"The obvious indifference of the Romanian peasant to the neighboring peoples stems from the instinct that these are more or less recent. Our physical typology is altogether different from that of neighboring and Central-European peoples. If we have some affinities with meridional groups (neo-Thracian or insular) not only by crossbreeding, but also by atavistic kinship, we can only find similarities with our physiognomy in the remote west of Europe, down to the Iberian Peninsula and even the British Isles. […] Romanian peasantry feels an organic sympathy for the western world. This can be explained racially. The Celts streamed in these parts over two thousand years ago, bringing along a not so foreign civilization." National Specificity, in The History of Romanian Literature, 1941
by George Călinescu (1899-1965)
