Emil Tircomnicu

Among Romanian historical communities, two are currently close to ethnic and linguistic assimilation, due to their small number of members, the impossibility of claiming their cultural and linguistic rights, as well as the refusal of Balkan states to protect them. These groups are the Meglenoromanians and Istroromanians. In this study, we make a historical and ethnographic analysis of the small Meglenoromanian community, which was united until the Balkan wars, was split in two through the division of the Meglen land between Greece and the Serbian-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom (1913), and then split again into two groups through the expulsion of Muslim Meglenoromanians to Turkey (1921) and the colonization of over 2 000 persons from Romania (in the Quadrilater, beginning in 1925, and afterwards in Cerna village, Tulcea county, in 1940).

Romanians are one of the native people from this part of Europe, the only heirs of the eastern Roman Empire. Romanians were born, as showed in historical and linguistic studies, on both sides of the Danube River, an ethnical continuity on both banks of the river, until the Slav people arrived in the 6th and 7th centuries AD. The political situation created after the First World War caused serious problems for the Aromanians in the newly created Balkan states. There were substantial population exchanges among the Balkanic countries (Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria). This situation led to the change of the ethnic composition in these countries There were three main emigration centers: Meglenia, Veria and Vodena. The idea of the Macedo-Romanians’ migration to Cadrilater represents a consequence of the demographic pressure put on the Aromanian population living in Greece. The difficulties, which appeared, caused the migration to Cadrilater of an important Aromanian segment (more than 25 000), between 1925 and 1933. But these circumstances did not mean the end of their tragedy because they were displaced to Constanţa and Tulcea when territory in Cadrilater was ceded to Bulgaria (September 1940). In Dobrudja, the Macedo-Romanians are a linguistic and cultural community, but, at the same time, south-Danubian Romanians, due to hostile historical events, were forced to settle here. In their native lands, they were in contact with other Balkan people, being separated from the body of Carpathian and Danubian Romanianhood. Looking after sheep, carrying merchandise and trading were the main issues that shaped the common ethnic and linguistic aspects of survival on both sides of the Danube River.The paper is focused upon the situation and specific problems of the Aromanians living in contemporary Romania.

The faith of the Aromanians in Romania is very similar to the one of the German-Saxons left (after 1947) in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Jews who fled from Romania, Poland and other countries to Israel, the Greeks from Anatolia, forced to receive safe haven, in Greece, in 1923, the Bulgarians from Northern Dobruja resettled in 1940, in Bulgaria, the Turks from all the Balkans seeking for refuge in Turkey. Can we imagine these ethno-linguistical communities, with their own characteristics, but included in national majority, speculating the advantages received by ethnic groups, in opposition to the national majority, demanding the status of a different ethnic group? Thinking of the history of these ethnic communities and nations, this kind of ideas is pure fiction, and disqualifies all their supporters. We must treat the same way people supporting these foolish theories about the Aromanians. There are the authorities of the Balkan's states which supported the effort of imposing the theories of the pretended existence of the Aromanian ethnic group, apart from the Romanian nation.