page_title: National awakening of Romania
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: National awakening of Romania / Background
caption_attribution_description: Română: Harta etnică a arealului lingvistic românesc
context_page_description: In the Romantic era, the concept of a national state emerged among the Romanians, as among many other peoples of Europe and a "national awakening" began. Defining their nation against the nearby Slavs, Germans, and Hungarians, the nationalist Romanians looked for models of nationality in the other Latin countries, notably France.
  The Romanian upper classes looked for support firstly from the Russian Empire, who they thought would help the Orthodox Romanian people in their struggle against the Islamic Ottoman Empire. However, Russia's expansionist goals after annexing Bessarabia in 1812, made them suspicious that they would just become part of another far-flung empire. Since Austria also had similar goals, as shown by the annexations of Oltenia and Bukovina, the Romanian elites started looking for allies in Western Europe.
context_section_description: The Greek uprising was supported by the Wallachian uprising of 1821. The movement, which was started about the same time by the ennobled peasant, Tudor Vladimirescu, for the emancipation of the lower classes, soon acquired, therefore, an anti-Greek tendency. Vladimirescu was executed by the Etaireía; the latter were completely checked by the Turks, who, grown suspicious after the Greek rising and confronted with the energetic attitude of the Romanian nobility, consented in 1822 to the nomination of two native boyars, Ioniţă Sandu Sturdza and Grigore IV Ghica, recommended by their countrymen, as princes of Moldavia and Wallachia, respectively. The iniquitous system of 'the throne to the highest bidder' had come to an end.
  The Phanariote regime in Wallachia and Moldavia ended after the uprising of 1821.
  The 1829 Treaty of Adrianople (called also Treaty of Edirne), was settled between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Turkey gave Russia access to the mouths of the Danube and additional territory on the Black Sea, opened the Dardanelles to all commercial vessels, commerce is liberated for cereals, livestock and wood, granted autonomy to Serbia, promised autonomy for Greece, and allowed Russia to occupy Moldavia and Walachia until Turkey had paid a large indemnity.
  The Crimean War was provoked by Russian tsar Nicholas I's continuing pressure on the dying Ottoman Empire, and by Russia's claims to be the protector of the Orthodox Christian subjects of the Ottoman sultan. Britain and France became involved in order to block Russian expansion and prevent Russians from acquiring control of the Turkish Straits and eastern Mediterranean.
  Russia was defeated in the Crimean War (1853–1856). The peace Congress in Paris (February–March 1856) decided that Wallachia and Moldavia, which had been under Ottoman suzerainty, were now placed under the collective guarantee of the seven powers that signed the Paris peace treaty. These powers then declared that local assemblies be convened to decide on the future organisation of the two principalities. The Treaty of Paris also stipulated: the retrocession to Moldavia of Southern Bessarabia, which had been annexed in 1812 by Russia (the territory was to be organised as the Cahul, Bolgrad and Ismail counties); freedom of sailing on the Danube; the establishment of the European Commission of the Danube; the neutral status of the Black Sea.
  As a result, Wallachia and Moldavia both elected Alexandru Ioan Cuza in 1859 as their prince, creating a personal union. This personal union was turned into a state union, named Romania, which in 1866 adopted prince Carol from the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family as its monarch.
caption: Ethnic groups in Romanian territories in the second half of the 19th century
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