted leading politician of the Stronnictwo Demokratyczne (Alliance of Democrats, SD), who seemed to have no inclination for Slavic issues.15

 Wasilewska’s deceased father Leon, a notable anti-Soviet Polish Socialist Party (PPS) politician and former minister of foreign affairs, had once belonged to the Slavic Society in Krakow for which he had published several magazine articles (e.g. on Esperanto as an interSlavic language) and booklets (Wasilewski 1913; Kochan 1979: 61).  Charter of the Slavic Committee in Poland, Warsaw, 30 January 1946 (Balcerak 1984: 97).  In fact, the KSwP became sort of a branch of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gruszczyk 2019: 71).  To put it in the words of KSwP secretary Zofia Sobierajska, Michałowicz “proved to be a very intelligent and in every respect educated person, but not the chairman of the Slavic Committee”. Report on the KSwP’s delegation visit to Moscow, 5 May 1946 (AMSZ 14: 55).

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Yet in contrast to the All-Slavic Committee, the KSwP consisted not only of apparatchiks who paid lip service to the Slavic idea, but also of people who had dedicated an important part of their lives to Slavic issues. Most of them had an academic background, and many—for example, Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński, the former director of the Jagiellonian University, the literary historian and diplomat Tadeusz Stanisław Grabowski, and the historian and journalist Henryk Batowski—had been active in the small but vivid Slavic milieu of the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939). This new political power gave lovers of Slavdom an opportunity to make their old dreams come true and to further their careers. Portraying them as deceived and exploited idealists, as indicated by Sławomir Leszek Pręcikowski (2000: 180; cf. Fertacz 1993: 87) would therefore be too simplistic. As Mitchell Ash (2002: 33) has convincingly argued for the German case, the relationship between science and politics can hardly be understood as mono-directional. On the contrary, both sides served as a constellation of financial, intellectual, or political “resources” for the other. In the early years of post-war Poland, the intellectuals involved in the work of the KSwP were not ‘misused’ experts suffering from political blindness or naivety, but conscious partners led by supposedly well-founded but ultimately wrong calculations.16 Be that as it may, the committee’s backbone was formed by the pre-war Slavic activists, thinkers, and dreamers as well as a number of publicists and scholars who had only been loosely affiliated with the Slavic milieu. Both groups carried out their duties with diligence. They were central actors in preparing the major event of the pro-Soviet Slav movement: the All-Slavic Congress in Belgrade in December 1946 (Pręcikowski 2002; Gruszczyk 2014). They also demonstrated great initiative by ensuring a high level of quality for the committee’s magazine Życie Słowiańskie (The Slavic Life), and by publishing booklets and giving public lectures. Out of the seven Voivodeship groups (local branches), however, only three turned out to be more than just paper tigers, one of which was the committee’s Wrocław section (Gruszczyk 2019: 88, 104). Although officially headed by the Lower Silesian voivode Stanisław Piaskowski and two scholars who became politicians (Stanisław Kulczyński and Jan Dębski), the tone was set by others who were more familiar with Slavic issues. Among them was Stanisław Rospond (1906–1982). As a linguist, Rospond (1946: 5) was in charge of the section for research and publications. It was most likely due to his input that in 1946 the Wrocław branch began editing and printing a short-lived book series called

 In a similar vein to the proponents of Western Thought in post-1945 Poland (Strauchold 2003: 97).

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Biblioteka Słowiańska (The Slavic Library) (Gruszczyk 2019: 159).17 The series’ first volume was written by a prominent pre-war national democrat, the anthropologist and proponent of eugenics, Karol Stojanowski (1895–1947) who had long considered the ‘Slavic world’.

A Slavic Palestine? Karol Stojanowski and the Re-Slavization of Eastern Germany Born to an eastern Polish family in what is presently Ukraine, Stojanowski received his academic education at the John Casimir University in Lwów (Lviv) where he had become an ardent disciple of Jan Czekanowski, the spiritual rector of Polish interwar anthropology (Grot 1996: 57). In the 1930s, Czekanowski was well known for his theories on human races. His work became something of a Polish export hit and was well-received, for instance, by Yugoslav intellectuals (Borodziej & Górny 2018: 394; see e.g. Županić 1938). Contesting the results of German anthropologists, Czekanowski (1937: 135) argued that Germany was hardly more ‘Nordic’ than Poland—and was, in fact, the latter’s racial continuation. Meanwhile, his student Stojanowski had moved to the city of Poznań which was the centre of Western Thought and of the political right. Here, the young anthropologist worked as lecturer, joined the Stronnictwo Narodowe (National Party, SN), and began contributing articles to the Kurier Poznański, the right-wing press’ flagship newspaper (Patalas 2010: 37). Due to the vivid German-Polish antagonism in the western border region, in addition to his analyses of German anthropological literature, Stojanowski soon began to understand Nazi Germany— and especially its racist ideology—as a lethal threat to Slavs in general and Poles in particular. In 1934, less than a year after Hitler’s seizure of control, Stojanowski published a warning call entitled Rasizm przeciw słowiańszczyźnie (Racism against Slavdom). According to the young scholar, based on their racist theories, Germans would sooner or later wage a war of subjugation against all Slavic people (Stojanowski 1934: 86). Yet to Stojanowski, even the basic assumptions of the German anthropologists were false. Referring to the race theories of his doctoral supervisor Czekanowski, he pointed out that Poles and Germans were  The series ended in 1947 after it published Tadeusz Stanisław Grabowski’s Łużyczanie. Ich walka, klęski i ... triumf (The Sorbs. Their fight, defeat and ... triumph). Besides the KSwP’s Wrocław section, the Institut Śląski (Silesian Institute) in Katowice edited a ‘Slavic library’ (1946 to 1948, eight volumes).

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ethnically heterogeneous, and Germany’s east was in fact largely inhabited by Germanized Slavs (Stojanowski 1937: 10). As an unintended result of the growing attention of racial issues, according to Stojanowski, many of those people had become aware of their Slavic roots. Hence, argued Stojanowski (1937: 125), one might hope that developments would go in a different direction than envisaged by Nazi ideologues and lead to a counter-reaction of the Germanized people, as had recently happened in Ireland. This could result in Germany’s territorial disintegration and the creation of Slavo-German states, thereby putting an end to the German Drang nach Osten. Nevertheless, he recommended that Poland seek cooperation with Czechoslovakia and build up a defensive West-Slavic Federation. In case of Germany’s continued violation of the Treaty of Versailles, this federation would have the ‘moral right’ to annexe those territories formerly inhabited by Slavs. Twelve years later, the KSwP’s Wrocław branch published an updated and condensed version of Stojanowski’s monograph.18 Although the title O reslawizację wschodnich Niemiec (On the Re-Slavization of Eastern Germany) might have been confusing to some readers and provoked the question whether the author was referring to the ‘historical’ Eastern Germany or the new post-1945 reality, the booklet’s contents ironed out any doubts. Stojanowski was not covering the Polonization of the pre-1937 German Eastern provinces, but the Slavization of the territories between the rivers Elbe and Oder. As in Rasizm przeciw słowiańszczyźnie, he pointed out that Germans living east of the Elbe were overwhelmingly assimilated Slavs, although most of them had been unaware of their Slavic descent before 1918, and the foundation of independent Slavic states after 1918 had evoked a modest wave of interest in their own ancestry (Stojanowski 1946: 6, 10). Allegedly, this curiousness prevailed even under Nazi rule and genealogical research had made many Germans aware of their Slavic descent. Now it was up to the United Nations to give those identifying themselves as Slavs a place where they could live. According to Stojanowski (1946: 21), the Sorbs, the ‘autochthonous’ Slavic population inhabiting Upper and Lower Lusatia, were the first to receive their own independent country. Referring to data provided by the Sorbian National Committee, the anthropologist put their number as high as 400,000 to 500,000. This was more than double what the most sympathetic Polish experts had

 During his years in the underground, Stojanowski, using his pen name Jan Kaliski, published another booklet entitled Państwo Zachodnio-Słowiańskie (The Western Slavic State) in 1942.

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estimated in the Interwar Period.19 All territories populated by the Sorbian minority should be unified, Stojanowski (1946: 23) contended, also pleading for the inclusion of German-speaking areas. Modelled on the Irish example, in which only a minority spoke the national language, the Lusatian state would encompass an area with a population of between two and three million inhabitants, who were primarily non-Sorbian speakers. Of course, Sorbs were too few to found and maintain a state on their own: “Both a Polish as well as a Czech incorporation of Lusatia would not be appropriate. The Sorbs shall receive a separate country for their nation, to be guaranteed by the United Nations” (Stojanowski 1946: 15). Stojanowski (1946: 27) designated the lion’s share of the territory for the ‘Polabians’ or ‘Polabian Slavs’. However, in comparison with the Sorbs, ‘Polabians’ only existed in books. Their name (also ‘Elbe Slavs’ or ‘Wends’) used to be the collective exonym for the disparate group of Slavic pagan tribes that inhabited the areas in between the rivers Elbe and Oder beginning in the sixth century CE (Mühle 2020: 299). Having lost their political independence in the thirteenth century, these tribes had been quickly assimilated, although some dialects managed to survive until the first half of the eighteenth century (cf. Mühle 2016: 80). Stojanowski (1946: 25) noticed these facts yet deemed them inessential: “Although the Polabian Slavdom was Germanized faster [than the Sorbian territories] leaving no remnants, a Slavic consciousness did not disappear”. This alleged Slavic consciousness became Stojanowski’s primary justification for working towards another Slavic state whose territory should encompass Magdeburg, Lübeck, Kiel, Hamburg, and even Germany’s capital city, Berlin. The complete absence of Polabian speakers did not bother the nationalist intellectual. Drawing inspiration from the Zionist movement, he made a straight proposal of how to cut this Gordian knot: One just has to find a certain number of Polabian Slavs returning to their already extinct language. [...] A senseless utopia—many will say—a nation who has stopped using its own language never returns to it. But that’s not the case! Once again, we are witnesses of an exceptionally interesting sociological phenomenon. It is the Palestinian Jews who are giving us proof that a return to one’s old language is possible; they have returned in considerable numbers to their Hebrew, already extinct much earlier than the language of the Slavic Drevani (Stojanwoski 1946: 27).

In sum, Stojanowski—despite avoiding the very notion—envisaged the foundation of two vulnerable vassal states largely comprising the territory of Prussia. By their

 According to German census data in 1925 and 1933 there were 70,898 and 57,711 Sorbs in Upper and Lower Lusatia respectively. Polish estimates put their number between 111,000 and 200,000 (e.g. AMSZ 14: 3; Fischer 1932: 44; Kaczmarek 1945: 7).

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very existence, these Polish outposts would deal a death blow to the once powerful Prussian state, which, according to Stojanowski (1946: 28), was the “most repulsive creation of history”. Putting an end to the imperial Drang nach Osten by remapping Germany and Poland, the long-term success of this venture would be guaranteed by an extensive re-educational program aimed at bringing up a new generation of peaceful Germans.

Cape Arkona—Władysław Kołodziej and the Re-Slavization of Rügen After the Second World War, plans for the revivification of medieval western Slavic states were also made by a group of Polish neo-pagans gathered around Władysław Kołodziej (1897–1978).20 Born into a Roman Catholic family, Kołodziej studied at the University of Wilno (Vilnius) and then worked as a clerk in state administration. In 1921 he became the founder and leader of a small group of Polish neo-pagans (Lechickie Koło Czcicieli Światowida) (Simpson 1999: 68). In comparison to other neo-pagan groups, such as Jan Stachniuk’s Zadruga, Kołodziej and his followers displayed a deeper interest in issues related to the Slavic past and pleaded for the unity of Slavic nations (Pręcikowski 1998: 232). Yet in order to make a living, he also entered the Polish National Catholic Church in 1929. A decade later, he joined the Church of Christ and became a preacher (Pręcikowski 1998: 230). His Christian odyssey continued still further and in 1940 Kołodziej became a Methodist priest (Weremiejewicz 2014: 296; cf. Łapiński & Szczepański 1996: 106). After the end of the Second World War, he once again turned to the Church of Christ (Weremiejewicz 2014: 63). The German invasion had put an end to most of Kołodziej’s activities. Now he hurried things along. His income as a Protestant minister allowed him to resume his neo-pagan activities and he began editing an almanac named Kalendarz Słowiański (Slavic Calendar).21 According to Pręcikowski (1998: 236), the Calendar constituted a kind of founding manifesto of a national, Slavic-Lechitic Church which embraced neo-pagan and Christian elements. With its mixture of “neo-pagan folklore and Slavic fantasy” (Pręcikowski 1998: 232), it exhibited strong anti-German and anti-Catholic sentiments. Anti-German tendencies were particularly pertinent in  These medieval western Slavic states were organizations based on tribes, not states in the broader sense (Mühle 2020: 297–99).  Kalendarz Słowiański na 1946 Rok, vol. 1 (1945). Kalendarz Słowiański na 1947 Rok, vol. 2 (1946).

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the almanac’s second volume which dealt with the island of Rügen, “the holy land of the Slavs pleading for liberty and independence” (Kołodziej 1946). Until 1168, the island of Rügen, located in the north-east of modern Germany, had been controlled by the Rani, a western Slavic tribe. That year, Danish crusaders crushed the local order and burned the renowned Svetovid shrine at Cape Arkona. Soon after the Danish victory, Germans took control. Rügen’s inhabitants were baptized which was followed by linguistic and cultural assimilation, leaving few visible traces of the pre-Christian Slavic society.22 Accordingly, Rügen was more than just a Slavic graveyard to Kołodziej.23 Although he mourned the decline of the Rani state, the neo-Pagan activist claimed the island (for which he constantly employed the archaic name ‘Roja’ instead of the modern Polish name ‘Rugia’) had preserved its spiritual and civilizational function. To him, Rügen “had always been, is, and will forever be the holy land of Slavs” and, therefore, recovering this “source of [Slavic] mental culture” was deemed a precondition for the convalescence and unity of the Slavic nations (Kołodziej 1946: 2). It was also a means of evading the supposedly harmful influence of Roman culture. Allegedly manipulated by the Germans, Roman culture had more than once almost led to Slavdom’s extinction. Changing “the course of history” was, therefore, the order of the day; a free and independent Roja was indispensable (Kołodziej 1946: 2). Gathered in the so-called ‘High Council of the Drevids of Roja’, in August 1946, the neo-Pagans directed a short memorandum to the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as to the embassies of France and the United Kingdom (Kalendarz Słowiańsk 1946: 2). Demanding the restoration of Rügen’s political independence and the resettlement of the island’s German population, the neo-Pagans also pleaded for the admission of their own delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (Kołodziej 1946: 20–21). After its recovery, Roja was to serve as a hub connecting British, French, and Polish druids. In military terms, the self-styled druids advocated a Polish protectorate over what was then a sovereign island (Memoriał na Konferencję 1946: 21). Interestingly, no arguments referring to military power or geographic proximity were raised. What tipped the scales was Poland’s alleged merit of having given shelter to Drevidic traditions. All in all, the contours of Roja remained blurred. It was unclear whether the island should become a kind of

 The only visible remnants that the protagonist of Fontane’s novel Effi Briest (1895) could think of were a former camp and two sacrificial stones (Fontane 1896: 493).  According to Wyder (2003: 175), the metaphor ‘Slavic graveyard’, referring to the territories of the Germania Slavica (the Germanized regions east of the Elbe), was coined by medievalist Józef Widajewicz (1935) and enjoyed popularity in both scientific as well as public discourse.

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Slavic Vatican, home to a handful of (Polish) neo-Pagans alone, or the site of a larger Polish/Slavic re-colonization project. Therefore, the project should be primarily seen as a geopolitical proposal directed at buttressing Poland’s new position by once again weakening the German antipode.

Imaging Satellite States: Concerted Action or Action out of Control? Until the Yugoslav-Soviet split (1948), references to Slavdom featured frequently in Polish post-war discourse. Aimed at justifying the new territorial status quo, their geographic scope was, in general, limited to the territories east of the Oder-Neisse line. In contrast, Stojanowski and Kołodziej took a further expansionist stance by referring to regions outside the new Polish borders. Given widespread censorship, this raises the question why such thoughts were able to be published in the first place. When the Calendar and Stojanowski’s booklet were printed, East-Central Europe was still being reshaped. Hundreds of thousands of Germans were still living in the Recovered Territories, while the influx of settlers to the new Polish west continued. Nevertheless, it was frequently questioned whether Poles were going to remain long in the new areas. Due to the worsening relations between the Soviet Union and the western powers, Washington and London made advances towards the recently defeated Germans, which included (vague) promises of a future territorial revision (Pałys 2014: 229). Against this backdrop, it is tempting to perceive Kołodziej’s and Stojanowski’s proposals as part of an orchestrated semiofficial campaign in response to such discussions, though neither scholar held any official administrative post. But being able to publish with the de facto state agency of Slavic affairs spoke volumes and was a powerful signal. Similar assumptions may be made about Kołodziej. Although he was never a member of the Committee, the first editions of his Calendars received an overall favourable review by the KSwP’s mouthpiece Życie Słowiańskie (Modelska 1946: 147; Pręcikowski 1998: 236). Moreover, the regular contribution of anti-Catholic articles in pro-party newspapers also indicated that he was in line with official policy. At first glance, both publications had several advantages for the central Polish government. On the one hand, giving a stage to a prominent nationalist like Stojanowski helped to enhance the government’s reputation for being a democratic and patriotic force. On the other hand, boosting territorial maximalist demands provided Warsaw with new bargaining chips for negotiations at future peace conferences. Talking about an independent Lusatia or an autonomous

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Rügen made it arguably easier to preserve what was at the core of Polish interests: the Oder-Neisse line. In the absolute best-case scenario Poland would win two new territories and in normal circumstances, the country would show good will by refraining from maximalist stances (and retain the Recovered Territories). If things went badly diplomatically speaking, those governing would wash their hands in innocence and employ Stojanowski and Kołodziej as two scapegoats to blame for chauvinistic excesses. In public Polish consciousness, the territories to the west of the new frontier were not blank spots. Several intellectuals like Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (1812–1887), a writer of popular novels, had talked openly about their Slavic past (cf. Mroczko 2013: 26). Among them was poet Tadeusz Miciński (1873–1918), who repeatedly paid attention in his work to the island of Rügen. In 1915, Miciński had even published a call for a Polish civilizational relaunch “based on the sanctuaries of Svetovid hallowed by Christ”, although that had only been a highly metaphorical plea with no territorial implications (Flis-Czerniak 2016: 138). Such political fantasies appeared during the Second World War and the immediate post-war period, mainly among right-wing groups although none of whom were actually that keen to rebuild a lost Pagan arcadia (Fertacz 2000: 54; Grott 2017: 177). The idea of reviving the world of Polabian Slavdom was not limited to Stojanowski’s imagination alone. In the Interwar Period, Mikołaj Rudnicki, director of the University of Poznań and head of the West Slavic Institute, had shared similar views and considered a future ‘re-Slavization’ of the Germania Slavica possible (Piotrowski 2004: 68). Nevertheless, given the political circumstances, such considerations had looked to most contemporaries like caprioles from the ivory tower, and even there his ideas were met with severe criticism (Piotrowski 2004: 377). It was not until 1939 that the concept enjoyed a broader appeal. Then re-Slavization, however, meant foremost annexing formerly Polabian areas and paid little attention to issues of assimilation (e.g. Fertacz 2000: 54). The press in the early post-war period returned to such territorial discussions and used them as rhetorical devices for outlining the lawfulness of the Oder-Neisse line and Poland’s modest demands (c.f. Batowski 1945: 1; Lawaty 1986: 208). By contrast, the ‘Lusatian question’ had already attracted the attention of the broader educated public in interwar Poland (Grott 2017: 176). Demands for Sorbian autonomy had seemed like common sense, but the Second World War and the subsequent border changes put new options on the table. At first, various individuals and associations urged for the annexation of Lusatia which would provide Poland with an effective shelter from the Germans and save the Sorbs from extinction. Following Czechoslovakian claims to Lusatia and talks with representatives of the Sorbian independence movement (the majority of whom were Catholic Upper Sorbs), attitudes in Poland began to change. By the middle of

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1945, backing for the ‘brethren’s’ bid for independence became widespread (Pałys 2014: 212). Support for the cause was raised by non-party organizations and was remarkably strong in the west of Poland (Kuberski & Pałys 2005: 177). Here, the popular Polski Związek Zachodni (Polish Western Union, PZZ) and the student association PROŁUŻ became vociferous proponents of Sorbian liberty (Kuberski & Pałys 2005: 135–45, 154–77). The daily press regularly contributed articles on the ‘Lusatian question’, and several authors did their bit in popularizing the issue. Due to the insecure political situation, however, plans for Sorbian statehood remained rather vague. In essence, Stojanowski and Kołodziej’s proposals constituted a mixture of older traditions, far-fetched fantasies, and marginal opinions, all of which were then paired with popular demands. Yet any speculation that the booklets may have been commissioned remain unfounded. Unlike other pre-war nationalists (e.g. Falanga-leader Bolesław Piasecki), Stojanowski had never been co-opted by the pro-Soviet government. On the contrary, due to ever increasing pressure from the local authorities, the anthropologist had left his domain of Poznań to the recently ‘recovered’ city of Wrocław. In a bid to avoid political repercussions, he returned to lecturing and joined the local KSwP branch while actively refraining from involvement in party politics (Patalas 2010: 29, 57). Nevertheless, even in Poland’s ‘Wild West’, security forces kept an eye on his activities (Patalas 2010: 31). Stojanowski most likely evaded imminent detention solely by his premature death due to a heart attack in 1947. In any case, the authorities would hardly have entrusted a political opponent with the delicate task of writing a highly political propaganda brochure. In fact, the booklet soon encountered criticism from within the KSwP. While the committee’s magazine Życie Słowiańskie restricted itself to a gentle remark calling the pamphlet’s supporting evidence “dubious” (Szklarska 1946: 328), the academic Marceli Łabędź (Wrocław) condemned the publication of Stojanowski’s thesis by the KSwP as “inappropriate [and] dangerous”, and a threat to the still unrecognized Oder-Neisse line (AAN 103: 57; c.f. Gruszczyk 2019: 185–86). Łabędź’s criticism was primarily directed against the idea of a Polabian state,24 which he thought of as absurd because “there is no Polabian people”. Furthermore, he disapproved of the proposed method for re-Slavizing the region, which would require “Gestapo-like methods and an utmost of repression” and would therefore compromise the Slavic idea. Having created “a lot of unpleasant trouble” (AAN 103: 57), the brochure was finally withdrawn, its author excluded from the KSwP,

 According to Łabędź, the ‘Lusation question’ could be solved although it would require diminished tensions between the Great Powers.

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and the Ministry of the Recovered Territories was given the right to control all publications in reference to Poland’s borders from then on (Gruszczyk 2019: 159).25 Although the Provisional Government of National Unity sympathized with the “just cause” of the Sorbs, and even considered using the “Lusation question” as a “reserve threat” (Brodacki 2006: 46), their engagement remained non-committal (Kuberski & Pałys 2005: 185; Eberhardt 2014: 77; Pałys 2014: 220). Sorbian politicians toured around the country, Sorbian students received their education at Polish universities, and there were manifestations of solidarity. But the pro-Soviet government was keen to avoid direct political statements. Anxiously waiting for signals from the Kremlin, it was not until November 1947, after the East German SED and the Sorbian umbrella organization Domowina (Home) had signed a mutual treaty guaranteeing extensive rights to the Slavic minority that Poland took an official stance by refusing demands for Sorbian independence (c.f. Pałys 2014: 251). Publishing Stojanowski’s booklet with the KSwP would have undermined this wait-and-see approach. But local KSwP groups also initiated projects on their own without informing the Warsaw head office. In the summer of 1946, for example, the Slavic associations in Kraków directed a memorial to the State National Council demanding “complete political and national independence” for the Sorbs (AAN 42: 40; AAN 23: 91). Such incidents shed light on the nature of the early KSwP, which was characterized by a weak grip by the Warsaw headquarters on their territorial structures. They also lacked coordination between the KSwP groups, though enthusiasm for Slavic issues was palpable at local branches. Stojanowski’s booklet can hence be seen as the outcome of an independent local initiative aimed at turning a former stronghold of German Ostforschung, Breslau, into Polish Wrocław as the centre of the new “Slavic drive to the west” (Rospond 1946: 5). Why and how both publications skipped the censors’ eyes remains unclear. However, a lack of coordination, centralization, and professional competence were pervasive shortcomings and were likely to be found in the censorship offices as well (Romek 2010: 62; Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk 2017: 68). Regardless, the whole procedure provides valuable insight into the early period of pro-Soviet Poland when Communist rule was still fluid. Slavic narratives were widespread and benefited from various transmission belts, both on the organizational and individual levels, which lived their own lives by pushing (partly) independent agendas.

 Until July 1946, publications were subject to inspection by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, after that by the Main Office for the Control of Press, Publications and Spectacles (GUKPPiW), the Polish office of censorship.

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Conclusion: Allies out of Ashes From its very beginning, the Slavic idea has served as a “diffuse object of projection” for numerous, often contradicting, political, cultural, and economic aims (Glanc & Voß 2016: 7). To a lesser extent, this observation also applies to the early post-war reality (1945–1948) in Warsaw. Here, frequent references to ‘Slavic brotherhood’ or ‘Slavic soil’ in official discourse were aimed foremost at promoting the Polish-Soviet alliance, justifying the new territorial status quo, and paving the way for tighter Communist rule. In this shifting environment, the Slavic Committee in Poland (KSwP) was created as a way of coordinating Slavic programmes and increasing support among the educated elites. But this supposed channel of communication turned out to be open to interference. The Committee never managed to monopolize Slavic programmes, nor did it meet all the new government’s ideological demands.26 In addition, the Committee’s activities lacked coordination, and its members regularly pushed their own agendas. Both Karol Stojanowski’s proposal regarding the re-Slavization of Eastern Germany (1946) and Władysław Kołodziej’s suggestion to turn Rügen into a Pagan-Slavic Roja (1946) illustrate these shortcomings. Seemingly part of state diversionary tactics (regarding the Oder-Neisse line), their booklets were, in fact, the fruits of autonomous local initiatives made possible by a still imperfect censorship network. By proposing the foundation of an independent Lusatian state for Germany’s Sorbian minority, Stojanowski seized on a popular mood. By contrast, his plans for reviving Polabian Slavdom, in addition to Kołodziej’s dream of a neo-Pagan arcadia, remained peripheral concepts. In a disjointed world, these fantasies had a vague chance of becoming reality. By 1945, creating a Sorb state was as possible as turning German Stettin into a Polish Szczecin. All depended on the Great Powers who, however, had other objectives and left the field to contemporaneous historical speculations (e.g. Szczerek 2013: 143–48), or nationalistic megalomania. Stojanowski’s and Kołodziej’s reflections are a testament to the variety and vividness of the Slavic idea in early post-war Poland. Far from being solely a state-sponsored ‘compulsory task’, the concept, however, never became a primary goal. Instead, it remained a ‘diffuse object of projection’ for various approaches of strengthening Poland’s political position. Creating allies out of ashes and reviving

 At the Second Plenum (June 1947) of the General-Slavic Committee, the new umbrella organization for all Slavic Committees founded at the Belgrade Slav Congress, the KSwP’s magazine was severely criticized for lacking political commitment (Pręcikowski 2000: 189).

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the world of Polabian Slavdom was just one variety of a multifaceted concept, and an instrumental goal at best.

Archives Archiwum Akt Nowych (AAN), Warsaw. Unit 858. Komitet Słowiański w Polsce. Vol. 7. Konferencje z udziałem Sekretarza Generalnego i Dyrekcja Biura KSwP. Protokoły i załączniki z lat 1947–1949. Sprawozdania, notatki, korespondencja, 1947–1949. Vol. 23. Działalność Oddziału KSP w Łodzi. Protokoły, sprawozdania, listy obecności, korespondencja, 1946–1951. Vol. 103. Problem Łużyc, 1946–1949. Archiwum Ministerstwa Spraw Zagranicznych (AMSZ), Warsaw. Unit 6. Departament Polityczny, akta za lata, 1945–1948. File 14, Vol. 202. Współpraca narodów słowiańskich. Komitet Słowiański w Polsce. 1945–1947. File 42, Vol. 665. Historyczny i powojenny rozwój zagadnienia autonomii Serbów Łużyckich, stanowisko Polski, Czechosłowacji, SED, ZSRR w tej kwestii, 1946.

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Briesewitz, G. 2014. Raum und Nation in der polnischen Westforschung 1918–1948. Wissenschaftsdiskurs, Raumdeutungen und geopolitische Visionen im Kontext der deutsch-polnischen Beziehungsgeschichte. Osnabrück: Fibre. Brodacki, J. 2006. ‘Prołuż’ Akademicki Związek Przyjaciół Łużyc. Historia wewnętrzna organizacji (1945–1949). Warszawa: Polska Grupa Marketingowa. Czekanowski, J. 1937. Człowiek w czasie i przestrzeni. Warszawa: Trzaska, Evert i Michalski. Djakow, W. 1993. ‘Polskie słowianofilstwo’ i jego wpływ na slawistykę polską (koniec XVIII w.–1939 r.). Analecta 1: 7–29. Djilas, M. 1962. Gespräche mit Stalin. Frankfurt: Fischer. Eberhardt, P. 2014. Polski panslawizm jako idea geopolityczna. Przegląd Geopolityczny 7: 61–84. Fertacz, S. 1991. Komitet Wszechsłowiański w Moskwie 1941–1947. Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski. Fertacz, S. 1993. Stalinizm a idea słowiańska. Przegląd Humanistyczny 37: 83–90. Fertacz, S. 2000. Polska myśl słowiańska w okresie drugiej wojny światowej. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. Fischer, A. 1932. Etnografja słowiańska. Vol. 2: Łużyczanie. Lwów-Warszawa: Książnica-Atlas. Flis-Czerniak, E. 2016. Panslawizm czy panrusycyzm?, czyli ‘Słowiańszczyzna à la fourchette’. O idei jedności słowiańskiej w twórczości Tadeusza Micińskiego, in Z. Chyra-Rolicz & T. Rokosz (ed.) Panslawizm. Wczoraj, dziś, jutro: 133–45. Siedlce: Pracownia Wydawnicza Wydziału Humanistycznego. Fontane, T. 1896. Effi Briest. Paderborn: F. Fontane & Co. Glanc, T. & C. Voß. 2016. Einleitung, in T. Glanc & C. Voß (ed.) Konzepte des Slawischen: 7–17. Leipzig: Biblion Media. Gończyński-Jussis, F. 2017. Przede wszystkim umasowić? Liczebność członków jako determinanta działalności Towarzystwa Przyjaźni Polsko-Radzieckiej (1944–1989), in T. Rudzikowski (ed.) Nie tylko partia? Organizacje społeczne w Polsce Ludowej 1944–1989. Geneza, funkcjonowanie, znaczenie: 51–75. Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Grabowski, T.S. 1947. Łużyczanie, ich walka, klęski i ... triumf. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Oddziału Wrocławskiego Komitetu Słowiańskiego. Grot, Z. 1996. Katedra i studium wychowania fizycznego Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego w latach 1919–1945, in J. Gaj (ed.) Dzieje Akademii Wychowania Fizycznego w Poznaniu (1919–1994): 12–111. Poznań: Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego im. Eugeniusza Piaseckiego. Grott, B. 2017. Koncepcje geopolityczne obozu narodowego w latach II wojny światowej. Wschodnioznawstwo 11: 173–91. Gruszczyk, M. 2014. Pierwszy powojenny Zjazd Słowiański w Belgradzie 8–11 (16) grudnia 1946 roku, in A.M. Adamus & Ł. Kamiński (ed.) Letnia Szkoła Historii Najnowszej 2013. Referaty: 160–69. Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Gruszczyk, M. 2019. Idea w służbie propagandy. Komitet Słowiański w Polsce 1945–1953 na tle ruchu neosłowiańskiego. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. Jarosz, D. 2017. Zwrot stalinizacyjny 1948–1950 i jego wpływ na funkcjonowanie organizacji społecznych, in T. Ruzikowski (ed.) Nie tylko Partią? Organizacje społeczne w Polsce Ludowej 1944–1980. Geneza, funkcjonowanie, znaczenie: 27–49. Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Kaczmarek, L. 1945. O prawo życia dla Łużyczan. Jarocin: Polski Związek Zachodni.

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Kleßmann, C. & R. Traba, 2010. Vom Glauben an die historische Mission – oder Wo liegt Arkadien?, in H.H. Hahn & R. Traba (ed.) Deutsch-Polnische Erinnerungsorte. Vol. 3: Parallelen: 37–70. Paderborn: Schöningh. Kochan, J. 1979. Oblicze ideowo-polityczne ‘Świata Słowiańskiego’. Kwartalnik Historii Prasy Polskiej 18: 41–62. Kohn, H. 1952. Pan-Slavism and World War II. The American Political Science Review 46: 699–722. Kołodziej, W. 1946. Przedmowa. Kalendarz Słowiański na 1947 Rok 2: 2. Kuberski, L. & P. Pałys. 2005. Od inkorporacji do autonomii kulturalnej. Kontakty polskoserbołużyckie w latach 1945–1950. Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego. Łapiński, M. & T. Szczepański. 1996. Czciciele Polski pogańskiej. Karta 19: 104–17. Lawaty, A. 1986. Das Ende Preußens in polnischer Sicht. Zur Kontinuität negativer Wirkungen d. preuß. Geschichte auf d. dt.-poln. Beziehungen. Berlin: De Gruyter. Magocsi, P. 2018. Historical atlas of East Central Europe. 3rd edn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Manifest Polskiego Komitetu Wyzwolenia Narodowego. 1959. Rocznik Lubelski 2: 7–14. Memoriał na Konferencję Pokojową w Paryżu w sprawie niepodległości Roji. 1946. Kalendarz Słowiański na 1947 Rok 2: 20–21. Modelska. B. 1946. Kalendarz Słowiański na rok 194-6-Rocznik I. Opracował ks. Władysław Kołodziej. Kraków – Łódź. Str. 32. Życie Słowiańskie 1: 147. Mroczko, M. 2013. U źródeł polskiej myśli zachodniej, in M. Semczyszyn, T. Sikorski & A. Wątor (ed.) Nad Odrą i Bałtykiem. Myśł zachodnia: ludzie, koncepcje, realizacja do 1989 r.: 15–27. Szczecin: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Mühle, E. 2016. Die Slawen. München: C.H. Beck. Mühle, E. 2020. Die Slawen im Mittelalter. Zwischen Idee und Wirklichkeit. Köln: Böhlau. Nikitin, S.A. 1960. Slavjanskie komitety v Rossii v 1858–1876 godach. Moskva: Izdatelstvo Moskovskogo universiteta. Kalendarz Słowiański na 1947 Rok 2. Walka o niepodległość Roji rozpoczęta po ośmiuset latach, 1946, p. 20. Obšust, K. 2013. Konstrukcija slovenstva u politici i nauci. Stvaranje (sve)slovenskih tradicija, ideološke koncepcije o slovenskom jedinstvu i njihove refleksije. Beograd: Centar za Alternativno Družstveno i Kulturno Delovanje. Pałys, P. 2014. Państwa słowiańskie wobec Łużyc w latach 1945–1948. Opole: Państwowy Instytut Naukowy – Instytut Śląski. Patalas, J. 2010. Społeczno-medyczne aspekty działalności Karola Stojanowskiego (1895–1947). Antropologa, eugenika oraz działacza społeczno-politycznego. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Uniwersytet Medyczny im. Karola Marcinkowskiego w Poznaniu. Piotrowski, B. 1987. O Polskę nad Odrą i Bałtykiem. Myśl zachodnia i badania niemcoznawcze Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego (1919–1939). Poznań: Instytut Zachodni. Piotrowski, B. 2004. Tradycje słowiańskie Poznania i Wielkopolski w XIX i XX wieku, in A.W. Mikołajczyk, W. Szulc & B. Zieliński (ed.) Idee wspólnotowe Słowiańszczyzny: 33–70. Poznań: Wydaw. Naukowe UAM. Pospišil, I. 2004. Slovanství a střední Evropa, in D. Hrodek (ed.) Slovanství ve středoevropském prostoru. Iluze, deziluze a realita. Paradubická konference (22.–24. dubna 2004): 23–35. Praha: Libri. Pręcikowski, L.S. 1998. ‘Kalendarz Słowiański’. Środowisko neopogańskich mistyków w Polsce w latach 1946–1947. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Historica 61: 229–43.

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Pręcikowski, L.S. 2000. Polska w‚ Nowym ruchu słowiańskim’. Z działalności Komitetu Słowiańskiego w Polsce w latach 1945–1947. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Historica 69: 173–90. Pręcikowski, L.S. 2002. Kongres Słowiański w Belgradzie 8–11 (16) grudnia 1946 r. Studia z Dziejów Rosji i Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej 37: 177–94. Pręcikowski, L.S. 2005. Propaganda słowiańska w Polsce Ludowej w latach 1944–1947 ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem roli Komitetu Słowiańskiego w Polsce. Studia z Dziejów Rosji i Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej 40: 295–314. Rolicz-Chyra, Z. 2016. Panslawizm – idea żywa czy zapomniana?, in Z. Chyra-Rolicz & T. Rokosz (ed.) Panslawizm. Wczoraj, dziś, jutro: 13–43. Siedlce: Pracownia Wydawnicza Wydziału Humanistycznego. Romek, Z. 1946. Wstęp, in K. Stojanowski. O reslawizację wschodnich Niemiec: 3–5. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Oddziału Wrocławskiego Komitetu Słowiańskiego. Romek, Z. 2010. Cenzura a nauka historyczna w Polsce 1944–1970. Warszawa: Instytut Historii PAN/Wydawnictwo Neriton. Szklarska, A. 1946. POLSKA. Karol Stojanowski: O reslawizację wschodnich Niemiec. Wydawnictwo Komitetu Słowiańskiego, Wrocław 1946, str. 30. Życie Słowiańskie 1: 327–28. Semczyszyn, M., A. Sikorski & A. Wątor. 2013. Wstęp, in M. Semczyszyn, A. Sikorski & A. Wątor (ed.) Nad Odrą i Bałtykiem. Myśl zachodnia. Ludzie, koncepcje, realizacja: 9–12. Szczecin: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Simpson, S. 1999. Native faith: Polish neo-paganism at the brink of the 21st century. Kraków: Nomos. Stańczyk, E. 2008. Środowisko pracy w II Rzeczypospolitej. Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis. Przegląd Prawa i Administracji 77: 293–311. Stojanowski, K. 1934. Rasizm przeciw słowiańszczyźnie. Poznań: Głos. Stojanowski, K. 1942. [Kaliski, J.] Państwo Zachodnio-Słowiańskie. Warszawa: Państwo Narodowe. Stojanowski, K. 1946. O reslawizację wschodnich Niemiec. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Oddziału Wrocławskiego Komitetu Słowiańskiego. Strauchold, G. 2003. Myśl Zachodnia i jej realizacja w Polsce Ludowej w latach 1945–1957. Toruń: Adam Marszałek. Szczerek, Z. 2013. Rzeczpospolita zwycięska. Alternatywna historia Polski. Kraków: Znak. Troebst, S. 2014a. Belgrad, Dezember 1946. Der letzte Slavenkongress, in Themenportal Europäische Geschichte. Available at: https://www.europa.clio-online.de/essay/id/ fdae-1643 (accessed 24 April 2022). Troebst, S. 2014b. Schwanengesang gesamtslavischer ‚Einheit und Brüderlichkeit‘, in A. Gąsior, L. Karl & S. Troebst (ed.) Post-Panslavismus. Slavizität, Slavische Idee und Antislavismus im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert: 43–68. Göttingen: Wallstein. Wasilewski, L. 1913. Słowianie. Ich rozsiedlenie i liczba. Kraków: Towarzystwo Słowiańskie. Weremiejewicz, M. R. 2014. Kościół Chrystusowy w Polsce w latach 1921–2006. Toruń: Duet. Widajewicz, J. 1935. Bilans tysiąclecia. Awangarda Państwa Narodowego 9: 125–26. Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk, A. 2017. ‘O wyższy poziom pracy nad książką’ – biuletyn urzędu cenzury z lat 1945–1956 w perspektywie literaturoznawczej. Rekonesans, in Z. Romek & K. Kamińska-Chełminiak (ed.) Cenzura w PRL. Analiza zjawiska: 61–74. Warszawa: Znak.

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Wyder, G. 2003. Łużyce w polskiej literaturze historycznej XIX wieku i okresu międzywojennego. Zielona Góra: Oficyna Wydawnicza Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego. Zaremba, M. 2010. Im nationalen Gewande. Strategien kommunistischer Herrschaftslegitimation in Polen 1944–1980. Osnabrück: Fibre. Županić, N. 1938. Pogledi antropologa Jana Czekanovskog na rasnost Srbohrvata. Vjesnik Etnografskog muzeja u Zagrebu za etnografiju,etnologiju,antropologiju i prehistoriju 4: 22–37.

Melinda Harlov-Csortán

Roman Heritage in Hungary: The Case of the Fertőrákos Mithraeum on the Iron Curtain Abstract: This chapter discusses the role of Roman heritage in the Hungarian national narrative from the mid-twentieth century to 2015, analysing the role of archaeology in connection to the influencing political circumstances which range from the Communist Period to the first three decades of democratic Hungary. To illustrate this, the chapter takes the Mithraeum in Fertőrákos as a main example, a site that is located next to the border between Hungary and Austria. It is apparent that neither the closeness of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, nor the successful UNESCO World Heritage nomination from 2001 supported the conservation and public acknowledgement of the site. Textual sources documenting specific decision-making processes on local and national levels (including parliamentary decisions and regional resolutions) as well as marketing and tourist publications are used as sources and compared and contrasted with on-site investigations. The chapter highlights a number of reasons why the Roman remains in Hungary are not included in the country’s heritage. Keywords: Fertőrákos Mithraeum; Hungary; Cold War; Fertő/Neusiedler Cultural Landscape; Roman Archaeology

Introduction Pannonia, one of the most north-eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, was located mainly in the western part of what is now modern Hungary. Huge military settlements and commercial roads were a feature of the area to the west of the Danube River, with official occupation by the Romans as a province between the first and fifth centuries CE. International experts have long poured over the history and material remains of this region’s deep past, with the first publications dating back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Kenner 1867: 119–32; de Navarro 1925: 481–503). More recently, there have been attempts together with Slovakia, Austria, and Germany to get the limes in Hungary included in the Melinda Harlov-Csortán, Apor Vilmos Catholic College, Hungary https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-007

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transnational ‘Frontiers of the Roman Empire’ UNESCO World Heritage Site, which currently includes Hadrian’s Wall (1987) and the Antonine Wall (2008) from the UK, the Upper German-Rhaetian Limes (2005), the Lower German Limes (2021), and the western segment of the Danube Limes (2021) (Sommer 2021: 36–41). The Danube section was meant to have included the Roman frontier in Hungary, but the Hungarian government stepped back from the joint application in the last moment (Visy 2021: 9–13). The Roman past has long been part of Hungarian efforts to shape cultural heritage for an international audience. Inspired by developments in Mussolini’s Italy and as a symbol of humanism and classical ‘values’, the Roman past in Hungary received particular attention during the Interwar Period (Ferkai 2003: 158). While the Roman Period was an important part of national narratives in many East-Central European countries during the Interwar Period and later Cold War (see e.g. Ostrowski, Iacob, & Rubel, this volume), after the advent of Communism in Hungary the Hungarian public’s interest in the Roman past waned. Similarly, post-1989, the public has not considered the Roman past to be centrally important to Hungarian national heritage.1 This chapter investigates the reasons why tangible memorials of the Roman period did not form an inclusive part of the Hungarian national historical narrative, neither before, nor after the Cold War. By focusing on the work of archaeologists in Hungary, it explores the undefined role of the discipline, the lack of conservation especially around the tangible memorials of the Roman past, and the influencing economic and political circumstances from the mid-twentieth century until the 2010s that has resulted in this lack of attention. This chapter focuses on one particular site, a Mithraeum, or Roman temple, in the north-west of Hungary (Fig. 1) which was located on the Iron Curtain and has been part of the Fertő/Neusiedlersee Cultural Landscape UNESCO World Heritage Site since its establishment in 2001 (Fig. 2). In so doing, it explores the uses of the Roman material heritage, its status in the infrastructure of the region, and the possibilities both before and after the transition from Communism to Democracy in 1989. To understand the importance of the deep past for Hungarian

 Neither the results of public polls about the values of the country before 1989 (e.g. from the Open Society Archive, https://www.osaarchivum.org/), nor the list of Hungaricum (examples for Hungarian uniqueness) that was established after 1989 contain any reference to the Roman Empire. Hungaricum, according to the official website, http://www.hungarikum.hu/ (accessed 13 April 2022), is “a collective term indicating a value worthy of distinction and highlighting [...] the high-level achievements of the Hungarian people thanks to typical Hungarian attributes, their uniqueness, specialty and quality”. For the entire list see: http://www.hungarikum.hu/sites/de fault/files/hungarikumok-lista_2020_05_21_0.pdf (accessed 13 April 2022).

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cultural heritage, this chapter draws on normative texts such as institutional documents, management regulations and laws, the decision-making processes, the popularization of the Roman past during and after the Cold War, as well as on-site research. The timeframe extends from 1957, when the national institutional system of monument protection (including the protection of archaeological discoveries) was re-established after the Second World War, to 2015, when the last international cultural heritage acknowledgement category/typology—the European Heritage Label—was introduced in Hungary. The chapter opens with an introduction of the Fertő/Neusiedlersee cultural landscape before providing a general background on Hungarian archaeology, followed by a discussion of research on the Mithraeum before and after the political change in 1989. The research rests on an in-depth analysis of the heritage site and the national circumstances surrounding its protection and propagation. It concludes by addressing the ideological influence on the failure to incorporate the Roman past into Hungary’s historical landscape.

The Mithraeum and the Fertő/Neusiedlersee Cultural Landscape The cult of Mithras was especially popular in the Roman Empire between the second and fourth centuries CE; Mithras’s name was mentioned both throughout the Empire and as far east as India with links to the Persian practice of Zoroastrianism (Mócsy & Fitz 1990; Tóth 2007). As Visy (2006: 39) writes, Mithraism, with its links to the Sun god was popular within the Roman military, explaining the spread of archaeological evidence of Mithraea across the former Empire. The Mithras cult then gradually faded into obscurity with the advent of Christianity in the fourth century (Tóth 1994: 203–62). Based on the most recent archaeological findings, the Mithraeum in Fertőrákos is a third century CE site (Fig. 3). The Mithraeum was adorned with painted stonework depicting Mithras in Persian clothes, a symbol of victory over darkness which is represented by a bull (Figs. 4 and 5). This imagery is similar to many other Mithraea throughout the Roman Empire (Bauchenss et al. 1987: 609). The stonework, measuring two meters by one and a half meters in size, contains other symbols and signs such as the moon and the sun, as well as geometric shapes. Three altar stones, two lion statues, twenty-seven cremation burials with coins, and one internment burial are also important features of the site which was under excavation originally in the late nineteenth century and again in the early 1990s (Tóth 2003: 26–30). Despite the significance of Mithraea throughout Europe, the presented example in Fertőrákos, Hungary has received

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Fig. 1: Map depicting Fertőrákos, with the quarries (Kőfejtő) and Mithraeum (Mithrász-szentély) highlighted, alongside the landscape of north-western Hungary on the border with Austria. © Google (fair use).

Roman Heritage in Hungary: The Case of the Fertőrákos Mithraeum

Fig. 2: Map from the Fertő/Neusiedlersee UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape nomination, © UNESCO (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO).

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relatively little attention and is not well integrated into the wider heritage landscape.

Fig. 3: The Mithraeum pictured in June 2021, photo by Melinda Harlov-Csortán.

The Mithraeum is part of the Fertő/Neusiedlersee cultural landscape, located between Austria and Hungary, which is a cross-border heritage landscape par excellence. This multi-faceted and complex territory has been protected since 2001 as a transnational UNESCO World Heritage site. It is located next to the PanEuropean Picnic Memorial Park—a site that commemorates the ‘pan-European picnic’ peace demonstration from August 1989—which received the European Heritage Label in 2015. Distinguished as a UNESCO World Heritage site, its inclusion in the cultural landscape category expresses “the evolution of human society and settlement opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces both external and internal” (UNESCO 1994: paragraph 36). The rich flora and fauna, and picturesque, multicultural towns are testament to the diversity of the region. The area also features the westernmost steppe lake in Eurasia, Lake Neusiedl/Fertő, which straddles the Austro-Hungarian border. The lake’s Hungarian name, Fertő (meaning slough), alludes to its shallow muddy water, and the Hungarian part of the lake (one quarter of its total) is mostly

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Fig. 4: Drawing of the Mithraeum alter piece at the first excavation by Sotrno Ferenc in 1866, published in Soproni Szemle 1940 (4–5): 56, http://sopszem.sopron.hu/ (accessed 10 May 2022).

covered with reeds. The lake and its surroundings are environmentally important due to the climate, its soil, and the reed vegetation that provides a habitat for migratory birds. Over the past century alone, different kinds of borders in the cultural landscape have changed multiple times. Until the 1940s, borders surrounded and defined noble family estates. Later, collectivized state farms and other types of settlements defined the region. Even today, we can differentiate national, transnational (for example, the United Natural Park), and international (such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site) borders, as well as a former ideological one—the Iron Curtain—which still plays a crucial role in the cultural activities and institutions of the region. As described by the UNESCO nomination (2001: 41–42), humans have occupied the region of the Fertő/Neusiedlersee cultural landscape since the seventh century BCE. Besides archaeological excavations, the region is rich in diverse types of tangible and intangible cultural heritage elements; it also has a valued natural climate. Within such a complex cultural landscape, it is telling which sites are given the most attention by academics, governing bodies, and local tourism promoters. In the case of the lack of attention given to the Fertőrákos Mithraeum, its continued relative peripherality is representative of the Roman past in Hungary more broadly.

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Fig. 5: Inside the Mithraeum, photo by Szerdahelyi Zoltánné.

