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This article provides only a brief outline of each period of the History of Romania; details are presented in separate articles (see the links in the box and below).

Dacia

The territory of today's Romania was inhabited since at least 513 BC by the Getae or Dacians, a Thracian tribe. Under the leadership of Burebista (70-44 BC) the Dacians became a powerful state which threatened even the regional interests of the Romans. Julius Caesar intended to start a campaign against the Dacians, but was assassinated in 44 BC. A few months later, Burebista shared the same fate, assassinated by his own noblemen. His powerful state was divided in four and did not become unified again until 95, under the reign of Decebalus. The Dacian state sustained a series of conflicts with the expanding Roman Empire, and was finally conquered in 106 AD by the Roman emperor Trajan, during the reign of the Dacian king Decebalus. Faced by successive invasions of the Goths and Carpi, the Roman administration withdrew in 271.

Romania in the Dark Ages

Different parts of the territory of present-day Romania were controlled as part of the Gothic Empire (Oium) from 271 until 378, the Hunnish Empire until 435, the Avar Empire during the 6th century, and the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th through 11th centuries. Slavs, Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans and Tatars (Mongols) also invaded the territory.

Romania in the Middle Ages

Many small local states developed, but only in the 14th century the larger principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia emerged to fight the danger of a new threat in the form of the Ottoman Turks, who conquered Constantinople in 1453. By 1541, the entire Balkan peninsula and most of Hungary became Ottoman provinces. In contrast, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania, came under Ottoman suzerainty, but conserved fully internal autonomy and, until 18th century, some external independence.

By the 11th century, the area of today's Transylvania became a largely autonomous part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Kings of Hungary invited to settle in Transylvania the Szecklers, the Teutonic Order and the Saxons.

In 1475, Stephen the Great of Moldavia scored a decisive victory of the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vaslui. In the year 1600, Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania principalities were headed by the Wallachian prince Michael the Brave (Mihai Viteazul), Ban of Oltenia, but the chance for a unity dissolved after Mihai was killed, only one year later, by the soldiers of an Austrian army general Giorgio Basta. There are no clear signs Mihai intended to unite the three principalities to lay down foundations of today's Romania, though we cannot know for sure, as he was prince of Transylvania for less than one year.

Early Modern Romania

In 1699 Transylvania became a territory of the Habsburg's Austrian empire, following the Austrian victory over the Turks. The Austrians, in their turn, rapidly expanded their empire: In 1718 an important part of Wallachia, called Oltenia, was incorporated to the Austrian monarchy and was only returned in 1739.

In 1775 the Austrian empire occupied the north-western part of Moldavia, later called Bukovina, while the eastern half of the principality (called Bessarabia) was occupied in 1812 by Russia.

National awakening of Romania

As in most European countries, 1848 brought revolution to Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania, announced by Tudor Vladimirescu and his Pandurs attempt in 1821. The goals of the revolutionaries - complete independence for the first two and national emancipation in third - remained unfulfilled, but were the basis of the subsequent evolutions. Also, the uprising 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 "Domnitor" (ruler) - Alexandru Ioan Cuza - as prince.

Kingdom of Romania

The Old Kingdom

In 1866, the German prince Carol I (Charles or Karl) of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was appointed as Domnitor of the Principality of Romania, to end the rivalry and struggle for the seat of power by the Romanian boyar factions. In 1877, Romania declared independence from the Ottoman Empire and, following a Russian-Romanian-Turkish war, its independence was recognized by the Treaty of Berlin, 1878, making it the first independent national state in the eastern half of Europe. Following the war Romania acquired Dobruja, but it was forced to cede southern Bessarabia to Russia. Domnitor Carol I was proclaimed the first King of Romania on March 26, 1881.

The new state, squeezed between the great powers of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, looked to the West, particularly France, for its cultural, educational, military and administrative models. In 1916 Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, in the hope of taking Transylvania from Austria-Hungary.

Romania was beaten, its capital and two-thirds of the country occupied by Central Powers. In May of 1918, Romania surrendered to the Germans. Days before the end of WWI, Romania joined the war again, to nullify the humiliating peace treaty, and to annex Transylvania. By the end of the war, the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires were gone; governing bodies created by the Romanians of Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina chose union with Romania, resulting in Greater Romania.

Greater Romania (România Mare)

The Romanian expression România Mare (literal translation "Great Romania") generally refers to the Romanian state in the years between the First and Second World Wars and, by extension, to the territory Romania covered at the time (see the map). Romania achieved at that time its greatest territorial extent, managing to unite all the historic Romanian lands (which were also inhabited by a majority of Romanians). Historically, "Great Romania" represented one of the ideals of Romanian nationalism. It is still seen by many as a "paradise lost", often by comparison with the "stunted" Communist Romania.

