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The Romanians (români in present-day Romanian and rumâni in historical contexts) are an ethnic group; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania. There is an ongoing dispute whther the Moldovans of Moldova are Romanians or constitute a distinct ethnic group see Moldovenism.). Both countries also have other significant ethnic minorities, and the Romanians constitute an ethnic minority in several nearby countries. In historical contexts, and along with other Balkan Latin peoples such as the Aromanians, they are sometimes referred to as Vlachs, a name derived via Slavic ultimately from Germanic which was used to refer to all Romanized natives of the Balkans.
The Romanian people, are a nation in the meaning an ethnos (in Romanian: popor), defined more by a sense of sharing a common Romanian culture and having a Romanian mother tongue, than by citizenship or by being subjects to any particular country. In the world today, 25 million have Romanian as their mother tongue. If a distinction is made between Romanians and Ethnic Romanians, the latter are distinguished by living outside of the Romania and not holding Romanian citizenship.
The concept of who is a Romanian has varied. Until the 19th century, it denoted the speakers of Romanian, and was a much more distinct concept than that of Romania, the country of the Romanians. The Romanians were part of different statal entities: with the Moldavians and the Wallachians being split off and having shaped separate political identities, possesing states of their own, and with the rest of Romanians being part of other states. However, they all retained their Romanian cultural and ethnic identity.
Population
Most Romanians live in Romania where they constitute a majority; Romanians also constitute a minority in the countries that neighbour them. Romanians can also be found in many countries as immigrants, notably in the United States, Italy, Spain, Canada, France and Germany. It is also a matter of the ongoing dispute whether the population of the Republic of Moldova (i.e., Moldovans) are Romanians.
The contemporary total population of ethnic Romanians cannot be stated with any degree of certainty. A disparity can be observed between official sources (such as census counts) where they exist, and estimates which come from non-official sources and interested groups. Several inhibiting factors (not unique to this particular case) contribute towards this uncertainty, which may include:
- A degree of overlap may exist or be shared between Romanian and other ethnic identities in certain situations, and census or survey respondents may elect to identify with one particular ancestry but not another, or instead identify with multiple ancestries;
- Counts and estimates may inconsistently distinguish between Romanian nationality and Romanian ethnicity (i.e. not all Romanian nationals identify with Romanian ethnicity, and vice versa);
- The measurements and methodologies employed by governments to enumerate and describe the ethnicity and ancestry of their citizens vary from country to country. Thus the census definition of "Romanian" might variously mean Romanian-born, of Romanian parentage, or also include other ethnic identities as Romanian which otherwise are identified separately in other contexts;
- The number of ethnic Romanians who live and work abroad is not precisely known, particularly so where their presence in the host country may be considered "illegal". In addition, where estimates for these populations have been made there is some risk of likely "double counting"— that is, Romanian persons abroad who have retained (or have not formally relinquished) their original citizenship may possibly figure in the counts or estimates of both the "home" and "host" countries.
History
Main article: History of Romania
Ancient times
Inhabited by the ancient Dacians, today's territory of Romania was conquered by the Roman Empire in 106, when Trajan's army defeated the army of Decebalus. The Roman administration withdrew two centuries later, under the pressure of the Goths and Carpi.
Middle ages
The invasions that followed - such as the ones of Slavs, Hungarians, and Tatars - did not allow Romanians to develop any large centralized state, which was only achieved in the 13th century when the Romanian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia emerged to fight the Ottoman Turks.The entire Balkan peninsula was annexed by the Ottoman Empire, but Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania remained autonomous under Ottoman suzerainty. The three principalities were united in 1600 by Wallachian Mihai Viteazul, however, he was assassinated shortly afterwards.
Up until 1699, Transylvania was ruled by Hungarians, but in 1699 it became a part of the Austrian empire. By the 19th century, Austrians were awarded the region of Bukovina by the Ottoman Empire and in 1812, the Russians occupied the eastern half of Moldavia, known as Bessarabia.
Modern age
In 1821 and 1848, two rebellions occurred, and both failed; but they had an important role in the spreading of the liberal ideology. In 1859, Moldavia and Wallachia elected the same ruler - Alexander John Cuza and thus they were unified.Romania, lead by German Prince Carol I fought the War of Independence against The Ottomans, which was recognized in 1878. In 1916, Romania joined World War I on the Entente side and at the end of it, Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina voted to unite with Romania, resulting in Greater Romania.
