Atanasie Popovici Furnică (also Athanasie; – 14 November 1958; ) was a Romanian schoolteacher, minority rights activist and irredentist from Serbia. He was born in Dušanovac (), a village in the then heavily Romanian-populated region of the Timok Valley () in Serbia. He established contact with multiple Romanian intellectual figures abroad while in the German Empire, most notably Onisifor Ghibu, who would collaborate extensively with him in future activities.
Popovici became intensely interested in the cause of the Timok Romanians, today known as the Vlachs of Serbia. He addressed Romania's Chamber of Deputies in 1912 with a memorandum on the situation of this group, generating much interest in the topic in Romania. From then on, he would write in multiple publications about the Timok Romanians, who lacked minority rights of their own and were subject to assimilation.
In 1918, in Chișinău, Romania (now Moldova), Popovici convened an assembly of Timok Romanians, which adopted a motion declaring the unification of the territories inhabited by Romanians in Serbia with Romania. In Chișinău was founded the National Committee of the Romanians of Serbia, of which Popovici was president. The committee engaged in propaganda activities in the Timok Valley, distributing the Chișinău motion in the region. Popovici was also part of the Romanian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, addressing the conference in 1919 with his "Memorandum on the Romanians of Serbia", which gave a description of the Timok Romanians, denounced Serbianisation and called for the Timok Valley's outright annexation by Romania.
In the interwar period, Popovici was the director of the Pedagogical College of Timișoara and obtained a diplomatic post to manage the Romanian schools in the Yugoslav part of the Banat region. He took again a significant role in Timok Romanian matters during World War II, being offered to lead the Romanian government-initiated Timokian Committee and even conduct Romanian troops that were to occupy the Timok Valley, both of which he refused. After the war, Popovici lived in Timișoara until his death. In modern times, he has been revered in Romania as a greatly important figure in the history and cause of the Serbian Vlachs.
Biography Early life, education and life in Germany
Atanasie Popovici Furnică was born in the village of Dušanovac (), near the town of Negotin (), in the then densely Romanian-populated region of the Timok Valley () in Serbia. He was born ; according to the legation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (that is, Yugoslavia) in Paris, France, Popovici was 32 as of March 1919. Both of Popovici's parents were priests. His mother, Elena, was the one who took close care of the education of their children, while his father was named popa Furnică, who was a priest in Dušanovac after whom Popovici was known by his full name. Additionally, Popovici had family living in the villages of Jabukovac () and Mihajlovac ( or ), also in the Timok Valley.
The Romanians from the Timok Valley were labelled as such in official documents and serious studies all throughout the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The Vlachs of Serbia, as the Timok Romanians are known today, started being named as such after World War I, in parallel with a systemic campaign to deny their connection with Romanians and Romania; they were divided into "Romanians" and "Vlachs" for the first time in the 1948 Yugoslav census. Furthermore, they lacked education in their native Romanian language and ended up heavily assimilated, resulting in almost no demands from their part for minority rights of their own.
Popovici completed primary school in his native village. He then took his secondary studies at the Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Seminary in Belgrade in Serbia, an institution with a recognized reputation where he then also studied theology. Popovici then studied pedagogy and philosophy at the University of Jena, in the German Empire. At this university, he wrote his doctoral thesis on pedagogy, on the topic of Pedagogia experimentală ("Experimental Pedagogy"). He also established a private experimental school in Jena for a time.
While studying in Germany, Popovici came into contact with young Romanian students, be they from within the Kingdom of Romania's borders or from the regions of Banat and Transylvania then in Austria-Hungary. He joined cultural organizations of the Romanians and Aromanians. Popovici met in Germany the future Romanian academic and politician Onisifor Ghibu, with whom he became friends. He considered him a close associate especially regarding the issue of the Romanians outside Romania's borders. Timok Romanian writer, historian and folklorist Cristea Sandu Timoc defined Ghibu as Popovici's most valued colleague. According to Romanian professor Gheorghe Rancu Bodrog, starting from 1908, and having been inspired by Ghibu, Popovici committed himself to fighting for the rights of the Romanians of the Timok Valley; this would thus have become his life ideal. In this regard, he began meetings with Romanian students, with whom he had useful exchanges of ideas.
