Romanians

Not to be confused with Romani people.

This article is about the Romanian ethnic group. For a specific analysis of the population of Romania, see Demographics of Romania.

Romanians

Total population
c. 21.5 to 24.8 million (including Moldovans)
Regions with significant populations
Romania	19,409,400 (2002 census)
Moldova	75,000 (2004 census) 2,815,175 (incl. Moldovans)
Ukraine	150,989 (2001 census) 409,608 (incl. Moldovans)
Spain	509,756 522,107(inc. Moldovans of any ethnicity)
United States	367,310 (2000)
Italy	342,200
Russia	5,308 (2002 census) 177,638 (incl. Moldovans)
Kazakhstan	20,000
France	60,000
Canada	131,320
Germany	73,365
Israel	50,000
Brazil	33,280(estimated)
Serbia	34,576 (2002 census) 74,630 (incl. Timok Vlachs)
Turkey	30,000
Greece	29,000
Austria	23,000
United Kingdom	20,000
Hungary	14,781
Sweden	12,748
Australia	18,320
Venezuela	10,000 to 12,000
Portugal	10,926
Argentina	10,000
Slovakia	9,000
Bulgaria	1,088 (2001 census) 11,654 (incl. Timok Vlachs)
Languages
Romanian language
Religion
Predominantly Romanian Orthodox, but also including Romanian Catholic, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Atheist.
Related ethnic groups
• Vlachs   • Moldovans   • Aromanians   • Megleno-Romanians   • Istro-Romanians

The Romanians (dated: Rumanians or Roumanians; Romanian: români or historically and today rather seldom and only regional, rumâni) are an ethnic group; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania and Moldova (identifying themselves as either Romanians or Moldovans), and an ethnic minority in several nearby countries.

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. The Romanian citizenship Law legislated in March 1991 even establishes the rights of second and third generation descendants of Romanian citizens to obtain a Romanian citizenship, if they speak fluent Romanian and are able to demonstrate sufficient knowledge in Romanian history and culture. In the world today, 24 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.

History of the term

The concept of who is a Romanian has varied in time. In historical contexts, the Romanians are generally referred with the exonym Vlachs, a term shared by other Romance populations of the Balkan Peninsula. These populations also shared, and share, a common autonym, with dialectical variants rumân, armân, rumâr, etc. These populations, often regarded separately today, had generally been regarded as a single people with a cohesive self-identity, possessing a common language divided into the main dialects: Daco-Romanian, the dominant language of modern Romania and Moldova; Aromanian (also known as Macedo-Romanian), spoken today by about 300,000 people in the several countries south of the Danube; Megleno-Romanian, spoken today by about 10,000 people in Greece and the Republic of Macedonia; and Istro-Romanian spoken today by fewer than 1,000 people in a few villages on the peninsula of Istria in Croatia. However, a modern separation and interpretation, although would group the modern Romanians along with the Macedo-Romanians, Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians, would nevertheless conclude and have as final result the perception of these populations as separate, distinguished ethnic groups.

Ascribing the concept to the territory which nowadays encompasses Romania, than it can be inferred that until the 19th century, the term Romanian denoted the speakers of the Daco-Romanian dialect of the Romanian language, thus being a much more distinct concept than that of Romania, the country of the Romanians. Prior to 1867, the (Daco-)Romanians were part of different statal entities: with the Moldavians and the Wallachians being split off and having shaped separate political identities, possessing states of their own, and with the rest of Romanians being part of other states. However, like the rest of the Vlachs, 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, Spain, Italy, Canada, France and Germany. With respect to geopolitical identity, many individuals of Romanian ethnicity in Moldova prefer to identify themselves as Moldovans.

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.

