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Romania
History
Ancient The lands of Romania have been inhabited since the Paleolithic, or Stone Age, as evidenced by carved stone tools unearthed there. Some flint implements found in the Carpathians date from 600,000 B.C. The first known art consists of cave paintings in northwest Transylvania dated to 10,000 B.C.; and Neolithic pottery and art from the 4th to 3rd millennia B.C. have been found all over Romania. In the 3rd millennium B.C. an Indo-European migration throughout the Carpathian and Danubian territories began, and from the Bronze Age in the 2nd millennium B.C., Thracian tribes occupied the lands. Called Getae by the Greeks, and Dacians by the Romans, the Geto-Dacians have lived in the area since the Iron Age of the 1st millennium B.C. The Greeks arrived in the 7th to 6th centuries B.C.; they settled the land near the Black Sea and Danube Delta, and established the cities of Histria, Tomis (now Constanta) and Callatis (now Mangalia).
Constantly beset by intruders, in 514 B.C. the Geto-Dacians fought off Persian invasions, and in 335 B.C. they turned back the Macedons of Thrace. Their civilization reached its zenith in the 1st century A.D. under the great ruler Decebalus. In A.D.106, the Dacian ruler was slain by Roman Emperor Trajan's legions, who conquered and colonized the territory. Dacia then became a Roman province, the Dacians assimilating with the Romans and adopting their language. After fighting off the barbarian Goths for 100 years, Roman troops finally abandoned the land in A.D.271, but years of intermarriage with the Dacians had created the Daco-Roman people of Romania. From the 4th century on, nomadic tribes from all over Europe and Asia invaded Dacia. These included the Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Lombards, Slavs, Avars, Huns, and Bulgars. In A.D.840-890, Magyars descended on the Danubian plains, eventually moving into Transylvania and Hungary. By the 10th century, Romanian states were beginning to form. These led to the principalities, called voivodates, of Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania and Dobroja, established in the 14th century.
Medieval The first mention of Romanians appears in Byzantine documents of 1160 when the Wallachs and Byzantines fought the Hungarians. The Hungarians defeated Bulgar-Romanian forces in 1230 and took over Wallachia; and in 1241, Mongolian Tatars seized the coastal region of Dobruja. In the 14th century, Prince Basarab established a semi-independent principality in Wallachia. Then Dobruja, the region bordering the Black Sea, gained its independence and united with Wallachia. At the same time, Prince Bogdan created the principality of Moldavia. Wallachia and Moldavia then united to fight back the Hungarians. Transylvania, however, remained under Hungarian rule from the 11th century until 1526 but it was allowed administrative autonomy, even under its later Turkish rule.
14thÐ19th Centuries During the late 14th century the Ottomans began their invasions from the Black Sea and pushed east as far as Hungary. Romanian rulers Mircea the Old of Wallachia (1386-1418), Dan II (1420-31) and Vlad Dracula (1456-62) fought against the Turks but were defeated, and Vlad was killed. Up north, in Moldavia, Alexander the Good (1401-1431) and Stephen the Great (1457-1504) defended their province against Turks and Poles. Stephen built over 50 monastery-fortresses to shelter his people from invaders; many of them are still in use. In Transylvania in 1514, a Peasant Uprising against the Hungarians ended in bloody defeat with the torturous execution of its leader Gheorghe Doja. Soon after, the Turks took control of Transylvania and Hungary, ruling until 1688, when the Habsburgs ran them out. In the late 16th century Michael the Brave (1593-1601) became Voivode (Prince) of Wallachia and united with Transylvania to cast out the Turks; but after he was assassinated in 1601, the alliance fell apart. The Turks regained control and held Wallachia from 1716-1821. Greek Phanariots bribed the Turks for high positions and ruled the area, but they allowed Wallachia and Moldavia to set up their own law codes. Greek became the language of law and of the Orthodox church.
