Romania

Ukrainian (Minority)

Bulgarian (Minority)

European Union

Danube Comission

**Romania,**officially **Republic of Romania** is a ~~vampire~~ Balkan country that in the south of Moldova and Ukraine, North and West of Hungary, West of Serbia and has a border with Bulgaria on the south.

Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, and other major urban areas include Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași, Constanța, Craiova, and Brașov.

The River Danube, Europe's second-longest river, rises in Germany's Black Forest and flows in a general southeast direction for 2,857 km,coursing through ten countries before emptying into Romania's Danube Delta. The Carpathian Mountains, which cross Romania from the north to the southwest, include Moldoveanu Peak, at an altitude of 2,544 m.

Modern Romania was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. Following World War I, when Romania fought on the side of the Allied powers, Bukovina, Bessarabia, Transylvania as well as parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureșbecame part of the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. In June–August 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pactand Second Vienna Award, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, and Northern Transylvania to Hungary. In November 1940, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact and, consequently, in June 1941 entered World War II on the Axis side, fighting against the Soviet Union until August 1944, when it joined the Allies and recovered Northern Transylvania. Following the war, under the occupation of the Red Army's forces, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition back towards democracy and a market economy.

The sovereign state of Romania is a developing country and ranks 52nd in the Human Development Index.It has the world's 47th largest economy by nominal GDP and an annual economic growth rate of 7% (2017), the highest in the EU at the time.Following rapid economic growth in the early 2000s, Romania has an economy predominantly based on services, and is a producer and net exporter of machines and electric energy, featuring companies like Automobile Dacia and OMV Petrom. It has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, part of NATO since 2004, and part of the European Union since 2007. An overwhelming majority of the population identifies themselves as Eastern Orthodox Christians and are native speakers of Romanian, a Romance language.

## **ETYMOLOGY**

Romania derives from the Latin romanus, meaning "**Citizen of Rome**".Thefirst known use of the appellation was attested to in the 16th century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia.The oldest known surviving document written in Romanian, a 1521 letter known as the "Letter of Neacșu from Câmpulung",is also notable for including the first documented occurrence of the country's name: Wallachia is mentioned as *Țeara Rumânească* (old spelling for "**The Romanian Lan**d"; țeara from the Latin terra, "land"; current spelling: (*Țara Românească*).

Two spelling forms: român and rumân were used interchangeably until sociolinguistic developments in the late 17th century led to semantic differentiation of the two forms: *Rumâncame* to mean "bondsman", while românretained the original ethnolinguistic meaning.After the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the word rumân gradually fell out of use and the spelling stabilised to the form român.Tudor Vladimirescu, a revolutionary leader of the early 19th century, used the term Rumânia to refer exclusively to the principality of Wallachia."

The use of the name Romania to refer to the common homeland of all Romanians—its modern-day meaning—was first documented in the early 19th century.The name has been officially in use since 11 December 1861.

In English, the name of the country was formerly spelt Rumania or Roumania.Romania became the predominant spelling around 1975.Romania is also the official English-language spelling used by the Romanian government.A handful of other languages (including Italian, Hungarian, Portuguese, and Norwegian) have also switched to "o" like English, but most languages continue to prefer forms with u, e.g. French Roumanie, German and Swedish Rumänien, Spanish Rumania (the archaic form Rumanía is still in use in Spain), Polish Rumunia, Russian Румыния (Rumyniya), and Japanese ルーマニア (Rūmania).

## **Official Names**

* 1859–1862: **United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia**
* 1862–1866: **Romanian United Principalities** or Romania
* 1866–1881: **Romania** or Principality of Romania
* 1881–1947: **Kingdom of Romania** or Romania
* 1947–1965: **Romanian People's Republic**(RPR) or Romania
* 1965–December, 1989: **Socialist Republic of Romania** (RSR) or Romania
* December, 1989–present: **Romania**

## **HISTORY**

Human remains found in *Peștera cu Oase* ("Cave with Bones"), radiocarbon dated as being from circa 40,000 years ago, represent the oldest known Homo sapiens in Europe.Neolithic techniques and agriculture spread after the arrival of a mixed group of people from Thessaly in the 6th millenium BC.Excavations near a salt spring at Lunca yielded the earliest evidence for salt exploitation in Europe; here the production of salt started between 6050 and 5900 BC.The first permanent settlements also appeared in the Neolithic.Some of them developed into "proto-cities", which were larger than 800 acres. The Cucuteni–Trypillia culture—the best known archaeological cultureof Old Europe—flourished in Muntenia, southeastern Transylvania and northeastern Moldavia in the 3rd millenium BC.The first fortified settlements appeared around 1800 BC, showing the militant character of Bronze Agesocieties.

