Anti-Romanian sentiment, also known as Romanophobia (,The word antiromânism is sometimes written without diacritics, and can be a cause of some confusion, because antiromanism can also mean antiţiganism (discrimination and prejudice against the Romani people). românofobie), is an animosity, hostility, hatred, aggression, and behaviour that consists of stereotypes or prejudices against Romanians as an ethnic, linguistic, religious, or perceived ethnic group. It can range from negative personal feelings of hatred to institutionalized, violent persecution.
To varying degrees, anti-Romanian discrimination and sentiment have both been present among the populations and governments of nations that border Romania, either towards Romania itself or towards Romanian ethnic minorities that have resided in these countries. Similar patterns have also existed towards other ethnic groups, both in the region and elsewhere in the world, especially where political borders do not coincide with the patterns of ethnic populations.
By country
Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy
The Transylvanian general assembly in the Middle Ages developed within the estate system of the larger Kingdom of Hungary. Its participants included several privleged corporate communities (universitates) who held distinct legal and territorial privleges. Some of these communities had strong linguistic and cultural characteristics. These estates included the Universitas Nobiles, that is, the Nobility, whom were not necessarily ethnically homogenous, the Universitatas Saxones, made up of Saxons, the Universitas Siculi/Syculi, made of Székelys, and, in the earlier medieval period, the Universitas Valachorum/Olachi/Valachi, made of Vlachs - that is - Romanians. The general assembly (congregatio generalis) of the four Estates had mainly supra-legislative powers in Transylvania, but it sometimes took measures regarding order in the country, relationships between the privileged, military issues, etc.
According to Romanian historian Ioan-Aurel Pop, a turning point in the history of the Romanian population in Transylvania was in 1366, when through the Decree of Turda, King Louis I Anjou of Hungary strengthened the power of the Roman Catholic Gentry at the expense of the Romanian nobility, who typically held authority and land traditionally and through local arrangements rather than direct Royal donation, making it such that the titles had to be deliberately confirmed by the King, though another decree in the same year stated that in the Province of Sebeș, "no man shall hold or keep an estate, as a noble or as a kenez, if he is not a true Catholic dutifully following the faith and confessed by the Roman Church." As such, given that Kings were hesitant to confirm and ennoble non-Catholics, Romanians gradually lost their status as an Estate and were thus excluded from Transylvania's assemblies. This meant that the Romanian population of Transylvania was both de facto and de jure excluded from the later Transylvanian Diet, which consisted of Hungarian, German, and Székely nobles (the Unio Trium Nationum).
In 1568, the Diet of Torda enacted the Edict of Torda, decreeing religious freedom in Transylvania in the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom, an extraordinary and unprecedented development for its time. Preachers were permitted to "preach the Gospel according to their own understanding", while persecution, imprisonment, and removal from office on religious grounds were prohibited. The first such list, dating from 1595, identified the four recognised religions: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism and Unitarianism. The laws subsequently referred to the Orthodox religion of the Romanian population as a tolerated religion.
During the Habsburg rule of Transylvania, in order to escape their inferior status, and in correlation with the Austrian interest to strengthen Catholicism, the Romanian Orthodox accepted a proposal for a "church union" (accepting Catholic dogma and retaining Orthodox ritual and calendar), but the other privileged nations objected, and the status of the Romanians remained eventually unchanged.
In December 1918, in the aftermath of World War I, the Union of Transylvania with Romania was declared at Alba Iulia by an assembly of the delegates of ethnic Romanians in Transylvania. Following the Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919 and the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, Transylvania eventually became part of Romania.
Russia Russian Empire
Bessarabia became part of the Russian Empire under the 1812 Treaty of Bucharest. A period of autonomy followed, but in 1828 all Romanian government institutions, schools and presses were closed and replaced by a Russian-style provincial administration. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Bessarabia saw an intense process of Russification. Military service also became a new instrument of Russification. The process of Russification and colonization of this territory started to be carried out by representatives of other ethnic groups of the Russian Empire, including Jews, Germans, Bulgarians, Gagauz, and Ukrainians. Russian census 1817: 86% Romanians Russian census 1856: 74% Romanians Russian census 1897: 56% Romanians
Soviet Union When the Russian Empire collapsed after the Russian Revolution of 1917, a local body called "" ("Council of the Country") was created in Bessarabia. Moldova became an independent republic on December 2, 1917. Given that Soviet raids already menaced the newly formed authority, the local body ("Sfatul Țării") called in support troops from the Kingdom of Romania. The troops entered Bessarabia on December 13. On March 27, 1918, Sfatul Țării voted to unite with Romania. Subsequently, the Soviet Union refused to recognize the union and initiated an intense propaganda campaign stating that the Kingdom of Romania was an imperialistic state.
