A Latin people
Romanian is the official language and the mother tongue of 85% of the population. Many words will sound familiar to your ears and eyes: like French, it's a Latin language, close to Italian. Adopted by the Dacians during the brief Roman occupation, Latin evolved here in an original way, isolated from the other Romance languages. Romanian has borrowed heavily from its Slavic, Turkish and Greek neighbors, especially in terms of vocabulary. The structure, however, is clearly Latin, with a few influences, such as the Slavic suffixes -an and -ancă. Love(dragoste or iubire) is Slavic too. Turkish left words for everyday life(dulap, wardrobe; chibrit, match...) and cooking(ciorbă, sarmale...), Greek a few widely-used terms, such as ieftin (cheap) or frică (fear), as did Hungarian: gând (thought), oraș (city)... Other vocables, whose origin could not be identified, are attributed to Dacian: brad (fir tree), copil (child), bucurie (joy)... In the 19th century, many French words were imported, sometimes as such: deja, vizavi, birou, coafor... Written in Cyrillic until the 18th century, Romanian has five extra letters compared to the Latin alphabet: â ă î ș ț. These sounds often require pronunciation effort on the part of foreigners, but contribute to the charm of the Romanian language.
A mosaic of ethnicities
In addition to the Romanian majority, the country has nineteen national minorities, representing around 10% of the population. The Constitution recognizes these minorities and grants them rights: to express their identity, to have at least one representative in Parliament, and to learn their mother tongue.
Transylvania has long been a multi-ethnic territory. The region is home to Hungarians and Saxons, two of the largest historical minorities. The former, who once supplied the region's aristocracy, number over a million and constitute the largest minority, after the Roma. Catholic, Unitarian or Lutheran, the Hungarians are divided into different communities. The main one is the Sicules: a majority in the Harghita and Covasna counties in eastern Transylvania, they claim greater autonomy. The Sicilian museums of Miercurea Ciuc and Sfântu Gheorghe will give you a better understanding of their culture. There are also large Hungarian communities in and around Cluj, on the Hungarian border and in the former mining town of Rimetea. Minor tensions remain with the Romanian majority, linked to the past or to autonomist claims. The main Hungarian party, the Magyar Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), is often integrated into the government, regardless of party affiliation.
More than 600,000 Saxons (Sași) were registered in 1930. By 2022, the number had dwindled to just 23,000. These German communities came to colonize Transylvania in the 12th century and built major towns such as Sighișioara, Sibiu and Brașov, as well as villages with fortified churches, such as Saschiz or Biertan. Saxons left the country en masse after the Second World War, to join the Federal Republic of Germany, which had to pay retribution to the Communist regime in exchange. A new wave of departures followed the fall of Ceaușescu. Today, the Saxons form a small, ageing community, although there is a timid return movement: some are returning to renovate family homes, turning them into second homes or guest houses. President Klaus Iohannis, former mayor of Sibiu, comes from this minority. For an insight into Saxon culture, don't miss a visit to the fortified church of Viscri, with its interesting ethnographic section.
Alongside the Saxon minority, the Jewish community is the one that has seen the sharpest decline in population: from 750,000 in 1930 to less than 4,000 in 2023. Decimated during the Second World War, Jews joined Israel en masse in the decades that followed, again in return for payment. Today, relations between the two countries are close: many Romanians have emigrated there, and many Israelis invest in or visit Romania. To find out more about this community, you can visit the Museum of Jewish History in Bucharest, the Muzeon in Cluj, Elie Wiesel's memorial house in Sighetu Marmației, as well as synagogues and cemeteries all over the country (in Iași, Oradea, Timișoara, Bucharest, etc.).
Lipovens (or Old Believers) are the descendants of traditionalist Russian Orthodox communities who, having refused the religious reforms conducted in the 17th century, were persecuted. Some of them found refuge in Romania: in Moldavia, but above all in Dobrogea and the Danube delta, where they became fishermen. Their blue-painted houses are easily recognizable, notably in Mila 23, Sfântu Gheorghe and Jurilovca. This Slavic-speaking people has preserved its traditions and intense faith. Older gentlemen still sport long beards. There are just under 20,000 Lipovens, representing around 5% of the population of Tulcea County.
