Putting the finishing touches to the French edition of The History of the Romanians I could review a long concatenation of historical deeds spanning nearly two thousand years that tell another story than day-to-day affairs, and provide different lessons than those certain spirits, ready to gorge on the misfortune of others, draw from the patient reading of cables and radio communications. And again, from this perusal of the awesome tragedy of our nation there stems fresh confidence in ourselves, not as it happens with those alarmists clad in rabbit skins who, in turn, herald yet another impending danger as if we were doomed to fall prey to it.A nation derelict at the crossroads of whirlwinds that blow it over with every passing century and will go on sweeping over these realms of luring Abundancia trodden on by so many passing armies. A child of Rome's, forlorn in the perpetually renewed desert of barbarians. So little numerous among so many. Having brothers at the other end of Europe and aliens all around us. Capable of the loftiest civilization and yet forced to live a-rambling.Any other kin would have by now dispersed all over the world. It is for less that even the sweetest of homes are abandoned. We have stayed on. With sword in hand, standing guard in all the directions and when for a second its steel broke to be then again cast together we pitched against all brutality the slender weapon of our intelligence. And here we are still home.You, the others, proceed to learn about the forefathers!
by Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940)
