History

The continuity of human settlements in the territory of Romania goes back as far as the Paleolithic period. The diversity of its geographical conditions, its rich fauna and flora played a favorable role in assuring this continuity.

Before the period of Roma domination, various tribes populated present day Romania. The most important and famous ones were the Scythians and the Sarmatians, living in the south-east area, and the Geto-Dacians occupying the northern banks of the Danube and Transylvania. Herodotus mentioned the Geto- Dacians in his account of the expedition of Darius, the King of the Persians, against the Scythians. The Dacians succeeded in organizing a powerful state extending from Transylvania toward the Black Sea and the Danube River.

Their last king, Decebal, strongly resisted the invading Roman legions, but was defeated in 106 AD, when the Emperor Traian turned Dacia into a Roman Province. The Dacians in the northern part of Transylvania, who were free from Roman dominance, were a permanent menace to the north-eastern Roman Empire.

TRAIAN'S COLUMN from ROMA

Following the occupation, 165 years of intense Romanization of Dacia determined the Latinic character of the Romanian language. Christianity also entered Dacia during this time and consequently the basic religious vocabulary is of Latin origin.

The Romanian people are the descendants, through the millennia, of this mixed population of Roman colonists and Dacians.

For the next 1,000 years the Latinic character of the language survived the onslaught of the barbaric migrating people and has been preserved to this day. During all this time, Romanians lived continuously in the territories of Moldavia, Transylvania, the Northern side of Danube, and Dobrudja on the shores of the Black Sea, farming and raising livestock. Although there was no centralized government during this period, the Romanian people remained true to the Latin origins of their customs, religion and social laws, while maintaining a strong sense of unity throughout this tumultuous period of their history.

By the end of the 11th century, the Hungarian kings succeeded in conquering Transylvania by defeating the Romanian “Voievod” Gelu, Glad and Menumorut living in the northern and western part of Transylvania. “Voievod”, a title of Slavic origin, was given initially to military commanders and afterwards to governors of provinces.

In the 14th century Basarab founded the first Romanians state “Wallachia” bordered in the north and west by the Carpathians, to the south by the Danube and to the east by the Black Sea.

His son conquered other territories populated by Romanians north of the Danube Delta at that time controlled by the Tartars. This region became known as “Basarabia” after Basarab.

East of the Carpathians another Romanian state “Moldavia” was founded during the same period. The Moldavian Prince Bogdan “Voda” established its borders at the Dnister to the east and the Milcov to the south(two rivers), including Basarabia. However, the Romanian region between the Prut (another river) and Dnister remained known as Basarabia.

Throughout history the Romanians living in Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania considered themselves brothers, spoke the same Romanian language, had the same religion, culture and customs and always fought to unite in a common state.

A Romania writer, Eusebiu Camilar, referred to Romania as “the gate of storm”. This name is well justified as the following will illustrate. First, Romania was like buffer squarely in the way of barbarian invasions from Asia, especially the Tartars. The Romanian Princes shouldered this burden keeping the invaders out of their own country, and at the same time protecting Western Europe and its culture. Second, Romania was for Europe the key to all exchange with the east. Third, with neighbors such as the Turks, the Austro-Hungarians and Russians all of whom were powerful empires at that time, the Romanians had to defend not only their borders, but also their national entity, religion and culture against being absorbed. Thus, until the unification in 1918, Romanian history was a continuous struggle for national unity and independence for all Romanians. When the expansion of the Turkish Empire and the roaming of the Tartars became a menace to Eastern and Central Europe, they were halted by Romanian princes such as Mircea the Old, Vlad the Impaler, Matei Basarab, Stefan the Great (described by Pope Sixtus IV as an “Athlete of Christ”), Petru Rares, Ioan the Terrible, who served as a buffer between these invaders and western Europe through more than 400 tumultuous years.

The first one to accomplish the centuries old dream of Romanian national unity was Mihai the Brave, who succeeded in uniting Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania in 1599. This state survived for less than one year, but it was burned into the national memory of all Romanians and they never again ceased to fight for unification. Though separated by political borders the Romanians kept their sense of unity, which is reflected in their customs and folk art.

