Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/200

 THE BACKGROUND OF ROUMANIAN HISTORY

Each country is interesting in itself, but it is often more interesting still to consider what is its significance for the development of mankind, for the culture of humanity as a whole. The older school of historical writing concentrated on establishing individual facts, while the broad lines of historical development were often neglected. For this reason the public, while buying the books, was but little impressed by them. Nowadays the main attention of the historian shall be directed towards tracing the great currents which penetrate and inspire natural societies, and the syntheses created within their limits.

I will try to bring before my audience the significance of Roumania’s past in different ages: in antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and in the more recent periods of Continental history.

Firstly, Roumania can show an unbroken continuity of those elements which dominated European pre-history. Her soil is rich in treasures belonging to the millenia which preceded the appearance of written language. The manner of construction of the small huts and of the better houses in the village — and such elements were transmitted to later forms of art —, the superstitions, the character of the popular arts, as displayed in the rugs and carpets, in the shirts, in the wood-carving, the ornamental spoons