Romania is situated in Central Europe, in the northern part
of the Balkan Peninsula and its territory is marked by the
Carpathian Mountains, the Danube and the Black Sea. With
its temperate climate and varied natural environment, which
is favourable to life, the Romanian territory has been inhabited
since time immemorial.
The research done by Romanian archaeologists at Bugiulesti,
Valcea County, has led to the discovery of traces of human
presence dating back as early as the Lower Palaeolithic
(approximately two million years BC). These vestiges are
among the oldest in Europe, revealing a period when "man,"
a humanoid in fact, went physically and spiritually through
the stages of his coming out of the animal status. A denser
human population, ("the Neanderthal man") can
be proved to have lived about 100,000 years ago; a relatively
stable population can only be found beginning with the
Neolithic (6-5,000 years BC).
Cucuteni Pottery
At the time, the population on the territory of present-day
Romania created a remarkable culture, whose proof is the
polychrome pottery of the "Cucuteni" culture (comparable
to the pottery of other important European cultures of the
time in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East) and
the statuettes of the "Hamangia" culture (the
Thinker of Hamangia is known today to the whole world).
The Thinkers of Hamangia (Neolithic statuette)
At the turn of the second millennium, when the Palaeolithic
age made way for the Bronze age, the Thracian tribes of
Indo-European origin settled alongside the population that
already lived in the Carpathian-Balkan region. From the
time of the Thracians on, the uninterrupted phenomenon of
the Romanian people’s birth can be traced. In the
former half of the first millennium BC, in the Carpathian-Danube-Pontic
area - which was the northern part of the large surface
inhabited by the Thracian tribes - a northern Thracian group
became individualised: it was made up of a mosaic of Getae
and Dacian tribes. Strabo, a famous geographer and historian
in the age of emperor Augustus, informs that "the Dacians
have the same language as the Getae." Basically, it
was the same people, the only difference between the Dacians
and the Getae being the area they inhabited: the Dacians
- mostly in the mountains and the plateau of Transylvania;
the Getae - in the Danube Plains. In the Antiquity, the
Greeks, who first got to encounter the Getae - used this
name for the whole population north of the Danube, while
the Romans, who first got to encounter the Dacians-extended
this name to cover all the other tribes on the present-day
territory of Romania; after the conquest of this territory,
the Romans created here the Dacia province. This is why
the whole territory of present-day Romania is called Dacia
in all ancient Latin and Early Middle Ages sources.
The contact of the Geto-Dacians with the Greek world
was made easy by the Greek colonies created on the present-day
Romanian Black Sea shore: Istros (Histria), founded in
the 7th century BC, Callatis (today: Mangalia) and Tomis
(today: Constanta); the latter two were founded a century
later. In the recorded history, the population north of
the Danube (the Getae) was first mentioned by Herodotus,
"the father of history" (the 4th century BC).
He told the story of the campaign of Persian king Darius
I against the Scythians in the northern Pontic steppes
(513 BC). He wrote that the Getae were "the most
valiant and just of the Thracians". They had been
the only ones to resist the Persian king on the way from
the Bosporus to the Danube.
Burebista (82 - around 44 BC), who succeeded to unite
the Geto-Dacian tribes for the first time, founded a powerful
kingdom that stretched, when the Dacian sovereign offered
to support Pompey against Caesar (48 BC), from the Beskids
Mountains (north), the Middle Danube (west), the Tyras
river (the Dniester), and the Black Sea shore (east) to
the Balkan Mountains (south).
Geto-Dacic settlement (capital city) in Sarmisegetuza
In the 1st century BC, as the Roman Empire was expanding
and Roman provinces were being created in Pannonia, Dalmatia,
Moesia and Thracia, the Danube became, along 1,500 Km.,
the border between the Roman Empire and the Dacian world.
In Dobrudja, which was under Roman rule for seven centuries
beginning with the reign of Augustus, poet Publius Ovidius
Naso spent the last years of his life, "among Greeks
and Getae," as he was exiled there, to Tomis (8-17,
AD) by order of the same Caesar.
King Decebal
Dacia was at the peak of its power under King Decebal
(87-106 AD). After a first confrontation during the reign
of Domitian (87-89), two extremely tough wars were necessary
(101-102 and 105-106) to the Roman empire, at the peak
of its power under Emperor Trajan (98-117) to defeat Decebal
and turn most of his kingdom into the Roman province called
Dacia.
Emperor Traian
Trajan’s Column erected in Rome and the Triumphal
Monument at Adamclisi (Dobrudja) tell the story of this
military effort, which was followed by a systematic and
massive colonization of the new territories that were integrated
into the empire.
Trajan's Column in Rome - the birth certificate of the Romanian people
The Dacians, although they had suffered heavy casualties,
remained, even after the new rule was established, the main
ethnic element in Dacia; the province was subjected to a
complex Romanization process, its basic element being the
staged but definitive adoption of the Latin language.
