CHRONICLES OF TRANSYLVANIA THE BIG DILEMA

The green colored part of the map is the extent of the Hun Empire under Attila  the Hun

The Hun kingdom or empire seems to have been immense. I wonder how did Attila manage it. The only way I see it possible to jet around on some Boeing 747 to collect his dues and check on his subjects. There is another option. Various tribes or bands like the Goths with their various branches or Ostrogoths, and Visigoths,  Sarmatians, Alans, Franks , Burgundians were controlling territories and getting the tribute to the Hun chieftain, Oktar, Rugila,  or the better known Attila.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunnic_Empire This website details the history of the Huns and the fast succession of their victorious progression towards the west 

I never realized the enormous size of the territory controlled by Huns. It is extraordinary how they managed to pull the various Hun tribes and collaborate with other tribes to ascertain control over territory and put together enormous armies with unprecedented success. 

It is even more startling that their grip on Transylvania or Walachia was very slippery. In this light the Dacian state looks so much more mysterious. Transylvania is the territory that the Hungarians, the descendants of the Huns, yearn to hold and is slipping away from them. 

The well publicized stories of count Dracula are all happening in Transylvania. Given that for most of the history Transylvania was part of Austro-Hungaria and that most of the land in Hungary was owned by Hungarian nobility what is actually the ethnic background of Vlad Dracul? The educated guess would come out in favor of Hungarian descent.

Except for the Huniad family that was Romanian and gave Hungary its greatest and most famous king the rest of the nobility in Transylvania like the Kemeny barons, the Bamffy grofs and so on were all Hungarians. This reinforces the above conclusion.

Furthermore we had Bella  Lugosy who is 100% Hungarian at least by name Hungarian from Transylvania - his name means from the town of Lugos-. doing an excellent  job at portraying Dracula. I mean to say that Bella has got the vibes and feeling of the Hungarian sole. It is one more argument n favor of Prince Vlad being Hungarian.

I must note here that Vlad is not a Hungarian name it is Romanian of Slavic origin as I learned when I studies Romanian language in my home town of Cluj Transylvania. I am really unhappy to give up the story that Dracula is a Transylvanian count for it would make my Transylvanian origin uninteresting.

To summarize if Vlad is Transylvanian he is most likely Hungarian and must have came from the steps of Asia on horse back with Attila. If he is not Hungarian he is not Transylvanian but from south of the Carpathian from the duchy of Walachia. He is Romanian.

One fact is certain that the Hungarian king was concerned about such a charismatic strong willed vengeful ruthless Machiavellian prince who intended to assert his control over a Romanian territory.

Transylvania is down to its bone marrow Romanian. I do have plenty of Atila's blood. I do spseak Hungarian and was the first language I learned. Transylvania  was is and will be Romanian. I do not say that the time Transylvania was attached to Romania was beneficial economically but culturally gave it the opportunity to bloom. Several scholars poets and technically oriented talents emerged. Scoala Ardeleana which means in Romanian the Transylvanian sschool,  Poets like George Cosbuc or engineering pioneers like Aurel Vlaicu that developed aviation in Transylvania are names that the Romanian government does not popularize and appreciate for the enormous jumpstart that they gave to the Transylvanian culture after long time of oppression under Hungarian dominance and even ethnic cleansing of of Romanian population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Wass

Transilvania became Greek Catholic that was some Catholic offshoot of the Catholic church that allowed the Transylvanian intellectuality to have access to Jesuit schools in Rome and get financial support from rome to open schools in Transylvania and monasteries.

The Western Carpathian situated in the middle of the croissant that the tall Eastern and Southern Carpathian form is a token of what Transylvania was and is. Every square inch of those mountains are populated by Moti (pronounce m like you would say mary pronounce the o like you would say Oliver pronounce the t which should have a thing like a coma under it like the double z in pizza and finally pronounce the i like i in milk) who make a very poor living building barrels and wooden toys or musical instruments  called fluier and raising sheep. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vCdZaTfbPg

Here is a typical sound of the Romanian doina a sweet ballad like song.

The Roman sandal left imprints in Transylvania long before Attila the Hun got his foot in the saddle deep down in Asia and headed west. The Dacians built their fortifications in  Transylvania long before the Roman sandals crossed the Danube and headed North. Clearly beyond any shred of doubt Attila was late to the party and when he came choose the lovely pasture of the Panonic Planes and the cool waves of the Balaton lake that is huge like a sea. it was perfect for him and his horses till the Huns discovered that they wanted the reaches of Transylvania and then it was an endless struggle to grab it and hold it by any means and oppress and destroy the Romanian heritage.

The difference between the Romanian culture and the Hungarian one is best reflected in the music the sweet sad melancholy sounds of the doina or the joy of a dance do not have the wild energy of the csardas that is the popular Hungarian dance.

The Dacians were building sophisticated fortresses when Attila was galloping through the steps of Asia heading towards Europe and spreading terror and fear. Dacians are elusive or mostly eradicated and their origin is disputed and wildly uncertain. The position the construction and shape of their capital Sarmisegetus that is reduced now to a print in the ground of stones is unparalleled. We studied the Egyptians and Assyrians but the Dacians are very elusive. Dracula is the subject of a smear campaign and derided. And the country is like Sauron would have taken it over.

