Lajos Kazar: Facts against fiction

FOREWORD

The area known as TRANSYLVANIA has suffered from many historical misinterpretations. It has also been a literary victim of writers of certain kinds of horror stories. The most serious distortions, however, are those of propagandists of some misguided or even deliberately distorted views of Wallachian and Rumanian history in the context of the complicated past of central Europe.

Fortunately Transylvania has a worthy champion in the person of Dr. Lajos Kazár of the Australian National University, a meticulous and thoughtful scholar, who has made it a labour of love to correct those misinterpretations and to focus on the historical past of the area based on sound historical evidence stretching back over two thousand years.

Those concerned with historical accuracy in standard works of reference hope that editors and writers of encyclopedia articles will take Dr. Kazár's work seriously in any new editions of articles on Transylvania. We should all be grateful for his careful historical reconstruction of a fascinating and vital aspect of European history.

Hector Kinloch B.A., M.A., Cambridge; Ph.D., Yale,

formerly Reader in History, Australian National University

Lajos Kazar: Facts against fiction