Archaeological Research in Hungary The excavation, conservation, and heritagization of the Mithraeum has been realized during a politically intense period, one directly influencing not just the surrounding environment of the site but archaeology as a field and archaeologists as practitioners. Accordingly, the following review of archaeological research in Hungary provides necessary context for the case study and is an important element of the discussed topic. From 1847, the Magyar Orvosok és Természetvizsgálók Társasága (Association of Hungarian Physicians and Natural Scientists) required that all excavated findings and written reports should be sent to the National Museum in Budapest. Just over a decade later, in 1858, the Archeológiai Bizottság (Archaeological Commission) was formed (Kralovánszky 1989: 57). During the last decades of the nineteenth century there was a concerted focus on material culture (such as ceramics, coins, and weaponry), and much less on the architecture or fragments of architecture; one exception was the excavations of Aquincum in Budapest. Although research interests of early

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Hungarian archaeologists covered a wide period, due to the celebration of the 1000-year anniversary of the Magyar arrival in the Carpathian Basin in 1896, the number of scientific projects focusing on the migrating tribes were overwhelming (e.g. Hampfel 1896). During the Horthy era of conservative nationalist governments (1921–1944), academia became part of the nationalist turn. With the dissolution of the AustroHungarian Empire in 1918, more emphasis was put on the national narrative and on research that dealt with the ‘Hungarian tribe’ and its history. Institutions such as the Department of Archaeology at the University of Kolozsvár (Cluj, Romania), established in 1899, and the Institute for Monument Protection in Vienna suddenly became newly foreign, and cooperation drastically changed for the worse after the First World War. As far as archaeological practice was concerned, a significant change occurred in the 1930s, when László Gerő adapted contemporary Italian practices as a methodology in Hungary.2 Despite the developing archaeological work in Hungary, the Mithraeum was largely isolated from research due to its location adjacent to the new borders that were established between Austria and Hungary after the First World War. After the Second World War, there was a palpable break with the previously established methodology of Hungarian archaeology, which was in no small part due to Hungary’s new status as a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Scholarly practice, especially field research, was tightly controlled, further curtailing academic freedom. Almost all existing academic journals in the field of archaeology were discontinued and exchanges with Western European academia was seriously disrupted (Fülep 1973: 25). Research was dependent on political decision-making and the process of approval was politically arduous with numerous bureaucratic approvals following the inception of an idea, until the final authorization was made (or not) by the relevant central office of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (Foote et al. 2001: 138–63).3 Accordingly, any complexity in research and its documentation was often compromised. Moreover, there was a continued absence of a central scholarly institution to coordinate or support archaeological research projects, something still lacking in Hungary today. Exceptions were often made in the cases of smaller-scale projects that focused on minor settlements or

 László Gerő (1909–1995) trained as architect, monument protector, and archaeologist. He was both an academic and practitioner who worked not exclusively on the Roman past but also on architectural elements from the Medieval Period. The ‘Italian practice’ combined conservation and reconstruction with a broader focus on managing monuments within their wider context.  An example of ideologically driven research is László Kardos’ work, such as A magyar falu szocialista fejlődésének néprajzi kérdései (Etymological questions regarding the socialist development of the Hungarian village) from 1954.

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were based at locations without economic or ideological significance. Following that chain of thought, those locations that were significant, such as borderlands and industrial areas, were politically contested sites for research, criteria thus also excluding the site of the Mithraeum. The uncovering of the past also drew attention to earlier ideological or social systems (such as feudalism), which represented a political contradiction to authorities. József Révai,4 the Minister of Public Education at the beginning of the 1950s, tried to solve this paradox by emphasizing the fact that every uncovered monument symbolized a public creativity. This notion was echoed throughout the professional world, as Museum News made clear in 1951: The artistic and historical memories were made possible by the extensive effort and artistic talent of the working class. Monuments are [...] effective educational tools of the new type of patriotism and [...] of the socialist-type national pride (Gerő 1951: 29).

And yet, there were heated professional disputes over the protection and presentation of archaeological monuments dating from the Roman or Medieval Periods; for instance, when contemporary archaeological research suggested that the town of Sopron’s medieval wall was built on Roman foundations, this led to a debate over which period (Roman or Medieval), mattered more to the Soviet-aligned narrative of Hungarian development. Monument protection was also seen by politicians or ideologically driven professionals as a tool to serve Soviet narratives. In ceremonial speeches at exhibitions, Hungarian officials often stressed that following the October Revolution of 1917 and the defeat of Hitler’s Germany in 1945, the Soviet Union made the preservation of the past possible with its ‘efficient’ regulations and decrees. Dezső Dercsényi, an outstanding expert in conservation and art historian, who took up numerous leading positions in institutions committed to monument protection during the Cold War, used this argument in a letter to a mayor to elicit his support for a project in 1950: “The Soviet Union is a shining example of how to appreciate monuments. But socialism also requires us to consider humanistic and ‘authentic’ values” (National Archives of Hungary 1950). In such a politically charged time, the understanding of ‘authentic values’ was very much up for debate (Preisich et al. 1954: 93–97). More precisely, the ideologically inspired arguments were often applied to win support for scientific projects, and they did not necessarily reflect the professional’s personal viewpoint.

 He openly and uncritically introduced the Soviet cultural model during his short, but influential stint as Minister until 1953. At the Second Congress of the Hungarian Worker’s Party in 1951 he claimed, “the school master of our new socialist culture [is]: Soviet culture” (Révai 1951: 32).

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Projects concerned with monument protection were indeed granted central state financial support, but often unevenly so and with vastly different amounts of funding. The protection of sites was often unsustainable due to a mismatch of funding opportunities and the capabilities of the actors involved. Conservation work was therefore often inappropriate, belated, or only done partially due to a lack of human resources and the financial means to pay for highly skilled staff (Gerő & Kisléghy 1956: 289). The lack of funds and expertise led to a focus on particular archaeological sites where the outcome could be reached fast, and the significance of the project could be representative. Other examples, that were either smaller scale or only academically significant, and could not be used for representative purposes, were many times neglected (Tompai 1978: 29–34). Alongside a Marxist ideological framework, the adoption of Soviet professional methodology and Soviet research findings were part of the new direction for Hungarian scholars to follow (Merényi 1972: 11). In interviews after 1989, many Hungarian scholars remembered the institutional system as highly bureaucratic, slow, and inefficient (Bondár 2017: 103–24). This led to tensions between the methodologies at play, and the political ideological aims of the period, which was, namely, to achieve holistic social change (Román 1972: 315–29). Circumstances changed for the better in the second part of the Cold War era from the 1960s. More possibilities (such as international relations), regulations that were less strict and politically influenced characterized that time, moreover scientific and artistic achievements were supported with the aim to change the international reputation of the country after the 1956 revolution. Aerial survey in archaeological research became an important tool from the late-1960s, while the first underwater archaeological research projects were conducted in the mid-1980s. All the while, expanded archaeological research projects within urban contexts happened mainly in smaller settlements, while Budapest remained the main focus of the most prominent archaeological projects (Gréczi 2018: 257–71). Despite Hungary remaining on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain, the conservation of archaeological sites and monuments in the country adhered to the international standards set out in the Venice Charter 1964,5 which especially facilitated the completion of archaeological projects that were connected to monument protection. Other technical issues were enshrined in legal texts such as the Second Decree of the Cultural Ministry in 1965, where “historical signficance”

 See the text of the 1964 Venice Charter: https://www.icomos.org/charters/venice_e.pdf (accessed 13 April 2022).

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and “archaeological signficance” were used interchangeably (paragraphs 51 and 53).6 Academic collaboration and communication in archaeology thrived during the second half of the Cold War in conferences and practical workshops. After 1974, there were annual meetings dedicated exclusively to archaeological projects that ranged from prehistory to the Medieval Period. Accordingly, many of the projects tended to be quite broad in the way they were framed, in order to be presented at conferences and workshops. Conference proceedings were published regularly, but they never went beyond select academic circles (Gergely & Tóth 1973: 54–59). By 1989, there were 360 legally protected archaeological material remains—sites and assemblages—evidencing that, despite all the difficulties Hungarian archaeology experienced during the Cold War, the scientific profession, in its broadest understanding, flourished to some extent. By the end of the Hungarian People’s Republic in 1989, the status of the discipline of archaeology was not yet clearly defined. Archaeology was seen as a set of methodological tools to illuminate other disciplines, namely history. Even after 1989, little was said on the question of whether archaeological materials should be understood as protected monuments or museum objects (keeping them on-site or taking them out of their context to protect and interpret professionally). The institutional fragmentation exacerbated this problem. Decisions on what to do with archaeological discoveries depended on whether archaeological material was found above or below ground. Accordingly, it was either the Department of Culture or the Department of Architecture that assumed authority over the documentation and protection of archaeological materials. Simply relying on cooperation between diverse professional institutions, such as museums, higher education departments, or the relevant sections of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, was never sufficient. The local circumstances of any given archaeological excavation and the possible physical protection of uncovered material culture continued to be executed on a case-by-case basis (Hajnóczi 1989: 31–37). As I will show below, political circumstances and motivations as well as a similar uncertainty of how to classify archaeological material significantly impacted the fate of the Mithraeum.

 For further information see http://ki2.oszk.hu/kf/kfarchiv/2004/3/kovacs.html and http://epa.niif.hu/00400/00438/00032/ (accessed 13 April 2022).

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The Protection and Role of the Mithraeum during the Cold War The Mithraeum was found accidentally by two locals—Ferenc Storno Jr. from Sopron and György Malleschitz (or Mauschitz) from Meggyes—in July 1866. The first excavation at the site was then coordinated by Ferenc Storno Sr. who documented and submitted his findings to the Institute for Monument Protection in Vienna that same year (Hárs 2000: 166–68).7 Storno Sr. designed a vault made from rock to protect the archaeological site, which became one of the first listed sites in Hungary to be protected in this way. Very little was subsequently written about the Mithraeum in Hungary, however, a few scholarly publications kept the memory of the Mithraeum alive (Tóth 1971: 235–38), as did a handful of incidental mentions in other places. For instance, the local newspaper, Oedenburger Zeitung, mentions an ad-hoc concert at the Mithraeum before the performance of a concert in the town of Rust in 1920 (Hárs 2000: 169). The site was also recorded as an example in the list of local monuments in the broader region around Sopron in 1910 and 1916, but scientific investigation and on-site research soon ceased. The lack of attention paid to the Mithraeum is largely due to the shifting political circumstances of the area. If the Fertő/Neusiedlersee region had previously been a central part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, its position as a border zone after the First World War led to the loss of its economic significance and a major decrease in living standards. These drastic changes impacted commercial, economic, and cultural life, as well as the transportation network (Zeidler 2002). After the Second World War, restrictions on movement were introduced and new technical infrastructure, such as watchtowers and mines, appeared while soldiers were dispatched to the border area. At that time, the formerly established transportation networks were shut as well, creating a ghost-like, no man’s land impression of the region. Fatal shootings of innocent fishermen happened regularly on Lake Fertő/Neusiedlersee and nearby rivers, while orchards and vineyards were destroyed by pesticides which were spread by the wind around the border area (Zsiga 1999: 70–78). Most of the towns were either stuck between the Iron Curtain and the actual border or were near military bases (Sallai 2009a: 40). After Austria officially regained its independence from Allied force occupation in 1955, Soviet forces moved across the border to Hungary which bolstered the Soviet military presence along the border. The placement of the

 Ferenc Storno Sr. was a restaurateur, painter, architect, and collector. He documented and protected numerous monuments during his life (Grászli 2007).

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new Soviet military units unsettled the region, with soldiers housed in former labour camps and agricultural buildings. Meanwhile, Hungarian soldiers were moved from their bases to accommodate the Soviet ‘newcomers’ who, in some cases, ended up using the same infrastructure as the Nazi forces had during their presence until the spring of 1945. The new border between Austria and Hungary, which became the ideological Iron Curtain after the Second World War, made any further work on the Mithraeum very difficult. From 1948, it was surrounded by a minefield; the troubled recent past became a clear part of the site’s history, based on written records and the discovery of bullets and other armoury on site (Hárs 2000: 170). Despite multiple attempts, regional museums and local professionals failed to get permission to enter the archaeological site during this period. The lack of maintenance generally meant the protected architecture and the archaeological remains were damaged and entire area was filled with mud. In 1965, an electronic signal system along the border replaced the ‘death zone’, staying in place until 1989. The system alerted border guards to anyone or anything crossing the border with an electronically transmitted sound, while spotlights gave the area a menacing appearance. But the system, now called the ‘gentle Iron Curtain’, was no longer deadly. The border, though softened, still defined life in the region and made the maintenance of the Mithraeum challenging. As the border system crumbled in the 1980s, Austrian and Hungarian scholars increasingly cooperated on research in the region. Many of the region’s initiatives for monument protection began in the 1980s and were internationally recognized. For instance, the city of Sopron was awarded with the European Gold Medal for Monument Conservation in 1975 and UNESCO named the Fertő/Neusiedlersee a biosphere reserve in 1979 (Dercsényi & Bárdoly 2012: 89–96). The internationalization of the late Cold War era, as well as the new direction of the Hungarian political leadership made the militarized border increasingly obsolete (Sallai 2009a: 25–53). 8 In the middle of this political relaxing, scholars were able to visit the Mithraeum, documenting the collapse of the mud-filled rock vault in 1988. The Political Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party decided to remove the electronic border monitoring system during its meeting on 28 February 1989, but it kept a military presence at border crossing points (Sallai 2009b: 125).

 Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech at the UN in 1988 about reducing the military presence in East-Central European countries exemplified the internationalization of the late Cold War era. The ability of Hungarians to apply for a passport allowing international travel from 1988 also made border control less significant.

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The Mithraeum after the Cold War With the end of state socialism in Hungary in 1989, the proximity to Austria changed the dynamics in the Fertő/Neusiedlersee region, with the lake becoming an important centre for tourism and attracting new economic interest. The Hungarian side of the lake saw increasing numbers of cultural events that significantly increased tourism. Visitors were intrigued not just because of its location on the border with Austria, but also because of the region’s natural beauty and unique cultural history. Cyclists and pedestrians became frequent visitors to the Mithraeum (Fig. 6). Meanwhile, archaeological work could start again right after the end of socialism. Led by Gabriella Gabrieli (chief archaeologist at the Sopron Museum), György Vladár (restorer), and Ágnes H. Vladár (conservator) a new and complex protection project got under way at the Mithraeum. After the end of the project, most features on-site were replaced by replicas (the originals were taken to the Hungarian National Museum); only the stonework is original. The Mithraeum was housed within a protective building in the middle of a small empty courtyard. Both the courtyard and the building have some information panels. The site has been open to visitors since 1992 but only as part of a paid tour.9 The website of the Mithraeum and local information about the site are provided by a local family company who run all the tourist services in the village of Fertőrákos. Despite its transformation and accessibility, the site is still not a tourist hotspot but an ‘accidental’ one which tourists encounter by chance as they happen to pass by. If the region had suffered neglect during the Cold War due to the presence of the border, the absence of a border after 1989 caused the economy to shift to the other side of the lake as locals were tempted by employment in Austria to leave the area. Local institutions in Hungary were thus unable to support heritage protection and preservation, affecting a number of sites including the Mithraeum. Meanwhile, the transportation network remains undeveloped, and visitors struggled for any kind of easy access to the region, even as recently as 2015.10 Many towns are run down, replete with empty and ramshackle houses. Buildings are often only temporarily occupied during the summer season, which has fuelled the sense of abandonment.

 See www.mithras.hu (accessed 13 April 2022).  See the interview conducted with Tamás Taschner, the former head of the regional Tourist Management Office, and later Secretary of the Hungarian Committee of the Fertő/Neusiedler in February 2017.

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Fig. 6: The Mithraeum in 1989 prior to the restarting of excavations, photo by Fekist, CC-BY-SA-4.0.

The relative peripherality of the Fertőrákos Mithraeum has barely altered. The acknowledgement by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee of the Fertő/ Neusiedlersee as a cultural landscape, which included the Mithraeum as a World Heritage site in 2001, did not lead to a substantial change. According to their “Criterion V”, UNESCO (2001: 41–42) claimed: [T]he Fertö/Neusiedlersee has been the meeting place of different cultures for eight millennia, and this is graphically demonstrated by its diverse landscape, which is the result of an evolutionary and symbiotic process of human interaction with the physical environment.

During the nomination process, the idea of continuity in the landscape played a decisive role, with maps—as a necessary part of documentation to be submitted —visualizing the longevity of urban structures in the region. Austria, Hungary, and UNESCO placed longue durée history at the heart of the site’s historical narrative by highlighting thousands of years of human habitation. The lake was “about 20,000 years old” (IUCN 2001: 3), and the cultural landscape “began to be formed from at least the sixth millennium BC” (ICOMOS 2001: 1), or so it was claimed by the submitted reports from the nominating countries. The region had played host to a relatively continuous stream of people, the nomination

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report explained further: first the Celts,11 then the Roman Empire, before “Hungarians allied with Bavarians and occupied this territory from the north” in the early tenth century (Bundesdenkmalamt & VÁTI 2000: 28). The UNESCO World Heritage nomination was undertaken in the period after the end of Communism in 1989 yet before Hungary’s accession to the European Union in 2004. There was also a concurrence between the nomination and the millennium celebrations of ‘Christian Hungary’ in 2001. Proposing the Fertő/ Neusiedlersee as a cultural landscape with thousands of years of occupation, without emphasizing one specific historical era such as the Roman occupation during the third century CE, resulted from the political rhetoric around the millennium of Christianity in Hungary. Thus, on the Hungarian side of the lake, the emphasis shifted away from the pre-‘Hungarian’ past. Marketing publications and educational programmes integrated the Roman Period as only one aspect of the site’s history. The geological formation of the region featured as a starting point, but other time periods, like the Roman Period or the eighteenth century were treated with equal importance. On many occasions, attention was channelled towards contemporary environmental protection issues and not towards the history of the territory. It was only through the region’s name—Pannon or Pannonia—that a link was maintained to the Roman Empire; this name remains the most prominent way the ancient past features in Fertő/Neusiedlersee. In contrast to the Mithraeum, a permanent exhibition is located at the quarries in Fertőrákos, the settlement where the Mithraeum lies, covering the entire history of the Fertő/Neusiedlersee cultural landscape. In the Fertőrákos quarries remains from the early fourth millennium BCE were discovered, while the quarries have not been used for mining in centuries (Stadtlan & VÁTI 2003: 13). Since the mid-twentieth century the quarries have hosted cultural events, taking advantage of the natural surroundings which feature a view of the lake and an open-air theatre with excellent natural acoustics; contemporary public art is also installed around the site (Fig. 7). The fact that the quarries are located within the settlement of Fertőrákos ensured the possibility of such cultural buzz around the site, contrary to the Mithraeum which is literally on the border of both the settlement and the country. The complexity of the contemporary adaptation of the quarries (theatre, concert hall, exhibition, and look-out point) versus the Mithraeum, which is ‘only’ a conserved archaeological site, resembles the dichotomy regarding archaeological conservation in Hungary. The emphasis  The identification of the Celts as a homogenous group has been debated in disciplines ranging from archaeology to ethnography, linguistics, and history. It should not be used uncritically as a marker of cultural or ethnic identity. For more see Chapman 1993; Cunliffe & Koch 2010; Bondioli 2013: 29–42.

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Fig. 7: The Fertőrákos quarries in the late 1970s already being used for tourism, Fortepan/Varga János no. 135939.

on continuity throughout the heritage landscape of the Fertő/Neusiedlersee, which is also expressed by the quarries, not just mutes the importance of the ancient past, but also blurs the distinction between past, present, and future, making it a challenge to communicate. The UNESCO World Heritage understanding of the Fertő/Neusiedlersee cultural landscape tells a rich and eventful history. While the cultural landscape documents numerous periods of past occupation, their individual representation in the present remains unequal. Many of the individual elements of the UNESCO landscape are unconnected from each other, leaving the visitor bewildered by the complexity of the region. Marketing from the 2000s including tourist leaflets, brochures, and books about the Fertő/Neusiedlersee cultural landscape have done little to connect the touristic sights and encourage the visitor to explore the entire region. Tourism in the region dropped, perhaps as a result, in the mid-2000s. As civic organizations involved themselves in local tourism, they faced economic and operational obstacles and challenges—managing holiday homes, arranging tours, and running catering—while making the region more welcoming. Tourism continued to be rather low, partially because of the poor state of public transportation and roads which persisted until the end of the researched period in 2015. For instance, in the small town of Fertőrákos with just under 2300

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inhabitants in 2015, a local entrepreneur used their own small electronic vehicle to transport tourists between points of interest. There was simply no local transport network in the area between the sites and the village, and for the tourists who did bring their own cars, the roads were poorly maintained and the necessary signs for directing visitors were missing. Obstacles such as these are a perpetual concern, which has been echoed on social media and in local tourism literature.12 These disadvantages have long jeopardized any potential the Mithraeum has for drawing a public audience, irrespective of the political circumstances. Despite the resuming of excavations after 1989, the significance of the Fertőrákos Mithraeum, both locally and nationally, has barely changed in the last thirty years.

Conclusion: The Unincorporated Roman Past This chapter has explored how the ancient Roman past has been studied and presented during and after the Cold War in Hungary. It explained the various reasons why the Roman past has not become a significant element of the Hungarian national heritage discourse. While academic research flourished during the Cold War in Hungary, the ideological and political constraints during this time had substantial long-lasting effects. The chapter investigated the Mithraeum in Fertőrákos as a case study. As a site in a borderland, the conservation efforts regarding the Mithraeum would not have been prevented by any economic or urban development project typical of that time, but due to its location on the Iron Curtain almost no excavation or public appraisal could occur during the Cold War. Such bipolarity characterized the entire scientific field of archaeology (Hajnóczi 1987: 163–72). During the Communist Period in Hungary, the highly bureaucratic and ideologically centralized management were the main obstacles for the study of the ancient Roman past. After 1989, as East-Central European societies attempted to publicly catch up with Western Europe (Radonić 2017: 269–88), the idea of “Central Europe” became popular once more (Borsody 1993; Pók 2017: 282–95). Emphasizing histories that placed Hungary as an integral part of (Western) Europe was very much part of the discourse in the 1990s. And yet, the Roman past was never able to break through. In a counter to universal values, local specificities and ‘Hungarianness’ were new central tenets of public historical discourse. After

 One of the most popular blogger’s notes on the Mithraeum is available at https://travellina. hu/gyor-moson-sopron-megye-latnivaloi/#Ferto-Hansagi_Nemzeti_Park (accessed 13 April 2022). See also Turista magazine, http://www.turistamagazin.hu/ (accessed 13 April 2022).

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1989, the Fertő/Neusiedlersee cultural landscape attracted significant attention both nationally and internationally; much emphasis was placed on protection and public presentation, with the entire region gaining UNESCO World Heritage status in 2001. Despite this, regarding the Mithraeum very little has changed since 1989. The cultural landscape instead drew attention to folk art and local noble families. In the grand narrative of Hungarian heritage, the migrating Magyar tribes who occupied today’s Hungary in the tenth century, overshadow most other pasts as the ancestors of the Hungarians (see Kremmler, this volume). This is also true for the nomination form, jointly written by Austria and Hungary, for the UNESCO World Heritage nomination of the Fertő/Neusiedler cultural landscape (Bundesdenkmalamt & VÁTI 2000: 28). Thus, there is a very strong sense among the general public that the current inhabitants of Hungary and the inhabitants of Pannonia in the Roman Period have no connection with each other. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee’s focus on all aspects of the past and universal humanity seemed to offer much potential for a wider view of heritage in Hungary: “World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located” (UNESCO 2020). The lack of such understanding in Hungary during the midtwentieth century until 2015 can be exemplified by the example of another UNESCO World Heritage nomination. Hungarian archaeologists and heritage experts, despite their numerous attempts to inscribe the geographically and temporally complex landscape of Pécs (a city in south-western Hungary), were only able to successfully nominate the Early Christian Necropolis of Pécs, which also had a very narrow focus (Visy 2010: 2–7).

Archives National Archives of Hungary. 1950. Notes taken at the meeting about monument protection at the National Center of the Museums and Monuments on 26th June, 1950. MOL XIX-I-19-a. Box 25.

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Merényi, F. 1972. Százéves a magyar műemlékvédelem, in Az Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai: 5–17. Eger: Heves megyei Tudományos Ismeretterjesztő Társulat. Mócsy, A. & J. Fitz (ed.). 1990. Pannonia régészeti kézikönyve. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Ostrowski, F. 2022. Thracian archaeology and national identity in Communist Bulgaria: The ideological pattern of museum exhibitions, in J. Koranyi & E. Hanscam (ed.) Digging politics: The ancient past and contested present in East-Central Europe: 45–76. Berlin: De Gruyter. Pók, A. 2017. Remembering and forgetting Communism in Hungary. Studies on collective memory and memory politics in context. Kőszeg: IASK. Preisich, G., A. Sós & J. Brenner (ed.). 1954. Budapest városépítészeti kérdései. Az 1953. november hó 20-21-én tartott ankét anyaga. Budapest: Építésügyi Kiadó. Radonić, L. 2017. Post-Communist invocation of Europe: Memorial museums’ narratives and the Europeanization of memory. National Identities 19(2): 269–88. doi:10.1080/14608944.2016.1264377 Révai, J. 1951. Révai Elvtárs Fölszólalása a Magyar Dolgozók Pártja II. Kongresszusán 1951. Február 26-án. Budapest: A Magyar Dolgozók Pártja Központi Vezetősége Agitációs és Propaganda Osztály. Román, A. 1972. A műemlék-lakóházak problémái, in D. Dercsényi et al. (ed.) Magyar műemlékvédelem 1969–70. Országos Műemléki Felügyelőség Kiadványai VI: 315–29. Budapest. Akadémiai Kiadó. Rubel, A. 2022. Dacian blood: Autochthonous discourse in Romania during the Interwar Period, in J. Koranyi & E. Hanscam (ed.) Digging politics: The ancient past and contested present in East-Central Europe: 257–86. Berlin: De Gruyter. Sallai, J. 2009a. 20 éves a határnyitás. A vasfüggöny léte és vége. Budapest. Hanns-SeidelStiftung. Sallai, J. 2009b. Vasfüggöny a magyar államhatár mentén. Közép-Európai Közlemények Történészek, geográfusok és regionalisták folyóirata 2(4–5): 121–29. Sommer, C.S. 2021. A European project: The Frontiers of the Roman Empire – protection and communication of World Heritage in an international context. ICOMOS – Hefte des Deutschen Nationalkomitees 79: 36–41. Stadtlan & VÁTI. 2003. Fertő-táj kulturtáj - világörökség kezelési terve. Available at: http://www.fertotaj.hu/document/kezelesi_terv.pdf (accessed: 45–76 13 April 2022). Tompai, G. 1978. Területrendezés és fejlesztés és annak műemléki vonatkozásai, in Az Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai: 29–34. Budapest: Építésügyi Tájékoztatási Központ Nyomdaüzeme. Tóth, I. 1971. A fertőrákosi (Győr-Sopron m.) mithraeum újkori története. Műemlékvédelem 15 (4): 235–38. Tóth, I. 1994. Az intercisai nagy Mithras kultuszkép. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Pécs. Tóth, I. 2003. Mithras, a misztériumok istene? Ókor. folyóirat az antic kultúrákról 5(2): 26–30. Tóth, I. 2007. A fertőrákosi Mithraeum. Budapest: Pan. UNESCO. 1994. Nara Document on Authenticity. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/archive/ nara94.htm (accessed. 13 April 2022). UNESCO. 2001. Decision about the nomination of Fertő/Neusiedlersee cultural landscape. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/2288 (accessed 13 April 2022). UNESCO. 2020. World Heritage Mission. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/about/ (accessed 13 April 2022).

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Visy, Z. 2006. A Római Limes Magyarországon. https://limes.univie.ac.at//FRE_DOWNLOADS/ FRE_BROCHURE_MAGYAR.pdf (accessed 13 April 2022). Visy, Z. 2010. Európa múltja és jövője, avagy a Római Birodalomtól az Európai Unióig. Pécsi Szemle 13(2): 2–7. Visy, Z. 2021. A Danube Limes világörökségi nevezés helyzete 2021-ben (FRE – DL West transnational serial nomination). ICOMOS Hiradó 4: 9–13. Zeidler, M. 2002. Társadalom és gazdaság Trianon után. Limes 2: 5–24. Zsiga, T. 1999. A “vasfüggöny” és kora / Der Eiserne Vorhang und seine Zeit. Budapest: Hanns Seidel Alapítvány.

Katrin Kremmler

‘Eurasian Magyars’: The Making of a New Hegemonic National Prehistory in Illiberal Hungary Abstract: The Hungarian government has created parallel illiberal science institutions producing a narrative of cultural-civilizational continuity of ‘historical Hungarian statehood’ with the Huns, Avars, and conquering Magyars. This has been done with claims of ‘scientific truth’ by palaeoanthropologists, archaeogeneticists, and archaeologists, in an illiberal project of “genetic ethnology” (McMahon 2020a). Events like Kurultáj, a biannual festival celebrating the unity of the heritage of Eurasian nomadic steppe peoples, have facilitated and encouraged this relationship between ‘science’ and claims to a Hungarian ancestral connection with the East. This chapter argues that what is happening in Hungary is an illiberal transformation of science and the humanities, one that requires greater interdisciplinary scrutiny. Keywords: Hungary; Illiberal Science Politics; Nationalism; Turanism Heritage; Archaeogenetics; Palaeoanthropology; Racial Taxonomy; Kurultáj

Introduction In the summer of 2014, I began ethnographic field research on an annual cultural heritage festival in southern Hungary to learn about the Hungarian far-right’s new

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the editors, Emily Hanscam and James Koranyi, whose comments helped me immensely to improve the manuscript. I also would like to thank Dr. Margit Berner, Department for Anthropology at the Museum of Natural History Vienna and senior researcher in the HistoGenes project, for her invaluable physical anthropology expertise and input when discussing earlier versions, and for initial pointers towards the relevant historical literature. Finally, I would like to thank Gwen Jones for proofreading and copy-editing earlier draft versions. Parts of this research for my doctoral thesis were conducted during a six-month scholarship at the Max Planck-Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany (2019), and while in receipt of a Federal Government of Germany NEUSTART KULTUR grant (2021/22) for a literary project. Most of this research was funded by the Federal Government of Germany in the form of Hartz IV unemployment benefits. Katrin Kremmler, Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-008

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popular Eurasian kinship narrative. According to this narrative, Hungarians and Turkic peoples supposedly share the genetic and cultural/civilizational heritage of ancient Eurasian steppe empires, which is purported to be a new, pre-Christian and pre-Islamic ‘Turanian’ prehistory. Hungarian Turanism, a geopolitical concept going back to the late nineteenth century, was originally an ideology of Hungarian imperialism, and became an ethnonationalist concept in the anti-Western interwar climate after the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. Within the context of pan-ideologies such as the German Mitteleuropa concept and pan-Slavism, the search for new political allies and economic expansion to the East, based on supposed prehistoric kinship, informed geopolitical and economic strategies, academic research, and popular culture in Hungary (Ablonczy 2016; 2018; 2022; Korkut 2017; Balogh 2020), while influencing parallel developments in Turkey (Ergin 2017: 77–78; Erşen 2017: 269). From 2014 until the time of writing (May 2022), what started out as a curious far-right revitalization of the nineteenth and twentieth century cultural tradition of Hungarian Turanism by a small set of far-right actors on the fringe of Hungarian academia, was taken up by the Orbán government and institutionalized as a central part of its new illiberal national heritage regime. For the Hungarian case, nationalism and populism as analytical concepts for a postnational critique (see Hanscam in Hoffman et al. 2021), have become analytically too limited for the study of an authoritarian regime systematically controlling, taking over, and restructuring scientific institutions (see Pető 2021). I argue the regime does not just want to materially own and control science, it aims for a discursive shift presented to the Hungarian public as an ‘epistemic regime change’, the power of definition to determine what counts as science and the humanities. In political science, illiberalism studies have conceptualized illiberal movements as the pursuit of “metapolitics”, the adoption of a Gramscian approach that advocates for conquering the cultural scene, and investments in think tanks and new paraacademic institutions (Laruelle 2022: 15). Political economy scholars have stated that there are close links between the culture of illiberalism/populism and economic dislocations, arguing for complex, interdisciplinary approaches that refuse to pit culture, the economy, and politics against each other (Scheiring 2019; 2021; Scheiring & Szombati 2020). In Hungary, government-owned institutionalized illiberal science and scholarship has become instrumental in furthering Hungary’s geoeconomical alignment as the primary EU partner of the new Silk Road project that connects China and the EU through Central Asia and Turkey. These institutions also further mythomoteurs of nationalist identity politics and popular culture for Hungarian audiences in Hungary and neighbouring countries. Illiberal science actors have taken over and are shaping the official narratives of the Museum for Natural History and the Hungarian National History Museum. Illiberal science

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institutions, state museums and collections, and government media have become a well-oiled discursive machine, churning out a narrative of historical Hungarian statehood in civilizational continuity with ancient Eurasian steppe empires, with parallels to Russia (see Laruelle 2021), Turkey, and India. This new narrative owes its credibility and marketability to domestic and Eurasian audiences to the scientific support of a set of actors from palaeoanthropology, archaeogenetics, and archaeology, all of which are researching the biogeographical origins of the Hungarian Conquerors, the Hungarian medieval ruling dynasty, and historical populations of the pre-1920 territory of Hungary. These actors then ‘scientifically’ link these peoples to contemporary populations in Hungary. Thus, the narrative produced is one of cultural-civilizational continuity of the nation as ‘historic Hungarian statehood’, embodied in its historical ruling elites, projected back to the Huns and Avars as predecessors of the conquering Magyars. This narrative has been highly effective, with the international Turkish media treating it as evident in 2022 (TRT World 2022). In this chapter, I offer a brief descriptive sketch of these recent developments, as I observed them from 2014 to 2022, and the new role of natural sciences to reinvent the national cultural heritage regime, involving ‘apolitical’ racial taxonomy in physical anthropology and aDNA research of biogeographic origins. As a European ethnologist/anthropologist socialized in the German discipline, I am doing so from a Western humanities perspective, visiting events such as Kurultáj, museum exhibitions, and monitoring Hungarian government institutions’ online presence and social media channels. What I ended up observing was the process of how the regime created illiberal science to build a new hegemonic understanding of national culture, heritage, identity, and a new usable past as cultural capital for domestic and international politics. In fact, it was the project of inventing this new national prehistory which facilitated the constitution of illiberal sciences. Unlike authors who dismiss illiberal sciences as an antiscientific worldview or pseudoscience, and unlike humanities authors interested in culturalist or ideological explanations, I argue that what we are witnessing is an illiberal transformation of science and the humanities, which calls for greater interdisciplinary scholarly scrutiny.

A Far-Right Event Becoming Mainstream Kurultáj, meaning ‘tribal assembly’, is claimed to be a “traditional event of peoples of Central Asian nomadic origins” which aims “to strengthen the unity of the Eurasian steppe-nomadic horse culture and traditions between Hungarians and

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their cultural relatives, [namely] eastern Turkic and Altaic people” (Great Kurultáj n.d). Since 2008, it has taken place in even-numbered years, hosting international delegations from Turkey and Central Asia, and drawing 150,000 to 180,000 visitors over a long weekend (see https://kurultaj.hu/). On odd-numbered years, the festival’s organizer, the Magyar-Turán Foundation, holds a smaller, “domestic” event based on the same concept: Ősök Napja (the Day of the Ancestors), which celebrates the unity of “ethnic” Hungarians from the Carpathian Basin. I attended all events between 2014 and 2018. The 2020 event was cancelled due to COVID-19. Initially, it was my understanding that Kurultáj and Ősök Napja were clearly far-right events, which had been set up by individuals and civil organizations associated with the far-right party Jobbik. As I observed and documented during my fieldwork, event security was provided by a regional branch of the far-right paramilitary Magyar Gárda Mozgalom (New Hungarian Guard Movement, Fig. 1)— a legal and operational successor organization of the Hungarian Guard which was disbanded in 2009—in cooperation with local police.

Fig. 1: Kurultáj arena and security van, with the logo of the former Hungarian Guard. Kurultáj 2018, author’s photo.

Showcasing combat and archery re-enactments, horse races, neopaganism, ethnosports, nationalist rock music, and Hungarian and Eurasian folklore, Kurultáj resembles medieval festivals all over Europe, popular with mainstream audiences and with the far-right, although it is by far the largest of its kind. I had first heard of the new Eurasian narrative in 2008, when Jobbik MEPs were promoting their new cultural and economic cooperation with Kazakhstan in Brussels. Until the early 2010s, the Hungarian-Kazakh-Turkish-Central Asian kinship connection and cultural heritage was not part of the cultural mainstream. Budapest liberal urban intellectuals have continued until the present day to understand this narrative as an outlandish and absurd invention, or fake history based on pseudoscience.

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The connection between Kurultáj and Jobbik is not straightforward, especially as much of the original analysis in relation to Jobbik is by now outdated (e.g. Korkut & Akçali 2015). Since 2010, Fidesz gradually co-opted Jobbik’s political program, and around 2014, Jobbik started to redefine itself from a far-right to a more moderate conservative people’s party. In 2018, former core actors of Jobbik established their own new far right party, Mi Hazánk Mozgalom (Our Homeland Movement), which was elected to Hungarian parliament in 2022. From 2014–2018, I observed the gradual disappearance of Jobbik’s strong visual presence from the event site of Kurultáj, as it was clearly aiming for an ‘apolitical’ profile, to make it more open and attractive for Hungarian mainstream audiences and visiting diplomatic delegations from Turkey and Central Asia. These developments concur with a shift from politics to culture as attested by illiberalism studies in political science, and illiberal culture as post-postmodern projects, articulating their claims of rootedness in an age of globalization (Laruelle 2022: 7). The Orbán government has increasingly embraced the festival since 2010, and local MP Sándor Lezsák, the Fidesz-affiliated Vice President of Parliament since 2006, became its main patron. Since 2018, the Ministry of Human Resources (EMMI), responsible for science, education, sports, social policy, and healthcare, has sponsored the festival with around one million euros a year (Népszava 2020). In Budapest and elsewhere it was advertised as a mainstream family event in government media and billboards, and the organizers boasted of new visitor records each year. Kurultáj’s target audience has been not only the Fidesz constituency, but the entire heterogeneous spectrum of the so-called nemzeti oldal (national camp), as opposed to the oppositional, leftist/neoliberal-democratic camp. During my fieldwork at all festivals in the 2014–2018 period, I observed how visitors represented a broad spectrum from ‘ordinary’ families to the far-right, concurring with scholarship on the process of the mainstreaming of concepts and narratives of far-right subculture in popular culture in Hungary during the last decade (Feischmidt 2014; 2018; 2020; Feischmidt & Hervik 2015). The event’s mass appeal is clearly part of the performance, aiming to generate spectacular images for dissemination in state and social media. As a festival visitor, I gathered I was not just part of the domestic audience of the performance, but also in the role of an extra (a living stage prop, or biodíszlet in Hungarian) of an even greater staged meta-performance for non-domestic audiences, who were following these developments intently from afar. Over the years, I observed a number of television teams from Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan reporting from the event. Since 2010, the Orbán government has successfully polarized Hungarian politics along the nationalist-cosmopolitan axis (Scheiring & Szombati 2020),

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culminating in what political scientists have referred to as “political tribalism” (Krekó 2019), in which opposing notions of national culture and identity are a major dividing factor between the two camps. Kurultáj has been the main cultural stage to (re)introduce the notion of national prehistory, building it up both from the top and from below in an illiberal grassroots movement within the national camp. By now, parts of Hungarian Generation Z have already grown up with this narrative.

Illiberal Cultural Geopolitics During the period I attended Kurultáj, the Hungarian government employed the event as the central platform for cultural diplomatic meetings with the Turkic partners of its new ‘Eastern Opening’ policy, most visibly Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan (see Balogh 2020 for Hungarian geopolitics). Over the years, the central concert stage featured not only the most popular nationalist or farright rock bands like Ismerős Arcok (Familiar Faces) and Romantikus Erőszak (Romantic Violence), but also internationally renowned acts like the Kazakh ethno-folk band Turan (see Feischmidt & Pulay 2017 for popular culture of Hungarian neo-nationalism).1 Similarly, a Hungarian ethno-folk ensemble, styled to match Turkish and Central Asian tastes, has been representing Hungary at international world music festivals in Kazakhstan (Spirit of Tengri) and Turkey since 2015.2 As already mentioned, over the years, Kurultáj has been a feature on various Turkish, Kazah, and Azeri television screens as it has been transformed into a significant international cultural occasion. A whole heritage re-enactment and ‘ethnosport’ industry has developed to secure regular Hungarian participation at the international World Nomad Games in Central Asia (Magyar Etnosport Szövetség n.d). The Magyar-Turán Association also cooperates closely with the Turkish government. Kurultáj is referred to as one of the biggest Turanian events in the context of Turkish Eurasianism and generates great interest from Turkey (Tüfekçi 2017: 20). From 2014–2018, there was a strong Turkish visitor presence: the main sponsor of the cultural stage was the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), and programme leaflets and the orientation plan were provided

 For 2020, a concert by Kárpátia, the most prominent nationalist rock band, was planned but the whole event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Török Tilla Folk Experience, see https://www.facebook.com/toroktillaofficial/ (accessed 26 April 2022). On patriotic fashion in East-Central Europe and Central Asia see Novikov 2017.

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in both Hungarian and Turkish. In hindsight, this coincided with Hungary obtaining observer status at the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States in 2014. Visitors on the camping ground displayed Atatürk banners, the Göktürk flag referring to the sixth century First Turkic Khaganate, and symbols of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Kurultáj also has one of the larger number of followers of Hungarian popular culture social media pages (more than 57,200 followers on Facebook in April 2022). The Magyar-Turán Foundation runs a Turkish language Facebook page as well (with more than 16,800 followers in April 2022),3 and the links posted there indicate the similar structural workings of the Turkish and Hungarian Eurasianism projects involving archaeology, palaeoanthropology, and archaeogenetics, as well as a level of cultural and scientific cooperation. The English language political science literature on Hungarian and Turkic Eurasianism does not yet seem to have picked up on the connection between these groups (Korkut & Akçali 2015; Korkut 2017). Since the start of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in September 2020, the Hungarian government declared its support for Azerbaijan (Buzna 2020), from where it planned to increase Hungary’s gas supply considerably from 2023 onwards (Portfolio 2020). At this point, the links posted on the Turkish language Kurultáj Facebook page turned to explicit Turkish-Azeri war propaganda. In March 2021, the Hungarian government declared its intent to support Hungarian companies to engage in the reconstruction of the area (Magyar Hírlap 2021). Since 2018, the links between the festival and the government have increased. At Kurultáj 2018, the Magyar-Turán Association ratified a scientific cooperation with the International Turkic Academy, of which Hungary obtained observer status, represented on-site by the Kazakh embassy. In September 2018, Viktor Orbán attended the sixth Summit of the (then) Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking States in Kyrgyzstan (now renamed Organization of Turkic States (OTS)), in which Hungary has observer status since 2014, where he declared Hungarians to be “the most westerly Eastern people” and stated that Hungary was “determined to foster its cultural, spiritual and geographical roots” (Tulun 2018). He then attended the World Nomad Games together with the Kurultáj founder and head of the Magyar-Turán Association, physical anthropologist András Zsolt Bíró, thus symbolically recognizing Bíró’s function as the Hungarian government’s de facto cultural diplomacy commissioner with Central Asia. In May 2019, Budapest and Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana) signed a sister city agreement, purportedly

 https://www.facebook.com/kurultaj/; https://www.facebook.com/tr.Kurultaj/ (accessed 26 April 2022).

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based on “consciousness of common origins, historical and cultural roots” (Herczeg 2019). In late 2019, the OTS opened its representative office with the EU in Budapest; this office enjoys diplomatic immunity (Német 2019). During the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020, Orbán stated that the only help for Hungary came from China and the OTS, not from the EU (TRT Magyar 2020). At the March 2021 Summit of the OTS, Orbán engaged in vaccine diplomacy (Hungary being the only EU-country “pragmatic enough to use both Western and Eastern vaccines”) and announced a large-scale business forum of the Turkic Chamber of Industry and Commerce set up by the OTS member states in Budapest (Visegrád Post 2021). By early 2021, the extent of this long-term government strategy was becoming apparent with news reports on the “East-West-Gate”, the “Western gate of the new Silk Road” (see https://eastwestil.com/en/), Europe’s largest intermodal railway terminal being built at the Hungarian-Ukrainian border, connecting the EU railway system to China through the Trans-Caspian rail corridor via Central Asia (Daily News Hungary 2021). Furthermore, Shanghai Fudan University was about to build its first European campus in Budapest, exclusively with Chinese materials and Chinese labour, supported by the Hungarian government with a sum exceeding the annual operating cost of the entire higher education system of Hungary in 2019, ca. HUF 486 billion / €1.33 billion (Licskay 2021). The Orbán government is obviously investing in this new Eurasian kinship and cultural heritage movement as unique cultural capital in its bid for a privileged position as the central logistics hub for China, Central Asia, and Turkey within the EU. In late 2021, at the Hungarian-Kazakh Business Forum in Nur-Sultan, the Hungarian Minister of Finance declared that the Eurasian space was to gain greater importance in the world economy and Hungary was preparing for that (Magyarország Kormánya 2021). The Hungarian government also announced its intent to initiate a summit at the highest level between the Turkic Council and the Visegrád country group (V4) to be hosted in Budapest in the first half of 2022 (Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister 2021). In April 2022, the Hungarian and Turkish Foreign ministers declared 2024 as “Turkish-Hungarian cultural year” (APA 2022). At the time of writing (May 2022), the ‘Eastern Opening’ project was cut short by the Russian war in Ukraine, the long-term effects of which remain to be seen.

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Neo-Turanism The Eurasian kinship narrative drew on an embedded far-right scientific subculture, rather than being invented from scratch and imposed top-down by political actors. Hungarian Turanism, originally an ideology of Hungarian imperialism from the late nineteenth century, was later linked to ethnonationalism in the anti-Western climate after the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. In the Interwar Period, among ideologies such as the German Mitteleuropa concept and pan-Slavism, a supposed prehistoric kinship supported the search for new political allies and economic expansion to the East, which furthermore informed geopolitical and economic strategies, academic research, and popular culture in Hungary (Ablonczy 2016; 2018; 2022; Korkut 2017; Balogh 2020), while influencing Turkey similarly (Ergin 2017: 77; Erşen 2017: 269). Most of the alternative civilizational narratives of interwar Turanism were grafted onto older orientalist literature. In a climate of rising antisemitism and ethnonationalism, the distinction between Aryan, Turanian, and Semitic languages, put forward by the nineteenth century orientalist Max Müller, was transposed onto racial ideas. Alternative theories about an ancient Eastern ‘prehistory’ were posited as anti-Western narratives against a supposed cultural hegemony of ‘alien’, ‘Western’ (mostly Jewish and German) cultural urban elites. Historian Balázs Ablonczy (2016, 2018, 2022) has given the most comprehensive account on Hungarian Turanism in its historical dimension to date. But as a historian, he does not provide much of an explanation for its current revival. As a recurrent Kurultáj visitor, I had grasped its geopolitical and cultural heritage dimension, but still did not fully appreciate its mass appeal. How was it that, suddenly, white twenty-first century Central Europeans with a far-right nativist agenda were re-enacting and celebrating an entirely new set of Eurasian ancestor relations? The HBO series Game of Thrones4 (see Doppelhofer, this volume) was popular in Hungary, but could it produce an ethnonationalist spin-off like this? GoT premiered in Hungary in 2011, and while the event might have profited from the impact of global popular culture on cultural heritage movements, the series was predated by the inception of the event.

 In GoT terms: An unruly tribe in the eastern provinces of Westeros, speaking a peculiar language nobody else understands, suddenly claims ancient Dothraki origins and civilizational heritage, instigates new geopolitical alliances and sets itself up as the new Dothraki trade outpost and logistics hub in Westeros, hoping to profit from brokering political, economic, and cultural connections and resources in both directions, thus consolidating the local elite as a global player, and turning the fringe province into a regional middle power.

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The existing humanities and social sciences literature on Kurultáj focuses mostly on the re-enactment and performance dimension, mostly based on media reports. Humanities scholars tended to be interested in culturalist and ideological explanations, such as “political mythology” or “ethnonationalism as substitute religion in everyday life” (Simon-Nanko 2017: 145, translation by author), the interconnectedness of the Hungarian state, national identity, and religious revivalism (Kürti 2015: 235), “nomadism and nostalgia” (Kürti 2016: 217), or a recent postmodern invention of tradition (Csörsz 2015: 207; 2018: 213). Social science scholars have focused on “economic, cultural and racial discourses” and “myth[s] of cultural and racial affinity with Inner Asia and the Far East” (Moreh 2016: 341). As a recurring visitor, I found these explanations unsatisfying in terms of how exactly “an interplay of historical, political, geo-economic and cultural factors” could revive “(new-)old geopolitical imaginations” on this massive scale (Balogh 2020: 2). Moreover, culturalist explanations were all too readily absorbed by Western media, generating reductive orientalist interpretations of Eastern backwardness and irrationality, like “the Hungarian far-right discovering its inner barbarian” (Mikanowski 2019). A mass event of this scale cannot be built on myth and nostalgia alone, it needs actors, knowledge, funds, and infrastructure, and I was interested in the machinery behind this production. And despite the absurdity of the Eurasian kinship claim, this new narrative is so plausible to so many people that it must fulfil a certain expectation and need. Obviously, visitors could not only accept and identify with this narrative on an affective and emotional level, but also in cognitive terms. Therefore, I developed my approach following Rogers Brubaker (2006: 19), who argues that cognitive perspectives can provide resources for conceptualizing ethnicity, race, and nation without reifying them, as perspectives on the world rather than entities in the world. To date, scholarship on illiberalism has focused more on supply rather than demand, considering how its cultural products and social practices can help explain popular support for illiberal political projects (Laruelle 2022: 18). I felt there was something I could not yet see, that the whole event was based on epistemics, on specific knowledge that I was unaware of with my German background and left-liberal leanings, thus missing out on a crucial epistemic and semantic level. While the event provides a rich field for re-enactment studies (see Agnew et al. 2020), my focus shifted away from studying re-enactment in 2016, when the natural sciences dimension became more prominent at the event.

