[CU TENDA Archive] Short study of Aromanian population movements within Romania since 1940
“Nu vâ aduşi aoa ta s-bânaţ tu tendză!/I didn’t bring you here to live in tents!”
These were the words that Alexandru Șaguna spoke to his fellow Aromanians in 1932 aboard the vessel Constanța, which was bringing them from Thessaloniki to Constanța to colonise the Quadrilateral, after he threw their ciuile (tent poles) into the sea. 1 Symbolically, the Aromanians’ arrival in Romania was seen as a break with a nomadic past. The Aromanians were forced to move once more in 1940, after the Quadrilateral was handed over to Bulgaria. The general impression is that after 1940, the Aromanians’ migrations came to an end. This impression is false. In fact, since 1940, Romania’s Aromanian population has been constantly on the move, with very rare periods of stability. The present study aims to outline some of these movements and to explain their historical and cultural impetuses. The article draws on interviews with Aromanians conducted from 2014 to 2017. We were not greatly interested in the accuracy of the information we were given, as we have attempted merely to convey how these people imagine their own past.
Historical framework Romania lost the Quadrilateral as a result of the Craiova Treaty (7 September 1940). At the same time, Romania became a National-Legionary state. To organise the transportation of the Aromanians from the area in Old Dobrudja ceded by Romania, the General Commissariat of
1
As told by Saricu Stere (b. 1929); interview taken in Camena, 17 September 2014. 1
Dobrudja Evacuations and Colonisations was set up on 22 September 1940, a body run by Aromanian Cola Ciumetti. Ciumetti was born in Veria in 1881 and came to Romania in 1925, where he studied Law. He never practised law, however, since “nu vrea ta s-arâdâ oamińil’I” (he didn’t want to deceive people).
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He was the head of the Bazargic branch of the SCMR
(Society for Macedo-Romanian Culture) and was the director of the Legionarii newspaper (whose first issue was published in 1929). The term legionar here had the meaning of “colonist.” Following the assassination of his relative Sterie Ciumetti (the cashier of the Legionary Movement), Cola Ciumetti was also to join the Legionary Movement. This explains why he was appointed to head the General Commissariat of Dobrudja Evacuations and Colonisations. Another Aromanian, Sterie Duliu, was general secretary of the State Under-Secretariat for Colonisations and Evacuated Population, a body under the tutelage of the institution headed by Cola Ciumetti. Many of Ciumetti’s subordinates were Aromanians: Coli Chiacu (inspector general), Apostol Caciuperi and Mărgărit Vanghele (inspectors), Spiru Zechiu. Cola Ciumetti’s plan was simple. The Aromanians who dealt in trading and caravans (most were from the Pindeni group of Aromanians) were allocated to Constanța County and those who dealt in sheep breeding and agriculture were allocated to Tulcea (most were from the Grămoșteni group). The Fărșeroți were mainly allocated to Constanța County (their occupations in their original areas in the Balkans were shepherding, caravans, and coalmining). Most of the Aromanians praised Ciumetti’s plan. In the interviews we conducted, we also encountered a criticism of Ciumetti, to the effect that it was a mistake for him to create compact settlements of 2
Interview with Iancu Gicu (b. 1924), Constanța, 8 October 2016. Information about Cola Ciumetti is from Ion Nistor, Identitate şi geopolitică. Românii din sudul Dunării în timpul celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial, Editura Academiei Române, 2014 (p. 54 and p. 192) and Spiru Zechiu, Memorii octogenare, Editura Ex Ponta, 2004, at http://www.creeaza.com/didactica/carti/MEMORII-OCTOGENARE-INSEMNARI-D949.php (no page numbers). 2
Aromanians. Iancu Gicu told me that this was not a good thing. The “good” proportion of Aromanians in a settlement should have been one in four (one Aromanian family to four Romanian families). Iancu Gicu explained that Romanians were hardworking and obedient, whereas Aromanians did not have any sense of obedience. An agglomeration of Aromanians represented a danger (to themselves). Every locality in the Quadrilateral populated with Aromanians had a team of delegates (one to three people from the settlement) that liaised with the Commissariat. There were also super-delegates who represented groups from more than one settlement. We shall speak further of them below. Let us note here that in a way they performed the old function of celnic. Cola Ciumetti was to retire from the directorship of the General Commissariat of Dobrudja Evacuations and Colonisations in December 1940, on the grounds of ill health. At the time, almost all the Aromanians had arrived in the places that had been