History of Romania
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 History of Romania |
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|---|---|
| Timeline | |
| Military history | |
| Prehistory | |
| Dacia | |
| - Dacian wars | |
| - Roman Dacia | |
| Early Middle Ages | |
| - Origin of the Romanians | |
| - Daco-Roman | |
| Middle Ages | |
| Early Modern Times | |
| - Phanariotes | |
| National awakening | |
| - Organic Statute | |
| - 1848 Wallachian Revolution | |
| - War of Independence | |
| Kingdom of Romania | |
| - World War I | |
| - Greater Romania | |
| - World War II | |
| Communist Romania | |
| - Soviet occupation | |
| - 1989 Revolution | |
| Romania since 1989
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- See also: Timeline of Romanian history and Military history of Romania
This article provides only a brief outline of each period of the History of Romania; details are presented in separate articles (see the links in the box and below).
Contents |
[edit] Prehistory
The territory of Romania has been inhabited by different groups of people since prehistory. One of the fossils found—a male, adult jawbone—has been dated to be between 34,000 and 36,000 years old, which would make it one of the oldest fossils found to date of modern humans in Europe.[1] A skull found in Peştera cu Oase (The Cave with Bones) in 2004-5 bears features of both modern humans and Neanderthals. According to a paper by Erik Trinkaus and others, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in January 2007, this finding suggests that the two groups interbred thousands of years ago. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the skull is between 35,000 and 40,000 years old, making it the oldest modern human fossil ever found in Europe.[1][2][3]
[edit] Dacia
The territory of today's Romania was inhabited since at least 513 BC by the Getae or Dacians, a Thracian tribe. Under the leadership of Burebista (82-44 BC), the Dacians became a powerful state which threatened even the regional interests of the Romans. Julius Caesar intended to start a campaign against the Dacians, but was assassinated in 44 BC. A few months later, Burebista shared the same fate, assassinated by his own noblemen. His powerful state was divided in four and did not become unified again until 95, under the reign of the Dacian king Decebalus. The Dacian state sustained a series of conflicts with the expanding Roman Empire, and was finally conquered in AD 106 by the Roman emperor Trajan, who defeated Decebalus. Faced by successive invasions of the Goths and Carpi, the Roman administration withdrew in 271. Roman conquest of Dacia stands at the base of the origin of Romanians.
[edit] Dark Ages
Different people from other kingdoms (or empires) lived with the Romanians, such as the Gothic Empire (Oium) from 271 until 378, the Hunnish Empire until 435, the Avar Empire and Slavs during the 6th century. Much of Romania fell under the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th through 11th centuries. Subsequently Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans and Tatars also raided and settled in the lands to various extents.
[edit] Middle Ages
By the 11th century, the area of today's Transylvania became a largely autonomous part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Kings of Hungary invited the Székely, the Teutonic Order and the Saxons to settle in Transylvania.
Many small local states with varying degree of independence developed, but only in the 14th century the larger principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia emerged to fight the danger of a new threat in the form of the Ottoman Turks, who conquered Constantinople in 1453. In 1475, Stephen III ("the Great") of Moldavia scored a decisive victory against the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vaslui.
[edit] Early modern period
By 1541, the entire Balkan peninsula and most of Hungary became Ottoman provinces. In contrast, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania, came under Ottoman suzerainty, but conserved fully internal autonomy and, until the 18th century, some external independence. During this period the Romanian lands were characterised by the slow disappearance of the feudal system, the distinguishment of some rulers like Vasile Lupu and Dimitrie Cantemir in Moldavia, Matei Basarab and Constantin Brâncoveanu in Wallachia, Gabriel Bethlen in Transylvania, the Phanariot Epoch, and the appearance of the Russian Empire as a political and military influence.
