Romania's History – a struggle since ancient times - Part 1

Romania was inhabited in antiquity by the Thracian tribes, which were a mixture between the East Balkan and the European tribes also known as Geto-Dacians, to which the Romans referred to as Dacians and the Greeks as Getae. These tribes over the centuries blended together, in the first century BC under king Burebista to counter the Roman Threat.

The Dacian Empire occupied the territory of today’s Romania, and much more. The religious and political capital of this empire was located in Sarmisegetusa, in the Orastie Mountains, this being the beginning of a tumultuous history of the Romanian Land.

Before the last Dacian king, Decebal managed to reunite his kingdom, the Roman Emperor Trajan conquered the lower reaches of the Danube in 101-102, and began to expand northwards. In 105-106, after further attacks, he conquered the capital of Dacia, Sarmisegetusa, as a final conquest of the region. Even if the Apuseni Mountains, Maramures and Moldavia were never subdued, most regions fell under roman rule, Dacia becoming a province of the Roman Empire.

Two famous monuments stand proof to their conquests: Trajan’s column in Rome, and the “Tropaeum Trajani’ at Adamclisi, on the site of their victory in Dobrogea. The colonization of Dacia began, Romans bringing with them settlers, what was thought superior civilization, from as far as Greece, Egypt and Persia to mix with the tribes and form a Daco-Roman people, which spoke Latin. Emperor Aurelian decided in 271 AD to withdraw the Roman legions from the Dacian territory due to the Goth attacks. Thus Rome governed the region for less than 175 years. The Romanized peasants remained in Dacia continuing their mix with the locals. Less...

Following the departure of the Roman’s, nomadic people swept across this territory coming out of Asia into Western Europe, during the Age of Migrations, including the Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, and Magyars. Each of them left their mark on local culture, language and the gene pool.

The settlements continued the trade with the Roman Empire despite their withdrawal. Romanians survived in village communities and gradually assimilated the Slavs and other peoples who settled there.

By the 10th century a fragmented feudal system ruled by a military class appeared.

Whatever the indigenous population’s identity, rulers such as Istvan I and later monarchs of the Arpad dynasty, extended gradually the Hungarian rule over Transylvania, convincing German Saxons to settle in to reinforce their own settlements. In order to defend the crowns south-eastern flank he granted the Saxons with free land and tax incentives and to the Szekelys autonomy in return for their military support.

Besides subduing local Cumans, Bulgars and Vlachs, the colonists had to withstand frequent invasions by the Tatars, nomadic warriors who devastated much of Eastern Europe in 1241-42 and continued to do so over the next five centuries. While the Teutonic Knights colonized the Bârsa Land in 1211 but were evicted in 1225, the Saxons built up powerful market towns like Hermannstadt (Sibiu) and Kronstadt (Brasov), which were granted self-government as “seats”. The Szekely, acted as the vanguard of colonization, moving during the thirteenth century from settlements in the Bihor region to the eastern marches, where they too were allowed relative autonomy.

However, the Hungarians were either classed as plebs liable to all manners of taxes, or as nobles and thus tax-exempt. This group dominated the feudal system, being represented alongside the Saxon and Szekely “nations” on the Diet that advised the principality’s military and civil governor, the Voivode, who acted for the Hungarian king.

Under the Arpad dynasty, Diets included Romanian-Transylvania’s population. From the mid-fourteenth century onwards, the Vlachs faced increasing discrimination, both social and political. Besides the mistrust shown by Bogdan Voda’s rebellion in Maramures, religion played an important part in this process. Whereas the Vlachs were Orthodox, the other communities adhered to the Catholic Church.Less...

In the 14th century, prince Basarab I united various political formations in the region south of the Carpathians to create the first Romanian principality – Wallachia. Its indigenous peasantry became known as Vlachs. Peasants dominated the population of these medieval principalities. In Wallachia and Moldova peasants were subjugated as serfs to the landed aristocracy, a hereditary class. There were some free, land-owning peasants’ as well.

