Geographical, historical, social and economic background. Summary 
 
ETNOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

   Spread all over the entire Balkan and Trans-Balkan Peninsula, starting from the near vicinity of the Danube in the regions: Timoc (Bulgarian and Yugoslavian), Lom, Oreahova, Nicopole, Pleven, VraTa, reaching the Quadrilateral at Tolbuhin and Sofia, in Rhodope, in Vojvodina, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, along the Adriatic coast until Northern Dalmatia, Pindus, in the Ionian Islands, in the Northern Greece, in Epirus, Thessaly, in the Istrian Peninsula and even in European Turkey, the representatives of Balkan or Oriental Romanities – as they were called by various specialists, have been living in more or less numerous communities.

Their long time existence on those lands drew the attention of many people, specialists or not. Foreign travelers, historians, experts in linguistics or ethnology tried to elucidate, by means of more or less scientific arguments, the presence of the Romanians in those regions. Much more numerous in the past centuries, in the last period of time many of these people were assimilated by the people or population in the middle of which they lived. Others preserved a miraculous identity despite all the historical, social and political vicissitudes. These Balkan Romanians have maintained unchanged certain, very old customs and habits with very interesting symbols.

This Roman origin “has brought and keeps bringing together the populations living in this part of South-Eastern Europe and, on the other hand, has preserved until today fragments of Romanity scattered in the Balkans. The Oriental Romanity, from a geographic and ethnic point of view, was gradually created and the process lasted long, the native population adopting the Latin language and assimilating the Roman material and spiritual civilization. When the Slavs came there, the Romanian people’s nucleus of Roman origin, its ethnicity had been already created. The Romanian language with its Roman structure was formed1”. By the end of the 6th century A.D., in 587, Byzantine sources (Teofanes) include the first words considered to be Romanian: “torna, torna, fratre”. All these inhabitants “speak Roman idioms directly derived from the Eastern Latin language and have a specific traditional folkloric culture, having its roots in the autochtonous old Balkan fund “2.

These people, living in a large number in the Southern part of the Danube and speaking Roman idioms – very similar, sometimes even identical to the language spoken in the Northern part of the Danube – formed the so-called people’s Romanian counties or “Wallachian counties”. Documents mention: Big Wallachia in Thessaly; Upper Wallachia – in Epirus, Small Wallachia – in Etolia, Acarnania, Dorida, Locrida; Old Wallachia – in Bosnia; White Wallachia, Rhodope Wallachia; Thracian  Wallachia – in Moesia (Bulgaria, Serbia); Sirmium Wallachia – on the Sava river3. Nicolae Iorga is “among the first Romanian historians who signaled the importance of these common aspects and presented a lot of arguments, extracted from historical sources”4, showing that “the Wallachians” became “fragments or isles of Latinity and of ancient Roman civilization facing the successive waves of Barbarian migratory peoples.”5 “People’s Roman counties” political and military structures of Romanian population at the outskirts of the Roman Empire, the army and Roman administration had been withdrawn from. After the spreading of Christianity, “the People’s Roman counties” were usually led by priests or bishops, as in the case of Saint Severin in Noricum, whose life (written by Eugippius) suggested to Nicolae Iorga the theory of the people’s Romanian counties, as a main factor of the Roman continuity”.6

According to Byzantine and Slav sources, the inhabitants of those areas are known as Vlachs or Wallachians. This is a disputed notion and first “we have to underline that this word reflects in itself the continuous process of receiving, by means of written words, a tradition related to the Roman origin of the Wallachians living in the Northern part of the Danube. Secondly, for the population living in the Balkan, the word Wallachian, as well as other derived words, such as Morowallachian or Morlac, have the meaning of the very Roman element (l’element romain). Thirdly, along the years, Wallachian starts to mean an ethnic group of Roman origin, different from other Roman populations living in the Balkans, such as: the Macedonian-Romanians, Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians. Finally, the word Vlach means an ethnic particularity and not a way of life or a certain professional category, sometimes identified with this population.”7 Although it has only 66 pages ( small format), the synthesis made by the two authors is well documented and comprehensive, raising a series of extremely interesting questions regarding: the Wallachians living in the Northern part of the Balkan Peninsula, the historical and historiographical reference points, the Wallachians’ origins and ethnic character; the name “Wallachian”, the language spoken by the Wallachians, the Wallachians’ life and organizational structures, their social structures, occupations and economic activities, their military and religious structures, the second Bulgarian Principality and the historical role played by the Wallachians; the Wallachians living in Bulgaria; the relations between Wallachians and Bulgarians in the Middle Ages; Wallachains’ autonomy in the Ottoman Empire within the 16th-19th centuries; the military privilege regime; the fiscal regime; land owning; the Wallachians’ freedom to organize themselves.

The authors analyze the history of North Balkan Wallachians in the modern and contemporary period and the Romanians’ contribution to the freedom of the Balkan people until the tenth decade of this century (the nineties). They conclude that “the history of North Balkan Wallachians is still insufficiently explored; it is a history that raises many questions and has <white spots>, being contested with or without a reason, a history that still waits for the researchers to elucidate it. In this historical sketch, we meant  to render the most important moments of these changes and certain, less known historical periods. We intended to involve other colleagues in researching the history of these distinguished continuators of the Oriental Roman world. Following the road leading to a united Europe, always faithful to its perennial values, people often forget those values which the peoples living in the South European space have preserved on our old continent, from ancient times until today.”8

Trying to answer, even partlly, the two authors’ desideratum, and also due to the professional interest aroused by the Romanian minority living in Northern and Northwestern Bulgaria, the present volume subjects to the readers a concrete and original fragment of the everyday life lived by a small part of this Balkan or Oriental Romanity. We refer to the Romanian community living on the Timoc Valley, as well as on the Danube Valley.

The Romanian Explanatory Dictionary (DEX)9 defines the community as follows: “the fact of being common to more things or beings; common possession; a group of people sharing common interests, beliefs or rules of life; the totality of inhabitants of a locality, country”; “common” + suffix “ity”, deriving from the French word “communauté”. To this definition we add the idea, among the characteristics specific of a community, of the territorial and administrative unity, of its inhabitants closely related by the linguistic, ethnic, folklore and spiritual unity, as well as by common mentality. Of course, the similar geographical factors, likewise historical, social and economic development in a certain area have a determining importance when characterizing a community. These criteria applied to the region bordered by the Danube, the Timoc and Vidin and to the one between Vidin and Ruse justify us to define it as “ a Romanian language speaking community, an Oriental Romanity oasis in the middle of a Slav mass”10. And what else but community could it be considered, when we refer to over 30 villages, situated only in the Vidin area and to other 20 Romanian localities on the Danube Valley, from Vidin to Ruse?

The Romanians living in these regions form a special collectivity  within a large number of Slavs, within the large mass of the other Romanians in the Balkan Peninsula, from Bulgaria to Macedonia, Albania and Greece. As regards their image about themselves worth mentioning is the fact that all inhabitants of the two areas are aware of their special entity, of their double belonging status: from the territorial, administrative viewpoint, they know they belong to Bulgaria, but from the spiritual and ethnic point of view they feel related, by invisible bonds to the Romanians living on the left bank of the Danube. When asked what they are, they answer, unequivocally, that they are Romanians, in spite of their being registered as Bulgarians11. The Romanian language is considered to be their mother tongue and the Bulgarian language, a language to be learnt at school.

There are similarities and differences between the populations living in these regions and the other Roman originated populations living in the Balkan Peninsula. Among the similarities, worth mentioning are:

– the common language, even if in the Balkan Peninsula it is divided in three dialects, kind of distinctive: Aromanian, (Macedo-Romanian), Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romania;
– the struggle to preserve their identity despite history vicissitudes, the tendency to turn their language into a Slav one ( Bulgarian, Serb) or into the Greek language;
– the generic name of Vlah given to the Latin speaking populations by mediaeval documents, in particular by Slav and German ones. Within the Ottoman Empire, all the Vlah, Balkan and Cis-Balkan populations had internal autonomy, with ruling princes elected by them and confirmed by the Sublime Porte. Those princes were administrative, economic and juridical leaders on a well delimited territory, including one or more hamlets. To all matters they had to settle, they applied jus valachicum – the Wallachian law. In exchange for these privileges, the Wallachians had military duties: to guard and assure the security of the borders, of mountain regions and even of the inhabitants against the gangs of thieves and outlaws.

Among the differences, the most striking one seems to be the almost complete lack of bibliographic sources. If the Wallachians living in the Balkan Peninsula generally drew the attention of many scientists, the Wallachians, being mentioned in the maps made in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, in the works of many foreign travelers: Felix Kanitz, Gustav Weigand and, in particular in the works written by many historians, specialists in linguistics and folklore living in the 19th and 20th centuries; the bibliographic information on the Romanians living in Northern and North-Western Bulgaria are extremely scarce. The Romanians living in these areas are mentioned, only by chance, in some of those works, more or less far-reaching. Foreign travelers’ or intellectuals’ reports, who published their works in the 1934-1943 period in the Timoc magazine offer us heterogeneous data. They confirm the accuracy and authenticity of information gathered from subjects interviewed in territory by the author of the present volume. In a recently published work, dr. Adina Berciu Drãghicescu12 analyzes in detail the education and the cultural environment of the former Ottoman Empire, the reports on this important Romanian community living in the Vidin area and on the Danube valley being extremely brief. A copy of Balgarska Etnologia13 magazine was entirely devoted to certain problems of Wallachians living in Bulgaria (not only in the area this study is interested in). It is another reason why we print this book, which is mostly based on the above mentioned Wallachians’ self-image, as well as on the reflection of historical, social and economic events from their own viewpoint.

In our opinion, the most important differences consist in the way of living, among others, in people’s main occupations. While the groups of Romanians (Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians) living in the Balkan Peninsula were mainly cattle breeders and merchants and quite often they dealt with transhumance, the inhabitants of the Timoc Valley have been sedentary farmers from the very beginning.

During the Ottoman Empire, they received documents attesting their land-ownership right granted by the Turkish, the Ottoman subjugation being milder, without the consequences it had in other regions.