John II, the last non-Habsburg king of Hungary, moved his royal court to Alba Iulia in Transylvania, and after his abdication as king of Hungary, became the first Prince of Transylvania. His Edict of Turda was the first decree of religious freedom in the modern history of Europe (1568). In the subsequent period, Transylvania was ruled by mostly Calvinist Hungarian princes (until the end of the 17th century), and Protestantism flourished in the region.
In 1600, the principalities of Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania were simultaneously headed by the Wallachian prince Michael the Brave (Mihai Viteazul), Ban of Oltenia, but the chance for a unity dissolved after Mihai was killed, only one year later, by the soldiers of an Austrian army general Giorgio Basta. Mihai Viteazul, who was prince of Transylvania for less than one year, intended for the first time to unite the three principalities and to lay down foundations of a single state in a territory comparable to today's Romania. The Principality of Transylvania experienced a golden age under the absolutist rule of Gabriel Bethlen (1613-1629).
In 1699, Transylvania became a territory of the Habsburgs' Austrian empire, following the Austrian victory over the Turks. The Austrians, in their turn, rapidly expanded their empire: in 1718 an important part of Wallachia, called Oltenia, was incorporated to the Austrian monarchy and was only returned in 1739. In 1775, the Austrian empire occupied the north-western part of Moldavia, later called Bukovina, while the eastern half of the principality (called Bessarabia) was occupied in 1812 by Russia.
[edit] National awakening
As in most European countries, 1848 brought revolution to Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania, announced by Tudor Vladimirescu and his Pandurs in the Wallachian uprising of 1821. The goals of the revolutionaries - complete independence for Moldavia and Wallachia, and national emancipation in Transylvania - remained unfulfilled, but were the basis of the subsequent evolutions. Also, the uprising helped the population of the three principalities recognise their unity of language and interests.
Heavily taxed and badly administered under the Ottoman Empire, in 1859, people in both Moldavia and Wallachia elected the same "Domnitor" (ruler) - Alexandru Ioan Cuza - as prince
[edit] Kingdom of Romania
[edit] The Old Kingdom
In 1866, the German prince Carol I (Charles or Karl) of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was appointed as Domnitor—Prince—of the Principality of Romania. In 1877, Romania declared independence from the Ottoman Empire and, following a Russian-Romanian-Turkish war, its independence was recognized by the Treaty of Berlin, 1878, making it the first independent national state in the eastern half of Europe. Following the war Romania acquired Dobruja in its southeast, but it was forced to cede southern Bessarabia to Russia. Carol I was proclaimed the first King of Romania on March 26, 1881.
The new state, squeezed between the great powers of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, looked to the West, particularly France, for its cultural, educational, military and administrative models. In 1916 Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, after the Entente agreed to recognize Romanian rights over Transylvania, which at that time was part of Austria-Hungary.
Romania was defeated, its capital, Bucharest, and two-thirds of the country occupied by the Central Powers. In May 1918, Romania was in no position to continue the war, and negotiated a peace treaty with Germany (see Treaty of Bucharest, 1918). In October 1918, Romania joined the war again. By the end of the war, the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires had disintegrated; governing bodies created by the Romanians of Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina chose union with the Kingdom of Romania, resulting in Greater Romania.
[edit] Greater Romania (România Mare)
The Romanian expression România Mare (literal translation "Great Romania", but more commonly rendered "Greater Romania") generally refers to the Romanian state in the years between the First and Second World Wars and, by extension, to the territory Romania covered at the time (see the map). Romania achieved at that time its greatest territorial extent, managing to unite all the historic Romanian lands (which were also inhabited by a majority of Romanians).
Historically, Greater Romania—România Mare—represented one of the ideals of Romanian nationalism. Greater Romania is still seen by many as a "paradise lost", often by comparison with the "stunted" Communist Romania. To exploit the nationalistic connotation of the term, a nationalist political party uses it as its name.
