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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was MERGE to Greater Romania. Several editors in the delete camp recommended delete but put forward as a rationale that instead the Greater Romania article (GR) could be expanded. That is essentially an argument for merge, despite the call to delete. The principle argument of the keep camp is that GR only covers the interwar period. However, not much in the way of argument, at least policy based argument, was put forward as to why GR should not be so expanded. The principle argument appears to be that GR is about a state and this article is about a political concept. However, the title Greater Romania does not immediately lead our readers to expect an article on Greater Romania (1918-1940) and I note that in the Name section of GR the discussion goes back to 1852. The principle argument from the delete camp was that this article is fork of the Greater Romania article. If it is indeed a content fork then there should be no substantive objection to remerging. There was some discussion on creating a Romanian nationalism article. Whether to do this or not is a matter for editors to discuss going forward and this close should in no way be seen as preventing material being split out into such an article at a later date. In the same vein, this close decision should not be taken as an endorsement of any view expressed in the current article—what material to merge and how to do it is again for the normal editing process to work out. Spinning Spark 20:54, 22 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Greater Romania (political concept)

Greater Romania (political concept) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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This looks like Wikipedia:Content forking to me. There is already an existing article named Greater Romania
Later edit (09:36, 13 May 2014): I realized that we also have an article named National awakening of Romania which somehow deals with the same topic. Avpop ( talk) 08:38, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply

The discussions about the unification of Romania and Moldova are still existing, they were not actual only in the 1990s. See the December 2013 declaration of President Basescu: "Romania's next big goal is merger with Moldova"
Regarding " Greater Serbia" and " Greater Hungary", it should be discussed how Wikipedia:Other stuff exists policy applies here. Avpop ( talk) 09:18, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The period of the "possible unification of Romania and Moldova" happened in the early nineties. Basescu's statement rather belongs to the" Greater Romania (political concept)". Actually "the concept of Greater Romania" is the guiding principle for the "unification of Romania an Moldova". Also, some Romanian nationalists claim more Hungarian and Serbian territories and the ideology of their claim is the concept of Greater Romania. Fakirbakir ( talk) 09:32, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Original research. You don't have any evidence to show that unification with Moldova was more possible with the Sovietized population of the latter country in 1992 and the Soviet-educated leadership of Romania than it might be today, when a younger generation has risen that is more aware of Europe and of the shared past, and the leadership on both sides is much more open to the idea. You also have no evidence that "some Romanian nationalists" have wanted the entire Banat since about 1941. - Biruitorul Talk 14:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The point is that the nationalist demands are/were based on the concept of Greater Romania. Fakirbakir ( talk) 15:13, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 13:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Moldova-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 13:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Romania-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 13:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 13:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - not only is this a content fork, it probably also violates WP:NOR, WP:COATRACK and WP:SYNTH.
  • Look, the idea of "Greater Romania" probably can be divided into three distinct phases: before 1918, when it was an unrealized project; 1918 to 1940, when it actually existed; and since 1940, the political and/or ideological impulse for its recreation. That hardly justifies having two separate articles; it simply indicates we should expand the longstanding article we already have, Greater Romania, with a greater dose of theoretical content. And while Unification of Romania and Moldova is a sort-of related idea, it actually is distinct and needs to be kept separate. - Biruitorul Talk 14:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
" Greater Romania" is about interwar Romania. It covers ONLY the period between the World Wars. Fakirbakir ( talk) 15:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Because you say so? I'm sorry, that's not good enough. There is no policy-based reason — none — that says the Greater Romania article cannot be expanded with a section that details the concept as it existed until 1918, and with another that covers developments related to the idea since 1940. - Biruitorul Talk 15:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
There is no other article about interwar Romania. It is pretty straightforward. Are you suggesting that Vadim Tudor's or Gheorghe Funar's statements in connection with Greater Romania belong to subject of interwar Romania? Fakirbakir ( talk) 15:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC) https://www.facebook.com/events/642482102479760/?fref=ts# reply
Actually, there is another article that has quite a bit of coverage of interwar Romania: Kingdom of Romania.
More to the point, I am suggesting you avoid original research. Despite the name of their party, neither Vadim Tudor nor Funar are particularly connected to Romanian irredentism, and you haven't provided citations to the contrary. (And no, "pp. 161-176" or " pp. 166-298" is not good enough; you need specific page numbers.) Funar's main platform was "defending the rights of Romanians in Transylvania from Hungarian revanchism"; Vadim Tudor's, in addition to that, was "rehabilitating the image of late communism", and "attacking Jews and Gypsies".
The academic term for sentiment that advocates the union of Romania and Moldova is not "Greater Romania" but "pan-Romanianism", e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4]. Of course, that too can be covered at Unification of Romania and Moldova rather than spun out as a separate article.
The Greater Romania article has plenty of space and scope for covering the development of the idea prior to 1918, its existence over the next twenty-two years, and its manifestations over the last 74 years. This article is a content fork and the sooner it's gone, the better. - Biruitorul Talk 16:29, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
@ User:Fakirbakir In Greater Romania article there was also a phrase referring to present irredentism (When used in a political context it has an irredentist connotation, mainly concerning the territories that were ruled by Romania in the interwar period, that are now part of Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova or Bulgaria.) that was removed by you here. Avpop ( talk) 15:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The statement as you see it has been unsourced since 2008. Fakirbakir ( talk) 15:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - Nonsense. The little content from this page, if properly sourced, can be added to Greater Romania. -- Codrin.B ( talk) 09:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - One "greater" anycountry, in this case Greater Romania, is more than enough. BlueMist ( talk) 00:12, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. "Greater Romania" is primarily a political concept. The article Greater Romania, which is of the historical period spanning from 1918 to 1940, should be renamed. Reliable sources written in the last 20 years prefer the expression "Inter-war Romania" for the same period (for instance, Bolovan, Ioan et al (1997): A History of Romania /The Center for Romanian Studies, ISBN  973-98091-0-3/; Pop, Ioan-Aurel (1999): Romanians and Romania: A Brief History /Boulder, ISBN  0-88033-440-1/) Borsoka ( talk) 02:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Unfortunately for your argument, modern source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source does in fact use the term "Greater Romania" to refer to the interwar state, and as all participants aside from the article creator have suggested, this article is a content fork that invents a topic where none exists by gathering together disparate mentions of "Greater Romania" and pretending they amount to a coherent entity. Whatever there is to be said about latter-day initiatives for recreating the 1918-1940 state, or whatever backstory for that state can be quoted from reliable sources, can amply be done so in the longstanding Greater Romania article. - Biruitorul Talk 04:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Please read your sources before referring to them. In a historical context, most of them prefer the expression "Interwar Romania", as I mentioned it here. Borsoka ( talk) 05:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Delete per Volunteer Marek. BMK ( talk) 07:39, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
It is hilarious. If this page was deleted, would you tell me where I could find anything about "concept of Greater Romania"? Do you think it is a POV issue? Have you checked the references? Fakirbakir ( talk) 07:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Why can't the "concept of Greater Romania" be presented in a section of the already existing Greater Romania article? Avpop ( talk) 07:52, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The discussion was closed and the result of the move request was: not moved. Avpop ( talk) 16:05, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
User:Antidiskriminator please post here the most relevant sources that you found in order to let other editors check them. Avpop ( talk) 20:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Here is one of sources which explains this political concept in connection with other similar political concepts at Balkans:
I don't disregard the topic, I agree that it is a notable one. My point is that Romanian irredentism that led to the creation of interwar Romania and the post-WW2 desire for its re-creation can be included in the old article that is Greater Romania (a WP:MERGE)
Also, Citations to non-English sources are allowed. However, because this is the English-language Wikipedia, English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones, whenever English sources of equal quality and relevance are available. ( WP:RSUE) Avpop ( talk) 21:20, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Redirect to Greater Romania. 23 editor ( talk) 20:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Comment - Antidiskriminator, Rovibroni: you both fail to address a key issue, namely that it is not necessary to have one article on the Romanian state that existed between 1918 and 1940, and another on its ideological background, underpinnings and aftermath. And no, "sources exist" is not necessarily a valid counterargument. Sources exist on all kinds of subtopics that do not rise to the level of separate articles. We have things called sections that handle this sort of situation and avoid content forking. Yes, it's likely there is some sort of vague ideology surrounding this whole notion, although the article as it presently reads is a disgraceful coatrack, a poorly-formatted, visibly ungrammatical attack page rather than an asset. In no way does that imply it's warranted to have two articles covering very closely related ground. - Biruitorul Talk 05:49, 12 May 2014 (UTC) reply
At least, you now admit the concept exists. You just dislike to idea of a separate article. You "fail to address" why article of interwar Romania should include the development of an ideology which led a nation to choose a particular course of action in the past two hundred years. Fakirbakir ( talk) 08:33, 12 May 2014 (UTC) reply
This isn't a shift in my position: of course there was an idea that motivated the union of Romanian lands into a single state, their maintenance as such and the desire for their recreation. We are talking about developments after the rise of romantic nationalism, with all that entails. We are not talking about someone in the pre-modern period randomly conquering as much land as he can that happens to include inhabitants speaking more or less the same language.
Like much else in the polemic you've created, the "past two hundred years" claim is extremely tendentious. All you have about 1848 (which was actually 166 years ago) is this: "the dream of a greater Romania… seemed to be a possibility". You then turn that into "The Romanian revolution in 1848 already carried the seeds of the national dream of a unified and united 'Greater Romania'." That is a fairly transparent manipulation. For one, by capitalizing the "g", you link the vague hopes of 1848 to the specific project that came to fruition in 1918, when the source does no such thing. For another, you extrapolate from one revolutionary moment and turn that into a stage of a decades-long concerted process, when nothing of the sort in reality took place. You naturally ignore, for example, that Romania and Austria-Hungary signed a secret alliance treaty in 1883, and that although the National Liberals made some noises about the "Transylvania question", for instance organizing a pavilion about the province at the 1906 exhibition in Bucharest against King Carol's objections, by and large the issue of Transylvania in domestic Romanian politics, to say nothing of Bessarabia or Bukovina, was dormant until 1914 — and even then, opinions were divided between P. P. Carp and the King on the one hand, who continued to insist on upholding the treaty, and francophiles on the other hand, who wanted to seize the moment and fight to achieve a unified state.
The point is that this story is a) more nuanced than you make it out to be and b) forms an integral whole: theory, practice, aftermath. Your division of it into two articles is artificial, serves the reader poorly by sending him to two places when he can logically get everything in one, and constitutes nothing less than a biased content fork. - Biruitorul Talk 14:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC) reply
These are groundless accusations. There is no manipulation. I can use the expression "dream of greater Romania" instead of "unified Greater Romania" but the meaning will be the same. The "dream" depicts the desire for a greater Romania, therefore, this "dream" in 1848 is a splendid evidence for the presence of the concept of "Greater Romania". However I would not mind if we rephrased the sentence. What do I ignore? Can not you see that I created the article only five days ago? It is a stub article. There are a lot of works to do. Fakirbakir ( talk) 16:16, 12 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Cancel that: this other source does establish the link to the PRM. But there's still a lot of what appears to be WP:SYNTH in the article, and I don't see why we need two articles here, given that neither is too long to read. QVVERTYVS ( hm?) 12:28, 16 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I do not understand why we should discuss pan-Romanianism at the article of interwar Romania ( Greater Romania). If I followed your logic page of Unification of Romania and Moldova would have to be merged with Greater Romania too. Anyway, the reasons of the shortness of these articles can be easily answered. "Greater Romania" is a badly written article as I see nobody really cares about its content. "Greater Romania (political concept)" is only nine days old stub/start class article. They could be much much longer. Fakirbakir ( talk) 13:21, 16 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Qwertyus has the right idea when calling for a merger. Personally, I think this should just be deleted, but by all means anything that can be salvaged, should be. The ideological underpinnings of the interwar state are closely enough related to the state itself that the two topics, insofar as they are separate, can easily be covered in one place. Separating the articles creates for a content fork filled with original research and synthesis that makes for egregious POV-pushing.
