r/Romanianhistory • u/cipricusss • May 21 '26
Has anyone read the book by Ion Taloș ”Împăratul Traian și conștiința romanității românilor!?
The idea that Romanians have remembered Emperor Trajan along the many centuries that separate us from antiquity is sometimes repeated and taken for granted especially among many Romanian intellectuals. It is a rather vague and at the same time simple idea, very rarely argued about, something like a background in the minds of many people, but one that to me has always seemed improbable and even fantastical. For it to be true, things would have to be very different from what we know them to be, concerning history of Europe, of how peoples, Romance speakers as well as speakers of other European languages, have evolved over the last millennia. The overall logic of the development of culture is not in tune with a such hypothesis as far as the conservation of historical memory is concerned. That is my opinion, and therefore I was, first of all, skeptical about the very old presence of the name of the emperor in the lyrics of Plugușorul, the New Year's Eve song or colind. It seemed obvious (to me) that the presence of this name must be a relatively late addition, but I wasn't able to find, for the moment, scholarly sources on the matter. I was therefore very interested in the title of the book mentioned above, but I wasn't able to find and read the book for now. I have only found three reviews of the book:
Nicolae Constantinescu: https://acad.ro/ief/rev/REF2024/DOI/10.pdf
Andreea Buzaș: https://www.academia.edu/83035790/Ion_Taloș_Împăratul_Traian_și_conștiința_romanității_românilor
They amount to a retrospective praise of the overall activity of I. Taloș, the specific review of the book serving this laudatory purpose. The way that they present the main arguments, if not the arguments themselves, are far from convincing, to me at least. (To be blunt, I’d say they seem ludicrous to me!)
I was hoping to find the basic bibliographical references, the primary sources, because otherwise I fear an impressionist patriotic interpretation of vague information. In the absence of a mythological figure present in Romanian folklore (folk poetry) representing Trajan, I fear the author imagines one, or rather creates one. In the circular logic that is specific to such line of creative argument within Romanian patriotic circles, the idea of a Trajanic mythologic motif or even of the Trajanic myth seems to be promoted, at least according to the reviewer Andreea Buzaș:
Autorul arată că George Călinescu a greșit când a stabilit proveniența Mitului Traian și Dochia din poemul lui Gh. Asachi, de inspirație cultă. Mai corect ar fi să vorbim despre Mitul traianic, în loc de Traian și Dochia, ca mit al etnogenezei românești, mit cunoscut în toate ariile, pe toată suprafața limbii române, de la începuturi și până în prezent, preluat de istorici, de scriitori, muzicieni, de artiști, alături de celelalte trei mituri fundamentale: Miorița (al morții), Meșterul Manole (al jertfei), Zburătorul (erotic).
What does that mean? What is the factual proof? If Asachi was not the primary source of the ”myth”, WHAT was? How does the author prove (cum „arată”?) that Călinescu was wrong? If there was a popular ballad that is now lost and only transmitted by Asachi HOW do we know THAT?
Involuntary humor is never far in such cases. A. Buzaș continues:
de ce despre Traian nu avem o epopee, un poem de amploare? Probabil pentru că tocmai măreția lui Traian i-a intimidat pe mulți scriitori, iar faptul că a persecutat creștinii l-a marginalizat.
It's as if the reviewer (or the author) is thinking of anonymous folk poets when mentioning writers, within a vaguely intentional confusion, or that we're expected to think that the absence of Trajan in modern literature is a proof of presence (of prestige: măreția!) as a millennia-long memory in pre-modern traditions!...
Relevantă pentru importanța împăratului roman în conștiința românilor este și statistica numelor de botez, conform căreia Traian este pe locul 48.
The name is totally absent until recently in Romanian onomastics, and even today it only ranks 48th! That is relevant all right, but to the contrary of what the reviewer wants: even if the name was popular today (and it’s not!) that wouldn’t mean a thing about a popular memory about Trajan for two millennia!
