Writing About Transylvania, Romania

I write, because I enjoy the process of writing, which is also the reason why I published a book. Writing about Transylvania, Romania, now that's a bit different.

Writing about Transylvania

The most important part of my writing process is knowing I can create something that matters to people.  In this case, I was focused on what would work for my audience, Transylvania, Romania.  It's about knowing the history of the people, and the culture of the land. This is true when blogging or writing.

In a sense, Transylvania is unique because it is fairly peaceful given it has so many cultures which are a part of it history.  It is possible because it was part of a reasonably stable area of Europe in the 1800s and  the early 1900s.  As much as the area surrounding it was going through upheavals, notably the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire, because Transylvania was a part of the Kingdom of Hungary it was not faced with as much change.

One can write about Romania, and its history, but they would be incorrect in making the statement that Romania was a country before 1859- and then it was known as the United Principalities of Romania under the leadership of Alexandru Ioan Cuza.  He was not the king of Romania, but rather the prince or  Domnitor of this land.  Carol I would become this until 1881, when he became King of Romania.

Even with all this change, Transylvania and its population of people whose majority would be Romania in cultural origin, was a part of the Kingdom of Hungary.

While this gave the land stability, it did not give freedoms to the minorities of the area.  After 1919, it was a part of Romania.

This leads to challenges when writing about Transylvania, since much of it is oral history, and much of it is part ancient history.  It is a land where writing about Dracula is the most popular thing, and yet this area itself has no connection to Dracula, or rather Count Dracula.  It has a warlord who lived in Transylvania known as Vlad Tepes, whose life was the foundation of Stoker's novel.

Writing about Transylvania, Romania?

Blogging and writing about Transylvania

There is not as much challenge if you want to write about travel.  There is a challenge when writing history because even in this small area, there is cultural history and even religious history which affected parts of the population and not others.

A good example is the effects of the Second World War.  Northern Transylvania became a part of Hungary, the Southern half stayed in Romania.  For the Germans, Romanians,Hungarians and Jews of these areas their history during this time was very different.

It is as true when blogging about this area, because one post can lead to people believing only a part of the history because of it.