WALACHIA, a principality situated between the Danube, the Moldau, and the Hungarian province of Siebenburgen, the capital of which is Bucharest. In the time of the Romans it was a part of Dacia. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it received from the court of Byzantium princes who were tributary to it. After the fall of that government, Walachia became dependent first on Hungary and afterwards on Poland, which was the period of its greatest prosperity; but it terminated in 1421, when the country submitted to the Turks. This submission was voluntary; and in return the princes nominated from Constantinople were allowed to enjoy their ancient constitution, religion, and privileges. These grants however benefited only the princes or hospodars, and the nobility or bojares; for the peasants and the rest of the inhabitants were retained in a state of severe feudal slavery’. In consequence of this aristocratical oppression under the hospodars and bojares, the country rapidly declined both in numbers and in cultivation. Those who obtained power paid large sums for it at Constantinople, and extorted from the inhabitants the means of reimbursement during their temporary and dependent exercise of sovereignty. During this period, the Turks retained in their own hands Brahilow, Giurgewo, and Thurnut, the strong places which protect the navigation of the Danube.

In 1716 the first Greek was appointed hospodar; his name was Nicholas Maurokordatus. When he attained the sovereign power, the country was in the most depressed condition, the larger portion of the land uncultivated, and the people almost in a state of savage ignorance. Though no degree of freedom was introduced by the accession of a Greek prince, yet many improvements were introduced which advanced civilization. By this prince a printing-press was established, and some schools founded, in which the ancient Greek and Latin languages were taught, as well as the Sclavonic. Under his brother and successor Constantine, the peasants were lightened of a great part of their slavish burdens. He introduced a better course of agriculture, and first brought in the cultivation of maize, which has gradually become the chief aliment of the people. His successor caused the Bible and the liturgical books of the Greek church to be translated into the vernacular language. The hospodars Alexander Ypsilante, Ghika, Kallimachi, and Karadza, attended to education, or affected to do so, and during their rule books embodying the ancient laws were printed and generally circulated. As the rulers however had unlimited power, subject only to the payment of an annual sum of 300,000 thalers, great oppression, and frequently great cruelty, were exercised towards all under their authority. These hospodars were sometimes suddenly deposed, and in some cases suffered violent deaths, under charges of treachery, which commonly consisted of negociations, real or pretended, with Russia or with Austria. After wars between Turkey and Russia, followed by the successive treaties of Kancardschi, Jassy, and Bucharest, the hospodars were declared to be under the protection of Russia, to which nation the Walachians were much attached, from similarity of religion. When hospodars were appointed, however, the Turkish pacha in command of the fortresses on the Danube put up to auction the revenues paid on the trade by the river, and thus sold a monopoly of the whole commerce in the pro [7:21:710]ducts of Walachia and Moldavia. This led to great internal distress, which was augmented by the contemporaneous demands made by the bojares or landed proprietors on the peasants. Amidst this unfortunate concurrence of evils, the hospodar Prince Karadza, under apprehension of being deposed, or perhaps of being executed, withdrew himself with his family and his treasure, and passing through Hungary, took refuge in Geneva and Genoa in October 1818. In January 1819, the Porte nominated as his successor Prince Alexander Suzzo, who died two years after. His death seemed to be the signal of a general insurrection, which, though it broke out first in Walachia and Moldavia, speedily extended to the whole of European Greece, as well as to the islands, and produced those transactions which more properly belong to the history of that country than of Walachia.

The insurrection in Walachia was first commenced by a native bojar, Theodore Wladimirsko, who had in the Russian service acquired the reputation of a brave and skilful officer. He had retired from the army, and carried on an extensive trade in corn, by which he had acquired considerable wealth, and had formed connections and obtained confidence among the peasantry’ and smaller proprietors. The interregnum appeared a favourable moment, and he at first collected fifty adherents in Little Walachia, where he was soon joined by more than 1000 peasants. In the mean time the Porte had nominated a new hospodar, Kallimachi, who sought to form an alliance with Wladimirsko, by means of which he expected to be enabled to raise the sum necessary to be paid at Constantinople as the purchase of his dignity. The negociation was proceeding, and might have been concluded, if not to the honour, to the advantage of the two aspirants; but Alexander Ypsilante, a descendant of him who had been hospodar in 1806, and who had obtained the rank of general in the Russian army, appeared on the scene with a body of Greeks, and took possession of Jassy. This caused a most bloody civil war, by which Walachia and Moldavia were dreadfully ravaged and wasted by alternate victors. The Turks at length sent an army sufficiently strong to suppress the several contending parties, when submission was thus enforced. The sultan, instead of a Greek, nominated a native as viceroy, and in 1822 placed Gregory Ghika on the throne, who, surrounded by Turkish guards, had little or no power, and felt that his dignity was of very uncertain duration. He continued to hold it, such as it was, till 1828, when a new war between Russia and Turkey broke out, and the former took possession of both the principalities, and established in Bucharest a plan of Russian civil organization.

In its present state, Walachia extends in north latitude from 43° 44' to 46° 17', and in east longitude from 22° 52' to 27° 51', and is in extent 24,640 square miles. It is divided into two portions, viz. Eastern or Little Walachia, and Western or Great Walachia, and these are again subdivided into circles, of which the number in the former is five, and in the latter twelve. In the whole are comprehended twenty-two cities or fortified places, twenty-five markettowns, and 2548 villages and hamlets. The number of the inhabitants is very doubtful; some accounts make them amount to more than 1,000,000, while others state them not to exceed 600,000. Nearly the whole of them adhere rigidly to the Greek church, and are under the ecclesiastical authority of the archbishop of Bucharest, and of the bishops of Rimnik and of Buseo. There are numerous monasteries, but the occupants of them are very few. The people are strict in observing the great number of holidays which the Greek church enjoins, and which are said to exceed 200 in each year, and on which no one works. There are a few Roman Catholics, who own as their suffragan the bishop of Nicoolis. The people are of mixed races, Walachians, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Gipsies. The latter, amounting to 50,000 persons, are chiefly employed in the more servile occupations. These mixed races have formed a common language, composed partly of Greek, somewhat more of Latin, and abounding in words of original derivation. It has been seldom acquired by any foreigner, nor has it been much studied or grammatically analysed.

A portion of the Carpathian Mountains, through which are several passages leading to the Austrian territories, surrounds Walachia on the west and north-west sides. From these, mountains project towards the Danube, and between them are beautiful and fruitful vales, containing soils capable of producing most abundant crops. From the termination of these spurs from the mountains there is a level district, declining gradually to the great stream, and on its border becoming marshes and morasses, in some parts covered with wood.

If the inhabitants were industrious, the government protective, many of the holidays abolished, and capital could be accumulated, few parts of Europe would produce so much of all that contributes to life and comfort as this principality. With its ignorant and inactive occupation, the land yields great crops of maize, wheat, and barley. The first two are the exclusive food of man, and the latter of the cattle. Hemp and flax are flourishing products. Fruit of every kind is plentiful; the sides of the hills are covered with vines, and the wine made from them is equal to that of Hungary. The land is watered by numerous brooks, and the meadows yield excellent pasture for black cattle, while there are plains well adapted for the breeding of horses. The export of horses and cows is the chief trade between the principality and the surrounding countries. The climate is temperate, though colder in winter than in the districts to the south of the Balkan Mountains, but the winter scarcely endures more than two months. There are no mines at work, and no manufactures except those of the domestic kind.