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{{Short description|Romanian citizens of Italian descent}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
| group = Italian Romanians
| native_name = {{native name|it|Italo-romeni}}<br />{{native name|ro|Italo-români}}
| image = Farul Genovez, Constanta.jpg
|image_caption = The [[Genoese Lighthouse]], built around 1300<ref name="Bălan">Bălan, Șt.; Mihăilescu, N. Șt. - ''Istoria științei și tehnicii în România, date cronologice'', Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, București, 1985, p. 37.</ref> by the [[Republic of Genoa|Genoese]] who traded at the port of [[Constanța]].<ref name="europeanaCT-II-m-A-02800">{{Cite web |url=https://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/2020716/HA_CT_II_m_A_02800.html |title=Europeana Collections |access-date=2018-07-29 |archive-date=2017-10-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171030152503/http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/2020716/HA_CT_II_m_A_02800.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
| pop = {{Circa|9,000}} (by ancestry)<br />
{{Circa|80,000}} (by birth)<ref>https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-and-emigrant-populations-country-origin-and-destination {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref>
| popplace = [[Suceava County]], [[Bacău County]], [[Galați County]], [[Iași County]], [[Constanța County]], [[Brașov County]], [[Prahova County]], [[Vâlcea County]] and [[Timiș County]]) and in the [[Bucharest|Municipality of Bucharest]]
| langs = [[Romanian language|Romanian]]{{·}}[[Italian language|Italian]] and [[Languages of Italy|Italian dialects]]
| rels = [[Roman Catholicism]]
| related_groups = [[Italians]], [[Italian Belgians]], [[Italians in the United Kingdom|Italian Britons]], [[Italian Finns]], [[Italian French]], [[Italian Germans]], [[Italian Spaniards]], [[Italian Swedes]], [[Italian immigration to Switzerland|Italian Swiss]], [[Corfiot Italians]], [[Genoese in Gibraltar]], [[Italians of Crimea]], [[Italians of Odesa]]
}}
'''Italian Romanians''' ({{langx|it|italo-romeni}}; {{langx|ro|italo-români}}) are [[Romania]]n-born citizens who are fully or partially of [[Italy|Italian]] descent, whose ancestors were [[Italians]] who emigrated to Romania during the [[Italian diaspora]], or Italian-born people in Romania.
Italians have been present in Romania since the first half of the 19th century, when they emigrated from some [[Italian regions]] (particularly from [[Veneto]] and [[Friuli]]) to work in the mines, railway yards or construction.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://parma.repubblica.it/dettaglio/romeni/1617963 |title=Quando i clandestini eravamo noi |access-date=2023-06-08 |archive-date=2010-09-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100906195044/http://parma.repubblica.it/dettaglio/romeni/1617963 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
==Characteristics==
Italian Romanians are fairly dispersed throughout the country, even though there is a higher number of them in some parts of the country (particularly [[Suceava County]], [[Bacău County]], [[Galați County]], [[Iași County]], [[Constanța County]], [[Brașov County]], [[Prahova County]], [[Vâlcea County]] and [[Timiș County]]), and in the [[Bucharest|Municipality of Bucharest]].
As an officially recognised historical [[Minorities of Romania|ethnic minority]] estimated at 9,000 Romanians of Italian ancestry, Italians have [[Romanian ethnic minorities parties|one seat]] reserved in the Romanian [[Chamber of Deputies of Romania|Chamber of Deputies]]. This was held by the [[Italian Community of Romania]] between 1992 and 2004, and the [[Association of Italians of Romania]] since 2004.
In recent years, the number of foreign-born Italians living in Romania has increased substantially. As of November 2007, there are some 12,000 foreign-born Italians in and around [[
According to Eurostat, in 2015 there were 38,580 persons born in Italy living in Romania.
By mid-2020, there were 80,000 persons born in Italy living in Romania.<ref>https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-and-emigrant-populations-country-origin-and-destination {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref> Italians in Romania represent the second largest immigrant group in Romania, after [[Moldovans in Romania]].<ref>https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-and-emigrant-populations-country-origin-and-destination {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref> Among immigrants in Romania, in 2021, the most common countries of birth were Republic of Moldova (40%), Italy (11%) and Spain (9%).<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/3a9aed6c-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/3a9aed6c-en | title=Page Rendering Error | OECD iLibrary }}</ref>
==History==
[[File:Italieni Romania (2002).png|thumb|right|Italians in 2002 Romania]]
The territory of today's Romania has been part of the Italians' (especially [[Republic of Genoa|Genoese]] and [[Republic of Venice|Venetians]]) trade routes on the [[Danube]] since at least the 13th century. They founded several ports on the Danube, including ''[[Vicina (town)|Vicina]]'' (near [[Isaccea]]), [[Sfântu Gheorghe, Tulcea|Sfântu Gheorghe]], ''San Giorgio'' ([[Giurgiu]]) and [[Calafat]].
