Aromanians, A-Romanians, Romanians?
This is a book that may be written unwittingly from a Romanian point of view, because the author was born in Romania. On the other hand, the author is coming from a family with 800 years of Aromanian history.
Therefore, I must have a better understanding of the problems related both to Romanians and Aromanians.
After years of study, I have serious reasons to believe that Aromanians are not Romanians, as the state policy of Romania tries to impose for the more than a century, but rather brothers. And this is not at all a blasphemy…
What could this term, Aromanian, mean? Probably, and this could be the first guess, these Aromanians are not Romanians, as the name might suggest, compared to other words like symmetry and asymmetry.
Trying in vain to find an answer about the reason for the presence of this letter A before the word Romanian‚ I have decided to write this book…
This book does not avoid some taboo problems that are not ‘politically correct’, well-hidden under the carpet. This damaging attitude does not solve any problems, it only keeps them intact, any approach being treated as taboo.
Romania and the vanishing Aromanian
For the last 150 years, Romanians did not want or could not understand who are the Aromanians. The policy of establishing schools before 1900 in the Balkans to teach the Romanian language, instead of the Aromanian one, is something that today we would call assimilation.
Yes, we cannot turn back time, but we can understand more and act before it’s too late...
Aromanians and Romanians today
I wrote three books in which I tried to explain once again why this Aromanian affair exists and what is there for the Greeks and for the Romanians.
This is apparently the most delicate problem: how to explain to a typical Romanian that an Aromanian is different enough, that he should not be considered a Romanian.
Now, more than ever, the interests in the assimilation of outside groups in a given country, as being of the same origin, are stronger than ever.
The situation is even more acute when it comes to member states of the European Union, which know that having more citizens offers them more power at the common European table.
The Aromanians, once again in their history, are trapped between various state interests.
The new Millenium Aromanian
Aromanian is no longer the Middle Ages’ Vlach, nor the Aromanian banished from his own house and chased by armed hordes beyond Vienna, far into Poland.
Nor is nowadays the Aromanian a EU citizen with full rights, still living in a world still divided into several small Balkan countries.
The danger of losing his identity still stands above his head like the sword of Damocles and here is the most serious one: the danger of assimilation.
Today, after two Balkan wars and two world wars, with serious consequences in all areas, the Aromanians’ situation in the Balkans is dramatic. Failure to impose to countries in the region, very soon, schools or classes taught in Aromanian, means the language that withstood in those areas for more than two thousand years will disappear before our eyes.
Neagu Djuvara - 1916-2018
What chances of survival would the Aromanian identity have in this modern world of globalization, away from the traditional model of the Aromanian community?
I wrote this book with the belief that their chances must exist, that this attempt is not in vain.