During World War II, Romania lost territory in both east and west, as a part of Transylvania was awarded by Hitler and Mussolini to Hungary (it was later returned to Romania), and Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, which were taken by the Soviets and included in the Moldavian SSR and Ukrainian SSR. Both losses were facilitated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop German-Soviet non-aggression pact, which explicitly mentioned the eastern territories.
The Soviet Union forced Romania to adopt a Communist government and King Michael had to abdicate and leave for exile. Ceauşescu became the head of the Romanian Communist Party in 1965 and his draconian rule of the 1980s was stopped by a Revolution in 1989.
The Romanian revolution brought to power the dissident communist leader Ion Iliescu. He remained in power until 1996, and then once more between 2000 and 2004. Emil Constantinescu was president from 1996 to 2000, and Traian Băsescu started his mandate in 2004.
Romania joined NATO in 2002 and is expected to join the European Union in 2007.
Culture
Main article: Culture of Romania
Contribution to humanity
Main article: List of RomaniansRomanians have played an important role in the arts, sciences and engineering.
In the history of flight, Traian Vuia built the first self-propelling heavier-than-air aircraft, while Henri Coandă built the first aircraft powered by a jet engine. Victor Babeş discovered more than 50 germs and a cure for a disease named after him, babesiosis; biologist Nicolae Paulescu discovered insulin. Another biologist, Emil Palade, received the Nobel Prize for his contributions to cell biology. Mathematican Ştefan Odobleja is considered to be the ideological father behind cybernetics.
In the arts and culture, important figures were George Enescu (music composer), Constantin Brâncusi (sculptor), Eugène Ionesco (playwright), Mircea Eliade (historian of religion and novelist) and Emil Cioran (essayist).
Count Dracula is a worldwide icon of Romania. However, the idea of Dracula as a vampire is not genuinely Romanian. It was created by the Irishman Bram Stoker from Balkan folklore and the historic Wallachian figure of Vlad Ţepeş.
Language
Main article: Romanian languageThe origins of Romanian language, a Romance language, can be traced back to the Roman colonization of Dacia. The basic vocabulary is of Latin origin, although there are some substratum Dacian words. Of all the Romance languages, it could be said that Romanian is the most archaic one, having retained, for example, the inflected structure of Latin grammar.
During the Middle Ages, Romanian was isolated from the other Romance languages, and borrowed words from the nearby Slavic languages. The Turkish occupation enriched the language with a picturesque Turkic vocabulary by now thoroughly integrated into everyday speech. During the modern era, most neologisms was borrowed from French and Italian, though increasingly the languages is falling under the sway of English borrowings.
The Moldovan language, in its official form, is practically identical to Romanian, although there are some differences in colloquial speech. In the de-facto independent (but internationally unrecognised) region of Transnistria, the official script used to write Moldovan is Cyrillic.
A 2005 Ethnologue estimation puts the (world-wide) number of Romanian speakers at approximately 23.5 million,Romanian language on Ethnologue. not all of whom however are necessarily ethnic Romanians.
Surnames
Many Romanian names have the surname suffix -escu, which used to be a patronymic. (for example, "Petrescu" used to be the son of "Petre") Many Romanians of France changed their ending in -esco, because the way it is pronounced "-cu" in French. Other suffixes are "-eanu", which indicates the geographical origin and "-aru", which indicates the occupation.The most common surnames are Ionescu ("son of John") and Popescu ("son of the priest").
Religion
The majority of Romanians are Eastern Orthodox Christians, belonging to the Romanian Orthodox Church. According to the 2002 census, 94.0% of ethnic Romanians in Romania identified themselves as Romanian Orthodox (in comparison to 86.8% of Romania's total population, including other ethnic groups). However, it must be noted that the actual rate of church attendance is significantly lower, and that many Romanians are only nominally believers. For example, only 39% of urban Romanians attend church once a week or more.Study into Urban Religiosity in Romania, Open Society Foundation (Microsoft Word Document)
Romanian Catholics are present in Transylvania, Bucharest, and parts of Moldavia, belonging to both the Eastern Rite (Romanian Catholic Church) and the Roman Rite (Roman Catholic Church). A small percentage of Romanians are Protestant (2.8%) or atheist.