The Genoese in the 13th century also created some colonies. The Turkish conquest massacred them, forcing the survivors to move elsewhere. Some managed to return to [[Liguria]], but others remained in the area of [[Bessarabia]] and [[Dobruja]]. In fact, illustrious families of the Moldavian nobility—called boyarii (or boyars)—trace their origins back to some of these settlers. Such is the case of the [[Moldavia|Moldovan]] "Negruzzi" of the first half of the 19th century, a family to which [[Iacob Negruzzi]] and [[Costache Negruzzi]] belong.
Subsequently, the first Italians to emigrate permanently to the territory of present-day Romania were some families from [[Val di Fassa]] and [[Val di Fiemme]] (in [[Trentino]]) who, in 1821, were transferred to the [[Apuseni Mountains]], in [[Transylvania]], to work as woodcutters and lumberjacks on behalf of an Austrian timber merchant.<ref name="Caritas, 2008">Caritas, '' Immigrazioni e lavoro in Italia. Statistiche, problemi e prospettive'', Roma, IDOS, 2008, p. 61. (In Italian)</ref> At the time, [[Triveneto]], as well as Transylvania, was included in the [[Austrian Empire]]; these movements were therefore facilitated by Austria, as part of a policy of internal migration between the poorest and border regions of the Empire.<ref name="ReferenceA">Caritas, '' Immigrazioni e lavoro in Italia. Statistiche, problemi e prospettive'', Roma, IDOS, 2008, p. 59. (In Italian)</ref>
In the [[Kingdom of Romania]], Italian emigration was incentivized by the Romanian authorities as the Romanian ruling class felt the strategic need to strengthen the link with Latinity in order to consolidate, on the one hand, the identity of the country, surrounded by "a sea of [[Slavs]]," and, on the other hand, to proceed with the "Romanization" of the newly annexed territories.<ref name=":3">{{cite journal |author=Andreea Raluca Torre |title=The Italians in Romania. Ethnography of a village in Dobrogea |journal=The Italians in Romania. Ethnography of a Village in Dobrogea |publisher=University College of London}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
The migratory flow continued after the [[unification of Italy]], not only towards Austro-Hungarian Transylvania but also towards the rest of Romania (Principality of [[Moldavia]] and [[Wallachia]]) which, with the independence obtained from the [[Ottoman Empire]] (1877), and following the [[Plebiscite of Veneto of 1866|annexation of Veneto to Italy (1866)]], on the occasion of the [[Third Italian War of Independence]], it became a migratory valve that was important for the poor and overpopulated region. At the end of the 19th century, in fact, about 10-15% of the emigrants who left from Veneto headed for Romania,<ref name="ReferenceA"/> even if, often made up of seasonal migrations in the construction, railway construction, forests or in mines.<ref name="Caritas, 2008"/> The number of Italian emigrants in Romania went from 830 in 1871 to more than 8,000 in 1901, according to estimates by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.<ref name="Caritas, 2008"/> After 1880, [[Italians]] from [[Friuli]] and [[Veneto]] settled in [[Greci, Tulcea|Greci]], Cataloi and [[Măcin]] in Northern Dobruja. Most of them worked in granite quarries in the [[Măcin Mountains]], some became farmers,<ref>{{Cite journal |journal=[[România Liberă]]|first=Alexandru |last=Mihalcea |title=150 de ani de istorie comuna. Italienii din Dobrogea -mica Italie a unor mesteri mari|date=2005-01-21|url=http://www.alef-fvg.it/emigrazione/approfondimenti/romania2005.htm |access-date=2007-04-29|language=ro |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060607103203/http://www.alef-fvg.it/emigrazione/approfondimenti/romania2005.htm |archive-date = June 7, 2006}}</ref> and others worked in road building.<ref>{{Citation|publisher = J. W. Luce|publication-place = Boston|title = From Carpathian to Pindus|last = Stratilesco|first = Tereza|publication-date = 1907|oclc = 4837380}}</ref>
Italian emigration continued in the [[interwar period]], reaching a peak of around 60,000 Italians in Romania in the 1930s, and gradually decreased in the 1940s. According to historical research, about 130,000 Italians moved to Romania between the end of the 19th century and [[World War II]], most of whom returned to their homeland after 1945.<ref>R. Scagno, ''Veneti in Romania'', Longo Editore, Ravenna, 2008. (In Italian)</ref> Those emigrants who had renounced their Italian citizenship remained in the Romanian cities. Today the historical Italian minority is estimated at 9,000 Romanians of Italian ancestry.