The difference between the inhabitants of the Timoc Valley and the other inhabitants living all over the Balkan Peninsula is also based on the relationship, perhaps the closest one, between people dwelling beside the Danube and their brothers speaking the same language and having the same customs, living on the left bank of the Danube. This relationship has been perpetuated from times immemorial until today. The Danube has never been a barrier between the populations living on its both banks.

Another outstanding difference starts by the end of the 19th century and the early 20th one, when the Wallachians from certain regions of the Balkan Peninsula and even of Turkey had tuition and religious services in their native language, while the inhabitants of the Timoc Valley (Bulgarian and Serb), with very few exceptions, did not enjoy it. It is true that in the 1933-1948 period a Romanian high school functioned in Sofia, but those who graduated it could not attend “university courses in Sofia, because the diploma granted by the Romanian high school was not equivalent to those granted by the Bulgarian high schools.”14 The activity of that Romanian high school has been partly resumed, only after 50 years of communism.

As regards their geographical location, the localities lying on the Timoc Valley and on the right bank of the Danube benefit of quite favorable conditions: water for fishing, the fertile meadow of the Danube and of the Timoc which offer multiple possibilities for agriculture and cattle breeding to its inhabitants. Thanks to its fertile soil, the territory in the bend of the Danube covered by villages of valley inhabitants was called The Golden Horn. Mild hills, with numerous forests (in the past) favoured fruit tree growing, wine growing, forestry and many other trades.

The knowledge, even partial, of certain protohistorical and historical coordinates will facilitate the understanding of the Romanian populations’ presence and permanence in the above mentioned area. The territories located in the Northern and in the Southern part of the Danube have been populated since the Neolithic, the Stacervo-Cris culture emerging there. Those territories continued to be populated in the Thracian Bronze Age (cultures: Gârla Mare, Verbicioara) and Hallstatt Age15. The Thracian people, “one of the largest nations of the ancient times” settled in Europe by 1800-1500 B.C. “The Bronze Age started with them in the lower Danube regions. That means, they were the first who introduced metal working in those regions.” Spreading until Vistula and Ukraine “they lived on the entire territory of today Romania and beyond the Danube, from Bulgaria to Macedonia, in the MariTa river region, which bears the name of Thracia even today. Across Bosphorus, they had important settlements in Asia Minor”16. By the year 70 B.C., “set up on the previous social and political tradition and consolidated by subordinating the Greek citadels on the Black Sea coast, as well as by removing the Celtic danger, Burebista’s kingdom included the entire Thracian, Getic and Dacian world, from the Haemus Mountains (the Balkans) to the Carpathians, from Tyras (the Dnieper) to the Tisa river. Owning both banks of the Danube, considered in his time as the first and <the greatest king of Thracia>, Burebista was one of the most important personalities of the ancient world.”17

In the second and third centuries,“a compact mass of Romanian population is noticed on both banks of the Danube, including Dacia, the two Moesias, that is Dobrudja, Bulgaria until the Balkans and Serbia, the Romanian element penetrating deeper southwards, onto the Timoc and the Moravia valleys… The Oriental Romanity gave birth to only one people: the Romanian people. We, the Romanians, are not only descendants of the Romans living in Dacia, but also of the entire Oriental Romanity. The Romanian language was made of the Latin language spoken by the Roman settlers and by the romanized Thracians,… that is of the vernacular Latin dialect spoken on both banks of the lower Danube”18. The existence of Latinity is attested by the vestiges of the citadels of Arciar (Ratiare) and of Dorticum, near the Vârf village; of a Roman fortified camp, 160 m long and 35 m wide on the stripe of land between the Timoc and the Danube, at RacoviTa (today Cudelin). A network of Roman highroads and bridges crossed Bregova. A Roman bridge also existed in the present day village of Fundeni. Roman settlements or fortified camps also existed at Oescus (Nicopole), Novae (Svistov), Durostorum (Silistra). Vidin is located on a former Roman establishment, called Bononia.

Even after the settlement of the Slavs, on the Northern and Southern banks of the Danube until the Balkan Peninsula, the North and North-Eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula, the Danube Valley and the Moravia Valley “still preserved a Latin originated population… even the Byzantine army had soldiers whose native language was Latin.19” After the splitting up of the Byzantine Empire, Byzantium (Constantinopoles) became very soon a Greek town.

As regards the duration of the Romanians living on the Timoc Valley, the statement made by the outstanding scientist is as definite as possible: “The Romanians we find on the Timoc Valley today are not descendants of the Roman colonists of the Southern Danube who were pushed to Macedonia, but they came there later from Oltenia and Banat.”20 Of course, many scientists argue that the Romanian people’s ethnogenesis process took place on  both banks of the Danube. Starting with the chroniclers of the 17th and 18th centuries, continuing with Dimitrie Cantemir, “Scoala Ardeleanã”, the works of historians, of specialists in linguistics and folklore written in the 19th and 20th centuries, almost all prove the territorial unity of language, folklore traditions shared by Romanians living on the Northern and Southern banks of the Danube. Among historians worth mentioning are A. D. Xenopol, Nicolae Iorga, Dimitrie Onciu; among linguists, C. A. Rosetti, etc. Even Petre P. Panaitescu, contrary to his thesis according to which the inhabitants of the Timoc Valley came there later from Oltenia and Banat, concludes that “the place where the Romanian nation was formed was on the Danube Valley, on both banks of the Danube, on the entire territory of Dacia, before the Roman emperor Trajan conquered it and on the territory of the two Moesias (Bulgaria and Serbia), as well… The Romanians lived not only in highlands but also on the Danubian lowlands, because, otherwise they could not have come in touch with the Romanians living on the Southern bank of the Danube.”21 Petre P.Panaitescu believes in the Thracian origin of the Danube river (Dunaris).

In the absence of strong evidence strictly referring to the above mentioned area, a decided position cannot be taken as regards the exact location in time of the population living on the valley of the Bulgarian Timoc. It is hard to say that those people had been there from the beginning of the Romanian people’s formation or they came later. Certain specialists’ hypotheses that speak about the appearance of the Romanian element on the Timoc Valley only in the 17th, 18th and even 19th centuries cannot be accepted22, being invalidated by the historical realities. Nevertheless, continuity has been existing on those lands and the Northern/Southern Danube relations and vice versa have been permanent.

A proof of the Wallachians’ everlasting continuity in the Balkan Peninsula is mentioned by early mediaeval works. The term Wallachian seems to have appeared in a Slav literary work in the 9th century, referring to Metodiu’s life; in fact, in that period Wallachian meant “Italy, Italians.23 The word spread soon all over the Balkan Peninsula and was adopted by the Byzantines and Greeks. The Hungarians and the Germans call this population olah.

In the 11th century, the Byzantine writer, general Kekaumenos mentioned the term Wallachian in his works, noticing the resemblance between the language spoken in the Balkan Peninsula and that spoken in Dacia during Decebal’s reign.24 It is quite proper to mention certain historical events. N.A. Constantinescu shows the existence of some Romanian-Bulgarian relations in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, mentioning that “Vidin was a famous economic, military, political and Orthodox center, residence of a Romanian-Slav duchy belonging to the Timotians and Guduscans in the 8th and 9th centuries25. In the 9th century, Crum, trying “to take over the Timoc region comes up against the resistance of the population living in the Timoc region. The latter sent a telegram to the King of Hungary, Lewis “The Pious”, to Aix la Chapelle, asking for the integration of that Romanian region into the Carolingian Empire”26.  “Duke Glad and his armies left the Vidin region at the beginning of the 10th century”. Vidin is also “the seat of an active bishopric, wherefrom the Orthodox belief radiates to Hungary, by the year 1000, when Ochtum, Glad’s nephew, was baptized. Annexed to the Romanian-Bulgarian Czardom ruled by the Sismanides, in the 10th century, Vidin was the most powerful citadel of the Quadrilateral: Sofia, Nis, Belgrade, Vidin, Quadrilateral which Vasile the Second could conquer only after he had conquered Vidin . Vidin’s importance as a first rank citadel is outlined by its long lasting resistance, as it fell only in 1002, after an eight month siege, during the fourth expedition against it, organized by the Byzantine armies27. Thus, during the reign of Vasile the Second, Timoc is politically taken over by Byzantium. It is released by the Romanians’ and the Bulgarians’ revolt  (1185-1189) against the Byzantium, under the leadership of brothers Assan and Peter, considered to have had Wallachian origin (they led the Wallachian shepherds in the Haemus-Balkan mountains). After this battle a powerful principality was set up, including the former Byzantine territories, located between the Danube and the Balkans, as well as most of the Thracian territory. This principality is known in history as the Bulgarian-Wallachian or Bulgarian Romanian Czardom.Târnovo was the capital of this czardom. The Byzantine historians Nicetas Choniates and Theodor Schuriates, as well as subsequent documents recognize the inestimable help given by Wallachians living in the Northern part of the Danube or by those of Romanian origin, to brothers Assan and Peter, likewise to the Bulgarians living in the area. ”The setting up of the new Bulgarian state took place with the Romanian help and this is an example of solidarity and cooperation for a common goal.”28 Obviously, that Czardom also included the Timoc region and the valley of the Danube. “The victory of the insurgents and the setting up of the Romanian-Bulgarian Empire (the second Bulgarian Czardom) have a double meaning: firstly, the Wallachians living on the Southern bank of the Danube prove to be a force able to cooperate side by side with the Bulgarians in setting up a political-territorial structure, located naturally, following the tradition of the first Romanian-Bulgarian czardom, but with a Wallachian dynasty – the Dynasty of Assans. The evidence of the Assans’ Romanian origin is shown – among others – by the correspondence between IoniTã Caloian (the Handsome), Assan’s and Peter’s brother and Pope Innocent III, to whom IoniTã had asked the recognition of his imperial title. Both of them invoke the Roman origin of the Romanians living in the Southern part of the Danube, which points out both the existence of the Wallachians’ awareness of their Roman origin and the recognition granted by the papacy to this reality. Secondly, the Wallachian-Bulgarian victory consolidated the relations of the just created state with the Cumans living in the Northern part of the Danube and, through them, with the Romanians living in the Charpathian-Danubian space. The collaboration during the revolt facilitated the expansion of the Romanian-Bulgarian Empire beyond the Danube”29.

