Romanians of Serbia

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The Romanian Orthodox Church in Ečka

Romanians (Romanian: Românii din Serbia, Serbian: Rumuni or Румуни) are a recognised national minority in Serbia, numbering 34,576 according to 2002 census. They are mostly concentrated in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, where their number is 30,419, while remaining 4,157 are concentrated in Central Serbia, mainly in Belgrade.

1 Language and religion
2 Geography
3 History
4 Famous Romanians from Serbia
5 Vlachs
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Language and religion

In Vojvodina, Romanian enjoys the status of official language and Romanians in this province receive a wide range of minority rights, including access to state-funded media and education in their native language. Most of the Serbian Romanians are Eastern Orthodox by faith, belonging to the Romanian Orthodox Church.

[edit] Geography

Romanians are mostly concentrated in Serbian Banat, which historically had a heterogeneous population, consisting mostly of Serbs, Romanians, Germans, and Hungarians.

Settlements in the Serbian Banat with a Romanian majority are:

Uzdin (Kovačica municipality),
Jankov Most (Zrenjanin municipality),
Torak (Žitište municipality),
Lokve (Alibunar municipality),
Nikolinci (Alibunar municipality),
Seleuš (Alibunar municipality),
Grebenac (Bela Crkva municipality),
Barice (Plandište municipality),
Straža (Vršac municipality),
Orešac (Vršac municipality),
Vojvodinci (Vršac municipality),
Kuštilj (Vršac municipality),
Jablanka (Vršac municipality),
Sočica (Vršac municipality),
Mesić (Vršac municipality),
Markovac (Vršac municipality),
Mali Žam (Vršac municipality),
Malo Središte (Vršac municipality),
Ritiševo (Vršac municipality).

[edit] History

After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles, which defined the borders between Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, left a Romanian minority of 75,223 people (1910 census in Vojvodina) inside the borders of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In the 1921 census in Vojvodina, Romanian-speakers numbered 65,197 people.

According to the 1991 census, there were 42,331 Romanians in Yugoslavia, of whom 38,832 lived in Vojvodina (1.93% of the entire population of Vojvodina).

[edit] Famous Romanians from Serbia

Vasko Popa (1922-1991), a Serbian poet of Romanian descent.
Emil Petrovici (1899-1958), a Romanian linguist.

[edit] Vlachs

Main article: Vlachs of Serbia

The Vlachs in eastern Serbia are a Romanian-speaking population (although they declare themselves speakers of the Vlach language in the censuses). Most Romanians, as well as international linguists and anthropologists, consider Serbia's ethnic Vlachs to be a subgroup of Romanians. The Movement of Romanians-Vlachs in Serbia, which represents some Vlachs, has also called for the recognition of the Vlachs as a Romanian national minority, giving them similar rights to the Romanians of Vojvodina. Presently, the Vlachs do not have the same rights as the Vojvodina Romanians, such as native-language education and state-funded media.

The Vlachs declare themselves either as Vlachs or Serbs in Serbia's censuses and have Serbian names and surnames. They are hence recognised as an ethnic group of Serbia, separate from Romanians. Most of Serbia's Vlachs are concentrated in the Timočka Krajina region (roughly corresponding to Bor and Zaječar districts), but also in Braničevo and Pomoravlje districts. On the censuses, Vlachs declared that they speak the Vlach language, which is similar to Romanian (note that "the Vlach languages" is a common synonym for the Eastern Romance languages in general, including Romanian). According to 2002 census, there were 40,054 ethnic Vlachs in Serbia. According to leaders of the Vlach community, the census results undercount the real number of ethnic Vlachs.