Area Handbook for Romania Part 2

Aside from the romanization of the native population, little evidence of the occupation survived the Roman evacuation of Dacia. Among the traces of the Roman presence remaining were the vestiges of Christianity introduced in the second century and the legacy of the name of the future state of Romania as well as the Latin basis for its language.

Lacking natural geographical barriers to invasion from the east and south, the greater part of the Dacian territory was overrun by successive waves of barbarian invaders for ten centuries after the withdrawal of the Romans. Little is known of the fate of the Daco-Roman population during this long, turbulent period until new settlements inhabited by a Latin-speaking people known as Vlachs emerged on the Romanian plains in the eleventh century. Although historic records are lacking, these Vlachs were believed to be descendants of the earlier Daco-Roman colonists, many of whom either sought refuge in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania or migrated south of the Danube River to escape the invaders. Having survived, they returned to reestablish themselves in their historic homeland.

The succession of barbaric invasions exploited and devastated the country. The Germanic Goths were followed by Slavs and Avars, and not until the Bulgars overran the area in the seventh century was a semblance of civic order established. The region developed a rudimentary form of cultural life, and Christianity in the Eastern Orthodox form was introduced after the conversion of the Bulgar Tsar Boris in 864. The Bulgars were eventually displaced by Hungarians who, in turn, gave way to Asiatic Tatars, all of whom left limited, but lasting, influences on the land and its inhabitants.

FORMATION OF THE PRINc.i.p.aLITIES

Walachia and Moldavia

As the threats of invasion diminished, the Vlachs gradually moved farther into the foothills and plains of the Danube basin and fused with a population that, while retaining a small Vlach element, had by then acquired a heavy mixture of Slavs and Tatars. Two distinct groups eventually emerged, one settling in the area now known as Walachia and the other settling farther to the east and north in Moldavia. The earliest events surrounding the development of these areas are not known, but after a period of colonization the two regions emerged, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, respectively, as the semi-independent princ.i.p.alities of Walachia and Moldavia.

When the Ottoman Empire overran southeastern Europe in the fifteenth century, these Danubian princ.i.p.alities were forced to accept Turkish suzerainty and remained Turkish dependencies until the middle of the nineteenth century. Unlike other areas under Turkish rule, the Romanian princ.i.p.alities were controlled by native princes, who maintained their position through concessions to the n.o.bles, from among whom they had gained preeminence, and through the concurrence of the Turks, to whom a substantial annual tribute was paid. This system of political control led to intrigues and a long succession of rulers who, a.s.sisted by the n.o.bles, systematically exploited the peasantry, from whom the heavy annual tribute was collected.

Continued misrule and long-term economic exploitation of the regions seriously affected the social structure within the princ.i.p.alities. The lesser n.o.bility, including the landed gentry, was reduced to the level of free peasants; the peasantry itself was placed in virtually complete serfdom; and cultural activity became almost nonexistent. Even the appearance of outstanding political and military leaders, such as Michael the Brave of Walachia (1593-1601) and Stephen the Great, prince of Moldavia (1457-1504), could not reverse the general trend of deterioration, although the harshness of the feudal system was somewhat lessened during their tenure in office.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Ottoman Empire began to decline, and the Turks inst.i.tuted a system of direct control over Walachia and Moldavia, in order to ensure the continued receipt of maximum revenue from the countries. Greek merchants known as Phanariots, named for the Phanar district of Constantinople, which was their center, were invested as rulers in the princ.i.p.alities upon direct payment of large sums of money. Since their period in office was indefinite and generally lasted only until outbid by a successor, an even more intensive system of exploitation within the countries was introduced to extract greater tribute in shorter periods of time. This period of oppressive rule lasted until 1821 and proved to be the most disastrous experienced by the inhabitants. Conditions under this corrupt system became almost intolerable and led to ma.s.sive resistance and eventually to the heavy migration of the peasantry into neighboring areas, particularly Transylvania.

Transylvania

The historic development of Transylvania was substantially different and more complex than that experienced by the princ.i.p.alities of Walachia and Moldavia. Overrun by Asiatic Magyars as early as the ninth century, the region was organized originally as a province in the eleventh century.

In order to strengthen this eastern outpost, the Hungarians encouraged two groups of people--Szeklers, or Szekelys, an ethnic group of people akin to the Hungarians, and Germans--to emigrate from the west into the area. Although these colonists eventually reached substantial numbers, the native Romanian speakers remained in the majority (see ch. 4).