After the killing of the two rulers, another of their brothers, Caloian Ionita (1197-1207) ascends the throne. In 1203, emperor Caloian IoniTã and his army invaded the Vidin-Nis region, which he annexed to his empire. “The Romanian-Bulgarian Empire became the most powerful state in South-Eastern Europe.”30 Caloian IoniTã was followed by Ioan Assan II, son of Assan, who, until 1236, also ruled the Severin citadel. After 1280, the above mentioned empire became an independent despotdom, ruled by the Cuman originated autocrat (despot) Gheorghe Terterii. The new czar quickly establishes close relations with Basarab I, ruler of Wallachia, who provides him military support against Byzantium and, later, against the Serbs. Vidin becomes again a czardom, the Vidin Czardom (1280-1397). The Danube Valley was incorporated into another czardom, the Târnovo Czardom. This political-administrative structure was maintained until 1397, except for short intervals when it was taken over by Hungarians. In 1397, conquered by the Turkish, it is turned into a pashalik. In 1364, King Lewis of Hungary manages to occupy the czardom and to transform into a Banate of Bulgarias, together with the Eastern part of the Banate of Severin (Caransebes and Timisoara). “The political and administrative union of the two Romanian lands (Banate of Severin and Banate of Bulgaria, the Timoc Valley inlcuded) was achieved for the first time under the same ruler, the Hungarian ban of Vidin”31. In 1368 the Banate of Bulgaria is attacked by the Turkish and King Lewis asked for Vlaicu’s support. Vlaicu took this occasion and  annexed the entire territory up to Pek and Nis to Wallachia, in 1368-1369. Sracimir becomes ruler of this territory, being the last sovereign of the territory between Vidin and Morava. Sracimirs’s mother, Theodora, was the daughter of the Romanian ruling prince Alexandru Basarab. Sracimir’s wife was a Romanian, the daughter of a ruling prince, one of ruler Vlaicu’s close relatives. “The Vidin Czardom will continue to last shielded by dangers under the guarantee of Wallachian sovereigns, until the Turkish conquered it. Later, in 1377, ruling prince Vlaicu occupies Nicopole, probably after a clash between Sisman and the Turkish .”32

In 1397, a two century exerted rule by Romanian originated princes in Vidin, it was occupied by the Turkish, becoming a pashalik. People living there preserved their identity by a constant touch with the large Romanian mass of people living in the Northern part of the Danube, that exerted a kind of “religious and cultural patronage over the region between Vidin and Moravia”33, (many centuries ago the influence had been reversed). The Bulgarians’ christianizing in the 9th century, during the reign of czar Boris and the introduction of the liturgy in the Slav language into Bulgarian churches definitely influenced the churches in the Northern part of the Danube. ”In those days, the Romanians did not have their own episcopates; so the ordainment of the priests and the church knowledge were taken by them from the Southern part of the Danube”. As they did not have a direct contact with the Byzantium, “the Romanians began to be influenced by the Bulgarian church and, by the end of 10th century and the beginning of the following one, they adopted the liturgy in the Slav language and the Cyrillic alphabet”, simplified from the Glagolitic one by brothers Metodiu and Cyril.” In that period, the Romanias were mixed with the Slavs living in the Northern part of the Danube.”34

In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Romanian rulers and their armies fighting the Turkish arrive on the right bank of the Danube. Battles were fought at Vidin in 1368, 1425, 1442, 1443 (the Romanian ruling prince Iancu de Hunedoara went to Vidin, arriving at Nicopole and Varna in 1444). Battles also took place at Nicopole, in 1377 and in 1396. As to the latter, as led by Mircea the Old, was  famous  (Mircea initially crossed the Vidin Land). In fact, Mircea the Old entitled himself“sovereign of both banks of the entire Danube by the large Black Sea and ruler of the Durostor fortress”. Battles are fought at Silistra in 1393, 1404, 1423, 1446. In 1595, Michael the Brave plunders the town of Rusciuc (Ruse), spreading fear among the Turkish. An anti-Ottoman revolt took place afterwards at Târnovo, which was soon put down. Among other consequences of the defeat, the leaders of the revolt ran to Wallachia. During the reign of Matei Basarab, the priests living in the Southern part of the Danube found help at his court. Moreover, Matei Basarab built an Orthodox church feasting Saint Paraschiva in the town of Vidin, which was closed and even kept underground for a long time. Nowadays, the divine service is performed at that church. It is a further evidence of the existence of the perennial Romanian element in that region and, unless parishioners had existed in the area, church building would not have been necessary.

After many anti-Ottoman revolts and their repercussions, in the 18th and 19th centuries, many Bulgarians took refuge northwards the Danube, while many people living in the Northern part of the Danube established on the Southern bank of the Danube. After the peace of Adrianople (1829) the Serb pashalik of Belgrade greatly expanded and reached North-Western Vidin. In the territories occupied by the Serbs, the inhabitants of Timoc  were deprived of the rights they had under the Turkish domination: the autonomous structural organizations led by princes and county lords and the churches and schools in Romanian language, the latter being closed.

According to other evidence, the same conclusion can be drawn: in the 15th century, the Romanian element in the Vidin region was strong, as important Bulgarian works include all of the villages still existing nowadays. Dushanka Bojonici Lucaci35 analyses two Turkish records worked out in the 1454-1455 period and one by the year 1560 for the district (sangiac) of Vidin, that mention names of fortresses, towns, villages, monasterie, including the number of their households and inhabitants. Wallachians are considered nomadic Christians. The author points out the Wallachians’ status of domestic autonomy and their right of having their own leaders was preserved by the first half of the 16th century. The two records include settlements whose names were a bit changed, some of them with a powerful Romanian resonance. Thus, the registers include: Gâmzova, Calinic, Vrâh, Negovanofce with 16 houses, Borilofce, Ciungurus (at present, a village with Bulgarian population), Alboten (the ruins of a monastery), Tihanofce with six houses, Cosovo, Filordin, Rachitnice, Slanotrâne, Suhodol (a village that probably disappeared and located between Bãlei and Bregova), Sveti Peter ( the old name of the Molãlâia village, which became Drujba later on) – with nine houses, Topolovce (Mezra Topolovce with the specification deserted), Cutova – with four houses, Cosava, Bregova, Daleina, Perilofce, Balul (Bãlei), Iasen, Gomotarce, Boriloveci, Vidin, Vlahovici (Iflakyfra, Podgore), Grãmada Kalugher, Novolselo, Rabrova, Arciar. The record worked out in 1560 also includes data on the incomes from the taxes on fishing and salting. Another work36 includes the number of houses that existed between 1620-1644. Thus, there were 15 houses in BorilovãT, 46 in Bregova, 20 in GumãtãrTi, 23 in Cutova, 45 in NegovaniT, 10 in Rabrova, 10 in Slanotârn, 10 in TianuT, 8 in Iasicevo (at the same level with Vârf), 23 houses in Tules (probably CãpitãnuT).

The same source (pages 181-185) mentions the small rural district of Montana with the villages: Coslodui – 25 houses, Ostrov – 16 houses, HârleT – 17 houses, the small rural district of Pleven (Plevna) with the villages: Brest – 20 houses, Vãbel – 6 houses; Samovit – 18 houses.
There is no certitude as regards the accuracy of the data, yet, the presence of villages in those documents is a peremptory element of the perenniallity of the respective settlements. The maps of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries include the names of those settlements. In the Middle Ages the areas on the Danube’s both banks were under the same foreign domination: the Turkish one, between 1396 and 1878, with approximate administrative, social and economic structures. During the Russian-Romanian-Turkish war (1877-1878), Vidin was one of the strongest points of Ottoman resistance while fierce battles were fought at Smârdan. The Romanian army played an important role in the liberation of Smârdan. It is impossible for all these century-old bilateral relations not to have stamped the native population, that is the former Roman population in the Vidin area and on the valley of the Danube. Despite these undeniable historical realities, an aberrant theory was  spread, in particular among village intellectuals (teachers, priests), according to which massive groups of Bulgarians came to Romania at a certain time in history because of the Turkish oppression. They remained allegedly in Romania, while learnt the Romanian language and customs for a while and then returned to Bulgaria.
 
This theory is spread in schools and churches with the obvious aim of destroying the ethnic identity. Speaking about oppression, it was the Bulgarian government that exerted it, mainly in the period between the world wars. In the 1923-1924 period, Romanian schools and churches were closed (where they existed) and their teachers and priests, arrested. The Romanian textbooks were confiscated, under the promise they would be replaced by new ones. The native inhabitants were no longer allowed to wear their traditional national costumes, being obliged to cut their shirts. They were forbidden to speak Romanian with the local authorities. Fines and bodily punishments were imposed as a penalty for the guilt of being Romanians, of speaking Romanian, of sending their children to schools in Romania. All state, county and village officials were replaced by Macedonian and Bulgarian ones. “After Stambolitzky’s death (June 9, 1923), the life of the Romanians living in the Bulgarian region of Timoc became a real tragedy… Many young people fled by boats, to Romania, their families were ill-treated, Romanian schools and churches were closed.”37 Florea Florescu38 offered a dreadful evidence of it: “the schoolchildren no longer pray <Our Father> in Romanian villages, but, making the sign of the cross they say: <I am a Bulgarian, I love Bulgaria, I will sacrifice myself for it, etc>. The Romanian press, Universul newspaper in particular, presented, in time, all Bulgarian methods of denationalization.“ To settle this unbearable situation, numerous complaints were addressed to Sofia, Belgrade, Bucharest.

