Romanian Adam & Eve

Topics covered in this Section:

• Introduction
• Nationalist Historians
• Ethnic Diversity

Introduction

This section might also be titled "The Search for Romania's National Ancestor."

It sure would be convenient for the historians if only one ethnic group had settled in Romania. Then they could point to this group and say, "These are the true Romanians, and they have lived here forever!"

But life, and certainly life in Eastern Europe, didn't work out that way. That's not, it seems, how it developed for any of the countries in Eastern Europe and, most certainly, not for Romania.

Unfortunately -- or, perhaps, fortunately -- fate didn't place just one distinct ethnic group in this geographic region. There's no nice, neat, and tidy ethnic package here. Quite the contrary. Instead, we see an extremely vital, complex, polyethnic mixture of cultures who settled in the region over a long span of time. The Romanian people of today are the result of a diverse gene pool.

Nationalist Historians

Still "nationalist" historians continue, desperately at times, to try to place their ancestors in these nice, neat boxes. Sometimes their almost religious zeal to verify their claim to the land results in a national mythology instead of a national history.

The Romanian historians chant their mantra, as if their ancestors were a single ethnic group who had always lived there. The Hungarian nationalists, among others, claim that's a bold-faced lie. Meanwhile, biased western journalists and historians expect Eastern Europe to have followed the same historic patterns as was seen in the West.

Ethnic Diversity

Well, who am I to take sides in this hot debate? Rather than try to prove a single ethnic nationality had always lived on Romanian soil, I'll instead celebrate the diversity of ethnic ancestors who make up the current Romanian people. Along the way we'll discover that modern geopolitical boundaries have little in common with the real distribution of people in the region.

The ethnic diversity of Romania's past is not bad, but good, news. Instead of bemoaning the lack of a pure bloodline, let's celebrate. The Romanians are not monochrome, cookie-cutter clones of some single mythical gene pool, but instead, a wonderful rainbow of diversity.

As it turns out, it's futile to search for the pure, unmistakable Romanian ancestor.

Go Elsewhere

At this point, you have a couple of options:

• Return to the History Department to choose another timeframe.
• Return to the Introduction Section to choose another topic.
• Advance to the next topic in the Introduction Section, Problems with Geography.
• Fast forward to the next timeframe, the Pre-History Section.

Enjoy your stay and have a great day!