Comments on: Losing Romanian History: Case of Ilie Birt

By: Romer!can

Romer!can — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 23:10:33 +0000

And so we find ourselves sparring. Perhaps unnecessarily.

I didn’t call you anything. However, I did direct you to save any attitude for someplace else. This blog has a long standing policy of expunging any asshattery. Mind you, you may notice I did not delete your comment as I do welcome factual corrections.

I appreciate your interest in returning. I share your goal of telling the story as best as possible. Five years ago, there was almost zero information to be found regarding Ilie Birt. Perhaps if I had met you in Brasov back then, you could have provided information for me to consider including as part of my original post. Alas, 2006 is already seeming a distant memory.

I will say that I do think there is an audience who would love to know more details about lost Romanian history such as Ilie Birt and others of a similar nature, whose facts and deeds are not well known beyond local myth and perhaps the ivory tower. If you decided to publish a tell-all expose on your own blog, please do let me know as I would love to read it and share it with my visitors as well.

By: Schei

Schei — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 09:59:18 +0000

Listen my friend, i thank u for calling me an immature child whit silly attitude! I gave u some arguments about why I felt offended, which are some historical facts! My first comment started like this “I must say that I appreciate ur work” because u make known my birthplace to the world, but I like to hear the real story of the people there, not a story of someone that thinks that It was in some other way whit no historical arguments! If u don’t write the truth based on the historical facts u make other people, that don’t know nothing about this place, think something else that doesn’t exist (silly example is Dracula/Vlad Tepes)!! I just don’t like the people that don’t work whit professionalism, so if u do something make it the best u can like that nobody can judge u!

By: Romer!can

Romer!can — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:14:26 +0000

Visitors are always welcome to spar over ideas and provide factual correction, but only an immature child would be offended by posts about Schei. I’m glad you have some familiarity with the area as it’s not particularly well-known. I lived there in Schei, once upon a time — hence, my interest in sharing details on Ilie Birt who is an all but forgotten historical figure of Transylvania.

Come back again! But save the silly attitude and unnecessary posturing for someone else.

By: Schei

Schei — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:04:58 +0000

I must say that I appreciate ur work, but I must say that u don’t know much about Ilie Birt (which was ethnic ROMANIAN not saxon)! I’m sorry that I need to be a bit critic whit u but u didn’t understand nothing about that beautiful district of Brasov which name is SCHEI not Poarta Schei (which is the gate that separates the saxon town by the romanian village)! I’ll give u an advice study more before posting something on internet, if not u will make people fell offended by ur work!
“I inadvertantly stumbled across an abandoned religious memorial of some sort” Is not “religious memorial” but a little church (we call them Troite) since we the romanians didn’t had the right to build orthodox churches, so people build little churches like that (they are many Troite in Schei)! Is not abandoned but is in care of the “Junii” (hope u know who they are)
“…a representation of the Patriarch (aka Orthodox Pope)” the representation is of Saint Nicolas not of some Patriarch (orthodox don’t have a Pope like catholic and that’s a reason of why now are 2 different religions since 1054)
“it was a religious memorial whose construction was financed by Birt.” Here ur right literally the script is saying “ Build by Captain Ilie Birt in the year 1762”! The house behind the Troita is the house were Ilie Birt lived!! The way u explain his knowledge of those languages is very wrong and i will not comment because is offensive! Ilie Birt was the “Vataf” of the “Junii” (a sort of military cavalery that protected the Schei) him and some other man from Schei were taking to fight the turks as an auxiliary army of Austrian Empire! He became a captain in this auxiliary army, he win this battle that u mention and like that gane the respect of Austrian Emperor! He was a leader of is community and he fight to have the same rights as the saxon, hunagarian and sekely ethnics in Transilvania (which had a romanian ethnic majority but no rights) !

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!