The press of the time released critical articles, especially the Timoc magazine. Everything was useless. Even the official attempts made by the Romanian government to improve the life of the Romanian minority living in the Southern part of the Danube had no results. In 1924, on the occasion of a visit paid to Bucharest by Tzancov – chairman of the Bulgarian Council of Ministers, the Romanian state claimed  for: grammar schools in each Romanian village, two high schools, one at Vidin, the other one at Bregova; the distribution of Romanian books and publications to the Romanian population living in Bulgaria; the divine liturgy to be officiated in the Romanian language; no more persecutions against the Romanians refusing to give up their nationality. After returning to Sofia, the Bulgarian officer unleashed the even harsher persecutions against the Romanians living in the Timoc region; thus “the most brutal blow being given to the aspirations and to the trend of national rebirth shared by the Romanians living on the Timoc Valley.”39. Romanians living in those regions felt they were marginalized, the feeling of distrust in Romania and in the Romanian government being even more powerful. A material offered by the Romanian Foreign Ministry owed Archives by courtesy of Mr Cristian Cãpinaru, a specialist in the field, points out the atrocities exerted against the Romanian minority group. The address no 891 dated March 28th, 1940, the Romanian foreign minister at that time, Grigore Gafencu, was acknowledged Bulgaria’s realities.“All children are forbidden to speak but Bulgarian. The relations between Romanians and Bulgarians would still be friendly unless the refugees and all kinds of  authorities behaved horribly. Old Romanians are illiterated, 30-40 % young Romanians (under the age of 20) can read and write in Bulgarian.

Only 5% of them can read and write in Romanian. The percentage is higher in few exceptional cases… The Bulgarian authorities do not treat Romanian minority group living in this region equally with Bulgarians… The aim is obvious; the Romanian is not permitted to succeed in any direction… The Romanians with a national consciousness cannot be offered any higher rank, as they are sabotaged even in their private life… There are villages where the Romanians are not allowed to be granted the job of fields’ guards” let alone an administrative or a public function.“The clerks in villages are brought from other parts, selected from among the most fierce chauvinists considered experts in denationalization. The replacement of Romanian clerks started in 1935… No Romanian word must be heard in churches, schools, mayoralties, pubs, where several teachers spend their working hours, guarding, in shifts, in the streets and in various other places to hear if somebody speaks Romanian. Romanian songs are no longer present in houses and yards… Even young people know that <they will be taken to mayoralty and beaten>… The fines and the persecutions do not come to an end any longer… Nobody dares to hope that Romania will help them, believing that Romania does not care for the fate of the Romanians living on the Southern bank of the Danube.” Already in that period (1940) the author of the address expressed his concern regarding the loss of ethnical identity and denationalization. This document is very important as it is original and worked out by a good connosseur of  the cruel events occurring in Bulgaria. He probably was an officer at the Romanian Embassy in Sofia. In 1933-1934, the names of many villages were changed and the Romanians patronyms started to be transformed into Bulgarian ones. This did not confine to the adding of the ov suffix at the end of the surname.
     This prefix was added to the father’s and grandfather’s names. Thus Gheorghe (son) of Ion (father) of Dumitru (grandfather) becomes Gheorghe Ionov Dimitrov. Some names were merely translated into Bulgarian: Florea (flower), Florescu becomes Tvetov, Tvetanov or Tvetcov. Ciobanu or Pãcuraru (shepherd) becomes Ovciarov. A certain Belitu (the skinned one) from  Bãlei becomes Grizanov and the list could continue. Children born after that date are given Bulgarian names, the priests being obliged to do that. The aim is obvious: any track of Romanian element had to be irrevocably eliminated. Adina Berciu Drãghicescu40 also mentions this reality. The policy of giving a Bulgarian turn to the Romanian elements contested the common origin of the Romanians living in the Northern part of the Danube, as well as the Romanians’ duration in the Ballkan territories. Despite these undeniable realities, the Romanians living in the Timoc area persisted in speaking a correct Romanian language, with no Slav accents. Without a detailed analysis, it is quite shocking the natural blend of the verbal structures and forms of various Romanian dialects used by the Romanians living in the Vidin area: a simple past tense used in MehedinTi region cohabits with archaic forms of a present perfect used by those living in Crisana and Western Carpathians. For instance, I was, I ate, I came  are used simultaneously or alternatively with I am been, I am eaten, I am come. 

    Even forms of past gerundive are currently used: he has been aggressing, he has been turning, he has been singing, he has been having (in particular in Florentin). Bulgarian words entered the lexis, words the natives gave a Romanian turn to. The ways of learning the language are extremely diverse: from books with fairy tales
brought from the Country (Romania) or found in the grandparents’ attics or trunks to movies, subtitled in Romanian and presented by the Romanian television or by analogy with the alphabet of the French language, some of them were lucky to learn in school. For those who are not specialists it is hard to understand that the Romanian language, used by the inhabitants of the Timoc area is exclusively spoken (not written) and many intellectuals cannot write in a language that everybody considers to be maternal. The policy of closing Romanian schools, the interdiction of religious services in the Romanian language, the turning of Romanian names into Serb ones, the aggressing of  Romanian native speakers, etc. was also applied in Yugoslavia (mainly in the Timoc region), in spite of the fact that both Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed international treaties which envisaged on the protection of minorities (according to art. 53-55 in the Neully sur Seine Treaty).41 The communist regime established after 1944 completely ignored the Timoc issue which kept on diminishing the Romanian minority (young people moved to towns, married natives, some children refused to learn Romanian, etc.), jeopardizing the Romanian language and traditions, blurring the ethnic identity. The gap between generations is ever more obvious: old people who cannot read and write Bulgarian or can very little and young people who cannot speak Romanian any longer. If urgent commonly agreed measures are not taken to settle these current issues, the situation will be still more dramatic. The reopening of the Romanian high school in Sofia in 1999 and the re-sanctifying of the Romanian Orthodox Church of Sofia are salutary, but not enough.
    One of the most controversial aspects is the number of inhabitants per village, town, small rural district. This number ranges between several tens of thousands to several hundreds of thousands and even to one million people. Bulgarian statistics severely hide this number. It is also true that the criteria of mentioning this number were extremely diverse. Some sources of information include the total number of Romanians (Wallachians) living in the Balkan Peninsula, others– only the inhabitants of Timoc region, or the Romanians living in Serbia or only those from Bulgaria. The few bibliographic sources mention that in 1877, in the Northern part only, their
number was estimated to 130,000 and other 30,000 in the Southern part of the Balkans42. According to the census of January 1st, 188143, the number of Romanians living in Bulgaria was as follows: BercoviTa – 147 inhabitants; Vidin – 23,845; VraTa – 286; Klustendil – 147; Loveci – 430; Lom Palanca – 1,494; Orhanie – 89; Pleven – 6,077; Rahova – 8,054; Svisciov – 8,054; Sofia – 514; Tran – 44; Varna – 360; Provadia – 71; Sumen – 396; Silistra – 1,626; Eski Djumara – 122; Razgrad – 116; Ruse – 3,403; Târnovo– 409; Tevlievo– 148. In that period there were 42,407 Romanians in the Western part and 6,663 in the Eastern part,
which meant a number of Romanians amounting to 49,070. The work includes in detail the number of Romanians per locality. By the end of the 19th century, the scholar Gustav Weigand, who traveled in the Northern and Southern parts of the Danube, concluded that there were 40,000 Romanians in the Vidin region, while in VraTa, 13,000. Distributed per locality, the number of inhabitants44, by comparing the years 191045 and 194046 , was the following: An impressive number of Romanians lived in the localities: Vlasca Mala, Gomi and Dolmi Tibãr, Orsoaia, Rahova (former Grahova), BuchiovTi, Glojene, HârleT, Butan, Sofronieva (former SârbeniTa), Coslodui, Boril (former Beslii), LescoveT, Crusovene, Gorni and Dolni Vadin, Ostrov, Nicopole, Chigensca Mala, Ghighen, GulianTi (former GrulenTi), Dâbovan (former Cercelan), Zagrajden (former Mãgura), Copriva, Dobrovo, Dragos Voivoda (former Ermenlui), CercoviTa, Gavreni (former Gãureni), Somovit, Samilevo, VârboviTa, Mahalata, MârtviTa, SlavoviTa, Belene, Vadim, Costel, Gabare, Liliace, Litacea, Mranoren, Ohoden, Gomi Pestene, Suhacea, TiscoviTa, Tlãcene, VãrbesniTa, VãrbiTa. In 1910, there were over 30,000 Romanians in the above mentioned localities, while in 1940, over 80,000. To those localities further nine villages were added: Coilova, Zlocutea, TârnomasniTa (Cernomasnica), BracheviT, IsanovãT (Mare and Mic), GraTcov, Halova, Sipicova47. All of those nine villages were annexed to Serbia in 1919-1920. Between 1940-1944 they were taken over by Bulgaria and later, after 1944, they were given back to Serbia. The number of Romanians living in the localities annexed by Serbia (44 villages of Banat included) is estimated to 150,000, whereas that of Romanians living on the Timoc Valley and on the Danube banks is estimated to 130,000. The Romanian mass on the territory bordered by the Morava, the Timoc and Lom historically belonged to former Dacia ruled by Aurelius, being closely related to Banat and Oltenia.48 These statistic figures ware available only for localities for which there are materials gathered in territory after 1990. According to Emanoil BucuTa49, who mentioned data taken from Bulgarian statistics, the Vidin rural district had 28,404 Romanians in 1905, out of whom 27,456 lived in villages and 1248 in towns and 31,382 in 1910. In the Cula rural district there were 11,759 Romanians in 1905 and 12,629 in 1910.
In the Lom rural district there were 3 881 Romanians in 1905 and 4505 in 1910; in Belogradcic, 58 Romanians in 1905 and 15 in 1910. Census was made in 1926 and 1934, too, the data being different from a census to another. In 1926 there were over 80,000 Romanian speaking people, while in 1934 their number was considerably diminished, mainly because their names had been turned into Bulgarian names.50

ETHNOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

      As regards ethnographic proofs, this work presents only the most interesting ones, as the entire work speaks for itself. The settlements. The distribution made by the predecessors is being maintained:

lowland, plain-land and woodland villages. Although it may seem a little bookish or geographic, this distribution is deeply rooted in the mentality of the Romanian rural community living in that area. Most of those Romanians know exactly which region they belong to. The interviewed subjects themselves drew our attention on this reality, as well as the differences of phonetics, lexis, costumes, etc. Worth mentioning as examples are the reports for the village Vârfu.51 Despite this classification, the terminological and phenomenological unity is extremely large, the ethnographic differences among regions being minor. Located on the fertile valleys of the rivers crossing them and later alongside the roads, most of the villages of Vidin and Lom districts are dense and elongated, having a main lane and several side lanes that crossed, more or less, the main highroad. There are few legends about the setting up of villages. Most of these legends have a Romanian or a Turkish eponym as main character, from whom the settlements took their names. Thus, old woman Vida, for the town and the fortress of Vidin; Vida’s sister, Cula for Cula, another sister, Gâmza, for Gâmzova; Kirim – beg for Kirimbeg; Stan – for Slanotârn, whose name was Stanotârn; Floarea – for Florentin; Tiarna – for TianuT; Balea – for Bãlei; Delei – for Deleina; brothers Ciuc and Ian – for Ciuciani; Stan – for Stanevo. If the eponym is generally a man, in this case the eponym is a woman (it can be both a male and a female name). Other villages took their names from outstanding personalities: Czar Borisovo (1934), later on Kirimbeg and finally Pocraina – since 1951; Tzar Peter became Molãlâia in 1947 and later, Drujba - in 1961; Evdokia (Czar Boris’ sister), that became GumãtãrTi (1944); Major Uzonovo(since 1947 – for Halvagii). Other settlements seem to have taken their names from rivers (Bregova – from the BregoviTa river), from their inhabitants’ occupation, Vîrf from ropes plaiting (vrâf means rope). The Rabrova village is also bound to some legends. As regard the age of the villages, even if the individual or collective memory places the appearance of their village only 300 or 400 years ago, certain interviewed subjects did want to specify that their village (Arciar, Florentin, Vârfu and Cudelin – the last two of them in the vicinity of the Roman fortified camp; Dorticum, Bãlei, Bregova, Drujba, Stanevo were inspired by the Romans). For Florentin, there was a bridge over the Timoc river towards Serbia and an old road passing by CãpitãnuT, NegovaniT, Gâmzova, Novoselo, Timoc. In Bãlei, near the Danube, archaeologists found fireplaces, all kinds of vases made of painted ceramics, some of them still preserving fragments of burnt cereals.52 TopolovãTul din Deal is said to be 1300 year old.53 The statements according to which the name of the village is taken from the Romans are quite natural, as both in the Southern and in the Northern part of the Danube, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the villages were not fully depopulated. Only the army and the administration were withdrawn. The natives who remained there mingled with smaller or larger waves of immigrants from the Northern part of the Danube, along the years. Numerous changes of hearth have been noticed, sometimes twice or thrice (TopolovãTul din Deal). The causes were diverse: plague (Cosava, TopolovãTul din Deal, where the toponym Livada Ciumei still exists, Stanevo); villages burnt by Circassians (Rabrova burnt by Circassians and moved twice because of the plague; Deleina) or by Turkish (Gâmzova, Bregova) or by natives to destroy any trace of plague (TopolovãTul din Deal), etc.
Toponyms such as: Sãliste, Satu’ Bãtrân, Cetate that can be found in many settlements are further evidence regarding the old age of those localities. The toponymy, debated by all our predecessors as an essential element in defining the continuation and duration of Romanians living in the Timoc region and on the right bank of the Danube is an undeniable proof (mentioned in all settlements). The surnames (before 1934, when they started being turned into Bulgarian ones) and the nicknames (in particular) borne by all villagers are entirely Romanian. Most inhabitants of rural settlements delimit quite categorically those of Romanian origin by using the appellative of the one living in the Country (de-ai Tãreanului), because they came from the native country Romania. Sometimes the native locality of these families is mentioned: Lupoaia, Gârla Mare (MehedinTi county), BistreT (Dolj county). In the past, villages were genealogically structured, especially the clans of people who came from Romania (they lived in a certain part of a locality. In TopolovãTul din Deal, this tradition was obeyed even in the cemetery, where the dead were buried according to their common descent). A lot of examples, regarding both toponymy and patronymic can be found in the statements directly recorded from those interviewed. Most inhabitants of the Romanian community dealt with agriculture: cereals growing, gardening (more recently), cattle breeding, viticulture, fishing (for riverine to waters); extraction of building stones, of the so-called arsine. (Deleina was the supplier of such a building material for many other villages in the area). Hemp was cultivated in almost all localities. Hemp was beaten in almost all rivers crossing the localities or in artificially formed ponds. The inhabitants of TopolovãTul din Deal and TopolovãTul din Vale made charcoals (chimur), too. As regards livestock, in the past, the inhabitants of the Romanian community had seldom sheepfolds. In this case the sheep were raised by hired shepherds. At present, the number of  animals being smaller, they are watched in shifts, according to the number of animals each family owes. Several families, usually neighbors, associate, and for instance, if a family has only one  animal, it guards all associates’ animals for one day only. The more animals a family has, the more days the association’s animals are watched and so on, until all associates have guarded the  animals and then they start watching again, in the same order. Each owner milks his own animals  in the morning and in the evening. In certain cases, respecting this order, shepherds are hired and  paid either with money or dairy products. This is the most common method used even in the past. 
There are handicraftsmen in each village: carpenters, wheelwrights, furriers, tailors, blacksmiths.  Many localities had water mills with a horizontal or vertical wheels, with upper or lower supply.  Certain villages had lands in other territories, got through marriages or bought (more seldom). Divine service outside churches was performed in cases of drought or when a new well was drilled, or when the already existing wells were cleaned. For instance, at TianuT, at all wells “alms was given, we go to release water; several women go there with food and wine, they light candles and burn incense, throw money into the well, we make a small truck, we cut it, put money in that little truck, light four candles in it and out of it, on the well’s water. There were no wells special for living or dead people.”54 Each village chose a certain holy day, when the festival (called icram) was celebrated, in which all inhabitants of the respective area participated. Inhabitants of other villages were also invited. Each family went to the festival with its food and drink, tablecloths were laid on the ground, in the church yard or in a glade, the priest was called to bless the food and drink and then everybody ate and drank the products they brought. Of course, the fiddlers were present to play and the party lasted until late at night.

A measurement unit for land surfaces (decãr or dulum) of ten ares (1 are = 100 square meters), that is 1,000 square meters was permanently used. Among drinking water sources, worth mentioning are: natural springs, artificially built wells: with sweep (very few when the investigation was made), with an axle on which a chain with one or two buckets rotates. In the above mentioned area, after 1950, systems of sewers were built, of which all villages benefit. Water pumps (captured natural springs) are also built in. There is no household without running water, with a concrete made drain 1.30 m-1.50 m long, 0.70-0.80 m wide and 0.50-0.80 m deep, located in the yard and used for various domestic works. The products that were in surplus for a family consumption were sold. The barter was little practiced. Ceramic and wood ware, brought by people from Arciar, where bartered for corn, wheat (grain or flour), beans and other goods. In villages like TianuT where potatoes and melons cultures were smaller, cereals were exchanged for potatoes and melons. The Vidin fair, initially organized on Friday and later on Saturday, was attended by almost all villagers of the Timoc area. Highly appreciated were also the fairs held at in Cula (on Thursday), Bregova (on Sunday), Novoselo (on Wednesday), as well as those at Lom, for the area situated beside the Danube. The cemetery, with the generic name of grobiste, is placed mostly in the middle of the village and very seldom at its outskirts. The GraTkovski Colibi village is a special case. It belonged to Bulgaria until 1919-1920. The loss of nine rural administrative regions that were taken over by Serbia, divided that village into two parts, in the same way as  in Romania, in 1940, when the Northern frontier was delimited and the villages of Maramures were divided and taken over by Ukraine (partly or totally). People had owed their stables for watching and breeding cattle and sheep on the hearth of the present day GraTcovski Colibi village. The houses remained on the other side, as well as the families that were dispersed. After that, people had to turn their stables into dwelling houses. GraTcovski Colibi is the only village in the area that has no cemetery, the dead being buried on private lands, between households, as it happened in the Paltforma Luncanilor region in Romania. The household. The oldest interviewed subjects kept in mind the memory of  partly underground huts (bordeie), of which they only heard (Cutova, Slanotârn, Cosava, Maior Uzunovo, TianuT, Gâmzova, Bãlei, Rabrova, Stanevo, Zlãteia).
     The households dating from the first half of the 20th century, as well as the present day ones are concentrated on the hearth of the villages. There are sporadic, humble cottages in the land, built in vineyards and water melon fields. A special situation was in GraTcovski Colibi (until 1920) and TopolovãTul din Deal where, for sheep breeding, from spring to autumn, there were two, three solid permanent constructions with shelters for people and for animals. The huts for people (a fireplace room and a bedroom) and the stables for animals were made of beams covered with straws. The wine cellars, wholly underground (wine was always grown), the bowers and the haystacks for feeding animals complete the image of the shelter. The space was enclosed, the huts being a replica of the household in the village. Some old people lived even in winter in the shelters built outside the TopolovãT village. Nevertheless, the shepherding in shifts was preferred. The boundaries of other settlements included wholly or partlly underground wine cellars in which all wine growing equipment was kept, as well as the wine  preserved there for a long time. The cellars were always unlocked, because nobody dared steal something. This is an apparently minor fact, which has actually much major social significance, showing self-esteem, respect for the other people and for their own work. The procedure is similar on a large area in counties MehedinTi and Gorj. The existence of a single dwelling in a household area is specific to the villages’ hearth.
In most cases, even when the sons were getting married, the youngest one was kept to live with the parents, under the same roof (not separately), even after he also got married. Quite often, the same house hosted all descendants, with daughters-in-law,sons-in-law (more rarely as usually the girls went to live in their husbands’ houses after the wedding), children, grand children.

