HISTORY CONSTANTIN IORDACHI Citizenship and National Identity in Romania: A Historical Overview R ecently, there has been renewed scholarly interest in the concept of citizenship, in an interdisciplinary effort of political scientists and historians, anthropologists and sociologists. 1 Challenged by socio-polit- ical developments in the post-Communist and post-Maastricht era, numer- ous scholars have re-examined established definitions of citizenship and their relationship with issues of identity, civil society and the foundations of democracy. However, as Bryan Turner has rightfully pointed out, the grow- ing body of scholarly works on citizenship has concentrated overwhelm- ingly on theoretical aspects, so that the history of the institution of citizen- ship in western and Eastern Europe has still remained largely under- reearched. 2 This article is designed as a first historical overview of Romanian citizen- ship legislation from 1866 up to the present, a subject that has received so far a limited scholarly attention. 3 It focuses on the historical roots of the institu- 1 From the vast scholarly production on citizenship in the last decade, I can mention selectively the works of: Will Kymlicka: Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. New York, 1989; Michael Mann: “Ruling Class Strategies and Citizenship”. Sociology, 1988, No. 2, 339–354; Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship. Studies on Our Changing Social Order. New Brunswick and London, 1996. Second, enlarged edition); Rogers W. Brubaker: Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge, 1992; and Charles Tilly (ed.): Citizenship, Identity and Social History. Cambridge, 1996. See also the collection of articles by B. S. Turner and Peter Hamilton (eds.): Citizenship. Critical Concepts. London, 1994, 2 Vols.; and R. Beiner (ed.): Theorizing Citizenship. New York, 1995. 2 B. S. Turner: “Outline of a Theory of Citizenship”. Sociology, 1990, No. 2 , 189–217. 3 The present article builds on my dissertation work on the history of citizenship and civil society in Romania. My research has resulted to date in several publications on various