BETWEEN CROSS AND CRESCENT. TURKS AND TARTARS OF ROMANIA

Lambert Academic Publishing, 2018

lisr.ro

The article presents on the basis of the archive documents aspects related to the religious life of Romanians from the Balkan Peninsula between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It also presents the position which the Patriarchy in Constantinople had during all this period of time concerning the actions of Romanians. These were not successful but the situation changed after the issue of the imperial resolution of 1905 which ensured the use of the Romanian language and of the A-romanian dialect in church.

2014

This study is conceived as a historical and ethnographic contextualization of ethno-linguistic groups in contemporary Southeastern Europe, with a comparative approach of several transborder communities from Romania and Bulgaria (Aromanians, Catholics, Lipovans/Old Believers, and Vlachs), between 1990 and 2012. I am mainly interested in (1) presenting the ethno-demographic situation and geographic distribution of ethnic groups in Romania and Bulgaria, (2) repertorying the cultural traits characteristic for homonymous ethnic groups in the two countries, and (3) synthesizing the theoretical data of current anthropological literature on the ethno-cultural variability in Southeastern Europe. In essence, my methodology compares the ethno-demographic evolution in Romania and Bulgaria (192–2011), within the legislative framework of the two countries, to map afterward the distribution of ethnic groups across Romanian and Bulgarian regions. It is on such a ground that the ethnic characters wi...

The paper looks at the role of religion in the ethnic identity of the Serbs in Romania, based on the fieldwork conducted in August 2010 among the Serbian communities in the Danube Gorge (Rom. Clisură Dunării; loc. Ser. Banatska klisura), western Romania. A historical perspective being necessary in studying and understanding the complex identity structure, the paper offers a brief historical overview of the Serbian community in Romania. Serbs have been living in the Banat since medieval times, their oldest settlements dating back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Today, they mostly live in western Romania (Timiş, Arad, Caraş-Severin and Mehedinţi counties), Timişoara being their cultural, political and religious centre. Over the last decades, the community has been numerically declining due to strong assimilation processes, as evidenced by successive census data (34,037 in 1977; 29,408 in 1992; 22,518 in 2002). The majority belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church (Eparchy of Timişoara), but a number of neo-Protestant churches have appeared in the last decades. The research focuses on the role of the Orthodox religion among the Serbian minority in Romania and the role of new religious communities in relation to national identity. The role of the dominant Serbian Orthodox Church in preserving and strengthening ethnic identity is looked at, but also influences of other religions, which are not identified with any particular ethnic group, such as neo-Protestantism. With regard to the supranational nature of neo-Protestantism, the aim of the study is to analyze the impact of these new religions on assimilation processes among the Serbs in Romania and to examine in what ways different religious communities influence either the strengthening or the weakening of Serbian ethnic identity.

The research is a descriptive analysis of the ethnic identity dynamics of Tatars in Dobruja. I tried to identify how the ethnic identity of the Tatar community of Dobruja, of Sunni Islamic faith was rediscovered and reconfigured after 1990. The research analyses the representative reorganization on ethnic basis that took place after the fall of the communist regime, emphasizing the ways of action and interaction of this organization in the community, through which ethnic and religious traditions, became important elements in the identity reconstruction of Dobruja Tatars during this period. We also followed the way the ethnic specificity articulates in the inner ethnic group, in different social contexts, in the religious life, in linguistic situations, in family relations and in economic contexts. From the methodological point of view, the research is based on the field research (interviews, participative observation) conducted in urban and rural communities of Tatars in Constanța county, where the largest Tatar communities of Dobrogea live.

2014

Romanians and Arab Christians were connected in the 16th-18th century by their common asprirations to freedom and welfare. They strived to use their vernacular in Church rituals, to have printed books in their own language, and to provide for their communities. Several Patriarchs of the Antiochian Church visited the Romanian Principalities in order to ontain financial and political help. They left important texts about their visits and they printed Arabic books with the help of Romanian princes and hierarchs. Studying this cultural heritage is a major task for Romanian research.

Tarihsel Görünüm ve Modern Zorluklar -Alternatifsiz Diyalog-Citation/©: Pramenkovic, Almir, C20ı2l. Muslims and Christians in the Balkans: H istorical Aspect and Contemporary Challenges -Dialogue without Alternative-, Milel ve Nihai, 9 (2), 113-ı22. Abstract: For ten turbulent years, from .ı 99ı to ı 999, high intensity armed conflicts, which had devastating effects on the relationship between the inhabitants, broke out in Kosova. While it is not the purpose of this paper to present a comprehensive overview of the recent history of the Balkans, and Former Yugoslavia in particular, focusing on certain facts and events will enable us to understand the conditions for the formatfon of new countries after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Among those language, identity, relations with the other and interreligious dialogue are extremely delicate and political issues. With a reterence to interreligious dialogue this paper seeks to present the characteristics of the relations between Muslims and Christians in the Balkans. In this regard, firstly, I will focus on the meaning and significance of dialogue in the Balkans and then deal with Qur'anic approach to the dialogue. After discussing the barriers set against the dialogue in the Balkans, and particularly ideological prejudices among them, I will analyse the possibilities to build collaboration be-Prof. Dr., Dean of the Islamic Theology Faculty in Novi Pazar-Sancak and teacher of the Akaid and Kelam, [almirpramenkovic@gmail.com]. MiLEL VE NiHAL inanç. kültür ve mitoloji ara §Urmalan derqisi cilt g sayı 2 Mayıs-A.ijustos 20 ı 2 sındaki ili §kilerin hangi esaslara göre kurulması gerektiği tartışılmakta dır. Bu bağlamda öncelikle Balkanlar'da diyaloğun anlam ve önemi üzerinde durulacak ve ardından Kur'an'a diyalog konusuna nasıl yakla §tığı incelenecektir. Balkanlar'da olu §turulmaya çalışılan diyalog ortamına engel olan hususlar ve bunların arasında da özellikle ideolojik ön yargılar tartışıldıktan sonra ise Balkan Müslüman ve Hıristiyanlarının yenidünyanın sorunları kar §ısında nasıl bir birlik olu §turabilecekleri ele alınacaktır.

Annals of the University of Bucharest - Philosophy Series, 2012

This paper aims at pointing out the actual situation of the Muslim community in Bulgaria and Romania and their religious life. It also deals with the phenomena of immigration and migration of people due to various historical and political reasons and the State policy concerning minorities.

Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai, Theologia Reformata Transylvanica, 2022

The purpose of the research is to offer a three-dimensional examination of a chosen population's make-up, examining ethnicity, native language, and religious denomination during the 20 th century in the Romanian Bihor County. This paper examines the changing process of how identity in Érselénd/Șilindru was influenced by outside forces coming from different social, political, religious, and even economic directions. The village was chosen, as it was originally a Ruthenian-speaking Greek Catholic settlement that moved to the Hungarian Kingdom centuries ago. They kept their religious identity but became Hungarian-speaking people. Then, during the twentieth century, this homogenous settlement, due to external political, historical, and economic influences, experienced a profound change to a degree that had not been predicted. However, this fragmentation into various Christian denominations, the changes of language and ethnic identity clearly demonstrates the complex history of the geopolitical region of Partium, Romania.