Borders Do Matter

Fintina Alba Memorial called "Troita"
 

Political elites have used social engineering to control masses of people and territories over the millennia. They have redrawn borders and moved tribes and herded people into harsher environments, not ideally suitable for human habitation and agriculture; they have sent humans to occupy already heavily populated areas through invasion, conquering them, destroying the local inhabitants’ religion in the process, and forcing them to accept the conquering religion of Islam. Christians organized their own crusades in response, to regain the territories occupied by Muslims.

Many borders have been erased or redrawn as the result of greed, war, war reparations, communism, colonialism, Nazism, Islamic conquests, tribal wars, and other politically and economically driven search for land, natural resources, drinking and irrigation water, navigable water, oil, diamonds, and precious metals.

In the 21^st century, the technocracy and the global elitists have pushed the social engineering much further, by planning to erase all national borders and destroying sovereignty in order to allow free massive migration of peoples around the globe, and by redistributing wealth from the haves to the have nots, regardless of effort.

The British found out that borders are important and chose to vote for Brexit, the exit from the mammoth technocratic experiment called European Union, a state-like federation controlled by Germany.

Angela Merkel invaded her own people with Islamist “refugees,” men of military age who have left their wives, mothers, elderly, and children behind to fight their tribal wars in Syria, while they slashed and burned across Europe, in order to eventually conquer thousands of years of Christian civilization through demographics and the politics of multiculturalism.

Nations want borders, people want to identify with their ancestors, their history, their families, their language, and their native ancestral lands where their heroes lay buried, where archeological remnants of their glorious past can be found, catalogued, and displayed in museums, a collective shrine to our human civilization. 

People are drawn to those with a common bond that establishes where they came from and exemplifies the long and arduous history of survival against all odds. Most people are fascinated by their own genealogical roots and spend time and resources to find out where they came from. Others hyphenate their names to identify with the continent where their ancestors came from.

The desire to belong to your own kind is exemplified by the tragedy that took place 76 years ago at the border between today’s Russia and Romania. On April 1, 1941, on the day of the Holy Easter, a large column of villagers, who were fed up with the Soviet utopian exploitation, attempted to cross into Romania. They were massacred not far from the Romanian border, men, women, children, and grandparents, by machine guns and swords of the Soviet cavalry at Fintina Alba.

On a snowy day, Petru Grigor, Director of Historical and Cultural Research of Cernauti, talked about Romania’s martyrs and their bloody massacre. In the background is the memorial erected to remember those innocents who died in their quest for freedom, away from Soviet-imposed border that destroyed and separated Romanian villages and families of Bucovina. http://trinitastv.ro/stiri-video/ecouri-ale-tragediei-de-la-fantana-alba-si-lunca-80291

The Soviets had installed a new border in June 1940 between USSR and Romania, cutting large chunks of Romanian territory and annexing it to the Soviet Union.

The Red Army had occupied Basarabia, northern Bucovina, and Hertza in the military campaign of June 28-July 4, 1940, an area of almost 20,000 square miles with a population of 3.8 million people. Ready to occupy it with a full-scale invasion, the Soviets gave Romania an ultimatum on June 26 but the Romanian Army, in order to avoid military conflict, agreed to withdraw from the territories. Germany knew of the Soviet interest and remained silent. France, guarantor of Romania’s borders, fell. This emboldened the Soviets to issue the ultimatum of surrender.

Thus a large part of Moldova became, on August 2, 1940, part of the Moldova Soviet Socialist Republic, encompassing most of Basarabia, and part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, now the breakaway Transnistrian state.

The Hertza region and other regions inhabited by Slavic majorities in northern Bucovina, northern and southern Basarabia, became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Those who objected to the Soviet occupation were politically persecuted, arrested, deported to labor camps where few survived, and executed.

In January and February 1941 massacres took place at Lunca in the region Cernauti, and in spring 1941 at Fintina Alba, in Poiana Varnitei (Varnita canton). About two km from the border, Romanians, who wanted to return to their motherland and their ancestral lands, were murdered by Soviet soldiers.

Villagers had written letters, asking the new Cernauti authorities to allow them to return to their country. In March 1941, the villagers of Storojinet also petitioned to return to Romania, but the requests were denied, and the villagers returned home.

