Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:57, 15 December 2003

 This article is part of the
 

 Romania during World War II

 Communist Romania

 Romania since 1989

Migration age

Faced by successive invasions of Germanic tribes, the Roman administration withdrew from Dacia, abandoning the last of their positions north of the Danube during the reign of Aurelian (270-275). Multiple waves of invasion followed, such as the Slavs in the 7th century, most of whom were settlers who colonized the lowlands of Romania. They came into contact with, and were assimilated by, the Romanian population living mostly in highlands. Also many warrior tribes passed through the Romanian territory, like the Huns, the Magyars in the 9th century, and the Tatars in the 13th century.

There is no written or architectural evidence that bears witness to the presence of "proto-Romanians" the lands north of the Danube during the millennium after Rome's withdrawal from Dacia, but there is no evidence that could prove the contrary. This fact has fueled a centuries-long feud between Romanian and Hungarian historians over Transylvania.

Some historians claim that the Romanians were not in fact the descendants of the Romanized Dacians and that they came from South of Danube and settled in current territory of Romania. For details about this debate, see Origin of Romanians.

Romanian historians explain the absence of hard evidence for their claims by pointing out that the region lacked organized administration until the 12th century and by positing that the Mongols destroyed any existing records when they plundered the area in 1241.

Medieval states

Early Romanian states were formed in the 11th century, including the Romanian-Bulgarian kingdom (which comprised today's teritories of Romania and Bulgaria), ruled by the Romanian Asen dinasty, and several other small kingdoms that usually were disbanded after their leaders' deaths.

It was only in the 13th century that the larger principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia emerged. 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.

Wallachia and Moldavia

Legend says that in 1290 Negru-Voda, a leading Romanian nobleman, left Fagaras in southern Transylvania with a group of nobles and founded "Tara Româneasca" on the lands between the southern Carpathians and the Danube. (The name "Tara Româneasca" means "Romanian land," here, actually "Walachia"; the word "Walachia" is derived from the Slavic word vlach, which is related to the Germanic walh, meaning "foreigner.")

A second legend holds that a Romanian voivode named Dragos crossed the Carpathians and settled with other Romanians on the plain between the mountains and the Black Sea. They were joined in 1349 by a Transylvanian voivode named Bogdan, who revolted against his feudal overlord and settled on the Moldova River, from which Moldavia derives its name. Bogdan declared Moldavia's independence from Hungary a decade later. The remaining Romanian nobles in Transylvania eventually adopted the Hungarian language and culture. Transylvania's Romanian serfs continued to speak Romanian and clung to Orthodoxy but were powerless to resist Hungarian domination.

Walachia and Moldavia steadily gained strength in the fourteenth century, a peaceful and prosperous time throughout southeastern Europe. Prince Basarab I of Walachia (ca. 1330-52), despite defeating King Charles Robert in 1330, had to acknowledge Hungary's sovereignty. The Eastern Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople, however, established an ecclesiastical seat in Walachia and appointed a metropolitan. The church's recognition confirmed Walachia's status as a principality, and Walachia freed itself from Hungarian sovereignty in 1380.

The princes of both Walachia and Moldavia held almost absolute power; only the prince had the power to grant land and confer noble rank. Assemblies of nobles, or boyars, and higher clergy elected princes for life, and the absence of a succession law created a fertile environment for intrigue. From the to the 17th century, the principalities' histories are replete with overthrows of princes by rival factions often supported by foreigners. The boyars were exempt from taxation except for levies on the main sources of agricultural wealth. Although the peasants had to pay a portion of their output in kind to the local nobles, they were never, despite their inferior position, deprived of the right to own property or resettle.

Walachia and Moldavia remained isolated and primitive for many years after their founding. Education, for example, was nonexistent, and religion was poorly organized. Except for a rare market center, there were no significant towns and little circulation of money. In time, however, commerce developed between the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea region. Merchants from Genoa and Venice founded trading centers along the coast of the Black Sea where Tatars, Germans, Greeks, Jews, Poles, Ragusans, and Armenians exchanged goods. Walachians and Moldavians, however, remained mainly agricultural people.

Transylvania

In Transylvania economic life rebounded quickly after the Mongol invasion. New farming methods boosted crop yields. Craftsmen formed guilds as artisanry flourished; gold, silver, and salt mining expanded; and money-based transactions replaced barter. Though townspeople were exempt from feudal obligations, feudalism expanded and the nobles stiffened the serfs' obligations. The serfs resented the higher payments; some fled the country, while others became outlaws. In 1437 Romanian and Hungarian peasants rebelled against their feudal masters. The uprising gathered momentum before the Magyar, German, and Szekler nobles in Transylvania united forces and, with great effort, successfully quelled the revolt. Afterwards, the nobles formed the Union of Three Nations, jointly pledging to defend their privileges against any power except that of Hungary's king. The document declared the Magyars, Germans, and Szeklers the only recognized nationalities in Transylvania; henceforth, all other nationalities there, including the Romanians, were merely "tolerated." The nobles gradually imposed even tougher terms on their serfs. In 1437, for example, each serf had to work for his lord one day per year at harvest time without compensation; by 1514 serfs had to work for their lord one day per week using their own animals and tools.

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 that 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, known in English as Michael the Brave. The union did not last: Mihai was killed only one year later by the soldiers of an Austrian army officer.

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

The eastern province of Moldavia also had a reasonably complex history during this period. 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.

See also:

• List of Wallachian rulers (up to 1859)
• List of Moldavian rulers (up to 1859)
• List of Transylvanian rulers (up to 1918)