In the 1990s, after the fall of [[Nicolae Ceaușescu|Ceaușescu]]'s [[Communist regime in Romania|communist regime]], migration flows from Italy resumed and Italian emigrants were granted ethnic minority status and the right to elect their own parliamentarians.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Mariana Minascurta |date=2017 |title=Comunicazione interculturale tra italiani e romeni |journal=Comunicazione Interculturale Tra Italiani e Romeni |publisher=Università Ca' Foscari Venezia}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
A 2009 report indicates that Romania is home to about two hundred thousand Italians, centralized mainly in [[Banat]] and [[Transylvania]], mostly employed in the restaurant industry. Italy continues to be since 2006, the leading investor country in terms of the number of registered companies, with about 20 percent of the total active presence, and there are 26,984 Italian companies employing 800,000 people.<ref>{{cite web |date=20 March 2009 |title=Italiani in Romania |url=https://www.repubblica.it/venerdi/reportage/2016/01/09/news/osi_tramonta_il_miracolo_economico_dei_due_paesi_che_si_credevano_quasi_fratelli-143903447/}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> The 2021 Romanian census recorded 4039 ethnic Italians.<ref>{{cite web |date=4 March 2023 |title=Analiză. Structura etnică a populației în urma recensământului. |url=https://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-opinii-26120070-analiza-structura-etnica-populatiei-urma-recensamantului.htm}}</ref>
=== Italians in the Dobruja region ===
At the end of the 19th century, thousands of families, mainly from [[Veneto]] and [[Friuli]], settled in the coastal region of [[Dobruja]], "where the climate was benign and the land munificent."<ref name=":32">{{cite journal |author=Andreea Raluca Torre |title=The Italians in Romania. Ethnography of a village in Dobrogea |journal=The Italians in Romania. Ethnography of a Village in Dobrogea |publisher=University College of London}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> Italians were mainly employed in the construction industry, as miners, loggers or farmers.
According to statistics,<ref>Censimento degli italiani all’estero alla metà dell’anno 1927 (Roma, 1928: LX)</ref> in 1899 there were 1,391 Italians living in Dobruja; by 1928 the number grew to 1,993, representing one-fifth of the Italian population in Romania. Between the late 1800s and 1945, a total of 130,000 Italians emigrated to Romania, most of whom returned home at the end of World War II.<ref>{{Harvtxt|Scagno|2008|ref=Scagno 2008}}</ref>
==== Italian and its dialects in Greci ====
At the beginning of the 20th century, 111 Italians lived in [[Greci, Tulcea|Greci]], a village on the banks of the [[Danube]] in the historical region of Dobruja.<ref>Ionescu, 1904:90</ref>
According to recent studies by Amelia Toader,<ref>{{Harvtxt|Toader|1972|ref=Toader 1972}}</ref><ref>Written in 1972, Amelia Toader's thesis on the Bellunese dialect spoken by some families of Greci is considered the first academic study of the village's Italian community.</ref> about 40 families lived in the village in 1972, of which 20 were of [[Belluno|Bellunese]] origin.
As of the 2002 census, the population of Greci is reported to be 5,656, with 94 Italians now in the third and fourth generations, fifth in some cases. Representatives of the third generation (who are now about sixty years old) speak Romanian as their first language, but many also speak Italian and Bellunese or Friulian dialect, steeped in Romanian expressions.
According to the testimonies of residents, including the president of the Association of Friulians of Greci Otilia Bataiola,<ref>{{cite web |title=Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso - Intervista "I friulani di Greci" |url=https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/aree/Romania/I-friulani-di-Greci-168516}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> initially marriages took place only between Italians, and for daily communication, within the walls of the house, dialects were used, [[Friulian language|Friulian]] or [[Venetian language|Venetian]] depending on the origin.