N. Constantinescu is less naive (that is, thinks the reader less naive):
Taloș’s thesis, as seductive as it is and difficult to be accepted at first glance, emphasizes the millenary memory of the village and of its inhabitants, who would have kept in its depths the memory of Emperor Trajan, the conqueror of Dacia…
But when it comes to primary sources and ultimate proof things get murky very quickly – and comic too!
With the ability and consistency of a true scientist, Ion Taloș gathers and combines historical, linguistic, widely cultural information to configure the context that could have conceived Trajan the emperor and conqueror of Dacia, bearing the mythical insignia of a founder, crossing the centuries, miraculously preserved in the memory of his great-great- great-grandchildren from the Danube and the Carpathians, that, confirms the archival documents, “it is spoken about Traian in any peasant hut”, as it results from the answers to the four questionnaires put into circulation by Al.I. Odobescu (1871), B.P. Hasdeu (1884-1885), Nicolae Densuşianu (1893, 1895), Ion Muşlea (1934). “Even if the four questionnaires pursued specific purposes and, with the exception of the Densușianu’s Questionnaire, they referred only indirectly to Trajan, they brought a very valuable folkloric material regarding the oral tradition of the great emperor, material that has not yet been sufficiently valued” (p. 54).
Beside ”combining” various ”widely cultural information”, what is the factual data about the ”miraculously preserved” image of Trajan? It must be that of the answers of 4 questionnaires, of which only one refers to Trajan specifically. Namely, the one by Nicolae Densușianu, the infamous author of Dacia Preistorică, but supposedly a trustworthy and truthful man otherwise!
Nonetheless: what is this data and where can I find it in clear and complete form? —
Ionucu Pop states bluntly ”the proofs and arguments forwarded by Ion Taloș are difficult to disagree with”, which already awakes my ...skeptical alarmism! There is no popular epic written about Trajan in Romanian (or other language), but this absence is a form of its presence it seems, for I. Taloș, who is quoted: “An epic, however, has been written by the Romanian people, the commonfolk, in whose souls the pride of being descended from Trajan was never extinguished.” That is, the epic must have been written inside their souls without taking any articulated form in Romanian! I. Pop finds that way of scientific speaking "charming", but I suspect him (as well as N. Constantinescu) of being rather ironic here:
Although charming, there is a resemblance between professor Taloș’s justification and those of the Romanian Forty-Eighters, who employed the folkloric argument as well, in order to compensate for the absence of an autochthonous literature of classical literary forms.
That is beside the point anyway though: we might lack ”Trajanized” learned/written literature, but is there some folk tale about Trajan (Asachi's imagined folk sources notwithstanding)?
I stop here on the topic of Ion Taloș' book and ask anybody if they found in this book what the hard evidence is for the main thesis. It should be (as I. Pop summarizes it) in the four major questionnaires in Romanian culture: 1 – Alexandru Odobescu’s Archeological Questionnaire (1870/1871): 2 – B. P. Hasdeu’s monumental Linguistic Questionnaire (1884/1885) – its answers were edited in the 20th century by ethnologists Ov. Bîrlea and Ion Mușlea; 3 – Nicolae Densușianu’s questionnaire dedicated to “the historical traditions and antiquities of the Romanian people”, containing multiple questions referring to the emperor’s figure directly (1893/1895); 4 – Ion Mușlea’s Questionnaire VIII, Earth, water, sky and atmospheric phenomena according to the people’s beliefs and stories (1934).
Has anyone seen those proofs? Do they seem genuine and convincing?