The family (reduced or enlarged) formed an indestructible nucleus, the oldest man playing the role of pater familiae. Although everything in the household: the house, the outbuildings, the garden, the expenses, the harvested products were joint goods belonging to the entire family, that pater familiae was the man who orchestrated everything. Nobody dared argue with him or have personal initiatives. Pater familiae’ place at the table was well defined – at the head of the table. Nobody sat at table in his absence (except for special situations). He was the first to be  served with the best food and the largest helping, then the other men of the family in a chronologically decreasing order were served. Women had lateral seats or even separate tables. All community members strictly obeyed those rules. The irregular way of using space is another characteristic feature of the household on the Timoc Valley. In the past, the cardinal points were taken into consideration to orient the houses; the façade had to be oriented South.
Later on, the road was taken into account to orient houses. The oldest dwellings included soba (the room where people lived) and ogeac (the room with a stove where food was prepared), under which, in the most of the cases, there was podrum (the place where food products were stored). The houses with a room where the food was prepared and two rooms where people lived (called upper – din deal and lower – din vale) are also old. Beside the house, in the forecourt – maidan or dvor – there were the outbuildings necessary to any well-to-do-good householder. Tucanaua – the equivalent of the barn built in Transilvania held a major position after the dwelling.  Formed of two sections, built on a vertical position, it sheltered the animals (the lower section) and the fodder necessary to feed them (the upper section). Sometimes there were rooms even for living under that barn. Within or outside the barn – tucana – there were other shelters for animals called cosere, oboare (covered with a roof or not), the pigsties, the hencoop; the corn lofts – (pãtule) with or without a polata – a roofed shelter for wagons in front of it; barns for storing grain. More recently, starting with the second half of the 20th century, summer kitchens (mutfacuri) and bread ovens, started to be built outside the house. Nowadays, garages for cars are added to those subsidiary buildings. Nevertheless, all annexes were outside the house, somewhere in the backyard, the house being in the foreground. There were no outside cellars for food products, wine and plum brandy – Tuica – to be stored in; the  cellar (podrum) was under the the room where people lived – ogeac – or the two rooms of the house. Sometimes, outside the dwelling there were, some holes for the potatoes to be stored. Old houses had only one unpaved yard. Later, order and tidiness required the construction of the second yard. Heaps (glugi) of corncobs and stacks of hay and straws (clãi) could also be found outside in a household. Just as in the entire Romanian Plain, in Bãrãgan and Dobrudja, although the outside buildings were larger, the vegetable gardens did not hold a central place. Vegetable gardens appeared quite lately. When existing, only one garden was used for all kind of vegetables. Building materials. Initially, both the buildings and the outbuildings were made of wattles stuck with clay, of latticework and of adobe bricks. Burnt bricks (called tugla in the entire area) started to replace almost entirely the other building materials in the period between the two world wars or even earlier. The four-sided roofs were made of small pieces of burnt clay (straight or rounded at one end and called in the entire region –brick). After World War II, the roofs started to be made of tiles. Types of enclosure and gates. Most of the old households were not enclosed.

When fences started to be built, they were made of bramble put with the pitchfork (very rare), of horizontally interwoven wattles (most of them), of tarabã (board fences– adjoined sheets of wood a little shaped in the upper part), even of adobe and bricks and lately, of concrete in the lower part and iron (compact or netlike) in the upper part. Older fences, in particular wattles fences, were sometimes covered. The oldest gates called vraniTã were made of wattles, then of boards, covered or not covered. The gates have been always made of two parts: one for people and the other for wagons. Rarely, in front of the gates, there was a bench (laviTã) on which people sat in the evening or after finishing their work.The same building materials for houses, annexes, enclosures and gates were used in the Lom area too.

Building customs. A special category refers to the customs in general, the building customs, in our case. Together with the native language, the way of living, the mentality, the national costume,  customs, etc. are the link of a community (horizontally), the relation with the foregoing generations and that of perennial character of a community (vertically). In a previous work55, the author of this volume tried to show the importance of building rites: – they are rites of setting up a dwelling, a household, a settlement, etc.; – their development is part of a system, a cycle, even if each building stage has distinct customs; – the household is a nucleus concentrating the practice of customs; – building customs are an element both integrated and integrative in the complex system of customs. Any beginning implies an end and a new beginning, a cycle repeated with the accuracy of a clock mechanism, even if this cycle does not repeat at fixed dates, as in the case of calendar customs. “Customs, through their complexity, form, as a whole, not only a background, but they are an integrant part of the Romanian peasant’s way of thinking, of his outlook, of his way of including the rural microcosmos into the universal macrocosmos”56. Beside proper building habits, it is also worth mentioning “a series of augural, apotropaic, propitiative, fertility, fecundity habits meant to ensure to the family couple protection and prosperity, a life as much carefree as possible… The struggle to get the protection of the benevolent powers against malign powers must be carried on for the entire inhabited area, that is also for <the animal that ensures food, clothes and means of transport>. People’s destiny was in a close relationship with that of the co-inhabiting animal, as well as with the environment, realities that justify the reference to the green branch, the ritual fires, the premonition of influencing human destiny”57. Everything a man did for himself and for his family was also done for his animals (for health, for a larger livestock) and for his cultures (to be richer and protected against diseases and pests). This spiritual struggle must be permanently carried on, the entire life, to sacralize profane spaces and to maintain them as pure as possible, so that they should not be reached by malefic forces or even if they reach there they must be relented by means of the performed rituals. Any disobedience of their supernatural and unforeseeable power might bring about big troubles to the family group settled on a place that formerly belonged to those malefic forces. The customs of the Timoc inhabitants are characterized by an extremely large terminological, structural, phenomenological and symbolic unity, even larger than in the area located in the Northern part of the Danube.
A rooster’s head is constantly buried at the house’s foundation, with the variants hen head and lamb head, sometimes alone, other times associated with: holy water, money, edible oil, various seeds. All these must be interpreted as substitutes of a human sacrifice and as a symbolic payment to get the supernatural beings’ benevolence, a remark eloquently made by native people. ”The rooster head is buried as a sacrifice for the household, so that other heads should not fall. The blood is let to pour on the first head stone58. There have not been noticed customs or rituals for the walls. Some people heard that somebody’s shadow could be buried and then that person would have to die very soon. A cross was put at the rafters. Flowers, towels, dresses, a bag with a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, a boiled hen, two, three corn cobs, seeds were hung on the cross. Either the main craftsman or all builders took those products (except for the boiled hen that was served and eaten at the dinner offered to them). In Stanevo, a little water was poured on the doorstep “for the house to be prosperous as water is and full of joy”. After the house was ready, almost always the house was consecrated, even during the communist regime, despite all its vicissitudes and interdictions. In many villages, the ceremony of declaring the house consecrated was called the release of the house (slobozitul casei), just as in many localities of counties Teleorman and Dolj. Also well released (slobozitul fantanii) was called the moment when a well was finished.
       The priest is called for a divine ceremony and only after it, water could be drunk from that well. According to traditional mentality, any new construction must have a protector, for whose protection people must obey well established rules. Among those old and well established rules with a quasi unitary spread in the entire area, worth mentioning are the little dinner (cinisoara). Rarely found in the Northern part of the Danube, this practice is quite frequent in the Southern part of the Danube. The little dinner means both a ritual loaf of bread baked on the eve of the Patron Saint’s day and the wake occasioned by this calendar date. The practice is basically the following: on the wedding day each family chose a Patron Saint once. The choice was made in the church. Quite often the saint on the page where the Gospel opened became the Patron Saint. In very few cases, it was the young couple who selected a certain Patron Saint. Once selected, the Patron Saint was inherited from generation to generation, patrilineally (the wife took over the Patron Saint of her husband’s family). On the eve of the respective wake a loaf of bread is baked on which people put: salt, fruit, (an apple, a pear, a bunch of grapes, etc.), a small glass of wine, funeral wheat porridge and candles, if possible three arranged like a cross. Thus, the little dinner is a symbol of all riches able to ensure a family’s welfare: salt, grain, fruit, products obtained by processing fruit, candles. The loaf of bread (cinisoara) is put on a clean towel or on a shirt belonging to the youngest child. They are put directly on the room’s floor. The host, usually the oldest person, genuflects (as many as possible genuflections; sometimes even 30 or 40) and crosses himself, saying: “Good evening, Patron Saint, because I lit You candles” (Gâmzova) or “May us be forgiven and may us kowtow when lightening candles to Saint (Sveti) X for worship.” If other people are also in the room they thank the Saint;“Thank You for lightening a candle at the Holly Wake”. If it is only the host, the latter answered to himself. This ritual is three times repeated. Initially, each genuflection had a well determined aim, being made both for each family member and for each animal belonging to the family“because we remembered so”. After this entire ceremony, the little dinner ( the loaf of bread) is taken and raised towards the house beam three times, accompanied by the words: “May the sheaf be as high as a poplar, and the spike as big as a barn”(Gâmzova) or “no evil in our house and may everything outside the house live”, that is “may the shelters be full of sheep, cattle, etc.(Vârfu). In some villages (BoroivãT) a coin was put inside the loaf of bread; that who finds it after the ceremony is over has good luck (kizmet). In the end, salt is put in the glass of wine, from which everybody attending the ceremony symbolically drinks.
The candle is also blown out with wine. A priest is called to read an Orthodox prayer molifta.  All these practices justify the name of bread for prayer that is also given to the little dinner loaf of bread. In all Romanian villages of that area, relatives and friends are invited to the wake. They are served with meals with or without meat (depending if it is a season of fasting) and with drinks. The motivation of the interviewed subjects is: “for health, for abundance, for happiness in the house”. Everybody attending the ceremony must eat from the loaf of bread called the little dinner. The fact that pieces of that loaf of bread are given to the animals of the household is an argument in favor of the well defined and close relationship between people and the animals living in their households.
It also illustrates the great attention paid by the villagers to the health of their animals. The next day, women go to church with knot-shaped bread, called in certain villages bârTã on which, the Sun, the Moon and other symbols are made from stripes of dough. Other food products are also taken to church. They can be eaten only after the priest read a prayer from them. At Vârfu, the wake lasts three days. The third day is devoted to the dead. A knot-shaped loaf of bread is baked called the dead men’s head that is also taken to church together with wine. They are given to people for the Holly Wake and then for each dead member of the family. The Holly Wake of the house is never changed, although in very special cases this could be done by means of certain rituals. Here is what Tudorca Petrova, an inhabitant of TinauT village stated: “ Saint Archangel (<Sveter Arhangel>) was our Patron Saint. We inherited this Patron Saint from our grandfather and we kept honoring Him. Then we noticed that Saint Archangel day was not beneficial to us any longer: either somebody got ill or something wrong happened. Then we decided to choose another saint. This is how we did. We baked three loaves of bread and bought three candles. Each loaf of bread was given the name of a saint. The male head of the family, without knowing what name each loaf of bread had, touched one bread with his hand and the name of the saint given to the respective loaf of bread became the new Patron Saint of the house. Now Good Friday (Vinerea Mare) is our new Patron Saint.” Angelina Vasilieva of village Deleina said:“The Patron Saint of the house cannot be changed. At most, two Patron Saints can be chosen. But you have to celebrate both of them: the new one and the inherited one.” The ritual is very similar to that performed in TianuT: three loaves of bread bearing names of saints and three candles. In Deleina, the three loaves of bread are tied to a small three-legged stool. This custom seems to have a Christian origin, but its roots have to be searched in pre-Christian rituals of redeeming the place by getting the benevolence of the evil forces. In exchange of that benevolence, different offerings were given, offerings also mentioned by The Old Testament: Cain and Abel offered to the Almighty God animals and cereals in propitiation. It is known that many pre-Christian peoples believed in the existence of deities who protected the village, the town, the house and the family. Here, worth mentioning are the ancient Roman tutelary deities called Lares, inherited from the Etruscans. They were worshiped being considered a kind of souls of the forefathers that watched and protected their descendants. Each Roman house had in the atrium a special shrine called Lalaria, and decorated with the images of the respective house’s Lares, garlands of flowers and laurel being attached to them. At family feasts the Lares were given food and drink offerings. Despite the large extension of this practice, the belief in the house’s protective snake is missing. On the other hand, the North Danubian folklore is full of stories about the house’s protective snake.
      People living on the Timoc Valley have quite seldom heard that each house has a snake that protects the household and the family and it is not good to kill it. There is also a belief, in contradiction to that on the Northern bank of the Danube, according to which the appearance of the snake would be a sign of death. But the swallows that make their nests at the people’s houses and whose nests must never be broken, even by mistake, are very appreciated. “I feel pity to destroy their nest. They make a home there, lay eggs, have chicks, and pleased that the master of the house does not destroy their nests; I am very fond of them when I see the chicks in their nests opening the beaks when their mother comes to feed them.”59 I never destroyed their nests because I felt pity for them. You know, it is as if you built a house and somebody would come to destroy it; it is not good. The same happened with swallows. If they dirtied around the house I cleaned it. They are also living creatures. How could somebody destroy their nest? It is not good. They made their nests of twigs grasses and mud, like a hut. I, myself did not have swallows but I saw them at other people, in the trees.“60 The green branch was hung by the household’s gate and at the stable gates on various holly days along the year: Saint George, Palm Sunday, Easter with the hope that it would protect the entire household against the seen and unseen ill-willing forces.

