$Unique_ID{bob00434}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Romania
Our Millennia-Old History}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Aurel David}
$Affiliation{News Agency Rompres}
$Subject{romanian
romania
romanians
moldavia
national
political
transylvania
war
empire
ottoman
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{1990}
$Log{}
Title:       Romania
Book:        Romania December 1989-December 1990
Author:      Aurel David
Affiliation: News Agency Rompres
Date:        1990

Our Millennia-Old History

     The history of the Romanians begins with their ancestors, the
Geto-Dacians, who belonged to the big family of the Thracians. As early as the
dawn of European history, in their inhabitancy area, the
Carpathian-Danubian-Pontic space, they created one of the great civilizations
of Antiquity, comparable with those of the Mediterranean basin.

     Sometime around the year 70 B.C., the high level of economic and
socio-political development called for and favoured the union of the different
statal bodies in Dacia into a single centralized and independent state, led
by King Burebista, "the first and the greatest of the kings in Thracia",
as contemporaries called him, in whose time the Dacian state extended from
the Slovak Mountains and the Middle Danube to the Balkans and the shore of
the Black Sea.

     Burebista's epoch paved the way for the epoch of Decebalus, the hero
king of the Dacians who had to stand up to one of the biggest powers of the
time, the Roman Empire. After part of Dacia was conquered by the Romans during
the two wars of A.D. 101-102 and 105-106, the two civilizations mingled and
life in these lands made new headway.

     For 165 years (A.D. 106-271) the destiny of Dacia (which held a key
position in the imperial defense of borders) intertwined with that of the
Roman Empire. The massive, organized colonization of the new province, the
camps, villages and towns built in the Roman fashion, the adoption of the
Latin language, the assimilation of the more developed Roman civilization,
all resulted in the irreversible Romanization of the Dacians. The influence
of the Roman civilization spread far beyond the borders of the province,
onto the free Dacians in northern Transylvania, central and northern
Moldavia and in Muntenia. After Emperor Aurelianus had withdrawn the Roman
army and administration from Dacia (A.D. 271), the Daco-Roman population
lived on uninterruptedly in the same lands.

     The birth of the Romanian people, consequence of the Daco-Roman
symbiosis, cannot be separated from the process of Christianization, nor
can it be understood out of this context. The Romanians, as a people, were
born Christians, with "their religion", the religion of praying "to God, to
the Lord, to Jesus".

     Their Christianization began during the Roman occupation so that after
a few centuries, at the time the Slavs and other migratories arrived here, the
Romanian people already had the Christian religion ingrained in its
spirituality. Christianity, alongside specific material conditions resulting
from an ancient and steadfast, sedentary culture, set the Romanians apart
from the migratories and gave them the strength to endure as a people.

     The process of Romanization, within whose scope the Romanian people
emerged, continued after Aurelianus' withdrawal, too.

     In the centuries following the Roman withdrawal, the
Carpathian-Danubian-Pontic space, inhabited uninterruptedly by the Daco-Roman
people was invaded by migratories: Goths, Huns, Gepidae, Avars, Slavs,
Hungarians, Petchenegs, Cumans, Tartars. The invaders temporarily exercised
political authority but did not dislodge the natives from these territories.
On the contrary, due to their developed civilization, the natives assimilated
them, receiving however certain influences from the Slavs, especially as
regards the trades and the language.

     Basically, the process of formation of the Romanian people and the
Romanian language crystallized in the 6th-7th centuries, when the natives
were first mentioned in historical documents under the name of vlahi or
blahi (Walachians). Their language, Romanian, is a Romance language, the
only direct descendant of the Latin spoken in the Carpathian-Balkan
provinces of the Roman Empire.

     Beginning in the 10th century, historical sources clearly defined the
Romanians as an individualized Romanic people. They called themselves
Romanians, being the only Romanic people to preserve in its name the
memory of Rome and its Roman ancestors.

     At the end of the first millennium A.D., the Romanian people was
organized, like the other European peoples, within smaller feudal states.
Documents attest that in the intra-Carpathian space there existed the
voivodeships led by Glad, Gelu and Menumorut, in Dobrogea - those led by
Sacea, Sestlav and Tatos, other voivodeships east of the Carpathian Mountains
and those led by Litovoi, Farcas, Ioan and Seneslau south of the Carpathians.

