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ANCIENT HISTORY

Romania's territory has been inhabited from since time immemorial. It is here where, in the Neolithic, some of the most prolific European cultures, Cucuteni and Gumelnita, flourished. Known by the Greeks under the name of Getae and by the Romans as Dacians, the ancient inhabitants of the present Romanian territory were first mentioned by Herodotus. Their principal religion was the cult of Zalmoxis. The Geto-Dacians communicated with their god through meditation, ritual sacrifice and shunning bodily desires. In the 1st century B.C., a strong Dacian state was established by king Burebista (70-44 B.C.) to counter the Roman threat. The last Dacian king, Decebal (87-106 A.D.), consolidated this state but was unable to counter the attacks led by the Roman emperor Trajan in 101-102 A.D. Further attacks ensued in 105-106 A.D., leading to the final Roman victory from the Dacian capital of Sarmizegetusa and the final Roman conquest of the region. Dacia thus became a province of the Roman Empire.

MEDIEVAL HISTORY
In the Middle Ages, Romanians lived in three distinct principalities: Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. Wallachia was founded as a principality in the early 14th century by Basarab I (13101352), after a rebellion against Charles I of Hungary, although the first mention of the territory of Wallachia west of the river Olt dates to a charter given to the voievod Seneslau in 1246 by Bla IV of Hungary. In 1415, Wallachia accepted the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire; this lasted until the 19th century. Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431-1476), also known by his patronymic name Dracula (son of Vlad II Dracul), and posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. His father was a member of the Order of the Dragon which was founded to protect Christianity in Europe. Dracula means "son of the Dragon" to indicate his father's title within the Order of the Dragon. Vlad III is remembered for spending much of his rule campaigning efforts against the Ottoman Empire and its expansion and for the impaling of his enemies. Already during his lifetime, his reputation of excessive cruelty spread abroad, to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The total number of his victims is estimated in the tens of thousands. The name of the vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula was inspired by Vlad's patronymic. Initially profiting from Ottoman support, Michael the Brave ascended to the throne in 1593, and attacked the troops of Murad III north and south of the Danube in an alliance with Transylvania's Sigismund Bthory and Moldavia's Aron Vod. He soon placed himself under the suzerainty of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor, and, in 1599-1600, intervened in Transylvania against Poland's king Sigismund III, placing the region under his authority; his brief rule also extended to Moldavia later in the following year. For a brief period, Michael the Brave unified all the territories where Romanians lived, rebuilding the mainland of the ancient Kingdom of Dacia. Following Michael's downfall, Wallachia was

occupied by the Polish-Moldavian army of Simion Movil, who held the region until 1602. The growing importance of appointment to high office in front of land ownership brought about an influx of Greek and Levantine families, a process already resented by locals during the rules of Radu Mihnea in the early 17th century. Wallachia became a target for Habsburg incursions during the last stages of the Great Turkish War ca.1690, when the ruler Constantin Brancoveanu secretly and unsuccessfully negotatied an antiOttoman coalition. Brancoveanu's reign (1688-1714), noted for its late Renaissance cultural achievements, also coincided with the rise of Imperial Russia under Tsar Peter the Great - he was approached by the latter during the Russo-Turkish War of 1710-1711, and lost his throne and life sometime after sultan Ahmed III caught news of the negotiations. Despite his denounciation of Brancoveanu's policies, Stefan Cantacuzino attached himself to Habsburg projects and opened the country to the armies of Prince Eugene of Savoy; being himself deposed and executed in 1716. After that, there were brief periods of Russian occupation between 1768 and 1854. The medieval Principality of Moldavia was established in 1359 and covered the area, stretching from Transylvania in the west to the Dniester River in the east. The foundation of Moldavia is attributed to the Vlach noblemen Dragos of Bedeu, from Maramures, who had been ordered in 1343 (1345 according to other sources) by the Hungarian king Louis of Anjou to establish a defense for the historic Kingdom of Hungary against the Tatars, and Bogdan I of Cuhea, Maramures, who became the first independent prince of Moldavia, when he rejected Hungarian authority in 1359. The greatest Moldavian personality was prince Stephen the Great, who ruled from 1457 to 1504. He was succeeded by increasingly weaker princes, and in 1538 Moldavia became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, to which it owed a percentage of the internal revenue. Moldavia was forbidden to have foreign relations to the detriment of the Ottoman Empire (although at times the country managed to circumvent this interdiction), but was allowed internal autonomy, including sole authority over foreign trade. In 1634, prince Vasile Lupu secured the Moldavian throne after a series of complicated intrigues, and managed to hold it for twenty years. Lupu was a capable administrator and a brilliant financier, and soon was the richest man in the Christian East. Judiciously placed gifts kept him on good terms with the Ottoman authorities. In the XVIII century, the territory of Moldavia often became a transit or war zone during conflicts between the Ottomans, Austrians, and Russians. In 1775, the Habsburg Monarchy annexed approx. 11% of the territory of Moldavia, which became known as Bukovina. By the Treaty of Bucharest following the Russo-Turkish War (18061812), Russia has annexed further 50% of its territory, which became known as Bessarabia. Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains. At the beginning of the 9th century, Transylvania, along with eastern Pannonia, was under the control of the First Bulgarian Empire. After a brief period of Bulgarian rule the territory was partially under Byzantine control. The Hungarians conquered the area at the end of the 9th century and firmly established their control over it in 1003, when king Stephen I, according to legend, defeated the native prince named Gyula. Between 1003 and 1526, Transylvania was a voivodeship of the