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Illiberal Sciences Kurultáj’s founder, András Zsolt Bíró (1972–), is a trained physical anthropologist, affiliated with the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest (HNHM). The event’s founding narrative was his research into population genetics, celebrated as ‘genetic proof’ of a kinship between ‘Magyars’ and the Kazakh tribe of the ‘Madjars’. The study, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Bíró et al. 2009), makes claims only of a possible relation between the two groups of samples, but was used in Hungary as fact, which set everything in motion. At the time, Hungarian academia proper derided his approach as far-right pseudoscience. Following up on the paper’s international reception and afterlife would make a very interesting and relevant physical anthropology paper—I cannot comment on this dimension for lack of expertise. Bíró’s search for genetic relations in the Torgay area of Kazakhstan was built on older research from his own discipline. In the mid-1960s, physical anthropologist Tibor Tóth, then director of the HMNH’s anthropology department and one of the main actors introducing Soviet craniometric methods to Hungary, had put this area on the map of potential Magyar relations. His work was picked up within Hungarian Turkology, by orientalist Mihály Benkő, who published extensively on Magyar-Kazakh relations for decades (see Benkő 2003 for how Tóth and Benkő connected in the 1960s), receiving a state award for it in 2011. Thus, for the nationalist scholarly and scientific community, Bíró’s findings served as scientific evidence for the previous decades of orientalist archaeological quests for ancient Eastern origins and relations.

Racial Taxonomy A central component of Kurultáj are displays of archaeological crania and facial reconstructions. As Ablonczy (2022: 244) notes, the presentations and lectures at Kurultáj for the most part concern scholarly questions, but he misses the natural sciences dimension. Since 2016, the festival has included lectures on population genetics and archaeogenetics, paleoanthropology, archaeology, and ethnography, provided by researchers affiliated to state institutions such as the HNHM, regional museums, the University of Szeged, and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

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Fig. 2: Anthropology exhibition, Kurultáj 2014, author’s photo.

To date, these exhibitions have not received any scholarly attention in Hungary or abroad. What has been described as a discursive Asianization— Orbán spoke of “the half-Asian nation” as early as 2012 (Moreh 2016: 346; Ablonczy 2022: 246)—has in fact been tangibly and materially displayed at Kurultáj since 2010, in the form of skull displays and facial reconstructions provided by the HNHM (see Figs. 2–5). The conquering ancestors are presented as hybrid ‘Europid-Mongolid’ racial types, using taxonomic categories that are standard practice in Hungarian physical anthropology, but to my German sensibilities evoked Nazi racial anthropology. As my subsequent research into the history of Hungarian physical anthropology revealed, besides cultural and political Turanism, there was also biological Turanism, or Turanist ideas in physical anthropology. Scientists of the Interwar Period in East-Central Europe were engaged in delivering primordial national racial types—like the ‘Dinaric’ type in Croatia, and the ‘Dacian’ in Romania (see McMahon 2016, 2019, 2020a, 2020b). In Hungary, it was the ‘Turanian’ or ‘Alföldi type’ (the Great Hungarian Plain type), the identification of which was the long-term project of anthropologist Lajos Bartucz (1885–1966) (see Turda 2007: 367; 2015).

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Fig. 3: Facial reconstruction in “Attila’s tent”, Kurultáj 2018, author’s photo.

In the anthropology exhibitions at Kurultáj, prepared by Sándor Évinger, anthropologist at the HNHM, Lajos Bartucz is presented as the founder of Hungarian conquest (Early Medieval) period anthropology, and the Turanian/ Alföldi type is explained with quotes from his 1938 book A Magyar ember (Magyar man), part of a four volume edition called “Magyar Soil, Magyar Race” (Magyar föld, Magyar faj, Bartucz 1938). Bartucz’ approach was based on craniometry— applying racial taxonomy to skulls from the Migration Period—and, as his interwar publications show, he did indeed adapt the German racial anthropology literature from the 1920s onwards, identifying the peasantry of the Hungarian plains as the closest descendants of the Hungarian conquerors. Beginning in the 1950s, Hungarian physical anthropology—newly ‘cleansed’ of the previous regime’s ideology—was augmented by Soviet racial systematics, developed to study Asian Soviet populations.5 The Soviet paradigm framed “race without

 The 1958 bibliography of Hungarian physical anthropology, while declaredly excluding the “pseudo-sciences” of the previous regime, still contains the German Interwar/Nazi Period racial anthropology canon, as well as works of antisemitic Hungarian racial biologist Lajos Méhely,

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Fig. 4: “Attila’s tent”, with physical anthropology exhibition, Kurultáj 2018, author’s photo.

prejudice” (see Zakharov 2015; on Soviet racialization see Zakharov & Law 2017), which encouraged research into racial differences supposedly without the racial hierarchies embedded in Western discourse—a claim very much contested by post-Soviet Critical Race Studies today. Since the 1960s, the Soviet method was applied by Hungarian scientists to measure archaeological skulls found on the territory of Hungary in its pre-1920 borders. In 2012, anthropologists affiliated with the HMNH undertook an extensive study of Árpádian-era skulls from cemeteries in Széklerland (eastern Transylvania, Romania), applying Soviet craniometry methods in order to identify historical Asian migrant components, and thus determining “Europo-Mongoloid features” (Fóthi et al. 2012). In 2016, their findings were turned into a major anthropology exhibition, Szóra bírt csontjaink (‘When Bones Speak’), addressing general audiences and school children. It has been touring the Hungarian museums in Romania and museums in Hungary ever since (Szóra bírt csontjaink n.d). The

and literature on the Jewish population and the Romani “question” (Allodiatoris 1958: 8–9, 15–16).

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Fig. 5: “Tent of the Ancestors” with physical anthropology exhibition, Kurultáj 2018, author’s photo.

narrative of ‘Europid-Mongolid’ ancestors, displayed at Kurultáj since 2010, has been continuously promoted all over Hungary and Transylvania since 2014. Historians of science are aware that the interwar physical anthropology tradition of primordial national race types existed in the whole mesoregion of Eastern Central Europe and the Balkans (Turda 2010; 2015; Górny 2015; Turda & Quine 2018), continuing in a ‘de-ideologized’ version after the Second World War. But its role as a factor of contemporary ethnopolitics in Hungary has gone under the radar of critical scholarship to date. As a Western humanities scholar, I’m in no position to give a representative account of the Hungarian discipline of physical anthropology and can only convey my external interpretation based on informal conversations I had with several Hungarian physical anthropologists in 2018 and 2019.6 I gathered the Hungarian  These conversations were in preparation for official interviews, meant to be conducted in 2020. The pandemic cut short my travel plans and called for a shift of research strategy. Thus, due to the informal, unofficial character of these preparational encounters, where I did not yet come out as an ethnographer interested in their work practices, I cannot quote my interlocutors

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Fig. 6a: Display of taxonomic nose types, correlated to geographical origins (Eastern Baltic, Mongolid, Negrid, Mediterranean, Alpine, Nordic, Dinaric, Armenid), at Szóra bírt csontjaink/ When Bones Speak exhibition at the Hungarian Natural History Museum Budapest 2016, author’s photo.

discipline views their practices as unrelated to Western colonial racism; racial taxonomy is considered unproblematic, as in international forensics. The constitutive role of interwar and Nazi-era German racial anthropology in Hungarian anthropology—the visual evidence of which appears quite shocking to German audiences (Fig. 6a and 6b)—is unknown today, likely due to the language

in more detail or with their names and affiliations. Methodologically unsatisfying as it is, it allows for some insights.

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Fig. 6b: Display of taxonomic mouth types, correlated to geographical origins (Eastern Baltic, Mongolid, Negrid, Mediterranean, Nordic, Turanid, Dinaric, Armenid), at Szóra bírt csontjaink/ When Bones Speak exhibition at the Natural History Museum Budapest 2016, author’s photo.

barrier. While there was active cooperation with German colleagues in the discipline up to the 1990s, I gathered that today’s Hungarian physical anthropologists no longer tend to read German. I also gathered that drawing conclusions on personal ideological and political positions based solely on the professional use of taxonomic practices was a premature projection on my part, the relevant criterium being in fact the performances of individual scientists in public and government affiliated media. But I did gather that the new illiberal science infrastructure was created in a way that enables natural scientists to continue their work according to their professional ethical standards, ‘unpolitically’. According to a recent textbook by the University of Szeged (a 1990s classic in constant reprint), racial taxonomy is still part of the curriculum (Farkas 2019). On a more general level, racial classifications (“Europid, Mongoloid, Negroid, Australid” and “mixed races—mulatto, mestizo, zambo”) are still considered legitimate scientific knowledge and were included in the new textbooks published by the Ministry of Education in 2020. Students of the natural sciences in the fifth

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grade learn that “europid, mongoloid, negrid and australid humans differ in skin colour” (Oktatási Hivatal 2020a: 159), and in ninth grade Biology they “identify the four main races” based on photos (Oktatási Hivatal 2020b: 264–65). With this background, it’s not hard to see how the skull displays at Kurultáj would be perfectly plausible and convincing for Hungarian mainstream audiences. In the central Kurultáj exhibition, “Attila’s Tent”—advertised as “the world’s biggest mobile yurt”—visitors encounter a pantheon of facial reconstructions as “scientific evidence” of their ancestors’ racial hybridity. This includes not only Hungarians, but also the Kazakh minister of culture and his delegation, who opened “Attila’s Tent” in 2014. Physical anthropology and its historical collections provide the basis for the booming discipline of archaeogenomics, and Hungary aims for a piece of that international business.

The New Role of Archaeogenomics and Archaeogenetics The question of the origins of the Magyars has long been highly politicized in Hungary. For decades, the national camp has misinterpreted the linguistic relatedness of the Uralic languages as a ‘theory of Finno-Ugric origins of the Magyars’, imposed by foreign agents, in a deliberate falsification of history by the colonizing Habsburgs/Communists/liberal West.7 According to the nationalists, the subjugated Hungarian nation has been engaged in a fight to reclaim its ‘true’ national prehistory from the ‘foreign’ oppressors’ hegemony—especially from local agents such as the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and liberal urban intellectuals. Liberal academia therefore considers this nationalist critique of internationally accepted linguistic standards to be a political conspiracy theory (Laakso 2012). The new Eurasian narrative thus builds on an alternative interdisciplinary tradition or thought collective of a range of actors from orientalist studies/ Turkology, physical anthropology, archaeology, and genetics, which refutes the internationally accepted scientific standard of linguistics and history as an alien elite’s hegemonic ideology (thought collective in Ludwik Fleck’s sense, see Cohen & Schnelle 1986). It is the declared aim of illiberal actors like András

 For a current example of the Habsburg narrative, see Vajta 2020, an opinion piece by a translator affiliated to the far-right World Federation of Hungarians, referring to the work of far-right archaeologist Kornél Bakay in the pro-government daily Magyar Nemzet. This is a perfect empirical example of the revitalization of nineteenth century “root Theory” as a misinterpretation of historical linguistics, see Laakso 2012.

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Zsolt Bíró (2020: 51) to “dispel the delusions and phantasmagories surrounding Hungarian ancient history”, meaning, to ‘reclaim’ national history from the interpretational hegemony of liberal elites and make it hegemonic. Bíró’s initial findings in the Torgay region of Kazakhstan convincingly legitimized this whole countercultural episteme with twenty-first century science. In 2008, the far-right World Federation of Hungarians (MVSZ) held a conference on “Ancestral History”, the physical anthropology section of which was attended by Bíró and senior members of all scientific institutions relevant in the field including the Hungarian Museum of Natural History and the University of Szeged.8 In the politically polarized climate after the 2006 riots on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, and with the Euro crisis after 2008, a number of scientists who were then on the side of the political opposition, seem to have agreed that replacing the neoliberal intellectual elite’s hegemony with a new Eastern paradigm in the study of Hungarian ancestral history was of utmost importance. Since 2016, this narrative has received new scientific backing from two geneticists at the University of Szeged: Professor Tibor Török and his (then) PhD candidate Endre Neparáczki, who started giving scientific lectures at Kurultáj. They identified a genetic link to Central Asia from ninth century cemeteries across modern Hungary, publishing their findings in PLoS ONE (Neparáczki et al. 2018). Following Richard McMahon (2020a: 1), this can be seen as a regional illiberal project of ‘genetic ethnology’, with all the problematic implications—with the risks of essentialism and determinism, such practices and organization of classification posing greater political dangers. In addition to expelling the Central European University, banning Gender Studies, taking over the independent Research Institutes of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and privatizing state universities, museums, and public collections by transforming them into foundations representing the ruling party, the Orbán government has also invested considerable resources in establishing new, parallel research institutes, and a parallel institutional research framework in historical studies (see summary in Oktatói Hálózat 2020). From 2013 onwards, Orbán’s government has undermined the position of researchers linked to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, seeking to break the supposed dominance of “liberal”, “cosmopolitan”, and “Westernized” elites and build a new generation with a “healthy national identity” (Trencsényi 2021). As Trencsényi (2021, emphasis mine) notes,

 A magyarság és a Kelet II: östörténeti konferencia (The Hungarians and the Orient II: Conference on Ancestral History). Publications are documented here: http://www.magtu din.org/A_Fordulat.htm (accessed 27 April 2022).

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these measures serve the purpose of an ideological Gleichschaltung, but can also be framed as being part of a seemingly EU-compatible agenda of modernizing/streamlining higher education and research, which are undergoing a serious restructuring to the detriment of the humanities even in countries where there is no ‘illiberal democracy’ in the making, but the expansion of neo-liberal managerial politics. […] in the case of the dismantling of the research network of the Academy of Sciences, the government sought to turn the natural scientists against the humanities and social sciences, stressing that the reforms intended to reallocate more funding to technology-based branches of research to the detriment of ‘ideologically motivated’ and ‘unproductive’ disciplines.

This kind of Kulturkampf is explicitly theorized by intellectuals from government think tanks, drawing on a synthesis of Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, right-wing political theorist Carl Schmitt’s friend-enemy-distinction, and even postcolonial authors (see Békés 2020a, 2020b). It must be noted though that the archaeogenetic quest for the ancient Magyars’ homeland is by no means exclusive to illiberal science actors. At Eötvös Loránd University and the Research Centre of Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (https://arpad.abtk.hu/en/) a parallel set of scientific actors is currently locating the homeland of ancient Hungarians around the southern Trans-Ural region (see Csáky et al. 2020). In 2019, the government institutionalized the Eurasian prehistory narrative in a new research institution, the so-called Magyarságkutató Intézet (Hungarian Studies Institute, MKI). The term Magyarság,9 officially and innocuously translated to “Hungarian”, transports historical semantics to those familiar with the interwar tradition. In the Interwar Period, Magyarság research was developed as an interdisciplinary ‘national sciences’ or national characterology paradigm, a “Hungarian anthropology, folklore, archaeology, linguistics, history, social studies, the investigation of national character, the Hungarian land, culture, nature, and the study of various relationships between them” (Kosa 1991/ 1992: 2). Physical anthropologist Lajos Bartucz was one of the main actors, establishing his discipline as the biological foundation of the national sciences complex. Though not invested in antisemitic politics, his concept of physical anthropology as national science was de facto a völkisch one, in the sense that it focused on ethnic Hungarians as national body politic (nemzettest), conceptually excluding the other remaining ethnic minorities of the post-imperial multi-ethnic Hungarian population, and conceptualizing Jewish Hungarians as racially alien, in congruence with the German racial anthropology literature of the time (Kremmler

 Hungarianness, all Hungarians together, the qualities of being Hungarian.

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forthcoming). MKI authors draw on interwar authors of their respective disciplines but modernize this national sciences tradition for the twenty-first century. Today, the MKI Research Centre for Archaeogenetics is dedicated to […] contribute to creating an evidence-based and unified historical view of the origin of the Hungarian people with new data. To this end, the research activity of the Centre focuses on the genetic testing of the historic populations of the Carpathian Basin and the detection of their genetic link with past and present populations. A further important subject of our research is the continuation of the genetic profiling of the Árpád dynasty due to their outstanding role in the formation of the state. Our results shall be presented to the general public in an objective manner (Archeogenetikai Kutatóközpont n.d.).

The declared mission of the MKI Research Centre for Archaeology, meanwhile, is to trace, explore, study and properly document archaeological sites linked to Hungarian prehistory and origin, as well as archaeological sites dating back to the Árpád Age, Middle and Early Modern Ages relevant from the point of view of the Hungarian nation in the Carpathian Basin and Eurasia. It is equally important to disseminate the results deriving from the scientific assessment of the above sites with a special focus on young generations (Régészeti Kutatóközpont n.d.).10

Overall, the MKI’s declared mission and corporate identity is to strengthen Hungarian national identity, and it does so by bypassing academia proper and addressing the public through state and social media, creating a new “better past” in the vernacular (as described by Boris Buden, see Genova 2018). Following its inception, all the scientific actors I had observed at Kurultáj since 2014 became affiliates: Endre Neparáczki leads its Archaeogenetic Research Centre and Tibor Török is listed as main researcher. Physical anthropologist Zsolt Bernert, who together with his colleague Sándor Évinger prepared the skull and map displays at Kurultáj, began giving presentations for the MKI in the early summer of 2019, and in July 2019 was also appointed the new director of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest. Oppositional media noted the political nature of this appointment by pointing out his lack of scientific qualifications (Magyar Narancs 2019a, 2019b). In October 2019, he brought the Hun-Avar-Magyar ancestry narrative ‘home’ to the HMNH, in the exhibition Attila Örökösei—A hunoktól az Árpád-házig (Attila’s heirs from the Huns to the House of Árpád), in cooperation with András Zsolt Bíró’s Magyar-Turán Foundation (Fig. 7). Notably, at the opening of the exhibition representatives of Turkish, Azeri, Kazakh and Mongolian embassies posed in front of a Kurultáj banner (Kurultáj

 For the recent shift in emphasis from Roman heritage currently not recognized as part of Hungarian identity, towards the Huns and Magyars in Hungarian archaeology, see Melinda Harlov-Csortán’s chapter in this volume.

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Fig. 7: “Attila’s heirs” exhibition, Hungarian Museum of Natural History in Budapest, October 2019, author’s photo.

2019). Recent MKI projects include the development of 3D animations of famous Hungarian battles for films and interactive educational materials and museum displays, resulting in a gamification of Hungarian military history.11 All of this has been done with a considerable budget, employing over one hundred researchers at the MKI (Czinkóczi 2020); they have also already ratified

 Some examples are available here: http://tae.hu/filmek/, see also ‘The Pozsonyi Battle’ animation on YouTube, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiNmszXx_js (accessed 27 April 2022).

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scientific cooperation agreements with the universities of Szeged, Debrecen, and Pécs. I have furthermore been informed that the MKI has started poaching promising young researchers from the formerly independent Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ research institutes, whose future is unclear at this point, offering job stability and better career prospects. The MKI has no collections of its own, and therefore depends on institutional collaborations with the osteology collections in the country. Following standard practices of data sharing and collaboration in natural sciences, research data of scientists in institutional collaboration is incorporated into the scientific output of the main MKI actors. This way, the names and scientific reputation of renowned collaborating scientists add to MKI’s scientific legitimation on the national and international level. Given the current boom in archaeogenetics, the two major osteological collections of Migration Period remains at the HMNH and the University of Szeged are increasing in scientific value. By now they are de facto privatized, and MKI affiliated researchers are in gatekeeping positions for international queries. As they enjoy privileged access, they may soon gain interpretative sovereignty on the period.

The New Temporality of Statehood In the contemporary context of the Kurultáj festival, celebrating Eurasian steppe culture today includes not only the ancient conquering Magyars from the tenth century, but also the Avars from the early sixth to the early ninth centuries, as well as the Huns from the fifth century, in the topos of the ‘Hun-Avar-Magyar’ kinship, giving Hungarian nationalism an even earlier claim. Since 2010, millennial Hungarian statehood—the irredentist interwar narrative revitalized by the far right—has become a central theme in the political communication of the Orbán government; 20 August 2020, the Hungarian National Day, was a particularly politically loaded event. The commemorative events featured both the state’s foundation by King Stephen in 1000 CE and the centennial anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon (see Feischmidt 2014, 2018), discursively linking them. Millennial statehood was a central motif in governmental speeches, something that was often missed by international observers. Gergely Gulyás, the Minister of the Prime Minister’s office claimed: “We are the citizens of one of Europe’s most ancient

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states”.12 Seen from that perspective, the hundred years since Trianon shrinks down to a mere modern interlude.13 The seemingly clashing narrative of Christian European statehood and ancient pagan kinship bonds between Hungary and Turkic nations (Balogh 2020), are unproblematic in terms of their consecutive temporality. In fact, the temporal horizon of millennial Hungarian statehood is extended for another 500 years into the past, encompassing the steppe ‘empires’ in the Carpathian Basin as its precedents.14 In this sense, the main point of the 2019 exhibition “Attila’s heirs” turned out to be the timeline depicted on the base of the walls, visualizing the continuity of Huns, Avars, and Hungary’s medieval Árpád dynasty (Figs. 8 and 9). In 2020, MKI historian György Szabados rewrote the history textbooks for the fifth and ninth grades and included the Hun-Magyar relation despite protests of the Történelemtanárok Egylete (Hungarian Association of History Teachers, TTE). Against this temporal horizon of ethnoracial civilizational continuity, one hundred years since Trianon and 200 years of Western (‘liberal’) modernity become a mere brief episode.

Branding the ‘Turul Dynasty’—the Ancient Royal Bloodline One of the MKI’s main projects is researching the biogeographical genetics of the medieval Hungarian Árpád dynasty. Based on the DNA of King Béla III (Olasz et al. 2019), the dynasty’s male lineage is linked to the regions of modern Iran, the Volga Ural region, and the Caucasus (Nagy et al. 2021). According to a MKI publication edited by Human Resources Minister Miklós Kásler, the Árpád dynasty formed 4500 years ago and reaches back to prehistoric Bactria in today’s northern Afghanistan (Kásler & Szentirmay 2021). According to these findings, the origin of the medieval ruling dynasty is, again, conveniently located on the historic Silk Road. Currently, the MKI is locating the grave of

 https://hirado.hu/belfold/cikk/2020/08/18/gulyas-europa-egyik-legosibb-allamanak-polgarai-va gyunk (accessed 1 May 2022).  Note the parallel in temporal logic to Alexander Gauland, the then co-leader of the German far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, describing the Nazi era as a brief stain (“bird-shit”) in Germany’s otherwise grand history in 2018.  ‘Non-Roman Empires’ in the understanding of Austrian historian Walter Pohl, referred to by MKI-historian György Szabados in numerous publications (see Szabados 2019: 12).

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Fig. 8: The new national prehistory timeline starting with the Huns, at the “Attila’s heirs” exhibition, Hungarian Museum of Natural History in Budapest, October 2019, author’s photo.

Fig. 9: The new national prehistory timeline ends with the House of Árpád, at the “Attila’s heirs” exhibition, Hungarian Museum of Natural History in Budapest, October 2019, author’s photo.

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Samuel Aba, King of Hungary (1041–1044), whose DNA is expected to provide the solution of the Árpád dynasty’s Hun origins. Such findings serve as a spatiotemporal map, to guide future archaeology and archaeogenetic research projects on the Magyars’ origins in these regions. They are often published on international platforms such the European Journal of Human Genetics (Nagy et al. 2021), giving an extra sense of legitimacy to the academic research serving the Hungarian political regime. In 2021, László L. Simon, a Fidesz politician and former Secretary of State for Culture of the Ministry of Human Resources was appointed the new director of the Hungarian National Museum, which, beginning in 2022, was put in charge of the Hungarian archaeological heritage sector (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Nemzeti Régészeti Intézet n.d). This year, for the 800th anniversary of the Golden Bull of 1222, and an election year, a monumental exhibition on the Hungarian Királyok és Szentek (Kings and Saints) has been prepared by the Hungarian National Museum, MKI, and the King St. Stephen Museum in Székesfehérvár, at the cost of 506 million HUF (ca. 1.3 million EUR at March 2022 exchange rates). At the end of 2021, the curators of the exhibition were discharged without any reason given, and the direction was given to MKI. The new curator was the new head of the MKI Research Centre for Archaeology, archaeologist Miklós Makoldi, in spite of his lack of scientific credentials. Most of the authors for the catalogue, including twenty-five historians, archaeologists, archivists, museum experts, and other researchers, resigned in protest, publishing a joint statement (Valasz online 2022a). Internationally renowned archaeologist Csanád Bálint called the institutional takeover an unprecedented scientific scandal, and many of the MKI archaeologists’ and historians’ conclusions absurd and methodologically dilettantish (Borbás 2022a). The Hungarian Academy of Science’s Section of Philosophy and Historical Sciences published a protest statement (Valasz online 2022b), all to no avail. The Orbán government is set to make the MKI narrative hegemonic, as part of its greater strategy to revoke the epistemic authority critical humanities and social sciences currently command in the field. The exhibition, widely advertised, opened on 17 March 2022 without a catalogue, two weeks before the election. It did not feature any DNA research, but, according to the organizers, these findings were now widely known and accepted. Nor did the exhibition stress the Hun-Magyar relation (Borbás 2022b). In government media, however, MKI actors refer to the Árpád dynasty as the “Turul Nemzetség” (Turul Dynasty), creating a popular brand with this term, which establishes a semantic link between the Christian medieval world to the pre-Christian conquest era, and bears interwar racial connotations (see Ágoston 2021). By now, the exhibited objects merely serve as material evidence

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for the narrative—provided by government and social media—that has been developed for over a decade.

International Science Collaborations Even a cursory examination of various publications by MKI actors reveals that its interdisciplinarity functions as a citation club, in which the affiliated palaeoanthropologists, archaeologists, and historians quote each other and their own earlier work, aiming for international professional recognition. Instead of interpretating illiberal science politics as merely predatory, having no original ideas (Pető 2021), an anti-scientific worldview, or as pseudoscience, I argue what is happening here is clearly anti-intellectual, but despite its nationalist ideology it cannot be called antiscientific. Rather, we’re witnessing an illiberal transformation of science and humanities, that calls for critical scholarly scrutiny. To date, critical scholars have challenged this new narrative’s scientificity from the theoretical and methodological perspectives of their respective disciplines, including history, linguistics, or archaeology. But this new national prehistory is generated as an interdisciplinary project, and constantly legitimized by the rapid development of archaeogenetics. It is hard to argue against this black box as ‘pseudoscience’, when at the same time these findings are taken up and corroborated by acclaimed international scientists engaging in cooperation with MKI affiliated actors, using their data, or referring to their publications. In March 2021, an international team of geneticists, anthropologists, and archaeologists led by scientists from the Department of Archaeogenetics from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, published a new study on the origins, development, and decline of the Scythians (Gnecchi-Ruscone et al. 2021). Listed among the co-authors are Hungarian anthropologists András Zsolt Bíro and Sándor Évinger of the Hungarian Museum of Natural History, supplying data about an elite Hun burial. In 2020, a French team conducting research in Mongolia used MKI’s data for comparison and corroborated the data concerning the relations of Asian and European Huns (Keyser et al. 2021), which was reported on ecstatically in Hungarian progovernment media and has been integrated into recent MKI publications (Magyarságkutató Intézet 2020; Kásler & Szentirmay 2021). International scientists will be mostly unaware of how their names and scientific reputation are instantly coopted by Hungarian government media, adding to MKI’s scientific authority, such as in the case of German palaeogeneticists

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Verena Seidenberg and Susanne Hummel contributing to identifying King Béla III’s DNA in 2019 (Olasz et al. 2019; Kásler & Szentirmay 2021). The new ERC Synergy Grant ‘HistoGenes: Integrating genetic, archaeological, and historical perspectives on Eastern Central Europe, 400–900 AD’, running from 2020–2026 in Austria, is a particularly interesting collaboration, and could become a potential site for some level of productive transnational interdisciplinary dialogue (see https://www.histogenes.org/). Now a major European collaboration, HistoGenes institutionally collaborates with the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest, and its director Zsolt Bernert (https://www.histogenes.org/senior-re searchers), as well as researchers from the Institute of Archaeological Sciences at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and the Institute of Archaeogenomics at the Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, to prepare bone samples and extract genomic data from Hungarian skull collections.15 HistoGenes’ and MKI’s mission, as two major parallel interdisciplinary projects, one based in the Western EU and one based in Hungary, both researching the same territory, time frame, and populations, using similar methods and technology, extracting genomic data from the same Hungarian collections, are arriving at utterly different interpretations on the history of migrations in modern Hungary. HistoGenes’ project leader, medievalist Walter Pohl, sees combined interdisciplinary work explicitly as “antiracist research”, countering newly re-emerging nationalist-racist tendencies; this research will point out to a general public that peoples in the past mixed and merged, that they were distinguishable by cultural identities, but not via racial or genetic characteristics (Ronzheimer 2020). We should recognize this is based on an understanding of race, racism, and ethnogenesis coming from the German tradition, where at one university a declaration was recently adopted, supported by the German Zoological Society, declaring that “human races” do not exist (Bär 2019). Recent studies on ancient DNA in archaeology argue in a similar logic, challenging notions of cultures constituting one-dimensional, homogeneous, and clearly bounded social entities (Furholt 2018: 159; Crellin & Harris 2020: 37). The understanding within Hungarian palaeoanthropology, however, which informs MKI archaeogenomics today, historically comes from the Soviet ethnogenesis concept (see Aleksejev 1974; Bromley 1974; Debets 1974), a dynamic concept allowing for the mixing and merging of races and populations over time and space. The notion of continuity constructed by MKI’s illiberal sciences

 Zsolt Bernert as the HMNH director and Sándor Évinger were mentioned as staff members in the Hungarian project presentation at ELTE University Budapest on 26 February 2020, which I attended.

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actors is declaredly not one of an essentialized and fixed homogenous culture, social-genetic group, or ‘race type’, but one of the civilizational continuity of historical Hungarian statehood as embodied in the ancient Eastern DNA of its medieval ruling dynasty and cultural practices of Eurasian nomad cultures. Not even Lajos Bartucz, the physical anthropologist adapting German racial anthropology, considered the Hungarian race type being something fixed, homogenous, and stable, but as a mix of different racial components over time—a logic not unlike archaeogenetics today. The essentialism and fixedness comes from the next step of dissemination, from the government media’s reductive translation of the illiberal scientific discourse into the vernacular. And the main scientific actors actively participate by giving interviews to government media, framing their findings as new information about ‘our ancestors’, and expressing their nationalist views much more explicitly than in their scientific publications.

Conclusion: Illiberal Prehistory, Illiberal Sciences Using Hungarian statehood and the Árpád dynasty’s DNA as its central epistemic object, MKI affiliated researchers can produce a biohistorical nativist narrative of cultural and civilizational kinship, based on genomic data from the history of migrations, feeding nativist and racist discourse in the present. Due to the standard practices of international data sharing and collaboration in the natural sciences, even declared ‘anti-racist’ archaeogenomics or archaeogenetics can end up reinforcing ideas of race based on deep pasts, ethnocultural, and civilizational narratives under the radar of critical Western scholarship on the lookout for racist science practices deploying fixed and stable container categories. Here, it is worthwhile to consider current theoretical and analytic concepts that operate with fluid concepts of race and racism (Stoler 2016), for the study of imperial and post-imperial continental European contexts (see Mogilner 2021). In 2022, the Russian war in Ukraine has put Russian irredentism into the international spotlight. The similarities to Hungary are striking and call for interdisciplinary scholarly scrutiny.

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Tüfekçi, Ö. 2017. Turkish Eurasianism: Roots and discourses, in Ö.Tüfekçi, H. Tabak & E. Akıllı (ed.) Eurasian politics and society. Issues and challenges: 1–35. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Tulun, T.E. 2018. Hungary’s participation in the cooperation council of turkic-speaking states. AVIM. Analysis no: 2018 / 23. Available at: https://avim.org.tr/en/Analiz/HUNGARY-SPARTICIPATION-IN-THE-COOPERATION-COUNCIL-OF-TURKIC-SPEAKING-STATES (accessed 13 May 2022). Turda, M. 2007. From craniology to serology: racial anthropology in interwar Hungary and Romania. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 43(4): 361–77. doi:10.1002/jhbs.20274 Turda, M. 2010. Entangled traditions of race: Physical anthropology in Hungary and Romania, 1900–1940. Focaal 58: 32–46. doi:10.3167/fcl.2010.580103. Turda, M. 2015. Sub-cultures and narratives of race in Hungary. Cahiers d’etudes hongroises et finlandaises, 20(2014): 229–41. Turda, M. & M.S. Quine. 2018. Historicizing race. London: Bloomsbury. Vajta, D. 2020. A finnugor-hun kérdés néhány buktatójáról. Magyar Nemzet, 24 November 2020. Available at: https://magyarnemzet.hu/velemeny/2020/11/afinnugor-hun-kerdes-nehany-buktatojarol (accessed 27 April 2022). Valasz online, 2022a. Huszonöt tudós közös közleménye a Királyok és szentek – Az Árpádok kora című kiállításról, 14 January 2022. Available at: https://www.valaszonline.hu/2022/ 01/14/kiralyok-szentek-kiallitas-kozlemeny/ (accessed 28 April 2022). Valasz online, 2022b. „A dilettantizmus tobzódása” – MTA-s nyilatkozat a Királyok és szentek című kiállítás körüli helyzetről, 17 January 2022. Available at: https://www.valaszonline. hu/2022/01/17/mta-filozofiai-tortenelmi-osztaly-nyilatkozat-kiralyok-szentek-kiallitas/ (accessed 28 April 2022). Visegrád Post, Speech of Viktor Orbán at the videoconference at the Informal Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States, 6 April 2021. Available at: https://visegradpost.com/en/2021/04/06/speech-of-viktor-orban-at-thevideoconference-at-the-informal-summit-of-the-cooperation-council-of-turkic-speakingstates/ (accessed 26 April 2022). Zakharov, N. 2015. Race and racism in Russia. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Zakharov, N. & I. Law. 2017. Post-Soviet racisms. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Radu Cinpoeș

Beyond Radical Right Politics: LGBTQ+ Rights in Hungary and Romania Abstract: With the growth of support for populist and radical right movements in Europe, one area that sets apart East-Central Europe from the rest of the continent is the attitude towards LGBTQ+ rights. This area has become a battleground, with political parties as well as grassroot movements pushing back against the (often unconvincing) progress that has been made towards articulating legal frameworks guaranteeing equality and protection for sexual orientation minorities. Within this context, the purpose of this chapter is to look comparatively at the debates concerning constitutional provisions relative to same sex marriage in Hungary and Romania. Despite different current provisions and different political landscapes in the two countries, there are clear similarities in terms of the direction of the process and of the mechanisms that inform it. This refers in particular to the use of narratives about the past that articulate a particular cultural and national identity. In both cases, the chapter identifies a mythologized version of history and claims that this history is deeply rooted into the Christian tradition as a key marker of what is regarded within populist and right-wing camps as cultural and national distinctiveness. Secondly, it aims to investigate the role of populist and right-wing actors in shaping public debate and policy agenda. Finally, it aims to suggest that these trends go beyond the populist and radical right politics (while influenced by them) and need to be understood in terms of a much broader cultural ‘turn’ encompassing alongside human-rights backlash, other dimensions such as posttruth and post-secular discourses, illiberal articulations of democracy, etc. Keywords: Nationalism; Right-Wing Populism; Illiberal Politics; Christian Tradition; Same-Sex Marriage

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the participants of the ‘Digging Politics’ workshop (Durham 2019) for their useful comments and feedback on earlier drafts of this chapter, and in particular to Emily Hanscam and James Koranyi for their helpful suggestions throughout the process of writing this. Radu Cinpoeș, Kingston University, UK https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-009

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Introduction The growth in support for populist and radical right movements in Europe and elsewhere has brought to the fore narratives that endorse exclusionary, chauvinistic, and nativist values (Wodak & KhosraviNik 2013: xix). The growing relevance of religion embedded in these nostalgic nationalist narratives (Hennig & Hidalgo 2020: 36), thereby provides a rich repertoire of themes that support the contestation of liberal values in the name of protecting the historical continuity and ethnic, cultural, and religious specificity of the nation. One area that sets apart East-Central Europe from the rest of the continent is the attitude towards LGBTQ+ rights. In this context, narratives of the past are employed in order to oppose the advancing of policies aimed at protecting the rights of people of different sexual orientations and identities. Part of a broader “illiberal turn” (Rupnik 2012) or “illiberal swerving” (Bustikova & Guasti 2017), this area has become a battleground with political parties as well as grassroot movements pushing back against the (often unconvincing) developments that have been made towards articulating legal frameworks that guarantee equality and protection for sexual orientation and other identity-based groups. Same-sex marriage is a particular issue of focus in the push to encroach on the rights of people of different sexual orientations. In this regard, the differences between East-Central Europe on the one hand, and Western and Northern Europe on the other, are even starker. By early 2020, sixteen European states have legalized same-sex marriage (the most recent members of this group being Northern Ireland in 2020, Austria in 2019, Finland, Germany, and Malta in 2017, and Ireland and Luxembourg in 2015). Countries in East-Central Europe are bucking this trend by using constitutional changes to raise serious barriers against such developments. This contrast suggests that in East-Central Europe, nostalgic narratives about the past are intertwined with conservative views on sexual politics, highlighting the role religious values play in the construction of national identity. Among the members of the European Union that have de facto constitutional bans1 on same-sex marriage are Slovakia (2014), Croatia (2013), Hungary (2012), Latvia (2006), Poland (1997), Lithuania (1992), and Bulgaria (1991) (Felter & Renwick 2019).

 In this chapter, a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is understood in terms of the de facto prohibition on legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage, a prohibition that derives from the explicit definition of the family in the constitution as a union between a man and a woman.

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Within this context, the purpose of this chapter is to look comparatively at the debates concerning constitutional provisions relative to same-sex marriage in Hungary and Romania, focusing on how the past is drawn upon to support the defence of national identity against perceived external values that undermine it. Secondly, this chapter aims to investigate the role of populist and rightwing actors in shaping public debate and policy agenda. Finally, it aims to suggest that these trends go beyond the populist and radical right politics (while influenced by them) and need to be understood in terms of a much broader shift further emphasizing illiberal articulations of democracy, nationalism, and a backlash against human-rights embedded within a post-secular discourse. The selection of Hungary and Romania is based on the fact that they appear to display very different contexts and political dynamics while the ultimate goal is the same: constitutional changes that would effectively ban same-sex marriage. These changes are generally achieved through constitutionally defining marriage specifically as the (voluntary) union between a man and a woman, thus precluding a situation where same-sex marriage might be legalized (due to an ambiguous or gender-neutral definition of marriage in the constitution). Unlike Hungary, where populist and radical-right parties have acquired and maintained a significant level of success, Romania has not had any radical-right parliamentary presence since 2008 until 2020. In the 2020 elections the Alianța pentru Unirea Românilor (Alliance for the Union of Romanians, AUR), a new radical right party founded only a year earlier managed a surprising result, polling in close to 10% of votes (Rezultate vot n.d.). Thus, in Romania, the campaign against same-sex marriage was not initiated and driven by parliamentary parties. There are also differences between Hungary and Romania with regard to public opinion views concerning homosexuality, with homophobia being expressed more widely in the case of the latter. More importantly for the current research, constitutional changes have been implemented in Hungary by the Kereszténydemokrata Néppárt (Fidesz-Christian Democratic People’s Party, KDNP) Alliance (Fidesz from now on), using its supermajority obtained in 2010 to push through constitutional reform. In Romania, constitutional reform was pursued through a referendum proposed by a diverse range of organizations and individuals gathered under the umbrella of the Coaliţia pentru Familie (Coalition for the Family, CpF)—a non-governmental association with strong conservative religious views. Thus, at the most basic level, in terms of the procedural dimension, the case of Hungary is top-down, through a government initiative driven by a parliamentary super-majority, while in Romania, this was a public, bottom-up initiative to request a referendum on a particular issue. This is arguably the case because—as will be shown—the salience of religious identity and (linked to that), intolerance towards LGBTQ+ people is much stronger in Romania than in Hungary.

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As such, a national identity grounded in ethno-religious markers can be mobilized against LGBTQ+ rights much more easily from the bottom-up in Romania, while remaining largely a top-down, political elite project in Hungary.2 Finally, Hungary was—as suggested earlier—successful in implementing these changes. The new constitution was passed in April 2011, with a significant majority (262 to 44), despite the fact that eighty MPs boycotted the drafting process and the voting; the constitution entered into force on 1 January 2012 (Gray 2012). By contrast, in Romania, the initiative failed. The October 2018 socalled referendum for the family, organized for the purpose of changing the definition of the family in the constitution, so that it specifically refers to the union between a man and a woman, was not validated because it failed to reach the minimum 30% turnout (Luca 2018). The argument articulated here is that, despite different current provisions and different political landscapes in Hungary and Romania, there are clear similarities in terms of the approach pursued in order to ensure the prohibition of same-sex marriage (through a constitutional ban) and in terms of the arguments used to support this approach. This refers especially to the use of narratives about the past that articulate a particular cultural and national identity, where religion occupies a central position. In short, the analysis here shows that the past (which brings together strong ethnic and religious identity markers) provides a strong sense of continuity for the nation; it shapes broad social norms, and the politics of sexuality more specifically. Thus, while the conceptual discussion that follows separates the role of religion and that of nationalism, it does so for analytical purposes. Religious and national identity are co-constitutive. In both cases, this chapter identifies a mythologized version of history and a claim that this history is deeply rooted within the Christian tradition, as key markers of what is regarded as cultural and national distinctiveness within populist and right-wing camps. Finally, while the opposition to same-sex marriage is internally driven, especially in the way it is justified as a duty to defend national values, a closer look shows a pattern of foreign collaboration if not direct interference in the process. This phenomenon is not unique: it is reflective of wider patterns of foreign (largely American, but not uniquely so) campaigning, lobbying, and legal advice concerning opposition to LGBTQ+ rights in Africa (Baptiste & Foreign Policy in Focus 2014). The comparative analysis pursued here traces the process of the attempt to change the definition of the family in the constitutions of Hungary and Romania,  See, for instance, Hanebrink’s (2006) extensive analysis of how secular and Christian nationalist political factions were competing in the Interwar Period over the terrain of the appropriate conceptualization of Hungarian national identity, with antisemitism as their point of convergence.

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taking the following structure: first, it emphasizes conceptually the convergence between the post-secular and the nationalist dimensions that provides a useful framework for understanding the phenomena examined. Following that, the investigation is divided into two sections. The first one identifies patterns of difference between the two cases by looking at the political context, the attitudes towards homosexuality, the method pursued for securing constitutional changes, and the success of the outcomes. The second one looks at the patterns of similarity in the narrative articulated to justify the changes and at the international influence in the process. The analysis relies primarily on qualitative data drawn from public statements made by (political) supporters of these changes in order to identify the key features that inform these narratives. The purpose is to demonstrate that despite the various contextual differences, the two cases are reflective of a common discursive trend that permeates the politics of the two countries. This research is potentially relevant for understanding other cases in East-Central Europe, Russia, and beyond, especially in cases that display an increased backlash against LGBTQ+ groups, and where legislative initiatives aimed at restricting the rights of these groups occupy a visible position in public debates and on the political agenda. Moreover, the relevance lies in observing how (mythologized) versions of the past are employed in debates concerning social norms and in contesting and restricting the rights of different groups.

Conceptual Considerations The argument proposed in this chapter rests on the conceptual juncture between debates on postsecularism and nationalism. I use the term postsecularism broadly along the lines articulated by Habermas (2008). He employs the concept in order to critique the secularist and secularization claims that the advent of modernity, and the ‘Age of Reason’, was supposed to usher in a gradual decline of religious belief and practice and the separation of religion from public life (Taylor 2011: 49–50). Habermas (2008: 2021) offers a critique of such claims, drawing on what he calls a “change in consciousness”, which rests on phenomena that include a perception that many current conflicts are fought on religious grounds; a (re)growth in the public influence of religion and religious organizations and a incongruence between religious groups, exposed by global migration. Thus, we are currently experiencing a state of postsecularity, where societies need to come to terms with the fact that religion has continued to play a significant role in people’s lives, and to negotiate (in contradistinction with secularist

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narratives) the role that religion can play in the public and political sphere. Taylor (2011: 49–50) takes the point of the continuity of the public presence of religious beliefs even further and suggests that what modern secularization has produced is simply a transformation from a state where “unbelief was off the map, close to inconceivable, for most people”, to one where religious belief became “an option among many”. Further still, as Casanova (2011: 64–65) points out, the process of secularization visible largely in North-West Europe and North America is very much an exception that was not replicated in similar ways elsewhere in the world.3 The implicitly essentialist (in terms of what are to be regarded as Western parts of Christendom) vein of Casanova’s argument notwithstanding, the point he makes— that the notion of secularization has to be considered in a very nuanced way, rather than assuming that religion simply disappeared from public life—still holds water. In this sense, Davie’s (2015: 79) notion of “believing without belonging” captures better the ways in which religion retains varied levels of relevance in society; as she puts it, simply, despite the growing number of atheists, “Europeans […] continue to believe in God and to have religious (or at least spiritual) sensibilities”. It is with these qualifications in mind that this chapter examines the role of religion in the articulation of political discourse as related to same-sex marriage. Nationalism is the second dimension that informs the examination of the same-sex marriage debates in Romania and Hungary. A great deal of the recent academic debates about the political success of parties that have been situated outside the mainstream have converged around populism as a key explanatory concept. While there is significant disagreement on the nature of the concept, at a minimal level, it applies to movements or political parties that oppose “the people”, seen as pure, authentic, righteous, to a corrupt “elite” (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser 2012). On this basis, parties such as the governing Fidesz in Hungary have been labelled as right-wing populist. I argue here that at the heart of understanding the same-sex marriage debates in Hungary and Romania lies the nuanced way in which ‘the people’ is being defined. While populism is playing a role, in this case, as a discourse, thin ideology, or style (Rooduijn in Bonikowski et al. 2019: 66), nationalism provides stronger explanatory power to the cases

 While these broad trends suggest the persistent role played by religion in public life and the limits of secularizing processes, it is important to also consider the impact of Communism on religion in East-Central Europe. Like in the case of the effectiveness of secularization, the notion that Communism managed to displace religion, leaving by the time of its collapse a ‘spiritual vacuum’ needs nuancing and qualifying. Far from being able to expugnate religious public life, Communist authorities throughout the region opted for varied approaches in relation to different faiths and denominations, ranging from outright prohibition to toleration and even to co-opting them for various purposes (for a detailed analysis, see Ramet 1998).

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under investigation, because ‘the people’ is arguably defined as the ‘in-group’ aiming to protect itself from corrupting external influences (Halikiopoulou in Bonikowski et al. 2019: 75). The key premise of nationalism is to render the national and the political communities as congruent (Gellner 1983: 1). This claim plays an important role in this case, especially regarding the context in which religion is being incorporated as a central feature that defines the identity of the national community. Thus, religious identity is employed as an argument for the preservation of national sovereignty. Finally—and this is a more hesitant claim—the religious argument rests upon opposition to foreign values that are perceived as relative (e.g. human rights) and reinforcement of what are perceived as perennial (absolute) values that define the national identity of the in-group.

Patterns of Difference: Similar Goals, Different Results As suggested in the introduction, the two cases of Hungary and Romania provide some fertile ground for comparison because of the similar aims (to prohibit same-sex marriage) and discursive tools through which these aims were pursued, despite several levels of difference between them. These differences are of political context, of attitudes towards same sex relations, of process regarding the changes, and of outcome. In terms of political contexts surrounding the respective processes of constitutional changes, support for nationalist and radical right parties in Hungary and Romania appears very different. In Hungary, the 2010 elections brought about a period of right-wing dominance, with both Fidesz and Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom (the Movement for a Better Hungary, commonly referred to as Jobbik—a significant radical right party in Hungary and Fidesz’s main competitor in the right-wing nationalist landscape) emerging as successful within their respective reference points (Pytlas & Kossack 2015: 114). Fidesz managed to increase the number of their seats by nearly one hundred compared to the 2006 elections and secured a total of 68% of the seats—more than two thirds of the total number. Jobbik was also able to hail the 2010 elections as their most successful, as they secured forty-seven seats. As a result, Fidesz was able to start its new term as the dominant force, amid a total collapse of the left and with the benefit of a strong majority that enabled them to undermine even Jobbik’s success by “implementing some of Jobbik’s campaign promises” (Krekó & Mayer 2015: 192). In contrast, around the time the constitutional referendum took place in 2018, Romania was led by a coalition government between the Partidul Social Democrat

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(Social Democrat Party, PSD) and the Alianța Liberalilor și Democraților (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, ALDE), bringing together just over 50% of the seats in the Lower Chamber of the Parliament, with the rest of the seats divided among the centre-right parties—the Partidul Național Liberal (National Liberal Party, PNL) with sixty seats, the Uniunea Salvați România (Save Romania Union, USL) with thirty seats, the new Partidul Mișcarea Populară (People’s Movement Party, PMP) with eighteen seats, and the Uniunea Democrată Maghiară din România (Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, UDMR) with twentyone seats. The PSD-ALDE government led by Viorica Dăncilă oversaw the organization of the referendum,4 in the absence of any parliamentary populist and radical right party that could pressure the government in that direction. Moreover, Romania had not had any radical right parliamentary representation since 2008, the year that marked the decline of the Greater Romania Party (Cinpoeş 2012, 2015). When it comes to public attitudes, East-Central Europe remains an area that displays highly conservative views regarding LGBTQ+ issues. For instance, data from the Pew Research Centre shows a marked difference in attitudes concerning same-sex marriage between Western Europe on the one hand, and East-Central Europe, on the other. In the former, a net majority of people favour same-sex marriage, while in the latter, a net majority of people oppose it, with the only outliers being Slovakia (with an equal amount of people, 47%, supporting and opposing), and the Czech Republic, with support figures aligned to other countries in Western Europe (Pew Research Centre 2018). While legal mechanisms ensuring basic standards for non-discrimination have been implemented in the EU member states in the area, following the accession process, their enforcement remains problematic. Moreover, the existence of such mechanisms does not necessarily mean that a significant cultural shift towards respect for the rights of such categories of people has taken place; attitudes remain reactionary in this respect.

 It is worth noting that the period following the 2016 parliamentary elections was characterized by acute political instability. Due to conflicts between Liviu Dragnea (then leader of the PSD and alleged puppet-master behind the PSD-ALDE coalition government) and his successive list of prime ministers, the coalition went through three different cabinets. The first one, led by Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu, was dismissed following a non-confidence motion submitted by the PSD itself; the second one, led by Mihai Tudose, was reshuffled following his forced resignation; the last one, led by Viorica Dăncilă, fell due to a motion of no confidence filed by the opposition parties (several months after Liviu Dragnea was convicted and sent to prison for three and a half years for corruption). Since then, Romania has been governed in minority by the PNL, in an equally unstable context (see Eremia 2018; BBC 2019; Duțulescu 2020).