In 1718 Austria took the Banat region in the southwest. Tsarist Russia and Austria both fought for the north territory in Moldavia, and in 1775 the Habsburgs took Bucovina; Bessarabia went to Russia in 1812. In 1821 and again in 1848, popular uprisings occurred down in Bucharest in an attempt to expel the Greeks and Turks, but were defeated. Back in Transylvania, Saxons and Romanians fought the Magyars (Hungarians), but this region remained under Austro-Hungarian control until 1918.
After Russia's defeat in the Crimean War in 1856, the Congress of Paris proclaimed a joint protectorate of Wallachia and Moldavia by Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, Russia and Turkey. The Paris Treaty returned Bessarabia to Moldavia. Then, with the support of France, in 1857 the assemblies of Wallachia and Moldavia decided to unite, electing Alexandru Ioan Cuza as their ruler. In 1862 the state of Romania was officially proclaimed. When Cuza resigned in 1866, Prussian Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, the cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm I, was named as ruler of the union and moved to Romania. He submitted a constitution which was ratified by the convention, and took the title of Prince Carol I. His Prussian wife, Elizabeth, was also known as the poet Carmen Silva. In 1877 Romania proclaimed its independence. Carol I then led Romanian forces to join with the Russians and finally defeat the Turks at Plevna. In 1878 the Congress of Berlin recognized Romania's independence and restored the Black Sea region of Dobruja. At the same time, it forced Romania to cede Bessarabia to Russia, once again. In 1881 Carol was crowned King.
20th Century In the first Balkan war in 1912-13, Romania remained neutral; but in the second Balkan War in June 1913, it joined Greece, Serbia and Turkey against Bulgaria. In 1914 King Carol I died and, having no son, named his nephew Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as successor. He became Ferdinand I and ruled from 1914-1927 with his wife, the beloved Queen Marie. Born Princess Marie of Edinburgh, she was the grand-daughter of Queen Victoria and the cousin of Tsar Nicholas II. Queen Marie became known as "the Warrior Queen", commanding her own cavalry detachment and visiting cholera-stricken troops in Bulgaria during the Second Balkan War. She died in 1938.
During the first two years of World War I Romania again remained neutral, but in 1916 it joined the Allies against Germany, Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. Their armies were defeated in Transylvania by the Germans, who pushed farther into the Wallachia and, with the Turks and Bulgarians, into Dobruja. The Romanians held out in Moldavia, but were forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest in 1918 and exit the war. They reentered later in 1918 and their forces returned to Transylvania, pushed into Hungary in 1919 and captured Budapest, occupying it for a short time. On December 1, 1918, the national assembly met in Alba Iulia where Transylvania voted to become part of Romania, as Bessarabia and Bucovina had previously done, forming the union of Romania. In 1920 the Treaty of Trianon redrew the Hungarian border awarding Transylvania, the Banat, Maramures and Bucovina to Romania.
During Ferdinand's reign, Romania had been governed by the National Liberal Party, but after his death they were dismissed and replaced by the conservative National Peasant government, led by Iuliu Maniu. The Romanian Communist Party was formed in 1921, but outlawed in 1924. In 1930, Ferdinand and Marie's son, Carol II took the throne. He broke a promise to end an affair with Magda Lupescu, his divorced Jewish mistress, leading Iuliu Maniu to resign in protest, after which the government fell apart. Carol II then abolished the constitution, banned all political parties but his own, and set up a royal dictatorship. His government was totally corrupt, fixing elections and then dismissing them at will. Strikes in the rail and oil industries were met with military force.
In the meantime, a Fascist movement called the Legion of the Archangel Michael had been founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea-Codreanu. His Nazi-backed Iron Guard grew in strength during the 1930s with the support of King Carol II. But when the Iron Guard turned against Carol because of his liason with the Jewish Lupescu, Carol had Codreanu shot in 1938 and imprisoned thousands of his followers. In retaliation, the Legionaires killed sixty-four officials of Carol's regime, burned synagogues, and raped and killed hundreds of Bucharest's Jews. By the time the Iron Guard was finally eliminated in 1941, it had assassinated four Prime Ministers.
