Romania
Romania, country of southeastern Europe. The national capital is Bucharest. Romania was occupied by Soviet troops in 1944 and became a satellite of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(U.S.S.R.) in 1948. The country was under communist rule from 1948 until 1989, when the regime of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown. Free elections were held in 1990. In 2004 the country joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO), and in 2007 it became a member of the European Union (EU).
Map
The Romanian landscape is approximately one-third mountainous and one-third forested, with the remainder made up of hills and plains. The climate is temperate and marked by four distinct seasons. Romania enjoys a considerable wealth of natural resources: fertile land for agriculture; pastures for livestock; forests that provide hard and soft woods; petroleum reserves; metals, including gold and silver in the Apuseni Mountains; numerous rivers that supply hydroelectricity; and a Black Sea coastline that is the site of both ports and resorts.
Romania limits
The Romanian people derive much of their ethnic and cultural character from Roman influence, but this ancient identity has been reshaped continuously by Romania’s position astride major continental migration routes. Romanians regard themselves as the descendants of the ancient Romans who conquered southern Transylvania under the emperor Trajan in 105 ce and of the Dacians who lived in the mountains north of the Danubian Plain and in the Transylvanian Basin. By the time of the Roman withdrawal under the emperor Aurelian in 271, the Roman settlers and the Dacians had intermarried, resulting in a new nation. Both the Latin roots of the Romanian languageand the Eastern Orthodox faith to which most Romanians adhere emerged from the mixture of these two cultures.
From the arrival of the Huns in the 5th century until the emergence of the principalities of Walachia and Moldavia in the 14th century, the Romanian people virtually disappeared from written history. During this time Romania was invaded by great folk migrations and warriors on horseback who traveled across the Danubian Plain. It is believed that in the face of ceaseless violence the Romanians were forced to relocate, finding safety in the Carpathian Mountains. As military chief Helmuth von Moltke observed: “Resistance having nearly always proven useless, the Romanians could no longer think of any other way of defense than flight.”
For the next 600 years the Romanian lands served as battlegrounds for their neighbours’ conflicting ambitions. The Romanians were unable to withstand the imperial pressures first from the Byzantines and then from the Ottoman Turks to the south in Constantinople (now Istanbul), or later from the Habsburg empire to the west and from Russia to the east.
In 1859 the principalities of Walachia and Moldavia were united, and in 1877 they proclaimed their independence from the Ottoman Empire as the modern Romania. This was accompanied by a conversion from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin and by an exodus of students who sought higher education in western Europe, especially France.
Despite its late start as a European nation-state, Romania in the 20th century produced several world-renowned intellectuals, including composer Georges Enesco, playwright Eugène Ionesco, philosopher Emil Cioran, religion historian Mircea Eliade, and Nobel laureate George E. Palade. On the eve of World War II, journalist Rosa Goldschmidt Waldeck (Countess Waldeck) described her strongest impression of the Romanians:
Two thousand years of severe foreign masters, barbarian invasions, rapacious conquers, wicked princes, cholera, and earthquakes have given Rumanians a superb sense of the temporary and transitory quality of everything. Experience in survival has taught them that each fall may result in unforeseen opportunities and that somehow they always get on their feet again.
Land
Romania is bounded by Ukraine to the north, Moldova to the northeast, the Black Sea to the southeast, Bulgaria to the south, Serbia to the southwest, and Hungary to the west. There is a certain symmetry in the physical structure of Romania. The country forms a complex geographic unit centred on the Transylvanian Basin, around which the peaks of the Carpathian Mountains and their associated subranges and structural platforms form a series of crescents. Beyond this zone, the extensive plains of the south and east of the country, their potential increased by the Danube River and its tributaries, form a fertile outer crescent extending to the frontiers. There is great diversity in the topography, geology, climate, hydrology, flora, and fauna, and for millennia this natural environment has borne the imprint of a human population.