      Saint George’s day (May 6th) is the best represented one. Considered patron of the entire household and even of many villages, Saint George has a major significance. The celebration of Saint George lasted two days, with more or less elements according to the village of the memory of those interviewed, as in many places, these customs have not been practiced any longer for a long time. The first day, on the eve of the celebration, called proor, naproor, people woke up very early, “just before the dawn” and went to the cereals sown field. They washed their faces with dew or they rolled into the dewed grass; then they let their cattle graze wherever they wanted, even if the latter damaged the field (it was the only day of the year when that thing was permitted). All kinds of plants were picked up, including a special one symbolizing the abundance of cattle milk. They made a garland of those plants and put it over the pail in which the milk was collected. At noon, they drove the cattle at home, milked them and then, the women offered milk and, sometimes, fresh cheese to other villagers, as alms. ”When you give food as alms you light also a candle; you made portions for everybody; first for God, then for Saint George and after that for our dead people, mentioning their names.61 Next day, that is on Saint George’s Day, other garlands of plants were made (in particular of willow twigs) that were hung by the lambs’ necks; the lambs were taken to the church and the priests blessed them and only after that, the lambs could be sacrificed. The garlands were hung somewhere within the household or they were thrown on the water“ for the cattle’s health, for them to have milk.” Then alms was again given, that time lamb meat. Concurrently, twigs of willows blessed by the priest or not were hung at the houses’ and stables’ gates. At night the lads put willow branches at the gates of the girls they loved, without the girls’ cognizance. On Palm Sunday, small willow branches blessed by the priest in the church were hung at the houses’ gates and doors. Women girded their waists with such small branches as a preventive medicine. On Easter, green grass windrows were put on both sides of the door for people returning from the church to step on soft green grass, a symbol of youth and prosperity. In certain villages, the dye that remained after the eggs were painted for Easter was put on the door step “to look into it and to be good looking” (Stanevo), or even the children were washed with that dye “ to have red cheeks the entire summer and to be healthy” (Deleina).
     Just as in the case of Saint George customs, the green branch had an apotropaic and propitiative role. The green branch was hung by the doors and put on the doorsteps “that is at the liminal components, considered the most vulnerable to the malefic forces and that ensures the passing, either from an outdoor to an indoor space, or from the lay to the sacralized world by means of various practices and rituals.”62 The custom required that all those practices had to be performed at well defined moments: on the eve or at dawn of the holly day. Ritual fires. Related to an ancient belief in the purifying role of the fire, the calendar
ritual fires, like the green branch, extended their apotropaic and augural function over the entire household area. On the Timoc Valley the most frequent ritual fires were those occasioned by All Saints’ Day – SâmTi  and Good Thursday – Joi Mari. On All Saints’ Say (SâmTi), a fire was or was not made in each household. The house, the stables, the trees and even the human body: head, hands, legs thumbs and toes were compulsorilly smoked to symbolically remove the snakes and the pains that might have deteriorated the good health. The Good Thursday fires had much more complex meanings, being also related to the dead people worship. They made a mental connection between “the terrestrial world” and the other world. People believed that on Good Thursday, the dead came back to their former houses where they wanted to eat and drink, to get warm and even to stay by the fire as long as they were permitted. Even if fires were not made in all households, mugs or buckets with water were spilled for each dead member of the family. They were spilled at the well (water pump), in the yard or at the cemetery around the tombs. Water, an indispensable element of life, is always present in all the customs, irrespective of their category. The March amulet (mãrTisor) with the initial meaning of offering/gift, after it was worn a period of time, was put on a tree, in blossom or not, on a rose, the relationship between people and the environment being also present -“the children have to be more beautiful than the rose”(TianuT). Sometimes, the customs related to the March amulet are even more complex. 

      For instance, in Cumbair (a neighborhood in Vidin) “ on March the first, a March amulet was hung on everybody’s chest. People went to church with a bottle of water and a little bran for feeding the poultry. The priest blessed the water and the bran for your prosperity and for that of your poultry. You give to the priest what you brought; you take a little basil and put a little salt, green pepper, a handful of soil taken from the pigsty and from the household, you let them there; you put the basil in the bottle and the priest blesses it. You give some money. Then you go home and give a little blessed water and bran to the poultry to drink and eat in order to live long and to be healthy. Then, the March amulet (after it was worn enough) is hung in a tree where it remains.”63 In other villages (Florentin) the March amulet is hidden under a rock, for the stork not to see it, and for people to be healthy. As it is quite obvious from the natives’ answers, the March amulet, alone or together with other elements, had an augural and premonitory function for people, animals and even for the fertility of the trees. The cognition of fate. From times immemorial, for all the peoples, in particular for the Indo-European ones, “the belief in predestination was one of the major characteristic features of their traditional way of living. Although there was the belief that man’s life, since his birth, was preordained by the Fates and that almost nothing could be done against destiny.
Because “everybody is born with a predestined fate”, in the traditional societies, people tried, by means of various practices and rituals and specific ceremonies, to find out their future and to make it better, within possible limits.”64 In the third evening after somebody’s birth, the three Fates came, well-wishing or, on the contrary, ill-wishing, able to spin the line of the newborn baby’s life. To get their benevolence the three Fates had to be well treated. On a table, near the mother of the newborn baby, a loaf of bread was put. It was specially baked for the occasion, sometimes by a little girl.
Besides bread, people also put wheat, flour, honey, sugar, salt, a small glass of water, another of wine, flowers, money, symbolic objects (a book, a pencil, thread, various tools, etc.) for those unseen supernatural beings to be able to choose and to predict to the newborn baby a life, as prosperous and carefree as possible. Overnight, only the newborn baby’s mother had to stay in the room, sometimes accompanied by the midwife or by the godmother (seldom). The woman who accompanied the mother must not sleep, in order to hear the destiny of the newborn baby. In the Vârfu village, the loaf of bread put for the Fates was called bread for the Fates (turtã de Ursitori). The next day, the midwife went through the village with that loaf of bread and gave pieces of it to all villagers she met“for the baby to speak loud, not to remain dumb”. The motif of the young man predestined to die by drowning at the age of 18, is widely spread. In spite of all measures taken to prevent this tragedy (the covering of the well with a lid, the close watching of the young boy) he would still die.