In 1918, at the end of World War I, Transylvania and Bessarabia united with the Romanian Old Kingdom. The Deputies of the Romanians from Transylvania voted to unite their region by the Proclamation of Union of Alba Iulia. Bessarabia, having declared its independence from Russia in 1917 by the Conference of the Country (Sfatul Ţării), called in Romanian troops to protect the province from the Bolsheviks who were spreading the Russian Revolution. The union of the regions of Transylvania, Maramureş, Crişana and Banat with the Old Kingdom of Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon, which recognised the sovereignty of Romania over these regions and settled the border between the independent Republic of Hungary and the Kingdom of Romania. The union of Bucovina and Bessarabia with Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Versailles. Romania had also recently acquired the Southern Dobruja territory called "The Quadrilateral" from Bulgaria as a result of its participation in the Second Balkan War in 1913.
The Union of 1918 united most regions with clear Romanian majorities into the boundaries of a single state. However, it also led to the inclusion of various sizable minorities, including Magyars (ethnic Hungarians), Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, etc., for a total of about 28% of the population (Magyars mostly in Transylvania; Germans in Transylvania, Bukovina, and Banat; Ukrainians in part of Bessarabia and Bukovina, Bulgarians in Dobrudja). Recognized by the Romanian Constitution of 1923 and supported by various laws (education, electoral, etc.), national minorities were represented in Parliament, and several of them created national parties (the Magyars in 1922, the Germans in 1929, the Jews in 1931), although a unique standing of minorities with autonomy on a wide basis, provided for at the assembly of Transylvanian Romanians on 1 December 1918 were not fulfilled.
Two periods can be identified in Romania between the two World Wars. From 1918 to 1938, Romania was a liberal constitutional monarchy, but one facing the rise of the nationalist, anti-semitic parties, particularly Iron Guard, which won about 15% of the votes in the general elections of 1937. From 1938 to 1944, Romania was a dictatorship. The first dictator was King Carol II, who abolished the parliamentary regime and ruled with his camarilla.
In 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which stipulated, amongst other things, the Soviet "interest" in Bessarabia. Following the severe territorial losses of 1940 (see next section), Carol was forced to abdicate, replaced as king by his son Mihai, but the power was taken by the military dictator Ion Antonescu (initially in conjunction with the Iron Guard). In August 1944, Antonescu was arrested by Mihai.
[edit] World War II
In 1940, Romania lost territory in both east and west: In June 1940, after receiving an ultimatum from the Soviet Union, Romania ceded Bessarabia and northern Bukovina[4][5][6][7] (see Soviet occupation of Bessarabia). Two thirds of Bessarabia were combined with a small part of the USSR to form the Moldavian SSR. Northern Bukovina and Budjak were apportioned to the Ukrainian SSR. In August 1940, Northern Transylvania was awarded to Hungary by Germany and Italy through the Second Vienna Award. Southern Dobruja was also lost to Bulgaria shortly after Carol's abdication.
Because Carol II lost so much territory through failed diplomacy, the army supported seizure of power by General Ion Antonescu. For four months (the period of the National Legionary State), he had to share power with the Iron Guard, but the latter overplayed their hand in January 1941 and were suppressed. Romania entered World War II under the command of the German Wehrmacht in June 1941, declaring war to the Soviet Union in order to recover Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Romania was awarded the territory between Dniester and the Southern Bug by Germany to administer it under the name Transnistria.
According to an international commission report released by the Romanian government in 2004, Antonescu's Fascist government of Romania is responsible for the murder in various forms (including deportations to concentration camps and executions by the Romanian Army and Gendarmerie and the German Einsatzgruppen), between 280,000 to 380,000 Jews in Romania and in the war zone of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria. [8] [9]
In August 1944, a coup led by King Mihai, with support from opposition politicians and the army, deposed the Antonescu dictatorship and put Romania's armies under Red Army command. Romania suffered additional heavy casualties fighting the Nazi Army in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
The Paris Peace Treaty at the end of World War II rendered the Vienna Awards void: Northern Transylvania returned to Romania—having, for several years, an autonomous status that was eventually abolished—but Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and southern Dobruja were not recovered. The Moldavian SSR became independent of the Soviet Union only with the latter's 1991 demise, becoming the Republic of Moldova.
