My American Lectures/A Roumanian Market Town

by Nicolae Iorga

A ROUMANIAN MARKET TOWN

To an American, or for the matter of that to anyone unacquainted with Roumania, the existence and particularly the origins of a Roumanian market town is hardly comprehensible without some explanation from the geographer and historian.

In America a new settlement is due to the discovery of fresh sources of wealth and the initiative of enterprising men. In a few months, its importance and character begin to become apparent. In its externals it is like other groupings of inhabitants. The types of social life are merely repeated yet once more.

Far different from this, however, was the old Roumanian town. Sometimes it originated from the necessities of trade routes, from the need of bringing the products of a valley to a central market, from the fame, noised abroad, of a celebrated holy image, or from the presence of a stronghold. It has been a general European occurrence. But the manner in which its concretion was slowly established is quite different from the neighbouring countries inhabited by other races.

The small locality of 5,000 inhabitants, Vălenii de Munte, where I spend the summer months and where I have sought to spread what I consider the true ideal of practical culture demanded by the changed conditions of my country, may serve to demontrate well Wallachian Farmhouse enough the interesting process of building up an urban centre.

But first to deal with its name. Vălenii de Munte signifies the inhabitants of the valley of the mountainous part of the region; more picturesquely but not more accurately: — the valley dwellers of the mountain. A torrential river, the Teleajen, a name which is reminiscent of the Italian Telesino, has assisted in the assemblage of large groups of peasant, labourers and carters for the transportation of goods. It is one of the most charming spots in Upper Wallachia; and the neighbourhood of Transylvania (the name of which alone evokes the vision of cool tinkling streams and shady woods and thickets), through the passes of Cheia^[1] and Bratocea^[2], contributed in the past to the larger development, to the slow enrichment of an active and sympathetic population. All are Văleni in the special sense of vale^[3]. The village under the lofty eminences which are big enough to be called mountains^[4] is Vălenii de Munte.

All such villages retain the names of their founders in the remote and obscure past, which are those of their progeny. The newcomers are adopted by the natives based on the true legitimate possession of the soil. Consequenly Vălenii de Munte is the concentration of a certain number of these settlements: a descendant of Berivoiu, for instance, is a Berivoescu, in the village of Berivoești. Each with its own tiny old church, beside others, each with its particular church, each claiming a separate progenitor, the name of the ancestor taking the suffix ești: only to such as came later, uniting with the aboriginals, were given a name in which the suffix eni betrays their foreign origin: Costeni, the colonists of the coast (Roumanian: coastă).

For the needs of commercial traffic, for the carriers of Transylvanian wares, a market was set up, with its inns^[5] and shops for the sale of small cheaply manufactured articles and iron-ware, better than those which came from the crude hands of the gypsies, the traditional metal workers of all the Roumanian provinces after their invasion by the Mongol hordes in the middle of the 12th century. This market, the târg, still exists and, before the fresh reform of the High Road^[6], old wooden columns supported the blackened roofs of șindile^[7]. In their murky depths, as in the shops of old Portugal, in Evora for example, the old-fashioned merchant, always a Roumanian (not, as in Moldavia, a Jew), leisurely attended to the peasant who came only on holidays to replenish the provisions of his tiny white dwelling, or to sit for a few hours under the shelter of dried branches to sip a glass of the delicious local wine, to the strains of the old and young gypsy fiddlers, all born musicians.

Certain of the richer landowners had their abode in these pleasant and serene surroundings. Tall houses arose with sunny cerdacs^[8] set upon the same wooden columns which characterise the old-time inns, and with stately pyramidal roofs and small windows. The coach of which the lesser boyars were proud, traversed the streets, paved as in ancient Roman times with large round slabs of stone, the caldarâm of the Turks, and the importance of each petty lord was gauged according to the beauty of the swift horses, by the majestic bearing of the swarthy gypsy coachman. Rivalry arose over the richness of the equipages thus admired, the height of the houses, the number of dinners which never ended before daybreak, and often not then, the splendour of the balls which were quickly imitated from the western fashion, the marriages, and funerals, to which all priests, banners and crosses were brought to render the last honours to these mighty ones, who in life had vied with each other for temporal splendours.

Factions were formed by favourites and these loyalties were carefully cultivated by the faction-leaders by baptising children, by leading young couples to the altar, by distributing on all occasions agreeable and useful little gifts. It was as the life in the Albanian clans, the retinue of a small western baron or provincial knight of the middle ages. The new constitutional regime of the last century gave these clans, or cliques, the high-sounding names of liberal or Conservative — poor modest men, busy with the cultivation of plums, the making of the national beverage (țuica), the commonplace interests of a very circumscribed existence — and during more recent times the social cooperatives of the Liberals and the followers of the Peasant party.