They made the fateful decision to leave on the rumor that the Soviet authorities would allow them to cross the border unharmed, and they would be able to rejoin the Romanian families left behind.

The villagers of Patrautii de Jos, Patrautii de Sus, and Suceveni went to church, prayed for a while, raised a white flag to show that their intentions were peaceful, and over 1,500 people joined a long procession, marching to turn in their requests to be allowed to return to their motherland, Romania.

Many others joined this column in the center of Hilbocia, more than 5,000 souls. A Soviet policeman urged them to return to their homes as their applications were not even accepted, much less considered. Deciding that they would rather die free than live under the Soviet boot, the group resolved to cross the border illegally. As Petru Grigor told the story, the villagers were met by Soviet border guards with machine guns, who mowed the column down in an inferno of bullets and death. “God cried that day.”

An investigation made in 1943 Bucovina, with the help of eye witnesses, discovered the names of 26 martyrs who died on that fateful day, April 1, 1941, in Fintina Alba. A monument called “troita” was erected on the site by Ukraine in 1991, following its installation to power after the dissolution of USSR.

The journalist Ion Dominte, writing in the newspaper “Bucovina” about the massacre at Fintina Alba, left a historical record of the events. The mass deportations of Romanians that took place in the first year of installation of the Soviet regime in this area came to light. Petru Grigor suggested that archeological digs should take place today, to find out the true number of those who were killed.

Orthodox Church pilgrimages with prayers and wreath-placing ceremonies take place every year “in memoriam” of those who sought freedom at all costs and did not wish to live under the Soviet boot across the border from their national roots.

Historian Neagu Djuvara Discusses the "Muslim Refugee" Problem

Neagu Djuvara
Photo: Wikipedia

Neagu Djuvara, writer, historian, philosopher, journalist, and diplomat, was interviewed on his 99^th birthday by Radu Turcescu from Evenimentul Zilei. Born in Bucharest on August 18, 1916, Djuvara studied at Sorbonne in Paris, lived in France, Niger, and Romania. http://www.evz.ro/vremea-intrebarilor-cu-robert-turcescu-neagu-djuvara-la-99-de-ani-hegemonie-americana-in-lume-este-o-certitudine-de-liniste.html

Djuvara confessed, the years passed by so quickly, it now seems that someone else lived his youth; he recounted when he was in World War II, how he was wounded, how he lived abroad so many decades, twenty years in Africa, and how it all flew by in a flash.

No matter where he was, he disclosed, he always loved his country and his people. His Romanian Bible and a volume of Eminescu’s poems kept his soul alive and his language unspoiled. After 45 years of absence from his beloved country, Djuvara was proud of his mother tongue, unspoiled by foreign inflections. So many leave Romania and come back with an English accent, he lamented.

When asked about the world today and about his views, Djuvara answered by describing how “All civilizations run through a similar cycle, a beginning, a period of maximum flourish, and an end. After the death of the Roman Empire, there were a lengthy Middle Ages and an Italian Renaissance of beauty and intelligence.”

Comparing the United States to the Roman Empire, Djuvara sees it as an “element of equilibrium,” a military and intellectual power. He imagines the next 200-300 years as free of revolution; future generations should be unafraid because this “supremacy, this American hegemony in the world is an assurance of peace.”  Perhaps Neagu Djuvara feels safe, reassured, and wildly optimistic because there is a small American military base now on Romanian soil.

Turcescu asked him if he really feels this way even though there is a brewing conflict with Russia. Djuvara responded that Romanians are afraid of Russia because they have inherited this fear. But Putin and Russia are weak, he said, because “Russians, of all Europeans, have the weakest birth rate; in 50 to 100 years, in the giant Mother Russia, only one tenth of the population will be Russian, the rest will be Tatars, Kirgiz, and pagan tribes, including the Chinese and the Japanese in the far east.  “As a European nation, the Russians are in a dramatic fall, and I am certain that Putin has no idea, he continues to believe himself big and strong,” Djuvara explained.

On the question of the Muslim “refugees” in Europe, Djuvara sees the flood of immigrants as an “invasion that cannot be stemmed because it is composed of a population that has no historical, intellectual, or soul connections to us, it is an invasion of barbarians.” Wistful that he is not going to live that much longer, he is very pessimistic about everyone’s future in the next fifty years. “The young people will see an absolute drastic change in Europe, with waves of foreign nations coming.”

