So these merry bands of armed Romanians took arms and retreated in the Carpathian mountains; they called themselves "haiduci" (spell hayduchy) and they were the Romanian version of Tito's Partizans - only they were fighting the Soviet and the Communist Romanian army. Their guns were whatever they could get their hands on but they benefited from the support of the population in the small mountain villages where they were fighting. [More]Transylvania Phoenix gives us a recent history lesson from the land of my ancestors that has timeless applicability for freedom fighters.
Fascinating stuff--good job.
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I thought the translation of Haiduci roughly was thieves.
I remember eating in a restaurant in - I think - Moldova called "Hanul Haiducilor" which we were told meant hut of the thieves.
I did quite a bit of hunting there in 99-01, mostly near the Danube border with Bulgaria. Quail, fazan, partridge, goose and the huge Iupure in abundance.
Plenty of guns and ammo in the stores - although obscenely expensive. Handguns were nonexistant. Police had the little "carpati" and lots of gas guns.
Fond memories of a great people and a wonderful place. We rally got a kick out of Basescu. He seemed the Romanian Guiliani.
"Haiduci" added a Robin Hood/insurgent fighter component to the thieving aspect...
I remember the license plates for Prohova being "PH."
Some said that meant Proveneinta Hotilor...
Haiduc would translate in thief with honor, very similar with Robin Hood.
Only while Robin Hood is just an imaginary character in a book, the haiduci of Romania were real people, with a real reputation of sharing part of their loot with the poor.
Among famous haiduci I would name Andri Popa, (Andrei The Priest) famous for his incursion in neighboring Bulgaria, attacking the Ottoman Sultan harems in Plevna and Vidin and freeing 500 Romanian girls kidnapped by the Turks and destined to become sex slaves in Istanbul. They say after this daring incursion, Andri Popa had a couple of the freed girls remaining with him (lucky bastard) and toghether with them founded a village somewhere in Dolj province and
Another famous haiduc was Pintea Viteazul (Pintea the Brave). This man operated in Transsylvania during the late 1700's when the province was part of Austro-Hungarian Empire. He led a tax revolt against the Imperial authorities and soon this revolt turned into a freedom movement of the Romanians living in Transsylvania who although were the majority of the population they were living as serfs for the Hungarian nobility and land owners.
Pintea was no ordinary thief; he fluently spoke several languages and had a University education. As a former officer in the Austro-Hungarian army he also used his experience in the military and proved to be was a great military strategist. Together with his band of rebels Pintea succeeded in conquering and freeing several Imperial garrisons and cities. He was mortally wounded in battle while trying to capture the Imperial treasury in the city of Baia Mare.
A popular balad says:
De-un viteaz aşa fălos,
Şi la inimă milos,
De-un viteaz aşa de mare,
La sărmani dă ajutoare”
Such a brave and handsome man
And he has such a merciful heart
Brave and great hero
Is giving his wealth to the poor
I can't resist mentioning Gary Bulsma's wonderful (and now infamaous) "Numa Numa" webcam video, a.k.a. "Miya-Hee". The song is "Dragostea din tei", in which the balladeer announces, "Alo, Salut, sunt eu, un haiduc," translated as, "Hello [on a cellphone], greetings, it's me, an outlaw."
Not to be rude, but it seems to me that we call people who steal from the rich and give to the poor...socialists...
Gotta be fair doncha know.
The Romanian Oath Keepers saw what was coming. I'm sure their arrests, if they had not escaped into the hills, would have been "for their own protection," since they were obviously "mentally impaired." All dissenters MUST be, right?
Orwell had Winston Smith write "If there is hope, it lies in the proles." The invisible poor who live on the edge of the law, bootleggers and black-marketeers. The defiant ones.
Their relatives are the people who trashed the British police helicopter that was buzzing them seven times a day, I think.
Did revenge dirty tricks author George Heyduke get his name from the haiduci?
Joe, if they had been living in a capitalist meritocracy, yes, there would have been no excuse because there would have been no reason to go rogue. In this case, the "rich" were the exploiters. The Haiduci were stealing from murderers and thieves who had never earned but had plundered.
People mistake Robin Hood for a lesson in socialism. It's a lesson in guerrilla tactics to liberate resources from the tyrant.
Put it in this context: a tyrannical government has driven society to the point where the people are living below subsistence level, starving. A government supply truck, bringing food and luxuries to the class that rules through oppression presents itself as an opportunity. Do you take it?
Can they truly claim it is their property?
Mr. Joe,
You wrongly assume Romania was a capitalist country like the United States while the truth is the three Romanian provinces were basically feudal countries until late 1800's.
In Transsylvania, the Romanian majority was reduced to the serf status while a small Hungarian nobility owned over 90% of the land. Over taxation, ethnic discrimination and injustice from the Imperial authorities were the norm, not the exception.
In Moldova, the boyars (noblemen) owned almost all the land while the peasant were basically sold and bought together with the property. There were no workers as the industrial revolution and capitalism didn't happened there until the last decades of the century.
In Wallachia (later called The Kingdom) the situation was as bad as in Moldova; this Ottoman province was owned and ruled by Phanariot boyars (foreign ruling families from the Istambul Greek quarters) who were imposed by the Turks.
Only in 1859 a Moldavian Prince named Alexander Cuza was elected as leader in two of the three provinces Wallachia and Moldova, thus politically uniting them and forming a new country named Romania - however still under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. In the 1860's Cuza decreed universal manhood suffrage, freed the gypsies from slavery and enacted the land reform law thus liberating peasants from the last corvée.
Only after Romania gained its independence form the Ottoman Empire in 1877 under the leadership of Carol I of Hohenzollern, it's when the Industrial Revolution and capitalism has begun in that part of the world. Carol, a foreign Prince brought from Prussia who accepted to become the impartial ruler of Romania and end the internal political strife, led Romania in a bloody War of Independence against the Turks personally participating in the military campaign. After being proclaimed King, this former Prussian Prince launched an economic, political industrial and social reform program that made Romania an economic force to be reckoned with. By the end of his long rule in 1914, Romania had more railways per square mile than any other country in Europe; constructed the second longest bridge in the world over river Danube; had the first city in the world with public electrical lighting; had the world's largest harbor silo and produced more than half of Europe food supply. The capital Bucharest was nicknamed "the Little Paris" and by the end of his rule Romania was one of the freest countries in Europe and had one of the most progressive Constitutions in the World. In fact, in the period between WWI and WWII when the last province Transsylvania was united with the Kingdom of Romania, the country was so emancipated and presented such great economic opportunities that it attracted waves of Italian, Polish, Greek and German immigrants.
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