20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

870 Apostolos PATELAkishas created numerous problems in the Greek-Romanian relations".After the prompt intervention of the Vlach Scientists’Union the textbox were immediately withdrawn and the school authorities proceededto a new formulation.• In the most cases, the books dedicated to the Vlachs are printed in avery small number of copies, for this reason they reach in fact onlyinto the hands of the specialists and the shelves of the libraries.• No work of any Romanian specialists, connected to the Vlachs’historyhas ever been translated or published in Greece. The only Romanianhistory book translated into Greek was, until recently, A short historyof Romania by Virgil Cândea, published in Athens, in 1978. In 2007,the researcher Florin Marinescu published in Greek an interestingwork entitled The Romanians. History and culture, trying to fill theemptiness felt in Greece about this theme. Recently, in 2008 wastranslated Ion Bulei’s book A history of the Romanians.• In Greece lives the largest community of Macedonian Romanians.Their number is around 300,000 and they are situated geographicallyin the northern part of Greece, not only in the historical Macedonia,but also in Epirus, Pind, Thessalia and Tracia. Today, their live in themajority in towns, have folklore and etno-cultural associations. As faras the identity of the Macedonian Romanians of Greece is concerned,I quote an excerpt of a protest, worded by 31 localities’headman ofVlach origin in 2001, against the annual report of the State Departmentof the U.S.A. concerning the human rights in Greece. In their protest,the authors mention that in Greece some national minorities are notrecognised: "The Greek Vlachs have never asked to be recognisedas a minority by the Greek state, historically and culturally theyhave always constituted an integrant part of the Hellenism, they arebilingual and the Macedo-Romanian is their second language".(...) Asa matter of fact, this is also the standpoint of the Greek state regardingthe Greek Vlachs’origin.• We hope that the young researchers, motivated only by scientificinterests, far from every kind of disputes of forced and unilateralinterpretations, will succeed in objectively approaching the historicaldata and in bringing precious contributions unanimously accepted,which will lead us out of the present deadlock.• The oriental Roman world, in its specific and particular forms of theBalkans, must unite us on our common way towards Europe and notcreate problems in the relations between the two peoples, as it occurredin the recent past.