Turcescu suggested that perhaps the Americans could save them. Djuvara agreed that they could be the European salvation again, politically and militarily. But the sad reality is that the United States of America could not save itself right now. The current American administration has shrunk the military to such worrisome levels but the conflicts around the world have escalated under the inept American foreign policy.

When asked about surviving the Maghreb invasion of Paris, Djuvara explained that, on a recent return trip to France, “he was horrified that the Parisian sidewalks no longer belonged to the French, but to the third world.”

“Can this Muslim invasion be stopped,” asked Turcescu.  “Nothing can be stopped in history without God’s will. For us to stop it, it is impossible, they crawl under barbed wire and still enter!” added the famous historian Djuvara.

On the sizzling debate that is splitting the country right now, the building of the largest European mosque in Bucharest, Djuvara revealed that he was against the project given the fact that the Romanian people fought the Ottoman Empire for 500 years to prevent the building of even one mosque on the territories of Wallachia and Moldova. “I think it is a tragedy that we are now opening the gates for the largest European mosque to be built here and to allow thousands of Muslims to come here, with their morals and crimes which some of them commit. The Romanian government and future administrations must categorically oppose the construction of this mega-mosque on Romanian soil! People like Victor Ponta [Social Democrat Prime Minister] would not oppose such a mosque; other men must come to power.”

“Why is the mosque dangerous,” insisted the young reporter. “The Muslims claim that it will be a place of pilgrimage, of prayer, a place where courses will be taught.”

Djuvara schooled Turcescu on the fact that “the main danger is their invasion, the sheer numbers that would overwhelm a small country, just like it happened with the Germanic invasion at the end of the Roman Empire.” …”The Muslim world stretches over hundreds of thousands of kilometers and this is the greatest danger for us, Europeans, and Indo-Europeans.”

The country is split between progressives and conservatives on the issue of accepting “refugees” from the Muslim world. Many opine that they find the development suspicious that suddenly, after years of conflict, Muslims have decided in groups of 500-1,000 to request asylum in the rich west nations with generous welfare systems, in the very western culture they despise and have nothing in common with, instead of going south or east to oil-rich Middle Eastern countries that share their culture.

Others wonder why these immigrants, who are incorrectly labeled “refugees,” are so accepted and welcomed with open arms by EU communist puppets and liberal hypocrites who label anyone who opposes the “refugees” as inhuman, racist, and xenophobe.

Yet others describe how Romania and the Eastern bloc countries like Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary, accused of xenophobia, struggle to integrate millions of gypsies; the western European world lectures them how to do it properly and humanely, while failing themselves miserably at integrating gypsies and Muslims when they became a nuisance in the West.

Those who live and work in the west understand that a few real refugees are not the problem but the Muslim theocratic culture and religion which are not compatible with the European Christian culture. They give examples of Pakistani Muslims who install themselves in violent enclaves and rape girls in groups.

Many citizens suggested that lefties should integrate the existing Muslims into the European culture first before attempting to bring in more religionists of peace. Cultural diversity has been a dismal failure in Europe as both Angela Merkel and Nikolas Sarkozy publicly admitted.

Some wished to know what lefty feminists would do and say once they find themselves forced to wear hijab, become subjects to Sharia Law, and are spat at in their own hometowns for wearing pants and a skirt. Such daring attire is considered by Islamists an invitation to rape.

Is it fair to require 18 million citizens to support these “refugees” who receive more in benefits than half of working Romanians must live on? Why must citizens survive on $300-400 a month pensions or salaries while these undeserving immigrants receive much more in benefits?

How quickly will the “refugee” invasion overtake the indigenous European populations that have 1.1 babies per family, insufficient for replacement value in any culture, while Muslims have more than eight babies per family?

And the “refugee” invasion rages on in Eastern Europe with standoffs on trains in Hungary http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/hungary-opens-budapests-main-railway-station-after-twoday-standoff--but-cancels-most-trains-10483964.html

and in the Czech Republic. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/czech-police-haul-migrants-off-trains-to-germany-and-write-numbers-on-their-arms-in-ink-10482651.html

 

Dacian Gold's Heavy Price

Dacian bracelet from Sarmizegetusa
Photo: Wikipedia

Historians agree that some of the Roman military campaigns were motivated by the need to find and control ore reserves required for coinage. Monetary payments were made for a while using un-coined bronze called aes rude and cast bronze ingots called aes signatum.