Romanians have no official date for adoption of Christianity. It appears that Christianization occurred gradually, starting with the Saint Andrew's mission during the Roman era and then continuing while the Romanian people and language emerged, as suggested by archeological findings and by Romanian words for church ("biserica" < basilica), God ("Dumnezeu" < Domine Deus), Easter ("Paste" < Paschae), etc.
After the Great Schism, there existed a Catholic Bishopric of Cumania (later, separate bishoprics in both Wallachia and Moldavia). However, this seems to be the exception, rather than the rule, as in both Wallachia and Moldavia the state religion (the one use for crowning, and other ceremonies) was orthodox. Until the 17th century, the official language of the liturgy was Old Church Slavonic. Then, it gradually changed to Romanian.
Symbols
The colours of blue, yellow and red, which are now used on the both the flag of Romania and the flag of Moldova were used by the nationalist movement of 1820s, but it is clear that they were even older, some suggest that they can be traced to the military flag of the Byzantine province of Moesia.In addition to these colours, each historical province of Romania has its own characteristic animal symbol:
The Coat of Arms of Romania combines these together.Customs
Main article: Romanian customs (to be written)Name
In English they are usually called Romanians or Rumanians except in some historical texts, where they are called Vlachs.
Romanian
The name "Romanian" is derived from Latin "Romanus". Under regular phonetical changes that are typical to the Romanian languages, the name was transformed in "rumân" (ru'mɨn). An older form of "român" was still in use in some regions. During the National awakening of Romania of early 19th century, the latter form was preferred, in order to emphasise the link with ancient Rome.Vlach
The name of "Vlachs" is an exonym that was used by Slavs to refer to all Romanized natives of the Balkans. It holds its origin from ancient Germanic - being a cognate to "Welsh" and "Walloon" -, and perhaps even further back in time, from the Roman name Volcae, which was originally a Celtic tribe. From the Slavs, it was passed on to other peoples, such as the Hungarians (Olah) and Greeks (Vlachoi). (see: Etymology of Vlach) Vlach was also used for all Orthodox Christians. Wallachia, a region in Romania, takes its name from the same source.Nowadays, the term Vlach is more often used to refer to the Romanized populations of the Balkans who do not speak the Romanian language but rather the Aromanian language and other Romance languages such as Istro-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian. Aromanian, Istro-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian are the closest related languages to the Romanian language.
Daco-Romanian
To distinguish Romanians from the other Romanic peoples of the Balkans (Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians), the term Daco-Romanian is sometimes used to refer to those who speak the standard Romanian language and live in the territory of ancient Dacia (today comprising mostly Romania and Moldova), although some Daco-Romanians can be found in Serbia (which was part of ancient Moesia).Toponyms
In the Middle Ages, Romanian shepherds migrated with their flocks in search of better pastures and reached Southern Poland, Croatia, Greece, and Eastern Thrace.Anthroponyms
These are family names that have been derived from either Vlach or Romanian. Most of these names have been given when a Romanian settled in a non-Romanian region.- Oláh (37,147 Hungarians have this name)
- Vlach
- Vlahuta
- Vlasa
- Vlašic
- Vlasceanu
- Vlachopoulos
Subgroups and related ethnic groups
The closest ethnic groups to the Romanians are the other Romanic peoples of Southeastern Europe: the Istro-Romanians, the Aromanians (Macedo-Romanians) and the Megleno-Romanians. The Istro-Romanians are the closest ethnic group to the Romanians, and it is believed they left Maramureş, Transylvania about a thousand years ago and settled in Istria, Croatia. Numbering about 500 people, they speak the Istro-Romanian language, the closest living relative of Romanian.
The Aromanians and the Megleno-Romanians are Romanic peoples who live south of the Danube, mainly in Greece, Albania and the Republic of Macedonia, although some of them migrated to Romania in the 20th century. It is believed that they diverged from the Romanians in the 7th to 9th century, and currently speak the Aromanian language and Megleno-Romanian language, both of which are Eastern Romance languages, like Romanian, and are sometimes considered by traditional Romanian linguists to be dialects of standard (Daco-)Romanian.
See also
External links
Notes and references
Ethnic groups in Europe | Ethnic groups in Serbia | Ethnic groups in Ukraine | Ethnic groups in Vojvodina | Ethnic groups of Romania | Ethnic groups in Hungary | Romanian people
Румънци | Rumänen | Roumains | רומנים | Románok | ルーマニア人 | რუმინელები | Roemenen | Rumuni | Români | Romuni | Rumunët | Rumäner
"Romanians"