History of Romania
In 513 BC, south of the Danube, the tribal confederation of the Getae were defeated by Darius during his campaign against the Scythians (Herodotus IV.93). Over half a millennium later, the Getae (also named Daci by Romans) were defeated by the Roman Empire under Emperor Trajan in two campaigns stretching from 101 to 106, and the core of their kingdom was turned into the Roman province of Dacia. The Gothic and Carpic campaigns in the Balkans during 238–256 forced the Roman Empire to reorganize a new Roman province of Dacia south of Danube, inside former Moesia Superior. Romanian historians claim that Dacians are the direct ancestors of present-day Romanians.
Sibiu, the former Herrmannstadt, retains its historic mediaeval centerIn 271 the ancient Dacia became the Kingdom of the Goths until the end of the fourth century, when it was included in the Hunnic Empire. The Gepids and the Avars ruled Transylvania until the 8th century, after which the Bulgars included Romania in their Empire until 1000. The Pechenegs, the Cumans and Uzes were also mentioned by historic chronicles on the territory of Romania until the founding of the Vlachian principalities of Wallachia by Basarab I, and Moldavia by Dragoş during the 13th and 14th centuries respectively. In the Middle Ages, Romanians lived in three distinct principalities: Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania.
In 1475, Stephen the Great of Moldavia scored a decisive victory over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vaslui. Wallachia and Moldavia would later come under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire during the 15th and 16th centuries respectively, with internal autonomy under the millet system, and brief periods of independence. Moldova lost its eastern side Bessarabia to the Russian Empire in 1812 (though partially regained it with the Treaty of Paris in 1856), its northern part Bukovina to the Austrian Empire in 1775 and its south-eastern part Budjak to the Ottoman Empire.
Transylvania came under control of the Kingdom of Hungary by the 11th century (from 1301, Hungary and Transylvania became possessions of the Houses of Anjou and Habsburg). One of the greatest Hungarian kings, Matthias Corvinus (known in Romanian as Matei Corvin, ruled 1458–1490)— was born in Transylvania, and is claimed by the Romanians because of his half-Romanian father, Iancu de Hunedoara (Hunyadi János in Hungarian), and by the Hungarians because of his Hungarian mother. Later, in 1541, Transylvania became a multi-ethnic principality under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire following the Battle of Mohács. At the end of the 18th century, the Austrian Habsburgs incorporated Transylvania into the Austrian Empire. During the time of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918), Romanians in Transylvania experienced oppression in the form of the Magyarization policies of the Hungarian government.
Peles Castle, Sinaia, retreat of the Romanian monarchs The modern state of Romania was formed by the merging of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859 under the Moldavian domnitor Alexander John Cuza. He was replaced by Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen in 1866. During the Russo-Turkish War, Romania fought on the Russian side; in the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 Romania was recognized as an independent state by the Great Powers. In return for ceding to Russia the two southern districts of Bessarabia which had been regained by Moldavia after the Crimean War in 1852, the Kingdom of Romania acquired Dobruja. In 1881 the principality was raised to a kingdom and Prince Carol I became King Carol I.
In spite of its previous alliance with Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary, Romania entered World War I on the side of the Triple Entente in a move aimed at acquiring Transylvania. By war's end Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire had collapsed, allowing Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania to unite with the Kingdom of Romania in 1918. Union of Transylvania with Romania was ratified in the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.
In 1940 during World War II, Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia, Northern Transylvania, and southern Dobrudja were occupied by the Soviet Union, Hungary and Bulgaria respectively (see Romania during World War II). The authoritarian King Carol II abdicated in 1940 and the subsequent year Romania entered the war joining Nazi Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria. Because Romania participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union, the country recovered Bessarabia and northern Bukovina under the leadership of general Ion Antonescu. During the Second World War, the Antonescu regime, allied with Nazi Germany, played an active role in the Holocaust, following its policy of oppression and massacre of the Jews, and, to a lesser extent, Roma. According to a report released on 2004 by the independent commision appointed by former Romanian president Ion Iliescu and chaired by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, the Romanian authorities were the main perpetrators in the planning and implementation of the killing of between 280,000 to 380,000 Jews, primarily in the Eastern territories Romania recovered or occupied from the Soviet Union and in Moldavia (historical region)[1], though some estimates are even higher.
In August 1944 the Antonescu regime was toppled, and Romania joined the Red Army against Nazi Germany, but its role in the defeat of Germany was not recognized by the Paris Peace Conference of 1947.