Of course, as any other element of folklore culture, the Fates are not an isolated appearance in a certain cultural area: the ancient Greeks had the Moirae and the Romans– the Parcae (to confine only to the Mediterranean area). The beginning of a New Year is another major existential step, when the struggle between the old and the new takes place, when the old year must be buried to make place to the newborn year”. This is a binomial: end-beginning and at the end of the year, the same unavoidable finish is added, the binomial becoming a cyclic trinomial, that repeats every year… The celebration of the New Year concentrates an extremely complex and wide range of customs, rituals and ceremonies. Out of their large number worth mentioning are in particular those related to the household. They take place (the same as in Romania) both inside and outside the house. Some are performed only by girls, others by girls and boys and quite seldom by the boys only.”65 The onion calendar is one of the practices inside the house. In the night separating the years (celebrated between January 13th and 14th until recently) 12 onion peels (symbolizing the 12 months of the year) were put in the house. A little salt was put on each peel. According to the quantity of water that gathered in it until morning, the humidity of the respective month was established. The bewitching was made in the night of Saint Basil Day.
  Several young girls (sometimes even boys) gathered at one girl’s place. Various objects were put under nine dishes. Each girl chose a dish, without knowing what it was under it. Each object had a certain  significance related to her future husband; a comb meant a husband with big teeth; a ring meant a  handsome and slim husband; a loaf of bread meant money, that is a rich husband; a mirror meant a good looking husband, etc. Also inside the house, on Saint Basil Day, the child was taken to the midwife.
The child’s parents brought presents to the midwife (three knot-shaped loaves of bread or three simple loaves of bread, wine, uncooked or cooked meat, sausages, sponge cakes or other cakes and sweets). On that occasion, children up to the age of seven-eight years were taken to the midwife, who was obliged to give them a gift and to bake a big knot-shaped loaf of bread which she put round the child’s neck. The midwife raised the child three times until the house beam. She wished the child health and good luck“may you grow up and get old, and may your hair be as white as the snow” (Gâmzova). The child/children were taken back home and the parents came back to the midwife’s house and partied until late at night.

On Epiphany Day, the girls stole basil from the priest in order to dream their future husbands. With a much reduced range of facts in comparison with the area in the Northern part of the Danube, the tying of poles was a custom practiced outside the house. On the Eve of Saint Basil night, the girls went out in the yard, tied nine poles and in the morning they checked the ninethth pole: straight and knotty as the future husband will be or he will have a number of brothers equal to that of the knots on the respective pole. On Epiphany Day, the carrying of the cross to the Danube or to another running water was another frequent custom. First the priest made a divine service in the church and on the river bank and then he threw the cross into the water. The bold lads tried to recover the cross after which they went throughout the village where people gave them meat, sausages, flour, maize flour, wine, money. If there was no river, the ceremony took place at a well or a large pot with water was put in the church yard. Beside the usual divine service of blessing the water, a cross was symbolically thrown in that recipient. In Lom area, those customs are fewer and less important than in the Vidin area. No member of the rural community could elude those customs even if carried out by means of a normative routine perpetuated for centuries and even if, apparently, they took place under the syntagmas : “this is the habit”, “this is the way we have learnt from our ancestors” , “this if for health” “ for plenitude” “this is good”. These habits reflect the Romanian people’s deep inborn philosophy mentioned by our great forerunners and which refers to the cognizance and understanding of the causality of the phenomena.
The importance of the customs is quite great, having a perfect replica in the  culture of people living in the Northern part of the Danube, especially in Oltenia (a region in South-West Romania), as well in the rituals performed on a larger area in the Balkan Peninsula or even in other European countries. The inhabitants of Denmark, France, Great Britain, Spain, Naples, Finland, Russia also had presumptive protectors of their houses. Those Protectors had to be well treated, to receive offerings, to be protected so that, in their turn, they should protect the respective family or community. A green branch used to be put in other European countries, too. Ritual fires were also made “from Ireland, in Western Europe, until Russia, in Eastern Europe, and from Norway and Sweden in Northern Europe until Spain and Greece in Southern Europe.”66 Worth mentioning is also the fact that, the individuals are involved in the society and the  customs are only apparently particular. Even if each individual performed his ritual inherited from generations, the entire village performed the same ritual.
Each member of the community put a green branch or made a ritual fire, but, eventually, those were distinguishing marks of the entire village. The ceremonial aspect of numerous customs is another component of their social side. The ways of mutual help, well defined in the past, are another argument in this direction. It is very important to remember that all villagers participated in the ceremonies of christening, wedding, burying. The participants had an active role giving a helpful hand to the preparations required by such events. Labour in group (claca) is another form of mutual help performed when spinning, plowing, sowing, husking, raising a construction, etc. Called credit or help, the labor in group implied compulsory relations of mutual help.

Many rituals are still performed nowadays, while others have survived only in the older people’s memory. Many people interviewed for this book regret the loss of the traditions and would do anything to revive it.“The international festivals of Wallachian song and dance”, organized lately were received with a great interest and enjoyed a large participation; it is therefore not surprising, they gathered Romanians living everywhere: Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, the Republic of Moldova, etc.

NOTES

 
1.          Adina Berciu Drãghicescu, 1996, p.12-13.

2.          Nicolae Serban Tanasoca, 1995, p.20.

3.          Adina Berciu Drãghicescu, quoted work, p.14.

4.          Cãlin Felezeu, Ioan Lumperdean, p.12.

5.          Idem, p.12, quoted work, N.Iorga, 1924.

6.          Florin Constantiniu, 1997, p.51.

7.          Cãlin Felezeu, Ioan Lumperdean, quoted work, p.20.

8.          Idem, p. 58.

9.          DEX (DicTionarul explicativ al limbii române), 1996, p.205.

10.       Monica Budis, 1994, p.10.

11.       Idem.

12.       Adina Berciu Drãghicescu, quoted work.

13.       Bulgarska Etnologia, XXI, 1995.

14.       Alexandru Budis (colonel), 1943, p.163.

15.       Stefan Pascu (coordinator, group of authors), 1971.

16.       Petre P. Panaitescu, 1990, p.10.

17.       Atlas istorico-geografic, 1996, p. 35.

18.       Petre P. Panaitescu, quoted work, p.34.

19.       Idem, p.49.

20.       Ibidem, p.49.

21.       Idem, p.60.

22.       Emanoil BucuTa, 1923 - thinks that native people from MehedinTi and Dolj (Southern Romania) called olteni,  as well as shepherds from Transylvania (central Romania) left Romania and settled down on the Timoc Valley. This mass migration took place in three waves: the first started around the year 1800 and ended around the year 1831. In that period, Pasvant Oglu, considered for a long time the father of all Romanians living in that region, established a law according to which, anyone who settled down in that area should receive a plot for plowing and a piece of woodland. The news spread with the speed of light and thus, Romanians came to Bulgaria as to a beehive with honey. The second wave took place after 1831, when the Romanians living in the Southern part of the Danube ran away because of the effects of the Organic Regulation. This second wave granted the ethnographic character. Finally, the third wave, less large and more sporadic, took place after 1900. Bulgarian literature also keeps up with those waves. Ninco Zaycov, 1995, p.51, thinks that the Romanians from the Northern bank of the Danube came to the Southern bank in the 1718-1739 period, during the Austrian occupation of those territories. Of course, the list of examples could be longer, but we stop here, for lack of space.

23.       Silviu Dragomir, 1924, p.51.

24.       Nicolae Serban Tanasoca , quoted work, p.20.

25.       N.A.Constantinescu, quoted work, p.8.

26.       Horia Ursu, 1943, p.44.

27.       N.A. Constantinescu, quoted wprk, p.8.

28.       Cãlin Felezeu, Ion Lumperdean, quoted work, p.40.

29.       Florin Constantiniu, quoted work, p.60-61.

30.       P.P. Panaitescu, quoted work, p.63.

31.       N.A.Constantinescu, 1941, p.64.

32.       Idem, p.65.

33.       Horia Ursu, 1943, p.46.

34.       P.P. Panaitescu, quoted work, p.52-53.

35.       Dusanka Bojonici Lucaci, 1975.

36.       Elena Grazdanova, 1989, p.166-171.

37.       D. M.Truia, 1935, p.16.

38.       Florea Florescu, 1937, p.234, note 11.

39.       C.Lungulescu, 1935, p.7.

40.       Adina Berciu Drãghicescu, quoted work, p.35.

41.       Stefan Vâlcu, 1998, p.103.

42.       Florea Bobu Florescu, 1941.

43.       Maxim Mladenov, 1995, p.27.  

44.       Marin Popescu Spineni, 1941, p.40-41, where G. Weigand and the statistics made by him are mentioned, statistics partially reproduced by Petre RâmneanTu, 1941, p.59.

45.       Leon Boga, 1913.

46.       The data are taken from address no 891, sent in 1940 to the Romanian Foreign Minister Grigore Gafencu and is at present kept in the Romanian Foreign Ministry’s Archives.

47.       Idem.

48.       Marin Popescu Spineni, quoted work, p.19-20.

49.       Emanoil BucuTa, quoted work, p.52.

50.       Marin Popescu Spineni, quoted work, p.36.

51.       Sub. Navenca Marinova, born in 1926 in Vârfu, collection made in 1998, inventory number 34389.

52.       Sub. Keizer Ivanov MeiTov, born in 1929 in Bãlei, collection made in 1998, inventory number 34392.

53.       Sub. Liubel Rusalinov (of Naghiu), born in 1937; Filip Petrov Stoicov, born in 1912; Gheorghe Gosa ( from Florea al Tãreanului) born in 1940 in TopolovãTul din Deal,collection made in 1994, inv. no 34399.

54.       Sub. Tudorca Petrova Ionova, born in 1936 in TianuT, collection made in 1994, inv.no34, 403.

55.       Monica Budis, 1998.

56.       Idem, p.9.

57.       Idem, p.10.

58.       Sub. Mladen Ianev, born in 1920 in GumãtãrTi, collection made in 1995, inv. no 34416.

59.       Sub. Ivan Nicolov Stefanov, born in 1921 in Cutova, collection made in 1999, inv. no 34496.

60.       Sub. Gheorghe Petrov Atanasov, born in 1920 in Cosava, collection made in 1994, inv. no  34397.

61.       Sub. Navenca Marinova, born in 1926 in Vârfu, collection made in 1998, inv. no 34388.

62.       Monica Budis, 1998, p.104.

63.       Sub. Maria Florova Juvetova, born in Antimov - Cumbair in 1933, collection made in 1994, audio cassette, inv. no 682.

64.       Monica Budis, 1998, p.130.

65.       Idem, p.132-133.

66.       James George Frazer, 1980, vol.5, p.6, quoting John Mitchell Kemble’s The Saxons in  England,  1876.

N.B.:

Information/informer =  person having supplied us with data; subject. Scientific notion consecrated in the field, free of any other connotation (political, etc.).

Sub. = subject.

We take responsibility in the parallel use of both terms, despite their imperfect synonymy.