allocated to them, having spent a few months in transit settlements (in Ialomița and Constanța counties). This delay of two to three months was due to the difficulties of managing the departure of Bulgarian families from Dobrudja. In many cases, the Aromanians lived alongside Bulgarians for a short period of time, until the latter were able to move to the areas allocated to them in the Quadrilateral. The Legionary Rebellion of 21-23 January 1941 had major consequences for the Aromanians. Many groups of Aromanians suspected (justly or unjustly) of Legionary membership were deported. We know of the case of a group of one hundred Fărșerot families who were deported from Mihail Kogălniceanu (Constanța County) to Cerna between 1942 and 1947. Another group of Aromanians from Mihai Viteazul were forcibly moved to Agighiol for a year. We also know of a third case in which fifty families from Sinoe were forcibly moved to
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Hagilari (Mihail Kogălniceanu, Tulcea County) as part of reprisals for involvement in Legionary activities. This group returned to Sinoe two years later. There were many cases of Aromanian families who refused to move to the places allocated to them; they settled individually in Bucharest and the surrounding area, or in small groups in towns in Moldavia. The reasons were various, ranging from the malaria that stalked various places in Dobrudja to the Legionary activism of Aromanians who were trying to avoid the vigilance of the authorities. This was probably the reason why the head of state, Ion Antonescu, convoked an Aromanian delegation on 11 March 1941. The topic of the talks was officially the situation of the Aromanians in Dobrudja. The delegation was made up of Sterie PetraČ™incu (chairman of the SCMR), Nicolae Batzaria and Cola Ciumetti (who was yet to be appointed head of the General Commissariat of Dobrudja Evacuations and Colonisations). A large number of the families who did not agree to go to the allocated places in 1940-41 were to move to the Banat starting in 1945, where they were each given five hectares of land. The Aromanians who came to Romania by their own devices were also to settle in the Banat, but without being officially classed as colonists. They were not given land before 1940 and did not receive it until 1945. The most serious problem after relocation to Dobrudja was lack of land to provide Aromanian families the same surface areas as they had owned in the Quadrilateral (ten hectares per family in the interior and fifteen hectares in the border areas) or, in other cases, lack of housing. This gave rise to conflicts within the Aromanian communities. Because in some settlements only a small surface area could be provided (in general, seven hectares), a number of groups of Aromanians decided to settle elsewhere (not having received land in the new settlements). The situation was legally regulated by Decree No. 912 of 14 November 1946 to
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“finalise colonising settlements of the evacuees from the Quadrilateral and of the old colonists.” 3 This act, which followed the agrarian reform of 23 march 1945, led to the exodus of Aromanian groups to the Banat. Making use of the estimate of 3,557 Macedonians deported from the Banat to the Bărăgan steppe, taking into account that fifty-seven families of Meglenites lived in the Banat (not not all were deported, and the Meglenites were still called Macedonians), that the Aromanians of Sînandrei and Pișchia were not deported (for reasons discussed below), and that not all Aromanians from the border settlements were deported, we estimate that the approximate number of Aromanians in the Banat was five thousand (around a sixth of the total number of Aromanian colonists in the Quadrilateral). On 18 June 1951 an operation to deport “suspicious” elements from the RomanianYugoslav border took place. The conflict between Yugoslavia and the USSR obviously played an important part in this conflict. But it was also an opportunity for the Romanian state to isolate potentially dangerous elements (ethnic minorities and persons who refused to sign up to the Collective4). The deportation period was not uniform. For some it was four years, for others five years. After the expiry of the deportation period, the great dilemma of the deported Aromanians was where next? In the first instance, the decision was to stay put. Surprisingly, the place of OD (obligatory domicile) was more attractive than the “free” settlements. Toward the end of the 1950s there was a major exodus in the Aromanian world. The Aromanians who joined this wave had very different reasons for doing so. On the one hand, there was a general movement in Romania, the rural exodus, with people heading for the cities, which were undergoing rapid industrialisation and provided large numbers of jobs. On the other hand, 3