Romania map
Romania comprises a number of geographic regions, some of which correspond roughly to the historic regions whose names they share. In the southern part of the country, following the general contours of the former principality of the same name, Walachia (Wallachia) stretches south from the Southern Carpathians (Transylvanian Alps) to the Bulgarian border and is divided by the Olt River. In the southeast, situated between the lower Danube and the Black Sea, is the historic and geographic region of Dobruja, which also encompasses part of Bulgaria. The geographic region of Moldavia, comprising only part of the former principality of Moldavia (the remainder of which constitutes the country of Moldova), stretches from the Eastern Carpathian Mountains to the Prut River on the Ukrainian border. In western Romania, the historic Banat region is bounded on the north by the Mureș River and reaches west and south into Hungary and Serbia. Finally, bounded on the north and east by the Eastern Carpathians, on the south by the Southern Carpathians, and on the west by the Bihor Mountains is the geographic region of Transylvania, which is roughly contiguous with the borders of the former principality of Transylvania and in most schemes includes the Banat.
Relief
The relief of Romania is dominated by the Carpathian Mountains, which can be divided into the Eastern Carpathians, the Southern Carpathians, and the Western Carpathians. The Eastern Carpathians extend from the Ukrainian frontier to the Prahova River valley and reach their maximum elevation in the Rodna Mountains, with Pietrosu rising to 7,556 feet (2,303 metres). They are made up of a series of parallel crests that are oriented in a more or less north-south direction. Within these mountains is a central core that is made up of hard, crystalline rocks and has a bold and rugged relief. Rivers have cut narrow gorges here (known as cheile)—including the Bistriței and Bicazului gorges—which offer some magnificent scenery. This portion of the Carpathians is bounded on the eastern side by a zone of softer flysch. For some 250 miles (400 km) on the western fringe, the volcanic ranges Oaș and Harghita, with a concentration of volcanic necks and cones, some with craters still preserved, lend character to the landscape. St. Ana Lake—the only crater lake in Romania—is also found there. The volcanic crescent provides rich mineral resources (notably copper, lead, and zinc) as well as the mineral-water springs on which are founded several health resorts. The Carpathian range proper is made up in large part of easily weathered limestones and conglomerates, which again provide some striking scenery. The Maramureș, Giurgiu, Ciuc, and Bârsei depressions further break up the mountainous relief.
The Southern Carpathians, or Transylvanian Alps, lie between the Prahova River valley on the east and the Timiș and Cerna river valleys to the west. They are composed mainly of hard crystalline and volcanic rocks, which give the region the massive character that differentiates it from the other divisions of the Carpathians. The highest points in Romania are reached in the peaks of Mounts Moldoveanu (8,346 feet [2,544 metres]) and Negoiu (8,317 feet [2,535 metres]), both in the Făgăraș Mountains, which, together with the Bucegi, Parâng, and Retezat-Godeanu massifs, form the major subdivision of the region. The latter contains Retezat National Park, Romania’s first established (1935) national park, which covers about 94,000 acres (38,000 hectares), offers spectacular mountain scenery, and provides an important refuge for the chamois(Rupicapra rupicapra) and other animals. Ancient erosion platforms, another distinguishing feature of the area, have been utilized as pastures since the dawn of European history. Communication is possible through the high passes of Bran, Novaci-Șugag, and Vâlcan, at elevations up to 7,400 feet (2,260 metres), but the scenic Olt, Jiu, and Danube river valleys carry the main roads and railways through the mountains. At the Iron Gate gorge, on the Danube, a joint navigation and power project by Romania and the former federation of Yugoslaviaharnessed the fast-flowing waters of the gorge. In addition to greatly improving navigation facilities, the project created two power stations, which are jointly administered by Romania and Serbia. Finally, as in the Eastern Carpathians, there are important lowland depressions within the mountains (notably Brezoi, Hațeg, and Petroșani), and agriculture and industry are concentrated in them.
Kazan Gorge, cut by the Danube River, on the border of Serbia (left) and Romania (right)
The Western Carpathians extend for about 220 miles (350 km) between the Danube and Someș rivers. Unlike the other divisions of the Carpathians, they do not form a continuous range but rather a cluster of massifs around a north-south axis. Separating the massifs is a series of deeply penetrating structural depressions. Historically, these depressions have functioned as easily defended “gates,” as is reflected in their names: the Iron Gate of Transylvania (at Bistra); the Eastern Gate, or Poarta Orientală (at Timiș-Cerna); and, most famous, the Iron Gate on the Danube.