Beginning with the second generation, mixed marriages began with members of a growing Romanian community: the beginning of the twentieth century was in fact marked by the policies of ethnic colonization and cultural homogenization of Dobruja implemented by the [[Romanian government]], aimed at establishing an indigenous majority, thus counterbalancing the [[Turkish people|Turkish]]-[[Tatars|Tatar]] presence that had been predominant until then.
The preservation of the language was made possible by religious celebrations in Italian in the village's Catholic church, held once a month, and by Italian courses at the village school.
The village has the Catholic church of Santa Lucia, built between 1904 and 1912 through a donation from the Vals family, and an Italian school, founded and built in 1932 by the Italians of the village. Teachers came directly from Italy, as did textbooks and uniforms for the children.
Until World War II, the priests were also Italian, but were later replaced by Romanian priests, initiating the loss of the use of the Italian language, also increased by the closure of the only Italian school in the village by the Romanian communist government.
The future of the Italians of Greci is at the center of academic discussion: some scholars<ref>{{cite journal |author=Cristina Gafu |author2=Chetan Nubert |title=Insule de conservare a identităţii etnice. Istroromânii |journal=Philologica Jassyensia |publisher=Editura Alfa |pages=159–167 |number=I}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> see the increase in mixed marriages and the closure of the granite quarries, the main occupation of Italian workers, as the main causes of the inevitable disappearance of the village's ethnic Italian community.
=== Timișoara, "the eighth province of Veneto" ===
The city of [[Timișoara]], capital of the [[Timiș County]] within the [[Banat]] region, has experienced a strong migration flow from Italy since the 1970s, particularly from the Northeastern provinces.<ref>{{Harvtxt|Dematteo|2018|ref=Dematteo 2018}}</ref>
The main industries, almost all foreign, come mainly from [[Germany]], the [[United States]] and [[Italy]]. The district is called "the eighth province of [[Veneto]]" because of the high number of regional companies that have relocated production to the area: there are almost 27,000 Italian companies and, as of December 2002, the number of companies with Veneto capital participation present in Romania was 2,038.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |author=Centro estero delle Camere di Commercio del Veneto |author2=Antenna Veneto Romania |date=2002 |title=Indagine sulla presenza imprenditoriale veneta in Romania |journal=Indagine Sulla Presenza Imprenditoriale Veneta in Romania}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|+Geographical origin of the Venetian presence in Romania<ref>{{cite journal |author=Antenna Veneto Romania |date=2003 |title=Indagine sulla presenza imprenditoriale veneta in Romania |journal=Indagine Sulla Presenza Imprenditoriale Veneta in Romania |page=8}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
!Province
!Number of firms
!% of total Venetian firms
!% of total Italian firms
|-
|[[Belluno]]
|26
|1.28%
|0.21%
|-
|[[Padua]]
|454
|22.28%
|3.67%
|-
|[[Rovigo]]
|94
|4.61%
|0.76%
|-
|[[Treviso]]
|434
|21.30%
|3.51%
|-
|[[Venice]]
|225
|11.04%
|1.82%
|-
|[[Vicenza]]
|417
|20.46%
|3.37%
|-
|[[Verona]]
|388
|19.04%
|3.14%
|-
|Total
|2038
|100%
|16.48%
|}
The Venetian language is the city's second language, and two weeklies are printed in Italian: ''[https://sette-giorni.ro/ Sette giorni] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921151129/http://sette-giorni.ro/|date=21 settembre 2020}}'' and il ''Gazzettino<ref name=":1">{{cite web |title=Comune di Faenza - Città gemellate |url=http://www.comune.faenza.ra.it/Citta/Rapporti-internazionali/Citta-gemellate/Timisoara-Romania-12.03.1991}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>''.