Popovici left for Romania in 1911, where he stayed only for a short time realizing his then lack of a fully correct command of the Romanian language. After obtaining his doctorate, he was urged by his friends to try obtain a teaching post in Sibiu in Austria-Hungary (now Romania), which proved unsuccessful. Popovici then returned to Germany for a time, further developing closer ties with Romanian intellectuals abroad, including figures like scholar, writer and politician Nicolae Iorga and mathematician, astronomer and politician Spiru Haret, among others.
Early activities during the Balkan Wars and World War I On 18 December 1912, Popovici addressed the Chamber of Deputies of Romania with a memorandum on the situation of the Timok Romanians, presented by Iorga on behalf of him. The memorandum was published in the Romanian newspaper Adevărul under the title Românii din Serbia apelează către Țară și Parlament ("The Romanians of Serbia Appeal to the Country and Parliament"), and it sought to elicit cultural support for the Romanians in eastern Serbia from the Romanian state. It generated assurances and promises to Popovici from Romanian forums in Bucharest on help for the Timok Romanians, with the Romanian press of the time supporting Popovici's efforts and recommending the authorities in Bucharest to fund his activities. Multiple articles from Bucharest newspapers addressing the precarious situation of the Romanians in the Timok Valley accompanied the memorandum. Ultimately however, as Rancu Bodrog described it, the received assurances and promises ended up being all empty talk.
In the memorandum, Popovici stated that the Serbian bishop of the Eparchy of Timok had ordered the eparchy's priests on 12 August 1899 to baptize children with purely Serb names, following a guide he himself had drawn up. This would have begun the Serbianisation of the names of the Timok Romanian families, something carried out in parallel by schools and the authorities as he stated. Popovici claimed that there were 83 Romanian villages in the Timok Valley in Serbia, 72 of which reportedly did not have a single Serb family living in them. The memorandum warned that the Romanian language was in continuous decline in the region, while Serb culture was imposing itself in every way. The memorandum ends with an appeal for help from Romania: "We do not ask for money, we do not want land, but we claim our right to national spiritual nourishment. We, those who know what national culture means, feel its absence most painfully. I learned to read and write Romanian in Germany."
Upon heading again back to Germany, being wanted by Serbian security services as he was considered a deserter, Popovici got married in Germany shortly afterwards, with one of the daughters of his experimental pedagogy professor. In 1913, from Jena, through a series of letters, Popovici advised Romania not to enter into war against Bulgaria in the context of the Second Balkan War, but against Serbia instead, to liberate the Romanians of the Timok Valley. Popovici's enthusiasm was somewhat extinguished by the Treaty of Bucharest which concluded the Second Balkan War in the summer of 1913 and the outbreak of World War I in the summer of the following year. At the beginning of the war, Popovici settled in Silistra in Southern Dobruja, Romania (now in Bulgaria), with the help of Ghibu. He became a teacher of German at the Romanian high school in the town, publishing in several magazines about the Timok Romanians in the meantime. He moved to Bucharest in 1916, where he published several articles calling for the Timok Valley's unification with Romania, and after the capital city was occupied, he withdrew to Western Moldavia. In the context of only occasional interest in the situation of the Romanians south of the Danube by the Romanian press at the time, Popovici wrote another memorandum, a well-documented one, on their situation and published it in the magazine Românismul.
End of World War I and Timok Romanian committee
The end of World War I and the Romanian Great Union of December 1918 caught Popovici in Chișinău, Romania (now in Moldova); he continued to campaign for the unification of the Timok Valley with Romania throughout this time. In the city, he published articles in support of the rights of the Timok Romanians in Ardealul în Basarabia and Coala Moldovenească, magazines founded by his friend Ghibu. He published Le Roumanie de Serbie in French, addressing not only the Romanian government refuged in Iași but also representatives of the great powers. He was on the editorial committee of the Chișinău newspaper România Nouă as of 24 January 1918, the day the newspaper's first issue appeared, along with other figures, namely Vladimir Cazacliu, Ghibu, , Ion Matei, Dumitru Munteanu-Râmnic, Constantin Noe and George Tofan. Popovici signed the union declaration published in that first issue, which stated at its end that "everyone must realize that our salvation is only in a new Romania of all Romanians", for the realization of which the declaration and its signatories proclaimed they would work, live and, if necessary, die. Popovici also exercised as president of the Great National Assembly of the Romanians from Everywhere, which on 1 December 1918 held a great assembly in Chișinău simultaneously with the Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia which declared the Great Union.