Among the massifs themselves, the Banat and Poiana Ruscăi mountains contain a rich variety of mineral resources and are the site of two of the country’s three largest metallurgical complexes, at Reșița and Hunedoara. The marble of Ruschița is well known. To the north lie the Apuseni Mountains, centred on the Bihor Massif, from which emerge fingerlike protrusions of lower relief. On the east the Bihor Mountains merge into the limestone tableland of Cetățile Ponorului, where the erosive action of water along joints in the rocks has created a fine example of the rugged karst type of scenery. To the west lie the parallel mountain ranges of Zărand, Codru-Moma, and Pădurea Craiului; to the south, along the Mureș River, the Metaliferi and Trascău mountains contain a great variety of metallic and other ores, with traces of ancient Roman mine workings still visible. The Western Carpathians generally are less forested than other parts of the range, and human settlement reaches to the highest elevations.
The great arc of the Carpathians is accompanied by an outer fringe of rolling terrain known as the Subcarpathians and extending from the Moldova River in the north to the Motru River in the southwest. It is from 2 to 19 miles (3 to 31 km) wide and reaches elevations ranging between 1,300 and 3,300 feet (400 and 1,000 metres). The topography and the milder climate of this region favour vegetation (including such Mediterranean elements as the edible chestnut) and aid agriculture; the region specializes in cereals and fruits, and its wines—notably those of Odobești and the Călugărească Valley—are known throughout Europe. The area is densely populated, and there are serious problems of economic development in remoter areas where there is little scope for further agricultural expansion.
Tablelands are another important element in the physical geography of Romania. The tableland of the Transylvanian Basin is the largest in the country and has an average elevation of 1,150 feet (350 metres). In the east, between the outer fringe of the Subcarpathians and the Prut River, lies the Moldavian Plateau, with an average elevation of 1,600 to 2,000 feet (500 to 600 metres). The Dobruja (Dobrodgea) tableland, an ancient, eroded rock mass in the southeast, has an average elevation of 820 feet (250 metres) and reaches a maximum elevation of 1,532 feet (467 metres) in the Pricopan Hills.
Plains cover about one-third of Romania, reaching their fullest development in the south and west. Their economic importance has increased greatly since the early 19th century. In the southern part of Romania is the Walachian Plain, which can be divided into the Romanian Plain to the east of the Olt River and the Oltenian Plateau to the west. The whole region is covered by deposits of loess, on which rich black chernozem soils have developed, providing a strong base for agriculture. The Danube floodplain is important economically, and along the entire stretch of the river, from Calafat in the west to Galațiin the east, former marshlands have been diked and drained to increase food production. Willow and poplar woods border the river, which is important for fishing but much more so for commerce. River port towns—including Drobeta–Turnu Severin, Turnu Măgurele, Giurgiu, Brăila, Galați, and Tulcea—complement the rural settlements.
On the northern edge of the Dobruja region, adjoining the Moldavian Plateau, the great swampy triangle of the Danube delta is a unique physiographic region covering some 2,000 square miles (5,180 square km), of which the majority is in Romania. The delta occupies the site of an ancient bay, which in prehistoric times became wholly or partially isolated from the sea by the Letea sandbanks. The delta, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1991, contributes about half of Romania’s fish production from home waters, with fishing off the Danube mouth contributing to the majority of the catch of sturgeon (banned since 2006) and Danube herring. It also is home to hundreds of species of birds, some of which are rare. For this reason the delta region is of great interest not only to a growing number of tourists but also to scientists and conservationists. Two dozen or more settlements are scattered over the region, but many are exposed to serious flood risks. Sulina and Tulcea are the major ports.
Romania lies in an active earthquake zone at the junction of three tectonic plates. Devastating earthquakes in both 1940 and 1977 caused considerable damage and loss of life in Romania.