==== "Casa Faenza" in Timisoara ====
The city of Timisoara has been twinned with [[Faenza]] since 12 March 1991.<ref name=":1" />
Casa Faenza is a health facility active in Timisoara since the end of 2000, and is a semi-residential center for the treatment of the mental needs of children up to 16 years of age, built with the contribution of the Municipality of Faenza, the Faenza-Timisoara Friendship Committee, the ''Opere Pie'', the Faenza section of the [[Italian Red Cross]], several local companies and individual citizens.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sito Ufficiale "Casa Faenza" |url=http://www.casafaenza.ro/ro/despre-noi.html}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Casa Faenza a Timisoara |url=http://www.comune.faenza.ra.it/Citta/Rapporti-internazionali/Citta-gemellate/Timisoara-Romania-12.03.1991}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
==== Antenna Veneto Romania ====
Antenna Veneto Romania, established through an agreement between the Foreign Center of the Veneto Chambers of Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture of Timisoara, serves as a counter for entrepreneurs from Veneto who intend to start or consolidate economic relations with Romania and for companies from Veneto that have already relocated to the country.<ref name=":0" />
During 2003, Antenna Veneto Romania concluded the first survey on the Venetian entrepreneurial presence in Romania. The survey is still the only quantitative analysis of the Venetian presence in Romania and, as far as Italian relocation is concerned, no complete official data are available to date.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Antenna Veneto Romania |title=Relazione attività 2003 |journal=Relazione attività 2003 |pages=13–14}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
== Linguistic minority and the Italian community ==
In Romania, Italian is a recognized language of a linguistic minority due to the 2005 National Law on the Status of Minorities.{{cn|date=April 2024}}
Following the fall of the communist regime in 1989, the Romanian state granted Italian communities in the country the status of a linguistic minority and the right to be represented by their own parliamentarian in the [[Chamber of Deputies (Romania)|Chamber of Deputies]].<ref name="ref_A">{{Harvtxt|Caritas|2008|ref=Caritas 2008}}</ref>
Since 1999, an estimated 20,000 Italians have arrived in Romania, settling in [[Bucharest]], the Timisoara area and Transylvania, employed mainly in the restaurant industry.{{cn|date=April 2024}}
The Italian community is organized through the [[Association of Italians of Romania]] (in Romanian: ''Asociaţia Italienilor din România'', abbreviated as RO.AS.IT), a group founded in 1993 in [[Suceava]] by descendants of Italian origin settled in the [[Bukovina|Bukovina area]], eager to revive the unity of the community of Italians in Romania. In 2004, the president of the Suceava Association became a member of the [[Romanian Parliament]], officially representing the Italian ethnic minority.{{cn|date=April 2024}}
Thanks to the Association, the teaching of the Italian language in schools was reintroduced after sixty years of interruption and is now active at the "Dante Alighieri" High School in Bucharest.{{cn|date=April 2024}}
== Italian language and culture in Romania ==
Italian culture was introduced to Romania starting in the Middle Ages following a variety of routes. One point of reference was the relationship that [[Stephen the Great]], [[Prince of Moldavia]] (1457-1504) had with the [[Republic of Venice]] and [[Pope Sixtus IV]]. The Moldavian prince maintained an extensive correspondence with the pontiff, who appointed him, after a large battle against the Turks, ''[[Athleta Christi]]'', one of the highest titles in the Middle Ages.
In the relationship between the two cultures, the Romanians are the only Romance people who have retained the memory of Rome in their name. They always referred to each other as ''Rumâni'', ''Români'', while others called them Wallachians, Vlachs, Blachians, Volohi, which all meant "Romanic" or "speakers of a Romance language."<ref name=":5">{{cite web |author=Violeta P. Popescu |title=Alcuni aspetti delle relazioni culturali italo-romene nel corso del tempo |url=https://culturaromena.it/alcuni-aspetti-delle-relazioni-culturali-italo-romene-nel-corso-del-tempo/}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
Traveling in [[Transylvania]], [[Moldavia]] and [[Wallachia]] in 1532, Francesco della Valle in fact wrote:
{{Blockquote|text=''Their language is a little different from our Italian, they call themselves Romei in their language because they say they came anciently from Rome to inhabit that country, and if anyone asks if they can speak in the Wallachian language, they answer in this way: Sti Rominest? Which means: Do you know Romanian, for the language is corrupted (...).''<ref>{{cite web |title=Etimologia del ethnonym rumena (romano) |url=https://it.qwe.wiki/wiki/Name_of_Romania}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>}}
The Latin heritage has always represented the Romanians' strongest historical link with the West and has remained an important means of maintaining their identity over the centuries.