Rome eventually built its own mint and coined silver denarii and smaller coins of bronze. During Emperor Augustus’ reign, a gold coin called aureus was minted, which could be exchanged into silver denarii. Because the Greeks kept their silver drahms as a basis for their monetary system, money exchangers of various currencies were found in large cities. Constantine introduced the gold solidus as a counter measure to the diminished weight and metal content of coins of the third century A.D.

A treasure trove of Roman coins, imperial aurei and denarii, was found in India, proof of the trade in spices and pearls, but also evidence that Indian merchants were collectors who may have prized the Roman gold and silver coins enough to horde them. According to Strabo, 120 ships “sailed every year to India from the Red Sea” and each cargo was extremely valuable.

Coins were not just a medium of exchange and store of value, but important means to advertise legendary figures, military campaigns and victories, buildings, roads, construction projects, and the image of the emperor. Julius Caesar was the first emperor to use his own visage on coins instead of the portraits of previous rulers as it was the custom.

It was thus of great importance for Rome to find new gold and silver reserves in order to feed the need for precious ore to mint coins for the Roman Empire.

Emperor Trajan, during his 19-year rule, managed to defeat in 105 A.D. the Dacians, a thriving civilization, the ancestors of the Romanians of today. Located north of the Danube River, the Dacians were a constant irritation, attacking and raiding the outskirts of the Roman Empire.

Following two years of Dacians Wars after Trajan’s 101 A.D. invasion of Dacia and a negotiated peace which the Dacians immediately broke, the Romans attacked again in 105 A.D., crushed them with tens of thousands of troops, and returned victorious to Rome, bringing back a half million pounds of Dacian gold and one million pounds of Dacian silver, including a very fertile new province with massive fields of grain necessary to feed an imperial army.

In May 2000, treasure hunters with metal detectors and exploratory knowledge found Dacian reddish solid gold bracelets and thousands of silver and gold coins buried at Sarmizegetusa, the former capital of the Dacian civilization. The stolen coins and 13 hammered bracelets weighing 27.5 pounds have been since recovered but Lot 26 is still missing. Individual coins have appeared for sale at various auction houses and online, ranging in price from $300 to $10,000.

The exploration for gold and silver took place after the fall of the communist regime in 1989 when digging permits and necessary materials became easy to obtain and the freedom to roam about undisturbed was returned to the population. For generations, the locals told stories about the buried Dacian gold, some of which was found in a rock chamber inside a 75 degree incline. The locals were unable to dig or explore around the area due to the stringent control of the communist regime over all natural resources, land, water, and any kind of human activity or movement.  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150320-romanian-dacian-sarmizegetusa-gold-looted-recovered/

Learning from the recovered coins interesting aspects of the Dacians’ life and religion, archeologists also determined that the coins were crude copies of Greek coins and were never in circulation. Likewise, the bracelets were never worn; they were made from local gold and buried into the ground for safekeeping.

Cassius Dio wrote that Decebalus diverted a river in order to hide silver and gold in the riverbed from the Romans. Dacian prisoners told their captors about the location of the treasure. However, Dr. Barbara Deppert-Lippitz argued that the burial of crudely made gold and silver coins and bracelets was not hoarding, they were sacrificial offers to the gods in caves and riverbeds because they believed caves and water were portals to the other world. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.178024582360956.1073741832.167633503400064&type=3

It is perhaps because of Trajan’s conquest and the subsequent colonization of Dacia by the Roman Empire that Romanians, surrounded by Slavic-rooted countries, speak a beautiful and complicated language that is closest to Latin of all six Romance languages and their numerous dialects: Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, and Romansch (spoken in one of Switzerland’s cantons).

When Sarmizegetusa, the capital of Dacia, fell and it was looted and burned to the ground by the Romans, its ruler, Decebalus, did not wait for the Romans to humiliate him into surrender; he committed suicide under an oak tree, as depicted by the top freeze of Trajan’s Column.