In the quest to extend their spheres of influence, each of the three empires surrounding Romania attempted to conquer, or succeeded in conquering some region of the country. For long periods of time from the 16th to the 19th century, the Turks were kept at bay through payment of tribute which sapped the country’s wealth.

In 1775 Austria annexed Bucovina, the northern part of Moldavia, and in 1812, Russia took Basarabia. It was the policy of the occupying forces, to destroy the national spirit of their victims and to assimilate them. In spite of this, language, religion, culture and customs of the Romanians survived.

In the 19th century the great ideas and ideals of the 1848 French Revolution inspired the Romanian intellectual elite, which started to work toward unification. Literature and journalism reflected strong nationalistic feelings and the longing for national unity.

In 1859, the first two united were Moldavia and Wallachia and the country was named Romania, Alexandru Ioan Cuza being elected as ruler both in Moldavia and Wallachia at the same time.

In 1866 King Carol the First of Romania was crowned and a new era of economic and democratic development and stabilization began.

In 1877 Romania gained its independence from the Turks and in 1918 at the end of WWI the most treasured dream of all Romanians was accomplished. Transylvania, ancient Romanian territory was finally united with Romania.

Also, in 1918, Basarabia declared itself independent of Russia and united with Romania. The same year, Bucovina also came back to Romania.

However, during the WWII turmoil and due to machinations of the superpowers, Romania lost Transylvania to Hungary, and Basarabia to Soviet Union.

Through the peace agreements at the end of WWII, Transylvania was reincorporated into Romania, bur Basarabia and northern Bucovina remained part of the Soviet Union, as the Soviet Republic of Moldavia, suffering a fate similar to the Baltic States and other Soviet Republics.

From this time on, Romania was firmly within the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, inside the area upon which the Iron Curtain came down. During the years that followed the communists took hold of and consolidated power and, in 1948, they forced the abdication of king Mihail of Romania, marking the beginning of the darkest and most shameful era of the Romanian's history.

The communist transformation of Romania’s political, economic, and social life was accomplished by the mid 1950s. During this time Romania was a satellite of Moscow. Many people were impresoned and died/killed due to different "reasons" whoever considered to be the slightest frighten to the regime!!!

An important dichotomy characterized Romanian politics under Ceausescu. On the one hand, its foreign policy evolved quite differently from ones practiced by the other communist states in the region. The tangible rewards of this phenomenon included membership in important international organization, Most Favored Nation trading status in the United States, and high level visits to Romania by Western Leaders. On the other hand, Ceausescu established an extremely centralized administration and o total dictatorship at home. He assigned top party and government position to members of his family, who were leading vulgar, ostentatious lifestyles, while the vast majority of the population lived in utter poverty. The pauperization process was so intense, that Romania became known as Europe’s Ethiophia, as opposed to the monarchy period, when its capital was referred to as Little Paris.

By the late 1980’s Bucharest’s blatant disregard for basic human rights and the gradual unmasking of Ceausescu’s unmitigated dictatorship led western powers to withhold concessions granted earlier.

Romania was the last of the six East European Warsaw Pact states to be shaken by revolutionary changes in late 1989. The collapse of Ceausescu’s regime, however, was far more precipitous and violent than the failure of communism elsewhere. The revolution swept away President Ceausescu. He and his wife, Elena, were executed following a hastily conducted trial by a military court - to which many of us disagreed, but who are we to understand different interests, at a much higher level?!

The violent revolution of 1989 proved that desire for democracy and freedom of the Romanian people was still alive after 45 years of dictatorship.

However, the regime which has emerged, retaining many key figures of the Ceausescu regime, doesn’t honor these aspirations. It has denounced and abolished communism (as they had no other choice!!!...), but its methods of government and treatment of political opposition are similar to those of the dictatorship it replaced. Attributes it has earned for itself, like: neo-communism and “new mask, old faces” are very meaningfully indeed. Reports of human rights violations were numerous, and members of the opposition parties were often harassed and abused.

Despite the repression and misinformation, the political parties which existed in the period between the two WWs, the National Liberal Party, the National Peasant Party and the Social Democratic Party have been re-established. Other political organizations formed in the aftermath of the 1989 revolution.

Many disappointments lead us to nowadays history when almost everybody watch astonished to the politicians fights for the "big bone" while proclaiming their huge concern for the people welfare?! -ye' ?!