To exploit the nationalistic connotation of the term, a nationalist political party uses it as its name.

The Romanian term "România Mare" is sometimes translated as "Great Romania", both to refer to the historic notion, and to translate the name of the political party.

In 1918, at the end of World War I, Transylvania and Bessarabia united with the Romanian Old Kingdom, Transylvania united by a Proclamation of Union of Alba Iulia voted by the Deputies of the Romanians from Transylvania; Bessarabia, having declared its independence from Russia in 1917 by the Conference of the Country (Sfatul Ţarii), called in Romanian troops to protect the province from the Bolsheviks who were spreading the Russian Revolution. The union of the regions of Transylvania, Maramureş, Crişana and Banat with the Old Kingdom of Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon which recognised the sovereignty of Romania over these regions and settled the border between the independent Republic of Hungary and the Kingdom of Romania. The union of Bucovina and Bessarabia with Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Versailles. Romania had also recently acquired the Southern Dobrudja territory called the Quadrilateral from Bulgaria as a result of its victory in the Second Balkan War in 1913.

The Union of 1918 united most regions with clear Romanian majorities into the boundaries of a single state. However, it also led to the inclusion of various sizable minorities, including Magyars, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, etc, for a total of about 28% of the population (Magyars mostly in Transylvania, Germans in Transylvania, Bukovina, and Banat, Ukrainians in Bessarabia and Bukovina, Bulgarians in Dobrudja). Recognized by the Constitution and supported by various laws (education, electoral, etc.), national minorities were represented in Parliament, and several of them created national parties (the Magyars in 1922, the Germans in 1929, the Jews in 1931), although a unique standing of minorities with autonomy on a wide basis, provisioned at the assembly of Transylvanian Romanians on 1st December, 1918 were not fulfilled.

Two periods can be identified in Romania between the two World Wars. From 1918 to 1938, Romania was a liberal constitutional monarchy. Worth mentioning is the rise of the nationalistic, anti-semitic party Iron Guard, which earned about 15% of the votes in the general elections of 1937. From 1938 to 1944, Romania was a dictatorship. The first dictator was King Carol II himself, who abolished the parliamentary regime and ruled with his camarilla. Following the severe territorial losses of 1940, King Carol II was forced to abdicate, replaced with his son King Mihai, but the power was taken by the military dictator Ion Antonescu. In August 1944, Antonescu was arrested by King Mihai.

In 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which stipulated, amongst other things, the Soviet "interest" in Bessarabia.

Romania during World War II

As a result, in 1940, Romania lost territory in both east and west: In June 1940, after issuing an ultimatum to Romania, the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Two thirds of Bessarabia were combined with a small part of USSR to form the Moldavian SSR. Northern Bukovina and Budjak were apportioned to the Ukrainian SSR. In August 1940, Northern Transylvania was awarded to Hungary by Germany and Italy through the Second Vienna Arbitration.

As a result of the ratification by King Carol II of the yielding of Northern Transylvania to Hungary, southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria, and Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to USSR in 1940, general Ion Antonescu was supported by the army to seize the leadership of Romania. Romania entered World War II under the command of the German Wehrmacht in June 1941, declaring war to the Soviet Union in order to recover Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Romania was awarded the territory between Nistru and the Southern Bug by Germany to administrate it as Transnistria.

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 armies under Red Army command. Romania suffered additional heavy casualties fighting the Nazi Army in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

The Paris Peace Treaty at the end of World War II rendered the Vienna Dictat void, Northern Transylvania returning to Romania having an autonomous status for a few years, though eventually abolished, but Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and southern Dobrogea weren't recovered. The Moldavian SSR became independent only in 1991, under the name of Republica Moldova.

Communist Romania

Soviet occupation following WWII led to the formation of a communist Peoples' Republic in 1947 and the abdication of king Michael, who 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.

The decades-long rule of President Nicolae Ceauşescu became increasingly draconian through the 1980s.

December 1989 marked the fall of Ceauşescu and the end of the communist regime in Romania, a violent change, which resulted in more than 1000 deaths during the key events of Timişoara and Bucharest. After a weeklong state of unrest in the city of Timişoara, Ceauşescu lost his grip on power. A mass rally summoned in support of Ceauşescu on December 21, 1989 turned hostile and the Ceauşescu couple was forced to flee Bucharest. However, they ended up in the custody of the army, and after being tried and convicted for "genocide" and other crimes by a kangaroo court, they were executed on December 25, 1989. The series of events known as the Romanian Revolution of 1989 remain to this day a matter of debate, with many conflicting theories as to the motivations and even actions of some of the main players.

Ion Iliescu, a former Communist Party official marginalized by Ceauşescu, attained national recognition as the leader of an impromptu governing coalition, the National Salvation Front (FSN) that proclaimed the restoration of democracy and civil liberties on December 22, 1989. The Communist Party was outlawed, and Ceauşescu's most unpopular measures, such as bans on abortion and contraception, were rolled back.