Bessarabia remained a part of the Romanian national territory until June 1940, when the Soviet Union re-annexed the territory, as well as Northern Bukovina, after delivering an ultimatum that threatened the use of force (see Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina).
The convention of October 28, 1920, whereby the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Japan recognized Romanian sovereignty in Bessarabia, was rejected as invalid by the USSR. The Soviet government even denied the validity of that part of the convention that stipulated that, upon Soviet request, the Council of the League of Nations could be empowered to arbitrate the Soviet-Romanian dispute over Bessarabia. In short, the Kremlin insisted that Romania was illegally occupying Bessarabia. Moscow also encouraged revolutionary activities by Bolshevik elements in Bessarabia.
The exact position of the USSR on these issues is unknown except for Moscow's unwillingness to make any concessions to the Romanian government on Bessarabian issues. Recent tracts by Romanian historians have emphasized the support given by Romanian Communists to the "democratic forces" opposed to alteration of the status quo in Transylvania in 1938 and subsequent years. True as this may be, there has been no evidence presented in support of any fundamental change in Moscow's positions with respect to Bessarabia in 1938 and subsequent years.
According to official NKVD documents, over 15,000 Romanians from Northern Bukovina were deported to Siberia in 1940 alone. Gabriel Gherasim, Românii din Ucraina (2), p. 3 ("Romanians in Ukraine (2)", p. 3), Noi, NU! Revistă de atitudine și de cultură, August 7, 2005. Accessed December 20, 2006. The Soviet action culminated with the Fântâna Albă massacre, when 2,500 to 3,000 Romanian refugees who were attempting to leave Northern Bukovina for Romania were blocked by the Soviet Border Troops, and about 200 of them were summarily executed by shooting, at a place called "Fântâna Albă" (White Fountain in Romanian). This policy resulted in a substantial shrinkage of the Romanian population in the province. By 1941, out of 250,000 Romanians in Northern Bukovina, only 192,000 were left. On June 22, 1941, Romania joined Operation Barbarossa on the side of the Axis powers, in order to reclaim the lost territories of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina; these territories were regained by the Soviet Union in 1944 (see Romania in World War II).
The territory of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) was composed of Bessarabia (except for Southern Bessarabia, assigned to Ukraine) and a part of the territory of the former Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Transnistria), founded in 1924 within the territory of Ukraine. In the document confirming the establishment of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR) on 12 October 1924, the western frontier of the republic was traced out not along the Dniester River but the Prut River. In the MASSR, the ideology of a separate Moldovan identity was pursued, including the introduction of the Moldovan language, distinct from Romanian. The Cyrillic alphabet and abundant Russisms were introduced.
In Bessarabia, the Soviet government pursued a policy of assimilation of the native Romanian population. First, the province was divided into a "Moldovan" Socialist Republic and a southern region known as Budjak, which was renamed Izmail Oblast and attached to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Elite elements of the Romanian population were then deported to Siberia, much like their Bukovinian counterparts. Russian and Ukrainian settlers were used to fill the vacant areas caused by the deportation of Romanians. Nina Negru, Nu-i lua cu fericirile - disciplinează-i cu decalogul ("Don't reach out to them with promises of happiness, discipline them with the Ten Commandments"), Jurnal de Chișinău, Edition 409, 30 August 2005. Accessed online 20 December 2006.
In 1946–1947, as a result of the famine organised in the MSSR (according to some data of certain scientists; official data has not yet been published), around 300,000 Romanians died and many instances of cannibalism occurred. In addition, the population of the former MASSR, as a part of the Ukrainian SSR, also suffered from the artificial famine in the 1930s when several million people died in Ukraine (see also Holodomor).
The territory of Transnistria was more industrialised in comparison with the other part of Moldova, and the industrialisation process of Transnistria was accompanied by a population flow from other areas of the USSR, especially from Russia. Although in the Republic of Moldova the level of population density was the highest one in the USSR, Moscow continued to stimulate the arrival of the labour force from outside, including that with a poor qualification. Even Igor Smirnov, the former leader of the separatist Transnistria, was sent in 1987 from Russia to Bender to be the director of an enterprise. This process was also amplified by the excessive militarization of the area.
The 1989 adoption of the Law on state language (official language) and Law on functioning of languages on the territory of the MSSR generated an extremely negative reaction in the industrial centres of Transnistria, where the largely Russian-speaking population was not being consulted, and felt threatened by the prospects of Romanianization. These laws proclaimed the Moldovan (Romanian) language, written in the Latin alphabet, as the only state language. The fact that Moldovan and Romanian are identical was recognised. Although a majority of the Transnistrian population never read these laws which served as a reason for the conflict's outburst, they feared that by the application of the new linguistic legislation, Russian language speakers would become second-class citizens. At the industrial enterprises, including those of the military-industrial complex of the USSR, strikes occurred protesting against granting official language status to the Moldavian (Romanian) language.
Modern-day Russia