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Nation Building

  • Romanian officers during Alexandru Ioan Cuza's rule

    Romanian officers during Alexandru Ioan Cuza's rule

NATION - BUILDING. MODERN AGE

The dissolution of the medieval structures throughout the territory inhabited by Romanians (mid-18th century), and the huge economic and social changes had two major consequences, namely the development of new relationships, and the emergence of a new national consciousness, conducive to the setting up of the Romanian nation.

The national Renaissance in Transylvania was embodied by bishop Ioan Inocentiu Micu (Klein), a staunch fighter for the Transylvanian Romanians' emancipation irrelevant of confessional, social and ethnic differences. The works of important scholars like Constantin Cantacuzino and Dimitrie Cantemir were continued in Transylvania by a brilliant group of Romanian intellectuals like Gheorghe Sincai, Petru Maior, Samuil Micu and Ioan Budai Deleanu, who gathered together in what was called the Scoala Ardeleana (Transylvanian School) movement. The outstanding members of this group would disseminate, through their writings, the ideas of enlightenment circulating then in Europe. They did their best to stimulate the Romanians' national spirit, by advocating the use of Romanian language and history in schools. The national movement was backed by a social one, which culminated in the 1784 peasant uprising led by Horea, Closca and Crisan.

The counterpart of the Transylvanian uprising, the 1821 Wallachian revolution led by Tudor Vladimirescu, represents an important event in the Romanian people's struggle to assert its national rights. For several months, Wallachia focused the attention of international public opinion; the relationships between Moldavia, Wallachia and the Ottoman Empire underwent some changes in 1828 - 1829 which gave the Principalities broader autonomy. As the result of the Treaty of Adrianople (1829), a virtual Russian protectorate over the principalities was imposed, reducing the Ottoman suzerainty to a few legal formalities. The Russian protectorate, despite the promulgation of constitutions, increased the Romanians' resentment towards Russia. Liberal and Western-educated boyars demanded new political reforms and an end to foreign domination. As the Romanians' sense of self-awareness grew, and the formation process of the Romanian nation beyond political bounds acquired momentum, the social and national movements grew into a vast revolutionary process.

The 1848 revolution covered all of the Romanian geographical area but Bessarabia, stimulating national consciousness. Moldavians, Wallachians and Transylvanians represented by Mihail Kogalniceanu, Nicolae Balcescu, and Simion Barnutiu voiced their decision to do away with the old social and political structure, to break new ground for national unity. One of the targets of the 1848 revolution was to bring the Romanian people close to modernity. Unfortunately, Turkey and Russia joined forces in the effort to stifle it, and eventually succeeded. The revolutionary programme, however, lived on as a national yearning and hope.

The Crimean War (1853-1856) and its aftermath brought the question of the Romanian Principalities to the forefront of European countries. Their future political status became a concern not only for the surrounding empires - Habsburg, Ottoman and Tsarist Russia - but also for other powers such as France, Prussia, and Britain. The problem was being discussed at international conferences and congresses. Meanwhile, the movement for national and political unity gained momentum.

The Paris Treaty (1856) stipulated that the Russian protectorate, strengthened in 1829 by the Adrianople Peace Treaty, be replaced by the collective guarantee of European states; it also stipulated the autonomy of the Romanian Principalities, which paved the way to the setting up of the modern Romanian state. In 1857, the assemblies of Moldavia and Wallachia voted to create a union of the two Principalities.

On January 24, 1859, the historic act of political unity between Moldavia and Wallachia under one single rule, that of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, turned a centuries-old dream into real fact. The age of the Union featured a vast and comprehensive reform programme relating to institutions, economy, and education. In 1862, Bucharest became the official capital of Romania. By initiating these changes on his own authority, Cuza asserted the de facto independence of Romania, as the united principalities were now known. But his authoritarian methods earned him many enemies who, in 1866, joined together and forced his abdication.