     Despite all the resistance of the Romanians in face of the invading
Hungarian armies led by Arpad, a resistance which continued after the
Christianization of the Hungarians around A.D. 1,000 and the foundation of the
apostolic-mission Catholic kingdom, the Romanian voivodeships inside the
Carpathian arc, that is in Transylvania, were conquered and incorporated in
the Hungarian kingdom, as autonomous voivodeships, until the 13th century.

     Practically, the feudal state of Transylvania was created under
occupation, its first ruler having the title of voivode.

     In the 14th century, in the propitious internal and external
circumstances determined by the relaxation of Hungarian pressure and of the
Tartar domination, there came into being the feudal states of Walachia, under
Basarab I, and Moldavia, under Bogdan I.

     Although throughout the Middle Ages they were forced to live in three
separate states - Walachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, the Romanians on both
sides of the Carpathian Mountains remained in permanent economic, political
and cultural contact.

     Beginning at the end of the 14th century, when the Ottoman Empire
reached the Danube, the Romanians put up a heroic resistance in order to
defend their national being, cutting a fine figure on the European political
stage. The battles waged under voivodes Mircea the Old, Dan II and Vlad Tepes,
rulers of Walachia, under Stephen the Great of Moldavia and Iancu of Hunedoara
of Transylvania contributed to delaying the Ottoman armies' advance on Central
Europe, thus defending the great European values which, in full Renaissance,
could therefore develop freely.

     When the Danubian citadels (Turnu, Giurgiu, Braila, Chilia) had been
conquered, the Tartars had joined the Ottoman cause, Serbia had been turned
into a Turkish pashalyk and the Hungarian kingdom collapsed after the Mohacs
battle (1562), Walachia and Moldavia were forced to recognize the Ottoman
suzerainty. In 1541, Transylvania became an autonomous principality, its
status being one of vassality to the Turks. Unlike the states surrounding
them, the three Romanian countries were not deprived of their statal
existence they preserved their real internal autonomy as they were not
turned into pashalyks. Relations with the Ottoman Empire were set on a
contractual basis - the capitulations, and the tribute was the guarantee
that their status would be maintained.

     The end of the 16th century was marked by the epos of the struggles
led by Michael the Brave, ruler of Walachia (1593-1601), for all Romanian's
unity. On May 27, 1,600, he entitled himself "Ruler of Walachia, Transylvania
and the whole of Moldavia", achieving, for the first time after the ancient
Dacian state, the political union of the Romanians into a single state.
Michael the Brave's union was short-lived, notably on account of the
opposition put up by the big neighbouring powers - Turkey, Austria,
Poland - which would not accept the setting up of a powerful Romanian state, a
hurdle to their territorial expansion.

     His unification act has preserved, through the centuries, its value as a
symbol of the Romanians' struggle for national unity. It was an act that
contributed to broad European recognition of the Romanian's Latin descent.

     Late in the 17th century and early in the 18th, important changes
occurred in the political situation of the Romanian countries. Following
the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) between Austria and Turkey, the Principality
of Transylvania was annexed by the Habsburg Empire, with governors being
appointed directly by Vienna. The Ottoman Empire introduced the Phanariot
regime in Moldavia (1711) and in Walachia (1716), appointing rulers from
among the Greek aristocracy faithful to the Empire, without the two Romanian
countries losing their autonomy.

     During the Austrian-Russian-Turkish wars of the 18th century and the
early 19th century, the Habsburg Empire annexed Oltenia (1718-1739) and
Bukovina (1775-1918). After the Treaty of Bucharest (1812), which put an end
to the 1806-1812 Russo-Turkish war, the part of Moldavia extending between
the Dniester and the Prut later called Bessarabia - was annexed by Tsarist
Russia.

     Meanwhile, in Transylvania the Romanians' struggle for its political
emancipation found tenacious theoreticians and practicioners in the
representatives of the Transylvanian School, who, using the main argument of
the Latinity of the Romanian language and people, demonstrated this people's
rights to a free political life. The worsening social and national oppression
and poor efficiency of the reforms instituted by emperors Maria Theresa and
Joseph II triggered off the forceful peasant uprising led by Horia, Closca
and Crisan (1784-1785), which was widely echoed in Europe and which, by many
of its ideas, anticipated the French Revolution.