A princely fortress has dominated the road since the 15th century: underground passages, masses of old stones testify to its existence. A church was necessarily connected with it. I myself have found, under its renovated roof, Slavonic manuscripts with ornate lettering, Transylvanian prints in the Roumanian of the 16th century, together with holy images in the Byzantine style, the remnants of the scattered dowry of a mighty empire. Later, in the second half of the 17th century, a merchant of Văleni, who had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, restored the old wooden church. The portrait of this pilgrim, Stoian, may still be seen on the walls of the new structure, clad in his fur coat, while near him is portrayed the then reigning Prince of Wallachia, Șerban Cantacuzino, crowned as an emperor, continuing the line of the Byzantine Caesars, whose descendant he was. It is a handsome brick edifice with an ornately decorated door, with a laughing mask in the occidental style below: carved stone sash-frames enclose the narrow windows. The partition separating the worshippers from the closed altar is made of stone and in its niches serene figures of stern Byzantine lineaments represent the life and martyrdom of Our Lord: beneath, the large holy images were roughly covered with wrought silver, reproducing the features of the pictures. Many vivid frescoes brighten the walls.

A great earthquake half-destroyed the pilgrim’s gift, but it was rebuilt. A second time the same fate befell it. A family of minor nobles helped to restore it thoroughly. They are portrayed on the wall at the entrance beside imposing scenes of the Last Judgment, the elect singing and the damned about to savour the everlasting torments of hell. The men, in their customary fur coats and round Turkish hats, the pretty women in white caps, flowing tresses and long and sumptuous robes sparkling with delicate flowers. The Greek artist sent by the monks of the monastery of the Holy Mount of Athos, to which the rich church was dedicated, added figures of a heroic size in a more modern style, subscribed with Greek inscriptions, similar to the old pictures of Cretan half-occidental character.

Here also I came in search of respite from my labours, before the railway brought Văleni in touch with the outer world. It was in the white months of winter. Everything seemed so archaic. It was like the descent through the ages to the simple days of patriarchal life and noble struggles. From the mountains, down frozen paths, came peasants riding on small swift horses like the knights of yore when they returned victorious from battle. During the Christmas festivities children, according to tradition, wearing glittering paper garments and gilded crowns, brought me in songs the ancient story of Herod. And the bells, which were later destined to become the victims of the German occupation, tiny innocent bells which surely never dreamt of becoming huge Teuton guns, rang clearly through the sunny morning air from all four churches of the silent peaceful community.

I brought here, to the small house I first occupied, with the shadowed balustrade and blackened wood roof, the noise of a motor for the newly-established printing press. I hoped to make a centre of industry of this beloved nest and my imagination traced the lines of the future streets for my workers. But Văleni is not America. The enlarged printing press still continues, but without profit: the industrial city, alas, has remained in the clouds.

In the old house where I live, everything is preserved as though the boyars of Văleni still lived out their lavish lives. The neighbouring house, until recently, was the abode of an old blind lady who had known prosperity among her family and relatives. She died during the German occupation, poor, forsaken and alone but for a single servant to care for her — nothing lacking to complete her unhappiness.

And now, despite these dreary reminiscences, fresh life is brought into the old rooms to which a new and sunny building has been added. The help of our American brothers was one of the principal impulses for this resurrection.

An institution for young girls, newly-graduated village school mistresses of Greater Roumania, brings together a happy and laughing crowd which this year numbers forty five. They come from all parts of the country, Roumanians as well as Russians, several Saxons from Transylvania, Swabians from the Banat, often Magyars. They live like sisters, friendly and ready to help each other. I lecture there on World History, Roumanian History, the History of Literature and Art, and university professors aid us. One lecture a day in the summer and once a week in the winter, for two hours and more, and with what warm interest they all listen! No desks, no distinctions, no rewards and no punishments. A sound curiosity, true love for the subject in hand are the sole binding links. The students compare notes taken at their assembly and seek to reconstruct the text as to ideas and form. After a year they are wholly transformed: instead of the shy pupils formed and deformed in the State schools, they are now strong, proud, sincere souls, prepared for all the struggles and disappointments of life: « national and moral missionaries » is what I call them. What tears at their departure, what touching promises for the future!

In a spacious garden a small house has been thrown open for similar girls of other nationalities, who would learn better Roumanian because they are convinced that it will be useful to them. No constraint is placed upon them, nor is the language forced upon them. The pupils may follow the courses given for the « missionaries » — and they all attend regularly.

For overworked women students of the universities, the benevolence of the Princess-Mother has provided a small property as a shelter for the summer months. During this session (July 15th to August 15th) hundreds of students of both sexes and of all ages, conditions and culture come to the summer courses where the problems of the day are freely and fearlessly discussed. A whole month of fraternal life which, for most of them, is the dawn of a new moral sense in their lives. Then the pupils of the permanent yearly school are chosen, but not for their knowledge — for the quality of their souls.

Thus may an old market-town become a place where the future of the nation is annually prepared with true hearts and open minds, and to be imbued with new impulses and ideals.

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1. The key.
2. Prom the Slav brat: brother. Cf. Norocea
3. Valley. The peasant sings « I-auzi valea cum rasună ».
4. In Roumanian : munte.
5. In Roumanian cârciume. Their number is very great to this day, despite the restrictions of the law.
6. Drumul Mare, from the Graeco-Roman: dromus and the Latin maior.
7. From the Saxon: schindels: viz. small shingles of pine.
8. From the Turkish, tchardak.