The loss of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union and the deportations and exterminations during World War II by the Nazis reduced the Jewish population in Romania to its 1956 size. It has been further reduced since then through emigration to Israel.
Despite their historic separateness from the rest of the society, most Jews in the mid-twentieth century tend to think of themselves as Romanians of the Jewish faith rather than an ethnic minority. All speak Romanian, and only one-fourth claimed Yiddish as their mother tongue in the 1950s. They continue to be urban oriented, and one-fourth of them lived in Bucharest in 1956.
Other Minorities
Eight other ethnic groups were counted in the 1956 census. The largest was Ukrainian, numbering 60,000. Ukrainians formed the majority population in the southern part of the Danube delta and in pockets along the Soviet border. Some 45,000 Yugoslavs, mostly Serbs, lived in the southern Banat around the Iron Gate. Other Slav minorities included 39,000 Russians in northern Dobruja, near the Bessarabian border; 12,000 Bulgarians, mostly in southern Dobruja; and between 18,000 and 35,000 Czechs and Slovaks in the Banat.
Other ethnic groups of significance were 20,000 Tatars and 12,000 to 14,000 Turks in Dobruja, remnants of the period of Turkish rule. Gypsies, variously estimated between 50,000 to 100,000, are not recognized officially as an ethnic minority and not counted separately in censuses. This, combined with their still largely nomadic life, makes any reasonably accurate enumeration difficult.
Interethnic Relations
Relations between Romanians and Hungarians, the two largest ethnic groups, have been less than smooth. During the eight centuries of Hungarian rule of Transylvania, Romanians, who constituted the poorest rural elements of the population, occupied a subservient position to the wealthier, more urbanized, and better educated Hungarians and Germans. With the joining of Transylvania to Romania in 1918, the Hungarian and German populations of the region lost much of their favored position and, through land reform and nationalization since World War II, they lost their source of wealth. These factors have engendered ill feeling between the groups and have made Transylvania a continuing source of potential problems (see ch. 2; ch. 10). Other factors dividing Romanians and Hungarians have been religious and cultural differences.
Sensitive to the respective nationalist feelings of the Romanians and Hungarians and to the historical dissensions between them, government policy since 1947 has been one of promoting unity and cooperation among all groups for the good of the country as a whole. The theme of equality of all members of different ethnic groups and their close cooperation permeates all official documents, reports, and statements. The Romanian Communist Party, which before World War II had a high percentage from ethnic minorities, represents itself as the historic protector of minority populations and their rights. In the late 1960s the party claimed that over 11 percent of its membership were non-Romanians, in line with the proportional strength of minorities in the population.
During the first decade of communist rule, the government and the people were so preoccupied with efforts to restructure society and foster communist internationalism that ethnic chauvinism and problems of interethnic relations receded into the background. The 1960s, however, saw the development of Romanian independence vis-à-vis Soviet domination and a resurgence of Romanian nationalism, which again raised the potential for minority problems. As the government and party stressed Romanian national independence and gave new emphasis to the historic and cultural heritage of the Romanians, they also emphasized the unity, equality, and fraternal cooperation between Romanians and minority groups. National unity became a vital factor in August 1968, and people's councils were established in the Hungarian, German, and other minority communities to act as spokesmen for the ethnic minorities in the Socialist Unity Front (see ch. 9).
The German minority, while anxious to preserve its cultural identity and rights, seems to have good relations with the Romanians and with other ethnic groups. Although their historic experience and their religion give them a cultural affinity with the Hungarians, they have remained aloof from the Hungarian-Romanian issue in Transylvania. As a whole, Germans have remained to themselves in their own communities and have made little effort to integrate into the national society. This has engendered some resentment on the part of Romanians but no real hostility.