Drainage
The rivers of Romania are virtually all tributary to the Danube, which forms the southern frontier from Moldova Nouă to Călărași. Nearly two-fifths of the total Danubian discharge into the Black Sea is in fact provided by Romanian rivers. The final discharge takes place through three arms—the Chilia (two-thirds of the flow), Sfântu Gheorghe (one-fourth), and Sulina(the remainder)—that add to the scenic attraction of the delta region. The most significant of the Romanian tributary rivers are the Prut, Mureș, Olt, Siret, Ialomiƫa, and Someș. The rivers have considerable hydroelectric potential, although there are great seasonal fluctuations in the discharge and few natural lakes to regulate the flow. The total surface-water potential of the tributary rivers is dwarfed by the volume discharged at the Danube mouth, which is more than five times as large. Subsoil waters have been estimated at an annual volume of some 250 billion cubic feet (700 million cubic metres).
Olt River, flowing through the Făgăraș Mountains, central Romania
The total theoretical hydroelectric potential of Romania—given optimum technological conditions—is tremendous, but for technical and economic reasons only a fraction of this potential can be developed. Geographically, the hydroelectric reserves of Romania are concentrated along the Danube and in the valleys of rivers emerging from the mountain core of the country. Other hydrographic resources include more than 2,500 lakes, ranging from the glacial lakes of the mountains to those of the plains and the marshes of the Danube delta region. The main effort since the 1940s, however, has been on the Argeș, Bistrița, Lotru, Olt, Mare, Sebeș, and Someș rivers, as well as on the Danube at the Iron Gate.
Soils
Romania has generally fertile soils. About one-fifth of the country is covered with chernozem—humus-rich black soils. These and reddish brown forest soils are found on the plains to the south and east of the Carpathians, as well as in the Banat. Gray-brown podzolic (leached) soils are found at higher elevations. A broad expanse of alluvial soils covers the Danube floodplain. Ill-advised cultivation methods during the communist period and profligate use of pesticides and industrial pollution after 1990 resulted in a legacy of significant soil erosion.
Climate
Romania’s location in the southeastern portion of the European continent gives it a climate that is transitional between temperate regions and the harsher extremes of the continental interior. In the centre and west of the country, humid Atlantic climatic characteristics prevail; in the southeast the continental influences of the Russian Plain (East European Plain) make themselves felt; and in the extreme southeast there are even milder sub-Mediterranean influences. This overall pattern is substantially modified by the relief, however, and there are many examples of climatic zones induced by changes in elevation.
The average annual temperature is in the low 50s F (about 11 °C) in the south and in the 40s F (about 8 °C) in the north, although, as noted, there is much variation according to elevation and related factors. Extreme temperatures range from about 112 °F (45 °C) in the Bărăgan region to –37 °F (–38 °C) in the Brașov Depression.
Average annual rainfall amounts to about 25 inches (640 mm), but in the Carpathians it reaches about 55 inches (1,400 mm), and in the Dobruja it is only about 16 inches (400 mm). Many regions are subject to periodic drought and flooding. Since the early 1990s Romania’s northern regions have been affected by severe rainfall and flooding. In 1998 and 1999 an unprecedented amount of rain fell in the Retezat Mountains, resulting in landslides, flooding, and widespread destruction and loss of lives. On the other hand, the southern areas of the country have suffered drought and high temperatures since the 1990s. These conditions have been exacerbated by injudicious agricultural practices.
Humid winds from the northwest are most common, but often the drier winds from the northeast are strongest. A hot southwesterly wind, the austru, blows over western Romania, particularly in summer. In winter, cold and dense air masses encircle the eastern portions of the country, with the cold northeasterly known as the crivăț blowing in from the Russian Plain, and oceanic air masses from the Azores, in the west, bring rain and mitigate the severity of the cold.
Romania enjoys four seasons, though there is a rapid transition from winter to summer. Autumn is frequently longer, with dry warm weather from September to late November.
