Blackwell Reference Online

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In the modern period the name ‘Romania’ has come to designate the state that arose from the United Danubian Principalities (1858) or Rumania. For centuries, however, ‘Romania’ referred to the provinces of the Byzantine empire, especially to Greece and asia minor . This was reflected in the new names given to towns by invading Turks, Franks and others. Nauplion became Napoli Di Romania; Sebasteia or Sivas and its region was entitled Bilad ar-Rum, ‘the Roman land’; and Garin-Theodosiopolis on the Armenian frontier was renamed Arz ar Rum, Erzerum or ‘Roman Land’. The Byzantines rejoiced in their East Roman inheritance and Romania continued to denote those lands around constantinople and Propontis centuries after 1453. However, although the Greeks continued to refer to themselves as Romaioi, only the Pontic Greeks ( see pontus ) kept the more general term, calling their Black Sea homeland ‘Romania’ up to the present day. In the early 1990s the nearly 100,000 Pontic Greeks, from a minority 350,000 strong, who applied to migrate to Greece from the former Soviet Union have successfully applied for official funding for an organized settlement called ‘Romania’ in Western Thrace, in the easternmost corner of mainland Greece and as close as possible to Pontus. Other terms like roumeli , Eastern Rumelia and Rum (for Asia Minor) also derive from Romania. ( 1992 ), A Concise History of ... log in or subscribe to read full text