Constantinople -> Istanbul ?

[Demetrios]

Originally posted by Dogface
Rumania got its name in the 1800s. Before then, the only regional name there associated with Rome would have been "Wallachia" (Land of the Latin Speakers), from a Germanic word "Vlach"--Latin speaker.

Actually, the natives called Wallachia "Tara Romanescu" or Land of the Romanians. It was only outsiders who called the land Wallachia and its inhabitants Vlachs.

 

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Not forgetting the concept of a capital did not yet quite exist totally in 1419. More like the capital was wherever the monarch was on his continuous travels thru his realms. For example the duke of burgundy who had residences all over his realm and a de facto capital for his whole realm didn't really exist.

This may be true for all except Constantinople for the time.. She was the real gem of the world, the center of richness and practically the capitol of the world.. Its sheer size and its heritage of Roman Empire made her the most important and thereby protected city of its time..

I have an additional note on Mehmed II's plans on capturing Rome... The Ottomans had their alliance with France, and Mehmed thought he had an agreement that they would jointly invade Italy. The Ottomans got reminded of the harsh reality of the religious differences between the two nations when France chose to not get involved with the Ottoman expidition. The reaction of a Catholic nation to the French king assisting an infidel army in capturing Rome was not something that any French monarch wanted to experience.

Oh yes you are right, and they got reminded of one more thing: Sometimes wars do not get fought on the field. Mehmet I was poisoned by one of his doctor; a spy of Papal States and this assasination saved the Pope. MehmetI was planning (in fact he had the provisions gathered) a hundred thousand men invasion of Italy so that his claim of the Emperor of East and West Roman Empire could become true...

 

[Alexandre]

Originally posted by AndrewT
>Roum

Is this where Rumania got its name from? It used to be spelt Roumania.

Demetrios is correct as far as Tara Romanescu goes.

The spelling of Romania is a little more complicated. Since Romanian was written in Cyrilic until the 19th century, placenames had to be transliterated into the Latin alphabet by Westerners. Although Romania is etemologically derived from Roman (Romania=land of the Romans), the Romanian "o" sounds closer to the Western "u" than the western "o". Consequently, it was transliterated into Western languages as "Rumania" or "Roumania".

When Romanian switched back to the Latin alphabet in the 19th Century, Western pronounciations didn't come into play, and the etymologically rational spelling of "Romania", which also preserved the existing Cyrilic spelling, was used.

Obviously, most Westerners didn't really pay attention to how Romanians spelt Romania, and kept spelling it with a "u". After WWII, with a larger and educated Romanian diaspora, in at least English, Romania with an "o" became an acceptable, though minority, spelling.

The Soviets, however, pushed the "Rumania" spelling since it masked Romania's Latin heritage as part of an orchestrated campaign to minimize Romania's links to the West. (They went so far as to orchestrate the passage of legislation by the communist parliament to declare Romanian a Slavic language.)

With the collapse of communism in the east, and a lot of coverage of the revolution in Romania, most journalists spelled Romania with an "o". And, since then, Romania with an "o" is clearly the dominant spelling.

Alexandre