Anti-Romanian sentiment
Anti-Romanian sentiment, also known as Romanophobia, 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
in the Middle Ages was organized according to the system of Estates, which were privileged groups with power and influence in socio-economic and political life, being nonetheless organized according to certain ethnic criteria as well. The first Estate was the lay and ecclesiastic aristocracy, ethnically heterogeneous, but undergoing a process of homogenization around its Hungarian nucleus. The other Estates were Saxons, Székelys, and Romanians, all with an ethnic and ethno-linguistic basis. The general assembly 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.The 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 redefined nobility in terms of membership in the Roman Catholic Church, thus specifically excluding the Eastern Orthodox Romanians.
Gradually, after 1366, Romanians lost their status as an Estate and were excluded from Transylvania's assemblies. This meant that the Romanian population of Transylvania was never directly represented in the Transylvanian Diet, which consisted of Hungarian nobles, German and Székely nobles.
In the 16th century, Transylvanian laws of justice separated the rights of Hungarians, Saxons, and Székelys from the rights of the Romanians, while Eastern Orthodox became 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", but the other privileged nations objected, and the status of the Romanians remained eventually unchanged.
As a consequence, Romanian peasants would sometimes revolt and demand better treatment. These revolts – even if the initial causes did not have ethnic grounds or shared the fate of the whole peasantry – were firmly suppressed, such as the 1784 Romanian peasant uprising, in which Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, after learning of the escalated situation, ordered the army to intervene. The three leaders were caught by treason in their hiding places and handed over to General Paul Kray. Horea and Cloșca were executed by being broken on the wheel, while Crișan hanged himself in prison before the execution.
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
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
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.
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. 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". 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.
The territory of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was composed of Bessarabia and a part of the territory of the former Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, founded in 1924 within the territory of Ukraine. In the document confirming the establishment of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic 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.
In 1946–1947, as a result of the famine organised in the MSSR, 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.
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 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 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 language.