[10] In the Kingdom of Romania, Italian emigration was incentivized by the Romanian authorities as the Romanian ruling class felt the strategic need to strengthen the link with Latinity in order to consolidate, on the one hand, the identity of the country, surrounded by "a sea of Slavs," and, on the other hand, to proceed with the "Romanization" of the newly annexed territories.

[11] The migratory flow continued after the unification of Italy, not only towards Austro-Hungarian Transylvania but also towards the rest of Romania (Principality of Moldavia and Wallachia) which, with the independence obtained from the Ottoman Empire (1877), and following the annexation of Veneto to Italy (1866), on the occasion of the Third Italian War of Independence, it became a migratory valve that was important for the poor and overpopulated region.

According to historical research, about 130,000 Italians moved to Romania between the end of the 19th century and World War II, most of whom returned to their homeland after 1945.

In the 1990s, after the fall of Ceaușescu's communist regime, migration flows from Italy resumed and Italian emigrants were granted ethnic minority status and the right to elect their own parliamentarians.

[15] A 2009 report indicates that Romania is home to about two hundred thousand Italians, centralized mainly in Banat and Transylvania, mostly employed in the restaurant industry.

[17] At the end of the 19th century, thousands of families, mainly from Veneto and Friuli, settled in the coastal region of Dobruja, "where the climate was benign and the land munificent.

Beginning with the second generation, mixed marriages began with members of a growing Romanian community: the beginning of the twentieth century was in fact marked by the policies of ethnic colonization and cultural homogenization of Dobruja implemented by the Romanian government, aimed at establishing an indigenous majority, thus counterbalancing the Turkish-Tatar presence that had been predominant until then.

The city of Timișoara, capital of the Timiș County within the Banat region, has experienced a strong migration flow from Italy since the 1970s, particularly from the Northeastern provinces.

The survey is still the only quantitative analysis of the Venetian presence in Romania and, as far as Italian relocation is concerned, no complete official data are available to date.

[citation needed] Following the fall of the communist regime in 1989, the Romanian state granted Italian communities in the country the status of a linguistic minority and the right to be represented by their own parliamentarian in the Chamber of Deputies.

[33] Since 1999, an estimated 20,000 Italians have arrived in Romania, settling in Bucharest, the Timisoara area and Transylvania, employed mainly in the restaurant industry.

The Moldavian prince maintained an extensive correspondence with the pontiff, who appointed him, after a large battle against the Turks, Athleta Christi, one of the highest titles in the Middle Ages.

They always referred to each other as Rumâni, Români, while others called them Wallachians, Vlachs, Blachians, Volohi, which all meant "Romanic" or "speakers of a Romance language.

[35]The Latin heritage has always represented the Romanians' strongest historical link with the West and has remained an important means of maintaining their identity over the centuries.

A cult for Italy, the land of the Romans from which originated the army of Trajan, conqueror of Dacia, took root in the majority of Romanian intellectuals.

It was in this context that, in 1848, the Transylvanian poet Andrei Mureşanu composed the Romanian national anthem (official until 1918), shortly after the conference of Wallachian and Moldavian revolutionaries (the Adunarea naţională de la Blaj).

The anthem contains a significant passage in which the cultural roots and strong connection to Latinity are emphasized:În care te-adânciră barbarii de tirani!

Acum ori niciodată, croiește-ți altă soarte, La care să se-nchine și cruzii tăi dușmani.

One of the most important phenomena that fostered the Romance Westernization of the Romanian literary language was the large influx of translations of French and Italian literature.

Spinazzolla requested his transfer from his professorship at the Santo Sava School (1850-1870) to the newly founded University of Bucharest, where he was the originator of a chair of Italian language and literature.

[40] Frollo, a Venetian, was a professor at the King Charles I high schools in Brăila (1863-1869) and Matei Basarab in Bucharest (1869-1878), and a writer of grammars and dictionaries to provide schoolchildren with working tools: As early as 1871, he denounced the "gallomania" of the coordinators of public education who, by placing the French language among the compulsory subjects and establishing a French chair in both universities, were proving to be more Catholic than the Pope.

A specialist in Romance philology, Ramiro Ortiz was a professor at the University of Bucharest for 24 years, where he founded the Italian language and literature seminar and the journal Roma (1921-1933).

To prevent the school's closure, the Italian association "Liberi di Educare" privatized it, however, failing to guarantee a viable educational offer.