When Romanian nationalism first emerged in the late 18th century – at a time when the Romanians in Bukovina and Transylvania were ruled by the Austrian Empire while the Romanians in Moldavia, Wallachia and the Dobruja were ruled by the Ottoman Empire – there was an intense emphasis on the Latinity of the Romanians, who were depicted as a lonely island of Latin civilization in Eastern Europe surrounded by "Slavic and Turanian barbarians". The reference to "Turanian barbarians" was to both the Turks and the Magyars who both "Turanian" peoples from Asia. This tradition of seeing Romania as a bastion of Latinism threatened by enemies everywhere culminated in the 1930s where the Iron Guard argued there were "natural laws" that determined Romania's struggle for existence, which allowed the Legion to justify any act of violence no matter how amoral as necessary because of the "natural laws". Ionesco parodied the Legion's talk of "natural laws" and "primeval values" by putting dialogue that closely resembled the Legion's rhetoric into Jean as he transforms into a green rhinoceros.