Fakirbakir, it's not relevant if this article is nine or ninety or nine hundred days old, just like it's not relevant how poorly written Greater Romania is. What is relevant is that despite your desperate attempts to stuff all sorts of unrelated bits of trivia and thereby create the appearance of a coherent article, the structural flaws are apparent right away.
And no, Unification of Romania and Moldova can't be merged anywhere; neither can National awakening of Romania, which this article largely duplicates in its pre-1918 material, nor Greater Romania Party, which, just to remind the audience, does have its own article. The "unification" article refers to a specific movement for joining the present-day states of Romania and Moldova, whereas the Greater Romania project involved incorporation into Romania of Bessarabia, Bukovina, southern Dobrudja, the Banat, Crișana, Maramureș and Transylvania. - Biruitorul Talk 00:00, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Since I assume this will be closed soon, let me say a word to the closing administrator. This article probably started as a misguided attempt to create for Romania something along the lines of Greater Hungary (political concept). But whereas that concept has been amply documented in reliable sources, that is plainly not the case here, as the sourcing shows. For instance, I explained above why, despite the distortion from source to article, no historian has actually linked the 1848 revolution to the events of 1918 that created Greater Romania. Moreover, the pre-1918 movement for uniting the Romanian lands has been documented and can further be documented at National awakening of Romania. The article's description of present-day developments is both tendentious ( Acțiunea 2012, for instance, is a studiously moderate outfit, not the "extremists" the article would have us believe call for unification with Moldova) and a fork, since Unification of Romania and Moldova covers that aspect thoroughly.
  • In sum: we have Greater Romania, Greater Romania Party, National awakening of Romania and Unification of Romania and Moldova to cover more or less similar concepts. We simply do not need yet another article - a hopelessly POV one, an obvious content fork - repeating the same material, when that can easily be done at the extant articles. - Biruitorul Talk 00:00, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Comment. Biruitorul is biased in his approach to the issue. For instance, he has a Greater Romania map on his user page with a quote "Romania - the way it should be". He just does not like the idea of a separate article. I can tell you it will not hurt if we have a separate article about this topic. Pan-Romanianism does not belong to the subject of -interwar- Greater Romania. Fakirbakir ( talk) 08:47, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Fakirbakir, comment on content, not on the contributor. I ask you to strike out the personal attack component of your comment, or else I may seek administrative intervention again. I have carefully laid out my reasons for opposing this page, and they do not relate to personal preference. To the closing administrator, please note that this kind of battleground mentality can only be expected to continue if the article is kept. - Biruitorul Talk 14:16, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Note to closing admin: while Biruitorul above is right and there is little to connect the 1848 revolutions to the 1918 event, this was the official Romanian historiographical discourse until few years ago (i.e. this is what the K12-level history textbooks said for almost a century, with a hiatus in the 1950s). Basically, since the 1920s, "Greater Romania" was the normative paradigm in interpreting the events involving the territory of Romania, sometimes going as far as the BC era (it's fun to see how an arbitrary line drawn in 1913 to delineate the border between Romania and Bulgaria was translated back in time to the 14th century). This proves that the concept/ideology in itself is independent of the actual state entity controlling Romania and territories of neighbouring countries between 1918-1940. Admittedly, it is an ideology that is nowadays being abandoned in mainstream Romanian historiography (not so much in the pro-Romanian Moldovan one), but is still historically relevant and notable.
    • Furthermore, the movement for the unification of Romania and Moldova is closely linked to this ideology (supporters of the movement commonly sport symbols like this, symbol representing the borders of interwar Romania also found on stickers across Romanian cities; stencils like this one are not uncommon in Chisinau - note the borders of interwar Romania linked with the historically unrelated Stephen the Great).
    • To conclude, the topic is a notable encyclopaedic one, independent of the former state. As a matter of fact, this topic is better supported by mainstream historiography and less WP:SYNTHy than the claim of a Soviet occupation of Romania spanning more than a decade, as a WP article currently advocates. While the article currently has some flaws, it is in much better shape that other articles, and specific problems with a source or two has never been reason for deleting an article. Anonimu ( talk) 09:15, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
      • The problems run much deeper than "a source or two".
        • What about the claim that the Romanian Communist Party supported re-establishing Greater Romania in 1944-47? Yes, I know we have a source saying that, but this rather extraordinary claim requires, it would seem, further documentation. We know the the Communists' 1946 platform called for "close and permanent ties of friendship with the USSR and neighboring countries", which would be rather difficult to achieve while laying claim to the lost provinces.
        • Then again, this article is highly problematic - for starters, despite claims of peer review, it's written in rather poor English. But anyway: "radicals make territorial demands on Hungary". Really? Who are these supposed "radicals", what part of Hungary do they demand, and who has written about them in any depth?
        • "The population gradually lost its faith in the democratic conception of 'Greater Romania'". For one, this is extremely shoddy "scholarship" - what is cited is an English-language abstract of a publication that's in German; the publication itself is not cited. For another, the observation is irrelevant to the article: it refers to the rise of extremist parties in the wake of the Depression. While that is an interesting phenomenon in the context of Romanian political history, it has nothing to do with the alleged "Greater Romania (political concept)".
      • I could go on, but the point is that source after source is abused to make tendentious claim upon tendentious claim. If this is what we can expect for the future, better to delete now. - Biruitorul Talk 14:16, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Poor English is the language of science — many publication venues force authors to write in English, even in the humanities and social sciences (to increase the audience and up the citation scores that funding bodies stare at), but few have the manpower to fix spelling, grammar or style. You can't reject a source on the basis of bad English. QVVERTYVS ( hm?) 11:19, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
        • I beg to differ.
          • The RCP did support the full restoration of Northern Transylvania to Romania, even if parts of it had clear Hungarian majorities and some of the local RCP representatives pushed for at least an autonomous status for the region. Furthermore, Groza repeatedly raised the issue of Southern Dobruja with the Bulgarian representative in Bucharest, aiming to at least a partial reversal of the Craiova Treaty. I'm not currently aware on any high-level initiative to re-negotiate the border with the Soviet Union, but I would not be surprised. Many in the younger generation of the RCP had been educated to believe in the historical rightfulness of a "Greater Romania". Anyway, the source in itself is written by an academic and published by a reputable publisher. It is certainly more reliable than the personal opinion of an anonymous editor of Wikipedia.
          • Supposedly the radicals are the same enumerated elsewhere in article, i.e. PRM and ND. What territories? These unencyclopaedic maps uploaded on WP (probably by supporters of the ideology) might give you an idea: File:Romania_Mare1.jpg, File:RomanianTerritories.png. As Qwertyus mentioned, the language issue is not that important, and is rather common in peer-reviewed journals published in countries where English is not widely spoken.
          • While I don't read German, a quick look over the source with Google Translate suggest it would be relevant to this article. For example, around pages 300-310, it discusses the efforts to integrate territories without a historical Romanian-speaking population (e.g. Dobruja) into the Greater Romanian discourse, as well as attempts to promote the concept to an European audience, and counter the Greater Hungary concept. A German speaker may easily identify in the source the pages relevant to our article.
        • Therefore, none of your "problems" are actual issues. This seems to be a classic case of WP:JDL. Anonimu ( talk) 12:36, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Let's grant a role for the RCP in the return of Northern Transylvania (although the main players in that story were the King and Petru Groza, who studiously maintained the façade of not being a Communist). In terms of south Dobrudja, we have this from a leading expert on the region, as regards a petition formulated in 1946 and demanding its return to Romania: "[it] was not supported in any way by the official delegation of the communist government then in power in Bucharest". As for Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, I'm afraid no source has been adduced claiming the RCP wanted those areas back either.
    • Anonimu has been playing this anonymous user line for quite some time, and despite his attempts to dismiss what I have to say, it absolutely is appropriate to question a source. In fact, as he said in that very comment of November 2007, "extraordinary claims need extraordinary proofs". It is in fact extraordinary to claim that the RCP wanted a restoration of Greater Romania in 1944-47, and the source cited is a 1990 work by a man who is not a Romania expert, and who furthermore was working at a time when Western scholars had sharply limited access to relevant materials on Romania.
    • Speaking of anonymous Internet editors, I'm afraid those maps prove nothing. ND respects the Trianon borders. So does PRM, it would appear. The claim of demands on Hungary is a spurious one, unsupported by evidence.
    • In terms of the German article, the abstract as cited is unrelated to the article's purported topic. What can be cited from within the article is another issue entirely, but its pertinence has yet to be demonstrated.
    • Let's take yet another flawed line from the article: "The first step in re-unifying Romanians was to establish The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859". True. But that is straightforward history. The source does not link this event to some "Greater Romania (political concept)", and rightly so, as the events of 1859 really had very little to do with such. - Biruitorul Talk 16:25, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
      • Uh, no. While Northern Transylvania was reverted to Romania primarily due to Soviet geopolitical concerns (Mihai and Groza having little to do with it), the representative of the central RCP (N. Golberger) went at great lengths to prevent the de facto civil administration instituted in the region in late 1944-early 1945 from publicly endorsing a position against the thesis of an unitary Romanian state. Furthermore, the autonomists among the local RCP members (e.g. Vescan) were stripped of party positions once the RCP-supported government restored its administration in the region. In the case of Southern Dobruja, Groza raised the issue before the petition went public, and suggested that the Soviets be made aware of any negotiations, which would have been difficult if the RCP hadn't endorsed him; as a matter of fact, the strongly-worded nationalist petition you mention appears to have ruined Groza's plan. Oh, and your "expert" is leading only among the promoters of Ceausescu-era nationalist historical mythology.
      • What about your comment above where you said people should comment on facts, not on editors? Also, get your facts straight: the book was published in 2004 and, while the author doesn't appear to be especially interested in Romania, he has several published works on nationalism in the Balkans. Your claims about lack of access to archives and whatnot is therefore irrelevant.
      • Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth.
      • The linked source does provide information relevant to the topic. This info is not currently included in the article, but we are discussing a deletion, not a FA nomination. Availability of potential sources is thus relevant.
      • I see no problem with providing some context. If all WP articles would be stripped down to bare facts strictly about the titular subject, the average user without extensive knowledge of the topic would understand nothing. Anonimu ( talk) 18:08, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Unfortunately for Anonimu, the kinds of mischaracterizations and character assassination present in the above post may not be enough to save this article, and even if they are, they are certainly not enough to keep the article for being irredeemably tainted by POV.
    • He ignores the key role played in the return of Northern Transylvania by King Michael, in spite of published opinions by historians.
    • He makes unverified assertions about the activity of Petru Groza, a man who in any case never joined the RCP. He also fails to realize that the most logical venue for discussing this history is at Northern Transylvania.
    • He smears the memory of the late Gheorghe Zbuchea, a PhD in History, a man who taught said discipline for decades at Romania's top faculty in the field (at the University of Bucharest), who supervised doctoral theses there until his death in 2008, who wrote widely in the post-1989 era and whose work came out via respected publishing houses.
    • He implicitly concedes that no attempt was made by the Communists to recover Bessarabia in 1944-47, which rather negates the "Communists demanded Greater Romania's restoration" thesis, especially given that today, union Bessarabia is a core demand of most Romanians (some 75% in recent polls).
    • While he asserts, correctly, that Ethnic Violence and the Societal Security Dilemma dates to 2004, he ignores the fact that the citation in the book for that "fact" is from Trond Gilberg's Nationalism and Communism in Romania, published in 1990, when archival access was indeed decidedly problematic.
    • In reiterating the core of WP:V, he ignores several corollaries, such as "The appropriateness of any source depends on the context", or "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources." The claim that amorphous Romanian "extremists" demand parts of Hungary is indeed exceptional, and it is most appropriate for editors to demand further verification of such an outlandish claim. The very identity of said extremists is left unclear in the original source, a definite red flag.