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Nevertheless, the picture concerning public opinion regarding same-sex marriage and the role of religion in shaping national identity in Hungary and Romania is mixed. To begin with, there are visible differences between Hungary and Romania in the level of (non)acceptance of homosexuality (see Fig. 1). Broadly speaking, this is not very surprising, given the pattern of much higher non-acceptance in Christian Orthodox countries. Nonetheless, the figures remain high in both cases (certainly in comparison to Western Europe). The higher figures in Romania could potentially explain the much stronger bottom-up mobilization against same-sex marriage. Interestingly, however, the level of opposition to same-sex marriage is much closer in the two countries. Finally, there are, again, significant differences in terms of the place religion has in defining national identity. Taken at face value, these differences would suggest that the issue of same-sex marriage would occupy a lower place on the public agenda in Hungary than in Romania.

Hungary

Romania

% who say homosexuality should not be accepted by society 

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% who oppose/strongly oppose allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally 

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% who see religion as a key component of national identity 



Fig. 1: Public opinion on homosexuality and on the religious component of national identity in Hungary and Romania. Data compiled from Kishi & Starr (2017) and the Pew Research Centre (2018).

In terms of the mechanisms for change, constitutional changes regarding same-sex marriage were pursued by different means. In Hungary, the super-majority acquired by Fidesz in the 2010 elections enabled Orbán to pursue almost unilaterally a series of controversial constitutional changes. The new constitution was passed in 2011 with almost no scrutiny, during which many opposition parties withdrew from consultations and even Jobbik—situated even further on the right on the political spectrum than Fidesz—voted against the new document. The passing of the constitution happened amid internal and external criticism, and widespread street protests (Thorpe 2012). Alongside the definition of marriage as a union “between man and woman, a matrimonial relationship voluntarily

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established”, the new constitution included a number of other contentious issues: from reinforcing a conservative Christian view of the nation, to curbing the powers of top courts in relation to budget and tax matters, protecting the rights of the foetus from conception, whitewashing Hungary’s involvement in the Holocaust, and omitting sexual orientation and age from its anti-discrimination clauses, to name but a few (Breitenbach & Levitz 2011; The JC 2011). There are arguably some factors that explain the fact that the constitutional ban on samesex marriage was introduced in a context where opposition to LGBTQ+ rights in Hungary has been fairly low, relative to other states in East-Central Europe. To begin with, the range of controversial aspects included in the new Fundamental Law of Hungary made it possible for the same-sex marriage ban to be overshadowed by other issues, as suggested above (budget and taxation, the judiciary, etc.). During the protests that followed the document entering into force, in which members of the opposition, NGOs, and civil society were involved, LGBTQ+ rights were only one of the many issues raised. Moreover, in a list of recommendation issued by the Human Rights Watch, the recognition of “all family relationships irrespective of marital status, including families based on same-sex relationships” was only one of seventeen suggested responses to the new constitution (Farkas 2012; HRW 2013). Even the European Commission for Democracy through Law’s (ECDL-Venice Commission, in short) opinion on the constitution was reserved when it came to the definition of marriage, pointing out the lack of consensus in Europe on that issue, and concluding that the definition “belongs to the Hungarian state and its constituent legislator” (ECDL 2011: 11). Secondly, and linked to the point raised by the Venice Commission, at the time of the ban, the domino effect of reforms legalizing same-sex marriage sweeping North-West Europe had not unfolded (with only seven states in the EU having done that at the time Fidesz pursued the constitutional changes in Hungary). By contrast, four EU member states and several others in East-Central Europe had already implemented constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. In short, the constitutional changes in Hungary were the result of a top-down process initiated by Fidesz—the party in power—and the same-sex marriage prohibition was one aspect of a series of contested changes to the constitution that were passed through parliamentary means. Hungary was not necessarily an outlier in this respect. Unlike Hungary, the case of Romania is one in which constitutional changes were pursued at a time when fourteen EU member states had already recognized same-sex marriage (with other two, Austria and the Northern Ireland in the UK already pursuing the changes). Despite these differences, as it will be shown later on, the national-Christian values that Victor Orbán and Fidesz used to justify the changes and articulate their vision of nationhood align

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closely with those invoked by the supporters of the constitutional changes in Romania, justifying the comparison between the two cases. By contrast, in Romania, the same-sex marriage prohibition was pursued by means of a referendum. The process was long-drawn and was initiated by the Coalition for the Family—a grassroots social movement bringing under its umbrella an alliance of over thirty non-governmental organizations aiming at protecting the ‘traditional family’. Importantly, many of these actors were Christian civic organizations of various denominations, including Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical (Mărgărit 2020: 8–9). One of CpF’s key declared goals was to secure a constitutional amendment (and all the other legislative consequences deriving from this) that would define the family specifically as a union between a man and a woman (instead of the more ambiguous way the constitution defined it—as the union between two spouses). As Mărgărit (2020: 7–8) points out, this initiative emerged in the context of national and international upheaval, and of a rise in support for populist and radical right groups. Internally, various right-wing public figures have expressed criticism of values attributed as coming from the European Union (‘political correctness’, emancipation for women and of people of different sexual orientations and identities) and have postulated the moral bankruptcy of such values, arguing for a return to the Christian tradition of the Romanian nation as rooted in the past. Against this fertile ground, the CpF was able to position itself a protector of the centuries-long spirituality of the nation. Thus, in October 2015, the coalition submitted a legislative proposal to organize a referendum on the definition of marriage and started to collect the signatures required to support it. By May 2016, over 3 million signatures were collected and submitted with the proposal to the parliament (only 500,000 signatures were necessary). The legislative proposal was submitted to the Romanian Constitutional Court for evaluation, and in July 2016 the Court unanimously ruled for allowing the process to continue. Although with some delays, the two chambers of the parliament voted overwhelmingly in support of the referendum, which was finally organized on 6–7 October 2018 (Marica 2017; Marinas 2018). While neither the Orthodox nor the Catholic Churches in Romania were formally part of CpF, in both cases, members of the clergy declared publicly their support for the initiative, assisted in the collection of signatures, and subsequently encouraged people to participate in the referendum. The referendum took place amid controversies that included, among other things, the exact formulation of the question on the ballot and the extension of the vote to two days. By and large, groups opposing the initiative opted to campaign for a boycott of the referendum, aiming to prevent the constitutional changes by ensuring that the threshold necessary for the vote to be validated

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was not met. Campaign messages often focused on the use of the referendum as a political tool by the PSD, which—due to corruption scandals especially those involving its leader, Liviu Dragnea—was losing popularity. The focus on the corruption charges Dragnea was facing led to (unfounded) rumours spreading on social media networks that the generic phrasing of the question on the referendum ballot was a ploy by Dragnea and the PSD to make much broader changes to the constitution that would ensure their protection from justice. Such claims were expressed openly (as in the case of actress Oana Pellea), or indirectly and implicitly (as in the case of philosopher and journalist Andrei Pleşu), and arguably helped to create a sense of unease about the referendum, even for individuals who would have otherwise supported the change (Cotigă 2018; Pleşu 2018). In addition, the opposition’s message about the referendum focused on its futility (given that the Civil Code in Romania already prohibited same-sex marriage) and the wasteful expenses associated with it, alongside the more obvious rights and liberties-based arguments advanced by various human rights NGOs (Timofti 2018). In the end, the referendum failed to meet the minimum participation threshold of 30%, and as such, was not validated. Despite the fact that the fact that over 93% of the people who took part voted in favour of the changes, the strategy adopted by the opponents to boycott the referendum was successful and resulted in the low participation. To sum up, in Romania, the constitutional changes focused solely on the issue of same-sex marriage, and they were pursued bottom-up, through a forced grassroots referendum. Finally, the two countries also differ significantly in terms of outcome. As shown earlier, in Hungary the initiative to change the constitution was successful, and as a result, the country’s top law currently explicitly prohibits same-sex marriage. On the other hand, since 2009, Hungary allows for registered samesex partnerships, which places same-sex couples on relatively close footing to married couples. In Romania, the referendum was unsuccessful, and the Coalition for the Family initiative aimed at preventing the possible eventual legal recognition for same-sex marriage failed. That being said, recognition and protection of the rights of same-sex couples in Romania is non-existent. Moreover, the 2009 Civil Code specifically defined marriage as “the union between a man and a woman” and prohibits same-sex marriage, and various attempts to push for the recognition of same-sex civil partnerships have so far failed. For instance, during the 2012–2016 parliamentary term, independent MP Remus Cernea (initially a member of the PSD parliamentary group) initiated no less than four legislative proposals to legalize civil partnership, all of them rejected (Camera Deputaților n.d). The only relative progress in the area has been externally forced. In 2018, for instance, the European Court of Justice ruled in the case of Adrian Coman and his spouse that

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Romania must recognize the immigration rights derived from the same-sex couple’s marriage that took place in an EU member stat (Belgium in this case) where same-sex marriage was permitted. As of January 2020, twenty-one Romanian couples have filed a lawsuit against the Romanian state at the European Court for Human Rights, requesting the recognition and protection of their right to private and family life (Pietroşel 2020), and a decision is—at the time of writing—still pending.

Patterns of Similarity: Same-Sex Marriage as a Cue for Nationalist Discourse Despite all the differences outlined earlier, this chapter argues that in substance, the discourses around the prohibition of same-sex marriage are very similar in the two cases under examination. Moreover, they highlight a pattern that seems to extend more widely in the case of East-Central Europe. The pursuit of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is reflective, in both cases, of deeply embedded homophobia. It is justified in terms of a particular narrative that defines national identity as rooted in Christian values which are incompatible with what are regarded as ‘forced’, ‘alien’ liberal values, of inclusiveness and non-discrimination. Thus, it is argued in Hungary and Romania that the changes are required as a measure of defending national values and traditions (the family occupying a central position here) from foreign, ‘corrupting’ influences. This similarity is apparent despite the different Christian traditions in the two countries. In Hungary, the Christian heritage is predominantly concentrated around Catholicism and the cult of St. Stephen (regarded as the first Christian king of Hungary). The image of St. Stephen has long been a unifying symbol of nationhood, allowing in the Interwar Period for Calvinists and even secular nationalists (despite tensions and suspicions about the Catholic agenda) to embrace a definition of national identity defined in Christian terms (Hanebrink 2006: 110–15). In Romania, the link between Christian Orthodoxy and nationhood is grounded in the past. While in the early phase of Romanian nationalism, the Greek-Catholic Church in Transylvania played a crucial role in fostering Romanian national identity, in the Interwar Period the Orthodox Church consolidated its status as the dominant church, and maintained a privileged position under Communism, while the Greek-Catholic Church was dismantled (with the Orthodox Church benefitting from the transfer of churches), and the neo-Protestant denominations were persecuted by the state (Flora et al. 2005). Arguably, the top-down approach to constitutional changes in Hungary allowed for the

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figure of St. Stephen and of the Holy Crown to become symbolic of nationhood, with the new Constitution reinforcing their importance: they are mentioned in both the preamble and the first article of the Fundamental Law (Ministry of Justice 2017: 2, 4). The bottom-up approach in Romania meant that organizations representing different Christian denominations had to make a common front (despite historical disagreements and suspicion). As a result, the discourse employed by the Coalition for the Family appeals to Christianity as an important dimension of tradition, history, and national identity in a more generic, ‘inclusive’, and confessionally non-specific way. These differences notwithstanding, similar discursive patterns are visible in the two countries. Before the resounding electoral victory (and the subsequent constitutional changes), Fidesz had appeared more reserved in expressing overtly homophobic positions. In fact, as late as 2009, the party distanced itself from Fidesz member, and member of the parliamentary human rights committee, Ilona Ékes, who called for a ban on that year’s Gay Pride parade on the grounds that it would cause “harm to the healthy development of youth” and suggested psychotherapeutic “healing” for homosexuality; the party—through its press chief—was quick to emphasize the private character of that statement (Czene 2009). Such discourse was more characteristic of Jobbik, and other far right groups, that staged increasingly violent counter-protests as a way to disrupt gay parades and festivals. While the Budapest Gay Pride March had been going on since 1997 with relatively minor homophobic incidents, 2007 marked a significant intensification of violence, which was repeated in 2008, requiring much stronger policing in subsequent years (Renkin 2009: 20–21). At the same time, an escalation in homophobic public discourse is visible, including from KNDP (Fidesz’s minor coalition partner) (Renkin 2009: 21). Following the 2010 elections, however, Fidesz ramped up their Christian-nationalist rhetoric, which incorporates a clear anti-LGBTQ+ strand. This is likely to be linked to Fidesz’s attempt to displace Jobbik from its position of a sizable right-wing competitor, by expanding its narrative into areas that were more traditionally Jobbik territory. Moreover, scholars have observed that Fidesz did not shy away from implementing measures that had been included in Jobbik’s 2010 electoral platform (Nagy et al. 2013: 244–49). Notably in the context of the Christian-nationalist narrative are the incorporations of a reference to the Holy Crown into the Fundamental Law and the strong references to the “role of Christianity in preserving nationhood” (Ministry of Justice 2017: 2). The definition of marriage in the constitution as “the union of a man and a woman established by voluntary decision” and the emphasis on the “family as the basis of the survival of the nation” are themselves reminiscent of the pledge in Jobbik’s 2010 electoral manifesto to:

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[protect] the institution of the family, particularly from attacks by a liberalism whose objective is to put the family unit on an equal footing with every conceivable alternative living arrangement or deviant lifestyle (see Jobbik 2010: 9; Ministry of Justice 2017: 5).

Numerous statements from Fidesz and its leader, Victor Orbán, reflect the fact that the party has positioned these views at the centre of their long-term vision for Hungary. Speaking about the Christian dimension of Hungarian national identity, Orbán often points out the role religion plays in the survival and continuity of the Hungarian nation. He asserted on one occasion that “without [Christianity], we would not have survived the past thousand years”, making an unequivocal statement about the incompatibility of this identity with sexual orientation rights: An apple cannot asked (sic!) to be called a pear. […] If a person lives together with another without wanting to have children, they do not foster the thousand-year-old Hungarian tradition of marriage between man and woman. If a man and a woman live together, marry and have children, this we call a family. This is not a question of human rights but of calling things by their name (Sullivan 2016).

The traditional family has now become a cornerstone of Fidesz Christian-nationalist rhetoric. As a result, homophobic public discourse has strengthened since the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and the tone has recently become increasingly concerning. In 2019, for instance, Fidesz MP István Boldog called for a ban on the Pride March, and for a Coca-Cola boycott for their “Love is love” advertisement representing a male couple. Even more outrageously, talking about the desire of some same-sex couples to adopt, Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament, László Kövér, stated earlier that year that “morally there is not difference between the behaviour of a pedophile (sic!) and the behaviour of someone who demands such things”, as in both cases “children are treated as objects, luxury goods, mere tools for gratification” (Kovács 2019a, 2019b). In Romania, similar public positions in defence of the ‘traditional family’ as an important feature of national identity have come from party representatives positioned across the political spectrum. The (then) leader of the Social Democrat Party, Liviu Dragnea, stated his view in relations to the referendum in unequivocal terms: “I am a traditionalist. If that makes me a religious fanatic, then I am a religious fanatic. I am a Christian-Orthodox and I see the family made of a man and a woman, and—when God may grant it—children” (Diac 2016). Even the Save Romania Union, a young political party positioned on the liberal and progressive centre-right found it very difficult to take a consistent stand on the

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issue of same-sex marriage.5 The party resorted to an internal referendum to so. While the results eventually led to the party opposing the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, this was not without internal casualties: Nicuşor Dan, the leader of the party, resigned on the grounds that this position would break his promise that the party would not take decisions that run against the deeply-held identity feelings of its members (Digi24 2017). A so-called ‘popular’ wing of the party even campaigned publicly with a video distributed on social media for a party position that supported the constitutional referendum, arguing against same-sex marriage on grounds of demographic downturn in Romania. Drawing on the demographic deficit issue, the video (see campaign video in G.S. 2017) emphasized the central social role the heterosexual family had to play in addressing the demographic crisis and called for the protection of life (hinting implicitly at a pro-life stance) and of the traditional family as the “optimal medium for raising and educating children”. Ultimately, it advocated for the protection of the heterosexual family (through the constitutional change) against policies aimed at ensuring equal rights based on gender, sexual orientation, and identity, which were labelled as artificial attempts at social engineering of a Marxist-totalitarian nature. Similar rhetoric came from representatives of the National Liberal Party. PNL member of parliament Daniel Gheorghe—quoted by controversial news agency Sputnik—addressed his colleagues in the party claiming that: […] For me and for many other colleagues […] from the National Liberal Party, this referendum is essential for defending the Christian fundaments in our society and for stopping attempts for identity relativization (Nistor 2017, translation by author).

The debate in the Upper House of the Romanian Parliament, occurring ahead of the vote to allow the referendum to take place, showed that the articulation of what is regarded as a ‘traditional family’ in Romania is deeply rooted into a Christian-nationalist paradigm that is shared across the political spectrum. In their plenary speeches, senators on both sides of the aisle made strong references to religion and tradition in justifying their support for the constitutional change. PNL Senator Nicoleta Pauliuc talked about “a duty to bring back dignity to the family” by opposing the “contestation of customs that are deeply rooted in traditional consciousness”. Raising the bar even higher, PNL Senator Eugen Pîrvulescu used anti-EU rhetoric, decrying Romania’s loss of sovereignty, and emphasizing that the “spirituality of the Romanian people” was not up for negotiation. Pîrvulescu— who admitted to having participated in collecting signatures in support for the

 The USR only registered as a political party in 2016, expanding nationally following the success of the Save Bucharest Union in the 2016 local elections.

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CpF initiative—stressed that the organization of the referendum would enable people to “hold their heads high in front of people and God” and ended up his speech with the phrase “so help me God”. PSD Senator Șerban Nicolae referred to the common nationalist trope of the Christianity of the Romanian nation that goes back two millennia and confessed his belief “in God and in his creative role” while stating that he did not believe in “the theory of a great explosion (n.b. ‘the Big Bang’)”. In a similar vein, one party colleague, Senator Titus Corlățean, stated that he opposed “legalizing sin in Romania”, while another, Senator Gabriel Leș, referred to the initiative in terms of a “war against those who are after the minds and souls of our children”, stressing that the Romanian nation needed God (Pancu 2018). The theme of the Christian dimension of Romanian nationhood that has been in continuous existence for millennia has been widely used by Romanian nationalists in very different historical periods and political circumstances (having been rehearsed equally by late eighteenth century to early nineteenth century nationalists, by the interwar fascists, by the Communist regime, and by various post-Communist groups). It is not surprising that it still constitutes a powerful discursive tool (Cinpoeș 2010; cf. Rubel, this volume). It is worth noting that the USR Senators—who opposed the referendum— were not comfortable doing so based on notions of human rights and equality. Instead, they justified their position on grounds that the referendum proposal was a “populist initiative” by politicians in search for lost legitimacy, and that it was aimed at distracting attention from more important societal problems, such as widespread poverty (Pancu 2018). All in all, these arguments point to the fact that, in their view, the referendum was not justified in terms of its timing, without any clear position on the content itself. In some ways, the issue of priority resembles the Hungarian case, where changes to the definition of the family—as shown earlier—were buried among a much wider range of controversial measures, that diluted the attention given to the rights of same sex couples. The charge of ‘relativization’ levelled against what is being labelled as ‘progressive’, ‘neo-Marxist’ values, resting on principles of human rights and inclusions, points to another important similarity between the cases, which has to do with process and the actors involved. While there is a strong internal drive to the opposition to same-sex marriage, and the narrative that is used to justify it appeals to national-religious values and traditions, in both Hungary and Romania this is coupled with external influences by anti-LGBTQ+ lobbying and litigation groups. In Hungary, the International Organization for the Family played a prominent role in the anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns. The organization is led by the founder of the National Organization for Marriage in the United States and is part of the internationalization of these radical Christian movements originating mostly

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from the US, which (having largely failed in the US) have concentrated their campaign efforts against LGBTQ+ rights and same-sex marriage in East-Central Europe and in developing areas (such as Latin America and Africa), forging partnerships with political leaders who share their views. The organization found a reliable partner in Orbán, who then hosted the World Congress of Families in 2017, for which the International Organization for the Family is a parent and co-sponsor (SPLC 2019).6 Similar organizations have partnered with the Coalition for the Family in Romania and supported the referendum campaign. The Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Council, World Congress of Families, and the European Centre for Law and Justice are associated with the Romanian umbrella organization and have provided legal advice and representation in driving forward the attempt to ban same-sex marriage. For instance, the Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Council, and the European Centre for Law and Justice submitted briefs to the Romanian Constitutional Court supporting the initiative of the Coalition for the Family. The World Congress of Families submitted a petition in support of the CpF referendum, signed by one hundred conservative activists in twenty-two countries (Barthélemy 2018). Overall, the discursive practices highlighted above impact on public perceptions of LGBTQ+ groups and fuel homophobic attitudes and practices in both countries. The initiatives to effectively introduce a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in the two countries reflect the success of this nationalist discourse that places religion at its core and rejects human rights values as foreign impositions. It is ironic, in this context of the denunciation of outside influences, that in both cases (and more widely in East-Central Europe, as well), these campaigns receive significant foreign input and influence from various Christian fundamentalist organizations. There is a logical dissonance emerging from this dichotomy. On the one hand it emphasizes on the importance of defending autochthonous values that have been transmitted and reinforced throughout history and which are constitutive elements of national identity (while rejecting foreign influences, as they erode and undermine national identity). On the other hand, however, it welcomes and draws strengths from particular foreign actors (inasmuch as they are seen to defend similar values). Despite the apparent logical contradiction between the inward focus on ethnonational values and cultural specificity that nationalist movements rest upon, versus engaging in transnational collaboration, various processes and phenomena

 It is worth noting here that the Southern Poverty Law Centre also labelled the International Organization for the Family as a hate group for their anti-LGBTQ+ stance (SPLC 2019).

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of an internationalization of nationalist movements have been observed and analysed (both at the ideological level and at the level of interactions between groups and organizations). Arnd Bauerkämper and Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe (2017), for instance, offer a conceptual mapping for transnational interactions and collaborations between fascist movements in the Interwar Period. The fascist Iron Guard movement in Romania falls into this pattern of interaction, in this particular case with similar groups in Europe, as well as with the regimes in Germany and Italy (see Clark 2015; Cârstocea 2017). More recent populist and radical right movements exhibit similar patterns, which are being facilitated by expansion of communication (especially via social media) (Caiani & Kröll 2014). The novelty in the cases discussed is that national sexual politics, resting on an ethno-religious definition of the nation which is grounded in the past, receive an international boost. Rather than arguing from an emotive perspective that refers to the past, to identity and cultural values, the support coming from international litigation and lobby organizations is articulated in terms of legal frameworks and compliance to international human rights norms.

Conclusion The purpose of this chapter was to investigate the processes of constitutional change in relation to same-sex marriage in Hungary and Romania in the context of a resurgence of nationalism and postsecular religious influence. The argument advanced here is that despite various differences between the two cases, what they have in common is the way in which a mythologized version of the past is employed to articulate a particular version of national identity, one that combines ethnic and religious criteria for inclusion and exclusion. In turn, the issue of sexual identity and orientation (and more specifically that of same-sex marriage) is being portrayed as a ‘foreign’, ‘external’ attack on the ‘fabric’ of the nation and is being rejected on these grounds. The comparison furthermore highlighted important patterns of similarity regarding anti-LGBTQ+ politics in East-Central Europe in terms of the discourse that inform and justify these processes. This is true despite very significant differences between the two cases, in terms of the vectors of the processes (top-down in Hungary and bottom-up in Romania), the legal mechanisms employed to secure the changes (two thirds parliamentary majority in Hungary and a referendum in Romania), and the outcome (the changes were implemented in Hungary and were not successful in Romania). The distance in time between the two cases also brings about noteworthy contextual differences. In Hungary, the change took place in 2011—a time when

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the wave of legalizing same-sex marriage had not taken off significantly in Europe. In addition, changing the definition of marriage was only one of a substantial series of controversial reforms to the Fundamental Law in Hungary, which was done on the back of a parliamentary supermajority by Fidesz. Together, these factors can potentially explain the fact that success was achieved by Orbán and his party, even though opposition to LGBTQ+ rights was not as strong in Hungary in comparison to other East-Central European countries. In Romania, by contrast, the initiative to change the constitution took place in 2017, at the peak of a period of progressive reforms concerning same-sex marriage in North-Western Europe, and in the context in which the country’s opposition to LGBTQ+ rights is one of the strongest in Europe. The failure of the constitutional ban in this case is arguably linked to the mechanism for change (control over the Parliament is undoubtedly a much more efficient mechanism than the unpredictability of a referendum) and to the controversy surrounding the referendum in Romania (with not very plausible accusations that the PSD intended to use it for other purposes). Considering this, the campaign to boycott the referendum by groups opposing the initiative appears to have been a successful strategy. Finally, there is a more important story that emerges from this comparative analysis, signalling a broader ‘cultural turn’ beyond East-Central Europe. The convergence of postsecularism, nationalism, and an anti-human rights backlash are aspects of a wider phenomenon (alongside populism, post-truth, etc.) which needs to be conceptualized differently. Further research is necessary to engage head-on with these trends in order to provide a better understanding of the cultural dynamics at work in the contemporary world.

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Pietroşel, A. 2020. România este audiată la CEDO pentru că nu are legislație privind parteneriatul civil. RFI Romania, 29 January 2020. Available at: https://www.rfi.ro/emisiu nile-rfi-ro-117779-romania-este-audiata-la-cedo-pentru-ca-nu-are-legislatie-privind (accessed 15 May 2020). Pleşu, A. 2018. Un referendum folosit politic. DilemaBlog, 3 October 2018. Available at: https://dilemaveche.ro/sectiune/dilemablog/articol/un-referendum-politic-impur?utm_ campaign=adevarul.ro (accessed 15 May 2020). Pytlas, B. & O. Kossack. 2015. Lighting the fuse: The impact of radical right parties on party competition in central and eastern Europe, in M. Minkenberg (ed.) Transforming the transformation? The east European radical right in the political process: 105–36. London: Routledge. Ramet, S. 1998. Nihil obstat: Religion, politics, and social change in East-Central Europe and Russia. Durham: Duke University Press. Renkin, H.Z. 2009. Homophobia and queer belonging in Hungary. Focaa – European Journal of Anthropology 53: 20–37. Rezultate Vot n.d. Alegeri Parlamantare 2020. Rezultatevot.ro. Available at: https://rezultatevot.ro/elections/112/results (accessed 15 November 2021). Rubel, A. 2022. Dacian blood: Autochthonous discourse in Romania during the Interwar Period, in J. Koranyi & E. Hanscam (ed.) Digging politics: The ancient past and contested present in East-Central Europe: 257–86. Berlin: De Gruyter. Rupnik, J. 2012. Hungary’s illiberal turn: How things went wrong. Journal of Democracy 23(3): 132–37. Southern Poverty Law Center. The United Nations will serve as the venue for anti-LGBTQ hate groups when it hosts the “It Takes a Family” event Wednesday, 13 May 2019. Available at: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/05/13/anti-lgbtq-hate-groups-sponsorunited-nations-event (accessed 15 November 2021). Sullivan, F. 2016. PM Orbán rules out gay marriage and embraces traditional values in interview. Hungary Today, 2 May 2016. Available at: https://hungarytoday.hu/pm-orbanrules-gay-marriage-embraces-traditional-values-interview-70842/ (accessed 15 May 2020). Taylor, C. 2011. Western secularity, in C. Calhoun, M. Juergensmeyer & J. Vanantwerpen (ed.) Rethinking secularism: 31–53. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The JC. Hungary “Deceitful” over Holocaust, 10 June 2011. Available at: https://www.thejc. com/news/world/hungary-deceitful-over-holocaust-1.23657 (accessed 15 May 2020). Thorpe, N. 2012. Hungarians protest against new Fidesz constitution. BBC News, 3 January 2012. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16387117 (accessed 15 May 2020). Timofti, D. 2018. Referendumul pentru familie. ‘Iubirea nu se votează’ şi ‘Copiii referendumului’: cum încearcă să boicoteze internauți şi unele organizații evenimnetul din 6-7 octombrie. Mediafax.ro, 4 October 2018. Available at: https://www.mediafax.ro/ politic/referendum-pentru-familie-iubirea-nu-se-voteaza-si-copiii-referendumului-cumincearca-sa-boicoteze-internauti-si-unele-organizatii-evenimentul-din-6-7-octombrie17543504 (accessed 20 November 2021). Wodak, R. & M. KhosraviNik. 2013. Dynamics of discourse and politics in right-wing populism in Europe and beyond, in R. Wodak, M. KhosraviNik, & B. Mral (ed.) Right-wing populism in Europe: Politics and discourse: xvii–xxviii. London: Bloomsbury.

Claudia Spiridon-Șerbu

The Protochronistic Depiction of the Transylvanian Saxons in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s History Textbooks (1976–1989) Abstract: This chapter analyses the way in which history textbooks during Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime integrated the settlement of German ethnics in medieval Transylvania, Saxon personalities, and Transylvanian-Saxon cultural heritage components within Romania’s nationalist narrative of the 1970s–1980s. Submitting the sections on “Antiquity”, “the Middle Ages”, the “Renaissance”, and “Humanism” of fifty-seven history textbooks for the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades issued between 1976‒1989 to both a quantitative and qualitative content analysis, this chapter argues that Communist textbooks used the Saxons’ settlements within the Carpathian Arc to reinforce the Romanian continuity of claim over the territory of Transylvania. It reveals how narratives of Saxon history functioned as a link between the purported Daco-Roman ancestors and the modern Romanians by focusing on actors and historical events such as the colonization of the Transylvanian Saxons, the establishment of medieval cities, agricultural development in the Medieval Period, as well as cultural developments in Transylvania between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Keywords: Transylvanian Saxons; Romanian Communist Textbooks; History Textbooks

Introduction History textbooks are subject to competing socio-political interests that dictate “who we are and who we are not in terms of shared common ancestry, a certain geographic location and a shared set of cultural attributes” (Bokhorst-Heng 2016: vii). They inculcate an ideologically framed understanding of the nation sustained Acknowledgements: I would like to express my gratitude to the editorial team Dr Emily Hanscam and Dr James Koranyi who offered deep insight into this study, brilliant comments, and suggestions as well as a careful editing. Claudia Spiridon-Șerbu, Transilvania University, Romania https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-010

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by power relations and construct identity beyond semantics (Crawford 2003: 5). Case studies on US, Mexican, Pakistani, or Turkish history textbooks (BokhorstHeng et al. 2016) give an insight into how the ancient past was used to forge the national self in terms of us and them, attaching an identity-image to what could differentiate the internal group from the external other. Thus, from a culturalhistorical perspective, history textbooks reveal how the nationalizing state made (or still makes) use of the past to shape understandings of national identity in Anderson’s (2006) sense of “imagined communities”. This chapter focuses on the Transylvanian Saxons—German speakers who settled in Transylvania from the twelfth century onwards—and their place in Romanian Communist history textbooks between 1976 and 1989. It argues that Communist textbooks acknowledged the history of the Transylvanian Saxons as standard-bearers of civilization and portrayed the casual nexus of Saxons’ settlements within the Carpathian Arc to reinforce the Romanian continuity of claim over the territory of Transylvania. Communist history schoolbooks in Romania used the past to underpin the notion that the allegedly ancient geographical territory of Romania has been the fundamental basis for the natural evolution of the Romanian people. They conveyed an understanding of the nation grounded in myths supporting the common origins and unity of Romanians within the boundaries of their nation-state (România Mare, or Greater Romania, was founded in 1918). The long-standing Romanian-Hungarian controversy over Transylvania,1 the formation of the first Dacian polity, the Roman conquest (101‒106 CE), the withdrawal of Roman troops (271‒275 CE), and the supposed formation of a Romanian ethnicity through a “Daco-Roman synthesis” have all served to legitimate Romanians as the rightful owners of the territory of Transylvania.2 Appealing to historical bragging rights, nationalist discourses

 The Romanian-Hungarian controversy over the territory of Transylvania and the problem of continuity dates to the nineteenth century and has shaped the political environment until the present-day. Nationalist slogans like “Transylvania is in danger of being occupied by Hungarians” are interpreted as being a legacy of Ceaușescu’s national phase when the discourse around the allegedly 2000-year-old unity of the Romanian people removed any element of discontinuity on the territory (Turda 2001: 200).  Over time, Romanian historiography has offered different readings of the Romanian ancient past, ranging from Romanian’s primordial origins as pure Roman, Dacian, or Daco-Roman. In the mid-eighteenth century, in the context of Hungarian, Austrian, and Ottoman rule in Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia, Romanian elites argued for an allegedly ‘pure Roman origin’. It was an attempt to show that ‘Romanians’ were civilized and belonged to ‘Western Europe’. However, in the mid-nineteenth century in the context of the political unification of Greater Romania (1918), a new school of thought affirmed Dacian ancestors over the Romans, with the new myth functioning as a symbol of opposition to imperial expansion. The end of the Second World War

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have argued for a continuous Dacian-Roman presence in Transylvania since Antiquity (cf. Hanscam & Koranyi, this volume). Despite attempts at diversifying the curriculum to include minorities and minority history, history textbooks still disclose a nationalist image of the great past co-mingling with liberal values (Szakács 2007: 29).3 The ‘textbook scandal’ of 1999 demonstrated the reluctance by politicians and members of the Romanian educational system to “demythologize” national myths (Boia 2001: 3; Pârâianu 2001: 98), and their unwillingness to break with myths curated during the Communist Period (Niculescu 2004: 100). The first post-Communist generation of history textbooks in 1999 triggered a scandal within the Romanian public sphere, with the textbook authors challenged, among other things, for the title “Ethno-genesis: How do Romanians imagine their origins?” (Pârâianu 2001: 94–110). Attempts at decentralizing the holistic perspective on the Romanian ethnogenesis were denounced as “anti-national” and supportive of “Hungarian revisionism” (Năstase 1999: 8‒9). Romanian textbooks’ emphasis on the organic and homogenous growth of the nation-state has made minorities visible only when they have served the purpose of bolstering meta-myths of the formation, continuity, and unification of the Romanian nation-state. The German minority, however, has long enjoyed a privileged role in comparison to other minorities such as Hungarians, Jews, or Roma (Pârâianu 2001: 94). Thus, in this chapter I address the following questions: Why was it important for Communist textbooks to integrate the history of a minority—Transylvanian Saxons—into the national discourse? To what extent did the narratives around the Transylvanian Saxons reinforce the origin myth and the continuity theory of Romanians, thus strengthening Romanian identity? Murgescu (2001: 239‒40) and Szakács (2007: 36) have argued that the sketchy description and the scattering of references to Transylvanian Saxons served as a symbol for the exclusion of minority groups in Romania. A different reading, however, sees Ceaușescu’s textbooks making Transylvanian Saxons visible, but limiting their representation to the image of contributors. They were included in chapters on the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and Humanism, but excluded from modern history.

and Romania’s turn to Communism brought another shift in the interpretation of the ancient past. In the first stage of Communist rule (1945–1956), the Dacian and Roman origin myth was eclipsed by a Marxist-Leninist narrative that emphasized the Slavic element over the Romanian space. In the mid-1960s, as Romania began to distance itself from the USSR, a new historical framework emerged that invoked the ‘pure’ Daco-Roman synthesis, foregrounding the allegedly ‘autochthonous’ Dacian element (Verdery 1991; Boia 2001; Niculescu 2002; Hanscam 2019).  For similar results, see Szakács (2007: 29–31).

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The protochronist narrative made use of their cultural assets based on the territorial boundaries that defined Romania after the Great Union in 1918. Although the protochronist narrative glorified Romania, a revisionist perspective interpreted representations of Western Europe as a reference point for a standard of civilization. Protochronists did not reject Europe but tried “to [...] annex it” (Cercel 2019: 65); thus Transylvanian Saxon history served to instil an idea of national similarity. The preeminent economic position of Saxons in medieval Transylvania was a constant focus of the history textbooks within the protochronist frame. This chapter reveals how narratives of Saxon history functioned as a link between the purported Daco-Roman ancestors and the modern Romanians by focusing on actors and historical events such as the colonization of the Transylvanian Saxons, the establishment of medieval cities, agricultural development in the Medieval Period, as well as cultural developments in Transylvania between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Using both quantitative and qualitative methodological tools, I draw on a dataset comprised of the analysis of the sections on ‘Antiquity’, ‘the Middle Ages’, the ‘Renaissance’, and ‘Humanism’ of fifty-seven history textbooks for the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades issued between 1976‒1989.

National Communism and Protochronism in Romania National Communism occurred to varying degrees in the 1960s–1980s in all Communist states in East-Central Europe, a political direction redefining the relationship with the socialist motherland by glorifying national histories. But in Ceaușescu’s Romania, National Communism was particularly pronounced (Livezeanu 2000: 129; Stanciu 2013: 107). The ideological party programme of 1975 presented a synthetic retrospective of the creation of the Romanian people, capturing a monolithic idea of the formation of Romanian ethnicity that provided the basis for the curriculum for history in the late 1970s and 1980s. The scholar Edgar Papu (1974) first introduced the term protochronism— derived from the Greek (“protos” = first and “chronos” = time)—in the literary journal Secolul XX. Referring to the Dacian myth constructed by Densușianu during the Interwar Period, Papu (1977: 11) advanced the idea that Romanian cultural and scientific creations anticipated similar developments in the Western world without being acknowledged as such, neither abroad, nor by Romanians themselves. Papu highlighted some firsts, particularly in literature, while the

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Communist Party exploited his idea and gradually developed a cultural obsession of finding greatness in anything that was Romanian. The idea of Romanian cultural originality—not copies or imitations—made the need to return to their supposed Dacian ancestry and to ascribe to their civilization a unique, autochthonous quality all the more urgent (Boia 2001: 81‒82). Although it started as an effort to raise Romania’s self-image, the phenomenon turned into “the assertion of a self-sufficient culture” and “an exaggerated manifestation of autarchy” (Martin 2002, paragraph 2). In this new environment, the central role assigned to history lessons was to safeguard the history and culture of the motherland. Priority was given to the cult of the worker, to collectivism, to the heroic deeds of the ancestors, and to the cultural and economic achievements that placed Romania alongside other European nations. In a sort of preface supposedly from the dictator, Ceaușescu emphasized in every textbook the role of studying history by directly linking the glorious past of the ancestors to the Romanian present. He retroactively invested the ancient past with the revolutionary Communist anti-imperialist spirit. Anyone disputing the legitimacy of the Communist Party would thus have called into question the whole of Romanian history (Daicoviciu et al. 1977–1981: 5; Daicoviciu et al. 1982–1989: 5). This cultural megalomania was largely imposed from above and supported by historians close to the Communist Party (Boia 2001: 81). In Ceaușescu’s Romania, history was taught in seven out of the ten compulsory school years with a minimum of seventy-two hours per year starting in fourth grade, at age ten. By comparison, in the Federal Republic of Germany, thirty-six hours of history lessons per year began in the sixth grade, at age twelve (König 1980: 168). The separate treatment of the history of Romania from world history also shows the importance placed on emotional patriotism.4 The history of Romania was taught chronologically following three distinct historical periods: Antiquity and the Medieval Period in the eighth grade, Modernity in the ninth grade, and Contemporary History in the tenth grade. The title chosen for the textbook for the eighth and twelfth grades, Istoria Românilor (The History of Romania), was not at all incidental. If, as Brubaker (1996: 40, 21, 39) posits, nations are “inherently mobile and dynamic” and can change their spatial configuration over time, nationhood is understood as an “institutionalized cultural and political form”, “with territorial parameters”. By projecting a modern concept backwards into history, the textbook title promoted the idea that

 The separate treatment of ‘national’ history from universal history in the Romanian school can be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century (Murgescu 2004: 15).

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Romanian identity was strongly linked to the territory ethnic Romanians had ostensibly occupied since the ancient past. The authors tasked with defining the content of the accredited history textbooks included the historians Hadrian Daicoviciu (1932‒1984) and Teodor Pompiliu (1930‒2001). They adapted their pedagogical discourse to the contemporary socio-political requirements and expectations, their own background also leaving its mark on the selection and portrayal of historical events and actors. Hadrian Daicoviciu, for instance, was the son of Constantin Daicoviciu (1898‒1973) who was the main proponent of the Daco-Romanian continuity theory, an interpretation that “produced a non-interrupted autochthony” on the territory of Dacia after the Roman withdrawal by the year 275 CE (Niculescu 2004: 117). To explain his theory, Constantin Daicoviciu used the pattern of “village communities” as proof for “an ancient and precise internal organization” which was contrasted to the “unstable organization form” characteristic for “migratory peoples” (Niculescu 2002: 216; cf. Hanscam, this volume). His son Hadrian Daicoviciu adopted his father’s ideas in publications on the origins of the Romanian peoples and the pre-Roman population of Dacia.5 If, in Daicoviciu’s view, the articulation of autochthony imbodied “the privilege of progress” and a “continuous process of evolution” (Niculescu 2002: 217), then we may assume that placing Transylvanian Saxon history during the Medieval Period in the textbook narrative was particularly useful for representing a stable, prosperous group as opposed to representations of “migrants [...] incapable of producing their own food” (Niculescu 2002: 220). Since the textbooks’ authors understood autochthony as an “economic state of mind” that defined the local population as “self-sufficient, industrious, skilful, creative” (Niculescu 2002: 220), the Saxon humanist personalities helped to sustain their fictional model of labour, administrative order, and discipline that in their view characterized their Daco-Roman ancestors. During Ceaușescu’s regime, Saxons made up less than 1.6% of Romania’s population and many of them lived in the so-called Königsboden (the Crownland), an enclave within Transylvania. Saxon history in Transylvania dates back to the late twelfth century when the Hungarian King Géza II (1141‒1162) invited German-speaking colonists from roughly the Rhine-Moselle region (today Trier and Luxemburg) to settle around the Carpathian Arc establishing economic and defensive strongholds. In return for their willingness to settle on the margins of

 Among his writings most relevant in the context of this paper are Dacii (The Dacians) 1972, Dacia de la Burebista la Cucerirea Romana (Dacia from Burebista to the Roman Conquest) 1972, Studii Dacice (Dacian Studies) 1981.

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the Carpathians, Saxon colonists were granted legal privileges and an autonomous territorial administration which were confirmed in the 1224 charter, Der goldene Freibrief / Andreanum (Wagner 1990: 18). Saxon patricians were politically represented within the feudal system of Transylvania as one of the three nations along with the Hungarian nobility and the free military Szekler. The use of ‘nation’ is different from the modern sense, as the ‘nation’ referred to the privileged strata of society, to the estates of high and middle nobility. It was defined not by language or ethnicity but by social and political status— Romanian speakers were excluded as the majority were peasants. Transylvanian Saxons were present both in rural and urban settings: they improved agricultural techniques, expanded salt domes in the Transylvanian highlands, and advanced trade and commerce. They also established a structured education system beginning in the fourteenth century (Gündisch 2005: 57).6 However, the Communist discourse moved away from the interwar narratives that attributed a civilizing role to the Saxons (Koranyi 2008: 64; Davis 2016: 51‒52; Cercel 2019: 39), triggering an “erosion of [Saxon] high culture” (Koranyi 2008: 76).7 Saxon historians complained about “the depressing situation” of Germans in Romania, “because their contribution to the state’s history [remained] concealed” (König 1978: 148). Because textbooks identified the Romanian peasantry—the alleged descendants of the Dacians and their Roman conquerors— as the underlying foundation of the authentically national, Transylvanian Saxons, who had formed a majority in the Transylvanian urban centres until the twentieth century, were excluded from this vision of nationhood. The little attention given to Germans in Communist textbooks was frequently criticized by Transylvanian Saxons during the Ceaușescu era. In 1976, Michael Kroner, who was the editor of the weekly German language magazine in Brașov, Karpatenrundschau, thus claimed that “the current textbooks barely touch on [...] the concrete contribution made by Germans to the development of our country” (7). Two years later, Walter König (1978: 148), who was considered an expert of the Saxon school system, disagreed with “the order” in which “Saxon names of personalities” were mentioned in textbooks, namely “always Romanians, Hungarians, [and then] Germans”. On the other hand, at the textbook conference under the leadership of Comisia Națională a României pentru UNESCO (National Commission of Romania for UNESCO) and the Georg Eckert Insitut für

 Saxon schools have long been recorded in Mühlbach/Sebeș (1352), Kronstadt/Brașov (1388), and Stolzenburg/Slimnic (1394).  Besides the Communist discourse, the assertion of Saxon cultural superiority in Transylvania was also deconstructed as a consequence of their migration in the 1970s and 1980s (Koranyi 2008: 64; Cercel 2019: 65).

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Internationale Schulbuchforschung (Georg Eckert International Institute for Textbook Research)8 held in Braunschweig, Romanian representatives condemned West Germany’s approach to Romanian history. They complained that the “role of the German colonists in Transylvania and the Banat in the cultural and economic development of the area” was overrated in German school texts (König 1978: 148). The Communist narrative seemed to exclude the multicultural and multilingual diversity of Transylvania and captured, by contrast, a historical tradition of national homogeneity. On closer inspection, however, Saxons did not appear to be removed from the mainstream but were included in a narrative that emphasized national unity and Saxon contribution to the Romanian nation. The struggle for independence, as well as for national and social liberation, was regarded as a common goal and a shared need for all inhabitants of Transylvania: Romanians, Hungarians, and Germans. Chapter headings such as “The Daco-Romans and their continuity in the Carpato-Danubian-Pontic Space” (Daicoviciu 1977‒1980, 1982‒1989: 72; translation, my own), “The emergence of the Romanian feudal states” (97), “The political situation of the Romanian countries in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries” (122), and “The development of Romanian culture up until the sixteenth century” (160) reveals the extent to which the ideological claims of a primordial wholeness of Romanian peoples were amplified in textbooks. Transylvania’s past was considered part of Romanian history and the three voivodships (the administrative division of medieval Romania) were depicted as united throughout an undifferentiated chronicle of events from Antiquity through to the Medieval Period, the Renaissance, Humanism, and Modernity.

Transylvanian Saxons in Medieval Cities Transylvanian Saxon history featured with varying frequency in school texts between 1976 and 1989. An analysis of history textbooks for the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades reveals a varied picture in which the portrayal of the Transylvanian Saxons was given significantly different amounts of space. While textbooks for the

 In each member state, the Commission promotes international cooperation in the field of intellectual activities, www.cnr-unesco.ro (accessed 28 December 2021). The Georg Eckert Institute was founded in 1975 in Braunschweig (Germany) to promote international communication and understanding through cooperation on textbook revision and history teaching, www.gei.de (accessed 28 December 2021).

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fourth grade devoted only 1% of its content to the German past, this increased to 4.5% at eighth grade, and 5% at twelfth grade. The absence of Transylvanian Saxon history in the fourth grade was primarily due to the focus on the heroic deeds of Romanian rulers who fell in battle on behalf of their fatherland, while glossing over economic and cultural histories. Still, the textbooks for the eighth and twelfth grades attempted a broader analysis of economic-administrative relationships and tried to contextualize them within the framework of Marxism-Leninism. The first mention of the Transylvanian Saxons featured in a section on ‘Romanian’ medieval state formation, namely under the subheading “The founding of the Voivodeship Transylvania” (Almaș & Fotescu 1979–1989: 25). In reality, the text provided little information about Germans and kept historical detail about them to a minimum: The Saxons were welcomed from several regions of Germany and settled in the area around Sibiu, Brașov and Bistrița. Together with the Romanian population, the Saxons defended the country against the raids of migrant peoples. They toiled and increased the wealth of the country. Supported by the Romanians, the Saxons contributed to the construction of the fortified cities of Sibiu, Brașov and Bistrița [...] they promoted trade and commerce (Almaș & Fotescu 1979–1989: 27, translation by author).

The choice of Romanian city names was one of the first indications of a nationalizing narrative. Though the original names of the colonized cities were Hermannstadt, Kronstadt, and Bistritz, the German names were never mentioned. Secondly, upon arrival in Transylvania, Saxons had encountered a Romanian population in townships that were already established and were thus nudged to integrate, or so the textbooks claimed. Foucault (1986: 22) proposed to think about the medieval space as “the space of emplacement”, which consisted of “a hierarchical ensemble of places”. Encoding the narrative structure of the textbook through the Foucauldian perspective on space, we can unravel a place where the Romanian peoples ‘found their natural ground and stability’, as if they were a community with primordial origins. The place grounded them hierarchically above Saxon settlers who in contrast, had been ‘displaced’ and ‘put there’. The terms used in the portrayal of the events are relevant to the analysis. On the one hand, the semantic constructions from the texts such as “together with”, “contributed to” or “supported by” reinforced the hierarchal construction of space. On the other hand, such phrases were used to portray Transylvanian Saxons as passive to diminish their role in fortifying cities like Kronstadt, Hermannstadt, or Bistritz, thus undermining their social and administrative initiatives. In a similar hegemonic way of presenting the events, the textbook for the eighth grade reiterated the idea that by the time the Saxons arrived, Romanians had long established settlements. All the Saxons had to do was to settle into pre-existing

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civilized fortresses: “The Saxons integrated from the beginning into the civilization of their new fatherland” (Daicoviciu et al. 1977‒1981: 94; Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 94). In that view, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Transylvania was organized “according to the native civilization from which it inherited its form of organization” (Daicoviciu et al. 1977‒1981: 99; Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 99). Images of the Transylvanian Saxons’ legal and administrative norms were overshadowed by ornamental phrases such as “native”, “inherit”, or “new fatherland”. The exaggerated historicism intensified the claim to Romanian primacy. The textbook for the twelfth grades accentuated the apparent forced displacement of Saxons colonists, who had “to leave their old settlements because of feudal exploitation” and “were located in parts of Sibiu, Bistrița, Brașov” (Pascu 1979: 60). The dichotomy between “primordial emplacement” versus “forced displacement” reinforced the sense of a dominant Romanian group that had inhabited the territory since the ancient past while assimilating the Saxons who came later (Foucault 1986: 22). As dominant groups are generally perceived as “correct/valid” (Bokhorst-Heng 2016: 10), this story shaped the imagining of the nation based on one correct Romanian vision. Obscuring essential events—like the migration of peoples through the region after the Roman withdrawal (275), the recurrent misrepresentation of Kronstadt, Hermannstadt, and Bistritz as “Romanian’s stable settlements” that “were built prior to the feudal states” (Pascu 1979: 68)—laid claims on these places as original Daco-Roman settlements. Despite its simple formulations, this textbook remained very abstract with the authors glossing over the content and the language underplaying specific events. Sources were vaguely referenced in expressions such as “according to historical documents”, but excerpts of the sources were commonly omitted. The phrase “ancient Romanian population” appeared repeatedly, emphasizing their mythic origins through the Daco-Roman continuity on Romanian territory.