During the nineteenth century, the connections of culture and ideals between the two peoples, both of whom were involved in the struggle for national unity, intensified. A cult for Italy, the land of the Romans from which originated the army of [[Trajan]], [[Trajan's Dacian Wars|conqueror of Dacia]], took root in the majority of Romanian intellectuals.<ref name=":5" />
It was in this context that, in 1848, the Transylvanian poet [[Andrei Mureșanu|Andrei Mureşanu]] composed the [[Deșteaptă-te, române!|Romanian national anthem]] (official until 1918), shortly after the conference of Wallachian and Moldavian revolutionaries (the ''Adunarea naţională de la Blaj''). The anthem contains a significant passage in which the cultural roots and strong connection to Latinity are emphasized:{{Text and translation|Deșteaptă-te, române, din somnul cel de moarte,<br />
În care te-adânciră barbarii de tirani!<br />
Acum ori niciodată, croiește-ți altă soarte,<br />
La care să se-nchine și cruzii tăi dușmani.<br />
Acum ori niciodată să dăm dovezi la lume<br />
Că-n aste mâni mai curge un sânge de roman,<br />
Și că-n a noastre piepturi păstrăm cu fală-un nume<br />
Triumfător în lupte, un nume de Traian!|Awaken thee Romanian from your sleep of death<br />
Into which you've been sunk by the barbaric tyrants.<br />
Now or never, sow a new fate for yourself<br />
To which even your cruel enemies will bow!<br />
Now or never, let us show the world<br />
That through these arms, Roman blood still flows;<br />
And that in our chests we still proudly bear a name<br />
Triumphant in battles, the name of Trajan!}}
=== Italian theater in Romania ===
In the context of the theatrical relations in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries between European countries, the relations between Romania and Italy are of particular interest. The presence of [[Theatre of Italy|Italian performers]] on the Romanian stage was numerically greater than that of their French, German, or English counterparts,<ref>{{Harvtxt|Rotondi|2017|pp=62–84|ref=Rotondi 2017}}</ref> and the Italian language in Romania was conveyed, as in the rest of the world, by theater and opera.
One of the most important phenomena that fostered the Romance Westernization of the Romanian literary language was the large influx of translations of French and Italian literature. In the eighteenth century, the figure of the Italian poet [[Pietro Metastasio]] predominates with no less than nine translated texts: Italian melodrama arrives in [[United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia|Romanian principalities]] in peculiar ways in that the translations are not so much intended for stage performance as for reading only; they are also based not on the original Italian text but on some translations into the [[Modern Greek|Modern Greek language]].<ref>{{cite journal |author=Federico Donatiello |date=December 2014 |title=I primi contatti con il Teatro Occidentale in Romania: le traduzioni dei melodrammi di Pietro Metastasio nei Principati Danubiani alla fine del XVIII secolo |journal=Hiperboreea |publisher=Penn State University Press |volume=1 |pages=111–124 |number=2}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
In her essay ''Verismul italian şi literatura română. Teatrul italian în România: 1871-1911'' (Italian Verism and Romanian Literature. Italian theater in Romania: 1871-1911),<ref>{{cite book |author=Corina Popescu |url=http://ebooks.unibuc.ro/filologie/verism/cuprins.htm |title=Verismul italian şi literatura română. Teatrul italian în România: 1871-1911 |date=2000 |publisher=Editura Universitaţii din Bucureşti}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> author Corina Popescu analyzes a particular element of the link between Italy and Romania: the presence of Italian verist drama and that of the Italian realist-verist actor on the Romanian stage, considering the relationship between language, literature, dramaturgy and theater.
=== The study of Italian in Romania ===
The course of the nineteenth century witnessed a real expansion of Italian studies in Romania. Many intellectuals demanded the inclusion of the Italian language in Romanian schools, and associations and institutes for the promotion of Italian language and culture emerged.
The most renowned promoters of Italian language teaching in nineteenth-century Romania, as well as authors of grammars, manuals and handbooks for study, are the Italians Gerolamo Abbeatici, Orazio Spinazzolla, Gian Luigi Frollo and Ramiro Ortiz.<ref name=":2">{{cite journal |author=Carmen Burcea |title=Ramiro Ortiz |url=http://www.oocities.org/marin_serban/burcea2003.html |journal=Università di Bucarest}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
==== Gerolamo Abbeatici ====
A teacher of Italian in [[Galați]] and [[Bucharest]], he is known first and foremost as the author of manuals that testify to the zeal with which Bucharest's intellectuals attended Italian (and French) classes:
* ''Gramatica Italiano-Romanu, intitulată Instructorul Italian'', published in Galați and Bucharest, 1848;
* ''Dialogu Italiano-Romanu, cu începuturi de Gramatica, în Lecțiuni. Dedicatu nobilei națiuni române, Bucharest: Imprimeria Statului, numită Nifon, 1860-1862.''
