The past and its solutions against fear: Romanian-Russian relations in history and actuality (II) between triumph over steppe and the states pluralism
The Middle Ages are, for Romanians and Russians, as well as for the other European nations, the moment of ethnic synthesis and confessional options at the end of which the communities settled in a stable area and using a common language have acquired their identity and institutional corollary in the form of the hereditary monarchy, under the authority of the founding dynasties that have a dual legitimacy, the one granted by the success achieved on the battlefield and that granted by the Church through the solemn ritual of coronation. The stages of this development that highlights a number of interdependencies remain subject to historiographical reinterpretations in which the speculation and sensitivities of the interested public compensate the parsimony of the documentary sources, tendencies that are expressed by the controversies related to the Scandinavian origin of the Russian social elite or the re-launching of the debate regarding the ethnic origin of the founders of Moldavia and Wallachia. The contacts between the inhabitants of the area limited by the Danube, Nistru, the Black Sea and the Carpathian Mountains chain have developed from relations specific to medieval proximity, to common political projects and confessional solidarities. Political pluralism characteristic of the two nations in the Middle Ages led to a number of differences after the 13th century between Romanian relations with the neighboring Russian principalities before and after their integration into the Polish-Lithuanian Common-wealth and with the Veliko Russians, integrated into a more stable political structure, initiated by the Grand Principality of Moscow, which, starting with the reign of Iuri I and Ivan Kalita, was committed to the restoration of state authority in the old Vladimir-Suzdal principality.
FLORIAN DUMITRU SOPORAN
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