    • He claims that Oliver Schmitt's article provides citable information, but makes no effort to cite it himself, and no effort to integrate the material into an established article such as Greater Romania, as would be more logical.
    • He mentions the importance of context, on which I agree, but claims not to see the misleading nature of the citation at hand, which makes it appear as though the events of 1859 were part of a grander, decades-long scheme to unify the Romanian lands, when in fact what happened in 1918 was largely the result of accident, the rest being attributable to no more than half a decade of activity. - Biruitorul Talk 23:56, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Despite his hypocritical comment to Fakirbakir, it appears that Biruitorul is the one who cannot refrain from resorting to personal attacks in order to justify his particular point of view. Anyway:
      • No matter the post-factum rationalizations by some authors favourable to the former ruler of Romania in a popular history magazine, Mihai had no business in the matter of Northern Transylvania, which objective foreign scholars agree was primarily a Soviet foreign policy decision (the Soviets couldn't care less about Mihai's opinions or actions, as it became clear later during the "royal strike"). While this specific discussion should indeed be moved to that article, my comments were only meant to indicate that the assertion present in the reliable source is far from being "extraordinary".
      • Your assertions are unverified, and your assumption is insulting. My facts are backed by authoritative peer-reviewed sources, such as this one, not by some self-published PDF file found on the web. Also, you insistence in pointing out Groza was not member of the RCP is bizzare, considering that just a comment above you referred to his government as "communist". Confusing third parties is not a fair way to win an argument.
      • Zbuchea was, along with other historians of his generation like Buzatu or Coja, a supporter of a militant nationalist historiography. His occasional hagiographies about leading members of the fascist Iron Guard further reinforce this view. Unfortunately, such relics of national-communist historiography survived in Romanian academia well into the 2000s. Just last year one of these "PhD in History" held a discourse at the Romanian Academy denying the Holocaust.
      • Unless you are a published academic and have written a review about the book published by a peer-reviewed venue, you have no moral authority to judge the author's selection of sources. If his peer reviewers found it OK, you have no right to contest it on whimsical grounds.
      • WP:V's observations are very reasonable: news article can be used for current events articles but they shouldn't generally be used for sourcing things like the funerary ritual in Ancient Egypt. In our case, the reference is an adequate scholarly source dealing with nationalist aggrandisement fantasies in South-Eastern Europe, i.e. a topic that includes the concept of Greater Romania. While the author failed to rise to the expectations of the anonymous editor of WP known as Biruitroul and did not find it necessary to enumerate the Romanian extremists each and every time he mentioned them, that doesn't turn his article into an unreliable source.
      • I see no reason to invest significant effort in sourcing an article that has 50% chances of being deleted. And I see no reason to go into the details of this nationalistic ideology in the article about a state that is only partly related to it. We don't squeeze in Manifest destiny as a section of US history in the first half of the 18th century, I see no reason to do it in the case of Romania either.
      • "the events of 1859 were part of a grander, decades-long scheme to unify the Romanian lands" was standard discourse in Romanian historiography for almost a century. And I can bring tons of references for this from lots of Romanian top historians. They were obviously just creating post-factum justifications in order to promote a nationalist agenda, but sources do exist, and they aren't few. Anonimu ( talk) 19:30, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Anonimu's distortions continue unabated. He begins by dismissing the opinion of Steliu Lambru, PhD in History with an impressive array of activity in that field, as "post-factum rationalizations by some authors". He then attempts to bury the Bessarabia issue by asserting that "the assertion present in the reliable source is far from being 'extraordinary'". Of course, it is an extraordinary claim to make, saying that Communists wanted to recreate Greater Romania, Soviet-occupied Bessarabia included, and the general comment made by the source does not constitute sufficient verification.
    • He goes on to label as "insulting" a request for sources, which surely is a first. He dismisses an article by noted authority Gheorghe Zbuchea as "some self-published PDF file found on the web", when in fact the article is hosted on the site of a serious project aiming to gather together scholarly opinions and writings on the Aromanians, who have been the subject of far too much baseless speculation. Moreover, he seems surprised by the notion of multiparty cabinets, perhaps unaware that while the government that took office on 6 March 1945 was "communist-dominated" or simply "communist" (modern works use both terms), not all its ministers were communist - Tătărescu was a Liberal, Voitec at that point a Social Democrat, and, yes, Groza himself was part of the Ploughmen's Front.
    • He continues his attacks on the late Prof. Zbuchea without much substance. He does not challenge the scholarship he produced with facts, but with assertions ("supporter of a militant nationalist historiography"). In an effort to discredit him, he brings up Zbuchea's attempts to rehabilitate someone like Constantin Papanace, a complex but ultimately praiseworthy man who spent decades in exile pleading the cause of captive Romania, and who, like many of his generation's best men, happened to belong to the Guard. Of course, even if one disagrees with his stance on that subject, the value of his scholarly work is hardly negated. He then brings up a speech by Prof. Vladimir Iliescu, as if that were somehow relevant - a speech that raised a series of pertinent questions which timid Romanian scholars have been far too reluctant to debate in recent years, but at the same time made clear that Romania had directed "persecutions" against the Jews that led to "crimes equally condemnable with those of the Holocaust".
    • He proceeds to lecture me on what I may or may not challenge and under what circumstances. Needless to say, such posturing is absurd. It is perfectly reasonable and routine to ask for more details about the highly dubious claims made in the article and cited to works of questionable merit. The same goes for the mention of "extremists": anonymous user Anonimu browbeats anonymous user Biruitorul for having the temerity to demand just who these individuals are who demand parts of Hungary for Romania's territory. Well, again, that is an extraordinary claim and the fact that the article makes no attempt to identify these "extremists" by specifically pointing to instances of such demands calls its integrity into question.
    • He rounds out his diatribe with a claim that he can "bring tons of references" linking the 1859 project to that of 1918. Should the article be kept, it would be interesting to see those, but for now, all we have is meaningless assertions. - Biruitorul Talk 20:50, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Lacking actual arguments, Biruitorul can only resort to even more personal attacks.
      • The author mentioned by Biruitorul has an unusually short list of academic publications for an activity already spanning more than 15 years (articles in popular history magazine are not considered scientific in academia), and most of these few publication are on the topic of national identity. Furthermore, reading the linked article anyone can see that the role of Mihai is simply postulated, and never explained. A foreseeable position, considering there is nothing to justify such assertion, and even one of the sources mentioned by this popular history article (Pokivaylova & Islamov 2003) clearly disproves it. Published documents, such as these further demonstrate the baselessness of such claims. The numerous sources indicating the efforts of the RCP to preserve at least part of Greater Romania (especially parts that had little arguments to connect them to Romania, such as Szeklerland and Southern Dobruja) indicate that a part of its leadership was influenced by this ideology, thus the claim is certainly not extraordinary.
      • The pdf presented by Biruitorul is hosted by a website with no indication of peer-review, which has as contact point a marginal religious foundation. It is self-published by most reasonable standards.
      • It's saddening to see WP editors harbouring revisionist ideas. Because what else if not revisionism is calling a convicted war criminal, who, per Zbuchea's own statements, was one of the closest collaborators of the fascist terrorists who assassinated a Romanian prime-minister, an "ultimately praiseworthy man". What else if not negationism is describing a discourse universally condemned as Holocaust denial by mainstream academia, Romanian and foreign alike, as "a series of pertinent questions which timid Romanian scholars have been far too reluctant to debate"?!?
    • Considering the above, I have to reluctantly support Fakirbakir's assertion above, and doubt the good faith of some of the editors who are pushing for the deletion of this perfectly notable encyclopaedic topic, as indicated by the numerous sources already included in the article. Anonimu ( talk) 12:42, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Despite Anonimu's outlandish claims, Mr Lambru had already published quite widely, including on the history of 1930s-'40s Romania, even before he received his doctorate. And again despite his claim that the role of the King was irrelevant, this is contradicted by Dan Zamfirescu's book Regele şi mareşalul. He goes on to claim that the RCP demanded the return of the Cadrilater, when earlier he said this demand was formulated by Petru Groza, a man who was not a Party member. He then asserts that there were "little arguments to connect" the "Szeklerland" to Romania, when in fact not only is the local population largely composed of Magyarized Romanians, but also there is a corridor between the region and the Hungarian border that has a quite compact contingent of ethnic Romanians. He also seems to imply that the Cadrilater was naturally Bulgarian territory, when in fact, by 1930, Bulgarians formed a distinct minority of the region's population, while the Romanian element was rapidly rising. And he continues to ignore the inconvenient Bessarabia question, proving that the RCP demands were selective and contingent rather than ideologically committed to Greater Romania.
  • As is readily apparent, the online Aromanian library reprints texts published elsewhere, for instance the one by Prof. Zbuchea. It does not perform original research.
  • I find Anonimu's Marxist jargon ("revisionist ideas") more humorous than anything else. Unlike him, I do not take seriously the verdict of a show trial delivered while Romania was under Soviet occupation. I find amusing his outrage at the assassination of the figurehead prime minister of a fascist regime, when (if we are to talk about user pages) his own page proudly displays a quote likening, through its word choice, "fascists" to worms, implying that said dehumanized "fascists" should be killed like vermin. I would much rather defer to the judgment of the democratic authorities of the Italian Republic, who sheltered Papanace for nearly four decades, never lifting a finger against him while he carried on his stoic assault against the Communist tyranny that had engulfed his homeland. Unlike Anonimu, I do not place much stock in talismanic, robotically repeated phrases such as "Holocaust denial", instead preferring to analyze the content of Prof. Iliescu's speech. Given that the professor condemned the crimes committed by the Romanian state from the outset, the manufactured "controversy" was much ado about nothing.
  • Whatever Anonimu may doubt, the fact remains that the article is hopelessly riddled by original research, is a blatant content fork, and should be deleted as unsalvageable. - Biruitorul Talk 17:39, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • I invite any reader to check the link. If we exclude the book reviews, we are left with about half a dozen citable works, some of them in marginal publications ("Citadela", "Relations Internatonales de l’Europe Centrale et du Moyen Orient"?!?). All are related to identity politics or the history of Aromanians, nothing to recommend him as an expert on Romanian wartime history. The other source of Biruitorul is a theologian and certified crackpot ( check this if you need a laugh)... even Lambru has to concede Zamfirescu is an exponent of the same national communism I have mentioned above. How could an editor in good faith accept such sources and downplay a source put out by a reputable publisher known for extensive peer-reviewing?
  • There's no indication of Zbuchea's article being taken from elsewhere. Per WP rules, it is self-published.
  • Biruitorul's recourse to conspiracies supported by fringe groups (such as his transparent reference to " cultural Marxism") is disturbing. Coupled with his support of historical revisionism (a very mainstream concept this side of Irving), such as referring to a verdict endorsed by the US as a "show trial", classifying a centrist, albeit nationalist, politician, leader of the main centre-right party of the era, as "fascist", or dismissing a noted case of Holocaust denial as a "manufactured controversy", this clearly points to the agenda that stands behind the deletion of this article. A clear case of political advocacy supported by flimsy arguments and disguised under verbose wikilawyering.
  • Furthermore, I find his continual use of personal attacks by Biruitorul grossly overboard, and I think they deserver administrator attention. Anonimu ( talk) 19:04, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • While Anonimu seeks to dismiss the work of Steliu Lambru as irrelevant, let us note that the link I introduced is to a CV published before he received his doctorate, which he began in 2000. Naturally, he has published since then. Indeed, by 2009, he was writing on the theory of totalitarianism in 22, even attracting notice from leading expert Vladimir Tismăneanu, who added, "Communism killed, killed, killed". We then have a fact-free comment attacking a noted scholar of the Byzantine Empire and member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences for expressing his cogent views on the ongoing destruction of the Romanian people.