It should be mentioned here that the National Office of Colonisations was abolished on 15 January 1948. The institution no longer served any purpose after the laws passed in 1945-46. 4 We shall use the word Collective to designate the Agricultural Production Co-operatives. The distinction between the foregoing and the State Agricultural Farms is not relevant here. 5
as there were no longer chances of prospering economically, the idea of social progress by intellectual means attracted other Aromanians. A significant segment consisted of those who had been constrained/beaten to join the Collective. After a first phase of resistance at the beginning of the 1950s, by the end of the decade people had been shown that all resistance was futile. Those who found the situation unbearable decided to go to the place where they had settled in 1940-41. To this category was added those had had been subjected to OD. The Celnic Aromanians had grasped that the Aromanians’ problem had always been that they lived on the border. In the past, this had been to the advantage of the Aromanians, who knew how to exploit the circumstance economically. But lately (1925-40 and 1951), this had caused endless problems. The decision was to avoid borders and to be close to large cities. On the one hand, those who had been subject to OD were banned from settling in the cities, and on the other, there was still a desire to rear sheep, and this was not possible in the cities. It was thus that a number of nuclei of Aromanians sprang up near the large cities (Pipera, Tunari, Voluntari, Afumaţi, Palazu Mare, Ovidiu, etc.). It was also then that new Aromanian centres appeared in Urziceni, Slobozia and Călărași, the last of these being the only border town where Aromanians settled in that period, although the Aromanian population of Călărași had not undergone deportation.
There were also exceptional situations. The rebels, those who wanted to distance themselves from the conservative Aromanian community and life independently. These were lost
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as Aromanians. As one of those interviewed expressively put it: “Fudzişi ditu isnafi, hii mortu ningrupatu. / If you have left your people, you are an unburied corpse.”
A song about the collective
Ianni Mișaca was born in Livezi (Greece) in 1928. The same year, his parents emigrated to the Quadrilateral, first to Kadikioi and then to Arabadjilar. In 1940, the Grămosteni group from Arabadjilar was allocated to Mihai Viteazul (divided up almost equally between Fărșeroți and Grămosteni). The group of which lali5 Ianni was part was among the last to arrive in Mihai Viteazul. The lack of land and suspicion of possible Legionary activity6 caused this group to be forcibly moved to Agighiol. A year later, the authorities concluded that the suspicion was unfounded (only one member of the group was a Legionary) and in 1942 permission was granted for the group to settle in Cataloi. The decision was influenced by Iancu Cepi one of the most important Aromanian delegates from Livezi (in the Quadrilateral, Cepi had settled in Atmageaua Tătărească). The danger of Russian invasion of Romania led some Aromanians to flee to Dobrudja. The family of Ianni Mișaca settled in Urziceni in 1944. Things went well, but Maria (née Ducea), Ianni’s mother, thought that her children, now of marriageable age, would marry
5
“Uncle” or form of address appropriate to an elder. The version told by lali Ianni is that the Fărșerots of Mihai Viteazul were the ones who laid suspicion of Legionary symapthies on the Grămosteni group. From the account of lali Ianni, the image of Aromanian unity is severely dented. The Grămosteni from Livezi who had arrived in Arabadjilar did not get on with the Vudiniot group of Aromanians from Vodena/Edessa, Greece. The Grămosteni and Fărșerots from Mihai Viteazul were separate worlds at first. The interview with lali Ianni was conducted in Călărași on 2 April 2017. 6
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mucani/macane (Romanian men/Romanian women), since they had no other options (the Aromanian group in Urziceni was small at the time). The family was to return to Cataloi. Ianni’s mother was to regret her decision greatly. The pressure to join the Collective was very great. Of the four hundred sheep owned by the family, one hundred were taken by the Collective. Likewise, a cart and horses were requisitioned. The family decided to sell their remaining three hundred sheep and move to Călărași. Lali Ianni bought more sheep, which he tended for another ten years. Finally, he decided to sell them and work for the state, in order to have an old-age pension. Nevertheless, he was scarred for life by the experience of his goods having been forcibly confiscated. To soothe his grief, Ianni Mișaca composed a song. It is “his song.”