Greek colonies established on the Black Sea coast in the 7th century BC became important centers of commerce with the local tribes.Among the native peoples, Herodotus listed the Getae of the Lower Danube region, the Agathyrsi of Transylvania and the Syginnae of the plains along the river Tisza at the beginning of the 5th century BC.Centuries later, Straboassociated the Getae with the Dacians who dominated the lands along the southern Carpathian Mountains in the 1st century BC.]Burebista was the first Dacian ruler to unite the local tribes.He also conquered the Greek colonies in Dobruja and the neighboring peoples as far as the Middle Danube and the Balkan Mountains between around 55 and 44 BC.After Burebista was murdered in 44 BC, his empire collapsed.

The Romans reached Dacia during Burebista's reign and conquered Dobruja in 46 AD.Dacia was again united under Decebalus around 85. He resisted the Romans for decades, but the Roman army annihilated his troops in 106.Emperor Trajan transformed Banat, Oltenia and the greater part of Transylvania into the new Roman province of Dacia, but Dacian, Germanic and Sarmatian tribes continued to dominate the lands along the Roman frontiers.The Romans pursued an organized colonization policy and the provincials enjoyed a long period of peace and prosperity in the 2nd century.Scholars accepting the Daco-Roman continuity theory—one of the main theories about the origin of the Romanians—say that the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in Roman Dacia was the first phase of the Romanians' ethnogenesis.

The Carpians, Goths and other neighboring tribes made regular raids against Dacia from the 210s.The Romans could not resist and Emperor Aurelian ordered the evacuation of the province Dacia Trajana in 271.Scholars supporting the continuity theory are convinced that most Latin-speaking commoners stayed behind when the army and civil administration was withdrawn.The Romans did not abandon their fortresses along the northern banks of the Lower Danube for decades, and Dobruja (known as Scythia Minor) remained an integral part of the Roman Empire until the early 7th century.

**Middle Age**

The Goths were expanding towards the Lower Danube from the 230s, forcing the native peoples to flee to the Roman Empire or to accept their suzerainty.The Goths' rule came to an abrupt end when the Huns invaded their territory in 376, causing new waves of migrations.The Huns forced the remnants of the local population into submission, but their empire collapsed in 454.The Gepids took possession of the former Dacia province.The nomadic Avars defeated the Gepids and established a powerful empire around 570. The Bulgars, who also came from the Eurasian steppes, occupied the Lower Danube region in 680.According to scholars who accept the Daco-Roman continuity theory, the Romanians' ancestors, known by the exonym Vlachs in the Middle Ages, lived in densely forested areas, separeted from the Goths, Huns, Gepids and Avars during these centuries.

Place names of Slavic origin abound in Romania, indicating that a numerous Slavic-speaking population used to live in the territory.The first Slavic groups settled in Moldavia and Wallachia in the 6th century,in Transylvania around 600. After the Avar Khaganate collapsed in the 790s, Bulgaria became the dominant power of the region, occupying lands as far as the river Tisa.The Council of Preslav declared Old Church Slavonic the language of liturgy in the First Bulgarian Empire in 893.The Romanians also adopted Old Church Slavonic as their liturgical language.