The Romanians are today the only descendants of the Eastern
Roman stock; the Romanian language is one of the major
heirs of the Latin language, together with French, Italian,
Spanish; Romania is an oasis of Latinity in this part
of Europe.
The Roman monument of Adamclisi (second century AD)
The natives, be they of Roman or Daco-Roman descent, continued
their uninterrupted existence as farmers and shepherds even
after the withdrawal, under emperor Aurelian (270-275) of
the Roman army and administration, which were moved south
of the Danube. But the ancestors of the Romanians remained
for several centuries in the political, economic, religious
and cultural sphere of influence of the Roman Empire; after
the empire split in 395 AD, they stayed in the sphere of
the Byzantine Empire. They lived mostly in the old Roman
settlements, that had now decayed, and survived in difficult
circumstances under successive waves of migratory tribes.
At the time when the Daco-Roman ethno-cultural symbiosis
was achieved and finalised in the 6-7th centuries by the
formation of the Romanian people, in the 2-4th centuries,
the Daco-Romans adopted Christianity in a Latin garb.
Therefore, in the 6-7th centuries, when the formation
process of the Romanian people was done, this nation emerged
in history as a Christian one. This is why, unlike the
neighbouring nations, which have established dates of
Christianization (the Bulgarians - 865, the Serbs - 874,
the Poles-966, the eastern Slavs - 988, the Hungarians
- the year 1000), the Romanians do not have a fixed date
of Christianization, as they were the first Christian
nation in the region.
In the 4-13th centuries the Romanian people had to face
the waves of migrating peoples - the Gothi, the Huns,
the Gepidae, the Avars, the Slavs, the Petchenegs, the
Cumanians, the Tartars - who crossed the Romanian territory.
The migratory tribes controlled this space from the military
and political points of view, delaying the economic and
social development of the natives and the formation of
local statehood entities. The Slavs, who massively settled
since the 7th century south of the Danube, split the compact
mass of Romanians in the Carpathian-Danubian area: the
ones to the north (the Daco-Romanians) were separated
from the ones to the south, who were moved towards the
west and Southeast of the Balkan Peninsula (Aromanians,
Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians).
The Slavs that settled north of the Danube were assimilated
little by little by the Romanian people and their language
left traces in the vocabulary and phonetics of the Romanian
language. To the Romanian language, the Slavic language
(similarly to the Germanic idiom of the Franks with the
French people) was the so-called super-imposed layer.
The Romanians belonged to the Orthodox religion so they
adopted the Old Church Slavic as a cult language, and,
beginning with the 14-16th centuries, as a chancery and
culture language. The Slavic language was never a living
language, spoken by the people, on the territory of Romania;
it played for Romanians, at a certain time during the
Middle Ages, the same role that Latin played in the West;
in the early modern age it was replaced for ever, in church,
chancery and culture included, by the Romanian language.
Owing to their position, the Romanians south of the Danube
were the first to be mentioned in historical sources (the
10th century), under the name of vlahi or blahi (Wallachians);
this name shows they were speakers of a Romance language
and that the non-Roman peoples around them recognized
this fact. After the year 602, the Slavs massively settled
south of the Danube and they established a powerful Bulgarian
czardom in the 9th century; this cut the tie between the
Romanian world north of the Danube and the one south of
the Danube. As they were subjected to all sorts of pressures
and isolated from the powerful Romanian trunk north of
the Danube, the number of Romanians south of the Danube
continuously decreased, while their brothers north of
the Danube, although living in extremely difficult circumstances,
continued their historical evolution as a separate nation,
the farthest one to the east among the descendants of
Imperial Rome.
In fact the Romanians are the only ones who, through
their very name - roman - (coming from the Latin word
"Roman") - have preserved to this day in this
part of Europe the seal of the ancestors, of their descent,
that they have always been aware of. This will show later
in the name of the nation state - Romania.
Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania
Beginning with the 10th century, the Byzantine, Slav
and Hungarian sources, and later on the western sources
mention the existence of statehood entities of the Romanian
population - kniezates and voivodates - first in Transylvania
and Dobrudja, then in the 12-13th centuries, also in the
lands east and south of the Carpathians. A specific trait
of the Romanian’s history from the Middle Ages until
the modern times is that they lived in three Principalities
that were neighbours, but autonomous - Wallachia, Moldavia
and Transylvania.
This phenomenon - which is by no means unique in Mediaeval
Europe - is extremely complex. The underlying causes pertain
to the essence of the feudal society, but there are also
specific factors. Among the latter, we wish to mention
the existence of powerful neighbouring empires, which
opposed the unification of the Romanian state entities
and even occupied - for shorter or longer periods of time
- Romanian territories. For instance, to the west the
Romanians had to face the policy of conquests conducted
by the Hungarian kingdom. In 895, the Hungarian tribes,
who came from the Volga lands, led by Arpad, settled in
Pannonia. They were stopped in their progress towards
the west by emperor Otto I (995) so the Hungarians settled
down and turned their eyes to the south-east and east.
