The history of the Rumanian territory is that of a long succession of invasions, influences and dominations coming from Orient and of Occident. The local populations assimilate and transform the various contributions, trying many times an emancipation which will be consolidated only starting from the XIX E century.   

Daces, Romans and times obscure

The fortresses daces fall under the blows from the Roman troops carried out by the Trajan emperor; of this conquest (101-106 a. J. - C.) there will remain the language, of Latin structure.

The invasions sarmates, Gothics, Bulgarian, Slavic before X E century, petchenègues, tatares to the XIII E century, scramble the structure, add an abundant Slavic vocabulary and institute Byzantine christianization of it. The debate, moreover, is not closed between the historians as for knowing which was the share of Daco-Rumanian remained in the mountain refuge carpatic and that having migrated in Balkans, adopting the pastoral transhumance of altitude (Wallachians, Aroumains).

From the XI E century, to the pressures come from the east and south are added, in the North-East, those of the catholic Hungarians, who conquer the Transylvanian basin and facilitate, for the mining and commercial development of the territory, the establishment of Germanic colonies called “saxonnes”.

Individualization in the Othoman context

A respite in the east facilitates the descent of the settlement towards the zones of Piedmont and plain to the XIII E and XIV E centuries. The constitution of autonomous political entities around the princes develops, with a certain ease in Moldavie and Valachie, very with difficulty on the other hand in Transylvania, subjected to the Magyar pressure. This first political assertion of the principalities is stopped by the Othoman invasion - at the beginning of XV E century in Valachie, at the beginning of XVI E century in Moldavie, Transylvania and on the whole of Hungary -, without cultural blooming being reached too much by it, the mode of Othoman vassalage leaving a broad autonomy.

The XVII E century knows the diffusion of printing works, the schools and the liturgy in Rumanian language. The supervisions are weighed down at the next century: Othoman after the failure of an attempt at release (1711), princes being then replaced by the hospodars (sovereign) phanariotes, which “hellenize” the leading layers; Austrian in Transylvania (1691) and Bucovine (1775), owing to Turkish retreat (the Rumanian people and the Greek Orthodox Church obtain no recognition there, contrary to the “three nations” Magyar, sicule and saxonne); Russian finally, with the progression of the troops tsarists towards the mouths of the Danube and the Bosphorus (annexation of Moldavian Bessarabia in 1812).

Awakening and formation of the Rumanian unit

The awakening of the national conscience appears with the movement of the Lights (Supplex libellus Valachorum - 1791). But the way towards the autonomy and the union of the principalities is difficult, because the power struggle between Austria-Hungary and Russia succeeds the Othoman supervision.

After the failure of a first movement for the independence of Valachie (1820-1821), the “organic payments” of March 1830, under Russian control, grant an autonomy to the principalities. In spite of a second failure in 1848, this autonomy will be confirmed at the conclusion of the Crimean War, with the support of Napoleon III: the congress of Paris (1856) places the plain principalities of Moldavie and Valachie under the collective guarantee of the European powers.

In 1859, the election of the same prince (Alexandre-Jean Cuza) for Moldavie and Valachie mark the beginning of the union which will lead to independence in 1881. Reversed by the hostile property owners with his reforms, prince Cuza is replaced in 1866 per Charles de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.

In 1878 (congress of Berlin), Romania, which fought at the sides of the Russians against the Turks, gains its independence, but must exchange it against Dobroudja and the south of Bessarabia; prince Charles becomes in 1881 the king Carol I er of Romania; in 1885 is proclaimed the religious autocéphalie.

The political elites (liberals and conservatives alternate with the responsibilities) of this new State without institutional experiment nor financial means, are initially worried by the insertion of their country in the international political system; they aspire to recover Transylvania, last under direct Hungarian control. The beginning of industrialization precedes in their eyes the land question, however fundamental: crushing the majority of the Roumanians is made up of small farmers almost without means vis-a-vis the great landowners.

These elites also aspire to reconstitute “Large Romania” by reinstating Bessarabia, Bucovine, Banat and especially Transylvania, annexed by Hungary in 1867. The Balkan question, the First World War and the play of alliances (Romania lined up at the sides of the Allies in 1916) will lead to the almost unhoped-for realization of this ambition: Romania obtains the asserted territories (treated of Trianon, 1920) and its surface passes from 130 ' 000 to 237 ' 500 km2.

The kingdom of Romania

From 1918 to 1947, during one very complex period, coexist an astonishing intellectual flowering and the accumulation of political and economic difficulties. “Large Romania” must formerly manage minorities (a quarter of the population) in dominant position and fit on the European political chessboard: Little Entente with Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia in 1920-1921; Balkan pact with Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey in 1934.

