INTRODUCTION
At the
first mention of going to Roumania, a great many persons, as did myself,
would take down their atlas and open the map. No one would bother to do
this over more familiar, countries. For Roumania, there can be no
question, is among the lesser known lands of Europe. Everyone has heard
of Bucarest and Sinaia; we all realize that there are oil wells in
Roumania; and then, of course, there are the beautiful costumes worn by
the peasants. And that, for the vast majority of persons, is all that
they know of Roumania.
It is
far away. If you embarked on the train, determined, for some obscure
reason, to continue in it upon the longest journey possible in Europe,
the probability is that you would step out, four days later, upon the
platform of Constanta, on the Black Sea, finding yourself, though you
might not know it, at Ovid's Tomi. That is, of course, unless you
include Russia and Siberia as being in Europe. It is a matter of
principle. Most persons are satisfied that Europe ends at the Dniester
and the Black Sea. So that Roumania is at the far end of Europe.
When the
journey to Roumania was suggested, I was more than delighted at the
prospect. And this was largely because I had no knowledge whatever of
what lay in store for me. Knowing France and Germany, Italy and Spain,
Greece and Portugal, the Scandinavian countries, and having seen, I
believe I may say with truth, nearly all their buildings and their works
of art, there was a delightful uncertainty where Roumania was concerned.
I made up my mind not to read any book about Roumania before going
there, in order to let it come as a surprise; and having read, since my
return, all the available books upon the subject, I realize that English
literature is nearly silent where that country’s concerned. There is
more than one good history of Roumania, in English, but hardly any book
that describes the country and deals with its character and with its
works of art. Hurez, perhaps the most beautiful and typical of Roumanian
convents, I can frankly confess I had never heard of until the day
before we visited it. This is a sensation that is hardly to be obtained
in any other country in Europe. How many people, again, have been told
of the Danube Delta and its extraordinary landscapes? There is a
refreshing absence of insistence upon these things. They allow
themselves, still, to be discovered.
During
four weeks that we spent in Roumania, it rained one Sunday morning. My
mosquito net, convoyed with extreme trouble across Europe, was not once
requisitioned; not even in what would have seemed, to my suspicious
mind, the malaria ridden swamps of the Delta. Roumania, then, is very
different from Venice in September. It is wise, though, to preserve
ordinary precautions about the drinking water. The only difficulty about
Roumania, from the point of view of the English traveler, is the length
of the journey and the expense of getting there. On the other hand,
living costs less, once you have arrived, than in any other country of
Europe. And it is no longer necessary to go by train. The last short
stretch of road is nearing completion, or may be finished by the time
these lines appear in print, and then there will be uninterrupted road
communication between Roumania and Western Europe. I suppose it is
seven, or eight days' easy motoring from London to Bucarest.
The
traveler’s first impression is of the potential richness of the country.
Anything and everything will grow, somewhere in Roumania. And there is
not only oil; there are, as well, rich deposits of coal and iron. But
this book is not concerned with those things. Its business is with the
living people, and with their past, as expressed in buildings and in
works of art. From the human point of view it may be said, at once, that
the potential riches are there, too. There can be but few lands with so
excellent a peasant stock as Roumania. This is the true wealth of the
country, for it is its future. The peasants have come down, unspoilt and
uncontaminated by the Industrial Age, of which, indeed, there is hardly
a trace to be seen. Greater Roumania has a steadily growing patriotic
sense in which the minority populations, with hardly an exception, are
prepared to play their part. There will, before long, be twenty millions
inhabiting this country and, slowly and gradually, their general
personality is beginning to emerge. They are, ethnographically, a Latin
race, and this makes them different from their neighbours. It may be
worth pointing out, here, that the acceptance, after the heroic age of
Stephen the Great and Michael the Brave, of Turkish suzerainty by the
Princes of Moldavia and Wallachia, has had to its credit the result that
the political, ethnical, and religious entities of the two
principalities survived through three centuries of wars between the
three great neighbouring empires, Russia, Austria, Turkey; and that the
two principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia, were never annexed by
Turkey, as were, for centuries, Serbia and Bulgaria, and, even, for more
than one hundred and fifty years between the two battles of Mohacz, as
was the greater part of Hungary. The independent, national style of
Roumania appears in such buildings as the convent of Hurez and, of
course, in the painted churches of the Bucovina. These are still more
interesting; in fact, they are the chief contribution of Roumania to
æsthetics, and take a high place, as I have sought to prove, in the
world of Byzantine art to which, in principle, they belong.
