Romanianization or Rumanization is the term used to describe a number of ethnic assimilation policies implemented by the Romanian authorities during the 20th century. The term particularly refers to Romanian government policy in several periods toward the Hungarian minority in Romania and the Ukrainian minority in Bukovina or Bessarabia.¹²³⁴

Romanianization in Transylvania

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In the period between the two World Wars

At the end of World War I, Transylvania, at the time a territory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, was occupied by the Romanian army. Shortly before, the Romanian National Council (representing the Romanian population) and representatives of the German population had taken the decision of unifying the province with Romania. The decision was contested by the Hungarian minority. The Treaty of Trianon established the Romanian border with the new Hungarian state. However, Transylvania had a large Hungarian minority, of 25.5% according to the 1920 census. A portion of them fled to Hungary after the union;⁵ however, most remained in Romania, as by 1930 their number increased to 26.7% of the Transylvanian population. While Romania included large national minorities, the 1923 Constitution declared the country to be a nation-state.

After the second World War

After 1948, the industrialization of towns made the number of inhabitants in some urban areas to double or even triple, most of the newcomers being ethnic Romanians from the rural areas. The urbanization policy, natural phenomenon as the urbanization being required by the economic development and by the intention of transforming the predominantly agrarian country into an industrialized one, was followed throughout Romania, including in areas inhabited by minorities although much less significant.

Results

According to census data, the Hungarian population of Transylvania decreased from 25.5% in 1920 to 19.6% in 2002. Changes were more significant in cities/larger settlements, where Hungarians used to be in majority, especially in Northern Transylvania such as Oradea (Hungarian: Nagyvárad) and Cluj-Napoca (Hungarian: Kolozsvár).

Romanianization of the Transylvanian population was also affected by the fact that 300,000 Germans emigrated into West Germany. The West German state paid to Romania the equivalent of $2,632 per ethnic German emigrant, as of 1983.⁶ Also, about 50,000 Jews who survived the Holocaust emigrated to Israel on similar terms. These mass emigrations were, however, an example of positive discrimination towards the German and Jewish populations, as the rest of the Transylvanian population (Romanians, Hungarians, Romas) had no opportunity take part in this economical emigration.

Romanianization was less sustained in the compact Székely areas of south-eastern Transylvania (the Székelyföld), where even now Hungarians make around 80% of the population. The capital city of the former Hungarian Autonomous Province (covering mostly the Székely areas) is an exception: the percentage of Hungarians in Târgu Mureş decreased to 46%, as the industrialization of the city led many people from the surrounding rural areas (largely Romanian) to move into the city.^{original research?} After the Romanian Revolution of 1989 a confidential document issued by the Târgu Mureş Communist Party organization was found and published in the local newspaper Népújság, stating the main objectives for changing the ethnic structure of that town in favor of Romanians.^{citation needed}

Policies toward the Ukrainian minority in Romania

The territories of Bukovina (today split between Romania and Ukraine along ethnic lines) and Bessarabia (today, the Republic of Moldova), historically populated by the Romanians and Ukrainians for hundreds of years.

In 1775, Bukovina was annexed by the Habsburg Empire, which offered certain currency in the public life for the two nations,⁷ however the general policy on churches and education disfavored the Christian Orthodox population.⁸. Austrian control favored immigration to develop the economy of the region.⁹¹⁰ Due to Bukovina being administratively linked to the province of Galicia, the ethnic composition of the province was altered by waves of Ruthenian (Ukrainian), German and Jewish immigrants.⁷⁹ According to Keith Hitchins,⁹ "In 1774 the estimated population was 75000; in 1810 it was 198,000, and in 1848 378,000. The changes in the province's ethnic composition were dramatic. In 1774 the Romanians constituted an overwhelming majority, roughly 64,000 to 8,000 Ruthenians (Ukrainians) and 3,000 others. By 1810 the Romanian share had fallen from 85 per cent to 75 per cent (150,000 to 48,000 non-Romanians), and in 1848 there were 209,000 Romanians (55 per cent), 109,000 Ruthenians (29 per cent) and 60,000 others (16 per cent). The Jewish population rose from 526 in 1774 to 11,600 in 1848."

In 1918, following the collapse of Austria-Hungary, control over the whole of Bukovina fell under the Kingdom of Romania. The takeover was followed by the policy of Romanianization of ethnic minorities, mostly Ukrainians, pursued by the Romanian authorities. The policies were built on an increasing sentiment spread in Romanian media and historic works that all of Bukovina was inherently a Romanian ethnic territory. Ion Nistor, a prominent Romanian historian and one of the most vocal proponents of Greater Romanian nationalism,¹¹¹² was made a rector of the University of Cernăuţi (Chernivtsi), the main university of the province. Enrollment of Ukrainians in the university fell from 239 out of 1671 in 1914 to 155 out of 3,247 in 1933, while Romanian enrollment in the same period increased several times, to 2,117 out of 3,247.¹³

The Romanization policies brought the closure of the Ukrainian public schools (all such schools were closed until 1928) and the suppression of most of the Ukrainian (Ruthenian) cultural institutions. The very term "Ukrainians" was prohibited from the official usage and some populations of disputable Ukrainian ethnicity were rather called the "citizens of Romania who forgot their native language" and were forced to change their last names to Romanian-sounding ones.¹¹ As such, according to the Romanian census, of the total population of 805,000, 74% were called Romanians; the number included the Ukrainians and other possibly related Ukrainian ethnic groups Hutsuls referred to as "Romanians who forgot their native language".

According to the 1930 census, Ukrainians made up 3.2% of the population of Romania. The declines in Ukrainian population between the censuses of 1919 and 1930 illustrate the dynamic of assimilation of the Ukrainian minority in Greater Romania. The first one indicates a population of 16,250,000, of which 763,750 (4.7%) were Ukrainians; in 1930, as the total population had increased by 11% (to 18,025,896), the Ukrainian community had dropped to 576,828 members (75.5% of the previous total).¹⁴

Notes and references

See also

• Hungarian minority in Romania
• Bukovina
• Chernivtsi Oblast

External links

• The Situation of Hungarians in Romania in 2005
• The Union of Ukrainians in Romania
• Ukrainian deputy in Romanian Parliament
• Scrisoarea lui Adolf Hitler către regele Carol al II-lea (Letter from Hitler to Carol II, calling for the revision of Romania's borders according to ethnic criteria) (Romanian); note the reference: "After the [First] World War, Romania, favored by an exceptional opportunity, has acquired territories from three states, [territories] which, in my opinion, she cannot maintain for long through a forceful policy. The situation would have been different were Romania to have succeeded in accomplishing the internal, ethnic and political, assimilation of these territories, or if the military weakness of [her] neighbouring countries would have remained permanent."
• Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.