==== Orazio Spinazzolla ====
The Neapolitan Spinazzolla authored grammars (such as the ''Romanian Grammar and Romanian-Italian Dialogues,'' 1863) and miscellanies to stimulate interest in [[Italian literature]].
Spinazzolla requested his transfer from his professorship at the Santo Sava School (1850-1870) to the newly founded University of Bucharest, where he was the originator of a chair of Italian language and literature.<ref>{{cite book |author=Alice Marcu |title=Pentru istoricul catedrei de italiană de la Universitatea din Bucureşti |volume=Studii Italiene 4 (1937) |pages=145–146}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
==== Gian Luigi Frollo ====
Frollo, a Venetian, was a professor at the King Charles I high schools in [[Brăila]] (1863-1869) and [[Matei Basarab National College|Matei Basarab]] in Bucharest (1869-1878), and a writer of grammars and dictionaries to provide schoolchildren with working tools:
* ''Lecţiuni de limba şi literatura italiană. Elemente de Gramatică, Lecturi şi traducţiuni'', Brăila, 1868;
* ''Limba româna şi dialectele italiene,'' 1869.
As early as 1871, he denounced the "''gallomania''" of the coordinators of public education who, by placing the French language among the compulsory subjects and establishing a French chair in both universities, were proving to be more Catholic than the Pope. According to Frollo, the solution was precisely the study of Italian.
The professor demanded "that Italian be imposed by the authorities as it was a few years ago and as it still is in the trade schools, in the gymnasium in Brăila and the high school in [[Bârlad]]." His suggestion was to found a new chair in the Faculty of Letters: comparative philology of Romance languages and literatures.<ref name=":2" />
==== Ramiro Ortiz ====
A native of [[Chieti]], he was sent to Romania in 1909 by the [[Italian Ministry of Education]] as a lecturer in Italian language and literature.
A specialist in [[Romance philology]], Ramiro Ortiz was a professor at the [[University of Bucharest]] for 24 years, where he founded the Italian language and literature seminar and the journal ''Roma'' (1921-1933).
He is considered, as well, the founding father of the Italian Institute of Culture in Bucharest. From 1933 until his death, he was professor of Romance philology at the [[University of Padua]], where, in 1937, he created the Romanian language and literature lectureship.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Dimitrie C. Ionescu |title=Cronica anului şcolar 1909-1910 |journal=Anuarul Universităţii din Bucureşti pe anul şcolar 1909-1910, al XVIII-lea anuar publicat de secretariatul Universităţii |publisher=Bucarest: Noua Tipografie Profesională}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
==== Italian Cultural Institute of Bucharest ====
The [[Istituto Italiano di Cultura|Italian Cultural Institute]] of Bucharest<ref>{{cite web |title=Istituto italiano di cultura di Bucarest |url=https://iicbucarest.esteri.it/IIC_Bucarest/it/}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> was founded in 1924 as a private institution through the efforts of a number of prominent Italian and Romanian intellectuals including [[Nicolae Iorga]], [[Eugen Lovinescu]], and Ramiro Ortiz, the latter holding the first chair of Italian language and literature in Romania since 1909.
In April 1933 the Institute of Culture became an official institution of the Italian State but would be closed in 1948 by order of the Communist authorities. This situation would last for twenty years, until it was reopened following the signing on August 8, 1967, of the new Cultural Agreement between Italy and Romania.
Since 2002, the headquarters has been located in the northern residential area of Bucharest, and has an exhibition space, a lecture hall, a library with more than 10,000 volumes, and a space for language courses.
The institute is the only organization in Romania that organizes Italian language proficiency certification exams in cooperation with the [[Università per Stranieri di Perugia|Universities for Foreigners of Perugia]] ([[CELI]]) and [[Università per Stranieri di Siena|Siena]] ([[CILS (Qualification)|CILS]], DITALS).<ref>{{cite web |title=Corsi di lingua dell'Istituto italiano di cultura di Bucarest |url=https://iicbucarest.esteri.it/it/lingua-e-cultura/i-corsi-di-lingua/}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
==== The Italian School of Bucharest ====
In 1887, the presence in Bucharest of an Italian community of about 900 people is attested, which gave birth to a [[Mutual aid society|Mutual Aid Society]] and a school with a total of 83 pupils, 53 of whom were Italians.<ref>{{cite web |title=La Scuola italiana di Bucarest |url=https://culturaromena.it/la-scuola-italiana-di-bucarest-presenta-la-nuova-sede-di-ida-valicenti/}}<!-- auto-translated from Italian by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>
In 1901, the community founded a Cultural Circle and joined the [[Dante Alighieri Society]] led by Luigi Cazzavillan, a journalist from [[Arzignano]], [[Province of Vicenza|Vicenza]], who after the Serbian-Turkish war, where he participated as a war correspondent, moved to Bucharest.