    • We are then led to believe that Zbuchea's article is self-published. Nothing could be further from the case. Dosarele istoriei, an. VII, nr. 1(65), Bucureşti, 2002.
    • Next, we are provided with a manifest distortion of my remarks. I did not label Călinescu a fascist; I did label the regime he served, the National Renaissance Front, a fascist one. And that is a mainstream view. I find rather absurd the appeal to American validation as somehow legitimizing the Romanian People's Tribunals, considering that the Truman administration enthusiastically avoided any concrete steps that might mitigate Romania's slide into communism. Given the content of Prof. Iliescu's speech, in which he clearly condemned the Romanian state's wartime actions, I reiterate my contempt for the commentators who created a brief firestorm when there was nothing to get upset over. And I reiterate my support for academic freedom, for a spirit of open inquiry, against closing off areas of debate simply because someone has decided it must be so. Finally, I think the Marxist long march through the institutions is a rather obvious path to the subversion and destruction of Western civilization.
    • I am then accused of having an "agenda". Indeed, my agenda is the elimination of content forks and shoddy scholarship. I stand proudly behind this agenda.
    • I am again accused of personal attacks, when I have done nothing of the sort; these types of false accusations do have a way of ultimately harming the accuser. - Biruitorul Talk 00:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Comment In the same field, we have also Romanian nationalism, which currently redirects to National awakening of Romania. That article ( National awakening of Romania) should be about Romanian Romantic nationalism, while Romanian nationalism should be developed and it should also deal with more recent facts (facts from the 20th and 21st century). Maybe some phrases from the current Greater Romania (political concept) would better fit there. Avpop ( talk) 12:41, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per User:Biruitorul. There are far too many forks at this table setting. Bearian ( talk) 22:01, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Forks? Where? Wikipedia:FORK. So, where can I read anything about Romanian pan-nationalism properly? Where can I read about ideology of Romanian irredentism on Wikipedia? There are only two copied sentences (it was not my editing) from another Wiki article about Michael the Brave and Balcescu. I do not get the whole idea. Or, Are you saying that there are copyright issues? Could you show me where? If you had said "merge" I could have believed that your intentions are clear. Anyway this is how Wikipedia works? Censoring? We delete articles because we do not like their content? Fakirbakir ( talk) 08:11, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Comment. I have created a template recently and I want to show you all:

As you see, there are quite a lot of pan-nationalist concepts on Wikipedia. I do not understand, why "Greater Romania" has no right to exist? Fakirbakir ( talk) 10:53, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Comment Hmm, I wonder if the above template is redundant considering that many "Greater X" articles are also linked in an older template:

Avpop ( talk) 11:02, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The future of this template is irrelevant here. The point is that subject of Romanian (pan)nationalism has been missing from Wikipedia, and article of "Greater Romania (political concept)" tries to fix this deficiency. The name of the article is irrelevant too. If "Greater Romania" did not fancy Wiki editors it could be called "Pan-Romanianism" or simply "Romanian nationalism". Fakirbakir ( talk) 11:28, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Probably the development of Romanian nationalism article (independently of National awakening of Romania), that would also treat the concept of Greater Romania is the best solution. Currently Romanian nationalism is also missing from Template:Ethnic nationalism Avpop ( talk) 11:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
1, Page of Romanian nationalism has never existed it simply redirects to National awakening of Romania. "National awakening of Romania" has nothing to do with 20th century and contemporary events. 2, "Concept of Greater Romania" is a notable topic, there are multiple sources about it. Therefore, there is no "real" reason for deletion. 3, The title may be subject to dispute, because the concept is connected to Romanian nationalism, BUT the debate about moving an article does not belong here Wikipedia:Requested moves. Fakirbakir ( talk) 12:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
National awakening of Romania is only a component of the Romanian nationalism, it defines only its birth (the awakening period). Romanian nationalism article should also include information about the era when the nationalism is "awake" (info about the 20th and 21st century). Unlike Greater Spain, Greater Portugal, Greater Croatia or Greater Finland, the state Greater Romania is not something imaginary, it actually existed. It is more than an idea. When you say "Greater Romania" you univocally refer to the interwar boundaries. The goal of nationalists is the recreation of the historical Greater Romania, not the creation of a conceptual Greater Romania that would include ethnic Romanians from limitrophe areas. No nationalists intend the annexation of Northern Maramuresh or Romanian-populated areas from Serbia ( File:Timvlach.jpg) which were never part of the Romanian state. Avpop ( talk) 12:34, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The title may be subject to dispute. However, the borders of interwar Romania do not really count. They do not cover all pan-nationalist claims. The nationalists, for instance, wanted more Serbian, Hungarian territories before (and after) the establishment of Greater Romania. Also, in the early nineties, Romania claimed Ukrainian territories which were occupied by fascist Romania in WW2. Those regions did not belong to interwar Romania "Greater Romania". Their demands changed in accordance with the then ideology. We talk about more than one hundred years. Fakirbakir ( talk) 13:05, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The topic of interwar (and wartime) Romanian demands over the entire Banat is an interesting one, but not particularly connected to an ideology. It belongs, most logically, at Banat and subsidiary articles. The claim that Romania under Ion Iliescu claimed the Transnistria Governorate is absurd and should be ignored. The fact is that in 1997, the two states agreed to reaffirm the border imposed in 1947; a border treaty was signed in 2003. - Biruitorul Talk 17:39, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The case of Banat typically belongs to the subject of pan-Romanianism. The pan-Romanianist concept of Greater Romania was the guiding principle for interwar Romanian politicians. The fact is that Bucharest declared territorial demands on Ukraine in the early nineties. [6] [7] I still maintain that Romanian (pan)nationalism should be included on Wikipedia. Fakirbakir ( talk) 18:07, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Interesting and noteworthy topic indeed. Feel free to expand Romania–Ukraine relations, rather than link the 1992-97 events to a fictitious "Greater Romania (political concept)", when no reliable source does so. - Biruitorul Talk 00:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The political concept has many sources. (e.g. "The concept of Greater Romania consisted of the idea of uniting all ethnic Romanians and all the adjacent areas where they lived into one ethnically pure state" [8]) If you did not fancy the current name of the article we could rename it to "Pan-Romanianism". Fakirbakir ( talk) 09:46, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I am quite reserved about the concept of Pan-Romanianism, the interested editors are asked to check Talk:Greater_Romania_(political_concept)#Pan-Romanianism talk page thread. Avpop ( talk) 09:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
My specific point, Fakirbakir, is that none of the sources treat Romanian claims on Ukraine in the early 1990s as a function of a "Greater Romania (political concept)", but as a development in Romania–Ukraine relations. Your linking those claims to "Greater Romania (political concept)" is thus original research and synthesis. - Biruitorul Talk 14:18, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Are you suggesting that the political concept of Greater Romania did not influence Romanian politicians? Actually, regarding the events of the early nineties, Bucharest is always depicted as "nationalist", "pan-Romanianist" in the sources. Would you like some citations? Fakirbakir ( talk) 14:58, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Merge This area definitely needs some articles pruning and the content merging together. I have almost 0 knowledge of the relevant portions of European history and politics here, however reading the four or five relevant articles left me no better off.
  1. Greater Romania (political concept)
  2. Greater Romania
  3. National awakening of Romania
  4. Unification of Romania and Moldova
  5. Kingdom of Romania
  6. Greater Romania Party
  7. Romania
  8. Romanian nationalism <--I realise this is a redirect
  9. Pan-Romanianism <--I realise this is a redirect
are all related concepts but probably don't need their own articles. It feels like, from my admittedly very limited view, there's enough content and topical difference here for 4 long articles or 5 moderate articles, not the 7 we have above. They're all very bitty and forky. I would like to see some merge proposals in detail however before comitting. SPACKlick ( talk) 11:34, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I appreciate your trying to fix the problem. In my humble opinion:
    1. " Kingdom of Romania" has to be kept, it is an important topic.
    2. " Greater Romania Party" should be kept, it is about a political party.
    3. " Greater Romania" is a poorly written article and its content should be merged with Kingdom of Romania, or, we should rename it to "Interwar Romania" and seriously expand it. The name "Greater Romania" should be redirected to " Kingdom of Romania" (or, to " Romanian nationalism", the problem is the term "Greater Romania" has multiple meanings")
    4. " National awakening of Romania" is about the beginning of Romanian nationalism, should be merged with " Romanian nationalism"
    5. " Greater Romania (political concept)" can be kept, or can be merged with " Romanian nationalism"
    6. " Unification of Romania and Moldova" should be merged with " Romanian nationalism" or " Greater Romania (political concept)"
    7. " Pan-Romanianism" should be redirected to " Greater Romania (political concept)" or " Romanian nationalism"

Fakirbakir ( talk) 14:37, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply

In addition to the already mentioned articles, there is also an article called National Communism in Romania which deals with the nationalist component of the ideology followed by Communist Romania. Avpop ( talk) 12:29, 22 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, per Fakirbakir, Anonimu and Borsoka. As the topic is notable, well-sourced and does not covered by any other article on Wikipedia. Saying that it is a FORK of the Greater Romania or the National awakening of Romania articles is a nonsense. It is like saying that the article "Nazism" (which is a political concept) is a fork of the "Nazi Germany" (which was a state) or the "Early timeline of Nazism" (which is a historical article about the roots) articles. (Note: the topics of my examples are accidental, this by no means indicates that I put an equation sign between Nazism and the political concept of Greater Romania). Obviously, Greater Romania as a (still existing) political concept is not the same as the Kingdom of Romania (1920-1940), which was a state and sometimes referred to as Greater Romania (which should indeed be renamed), or the early days of Romanian nationalism, called "national awakening". Those who claim such things make a category mistake. KœrteFa {ταλκ} 11:49, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
PS: The fact that the political concept of Greater Romania is a notable topic is not only reflected by, e.g., that there is even a political party (România Mare) which advocates such views, but even here on Wikipedia there are several editors who have an administrative map of the Interwar Romania (from around 1930s) on their user pages, with the text "Romania - the way it should be", which is indicative of the phenomenon that they sympathize with this (clearly existing) political concept. Hence, it deserves an own article. KœrteFa {ταλκ} 11:49, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
User:Koertefa What about my suggestion of expanding Romanian nationalism that would also cover the topic of the Romanian irredentism? Avpop ( talk) 12:42, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
There is no such article as "Romanian nationalism", as it is currently redirected to the "National awakening of Romania", which is about a historical period mainly in the 19th-early 20th centuries. KœrteFa {ταλκ} 14:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
There isn't now an article with that name, the proposal was to create it, cause National awakening of Romania is only a component of the Romanian nationalism. Avpop ( talk) 14:11, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Yes, Koertefa, Wikipedia user pages are surely to be taken into account when making a decision over whether to keep or delete an article. Makes perfect sense to me in the context of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:PSTS.
Speaking of Wikipedia memes, there's a popular one among certain editors to the effect that Romania was enlarged in 1920. While that is indeed the date of the treaty of Trianon, the meme is nevertheless ahistorical. All the Romanian provinces proclaimed union with Romania during 1918: Bessarabia (March 27, effective November 27), Bukovina (November 15), Transylvania (December 1, although not fully effective until the following spring), Banat (December 1, effective the following August). Moreover, reliable source after source reiterates that Greater Romania came into being in 1918.