Agriculture and Handicrafts Textbooks also appropriated Transylvanian Saxon legacies in agriculture and the economy. In this way, Romanian textbooks (1977–1989) bear out Stephen Shulman’s (2002: 558) proposal that three components define the “content of national identity”: civic (territory, citizenship, political institutions, and rights), ethnic (ancestry and race), and cultural (religion, language, and traditions). The

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main narrative united a homogenous Romanian people through its territory (Dacia), its ancestry (Daco-Roman), and culture (partly Transylvanian Saxon). Fourth graders learnt about ploughing, harvesting, and mining in the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, all of which “had been improved” and led to “a growing prosperity, to an increase of villages and towns” (Almaș & Fotescu 1979‒1989: 34). The textbooks levelled out any differences in social conditions and traditions, obscuring the individuals and groups who made these social changes possible. There were no explanations of the ways in which practices were adopted and they failed to mention whether it was a top-down or a bottom-up process. Focused on the national level and ignoring broader European developments, rural growth was situated solely within regional boundaries, constructing an image of an autochthonous farmer that reassembled the socialist worker of the Communist era. The textbooks for the eighth and twelfth grades, by contrast, turned their attention toward the development of crafts in Transylvania, presenting some Saxon cities as “economically prosperous” and celebrating their “substantial contribution to the progress of the civilization of Transylvania”: The cities of Transylvania were bursting with lively artisanship, which was connected to the economic life of Moldova and Wallachia, as well as with the production and exchange of goods as evidence of economic prosperity. Cities such as Sibiu, Brașov, Cluj, Sighișoara, and Bistrița made a substantial contribution to the progress of civilization (Daicoviciu et al. 1977‒1981: 113; Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 113).

Work was feted according to socialist principles, inducing the idea of progress through labour—the histories of Transylvania were woven into a socialist narrative of progress. Yet Transylvanian Saxons, who then represented among Hungarians the majority of the urban population, were omitted from the official perspective of medieval urban developments. The Saxon cities were cast as positive, but only to valorize an identity based on nobility, diligence, and dignity and to sustain the ancient historical tradition of labour and dignity characteristic of the ‘Romanian’ peoples, or so the texts claimed. The nation-centric narrative benefitted from the image of these towns and used them as symbolic sites to make students identify with success and wealth without destabilizing the central position of Romanian history. The twelfth-grade textbook went further by linking the Saxon cities to the expansion of handicraft work: “The rich soil of the country explains the development of craftsmanship [...] such as blacksmith, foundry, silver production. These crafts bloom especially in the cities of Transylvania (Sibiu, Brașov, Cluj, Bistrița)” (Pascu 1979: 69). Distinct groups, each with their labour rituals, background knowledge, language, and social environment were compressed

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into the figure of a mythical craftsman. By making Saxons invisible, the narrative consolidated the idea of a national trade market that had existed since the fourteenth century and then developed up to the present. The conclusive structure of the text shut down the opportunity for students to consider differing perspectives on the topic of economic development in Transylvania. Some pictures and maps supplemented the explanations, but tables and statistics were rarely included. The “closed” structure relied on linearity and orthodoxy, thus eliminating any possible alternative interpretations (Luke 1989: 71). Both the textbook for the eighth and twelfth grades pursued a single unitary ‘correct’ version, while in countries like Germany or Switzerland during the same period, history textbooks distanced themselves from the delivery of closed narratives and encouraged the critical exploration of source materials (Klett Reihe “Menschen und ihre Zeit”).9

Renaissance and Humanism The treatment of ‘big names’ and architectural trends of the Renaissance and Humanism also revealed an appropriation of Saxon culture and its integration into the master narrative of a broader Romanian identity. With Romanians occupying a fixed place in a precise geographical location, the textbooks created a national narrative around a shared Romanian cultural heritage. As others have noted, “besides residing in a perceived homeland of its own for a long period”, a nation needs “to evolve a public culture” to be recognized as a nation-state (Smith 2010: 13). Paying close attention to the role of cultural symbols, values, myths, and memories, culture evolves to a core concept that shapes and defines communities. The textbook chapter headings—such as “The development of Romanian culture until the sixteenth century” (Daicoviciu et al. 1977–1981: 166; Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 160)—made big claims to a definite common culture that implied shared values and symbols both for Romanians and Germans. The textbooks followed a chronological trajectory throughout the periods of the Renaissance and Humanism, pointing out individual personalities that contributed to the spiritual and cultural development of a homogeneous Romanian nation-state. Symbols of Saxon culture were compressed into a Romanian national story. Germans and Romanians featured as joint partners in cultural milestones, such as the erection of the gothic Black Church/Biserica Neagră in Kronstadt/Brașov (Pascu 1979: 115‒16). The idea of collaborative work  Ernst Klett edition: “Menschen in ihrer Zeit I, II, III” (1970–1977).

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between Romanians and Saxons was controversial, as the Romanian peasantry was excluded from public political life, a fact that the textbooks made clear (Daicoviciu et al. 1977–1981: 123; Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 120). Nevertheless, vivid phrases throughout the book painted a colourful image of the humanist culture in Romania: Culture mirrors the main moments of Romanian history, [...] the struggle of the Romanian peoples against foreign domination [...] Our medieval and humanist culture has the essential features of European culture and, at the same time, particular features reflecting the life and aspirations of the Romanian people and of the other Hungarian, Saxon, and Szekler inhabitants who lived and created together with the ancient inhabitants of the country, the Romanians (Daicoviciu et al. 1977–1981: 123; Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 120).

Starting from the premise of homogeneity, the text flattened out history to become a palimpsest of a common culture for Romanian society. National civilization appeared here to be a legacy stemming from the ancient past. In a happy ending, the German, the Hungarian, and the Romanian speakers united through a shared set of values. By placing Transylvanian Saxons into a narrative that emphasized the cultural aspirations of Romanians, they became embedded in symbolically charged images about Romanian accomplishments. The nationalist and selective representation of the humanist movement among Transylvanian Saxons was compacted into a single paragraph: In the sixteenth century, we owe the humanism of our country to new institutions of culture: the school in Brașov, reorganized under the influence of the Reformation, followed by others, in Sibiu, Bistrița, the college of Alba Iulia, the University of 1581, etc. At the same time, the typographies from Dealu Monastery, Brașov, Sibiu, Alba Iulia [came into existence during that period] (Daicoviciu et al. 1977–1981: 171, Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 167).10

In these texts, we encounter a stable narrative around an essential Romanian culture that communicated a sense of a homogeneous nation despite cultural diversity. Saxon personalities such as the reformer Johannes Honterus (1498‒ 1549), or the humanist town clerk Georg Kraus (1608–1665) were given Romanian spellings and thus subsumed into a Romanian past.11 In this way, twelfth graders

 In 1541, the German reformer and humanist Johannes Honterus founded the “Studium Coronense”, the first humanist high school within the Carpathian Arch; today known as the Liceul Teoretic Johannes Honterus (Johannes Honterus High School). Johannes Honterus was the most important humanist and Reformer in Transylvania, as city pastor of Kronstadt he introduced the Lutheran Reformation in Transylvania and rebuilt the school system in Kronstadt.  Mentions of Ioan Honterus in Dealu Monastery, Brașov, Sibiu, Alba Iulia first appear during that period (Daicoviciu et al. 1977–1981: 172; Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 169), there are also mentions of Gheorghe Kraus (Daicoviciu et al. 1977–1981: 198; Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 197).

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were told that “[t]he most important representative was Nicolae Olahus [...] His contemporary from Brașov, Ioan Honterus, founded and ran schools, and also wrote works of historical, geographic and legal character” (Pascu 1979: 114). While personalities like Samuel von Brukenthal, the governor of Transylvania (1774‒1787), were not mentioned at all, textbooks placed considerable emphasis on Johannes Honterus as proof for the continuity of Romanians in Transylvania by projecting the name ‘Dacia’ over the entire Romanian territory on his map published in 1542 (Daicoviciu et al. 1977–1981: 197; Daicoviciu et al. 1982‒1989: 169‒70). Honterus was transformed into a supporter of the Dacian origin myth, while such ideological appropriation of diverse cultural histories helped to establish and normalize a mythical and deep past for Romania.

Conclusion: Saxon Romanians The closed semantic structure of Romanian textbooks issued between 1976 and 1989 retold heroic stories, focused on selective facts, years, and events in opposition to a synthetic analysis. They entirely served the top-down process of building a Romanian national identity. The portrayal of key events for the united Romanian nation, which supposedly emerged within the borders of ancient Dacia and preserved its homogeneity for 2000 years, drew on the ideological framework of the Communist Programme developed in 1975 to strengthen the national ties around the leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and thus create a “resistance identity in face of external threat” (Petrescu 2009: 534). Being embedded in state-directed historiography, the textbook discourse aimed to supply a powerful impulse for work and to develop the feeling of collectively belonging to a prosperous civilization. Crucially, Romania’s cultural diversity was both underplayed and politically instrumentalized. The school texts engaged with diversity selectively and submerged it into a one-dimensional construct of national identity. The portrayal of the cultural, social, and economic achievements of Transylvanian Saxons was redefined as part of a shared set of values that created a psychological bond with a Romanian ancient past. The Transylvanian Saxons as a diverse group of Germans with distinct rituals and dialects were relegated to the background. Where their cultural heritage became visible, it served to the benefit of a nationalist narrative that was rooted in a protochronist interpretation of the past. If cultural reproduction is considered to be “an important element of the cohesion and stability of society” (Pârâianu 2001: 111), then the inclusion of the Saxons within the Communist textbooks was a

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strategic tool for creating collective memories of administrative organization and discipline. By the end of their education, students in Romania were left with the clear idea that Saxon historical figures were really Romanian, and any notable achievements belonged to all of them as Romanians.

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Kroner, W. 1976. Erhöhte Förderungen an Geschichtsunterricht. Mehr Raum für Heimatkunde und die spezifischen Fragen der mitwohnenden Nationalitäten. Karpatenrundschau 44: 5‒16. Livezeanu, I. 2000. Cultural politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, nation building and ethnic struggle, 1918–1930. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Luke, A. 1989. Open and closed texts: The ideological/semantic analysis of textbook narratives. Journal of Pragmatics 13(1): 53‒80. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(89)90109-4 Martin, M. 2002. Cultura română între comunism și nationalism (II). Revista 22, 31 October 2002. Available at: https://revista22.ro/cultura/cultura-romana-intrecomunism-si-nationalism-ii. (accessed 12 March 2022). Murgescu, M.L. 2001. The history of minorities in the Romanian school system. Curricula and textbooks in the late 1990s. Internationale Schulbuchforschung 23: 225–42. Murgescu, M.L. 2004. Istoria din ghiozdan. Memorie și manual școlare în România anilor 1990. Bucureșt: Do MinoR. Năstase, A. 1999. Această lucrare este antinațională, dezvoltând toate tezele istoriografiei maghiare. Timpul, 26 October – 1 November 1999: 8–9. Niculescu, G.A. 2002. Nationalism and the representation of society in Romanian archeology. Nation and national ideology: Past, present and prospect. Proceedings of the International Symposium held at the New Europe College April 6–7, 2001. Bucharest: 209–34. Niculescu, G.A. 2004. Archaeology, nationalism and “The History of the Romanians” (2001). Dacia N.S. 48: 99–124. Papu, E. 1977. Din clasicii noștri. București: Eminescu. Pârâianu, R. 2001. National prejudices, mass media and history textbooks: The Mitu controversy, in B. Trencsényi, D. Petrescu, C. Petrescu, C. Iordachi & Z. Kántor (ed.) Nation-building and contested identities: Romanian & Hungarian case studies: 93‒121. Budapest: Regio Books. Pascu, Ș. 1976–1989. [1979]. Istoria României. Manual pentru clasa a XII-a. București: Ed. Didactică și Pedagogică. Petrescu, D. 2009. Building the nation, instrumentalizing nationalism: Revisiting Romanian national-communism, 1956‒1989. Nationalities Papers 37(4): 523‒44. doi:10.1080/00905990902985728 Shulman, S. 2002. Challenging the civic/ethnic and West/East dichotomies in the study of nationalism. Comparative Political Studies 35(5): 554–85. Smith, A.D. 2010. Nationalism: Theory, ideology, history. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Polity Press. Stanciu, C. 2013. The end of liberalization in communist Romania. The Historical Journal 56(4): 1063‒85. doi:10.1017/S0018246X13000228 Szakács, S. 2007. Now and then: National identity construction in Romanian history. A comparative study of communist and post-communist school textbooks. Internationale Schulbuchforschung 1: 23‒47. Turda, M. 2001. Internal orientalism: Transylvania and Romania, in B. Trencsényi, D. Petrescu, C. Petrescu, C. Iordachi & Z. Kántor (ed.) Nation-building and contested identities: Romanian & Hungarian case studies: 197–209. Budapest: Regio Books. Verdery, K. 1991. National ideology under socialism: Identity and cultural politics in Ceaușescu’s Romania. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wagner, E. 1990. Zur Geschichte der Siebenbürger Sachsen. Ein Überblick. München: Wort+Welt+Bild. Zub, A. 1981. A scrie și a face istorie (istoriografia română postpașoptistă). Iași: Junimea.

Alexander Rubel

Dacian Blood: Autochthonous Discourse in Romania during the Interwar Period Abstract: While early Romanian historiography and public opinion primarily chose the Romans as their imagined ancestors, late Romanticism from the end of the nineteenth century (e.g. M. Eminescu) discovered the Dacians as the true forefathers of the Romanian people. This idea was further developed in the nationalist discourse beginning with Sămănătorism in the early twentieth century and endorsed by ultranationalist discourses in the Interwar Period, culminating in academic work on the origins of the Romanian neam (people). This chapter focuses on the perception of the public and the traditions of thought in Romanian philosophy, which is still today dependent on the school of Nae Ionescu and Constantin Noica, who in turn were influenced by late Romantic German models. This chapter analyses publications of the Interwar Period, such as the right-wing journal Gândirea, highlighting this tradition of Romanian thought which can be traced to the present-day. I emphasize how the Romanian version of the idea of Blut und Boden (Blood and Soil) is still prevalent in Romanian academic and public discourse. Keywords: Dacia; Dacians; Nationalism; Ethnicity; Legion of the Archangel Michael; Gândirea

Introduction In 2019, when the Romanian government held the rotational presidency of the Council of the European Union, the logo for this presidency was based on a symbol linked to Romania’s distant past (Fig. 1).1 The logo represents the so-

 Similarly, during the Bulgarian presidency in 2018, they presented the ancient Thracians as a key part of Bulgarian folklore on the official website (see Ostrowski, this volume). Acknowledgements: I’d like to thank Robin P. Symonds for his generous efforts to improve my English, as well as Emily Hanscam and James Koranyi for useful comments. The work on this paper was possible due to a grant from the Romanian Ministry of Research and Innovation, CNCS—UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.2-PCCDI-2017-0116, within PNCDI III. Alexander Rubel, Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy, Iași, Romania https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-011

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Fig. 1: Logo of Romania’s Presidency of the European Council from 2019, https://www.ro mania2019.eu/home/ (accessed 14 May 2022).

called ‘Draco’, or ‘Dacian Wolf’, used by Dacian troops as a symbolic totem on top of their military standard, as depicted on Trajan’s Column (Fig. 2; Florea 2001). This ancient symbol, quite unknown in Western iconography, is the alleged

Fig. 2: Dacian standard on Trajan’s column, Radu Oltean CC-BY-SA 3.0.

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standard of the Dacian military resistance during the Roman conquest of the first century CE. It continues to symbolize the Iron Age Dacian society today, linking in particular to the Dacian kingdom ruled by Decebalus from 87–106 CE. The logo was chosen in an open competition with a complex selection system—Romanians could participate by voting on Facebook, and the final selection was then made by a voting panel comprised of journalists and prominent figures in Romanian society (Paraschivoiu 2017). This selection process met with some controversy; in October 2018, a deputy of the new progressive party Uniunea Salvați România (Save Romania Union, USR) proposed to change the logo, as certain politicians doubted that foreign visitors would understand the symbol, especially considering that the Speaker of the Senate admitted to having no idea what the logo represented. A member of the liberal party (Partidul Naţional Liberal, PNL) insisted in the debate that the Dacian wolf would represent the formation of the Romanian state, which began with the Daciens (Dancu 2018). Indeed, visitors to Romania are greeted by reminders of the country’s ancient past on arrival at the Henri Coandă International Airport in Bucharest. Every incoming visitor who enters the airport sees the head of a noble Dacian, often (but falsely) labelled as the bust of the Dacian King Decebalus (Fig. 3).2 The sculpture is accompanied by some other objects and explanatory panels. An NGO with the suggestive name Asociația Identitate Culturală Contemporană (Association for Contemporary Cultural Identity) is responsible for the exhibition, which was also approved by airport management.3 The text on the panels of the exhibition confirms that those who created and approved this exhibition intend to present Romania to foreign visitors primarily as the successor state of the Iron Age Dacian kingdom. There is undoubtedly a general perception among Romanians, as shown by the choice of the Draco and the exhibition at Henri Coanda, that the ancient Dacians are their immediate forefathers. The idea of Dacian roots for modern Romania is nothing other than a continuation of the old chauvinistic blood and soil ideology, best known from the fascist movements of the twentieth century. At least, concerning the presidency of Romania in the EU council, it seems that some diplomats recognized the sensitivity of the issue, and the website for the Romanian presidency described the choice of the Draco simply as a wolf, used

 Recently, the same exhibition has been displayed at Avram Iancu International Airport in Cluj-Napoca.  For the aims and activities of this NGO see their website: https://aiccromania.org/. Information and images of the exhibition can be found at: https://aiccromania.org/ro/bust-de-nobil-dac-laaeroportul-din-bucuresti. Interestingly, the contemporary aspects of this association remain unknown, since they seem to concentrate rather on the ancient Dacians.

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Fig. 3: Bust of a Dacian nobleman at Henri Coanda Airport, Bucharest, A. Rubel.

because it is common to different European mythologies (Official Site of Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2019). Not only is this an obvious generalization about the many different ancient mythical traditions of Europe, but the website does not mention the Dacian origins of the symbol. It also does not explain that this logo was selected specifically because it represents the Dacians and would therefore be a perfect symbol to mark an original and pure ‘Romanian’ contribution to the EU (Rizea 2017). I assume that the officials got cold feet and chose such a vague explanation to give an evidently nationalist symbol a pan-European meaning. Regardless, the myth of Daco-Roman continuity, or the idea that a direct bloodline exists from ancient Dacia to modern Romania, is widespread in Romania today. The idea that an ancient people, who lived in the region of a modern nation-state some 2,000 years ago, could serve as that nation’s direct ancestors is a nationalist invention, linked to ideas originating in the Enlightenment which emphasized firstly a Latin inheritance for the Romanians, followed by a Roman and Dacian (Daco-Roman), or even pure Dacian ancestry. Given the amount of mobility in Europe from prehistory to the Modern Era, the idea of ethnic purity is a fantasy. This discourse is, however, persistent, and ancestry remains such an

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important concept globally that it is even, at times, directed to prehistory. At the opening of a new exhibition in Iași in 2017, which featured the artefacts of the Cucuteni, a late Neolithic people from north-eastern Romania, Moldova, and the Ukraine, one of the official speakers at the opening spoke of the Cucuteni as “our ancestors”.4 A phenomenon called ‘Dacomania’ or ‘Dacopathia’, is worse, however, than rather innocent nationalistic echoes in public speech and the media in Romania. It is a pathologic identification with an alleged Dacian tradition, far from archaeological and historical discourse, which is based on the idea of the supremacy of the Dacian culture, operating with ‘alternative facts’ and fantasies about the primacy of the Dacians. Alexe (2015), Marcu (2015), and Popa (2015, 2016) have dealt with this in detail, and I will not be focusing on it here. What follows is an attempt to understand the mechanisms of Romanian ethno-nationalist thought and its roots in historical paradigms, which are, to a certain extent, still manifest presently in Romanian philosophy and historiography, contributing to the consolidation of the direct association between the ancient Dacians and the Romanians of today. I contend that neither archaeological writings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, nor the ‘Dacomaniac’ mainstream in magazines like the very popular weekly Formula AS, along with other online blogs and websites, are wholly responsible for the idea of Dacian ancestry in contemporary Romanian society. The indoctrination from the National Communist era is likewise not wholly responsible for the continuing presence in Romania of ‘our ancestors, the Dacians’. This interpretation goes against recent literature that places great emphasis on the role of education and indoctrination in the time of ‘National Communism’ under Ceaușescu (Verdery 1994; Matei-Popescu 2007; Babeș 2008; Dana 2008; Popa 2016). From the 1970s with a peak in the 1980s, Ceaușescu did champion a politically instrumentalized historical narrative depicting the Dacian state as the predecessor of the strong and lasting Communist Romanian state. Ceaușescu’s narrative is mainly held responsible by the authors cited above for the popular and academic understanding of the heroic Dacians as direct ancestors of the Romanians. But while the National Communist historiography endorsed or fortified this concept to some extent, it was never at its ideological core.

 This does not only apply to East-Central Europe: A new metanarrative based on aDNA has recently been introduced in prehistory with the help of geneticists. Not only do they reintroduce the idea of massive migrations as major factors in world history without any methodological caution, the obsessive discussion about ancestry and genetic traces of ancient populations (labelled uncritically as ‘the Yamnaya’, ‘the Bell-Beaker people’, etc.) in modern populations, shows the new importance given to the ancient past (see Reich 2018; Krause 2019 with critiques by Furholt 2018; Bösel & Feuchter 2019).

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I argue rather that the legacy of the intellectuals of the Interwar Period is, to a large extent, responsible for the overwhelming acceptance of the idea of a direct Dacian ancestry for Romania. This results from their link to spirituality and to a particular mingling of Christian Orthodoxy and Dacian heritage as the essence of the modern Romanian nation. Emblematic figures like Lucian Blaga, Mircea Eliade, and Mircea Vulcănescu, in addition to controversial figures like Nae Ionescu and Nichifor Crainic, developed these ideas in the 1930s. The idea of Dacian ancestry for modern Romanians has primarily reached the twenty-first century through the publication of re-edited books since the 1990s that promote a positive outline of the concept of ‘Dacian blood’ and ‘Dacian ancestry’. The (re)publication of these ideas, endorsed by some untouchable titans of Romanian intellectual history, like Eliade, Noica, and Cioran (rightly considered, in most cases, as rigorous antiCommunists), culminates with the publication of pseudoacademic books and articles in the ‘Dacomaniac’ style. My hypothesis is that the intellectual and spiritual foundations of the first half of the twentieth century, linked to the omnipresent questions of ‘Who are we, as Romanians, in a European context?’ and ‘What does it mean to be Romanian?’, are responsible for the emergence of a very special ‘Romanian way of thinking’ and a unique interpretation of history and ancestry. The interconnectedness of nationalism (common across EastCentral Europe) and Romanian Orthodoxy, closely linked to the concept of ‘autochthony’, lends itself to the idea that the Romanian people (neam) are a very distinct entity, as the chosen people of this holy soil (Neumann 2010). It is necessary to begin with a short overview, discussing the popular emergence of the concept of Dacian ancestry in Romania. Thereafter, this chapter will focus on the public discourse of the 1930s in the newspapers and especially the journal Gândirea, edited by the notorious nationalist and Orthodox fundamentalist Nichifor Crainic (1889–1972, on his controversial personality see Clark 2012; Ornea 2015: 194–210). I have analysed 150 issues of Gândirea, forming the core of the research for this chapter. I have also included important articles published in the daily newspaper Cuvântul during the 1930s under the direction of the influential philosopher Nae Ionescu (1890–1940).5 I have additionally referred to edited books with reprints of articles from the Interwar Period and to Buna Vestire, the newspaper of the Romanian fascist organization of the 1930s, known as the Legiunea Arhanghelul Mihail (Legion of the Archangel Michael) or in short, the Mișcarea Legionară (Legionaries Movement). The main reason for focusing on Gândirea is that this journal explicitly connected nationalist thought and Orthodox

 A large sample was available to me courtesy of my colleague Dorin Dobrincu, who scanned the documents in the Library of Congress at Washington DC.

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spirituality, a particular feature of Romanian nationalism from the Interwar Period and beyond (Boia 2003: 74–75; Ornea 2015: 109–20); there was a very special link between the Church and the fascists that were inspired by and later contributed to the journal (Schmitt 2017). Gândirea was highly influential in the leading intellectual circles in Romania, even launching a trend called ‘Gândirism’, which tried to underline the peculiarity of the journal’s approach which combined nationalism and Orthodox values (Micu 1975; cf. Ornea 2015). Gândirea is, therefore, the ideal publication to focus on, as a survey of additional relevant publications from the Interwar Period goes beyond the scope of this chapter.

The Ancient Dacians It is firstly necessary to summarize some general aspects concerning our knowledge about the ancient Dacians. To begin with, the alleged community of the so-called ‘Geto-Dacians’ is a fantasy, although the term is still widely applied within scholarly publications (see e.g. Sanie & Marin 2010). A close relation or even unity between the Getae—described by Herodotus (IV.93) and Strabo (VII. 3.1–2) as living south of the Danube on the western coast of the Black Sea—and the Dacians is just a hypothetical construct, one that is deepseated in Romanian scholarship and is still fixed in public discourse. What we know of Dacian history and culture has very recently been thoroughly summarized by Karl Strobel (2019), and the most important sources by Greek and Roman authors are cited and commented on by Brodersen (2020). In brief, there are very few historical sources on the ancient Dacians and their culture, and so many issues have been reconstructed based on archaeological finds. This is not always an easy task, especially considering that, at the beginning of the distinct ‘Dacian’ archaeological culture in the second century BCE, we hardly can distinguish the La Tène culture of the neighbouring regions (in modern Slovakia, for example), or the remains of Celtic groups who settled in the Carpathian Basin, from what is considered as genuine ‘Dacian’ material culture. This culture is closely linked to the La Tène tradition—these La Tène-like artefacts are in fact only deliberately attributed to the ‘Dacians’ by scientific convention—and little is known about the origins of what may or may not be a unique cultural group. The lack of knowledge is often disguised in scholarship with wild assumptions mingling the Thracian Getae and their religious tradition, as described by Herodotus (IV.93–97) and later Strabo (VII.4–5), with the Dacians. This leads to speculations about the nature of Zalmoxis, the most important god of the Getae (and allegedly also of the Dacians as many assume).

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The much-invoked assessment by Strabo (VII.3.13), that the Getae and the Dacians did speak the same language, is of little value in determining ancient linguistic issues (see Dana 2008: 344–57). The cultural (and linguistic) connections between the Getae and the tribes of the north-Danubian and Transylvanian regions, who had been called ‘Dacians’ only in later Roman sources, remains completely unclear. In fact, the Dacian name seems to be a creation of the Romans for the (probably) Thracian tribes settling north of the Danube, who, by the end of the first century CE, had developed a rich culture and strong territorial boundaries under their famous ruler Decebalus (Strobel 2019). In order to understand the appearance of the Dacian ancestry narrative, it is important to understand the context of East-Central European nationalism. The Romanian-born German writer Richard Wagner (1994: 175, this and all following translations by author) says, “In every discussion with an Eastern European, appears the word ‘history’; not as a catchword, but as a magical word”. The ‘late’ nations of the Balkans and south-eastern Europe in general developed a metanarrative of victimization. These nations had been disadvantaged by the West, having to submit to Ottoman rule, while other countries prospered and enjoyed the benefits of the Age of Enlightenment. In this context ‘history’ is responsible for Romania’s or Serbia’s late start into modernization, while the sacrifice of these nations, who had been—according to the widespread narrative —a stronghold against the Turks, was never appreciated as it should have been (Olschewski 1998; Roth 2017; Simon-Nanko 2017; c.f. Götz et al. 2017). History as a ‘magical word’ also has another quality in Romanian intellectual discourse, opening a specific spiritual dimension of Romanian thinking which has to be taken into account every time when we talk about identity and ethnicity. This spiritual dimension finds its ‘magical’ roots in the speculative and ‘traditionalist’ thinking of the 1930s, which has shaped Romanian thought and the history of ideas up to the present. In Mircea Eliade’s words, when he describes in 1937 the writings of his mentor Nae Ionescu: “History is the holy communion between destiny and love, which manifests itself in the people” (postface to Ionescu 1937: 441). How did this come about? It is beyond the scope of this chapter to detail the emergence of the rival concepts of either the Roman or Dacian lineage of the Romanian people from the Transylvanian School (a kind of Romanian Enlightenment movement in the early nineteenth century) to the Iron Guard (the Romanian fascists) more than hundred years later (Boia 2003: 39–76, 101–23). In brief, throughout Europe, history became a ‘magical word’ as the European nations linked history and language studies in the late nineteenth century, for which they also invented new faculties at their universities for the purpose of creating a national myth with historical foundations. In Romania,

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the first and most important ancestry discourse was the one developed by the Transylvanian School, which postulated a pure Roman origin of the Romanian people, in order to demonstrate their cultural superiority over the Hungarian (in this view, barbarian) oppressors.6 These Romanian intellectuals began to describe the Romanian language, based on the Latin legacy, and Romanian culture as an original, independent, and important national culture. In this sense, they also ‘purified’ the Romanian language from non-Latin loan words. The idea of a mythical Dacian realm, a romantic and idyllic utopia which still lacked any archaeological record, was originally primarily fostered by Mihai Eminescu, the preeminent Romanian poet, in several poems written in the 1880s (Dana 2008: 298–99). Previously, in 1860, the important historian and philologist Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu had also noted that the Dacians should not be forgotten in the Romanian historical narrative (Dana 2008: 296–97, cf. Boia 2003: 109–10). Still, the Roman paradigm prevailed throughout the nineteenth century. The Dacians gained prominence in the early twentieth century within the context of Romantic Nationalism, popular throughout Europe, which emphasized the peasant as the traditional holder of the values of the nation. In Romania, agricultural Romanticism was endorsed by the important journal Sămănăturul (the sower) as early as the first decade of the twentieth century with articles written by the famous historian Nicolae Iorga and his followers. They promoted the idea of ‘blood and soil’, highlighting the Romanian ţăran (peasant), as the source of true Romanian values. This influenced the radical change of the autochthonic discourse towards a narrative featuring the Dacians, rather than the Romans, as the real ancestors of the Romanian people. This idea began taking hold in the 1920s, becoming increasingly violent with the radicalization of Romanian politics in the 1930s.7 This development was also reinforced by the urge of Romanian intellectuals, who suffered—as do many intellectuals in ‘small’ nations—from a huge inferiority complex. In 1936, Emil Cioran (1990: 2–46) in particular emphasized the need for an original and independent cultural history, which would distinguish the Romanian people and their achievements from the rest of the world.

 The Transylvanian School was the first national intellectual movement under Habsburgian rule in Transylvania. The leaders of this movement, all members of the Greek-Catholic Church, postulated the dogma of the Roman/Latin origin of the Romanian people in the early nineteenth century. On this see Chindriş 2001, cf. Boia 2003: 103–08.  On Sămănătorism see Müller 2001 and Ornea 1998. The new Romanticism was endorsed as early as 1921 with a play by Lucian Blaga, a leading intellectual, professor of philosophy (and later also an important contributor to Gândirea), with the title Zamolxe. Mister pagan (Zamolxis. A pagan mystery). See also Dana 2008: 303–28.

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Why this came about can be explained easily, in political terms. With the end of the First World War in 1918, Romania had to cope with a set of new challenges and was somewhat overcharged with new political issues after the creation of România Mare (Greater Romania) in 1919. Romania had virtually no vociferous and organized minorities before 1918 (conversely, many Romanians had been part of a minority in Hungary), but had to incorporate new territories, including Transylvania, that contained well-organized minorities with strong identities, some 30% of the overall population (Neumann 2001: 103–04). This led to a xenophobic reaction which concurrently provoked the remembering or, indeed, the creation of a splendid and heroic past, offered by the Dacians and their warrior kingdom. Meanwhile, this development was accompanied by two major events or trends. First, the publication of Nicolae Densușianu’s book on prehistoric Dacia in 1913, a phantasmagoria on Dacia and the Dacians as the first major civilization in Europe, which was, in the view of its author, the primordial civilization which gave birth to all other European cultures, including the Romans (Babeş 2003; cf. Boia 2003: 117–18). This book is one of the first manifestations of the so-called ‘protochronism’ in Romania, the idea that all important cultural achievements have Romanian (or Dacian) origin. Interestingly, this kind of protochronistic fantasy still has a lot of supporters, even today. Although Densuşianu was harshly criticized by professional historians and archaeologists of his own time, his peculiar book is available in several new editions from different publishing houses (including a facsimile edition from 2002 by Editura Arhetip and from 2015 by Artemis), the most recent edited by the obscure publishing house Tipo Moldova, specializing on reprints and facsimile editions, for the occasion of the celebration of one hundred years of România Mare in 2018. The most intriguing issue in this context is the introduction, and official approval, of a non-professional discourse in matters of history and national identity in the public sphere. These ‘alternative facts’, not supported in the slightest by historical accounts or archaeology, have a certain credibility and a large forum in Romania even today (Popa 2016). One of the reasons why this pseudoacademic discourse received great coverage in the media and continues to attract devotees may be because of Mircea Eliade’s role in its canonization. In his article on the advantages of ‘dilettantism’ in 1927, Eliade argues that nationalist feeling must come from the heart and should not be restrained by science and historical analysis. The deeper meanings and the great historical synthesis, according to Eliade, are more accessible to dilettantes than to the professionals—important in this context is the metaphysical approach towards

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national history and the neam.8 The continuing pseudoacademic discourse about the Dacians serves as a preface to the main arguments of my chapter, and the presentation of the writings of the ‘Young Generation’ of Romanian intellectuals in the 1930s.9 The second major trend following the First World War was unfortunately caused by the professionals themselves, as even reputable academics like the archaeologist Vasile Pârvan contributed to the idea of Dacian continuity. Similar to a concurrent trend in Germany, where the ancient Germans had been canonized as the heroic ancestors of modern Germans (Kipper 2002; Wiwjorra 2006; Geringer et al. 2013), the founding father of Romanian archaeology naturally accepted the role of the ancient Getae and Dacians as ancestors of modern Romanians. The thought patterns of Pârvan and his contemporary academics are to a high degree understandable, belonging to a historical evolution of archaeological and historical thought. I do not hold Pârvan at fault, but I question why these thought patterns still prevail in the public discourse of today. I contend that the intellectuals of the 1930s, via their reception after the Romanian Revolution in 1989/90, are to be blamed. Pârvan’s book on the Dacians, published posthumously in 1928 (in English), outlined some of the arguments of his time, which are still common in contemporary publications: First of all, Dacia was a great kingdom based on a solid and homogeneous ethnic foundation: its historical traditions were already old, its social and economic structure was well marked, and it possessed an advanced culture, which, influenced at first by the forms of Celtic civilization, had for two centuries before Trajan felt the impress of the Roman. Here was a worthy rival even for Rome. This was no mere agglomeration of a number of savage tribes with a shifting population, scattered loosely over an extended territory with a complete lack of political and national cohesion such as the Romans had found in Dalmatia or Thrace or Pannonia or Moesia; here was a nation, organized, powerful, conscious of itself (Pârvan 1928: 189; for the Romanian edition see Pârvan 1972: 150–51).

 The Romanian word neam has a slight racist connotation, which is not present in the more neutral popor (people, from the Latin populus). On the term and its usage in nationalist thought see Neumann 2010.  The so-called ‘Young Generation’ was a group of bright young men who gathered in the late 1920s around charismatic masters like Nae Ionescu, Nichifor Crainic or (the more liberalconservative) Dimitrie Gusti. They became notorious for their influential articles and comments in newspapers and journals, ruling the intellectual debates of the 1930s. Nearly all of them became involved in the Romanian fascist movement. The most important figures were, for example, M. Vulcănescu, M. Eliade, M. Sebastian, P. Comarnescu, E. Cioran, and C. Noica. See Petreu 2011: 251–342; Boia 2012: 21–47; Butoi 2012.

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The crucial ingredients for the modern myth of Dacian continuity are already part of Pârvan’s argument, which was later simplistically exploited by a Communist historical vulgate: ethnic unity, solid state-like structures in a ‘large empire’, and a prehistoric national consciousness (Mușat & Ardeleanu 1983). In another passage of the same book, Pârvan presents the idea of the Romanized Dacian, or the Daco-Roman, a Dacian who had been refined through the introduction of Roman culture. Not only Banat and Oltenia, but also Muntenia and Moldavia, through connections of ethnicity and interest with Roman Dacia on the one hand and Getic Moesia on the other, gradually received the Roman form of life. […] The solidarity of interest of pre-Roman Dacia was remade: the Dacians of greater Dacia contributed with their race to the preservation of what the Romans in Roman Dacia had created with their culture (Pârvan 1972: 155).10

Thus, he combined ethnic purity with Roman civilization, giving the Romanians the best of two worlds—the myth of Daco-Roman continuity. This central idea of a nota bene voluntary adoption of the positive values of Roman culture (not by the brute force of Romanization but by free will) combined with the traditional Geto-Dacian ethnic base became the magic formula for the ethno-folkloric fantasy scripts, written during the 1930s. The idea of Daco-Roman continuity was born, an idea that resurged again after the 1989/90 Revolution and is still popular today. The Dacian element of this equation became increasingly dominant during the 1930s. The idea of the Romanized Dacians as the forefathers of the Romanians was abandoned in the following years especially in the right-winged public discourse—in part due to the influence of Densușianu’s book—for the sake of a pure Dacian culture and race as the origin of modern Romanian civilization (Boia 2003: 116–21; Dana 2008: 294–328). While in the nineteenth century, Romanian intellectuals wanted to connect with Europe, in the 1930s the issue was to establish Romanian particularity and even supremacy, especially in face of the proud German and Hungarian minorities contained within Greater Romania. It is important to note that the main concept here is biological, focusing on a direct and pure biological lineage using concepts of direct ancestry. This connection was mainly popularized by publications during the 1930s in right-wing journals and gazettes, as will be seen below.

 This passage was crossed out in the English edition but found its way into the Romanian version from 1937 and later editions, see Boia 2003: 115–16.

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The Interwar Period Turning to the Young Generation from the 1930s, it is intriguing to note that the writers who endorsed the idea of Dacian origins in their concept of a new nationalism are also responsible for what is seen as the apogee of Romanian culture. They still deservedly represent a benchmark in terms of high-quality Romanian literature and philosophy. They are venerated today as the founding fathers of modern Romanian literature and criticism, and in some cases—such as Mircea Vulcănescu, for example—also as martyrs of the Romanian cause against Communism. Worth considering here are the undoubtedly important works by Mircea Eliade or Mihail Sebastian, translated into many languages, or those of Emil Cioran, who published mainly in French. The Interwar Period, when Bucharest was known as ‘Little Paris’, was culturally a fascinating time in Romanian intellectual history. Interestingly, in opposition to the rest of Europe where the most formidable thinkers and writers were part of the political left, the most eminent figures of Romanian culture were devotees to extreme right-wing positions (Petreu 2011: 314–16). Members of the Young Generation were especially prominent within right-wing circles, influenced by the fascist movement of the Legion of the Archangel Michael; through this movement they promoted an idealized image of the Dacian ancestors. The legacy of the Young Generation and their ideas about Dacian heritage continue to influence Romanian intellectual life today, through the work of publishing houses such as Humanitas (Bucharest) which have reissued many of their books. The members of the Young Generation, for example Emil Cioran, Mircea Vulcănescu, Constantin Noica, Mircea Eliade, Petru Cormanescu, and others, were the voices of a new ethnocentric nationalism based on autochthony and ‘blood and soil’. Petre P. Panaitescu, a literary historian and member of the Iron Guard, explicitly stated this in 1940, when he speaks of “sîngele dac” or Dacian blood. We should also note that this new nationalism was marked by an ugly antisemitism, but this is a separate subject, albeit one with terrible consequences (Volovici 1991: 70–75). The Young Generation changed the paradigm of Romanian nationalism, which had previously focused on a Roman and partially Dacian inheritance during the nation-building process. They refined it towards an ethnocentric nationalism with the help of Nicolae Iorga and A. C. Cuza, focusing on the creative power of the rural peasant population, the ţărani, as the heart and soul of Romanian identity. In the 1930s, many intellectuals became convinced that Romania could not compete with the modern societies in the West, especially France, from which the Romanians had copied the concept of state and nation. In order to create a particular national and ethnic value system, which would be

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very original and thus different from other European concepts, they created a mythical anachronistic parallel world of Romanian spirituality. In the words of Nae Ionescu (1937: 193), the new nationalists exchanged an economic approach for a spiritual one and thus represent “the primacy of spirituality”. Influenced especially by the ‘darker’ aspects of German philosophy, which led from Hegel to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Spengler, Nae Ionescu and his followers also embraced the Lebensphilosophie of Bergson and Klages, which was adopted in Romania as trăirism.11 It was all about experience and feeling, rather than cool Kantian rationalism. In their quest for identity, national pride, and self-esteem, the new nationalists of the Young Generation focused on a special Romanian spirituality as expressed in the autocephaly of their Orthodox Church and through their different ethnic origins. In this context, the Dacians had become more attractive than the Romans, who led Italy and France to their medieval and more recent national splendour, so much missed in the history of the ‘mioritic space’, a term (alluding to a popular folk ballad) invented and explained by Blaga in a book from 1936 with the same title to describe the special particularity of Romania and its culture as one defined by sacrifice. These young writers, however, were not solely responsible for the presence of Dacian heritage in nationalist discourse. The Dacians were featured in the soaring patriotic speech of high school teacher Ion Zelea Codreanu, the father of the notorious fascist leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, speaking on the occasion of the formerly Austrian Bucovina’s joining Greater Romania in the fall of 1918. An officer of the Romanian army, Codreanu delivered his patriotic speech in an important moment. He gave a vigorous invocation of a nationalist instauration by offering a list of Romanian war heroes, beginning with Decebalus who defended Sarmizegetusa against the Romans (Huși 1920: 51–56 as cited in Schmitt 2017: 14). Building on this discourse, the writings of the Young Generation from the 1930s continues to have a significant impact, especially because their legacy and tradition was, and still is, very important via the clandestine ‘schools’,12 which survived Communism and created new disciples who are today very influential (see below). Additionally, their influence was renewed via the republishing of

 On the concept of trăirism and its most important representative, Nae Ionescu, see Sedgwick 2004: 109–17; Bârliba 2015; 2017: 594–600. On the zeitgeist of this period see Neumann 2001; Petreu 2011.  Most important in this context is the ‘guru’ of a whole generation, Constantin Noica, and his informal ‘school’ at Păltiniș where he gathered his followers (Laignel-Lavastine 1998; see also Liiceanu 1991 for an inside view of this ‘school’). In provincial towns there had also been clandestine traditionalist and esoteric circles, like that of Vasile Lovinescu, who moved from Bucharest to Fălticeni (Sedgwick 2004: 109–17).

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virtually all their writings after 1990. These writings had been accepted uncritically by Romanian intellectuals after the 1989/90 Revolution because they had been banished previously by the Communists; and, in the logic of the events after 1989, all that the Communists forbade must be good.

The Work of the Young Generation During the Interwar Period, Romanian authors publishing in the intellectual gazettes were concerned with questions like: ‘Who are we?’; ‘Where is our place in Europe?’; ‘How can we deal with these new minorities in our country, minorities who have their own ethnic and cultural traditions?’. These questions were not restricted to the right-aligned gazettes, but appeared across the political spectrum. There was an obsessive discussion in many newspapers and journals during the 1920s and 1930s on what it meant to be Romanian, and how this is expressed culturally in a historical perspective. This issue persists today—Marta Petreu (2011: 441) asked recently in an essay dealing with the problem of Romanian identity among the Young Generation, “Which Romanian, from the authors of the medieval chronicles till today, did not and does not have problems with his identity?”. In the 1930s, the Young Generation attempted to solve this problem of Romanian identity by developing a new concept of belonging, one leading to a mystical and religious approach that emphasized the supposed unique Romanian peasant spirituality. It favoured an ethnographic viewpoint with a new concept called “Românism” (Romanianism), defined by Ionescu and Crainic, which also included the preference of the ‘autochthonic’ Dacian heritage versus a Roman ancestry (Heinen 1986: 171–88; Volovici 1991: 45–94; Neumann 2001; Petreu 2011: 251–342; Ornea 2015: 75–177). It is also important to observe that every single issue of the journal Gândirea, of which there are more than 150, mentions the concept of autochthony. The most representative article for this trend is probably “Spiritul autohton”, written by the editor Nichifor Crainic (1938: 161–67). Autochthonic topics are omnipresent, like “autochthonic art”, “autochthonic fundamental values, traditions, folklore” etc. Most important was the idea of autochthonic spirituality. Not only in Gândirea, but in all the writings of the Young Generation, the Orthodox Romanian spirituality is considered a unique feature of “Romanianism” (Ornea 2015: 75–120). The core of the autochthonist argument is the idea that Romanian culture has a very ancient source and is essentially of Thraco-Dacian origin (the terms Getic, Thracian, and Dacian have been widely used as synonyms in this context). Ioan Coman (1941b: 434) described this in an article in Gândirea very vividly:

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The Romanian people is the healthy, strong and beautiful child who came out of Mother Rome and Father Zalmoxis at the height of their power. And these people are autochthonous like the fir trees and the monks from the Carpathians. Autochthonous just as the endless plains that are kept with love by the girdle of the holy Istrus [the Danube].

This short passage features the most important features of the autochthonist narrative: an ancient origin (here also with a Roman touch), autochthony linked to Christian spirituality (monks), and an anchoring landscape composed of the Carpathian Mountains combined with the plains dominated by the Danube. This view was shared by virtually all contemporary intellectuals and can be summed up with the words of the philologist George Călinescu, who published in 1941 an important history of Romanian literature, writing, “We are absolutely autochthonous with an impressive tradition” (973). This was the way in which the question of identity had to be treated—with an ancient, autochthonous Romanian population. Among other considerations, this was certainly a claim against revanchist Hungary, who never accepted the loss of Transylvania. In the context of a vulgarized theory of prima occupatio, it was crucial to identify the population who had remained behind in Dacia (Transylvania) after the withdrawal of the Romans in the third century CE—was it the ‘Romanized’ Daco-Roman population, aka the proto-Romanians? Or was it the Hungarian Magyars, occupying a deserted territory? This is still heavily disputed today, as it is a very difficult matter (also with political implications), and rather a question of belief; it goes beyond the scope of this chapter but Strobel (2005–2007) has written a useful overview. In this sense, a passage of an article from 1941 is meaningful: Our neighbours today are invited to know that we will defend with all our energy the nobleness that comes from Zalmoxis, Diromichaites, Burebista, Decaeneu, Decebalus and Trajan, and our borders, drawn by the great king of Argedava [Burebista], from the Tisza to the Bug and from the northern Carpathians to the holy Danube (Coman 1941c: 559).

The development of these ideas can be fully observed in Crainic’s Gândirea. The publication contained extremely right-wing positions, but with a focus on aspects of Orthodoxy. A detailed discussion of the political orientation can be found in Micu (1975); the author writes with a certain Communist bias and jargon, wanting to prove that besides political aberration there are key cultural contributions by important authors in Gândirea. The journal was not a mouthpiece of the legionary movement, like the official legionary publication Buna Vestire, or the newspaper Cuvântul, the latter of which was always very close to the Romanian fascist movement, becoming its direct mouthpiece in 1940. Many other papers, across the political spectrum, also endorsed this trend of focusing on Romania’s Dacian roots. By 1941, this led to the establishment of another cultural periodical, Dacia Rediviva, featuring the Dacian ancestry of Romanian culture as the key subject of

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the monthly journal. In the editorial of the first issue, we find the evocation of “thou mother Dacia!” together with the “eternal archetype Dacia” which causes the editor to believe in the “Romanian substance, till the last shivering” (Niţulescu 1941: 2–3). The discussions about origins and identity in Gândirea also evoked the positive influence of a Roman cultural heritage, but towards the end of the 1930s, and especially in the wake of the instauration of a legionary state in 1940, the Dacians took the leading position. In this context, the article by the Orthodox theologian Dumitru Stăniloae is important—he mentions the Dacians and the Romans, referring to the debate of which was more important for the ethnogenesis of the Romanians.13 He certainly takes a more theological stance than other commentators of this time, but generally follows Pârvan’s argument of claiming the best virtues of both worlds, Roman and Dacian, for the Romanian people. Stăniloae (1940: 417) writes, The evidence that in our journals we are still discussing is whether we are more Latins or more Dacians, and whether we need to further develop the Latinity or the Dacianism in us. This ideal can only be one that is indicated by the highest law of our ethnicity, the essential way of Romanian spirituality.

Although Pârvan originally advanced the idea that there could be a fruitful amalgamation of Dacians and Romans in the 1920s, it appeared again when the fascist Legionaries had been part of the government for several months in 1940 and 1941. As Ioan Coman’s January 1941 article in Gândirea reads: These people were our Daco-Getian ancestors [those who venerated Zalmoxis]. If immortal Rome gave us the pride and discipline of its legions, resurrected so happily today in the endless legions of green shirts [the “uniform” of the Romanian fascists]—the fasces of modern Romania—the ancient Getae poured into our souls the thirst after perfection and the warm faith in immortality (1941a: 24).

But those so-called ancient Daco-Romans never gave up their ‘Dacianism’: But, although romanized, they do not forget to remember their Dacian origins. There is an extremely characteristic mentality link here. These Dacians had not romanized their name from a servile feeling in order to curry favour with the conqueror (Ionescu 1941: 243).

 Stăniloae was a fierce nationalist theologian, who is well thought of today by the Church and the public because of his later role in the ecumenical movement. See Clark (2009: 33), “An uncritical reception of Stăniloae’s thought, including his theology of the nation, underpins most new Romanian theology, which is problematic given that Stăniloae himself did not move beyond his inter-war nationalism”.