Cazzavillan invested heavily in the Italian school, which took the name Regina Margherita and was built in 1901 on the street that now bears his name. For forty-seven years the school contributed to the spread of Italian education and culture, until it was closed by communist authorities in 1948. Cazzavillan's name is also linked to the founding of several newspapers such as ''[[Universul]]'', one of Romania's leading newspapers of the period, and ''Frăția romano–italiana'', a newspaper in which he tried to highlight the common aspects of these two peoples.
In the late 1970s, due to openness of the communist regime, a new Italian school, Aldo Moro, was founded by a group of Italian diplomats. The school was supported with an annual grant from the Italian state until 2006, when it ceased support due to insufficient numbers of enrollment. To prevent the school's closure, the Italian association "''Liberi di Educare''" privatized it, however, failing to guarantee a viable educational offer.
In 2018, through contributions from Romanian parents, the school reopened in a new location in Bucharest and with a new educational program. The new Italian Dante Alighieri School is a bilingual high school open to all. The director in charge from 2019 is Dr. Ezio Peraro, and the principal is Prof. Tina Savoi.
== Notable Italians of Romania ==
* [[Gaspar Graziani]], ruler of Moldavia
* [[Mansi Barberis]] (1899–1986), music composer
* [[Livio Bellegante]]
* [[Florin Bogardo]]
* {{Interlanguage link multi|Sorana Coroamă-Stanca|ro}} (1921–2007), movie director
* [[Mihai Fotino]]
* [[Mircea Grosaru]] (1952–2014), politician, lawyer, professor
* {{Interlanguage link multi|Adrian Marino|ro}}
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==See also==
{{portal|Italy|Romania}}
*[[Italy–Romania relations]]
*[[Italian diaspora|Italian emigration]]
*[[Romanians in Italy]]
*[[Italian language in Romania]]
==References==
{{Reflist}}
== Bibliography ==
* {{Cite book |last=Audenino |first=P. |title=Migrazioni italiane |publisher=Mondadori |year=2008 |location=Milano |ref=Audenino 2008}}
* {{Cite book |last=Franzina |first=E. |title=Storia dell'emigrazione italiana |publisher=Donzelli Editore |year=2002 |location=Roma |ref=Franzina 2002}}
* {{Cite book |last=Scagno |first=R. |title=Veneti in Romania |publisher=Longo Editore |year=2008 |location=Ravenna |ref=Scagno 2008}}
* {{Cite book |last=Caritas italiana |title=Immigrazioni e lavoro in Italia. Statistiche, problemi e prospettive |publisher=IDOS |year=2008 |location=Roma |ref=Caritas italiana 2008}}
* {{Cite book |last=Toader |first=A. |title=La componente italiana della civilizzazione nella provincia di Dobrugia (Romania), Iaşi: (unpublished conference paper) Comunitatea Italiana din România |year=2003 |ref=Toader 2003}}
* {{Cite book |last=Toader |first=A. |title=Descrizione del Dialetto Bellunese Parlato a Greci (Romania) |publisher=University of Bucarest |year=1972 |location=Bucureşti |ref=Toader 1972}}
* {{Cite book |last=Dematteo |first=L. |title=La Corsa verso la Romania degli imprenditori italiani. Circolazioni, asimmetrie e narrazioni, in A. Gouez (a cura di), Fabbriche d'Europa, Studi & Ricerche 69, Notre Europe |year=2018 |ref=Dematteo 2018}}
* {{Cite book |last=Popescu |first=C. |url=http://ebooks.unibuc.ro/filologie/verism/cuprins.htm. |title=Verismul italian şi literatura română. Teatrul italian în România: 1871-1911 |publisher=Editura Universitaţii din Bucureşti |year=2000 |location=Bucureşti |ref=Popescu 2000 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100906222602/http://www.roasit.ro/html/it/istoric.php Associazione degli Italiani della Romania (in Italian)]
{{Romanian Ethnic Groups}}
{{Italian diaspora}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Italians Of Romania}}
[[Category:Italians in Romania| ]]
[[Category:Romanian people of Italian descent| ]]
[[Category:Italian expatriates in Romania| ]]
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