As to your broader argument, the fact that an article is "well-sourced" does not necessarily mean it covers a real-life topic. What we have here is a pastiche of totally disparate works ranging from histories of early modern Romania to political studies of the Romanian modern extreme right, from which the article creator has extracted all possible mentions of Greater Romania and concluded this forms a valid topic. Unfortunately, that's not how legitimate scholarship works. There are no coherent references to the ideology, tracing its development from start to present, and given that, we must conclude this is a synthesis, a content fork worthy of deletion. - Biruitorul Talk 14:18, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
You can not deny the fact that the "concept of Greater Romania" exists. Fakirbakir ( talk) 14:36, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was MERGE to Greater Romania. Several editors in the delete camp recommended delete but put forward as a rationale that instead the Greater Romania article (GR) could be expanded. That is essentially an argument for merge, despite the call to delete. The principle argument of the keep camp is that GR only covers the interwar period. However, not much in the way of argument, at least policy based argument, was put forward as to why GR should not be so expanded. The principle argument appears to be that GR is about a state and this article is about a political concept. However, the title Greater Romania does not immediately lead our readers to expect an article on Greater Romania (1918-1940) and I note that in the Name section of GR the discussion goes back to 1852. The principle argument from the delete camp was that this article is fork of the Greater Romania article. If it is indeed a content fork then there should be no substantive objection to remerging. There was some discussion on creating a Romanian nationalism article. Whether to do this or not is a matter for editors to discuss going forward and this close should in no way be seen as preventing material being split out into such an article at a later date. In the same vein, this close decision should not be taken as an endorsement of any view expressed in the current article—what material to merge and how to do it is again for the normal editing process to work out. Spinning Spark 20:54, 22 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Greater Romania (political concept)

Greater Romania (political concept) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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This looks like Wikipedia:Content forking to me. There is already an existing article named Greater Romania
Later edit (09:36, 13 May 2014): I realized that we also have an article named National awakening of Romania which somehow deals with the same topic. Avpop ( talk) 08:38, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply

The discussions about the unification of Romania and Moldova are still existing, they were not actual only in the 1990s. See the December 2013 declaration of President Basescu: "Romania's next big goal is merger with Moldova"
Regarding " Greater Serbia" and " Greater Hungary", it should be discussed how Wikipedia:Other stuff exists policy applies here. Avpop ( talk) 09:18, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The period of the "possible unification of Romania and Moldova" happened in the early nineties. Basescu's statement rather belongs to the" Greater Romania (political concept)". Actually "the concept of Greater Romania" is the guiding principle for the "unification of Romania an Moldova". Also, some Romanian nationalists claim more Hungarian and Serbian territories and the ideology of their claim is the concept of Greater Romania. Fakirbakir ( talk) 09:32, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Original research. You don't have any evidence to show that unification with Moldova was more possible with the Sovietized population of the latter country in 1992 and the Soviet-educated leadership of Romania than it might be today, when a younger generation has risen that is more aware of Europe and of the shared past, and the leadership on both sides is much more open to the idea. You also have no evidence that "some Romanian nationalists" have wanted the entire Banat since about 1941. - Biruitorul Talk 14:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The point is that the nationalist demands are/were based on the concept of Greater Romania. Fakirbakir ( talk) 15:13, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 13:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Moldova-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 13:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Romania-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 13:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 13:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - not only is this a content fork, it probably also violates WP:NOR, WP:COATRACK and WP:SYNTH.
  • Look, the idea of "Greater Romania" probably can be divided into three distinct phases: before 1918, when it was an unrealized project; 1918 to 1940, when it actually existed; and since 1940, the political and/or ideological impulse for its recreation. That hardly justifies having two separate articles; it simply indicates we should expand the longstanding article we already have, Greater Romania, with a greater dose of theoretical content. And while Unification of Romania and Moldova is a sort-of related idea, it actually is distinct and needs to be kept separate. - Biruitorul Talk 14:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
" Greater Romania" is about interwar Romania. It covers ONLY the period between the World Wars. Fakirbakir ( talk) 15:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Because you say so? I'm sorry, that's not good enough. There is no policy-based reason — none — that says the Greater Romania article cannot be expanded with a section that details the concept as it existed until 1918, and with another that covers developments related to the idea since 1940. - Biruitorul Talk 15:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
There is no other article about interwar Romania. It is pretty straightforward. Are you suggesting that Vadim Tudor's or Gheorghe Funar's statements in connection with Greater Romania belong to subject of interwar Romania? Fakirbakir ( talk) 15:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC) https://www.facebook.com/events/642482102479760/?fref=ts# reply
Actually, there is another article that has quite a bit of coverage of interwar Romania: Kingdom of Romania.
More to the point, I am suggesting you avoid original research. Despite the name of their party, neither Vadim Tudor nor Funar are particularly connected to Romanian irredentism, and you haven't provided citations to the contrary. (And no, "pp. 161-176" or " pp. 166-298" is not good enough; you need specific page numbers.) Funar's main platform was "defending the rights of Romanians in Transylvania from Hungarian revanchism"; Vadim Tudor's, in addition to that, was "rehabilitating the image of late communism", and "attacking Jews and Gypsies".
The academic term for sentiment that advocates the union of Romania and Moldova is not "Greater Romania" but "pan-Romanianism", e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4]. Of course, that too can be covered at Unification of Romania and Moldova rather than spun out as a separate article.
The Greater Romania article has plenty of space and scope for covering the development of the idea prior to 1918, its existence over the next twenty-two years, and its manifestations over the last 74 years. This article is a content fork and the sooner it's gone, the better. - Biruitorul Talk 16:29, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
@ User:Fakirbakir In Greater Romania article there was also a phrase referring to present irredentism (When used in a political context it has an irredentist connotation, mainly concerning the territories that were ruled by Romania in the interwar period, that are now part of Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova or Bulgaria.) that was removed by you here. Avpop ( talk) 15:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The statement as you see it has been unsourced since 2008. Fakirbakir ( talk) 15:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - Nonsense. The little content from this page, if properly sourced, can be added to Greater Romania. -- Codrin.B ( talk) 09:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete - One "greater" anycountry, in this case Greater Romania, is more than enough. BlueMist ( talk) 00:12, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. "Greater Romania" is primarily a political concept. The article Greater Romania, which is of the historical period spanning from 1918 to 1940, should be renamed. Reliable sources written in the last 20 years prefer the expression "Inter-war Romania" for the same period (for instance, Bolovan, Ioan et al (1997): A History of Romania /The Center for Romanian Studies, ISBN  973-98091-0-3/; Pop, Ioan-Aurel (1999): Romanians and Romania: A Brief History /Boulder, ISBN  0-88033-440-1/) Borsoka ( talk) 02:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Unfortunately for your argument, modern source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source upon source does in fact use the term "Greater Romania" to refer to the interwar state, and as all participants aside from the article creator have suggested, this article is a content fork that invents a topic where none exists by gathering together disparate mentions of "Greater Romania" and pretending they amount to a coherent entity. Whatever there is to be said about latter-day initiatives for recreating the 1918-1940 state, or whatever backstory for that state can be quoted from reliable sources, can amply be done so in the longstanding Greater Romania article. - Biruitorul Talk 04:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Please read your sources before referring to them. In a historical context, most of them prefer the expression "Interwar Romania", as I mentioned it here. Borsoka ( talk) 05:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Delete per Volunteer Marek. BMK ( talk) 07:39, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
It is hilarious. If this page was deleted, would you tell me where I could find anything about "concept of Greater Romania"? Do you think it is a POV issue? Have you checked the references? Fakirbakir ( talk) 07:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Why can't the "concept of Greater Romania" be presented in a section of the already existing Greater Romania article? Avpop ( talk) 07:52, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The discussion was closed and the result of the move request was: not moved. Avpop ( talk) 16:05, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
User:Antidiskriminator please post here the most relevant sources that you found in order to let other editors check them. Avpop ( talk) 20:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Here is one of sources which explains this political concept in connection with other similar political concepts at Balkans:
I don't disregard the topic, I agree that it is a notable one. My point is that Romanian irredentism that led to the creation of interwar Romania and the post-WW2 desire for its re-creation can be included in the old article that is Greater Romania (a WP:MERGE)
Also, Citations to non-English sources are allowed. However, because this is the English-language Wikipedia, English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones, whenever English sources of equal quality and relevance are available. ( WP:RSUE) Avpop ( talk) 21:20, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Redirect to Greater Romania. 23 editor ( talk) 20:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Comment - Antidiskriminator, Rovibroni: you both fail to address a key issue, namely that it is not necessary to have one article on the Romanian state that existed between 1918 and 1940, and another on its ideological background, underpinnings and aftermath. And no, "sources exist" is not necessarily a valid counterargument. Sources exist on all kinds of subtopics that do not rise to the level of separate articles. We have things called sections that handle this sort of situation and avoid content forking. Yes, it's likely there is some sort of vague ideology surrounding this whole notion, although the article as it presently reads is a disgraceful coatrack, a poorly-formatted, visibly ungrammatical attack page rather than an asset. In no way does that imply it's warranted to have two articles covering very closely related ground. - Biruitorul Talk 05:49, 12 May 2014 (UTC) reply
At least, you now admit the concept exists. You just dislike to idea of a separate article. You "fail to address" why article of interwar Romania should include the development of an ideology which led a nation to choose a particular course of action in the past two hundred years. Fakirbakir ( talk) 08:33, 12 May 2014 (UTC) reply
This isn't a shift in my position: of course there was an idea that motivated the union of Romanian lands into a single state, their maintenance as such and the desire for their recreation. We are talking about developments after the rise of romantic nationalism, with all that entails. We are not talking about someone in the pre-modern period randomly conquering as much land as he can that happens to include inhabitants speaking more or less the same language.
Like much else in the polemic you've created, the "past two hundred years" claim is extremely tendentious. All you have about 1848 (which was actually 166 years ago) is this: "the dream of a greater Romania… seemed to be a possibility". You then turn that into "The Romanian revolution in 1848 already carried the seeds of the national dream of a unified and united 'Greater Romania'." That is a fairly transparent manipulation. For one, by capitalizing the "g", you link the vague hopes of 1848 to the specific project that came to fruition in 1918, when the source does no such thing. For another, you extrapolate from one revolutionary moment and turn that into a stage of a decades-long concerted process, when nothing of the sort in reality took place. You naturally ignore, for example, that Romania and Austria-Hungary signed a secret alliance treaty in 1883, and that although the National Liberals made some noises about the "Transylvania question", for instance organizing a pavilion about the province at the 1906 exhibition in Bucharest against King Carol's objections, by and large the issue of Transylvania in domestic Romanian politics, to say nothing of Bessarabia or Bukovina, was dormant until 1914 — and even then, opinions were divided between P. P. Carp and the King on the one hand, who continued to insist on upholding the treaty, and francophiles on the other hand, who wanted to seize the moment and fight to achieve a unified state.
The point is that this story is a) more nuanced than you make it out to be and b) forms an integral whole: theory, practice, aftermath. Your division of it into two articles is artificial, serves the reader poorly by sending him to two places when he can logically get everything in one, and constitutes nothing less than a biased content fork. - Biruitorul Talk 14:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC) reply
These are groundless accusations. There is no manipulation. I can use the expression "dream of greater Romania" instead of "unified Greater Romania" but the meaning will be the same. The "dream" depicts the desire for a greater Romania, therefore, this "dream" in 1848 is a splendid evidence for the presence of the concept of "Greater Romania". However I would not mind if we rephrased the sentence. What do I ignore? Can not you see that I created the article only five days ago? It is a stub article. There are a lot of works to do. Fakirbakir ( talk) 16:16, 12 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Cancel that: this other source does establish the link to the PRM. But there's still a lot of what appears to be WP:SYNTH in the article, and I don't see why we need two articles here, given that neither is too long to read. QVVERTYVS ( hm?) 12:28, 16 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I do not understand why we should discuss pan-Romanianism at the article of interwar Romania ( Greater Romania). If I followed your logic page of Unification of Romania and Moldova would have to be merged with Greater Romania too. Anyway, the reasons of the shortness of these articles can be easily answered. "Greater Romania" is a badly written article as I see nobody really cares about its content. "Greater Romania (political concept)" is only nine days old stub/start class article. They could be much much longer. Fakirbakir ( talk) 13:21, 16 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Qwertyus has the right idea when calling for a merger. Personally, I think this should just be deleted, but by all means anything that can be salvaged, should be. The ideological underpinnings of the interwar state are closely enough related to the state itself that the two topics, insofar as they are separate, can easily be covered in one place. Separating the articles creates for a content fork filled with original research and synthesis that makes for egregious POV-pushing.