     The modern ideas of the French Revolution also stimulated the
aspirations after social renewal and national emancipation from the
Ottoman Empire of the Romanian south of the Carpathians, the 1821 Revolution
led by Tudor Vladimirescu marking the beginning of Romania's modern history.
Though stifled through Ottoman and Tsarist intervention, the revolution led
to the abolition of the Phanariot regime and the resumption of native rule
in Walachia and Moldavia.

     After the Russo-Turkish war (1828-1829), under the Treaty of Adrianopole
(1829), the Ottoman monopoly was removed and all citadels on the left bank of
the Danube were returned to the Romanian countries.

     Walachia and Moldavia were occupied by Russian troops until 1934. In this
time, under Gen. Pavel Kisseleff, a new agrarian regime was introduced, on the
strength of the Organic Regulations.

     The revolution of 1848-1849, falling in line with the European
bourgeois-democratic revolutions, was generated by the same causes and the
same socio-economic and political conditions in all the three Romanian
countries. Its unitary character was also illustrated by the common content
of the programmes. The revolution was defeated through the scheming of the
internal retrograde forces and notably through the brutal armed intervention
of the neighbouring empires - the Ottoman, Tsarist and Habsburg empires -, and
yet many of the gains endured.

     After 1848, central to Moldavia's and Walachia's political and
socio-cultural life was the idea of national unity. After the Crimean War
(1853-1856), the union of the Principalities became a European question.
Overriding the provisions of the Paris Convention of August 1858 and imposing
their own will, the Romanians elected Alexandru Ioan Cuza as sole ruler in
Moldavia (on January 6, 1859) and in Walachia (on January 24, 1859). The year
1859 has a crucial importance in the Romanians' history, due to the foundation
of the nation-state, a state which entered Europe's political geography before
Germany and Italy, whose unification struggle was under way.

     On January 24, 1862 the new unitary state adopted the official name of
Romania.

     In 1866, Alexandru Ioan Cuza abdicated under pressure from a political
coalition. Carol of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen, a German prince, became ruler of
the country on May 10, 1866 and king of Romania in 1881 The 1866 Constitution
proclaimed Romania a constitutional monarchy.

     On May 9, 1977, in favourable international circumstances (an upsurge in
the liberation struggle of the Balkan peoples, the Oriental crisis flaring up
again, the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish war), Romania proclaimed its independence.
In the months that followed, independence was defended through participation
in the anti-Ottoman war, by the side of Russia. The Romanian army fought at
Plevna, Rahova, Smirdan and Vidin, and substantially contributed to defeating
the Ottoman forces.

     The country's independence was sanctioned under the Peace Treaty of San
Stefano and then under the Treaty of Berlin (1878) which restored Romania's
right's over Dobrogea, an ancient Romanian territory. Under the same Treaty
the counties of Cahul, Bolgrad and Ismail in southern Bessarabia, retroceded
to Moldavia under the Peace Treaty of Paris (1856), were incorporated again in
the Tsarist Empire.

     Winning its independence, the Romanian state became the focus of the
whole Romanian nation, the Romanians in the territories still under foreign
domination pinning on it their hopes for liberation.

     Romania did not participate in the First Balkan War (1812-1913) but in
the Second Balkan War (June-July 1913) it joined Greece, Serbia, Montenegro
and Turkey against Bulgaria. Under the Peace Treaty of Bucharest (1913), the
southern part of Dobrogea (the Quadrilateral) became part of Romania.

     Advancing on the road opened in 1877 with the winning of independence,
the Romanian people began the struggle to liberate the historical Romanian
provinces still under foreign domination, with a view to national
reintegration. Under the particularly complex international circumstances at
the beginning of the 20th century, after two years of neutrality Romania
entered the First World War by the side of the Entente states, which had
recognized the Romanians' historical right to unite into a single
nation-state. The army's staunchness and courage, proven on the battlefield,
at the Carpathian passes and notably in the heroic battles at Mara-sti,
Mara-se-sti and Oituz, secured the conditions for the Romanian people freely
to express its resolutions of Chi-sinev (April 9), Cernau-ti (November 28)
and Alba Iulia (December 1) whereby the 1918 Great Union was accomplished
under King Ferdinand. The Romanian's decisions, expressed in the National
Assemblies - genuine parliaments, fell in line with the great European
movements for self-determination and liberation from the sway of the time's
empires. Thus the union of Bessarrabia, Bukovina and Transylvania with
Romania, into a unitary nation-state legitimated by history - an energetic
deed of the Romanian nation - was internationally recognized by the Peace
Treaties of 1918-1920.

