Slavery in Romania - Legacy

Legacy

Support for the abolitionists was reflected in Romanian literature of the mid-19h century. The issue of the Roma slavery became a theme in the literary works of various liberal and Romantic intellectuals, many of whom were active in the abolitionist camp. Cezar Bolliac published poems such as Fata de boier şi fata de ţigan ("The boyar's daughter and the Gypsy daughter", 1843), Ţiganul vândut ("Sold Gypsy", 1843), O ţigancă cu pruncul său la Statuia Libertăţii ("A Gypsy woman with her baby at the Statue of Liberty", 1848), Ion Heliade Rădulescu wrote a short story named Jupân Ion (roughly, "Master John", from the Romanian-language version of Župan; 1844), Vasile Alecsandri also wrote a short story, Istoria unui Galbân ("History of a gold coin", 1844), while Gheorghe Asachi wrote a play called Ţiganii ("The Gypsies", 1856) and V. A. Urechia the novel Coliba Măriucăi ("Măriuca's cabin", 1855). A generation later, the fate of Ştefan Răzvan was the inspiration for Răzvan şi Vidra ("Răzvan and Vidra", 1867), a play by Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu.

The Romanian abolitionist movement was also influenced by the much larger movement against Black slavery in the United States through press reports and through a translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Translated by Theodor Codrescu and first published in Iaşi in 1853, under the name Coliba lui Moşu Toma sau Viaţa negrilor în sudul Statelor Unite din America (which translates back as "Uncle Toma's Cabin or the Life of Blacks in the Southern United States of America"), it was the first American novel to be published in Romanian, and it included a foreword study on slavery by Mihail Kogălniceanu. Beecher Stowe's text was also the main inspiration behind Urechia's 1855 novel.

The impact of slavery on Romanian society became a theme of historiographic interest in the decades after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. In 2007, Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu approved the creation of Comisia pentru Studierea Robiei Romilor ("Commission for the Study of Roma Slavery"), which will present its findings in a report and will make recommendations for the Romanian education system and on promoting the history and culture of the Roma. The commission, presided upon by Neagu Djuvara, will also recommend the creation of a museum of the Roma, a research center, a Roma slavery commemoration day and the building of a memorial dedicated to Roma slavery.