Poles in Romania


According to the 2011 census, 2,543 Poles live in Romania, mainly in the villages of Suceava County. There are three exclusively Polish villages: Nowy Sołoniec, Plesza and Pojana Mikuli, as well a significant Polish presence in Kaczyca and Paltynosa. Poles in Romania form an officially recognised national minority, having one seat in the Chamber of Deputies of Romania and access to Polish elementary schools and cultural centres.

History

The first Poles settled in Bukovina in the times of Casimir III. Most of the Poles immigrating after 1774 were looking for work. So it was that Polish miners from Bochnia and Wieliczka were brought to salt mines in Cacica. Another wave of Polish immigration arrived in Bukovina in the early 19th century, when the region was a crownland of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as was a significant portion of present-day southern Poland.
Around 1803 Polish highlanders from Čadca settled in Treblecz by Siret, in Stara Huta Krasna and in Kaliczanka and again in 1814-1819, this time settling in Hliboka and Tereszna. Nowy Sołoniec was settled in 1834, Plesza in 1835 and Pojana Mikuli in 1842. At that time, Bukovina was a very attractive place to live in because of Austria's policy not to conscript recruits into its army from there. Moreover, Bukovina was free from serfdom, attracting immigrants of German, Jewish, Czech, Slovak, Russian, Italian, and Polish nationality.
There were probably other waves of migration from Poland after the November and Kraków Uprisings, but most Poles were from peasant families relocated there by the Empire's authorities after they participated in the Jakub Szela insurrection.

Communes with the highest Polish population percentage