     Between the wars, Romania registered a continuous economic growth which
peaked in 1938 furthermore, by the legislation adopted - the reform of the
electoral system and the new Constitution of 1923 - this country became one of
Europe's most democratic states. In point of foreign policy, Romania initiated
a set of diplomatic actions meant to help consolidate the unitary Romanian
nation-state, preserve the national sovereignty and territorial integrity and
maintain the status quo on the continent. Thus, with Czechoslovakia and
Yugoslavia, Romania created a regional alliance called the Little Entente
with Yugoslavia, Turkey and Greece, it founded the Balkan Entente.

     The rise of fascism, notably after Hitler had taken the power in Germany,
the deepening contradictions and the mutations that occurred in the relations
between the world's big powers, and ultimately the outbreak of the Second
World War had serious consequences for Romania. Left alone to face the
revanchist and revisionist states, without moral and material support from
France and Great Britain, its traditional allies, Romania saw Bessarabia and
northern Bukovina, the north of Transylvania and the south of Dobrogea torn
away from its body in the summer of 1940. With these territories amputated
and incorporated into states which at a certain moment were in opposed
military blocs, Romania was forced to make huge efforts for survival and
territorial reintegration, in order not to disappear, under the blows of the
Nazi war machine, from Europe's political map.

     Discredited at home and isolated, under pressure from fascist and
profascist groups in Romania backed by Hitlerite circles, King Carol II - who
had given up the throne in 1926, returned to the country in 1930 and
established a personal dictatorship in 1938 - abdicated on September 6, 1940
in favour of his son Mihai. Power was taken over by Gen. Ion Antonescu and the
Iron-Guardist movement. After the rebellion of January 1941, when the Iron
Guardists had attempted to become the sole holders of power, their movement
was eliminated by Ion Antonescu who established a military dictatorship
regime.

     On June 22, 1941, Romania entered the anti-Soviet war, on the side of
Nazi Germany, the Romanian army continuing to fight even after it had left
behind the ethnic border (the river Dniester). The victories of the Allied
Forces, and the Soviet troops' advance in the Romanian territory again
placed Romania in a dramatic situation.

     In those conditions, on August 23, 1944, Marshal Ion Antonescu and his
principal men, who intended to resist in the face of the Russians so as to
be able to negotiate the armistice from a better position, were arrested by
King Michael. That averted the huge destruction a war fought on the national
territory would have entailed.

     No later than the following day the Romanian army joined the Allies in
the struggle against Nazi Germany, participating with over half a million
soldiers in the liberation of northwestern Transylvania and then of Hungary,
Czechoslovakia and Austria, up to the defeat of fascist Germany. For its
effort, Romania was appreciated at the time as the fourth power to have
contributed to defeating fascism. On September 12, 1944, in Moscow was signed
the Armistice Convention between Romania and the Allies.

     In August 1944 a government of generals and technocrats was formed which
also included representatives of the National Democratic Front (the National
Liberal Party, the National Peasant Party, the Social-Democratic Party and
the Romanian Communist Party). With the Soviet troops present in the country,
a government led by Petru Groza was brought to power, and the elections of
November 19, 1946 were won, through fraud and pressure, by the procommunist
forces.

     On February 10, 1947, in Paris, Romania signed the Peace Treaty with
the Allied Powers, a treaty which sanctioned the nullity of the Vienna
Diktat, as well as the continued occupation of Bessarabia and northern
Bukovina by the USSR.

     At the end of 1947, King Michael was forced to abdicate, and Romania was
proclaimed a Republic. There followed more than four decades of communist
dictatorship, until the Revolution of December 1989. At present Romania is
advancing toward a genuine democracy in which freedom and dignity of its
citizens are the fundamental goals to be laid down in the New Constitution.

M. Constantinescu