Magazine / Society / Romania and Bulgaria / Article | 12/02/2007

Historical Roots of Romania's Political Culture

The Europe of Romania is unlike the Europe of the western nations, according to the author. A report on a country full of surprises.

Romania may surprise westerners. It is doubtlessly part of Europe but there is not one unified Europe, let alone one with a common history. Compared to the countries of Western Europe, Romania is part of a different Europe.

Sighisoara is Romania's oldest city, founded by German immigrants in the 12th century.

The eastern and western parts of the continent developed in different, if not to say opposite ways. Historically, the most obvious dividing line runs between the Catholic/Protestant West and the Eastern Orthodox East. Western Europe underwent a gradual process of cultural and political diversification and strong economic development resulting in a technologically advanced, democratic civilisation, whereas the East was characterised by a tendency towards political authoritarianism (e.g., the Byzantine and later the Moscow models) which the Eastern Orthodox Church, used to taking a back seat to the political power, tolerated. Socio-economic development was markedly slow. Until recently, the countries of Eastern Europe were shaped predominately by a rural structure and by patriarchal and paternalistic ways of thinking.

These opposing systems converge and, in fact, merge in Central Europe. Consequently, Central Europe is connected to the West by cultural and institutional characteristics, as well as by the Catholic and Protestant religion and the Roman roots of our civilisation and to the East (Poland and Hungary in the Middle Ages, the Danube monarchy or the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy in modern times) by its relatively conservative social and economic structures.

The long phase of political instability has increased retardation in terms of development of the eastern part of the continent. This part of Europe was still subject to conquests, including the Mongol conquest of Russia in the 13th century or the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into south-eastern Europe and the heart of the continent in the 14th century. In modern times, nearly all of Eastern and Central Europe was divided among three major powers – the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Austrian monarchy.

This eventful history, including numerous conquests, is the reason for a particularly intense mixture of people, furthered by relocation and resettlement (aimed at settling sparsely populated and farmed areas so that effectively a German-speaking archipelago extended from Central Europe to the banks of the Volga river). This mix of cultures created immense difficulties when people began to build western-style nation-states on the ruins of former empires in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century. Some countries in the region (Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia), built upon the foundations of a national ideology, were just as ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse as the empires that had existed before. Finally, especially after the Second World War, communism also left its mark on the countries of Eastern and Central Europe and reinforced differences, as perceived by the countries of Western Europe.

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Further articles on the subject » EU Enlargement / Neighbourhood Policy, » History, » South East Europe, » Romania
More from the press review on the subject » EU Enlargement / Neighbourhood Policy, » History, » South East Europe, » Romania