Fakirbakir, it's not relevant if this article is nine or ninety or nine hundred days old, just like it's not relevant how poorly written Greater Romania is. What is relevant is that despite your desperate attempts to stuff all sorts of unrelated bits of trivia and thereby create the appearance of a coherent article, the structural flaws are apparent right away.
And no, Unification of Romania and Moldova can't be merged anywhere; neither can National awakening of Romania, which this article largely duplicates in its pre-1918 material, nor Greater Romania Party, which, just to remind the audience, does have its own article. The "unification" article refers to a specific movement for joining the present-day states of Romania and Moldova, whereas the Greater Romania project involved incorporation into Romania of Bessarabia, Bukovina, southern Dobrudja, the Banat, Crișana, Maramureș and Transylvania. - Biruitorul Talk 00:00, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Since I assume this will be closed soon, let me say a word to the closing administrator. This article probably started as a misguided attempt to create for Romania something along the lines of Greater Hungary (political concept). But whereas that concept has been amply documented in reliable sources, that is plainly not the case here, as the sourcing shows. For instance, I explained above why, despite the distortion from source to article, no historian has actually linked the 1848 revolution to the events of 1918 that created Greater Romania. Moreover, the pre-1918 movement for uniting the Romanian lands has been documented and can further be documented at National awakening of Romania. The article's description of present-day developments is both tendentious ( Acțiunea 2012, for instance, is a studiously moderate outfit, not the "extremists" the article would have us believe call for unification with Moldova) and a fork, since Unification of Romania and Moldova covers that aspect thoroughly.
  • In sum: we have Greater Romania, Greater Romania Party, National awakening of Romania and Unification of Romania and Moldova to cover more or less similar concepts. We simply do not need yet another article - a hopelessly POV one, an obvious content fork - repeating the same material, when that can easily be done at the extant articles. - Biruitorul Talk 00:00, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Comment. Biruitorul is biased in his approach to the issue. For instance, he has a Greater Romania map on his user page with a quote "Romania - the way it should be". He just does not like the idea of a separate article. I can tell you it will not hurt if we have a separate article about this topic. Pan-Romanianism does not belong to the subject of -interwar- Greater Romania. Fakirbakir ( talk) 08:47, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Fakirbakir, comment on content, not on the contributor. I ask you to strike out the personal attack component of your comment, or else I may seek administrative intervention again. I have carefully laid out my reasons for opposing this page, and they do not relate to personal preference. To the closing administrator, please note that this kind of battleground mentality can only be expected to continue if the article is kept. - Biruitorul Talk 14:16, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Note to closing admin: while Biruitorul above is right and there is little to connect the 1848 revolutions to the 1918 event, this was the official Romanian historiographical discourse until few years ago (i.e. this is what the K12-level history textbooks said for almost a century, with a hiatus in the 1950s). Basically, since the 1920s, "Greater Romania" was the normative paradigm in interpreting the events involving the territory of Romania, sometimes going as far as the BC era (it's fun to see how an arbitrary line drawn in 1913 to delineate the border between Romania and Bulgaria was translated back in time to the 14th century). This proves that the concept/ideology in itself is independent of the actual state entity controlling Romania and territories of neighbouring countries between 1918-1940. Admittedly, it is an ideology that is nowadays being abandoned in mainstream Romanian historiography (not so much in the pro-Romanian Moldovan one), but is still historically relevant and notable.
    • Furthermore, the movement for the unification of Romania and Moldova is closely linked to this ideology (supporters of the movement commonly sport symbols like this, symbol representing the borders of interwar Romania also found on stickers across Romanian cities; stencils like this one are not uncommon in Chisinau - note the borders of interwar Romania linked with the historically unrelated Stephen the Great).
    • To conclude, the topic is a notable encyclopaedic one, independent of the former state. As a matter of fact, this topic is better supported by mainstream historiography and less WP:SYNTHy than the claim of a Soviet occupation of Romania spanning more than a decade, as a WP article currently advocates. While the article currently has some flaws, it is in much better shape that other articles, and specific problems with a source or two has never been reason for deleting an article. Anonimu ( talk) 09:15, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
      • The problems run much deeper than "a source or two".
        • What about the claim that the Romanian Communist Party supported re-establishing Greater Romania in 1944-47? Yes, I know we have a source saying that, but this rather extraordinary claim requires, it would seem, further documentation. We know the the Communists' 1946 platform called for "close and permanent ties of friendship with the USSR and neighboring countries", which would be rather difficult to achieve while laying claim to the lost provinces.
        • Then again, this article is highly problematic - for starters, despite claims of peer review, it's written in rather poor English. But anyway: "radicals make territorial demands on Hungary". Really? Who are these supposed "radicals", what part of Hungary do they demand, and who has written about them in any depth?
        • "The population gradually lost its faith in the democratic conception of 'Greater Romania'". For one, this is extremely shoddy "scholarship" - what is cited is an English-language abstract of a publication that's in German; the publication itself is not cited. For another, the observation is irrelevant to the article: it refers to the rise of extremist parties in the wake of the Depression. While that is an interesting phenomenon in the context of Romanian political history, it has nothing to do with the alleged "Greater Romania (political concept)".
      • I could go on, but the point is that source after source is abused to make tendentious claim upon tendentious claim. If this is what we can expect for the future, better to delete now. - Biruitorul Talk 14:16, 17 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Poor English is the language of science — many publication venues force authors to write in English, even in the humanities and social sciences (to increase the audience and up the citation scores that funding bodies stare at), but few have the manpower to fix spelling, grammar or style. You can't reject a source on the basis of bad English. QVVERTYVS ( hm?) 11:19, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
        • I beg to differ.
          • The RCP did support the full restoration of Northern Transylvania to Romania, even if parts of it had clear Hungarian majorities and some of the local RCP representatives pushed for at least an autonomous status for the region. Furthermore, Groza repeatedly raised the issue of Southern Dobruja with the Bulgarian representative in Bucharest, aiming to at least a partial reversal of the Craiova Treaty. I'm not currently aware on any high-level initiative to re-negotiate the border with the Soviet Union, but I would not be surprised. Many in the younger generation of the RCP had been educated to believe in the historical rightfulness of a "Greater Romania". Anyway, the source in itself is written by an academic and published by a reputable publisher. It is certainly more reliable than the personal opinion of an anonymous editor of Wikipedia.
          • Supposedly the radicals are the same enumerated elsewhere in article, i.e. PRM and ND. What territories? These unencyclopaedic maps uploaded on WP (probably by supporters of the ideology) might give you an idea: File:Romania_Mare1.jpg, File:RomanianTerritories.png. As Qwertyus mentioned, the language issue is not that important, and is rather common in peer-reviewed journals published in countries where English is not widely spoken.
          • While I don't read German, a quick look over the source with Google Translate suggest it would be relevant to this article. For example, around pages 300-310, it discusses the efforts to integrate territories without a historical Romanian-speaking population (e.g. Dobruja) into the Greater Romanian discourse, as well as attempts to promote the concept to an European audience, and counter the Greater Hungary concept. A German speaker may easily identify in the source the pages relevant to our article.
        • Therefore, none of your "problems" are actual issues. This seems to be a classic case of WP:JDL. Anonimu ( talk) 12:36, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Let's grant a role for the RCP in the return of Northern Transylvania (although the main players in that story were the King and Petru Groza, who studiously maintained the façade of not being a Communist). In terms of south Dobrudja, we have this from a leading expert on the region, as regards a petition formulated in 1946 and demanding its return to Romania: "[it] was not supported in any way by the official delegation of the communist government then in power in Bucharest". As for Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, I'm afraid no source has been adduced claiming the RCP wanted those areas back either.
    • Anonimu has been playing this anonymous user line for quite some time, and despite his attempts to dismiss what I have to say, it absolutely is appropriate to question a source. In fact, as he said in that very comment of November 2007, "extraordinary claims need extraordinary proofs". It is in fact extraordinary to claim that the RCP wanted a restoration of Greater Romania in 1944-47, and the source cited is a 1990 work by a man who is not a Romania expert, and who furthermore was working at a time when Western scholars had sharply limited access to relevant materials on Romania.
    • Speaking of anonymous Internet editors, I'm afraid those maps prove nothing. ND respects the Trianon borders. So does PRM, it would appear. The claim of demands on Hungary is a spurious one, unsupported by evidence.
    • In terms of the German article, the abstract as cited is unrelated to the article's purported topic. What can be cited from within the article is another issue entirely, but its pertinence has yet to be demonstrated.
    • Let's take yet another flawed line from the article: "The first step in re-unifying Romanians was to establish The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859". True. But that is straightforward history. The source does not link this event to some "Greater Romania (political concept)", and rightly so, as the events of 1859 really had very little to do with such. - Biruitorul Talk 16:25, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
      • Uh, no. While Northern Transylvania was reverted to Romania primarily due to Soviet geopolitical concerns (Mihai and Groza having little to do with it), the representative of the central RCP (N. Golberger) went at great lengths to prevent the de facto civil administration instituted in the region in late 1944-early 1945 from publicly endorsing a position against the thesis of an unitary Romanian state. Furthermore, the autonomists among the local RCP members (e.g. Vescan) were stripped of party positions once the RCP-supported government restored its administration in the region. In the case of Southern Dobruja, Groza raised the issue before the petition went public, and suggested that the Soviets be made aware of any negotiations, which would have been difficult if the RCP hadn't endorsed him; as a matter of fact, the strongly-worded nationalist petition you mention appears to have ruined Groza's plan. Oh, and your "expert" is leading only among the promoters of Ceausescu-era nationalist historical mythology.
      • What about your comment above where you said people should comment on facts, not on editors? Also, get your facts straight: the book was published in 2004 and, while the author doesn't appear to be especially interested in Romania, he has several published works on nationalism in the Balkans. Your claims about lack of access to archives and whatnot is therefore irrelevant.
      • Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth.
      • The linked source does provide information relevant to the topic. This info is not currently included in the article, but we are discussing a deletion, not a FA nomination. Availability of potential sources is thus relevant.
      • I see no problem with providing some context. If all WP articles would be stripped down to bare facts strictly about the titular subject, the average user without extensive knowledge of the topic would understand nothing. Anonimu ( talk) 18:08, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Unfortunately for Anonimu, the kinds of mischaracterizations and character assassination present in the above post may not be enough to save this article, and even if they are, they are certainly not enough to keep the article for being irredeemably tainted by POV.
    • He ignores the key role played in the return of Northern Transylvania by King Michael, in spite of published opinions by historians.
    • He makes unverified assertions about the activity of Petru Groza, a man who in any case never joined the RCP. He also fails to realize that the most logical venue for discussing this history is at Northern Transylvania.
    • He smears the memory of the late Gheorghe Zbuchea, a PhD in History, a man who taught said discipline for decades at Romania's top faculty in the field (at the University of Bucharest), who supervised doctoral theses there until his death in 2008, who wrote widely in the post-1989 era and whose work came out via respected publishing houses.
    • He implicitly concedes that no attempt was made by the Communists to recover Bessarabia in 1944-47, which rather negates the "Communists demanded Greater Romania's restoration" thesis, especially given that today, union Bessarabia is a core demand of most Romanians (some 75% in recent polls).
    • While he asserts, correctly, that Ethnic Violence and the Societal Security Dilemma dates to 2004, he ignores the fact that the citation in the book for that "fact" is from Trond Gilberg's Nationalism and Communism in Romania, published in 1990, when archival access was indeed decidedly problematic.
    • In reiterating the core of WP:V, he ignores several corollaries, such as "The appropriateness of any source depends on the context", or "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources." The claim that amorphous Romanian "extremists" demand parts of Hungary is indeed exceptional, and it is most appropriate for editors to demand further verification of such an outlandish claim. The very identity of said extremists is left unclear in the original source, a definite red flag.