With the expansion of Turkish power, Transylvania became the battleground for opposing Turkish and Hungarian forces. Under Turkish pressure Hungarian control declined in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and by 1526 the region had become a semiautonomous princ.i.p.ality ruled by Hungarian princes but still subject to Turkish authority. At the end of the sixteenth century Michael the Brave, the ruler of Walachia and Moldavia, succeeded in revolting against Turkish rule and united Transylvania with the other Romanian territories. This union, however, was short lived, and all three princ.i.p.alities subsequently reverted to Turkish control. Toward the end of the seventeenth century Austria conquered Hungary, and Transylvania as part of Hungary then was included in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

From the earliest times the position of the Romanians in Transylvania was inferior to that of the other nationalities, and accounts of the long-term measures practiced against them have been perpetuated among their descendants. The Romanians were mostly serfs, and their social and economic status was the lowest in the province. Their Orthodox Christianity was not recognized, in contrast to the Lutheran, Calvinist, Unitarian, and Roman Catholic faiths practiced by the various other nationalities (see ch. 5). To gain religious equality and to win a larger measure of economic and social recognition, many of the Romanians gradually abandoned their Eastern Orthodox creed and became Uniates by accepting papal authority in 1698.

Although the Romanians were slow to benefit from the relatively high cultural and political level reached in Transylvania under the Austro-Hungarians, an appreciable number of concessions had been made to them by the middle of the nineteenth century. They began to share in the political life after political parties were established, schools were opened for Romanian children, and education became more widespread among the general population. Progress in these and a.s.sociated fields stimulated the Romanian desire for full equality and the hope for eventual unification of all Romanians in their own national state.

WESTERN INFLUENCES

Although Romania was late in achieving national recognition, many of the factors that were to influence its Western orientation after independence began to evolve as early as the seventeenth century. In Transylvania the Uniate church became an important medium by which Romanian national ident.i.ty was fostered in the struggle against foreign a.s.similation. The Habsburg rulers favored the expansion of the church and permitted the opening of seminaries for the training of young Romanian clergy. Many of these young clerics were sent to Rome to complete their studies and, while there, became aware of their Roman ancestry. They saw the famous column of Trajan, which recorded, in stone, the early conquest of their Dacian ancestors by the Romans, and they also discovered that Romanian was an essentially Latin language (see ch. 4).

The contacts established with Rome encouraged the scholarly development of a "Latinist" movement in the homeland in the late eighteenth century, which produced many adherents among the Transylvanian Romanians. It was the efforts of this group that led to the replacement of the Cyrillic alphabet, then in common use, with the Latin, the writing of the first latinized Romanian grammar and, later, the introduction of the first dictionary that traced the full historical development of the Romanian language. These reforms helped to create a uniform literary language as an essential basis for the broad development of Romanian culture (see ch. 7).

During their long experience under the Habsburgs and Hungarians, the Transylvanian Romanians also became intimately a.s.sociated with the events of central and western Europe. Opportunities for travel and cultural contacts that later developed were also predominantly within Western areas and intensified the political consciousness of the Romanians along Western lines.

Meanwhile, in Walachia and Moldavia interest in Western ideas and affairs was provided by French influences introduced initially by the Greek Phanariot princes, who were in power during most of the eighteenth century. These rulers established French as the court language, and many of the Greek merchants, clergymen, and teachers who followed them into the areas helped spread the use of French among the urban population in Bucharest and Iasi, the respective capital cities. Gradually, French was introduced into Romanian schools, and eventually Romanian students from the princ.i.p.alities were sent abroad in considerable numbers to study at French universities.

In addition to Romanian students, many of the young sons of Romanian n.o.bles traveled in France. These two groups gradually formed the nucleus of an intellectual cla.s.s, which favored French philosophy and thought and which became receptive to the liberal ideas of the French Revolution and later periods.

NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE

A phase of major significance and a turning point in Romanian history began in 1821 with a revolt led by Tudor Vladimirescu, a Romanian and former officer in the Russian army. This uprising against the harsh Phanariot rule was the first with a national character, and it attempted to give expression to the revolutionary ideas of emanc.i.p.ation and independence. Although the outbreak was suppressed by the Turks, it did achieve the objective of bringing about the early abolition of the Phanariot regime and the restoration of Romanian princes as rulers in the Danubian princ.i.p.alities.

After the Russo-Turkish war from 1826 to 1828 Russian forces occupied both Walachia and Moldavia to ensure the payment of a large war indemnity by the Turks. Under the ensuing six-year enlightened and competent rule of the Russian governor Count Pavel Kiselev, the foundations were laid for a new Romanian state. The first const.i.tutional a.s.semblies were organized along identical lines in each province; a rudimentary governmental administration was established and modeled on that of the French; an educational system was begun; commerce and a modest industry were encouraged; and provisions were made for the creation of a national militia. The intentional similarity in the fundamental laws that were also enacted in each area further encouraged the two princ.i.p.alities to develop side by side.

During the two decades after the departure of Russian occupying forces, the national movement within the two princ.i.p.alities continued to grow under the rule of native princes who had been restored to power.