The democratic bracket is of short duration. The international context of economic crisis impoverishes this exporting country of agricultural produce, generates strong social strains and supports the rise, since 1930, of populist movements of fascistic inspiration such as the iron Guard (of fascistic small groups copied on the model mussolinien had appeared since 1923 in Bucharest).

The beginning of the Second world war, favorable to the Nazi Germany in Central Europe, sees the alignment of Romania on the powers of the Axis: in September 1940, the iron Guards carry to the power the “Conducator” Ion Antonescu, and Carol II abdicates with the profit of his son Michel I er. However, that does not put Romania safe from dismantling envisaged by the pact germano-Soviet and it loses the territories gained in 1916, before the war against the USSR (1941) does not enable him to take again Bessarabia and Transnistrie.

In 1944, the Red Army enters the country; Michel I er takes again the power, makes stop Antonescu and request the armistice with the Allies (September). The Rumanian troops are turned over then against the Nazi Germany. These events cause the installation of the government of Petru Groza (supported by the Soviets) in 1945. The following year, the Communists gain the elections. King Michel is constrained to abdicate on on December 30th, 1947.

The Rumanian Popular republic is proclaimed. In spite of this inversion of alliances, the treaty of Paris (February 10th, 1947) restores in Romania only the north of Transylvania: it must give up Bessarabia, north of Bucovine and in the south of Dobroudja.

Socialist Romania

In its institutions as in its economic structures, socialist Romania presents a profile similar to that of the other people's democracies: absolute power of the sole party, planned economy, collectivization. As of its come to power, Petru Groza undertakes the collectivization of the grounds (completed in 1962) and the nationalization of the emergent industry.

However, while the head of the country follow one another Groza (1947-1955), Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1955-1965), Chivu Stoica (1965-1967) and Nicolae Ceausescu, president of the Council of State as from 1967, then president of the Republic in 1974, a distinction takes place gradually, and a certain military and political independence with respect to Moscow is done day: end of the presence of the Soviet troops in 1958 Gheorghiu-Dej pennies; as from 1962, refusing to align itself on the positions of the USSR in international policy, Romania deviates appreciably from the Soviet orbit; it maintains, in particular, of the relations with China and Israel, and, in 1968, its troops do not intervene in Prague with those of the Warsaw Pact; at the same time, a certain economic autonomy appears (after having refused the socialist international division of work in 1962, Romania multiplies the bonds with the Occident and fact call to the Western capital to develop industrialization, adhesion in the IMF in 1972).  

Ceaucescu
This option Communist-nationalist doubles however reinforcement of a police State, which under Ceaucescu quickly will take the caricatural face of a personal dictatorship, and the singularity of its political advance places Romania, already economically late compared to its Western neighbors, in a dynamics of international insulation which will force to him to approach Moscow again on the economic plan. In spite of powerful Securitate (political police), years 1980 see multiplying the discrete or violent oppositions to the dictator, coming from all horizons, including central committee. Still badly elucidated in their release and their unfolding, the tragic days of the national revolution, in Timisoara and Bucharest in December 1989, are the result: at the end of violent ones street battles who made “officially” more than one thousand of victims, the Communist regime was reversed and couples it Ceaucescu was carried out.  

A difficult transition

In 1990-1991 continued the disorders related to the fights for the control of the power between rival factions more or less resulting from the old leading layers. Violent ones episodes made abroad the new mode suspect. The former communist apparatchik Ion Iliescu, one of the leaders of the FSN (Face of national hello, made up during the insurrection), was elected president of the Republic in May 1990 and, although in three years the political scene had evolved with a fragmentation of the old FSN and a recombining in the opposition (democratic Convention), he was re-elected in 1992. Its party lost however the parliamentary majority at the time of the local elections and legislature organized in November 1996, and the candidate of the democratic Convention of Romania (CDR), Emil Constantinescu was selected to succeed to him the presidency of the Republic. However, in December 2000, Iliescu found the direction of the State at the time of elections marked by a strong push of the far right, represented by Corneliu Vadim Tudor.  

In addition to the economic crisis (purchasing power of 40 % of 1990 to 1993 drops; weight of the foreign debt to discharge: 2.4 billion euros), the question of the minorities constitutes a permanent factor of crispation of the political life. Thus, in 1996, Romania signed a treaty on the rights of the national minorities. But one saw, in 1998, to re-appear of the tensions with the Hungarian minority in connection with opportunity of creating or not a Hungarian university with Cluj.  

Only the international relations seem to know an improvement with the signature with Hungary of a treaty proclaiming the inviolability of the borders of the two States and guaranteeing the rights of the Hungarian minority in Romania.