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In the same June 1940 issue of Gândirea which published Stăniloae’s article, an article also appears about the idea of kingdom in Romania (at this time King Carol II had been overthrown by Antonescu) in which the author proposes the best solution for the Romanian nation: “The Romanians have to reunite for a Dacia, a Christian Dacia, a kingdom of Jesus Christ” (Zaborovschi-Florea 1940: 444). The idea of a Christian Dacia was not so far-fetched as it may seem to us today. It was based on an assumed link between the Dacians and the religious creed of the ancient Getae, described in Herodotus (IV.93–97), which was declared as a kind of ancient monotheism—thus allowing the ancient Dacians to be proclaimed as proto-Christians. Even Pârvan included some rather vague hints in his Getica to the cult of immortality and the heno- if not monotheistic belief in Zamolxis (often also spelled Zalmoxis) of the ancient Getic tribes (and implicitly also the Dacians, see Dana 2008: 306–08). This enigmatic god of the ancient Getae, proclaimed also as the great god of the Dacians to be venerated at Sarmizegetusa, became the core element of the late 1930s to early 1940s neonationalist belief in a specific Romanian spirituality, which was elevated to the rather protochronistic idea that Christianity found a favourable climate in ancient Dacia. Petre P. Ionescu (1941: 244) confirms in a further article the “basic nutrient of the Romanian soul”, or “of all the peoples of this new world now being created, none were closer in its nature, as essence and structure to the Christian idea, than the Dacian people”. Following along logically, this notion of the ‘Christian Dacians’ could also help to explain why we do not hear any more of the Dacians after the Roman conquest: they voluntarily embraced Romanization and the emerging Christian belief as an expression of their own culture. This is certainly a very strange idea, given that the Roman province Dacia fell in ca. 275 CE, long before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Despite this, the idea of an early Christianization had always been part of the national narrative of the Romanians as ‘the chosen people’ (Schmitt 2017, 2019, 2021), and is still reflected in the legend that St. Andrew preached and evangelized in Tomis (modern Constanța), thereby bringing Christianity to the territory of modern Romania. This tradition is part of the official doctrine of the Orthodox Church in Romania, for which St. Andrew is known as the guardian of Romania (Dogar 2012). One should see this very far-fetched connection made by the far-right intellectuals between an alleged Dacian religion and Christianity in this context. Ioan Coman (1941a: 24; cf. Dana 2008: 315–19), who published academic work on Zalmoxis and on Deceneus, the archpriest and counsellor of Burebista, also developed these rather absurd ideas for the larger public in Gândirea, writing,

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[Zalmoxis] was the incarnation of the highest and purest divine power in the Thraco-Getic nations and imposed the most glorious moral and religious behaviour on a large number of people in a considerable part of the world. These people were our Daco-Getic ancestors.

He closes his reading of Herodotus with the following explanation of the importance of this deity for Romanians: Spiritualism and Zalmoxian immortality inspired our race: our unbridled virtues. Through them we have lasted for centuries. Through the universalism and immortality of Zalmoxis, Christianity penetrated easily and deeply into the soul of our ancestors. Zalmoxis, the unseen and immortal, should not be just a memory for us; but a slogan, and a justification by which we deserve our racial nobleness (Coman 1941a: 27).

The Dacians were evoked again on 30 August 1940, when Romania had to return a part of Transylvania to Hungary due to the terms of the Second Vienna Award, negotiated by the Germans and Italians. The philosopher Constantin Noica wrote in Buna Vestire that “There [in Transylvania] was not Upper Dacia, there it is. And we do not need maps, but a Dacian soul. Who would have questioned us the right to reign over 1,400,000 Hungarians who infiltrated Dacian soil, if we were to be the masters of life and death like the Dacians?!”. Noica came to be the most influential intellectual of modern Romania (particularly in the 1970s and 1980s), even if he was marginalized, detained in a Communist prison, and never a leading member of a faculty of philosophy. For all his life (1909–1987), he was plagued with the ‘Romanian question’, bothered by the pressing issues of nation, original spirituality, and identity. A student of Noica’s wrote much later that Noica had an “obsession to define a national spiritual profile”, helping Romanianism “to define itself and to regain an ethnical conscience after the threat of a possible dissolution in indifference and the anonymity of internationalism” (Liiceanu 1984–1986: 8; c.f. Noica 1991, 1996). Finally, the climax of Romanian identification with the ancient Dacians was presented by Petre P. Panaitescu, who was both a notorious member of the fascist legionary movement and a respected Byzantinist scholar. In the wake of the National Legionary State forming in 1940, he also became rector of the University at Bucharest and was thus the leading intellectual figure of the Romanian fascist movement. From 1940 he edited the newspaper Cuvântul, the mouthpiece of the legionary movement; in the same year he published an article entitled “We are from here!”, claiming, We are Dacians! In our physical existence, in our souls, we are and feel like the descendants of this great and ancient people, seated in the Carpathian Mountains many centuries before Trajan. We have no beginning, we have been here forever. We are not only the sons of the earth, but we are part of a great race that perpetuates in us, the Dacian race. The Legionary movement, which awakened the deepest echoes of our national existence, also elevated to

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new pride the Dacian blood. It is only today that we recognize ourselves to be Dacians and understand what this means (Panaitescu 1940).

Interestingly, Panaitescu’s nationalist and racist vulgarity, proven in the quoted statement, did not obviously affect his professional work. His book on the late sixteenth century warlord Michael the Brave, which has a clear anti-nationalist bias (claiming that Michael did not unite the Romanians in Wallachia with those in Transylvania), is still state of the art. Under the Communist regime he was able to work as a research fellow in the Institute of History at Bucharest and had no major difficulties because of his past in the Iron Guard, although he did lose his membership in the Romanian Academy. One final example epitomizes the work of the Young Generation, as expressed by the philosopher and essayist Mircea Vulcănescu. In 1941, he gave an intriguing talk in Bucharest which brought together all the ideas of the Dacian origins of Romanian thought and its particularities, published posthumously in 1984 under the title Ispita Dacică (The Dacian Temptation), while the original title of the talk had been “The Dacian Component of the Romanian Soul”. In this talk, Vulcănescu (2005: 957–73) tries to establish a Dacian ethos as the core element of ‘Romanianism’, similar to Herder’s Völkerpsychologie. For this purpose, he evokes E. R. Curtius, Max Scheler, and quotes Nietzsche, who said that one cannot understand the past except through that what remains still alive from this past (Vulcănescu 2005: 959).14 According to Vulcănescu, there had been the Greek (Byzantine), the German (reflective profundity), as well as the extremely influential French “temptation” for the Romanian people, whose intellectuals followed mainly French models after the First World War, but the essential “temptation” for the Romanians and their spirit is, and has to be, the “Dacian temptation”. He conjures Romanian folk traditions (like the Hora, the traditional circle dance—common all over the Balkans and in Turkey) and archaic words as evidence of the autochthonous, Dacian origins of Romanians on their soil (Vulcănescu 2005: 971). “The reanimation of the Dacian spirit”, concludes Vulcănescu (2005: 972), “is thus intended to be the reanimation of the fortunate and soldierly virtues of our people”. The young students should not only go to the Dacian mountains in Transylvania to take part in archaeological excavations but also to earn a “mountain-heart”. This spiritual evocation of the particularities of dimensiunea românească a existenței (being Romanian) is a recurrent subject of Vulcănescu’s philosophical writings (originally in 1943, cf. Vulcănescu 2009). Consequently,

 I am not quite sure if the original quote (the critical edition has no evidence for the Nietzsche citation in Romanian) is from “Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben”, as I think: “Nur aus der höchsten Kraft der Gegenwart dürft ihr das Vergangene deuten” (Nietzsche 1988: 293).

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the editors of Vulcănescu’s opera omnia proposed as a title for his collected works on philosophy, Pentru O Nouă Spiritualitate Filosofică (For A New Philosophical Spirituality). These writings express in the most appropriate way the philosophical approach of Vulcănescu (2005) and his contemporaries in the Young Generation. We should note this spiritual approach also kept Constantin Noica busy, who as late as the 1970s developed a nationalist project of autochthonous philosophy, based on the particularities of the Romanian language and popular traditions of the countryside. Like Vulcănescu before him, Noica (1996) also evokes the Sentimentul românesc al fiinţei (Romanian feeling of being), as one of his most influential books is titled. Thus, through their writings, these notorious authors of the Young Generation still influence the intellectuals of our time with their enthusiastic and esoteric irrationalism, which has origins in dark Romanticism, and results in a very Romanian reading of traditionalism. The ideas of a Romanian Sonderweg, of the Romanians as the chosen people of the Carpathians, and of Romanian spirituality from the Dacians onward forms the core of actual Romanian philosophy (see Volovici 1991; Verdery 1994; Laignel-Lavastine 1998; Sedgwick 2004: 109–17; Ornea 2015). This often-violent invocation of Dacian spirit and Dacian roots shows, together with the slightly more restrained discussions in Gândirea, that the Dacian discourse was extremely influential and dominated the public perception of national identity in the Interwar Period. This discussion about the place of Romanian culture in Europe was not a simple question of finding an identity as a ‘young’ nation, suffering from an inferiority complex, it was—if we set aside the overly enthusiastic appreciations of ‘Dacian blood’—about creating and thinking of a particular Romanian culture as a distinctive instrument in the orchestra of European nations. Noica himself proclaimed that a small nation like Romania can only survive by creating its own and very unique culture (see Verdery 1994: 256–301; Laignel-Lavastine 1998: 328–69). This was the main focus of Noica’s philosophy in the 1970s and 1980s when he was the Socrates for a new generation of Romanian thinkers, a group who are today dominating public opinion. He gathered young intellectuals in a chalet in the Carpathian Mountains (at Păltiniș) where he established an informal philosophical school; his chosen students became very influential after 1989 (Liiceanu 1991). Noica and his contemporaries presented a vivid discourse on Romanianism, a play in which the Dacians had a significant part, a play that continues today. In what follows we will see that the myth of Dacian ancestry is still important, ruling public opinion despite critical publications by scholars of modern mythology such as Lucian Boia, Sorin Antohi, or Dan Dana.

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The Myth of the Ancient Dacians Today Having examined the work of the Young Generation during the Interwar Period and especially the 1940s, let us now consider today’s situation. In 2019, a symbol of the ancient Dacians represented Romania’s tenure in the rotational presidency of the European Council. This is a choice embedded with meaning—Romanians wanted to make a particular point about continuity by referring to their alleged Dacian ancestry. Similar points about Romanian biological and ethnical continuity are being made in recent ancient history publications; one such book was published in 2013 by Dumitru Protase, a renowned historian and archaeologist and an honorary member of the Romanian Academy. He addresses a broad public in his book, Daci, Romani, Români (Dacians, Romanians, Romans), writing, The Dacians thus represent an important ethnic and biological element of the Romanian people. The amalgamation of the autochthonous Dacian element into an ethnic and linguistic ensemble together with a Latin speaking population, who came from all parts of the Roman Empire delivered the solid base of the lasting presence of Romanitas along the Danube and in the Carpathians (Protase 2013: 99–100).

According to Protase, during the Early Medieval Period, the migratory peoples such as the Goths or Vandals, who moved through and often remained in what is today Romania (see Hanscam, this volume), have always been separate because they had a different way of life. Only the few who chose to remain in Romania were then fully assimilated by the Proto-Romanians, the autochthonous population descended from the Daco-Romans (Protase 2013: 101). There are a multitude of other examples from both scholarly publications and the mainstream press, which indicate that many continue to think in biologistic and thus racial terms. ‘Our Dacian ancestors’ is a standard formula in newspaper headlines.15 One example applies to me—when I was hired at the Institute for Archaeology in Iași in 2008, I ‘inherited’ the vacant position of Prof. Silviu Sanie, whom I admire very much. One of my obligations was to collaborate with him on his last major publication (Sanie & Marin 2010). Sanie asked me to write a chapter on the (presumably) Germanic Bastarnae, a ‘tribe’ or migrant group who settled in what is today eastern Romania and Moldavia in the third to second centuries BCE, in addition to my existing chapter on the Iron Age brooches found between the

 For example, in 2015: “Ten historical testimonies about our Dacian ancestors: They were barbarians, they thought they were immortal. Why they were called “the bravest and most righteous of the Thracians” https://adevarul.ro/locale/hunedoara/zece-marturii-istorice-desprestramosii-daci-erau-barbari-credeau-nemuritori-fost-numiti-cei-mai-viteji-mai-drepti-traci-1_ 55269cdc448e03c0fd6afb44/index.html (accessed 14 May 2022).

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Carpathians and the river Pruth. I declined and said that it would be much better if Mircea Babeş, the expert in that field, would contribute rather than myself, as I had virtually no idea of the context or the finds. Sanie’s answer was exactly the following: “No, this should be done by you, as a German you are naturally predisposed for this task”. He was not joking, I fear. As these examples show, biologistic thinking and the idea of a Dacian ancestry for modern Romanians remains pervasive. But why is this so? Since the 1990s, national myth criticism has been available in Romanian translations, including works by Eric Hobsbawm, Anthony D. Smith, and Paul Ricoer. In Romania there are also critical writers as Boia, Antohi, Dana, and many others. One explanation could be that the idea of Dacian ancestry for modern Romanians has already become part of the common cultural memory, or “kulturelles Gedächtnis” in the words of Jan Assmann (1992). According to Assmann and to Gehrke’s (2000) concept of “intentional history”, eliminating these metanarratives from cultural memory is nearly impossible. For the formation of cultural memory, which is essential to group identity (and certainly also for national and ethnic identity), it is not factual history, but the history remembered actively by a social group that is essential (Assmann 1992: 52). Even if denied by historians as fictitious or ‘intentional’, this history is an integral part of the mémoire collective of a community and is widely believed to be real and true (Gehrke 2000: 10). As the fundamental myth of group identity, such ‘intentional’ history, which does not necessarily correspond with historical research, is a common feature in many metanarratives of ethnic groups. This also seems to be true for the invocation of the ancient Dacians in any debate of Romanian identity. The idea of a direct lineage from the Dacians to modern Romanians seems to be a given fact in public opinion, which is largely detached from contemporary scholarly discussion by academics. Recent scholarly approaches are much more distanced from a nationalist interpretation of the ancient past, even though the mythological discourse is still subtly engrained in academic work. All that Reinhard Wenskus (1977), Sebastian Brather (2004), and Walter Pohl (2018) have shown concerning nation-building, ethnogenesis, and ethnic groups as “imagined communities”, in the terms of Benedict Anderson (1991), seems not to have impacted public perception. It appears that the narrative of the Dacians is part of a more holistic Romanian way of thinking about identity and culture, and thus of the proper mémoire collective, which is very resistant to scholarly attempts to dismantle nationalist thought in academic writing. In the terms of Assmann (1992: 78), this represents “hot memory” (inspired by Lévi-Strauss), since this part of the past is essential for actual strategies of social communities, “hot memory”, in fact “myth”, uses

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references to the past to define the image of a group, and to provide support for future hopes. The Communist indoctrination with its more vulgar ‘Dacomania’ certainly contributed to the Romanian mémoire collective, leaving its mark on older generations of Romanians in particular. Most crucially, however, is the unbroken and uncritical reception of the literature of the Interwar Period since the Revolution of 1989/90. During the Communist Period, this kind of writing survived in clandestine circles including Noica’s school at Păltiniș, or Vasile Lovinescu’s esoteric circles in Bucharest and Fălticeni. Beginning in the 1990s, we find books appearing like mushrooms after a summer rain. Aside from obscure and dubious publishing houses, which did not remain in business for very long, the most influential publishing house in Romania, Humanitas, owned by Gabriel Liiceanu, a follower of Noica, immediately published many of the long-forbidden works by the Young Generation (Eliade, Cioran, and especially Noica), which has had a long-lasting impact.16 On the book market today one can easily find apologetics for the Iron Guard, and indeed the hero worship of the intellectual elite such as Ionescu and his students Eliade, Noica, Cioran, and Vulcănescu seems to be requisite for today’s intellectual elite. Concerning the re-edition of far-right authors from the 1930s (such as Nae Ionescu), the case of Dan Zamfirescu and one particular publishing house is representative. In 1990, a new publishing house was founded (like many others in the spirit of the post-revolution freedom) with the name Roza Vînturilor (Compass Rose). The first book published was a new version of Nae Ionescu’s book, Roza Vînturilor from 1937, composed of nationalist and ethnocentric articles which were collected by his student Eliade. The reprint has a foreword by Zamfirescu (in Ionescu 1990: 5–6), who points out that the edition of this book at this moment, directly after the Revolution of 1989/90, is essential as “no other Romanian book needs so much to get known and appreciated as a vital element of national existence”. Zamfirescu belongs to the Romanian intellectual school of protochronism which believes that Romanians and Romanian culture (respectively the Dacians and the Thracians) provided the foundation for all cultures and civilizations in Europe and the world (Verdery 1994: 152–204). Zamfirescu, a full Professor of Theology at the University of Târgovişte since the 1990s, was the founder and director of the above-mentioned right-wing publishing house, which re-edited many books by extremist authors of the 1930s. He still presents

 It must be mentioned here that Humanitas has never published extremist literature linked to Romanian fascism. The publishing house and its staff, including the founding director, are commendable.

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his ideas in front of large audiences (often invited by the Romanian Academy), receiving the Ordinul Meritul Cultural, a very high order of merit of the Romanian Republic in 2004. This shows the continuing lack of intellectual and conceptual distance between public institutions and right-wing thought in Romania (cf. Schmitt 2021). Critical approaches to the Young Generation were also published in the 1990s, with scholars challenging their positions and judging them as partly responsible for the radicalization that occurred during the 1930s. This led to some repeatedly stating that the authors of these important critiques are so critical (too critical, in fact) because they were Jews (for example, the critical works by Volovici 1991; Ornea 2015, first edition from 1996).17

Conclusion One can therefore observe the omnipresent pillars of modern Romanian thought in the writings of the Romanian academic elite throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These pillars were recognizable in Blaga or Ionescu, or the writings of the Young Generation, by Cioran, Noica, and Eliade: enthusiastic philosophy, trairism with German roots (Nietzsche, Husserl, Klages, Heidegger), and Romanian Orthodoxy. The continental tradition of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger dominates in Romanian philosophy departments today (while in Western Europe and the United States the focus is now on analytic philosophy), with the addition of some Orthodox spirituality (Ianoși 1996; Petreu et al. 2004). In a historical perspective, this includes the continued imagining of a Dacian ancestry, as explained above. Assmann (1992) and Gehrke (2000) taught us that the deception of the collective memory of social or ethnic groups, by means of ‘intentional’ history or historical myth, can be essential for the identity of such groups and is not necessarily a bad thing. This is exactly what Constantin Noica preached throughout his life; Romania needed to develop a “national ontology” based on the Romanian culture and language, which offers a privileged relationship with spiritual values. In this context he proposed the concepts of “resistance through culture” and a “Romanian way of being” in order to establish particular characteristics of Romanian thought (Noica 1996; LaignelLavastine 1998: 49). The specific Romanian spirituality must therefore be the

 For further discussion of the ongoing prevalence of antisemitism in Romania, see Rubel 2021. In this article in German I covered similar subjects, but one will find more on antisemitism and especially actual Romanian philosophy in the context of the legacy of the Interwar Period, which had not been in the focus of the present chapter.

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core contribution of this small nation, “condemned to eternal minority”, within the large mosaic of European philosophy and thought (Noica 1991, 1996; cf. Cioran 1990; Vulcănescu 2005); the quotation belongs to the last interview with Noica, recorded by Laignel-Lavastine (1998: 52). It seems that the questions linked to identity and an imagined common ethnic past, represented by the myth of Dacian ancestry, are a vital part of the Romanian mémoire collective. They are essential to understanding the phenomenon described by Noica or Vulcănescu as the particularities of ‘being Romanian’, adopted with recourse to German speculative philosophy, Herder’s Volksgeist, and Orthodox spirituality. The question of whether this independent and peculiar mixture as represented in Romanian thought is a fruitful contribution to European intellectual history, or rather represents a potentially incendiary combination of ideas, must remain open. While studying the issues presented here, I became increasingly worried and disgusted by the incredible amount of nationalist and racist rubbish in Romanian pages on the internet. Unfortunately, most of the racist and nationalist bloggers, who go beyond any limits of common sense and decency, refer exactly to those intellectual titans of the Interwar Period whom I have presented above, namely Noica, Blaga, Vulcănescu, and Eliade. Thus, it may be that their role as spiritus rectores of a particular Romanian philosophy has to be seen more critically. While I have tried in this paper to be relatively neutral and descriptive in presenting the effects of a difficult legacy, it still needs to be evaluated in a more critical manner, perhaps cum ira et studio.

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Gheorghe Alexandru Niculescu

Why Nationalism Survives in Romanian Archaeology and What Could Limit its Impact Abstract: Nationalist representations persist in Romanian archaeology, even after the end of the Communist regime. This can be explained by the trust of the archaeologists in the capacity of their research tradition to preserve the quality of scientific work despite political pressure, as well as by the unchanged deference to political and scientific authority. After 1989, Romanian archaeologists have continued to focus more on the desires of the authorities, and on what might be gained from compliance, and less on constructing a scientific environment which could contribute to the construction and promotion of views that do not replicate political and public discourses. Reflexivity could help, but it is difficult to achieve in the adverse conditions created by enduring attitudes towards knowledge and by a static higher education system which does not provide means and incentives to analyse current political circumstances. Keywords: Authority; Reflexivity; Higher Education; Communism; Politics

Introduction Nationalist interpretations in archaeology have not gone away, despite the accumulation of well-argued critique (e.g. Arnold 1990; Dietler 1994; Kohl & Fawcett 1995; Díaz-Andreu & Champion 1996; Meskell 1998; Kohl et al. 2007). As was to be expected, there is a correlation between nationalism’s survival and the configuration of research traditions which persist in accommodating it.1 This  On the reception of social science research on ethnic phenomena in the work of two culturehistorical archaeologists, Florin Curta and Sebastian Brather, see Niculescu 2011: 10–22. Florin Curta has rejected my interpretations in a paper with defamatory intent (Curta 2014; see Niculescu 2016). Acknowledgements: I am very grateful to Emily Hanscam and to James Koranyi for organizing the workshop in Durham, for their helpful questions and comments, and for improving the English of my text. Gheorghe Alexandru Niculescu, The Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology, Romania https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-012

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correlation indicates that we have to examine how all research is affected by the social and political ecosystem in which it is produced. Such approaches have developed especially after the publication in 1962 of Thomas Kuhn’s famous book, in which he challenged the widespread opinion that scientists adopt new ways of thinking when these appear to be better than the old ones in dealing with the same data, and viewed the major changes in the disciplines as coming from the outside. Kuhn focused more on the workings of scientific communities, and less on what generates the dispositions of the scientists, on what makes them more or less likely to abandon what they understood as scientific in favour of new outlooks, on attitudes towards knowledge (van Fraassen 2002: 47–49), inculcated by social and educational circumstances long before the start of education in a scientific discipline.2 In such attitudes, which can sometimes become character traits, we can find epistemic virtues and vices (see overview in Battaly 2019). Their understanding should include the past preserved in institutions and practices (Bourdieu 1980). Highly autonomous traditions of scientific research are able to generate attitudes that oppose external ways of thinking which have not been subjected to an extensive and critical internal examination. Research traditions with reduced autonomy welcome novelties in research if they are perceived as authoritative and do not disturb the established ways of thinking, but resist internal attempts to change if they are not authoritatively supported from the outside. This happens especially where there is no explicit use of theory and the research tradition is constituted by values, mostly tacit, and procedures that cannot be evaluated. In such conditions, change makes as much sense as replacing an established bureaucratic practice with one that is not authorized. The two are incommensurable. If something is new and authoritative, but compels radical change, the reception, which can vary from strategic alterations to complete misunderstanding, takes care to preserve the necessary whilst keeping up the appearance of up to date research, as it happens with the research on ethnic phenomena and with the critique of nationalist interpretations.

 See also van Fraassen (2002: 194): “I placed all the weight of change on stance or attitude rather than on theory […] The crucial distinction lies in a certain attitude, in how we approach the world and relate to our own experience. We can theorize about that, of course, but having a theory about a stance is no substitute for having it, and rejecting it won’t consist in disbelieving a theory”.

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Before 1989 In the case of the Communist regime from Romania, which claimed to be guided by a ‘scientific ideology’, the intention to limit the autonomy of all disciplines— especially of those producing knowledge that could disagree with the politically assumed ideological views, like philosophy, the social sciences,3 history, and archaeology—is well known. The regime’s impact is particularly visible in the relationship between inquiry driven by curiosity, ascribed to the politically irrelevant amateur, and the inquiry driven by the desire to achieve positions of authority and social prestige awarded by political authorities, which carried duties and responsibilities, especially regarding the attitudes towards politically supported knowledge that had to be protected against uncontrollable curiosity. Those prestigious positions were associated with attitudes towards knowledge similar to those described by Zygmunt Bauman (1992: 686) in his analysis of the predicament of nationalist intellectuals: “The truth they preach must rely on something stronger than mere power of argument; it must be guaranteed before the argument has started, and independently of the course the future argument may take—that is, by forces reason can only discover and acknowledge, not conjure up or modify”. The truth is not the outcome of a knowledge process, but the starting point of all knowledge (Bauman 1992: 684). This made knowledge professionals focus on the authority of what was already known and left little interest for what might have been achieved using other ways of thinking. A duty to know replaced the pleasure of finding out, a duty commensurate with the rank of the position occupied by the knower. Many of those who obtained research and teaching positions seemed to acquire at the same time the necessary scientific knowledge; in some cases, even knowledge they openly despised before getting the positions. During the 1980s, pre- and protohistoric archaeological research in Romania was driven by the expressed need to gather information about as many finds as possible, information leading to their inclusion in typological and chronological frameworks. The big cemeteries, which facilitated the use of many closed assemblages—necessary for establishing a good relative chronology—were particularly interesting for the leading archaeologists. The real archaeological work was that accomplished during the excavations, during the erudite endeavour to know as many discoveries relevant for one’s area of specialization as possible, and by the collection of analogous artefacts. Some made enthusiastic

 In 1977, for example, the sociology and psychology departments of the universities were dissolved (Zamfir et al. 2010: 9–10).

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interpretations, others were sceptical, but most believed that the presentation of the finds, with as good analogies as possible, was much more important than their interpretation, which they tacitly accepted as something that could not be definitely proved or disproved. Reconstructions and interpretations were assessed “by evaluating the competence of the person who is proposing the reconstruction” (Binford 1968: 270, referring to Raymond Thompson’s opinion), and that competence was uniformly constructed by the three activities discussed above—the content of any particular interpretation was not relevant, and nor was anything unrelated to a good excavation record and proven mastery of the analogies. There was no theoretical discussion, indeed the very idea was repugnant.4 But methodological discussions were accepted. All that the best Romanian pre- and protohistoric archaeologists knew came from their education as disciples of Ion Nestor (1905–1974), who received his PhD in Marburg, in 1934, having Gero von Mehrhart as his Doktorvater. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the support of influential German archaeologists like Joachim Werner and Rolf Hachmann, Ion Nestor helped several promising archaeologists to get Humboldt scholarships. Having access to authoritative models of doing archaeology, these archaeologists promoted many good things, mainly regarding the accuracy of excavation and of its recording, but also the idea that what they did was the best archaeology imaginable and that other ways of thinking about archaeology were meaningless, if not worse. Ion Nestor was not so parochial. Besides his legendary extensive knowledge of artefacts and assemblages, which spanned from the Neolithic to the Medieval Period, he knew Ancient Greek and Latin and had an interest for the ideas about archaeology developing in the United States during the 1960s and early 1970s. My institute, the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology, has from Nestor’s library several important volumes published in those years, including Lewis Binford’s An archaeological perspective (1972). In his teaching at the University of Bucharest, Nestor promoted Binford’s definition of culture as “extra-somatic means of adaptation for the human organism” (Binford 1962: 218, the definition is borrowed from Leslie White 1959: 8); a definition incompatible with culture-

 See, e.g. Suceveanu 2008: 7: “[…] nowadays, the essential coordinates of our profession have appeared to be called into question by the so-called processualist fashion. Round tables are organized, with the participation of beginners, but also of older archaeologists in which, through their title (‘Whither archaeology?’), they sing the funeral litany for traditionalist archaeology. Fortunately, because of my specialization—classical Greco-Roman archeology, in which such innovations can hardly find their place—I have stayed away from the echoes of this fashion […]” (my translation). Alexandru Suceveanu was at the time head of the Comisiei Naţionale de Arheologie (National Archaeology Commission) and deputy director of my institute.

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historical archaeology, a theory which had no impact on how he continued to conceive archaeological research. During the 1980s such interests were almost absent. A major support for conservative strategies in local archaeological research practices in Romania at any given time was (and still is) the subordination of archaeology to history and the domination of narratives in the archaeological courses and seminars organized solely by the history departments. They usually presented authoritative syntheses of what was known and almost nothing about how knowledge was produced. In order to become a practicing archaeologist, one had to be accepted as an apprentice by an experienced archaeologist, with all learning done during excavations, and little or no time given for the presentation or evaluation of research practices. Backed by the authority of their masters, the experienced archaeologists appeared to be the discipline itself, with no alternatives, and the apprentices had to learn by observing and trying to replicate what they were doing, not by critical examination. Access to crucial analytical methodologies of the local archaeological tradition, like those of chronological determination and typological ascription, was granted by imitation, with no reference to publications. Anyway, there was almost nothing to be found about the common methods of analysis in Romanian archaeological publications and most international publications were not available in Romania during the Communist era. In these conditions, while archaeologists were able to detect political pressures on their interpretations and choose whether they wished to comply, they had no means to understand what was political in their research practices. Such as, for example, the presence of methodological nationalism in typological thinking,5 which imagines the world of artefacts as made of distinct families of shapes, akin to how methodological nationalism imagines humanity divided into distinct ‘nations’—archaeologists could defend themselves from partisan nationalism, but not from the paradigm that imagined the world as made up of ethnic cultures. Most archaeologists in Romania were members of the Communist Party and were expected to know and to implement party directives, but that did not happen as many of the current historians of those times believe, as a more or

 Herminio Martins (1974: 276), who appears to have invented the concept, remarks that “macro‑sociological work has largely submitted to national pre‑definitions of social realities: a kind of methodological nationalism—which does not necessarily go together with political nationalism on the part of the researcher—imposes itself in practice with the national community as the terminal unit and boundary condition for the demarcation of problems and phenomena for social science”. See also Wimmer & Glick Schiller 2002; Berger 2019.

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less reluctant cooperation imposed by fear. After getting their position at a university or in an institute, the researchers had options. They could engage in careers relying on the support of the authorities or choose research themes which made contact with them improbable. Political pressure on research was seen as something that could be avoided by paying the price of missing promotion opportunities and other advantages, like that of travelling abroad (for this the approval of the Party authorities was necessary, but not sufficient). It was possible to publish without any reference to Communist ideology and more than a few did this. But the invisibility of this ideology in their publications does not exclude other ways of cooperating. Among those who expected favours from the authorities were both very good and really bad archaeologists. A few compensated for their lack of scientific performance with a readiness to do what those in power expected from them, some were making what they thought were necessary compromises, a few words in the introductions or the conclusions, which they deemed without consequences on the quality of the research. Such practices of compliance recall the current unfortunate situation, in which researchers from all over the world, not just those working in the miserable conditions generated by authoritarian political regimes, choose to engage in “application poetry” in order to get the research funds they need (Niklasson 2016: 163–64). When I joined the Bucharest Institute of Archaeology in 1986, I found there an environment similar in its assessment of what was happening in Romania to that of the high school in which I taught from 1978 to 1986. Critiques of the Communist leadership, especially in jokes, were frequent, with little or no concern about who might hear them and report to the authorities, although we all knew that there were informants for the secret police among us. The current historiography of Communism in Romania misses the fact that it was not necessary to like the Communist regime. Actually, liking the regime made one look dangerous, even for the authorities.6 All that was required was to declare in some special circumstances that the regime was likable, not to actually believe that it was indeed so and to act according to this belief. A joke from those times illustrates the situation very well: two friends meet accidentally on a bus and one of them wants to know the opinion of the other about Nicolae

 Slavoj Žižek recalls the years when he was working for the Central Committee of the League of Slovene Communists: he “learned from life itself the basic idea of the cynical functioning of ideology: that in order to function ideology shouldn’t take itself too seriously. What shocked me was the extent to which not only the top party nomenclatura didn’t take their own official ideology seriously, but to what extent those who took it seriously were perceived as a threat. That is to say, it was a kind of positive condition not to take it seriously” (Žižek & Daly 2004: 35).

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Ceauşescu. After getting off the bus, where no sincere answer was possible, and after several attempts to find a place where no one could listen to what was said, they finally arrive in an open field, where the answer comes from the friend who felt now secure: “I like him”. One might understand from this that the terror was so great, that the truth could not be said in any circumstances, but there is another meaning of the joke: it was not advisable to say in public that you liked the dictator, because that would make people think there is something very wrong with you. The joke evokes the social schizophrenia described by Katherine Verdery (1996: 94): “You developed a public self that could sit at interminable meetings and read aloud the most arrant inanities (even while covertly signalling distance from these inanities as you read), and then at home or among close friends you revealed your “real” self—a self that was, of course, relentlessly critical of what “they” were doing”. But some kind of ‘real self’ was also necessary to be part of institutions like a high school or a research institute. This self was built on the need to keep representations closer to reality, especially in circumstances when the mutual cooperation needed to resolve practical matters could not function by pretending that what the authorities were claiming was true. The ability to avoid unnecessary compliance brought social capital and some spectacular instances were repeatedly narrated, thus consolidating the good reputation of some great names in Romanian archaeology. The coexistence of ideological with the trustworthy representations of the real in the minds and actions of archaeologists was predicated on their capacity to separate them, to make a clear distinction between ideological injunctions and the content of the archaeological discipline. This made archaeologists distrust anything that did not come from the authoritative sources of their training, done mostly by imitation in the field rather by lectures associated with readings, and to see political pressure in any kind of theory. That the discipline itself might contain ideological injunctions was unthinkable.

After 1989 In the new conditions generated after the demise of the Communist regime, this has led to a disciplinary status quo—one that has preserved the lack of interest for the study of what was outside the discipline—with, like before, various pressures being met mostly with practical responses. The status quo is well served by the prevalence of modernization theories in the representation of the state of the discipline of archaeology, and in the attempts to explain almost anything else that happens in Romania. The main idea is that we are on the

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same road as everybody else and we are doing the same things, only we are not yet as good as the West at it. Someday we will be, especially if we follow the prescriptions of those who guide us. The remarks made by Dipesh Chakrabarty (2008: 8) while commenting on Stuart Mill’s views on political emancipation are appropriate here: we live in “an imaginary waiting room of history” and we are “headed for the same destination” as our Western colleagues, but we are not yet there. The main explanation for the delayed development puts the blame on the others. Romanian society is not mature enough, but we (the intellectuals, the scientists, the artists, and, of course, the politicians) are, as we can learn from an article published in a Romanian sociology journal in 2001; the abstract tells us that while “the process of modernization in Romania has some peculiarities”, “modern changes have been gone [sic!] with an exquisite vigour a [sic!] in the field of spiritual life” (Otovescu 2001: 365). This idea has deep roots in Romanian society—the superiority of the educated takes the shape of intellectual racism in a famous discourse delivered by Vasile Pârvan at the opening of the Ancient History and Art History course at Cluj University, on 3 November 1919, in which he claims that universities cannot make “out of monkeys […] creators of new spirituals values” and sees them as being able only to “deanimalize” the common students and to offer technical means to the “geniuses”. The first should become “pavement stones for the construction of the new road towards the upper spheres” (Pârvan 1920: 13, 21). Pârvan is unanimously acclaimed as one of the founders of Romanian archaeology and also as a trail blazing thinker in matters of higher education. Because of that, he has received a lot of attention, especially before 1945 and after 1970. In the little I have read about his work, I was able to find comments on his appalling views about higher education only in a paper published in a weekly cultural magazine by Adrian Papahagi (2013), who teaches at the same Cluj University. He quotes extensively and approvingly from Pârvan’s speech, omitting the “pavement stones”. Research on nationalism has not paid enough attention to what hides beyond the appearances of fraternity and solidarity it promotes: the cleft between the national elites and those who must be educated by them in order to be human. The superiority asserted in Romania by politicians and intellectuals relies, to a significant extent, on their claimed intellectual mobility and superior knowledge about what is happening outside of Romania; Pârvan himself grounded his views of higher education on what he knew about Western universities. The current migratory phenomenon can put this to test. Working-age migrants exceed 2.65 million, that is c. 20.6% of the Romanian working population (Dospinescu & Russo 2018: 4), and many of them are highly educated (40% of all Romanian citizens with higher education now live abroad, according to Romania Insider

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2019). One could expect depleted universities and research institutes, but in the institutions I know—my institute and the Department of History at the University of Bucharest—this is not happening: during the last thirty years, out of a combined total of perhaps more than 200 teaching staff and researchers working at these institutions after 1989, only two researchers from my institute have emigrated and no one from the history department. This contrasts with the high number of young people studying abroad (33,400 according to Dospinescu & Russo 2018: 12). No returning student was offered a research position at my institute, and the Ancient History and Archaeology Chair from the history department has offered only one minor position to someone who was not able to get her PhD abroad. I do not know how many have planned to return and to find positions in higher education or research. Probably, some of them have not even tried, because they were aware of the local selecting system, which is one of cooptation, despite the elaborate regulations of the competitions. There is an average number of one person applying for each position offered at my institute and at the university, the competition being in fact a ceremony officializing the choice made by those with positions allowing them to make such decisions. Modernization ideas make the continuities with the Communist past less visible. Many agree that we have entered a period of transition from Communism, irreversibly bankrupt, to Capitalism, undeniably the better system, something that recalls the discourse of the Communist authorities, which celebrated the present as the apex of an evolution made in stages, the more recent ones being thought to be superior to what they replaced. Early critiques of such representations, like those of David Stark (1990) or Katherine Verdery (1996), which emphasized the survival after 1989 of social configurations that thrived under Communism, had little impact, although they were confirmed by comprehensive analyses, like that of Iván Szelényi and his collaborators (Szelényi & Szelényi 1995), who conducted a large-scale investigation in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia in order to study the elite composition in post-Communist East-Central Europe, with the conclusion that the Communist nomenklatura was the main winner of the 1989 transformations. Romania was not included in the study, but the pre-1989 activities of Romania’s current political and entrepreneurial elites support the idea that the same happened here. There is a great temptation to adopt the dominant representations of reality, which emphasize the idea of a clean break with the Communist system. These representations tell us that, in Romania, a Communist dictatorship ruled until 1989 when it was overthrown by a popular revolution and replaced with a Democratic regime. There are, indeed, some major changes: the privatization of the economy, the replacement of the political monopoly of the Communist Party

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with political pluralism, and the possibility to travel abroad. Some other changes are less important, but they are meant to emphasize discontinuity: for instance, the changes in the orthography of Romanian adopted by the Romanian Academy or the complete collapse of the local kind of Marxist ideology, rapidly replaced with authoritative worldviews claiming to be Christian Orthodox, useful mainly for attempts to replace the Communist Party with the church as the main ideological authority. A comparison suggests how comprehensive the continuities might be. There is a spectacular contrast between what happened after the Second World War in Germany, and what happened in Romania and in other former Communist countries from East-Central Europe after 1989. In Germany, the de-Nazification process was made of all sorts of complex investigations and severe measures, with debatable results, but which went so far as to examine the alleged Nazi proclivities of Wilhelm Furtwängler, the famous conductor, or generate the unending examination of Martin Heidegger’s collaboration with the totalitarian regime and its influences on his work. Among such investigations, the collaboration of the archaeologists was, and still is, a productive field of research (e.g. Arnold 1990; Hassmann 2000; Veit 2011). Nothing similar occurred after the fall of the Communist regimes, although they lasted much longer than the nationalsocialist one. In Romania, if one believes the official representation of the Communist past, the Communists were a small group led by the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, supported by the dreaded secret police. Recently, another sinister group was added to them: the ‘torturers’, commanders of Communist prisons charged when they were in their late eighties for torturing political prisoners (although only two such criminals were actually jailed). This is a massive misrepresentation of the recent past, which ignores how people made their lives meaningful under the Communist dictatorship, reducing its consequences to political repression exercised by a few and to low living standards. The extent to which our current politicians intend to control the representations of the Communist past is indicated by the creation in 2005 of the Institutul de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului și Memoria Exilului Românesc (Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism and the Memory of Exiled Romanians). This institution is not part of a university, nor is it an institute of the Romanian Academy like my institute: the president, the vice-president, and the seventeen members of the scientific council are appointed by the Prime Minister. Political control has resulted in frequent changes to its leadership, closely reflecting the changes in political power. Of course, the survival and transformation of the groups and networks which had dominant positions before 1989 are not among the research goals of this institute.

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The continuity of academic life after 1989 was almost perfect. In the history department of the University of Bucharest only the few people directly involved in the support of Communist propaganda had to leave. At my institute, only two people lost their jobs. They were not archaeologists and had recently joined the institute as a consequence of an intervention of high-ranking Communist officials. Otherwise, the Communist past was condemned in a meeting and that was it. The fact that almost all the researchers were members of the Communist Party did not receive any analytical attention; there was no discussion about the damage done by forty-five years of political intervention in the discipline, nor about the changes that might be needed going forward. It is instructive to look at the main area exposed to political pressure: that of the determination of ethnic identity in the archaeological record. The official narrative of the origins of the Romanian people was very important for the Communist authorities and it had to rely on archaeological knowledge. One of the main ingredients was the continuity of the same local ethnic entity (the ‘GetoDacians’), viewed as participating, together with the Romans, in the ethnogenesis of the Romanians. Archaeologists had to choose between interpretations made to accommodate the official narrative, or exposing its problems, for instance, the absence of ‘Geto-Dacian’ settlements and burials in the eastern part of Wallachia during the second and third centuries CE, or the absence of cemeteries dated to the fourth century CE in Wallachia and Moldavia that could be ascribed to the descendants of the ‘Geto-Dacians’. All such interpretations were made within the same paradigm: that of culture-historical archaeology. It is true that this paradigm is constructed upon a belief that every ethnic entity has a characteristic culture, eventually visible in the archaeological record, and that this belief makes it a flawed paradigm. But following its assumptions could mean that where no ‘cultures’ ascribable to the ‘autochthonous’ population could be showed to exist, the official narrative about the origins of the Romanians could be doubted. Certainly, there were direct demands addressed to the archaeologists regarding such issues, some public and some personal, but a significant part of the work of supporting the official narrative relied on the creativity of the archaeologists and their capacity to imagine solutions or alternative explanations. That is why there was some debate and diversity within the framework created by the idea that national origins could be documented by archaeological research. One spectacular moment was the ‘History of the Romanians’, a project of the Romanian Academy from the 1970s, meant to offer an authoritative version of our national history. In the context of a withdrawal of support, offered in the late 1960s, and of increased critique of the Communist regime, coming from several Western Democracies, some leaders of the Communist Party thought about reviving an old narrative which

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implicitly asserted our independence from the West and reduce the participation of the Romans in the ethnogenesis of the Romanians to a minimum.7 This view gained support from some archaeologists, but the Bucharest Institute of Archaeology and the big names who were among its researchers opposed it, and, relying on the support of other party officials, who did not want to change the existing narrative, determined the abandonment of the project. A new version of the ‘History of the Romanians’, planned by the Romanian Academy in the late 1990s, was based, to a significant extent, on writings prepared for the aborted attempt from the 1970s. It preserved the important role of the Romans in the ethnogenetic process, and my institute fully participated in publication of the first three volumes.8 Like its predecessors—Istoria României (The History of Romania), four volumes published between 1960 and 1964, and the project aborted in 1979 (Babeş 1990: 21)—Istoria Românilor (The History of the Romanians), published starting in 2001, was an answer to a political demand. The context was a fierce debate, which took place in 1999 and 2000 in the Romanian Parliament and the media (Pavel 2000; Pârâianu 2001; 2005), generated by the decision of the government to introduce alternative history textbooks for secondary education, meant to replace the unique and mandatory set which was used during Communist times. Istoria Românilor was a missed opportunity for historians and archaeologists to present radically different views of the relevance of their disciplines for the reconstruction of the national past and to replace dogmatic accounts with critical overviews. Better ways of looking at national history were available, promoted by well-known historians like Lucian Boia (e.g. 1997, English translation in 2001) or Zoe Petre (e.g. 2004), but with little support from their colleagues. An inventory of the changes that appeared after 1989 suggests important transformations: gradually theory stopped being an ugly word and research

 For a sympathetic overview of the nineteenth-century origins of this narrative, written during the revival of the Dacian ancestry myth, see Babu-Buznea 1979. For the post-Communist trajectory of Thracomania, now also known as Dacopathy (see Alexe 2015: 49–123), see Grancea 2007. Some of the few critiques of nationalism in Romanian archaeology focus on the rejection of the Dacian myth and preserve the nationalist Daco-Roman genealogy of Romanians. See e.g. Babeş 1990; Mihăilescu-Bîrliba 1997. For a balanced account, see Hanscam 2019: 5–6.  For an analysis of how the archaeologists involved in the project carried out their task of presenting the national genealogy of the Romanians once more, see Niculescu 2005. One significant detail about the preparation of one of those volumes: a researcher from my institute, who was involved because of his uncontested mastery of one of the crucial periods, prepared a text that was rejected by the main editor of the volume who wrote to him about this: “You are an excellent archaeologist, but you do not know how to write national history”. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to reveal his name and that of the editor.

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themes were imported from the West which were incompatible with local traditions. And so, we have now, after almost thirty years, gender archaeology, examinations of the local history of archaeological thinking, and critical assessments of our research practices and of the presence of the political in them. But the number of archaeologists who have dedicated a significant part of their work to such themes is small and their results have little influence on what their colleagues do. As Emily Hanscam wrote in a comment to a previous version of this paper, “in Romania, culture-history isn’t an idea (or a theory), it is simply how archaeology works”. The most important novelty is the widespread interest in what physics, chemistry, and molecular biology could bring to archaeological research. XRF spectroscopy and other kinds of elemental analysis, stable isotope analysis, and ethnic determination using genetic information are the most popular. The conditions for this interest were ripe during the 1980s, when the use of computers in archaeology was already a possibility. In a discipline lacking in self-confidence because of its subordination to history, with no theoretical background that could help to establish its place among the sciences—and with nothing to temperate the common fascination with the precision of scientific results—the idea that we can only solve our problems by doing something beyond our current capabilities was common and the prospects of quantitative or even automatic typology were enticing. The collaboration with physicists, chemists, and geneticists is very difficult for most local archaeologists, who have no training in statistics and are unable to understand the basics of what the scientists are doing, let alone to assess the quality of their analytical work. But comprehensive knowledge is not required in many such collaborations. Archaeologists do not have to reformulate their problems; it is enough to offer what they know about the artefacts and their contexts to the scientists, who will take it from there. To little effort come great rewards: archaeological work is raised to scientific status and collective publications reach mainstream journals which have impact factors no archaeological journal could dream to have. In this way, local archaeologists have access to interdisciplinarity—a required ingredient for evaluation commissions both in Romania and abroad. Although one might expect conflicts between different kinds of thinking, for instance, one between the reliance of archaeologists on typological thinking and its rejection by biologists, they do not happen, for reasons that deserve to be explored. Thus, the most recent scientific devices are coupled with nineteenth century representations of the social, shared by archaeologists and their collaborators, among whom there are no social scientists. To expect a change in how politics is allowed to influence archaeological research from such interdisciplinary practices is pointless. As they currently stand, these

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interdisciplinary practices confirm the subaltern status of the archaeologists and do not enable them to form critical opinions. Of course, the means used by political interference changed after 1989. What was perceived as imposed during the Communist period is now accepted as natural or even appealing. This is currently happening, for example, with the widespread use of “elites” and “communities” (e.g. Rustoiu & Berecki 2014), framing the analysis and thereby resulting in the universalization of the local present. Perhaps the most telling is the survival of the authorized heritage discourse (Smith 2006: 29–34), in all that I read from what archaeologists from Romania write about archaeological heritage. Despite their claimed knowledge about Western ways of doing archaeology, despite regular contacts with Western colleagues, nothing indicates hope for the development of the critical attitudes towards the past that are key to much of Western archaeology. Archaeologists from Romania persist in embracing the traditional role of nationalist intellectuals, planning to guide the imaginary ‘ignorant’ public towards values that they should cherish (Niculescu 2019).

A Reflexive Framework for Change Imagining a better future for archaeology in Romania could be grounded in a collective reflexive analysis, a comprehensive examination of our scientific goals and scientific practices, considering both their genealogies and their connections with what is outside the research tradition in which we work. In research traditions with little or no theoretical pursuits, such as that dominating archaeology in Romania, it is particularly important to understand the tacit knowledge that shapes research. This kind of analysis can offer us “a small chance of knowing what game we play and of minimizing the ways in which we are manipulated by the forces of the field in which we evolve, as well as by the embodied social forces that operate from within us” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992: 198). This might also help us separate those areas in which our action could be effective from those in which we cannot bring substantial change (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992: 49). We must accept that “the progress of knowledge presupposes progress in our knowledge of the conditions of knowledge” (Bourdieu 1990: 1), and that scientific knowledge is as good as the conditions of its production (Bourdieu 1975). This kind of reflexivity is not supported by the local research traditions, dominated as they are by representations of personal intellectual autonomy, by the cultivation of scientific impersonality, and by hierarchical authoritative

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discourses. But now we have a better chance to develop some peripheral wisdom (Fernandez 2000); more things are debatable in the conditions generated by the diminished stability and importance of the German and French research traditions, which have functioned in Romania as immutable references and models throughout the twentieth century. Under the growing influence of the British and US research traditions, with their emphasis on the importance of theory, more than a few archaeologists admit that our ways must be examined and that how we do research should be a matter of informed choice—one that relies on comparison and evaluation, not on reproducing authoritative models (e.g. Anghelinu 2003; Palincaş 2006; Dragoman & Oanţă-Marghitu 2013). We should start with assessing the impact of our limitations. During the Communist times, archaeologists and historians were not supposed to examine current social and political circumstances. Therefore, their training did not include the theoretical and methodological tools necessary to do that, tools which are also useful for investigating the impact of those circumstances on their work. Of course, most researchers had opinions on what was happening and, contrary to what current historians imagine about those times, were not afraid to share them with friends and colleagues. They also had direct experience with the different levels of the Communist administration and reliable knowledge about the behaviour of those in charge, knowledge critical for developing career possibilities. But this was personal knowledge, and was not transformable into an ethnography of Communist domination. Very little information about such dealings with the authorities was published after 1989.9 The few who try now to achieve a decent understanding of what is happening within Romanian archaeology are confronted with the same lack of training as before 1989. They must rely on personal experience, on reading what archaeologists from other traditions of research have published about the political environments of the discipline, and on the work produced by some social scientists, philosophers, and political scientists who work outside Romania. Most local researchers who are active in those fields are reluctant to engage in what might endanger their positions and cultivate compliance by focusing on trendy and innocuous themes or on historical approaches which stop with the end of the Communist regime.