Considerable stimulation was provided by the 1848 revolutionary events in France, the basic ideas of which were imported by the French-educated Romanians. Dissension arose, and street demonstrations took place during which demands were made for freedom of speech, a.s.sembly, and the press, as well as for the unification of all Romanians in one independent state. Similar emanc.i.p.ation efforts were also organized in Transylvania, but they, too, were forcibly repressed, as were those in Walachia and Moldavia.

Despite the setbacks suffered by the intellectuals and other leaders of the revolutionary movement, the modern ideas of liberal government took firm root and continued to flourish. The dispute between Russia and Turkey that culminated in the Crimean War, however, provided the actual opportunity for the first step toward ultimate independence. French and Russian collaboration at the Congress of Paris, which concluded the war in 1858, succeeded in producing agreements that finally led to the establishment of the autonomous United Princ.i.p.alities of Walachia and Moldavia in 1859.

Although still subject to Ottoman authority, the United Princ.i.p.alities moved rapidly under their newly elected leader, Alexander Cuza, to further unify and modernize themselves. Cuza fused the administration of the two princ.i.p.alities into a single government, established a single capital at Bucharest, and changed the name from United Princ.i.p.alities to Romania. Domestic reforms were also undertaken, among which were the emanc.i.p.ation of the serfs in 1864, the inst.i.tution of a broad land distribution program, the introduction of free and compulsory education, and the adoption of the French civil and penal codes as the basis for a revised legal system. Political parties on the Western pattern began to take form as well, the conservatives representing the large landowners and the liberals representing the new urban cla.s.s.

The reforms inst.i.tuted by Cuza were bold and progressive, but his methods proved to be harsh and unpopular. Forced to abdicate in 1866, he was succeeded by a German prince, Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.

Charles, who reigned from 1866 to 1914, extended the reforms initiated by Cuza. He gave the country its first formal const.i.tution modeled after that of the Belgians, built the country's first railroad, and modernized and enlarged the small army. In 1878 the country's full independence was recognized by the Treaty of Berlin, which ended the two-year Russo-Turkish war in which Romania partic.i.p.ated as an ally of Russia.

The Kingdom of Romania was proclaimed formally in 1881 with the crowning of Prince Charles in Bucharest as Carol I.

The period from 1878 to 1918 brought significant advances in Romania, largely in the economic and political fields. Under the initiative of King Carol I and with considerable backing from German capital, new industries were started, and others were expanded; railroad and port construction was emphasized; and the considerable petroleum resources of the country were developed and exploited. The goals of political parties and leaders became more clearly defined, and modern government inst.i.tutions, including a bicameral parliament, were organized.

Economic and formal political progress, however, was not matched by similar advancement of democratic processes in the social field. The liberal provisions of the 1866 Const.i.tution were circ.u.mvented under the authoritarian governmental system, leaving much actual power in the hands of the landed aristocracy. The slowly rising middle cla.s.s and small number of industrial entrepreneurs were granted some rights, but the increasing number of industrial workers and the great peasant majority shared very little in the political life of the country.

A major peasant revolt in 1907 attempted unsuccessfully to rectify the serious social imbalance. The uprising was forcefully suppressed with extensive loss of life and, although some corrective measures were later inst.i.tuted that improved working conditions and resulted in the division of more large landholdings, the general political strength and living standards of the peasants and workers were not materially improved.

Related also to this social unrest was another problem that grew more intense during the latter half of the nineteenth century--that of the increasing size and economic importance of a large Jewish minority.

Forbidden to own land and subject to many other restrictions, the Jews had settled in urban areas, engaged successfully in commercial activities and, as a cla.s.s, gained economic influence and position generally out of proportion to their overall numerical strength in the population. To an unusual degree, they formed the prosperous urban middle cla.s.s, overshadowing the far smaller number of native Romanians in that category. In rural centers, as moneylenders, they also became the middlemen between landlords and peasants; as such, the Jew became a symbol of oppression, which over the years was transferred into intense anti-Semitism. Consequently, the Jews were included as a target in the 1907 uprising, and the animosity shown then remained a feature of later Romanian society.

WORLD WAR I

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Romania's leaders were indecisive and proclaimed an armed neutrality, which lasted for nearly two years.

Much of the pro-Russian and pro-French political orientation of the 1840s and 1850s still existed in the country, but this was offset in large measure by the strong ties of King Carol I with Bismarck's Germany and by the rapprochement with Germany that had resulted from the large investment of German capital in the country. In addition, territorial inducements, which were attractive to Romania, were made by each side to influence its entry into the conflict. The Central Powers offered Bessarabia to be taken from Russia, and the Allies promised the cession of Transylvania from Austro-Hungary.

