Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0302/03024.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 32KB | 497 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03024}
$Pretitle{360}
$Title{Romania
Romania History and Rebirth in Liberty and Democracy}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Lieutenant - General Costache Codrescu, D Sc.}
$Affiliation{Embassy of Romania, Washington DC}
$Subject{romanian
history
military
romania
peace
historical
state
union
conference
national}
$Date{1990}
$Log{}
Country:     Romania
Book:        Romanian Military History
Author:      Lieutenant - General Costache Codrescu, D Sc.
Affiliation: Embassy of Romania, Washington DC
Date:        1990

Romania History and Rebirth in Liberty and Democracy

     Ours is a world of movement and change, a world in which a multitude of
realities, political, social and economic trends and ideas are crisscrossing
and confronting. History, "the first book of a nation ", "the most important
book of a kin," "magistra vitae" "the memory of mankind," etc. - as the
servant of Clio described it, can offer viable explanations helping us to
decipher the course of contemporary society, to understand the nature and
character of the renewing processes in the world; each and all of the above
descriptions cast light on the fact that history as a science is not only a
collection of events occurred hundreds and thousands of years ago but also,
and chiefly, an unmatched source of lessons for the present and the future.

     History has always been a propelling force of human progress and
civilisation. Taking over the best achievements of the past in all domains of
activity and interpreting by scientific criteria mankind's huge capital of
experience, the study and knowledge of history have enabled people to identify
the ways of making progress, of building a future of world harmony and peace.
From this point of view, history as a science is not only a powerful
instrument of human knowledge but also a genuine force in engineering the
present and the future. "If you want to know the future," wrote the Romanian
national poet Mihai Eminescu, "turn to the past," while philosopher Lucian
Blaga said: "There are two realities whose huge weight we do not feel but
without which we cannot live: the air and history." For many centuries, these
truths have reigned in the hearts and minds of enlightened people. Because
the Romanians, placed geographically "in the path of all evils," as chronicler
Grigore Ureche put it, have built history - alongside their walls, weapons,
bodies and lives - into a frontier that no one can trespass.

     The study of history has considerably strengthened the Romanians'
awareness of their oldness, origin and unity, their continuity in space and
times as well as their confidence that they will live in a unitary national
state including all the Romanian provinces. It was not accidental that in
mid-19th century, when this desideratum had become imperative, the great
Romanian thinker and democratic revolutionist Nicolae Balcescu said a few
memorable words about the role of knowing history in re-awakening
consciousnesses: "I am opening the sacred book where Romania's glory is
written in order to place before the eyes of its sons several pages from the
heroic life of their parents (...) As, inheritors of the rights for the
preservation of which our parents fought so hard in past centuries, may the
memory of those heroic times stir in us the desire to keep and increase this
precious heritage for those to come!" History offered the spiritual background
against which the Romanian people's great accomplishments were made: the
building of the modern Romanian state in 1859, the winning of state
independence in 1877 and the achievement of the unitary national state in
1918.

     The study and knowledge of the past is also a good means of developing
the patriotic sentiment of the members of a society. Through history, the
young ones know their own roots and the sacrifices made by their ancestors to
maintain their identity. Knowing the major lines of its historical
evolution - its oldness, ethnogenesis and continuity in the
Carpathian-Danubian-Pontic area, the uninterrupted evolution of its material
and spiritual culture, the permanence of its state organization and the great
battles to preserve its being, the sociohistorical process of the making and
assertion of the Romanian nation at the great moments of 1784, 1821 and 1848,
the struggle for the building of the modern Romanian state, for the full state
independence of Romania and the accomplishment of the unitary Romanian
national state, the features of Romania's development after the Great Union of
1918 - the Romanian people has been able to know and understand the
imperatives of the present and to take part in their attainment, to integrate
in the struggle for the country's defence, for its general progress in a
conscious and active manner. Thus, the book of history - written with
historical probity and respect for the truth, with competence and talent,
grounded on historical truth, on the exact, objective knowledge of historical
development - can meet a twofold desideratum: to inform through the data on
and the deeds of the forerunners - having thus an obvious
cognitive-informative function - and to shape characters and mentalities for
the present and the future, having thus an educational-civic and teleological
function.

     Another essential requirement of patriotic education through the study of
history is the striking of a correct balance between the national and the
universal. We should remark here that the integration of the Romanians'
history in world history permits a more accurate understanding of the
diversity of mankind's evolution, of the particular-general relation, hence of
the specific development of the Romanian people, of its contribution to the
progress of world history and culture. "National history can only be set on
the larger map of world history," wrote the great Romanian historian Nicolae
Iorga. The Romanian contribution to the development of world civilization is
highlighted by the results of researches made by Romanian and foreign
historians into the material and spiritual culture of the Geto-Dacians, the
maintenance of Romanian statehood in the Middle Ages, the participation of the
Romanian countries in inter-European trade, the cultural patronage achieved by
the Romanian countries over several Orthodox communities and monastic centres
in the Ottoman Empire, the artistic, cultural, ethnologic and ethnographic
achievements, the role of the Romanian peasantry, intellectuals and workers,
the evolution of the Romanian military phenomenon, Romania's relations with
its neighbours and other countries etc.

     An essential component of the homeland's history, the military history of
the Romanian people has been the object of deep-going and responsible
investment for all the generations of Romanian historians. Outstanding
personalities of the Romanian historical science have carried out a rich
activity, studying, analysing and explaining the chief military events - wars,
great battles, popular and revolutionary movements etc. - the development of
the army and the evolution of other army structures, the direct connection
between the people and the army, the progress of Romanian military thought and
art, of the military doctrines, of the combat forms and methods, the
development of the education and culture in the army, of the military press
and printing activity, the system of alliances, peace treaties and conventions
concluded in the course of time, the role played by certain personalities as
well as other questions pertaining to the military sphere. A fundamental,
defining feature resulting from these studies is that at all the crucial
moments in the people's destiny, the Romanian army has always been on the side
of the progressive, advanced, revolutionary forces of society. This truth has
once more been confirmed by the December 1989 Revolution when from the very
first moments, the Romanian army sided with the people, thus avoiding the
outbreak of a civil war, a state of anarchy and chaos in the country. Part and
parcel of the people, a