The Romanians as a Border People during the Middle Ages. Between Slavonianism and Latinity
The Romanians as a Border People during the Middle Ages. Between Slavonianism and Latinity

Summary/Abstract: Abstract: In other words, from the great Byzantine culture, the Slavs and the Romanians took only the popular components which they could fully understand. We are dealing here with an ecclesiastical culture of Byzantine-Eastern extraction, adapted however to the spiritual needs of agricultural patriarchal populations. Gradually, the Slavs adapted medieval Slavonianism to their modern culture, also of Slavic extraction, while the Romanians, still of the Byzantine rite, returned to Western culture, in its Latin garb. This return was quite problematic and contradictory: the Slavs saw the Romanians as strange and ungrateful intruders, and then as “traitors,” while the Westerners, including those from Latin countries, saw than as strange and poor relatives seeking to join the select few. In fact, Romanians cannot be blamed for what destiny decided for them, but they are responsible for the manner in which they acted throughout history within the coordinates of this destiny. A Neo-Latin people of Orthodox faith and Slavic culture during the Middle Ages, living a modest life, at the point of contact between the East and the West, might very well be an oddity for Europe, but it also a challenge and an argument for mutual understanding and recognition.

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