History of Romania

Background: The territory of today's Romania was inhabited in about 200 B.C by the Dacians, a Thracian tribe. Eventually, a state emerged. The Dacian state sustained a series of conflicts with the expanding Roman Empire, and was finally conquered in 106 by the Roman emperor Trajan, during the reign of the dacian king Decebalus.

Faced by successive invasions of germanic tribes, the Roman administration withdrew two centuries later. Multiple waves of invasion followed: such as the the slavs in the 7th century, the hungarians in the 9th century, and the tatars in the 13th century..

The larger principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia emerged in the 14th century. Transylvania was, at that time, a largely autonomous part of the Hungarian kingdom, a result of the conquest in the 11th to 13th century of the pre-existent smaller political formations.

The end of the same 14th century also brought the Ottoman Turks to the Danube. Their territory expanded rapidly. In 1453 Constantinople fell and in 1541 all the Balkans and most of Hungary became provinces of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania remained autonomous, under Ottoman suzerainty.

The year 1600 brought the first unification of the three principalties by Wallachian prince Mihai Viteazul[?] (Michael the Brave for the english-speakers). The union did not last, since Mihai was killed only one year later by the soldiers of an Austrian army officer.

At the end of the 17th century Hungary and Transylvania become part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, following the defeat of the Turks. In their turn, the Austrians rapidly expanded their empire: In 1718 an important part of Wallachia, called Oltenia, was incorporated to the Austrian Empire and was only returned in 1793.

The eastern province of Moldavia has not had a simpler destiny. In 1775 the Austrian Empire occupied the north-western part of Moldavia, later called Bukovina. In 1812, Russia occupied the eastern half of the principality, calling it Bessarabia.

As in most European countries, 1848 brought revolution to Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania. Its goals - complete independence for the first two and national emancipation in third - remained unfulfilled, but were the basis of the subsequent evolutions. Also, they 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 person--Alexander John Cuza--as prince. Thus, Romania was created.

In 1866 the german prince Carol (Charles) of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was appointed as prince, in a move to assure German backing to unity and future independence. A line of Kings of Romania remained until 1947.

In 1877, following a Russian-Romanian-Turk war, Romania became completely independent. Carol was crowned as the first King of Romania in 1881.

The new state, squeezed between the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, with Slav neighbors on three sides, looked to the West, particularly France, for its cultural, educational, and administrative models. In 1916 Romania entered the first World War on the Entente side. At the end of the war, the Austrian and Russian empires had gone; governing bodies created in Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina chose union with Romania.

The resulting "Greater Romania", did not survive World War II. Most of Romania's pre-World War II governments maintained the forms, but not the substance, of a liberal constitutional monarchy. The quasi-mystical fascist Iron Guard[?] movement, exploiting nationalism, fear of communism, and resentment of alleged foreign and Jewish domination of the economy, was a key factor in the creation of a dictatorship in 1938. In 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty, that stipulated, amongst other things, the Soviet "interest" in Bessarabia.

As a result, in 1940, Romania lost territory in both east and west: In June 1940 the Soviet Union took Bessarabia and Bukovina after issuing an ultimatum to Romania. Two thirds of Bessarabia were collated to a small part of URSS to form the "Moldavian Soviet Republic[?]". The rest was appointed to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic[?].

In 1940-41, the authoritarian General Ion Antonescu took control. In August 1940, half of Transylvania (historical Hungarian places) - later called the Northern Transylvania - was "given back" by Germany and Italy to Hungary. Romania entered World War II on the side of the Axis Powers in June 1941, invading the Soviet Union to recover Bessarabia and Bukovina.

In August 1944, a coup led by King Michael, with support from opposition politicians and the army, deposed the Antonescu dictatorship and put Romania's battered armies on the side of the Allies. Romania incurred additional heavy casualties fighting the Germans in Transylvania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

At the end of WWII, Northern Transylvania returned to Romania; the Moldavian Soviet Republic became independent only in 1991, under the name of Moldova.

Soviet occupation following World War II led to the formation of a communist Peoples Republic in 1947 and the abdication of the king. The decades-long rule of President Nicolae Ceauşescu became increasingly draconian through the 1980s.

