Impresiile bănăţeanului Vicenţiu Grozescu despre Dobrogea la 1885 / The Dobrogea in the View of Vicenţiu Groozescu in 1885

Abstract

Vicentiu (Vincent) Grozescu (1838–1897) was born and lived all his life in Banat, the province of Hungary, and had the offi ces of Greek-catholic priest and archpriest. He was very interested in history and ethnography of the Romanians, those of Banat in the fi rst place, but not exclusively, and published some studies concerning the relations of the Romanians of Banat with the Hungarians and Austrians. He also made trips in Romania, independent state from 1878. In 1885 he relates his impressions about Dobrudja, the region between the Danube and the Black Sea, which was attached to Romania in 1878, until then being under the Ottoman rule.% e visitor was astonished of the life style, the customs and the clothes of the inhabitants, most of them Turks and Tartars, which he describes for the review Familia (' e Family) from Oradea, where he cooperated also before. % e two principle characteristics of his essay are the superior position of a western versus the oriental civilization which is even blamed, and the pleading for the (re) Romanization of the province by means of colonization of Romanians from the mountains of Transylvania.