[edit] Communist period
Soviet occupation following World War II led to the formation of a communist People's Republic in 1947, and the abdication of King Michael, who went into exile. The leader of Romania from 1948 to his death in 1965 was Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, the General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party.
In the early 1960s, Romania's communist government began to assert some independence from the Soviet Union. Nicolae Ceauşescu became General Secretary in 1965, and head of state in 1967. Ceauşescu's denunciation of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and a brief relaxation in internal repression helped give him a positive image both at home and in the West. Seduced by Ceauşescu's "independent" foreign policy, Western leaders were slow to turn against a regime that, by the late 1970s, had become increasingly harsh, arbitrary, and capricious. Rapid economic growth fueled by foreign credits gradually gave way to wrenching austerity and severe political repression, which became increasingly draconian through the 1980s.
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 resulted in more than 1,000 deaths in Timişoara and Bucharest, and brought about the fall of Ceauşescu and the end of the Communist regime in Romania. After a weeklong state of unrest in Timişoara, a mass rally summoned in Bucharest in support of Ceauşescu on December 21, 1989 turned hostile. The Ceauşescu couple, fleeing Bucharest by helicopter, ended up in the custody of the army. After being tried and convicted by a kangaroo court for genocide and other crimes, they were executed on December 25, 1989. The events of this revolution remain to this day a matter of debate, with many conflicting theories as to the motivations and even actions of some of the main players.
Ion Iliescu, a former Communist Party official marginalized by Ceauşescu, attained national recognition as the leader of an impromptu governing coalition, the National Salvation Front (FSN) that proclaimed the restoration of democracy and civil liberties on December 22, 1989. The Communist Party was initially outlawed by Ion Iliescu, but he soon revoked that decision; as a consequence, Communism is not outlawed in Romania today. However, Ceauşescu's most unpopular measures, such as bans on abortion and contraception, were among the first laws to be changed after the Revolution, and their legality has not been questioned since then.
[edit] After the 1989 revolution
Presidential and parliamentary elections were held on May 20, 1990. Running against representatives of the re-established pre-war National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party, and taking advantage of FSN's tight control of the national radio and television, Iliescu won 85% of the vote. The FSN secured two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. A university professor with strong family roots in the Communist Party, Petre Roman, was named prime minister of the new government, which consisted mainly of former communist officials. The government initiated modest free market reforms.
Because the majority of ministers in the Petre Roman government were ex-communists, anti-communist protesters initiated a round-the-clock anti-government demonstration in University Square, Bucharest in April 1990. Two months later, these protesters, whom the government referred to as "hooligans", were brutally dispersed by the miners from Jiu Valley, called in by President Iliescu; this event became known as the mineriad. The miners also attacked the headquarters and private residences of opposition leaders. Petre Roman's government fell in late September 1991, when the miners returned to Bucharest to demand higher salaries. A technocrat, Theodor Stolojan, was appointed to head an interim government until new elections could be held.
In December 1991, a new constitution was drafted and subsequently adopted, after a popular referendum, which, however, attracted criticism from international observers who accused the government of manipulating the population and even of outright fraud. (The constitution was most recently revised by a national referendum on October 18-19, 2003, again plagued by fraud accusations made by internal and international observers.) The new constitution, which took effect October 29, 2003, follows the structure of the Constitution of 1991, but makes significant revisions, among which the most significant are extension of the presidential mandate from four years to five, and the guaranteed protection of private property.
March 1992 marked the split of the FSN into two groups: the Democratic National Front (FDSN), led by Ion Iliescu and the Democratic Party (PD), led by Petre Roman. Iliescu won the presidential elections in September 1992 by a clear margin, and his FDSN won the general elections held at the same time. With parliamentary support from the nationalist PUNR (National Unity Party of Romanians), PRM (Great Romania Party), and the ex-communist PSM (Socialist Workers' Party), a new government was formed in November 1992 under Prime Minister Nicolae Văcăroiu, an economist and former Communist Party official. The FDSN changed its name to Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR) in July 1993.