Turks and Tatars, numbering around 40,000, are concentrated in Dobrogea, long under Ottoman occupation. In Constanța county, these Muslims account for almost 6% of the population. Several mosques bear witness to this historic presence: the one in Babadag is the oldest.
Ukrainians, who number around 46,000, live mainly in Maramureș and Bucovina, but also in the delta. Elsewhere in the country, there are also small communities of Serbs, Croats, Armenians, Czechs and Poles, particularly in the border regions (Banat, Bucovina...). In a category of its own, Romania has welcomed over 80,000 Ukrainian refugees since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Finally, the Aroumains, who have no official minority status, are the descendants of communities who fled the territory of present-day Romania in the Middle Ages, to settle in the Balkans. Over the centuries, they have developed their own language, derived from Romanian, and their own culture. Many Aromanians moved to Romania between the two world wars, where they retain as much of their distinctive character as possible. A number of celebrities have Aromanian roots, including tennis champion Simona Halep and famous footballer Gheorghe Hagi.
The Roma, a rejected minority
Romania is the European country with the largest Roma population. According to the 2011 census, there are some 600,000 of them. This figure is largely underestimated: for fear of stigmatization, many Roma do not declare themselves as such, and in reality they number around 2 million, making them the largest minority.
Originally from northern India in the 10th century, the Roma arrived in what is now Romania in the 14th. They remained enslaved for five centuries, working in the service of monasteries and nobles, until slavery was abolished in the mid-19th century. A little-known episode in national history, barely mentioned in school textbooks. During the Second World War, Marshal Antonescu's regime deported tens of thousands of Roma to Transnistria, where many died. Under Communism, they were forcibly assimilated and forced to settle.
Today, they are still subject to multiple forms of discrimination. Many are confined to ghettos on the outskirts of towns and villages, in insalubrious buildings or hovels, sometimes without running water. Their living conditions are precarious, and unemployment endemic. Many children drop out of school, and the vast majority never complete their secondary education. Lack of hygiene and health care means their life expectancy is twelve years lower than the national average. However, their situation has improved slightly in recent years. A Roma intelligentsia is asserting itself and the action of NGOs has shaken things up. Policies to combat exclusion have been put in place.
A young diaspora
Every Romanian family has at least one member who has gone abroad. Emigration is a recent phenomenon: under Communism, it was very difficult to cross borders, even for vacations. The Revolution was followed by a first wave of departures in the 1990s. The movement accelerated in the 2000s, with accession to the European Union and the ensuing freedom of movement.
By the end of 2021, three to four million Romanians will be living abroad. They are concentrated in Italy (one million), Germany, Spain and the UK. In France, they number around 130,000. Low salaries are the main reason for Romanian exile. Young, educated, urban dwellers are particularly affected.
This demographic haemorrhage has serious consequences: many villages, but also small towns, are emptying of their workforce, with only the elders and children remaining, entrusted to relatives. At least 100,000 children are growing up without their parents: they're known as "Euro-orphans". The average age has risen from 35.1 in 1992 to 42.4 in 2022. Many sectors are suffering from labor shortages. The healthcare sector is particularly hard hit by the shortage of doctors, nurses, dentists and pharmacists, who have left the country in droves.
On the other hand, Romanians living abroad make a major contribution to the country's economic development: every year, they send at least 8 billion euros to their families, equivalent to around 3% of GDP. The diaspora is also playing a growing role in domestic politics: increasingly mobilized during elections, it demonstrated en masse in August 2018 against corruption and poor governance, other reasons why citizens despair of the future in their country.
Traces of a mad pro-natalist policy
In 1966, a year after coming to power, Ceaușescu passed Decree 770, banning abortion. Gynaecological checks were introduced, and the sale of contraceptives was severely restricted. The regime's aim was to boost the birth rate, in the fantasy of building a strong country. The consequences were dramatic: many women resorted to clandestine abortions, which were sometimes fatal. Abandonment is encouraged by the state: over 100,000 children end up in dismal orphanages, abused and neglected.
When Ceaușescu fell, the repeal of Decree 770 was one of the first measures adopted. The birth rate then fell drastically, from 16 births per 1,000 in 1989 to 9.2 per 1,000 in 2023. But the imprint of this policy remains, and the dropout rate is still among the highest in Europe.