The peace treaty, signed at Paris on February 10, 1947, confirmed the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, but restored the part of northern Transylvania granted back to Hungary in 1940 by Adolf Hitler. The treaty required massive war reparations by Romania to the Soviet Union, whose occupying forces left in 1958.

The Soviets pressed for inclusion of Romania's heretofore negligible Communist Party in the post-war government, while non-communist political leaders were steadily eliminated from political life. King Michael abdicated under pressure in December 1947, when the Romanian People's Republic was declared, and went into exile.

In the early 1960s, Romania's communist government began to assert some independence from the Soviet Union. Ceauşescu became head of the Communist Party 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.

After the collapse of communism in the rest of Eastern Europe in the late summer and fall of 1989, a mid-December protest in Timişoara against the forced relocation of a Hungarian minister grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceausescu regime, sweeping the dictator from power. Ion Iliescu took over as president on December 22nd. Ceauşescu was immediately arrested, and after a quick trial, he and his wife were executed on December 25th. About 1,500 people were killed in confused street fighting. An impromptu governing coalition, the National Salvation Front[?] (FSN), installed itself and proclaimed the restoration of democracy and freedom. The Communist Party was outlawed, and Ceauşescu's most unpopular measures, such as bans on abortion and contraception, were repealed.

Presidential and parliamentary elections were held on May 20, 1990. Running against representatives of the pre-war National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party[?], Iliescu won 85% of the vote. The NSF captured two-thirds of the seats in Parliament, named a university professor, Petre Roman[?], as Prime Minister, and began cautious free market reforms.

The new government made a crucial early misstep. Unhappy at the continued political and economic influence of members of the Ceausescu-era elite, anti-communist protesters camped in University Square[?] in April 1990. When miners from the Jiu Valley descended on Bucharest two months later and brutally dispersed the remaining "hooligans," President Iliescu expressed public thanks, thus convincing many that the government had sponsored the miners' actions. The miners also attacked the headquarters and houses of opposition leaders. The Roman government fell in late September 1991, when the miners returned to Bucharest to demand higher salaries and better living conditions. A technocrat, Theodor Stolojan[?], was appointed to head an interim government until new elections could be held.

Parliament drafted a new democratic constitution, approved by popular referendum in December 1991. The FSN split into two groups, led by Ion Iliescu (FDSN) and Petre Roman (FSN) in March 1992; Roman's party subsequently adopted the name Democrat Party[?] (PD). National elections in September 1992 returned President Iliescu by a clear majority, and gave his party, the FDSN, a plurality. With parliamentary support from the nationalist PUNR and PRM parties, and the ex-communist PSM party, a technocratic government was formed in November 1992 under Prime Minister Nicolae Văcăroiu[?], an economist. The FDSN became the Party of Social Democracy in Romania[?] (PDSR) in July 1993. The Vacaroiu government ruled in coalition with three smaller parties, all of which abandoned the coalition by the time of the November 1996 elections. Emil Constantinescu[?] of the Democrat Convention[?] (CDR) electoral coalition defeated President Iliescu in the second round of voting by 9% and replaced him as chief of state. The PDSR won the largest number of seats in Parliament, but the constituent parties of the CDR joined the Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party[?], and the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania[?] (UDMR) to form a centrist coalition government, holding 60% of the seats in Parliament. Victor Ciorbea[?] was named Prime Minister. Ciorbea remained in office until March 1998, when he was replaced by Radu Vasile[?] (PNTCD).

In 2002, Romania was invited to join NATO. In the same year, EU confirmed its strong support for Romania's goal to join the union in 2007. Still, much economic restructuring remains to be carried out before Romania can achieve this goal.

Iliescu and former communists have dominated the government until 1996 and since 2000.

• List of Wallachian rulers (up to 1859)
• List of Moldavian rulers (up to 1859)
• List of Transylvanian rulers[?] (up to 1918)
• Kings of Romania (1859 - 1947)
• Presidents of Romania (since 1947)
• Prime ministers of Romania (since 1862)

See also : Romania