O, bo, bo, ca vai di noi! O, bo, bo, ţi va s-adrăm? O, bo, bo, măraţi di noi! O, bo, bo, ţi va s-adrăm?
Cum sâ-l’i dzâţem vere, vere, Dusi a nostru Barba Stere, Dusi, dusi ş-Caranica7, Pi noi laili nâ loă frica.
Fudz, fudzimu di Cataloi, Nu ari bană n-hoară ti noi. 7
Caranica and Barba Stere were Grămosteni from Yugoslavia (Băniots), whose sheep were commandeered during collectivisation. 8
Fudz, fudzimu di Cataloi, Nu ari bană n-hoară ti noi.
Loară cal’i, loară caroţi, Loară ş-cupia di oi. Colectoril’i ş-priceptoril’i, N-adunară tuti oili.
A song about the exodus of the Aromanians at the end of the 1950s
Voi armâńi câ vâ arsi foclu, Iuva nu vâ acaţâ loclu. Alâsat nâpoi Grâţie, Anturchie şi Vâryârie.
Alâsat nâpoi Grâţie, Anturchie şi Vâryârie. Alţâ fudzea ditu Sârbie Ş-di ponda di Arbinishie.
Cu cârvăńi, cu oi cupie, Armasitu voi Românie, Alţâ Tulcea, alţâ Custanţa,
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Alţâ tâşi la Piatra Neamţa.
Io moi io câ vâ arsi foclu, Şi aoa nu vâ acaţâ loclu. Yinghiţ ańi vâ apănghisiră, Hoarâli nu vâ arisirâ.
Lâ eara fricâ câ va s-chearâ, Vluyisitili ţi azgheară [oile]. Ma digeaba s-aspârearâ, Di aestâ fricâ nu ascâparâ.
Ma şidzurâ şi s-minduirâ, Bucureşti s-dânâsirâ. Moaşili ma şi-u facu lafi, Câ fudzirâ ditu isnafi.
Pirifańea nu u alasâ, Tilivizor bâgarâ n-casâ. S-duc pitu hoari dipriunâ Ş-sâltânati vor s-aspunâ.
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The above song identifies as the cause of the exodus the internal make-up of the Aromanian, which does not allow him to settle in any one place (nu vâ acaţâ loclu). The fear of losing one’s sheep is alluded to. The author expresses his fear of losing his Aromanian identity by moving to the city: Moaşili ma şi-u facu lafi, câ fudzirâ ditu isnafi. „Fudzishi ditu isnafi, hii mortu ningrupatu / If you have left your people, you are an unburied corpse.” The same fear of the extinction of the Aromanians. The last verse is in a different, ironical register. The song was popular in the Aromanian world. Today it is almost forgotten and very few people can say who wrote it. The author of the song is Gica Godi, a literary poet (when he composed the song in 1961, he was twenty-two). It is strange that Godi did not publish his song, but it was probably because of the pessimism that pervades the work.8
A few examples, a few stories
What is fascinating in these population movements is an old Aromanian pattern: the disappearance of old settlements is followed by regrouping, the construction of new collectives, of new Aromanian syntheses. We shall try to provide examples for this claim. In Livezile in the Paicu Mountains (Greece) lived around five thousand Aromanians (mostly Grămosteni). Around half of them came to the Quadrilateral (to the settlements of Atmageaua, Tătărască, Uzundjorman, Asfatkioi, Arabadjilar). The main delegate from Livezile was Iancu Cepi. During the relocation of 1940, this group was assigned to Sarighiol de Deal, Mihai Viteaul, Cataloi. The majority was the group from Sarighiol, which included around four hundred families (around two thousand people). The group from Mihai Viteazul cohabited with a
8
The version we here reproduce is a transcript of Hrista Lupci’s performance. 11
