PROJECT ON ETHNIC RELATIONS

Introduction to the History of National Minorities from Romania

The interethnical disturbances can be caused on many occasions by a simple lack of knowledge of the �??other�??. The History of the National Minorities from Romania is a guidbook designated firstly to History teachers and with the aim of eliminating this lack of knowldege by offering information on national minorities from Romania, looking to strenghten the respect for diversity in the complex reality context of nowadays society represented by co-existance of different ethical and religious identities.

Romania is not the only country where the lack of information on minority or majority comunities is the result of the formal educational system whose curriculum ignores or rejects the experience of the national minorites from a certain country. This problem can be better highlited and followed in the history curriculum and has a double effect. First of all, the minorities feel their entire identity, culture, language, history and the sense of their existance in that country are undermined. This way members of the minority comunity can be demotivated to study subjects they cannot reffer to and the education undermining this way the identity is rarely efficient. Secondly, the members of the majority loose the oportunity to learn about members of other communities. The formal system though, if wisely prepared and implemented, can help to remove the obstacle of ignorance and missunderstanding between different communities. The political will to modify the legislation and provide resources for this objective needs to be associated with modifications within the educational system in order to provide sustainable development on long term and Romania does constantly such steps.

The introduction of this document in the formal education is a result of the Education Minister Order from 2007 which stipulates the introduction of an optional course on History of National Minorities, mainly designated to majority children from Romania. The Order is the result of a cooperation between specialists from governmental and non-governmental institutions initiated by the Project on Ethnic Relations Regional Centre. The curriculum of the optional course was recently adopted by the specialty comission within MERY and aproved through Ministry Order. This gives hopes that, starting with school year 2009-2010, in as many schools as possible from all over the country for 10^th grade students, the study of history of communities living on this teritory and contributing over the years to the country development will beginn. We are talking here about the communities dwelling on this teritory, due to historical events, even before the existance of the unitary national state.

In order to survive, the national minorities need to permanently look for obtaining equal rights with the ones of the majority, but also the right to keep and develop their specific culture, as the majority is keeping and developing its own one. Thus, the national minorities need not only equal rights but also the acceptance of their diversity, their right to be different. Knowledge of the common history of all those living for century on the actual teritory of Romania can provide this aspect. We hope this material will became an useful instrument serving this purpose in the hands of the History teachers.

In the name of the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) for Central, East and South �??East Europe I want to express our gratitude towards the co-authors of this document, who dedicated time and energy for the project. All of them participated in a pioneering project in the field as we have no knowledge of such documents bringing under one umbrella the History of 19 national minorities in one single country from Europe.

The purpose was to gather as many information as possible on History of national minorities from Romania, their presentation focusing on everything those different ethnical communities lived together on the actual teritory of Romanian and all they contributed to the development of the Romanian country and nation.

This approach prooved though to be a difficult one as minorities see their history as an element of the national identity specific to each of them, in the same way the majority understands sometimes its own history as part of the identity and by studying history cultivates the maintanance of the national identity. The presentation of ones own community, part of which this history is, history lived in fact by the community, prooved very different from the presentation needed by the same history in front of the majority with the purpose of providing information leading to understanding diversity, including the historical one of the different ethnicities.

The authors had to overcome also severe restrictions of length, as they had only few pages available to present the history of many centuries to a generatin knowing almost nothing about specific aspects of national minorities. Also, the authors had to select information in corcondance with the �??historical truth�??, the responsabiltiy of supporting their position in their written materials belonging to each of them.

Our gratitude goes also to the coordination team of this document, team which, together with the co-authors, struggled to reach the best shape and the most important references so that materials are presented in a unitary concept, avoiding to just get a collection of individual texts on the history of each minority. They had also the role to moderate authors discussions during the creation of the material and to integrate the parts of the texts in different chapters.

What is going now in the hands of the History teachers wants to be an auxiliar material composed by a written text and a DVD with sources and recommended methodology for teaching the history of national minorities from Romania as an optional course but also as part of the national curriculum of history which already contains some elements on history of national minorities. The document is composed by the following chapters:

1. The origin and settlement on the actual teritory of Romania (including the causes of their departure from country origin, what was gained and what was lost as a result of this departure, the first certification of the minority on the actual teritory of Romania, demographic situation in evolution up to nowadays).

2. Identity elements of the national minorities (including the language, denominations, internal organization of the community, habitat, family, childhood, roles/status of age and gender, family common law, calendar celebrations, traditional costume, ocupations, religion, symbols, values, believes, national symbols, culture and education institutions, organizations, monuments and commemoration days/laic celebrations).

3. The history of the national minorities and evolution of the relations with other communities.

4. The contribution of the national minorities to the commune patrimony (contribution of the minority as a whole, model personalities or destinies, institutions, best practice exemples for good cooperation between minorities/personalities belonging to different minorities).

5. Perception of each other in the colective imaginary (positive, negative and neutral- our perceptions on the other, self-perception, perceptions of the other on us- in folklore, literature, design, visual arts, media).

The number 5 from the above plan represents somehow the educative target of this document, respectively shaping the mutual perceptions from colective imaginary based on adequate knowledge generator of good understanding and mutual tolerance.

The DVD annexed to the guidbook contains methodological elements, the text of the printed material, an electronic list of usefull links and sources (quoted from archive documents or published documents, images/pictures, drawings) meant to be used by the teachers while working with their students, helping students to make judgements based on sources. The guidbook can be downloaded from the PER Regional Centers webpage www.per.org.ro.

Certainly, some aspects presented by the authors based on the annexed bibliografy will rise the interest of the history teachers and we hope will open future debate on this document, but also on general aspects of national minorities history and their importance for the commune history of Romania and Europe. We hope that, following the debates research in the filed will produce other documents which can appear in a new improved edition.

The last but not the least, we want to thank to the Romanian Government who through Ministry of Education, Research and Youth and through Department for Internetnic Relations supported this project for two years, and also for addopting a package of Minister Orders by MERY which will sustain inside the educational system from Romania the constant promotion of knowing and accepting diversity.

We invite the History teachers to offer their students the optional course on History of the National Minorities from Romania helped by this auxiliary material and to participate in the workshops organized by us togehter with MERY to discuss the efficient usage of this instrument.

Koreck Maria

Istoria minorit�fALilor naALionale ale din RomAcnia

Last Modified : February 9th, 2009
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