The Romanian Principalities
Romania was rarely absolutely free as an independent and sovereign state. The independence was temporary and uncertain. The four historical regions that have been part of modern Romania: Dobrudja, Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, were successively under the Hungarian, Habsburg and Ottoman rule. The Principalities were neighbors but autonomous.
Every region has its own history. One of Romania’s features is the diversity, the differences between the regions, the great number of traditions, every region being influenced by the people that have used to rule in Romania.
The phenomenon, that was unique in Europe, was possible because of the powerful neighboring empires which opposed the unification of the Romanian entities and even occupied the Romanian territories.
For example, to the west the Romanians had to cope with the Hungarian kingdom. There is a Hungarian chronicle that describes the meeting between the emissaries sent by Arpad and voivode Menumorut of the Biharea city in Western Transylvania and shows Menumorut’s dignified answer: “Tell Arpad, the Duke of Hungary, your ruler. Verily we owe him, as a friend to a friend, to give him all that is necessary because he is a foreigner and a stranger and lacks many. But the land that he has demanded from our good will we shall never give to him, as long as we are alive.”
Even the Romanians fought against it , the Hungarians succeeded in occupying Transylvania and making it part of the Hungarian kingdom in the 10th-13th centuries. It was an autonomous voivodate till the beginning of the 16th century. In order to increase their power in Transylvania, where the Romanians continued to be the most ethnic element over the centuries, the Hungarian resorted to the colonization of Szecklers and Germans (Saxons) in the frontier areas.
The autonomous states were formed: Wallachia, under Basarab I in 1310 and Moldavia, under Bogdan I in 1359 in the first half of the 14th century because the powers of the neighboring empires ( the Hungarians, the Tartars and the Poles) were starting to decrease.
Afterwards The Ottoman Empire became a threat. The voivodes of Wallachia Mircea the Old (1386-1418) and Vlad the Impeller (Dracula of the Mediaeval legends, 1456-1462), with Stephen the Great and Holy (1457-1504), the voivode of Moldavia and Iancu of Hunedoara, the voivode of Transylvania (1441-1456) fought heavy defence battles against the Turks, delaying their expansion to Central Europe.
The whole Balkan Peninsula became a Turkish-ruled territory, so Wallachia and Moldavia were surrounded and they had to recognise for over three centuries the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire but unlike the Hungarians and the Poles, the Romanians were the only ones who kept their state entity during the Middle Age. The tribute paid to the sultan was the guarantee for the preservation of domestic autonomy, but also for the protection against more powerful enemies. They even continued keeping their cultural Byzantine traditions and protecting Eastern Orthodox Religion. The scholars from all the Balkan Peninsula continued to work here without any problems.
In 1593, Michael the Brave became the voivode of Wallachia. He joined the Christian league – a anti-Ottoman coalition initiated by the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire and fought heavily to regain the independence of his country. In 1600, he united the territories inhabited by the Romanians, proclaiming himself “prince of Wallachia, Transylvania and the whole of Moldavia”, trying to restore the unity of old Dacia. But that didn’t last long, because the power empires of that time were very hostile and joined their forces to overthrow him. That’s how he was assassinated in 1601 although he remained a symbol for the Romanian people.
The beginning of the 18th century brought about changes in the politics of Central and Eastern Europe. The Hapsburg Empire began its expansion to the south-east of Europe. The Ottoman Empire, in an attempt to defend its old position, introduced in Moldavia (1711) and Wallachia (1716) the 'Phanariot regime,' (until 1821). Unfortunately, Wallachia and Moldavia were the battlefield on which the armies of the empires fought each other for over 150 years. So the Romanian lands endured not only through devastation and irrecoverable losses but also through population displacements and painful territory amputations. Afterwards, Austria temporarily added Oltenia (1718-1793) and Northern Moldavia that they called Bukovina (1775-1918). Following the Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812, Russia annexed the eastern part of Moldavia, the land between the Prut and Dniester rivers, later called Bessarabia (1812-1918).