World War IIÐCommunism In 1939 Germany demanded a monopoly on Romanian exports in exchange for the guarantee of its borders. In 1940, following the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, Stalin annexed Bessarabia and northern Bucovina. Carol II turned to Hitler for help but, angry about Carol's murder of Iron Guard leaders, Hitler instead demanded Northern Transylvania for Hungary and southern Dobroja for Bulgaria. Disgraced, Carol and his mistress Lupescu fled Romania in 1940, taking with them its gold and art treasures. His nineteen year old son Michael was left behind to take over the throne. Nazi-backed General Ion Antonescu, known also as "Red Dog" for his red hair, led the country for several years hence. He appointed Iron Guard legionnaires to his cabinet and allied Romania with Hitler. Romania entered World War II marching with German forces against the Soviets. The Soviets proved the stronger, however, and entered Romania in August 1944. King Michael, engineering a royal coup, had Antonescu arrested and ordered a stop to the fighting . The country then changed sides and joined the Soviet forces against Germany. On August 31, the Russians took over Bucharest without opposition.
The Yalta Agreement of 1945 made Romania part of the Soviet system and Dr. Petru Groza was named Premier. By 1947 the communists had taken control of the government. King Michael was forced to abdicate and the monarchy was abolished. Following the Communist takeover, industries, banks and transportation systems became nationalized. In 1952 Gheorge Gheorghiu-Dej became leader of communist Romania and after Stalin died in 1953, he began developing heavy industry and attempting to improve relations with the West and Asia.
After Gheorghiu-Dej died in March 1965, Nicolae Ceausescu took over. He was originally well thought of by the people, challenging the Soviet right to dictate to members of the Warsaw Pact and maintaining an independent foreign policy. But in the 1970s Ceausescu became obsessed with building a strong national work force through population growth; he forbade birth control and abortions for any woman under 40 with fewer than 4 children. He penalized unmarried people and couples without children with higher taxes and required mandatory gynecological examinations. He was also obsessed with repaying the national debt, and all but the minimum food supplies were exported.
Ceausescu discriminated against all minorities, insisting that they assimilate with the Romanian population. The ethnic Germans, Hungarians, and Jewish citizens all felt the pressure to give up their language and customs. Peasants were forced out of their houses and into concrete bloc-apartments to discourage independence. Germany and Israel purchased thousands of exit visas from Romania so that ethnic Germans and Jews could leave the country. The Romanian people were also under severe restrictions. People were not allowed to speak to foreigners. Censorship laws required that all typewriters be registered with the police. Everyone feared their neighbor was a spy who would report any infraction of the law. Living standards declined for everyone, with shortages of food and consumer goods. Despite a failing economy, Ceausescu proceeded with his megalomaniacal building plan, erecting new government buildings and apartment blocs all over the city. The gigantic House of the People was to be the seat of his communist empire.
December 1989, local protests against the internal exile of a Hungarian priest in Timisoara sparked the national uprising that finally ousted the dictator and his hated wife Elena. After the military was ordered to fire at the demonstrators in Timisoara, Romanians united in protest. Factories went on strike, and on December 21st and 22nd huge crowds gathered in Bucharest to shout down Ceausescu's speech with angry reminders of Timisoara. The Securitate fired on the crowd but could not contain them. The rest of the country saw the chaos on television before their TVs went blank. Recognizing the end of his power, Ceausescu and his wife fled Bucharest by helicopter but were caught the next day in Tirgovista. They were quickly tried and executed on Christmas Eve, abruptly ending 45 years of communist dictatorship.
Crafts
Bucharest
Brasov
Countryside
Sample Itineraries
Small Group Tour
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P.O. Box 446 Mill Valley, CA 94941all text & photos © 1997-03, Barbara Sansone