The Magyars (Hungarians) took control of the steppes north of the Lower Danube in the 830s, but the Bulgarians and the Pechenegs jointly forced them to abandon this region for the lowlands along the Middle Danube around 894. Centuries later, the Gesta Hungarorumwrote of the invading Magyars' wars against three dukes—Glad, Menumorut and the Vlach Gelou—for Banat, Crișana and Transylvania. The Gesta also listed many peoples—Slavs, Bulgarians, Vlachs, Khazarsand Székelys—inhabiting the same regions.The reliability of the Gesta is debated, with some scholars regarding it as a basically accurate account, others describing it as a literary work filled with invented details.The lowlands abandoned by the Hungarians to east of the Carpathians were seized by the Pechenegs.

Byzantine missionaries proselytized in the lands east of the Tisa from the 940s and Byzantine troops occupied Dobruja in the 970s.The first king of Hungary, Stephen I, who supported Western European missionaries, defeated the local chieftains and established Roman Catholic bishoprics in Transylvania and Banat in the early 11th century.Significant Pecheneg groups fled to the Byzantine Empire in the 1040s; the Oghuz Turks followed them, and the nomadic Cumans became the dominant power of the steppes in the 1060s.Cooperation between the Cumans and the Vlachs against the Byzantine Empire is well documented from the end of the 11th century.Scholars who reject the Daco-Roman continuity theory say that the first Vlach groups left their Balkan homeland for the mountain pastures of the eastern and southern Carpathians in the 11th century, establishing the Romanians' presence in the lands to the north of the Lower Danube.

After Mongols,Princes Mircea I and Vlad III of Wallachia, and Stephen III of Moldavia defended their countries independence against the Ottomans, but most Wallachian and Moldavian princes paid a regular tribute to the Ottoman sultans from 1417 and 1456, respectively. A military commander of Romanian origin, John Hunyadi, organized the defence of the Kingdom of Hungary until his death in 1456. Increasing taxes outraged the Transylvanian peasants and they rose up in an open rebellion in 1437, but the Hungarian nobles and the heads of the Saxon and Székely communities jointly pushed their revolt.The formal alliance of the Hungarian, Saxon and Székely leaders, known as the Union of the Three Nations, became an important element of the self-government of Transylvania.The Orthodox Romanian knezes (Chiefs) were excluded from the Union.

**War Against Ottomans**

The princes of Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia joined the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire in 1594. The Wallachian prince, Michael the Brave, united the three principalities under his rule in May 1600.The neighboring powers forced him to abdicate in September, but he became a symbol of the unification of the Romanian lands in the 19th century.Although the rulers of the three principalities continued to pay tribute to the Ottomans, the most talented princes—Gabriel Bethlen of Transylvania, Matei Basarab of Wallachia, and Vasile Lupu of Moldavia—strengthened their autonomy.

The united armies of the Holy League expelled the Ottoman troops from Central Europe between 1684 and 1699 and the Principality of Transylvania was integrated in the Habsburg Empire.[108] The Habsburgs supported the Catholic clergy and persuaded the Orthodox Romanian prelates to accept the union with the Roman Catholic Church in 1699.The Church Union strengthened the Romanian intellectuals' devotion to their Roman heritage.The Orthodox Church was restored in Transylvania only after Orthodox monks stirred up revolts in 1744 and 1759The organization of the Transylvanian Military Frontier caused further disturbances, especially among the Székelys in 1764.

Princes Dimitrie Cantemir of Moldavia and Constantin Brâncoveanu of Wallachia concluded alliances with the Habsburg Empire and Russia against the Ottomans, but they were dethroned in 1711 and 1714, respectively.The sultans lost confidence in the native princes and appointed Orthodox merchants from the Phanar district of Istanbul to rule Moldova and Wallachia.The Phanariot princes pursued oppressive fiscal policies and dissolved the army.The neighboring powers take advantage of the situation: the Habsburg Empire annexed northern Moldavia, or Bucovina, in 1775, and Russia seized Bessarabia in 1812.

A census revealed that the Romanians were more numerous than any of the other ethnic groups in Transylvania in 1733, but legislation continued to use contemptuous adjectives (such as "tolerated" and "admitted") when referring to them.The Uniate bishop, Inocențiu Micu-Klein who demanded the recognition of the Romanians as the fourth privileged nation was forced into exile.Uniate and Orthodox clerics and laymen jointly signed a plea for the Transylvanian Romanians' emancipation in 1791, but the monarch and the local authorities denied to grant their requests.