    • He claims that Oliver Schmitt's article provides citable information, but makes no effort to cite it himself, and no effort to integrate the material into an established article such as Greater Romania, as would be more logical.
    • He mentions the importance of context, on which I agree, but claims not to see the misleading nature of the citation at hand, which makes it appear as though the events of 1859 were part of a grander, decades-long scheme to unify the Romanian lands, when in fact what happened in 1918 was largely the result of accident, the rest being attributable to no more than half a decade of activity. - Biruitorul Talk 23:56, 18 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Despite his hypocritical comment to Fakirbakir, it appears that Biruitorul is the one who cannot refrain from resorting to personal attacks in order to justify his particular point of view. Anyway:
      • No matter the post-factum rationalizations by some authors favourable to the former ruler of Romania in a popular history magazine, Mihai had no business in the matter of Northern Transylvania, which objective foreign scholars agree was primarily a Soviet foreign policy decision (the Soviets couldn't care less about Mihai's opinions or actions, as it became clear later during the "royal strike"). While this specific discussion should indeed be moved to that article, my comments were only meant to indicate that the assertion present in the reliable source is far from being "extraordinary".
      • Your assertions are unverified, and your assumption is insulting. My facts are backed by authoritative peer-reviewed sources, such as this one, not by some self-published PDF file found on the web. Also, you insistence in pointing out Groza was not member of the RCP is bizzare, considering that just a comment above you referred to his government as "communist". Confusing third parties is not a fair way to win an argument.
      • Zbuchea was, along with other historians of his generation like Buzatu or Coja, a supporter of a militant nationalist historiography. His occasional hagiographies about leading members of the fascist Iron Guard further reinforce this view. Unfortunately, such relics of national-communist historiography survived in Romanian academia well into the 2000s. Just last year one of these "PhD in History" held a discourse at the Romanian Academy denying the Holocaust.
      • Unless you are a published academic and have written a review about the book published by a peer-reviewed venue, you have no moral authority to judge the author's selection of sources. If his peer reviewers found it OK, you have no right to contest it on whimsical grounds.
      • WP:V's observations are very reasonable: news article can be used for current events articles but they shouldn't generally be used for sourcing things like the funerary ritual in Ancient Egypt. In our case, the reference is an adequate scholarly source dealing with nationalist aggrandisement fantasies in South-Eastern Europe, i.e. a topic that includes the concept of Greater Romania. While the author failed to rise to the expectations of the anonymous editor of WP known as Biruitroul and did not find it necessary to enumerate the Romanian extremists each and every time he mentioned them, that doesn't turn his article into an unreliable source.
      • I see no reason to invest significant effort in sourcing an article that has 50% chances of being deleted. And I see no reason to go into the details of this nationalistic ideology in the article about a state that is only partly related to it. We don't squeeze in Manifest destiny as a section of US history in the first half of the 18th century, I see no reason to do it in the case of Romania either.
      • "the events of 1859 were part of a grander, decades-long scheme to unify the Romanian lands" was standard discourse in Romanian historiography for almost a century. And I can bring tons of references for this from lots of Romanian top historians. They were obviously just creating post-factum justifications in order to promote a nationalist agenda, but sources do exist, and they aren't few. Anonimu ( talk) 19:30, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Anonimu's distortions continue unabated. He begins by dismissing the opinion of Steliu Lambru, PhD in History with an impressive array of activity in that field, as "post-factum rationalizations by some authors". He then attempts to bury the Bessarabia issue by asserting that "the assertion present in the reliable source is far from being 'extraordinary'". Of course, it is an extraordinary claim to make, saying that Communists wanted to recreate Greater Romania, Soviet-occupied Bessarabia included, and the general comment made by the source does not constitute sufficient verification.
    • He goes on to label as "insulting" a request for sources, which surely is a first. He dismisses an article by noted authority Gheorghe Zbuchea as "some self-published PDF file found on the web", when in fact the article is hosted on the site of a serious project aiming to gather together scholarly opinions and writings on the Aromanians, who have been the subject of far too much baseless speculation. Moreover, he seems surprised by the notion of multiparty cabinets, perhaps unaware that while the government that took office on 6 March 1945 was "communist-dominated" or simply "communist" (modern works use both terms), not all its ministers were communist - Tătărescu was a Liberal, Voitec at that point a Social Democrat, and, yes, Groza himself was part of the Ploughmen's Front.
    • He continues his attacks on the late Prof. Zbuchea without much substance. He does not challenge the scholarship he produced with facts, but with assertions ("supporter of a militant nationalist historiography"). In an effort to discredit him, he brings up Zbuchea's attempts to rehabilitate someone like Constantin Papanace, a complex but ultimately praiseworthy man who spent decades in exile pleading the cause of captive Romania, and who, like many of his generation's best men, happened to belong to the Guard. Of course, even if one disagrees with his stance on that subject, the value of his scholarly work is hardly negated. He then brings up a speech by Prof. Vladimir Iliescu, as if that were somehow relevant - a speech that raised a series of pertinent questions which timid Romanian scholars have been far too reluctant to debate in recent years, but at the same time made clear that Romania had directed "persecutions" against the Jews that led to "crimes equally condemnable with those of the Holocaust".
    • He proceeds to lecture me on what I may or may not challenge and under what circumstances. Needless to say, such posturing is absurd. It is perfectly reasonable and routine to ask for more details about the highly dubious claims made in the article and cited to works of questionable merit. The same goes for the mention of "extremists": anonymous user Anonimu browbeats anonymous user Biruitorul for having the temerity to demand just who these individuals are who demand parts of Hungary for Romania's territory. Well, again, that is an extraordinary claim and the fact that the article makes no attempt to identify these "extremists" by specifically pointing to instances of such demands calls its integrity into question.
    • He rounds out his diatribe with a claim that he can "bring tons of references" linking the 1859 project to that of 1918. Should the article be kept, it would be interesting to see those, but for now, all we have is meaningless assertions. - Biruitorul Talk 20:50, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • Lacking actual arguments, Biruitorul can only resort to even more personal attacks.
      • The author mentioned by Biruitorul has an unusually short list of academic publications for an activity already spanning more than 15 years (articles in popular history magazine are not considered scientific in academia), and most of these few publication are on the topic of national identity. Furthermore, reading the linked article anyone can see that the role of Mihai is simply postulated, and never explained. A foreseeable position, considering there is nothing to justify such assertion, and even one of the sources mentioned by this popular history article (Pokivaylova & Islamov 2003) clearly disproves it. Published documents, such as these further demonstrate the baselessness of such claims. The numerous sources indicating the efforts of the RCP to preserve at least part of Greater Romania (especially parts that had little arguments to connect them to Romania, such as Szeklerland and Southern Dobruja) indicate that a part of its leadership was influenced by this ideology, thus the claim is certainly not extraordinary.
      • The pdf presented by Biruitorul is hosted by a website with no indication of peer-review, which has as contact point a marginal religious foundation. It is self-published by most reasonable standards.
      • It's saddening to see WP editors harbouring revisionist ideas. Because what else if not revisionism is calling a convicted war criminal, who, per Zbuchea's own statements, was one of the closest collaborators of the fascist terrorists who assassinated a Romanian prime-minister, an "ultimately praiseworthy man". What else if not negationism is describing a discourse universally condemned as Holocaust denial by mainstream academia, Romanian and foreign alike, as "a series of pertinent questions which timid Romanian scholars have been far too reluctant to debate"?!?
    • Considering the above, I have to reluctantly support Fakirbakir's assertion above, and doubt the good faith of some of the editors who are pushing for the deletion of this perfectly notable encyclopaedic topic, as indicated by the numerous sources already included in the article. Anonimu ( talk) 12:42, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Despite Anonimu's outlandish claims, Mr Lambru had already published quite widely, including on the history of 1930s-'40s Romania, even before he received his doctorate. And again despite his claim that the role of the King was irrelevant, this is contradicted by Dan Zamfirescu's book Regele şi mareşalul. He goes on to claim that the RCP demanded the return of the Cadrilater, when earlier he said this demand was formulated by Petru Groza, a man who was not a Party member. He then asserts that there were "little arguments to connect" the "Szeklerland" to Romania, when in fact not only is the local population largely composed of Magyarized Romanians, but also there is a corridor between the region and the Hungarian border that has a quite compact contingent of ethnic Romanians. He also seems to imply that the Cadrilater was naturally Bulgarian territory, when in fact, by 1930, Bulgarians formed a distinct minority of the region's population, while the Romanian element was rapidly rising. And he continues to ignore the inconvenient Bessarabia question, proving that the RCP demands were selective and contingent rather than ideologically committed to Greater Romania.
  • As is readily apparent, the online Aromanian library reprints texts published elsewhere, for instance the one by Prof. Zbuchea. It does not perform original research.
  • I find Anonimu's Marxist jargon ("revisionist ideas") more humorous than anything else. Unlike him, I do not take seriously the verdict of a show trial delivered while Romania was under Soviet occupation. I find amusing his outrage at the assassination of the figurehead prime minister of a fascist regime, when (if we are to talk about user pages) his own page proudly displays a quote likening, through its word choice, "fascists" to worms, implying that said dehumanized "fascists" should be killed like vermin. I would much rather defer to the judgment of the democratic authorities of the Italian Republic, who sheltered Papanace for nearly four decades, never lifting a finger against him while he carried on his stoic assault against the Communist tyranny that had engulfed his homeland. Unlike Anonimu, I do not place much stock in talismanic, robotically repeated phrases such as "Holocaust denial", instead preferring to analyze the content of Prof. Iliescu's speech. Given that the professor condemned the crimes committed by the Romanian state from the outset, the manufactured "controversy" was much ado about nothing.
  • Whatever Anonimu may doubt, the fact remains that the article is hopelessly riddled by original research, is a blatant content fork, and should be deleted as unsalvageable. - Biruitorul Talk 17:39, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • I invite any reader to check the link. If we exclude the book reviews, we are left with about half a dozen citable works, some of them in marginal publications ("Citadela", "Relations Internatonales de l’Europe Centrale et du Moyen Orient"?!?). All are related to identity politics or the history of Aromanians, nothing to recommend him as an expert on Romanian wartime history. The other source of Biruitorul is a theologian and certified crackpot ( check this if you need a laugh)... even Lambru has to concede Zamfirescu is an exponent of the same national communism I have mentioned above. How could an editor in good faith accept such sources and downplay a source put out by a reputable publisher known for extensive peer-reviewing?
  • There's no indication of Zbuchea's article being taken from elsewhere. Per WP rules, it is self-published.
  • Biruitorul's recourse to conspiracies supported by fringe groups (such as his transparent reference to " cultural Marxism") is disturbing. Coupled with his support of historical revisionism (a very mainstream concept this side of Irving), such as referring to a verdict endorsed by the US as a "show trial", classifying a centrist, albeit nationalist, politician, leader of the main centre-right party of the era, as "fascist", or dismissing a noted case of Holocaust denial as a "manufactured controversy", this clearly points to the agenda that stands behind the deletion of this article. A clear case of political advocacy supported by flimsy arguments and disguised under verbose wikilawyering.
  • Furthermore, I find his continual use of personal attacks by Biruitorul grossly overboard, and I think they deserver administrator attention. Anonimu ( talk) 19:04, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
    • While Anonimu seeks to dismiss the work of Steliu Lambru as irrelevant, let us note that the link I introduced is to a CV published before he received his doctorate, which he began in 2000. Naturally, he has published since then. Indeed, by 2009, he was writing on the theory of totalitarianism in 22, even attracting notice from leading expert Vladimir Tismăneanu, who added, "Communism killed, killed, killed". We then have a fact-free comment attacking a noted scholar of the Byzantine Empire and member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences for expressing his cogent views on the ongoing destruction of the Romanian people.