Plant and animal life
Forests, which cover about one-fourth of Romania’s area, are an important component of the vegetation cover, particularly in the mountains. Up to about 2,600 feet (800 metres), oaks predominate, followed by beeches between 2,600 and 4,600 feet (800 and 1,400 metres) and conifers between 4,600 and 5,900 feet (1,400 and 1,800 metres). At the highest levels, Alpine and sub-Alpine pastures are found. In the tableland and plains regions, the natural vegetation has to a large degree been obliterated by centuries of human settlement and agriculture.
The rich and varied animal life includes some rare species, notably the chamois and eagle, which are found on the Alpine heights of the Carpathians. Forest animals include the brown bear, red deer, wolf, fox, wild pig, lynx, and marten and various songbirds. The lower course of the Danube, particularly the delta, is rich in animal and fish life. The delta is also home to hundreds of species of birds, including pelicans, swans, wild geese, ibis, and flamingos, which are protected by law (as are wild pigs and lynx). It also serves as a seasonal stop for migratory birds. Some rare species of birds found in the delta and the neighbouring Dobruja region are Dalmatian pelicans, pygmy cormorants, spoonbills, red-breasted and white-fronted geese, and whooper swans.
People
Ethnic groups
Historical and archaeological evidence and linguistic survivals confirm that the area of present-day Romania had a fully developed society of Dacian tribes long before the Romanarmies crossed the Danube into what became the province of Dacia. Therefore, though Roman influence was profound and created a civilization that managed to maintain its identity during the great folk migrations that followed the collapse of the empire, some Romanians are quick to identify their country’s origins in the intermixing of the indigenous Dacian people and the Roman settlers.
Romania: Ethnic composition
About nine-tenths of the country’s people are ethnically Romanian. There are also many ethnic Hungarians, who reside largely in Transylvania, in the northwestern area of the country. A small percentage of Romanian citizens identify themselves as Roma (Gypsies), and ethnic Germans make up an even tinier amount of the populace. In 1930 there were about 342,000 Germans living in Romania (about 4 percent of the population). Following World War II, tens of thousands of ethnic Germans were deported to the Soviet Union, and others emigrated as opportunities presented themselves, generally to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). After the Romanian revolution of 1989, there was another mass exodus of ethnic Germans to Germany. In the early 21st century, Germans made up a minuscule portion of the population.
Similarly, Romania’s Jewish population significantly decreased during and after World War II. The events of the Holocaust and opportunities to emigrate to other parts of the world reduced the Jewish population from about 750,000 in 1930 to 43,000 in 1966. A mass exodus to Israel ensued after the revolution, leaving an even smaller Jewish community behind.
Languages
Romanian, a Romance language, is the official language of the country, though technically it is the Daco-Romanian dialectthat is spoken by nine-tenths of the populace in several regional variants. Hungarian is the only other language of Romania that is spoken by more than a million people. Smaller numbers speak Romany, German, Turkish, Serbian, and other languages.
Religion
Under communist rule, religion was officially viewed as a personal matter, and relatively few restrictions were placed upon it (compared with those imposed by other communist regimes), although the government made efforts to undermine religious teachings and faith in favour of science and empiricism. When the communists came to power in 1948, they continued the monarchy’s practice of requiring all churches to be registered with the state (under its Department of Cults), which retained administrative and financial control, thus becoming the ultimate authority on matters of religion. Despite these incursions, Romanians remained devout. After the 1989 revolution, Romanians were free to practice their religions.
Romania: Religious affiliation
Almost nine-tenths of Romanians are adherents of the Romanian Orthodox Church, headed by a patriarch in Bucharest. Roman Catholicism is the primary religion of ethnic Hungarians and Swabian Germans. The Eastern rite (Uniate) church is prominent in Transylvania. In 1948 it was forcibly united with the Romanian Orthodox Church by the communist regime, but its independence was restored after 1989. Protestantism, both Lutheran and Calvinist, is practiced by some ethnic Hungarians and Germans. Other Protestant churches that are represented in Romania include the Presbyterian Evangelical Church and the Unitarian church. In 1950, Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Pentecostals were forced to form the Federation of Protestant Cults, but they too had their independence restored after 1989. There is a small Jewish community, and Islam is practiced in the Dobruja and along the Black Sea coast by ethnic Tatars and Turks. The Roma have traditionally blended Romanian Orthodoxy with their own spiritual traditions. Since 1989 some Roma have been attracted to the Pentecostal and Evangelical denominations of Protestantism.