Romania since 1989

Presidential and parliamentary elections were held on May 20, 1990. Running against representatives of the pre-war National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party, and taking advantage of FSN's tight control of the national radio and television, Iliescu won 85% of the vote. The FSN secured two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. A university professor with strong family roots in the Communist Party, Petre Roman, was named Prime Minister of the new government, which consisted mainly of former communist officials. The government initiated modest free market reforms.

Because the majority of ministers in the Petre Roman government were ex-communists, anti-communist protesters initiated a round-the-clock anti-government demonstration in University Square, Bucharest in April 1990. Two months later, these protesters, whom the government referred to as "hooligans", were brutally dispersed by the miners from Jiu Valley, called in by President Iliescu; this event became known as the mineriad. The miners also attacked the headquarters and private residences of opposition leaders. Petre Roman's government fell in late September 1991, when the miners returned to Bucharest to demand higher salaries. A technocrat, Theodor Stolojan, was appointed to head an interim government until new elections could be held.

In December 1991, a new constitution was drafted and subsequently adopted, after a popular referendum, which, however, attracted criticism from international observers who accused the government of manipulating the population and even of outright fraud. The constitution was most recently revised by a national referendum on October 18-19, 2003, again plagued by fraud accusations made by internal and international observers. The new constitution, which took effect October 29, 2003, follows the structure of the Constitution of 1991, but makes significant revisions among which the most significant are extension of the presidential mandate, and the guaranteed protection of private property.

March 1992 marked the split of the FSN into two groups: the Democratic National Front (FDSN), led by Ion Iliescu and the Democratic Party (PD), led by Petre Roman. Iliescu won the presidential elections in September 1992 by a clear margin, and his FDSN won the general elections held at the same time. With parliamentary support from the nationalist PUNR (National Unity Party of Romanians), PRM (Great Romania Party), and the ex-communist PSM (Socialist Workers' Party), a new government was formed in November 1992 under Prime Minister Nicolae Văcăroiu, an economist and former Communist Party official. The FDSN changed its name to Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR) in July 1993.

Emil Constantinescu of the Democratic Convention (CDR) emerged as the winner of the second round of the 1996 presidential elections and replaced Iliescu as chief of state. The PDSR won the largest number of seats in Parliament, but was unable to form a viable coalition. Constituent parties of the CDR joined the Democratic Party (PD), the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) to form a centrist coalition government, holding 60% of the seats in Parliament. This coalition of sorts frequently struggled for survival, as decisions were often delayed by long periods of negotiations among the involved parties. Nevertheless, this coalition was able to implement several critical reforms. The new coalition government, under prime minister Victor Ciorbea remained in office until March 1998, when Radu Vasile (PNŢCD) took over as prime minister. The former governor of the National Bank, Mugur Isărescu, eventually replaced Radu Vasile as head of the government.

The 2000 elections, brought Iliescu's PSD (Social Democratic Party) back to power (the party, led largely by former Communist officials, had changed its name again from PDSR to PSD) and Iliescu himself won a third term as the country's president. Adrian Năstase became the prime minister of the newly formed government. His rule was shaken by recurring allegations of corruption.

Presidential and parliamentary elections took place again on November 28, 2004. No political party was able to secure a viable parliamentary majority, amidst accusations from international observers and opposition parties alike that the PSD had committed large-scale electoral fraud. There was no winner in the first round of the presidential elections. The joint PNL-PD candidate, Traian Băsescu, won the second round on December 12, 2004 with 51% of the vote and thus became the third post-revolutionary president of Romania. The PNL leader, Călin Popescu Tăriceanu was assigned the difficult task of building a coalition government without including the PSD. In December 2004, the new coalition government (PD, PNL, PUR Romanian Humanist Party - which eventually changed its name to Romanian Conservative Party and UDMR), was sworn in under Prime Minister Tăriceanu.

Romania joined NATO in 2004, and the country is scheduled to join the European Union (EU), alongside Bulgaria, in 2007. The EU accession treaty signed on April 25, 2005 in Luxembourg contains a safeguard clause, which allows delaying entry for a year if EU standards are not met. The government faces two main challenges to achieve the necessary conditions for entry into the EU: eradication of corruption, which remains widespread, and reform of the judicial system.

Romanian rulers

List of Wallachian rulers (up to 1859)
List of Moldavian rulers (up to 1859)
List of Transylvanian rulers (up to 1867)
Kings of Romania (1881 - 1947)
Presidents of Romania (since 1947)
Prime ministers of Romania (since 1862)

External links

Illustrated History of Romanians
World Statesmen: Romania, including a timeline; a comprehensive history of the Romanian flag; a listing of princes, monarchs, prime ministers; etc.

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