There they encountered the Romanians.
A Hungarian chronicle describes the meeting between the
messengers sent by Arpad, the Hungarian king, and voivode
Menumorut of the Biharea city in western Transylvania.
The Hungarian ambassadors demanded that the territory
be handed over to them. The chronicle has preserved for
us the dignified answer given by Menumorut: "Tell
Arpad, the Duke of Hungary, your ruler. Verily we owe
him, as a friend to a friend, to give him all that is
necessary because he is a foreigner and a stranger and
lacks many. But the land that he has demanded from our
good will we shall never give to him, as long as we are
alive".
Despite the resistance of the Romanian kniezates and
voivodates, the Hungarians succeeded in the 10-13th centuries
to occupy Transylvania and make it part of the Hungarian
kingdom (until the beginning of the 16th century as an
autonomous voivodate.) In order to consolidate their power
in Transylvania, where the Romanians continued to be,
over the centuries, the great majority ethnic element,
as well as to defend the southern and eastern borders
of the voivodate, the Hungarian crown resorted to the
colonisation of Szecklers and Germans (Saxons) in the
12-13th centuries in the frontier areas.
The Church of Densus
In the 14th century, with the decline of the neighbouring
imperial powers (the Poles, the Hungarians, the Tartars),
south and east of the Carpathian Mountains range the autonomous
feudal states were formed: Wallachia, under Basarab I (around
1310) and Moldavia, under Bogdan I (around 1359).
The Polish and Hungarian kingdoms attempted in the 14-15th
centuries to annex or subordinate the two Principalities,
but they did not succeed. In the second half of the 14th
century a new threat against the Romanian lands emerged:
the Ottoman Empire. After first setting foot on European
soil in 1354, the Ottoman Turks began their rapid expansion
on the continent, so the green banner of the Islam already
fluttered south of the Danube in 1396.
Scene from the Painted Chronicle of Vienna showing the victory of the Romanians at
Posada (1330) against the army of the Hungarian King
Alone or in alliance with the neighbouring Christian countries,
more often in alliance with the voivodes of the other two
Romanian principalities, the voivodes of Wallachia Mircea
the Old (1386-1418) and Vlad the Impaler (Dracula of the
Mediaeval legends, 1456-1462), of Moldova, Stephen the Great
and Holy (1457-1504), and Transylvania, Iancu of Hunedoara
(1441-1456), fought heavy defensive battles against the
Ottoman Turks, delaying their expansion to Central Europe.
Mircea the Old, Voivode of Wallachia (1386-1418)
Vlad the Impaler, Voivode of Wallachia (Dracula of the Mediaeval legends, 1456-1462)
Stephen the Great and Holy, Voivode of Moldavia (1457-1504)
The whole Balkan Peninsula became a Turkish-ruled territory,
Constantinople was captured by Mohammed II (1453), Suleiman
the Magnificent captured the city of Belgrade (1521), and
the Hungarian kingdom disappeared following the battle of
Mohacs (1526). Therefore, Wallachia and Moldavia were surrounded
and they had to recognize for over three centuries the suzerainty
of the Ottoman Empire.
After Buda was captured and Hungary
became a pashalik, Transylvania became a self-ruling principality
(1541) and it, too, recognized the suzerainty of the Ottoman
Empire, as the other two Romanian lands. Unlike all the
other peoples of south-east Europe, unlike the Hungarians
and the Poles, the Romanians were the only ones who maintained
their state entity during the Middle Ages, along with their
own political, military and administrative structures.
City of Soroca on the Dniester river bank
The
tribute paid to the sultan was the guarantee for the preservation
of domestic autonomy, but also for the protection against
more powerful enemies. Wallachia and Moldavia, owing to
their autonomy status, continued after the fall of the Byzantine
Empire to foster their Byzantine cultural traditions, taking
at the same time upon themselves to protect the Eastern
Orthodox religion; on their territory, scholars from all
over the Balkan Peninsula, chased away by the intolerant
Islam, were able to continue their work without any obstacles;
they prepared the cultural revival of their nations.
The end of the 16th century was dominated by the personality
of Michael the Brave. He became voivode of Wallachia in
1593, joined the Christian League - an anti-Ottoman coalition
initiated by the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire and he
succeeded, following heavy battles (Calugareni, Giurgiu)
to actually regain the independence of his country. In 1599-1600
he united for the first time in history all the territories
inhabited by Romanians, proclaiming himself "prince
of Wallachia, Transylvania and the whole of Moldavia."