Fărșerot community, giving rise to certain tensions between the two communities. A part of this group was to regroup in Cataloi. There were families from Livezi that settled in small groups in Călărași, Budești and Gălbinași (some of them after a short sojourn in Moldova). They were denied relocation, or else had not arrived as colonists in the Quadrilateral and did not have the right to ten hectares. A part of this latter group settled in the Banat, in Pișchia (fifty-two families, mostly from Budești) and Sînandrei (120 families). The group from Sînandrei (more numerous than that from Pișchia) discovered they were about to be deported and quickly went to Călărași (January 1951). The group from Pișchia escaped deportation because they were far from the border. Nevertheless, the people decided they had no business being there. Some returned to Budești, others settled in Bucharest (or in small towns near the big city), in 1952. The group from Sarighiol first split in 1944. A number of families made the decision to settle in Urziceni, mainly because there was not enough land for them to receive their ten hectares. There was also a second reason. The group from Sarighiol was made up of Aromanians from Livezi; some had lived in Asfatkioi, others in Uzundjorman. There were tensions between the two groups. The group that went to Urziceni was made up of Aromanians who had lived in Uzundjorman. The celnic of the group (Babageanu) had left earlier, in 1942, angry at having been sacked as mayor (to make way for Filomel, 9 who was a supporter of the other faction). The harshness of collectivisation was the reason that led to the departure of many families of câlivyeńi (Aromanians from Livezi) from Sarighiol, Cataloi and Mihai Viteazul in the 9
Filomel was one of the few Aromanians from Sarighiol who was not from Livezi (he was born in Hrupiști). But he lived in Asfatkioi, where he was an influential man (overseer of the Pissiota estate). Much of the information about Sarighiol comes from the interview conducted with Tușa Tomi (b. 1934) in Sarighiol on 22 September 2014. The information about the number of families in Sînandrei and Pișchia is from Virgil Coman, Aromânii şi Meglenoromânii din Banat (1945-1951), Editura Etnologică, 2016. 12
second half of the 1950s. In Călărași they met up with the câlivyeńil’i who had arrived there from the Banat (Sînandrei) in 1951. A new community of câlivyeni (around seven hundred people) was thereby created. In Călărași there is also a small number of Aromanians belonging to both branches. There were călivyeńi who chose to settle in Slobozia. Here they met Grămosteni originally from Yugoslavia (and a few from Bulgaria)), who had settled there around the year 1960 (after living in outlying villages for five years; they had arrived there after being deported to Bărăgan). The Grămostean synthesis in Slobozia has resulted in one of the liveliest and most interesting Aromanian communities in Romania. The largest Grămosteni communities in Romania in 1940-41 were Bașchioi (eight hundred families; the official name of the town is Nicolae Bălcescu), Sinoe (six hundred families), and Ceamurlia de Sus (four families). Even though the exodus began at the end of the 1950s, by 1968 these communities were still quite strong: in Bașchioi there were 1,500 Aromanians, in Sinoe 1,400, and in Ceamurlia de Sus 1,750. 10 The “disaster” was to come in the 1970s. The towns of Sinoe and Bașchioi were depopulated of Aromanians. Ceamurlia de Sus still has a strong Aromanian community: around two hundred families. The foregoing short analysis shows that the large communities of Grămosteni have disintegrated, while the smaller communities have held up well. This is also the case for Stejarul. In 1968, there were 1,150 Aromanians (Grămosteni from Bulgaria), and today there are around a thousand. Stejarul is the only village in Romania with a majority Aromanian population (there are one hundred Romanians, who have learned the Aromanian language).