For example, the decennial U.S. Census of 2000 calculated (based on a statistical sampling of household data) that there were 367,310 respondents indicating Romanian ancestry (roughly 0.1% of the total population). The actual total recorded number of foreign-born Romanians was only 136,000 Migration Information Source However, some non-specialist organisations have produced estimates which are considerably higher: a 2002 study by the Romanian-American Network Inc. mentions an estimated figure of 1,200,000 for the number of Romanian-Americans. This estimate notes however that "...other immigrants of Romanian national minority groups have been included such as: Armenians, Germans, Gypsies, Hungarians, Jews, and Ukrainians". It also includes an unspecified allowance for second- and third-generation Romanians, and an indeterminate number living in Canada. An error range for the estimate is not provided. For the United States 2000 Census figures, almost 20% of the total population did not classify or report an ancestry, and the census is also subject to undercounting, an incomplete (67%) response rate, and sampling error in general.

History

The romanian ethnogenesis

Main article: History of Romania

Ancient times

Main article: Origin of Romanians

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 (see Dacian Wars). The Roman administration withdrew two centuries later, under the pressure of the Goths and Carpi.

Middle ages

Regions inhabited by significant Romanian population

The tribal migrations that followed - such as the ones of Slavs, Bulgars (later Bulgarians), Hungarians, and Tatars - did not allow Romanians to develop any large centralized state, which was only achieved in the 13th century and especially in the 14th century, when the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia emerged to fight the Ottoman Empire.

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 under the authority of Wallachian Prince Michael the Brave.

Up until 1541, Transylvania was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, later (due to the conquest of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire) was a self-governed Principality governed by the Hungarian nobility. In 1699 it became a part of the Habsburg lands. By the 19th century, the Austrian Empire was awarded by the Ottomans with the region of Bukovina and, in 1812, the Russians occupied the eastern half of Moldavia, known as Bessarabia.

Modern age

Territories inhabited by Romanians before WWI

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 (who reigned as Domnitor) and were thus unified de facto.

Newly-founded Kingdom of Romania, led by the Hohenzollern prince Carol I fought the War of Independence against the Ottomans, which was recognized in 1878. At the beginning of World War I, although allied with Austria-Hungary, Romania refused to go to war on the side of the Central Powers, because Romania was obliged to go to war only if Austria-Hungary was attacked. In 1916, Romania joined World War I on the side of the Triple Entente. As a result, at the end of the war, Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina were awarded to Romania, resulting in Greater Romania.

During World War II, Romania lost territory in both east and west, as Northern Transylvania became part of Hungary through the Second Vienna Award, while Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were taken by the Soviets and included in the Moldavian SSR and Ukrainian SSR respectively. The eastern territory losses were facilitated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop German-Soviet non-aggression pact.

The Soviet Union imposed a Communist government and King Michael was forced 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 and former communist 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 2004 and the European Union in 2007.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Romania

Contributions to humanity

Main article: List of Romanians

Romanians 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. Mathematician Ştefan Odobleja is considered to be the ideological father behind cybernetics.

In the arts and culture, important figures were George Enescu (music composer), Constantin Brâncuşi (sculptor), Eugène Ionesco (playwright), Mircea Eliade (historian of religion and novelist), Emil Cioran (essayist) and Angela Gheorghiu (soprano).

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 Romanian figure of Vlad Ţepeş.

In sports, Romanians have excelled in a variety of fields, such as soccer (Gheorghe Hagi), gymnastics (Nadia Comăneci, Lavinia Miloşovici etc.), tennis (Ilie Năstase, Ion Ţiriac), canoe racing (Ivan Patzaichin) and handball (four times men's World Cup winners).

Language

Main article: Romanian language

The 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. During the modern era, most neologisms were borrowed from French and Italian, though increasingly the language 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. The 23.5 million , however, represent only speakers of Romanian, not all of whom are necessarily ethnic Romanians. Also, this number does not include ethnic-Romanians who no longer speak the Romanian language.

Surnames

Many Romanian names have the surname suffix "-escu","-ascu" which corresponds to the Latin suffix "-iscus" to mean “belonging to the people”. For example, "Petrescu" used to be "Petre's son. Similar suffixes like "-asco" "-asgo" "-esque" etc. are present in other Latin languages.