The domestic situation was very complex, the neighbouring
great-powers - the Ottoman Empire, Poland, the Hapsburg
Empire - were hostile and joined forces to overthrow him;
so this union was short-lived as Michael the Brave was assassinated
in 1601. The union achieved by the valiant voivode became,
however, a symbol to the posterity. In the 17th century,
in various forms and with evanescent success, other princes
attempted to restart the ambitious political program of
Michael the Brave, by trying to form a united anti-Ottoman
front, made-up of the three principalities and to restore
the unity of ancient Dacia.
Michael the Brave (1593-1601), the first voivode to unite
the three Romanian Principalities
The end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th
century brought about changes in the politics of Central
and Eastern Europe. The Ottoman Empire failed to capture
Vienna in 1683 and following that, the Hapsburg Empire began
its expansion to the south-east of Europe. The Austrian-Turkish
peace treaty of Karlowitz (1699) sanctioned the annexation
of Transylvania and its organization as an autonomous principality
to Hapsburg Austria (since 1765 great principality), ruled
by a governor. Poland was divided and Russia, by successive
conquests, reached under Peter the Great (1696-1725) the
Dniester river, thus becoming Moldavia’s eastern neighbour.
The ambitious dream of the czars to dominate the Bosporus
Strait and Constantinople placed the Romanian Principalities
in the way of Russian expansionism. The Ottoman Empire,
in an attempt to defend its old position, introduced in
Moldavia (1711) and Wallachia (1716) the "Phanariot
regime," (until 1821), under which the Turkish Sultan
(ruler) appointed in the two principalities Greek voivodes
recruited from the Phanar district of Istanbul and considered
faithful to the Turks. That was a time when the Ottoman
political control and economic exploitation increased and
corruption spread; but some social reforms were also introduced
- such as the abolition of serfdom - as well as administrative
and modernizing reforms, modeled on the European ones in
the age of the Enlightenment. The domestic autonomy, although
limited, was basically preserved and the two principalities
continued to be distinct entities from the Ottoman Empire;
this situation was recognised in several international treaties
(for instance that of Kuchuk-Kainargi, 1774). Lying at the
borders of three great empires and wanted by all three of
them, Wallachia and Moldavia became for over 150 years not
only territories of contention but also a battlefield on
which the armies of the empires fought each other.
Many wars were fought by Austria and Russia against the
Ottoman Empire (1710-1711, 1716-1718, 1735-1739, 1768-1774,
1787-1792, 1806-1812, 1828-1829, 1853-1856): those battles
took place on Romanian soil, always accompanied by a foreign
military occupation, which was often maintained long after
the war proper was over, so the Romanian lands endured
not only through devastation and irrecoverable losses
but also through population displacements and painful
territory amputations. So, Austria temporarily annexed
Oltenia (1718-1793) and Northern Moldavia that they called
Bukovina (1775-1918). Following the Russian-Turkish war
of 1806-1812, Russia annexed the eastern part of Moldavia,
the land between the Prut and Dniester rivers, later called
Bessarabia (1812-1918).
National Revival
In the 18th and early 19th centuries huge economic and
social changes took place, the feudal structures were
deeply eroded, the first capitalist enterprises emerged
and at the same time Romanian goods were attracted step
by step into the European circuit. The national idea,
as everywhere else in Europe, was becoming the soaring
dream of intellectuals and the underlying element in the
plans for the future made by the politicians. The union
of part of the clergy in Transylvania with the Catholic
Church (the Greek-Catholics), achieved by the House of
Hapsburg in 1699-1701, played an important part in the
emancipation of Transylvanian Romanians. Their fight for
equal rights with the other ethnic groups (although the
Romanians accounted for over 60% of the principality’s
population, they were still considered "tolerated"
in their own country) was begun by Bishop Inocentiu Micu-Klein
and continued by the intellectuals grouped in the "Transylvanian
School" movement: Gheorghe Sincai, Petru Maior, Samuil
Micu, Ion Budai-Deleanu, a.o. These scholars proved the
Latinity of the Romanian language and people and, even
more, the fact that they had uninterruptedly been the
autochthonous population here, and demanded equal rights
with the other "nations" in Transylvania - Hungarians,
Szecklers and Saxons. The claims of the Romanians in Transylvania
were submitted to the Court of Vienna in the long petition
called Supplex Libellus Valachorum (1791), which did not
receive any answer.
Tudor Vladimirescu, the leader of the 1821 Romanian Revolution
The quest for renewal in Wallachia was expressed in the
revolution led by Tudor Vladimirescu (1821), which broke
out at the same time with the Greek’s movement for
liberation.