 For an examination of the circumstances in which some of the best Romanian archaeologists were able to participate in international congresses and conferences, see Babeş (2007), who explains the participations in terms of state interests and by the quality of the archaeologists involved, never engaging in an exploration of how this conjunction came about in particular cases, of what the negociations and mutual engagements looked like, or of how such participations can be situated in the local careers of the archaeologists.

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Probably the main obstacle continues to be the derivation of knowledge from authority sources, such as official representations and more or less imagined Western scientific knowledge. The prevailing opinion is that we should avoid criticizing such sources and keep doing what is accessible to us. This might look like epistemic humility, but it is something quite different. Together with the deference towards the authoritative sources of knowledge comes a reliance on personal abilities to recognize which authority source is best. These abilities cannot be taught. They are a gift. And we must be proud of them and assert our superiority, which makes local cooperation meaningless. This belief is reinforced by the common routes of gaining funding for archaeological projects. As prospective beneficiaries of funds offered by various agencies, we are encouraged to focus on estimating what is expected from us and to avoid exposing ways of thinking that could contradict this. The reality of the funding invalidates any argument. An archaeologist might think that 3,000,000 euros are wasted on a particular project, but that is not just useless, it is also ridiculous. Researchers tend to ignore critiques from less fortunate colleagues, becoming productive and predictable clerks with managerial skills and the boastful self-confidence of a businessperson. When so many archaeologists in Romania have access to funding after being evaluated by Western colleagues, how can one think something is wrong with the local way of doing archaeology? In such conditions, reflexivity can be perceived as an unauthorized attempt to interrupt productive routines. Of course, at least some of the funding agencies could encourage reflexivity, but this is not happening and too many international projects tend to preserve the old division of labour between the West and the Rest: theory and creative work are expected from the West, routine work from the Rest, imagined as inhabited mostly by idiots who might be useful by offering what they know to projects they do not understand.

The Politics of What We Know One important domain to which reflexive analysis should be applied is political interference. There is no point in opposing the Communist past, with its political pressures, to a present in which similar pressures are missing. Lack of interest for politics does not make our research immune to the incorporation of political goals and ways of thinking. We must remember that archaeology as a discipline is inherently political. If we think we are separated from politics, despite participating in institutional systems which were founded for the purpose of telling people what to think and what to do, we are particularly useful for the

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kinds of politics we ignore.10 The opposite, the desire to be politically active as archaeologists, can lead to the same result; as Andrew Abbott (2018: 171) remarked about a similar situation in sociology: both parties “treat normative activity as purely political”. This invites researchers to misestimate to what extent political ideologies shape perceived reality. There is no doubt that knowledge about the current political field is necessary for archaeologists and that political involvement is important for any human being. But, as archaeologists, we should make a distinction between what we wish and what we know, we should acknowledge the conditions in which our research gets support from political authorities and be ready to confront them with our disciplinary views when they engage in uses of the past which involve representations that are not supported by our discipline. We should offer politicians what we expect our friends to offer us: what they believe to be true and the reasons for which they do that. We must avoid imagining the past from current perspectives that are constructed without our participation as researchers. Credibility, authority, coherence,11 and utility are common criteria for determining what is reliable and useful knowledge in political and public discourse, but these criteria should be disabled inside scientific research traditions. A good test for separating the ideological from the scientific is the investigation of the concepts which frame our research problems. If they are those used in politics, we have good reasons to suspect that our research problems are ideology driven.

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 See Bourdieu (1998: 17), on those who “manipulate even more effectively the more they are themselves manipulated and the more unconscious they are of this”.  See Geertz (1973: 18): “Here is nothing so coherent as a paranoid’s delusion or a swindler’s story”.

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Rustoiu, A. & S. Berecki. 2014. Celtic elites and craftsmen: Mobility and technological transfer during the Late Iron Age in the Eastern and South-Eastern Carpathian basin, in S. Berecki (ed.) Iron Age crafts and craftsmen in the Carpathian Basin: 249–86. Cluj-Napoca: Editura Mega. Smith, L. 2006. Uses of heritage. London: Routledge. Stark, D. 1990. Privatization in Hungary: From plan to market or from plan to clan? East European Politics and Societies 4(3): 351–92. Suceveanu, A. 2008. Cuvânt înainte, in M. Angelescu & F. Vasilescu (ed.) Cronica cercetărilor arheologice din România. Campania 2007: 5–7. Bucharest: CIMEC. Szelényi, I. & S. Szelényi. 1995. Circulation or reproduction of elites during the postcommunist transformation of Eastern Europe. Introduction. Theory & Society 24(5): 615–38. van Fraassen, B.C. 2002. The empirical stance. New Haven: Yale University Press. Verdery, K. 1996. A transition from socialism to feudalism? Thoughts on the postsocialist state, in K. Verdery, What was socialism and what comes next?: 204–28. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Veit, U. 2011. Vom schwierigen Umgang mit der Vorgeschichtsforschung im Dritten Reich. Gedanken anlässlich der Publikation zur Bremer Ausstellung “Graben für Germanien. Archäologie unterm Hakenkreuz”. Ethnographisch-Archäologische Zeitschrift 52(2): 266–79. White, L. 1959. The evolution of culture. New York: McGraw-Hill. Wimmer, A. & N. Glick Schiller. 2002. Methodological nationalism and the study of migration. European Journal of Sociology 43(2): 217–40. doi:10.1017/S000397560200108X Zamfir, C., S. Stănescu, S. Ilie, F. Mihalache & I. Filipescu. 2010. Şapte faze de istorie socială turbulentă a sociologiei româneşti. Sociologie românească 8(1): 3–16. Žižek, S. & G. Daly. 2004. Conversations with Žižek. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Emily Hanscam

Archaeology and the Challenge of Continuity: East-Central Europe during the Age of Migrations Abstract: Since the late nineteenth century, archaeological research on the ancient past in East-Central Europe has been impacted by the hunt for peoples assumed to be the one true ancestral population, continuously occupying the territory of the modern nation-state. In Romania, we see this with a myth of origin founded on the idea of firstly Roman, then Dacian, and finally DacoRoman continuity, arguing that modern Romanians are directly descended from a population known from Antiquity. In Bulgaria and Hungary, we see myths of origin linked to the Bulgars and Magyars, respectively, deriving a national identity from the peoples who entered the region in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period. These myths and the study of the past form a symbiotic relationship, creating and sustaining each other. This chapter focuses on Romania to illustrate how a regionally diverse past has been co-opted into a narrative supporting one nation’s myth of origin. Using the same archaeological evidence from the region of modern Romania, I consider how we might construct archaeological narratives that give a similar sense of ‘deep’ belonging without supporting narratives of mythical autochthonous continuity. Keywords: Continuity; Nationalism; Romania; Archaeology; Age of Migrations; Culture-History; Myths of Origin

Introduction The ancient past is political, as made apparent by the contributors to this volume. The political nature of the past is especially visible in contested Acknowledgements: My thanks to the contributors in this volume, the participants in the original workshop at Durham in 2019 for inspiring discussions, and to Dani Hofmann for her helpful review. This chapter has also benefited from conversations with James Koranyi, Rob Witcher, Richard Hingley, and Cornelius Holtorf as well as the members of the Aesthetics of Empire research cluster within LNU Concurrences. My thanks also to Christina Unwin, Brian Buchanan, and Michael Ng for their help with the figures. Emily Hanscam, Linnaeus University, Sweden https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-013

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space like East-Central Europe, where ideas about the continuity of peoples continue to impact identity formation processes today, supported in some cases by the materiality of the past. This sort of relationship between the modern nation-state and the ancient past is endemic globally, deserving of our continued attention. As discussed in the introduction to this volume, archaeology and nationalism have a long and well-studied relationship (see e.g. Dietler 1994; Díaz-Andreu & Champion 1996; Meskell 2002; Hamilakis 2007; Kohl et al. 2007). Despite this body of work, the presence of methodological nationalism, or the assumption that the nation is ‘natural’, remains pervasive in narratives about the past.1 This is not an easy problem to solve, given that archaeology as an academic discipline was founded in the late nineteenth century to provide material evidence for national narratives; it is therefore unsurprising that in many ways archaeology continues to create and sustain the nation today. Given this, what choices do we have? Niculescu poses this query to all scholars of the past, Rubel likewise provides a detailed analysis of Interwar Dacomania in Romania that begs a similar question. Ostrowski demonstrates that a comparable phenomenon took place in Communist Bulgaria, while Kremmler and Harlov-Csortán (all this volume) highlight conflicting roles for the Roman and Magyar pasts in Hungary. Here, I use the existing archaeological evidence from East-Central Europe, focusing on the region of modern Romania, to illustrate how the ‘Age of Migrations’ (c. 300–1000 CE) could provide evidence for a diverse and inclusive past. This is contrary to previous interpretations that have focused on proving the survival of an autochthonous population during a period that featured a considerable movement of peoples. By focusing on continuity of place, rather than people, we can potentially construct archaeological narratives that give a similar sense of ‘deep’ belonging without supporting narratives of mythical autochthonous continuity. As Lekan (2004) argues, continuous landscape use does not automatically (if ever) equate to an eternal primordial unchanging rural landscape, rather, it highlights how different peoples have repeatedly been drawn to landscapes. Rather than view the Age of Migrations in terms of a problem of tracing the survival of ancestors of modern nation-states, or through the lens of a narrative about (Roman) civilization versus the invading barbarians, we can look beyond these dualist perspectives and deliberately try to disentangle national narratives from the existing evidence. Although the archaeological evidence from the Age

 For methodological nationalism, see Wimmer & Glick Schiller 2002: 304. For recent work about the ongoing problem of methodological nationalism in the study and interpretation of the past, see Vasilev 2019. For archaeology specifically, see Barclay & Brophy 2021; Plets et al. 2021.

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of Migrations is limited for reasons I will discuss below, it does suggest several themes: an engagement with the Roman-period landscape, created by settling around former Roman towns like Potaissa, organizing communities around Roman roads, or building earthworks to demarcate territory, as well as the occupation of key natural resources. The evidence also suggests some integrating and coexisting between peoples. These themes are not exhaustive; rather they help provide a much-needed framework for understanding the Age of Migrations without continuing to sustain the cultural-historical paradigm. This chapter discusses the numerous occupations concentrated around the salt resources in Transylvania, the long-term use of the infrastructure of the Roman, and later Byzantine, Lower Danube frontier, and that of Roman Dacia. I first present an overview of the Age of Migrations, as currently understood, while critiquing the pervasive dualist themes of civilization versus barbarism, before considering the role of the migratory peoples within Romanian archaeology and the archaeological evidence for those peoples. Finally, I present the potential for a very different understanding of a landscape of continuous migration like East-Central Europe, arguing that we need to move beyond strict definitions of ‘migrant’ versus ‘local/autochthonous’, which perpetuate uncritical views of western civilization and inhibit our ability to construct narratives about the past beyond the limits of nationalist thought.2

Understanding the ‘Age of Migrations’ During the period known as the Age of Migrations, lasting from c. 300–1000 CE, peoples from the Eastern Steppe like the Gepids, Avars, Magyars, and Bulgars migrated west and encountered the remnants of the Roman Empire.3 Bridging Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period, scholarship has tended to focus on the Roman side of the story, blaming these so-called ‘barbarians’ for the

 I am aware that western civilization is commonly capitalized, however, I believe this contributes to its continued power over discourse, and as such, I choose to keep it in lowercase. I choose to keep indigenous in lowercase in this instance as the capitalized use of Indigenous is given to peoples who are “descendants of those who were there before others who now constitute the mainstream and dominant society”, see www.survivalinternational. org/info/terminology.  It is important to emphasize that ethnic labels like ‘Slav’ or ‘Dacian’ are problematic; this chapter largely retains them in order to provide some clarity whilst critiquing their use (see e.g. James 1998).

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decline and fall of the Empire (Curta 2005b). The territory of modern Romania was host to many crucial encounters during this period, which are still better understood from classical sources like Jordanes’ Getica than from archaeological research. In spite of this lack of research, the Age of Migrations is central to the Romanian national narrative, which focuses on the many depopulations and repopulations of the territory of modern Romania. The narrative employs these grey areas of the past to promote a modern Romanian identity based on the myth of a continuously surviving ‘Romanized’ (civilized) population of the indigenous Iron Age Dacians; this is known as the myth of Daco-Roman continuity. By examining the presence of these peoples in East-Central European historiography, we can better understand the relationship between these migratory peoples and the Romanian national narrative. We can see contemporary attitudes toward migration and belonging reflected in the research (or lack thereof) on these migratory peoples and those understood as ‘indigenous’; the dualist nature of this scholarship supports and sustains a problematic Westerncentric view. East-Central Europe, and in particular the territory of modern Romania, has frequently hosted the movement of populations due in no small part to the geography of the Carpathian Basin, the Carpathian Gap, the Lower Danube, and the Black Sea (Fig. 1). The geography acts as a funnel for peoples moving westwards from what Cunliffe (2008: 181) terms “the Steppe Zone” of modern Ukraine and Russia. The scale and frequency of migrations are best documented from the fourth century CE onwards, and the numbers of migrations likewise may have increased significantly. Unlike the Romans who invaded these lands in the first and second century CE, the populations entering from the fourth century to the eleventh century are not understood as civilizing influences—Romanian historiography from the mid to late twentieth century in particular refers to these centuries as years of moral decline, of darkness, and struggle (see e.g. Giurescu 1981; Protase 2001). The Communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu even claimed in the 1980s that the ‘Great Migrations’ were responsible for Romania’s inferior position compared to the West (Curta 2001b: 374; cf. Verdery 1991). The idea was that the autochthonous ‘Daco-Romans’ had to hide from these invading barbarians—they somehow not only managed to do this, but survived with their cultural and ethnic identity intact (e.g. Spinei 2009: 20).

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Fig. 1: Geographic map of East-Central Europe, E. Hanscam.

In many respects, this is a story about the absence of the Romans; the Roman province of Dacia was abandoned in the third century CE, which is also the historical moment from which scholars—including some of the earliest antiquarians from the Enlightenment—start their hunt for the surviving RomanoDacian population from Dacia (Fig. 2). This is ironic because there is a late Roman and then Byzantine population living in the provinces south of the Danube for centuries after the Roman province of Dacia fell (see Fig. 3). It is curious that Romanian historiography never developed an argument that the Daco-Romans survived by integrating with the other Roman populations in Dobrogea which were present into the Early Medieval Period.4 Throughout this chapter, the referenced literature on the so-called migrating barbarians has the implicit (if not explicit) objective to identify arguments for the survival of this

 Furthermore, in 1878 when Romania was granted Northern Dobrogea by the European Congress in Berlin, Romanian political elites at first rejected its annexation on the grounds that it would interrupt the “homogeneity of Romania’s Latinity” (Iordachi 2002: 13). This was likely because Dobrogea, as a frontier region on the borders of the Ottoman Empire, was in the nineteenth century a microcosm of the demographic diversity of empire.

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homogeneous Latin population, the Daco-Romans.5 I point out this preoccupation of scholars with tracing the survival of the Daco-Roman population, highlighting the fact that, even despite the lack of archaeological research on the migrating peoples, there is still far more archaeological evidence that is understood as belonging to the migratory populations in the territory of modern Romania, than there is for a surviving ‘indigenous’ Daco-Roman population that remained unchanged.

Fig. 2: Map of the provinces of the Roman Empire with modern Romania highlighted, C. Unwin.

During the centuries of the Age of Migrations, the region of modern Romania acts as the bridge between the Steppe Zone and the world of the waning Roman Empire with its successor states and kingdoms; numerous peoples—known as the Goths, Gepids, Huns, Slavs, Avars, Cumans, Magyars, Pechenegs, and Bulgars— engage with this territory and the Roman frontier that ran through it.6 Scholars

 These lines of reasoning appear most frequently in studies of the late nineteenth to late twentieth centuries (see e.g. Constantinescu et al. 1975), however, the old arguments for the Daco-Roman survival also exist in some recent works (see. e.g. Spinei 2009).  I am not including the invasion of the Mongol Golden Horde in the thirteenth century because this invasion lasted only a year (Spinei 2009: 442).

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Fig. 3: Map of key Iron Age, Roman, and Early Medieval sites discussed in this chapter, E. Hanscam.

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have consistently tried to assign the material cultural assemblages of the migratory peoples to particular ethnic groups, an approach known as ‘cultural-historical’ archaeology which was popular in European archaeology throughout the early-mid twentieth century. This approach has been heavily criticized, in part because of how easily it can support nationalist ideas of ethnicity (Trigger 2007: 261). Generally speaking, although some aspects are currently retained in contemporary archaeological theory and practice (e.g. artefact typologies), it is widely recognized that material culture does not constitute ethnic identity, but contributes to identity as a social process. Many of the archaeologists who have studied the Age of Migrations in Romania throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have uncritically applied cultural-historical theory, aiming to link sets of material assemblages with ethnic groups known from historical sources (Curta 2013: 158).7 This is a key part of the on-going support for the Romanian national narrative within archaeological discourse, as these peoples are portrayed in opposition to the indigenous/autochthonous Daco-Romans. There is some debate over when the Daco-Romans complete their transition into Romanians; Hitchens (2014: 19) states that “Romanian scholars, in general, accept AD 1000 as the date roughly marking the emergence of the Romanian ethnic community, a combination of Roman or Romanized, Slavic, and Dacian populations”. I do not agree with his assessment of Romanian scholarship in this instance, as 1000 CE feels like an arbitrary number and does not correspond well with the Romanian myths of origin, which are all focused on the Classical Period. In my experience, the Romanian historians and archaeologists who produced scholarship concentrating on the Roman, Dacian, or Daco-Roman myths of origin, use the term ‘Romanian’ indiscriminately (see e.g. Tocilescu 1877; Pârvan 1926; Berciu 1967; Haşdeu 1984; Pop & Bolovan 2006). It may be inferred, however, that the strength of the Daco-Roman myth of origin is supposed to sustain the ethnic continuity across the centuries from the Classical Period to the end of the Early Medieval Period, which medieval historians argue occurs in 1000 CE (see e.g. Georgescu 1991: 1–13).8 I also do not believe that these sharp delineations between periods are necessarily helpful—it is beyond the scope of this chapter to engage in this critique, which is growing within archaeology, but suffice it to say here that we ought to consider how conceiving of a past that is strictly

 Although they are not unique in this regard, culture-history has been used in this way across Europe (Jones 1997: 136).  Curta (2005b: 10) writes that 1000 CE, “appears to mark in some way a watershed in the history of Eastern Europe, as features ‘normally’ associated with Byzantium or with the Carolingian or Ottonian regimes then appeared”.

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divided into periods can limit our ability to think critically about the past (Harris 2017: 135). Returning to the problem at hand, what is the connection between the fall of Dacia in the third century, the movement of the migratory peoples from the fourth to eleventh centuries, and the formation of the ‘Romanian’ ethnos? Removing the nationalist agenda, it is difficult to know based on the material that is presently available. As Anthony (1990: 895) writes, “Archaeologists […] generally treat migration as chaotic and poorly understood”. Over the past few decades this has slowly improved, but without a significant impact on the status quo of our knowledge about the migratory peoples in East-Central Europe. Additionally, Curta (2001b: 367–68), the leading expert in East-Central European medieval scholarship, points out that while scholars assume there is a “specific application of a general approach based on diffusion and migration” in actual fact “archaeologists manipulated such concepts as migration, diffusion, and culture to reach very different, often conflicting conclusions”.9 These words are indicative of the Age of Migrations in Romania as a whole—there is no reliable summative work to date, and much of archaeological evidence is problematic. The entire period is a mass of conflicting archaeological cultures and ethnic identities based on historical texts. A few aspects are clear: firstly, that the Age of Migrations as commonly understood comprises both Late Antiquity (from the third to eighth century CE) and the Early Medieval Period (from the sixth to tenth century CE).10 The first phase occurred between the fourth and sixth century, with the Germanic tribes conquering territories of the former Roman Empire and peoples such as the Huns, Gepids, and Avars also entering Europe, some as foederati (barbarian mercenaries), as late as the sixth century. The second phase is from the sixth to eighth century, during which the Slavs move south-westward from the Steppe, the Avars conquer the Gepids, and the Magyars take the Carpathian Basin. There

 Curta is a prolific scholar on the Early Medieval Period, but he does not sufficiently problematize the concept of ethnicity. He writes in The Making of the Slavs (2001: 14–15), “Ethnicity is just as likely to have been embedded in socio-political relations in the past as in the present. What have changed are the historical conditions and the idiomatic concepts in which ethnicity is embedded”. He does not appear to realize that he is projecting an invented modern concept, ethnic identity, back into the past. Niculescu (2011: 18), criticized Curta for what he saw as “a culture-historical archaeologist who selects a social theory compatible with the nationalist representation of society and continues to use the same methods he used before his claimed conversion to non-nationalist views on ethnicity”. See further commentary by Niculescu in this volume. Curta does seem to be growing increasingly critical, however, as evidenced in his latest book, Slavs in the Making (2020).  For a criticism of the term “Age of Migrations”, see Goffart (2006: 16).

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are a number of boundaries embedded within these interactions, the most important being the Roman limes, but frontiers like the limes are better understood as places were different peoples come together, places “crucial for the creation, rather than the separation” of different peoples (Curta 2005a: 175). During the Age of Migrations, if we forgo the overwhelming focus on the Roman Empire, we can recognize that regions such as the Carpathian Mountains, the Wallachian Plain, and the Lower Danube are better understood as crossroads rather than boundaries. These were the spaces in which the migratory peoples, mostly moving west from the Ukrainian and Russian steppe, first moved among and at times settled near the peoples of a very different cultural and ecological zone. It is easy to impose the label of barbarian on these migratory peoples and view them as the destroyers of the Roman civilization—a perspective influenced by our Western-centric view—in part because the migratory tribes did not have literary traditions comparable to the Romans. If we accept the essentializing terms of Hupchick and Cox (2001), “Europe is the product of a human alloy composed of three elements: Greco-Roman traditions, Christianity, and ‘new’ peoples”, then we must attempt to give these new peoples a voice.11 It is clear, however, that people like the Goths, the Huns, and the Avars did not just contribute to the fall of Rome, they also instigated great change across the continent; without the central authority of Rome, smaller kingdoms began to develop, some of which would, a millennium later, provide the invented pasts for modern European nation-states like Hungary and Bulgaria. Romania, meanwhile, focused instead on the Romans and Daco-Romans as they provided a strategic link to Western Europe through a common past, something that was important especially in the nineteenth century when the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (later Romania) were seeking Western support for their united independence from the Ottoman Empire (see Hanscam & Koranyi this volume; Hanscam 2019). Many of these migratory peoples were nomads or pastoralists, and Curta (2005b: 11–12) notes that in East-Central Europe, apart from Hungary, non-sedentary populations are often marginalized by academics. He links old notions about the backwardness of nomadism to explain the dearth of archaeological work on pastoralists (cf. Romm 1994; Woolf 2010). In Romania, however, the nomadic pastoralist Vlachs are identified as one of the “repositories of Latinism” during the post-Roman migratory period (Spinei 2009: 178), although this concept is problematic. The survival of the Latin-speaking population lies at the heart of

 For studies which focus on the giving the ‘barbarians’ a voice, see Wells (1999), Curta (2001a), Gillett (2002), Goffart (2006), and Curta & Kovalev (2008).

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many studies on the Age of Migrations; Spinei (2009: 20) treats the existence of the autochthonous Daco-Romans as a foregone conclusion, while others like Giurescu (1981: 124) claim there is evidence of continuity because of ongoing occupations around former Roman towns and forts.12 The modern Romanian language owes an indisputable debt to Latin (see e.g. Maiden et al. 2013), but there is no clear archaeological narrative for how this happened. The Hungarians deny the myth of Romanization (the Romans civilizing the Dacians), by arguing that the Vlachs, nomadic Latin speaking pastoralists, introduced a Latin dialect into the territory of modern Romania during the Medieval Period (Light & Dumbraveanu-Andone 1997: 32), others argue that the Vlachs are just another name for the Daco-Romans (Georgescu 1991: 14; Vékony 2000: 8). It is important to understand the evidence that supports the idea of an autochthonous Daco-Roman population, which is central to much of the work on the Age of Migrations, I will explore this below before turning to the archaeological evidence for the migratory peoples.

What Happened in Dacia? The Romanian myths of origin have had a great effect on archaeological research of Iron Age and Roman Dacia, and as such there is no clear consensus as to what extent the inhabitants of Dacia were integrated into the cultural systems of the Roman Empire. There is certainly evidence for migrations to and from Roman Dacia (Oltean 2009), which is common for Roman provinces (Ivleva 2011). There is also evidence suggesting the diversity of the ‘Roman’ population in Roman Dacia, a people defined by material culture and funerary evidence (e.g. Haynes & Hanson 2004). Haynes (2013: 263) argues that the varied funerary rituals seen in the archaeological record support ancient sources like Eutropius (8.6.2) who stated that colonists came to Dacia from across the Roman Empire. Dacians were also stationed on Hadrian’s Wall as part of the auxiliary forces in Roman Britain from the second century to the late third century (Hodgson 2017). Migration and movement were therefore part of life in Roman Dacia, which must be considered  Nora Berend (2011) reviewed Spinei (2009) and criticized it strongly, writing “Why this book has been translated into English and published by an academic press is inexplicable […] The author rarely seems to be troubled by the lack of evidence, and resorts to ingenious sleights of hand to supply information […] He constantly equates Vlachs with Romanians although the latter term and identity simply did not exist in the period he covers”. Spinei’s work attests that cultural-historical archaeology is alive and well in East-Central Europe—he gives an ethnic identity to as much archaeological material as he can.

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Fig. 4: Events leading to the fall of Dacia, E. Hanscam.

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when speaking of the indigenous, Romanized, Dacian population which the Romanian national narrative argues is formed during this period—there is an assumption that this population was composed entirely by people native to the territory of modern Romania. Scholars tend to treat the Roman withdrawal from Dacia as the end of Roman Dacia; accordingly, Aurelian’s removal of his legions and some of the civilian population between 270 and 275 CE mark the end of the province (Oltean 2007: 6; Hitchins 2014: 15). A number of events contributed to Aurelian’s decision (Fig. 4). The defeat of the Emperor Decius by Cniva and the Goths at the Battle of Abrittus in 251 CE deserves particular attention, not only was it the first time a Roman emperor was killed in battle with non-Romans, but this initiated the unravelling of the client-kingdom system which had sustained Moesia and Dacia (Southern 2001: 223). The unreliable Historia Augusta claims that Aurelian abandoned Dacia because of the situation in Illyricum and Moesia—he “led away both soldiers and provincials, giving up hope [Dacia] could be retained” (SHA Aurel. 39.7). However, Haynes and Hanson (2004: 24) point out that there is evidence that Dacia passed from imperial control much earlier under Gallineus (253–268). Eutropius, Rufus Festus, and Jordanes support the suggestion that there was an initial withdrawal under Gallienus, completed by Aurelian, while Aurelius Victor and Orosius believe Dacia was lost prior to Aurelian (Haynes & Hanson 2004: 24; Găzdac 2010: 63).13 This remains one of the most contested issues in Romanian studies (e.g. Benea 2012), but the debate centres around the specific dates of withdrawal rather than how it actually happened and how it impacted the region. Currently, there is a lack of archaeological evidence for what may or may not have changed when the Romans withdrew from Dacia—this is partly because the Romanian myths of origin have significantly impacted scholarship throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 14 Scholars who are especially influenced by the idea of Dacian origins for modern Romanians argue that the material culture in the rural settlements in Roman Dacia did not change between the pre-Roman Period and the withdrawal of the army, thus implying that the culture of the rural population remained unaffected by the

 Opreanu (2006: 106–07) writes that Romanian philologists “have often tried to interpret these written sources (Jordanes and others) by restricting their meaning, altering them, and sometimes by way of inaccurate translations”. For instance, there was an idea that Jordanes supported Roman continuity in Dacia as he wrote that only the army withdrew, leaving the civilians behind, but this is apparently the result of a mistranslation.  For recent work on the landscape of Roman Dacia see Fodorean (2013); on religion see Szabó (2018; 2022); on the conquest of Dacia see Oltean & Fonte (2021).

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Roman occupation (see e.g. Protase 1980; Opreanu 2006: 76; Găzdac 2010: 64).15 Another argument suggests that the rural sites were primarily occupied by colonists—Oltean (2007: 205) points out that the lack of archaeological work done on these rural sites makes it impossible to judge. This is starting to change; increasingly since 2010 new projects have targeted the rural landscape and fort hinterlands of Roman Dacia and are starting to be published (e.g. Pisz et al. 2020).16 The theory of Romanization—the process of the conquering Romans civilizing provincial native peoples—is also partly to blame for the lack of studies on rural Roman Dacia, which have been limited by the blanket narrative of ‘the Dacians were Romanized’ (see Opreanu 2006: 91 for commentary).17 MacKendrick (1975: 108, 143) writes “Romanization is essentially a culture of cities”. He discusses very little ‘rural’ evidence for Roman Dacia but concludes that after Aurelian’s withdrawal “Dacia was free, but the Dacians were Romanized […] They are so today”. In other words, because the result of the Roman colonization process in Dacia was the Romanization of the Dacians, there is no need to look in-depth at the archaeological record of the rural sites. Narratives like this persist both because they are a key part of national origin myths and because the historical sources lack clarity. The primary scholarly narratives regarding the late third century in the region of modern Romania, even in sources published relatively recently (e.g. Pop & Bolovan 2006), are retellings of the original narratives conceived to support the myth of Romanization, and are not based on significant amounts of archaeological evidence.18

 While Găzdac does not label this population remaining in post-Roman Dacia as indigenous or Dacian, it is notable that he relies extensively on an outdated history by Bărbulescu (Istoria României, 1998), a scholar criticized within Romania for his propagation of nationalist history (Niculescu 2004: 15).  Rural Environment in Dacia Porolissensis/Babeș-Bolyai University; Apulum Roman Villa Project/University of British Columbia, Babeș-Bolyai University, University ‘1 December 1918ʹ of Alba Iulia; Limes Transalutanus/Muzuel Național de istorie a României, Institutul de Arheologie V. Pârvan.  Romanization is a theory from the early twentieth century, advanced especially by British scholars like Haverfield (1915), to explain how local peoples were incorporated into the Roman Empire. It was a process of gradual change implying that the ‘natives’ desired to become more Roman. Understood critically within the majority of Roman archaeology today (see e.g. Mattingly 2004), Hingley (1996) points out that Romanization was very similar to contemporaneous Victorian and Edwardian-era ideas of progress and development, reflecting colonial attitudes at the time.  What Găzdac does, however, is offer supporting evidence in the form of coin circulation. There is a significant drop in coinage found in Dacia for the periods of 249–253 and 253–275,

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There is an overall dearth of archaeological evidence to support the narrative of ‘Daco-Roman’ continuity after the Roman withdrawal (Wanner & De Sena 2008: 1). What work has been done investigating the post-Roman phase at urban centres like Napoca, Potaissa, and Porolissum suggests that what occurred after the 270s in Dacia is very similar to what happened in post-Roman Britain (e.g. Esmonde Cleary 1990; Dark 2000; Lane 2014)—life in towns continued with limited cultural complexity (Madgearu 2004: 42; Opreanu 2006: 109). Without going into detail here, it seems probable that, given the lack of evidence for extensive urban destruction, some of the population of Roman Dacia chose to stay behind when the legions withdrew—it is currently not clear whether they were local to the region as suggested by the narrative of Daco-Roman continuity, or if they were of a non-local origin and had settled in Roman Dacia. It would be reasonable to assume that different kinds of people remained. In summary, for the purpose of this chapter, it is sufficient to emphasize that any claims for the continuity of this autochthonous Daco-Roman population in the Early Medieval Period should be treated critically.

Migratory Peoples within Romanian Archaeology Having discussed the broader issues of the Age of Migrations and Daco-Roman continuity within the Romanian national narrative, we can turn to the archaeological evidence for the migratory peoples themselves. The existing evidence for the peoples known as the Goths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, Magyars, Pechenegs, and Cumans currently lacks clarity. Jordanes, a sixth century ‘Romanized’ Goth from Moesia, wrote extensively on the early history of the Goths from their mythical origins to a more historical account of the third to mid-sixth centuries. His text Getica became the basis for many archaeological interpretations of the Goths and other tribes, with scholars such as Boia (2001: 104) bemoaning that “the fable-mongering of Jordanes […] can in no way be considered a source for history which [he] knew only in a vague and distorted form”. Curta (2005b: 6) writes, “To many archaeologists working in Eastern Europe on the Early Medieval Period, written records were a substitute for a sound theoretical basis”. This practice of using Classical sources to frame, guide, or even dictate archaeological research has long been recognized as problematic throughout Mediterranean archaeology (Papadopoulos 1999), and its effects are equally consequential in East-Central Europe.

with an increase from 268–275, suggesting a decrease of Roman control under Gallenius and a possible brief revival under his successors (Găzdac 2010: 198).

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In addition, cultural-historical archaeology provided the foundation for most studies on the migratory peoples, with archaeologists striving to link archaeological cultures to ethnic labels or using particular artefacts as “ethnic badges” (Curta 2013: 179). Indeed, the cultural-historical approach has an impressive legacy within this discourse, using artefact typologies and differing burial customs to construct a shifting map of ethnic groups and their influences on East-Central European territory, simultaneously maintaining a distinction between ‘natives’ and migrants. It is in fact very difficult to use material culture alone to identify either ‘local’ or ‘migrant’ populations (see e.g. Van Oyen 2017), for a host of reasons but most importantly because of how the material culture is assumed to be archetypal, homogenous, and bound within delimited culture areas and/or representing the movement of cultural groups en masse. Culture-history is an extremely limiting perspective. Trying to reconstruct the migratory peoples as “bounded entities” of a particular time and place, with “archaeologically definable and stable characteristics,” seems impractical, not least as mobility is their defining trait (Kotsakis 1998: 56). There are two major problems with the traditional research paradigms of the Age of Migrations: the first is the long-term impact of culture-history, the second is how the distinction between migrant and the native or ‘autochthons’ drives the research agenda. Not all scholarship from the past decade goes as far as Spinei (2009: 20) who echoes much earlier arguments for “the continuity of the Romanized population in the Carpathian-Danubian area during the troubled period of the migrations”; Madgearu (2005a: 105) is an example of the more casual perpetuation of Romanian nationalism, arguing that the presence of wheel-made pottery during the Early Medieval Period in Transylvania is evidence of the survival of the ‘Romanians’ or the Roman tradition.19 Ciupercă and Măgureanu (2008: 119) summarize the situation accordingly: “Romanian archaeology has two approaches to the Age of Migrations: firstly, to outline the extent and influence of dominant groups (Goths, Huns, Gepids) on a defined time and area; secondly, to find the presence of a Romanic population”. Arguments are constructed based on the presence or absence of particular kinds of material culture, such as eagle-head buckles, which are taken to indicate the presence of the Gepids (Curta 2001a: 77, 194). It is at times difficult to understand what the evidence actually is, given the differing research agendas (Hungarian,

 Teodor (1980: 2) shows the nationalist language typical of National Communism, “In this way we have attempted to demonstrate not only the continuity of the Romanian population in the east-Carpathian regions of Romania but also the unity of culture within Romania as a whole”. For a criticism of Madgearu’s analysis of the wheel-made pottery, see Heather (1996: 86) and Opreanu (2006: 126).

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Romanian, and Bulgarian) which target this period—an updated synthesis would go far to establish at least a baseline for future work.20 What is clear is that there was a wide array of multicultural encounters taking place across this landscape, and, hopefully, research will grow and diversify in an appreciation of these encounters outside of the boundaries of the concept of migrant versus native. Currently, the Early Medieval Period of modern Romania is understood as consisting of a number of defined archaeological cultures, identified from the fourth century onwards. In keeping with cultural-historical archaeology, these cultures are assumed to have a clear (ethnic) identity as evidenced by their material culture. Most notable is the Sântana de Mureş-Černjachov culture, as well as the Ipoteşti-Cândeşti culture, the Saltovo-Maiaki culture, the Band-Vereşmort Group, the Hlincea culture, the Suceava-Şipot group, the Balkan-Danube culture/Dridu culture, the Cluj group, and the Mediaş group. Many of these archaeological cultures have associated ethnic names; this is an approach that, evidently, is problematic. The Sântana de Mureş-Černjachov culture, hereafter referred to as the SMC culture, is named for early twentieth century excavations at two sites: the Černjachov cemetery in the Ukraine, which produced grave goods like those found shortly after at a cemetery at Sântana de Mureş in Romania (Heather & Matthews 1991: 51). Heather and Matthew’s 1991 study provided the first English summary of the SMC culture, describing it as a “relatively rich and homogenous archaeological culture, which, in the late Roman period, spread across large tracts of south eastern Europe” (51). Soviet archaeologists initially proposed a Slavic origin for this culture (Barford 2001: 40), while the Romanians argued for Geto-Dacian origins (Stamati 2016: 238), but after the mid-twentieth century it has become apparent that the SMC culture is more likely to have related to the Goths prior to the Hun invasions in the late fourth century (Ciupercă & Măgureanu 2008: 125; cf. Heather 1996; 1998; Ellis 1998; Wanner & De Sena 2008). It was not, however, the “preserve of one ethnic unit” (Heather 1998: 86; cf. Todd 1998), but most likely included a number of independent political units like the Tervingi and Greuthungi (Heather 1996: 86), as well as non-Germanic peoples who lived in the area like the Sarmatians. Opreanu (2006: 117) relates the SMC culture to the 323 foedus (treaty) between the Goths and the Roman Empire, and notes the presence of the Visigoths, Sarmatians, ‘Getae-Dacians’, and Carpi in the same area. The first discoveries of the SMC culture in Transylvania all date to c. 380–400, and since there is no evidence of the Goths prior to c. 380, Heather (1996: 102)

 See Fielder (2008) for differences between the Bulgarian and the Romanian approach to the same material, Krekovič (2007) for differing theories on the early Magyars.

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proposes that the sites may correspond to the Gothic groups fleeing from the Huns. Around 430 graves excavated at Târgşor (also known as Târgşoru Vechi) in Prahova county demonstrate SMC characteristics (Lichiardopol & Ciupercă 2008: 110), and a series of fifty-eight settlements in Transylvania are dated to the end of the fourth and early fifth century (Ciupercă & Măgureanu 2008: 123). There may in fact be some overlap between the Hun invasions and the continuation of this culture, which has been the subject of debate. Heather (1996: 118) notes there is no common fate for the Goths north of the Danube in the Hun period, and the debate centres on an agenda taken straight from the unreliable Jordanes. Ciupercă and Măgureanu (2008: 124) believe that the final phase of the SMC culture might be found in these Transylvanian settlements, which show SMC pottery types, and furthermore point out that the Hunnic confederacy was known to have intermingling populations that probably did not result in an easily identified culture succeeding the SMC. Opreanu (2006: 118), on the other hand, states that the SMC culture ended in the late fourth century with the appearance of the Huns and the Alans. In 1980, Teodor published an account of the East Carpathians from the fifth to eleventh centuries. It contains discourse typical of the time relating to the continuity of the Romanian population, but he also alludes to archaeological evidence for the continuous occupation of sites like Costişa-Mănoaia, Botoşana, and Dodeşti-Vaslui before, during, and after the Gothic period (Teodor 1980: 5). In 2001, Teodor contributed to the Istoria Românilor (History of the Romanians) series, presenting the cultures as “stages in the evolution of the autochthonous population into Romanians” (Niculescu 2007: 136). He argues that the CostişaBotoşana-Hansca, Ipoteşti-Cândeşti-Ciurel, Bratei-Ţaga-Biharea cultures are all “regional aspects of the autochthonous civilization of the fifth to seventh centuries” and are “identical in origin and evolution” covering “the whole territory once inhabited by the Geto-Dacians” (Teodor 200121 trans. Niculescu 2007: 136–37). Teodor (2011) argues once more for the ‘ethnogenesis’ of the Romanian population, identifying Romanic features in the same cultural groups discussed previously and linking the cultures into a presumably sequential series—with the SMC before Costişa-Botoşana-Hansca for instance. This is a similar argument to Giurescu’s (1981: 81–83) where he identifies three major stages in the material formation of the Romanian people: the Bratei stage (including the Ipoteşti-Cândeşti type), the Ipoteşti-Cândeşti culture, and the Dridu stage, which culminated with a “unitary character on the entire area inhabited by the Romanians”. In 1996, Heather called for further research on

 For Teodor 2001, see Protase and Suceveanu (2001) in bibliography.

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sites such as Costişa-Mănoaia, Botoşana, and Dodeşti-Vaslui—a call ignored by archaeologists Ciupercă and Măgureanu (2008) who continue to reference Teodor (1984) in discussion of the SMC horizon at Costişa-Mănoaia.22 Popular sources likewise continue to follow Teodor, Bulei (2015: 28) agrees, citing the “Brateiu-Morești, Botoşana, and Ipoteşti-Cândeşti” material cultures as continuing evidence of Daco-Romans and Romanization after 271 CE. The Ipoteşti-Cândeşti culture, the Mediaş group and the Dridu culture also deserve further discussion here; the Dridu culture is actually the Romanian version of the Bulgarian Balkan-Danube culture (Fiedler 2008; cf. Sophoulis 2012). Fiedler (2008: 216) notes that there is no comprehensive study of this culture, dating from the late seventh century to the ninth century in the Lower Danube, and “different publication standards” between Romania and Bulgaria complicate the situation.23 The Bulgarians believe there is evidence for “an exact overlap” of the borders of early Medieval Bulgaria and the Balkan-Danube culture, while the Romanians identify the Balkan-Danube as the “proto-Romanians” (Fiedler 2008). Boia (2001: 123) labels the Dridu culture as an attempt “not only to keep the whole territory of Romania ‘under control,’ but to extend its area of origin”. The Mediaş group is a series of seventh to ninth century cremation and inhumation cemeteries in Transylvania, usually identified as Slavic, but Madgearu (2005a: 105) believes it is also possible that “the Romanians” are present, citing linguistic traditions. The Ipoteşti-Cândeşti culture, meanwhile, was “invented by Romanian archaeologists in order to illustrate the life of the civilized Romanians before the arrival of the savage Slavs” (Curta 2001a: 231). The site at Ipoteşti revealed wheel-made pottery, which archaeologists used as an argument for a sixth century pre-Slavic invasion date, showing continuity with the Romano-Dacian tradition (Curta 2001a: 231). Curta (2001a: 232) believes that many of the Ipoteşti-Cândeşti sites were misdated because of a cultural-historical approach. In fact, it appears that initially the Ipoteşti-Cândeşti culture was understood by archaeologists such as Victor Teodorescu and Dan Gh. Teodor to constitute both Slavic and native elements, but this was soon abandoned in favour of an earlier fifth-century date (Curta 2001b: 375). In a summary of the Romanian Early Medieval Period, which is otherwise rigorous, Sălăgean (2006: 203) lists the “archaeological documents” (without specifying what the evidence is) from the following sites as ‘proof’ of post-Roman Dacia continuity: Bratei-Ipoteşti-Costişa (fourth to sixth  Since 2008 additional studies on Costişa-Mănoaia include Bolohan and Asăndulesei (2013) and Bolohan (2014a, 2014b).  See Madgearu (2007) for an analysis on how the Dridu culture reflected changing attitudes in Communist Romania.

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century), Ipoteşti-Cândeşti-Botoşana-Hansca-Filiaş (sixth to seventh century), Dridu (eighth to tenth century), and Răducăneni (eleventh to twelfth century). The main issue with the studies of the migratory peoples in Romania is this incomprehensible chronology and conflicting notions about which peoples constitute which identified ‘cultures’, the result of repeated and ongoing attempts to associate material evidence with ethnic culture groups.24 We can, however, cut through some of the confusion by focusing on how these peoples interacted with the landscape, demonstrating a different kind of continuity.

A Landscape of ‘Migration’ The sections that follow accept the concept of identified groups of peoples (e.g. the ‘Gepids’) at nominal value, in order to be able to discuss the current state of archaeological research. In an ideal world, we would be far more critical of such designations with their tendency to homogenize a diverse and complex past. In this instance they are retained for clarity, as the goal of this chapter is to reframe existing evidence around a narrative that does not support mythical autochthonous continuity. Beginning with the Goths in the fourth century, there is some preliminary archaeological evidence for how non-Roman peoples related to the remnants of the Roman landscape in former Dacia and the still-occupied Scythia Minor. Heather (1996: 100) believes the Goths reused the Roman Limes Transalutanus to defend their territory when they were threatened by the Huns. The Romans may have built several forts near the Danube limes specifically for their Gothic foederati in the fourth century, including Dichin in the Bulgarian countryside south of the Danube, and potentially the site of Iatrus, just east of modern Sofia (Poulter 2007: 379; cf. Poulter 2019; see Fig. 3). The Goths reoccupied the Roman fort Pietroasa (Pietroasa de Jos) in the late fourth to early fifth century, where they left behind the treasure hoard of Pietroasa, discovered in 1837 (Todd 1998: 485). The Gepids were the first of many peoples to reoccupy the salt mines of Transylvania (Ciobanu 2003: 434; Fig. 5); although it is not known precisely when they moved into the Carpathian Basin, they were likely present by the mid-fifth century (Gandila 2018: 221). Gepid cemeteries appear to cluster around

 See Kuzmanovic & Vranic (2013) for a similar problem in Yugoslav and Albanian archaeologies, and Dobos (2018) for a recent critique of Early Medieval scholarship in the Carpathian Basin.

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Fig. 5: The salt mines of Transylvania, E. Hanscam.

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the mines, a pattern of burial behaviour continued by the Avars, Bulgars, and Magyars (Madgearu 2005a: 103; cf. Opreanu 2006; Cosma 2015). The Gepids also buried their dead in former Roman camps including Potaissa (Madgearu 2010: 33; cf. Dobos 2009: 22) and occupied the fort of Sirmium in modern Serbia in the late fifth century (Sarantis 2009: 19). The Avars with their multi-ethnic Khaganate, assimilated and replaced the Gepids in the mid-sixth century (Kardaras 2019). They may have reused Roman infrastructure in the Turnu Roşu Pass when they invaded the Carpathian Basin, but the problem with this interpretation is that there is no known Avar archaeological evidence on the Lower Danube (Erwin 2014). Erwin (2014: 296) questions whether the “backwards state of research” is a sufficient explanation for the lack of evidence, leaving the query unanswered (cf. Erwin and Romát 2016). The Avars did make use of Roman roads in Transylvania, organizing settlements at the crossroads of the road network, particularly around the middle section of the River Mureş (Erwin 2014: 301). In nearby Pannonia, the largest known Avar cemeteries are located adjacent to late Roman forts, which suggests a connection between the Late Roman Period and migratory peoples such as the Avars (Vida 2008: 37).25 Like the Gepids before them, the Avars may have targeted the salt mines located in the same area (Fig. 5). Erwin (2014: 307) believes that the Avar desire to take the salt mines could in fact explain the entire occupation of the Carpathian Basin. The Slavs, on the other hand, seem to have mainly avoided former Roman space.26 Curta (2001a: 145) notes that the Slavs allegedly occupy the cities in Scythia Minor that they conquer and destroy, but there does not appear to be any evidence to support this. Poulter (2004: 382) comments that evidence of Slavic settlement is very difficult to find in the Balkans; they notably chose not to settle in the abandoned Roman forts of the late sixth century. A mixed Slav-Bulgar cemetery at Histria on the Black Sea coast is unique in the region (Fiedler 2008: 159); the apparent cooperation between the Slavs and the Bulgars is the “common explanation” for the success of the Bulgars, representing a  Madgearu (2005b: 70) argues that the Roman fortresses of Pannonia were also “the essential condition of the survival of the autochthonous population”, because this population could not take refuge in mountains or forests like they (supposedly) did in Dacia.  Although this interpretation depends on whether you consider the Sclavenes, groups living north of the Danube frontier in the sixth century, which are known from Byzantine sources like Procopius (Wars, e.g VII.14.24–25) and Strategikon (e.g XI.4) as ‘Slavs’. The problem, as Curta (2010: 307) outlines, is that the term is a Byzantine invention and there appears to have been a long-term tradition of linking Slavic origins instead to the linguistic epicentre of Slavic languages in North-Eastern Europe. Contemporary authors tend to discuss both Sclavenes and Slavs (or ‘Slavic tribes’) without drawing clear distinctions.