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All the information about the number of Aromanians from various villages in Dobrudja in 1968 is from Nicolae Saramandu, Aromâna vorbită în Dobrogea, Editura Academiei Române, 2007. 13
The Fărșerots from Greece (the so-called șopani) have managed to maintain two major settlements, both in Constanța County: Cogealac11 and Mihai Kogălniceanu.12 Cogealac has the largest wind turbine park in Europe and Mihail Kogălniceanu has the advantage of a nearby airport. These are two reasons why the Aromanians of these two towns remain there today. The Fărșerots from Albania (plisoții) now live in Pipera, Palazu Mare,13 Viile Noi. The majority of this group lived in the Quadrilateral, in the town symbolically named Frașari, after the old place of origin of the plisoți. The celnici of the group was Teodor (Raca) Belu and Vasile Muși (who left Romania in the 1940s and was no longer involved in the fate of the group; Belu was to remain connected to the plisoți to the end of his life). From 1940 to 1944, the group lived in Ilișești, near Suczawa. As Russian troops advanced on Romania, the group decided to leave Ilișești. By various routes, with brief sojourns in various towns, the Aromanians reached the Banat (the first Aromanian group to do so) in 1945. They lived in Săcălaz (Săcălaz had 365 Fărșerot families, not all of them plisoți). After deportation to Bărăgan, the group settled in Pipera at the end of the 1950s. Here they bought two hectares from a former Russian boyar (Petrov). The parcelled out the plot and created a miniature Aromanian world, fascinating in its vitality. One of the streets that crosses the lot is called Frașari.
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Mayor Gheorghe (Gigi) Alexa, an Aromanian, estimated that in 2014, 60% of the local population (approx. 3,200 inhabitants) was Aromanian, which would mean around 1,900 Aromanians in Cogealac (although we are doubtful as to this estimate). Those we interviewed estimated that there were around 800 to 900 Aromanian houses in the town in 1940. In 1968, Saramandu estimated there were 2,650 Romanians in Cogealac. 12 In Mihail Kogălniceanu today there live around 1,500-1,700 Aromanians. In 1968, there were 3,000 Aromanians in Mihail Kogălniceanu. 13 The Plisot group that settled in Palazu Mare in 1940 split from the group that went to Suczawa as a result of a conflict within the community (the murder of three Aromanian Legionaries in Frașari on 22 September 1939, followed by the murder of five Fărșerots by Legionaries in Jilava on the night of 26-27 November 1940; the five had been arrested on suspicion of the murder of the three Legionaries). 14
The Aromanian community of Ovidiu is a remarkable synthesis resulting from population movements. Saramandu estimated that in 1968 there were 1,150 Aromanians living in Ovidiu (580 șopani, 520 plisoți, 30 moscopoleni and 20 muzăcheari). The Aromanian community of Ovidiu developed after 1960. A branch of this community comes from the group of one hundred families forced to move from Mihail Kogălniceanu (Constanța County) to Cerna in 1942. The group went to the Banat in 1947 in the hope that “all trace of them” would be lost. The group was to be deported, they stayed in Dîlga for five years, and then decided to settle in Ovidiu. The other group that makes up the Aromanian community of Ovidiu comes from Poiana (5-6km from Ovidiu). In 1955, the Party Secretary from Poiana (Ablachim) was killed by a group of local Aromanians exasperated by his abuses. The locals managed to conceal the names of the perpetrators. The reprisals were harsh. Half of the local Aromanians were arrested. Many were imprisoned, not for murder, but for other supposed crimes. The repression determined the Aromanian migration to Constanța and Ovidiu. I discovered that the Aromanians of Ovidiu are very proud, they have a lot of personality, and are very civically active (the mayor of Ovidiu is Aromanian, the town is very well kept; Hagi’s team is based there). This Aromanian community is one of the most interesting in Romania. Obviously, the case of the Aromanian communities of Bucharest (around ten thousand Aromanians, including those who live in villages around the capital) and Constanța (at least thirty thousand Aromanians) ought also to be studied, but this is not the purpose of the present article. The new communities/syntheses are highly important because they create a new typology of Aromanian. The period of Aromanian migrations to Romania, beginning in 1925, helped to
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steel the Aromanians, it helped them to move beyond their localism and the frictions between their various branches and to create an Aromanian unity. This is no small success.