**INDEPENDENCE AND THE MONARCHY**

The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca authorized the Russian ambassador in Istanbul to defend the autonomy of Moldavia and Wallachia (known as the Danubian Principalities) in 1774.Taking advantage of the Greek War of Independence, a Wallachian lesser nobleman, Tudor Vladimirescu, stirred up a revolt against the Ottomans in January 1821, but he was murdered in June by Phanariot Greeks.After a new Russo-Turkish War, the Treaty of Adrianople strengthened the autonomy of the Danubian Principalities in 1829, although it also acknowledged the sultan's right to confirm the election of the princes.

Mihail Kogălniceanu, Nicolae Bălcescu and other leaders of the 1848 revolutions in Moldavia and Wallachia demanded the emancipation of the peasants and the union of the two principalities, but Russian and Ottoman troops crushed their revolt.The Wallachian revolutioners were the first to adopt the blue, yellow and red tricolor as national flag.In Transylvania, most Romanians supported the imperial government against the Hungarian revolutioners after the Diet passed a law about the union of Transylvania and Hungary.Bishop Andrei Șaguna proposed the unification of the Romanians of the Habsburg Empire in a separate duchy, but the central government refused to change the internal frontiers.

The Treaty of Paris put the Danubian Principalities under the collective guardianship of the Great Powers in 1856.After special assemblies convoked in Moldavia and Wallachia urged the unification of the two principalities, the Great Powers did not prevent the election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as their common domnitor (or ruling prince) in January 1859. The united principalities officially adopted the name Romania on 21 February 1862.Cuza’s government carried out a series of reforms, including the secularization of the property of monasteries and an agrarian reform, but a coalition of conservative and radical politicians forced him to abdicate in February 1866.

Cuza's successor, a German prince, Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (Carol I), was elected in May. The parliament adopted the first constitution of Romania in the same year.The Great Powers acknowledged Romania's full independence at the Congress of Berlin and Carol I was crowned king in 1881.The Congress also granted the Danube Delta and Dobruja to Romania.Although Romanian scholars strived for the unification of all Romanians into a Greater Romania, the government did not oppenly support their irredentist projects.]

The Transylvanian Romanians and Saxons wanted to maintain the separate status of Transylvania in the Habsburg Monarchy, but the Austro-Hungarian Compromise brought about the union of the province with Hungary in 1867.Ethnic Romanian politicians sharply opposed the Hungarian government's attempts to transform Hungary into a national state, especially the laws prescribing the obligatory teaching of Hungarian.Leaders of the Romanian National Party proposed the federalization of Austria-Hungary and the Romanian intellectuals established cultural association to promote the use of Romanian.

**WWI and WWII**

Fearing of Russian expansionism, Romania secretly joined the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy in 1883, but public opinion remained hostile to Austria-Hungary.Romania seized Southern Dobruja from Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War in 1913.For German and Austrian-Hungarian diplomacy supported Bulgaria during the war, it brought about a rapprochement between Romania and the Triple Entente of France, Russia and the United Kingdom.The country remained neutral when World War Ibroke out in 1914, but Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu started negotiations with the Entente Powers.After they promised Austrian-Hungarian territories with a majority of ethnic Romanian population to Romania in the Treaty of Bucharest, Romania entered the war against the Central Powers in 1916.The German and Austrian-Hungarian troops defeated the Romanian army and occupied three-quarters of the country by early 1917.After the October Revolution turned Russia from ally into enemy, Romania was forced to sign a harsh peace treaty with the Central Powers in May 1918,but the collapse of Russia also enabled the union of Bessarabia with Romania.King Ferdinand again mobilized the Romanian army on behalf of the Entente Powers a day before Germany capitulated on 11 November 1918.

Romania entered World War II soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The country regained Bessarabia and northern Bucovina, and the Germans placed Transnistria (the territory between the rivers Dniester and Dnieper) under Romanian administration.The Romanian and German troops massacred at least 160,000 local Jews in these territories; more than 105,000 Jews and about 11,000 Gypsies died during their deportation from Bessarabia to Transnistria.The vast majority of the Jewish population of Moldavia, Wallachia, Banat and Southern Transylvania survived,but their fundamental rights were limited.After the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, about 132,000 (mainly Hungarian-speaking) Jews were deported to extermination camps from Northern Transylvania with the Hungarian authorities' support.