Although the Ottoman and Czarist troops occupied the Danube
principalities that same year, the sacrifices made by the
Romanians brought about the abolition of the Phanariot regime
and native voivodes were again appointed on the thrones
of Moldavia and Wallachia. The peace treaty of 1829 signed
at Adrianople (today Edirne) ended the Russian-Turkish conflict
of 1828-1829, which had broken out in the final stage of
the war for national liberation fought by the Greeks; this
treaty greatly weakened the Ottoman suzerainty, but it increased
Russia’s "protectorate." Now that trade
was freed, Romanian cereals began to penetrate European
markets. Under Pavel Kiseleff, the commander of the Russian
troops that occupied the two Romanian principalities (1828-1834),
quasi-identical Organic Regulations were introduced in Wallachia
(1831) and Moldavia (1832); until 1859 these Regulations
served as fundamental laws (constitutions) and they contributed
to the modernization and homogenization of the social, economic,
administrative and political structures that had started
in the preceding decades. Therefore, in the first half of
the 19th century, the Romanian principalities began to distance
themselves from the Oriental Ottoman world and tune into
the spiritual space of Western Europe. Ideas, currents,
attitudes from the West were more than welcome in the Romanian
world, which was undergoing an irreversible process of modernization.
Now the awareness that all Romanians belong to the same
nation was generalized and the union into one single independent
state became the ideal of all Romanians.
Union and Independence
The winds of 1848 also blew over the Romanian principalities.
They brought to the centre-stage of politics several brilliant
intellectuals such as Ion Heliade Radulescu, Nicolae Balcescu,
Mihail Kogalniceanu, Simion Barnutiu, Avram Iancu and
others.
Nicolae Balcescu, one of the 1848 Revolution leaders
In Moldavia the unrest was quickly cracked down on, but
in Wallachia the revolutionaries actually governed the country
in June-September 1848. In Transylvania the revolution was
prolonged until as late as 1849. There, the Hungarian leaders
refused to take into account the claims of the Romanians
and they resolved to annex Transylvania to Hungary; this
led to a split of the revolutionary forces between the Hungarians
and the Romanians. The Hungarian government of Kossuth Lajos
attempted to crack down on the fight of the Romanians, but
he encountered the resolute armed resistance of the Romanians
in the Apuseni Mountains, under the leadership of Avram
Iancu.
Avram Iancu, leader of the 1848 Romanian Revolution in Transylvania
Although the brutal intervention of the Ottoman, Czarist
and Hapsburg armies was successful in 1848-1849, the renewal
tide favouring democratic ideas spread everywhere in the
next decade.
Russia was defeated in the Crimean War (1853-1856) and
this called into question again the fragile European balance.
Owing to their strategic position at the mouth of the
Danube, as this waterway was becoming increasingly important
to European communications, the status of the Danube principalities
became an European issue at the peace Congress in Paris
(February-March 1856). Wallachia and Moldavia were still
under Ottoman suzerainty, but now they were placed under
the collective guarantee of the seven powers that signed
the Paris peace treaty; these powers decided then that
local assemblies be convened to decide on the future organization
of the two principalities. The Treaty of Paris also stipulated:
the retrocession to Moldavia of Southern Bessarabia, which
had been annexed in 1812 by Russia (the Cahul, Bolgrad
and Ismail counties); freedom of sailing on the Danube;
the establishment of the European Commission of the Danube;
the neutral status of the Black Sea. In 1857 the "Ad-hoc
assemblies" convened in Bucharest and Iasi under
the provisions of the Paris Peace Congress of 1856; all
social categories participated and these assemblies unanimously
decided to unite the two principalities into one single
state. French emperor Napoleon III supported this, the
Ottoman Empire and Austria were against, so a new conference
of the seven protecting powers was called in Paris (May-August
1858); there, only a few of the Romanians’ claims
were approved. But the Romanians elected on January 5/17,
1859 in Moldavia and on January 24/February 5, 1859 in
Wallachia Colonel Alexandru Ioan Cuza as their unique
prince, achieving de facto the union of the two principalities.
Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1859-1866), Voivode of the United Principalities
The Romanian nation state took on January 24/February 5,
1862 the name of Romania and settled its capital in Bucharest.
Assisted by Mihail Kogalniceanu, his closest adviser, Alexandru
Ioan Cuza initiated a reform program, which contributed
to the modernization of the Romanian society and state structures:
the law to secularize monastery assets (1863), the land
reform, providing for the liberation of the peasants from
the burden of feudal duties and the granting of land to
them (1864), the Penal Code law, the Civilian Code law (1864),
the education law, under which primary school became tuition-free
and compulsory (1864), the establishment of universities
in Iasi (1860) and Bucharest (1864), a.o.
Mihail Kogalniceanu (1817-1890), implemented the program to modernize Romania
After the abdication of Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1866), Carol
of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a relative of the royal family
of Prussia, who was supported by Napoleon III and Bismark,
was proclaimed on May 10, 1866, following a plebiscite,
ruling prince of Romania, with the name of Carol I.