Fractures. Resistance versus realism
The Dobrudja resistance movement, led by Nicolae (Cușa) Fudulea (1907-1952) and Gogu Puiu, led to the Aromanians being branded “anti-communists.” Hence a series of unpleasant consequences. The cliché, like any other cliché, is not true. The Fărșerot communities made a collection of money to try to persuade their compatriot Gogu Puiu to give up his anticommunist struggle. Gogu Puiu indignantly rejected the money. Nicolae Fudulea, despite his vaguely Legionary past, joined the resistance because of a conflict connected to land (he had not been given the complete ten-hectare plot in Vasile Alecsandri, his home village, that was due to him). Nicolae Fudulea was not an anti-communist, but rather a man with an acute sense of private property. The people who collected money to force Gogu Puiu to leave were not communists, but rather they were realists. This is why we speak not of a communist/anticommunist dichotomy, but rather a realist/idealist dichotomy, which is an older form of the trader/fighter, opportunist/resister dichotomy. In the summer of 1949, Mihail Gioga and Florica Bagdasar toured the Dobrudja villages where Aromanians lived, making an appeal that the locals should not assist the “partisans,” because they would suffer as a result. Bagdasar was Minister of Health from 1946 to 1948 (she eradicated malaria in Dobrudja during her term as minister) and Gioga had been prefect of Tulcea County (1946-47), having worked in the administration of Durostor County during the inter-bellum. Gioga made an appeal to those who had assisted the fugitives, saying it would be
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better if they gave themselves up. “You will suffer in the short term, but you will keep your lives.” It is interesting that some Aromanian political prisoners bear Gioga no grudge (although he had deserted the Liberals to become a Communist) and reckon that his warnings came from the Aromanians’ famous solidarity (the warning was regarded as of benefit to the person warned). Agricultural co-operatives were created in the villages of Dobrudja from 1950. After a (longer or shorter) phase of resistance, by the end of the decade, many Aromanians gave up and decided to leave.14 In order to understand the “Aromanian=anti-communist” cliché, it is not true that we should say that many Party secretaries, collective farm managers, and mayors were Aromanian. For a while, they prospered. But paradoxically, the departure of their compatriots did not help them because they were then no longer useful to the rulers (they no longer had anyone to influence). This is why they too finally left. One of those who remained told me: “Nai ma ahmaclu hiu mini câ armaş aoa/ I’m the most stupid because I stayed here.”
The final exodus?
Seemingly, Aromanian population movements within Romania came to an end around the year 1980. This is true only at the group level, however. At the individual level, the lure of the West now appeared. Through contacts with relatives in Greece, at the beginning of the 1960s (it is interesting that at first only Aromanian women were allowed to go to Greece, but not the men), the Aromanians began to make contact with the “free” world. The mirage became stronger 14
The data we gathered in our interviews are as follows: Collectives were established in Beidaud (1955), Camena (1957), Ceamurlia de Jos (1952), Ceamurlia de Sus (1951, followed by a rebellion in 1952; re-established in 1954-55), Cogealac (1952 and 1957/1958), Hagilari (1953), Mihail Kogălniceanu (1952 şi 1957). 17
after 1 January 1981, when Greece became a member of the EU (the then EEC). More and more Aromanians began to emigrate to the West. Many of them did so via Greece (where they were briefly held in camps). Some reached America (via relatives who had arrived there before them). The “American dream” is described in a song by rhapsode Hrista Lupci from the 1980s: “Ţi-i aestâ muşuteaţă? Nu vidzui ca vai di io! Cum bâneadzâ armâńil’i aoaţi , ţi ghineaţă pi lao!” Will this be the final exodus? Probably not, since mobility seems to be an important cultural feature of the Aromanians. If indeed this is the final exodus of the Aromanians, it will spell the “end of their history.”
Alexandru Gica
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