Cultural resilience or the Interethnic Dobrujan Model as a Black Sea alternative to EuroIslam in the Romanian Turkish-Tatar community

The main purpose of this research is to put to the ultimate test (the field) the concept of EuroIslam, developed in sterile environments and based on similar premises (new migration communities, Muslim, mostly North-African but also Middle-Eastern), in order to see how these concepts are perceived and how they hold up to the different conditions of an East-European setting and a historical Muslim community. Romanian culture was forged by the geographical, historical, and social factors that have left a decisive imprint on the Romanian identity, so much so that the core characteristics of this complex geopolitical reality, such as flexibility, the power of resilience, became its quintessential elements. Romania’s geographic situation led to the creation of a ‘crossroad’ identity open to hybridity and contaminations. This ‘condition’ has positive and negative sides: on the positive side, a syncretic culture was forged that is open to the new, whose traditions are not immutable but adaptable, and whose people display a cultural resilience able to safeguard a core identity that instead of being endangered by alterity, makes it its very nature. The negative side is that it risks political weakness, which is exactly what Romania experienced having a strong culture, but a weak political system, making it impossible to resist to surrounding Empires. The “Romanian multiculturalism” was forged during 2,000 years of cultural blending thus creating a mosaical environment able to survive and to spring back after hardships, proving to be a true resilient culture.