After the death of King Carol I and the accession of his nephew, King Ferdinand, to the throne, Romania entered the war on the Allied side in 1916. By December 1917, however, Romania was forced to conclude an armistice when the Russian forces disintegrated on the Balkan front after the Bolshevik revolution of that year. Before the armistice was ratified, however, and as the defeat of the Central Powers was becoming apparent, the Romanian army, which had not been demobilized, reentered the war, liberated Bucharest from the Germans, and occupied much of Bessarabia and Transylvania. After the war, in response to the expressed will of the popular a.s.semblies in Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina, those provinces were united with the Kingdom of Romania--often called the Old Kingdom. Formal treaties in 1919 and 1920 confirmed these decisions, and virtually all Romanians were finally reunited within the historic homeland.

INTERWAR YEARS, 1918-40

With the annexation of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina, postwar Romania, sometimes referred to as Greater Romania, doubled in size, as well as in population. Included among the newly acquired population were large ethnic minorities--princ.i.p.ally Hungarians, Germans, and Jews--whose diverse backgrounds and development presented complex social, political, economic, and administrative problems for the Romanian government. The various traditions of the people within the acquired lands could not easily be transformed into new patterns, largely because of the government's reluctance to share power with any political leaders except those representing the Transylvanian Romanians.

As a result, minority elements were largely excluded from national affairs, and discriminatory policies developed that bred resentment and increased political instability (see ch. 4).

The immediate postwar years were dominated by the Liberal Party of the Old Kingdom. The party inst.i.tuted a series of land reforms, fostered increased industrialization, and sponsored a broadly democratic const.i.tution in 1923, which made the new state a centralized const.i.tutional monarchy. The Transylvanian Romanians, long accustomed to considerable autonomy and self-government under Hungarian rule, resented the imposition of central control, especially under the administration of officials from Bucharest. In protest, a new party, the National Peasant Party, was formed in 1926 by a fusion of the Transylvanian National Party with the Peasant Party in the Old Kingdom.

Other parties were active during this early period, but all were overshadowed by the Liberal Party and the National Peasant Party. The Social Democratic Party had been organized at the beginning of the twentieth century but, lacking any sizable number of industrial workers, the socialist movement remained weak. After the Russian revolution, however, the radical left-wing elements of the Social Democratic Party seceded and formed the Romanian Communist Party in 1921. The Communists went underground after being banned in 1924 and were largely ineffective until after World War II.

The death of King Ferdinand in 1927 and the elections of the following year brought significant changes in the Romanian government. Ferdinand's son, Carol II, was excluded from the succession because of his earlier renunciation of all claims to the throne to accept exile with his mistress, Magda Lupescu. A regency was therefore appointed to rule in the name of Carol's young son, Michael, and a new government led by Iuliu Maniu and the National Peasant Party was elected, thus ending the six-year tenure of the Liberals.

Although Maniu's government inst.i.tuted a series of reforms intended to improve general economic and social conditions, its efforts were largely offset by the adverse effects of the worldwide depression of the early 1930s. Also, early dissatisfaction with the regency resulted in the return of Carol II from exile and his a.s.sumption of the crown in late 1930. His agreement to sever relations with Magda Lupescu was not kept, however, and in protest Maniu resigned the premiership. In the unstable conditions that followed, King Carol II emerged as the chief political figure in the country, and his rule evolved into a royal dictatorship.

King Carol's a.s.sumption of power was aided initially by the rise of a fanatical fascist and anti-Semitic group known as the Iron Guard. This group was strongly pro-German and employed tactics similar to those of the n.a.z.i party, which was then emerging as the dominant political force in Germany. The fascist movement, with financial and indirect support from Germany, increased the influence of the Iron Guard, which was reflected in the 1937 elections. The coalition government that resulted supported King Carol but was later overthrown, bringing to power a new coalition of right-wing extremists.

In order to halt the increasing threat to his power, Carol proclaimed a personal dictatorship in 1938 and promulgated a new const.i.tution that abolished all political parties and inst.i.tuted censorship and other control measures. This action was followed by the suppression of the Iron Guard, whose leader, Corneliu Codreanu, was shot. Absolute authority was maintained by the king, who was supported by the army and by the National Renaissance Front, a monopoly party that he founded later in the same year.

Internal instability and uncertainty were aggravated by rapidly developing international events that threatened the security of the state. The swift rise of Germany under Adolf Hitler resulted in the annexation of Austria in 1938 and the subsequent dismemberment and absorption of Czechoslovakia. These actions, unopposed by the Western powers, were early warnings of weakness in the Western-oriented collective security system on which Romania had depended since World War I. The lessening of confidence in the West led Romania in 1939 to conclude a treaty of economic collaboration with Germany. This agreement greatly increased German influence in the country and placed the extensive Romanian oil and other resources at Germany's disposal for later wartime use.