Carol I, first King of Romania
The new Constitution (inspired from the Belgian one of 1831),
which was promulgated in 1866 and was in use until 1923,
proclaimed Romania a constitutional monarchy. In the next
decade the struggle of the Romanians to achieve full state
independence was part of the movements that took place with
other peoples in the south-east of Europe - Serbs, Hungarians,
Montenegrins, Bulgarians, Albanians - to cut off their last
ties to the Ottoman Empire. Within a favourable international
framework - in 1875 the Oriental crisis broke out again
and the Russo-Turkish war started in April 1877 - Romania
declared its full state independence on May 9/21, 1877.
The government led by Ion C. Bratianu, in which Mihail Kogalniceanu
served as Foreign Minister, decided, upon the Russian request
for assistance, to join the Russian forces that were operative
in Bulgaria. A Romanian army, under the personal command
of Prince Carol I, crossed the Danube and participated in
the siege of Pleven; the result was the surrender of the
Ottoman army led by Osman Pasha (December 10, 1877).
Attack of Grivita stronghold - Engraving of the Independence War period (1877-1878)
The independence of Romania, similarly to that Serbia and
Montenegro, as well as the union of Dobrudja with Romania
were recognized in the Russian-Turkish peace treaty of San
Stefano (March 3, 1878). Upon the insistence of the great
powers, an international peace Congress was held in Berlin
(June-July 1878), which acknowledged and maintained the
status that Romania had proclaimed by herself more than
a year before; it also re-established, after a long period
of Ottoman rule, Romania’s rights over Dobrudja, which
was re-united to Romania. But at the same time Russia violated
the convention signed on April 4, 1877 and forced Romania
to cede the Cahul, Bolgrad and Ismail counties of Southern
Bessarabia.
On March 14/26, 1881, Romania proclaimed itself a kingdom
and Carol I of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was crowned King
of Romania. After gaining its independence, the Romania
state was the place to which the hopeful eyes of all Romanians
who lived on the lands still under foreign occupation
turned. The Romanians in Bukovina and in Bessarabia were
facing a systematic policy of assimilation into the German
and Russian worlds, respectively. Immigration of foreign
peoples was directed to their territory. The Romanian
enclaves in the Balkan Peninsula had increasing difficulties
in opposing the denationalization tendencies. At the turn
of the 20th century, the Romanians were a people with
over 12 million inhabitants, of whom almost half lived
under foreign occupation. At the same time in Transylvania,
the Romanians suffered the serious consequences of the
accord by which the Hungarian state was re-established
more than three centuries after its collapse and the dual
Austria-Hungary state was created (1867). Transylvania
lost the autonomous status it had under Austrian rule
and it was incorporated into Hungary. The legislation
passed by the government in Budapest, which proclaimed
the existence of only one nationality in Hungary - the
Magyar one - sought to destroy from the ethno-cultural
point of view the other populations, by forcing them to
become Hungarian. This subjected the Romanian population,
along with other ethnic groups, to heavy ordeals. At that
time the National Romanian Party in Transylvania played
an important role in asserting the Romanian national identity;
the party was reorganized in 1881 and it became the banner-bearer
in the struggle to achieve recognition of equal rights
of the Romanian nation and it the resistance against the
de-nationalization projects. In 1892 the national struggle
of the Romanians reached a climax through the Memorandum
Movement. The memorandum was drafted by the leaders of
the Romanians in Transylvania, Ion Ratiu, Gheorghe Pop
of Basesti, Eugen Brote, Vasile Lucaciu, a.o. and it was
sent to Vienna to be submitted to emperor Franz Joseph
I; it advised the European public opinion of the Romanians’
claims and of the intolerance shown by the government
in Budapest regarding the national issue.
The 1878-1914 period was one of stability and progress
for Romania. Politics got polarised around two huge parties
- the conservative one (Lascar Catargiu, P.P. Carp, Gh.
Grigore Cantacuzino, Titu Maiorescu, a.o.) and the liberal
one (Ion C. Bratianu, Dimitrie A. Sturdza, Ion I.C. Bratianu,
a.o.). They alternatively came to power and this became
the characteristic trait of the epoch’s politics.
The expansionist policy of Russia determined Romania to
sign in 1883 a secret alliance treaty with Austria-Hungary,
Germany and Italy; the treaty was renewed periodically
until World War I. After staying neutral in the first
Balkan war (1912-1913) Romania joined Greece, Serbia,
Montenegro and Turkey against Bulgaria in the second Balkan
war. The peace treaty of Bucharest (1913) marked the end
of that conflict and under its provisions Southern Dobrudja
- the Quadrilateral (the Durostor and Caliacra counties)
became part of Romania.
World War I
In August 1914, when World War I broke out, Romania declared
neutrality. Two years later on August 14/27, 1916 it joined
the Allies, which promised support for the accomplishment
of national unity; the government led by Ion I.C. Bratianu
declared war on Austria-Hungary.