Many Romanians in France changed this ending of their surnames to -esco, because the way it is pronounced "-cu" in French. Other suffixes are "-eanu" (or "-an","-anu"), which indicates the geographical origin and "-aru" (or "-oru"), which indicates the occupation.

The most common surnames are Popa ("the priest") with almost 200,000 names, Popescu ("son of the priest") with almost 150,000 names and Ionescu ("John's son).

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, according to a 2006 Eurobarometer poll, only 23% of Romanians attend church once a week or more. A 2006 poll conducted by the Open Society Foundation found that only 33% of Romanians attended church once a month or more.

Romanian Catholics are present in Transylvania, Bucharest, and parts of Moldavia, belonging to both the Romanian Greek-Catholic Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church. A small percentage of Romanians are Protestant, neo-Protestant (2.8%), or agnostic (0,15%).

There is no official date for the adoption of Christianity by the Romanians. Based on linguistic and archaeological findings, historians suggest that the Romanians' ancestors acquired their religion in the Roman era. The basic words related to Christianity, such as church ("biserică" < basilica), God ("Dumnezeu" < Domine Deus), Easter ("paşte" < paschae), Christmas ("crăciun" < creatio, -onis), christian ("creştin" < christianus), cross ("cruce" < crux, -cis), sin ("păcat" < peccatum), to baptize ("a boteza" < batizare), angel ("înger" < angelus), saint (regional: "sânt" < sanctus) etc., are inherited from Latin.

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

Romanian flag

Moldovan flag

File:Romania Coat of Arms.svg

Coat of Arms of Romania

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 the 1820s.

In addition to these colours, each historical province of Romania has its own characteristic animal symbol:

• Oltenia: Lion and Banat:Trajan's bridge
• Dobrogea: Dolphin
• Moldavia: Aurochs/Wisent
• Transylvania: Black eagle
• Wallachia: Eagle

The Coat of Arms of Romania combines these together.

Customs

Main article: Romanian folklore

Name

In English, Romanians are usually called Romanians, Rumanians, or Roumanians except in some historical texts, where they are called Roumans or Vlachs.

Romanian

Main article: Etymology of Romania

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. Socio-linguistic evolutions in the late 18th century led to a gradual preponderance of the "român" spelling form, which was then generalised during the National awakening of Romania of early 19th century.

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 (Oláh) 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 speak Daco-Romanian, Aromanian, Istro-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian. Istro-Romanian is the closest related language to the Daco-Romanian language which is the official language of the country.

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 the eastern part of Central Serbia (which was part of ancient Moesia).

Toponyms

In the Middle Ages, Romanian (vlach) shepherds migrated with their flocks in search of better pastures and reached Southern Poland, north-eastern Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia, Greece, Albania and Eastern Thrace (now in Bulgaria and Greece).

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
• Vlasi
• Vlašic
• Vlasceanu
• Vlachopoulos
• Voloh

Relationship to other 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 still living in the original villages of Istria (while the majority left for other countries after World War II (mainly to Italy, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Australia), they speak the Istro-Romanian language, the closest living relative of Romanian. Other related ethnic groups include the Italians, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and the other Romance languages speaking people.

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.

It should be noted Gypsyies/Roma are are not a related enthnic group (they started to emigrate from Indian subcontinent in the early 11th century), see History of the Romani people). Furthermore, a poll conducted in December 2007 showed that 76% of the Romanians consider that the foreigners are confusing the the term Roma/Romani with Romanian and 52% consider that gypsies must be called again by their original name and not "Roma or other derivations of this term".

See also

• Brodnici
• Romanians of Serbia
• Moravian Wallachia
• Romanian diaspora
• Culture of Romania
• Romanian cuisine
• Music of Romania

External links

• The Romanian nation in the beginning of the 20th century
• How to get Romanian citizenship