History Romania

Home - Innapoi - Copiere - Contact

The history of Romanians is part of European history, perhaps one of the most eventful components

of it. Born, like the other Romance peoples, in the 1st millennium AD, the Romanian people has

continuously inhabited the selfsame geographical space to this day, a space which its forefathers,

the Indo-European Geto-Dacians, belonging to the Thracian kin, had populated as early as the 2nd

millennium BC. Today the Romanians are the sole descendants of the Eastern Roman world, and

their language, along with Spanish, French and Italian, is one of the major offspring of Latin. They

are the sole people who by their name - roman (deriving from the Latin romanus) - have preserved

to this day the memory of the Seal of Rome, a memory to beperpetuated later in the name adopted

in the 19th century by the nation- state - Romania. Romania is a Romance isle that has endured in

a sea of Slavic and Finno-Ugric neighbours, in a region that has been devastated for more than a

millennium (3rd-13th c.) by all the migratory waves known by Europe. 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 Country,

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). 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).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 theRomanian 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 themountains

and the plateau of Transylvania; the Getae - in the Danube Plains. In the Antiquity, the Greeks,

who first got to encounter the Getae - used thisname for the whole population north of the Danube,

while the Romans, who firstgot 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 herethe 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 Tomi

(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 (north), the Middle Danube

(west), the Tyras river (the Dniester), and the Black Sea shore (east) to the Balkan Mountains

(south). 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. 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. The Dacians, although they had suffered heavy casuals, 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 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 hearts 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 Getae, 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 andthat the non-Roman peoples around them

recognised 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. 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 powe

r in Transylvania, wherethe 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. 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 flew south of the

Danube in 1396. Alone or in alliance with the neighbouring Christian countries, more often in

alliance with the neighbouring voivodes of the other two Romanian principalities, the voivodes of

Wallachia Mircea the Old (1386-1418) and Vlad the Impeller (Dracula of the Mediaeval legends,

1456-1462), with Stephen the Great and Holy (1457-1504), the voivode of Moldavia and Iancu of

Hunedoara, the voivode of Transylvania (1441-1456) fought heavy defence battles against the

Ottoman Turks, delaying their expansion to Central Europe. 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 recognise for over three centuries the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. After Buda

was captured and Hungary became a pashalik, Transylvania became a selfruling principality

(1541) and it, too, recognised 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. 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.

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.

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

organisation 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 Sublime Porte 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 modernising reforms, modelled 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 theOttoman 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 ofcontention 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 temporarilyannexed 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). 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. 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. 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 a 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 organisation 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 protector 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. 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

programme, which contributed to the modernisation of the Romanian society and state structures:

the law to secularise 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

tuitionfree and compulsory (1864), the establishment of universities in Iasi (1860) and Bucharest

(1864), a.o. 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.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).

The independence of Romania, similarly to that Serbia and Montenegro, as well as the union of

Dobrudja with Romania were recognised 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 on difficulties in opposing the

denationalisati 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 reorganised in 1881 and it became the

standard bearer in the struggle to achieve recognition of equal rights of the Romanian nation and

it the resistance against the denationalisation 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 t

governmen 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.

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. 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 aborted the

attempt made by the Central Powers to defeat and get Romania out of the war by occupying the rest

of her territory. 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. 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 kilometres, 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 thek most democratic on the continent (1923) - and all this created

a general-democratic framewor 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 he took the throne. 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.

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 organisation 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. 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.

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 Antonescu's take-over of the government

(he became a Marshal in October 1941). In an effor 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 recognised the come-back of north-

eastern Transylvania to Romania while Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina stayed annexed to the

USSR. 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

nationalised (1948), agriculture was forcibly collectivised (1949-1962), the whole economy was

developed according to five-year plans, the main goal being a Stalinisttype industrialisation.

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 monopolised

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 publicy 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 victory of the

revolution opened the way for a re-establishment of democracy, of the pluralist political system,

for the return to a market economyand the re-integration of the country in the European

economic, political and cultural space.

Home - Innapoi - Copiere - Contact

jeni@jerak-online.com

Femei 18-25 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Femei 26-32 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Femei 33-60 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Despre noi - Terms - Our prices - Online order

Succesele noastre - Inscriere - Email - Informatii

barbati singuri

feeling barbati cauta femei internationale pentru fete casatorie prietenie relatie de durata serioasa dragoste iubire singure

agentii el o cauta pe ea jumatatea el cauta jumatatea sufletul pereche doamne singura anunturi internationale fotografia intima

de lunga albume anunturi internationale pentru casatorie cu poze relatie de durata servicii matrimoniale gratuite serioasa

© Jerak Agentie Matrimoniala - Jenica Keller - Wilhelm-Hoffstadt-Str. 3 - 50226 Frechen (Germany)