Comments on: Losing Romanian History: Case of Ilie Birt

By: Liviu

Liviu — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 02:09:51 +0000

Hi there !

Is probably the first time ever that somebody from outside Romania is writing something about Captain Birt.Pretty much everything you said is true….but is much more you wouldn’t know.
First of all everybody from there side of town -which is called ” SCHEI” - knows who Cpt.Birt was.
To really understand what Cpt.Birt means for the people from there side of town you have to understand what SCHEI was,and still is.
You’ll probably never gonna find this informations in english…what a pitty,because I assure you you’ll be amased of the rich,beautiful and in the same time painfull history of SCHEI - same SCHEI that Cpt. ILIE BIRT tried to make it a Republic of its own.
I’ll post a link ( the pages are in romanian unfortunately)where you can find everything about SCHEI ,written by the most respected SCHEI hystorian ( which stiil lives in Schei - he was my teacher years ago before I left Schei ).
His name is Prof.(now priest ) VASILE OLTEAN , he is the curator of the First Romanian School(founded around 1495-erected where else?…in Schei ) and he dedicated his life to this magical place which is SCHEI.

If you really are interesed about this things I can try to translate for you whatever you need because,as somebody noticed in an early post,is a pitty for this true stories to be lost …or not known.

http://destinatii.liternet.ro/destinatii.php?art=76

Thank you for your time spent in reading this,excuse my english and..you can contact me at :

contact at romaniancommunity.info

By: Jo

Jo — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 16:55:00 +0000

Quite accurate historical data. One observation: Slavon (slavona)was the language of the church (archaic version of the Southern Slavonic language, from which derived Bulgarian, Serbo-Bosnian-Croatian, Macedonian). Greek was posh. Just a few years later, in 1711, the two Romanian states under Ottoman rule started to have Greek “domni” (kings), appointed by the Empire. They were called Fanarioti (you will start finding this word soon, if you keep reading stuff like this), as they were coming from the Istanbul Greek hood Fanar. Previously, there were Romanian domni, also appointed by the Inalta Poarta (The High Gate, name for the Istanbul Court).

Yes, it is very interesting. I admire your curiosity.

Mostly I like the way you use Romanian words instead of English ones, ust as we Romanian do (the other way around) because we work and write mostly in English. :)

By: mamaliga girl

mamaliga girl — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:41:00 +0000

i have nothing to add but like luiza, i think this is brilliant. just asking the question - what is this? is just not that hard. i too wish there were more stories like this in romania.

By: Luiza

Luiza — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:02:00 +0000

I too have nothing informative to add, I just think this is brilliant. I wonder why Romanian reporters aren’t curious like that, why we don’t read stories like that in newspapers. A little change from ‘hard news.’

By: Romerican

Romerican — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 03:45:00 +0000

I’m glad to hear you like, Kyah. I’m hoping to stumble across a few more mysteries, but even more hoping to find helpful people who can solve them!

And I well recall your proclivity for careful examination of dead human culture. =]

Let’s hope we can sniff out the answer!

By: kyahgirl

kyahgirl — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 00:55:00 +0000

hi, I’ve got nothing intellectual to add :-)
However, I wanted to say I like what you’ve done here. This little bit of curiosity on your part has led to honoring the life of someone who is forgotten.
I’m one of those strange people who likes to look at old graveyards and wonder about the lives of all those people in there. It helps to ground a person in the reality of humanity and history.

thanks for introducing Ilie Birt!

By: Romerican

Romerican — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 21:46:00 +0000

Oh, sure, highlight my own ignorance. =]

During most of this entire stretch of hundreds of years, the Romanians were often downplayed in their importance despite being the largest ethnicity in the region as a result of constant domination by others.

So, basically, yes. The Hungarians were in control of Transylvania when the Austrians took over. Hungary was looking for a chance to reassert itself. Along come the Turks, who offer a bit more autonomy (although still being in charge) and the most inhabitants of the region were eager to side with the Turks and get rid of the Austrians.

But the tables later turned. They got tired of the Turks. There was the beginning of nationalism. There was the resurgence of Christianity being the decisive factor of government (yet again). During this very time, the Turks shot themselves in the foot through bad leadership.

So the tides rushed back out as the pendulum swung the other way. Suddenly, everyone was all for getting rid of the Turks, even if it meant the Austrians were back. “At least they were christian” went the thinking — despite the fact that the Turks supported the existence of The Church. (The Church was still mad over the loss of Istanbul, so you see how complicated and interwoven all this stuff gets.)

Birt was Romanian in the sense that he lived in what is historical Dacia, modern Romania, and at-the-time mostly populated by ethnic Romanians. As far as I can gather, Birt himself was ethnically Saxon… having been a descendent of the German tribes who dominated the area before the Hungarians…

…who were before the Austrians… who were before the Turks…. who were before the second Austrian control… who were before the second Hungaarian control… before Romania finally achieved some independence for the first time (minus 1 year) since pre-Roman era.

Yikes.

By: alec

alec — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 21:11:00 +0000

regarding the turks northern invasion, you say, “The Romanians were also somewhat supportive, but received little to no benefit.”…

then you say, “…the Austrians were able to march east and retake Pannonia and Transylvania.”

then you say, “It was during these sweeping changes that Army captain Ilie Birt, in his prime, rounded up the young men of Braşov and launched attacks against the Turkish Ottoman Empire to drive them out of Romania.”

i guess i have a couple of questions…

1. was the choice for birt life under the austrians or life under the turks and so he chose to abet the austrians?

2. if so, why was life under the austrians better now then the last time?

3. birt was romanian, right?

-alec