After the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, Iuliu Maniu, a leader of the opposition to Antonescu, entered into secret negotiations with British diplomats who made it clear that Romania had to seek reconciliation with the Soviet Union.To facilitate the coordination of their activities against Antonescu's regime, the National Liberal and National Peasants' parties established the National Democratic Bloc which also included the Social Democratic and Communistparties.After a successful Soviet offensive, the young King Michael I ordered the arrest of Antonescu and appointed politicians from the National Democratic Bloc to form a new government on 23 August 1944. Romania switched sides in the war and nearly 250,000 Romanian troops joined the Red Army's military campaign against Hungary and Germany, but Joseph Stalin regarded the country as an occupied territory within the Soviet sphere of influence. Stalin's deputy instructed the King to make the Communists' candidate, Petru Groza, the prime minister in March 1945.The Romanian administration in Northern Transylvania was soon restored and Groza's government carried out an agrarian reform. In February 1947, the Paris Peace Treaties confirmed the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania, but they also legalized the presence of units of the Red Army in the country.

**Communism**

During the Soviet occupation of Romania, the Communist-dominated government called for new elections in 1946, which were fraudulently won, with a fabricated 70% majority of the vote.Thus, they rapidly established themselves as the dominant political force.]Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, a Communist party leader imprisoned in 1933, escaped in 1944 to become Romania's first Communist leader. In 1947 he and others forced King Michael I to abdicate and leave the country, and proclaimed Romania a people's republic.Romania remained under the direct military occupation and economic control of the USSR until the late 1950s. During this period, Romania's vast natural resources were continuously drained by mixed Soviet-Romanian companies set up for unilateral exploitative purposes.

In 1948, the state began to nationalize private firms and to collectivize agriculture.Until the early 1960s, the government severely curtailed political liberties and vigorously suppressed any dissent with the help of the Securitate (the Romanian secret police). During this period the regime launched several campaigns of purges in which numerous "enemies of the state" and "parasite elements" were targeted for different forms of punishment, such as deportation, internal exile, and internment in forced labour camps and prisons, sometimes for life, as well as extrajudicial killing.Nevertheless, anti-Communist resistance was one of the most long-lasting in the Eastern Block.A 2006 Commission estimated the number of direct victims of the Communist repression at two million people.

**EU Integration and NATO**

After the end of the Cold War, Romania developed closer ties with Western Europe and the United States, eventually joining NATO in 2004, and hosting the 2008 summit in Bucharest.

The country applied in June 1993 for membership in the European Union and became an Associated State of the EU in 1995, an Acceding Country in 2004, and a full member on 1 January 2007.

During the 2000s, Romania enjoyed one of the highest economic growth rates in Europe and has been referred at times as "the Tiger of Eastern Europe".This has been accompanied by a significant improvement in living standards as the country successfully reduced internal poverty and established a functional democratic state.However, Romania's development suffered a major setback during the late-2000s recession leading to a large gross domestic product contraction and budget deficit in 2009.This led to Romania borrowing from the International Monetary Fund.The worsening economic conditions led to unrest and triggered a political crisis in 2012.

Romania joined NATO in 2004 and hosted its 2008 summit in Bucharest.

Romania still faces problems related to infrastructure,medical services,education,and corruption.Near the end of 2013, The Economist reported Romania again enjoying 'booming' economic growth at 4.1% that year, with wages rising fast and a lower unemployment than in Britain. Economic growth accelerated in the midst of government liberalisations in opening up new sectors to competition and investment—most notably, energy and telecoms.In 2016 the Human Development Index ranked Romania as a nation of "Very High Human Development".

Following the experience of economic instability throughout the 1990s, and the implementation of a free travel agreement with the EU, a great number of Romanians emigrated to Western Europe and North America, with particularly large communities in Italy and Spain. In 2008, the Romanian diasporawas estimated to be at over two million people.