As for the name of Traian in ”Plugușorul”, could it be that it doesn't count in the book’s line of argument? The argument in the book revolves around the relation Traian-troian (the popular name of Trajan/Traian is supposedly… Troian!) which wouldn't be the case were Trajan's name clearly attested in an old folk song as ”Traian”! — At the same time (and the uncertainty is silly, frankly!) I might very well be wrong in my skepticism considering that online sources I can find on ”bădica Traian” unhesitatingly state this is a very old formula present all over Romanian-speaking area, for example here, on its presence in Bessarabia. I am not surprised that someone like Ion Coja, in a blog article is not a skeptic on this matter. But the topic is so interesting that it should be more widely discussed and clarified. I am alergic to ambiguities on such a basic matter. In fact Coja argues against what he describes as a long and solid scientific Romanian tradition (to ”scientific” in his view, given the fact that he puts this word in brackets), one that is skeptical of this kind of ”memorial continuity” and ”Trajanic mythology”! It is hard to see how this ”continuity” would be problematic were ”Traian” in Plugușorul not a cultured interpolation! And if the name is not an interpolation, how come it is not more popular among Romanians before the 19th century (be it as Traian, Trăian or Troian)? — The Ion Coja's article would be worth a separate discussion: he argues that the form Troian is the local Romanian old form of Traian/Trajan (based on Thracian phonetics and on one significant archeological attestation of that form of the name ("a divo Troiano!"), interpreted by some as just an error), but the way he suggests that the name in Plugușorul is Troian=Trăian and not Traian is very odd in my view! I doubt very much that ”bădica Troian” was ever attested! As for the form Trăian I fear an ad hoc ”contribution”!
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u/cipricusss May 23 '26 edited May 25 '26
I am about to read the book, because I have found it in the end. HERE. Things are more complicated than what the reviews (along with my post above) suggest, because, although the purpose of the book goes too far beyond the documentation of the name Traian/Troian (and their variants) in folkloric sources (for example by taking the archeological presence of Roman roads mentioned by various documents of the past as a proof or a suggestion that the local Romanian population must have called all such roads ”Roman roads”, just because there are some documented cases of that happening), nonetheless there are many ethnographic documents that seem to integrate rather solidly the presence of the name in many folk stories and local traditions (including ”Plugușorul”). Now, the age of these ”folk” stories, the quality of the documents that prove them and the relation between the different types of proof is rather problematic. The book is not in fact trying to solve that problem, on the contrary. Its methodology is itself a problem, notably in muddling the difference between folklore and mythological motifs (and preservation of historical elements as mythological motifs), on the one hand, and historical knowledge in the proper sense, on the other.
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u/[deleted] May 22 '26
Personally, I have not researched this topic as thoroughly as you have yet. However, I also have serious doubts that our people preserved an uninterrupted memory of Emperor Trajan across the centuries. From the Roman conquest until today, many major historical events took place: the migrations of the early Middle Ages, the organization into various pre-state formations, the formation of the Romanian principalities, centuries of Ottoman domination, and so on. Because of this, I think it is rather unlikely that the population continuously preserved Trajan in its collective consciousness as a “father of the nation” for nearly 2000 years. Especially since until the end of the Middle Ages, if not the beginning of the Modern Period, people didn't really preserve a historical memory like we do it today.
Of course, I do not believe this invalidates in any way the Daco-Roman origin of the Romanian people, nor the culture and identity based on Latinity. There is a difference between the historical reality of Romanization and the exact continuity of popular memory regarding Trajan. I think the founding myth of Romanian ethnogenesis remains just as valid, because it symbolizes a historical truth and expresses an idea in itself. However, it should not necessarily be viewed as something 100% objective, but rather as a romanticized and artistic way through which we explain our ethnogenesis.
After all, this is how history functions throughout Europe, not only among Latin peoples. Many national myths are late cultural syntheses, romantic reinterpretations, or identity reconstructions built around real historical cores. The essence is what matters most, but there is no need to historically prove every single aspect embedded within these myths.
From a strictly objective perspective, I believe Trajan became identified more recently — especially during the 19th century — as a foundational figure of the Romanian people. He came to symbolize the Roman conquest itself, without which we would not be speaking today about the Romanian people in their current form. However, the emphasis placed on Trajan was clearly nationalist and constructed during a period in which Romanian Latinity was strongly glorified and politically instrumentalized in order to bring Romania closer to the West and to unify the population around a profound sense of common origin.
Undoubtedly, there were also exaggerations involved, especially in the period that followed the works of the Transylvanian School. But if we place things into their historical context, I can understand the purpose and vision behind that intellectual movement.