Fighting at Marasesti - Engraving of WW I
After the first success, the Romanian army was forced
to abandon part of the country, Bucharest included and
to withdraw to Moldavia, owing to the joint offensive
of the armies in Transylvania, commanded by General von
Falkenhayn and those of Bulgaria, commanded by Marshal
von Mackensen. In the summer of 1917, in the great battles
of Marasti, Marasesti and Oituz, the Romanians defeated
the attempt made by the Central Powers to conquer the
rest of the Romanian territory.
The Marasesti Monument dedicated to the heroes of WW I
But the situation changed completely following the outbreak
of the revolution in Russia (1917) and the separate peace
concluded by the Soviets at Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918);
this triggered the end of the military operations on the
eastern front. Romania was compelled to follow in the steps
of her Russian ally, because on the Moldavian front the
Romanian troops were interspersed with the Russian ones
and it was impossible for combat to continue on one area
of the front and for peace to settle on another front area,
and so on. Cut off from its western allies, Romania was
forced to sign the peace treaty of Bucharest with the Central
Powers (April 24/May 7, 1918). The ratification procedure
was never carried through, so from the legal standpoint
the treaty was never operative; in fact, in late October
1918, Romania denounced the treaty and re-entered the war.
The right of the peoples to self-rule triumphed in the
final stage of World War I and this served the cause of
the Romanians who lived in the Czarist and Austro-Hungarian
Empires. The collapse of the czarist system and the recognition
by the Soviet government of the right of the exploited
peoples to self-rule allowed the Romanians in Bessarabia
to express through the vote of the national representative
body - the Country Council which convened in Chisinau
- their will to be united with Romania (March 27/April
9, 1918). The fall of the Hapsburg monarchy in the autumn
of 1918 made it possible for the nations that had been
under Austrian-Hungarian oppression to emancipate themselves.
On November 15/28, 1918, the National Council of Bukovina
voted in Cernauti to unite that province to Romania.
The Metropolitan Palace of Cernauti, where the Union
of Bukovina with Romania was voted (November 28, 1918)
In Transylvania the National Assembly called at Alba Iulia
on November 18/December 1, 1918 voted, within the presence
of over 100,000 delegates, to unite Transylvania and Banat
with Romania. So, in January 1919, when the peace conference
was inaugurated in Paris, the union of all Romanians into
one single state was an accomplished fact.
The international peace treaties of 1919-1920 signed
at Neuilly, Saint-Germain, Trianon and Paris, established
the new European realities and also sanctioned the union
of the provinces that were inhabited by Romanians into
one single state (295,042 square kilometers, with a population
of 15.5 million).
The universal suffrage was introduced (1918), a radical
reform was applied (1921), a new Constitution was adopted
- one of the most democratic on the continent (1923) -
and all this created a general-democratic framework and
paved the way for a fast economic development (the industrial
output doubled between 1923 and 1938). With its 7.2 million
metric tons of produced oil in 1937, Romania was the second
largest European producer and number seven in the world.
The per capita national income reached $94 in 1938 as
compared to Greece - $76, Portugal - $81, Czechoslovakia
- $141, and France - $246.
In politics many parties competed with one another, so
the government was controlled over the years by several
of them: the People’s Party (Alexandru Averescu),
the National Liberal Party (Ion I.C. Bratianu, I.G. Duca,
Gheorghe Tatarescu) and the National Peasant Party (Iuliu
Maniu). The Romanian Communist Party, established in 1921,
and which had an insignificant number of members, was
banned in 1924. The Iron Guard, an extremist right-wing
nationalist movement, established by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
in 1927, was equally banned. In 1930 Carol II changed
his mind about his earlier decision to give up the throne,
he dethroned his minor son, Michael (who had become king
in 1927) and again became king of Romania. Eight years
later he established his personal dictatorship (1938-1940).
The goals of the foreign policy in the inter-war period,
when Nicolae Titulescu played a major role, sought to
maintain the territorial status quo by creating regional
alliances, supporting the League of Nations and the collective
security policy, as well as by promoting close co-operation
with the Western democracies - France and Great Britain.
Nicolae Titulescu, Romanian Foreign Minister, supporter of collective security in Europe
With Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, Romania lay the foundation
in 1920-1921 for the Little Entente and in 1934 Romania
created with Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey a new organization
of regional security - the Balkan Entente.
Nazi Germany was rising and, together with Italy it supported
the revisionist states neighbouring Romania; the force
policy was successful on the continent and this was marked
by the Anschluss, the Munich Pact (1938), the break-up
of Czechoslovakia (1939); there was rapprochement between
the Soviet Union and the Third Reich; all this led to
Romania’s international isolation. The von Ribbentrop-Molotov
Pact (August 23, 1939) stipulated in a secret protocol
the Soviet "interest" in the Baltic states,
eastern Poland and the Soviet similar "interest"
in Bessarabia.
