Napoleon Savescu

Nobody has ever heard of Napoleon Savescu. Of course! He’s not exactly a nobody, but he is close enough. He is of some interest for me not because he’s a moron, but because his naivete causes a lot of harm to Romania. How is that?

Napoleon Savescu is a Romanian physician who left Romania in 1977 and immigrated in the United States. He throve there as a doctor and a businessman, but also discovered his “violon d’Ingres” – an alternative theory of Romanian origins. The “official” scientific point of view, currently accepted, says that Romanians developed, as a people and a language, between III and XI A.C., in a vast area that belongs now to Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Republic of Moldova; they were not the masters of their lands, they were subjects of greater powers in the area (Goths, Gepids, Bulgars, Kipceaks, Huns, Byzantines, and finally Hungarians and Tatars), until the 13^th century, when they established their first kingdom (Walachia), and 14^th (Moldavia). In respect of language, their ancestry is Dacian (5%), Latin (45%), Slavic (30%), Turanic (15%), and unknown (5%). In “turanic” are gathered Mongolic, Turkic, Hungarian and old Bulgar influences.

Napoleon Savescu has a different opinion. He genuinely believes (and loudly claims) that Romanians existed in Romania “from the dawn of time”; that they are at least 6.000 years old (!); that they founded Rome; that Romanian is the first European language and all Europeans now speak “dialects” of old Romanian! Does it sound mad to you? But wait, there’s more!

Romanians, says Napoleon Savescu, invented the first writing system in the world; their science was so advanced, that they were teachers of Greeks, who vaguely remember them (the Romanians, their teachers!) as “pelasgians”, the wise and powerful people from the north, or (for other classical Greek authors), the first inhabitants of Greece (and what can those “first inhabitants” be if not Romanians?, asks Napoleon Savescu); if Atlantis was the first civilization across the Atlantic ocean, if Egypt was the first civilization in Africa, if Sumerians, Dravidians and Chinese were the first in Asia, then, says Savescu, it is crystal clear that their European counterpart were old Romanians! Of course, these marvelous “old Romanians” were Dacians, and that’s it!

He supports his opinions with excerpts from true historians’ works: Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, Nicolae Iorga, Constantin Giurescu, Grigore Tocilescu, Vasile Parvan, Teohari Antonescu, but also he credits amateurs: Cezar Bolliac, Mihai Eminescu, Nicolae Densusianu, Mircea Eliade, Nicolae Portocala, Alexandru Bratescu-Voinesti, Nicolae Ceausescu, Iosif Constantin Dragan. All of them, says Napoleon Savescu, shared my point of view. Could they ALL be wrong?!

Why is this clown so harmful to Romania? Because Romania and Hungary have a long and very bitter argument about Transylvania: who were the first settlers of Transylvania, Hungarians (since the tenth century), or Romanians (since a few centuries before)? The Hungarian thesis is very carefully build, and their point of view is quite convincing, as it lets out the inconvenient facts (and there are a lot of them). The Romanian thesis is equally well made, even it has a major drawback: the almost complete absence of written sources, for more than a thousand years!

Things got worse only when “patriots” like Napoleon Savescu step in: who can credit with any sympathy a nation who esteems a “scholar” like him?!

Hugo Chavez

Who is this little, funny man, adored by millions, despised by far fewer? He is a nobody, and as a nobody will be soon forgotten (but not forgiven, as the evil he has brought over his country will last for years and decades). It may seem strange that he is a subject of concern for me (I live in Eastern Europe, not in South America!), but I have my reasons.

This Hugo Chavez is a dictator. But he’s even more: he is a socialist dictator, a friend of Russia, a leader in nationalization politics, a populist and a fool. He is loved and worshipped by two categories of people, maybe three: those who take advantage of his regime; fools (uneducated, simple-minded, young idealists, brain-washed leftists and so on); anti-globalization activists, who take him as a first-hand figure in their struggle (let me laugh!).

Why am I so convinced that Hugo Chavez is a pathetic soap balloon? Because I have seen before a very alike leader and I have suffered from the economic politics he followed: nationalization, price controls, export obsession, paying the debts of his country, populism, socialism, megalomania, anti-american and pro-russian extern policies, et caetera. As a coincidence, this “alike leader” also reigned over a Latin-speaking country! As a difference, he had not come into power by free elections.

And what happened? The people of my country lost their faith in honest work, as being a collabo of the regime was more rewarding; they cease to product their own goods and preferred to buy them from abroad, if possible; finally, the country was overrun by striking poverty, until the citizens revolted and killed the dictator in a kangaroo trial.

The main difference between Chavez’s Venezuela and my own country is oil production: when our reserves were drawing to a close (after the second world war), Venezuela’s were just at the beginning in respect of real exploitation. But oil will bring to venezueleans more evil than good: they learn right now that is more profitable to expect alms from the government instead of striving themselves, with work and businesses. The same thing happened in Libya, where people’s duty is only to be born – the government does everything for them!

I can risk a prediction, as a fair ending: Chavez will lose his power and life in less than ten years. He has taken power ten years ago and is in full process to destroy the country. His mad politics will kill him – and Venezuela will need a long, long time to restore itself.

10 years, I say!