With the Red Army forces still stationed in the country and exerting defacto control, communists and their allied parties claimed 80% of the vote in the 1946 Romanian elections, through a combination of vote manipulation, elimination and forced mergers of competing parties, establishing themselves as the dominant force; Western democracies left Romania in the hands of the Soviet Union. In 1947, King Michael I was forced by the communists to abdicate and leave the country. Romania was proclaimed a communist state, under direct military and economic control of the USSR until 1958. During this period, Romania's scarce resources left after WWII were drained by the "SovRom" agreements: mixed Soviet-Romanian companies established in the aftermath of World War II to mask the looting of Romania by the Soviet Union, in addition to excessive war reparations paid to the USSR. During this dark period, hundreds of thousands of people were imprisoned for political reasons, there were thousands of abuses, deaths and incidents of torture against political opponents, bringing gloom over Romania.
Unirii Boulevard and the Palatul Parlamentului, Bucharest; legacies of the Communist era.A short-lived period of relative economic well-being and openness followed in late 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, still regarded by some as a "golden era". This period gradually ended, first politically, and then economically. Some party leaders (such as Ion Iliescu, Corneliu Manescu, or Gheorghe Apostol) who questioned the achievements of the regime during the latter portion of this era, were sent to lower positions, which, in 1989, justified their "dissident" position. From an economic point of view, Romania's foreign debt sharply increased between 1977 and 1981 (from 3 to 10 billion US dollars). Thus, the influence of international financial organisms such as the IMF or the World Bank grew, conflicting with Ceauşescu's autarchic policies. Ceauşescu eventually initiated a project of total reimbursement of the foreign debt (completed in 1989, shortly before his overthrow). To achieve this goal, he imposed policies that impoverished Romanians and exhausted the Romanian economy. He profoundly deepened Romania's police state (see Securitate) and imposed a cult of personality.
One positive achievement of the Communist period was the spread of near-universal literacy and the development of a very efficient education system. However, this educational transformation was not coupled with appropriate industrial development and urbanization policies, so that almost half of Romania's population is still rural (47.3%; see Demography of Romania), and mostly poor. Another achievement is the negotiated retreat of Soviet troops from Romania, in 1958. This allowed the country to pursue independent policies, including the condemnation by the Communist Party of Romania of the Soviet-led 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia (Romania was the only country of the Warsaw pact not to take part into the invasion), the continuation of Romanian-Israeli diplomatic relations after the Six-Day War of 1967 (Romania was the only country in the Warsaw pact to do so), the establishment of economic (1963) and diplomatic (1967) relations with the Federal Republic of Germany, and so forth. Close ties between Romania and both Israel and the Arab countries (and the PLO) allowed Romania to play an essential role in the Israel-Egypt and Israel-PLO peace processes.
The Communist dictatorship ended 22 December 1989 (see Romanian Revolution of 1989). During the 1989 revolution (the term "revolution" is contested by many), power was taken by an ad hoc group called the National Salvation Front (FSN), which grouped a number of dissidents with other personalities and (then-unknown) persons that participated in the uprising. The FSN assumed the missions of restoring civil order, taking immediate democratic measures, and organizing elections for a new legislative body. Given the slow pace of reconstruction of the social and democratic system after 45 years of Communism (as emphasized by events such as the Ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureş in March 1990), the largest part of the FSN also constituted itself as a political party that participated in (and won by a large majority) the elections of summer 1990. The move was highly contested by the other emerging political parties, because the FSN controlled most media and therefore the election process was biased. The subsequent disintegration of the FSN, which did not have a clear political platform, produced several political parties including the Democratic Party (PD), which for a time retained the FSN name), the Social Democratic Party (PSD, formerly known as the Romanian Party for Social Democracy (PDSR) or the Democratic National Salvation Front-FDSN), and the Alliance for Romania (APR). Throughout several elections, coalitions, and governments, parties that emerged from the FSN governed or participated in the government of Romania from 1990 to 1996, and then from 2000 until today.
In 1996, the CDR entered power on a "Contract with Romania" platform which would have required the CDR to resign en masse after 200 days from a mixed coalition government. Some members had signed on to the contract programme, while others had not; once in power, the "Contract" was repudiated. The major CDR parties were electorally eviscerated in 2000, and the Social Democrats returned to power, with Ion Iliescu once again president of Romania and Adrian Năstase, the president of the Social-Democratic Party (PSD), as prime minister.
On December 12, 2004, Traian Băsescu was elected president of Romania. He was supported during elections by a coalition, called Justice and Truth Alliance (DA), formed of his Democratic Party and of the National-Liberal Party. The government was formed by a larger coalition which also included the Romanian Humanist Party (now called Conservative Party) and the ethnic Hungarian party UDMR.
Following the end of the Cold War in 1989, Romania developed closer ties with Western Europe, joined NATO in 2004 and became an acceding country to the European Union, being at an advanced stage to join on January 1, 2007. The Treaty of Accession of Romania has been signed by EU member states' representatives in Luxembourg, Abbaye de Neumünster, on April 25, 2005. Ratification of the Romanian and Bulgarian Accession Treaty is ongoing in the parliaments of all member states.
