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Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by keiferski on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @11:23AM (#38000444)
These labels are more cultural than strictly geographic. Western Romania could indeed be considered as Central Europe, as “Central Europe” has generally meant “associated with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.” The border between the Russian and AH empires is a good line for dividing Eastern and Central Europe IMO.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by KptMarchewa on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:08PM (#38001188)
Eastern and Southern Romania was part of Ottoman Empire, not russian one. The one that was occupied by russia is now called Moldova.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by keiferski on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:16PM (#38001323)
I didn't say anything about Eastern and Southern Romania, just Western. Eastern and Southern Romania has a mix of Ottoman and Russian influences and I think in general most people refer to it as something like, Balkans / Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe proper is more Ukraine and Russia.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by OfSanguineFire on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:25PM (#38001467)
There are very, very, very few Russian influences on eastern and southern Romania. While Russia did at one point claim the area as its sphere of influence, it never managed to exert any cultural influence. Rather, in those regions, the foreign cultural influences that are not Ottoman are Greek, due to the influence of the Phanariots, and then French due to the massive francophilia of the 19th century. And in fact, even Austro-Hungary arguably had more impact on non-Austro-Hungarian Romania (the Romanian dialects of even those regions abound in loanwords from German and Hungarian) than Russia.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by keiferski on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:31PM (#38001545)
The Russian Empire and then Soviet Union were one of the three largest powers in the region for hundreds of years. Yes, they had an influence on Romania, if a lesser one than the other two powers.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by OfSanguineFire on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:38PM (#38001656)
Some political influence on the choices available to the authorities, but not a cultural influence on the population of the country. Even when Romania was part of the Eastern Bloc, the heavy Soviet political influence lasted just two decades before Ceausescu took an independent course and made his own overtures to the West. Romanians know bugger-all about Russia, their language has almost no Russian loans, their Orthodox religion follows the Greek liturgical conventions, not the Russian ones, and French was the main foreign language taught even during the years of Communism.

Do you possess any actual familiarity with this country?

Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by keiferski on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:42PM (#38001703)
Romania is a small country historically sandwiched between three larger powers. Like literally every other country in world history, it has been influenced by its neighbors. Romania's existence as an independent country and Orthodox Christianity being two huge examples.

This is...common sense. I really don't get what your hostile obstinance is about, but I'm not interested in arguing over these nonsensical minor points any further.

Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by OfSanguineFire on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:45PM (#38001749)
Russia was the last country in the region to convert to Orthodoxy. The Balkans had already been Orthodox before Russia due to Byzantine influence. And as I said, even at a late date those regions of Romania were under heavy Greek influence due to Phanariot rule. If you believe that Russia has anything to do with Romania’s Orthodoxy, that is such a basic factual error that, again, I question that you possess any actual familiarity with the history of the country and its culture.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by keiferski on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:50PM (#38001815)
I didn't say Orthodoxy came to Romania from Russia. Russia was the largest and dominant Orthodox power in the region for hundreds of years. This identity was practically the Russian Empire's foreign policy, as the independence of Romania happening because of Russia should make obvious. See also: Serbia. Unless you think that Romania is in between Russia and Serbia but has no cultural influence from either...?

P.S., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phanariots#Russian_influence

Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by OfSanguineFire on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:53PM (#38001873)
Again, what you are talking about is political influence on rulers, not cultural influence on the population. In that regard, claiming that an independent Romania should be seen as marked by Russian influence would be like claiming that independent Vietnam is Russian-influenced. Any political ties and military aid involved a tiny amount of people and never affected the culture of either country.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by keiferski on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:57PM (#38001929)
So you're telling me that despite Romania being next to Russia for hundreds of years, Russian being a major foreign language taught in schools, and the actual independence of the country itself happening because of Russia, and the two countries sharing a specific religion of which Russia was the primary power, there was zero cultural influence on the country whatsoever, and was merely political influence on a small group of rulers that had no effect on the broader culture?

Yeah, this argument is really becoming a nonsensical waste of time.

Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by OfSanguineFire on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @01:01PM (#38001986)
> Russian being a major foreign language taught in schools

This lasted only for two decades immediately following the war, during the years of Soviet control, but Romania famously began to depart from that Soviet control in the 1960s. French then fully returned to its position as the major foreign language taught in schools, and while Russian was still taught at a few schools here and there, it was no longer a language prescribed at the national level. Again, this is a pretty well known fact. You are out of your depth here.