Kingdom of Hungary, led by a voivode appointed by the Hungarian King. After the Battle of Mohcs in 1526, Transylvania became part of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom which, in 1571, was transformed into the Principality of Transylvania (1571-1711) ruled primarily by Calvinist Hungarian princes. For most of this period, Transylvania, maintaining its internal autonomy, was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. A key figure to emerge in Transylvania in the first half of the 15th century was Jnos Hunyadi / Iancu de Hunedoara, a native of Transylvania, born in a family of Romanian origins. He was one of the greatest military figures of the time, being Hungarian general, voivode of Transylvania and then governor of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1446 to 1452. The Habsburgs acquired the territory shortly after the Battle of Vienna in 1683. The Habsburgs, however, recognized the Hungarian sovereignty over Transylvania. In 1699 the Turks legally conceded their loss of Transylvania in the Treaty of Karlowitz; however, anti-Habsburg elements within the principality only submitted to the emperor in the 1711 Peace of Szatmr. After the Ausgleich of 1867 the region was fully reabsorbed into Hungary as a part of the newly established Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs gradually began to impose their rule on the formerly autonomous Transylvania. From 1711 onward, the princes of Transylvania were replaced with imperial governors and in 1765 Transylvania was declared a Grand Principality of Transylvania, further consolidating its special separate status within the Habsburg Empire established by the Diploma Leopoldinum in 1691. Within the Habsburg-controlled Kingdom of Hungary there was a separate administrative Hungary and Transylvania.

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY HISTORY


In 1859 Walachia and Moldavia merged to form Romania, under Alexandru Ioan Cuza. In 1866 Cuza was exiled and replaced by Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who became known as Prince Carol of Romania. During the Russo-Turkish War, Romania fought on the Russian side, and in 1878 Treaty of Berlin, Romania was recognized as an independent state by the Great Powers. In return, Romania ceded three southern districts of Bessarabia to Russia and acquired Dobruja. In 1881, the principality was raised to a kingdom and Prince Carol became King Carol I. In the meantime, Austria reunited Transylvania and Hungary in 1867, but the union lasted only until the end of World War I, when Romania acquired Transylvania. In 1918, Transylvania and Bessarabia united with the Romanian Old Kingdom. The Deputies of the Romanians from Transylvania voted to unite their region by the Proclamation of Union of Alba Iulia. From 1918 to 1938, Romania was a liberal constitutional monarchy, but one facing the rise of the nationalist, anti-semitic parties, particularly the Iron Guard. From 1938 to 1944, Romania was a dictatorship. The first dictator was King Carol II, who abolished the parliamentary regime. In 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which stipulated, amongst other things, the Soviet "interest" in Bessarabia. Following the severe territorial losses of 1940, Carol was forced to abdicate, replaced as king by his son Mihai, but the power was taken by the military dictator Ion Antonescu (initially in conjunction with the Iron Guard). In August 1944, Antonescu was arrested by Mihai. He

overthrew the country's radical right-wing premier and signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. Moscow forced Michael to appoint a communist sympathizer to lead the government in 1945, and three years later Romania found itself under strict communist control. In 1947, King Michael I was forced by the Communists to abdicate and leave the country, Romania was proclaimed a republic, and remained under direct military and economic control of the USSR until the late 1950s. A greater degree of independence was at first achieved during the presidency of Nicolae Ceausescu (ruling the country from 1967) but he became increasingly totalitarian and autocratic. The Romanian Revolution of 1989 resulted in more than 1,000 deaths in Timisoara and Bucharest, and brought about the fall of Ceausescu and the end of the communist regime in Romania. The Ceauescu couple, fleeing Bucharest by helicopter, ended up in the custody of the army. After being tried and convicted for genocide and other crimes, they were executed on December 25, 1989. The events of this revolution remain to this day a matter of debate, with many conflicting theories as to the motivations and even actions of some of the main players. Ion Iliescu, a former Communist Party official marginalized by Ceauescu, attained national recognition as the leader of an impromptu governing coalition, the National Salvation Front (FSN) that proclaimed the restoration of democracy and civil liberties on December 22, 1989. Presidential and parliamentary elections were held on May 20, 1990. Running against representatives of the re-established pre-war National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party, and taking advantage of FSN's tight control of the national radio and television, Iliescu won 85% of the vote. The FSN secured twothirds of the seats in Parliament. Emil Constantinescu of the Democratic Convention (CDR) emerged as the winner of the second round of the 1996 presidential elections and replaced Iliescu as chief of state. The PDSR won the largest number of seats in Parliament, but was unable to form a viable coalition. Constituent parties of the CDR joined the Democratic Party (PD), the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) to form a centrist coalition government, holding 60% of the seats in Parliament. This coalition of sorts frequently struggled for survival, as decisions were often delayed by long periods of negotiations among the involved parties. Nevertheless, this coalition was able to implement several critical reforms. The 2000 elections, brought Iliescu's PDSR, back to power. Iliescu won a third term as the country's president. Presidential and parliamentary elections took place again on November 28, 2004. No political party was able to secure a viable parliamentary majority and opposition parties alike that the PSD had committed large-scale electoral fraud.[90] There was no winner in the first round of the presidential elections. The joint PNL-PD candidate, Traian Bsescu, won the second round on December 12, 2004 with 51% of the vote and thus became the third post-revolutionary president of Romania. Bsescu ran for a second term in the 2009 presidential elections. Romania developed closer ties with Western Europe, eventually joining NATO in 2004. The country applied in 1993 for membership in the European Union (EU). It became an Associated State of the EU in 1995, an Acceding Country in 2004, and a member with full rights of the EU on January 1, 2007.

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