Emil Constantinescu of the Democratic Convention (CDR) emerged as the winner of the second round of the 1996 presidential elections and replaced Iliescu as chief of state. The PDSR won the largest number of seats in Parliament, but was unable to form a viable coalition. Constituent parties of the CDR joined the Democratic Party (PD), the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) to form a centrist coalition government, holding 60% of the seats in Parliament. This coalition of sorts frequently struggled for survival, as decisions were often delayed by long periods of negotiations among the involved parties. Nevertheless, this coalition was able to implement several critical reforms. The new coalition government, under prime minister Victor Ciorbea remained in office until March 1998, when Radu Vasile (PNŢCD) took over as prime minister. The former governor of the National Bank, Mugur Isărescu, eventually replaced Radu Vasile as head of the government.
The 2000 elections, brought Iliescu's PDSR back to power. The party, now renamed the Social Democratic Party (PSD), was led largely by former Communist officials. Iliescu won a third term as the country's president. Adrian Năstase became the prime minister of the newly formed government. His rule was shaken by recurring allegations of corruption.
Presidential and parliamentary elections took place again on November 28, 2004. No political party was able to secure a viable parliamentary majority, amidst accusations from international observers and opposition parties alike that the PSD had committed large-scale electoral fraud. There was no winner in the first round of the presidential elections. The joint PNL-PD candidate, Traian Băsescu, won the second round on December 12, 2004 with 51% of the vote and thus became the third post-revolutionary president of Romania.
The PNL leader, Călin Popescu Tăriceanu was assigned the difficult task of building a coalition government without including the PSD. In December 2004, the new coalition government (PD, PNL, PUR Romanian Humanist Party - which eventually changed its name to Romanian Conservative Party and UDMR), was sworn in under Prime Minister Tăriceanu.
[edit] 21st century
Romania joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organizaion in 2004, and the European Union, alongside Bulgaria, on January 1, 2007.
In April 2008, Bucharest hosted the NATO summit.
[edit] Romanian rulers
- List of Wallachian rulers (up to 1859)
- List of Moldavian rulers (up to 1859)
- List of Transylvanian rulers (up to 1867)
- Kings of Romania (1881 - 1947)
- Presidents of Romania (since 1947)
- Prime ministers of Romania (since 1862)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Illustrated History of Romanians
- World Statesmen: Romania, including a timeline; a comprehensive history of the Romanian flag; a listing of princes, monarchs, prime ministers; etc.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Jonathan Amos, "Human fossils set European record", BBC News, 22 September 2003
- ^ http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0603/feature2/images/mp_download.2.pdf
- ^ Tony Fitzpatrick, "A jaw-some discovery: Earliest modern human fossils in Europe found in bear cave", Record, Washington University in St. Louis, vol. 28, no. 8, October 3, 2003
- ^ Istvan Deak, Essays on Hitler's Europe, University of Nebraska Press, 2001, ISBN 0803266308, p. 131
- ^ Moshe Y. Sachs, Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, John Wiley & Sons, 1988, ISBN 0471624063, p. 231
- ^ William Julian Lewis , The Warsaw Pact: Arms, Doctrine, and Strategy, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, 1982, p.209
- ^ Karel C Wellens, Eric Suy, International Law: Essays in Honour of Eric Suy, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1998, ISBN 9041105824, p. 79
- ^ Ilie Fugaru, Romania clears doubts about Holocaust past, UPI, November 11, 2004
- ^ International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania (November 11, 2004). Executive Summary: Historical Findings and Recommendations (PDF) (English). Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. Yad Vashem (The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority). Retrieved on 2006-07-25.
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