How come Romania is separated from other Romance/Latin countries?

Question

How come Romanians are isolated from other Romance cultures, like Italy, France, Spain/Portugal (and possibly), Greece?

Were the Romanians forced Eastward? Why have Slavic countries and a (Baltic? Finno-Ugric?) country, Hungary, taken the place of that area? Also, same question, why are the Southern Slavs (Slovene, Croat, Bosniak, Serb, Bulgar) isolated from the Northern Slavs? (i.e. Czech, Slovak, Sorb, Polish, Ukranian, Belorussian, Russian)

Answer 1

Romanians are descendants of the old Roman province Dacia. It was never truly Latinized as for example Spain or Portugal, but the language heritage was strong enough to carry over the generations until present day. Dacia was part of Roman Empire for only 170 years, which was not sufficient enough to go through the level of Latin development like in the Western Roman provinces. Through the history, Romanians share genetic heritage with various groups from Slavs to Celts to Germans; but due its language association, it is considered part of the Romance nations.

Romans were present in the Balkans for 500 years, but the population was devastated by series of wars from Attila to Avars to Slavs. Attila sacked and destroyed entire Balkan peninsula, depopulated it of native Roman people. This enabled Slavic migration into vacant territory of the central Balkans around 500 AD. Romanians were for centuries already outside Roman control, therefore, they were not devastated by Attila and Slavs who were interested in developed lands south of Danube. Also Romanians were shielded by Carpathian mountains and Danube, which proved to be crucial for survival of the Romance language.

Slavs and Avars eventually destroyed the reminder of the Roman civilization around 550 AD by sacking cities along the Adria coast. Procopius mentions that up 200,000 Romans were slain in Dalmatia alone. Byzantine Empire until 1000AD did not control Balkans, which was totally under control of the Slavic principalities that became the future nation of Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Some Roman/Italian influence survived in Dalmatia under Venetian Republic and later till 1945, when the entire region became part of Yugoslavia.

Hungarians migrated into Europe at the end of the 9th century. Between 500-900AD Slavs made continuous region from Balkans to Baltic across Pannonian plains. The core of the future Hungarian kingdom was around Balaton lake which was controlled by Slavic principality of Pribina which was conquered around 875 by Svatopluk of Moravia. Moravian empire collapsed under onslaught of Hungarian rides between 905-950, and with it the the early christian culture that was between Balkans and Central Europe. Hungarians eventually consolidated into kingdom around 1000AD and severed link between southern and northern Slavs. Slavic language survived for while until 1200's, especially under leadership of numerous monasteries. The reminder of the Slavs in the Pannonian plains in medieval Kingdom of Hungary was exterminated by Mongol rides of 1241.

Answer 2

Know how the French are Gauls, and thus essentially Celts who grew a Romance language superstrate?



Same thing Romanians, but in their case, they're Dacian (a group with no extant close linguistic relatives, but their original language was an Indo-European one). Basically it was the Romans who invaded, did some mingling and left their language behind.



What do you mean "isolated"? Slavic presence in Eastern Europe is pretty much continuous, even in the non-Slavic countries of Romania and Hungary. Otherwise, Slavs generally tended to migrate a lot in the 1st millennium AD.



Hungarians are a separate story, one of a long trek westward (there's an area deep in Russia called Yugra, where they originally hail from and where their closest relatives, the Khanty and Mansi people, live to this day). Slavs are native to the general area between the Don and Danube.

Answer 3

Romanians are an ugly behaved people..avoid them.

They stole everything from Europe.