    • We are then led to believe that Zbuchea's article is self-published. Nothing could be further from the case. Dosarele istoriei, an. VII, nr. 1(65), Bucureşti, 2002.
    • Next, we are provided with a manifest distortion of my remarks. I did not label Călinescu a fascist; I did label the regime he served, the National Renaissance Front, a fascist one. And that is a mainstream view. I find rather absurd the appeal to American validation as somehow legitimizing the Romanian People's Tribunals, considering that the Truman administration enthusiastically avoided any concrete steps that might mitigate Romania's slide into communism. Given the content of Prof. Iliescu's speech, in which he clearly condemned the Romanian state's wartime actions, I reiterate my contempt for the commentators who created a brief firestorm when there was nothing to get upset over. And I reiterate my support for academic freedom, for a spirit of open inquiry, against closing off areas of debate simply because someone has decided it must be so. Finally, I think the Marxist long march through the institutions is a rather obvious path to the subversion and destruction of Western civilization.
    • I am then accused of having an "agenda". Indeed, my agenda is the elimination of content forks and shoddy scholarship. I stand proudly behind this agenda.
    • I am again accused of personal attacks, when I have done nothing of the sort; these types of false accusations do have a way of ultimately harming the accuser. - Biruitorul Talk 00:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Comment In the same field, we have also Romanian nationalism, which currently redirects to National awakening of Romania. That article ( National awakening of Romania) should be about Romanian Romantic nationalism, while Romanian nationalism should be developed and it should also deal with more recent facts (facts from the 20th and 21st century). Maybe some phrases from the current Greater Romania (political concept) would better fit there. Avpop ( talk) 12:41, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per User:Biruitorul. There are far too many forks at this table setting. Bearian ( talk) 22:01, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Forks? Where? Wikipedia:FORK. So, where can I read anything about Romanian pan-nationalism properly? Where can I read about ideology of Romanian irredentism on Wikipedia? There are only two copied sentences (it was not my editing) from another Wiki article about Michael the Brave and Balcescu. I do not get the whole idea. Or, Are you saying that there are copyright issues? Could you show me where? If you had said "merge" I could have believed that your intentions are clear. Anyway this is how Wikipedia works? Censoring? We delete articles because we do not like their content? Fakirbakir ( talk) 08:11, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Comment. I have created a template recently and I want to show you all:

As you see, there are quite a lot of pan-nationalist concepts on Wikipedia. I do not understand, why "Greater Romania" has no right to exist? Fakirbakir ( talk) 10:53, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Comment Hmm, I wonder if the above template is redundant considering that many "Greater X" articles are also linked in an older template:

Avpop ( talk) 11:02, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The future of this template is irrelevant here. The point is that subject of Romanian (pan)nationalism has been missing from Wikipedia, and article of "Greater Romania (political concept)" tries to fix this deficiency. The name of the article is irrelevant too. If "Greater Romania" did not fancy Wiki editors it could be called "Pan-Romanianism" or simply "Romanian nationalism". Fakirbakir ( talk) 11:28, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Probably the development of Romanian nationalism article (independently of National awakening of Romania), that would also treat the concept of Greater Romania is the best solution. Currently Romanian nationalism is also missing from Template:Ethnic nationalism Avpop ( talk) 11:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
1, Page of Romanian nationalism has never existed it simply redirects to National awakening of Romania. "National awakening of Romania" has nothing to do with 20th century and contemporary events. 2, "Concept of Greater Romania" is a notable topic, there are multiple sources about it. Therefore, there is no "real" reason for deletion. 3, The title may be subject to dispute, because the concept is connected to Romanian nationalism, BUT the debate about moving an article does not belong here Wikipedia:Requested moves. Fakirbakir ( talk) 12:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
National awakening of Romania is only a component of the Romanian nationalism, it defines only its birth (the awakening period). Romanian nationalism article should also include information about the era when the nationalism is "awake" (info about the 20th and 21st century). Unlike Greater Spain, Greater Portugal, Greater Croatia or Greater Finland, the state Greater Romania is not something imaginary, it actually existed. It is more than an idea. When you say "Greater Romania" you univocally refer to the interwar boundaries. The goal of nationalists is the recreation of the historical Greater Romania, not the creation of a conceptual Greater Romania that would include ethnic Romanians from limitrophe areas. No nationalists intend the annexation of Northern Maramuresh or Romanian-populated areas from Serbia ( File:Timvlach.jpg) which were never part of the Romanian state. Avpop ( talk) 12:34, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The title may be subject to dispute. However, the borders of interwar Romania do not really count. They do not cover all pan-nationalist claims. The nationalists, for instance, wanted more Serbian, Hungarian territories before (and after) the establishment of Greater Romania. Also, in the early nineties, Romania claimed Ukrainian territories which were occupied by fascist Romania in WW2. Those regions did not belong to interwar Romania "Greater Romania". Their demands changed in accordance with the then ideology. We talk about more than one hundred years. Fakirbakir ( talk) 13:05, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The topic of interwar (and wartime) Romanian demands over the entire Banat is an interesting one, but not particularly connected to an ideology. It belongs, most logically, at Banat and subsidiary articles. The claim that Romania under Ion Iliescu claimed the Transnistria Governorate is absurd and should be ignored. The fact is that in 1997, the two states agreed to reaffirm the border imposed in 1947; a border treaty was signed in 2003. - Biruitorul Talk 17:39, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The case of Banat typically belongs to the subject of pan-Romanianism. The pan-Romanianist concept of Greater Romania was the guiding principle for interwar Romanian politicians. The fact is that Bucharest declared territorial demands on Ukraine in the early nineties. [6] [7] I still maintain that Romanian (pan)nationalism should be included on Wikipedia. Fakirbakir ( talk) 18:07, 20 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Interesting and noteworthy topic indeed. Feel free to expand Romania–Ukraine relations, rather than link the 1992-97 events to a fictitious "Greater Romania (political concept)", when no reliable source does so. - Biruitorul Talk 00:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The political concept has many sources. (e.g. "The concept of Greater Romania consisted of the idea of uniting all ethnic Romanians and all the adjacent areas where they lived into one ethnically pure state" [8]) If you did not fancy the current name of the article we could rename it to "Pan-Romanianism". Fakirbakir ( talk) 09:46, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I am quite reserved about the concept of Pan-Romanianism, the interested editors are asked to check Talk:Greater_Romania_(political_concept)#Pan-Romanianism talk page thread. Avpop ( talk) 09:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
My specific point, Fakirbakir, is that none of the sources treat Romanian claims on Ukraine in the early 1990s as a function of a "Greater Romania (political concept)", but as a development in Romania–Ukraine relations. Your linking those claims to "Greater Romania (political concept)" is thus original research and synthesis. - Biruitorul Talk 14:18, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Are you suggesting that the political concept of Greater Romania did not influence Romanian politicians? Actually, regarding the events of the early nineties, Bucharest is always depicted as "nationalist", "pan-Romanianist" in the sources. Would you like some citations? Fakirbakir ( talk) 14:58, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Merge This area definitely needs some articles pruning and the content merging together. I have almost 0 knowledge of the relevant portions of European history and politics here, however reading the four or five relevant articles left me no better off.
  1. Greater Romania (political concept)
  2. Greater Romania
  3. National awakening of Romania
  4. Unification of Romania and Moldova
  5. Kingdom of Romania
  6. Greater Romania Party
  7. Romania
  8. Romanian nationalism <--I realise this is a redirect
  9. Pan-Romanianism <--I realise this is a redirect
are all related concepts but probably don't need their own articles. It feels like, from my admittedly very limited view, there's enough content and topical difference here for 4 long articles or 5 moderate articles, not the 7 we have above. They're all very bitty and forky. I would like to see some merge proposals in detail however before comitting. SPACKlick ( talk) 11:34, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
I appreciate your trying to fix the problem. In my humble opinion:
    1. " Kingdom of Romania" has to be kept, it is an important topic.
    2. " Greater Romania Party" should be kept, it is about a political party.
    3. " Greater Romania" is a poorly written article and its content should be merged with Kingdom of Romania, or, we should rename it to "Interwar Romania" and seriously expand it. The name "Greater Romania" should be redirected to " Kingdom of Romania" (or, to " Romanian nationalism", the problem is the term "Greater Romania" has multiple meanings")
    4. " National awakening of Romania" is about the beginning of Romanian nationalism, should be merged with " Romanian nationalism"
    5. " Greater Romania (political concept)" can be kept, or can be merged with " Romanian nationalism"
    6. " Unification of Romania and Moldova" should be merged with " Romanian nationalism" or " Greater Romania (political concept)"
    7. " Pan-Romanianism" should be redirected to " Greater Romania (political concept)" or " Romanian nationalism"

Fakirbakir ( talk) 14:37, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply

In addition to the already mentioned articles, there is also an article called National Communism in Romania which deals with the nationalist component of the ideology followed by Communist Romania. Avpop ( talk) 12:29, 22 May 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, per Fakirbakir, Anonimu and Borsoka. As the topic is notable, well-sourced and does not covered by any other article on Wikipedia. Saying that it is a FORK of the Greater Romania or the National awakening of Romania articles is a nonsense. It is like saying that the article "Nazism" (which is a political concept) is a fork of the "Nazi Germany" (which was a state) or the "Early timeline of Nazism" (which is a historical article about the roots) articles. (Note: the topics of my examples are accidental, this by no means indicates that I put an equation sign between Nazism and the political concept of Greater Romania). Obviously, Greater Romania as a (still existing) political concept is not the same as the Kingdom of Romania (1920-1940), which was a state and sometimes referred to as Greater Romania (which should indeed be renamed), or the early days of Romanian nationalism, called "national awakening". Those who claim such things make a category mistake. KœrteFa {ταλκ} 11:49, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
PS: The fact that the political concept of Greater Romania is a notable topic is not only reflected by, e.g., that there is even a political party (România Mare) which advocates such views, but even here on Wikipedia there are several editors who have an administrative map of the Interwar Romania (from around 1930s) on their user pages, with the text "Romania - the way it should be", which is indicative of the phenomenon that they sympathize with this (clearly existing) political concept. Hence, it deserves an own article. KœrteFa {ταλκ} 11:49, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
User:Koertefa What about my suggestion of expanding Romanian nationalism that would also cover the topic of the Romanian irredentism? Avpop ( talk) 12:42, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
There is no such article as "Romanian nationalism", as it is currently redirected to the "National awakening of Romania", which is about a historical period mainly in the 19th-early 20th centuries. KœrteFa {ταλκ} 14:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
There isn't now an article with that name, the proposal was to create it, cause National awakening of Romania is only a component of the Romanian nationalism. Avpop ( talk) 14:11, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
Yes, Koertefa, Wikipedia user pages are surely to be taken into account when making a decision over whether to keep or delete an article. Makes perfect sense to me in the context of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:PSTS.
Speaking of Wikipedia memes, there's a popular one among certain editors to the effect that Romania was enlarged in 1920. While that is indeed the date of the treaty of Trianon, the meme is nevertheless ahistorical. All the Romanian provinces proclaimed union with Romania during 1918: Bessarabia (March 27, effective November 27), Bukovina (November 15), Transylvania (December 1, although not fully effective until the following spring), Banat (December 1, effective the following August). Moreover, reliable source after source reiterates that Greater Romania came into being in 1918.
As to your broader argument, the fact that an article is "well-sourced" does not necessarily mean it covers a real-life topic. What we have here is a pastiche of totally disparate works ranging from histories of early modern Romania to political studies of the Romanian modern extreme right, from which the article creator has extracted all possible mentions of Greater Romania and concluded this forms a valid topic. Unfortunately, that's not how legitimate scholarship works. There are no coherent references to the ideology, tracing its development from start to present, and given that, we must conclude this is a synthesis, a content fork worthy of deletion. - Biruitorul Talk 14:18, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
You can not deny the fact that the "concept of Greater Romania" exists. Fakirbakir ( talk) 14:36, 21 May 2014 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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