Andrew Curry describes for National Geographic how archeological digs in the area of Sarmizegetusa revealed the devastation left behind, the iron ore furnaces, tons of iron chunks ready for smelting, evidence of the fortress’ role in metal production of weapons and tools which were then exchanged for gold and grain. (Trajan’s Amazing Column, Andrew Curry, National Geographic, April 2015)

Curry said that “gold coins with Roman images and bracelets weighing up to two pounds each were looted from the ruins of Sarmizegetusa,” including jewelry and art, such as a gold and silver drinking vessel, “a wealth of ‘barbarian’ art.” They were not so barbarian after all, as the archeological finds reveal a sophisticated and thriving civilization wiped from “the face of Europe” by Trajan who “crossed the Danube River on two of the largest bridges the ancient world had ever seen, defeated a mighty barbarian empire on its mountainous home turf twice.”

Romanians analyze today the 126 feet stone column in Rome, topped with a bronze statue of the emperor who destroyed a thriving civilization. Like a boa constricting its prey, base-reliefs spiral to the heavens around Trajan’s Column, carved for eternity, telling the story of “Romans and Dacians who march, build, fight, sail, sneak, negotiate, plead, and perish in 155 scenes.”

The column is valuable historical evidence that has survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D. It offers clues about uniforms, weapons, equipment, and tactical warfare, portraying Trajan as the victor and Decebalus as a worthy opponent but a vanquished leader.

Andrew Curry explained that the column was revered by tourists, writers, painters, sculptors, and archeologists. Goethe, the famous German poet, “climbed the 185 internal steps in 1787 to ‘enjoy that incomparable view.”’

If you ever visit Italy, the number one pastime of tourists is to climb stairs of towers, churches, and edifices left from generations of builders who always tried to outdo each other’s life work in height and majesty. The fact that Trajan’s column and many other buildings have survived the numerous earthquakes of time, fires, and plundering is a miracle in itself.

Filippo Coarelli, archeologist and art historian, described the dramatic scenes such as “The Dacian women torturing Roman soldiers” with flaming torches and “The weeping Dacians poisoning themselves to avoid capture” or perhaps drinking water. He compared the carving with a scroll (volumen) built on 17 drums of “the finest Carrara marble.”

Ernest Oberlaender-Tarnoveanu, director of the National History Museum of Romania, disagrees on the interpretation of the women’s freeze. He said, “They’re definitely Dacian prisoners being tortured by the angry widows of slain Roman soldiers.”

The victorious emperor is carved 58 times, his legionaries are depicted building forts, bridges, clearing roads, harvesting crops, and African cavalrymen are shown with dreadlocks, “Iberians slinging stones, Levantine archers wearing pointy helmets, and bare-chested Germans in pants.” (National Geographic, April 2015)

Tacitus called the Dacians “a people which never can be trusted.” They accepted protection money from Rome while sending their fighters to raid Roman frontier towns. Roberto Meneghini, as quoted by Andrew Curry, said, “Look at the Romans fighting with cutoff heads in their mouths. War is war. The Roman legions were known to be quite violent and fierce.”

The defeated Dacian fighters became a favorite subject for sculptors, said Curry. “Trajan’s Forum had dozens of statues of handsome, bearded Dacian warriors, a proud marble army in the very heart of Rome.”

The column was not built for Dacians, it became a monument to display the power of the imperial war machine, “capable of conquering such a noble and fierce people,” said Meneghini. The Dacians who had survived were captured and sold into slavery.

Given their tumultuous history and numerous occupations, including centuries of bloody battles, tribute to and plunder by the Ottoman Empire, and modern-day political corruption, it is easy to understand why Romanians today are so circumspect of any investors who are considering exploring and mining the gold reserves left in Roșia Montană and the potentially damaging environmental effects.

Mineral resources and gold have been extracted from the Apuseni Mountains in western Transylvania since Roman times. Concerns over cyanide pollution like the 2000 cyanide spill in the Someș River at Baia Mare (the worst environmental disaster in Eastern Europe since the Chernobyl disaster) by the mining company Aurul (Gold), and worries over the preservation of the remains of the Roman mining site, added to the controversy surrounding the opening of new mining operations under Gabriel Resources of Canada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Baia_Mare_cyanide_spill

Ileana Johnson 2015