Google news does not have a Romanian option. Who would care to promote a waste land? The poor peasants and working class who are busy taking care of themselves after so many years of deprivation. They barely got in position of telling those onerous exploiter to get up so that they can sit down. Like Ceasusescu taking over the king's palace and all the collection of valuable  paintings held in the museum that was located in the palace, the summer residences in Sinaia called the Peles and Pelisor.

 Masada is some historical monument that was the scene of suicide of people that chose not to be taken as slaves to Rome http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1040     but Masada is  not Sarmisegetus, that hides more mystery that any other place. I did not say that is a portal used by our fiend Vlad to jetset around the world. I do not really know. I did not say that he was a crystal child or indigo or whatever that is but the land is strange with people having psychic powers and the whole land strangely ignored overlooked and neglected. May be the next space shuttle on your vacation will take of from Samisegetusa. Above all Sarmisegetusa is not a world heritage designated by UNESCO like Masada is. It would attract unwanted attention. Unfortunately Sarmisegetusa is in communist Romania where I never returned after   I left and never managed to  bring my father out despite his desperate plea and our struggles which by the time were successful were too late. All I have is the account of  the people who took care of him how he died.  

Apropos of flying here is a really funny story. Aurel Vlaicu was experimenting with flying. He was a border in the town of Blaj the cultural center of the Romanian Renaissance in Transylvania after it came back to Romania finally after the long dark ages under the Hungarian domination. Aurel notied that food was disappearing from a wooden box that he had locked. the land lady denied tht she touched it. Food was scarce, Aurel was a young boy and he needed all his money to buy supply to build his prototypes. One day Aurel returned home and the land lady ha a bruised eye but said nothing.  After that food did not disappear any longer from his box. The brainy boy built a device that sprang in the land lady's face when she opened the box. Tesla came out a bit south of Aurel's place and he turned out to be a genius. Without funding unfortunately but he changed the world.

So will we see the space station built in the neighborhood of the two of them or should we consider them both born around Sarmisegetusa? I have no idea I will go back to some cooking an knitting and take a break.

Please fallow me or may be not. Who knows where we will end up. May be in space or another planet or a few pounds heavier from my cooking experiments or a few pounds lighter from my eating habits. Or may be you will decide that communism is so wonderful a thing that you will take off to Romania to experience it first hand. You will think may be that I am too tired and my mind plays tricks on me but there are a few people who return to Romania of course with their American pensions along. I am wondering what is wrong with these people. I firmly believe that they must be deranged to give up paradise for hell. Our American democracy might not be perfect but it is real and we better appreciate it.

HUNGARIAN SOUR KRAUT

                                                                     




My Hungarina grandmother had every winter in the cellar a large barrel with sour kraut. We did not bother with the shreaded cabbage. We put whole head cabbages and whreaded it as we needed it. The most amazing thing about the sour kraut is the sour bubly yelow juice tht the head of letuce are  covered with. We always ended uup drinking up too much of it so she needed to replanish the juice with salty water and let it go sour. The hungarian polenta with cheese ils the one that my grandmother served along with pitcherfuls with juice from the sour kraut. This is a delightful diner item in the Hungarian families of Transylvania or the families that are half and half or just Romanians who are natives to Transylvania. I transylvania the polenta for the polenta with cheese is softer then in Valachia. The polenta is layered with cheese and butter, oil or rendered pork fat. The tepertu which is the dried crunchy slightly brown pieces that are left after the fat of the pork is cut in two inches cubes and melted over very low heat are delicious between the layers of polenta. The slow melting gives an excellent taste to the brown pieces of fat left after melting. Unfortunatley there was not too much to satisfy or appetite ever. More over my grandmother ground them up to make her ablsolutely delicious "tepertus pogacsa" that was tall withthin soft layer since it is a pastery made with yeast. It would be similar to thw puff dough with its many thin layers but th elayers of the puff dough are dried. The outside of the pogacsa is crunchy but the inside is soft and comes apart in layers. My grandmother made the best I ever had. Neither my mother or my mother's sister managed to egual her performance although they made it togather with her.

The Valachian polenta is just simple polenta and cheese, and butter is served along with the polenta that is cooked to a tougher consistency. If polenta is serve in the morning or as and apetizer of light meal. it is served with something like the cottage cheese but not liquid and creamy and sou cream. It is plenty delicious and consistent also. The cheese is called caw cheese or tehen turo in Hungarian and brinza de vaca in Romanian which is the exact translation of caw cheese. It is made out of clobered raw milk that is warmed up to just the right temperature and them put in a strainer llined with cheese cloth. It is easy to do at home if one got the experience to heat it up right. At temperatures that are too high the cheese looses its quality of creamyness and becomes tougher. I personally use cottage cheese. The raw milk is too expensive and the Strauss creamery in West Marin makes it at a ridiculously high price and or an inacceptable quality so I stick with the old Clove organic cottage cheese when I can splurge on this expensive item.