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3 The Phanariots” in Romanian Textbooks 43

3a. The image of Phanariots was created by two elements, one exter-nal and the other one intemal.

The first one is due to the increase of the literał taste for exotical vo-yages, in the 18th century Eastern Europę, at the same time with the spe-cial up-to-dateness of the political evolution of the Ottoman Empire ⁸. An old habitude in western literaturę was the identification of the eastern world with tyranny and despotism: the Phanariots seemed to be servants of an arbitrary system and blind obedience. The anti-Phanariot trend outlines only in the 19th century under the deep interest raised by the fight of the Greeks for independence and by the worsening of the “Oriental Problem".

In 1804, Christian von Engel firstly proceeded to limit the epoch of Greek rulers as a special chapter separated from the rest in the Romanian history ⁹. In 1824, a booklet published in France meant to elear up, in the whole Europę, the real character of the Phanariots: "Essai sur les Phana-riotes" of Marc Philippe Zallony. Zallony will have a great influence on our following historiogTaphy, so it is necessary to enlarge upon his basie ideas: the limitation of the Phanariotic century, its separation from the rest of the Romanian history and its setting in opposition with the period in which Romanianshad "rights" and "privileges”¹⁰; the separation of the "Phanariots" from the other Greeks, sińce they are accused of collaboration with the Ottoman enemy instead of helping their brothers fighting for their independence¹¹ ; Constantin Mavrocordat was accused that his reforms were madę just to enrich himself ¹², that "no other Phanariot has madę so much evil in Wallachia as he has" ¹³ ; the Phanariots as source of all evilhuman facts: cor-ruption and obedience, conceitedness, degradation, greed, vicious lust for luxury, cruelty, cynicism.

These arguments appear in the textbooks that will be analyzed. This pattern could grow up on fertile ground: the historians from 1848, paying attention to the European modern ideas and eager that their country rea-ches the same level as the other European countries, did the success of this cliche. The Phanariot rulers are blamed for the isolation of the Romanian Principalities from the western world and for maintaining them under the cruel Ottoman domination ¹⁴.

The second element taking part in the building of the image of Phanariots came from interior. It is known that what we cali currently "the Phanariot epoch" did not start suddenly at 1711/1716; foreign rulers had been before in the Romanian countries and we can find critics towards them as early as the 17th century ¹⁵. But the real problem is to see "when did the Romanian society perceive the setting-up of the Phanariotic regime, when did it become aware of the fact that Moldavia and Wallachia entered a new phase of their history, a new political regime with different characteristics than

⁸ Traian Ionescu Nięcov, L’epoque Phanariote dans 1'hisioriographie routnaine et elran-gere, in "Symposium L'ćpoque phanariote", Thessaloniki, 1974, p. 147.

* Ibidem, p. 150.

¹⁰    Marcu Filip Zallony, Despre Fanarioti, Bucure?ti, 1909, p. 33—35.

¹¹    Ibidem, p. 131, 140, 186—189 etc.

¹⁸ Ibidem, p. 32.

¹³    Ibidem, p. 34.

¹⁴    Stefan Lemny, op. cit., p. 17.

¹⁵    Eugen St&nescu, Próphanariotes et phanariotes dans la vision de la societi roumaine des XVIle — XVIIle siecles, in "Symposium... 347 — 358.