The two principalities were ruled by a prince who was also the military leader. Most noblemen were Hungarians; the Magyar nobles formed a political alliance with the Szekely and Saxon leaders. This Union of the Three Nations became the constitutional basis for government in Transylvania in the 16th century.

Wallachia and Dobrogea - In the south of Carpathians and south east of the Romania’s territory from today, the principalities emerged somewhat later. Chronicles attribute the foundation of Wallachia to Negru Voda, who in 1290 settled in Campulung as its first capital, though they could also refer to his son Radu Negru, which was credited as the first of the Basarab dynasty.

The shift in Wallachia’s capitals over the centuries – from Campulung to Curtea de Arges and Targoviste and then to Bucharest expressed a cautious move from safety of the mountains to the financial opportunities of the trade routes with Turkey.

Oppression, anarchy and piety were common: the tithes and labor squeezed from the masses allowed the landowning boyars to endow Orthodox churches and engineer coups against ruling voivodes. In spite of that the commerce was entirely in the hands of Germans, Poles, Greeks and Jews; the Orthodox church was subordinated to the Bulgarian and Byzantine patriarchates, in part a legacy of Bulgar rule during the eighth and ninth centuries, but also reflecting the tendency of Wallachia’s rulers to look south for allies against Hungary.Less...

Groups of Romanian-speaking pastoralists and farmers gradually moved to the Dnestr where they encountered Ukrainians who named them Volokhi. The capital of Moldavia shifted from Radauti to Suceava, and then to Iasi. Alexander the Kind may have gained his honorary title by ousting Turks, though it could well have been given by the Basarab family, whom he made feudal lords of the region, afterwards known as Bessarabia. Besides Tatar invasions and rebellious boyars, Moldavia faced threats from Hungary, Poland and the Turks.Less...

The fate of Balkan countries was determined by the Ottoman Empire, subjugating Bulgaria in 1393.

Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, Wallachia and Moldavia offered a strong resistance to the expansion of the empire towards north.

The Turks were stopped in their expansion by Mircea the Old at the battle of Rovine, Vlad Tepes and Stephen the Great.

Transylvania became an Ottoman Empire vassal when the Turks conquered Hungary in the 16th century, and in order to retain their autonomy, they paid tribute to the sultan. After the victory of the Turks in Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia also paid tribute to maintain their autonomy. The Wallachian prince Michael the Brave, joined forces with the Moldavian and Transylvanian princes against the Turks, this forcing the Turks to call a truce. However the Transylvanian prince, Andrew Bathory, turned against the Wallachian in numerous occasions, this forcing Michael the Brave to defeat and kill Bathory’s troups near Sibiu. Michael the Brave declared himself prince of Transylvania and in spring of 1600 he invaded Moldavia, where he was also crowned prince. The three main regions of Romania, Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, were united for a short period of time under Michael the Brave in 1600, at Alba Iulia. This first political union lasted a little over a year, due to the fact that Michael was defeated by a joint Habsburg, and later captured and murdered in 1601 by beheading. In the 17th century, Transylvania was once again under the Habsburg rule, when the Turks got defeated at the gates of Vienna.

The 18th century brought the fight for political emancipation in Transylvania, the Transylvanian Romanians constituting 60% of the population and still being excluded from political life. 1784 was marked by a major uprising led by three serfs called Horea, Closca and Crisan. The uprising was squashed rather fast and its leaders were crushed to death on what is today a favored tourist site. Their death was not in vain, serfdom being abolished in Transylvania in 1785 by the Joseph II a Habsburg emperor. A period of relative peace, prosperity, cultural and artistic renaissance marked 17th century in Walachia under the rule of Constantin Brancoveanu. This was the result of the Ottoman advisers, also known as Phanariots, encouragement for the Orthodox Church to abandon the Old Slavonic as a language of scriptures and ritual in favor of Greek. Bucovina, a part of Moldavia’s territory was annexed by Austro – Hungary in 1775, followed in 1812 by the loss of Bessarabia to Russia. After the Russo – Turkish war of 1828-29, Wallachia and Moldavia became Russian protectorates while remaining in the Ottoman Empire.Less...