World War II
When World War II broke out, Romania declared neutrality
(September 6,1939) but she supported Poland (by facilitating
the transit of the National Bank treasure and granting
asylum to the Polish president and government). The defeats
suffered by France and Great Britain in 1940 created a
dramatic situation for Romania. The Soviet government
applied Plank 3 of the secret protocol of August 23, 1939
and forced Romania by the ultimatum notes of June 26 and
28, 1940 to cede not only Bessarabia, but also Northern
Bukovina and the Hertza land (the latter two had never
belonged to Russia). Under the Vienna "Award"
- actually a dictate - (August 30, 1940) Germany and Italy
gave to Hungary the north-eastern part of Transylvania,
where the majority population was Romanian. Following
the Romanian-Bulgarian talks in Craiova, a treaty was
signed on September 7, 1940, under which the south of
Dobrudja (the Quadrilateral) went to Bulgaria.
Romania's map with the territorial losses of the '40s
The serious crisis in the summer of 1940 led to the abdication
of King Carol II in favour of his son Michael I (September
6, 1940); equally, it led to General Ion Antonescu’s
take-over of the government (he became a Marshal in October
1941). In an effort to win support from Germany and Italy,
Ion Antonescu joined forces in government with the Iron
Guard Movement. The Movement attempted by way of the rebellion
of January 21-23, 1941 to take over the entire government
and, as a result, it was eliminated from politics.
Wishing to get back the territories lost in 1940, Ion
Antonescu participated, side by side with Germany, in
the war against the Soviet Union (1941-1944). The defeats
suffered by the Axis powers led after 1942 to enhanced
attempts made by Antonescu’s regime, as well as
by the democratic opposition (Iuliu Maniu, C.I.C. Bratianu)
to take Romania out of the alliance with Germany. On August
23, 1944, Marshal Ion Antonescu was arrested under the
order of King Michael I. The new government, made up of
military men and technocrats, declared war on Germany
(August 24, 1944) and so, Romania brought her whole economic
and military potential into the alliance of the United
Nations, until the end of World War II in Europe. Despite
the human and economic efforts Romania had made for the
cause of the United Nations for nine months, the Peace
Treaty of Paris (February 10, 1947) denied Romania the
co-belligerent status and forced her to pay huge war reparation
payments; but the Treaty recognized the come-back of north-eastern
Transylvania to Romania while Bessarabia and Northern
Bukovina stayed annexed to the USSR.
The Monument of Moisei, dedicated to the victims of the Horthy Hungarian terror in occupied Transylvania
On the territory of Romania Soviet troops were stationed
and the country was abandoned by the Western powers, so
the next stage brought a similar evolution to that of the
other satellites of the Soviet Empire. The whole government
was forcibly taken over by the communists, the political
parties were banned and their members were persecuted and
arrested; King Michael I was forced to abdicate and the
same day the people’s republic was proclaimed (December
30, 1947). The single-party dictatorship was established,
based on an omnipotent and omnipresent surveillance and
repression force. The industrial enterprises, the banks
and the transportation means were nationalized (1948), agriculture
was forcibly collectivized (1949-1962), the whole economy
was developed according to five-year plans, the main goal
being a Stalinist-type industrialization. Romania became
a founding member of COMECON (1949) and of the Warsaw Treaty
(1955).
At the death of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1965), the communist
leader of the after-war epoch, the party leadership, which
was later identified with that of the state as well, was
monopolized by Nicolae Ceausescu. In a short period of
time he managed to concentrate into his own hands (and
those of a clan headed by his wife, Elena Ceausescu) all
the power levers of the communist party and of the state
system. Romania distanced herself from the USSR (this
publicly inaugurated in the "Statement" of April
1964); the domestic policy was less rigid and there was
some opening in the foreign policy (Romania was the only
Warsaw Treaty member-state that did not intervene in Czechoslovakia
in 1968); all this, as well as the political capital built
on such a less Orthodox line were used to consolidate
Ceausescu’s own position, to take over the whole
power within the party and the state. The dictatorship
of the Ceausescu family, one of the most absurd forms
of totalitarian government in the 20th century Europe,
with a personality cult that actually bordered on mental
illness, had as a result, among other things, distortions
in the economy, the degradation of the social and moral
life, the country’s isolation from the international
community. The country’s resources were abusively
used to build absurdly giant projects devised by the dictator’s
megalomania; this also contributed to a dramatic decline
of the population’s living standard and the deepening
of the regime’s crisis.
Under these circumstances, the spark of the revolt that
was stirred in Timisoara on December 16, 1989 rapidly
spread all over the country and in December 22 the dictatorship
was overthrown owing to the sacrifice of over one thousand
lives.
The Romanian Revolution of December 22, 1989
The victory of the revolution opened the way for a re-establishment
of democracy, of the pluralist political system, for the
return to a market economy and the re-integration of the
country in the European economic, political and cultural
space.
by Ion Calafeteanu |