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particular “ethnic symbiosis” that existed between Slavic commoners and the Bulgar elite (Fiedler 2008: 151). It is also clear, however, that Slavic tribes from the Iron Gates region fled westwards and sought asylum with the Franks in the early ninth century, as the Bulgars slowly moved into the southern Carpathian Basin (Fiedler 2008: 165–66). The Bulgars are the chosen ancestors of the Bulgarian nation-state; Poulter (2004: 251) writes that the Roman landscape of the Lower Danube had disappeared “well before the Slav invasions” and when Bulgaria emerged in the ninth century, “it owed nothing at all to its Roman past”. This interpretation is limited: while it is true that the Lower Danube frontier was no longer occupied by Byzantine forces, the Bulgars interacted extensively with the remnants of the frontier. They may have occupied the Roman camp at Barboși (near Galați) soon after arriving in the Lower Danube region in the late seventh century (Sophoulis 2012: 109). Like the Romans, the Bulgars are thought by some to have erected monumental barriers of ditches and embankments on the borders of their territory (Fielder 2008: 12; cf. Stepanov 2005; Sophoulis 2012: 56). Archaeologists such as Gudea (2005: 360) disagree, and date the features to the Roman Period, while Spinei (2009: 61) agrees it is possible that some are Roman and some Bulgar. One of these embankments is the only known evidence for the first Bulgar settlement in northern Dobrogea around the 630s; there is no other evidence for the Bulgars until they attacked Byzantium in 680 (Fielder 2008: 153: cf. Curta 2019: 72). The Bulgars also reoccupied several late Roman forts between the second half of the ninth century and the first half of the eleventh, including Noviodunum, Iatrus, Odartsi, and Tegulitsium (modern Vetren, Bulgaria); they built new ramparts at Nova Cherna, and a new embankment at Capidava in the second half of the ninth century (Fiedler 2008: 199). They rebuilt Dinogetia only after the Byzantines retook Bulgaria in 971, as well as Păcuiul lui Soare east of Silistra around the same time (Fiedler 2008: 199; cf. Sălăgean 2006). The Bulgars also briefly entered Transylvania in order to control the salt mines during the ninth century (Opreanu 2006: 128; Sophoulis 2012: 127, 294). Fiedler (2008: 162) writes that the notion that some of the groups identified as ‘autochthonous’ may actually be Bulgars “has so far fallen on deaf ears” in Romanian archaeology. The earliest Magyar burials in Transylvania are in the same region of the Mureş valley (Fiedler 2008: 162), while other Magyar cemeteries like Gâmbas and Lopadea Nouă overlie early Avar burial grounds (Madgearu 2005a: 103). It is apparent that the Magyars prioritized the salt mines in their tenth-century conquest of the Carpathian Basin—the earliest archaeological evidence for the Magyars in the Basin is at Cluj and Alba Iulia which are located on strategic points on the salt trade routes (Madgearu 2005a: 104). The potential significance of the repeated occupation of the salt mines by the

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Gepids, Avars, Bulgars, and Magyars is discussed further below. This section will conclude with a discussion of the final two peoples of the migration period: the Pechenegs and the Cumans, who are the least well-known of the migratory peoples. The Pechenegs were semi-nomadic Turks from the Central Asian steppe who controlled Wallachia from the tenth to eleventh centuries (Curta 2013); Diaconu (1975: 237) writes that the Pechenegs extinguished the Dridu culture. Destruction and mass burials documented at sites on the Lower Danube in the early eleventh century are attributed to attacks by the Pechenegs, while other Pecheneg garrisons allied with the Byzantines may have occupied forts along the Lower Danube (Curta 2019: 165). They dug warrior graves into prehistoric mounds near Byzantine settlements on the Danube, which Curta (2013: 166) suggests are actually “monuments of power and prestige” in the landscape, marking the fact that the Pecheneg influence extended so near to Byzantine territory. Spinei (2009: 177) agrees about the burial evidence of the Pechenegs, devoting an entire chapter to “contrasting the ways of life” between the ‘Romanian’ agriculturalists and the Turkic pastoralists. Curta (2013: 167) finds this problematic, as the artefacts used to identify the Pecheneg burials (horse bits, leaf-shaped pendants) are also found on so-called ‘native’ sites, and the graves may actually belong to those sites where the Pechenegs could also have been living (see Spinei 1975). This interpretation is very different from the older Romanian literature, which portrays the Turkic nomads as opposed to the ‘Romanian’ way of life, providing an example of how interpretations can evolve despite the continued influence of nationalism. The Cumans entered from the steppes in the eleventh century, following the Pechenegs. They were also pastoralists, coexisting with the Pechenegs for a time in the Făgăraș Alps of the south-eastern Carpathians. The Cuman territory stretched from the Irtysh River in modern Kazakhstan to the Wallachian plain, maintaining the Danube as the border with Bulgaria. Unlike the Pechenegs, the Cumans actually play a role in the formation of the Romanian ethnos—founding the Wallachian dynasty of the Basarabs in the fourteenth century (Vásáry 2005: 112).27 A Turkic ruling house lacks the Romanic element, however, and so one narrative is that the Cumans merged with the Vlachs (Vásáry 2005: 27). After the formation of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1185, the Vlachs migrated north of the Danube and joined with the Cumans, although Vásáry (2005: 29) notes

 Sălăgean (2006: 156–57) believes that the Pechenegs did influence the “proto-Romanians” in the creation of a “Romanian-Turanian symbiosis” in the Făgăraş region.

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there may also have been a “symbiosis” between the Vlachs and the Pechenegs, through the concurrent use of mountain pastures. As discussed previously, Hungarian scholarship identifies the Vlachs rather than the Dacians as the ancestors for the Romanians, because texts such as the Gesta Hungaroram have the Vlachs arriving in Transylvania after the Hungarian Magyars (Fine 1983: 10). Another interpretation of the medieval Basarabs is that they are purely Vlach (see e.g. Iorga 1985; Djuvara 2007). A DNA study has attempted to identify the genetic heritage of those with the Basarab name (Martinez-Cruz et al. 2012).28 They concluded that Basarab is a “polyphyletic name” with multiple male founders, which supports the idea of different medieval groups contributing to the dynasty. They were also unable to rule out the contribution of Central or East Asians, although they did not find significant traces of these haplotypes (Martinez-Cruz et al. 2012: 3–4). The Basarab dynasty is therefore one firm example of a population included in the Romanian national narrative which has a multi-haplotype origin—contrary to what scholars such as Spinei (2009: 353) advocate: “the name Basarab is no indication that the voivode with that name is a Cuman”. The foundation of Wallachia in the early fourteenth century is indisputably one of the key moments in the Romanian national narrative, and the idea that people of this territory had ties to multiple migratory populations underlines the need for a critical reassessment of the Early Medieval Period in Romania. While the archaeological evidence is poor, it is clear that the migratory peoples should not be lumped together as ‘barbarians’ or indeed simply as ‘migratory’—which I continue to use because it remains a useful descriptor. These groups all interacted with the region of modern Romania and the other peoples it hosted. For some like the Slavs there is little evidence of long-term occupation, but for others like the Bulgars and the Magyars the territory of Romania played a significant role in their permanent establishment in the region. Because the Romanian national narrative focuses on tracing the survival of the ‘autochthonous’ population throughout this period, there has been a general failure to recognize the potential contributions of these peoples to the population of modern Romania. In order to better appreciate the many encounters taking place in this region, we need to move beyond the strict definition of ‘migrant’ and ‘local’.

 Spinei (2009: 353–54) writes, “It is difficult to accept the idea that the Turkic nomads may have had a significant role in the rise of the medieval Romanian state […] if personal names were an indication of ethnic background—an otherwise questionable assumption—then it appears that most Cumans were slaves, not boyars”.

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Continuity of Place Even while recognising the problems with this evidence as I have done above, it is still possible to see a very different narrative emerging from it—one that does not support ideas of autochthonous continuity. I do this here with one caveat: that we should not forget how nationalism and culture-history have impacted the collection of the evidence I present below. Reframing existing evidence through the lens of continuity of place is one way of recognizing how the territory of modern Romania was a place that facilitated interactions between different kinds of peoples. We can consider, for example, the salt resources of Transylvania (Fig. 5) and the Roman infrastructure (Fig. 3) in later periods as places that drew people together and encouraged them to interact. This is not an argument for environmental determinism, not in the least because it draws upon human-made places and their material legacies. Rather this argument emphasizes that these places continuously appear to impact upon human behaviour and in some circumstances bring different people into contact; this can be understood in network terms as a form of path dependence (Blake 2013: 206), or simply the affordances of the landscape that lead to movement and encounters in certain places. Nationalism has long been premised on finding ‘continuity’ with past peoples. What if we instead refocused on places and how they were created and impacted upon people in the past? Salt production, for example, requires specialist knowledge and skills. It therefore offers the possibility of either practices being transmitted between different groups of people, or populations being exploited for their knowledge. In either case, the organization of salt mines in Transylvania across the longue durée—with an emphasis here on the Early Medieval Period—offers great potential for understanding the role of place in human interactions. There was a near continuous exploitation of salt resources in Transylvania beginning as early as 6000–5000 BCE (Dumitoraia et al. 2001/2002), which continued into the Bronze Age (Wollmann & Ciugudean 2005), and the Roman Period (Oltean 2007: 182; Mihailescu-Bîrliba & Asăndulesei 2019). There is an interesting lack of evidence for Dacian salt mining prior to the Roman Period (cf. Albinetz et al. 2018); they were more known for mining gold- and silver-ore deposits and, while Harding (2015: 214) says there may be a radiocarbon date for Băile Figa which corresponds to the “Dacian Iron Age”, he later discusses this in terms of the Roman Period. I have found no other reputable source to confirm that there is archaeological evidence of Dacian salt exploitation, despite Rustoiu (2006: 46) believing the Dacians settled the Mureș valley for this purpose. Continuing into the Early Medieval Period, both the Gepids and the Avars established their settlements near the salt mines (Madgearu 2005a: 103); Erwin

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(2014: 307) believes this may explain why the latter chose to occupy the entire Carpathian Basin, as salt resources proliferate throughout (cf. Ciobanu 2003). The Bulgars similarly tried to control the salt mines in the Carpathians (Opreanu 2006: 128), as did the Magyars (Madgearu 2005a: 104). There are many different ways to interpret this continuity of peoples interested in the Transylvanian salt resources. Madgearu (2005a: 104) believes that salt production “implies the existence of a subject sedentary population” and identifies the Slavs and the Romanians as the most likely candidates, though he admits that it is very difficult to distinguish between them in the archaeological record. Turda (Potaissa) and Salinae, as well as several other sites around Cluj, were all mined in the Roman Period (Cianga et al. 2010). Rusu (1975: 145) lists all the known fourth to ninth century settlements near salt deposits: Ocna Sibiului, Ocna Mureșului, Noșlac, Turda, Cojocna, Someșeni, Ocnița, Ocna Dejului, Bezid, Corund, Band, Filiaș, and Odorhei (Fig. 5). He believes that salt was part of the tribute paid by the local population to dominant groups including the Avars, and as evidence cites the Avar necropolises of Teiuș and Cîmpia Turzii that lie near the mines (Rusu 1975: 147). Without further explanation his reasoning appears insufficient, although there is some recent archaeological evidence, discussed below, for how salt mining may have occurred in Transylvania. Salt production in Antiquity relied on two different techniques—evaporating brine and deep mining (Bukowski 2013). It is difficult to find traces of the evaporation method in the archaeological record, except in the form of material evidence known as briquetage, ceramic material in the form of vessels and supports which were used to hold the salt during the evaporation process. Harding (2015: 213–14) notes that within the Carpathian Basin there are “few (if any) indisputable finds of briquetage of any age”. He therefore believes that an ingenious trough method was used instead, based on the discovery of a number of wooden objects at sites such as Băile Figa, where radiocarbon dates have been obtained for the Bronze and Iron Ages, suggesting the long-term use of this technology. Sânpaul in south-eastern Transylvania, the site of a Roman fort and vicus, also has produced radiocarbon dates indicating that salt mining took place in the Roman Period as well as the Iron Age and Early Modern Period (Harding 2015: 215). Excavations at Băile Figa revealed a high density of datable wooden features over a limited area, ranging from the Bronze Age to the Early Medieval Period, in a complex stratigraphic situation that nonetheless indicates near-continuous exploitation of the salt, although the scale of production is unclear (Harding & Kavruk 2013: 121). Unlike Rusu (1975), Harding and Kavruk’s edited volume on salt archaeology in the Carpathian area does not make any attempt to identify the peoples associated with salt production. Instead, they focus on the landscape itself,

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the technology used, and the periods evidenced by the radiocarbon dating; they highlight the continuity of practice without venturing to attribute finds to specific cultural groups. While the salt production evidenced at Băile Figa may not have required the digging of shafts, it clearly involved the long-term maintenance of technical knowledge and practice. In summary, the archaeological evidence shows that firstly, there was long-term salt production in Transylvania, and, secondly, that there were clusters of settlements from the Neolithic through Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period around salt deposits. Harding and Kavruk (2013) demonstrate this with distribution maps, which highlight the continuity of settlement density into what they term the ‘Migration and Early Medieval’ Periods. There appears to be insufficient evidence at this point to support Madgearu’s (2005a: 104) hypothesis of a subject sedentary population, and it would be premature to argue that permanent settlements existed simply because salt production requires a great deal of labour and expertise. However, this must be balanced against the evidence for the long-term uses of the salt production landscapes in Transylvania, and in some cases, the evidence for continued use of the trough method (Harding 2015). It is possible, though unlikely, that a mobile elite population was exploiting the labour of subject ‘local’ groups at the salt mines—in which case the narrative will be one of conquest and oppression. Still, without venturing into the arguments for the ethnic identities of these peoples, it is possible to recognize the salt deposits in Transylvania as places of long-term connections and contact between different peoples.29 Harding and Kavruk (2013) indicate that they have barely scratched the surface in relation to the evidence of salt production. It is possible that continued excavations may answer questions regarding the scale of these operations, while providing evidence of the material culture of those involved, the nature of the settlements, and the continuity and discontinuity of occupation. Focusing on the economics rather than trying to identify the ethnic identity of those exploiting the resource (and on behalf of whom?) might lead to a better understanding of how particular landscapes in Romania fostered lasting multicultural interactions. The physical infrastructure installed within the territory of modern Romania during the Roman Period provides another means of addressing continuity of place. Following the withdrawal of the Roman army, this monumental infrastructure had a prominent material legacy in the landscape. Ranging

 And they still attract people—see the website for the Turda salt mine which has been converted into a tourist destination: www.salinaturda.eu (accessed 14 May 2022).

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from the cities of Roman Dacia such as Potaissa, to the forts of the Lower Danube frontier, the archaeological record shows that many of the peoples who entered the region from the fourth century CE onwards were drawn to interact with these places in a number of different ways, as discussed in the above section. The reuse of place is common throughout European archaeology (see e.g. Díaz-Guardamino et al. 2015), so this evidence is unsurprising on its own terms. It is, however, an indication that place played an active role in social interactions and identities, rather than just playing a role in conflict between peoples. The region of modern Romania is in one sense a liminal space, where difference is encouraged to interact and, like we have seen happen in other Roman frontier spaces, where new things are created.

A Time of Change This chapter establishes that the ‘Age of Migrations’ was by no means a time of darkness. It was certainly a time of great change, and a time lacking a dominant archaeological narrative. This is primarily the result of a long-term reliance on culture-historical archaeology, along with the continuing search for the autochthonous population. The fall of Roman Dacia in the late third century set in motion a chain of events, which eventually culminated in the end of the frontier on the Lower Danube in the late seventh century, although this built landscape would continue to define space through reuse by peoples such as the Bulgars (Fiedler 2008). Roman infrastructure was also employed in Transylvania, with people, including the Avars, settling along Roman roads (Erwin 2014). Some peoples left more of a lasting impact on the landscape than others—the Bulgars built embankments to mark the extent of their territory (Stepanov 2005), while the Pechenegs left very little beyond funerary evidence (Curta 2013). I have presented the current state of archaeological research for different groups from the Age of Migrations, but I have not tried to identify the autochthonous population. Rather, I have placed the main archaeological cultures back into the context of research traditions and have noted the potential for diverse groups of people to have met and interacted. I do not believe that such a thing as an ‘autochthonous’ population, or population retaining a purely Roman or Daco-Roman cultural identity exists; there is no archaeological evidence for a continuous ‘Daco-Roman’ occupation of this territory after the fourth or even the late third century. Latin elements may have survived linguistically (Maiden et al. 2013), but it seems highly unlikely there were groups of people maintaining an unchanging cultural identity through the centuries of migration. Perhaps when

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the Vlachs entered the region in the eleventh century they renewed the Latin connection, or there might be another source in the ongoing contact with Byzantium that continued for centuries after Roman Dacia fell. Ironically, Romanian scholarship worked hard to find the autochthonous population in Transylvania while in the provinces of Moesia Secunda and Scythia Minor the influence of the Eastern Roman Empire lasted into the seventh century. Had scholars instead looked to the south-east, they could have built the Romanian national narrative on an ongoing tradition of Greco-Roman culture. It is likely, however, that the myths of origin which all centred on Dacia and Dacians has precluded this from happening. What did happen to the people who remained in the region after the Roman abandonment of Dacia in 275 CE? As outlined in this chapter, it is apparent that people did stay behind, and life did continue. The Roman-period landscape (forts, towns, roads) likewise remained (Fig. 3), and given the dearth of scholarship on post-Roman Dacia (see arguments in Ellis 1998; Wanner & De Sena 2008), it is only possible to observe that the landscape continued to support communities for the following few centuries—but with little understanding of their social organization. Wanner and De Sena (2008) use funerary evidence to show that life continued in the former Roman urban centres of Potaissa, Napoca, Porolissum, and Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. After the Avars entered the region in the mid-sixth century CE, they brought with them a multi-ethnic khaganate, which organized settlements around Roman roads and placed cemeteries near late Roman forts in Pannonia. The Avars provided the overarching power structure but encouraged the coexistence of different peoples within the Carpathian Basin (Hitchins 2014: 16), similar to many other empires, which are often inherently diverse (Manz 2003). From the fourth to the eleventh century, the movement of people was particularly unrelenting according to the narratives derived from historical texts, but this does not mean there was constant conflict between groups with different ethnicities or cultural identities. This is how migration/immigration is understood in ancient and medieval texts which have also shaped discourse today.30 While the texts encourage the view of these peoples as monolithic ‘ethnic’ groups moving en-masse, the archaeological evidence could be read differently. It is unlikely that peoples popularly identified as the ‘Slavs’ or the ‘Avars’ all moved in precisely the same way, nor should archaeologists continue  Cunliffe (2015: 373) describes it as the “longue durée of life on the steppe [which] continued to be governed by the familiar domino effect of relentless pressure from the east driving a flow of population to the west”. He also produces a narrative which implies that the ‘steppe’ peoples with various ethnonyms all moved westward in precisely the same way for precisely the same reason.

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to project this exclusive category of identity onto what is far more likely to be a diverse group of people. It is challenging, however, because while it is likely that evidence could be found of both a plurality of identities and coexistence in sites like the vici (civilian settlements near a Roman fort) on the Lower Danube during the Late Roman and Early Medieval Period, these sites have yet to be excavated. The overwhelming problem with the archaeological work done on the Early Medieval Period is that it continually relies on historical texts to apply ethnic labels to archaeological material—thus the presence of entire ethnic units are assumed based on these texts and a few stray diagnostic artefacts like the eagle-head buckles which are considered to represent ‘the Gepids’. It is difficult to think outside of the terminology of ‘Dacian’, ‘Avar’, ‘Bulgar’, ‘Magyar’, or ‘Gepid’—yet we must try and use them without the baggage of implying that peoples are moving en-masse. I am aware of how we are trapped into using these terms, and the difficulty of not perpetuating these assumptions; this nonetheless merits further consideration. Given the cultural intricacy of this period, does it make sense to talk about peoples as designated by ‘labels’ like Gepid, Avar, or even Roman? Is there any meaningful connection between these labels and the material culture? These labels just serve to perpetuate the dualist narrative of ‘barbarians’, who do not belong, entering Western Europe and thereby inhibiting the progress of civilization. They also continue to promote a culture-historical view of the past, which is one possible narrative, but it is not the only possibility. What is clear is that the processes ongoing in East-Central Europe during Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period were complex, and if we wish to better understand them, we cannot be preoccupied with the search for a ‘surviving autochthonous’ population. The identification instead of themes like engagement in the landscape and peoples integrating and coexisting will help move scholarly narratives and popular understanding away from culturalhistory and towards a more inclusive view of the past. Romania has persistently acted as a crossroads, located on the margins of Europe and Asia, where groups first come into contact because of the affordances of the landscape. For the migratory peoples moving westwards off the steppe, this is where they first encountered peoples of the Mediterranean cultural zone and vice versa. The potential for a narrative of complex interaction has long been overshadowed by the narrative of post-Roman ‘darkness’ and the ‘achievement’ of the autochthonous population in surviving this barbarian onslaught. These encounters were not always peaceful, but nor was there permanent conflict. Unless we consciously shift our perspective, we will be left only with a history of invasion and survival. We must recognize that the history of East-Central Europe involves a great deal of human movement and encounter, and that this requires more complex and nuanced interpretations by scholars of the

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past. By considering continuity of place, rather than people, it is possible to construct archaeological narratives that give a sense of deep belonging, without predicating these narratives on strictly defined categories of ethnic identity.

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Index Abrittus (Battle of) 319 Adameșteanu, Dinu 29 aDNA. See Ancient DNA Adriatic Sea 18, 35 Aegean Sea 25, 27, 59 Aeneid 5 Age of Migrations 308–310, 312, 314–317, 321, 322, 335 AIESEE 7, 17–20, 22–39 Akurgal, Ekrem 23, 25, 29, 38 Alba Iulia 253, 329 Albania 4, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 29, 326 Algeria 17, 20, 32–37, 39 Alliance for the Union of Romanians 219 Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (Romania) 224 Amsterdam 65 Anatolia 25–27, 29, 39 Anatolianism 25, 27 Ancient DNA 183, 204, 206, 208, 209, 261, 331 Ankara 36 – Ankara University 23 Antiquity 1, 4, 6, 13, 22, 23, 25–27, 29, 30, 33, 35, 39, 50, 69, 112, 241, 243–245, 248, 307, 309, 315, 333, 334, 337 Antisemitism 189, 193, 200, 220, 269, 281 Antohi, Sorin 277, 279 Antonine Wall 158 Aquincum 164 Arabs 28, 29, 31, 32 – pan-Arabism 133 Asia Minor 30, 47, 59 Astana. See Nur-Sultan Athens 28 – Academy of 27 – Archaeological Society 23 – University of Athens 23 Aurelian 319, 320 Aurelius Victor 319 Austria 7, 21, 22, 25, 56–58, 60, 61, 157, 160, 162, 165, 169, 170–172, 176, 204, 208, 218, 226, 242, 270

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697445-014

Autochthonism 8, 20, 24, 26, 30, 39, 48, 59, 124, 126, 132, 142, 234, 243, 245, 246, 251, 262, 265, 269, 271, 272, 276–278, 297, 307–310, 314, 317, 321, 322, 324, 326, 328, 329, 331, 332, 335–337 Avars 181, 183, 201, 203, 204, 309, 312, 315, 316, 321, 328–330, 332, 333, 335–337 Azad, Maulana 21 Azerbaijan 185–187 Azeri 186, 187, 201 Băile Figa 332, 333, 334 Balkan. See Balkans Balkans 13, 17–32, 34–39, 47, 67, 83, 85, 86, 100, 195, 264, 276, 328 – Prehistory 24–27, 30 Balkan-Danube culture 323, 325 Baltic Sea 131 Banat 248, 268 Band 333 Band-Vereşmort Group 323 Barboși 329 Barcelona 66 Barkan, Ömer Lüfti 35 Bartucz, Lajos 192, 193, 200, 209 Basarabs 330, 331 Basel 66 Bastarnae 278 Batowski, Henryk 140 Beschaouch, Azedine 32 Beirut 23 Béla III 204, 208 Belgrade 140, 150 – Institute of Archaeology 36 – University of Belgrade 23 Benac, Alojz 23, 24, 28 Benkő, Mihály 191 Bergen 67 Berlin 63, 64, 113, 134, 143, 311 – German Academy of Sciences 113 – Humboldt University 113 Berbenliev, Peju 53 Beševliev, Veselin 23

348

Index

Bezid 333 Bíró, András Zsolt 187, 191, 199, 201, 207 Bistrița 249–251, 253 Bistritz. See Bistrița Black Sea 27, 29, 47, 48, 58, 59, 68, 263, 310, 328 Blaga, Lucian 262, 265, 270, 281, 282 Boia, Lucian 277, 279, 298, 321, 325 Bojkov, Vassil 66, 68, 69 Boldog, István 231 Bolliac, Cezar 8 Boner, Charles 5 Bonn 65, 66 Boston 63, 65 Botoşana 324–326 Bourgas 66, 68 Boyadjiev, Stefan 33 Brandt, Willy 115 Brașov 247, 249–254 Bratei Culture 324, 325 Braunschweig 248 von Bruckenthal, Samuel 254 Brussels 66, 68, 184 Bucharest 22, 31, 38, 259, 260, 269, 270, 276, 280 – Institute of Archaeology 8–11, 23, 290, 292, 298 – Institute of History 276 – Museum of Natural Science 8 – University of Bucharest 8, 10, 23, 275, 290, 295, 297 Budapest 164, 167, 184, 185, 187, 188, 201, 208, 230 Bug (river) 139 Bukovina 270 Bulgaria 7, 13, 17–19, 21–25, 32, 35, 38, 39, 45–71, 137, 218, 257, 295, 307, 308, 316, 325, 326, 329, 330 – Bulgarian Archaeology 2, 3, 25, 33, 46, 47, 49, 52, 61, 69, 70, 71, 323, 325 – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 22, 50, 52, 53 – Institute of Thracology 50, 53 – National Communism 45, 48, 49, 52, 61, 62, 70 Bulgars 50, 307, 309, 312, 321, 328–331, 333, 335

Burebista 10, 246, 272, 274 Byron, (Lord) 4 Byzantines 22, 27, 35, 276, 309, 311, 328–330 – Byzantine Empire 25, 28 – Byzantine Studies 27 Cairo – Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology 33 Călinescu, George 272 Capidava 329 Carolingians 314 Carpathians 5, 9, 47, 66, 165, 184, 201, 204, 241, 242, 246, 247, 253, 263, 272, 275, 277–279, 310, 315, 316, 322, 324, 326, 328–330, 333, 336 Carpathian Arc. See Carpathians Carpathian Basin. See Carpathians Carpathian Mountains. See Carpathians Carpi 323 Carthage 32, 33, 34, 36 Ceaușescu, Nicolae 10, 11, 241–247, 254, 261, 292, 293, 296, 310 Celts 55, 60, 66, 67, 173, 263, 267 Chehab, Emir Maurice 23 Childe, V. Gordon 26 China 53, 182, 188 Christianity 22, 28, 50, 120, 121, 144, 145, 159, 173, 176, 182, 204, 206, 217, 219, 220, 225–227, 229–234, 262, 272, 274, 275, 296, 316 CIPSH 21, 22, 25, 26, 30–34, 36, 37–39 Cioran, Emil 262, 265, 267, 269, 280, 281 Classical Period 4–6, 18, 20, 22, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 47, 158, 290, 314 Cluj-Napoca 1, 2, 165, 251, 259, 329, 333 – Cluj Group 323 – University of Cluj 10, 165, 294 Cniva 319 Coalition for the Family 219, 227, 228, 230, 234 Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea 270 Codreanu, Ion Zelea 270 Cojocna 333 Cold War 3, 13, 17, 19, 20, 38, 39, 56, 61, 107, 108, 113, 117, 122, 125, 157–159, 166–168, 170, 171, 175

Index

Cologne 64 Coman, Adrian 228 Coman, Ioan 271–275 Condurachi, Emil 18, 22, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35–38 Congress of Classical Archaeology 28 Corlățean, Titus 233 Cormanescu, Peter 269 Corund 333 Costişa-Mănoaia 324, 325 Crainic, Nichifor 262, 267, 271, 272 Croatia 77, 81, 83, 84–87, 93, 95, 96, 99, 101, 102, 192, 218 Cucuteni 261 Cultural-Historical Archaeology. See CultureHistory Culture-History 8–12, 287, 297, 299, 314, 315, 322, 332, 335, 337 Cumans 312, 321, 330, 331 Curta, Florin 287, 315 Cuza, A.C. 269 Cyprus 20 Czech Republic. See Czechia Czechia 224, 295 Czechoslovakia 17, 21, 112, 117, 136–138, 142, 143, 147 Czekanowski, Jan 141 Dacia 7–11, 24, 27, 38, 39, 48, 52, 61, 69, 192, 242–247, 251, 254, 257–282, 307, 309–311, 314, 315, 317–321, 325, 326, 328, 331, 332, 335–337 – Dacomania 3, 11, 261, 262, 280, 308 – Daco-Roman continuity thesis 10–13, 24, 241, 246, 248, 250, 260, 267, 268, 278, 298, 307, 310–312, 314, 317, 321, 325, 335 – Daco-Romans 10, 242–244, 248, 250, 251, 260, 268, 272, 273, 275, 310–312, 314, 316, 317, 321, 325, 335 Dacians. See Dacia Daicoviciu, Constantin 10, 246 Daicoviciu, Hadrian 246 Dalmatia 267 Dan, Nicuşor 232 Dana, Dan 277, 279 Dăncilă, Viorica 224

349

Danube (river) 5, 157, 158, 263, 264, 272, 278, 310, 311, 324–326, 328–330 Debrecen 203 Decebalus 259, 264, 270, 272 Deceneus 274 Decius 319 Demargne, Pierre 28 Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania 224 Densușianu, Nicolae 244, 266, 268 Dercsényi, Dezső 166 Detroit 65 Dichin 326 Dike, Kenneth 31 Dinogetia 329 Dinov, Ventsislav 51 Diop, Alioune 30 Diop, Cheikh Anta 33, 34 Dobrogea 311, 329 Dodeşti-Vaslui 324, 325 Dragnea, Liviu 228, 231 Dridu Culture 323–326, 330 Dubrovnik 21, 77, 78, 80–102 Duhamel, Jacques 53 Dumitrescu, Vladimir 10 Dupront, Alphonse 27 Early Medieval Period 9, 22, 50, 108, 112, 117, 119, 122, 193, 278, 307, 309, 311, 313–315, 321–323, 325, 326, 331–334, 337 Eastern Steppe 13, 47, 181–183, 203, 204, 309, 310, 312, 315, 316, 330, 336, 337 Egypt 18, 21, 27, 29, 32–34, 58 Ékes, Ilona 230 Elbe (river) 108, 142, 143, 145 Eliade, Mircea 262, 264, 266, 267, 269, 280–282 Eminescu, Mihai 257, 265 Ennabli, Abdelmajid 32, 33 Eötvös Loránd University 200, 208 Essen 49, 63 Ethnogenesis 22–26, 28, 30, 38, 48, 50, 208, 243, 273, 279, 297, 298, 301, 324 Eurafrica 35 Eurasian Steppe. See Eastern Steppe

350

Index

European Union 66, 68, 69, 173, 182, 188, 200, 208, 218, 224, 226, 227, 229, 232, 257–260 Eutropius 317, 319 EU. See European Union Fadeyev, Alexander 138 Făgăraș Alps 330 Fălticeni 270, 280 Fertő (Lake) 162, 163, 169, 171–173 Fertőrákos 157, 159, 160, 163, 171–175 – Fertőrákos Mithraeum 157–160, 162–166, 168–173, 175, 176 Fertő/Neusiedler Cultural Landscape 7, 158, 159, 161–163, 170–174, 176 Fidesz 185, 206, 219, 222, 223, 225, 226, 230, 231, 236 Filiaș 326, 333 Filow, Bogdan 48 Finland 218 Florence 65 Fol, Aleksandăr 25, 33, 49, 50, 53, 68, 69 Fort Worth 65 France 3, 21, 29, 34, 35, 53, 55, 145, 269, 270 Fribourg 58, 65 Funar, Gheorghe 1 Gabrieli, Gabriella 171 Galați 329 Gallineus 319 Gâmbas 329 Game of Thrones 6, 77, 78, 80, 81–83, 85–102, 189 Gândirea 257, 262, 263, 265, 271–274, 277 Ganovski, Vladimir 56 Garašanin, Milutin 23, 24, 26, 29, 35, 38 Gdańsk 132 GDR. See Germany (East Germany) Geneva 64 – University of Geneva 28 Georgiev, Vladimir 22, 23, 25 Gepids 309, 312, 315, 321, 322, 326, 328, 330, 332, 337 German Democratic Republic. See Germany (East Germany)

Germanic Tribes 47, 111, 115, 117, 278, 315, 323 Germany 22, 23, 29, 111, 113, 117, 121, 131, 133, 134, 139, 141–145, 150, 157, 166, 204, 207, 218, 235, 245, 248, 249, 252, 267, 296 – East Germany 3, 6, 107–118, 122, 123, 125, 126, 142, 149, 150 – East German Archaeology 107, 114, 126 – West Germany 3, 111, 115, 116, 122, 125, 248 – Nazi Germany 3, 22, 111–113, 115, 116, 118, 141, 142, 166, 192, 193, 196, 204, 296 Gerő, László 165 Gesta Hungaroram 331 Getae 263, 264, 267, 271, 273, 274 Geto-Dacians 263, 268, 297, 323, 324 Géza II 246 Gheorghe, Daniel 232 Giurescu, Constantin G. 9 Golden Horde 312 GoT. See Game of Thrones Goths 278, 312, 316, 319, 321–324, 326 Grabowski, Tadeusz Stanisław 140, 141 Great Britain 21, 55 Greece 4, 17–19, 21–29, 31, 33–39, 47, 48, 50, 55, 58, 59, 61, 70, 263, 276 Greeks. See Greece Greuthungi 323 Grubecki, Jan 139 Gulyás, Gergely 203 Hachmann, Rolf 290 Hadrian’s Wall 158, 317 Hamburg 65, 134, 143 Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu 265 Haskovo 62 Havana 54, 63 Hellenism 20, 22, 25, 34, 36–39 – Hellenization 28, 50 Helsinki 65 Hensel, Witold 107–110, 118–126 Herodotus 47, 263, 274, 275 Herrmann, Joachim 107–111, 113–118, 122, 124–126 Hermannstadt. See Sibiu Hildesheim 61, 62, 64

Index

Hisarya 62 Historia Augusta 319 Historians’ Dispute 2 Historikerstreit. See Historians’ Dispute Histria 328 Hittites 25, 27, 29 Hlincea Culture 323 Hobhouse, John Cam 4 Hochdorf 66 Homer 47 Honterus, Johannes 253, 254 Hungary 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 21, 137, 157–173, 175, 176, 181–209, 217–220, 222, 223, 225, 226, 228, 229, 231, 233, 235, 236, 242, 243, 246–248, 251, 253, 265–268, 272, 275, 295, 307, 308, 316, 317, 322, 331 – Hungarian Academy 168, 191, 198–200, 203, 206 – Hungarian Archaeology 7, 158, 164–171, 173, 175, 176, 183, 187, 189, 191–209, 316, 317, 322, 331 Hungarian Natural History Museum 182, 191–193, 196, 197, 199, 201, 202, 205, 207, 208 Hungarian National Museum 164, 171, 182, 191, 206 Huns 48, 181, 183, 201, 203–207, 312, 315, 316, 321–324, 326 Iași 261, 278 Iatrus 326, 329 Iceland 81, 101 Illyria. See Illyrian Illyrian 24, 29, 35, 38, 48, 55 – Illyrian culture 28 Illyrians. See Illyrian Illyricum 24, 319 İnalcık, Halil 38 India 21, 54, 90, 92, 93, 159, 183 Indo-Europeans 24, 25, 29, 30 International Association for South-eastern European Studies. See AIESEE International Congress for Studies of Punic and Phoenician civilizations 36 International Congress of Africanists 25, 26, 30, 31

351

International Congress of Historical Sciences 25–27, 29, 38 International Council for Philosophy and the Humanities. See CIPSH International Organization for the Family 233, 234 Interwar Period 2, 9, 11, 22, 24, 30, 35, 38, 48, 111, 114, 115, 118, 119, 121–124, 132, 136, 141, 143, 147, 158, 182, 189, 192, 193, 195, 196, 200, 201, 203, 206, 220, 229, 233, 235, 244, 257, 262, 263, 269, 271, 277, 278, 280–282, 308 Ionescu, Nae 257, 262, 264, 267, 270, 271, 280, 281 Ionescu, Petre P. 274 Iorga, Nicolae 265, 269 Ipoteşti-Cândeşti Culture 323–326 Iran 18, 21, 204 Iraq 21 Ireland 142, 218 Iron Guard 10, 235, 262, 264, 269, 272, 273, 275, 276, 280 Irtysh (river) 330 Islam 27, 34, 36, 182 Islamic. See Islam Islami, Selim 23 Istanbul 36 – University of Istanbul 35 Istoria Românilor (2001) 298, 324 Italy 5, 20, 21, 29, 34–37, 54, 101, 158, 235, 270 Japan 54, 62, 65 Jena 207 Jerusalem 58 Jobbik (Hungary) 184, 185, 223, 225, 230, 231 Jordanes 310, 319, 321, 324 Karal, Ziya 27 Karayannopoulos, Yannis 38 Katyń 136 Kazakhstan 184–188, 191, 198, 199, 201, 330 Kazanlak 52, 59, 62, 69 Kazarov, Gavril 48 Kazichene 59

352

Index

Kiel 143 King’s Landing 77–82, 85–92, 94, 95, 97, 99–102 Kirchschläger, Rudolf 58 Kitov, Georgi 69 Klausenburg. See Cluj-Napoca Kołodziej, Władysław 131, 134, 144–148, 150 Kolozsvár. See Cluj-Napoca König, Walter 247 Korniychuk, Oleksandr 138 Koşay, Hamit 23 Kostov, Konstantin 51 Kövér, László 231 Kraków 5, 139, 149 – Jagiellonian University 140 Kraus, Georg 253 Kreisky, Bruno 58 Kroner, Michael 247 Kronstadt. See Brașov Kurultáj 6, 181, 183–187, 189–195, 198, 199, 201, 203 Kyrgyzstan 187 Łabędź, Marceli 148 Late Antiquity 50, 112, 307, 309, 315, 334, 337 Latvia 218 Lazius, Wolfgang 7 Lebanon 18, 21, 23 Lecce – University of Lecce 35 Legion of the Archangel Michael. See Iron Guard Lehr-Spławiński, Tadeusz 140 Leningrad 49, 53, 63, 64 Leș, Gabriel 233 Lezsák, Sándor 185 Libya 32, 33 Liiceanu, Gabriel 280 Limes. See Roman Frontier Lisbon 58 Lithuania 218 Łódź 136 London 52, 53, 55, 61–64, 67, 146 Lopadea Nouă 329 Lovech 59 Lovinescu, Vasile 270, 280

Lower Danube Frontier 309, 310, 329, 335, 337 Lublin – University of Lublin 118 Lübeck 143 Lusatia 111, 117, 133, 142, 143, 146–148, 150 Lusatian Neisse (river) 111, 121, 122, 132, 134, 146–148, 150 Luxembourg 218, 246 Lviv 141 – John Casimir University 141 Lwów. See Lviv Madrid 64, 66 Magyars 165, 176, 181, 183, 191, 193, 198, 200, 201, 203, 204, 206, 272, 307–309, 312, 315, 321, 323, 328–331, 333, 337 Magyar-Turán Foundation 184, 186, 187, 201 Mainz 65 Mamaia 17, 18, 28–30, 33 Macedonia 20, 39, 59 Magdeburg 143 Maghreb 32, 34–36 Maheu, Rene 32 Malta 81, 101, 218 Marinatos, Spyridon 23 Marxism 9–11, 49, 52, 112, 113, 119, 121, 124, 126, 167, 200, 232, 233, 243, 249, 296 Mediterranean (region) 18, 20, 25–29, 32–36, 39, 321, 337 Mediaş Group 323, 325 von Mehrhart, Gero 290 Memphis 65 Mesopotamia 27, 33 Mexico 54, 55 Mexico City 25, 55, 63 Michael the Brave 276 Michałowski, Kazimierz 33, 34 Miciński, Tadeusz 147 Mieszko I 119–121 Minsk 53, 63 Moesia 267, 268, 319, 321, 336 Moldavia 242, 268, 278, 297, 316 Moldova 251, 261, 266 Mongolia 201, 207 Mongols 192, 194–198, 312 Montreal 58, 64

Index

Morocco 17, 20, 32, 33–37, 39, 81, 101 Moscow 24, 46, 49, 53, 55, 63, 64, 66, 70, 139 Munich 23, 55, 64, 65 Mureş (river) 328, 329, 332 Mycenae 48, 59 Mycenaeans. See Mycenae Nagoya 64, 67 Naples 36 – University of Naples 35 Napoca (ancient) 321, 336 National Geographic 61 National Liberal Party (Romania) 224, 232, 259 Nazis. See Nazi Germany N’Daw, Alassane 31 Nestor, Ion 10, 23, 29, 290 Neuchâtel 49, 63 Neusiedlersee. See Fertő (Lake) New Delhi 64 New Orleans 65 New York 63 New Zealand 95 Nicolae, Șerban 233 Nicolaescu-Plopşor, Constantin 23 Noica, Constantin 257, 262, 267, 269, 270, 275, 277, 280–282 Northern Ireland 81, 85, 95, 101, 218, 226 Noșlac 333 Nova Cherna 329 Noviodunum 329 Nubia 32, 33 Numidia 34 Nur-Sultan, 187, 188 Ocna Dejului 333 Ocna Mureșului 333 Ocna Sibiului 333 Ocnița 333 Odartsi 329 Oder (river) 108, 111, 121, 122, 131, 132, 134, 136, 139, 142, 143, 146–148, 150 Oder-Neisse Line 132, 134, 146–148, 150 Odobescu, Alexandru 8 Odorhei 333

353

Odrysians 59 Okayama 64 Orbán, Viktor 12, 182, 185, 187, 188, 192, 199, 203, 206, 225, 226, 231, 234, 236 Orlandos, Anastasios 23 d’Ormesson, Jean 32, 37 Orosius 319 Orpheus 51, 66, 68, 69 Ottoman Empire 8, 22, 28, 35, 36, 49, 50, 84, 138, 242, 264, 311, 316 Ottomans. See Ottoman Empire Ovcharov, Nikolay 69 Ovid 4, 5 Păcuiul lui Soare 329 Pallottino, Massimo 29 Păltiniș 270, 277, 280 Panagyurishte Treasure 60, 62, 68 Pazardzhik 60 People’s Movement Party (Romania) 224 Pompiliu, Teodor 246 Porolissum 321, 336 Potaissa 309, 321, 328, 333, 335, 336 Panaitescu, Petre P. 269, 275, 276 Pannonia 157, 173, 176, 267, 328, 336 Pannonian Basin 3 Papu, Edgar 10, 244 Paris 3, 28, 49, 53–55, 61, 63, 66, 67, 145 Pârvan, Vasile 8–11, 267, 268, 273, 274, 294 Pechenegs 312, 321, 330, 331, 335 Pécs 176, 203 Persians 5, 29, 48, 67, 159 Phoenicians 31, 36 Phrygians 29 Pietroasa 326 Pippidi, Dionise 23 Pîrvulescu, Eugen 232 Plovdiv 30, 59, 62, 67–69 Polabia 133–135, 143, 147, 148, 150, 151 Poland 21, 55, 107–110, 112, 118–126, 131–137, 139–142, 144–150, 218, 295 – Polish Archaeology 107–112, 118–126, 133, 134, 148, 150 – Second Polish Republic 118, 122, 140 Pomerania 132, 136 Popov, Rafail 48 Portugal 31

354

Index

Poznań 118, 119, 141, 148 – University of Poznań 147 Prague 17, 64, 138 Protochronism 10, 11, 244, 254, 266, 274, 280 Prussia 3, 132, 134, 143, 144 Pruth (river) 279 Punic. See Carthage Răducăneni 326 Ragusa 81, 84, 86, 94, 95, 99 Razgrad 61 Revai Miočević, Duje 23 Révai, József 166 Rhodope Mountains 51, 68 Roller, Mihail 9, 10 Romania 1, 3–13, 17–25, 28, 29, 32, 35, 38, 39, 48, 50, 52, 61, 69, 70, 165, 192, 194, 217, 219, 220, 222–236, 241–255, 257–282, 287, 289–302, 307–312, 314–317, 319–326, 329–337 – National Communism 10, 11, 48, 216, 244, 247, 261, 322 – Romanian Academy 11, 22, 23, 276, 278, 281, 296–298 – Romanian Archaeology 1, 7–13, 18, 22, 24, 29, 38, 39, 48, 52, 61, 165, 192, 194, 242–244, 246, 250, 254, 260–268, 270–279, 287, 289–294, 297–302, 307–312, 314–317, 319–326, 329–331, 333, 334, 336, 337 – Romanian Principalities 316 – Romanianism 271, 275–277 Romans 1, 2, 4, 5, 7–10, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28–31, 33, 34–37, 47, 55, 60, 65, 145, 157–159, 163, 165, 166, 173, 175, 176, 201, 204, 242, 243, 246, 247, 250, 257, 259, 260, 263–274, 278, 290, 297, 298, 307–317, 319–323, 325, 326, 328, 329, 332–337 – Roman Frontier 36, 157, 158, 309, 312, 316, 320, 326, 328, 329, 335 – Romanization 7, 8, 11, 28, 50, 268, 272–274, 310, 314, 317, 319–322, 325 Roman Dacia. See Dacia Roman Empire. See Romans

Rome 4, 35, 36, 53, 267, 272, 273, 316 – École française 35, 37 – Sapienza University of Rome 29 Rospond, Stanisław 140 Rotterdam 64 Rozevets 59 Rozovets 59 Rudnicki, Mikołaj 147 Rufus Festus 319 Rügen 134, 144, 145, 147, 150 Ruritania 85 Ruse 61, 67 Russia 24, 54, 138, 183, 188, 209, 221, 310, 316 Saarbrücken 58 Sakellariou, Michael 38 Salinae 333 Saltovo-Maiaki Culture 323 De Salvo, Marquis 5 San Francisco 65 Sântana de Mureş-Černjachov Culture 323–325 Sarajevo 23, 24 – Centre for Balkan Studies 23 Sarmatians 4, 5, 323 Sarmizegetusa 270, 274 Save Romania Union 224, 231–233, 259 Schönfeld, Johann Heinrich 4, 5 Sclavenes 328 Scythia Minor 326, 328, 336 Scythians 48, 49, 53, 55, 61, 207 Sebastian, Mihai 267, 269 Sendai 67 Senegal 30 Serbia 11, 84, 99, 264, 328 Seuthopolis 59, 69 Seville 58 Shanghai – Fudan University 188 Shipka 61 Siberia 136 Sibiu 249–251, 253 Sicily 36 Sighișoara 251 Silesia 132, 136, 141

Index

– Lower Silesia 140 – Upper Silesia 137 Silistra 329 Sinaia 21, 22 Sirmium 328 Slavic Archaeology 107–110, 112, 113, 118, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126 Slavs 9, 10, 24, 25, 35, 50, 55, 107–117, 119, 121–126, 138, 141–143, 145, 312, 315, 321, 325, 328, 331, 333, 336 Slovakia 157, 218, 224, 263, 295 Social Democrat Party (Romania) 223, 224, 228, 231, 233, 236 Sofia 21, 25, 27, 52, 54, 55, 59, 63–68, 326 – Institute of Balkan Studies 23 – Institute of Thracian Studies 33, 52 – University of Sofia 48, 53 Someșeni 333 Sopron 166, 169–171 Sorbs 116, 117, 125, 134, 141–143, 147–150 Soviet Union 9, 17, 20, 21, 24, 48, 49, 52, 53, 55, 61, 111–113, 115, 118, 120, 131, 132, 135, 136–140, 146, 148–150, 165–167, 169, 170, 191, 193, 194, 208, 243, 323 Spain 81, 101, 102 Spinei, Victor 317, 322, 331 St. Louis 65 Stachniuk, Jan 144 Stalin, Joseph 10, 136–138 Stănescu, Eugen 28 Stăniloae, Dumitru 273, 274 Stockholm 64 Stojanowski, Karol 131, 133, 134, 141–144, 146–150 Strabo 263, 264 Suceava 35 Suceava-Şipot Group 323 Sumerians 29 Sweden 55 Świątkowski, Henryk 139 Syme, Roland 21, 25, 26 Syria 21 Szamosközy, István 7 Szczecin 150 Szeged 203 – University of Szeged 191, 197, 199, 203 Szekler 194, 247

355

Taha-Hussein, Moënis 18 Taormina 21 Târgşor 324 Târgovişte – University of Târgovişte 280 Tegulitsium 329 Teodor, Dan Gh. 325, 325 Teodorescu, Victor 325 Tepsić, Jelka 99 Tervingi 323 Thermopylae 5 Third World 20, 32, 54 Thrace. See Thracians Thracians 3, 7, 25, 27, 29, 35, 38, 39, 45–71, 257, 263, 264, 267, 271, 275, 278, 280 – Thracian Archaeology 2, 33, 45–71 – Thracology 7, 25, 45, 47–50, 52, 53, 62, 69, 70 – Thracomania 298 – Thracianization 68 Tirana 21, 24 – National Archaeological Museum 23 Todorov, Nikolai 38 Todorov, Stanko 58 Tokyo 55, 58, 64, 66, 67 Tolstoy, Aleksey 138 Tóth, Tibor 191 Transylvania 3, 9, 85, 194, 195, 229, 241–244, 246–254, 264, 266, 272, 275, 276, 309, 322–329, 331–336 – Transylvanian Saxons 7, 241–244, 246–255 – Transylvanian School 264, 265 Troy 55, 59, 64, 67 Tuđman, Franjo 84 Tunisia 17, 20, 32, 33–37, 39 Tunis 32, 33, 35 Turanism 182, 186, 189, 192, 193, 330 Turda 333, 334 Turkey 4, 17, 18, 21–25, 36, 38, 39, 47, 182–189, 276 – Antique Works and Museums 23 Turnu Roşu Pass 328 Tzenoff, Gancho 48 Ukraine 141, 188, 209, 261, 310, 323 Ulpia Traiana Sarmizgetusa 336

356

Index

UNESCO 17–23, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 33, 36–39, 52, 81, 99, 157, 158, 161–163, 170, 172–174, 176, 247 United Kingdom 3, 145, 158, 226 United States 12, 20, 54, 233, 234, 242, 281, 290 USSR. See Soviet Union Vandals 278 Varna 58, 59, 61, 66, 68 Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology. See Bucharest, Institute of Archaeology Venice 65, 84, 167, 226 Vetren 329 Vienna 27, 29, 46, 56–58, 60, 62, 68, 165 Vicenza 65 Vilnius 144 – University of Vilnius 144 Visigoths 323 Vlachs 316, 317, 330, 331, 336 Vladár, Ágnes H. 171 Vladár, György 171 Vratsa 56, 59, 61 Vulcănescu, Mircea 262, 267, 269, 276, 277, 280, 282 Vulpe, Alexandru 8, 12 Wallachia 7, 242, 251, 276, 297, 316, 330, 331 Warmia 132 Warsaw 33, 49, 63, 67, 136, 139, 146, 149, 150

Washington DC 65, 146, 262 Wasileswska, Wanda 139 Werner, Joachim 290 Westeros 80, 81, 85, 95, 96, 100–102, 189 Wilno. See Vilnius World War One 1, 5, 48, 165, 169, 266, 267, 276 World War Two 23, 56, 107, 111, 118, 121, 131–133, 137, 138, 144, 147, 159, 165, 169, 170, 195, 242, 296 Wrocław 140–142, 148, 149 Xenophanes of Colophon 47 Young Generation 267, 269–271, 276–278, 280, 281 Yugoslavia 17–18, 19–24, 29, 35, 48, 55, 70, 137, 141, 146, 326 – Yugoslav Wars 81, 85, 86, 99, 100 Zagreb – Archaeological Museum 23 Zakythinos, Denis 27 Zalmoxis 50, 263, 265, 272–275 Zamfirescu, Dan 280 Zamolxis. See Zalmoxis Zavala, Silvia 26 Zhandov, Zahari 51 Zhivkov, Todor 49, 58 Zhikova, Lyudmilla 49, 53, 54, 58, 62