Bucarest, as a town, has a most distinct personality of its own. Count Keyserling, that great discerner of realities, has noticed that the
special wit and suppleness of mind of the higher classes of the
population, in Bucarest, is a Byzantine legacy. I believe this to be
true. A character, such as that of Bucarest, is not created in less than
many centuries, however few may be the traces of antiquity in the town
itself. Of one thing, at least, there can be no doubt. The cohesion, the
welding together of Roumania, during the last seventy years has been
due, in large part, to the reigning family. Much valuable work had been
accomplished, in the years before this, by Prince Alexander Couza, who
united the two principalities. But internal politics made the election
of a disinterested personality an absolute necessity. Prince Charles of
Hohenzollern, of the elder branch of that family, was invited to
Roumania in 1866 and, under his ægis, the country became a kingdom in
1881. His Queen, who is better known as Carmen Sylva, was a person of
rare poetical talent and one who, it is evident, fully appreciated the
latent possibilities of the country over which she was called to rule.
King Ferdinand I, the nephew of Charles, or Carol I, succeeded his uncle
in 1914, at a time of utmost difficulty. The greater Roumania that
emerged from the War is his handiwork. Queen Marie, also, is immutably
associated with this.
It was
as recently as 1930 that King Carol II returned to his country. No more
than seven years ago; but, during that short time, immense progress has
been made in every direction. Roumania has, never before, known such
prosperity, and this, It is immediately obvious, is the result of wise
rule. Every Roumanian will tell you that King Carol is their ideal
ruler. 'He is just the King we want' was said to me by innumerable
persons, all of whom expressed anxiety that I should be fortunate enough
to have the honour of being received by him. To my great satisfaction
this was made possible, and King Carol was kind enough to receive me and
engage me in a long conversation. This took place in one of the smaller
castles in the park at Sinaia. No one else was present, and the
conversation ranged over an inconceivable number of topics. The
resemblance of King Carol to the Hanoverian family is striking and, if I
may say so, is of comfort to an Englishman. After a few moments it was
borne in upon me that this is the ablest man in his country and, after
Kemal Ataturk, perhaps the person of most ability in Eastern Europe.
King Carol spoke with affection of his son, whom by all accounts, not
only Roumanian, the country is lucky to have as its heir. He has been
educated, according to a system specially devised by his father, with a
group of children taken from every class of the community, including the
Hungarian minorities. King Carol would seem to have been determined to
give him the best education possible, upon democratic lines. We spoke,
also, of music, in which, I feel certain, the æsthetic future of
Roumania may be concerned. For these are the lands in which music is
indigenous. King Carol revealed himself as fully conscious of, and upon
the look out for, these possibilities, and when I ventured to remind him
that the great Anton Rubenstein, were he alive now, would be a Roumanian
subject, gave me a last proof of his comprehensive knowledge by telling
me, at once, the name of the obscure Moldavian village, Wechwotynetz, or
its present equivalent in Roumanian, that was the birthplace of this
greatest of virtuosos.
In
writing this book, which must be forgiven for a certain superficiality
after only four weeks spent in the country, there has been a stress or
over-emphasis upon the picturesque elements of the land. These may be
the first things that strike a stranger; but, also, may I say to
Roumanian readers that it is some of these first impressions that
endure. When all is said and done, the integrity of the peasant
population, the popular music of which I became so fond, the country
fairs, the picturesque Laetzi, the lovely landscapes of Oltenia or of
the Delta, these, after all, are Roumania. It is delightful that there
should be good roads and an excellent train service; but these things
are concomitant and a proof of wise government. What is more important,
both to Roumania and to the world, is the preservation of its true
character. For Roumania is still unspoilt. Perhaps there is no other
country in Europe of which this is true to the same extent. More than
this, under good rule, it has limitless possibilities from its untired
human stock, who have come safely through the nineteenth century in
their pristine state. Let us hope that there will never be a town in
Roumania with a million inhabitants. Bucarest must be getting near that
mark. For there is always misery in very large towns; and the good
fortune of Roumania lies in its mountains and its plains. And this must
bring us back, once more, to our general contention. What is permanent
and unforgettable in Roumania is the great plain of Transylvania, the
woods of Oltenia, the swamps of the Danube Delta, the valleys of the
Neamt, painted Sucevita and Voronet, and the wooden houses and gay
costumes seen upon its roads. That is the permanent Roumania; while the
modern Roumania of factories and model flats is only its amelioration
into twentieth century conditions of civilization. We prefer the old.
And it is that which will last, tempered by the new. |