La începuturile unei diaspore uitate: italienii din Transilvania. Considerații istoriografice

In the provinces that currently make Romania, we dealt with a more consistent number of Italians who were to establish into a stable and uninterrupted community along time, along with modern times (XIXth century). The richness of natural resources, as well as requirements of the modernisation process, entailed need of specialised workforce, that came from the exterior and, thus, next to other ethnicities, also the Italians reached both inside and outside the Carpathian arch, in Danubian principalities. The issue of Italians’ emigration to the regions bounded by the Carpathians, the Danube and the Black Sea raises the same questions and research requirements; thus, the study of the Italian presence in Transylvania is a regional variant within a theme that essentially is the same throughout the Romanian area. This paper proposes to review and generally assess the production of historical writings of the last three decades, on the presence of the Italians on the territory of current Romania, supplementary emphasising those who stopped in Transylvania. Emigration of Italians to the Romanian area and their living here on the long run is a less studied chapter from the history of Italian-Romanian relations, next to other themes concerning the same issue such as relationships between the two nations during the establishment of modern national states, the political-diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between the two countries. Research of the historical Italian community from Romania was more extensive after 1989, both as regards the primary sources and presenting new information to the scientific environment, and the report of angles and perspective of approaching the theme. However, the issue is far from being settled, and indubitably it will be enriched by new contributions, in the following period. Studies and researches on Italians from the Romanian area appeared until now are the result of the interest showed by the Romanian and Italian historiography, with a more significant number of contributions made by the Romanian historiography.