In February 1866, Cuza was obliged to renounce the throne in favour of the German Prince Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. After confirmation, Carol went to Romania, called a convention in order to draft the constitution, and visited the sultan of Turkey who graciously received him. He took the title of prince Carol I, and had a long and contented reign. A wise man, Carol promoted a policy that strengthened his predecessor's achievements, and worked toward completing national unity. In 1866, a new modern liberal Constitution was drafted, which was inspired by the Belgian one.

In 1875, the re-opening of the Eastern Question dossier was a favourable moment for the modern Romanian state to reassert its independence. On May 9, 1877, the Assembly of Deputies, synthesising the aspirations of the Romanian people, proclaimed independence, with foreign minister Mihail Kogalniceanu making the decision known to the world. Romania's independence was further consolidated by the country's military involvement, alongside Russia and the Balkan peoples, in the anti-Ottoman war of 1877 - 1878. A Romanian army crossed the Danube and participated in the siege of Pleven and Vidin.

The San Stefano and Berlin treaties (1878) sanctioned the independence of Romania, later acknowledged by the European powers. These international documents re-established Romania's rights over Dobrudja, which was reunited with Romania.

Once Turkish control had been removed, Romania was able to organise its state administration on a modern basis. On 14/26 March, 1881 , the parliament voted a new form of government, the kingdom, with ruling Prince Carol and his wife - Elisabeth of Wied -, being crowned King and Queen of Romania (10th/22nd May, 1881). The king was given a crown made of steel from a cannon seized at Pleven from the Turks. As an independent state, Romania started to foster an economic policy directed toward increasing production. Independent Romania furthered a policy which allowed it to play an important role in the concert of European nations.

The 1878-1914 period was crucial in the history of the Romanians. The economy expanded; politics polarised around two parties - conservative and liberal. In 1883, Romania joined the alliance with Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. One of the reasons for this choice can be related to its strained relations with Russia after the decision of the Tsarist government in 1878 to occupy Southern Bessarabia.

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, Romania recorded an outstanding development of culture and science, which matched European standards. It was the time when great scientists like doctors Victor Babes, Gheorghe Marinescu and Constantin Levaditi, chemists Petru Poni and Constantin Istrati, mathematicians Spiru Haret and Traian Lalescu, historians Alexandru D. Xenopol, Dimitrie Onciul and Nicolae Iorga, and linguists Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, Alexandru Cihac, Lazar Saineanu, Sextil Puscariu, came to the fore.

With Romania being an independent kingdom, the hopes of all the Romanians who lived on territories which were still under foreign occupation, i.e. Bukovina, Bessarabia, and most of all Transylvania, turned to their fatherland. The policy of forced assimilation in the above-mentioned territories had terrible consequences. Transylvanian Romanians, who continued to be dominated by the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (set up in 1867, when the province was incorporated into the Hungarian Kingdom and lost its autonomy), intensified their national liberation movement. Toward the end of the 19th century (1892), they drafted a Memorandum addressed to Emperor Franz Joseph. This important document, known also to the European media, put forward the claims of the Romanians who lived in Austria-Hungary; it made a sharp criticism of the Hungarian government's policy. At that time, the National Romanian Party played an important part in defending the Romanian national identity.

The foundation of the Romanian national state was completed during the final episode of World War I, a period of social and national unrest in Central and Eastern Europe. King Carol I died in the fall of 1914, and his nephew, Ferdinand I, came to the throne. He was married to Queen Mary, a niece of Queen Victoria of England.

After a two years' period of neutrality, in 1916, Romania joined France, Britain, Russia and Italy in war, with a view to liberating the Romanians from under Austria-Hungary's rule. The Romanians, ill-prepared, marched into Transylvania; German, Austrian and Hungarian forces defeated them, then pushed through passes in the Carpathians onto the Wallachian plain. Meanwhile, German, Turkish and Bulgarian forces pushed into Dobrudja. Bucharest was besieged in December, but Romanian forces continued to hold out in Moldavia. The Romanians won victories at Marasesti, Marasti and Oituz in 1917, but this was to no consequence, as they were forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest in May 1918, and cease war. Romania re-entered the war prior to the armistice in 1918 and the Allied victory.