🇷🇴🇵🇱 Polish Highlanders also known as "Gorals" and their connection with Romanians
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Between the 13th and 15th centuries Romanian shepherds from Transylvania started migrating and settling around Central Europe following the Carpathian Mountain range
Some of those Romanian shepherds finally settled on Polish lands, specifically in a region called Podhale, where they started living and intermingling with the native Polish population
Due to something known as the Vlach (exonym for Romanian) or Romanian Law, the Romanian shepherds which would start being known as "Gorals" enjoyed certain privileges like
- The right to travel and carry weapons
- Freedom from serfdom
- Higher levels of autonomy
With time the Gorals became a separate ethnic group from Romanians and were assimilated into the Polish nation, however, they preserved characteristics in their lifestyle that to this day resemble many aspects of Romanian culture
A traditional Goral wooden house next to a traditional Romanian house from Transylvania
The architectural style draws on local architecture of the Carpathians, and is widespread in the Podhale region
Polish Goral man next to Romanian man from Transylvania
We can clearly see the common origins of both traditional attires wether it's the leather belt, blouse or the traditional hat
The Gorals even had their version of the Romanian Haiduc (a robin hood type figure that would steal from the rich and give to the poor)
They called them "zbójnicy" which seems to be related to the Romanian word Ră(zboinici), "warriors"
Romanian haiduc next to a zbójnicy
Dobroslowski, a polish sociologist, asserted that the Podhale dialect of the Gorals had loan-words from Romanian
Sadly there ain't much information about it online and my Podhale is not the best
Here some examples of the Polish spoken by the Gorals
There are many villages in Poland with names derived from the word Wallachian, which is how outsiders called Romanians in the past
- Wolosate
- Tyrawa Woloska
- Woloszyn
- Wolosaty
The ending sate/saty is also curious, it reminds me of the Romanian word sat, which means village
Even the traditional dances are unbelievably similar
If you didn't tell me these are Polish Gorals, I would have said this is the Romanian dance called "Căluș"
Just for reference, this is the Căluș dance from Romania
The Gorals also use a wooden horn they call trembita or trombita to announce deaths, funerals and weddings
The one used in Romania is called trâmbiță
Even some instruments are similar, like this bagpipe made out of goat skin, in Romania it's called cimpoi, the Gorals call it duda
It's fascinating how two groups that have been separated for so long still retain so many similarities
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Similar to their Italian counterparts, the constructions had to be imposing and giving the royalty a greater significance
The architecture and sculpture were simple, elegant and filled with national symbolism
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The Transnistria Exhibition pavilion was built in Bucharest in 1941
The exhibition honored Romania's conquest at the Eastern Front
On one of the panels of the Transnistria exhibition pavilion, we see a depiction of the Romanian ruler Duca-Voda, Prince of Moldova (several times between 1665 and 1684), of Wallachia (1674-1678) and Hatman of Ottoman Ukraine (1681-1683)
🇷🇴 The Tactics of Vlad the Impaler: Asymmetrical & Psychological Warfare
Raids, battles, and campaigns are all synonymous with Vlad III, the Impaler
Behind the legend, however, lies the history of an excellent military commander
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While it is easy to label Vlad as a bloodthirsty maniac due to many myths, his actions were rarely impulses but rather calculated actions aimed to demoralize his enemies
He played his part as a leader and commander in one of the most dangerous times in European history
Vlad learned the basics of war at the court of his father, Vlad II Dracul
Later he spent his teens at the Ottoman court as a political hostage where he was allegedly trained under the Ottoman Empire's elite troops, the Jannisaries
Known as one of the three Romanian principalities along with Wallachia and Transylvania, the Principality of Moldavia played an important role in Romanian history
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In 1353, a Romanian ruler from Maramureș named Dragoș, who was under Hungarian suzerainty, was sent by the Hungarian king to establish a line of defense against the Golden Horde around the Siret River (today part of the region of Moldova in Romania)
The legend says Dragoș came to Moldavia while hunting an aurochs (an extinct cattle species)
This event would become the inspiration for the future flag of the Principality of Moldavia which depicts the golden head of an aurochs on a red background
🇷🇴 How fashion giants like Dior and Louis Vuitton steal Romanian Folk Clothing designs and sell them as their own "original" creations for up to €30,000
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In 2017 Dior launched a collection featuring folk motifs
Soon people began to see that many of them looked very similar to those of traditional Romanian clothing from Bihor
This caused Romanian people starting a campaign against the fashion company with the goal of getting credit for the copied pieces
To this day Dior has never acknowledged copying Romanian folk designs
🇷🇴 The Pitești Experiment: The Eastern Bloc's Most Brutal Prison
The experiment carried out in the Pitești Prison in Romania, aimed to torture and brainwash prisoners into absolute loyalty towards Romania's communist party
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The experiment was carried out between 1949 and 1951
on up to 5,000 prisoners from which up to 200 died in the process
The experiment is often refered to as the largest and most intensive brainwashing torture program in the Eastern Bloc
First Stage: "External Unmasking"
Each person in the experiment was first thoroughly interrogated and tortured to reveal personal details about their lives ("external unmasking")