Even if Romania and Russia shared Orthodox religion, they had different conventions in terms of liturgy, monastery organization, etc., and whenever there are Russian–Greek differences, Romania always goes with the Greek convention.

If you claim Russian cultural influence on Romania, let’s have some examples.

Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by keiferski on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @01:15PM (#38002170)
The entire reason Romania had a communist government was because of the Soviet Union. The fact that they later distanced themselves from the USSR doesn't change this fact. That seems like a pretty major Russian cultural influence to me.

Unless you're suggesting that Romanian culture under communism arose independently and had no connection whatsoever to the USSR at any level? It just appeared from the ether, and Romania's presence in an Eastern Europe dominated by the Russian Empire and then USSR made no difference whatsoever, that it's at the same level as Russian influence on Zimbabwe or on Indonesia?

Here's the actual reality: all states are influenced by larger powers in their neighborhood, even the unpopular ones. Especially in Eastern Europe with regards to Russia. It may be unpopular, especially these days and especially in places like Romania, Poland, and Lithuania, but to pretend that somehow these cultures evolved on separate planets is not an intellectually honest position.

Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by OfSanguineFire on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @01:21PM (#38002246)
Political influence does not equal cultural influence. There are innumerable instances throughout history of powers politically influencing smaller states but without making any significant impact on their culture. Why you keep trying to assert Russian cultural influence on Romania without evincing any actual familiarity with the country, or being able to produce any concrete examples, is baffling. Just admit that you don’t know this region very well and are operating from vague stereotypes.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by keiferski on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @01:29PM (#38002368)
Romanian culture becoming communist didn't happen because of Russian political influence? They just decided to become communist entirely on their own? The Romanian communist government wasn't put into place by the USSR? And all the communist cultural elements in Romania from 1945 to the 1990s didn't exist?

P.S., I live in the region in an ex-Soviet country.

Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by OfSanguineFire on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @01:37PM (#38002495)
The Romanian Communist party was famously tiny before the war, it was never any major force bringing Russian culture into Romanian culture. While Soviet Russia as World War II victor did elevate that party to rule, that determined only the organization of the state, it did not introduce any distinctly Russian cultural influences into the Romanian population.

Then, the “Communist cultural elements in Romania from 1945 to the 1990s” changed significantly in the 1960s as Romania went its own course. Thereafter, Romanian communism was increasingly blended with Romanian nationalism.[0]

> P.S., I live in the region in an ex-Soviet country.

That doesn’t make you qualified to speak on Romanian culture and history. The Eastern Bloc was not a monoculture, and many countries in the region are poorly understood by their neighbours. Romania is unusual in the region in its culture being marked by two traits besides Greek-aligned Orthodox Christianity: francophilia and dacomania. Those circumstances left very little room for Russian culture to make inroads.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_communism_in_Romania

Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by keiferski on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @01:52PM (#38002712)
There are innumerable instances throughout history of powers politically influencing smaller states but without making any significant impact on their culture.

Again: you're telling me that communism in Romania didn't happen because of the Soviet Union, and that the Soviets implemented a communist political structure but this had zero effect on the culture? There was no communist culture in Romania? Zero? That's what you just claimed.

You do understand that just because Romania shifted away from the USSR a couple decades later doesn't change the fact that the communist party was still in power and only became in power in the first place because of the USSR?

This is a bit like arguing that Japan has no cultural influence from America, even though America conquered the country and replaced its government with a westernized one.

Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by OfSanguineFire on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @02:06PM (#38002920)
Viewing the Communist regime in Romania as an example of distinctly Russian culture is questionable inasmuch as it initially claimed to be internationalist, its first years involved a cult of personality of a man from Georgia and then local acolytes of that man, and aside from Russian teaching in schools that (as is well known) had extremely limited impact, it operated entirely through the local language where special Communist terminology was overwhelmingly of French or other Western origin, not from the Russian language.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by OfSanguineFire on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:14PM (#38001290)
On the other hand, late imperial Russia saw all the Orthodox lands down to Constantinople as its legitimate sphere of influence, so while the OP likely made a mistake, the notion of an Austro-Hungarian vs. Russia dividing line still has some sense to it.
Re:Germany to Pass Japan as Third-Largest Economy, Helped by... by KptMarchewa on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:24PM (#38001450)
Sure, the tendency of russia seeing random foreign lands as their own is at least as old as Ivan the Terrible.