Church of St. Michael, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Settlement patterns
The natural environment of Romania long has offered favourable conditions for human settlement. The accessibility of the region to the movements of peoples across the Eurasian landmass has predisposed the region to absorb cultural influences from many countries and peoples, and this too is reflected in the contemporary patterns of Romanian life.
Romania: Urban-rural
About one-third of Romania’s population lives within the regions of Transylvania and Dobruja, with the remainder in Walachia and Moldavia. During the medieval period the principalities of Walachia and Moldavia, which united in 1859 to form the state of Romania, were independent feudal states, with mountain crests marking a political frontier. Initially, the core areas of these states were centred in the foothills of the Carpathians; only later, as the Romanian lands on the plains were gradually consolidated, were the major settlements transferred from the mountains, first to Târgovişte and Suceava and later to Bucharest and Iași. The Roma community is divided between those who have assimilated into Romanian culture and those who follow a traditional nomadic lifestyle. The period of Ottoman rule left an ethnic legacy of Turk and Tatar settlements along the lower Danube.
Szeklers, a Hungarian-speaking people, began settling in southeastern Transylvania after 900 CE. The Saxon Germans from the Rhineland areas were encouraged by the Hungarians to settle along the Carpathian arc in the 12th and 13th centuries. They built fortified villages and churches (many of which were designated UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1993) to defend Transylvania against invading Tatars and Turks. The Roma appeared in what is now Romania in the 14th century, having migrated in stages from northern India, only to be enslaved until the mid-19th century. In the early 18th century, Austria-Hungary’s Habsburg rulers encouraged Germans to settle in the Banat, which had been ravaged under Ottoman domination. The Habsburgs hoped that these Germans would help to fortify the region against invasion, revive destroyed farmland, and promote Roman Catholicism in eastern Europe. As enticements, the German settlers were offered land, supplies, and livestock and were exempt from paying taxes. Although only some of the emigrants were from Swabia, in southwestern Germany, the Hungarians referred to all the newly arrived Germans as Swabians. Throughout the 18th century, communities of Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, and Romanians also settled in the plains of the Banat. Jews from Poland and Russia arrived during the first half of the 19th century.
Romania’s urban settlements were situated at points of commercial or strategic significance, and the great majority of present-day towns are either on or in the immediate neighbourhood of the ruins of ancient settlements, whether fortress or market towns. The oldest towns were founded on the Black Sea shores, and urban development spread only later to the plains and then to the mountains. It was common for settlements at opposite ends of the main trans-Carpathian routes to acquire urban status. In fact, the turbulent history of the country favoured some of these early settlements, which grew into modern towns and cities. The ancient commercial trade between these old market towns lends support to the view that the mountains have served as much as a link as they have as a barrier in the country’s development. During the Middle Ages many “Ungureni”—Romanians from the inner side of the mountains under Hungarian rule—came to settle on the outer side with its greater agricultural potential. In the many lowland areas scattered among the mountains there has been a long continuity of settlement, as may be seen in very old place-names and distinct regional consciousness.
A dispersed type of rural settlement is generally found in the foothill, tableland, and upland regions. The scattered village proper is found at the highest elevations and reflects the rugged terrain and pastoral economic life. The population maintains many traditional features in architecture, dress, and social customs, and the old market centres, or nedei, are still important. Small plots and dwellings are carved out of the forests and on the upland pastures wherever physical conditions permit. Where the relief is less difficult, the villages are slightly more concentrated, although individual dwellings still tend to be scattered among agricultural plots. Mining, livestock raising, and agriculture are the main economic activities, the latter characterized by terrace cultivation on the mountain slopes, a legacy of Roman times. The Subcarpathian region, with hills and valleys covered by plowed fields, vineyards, orchards, and pastures and dotted with dwelling places, typically has this type of settlement. More-familiar concentrated villages, marked by uniform clustering of buildings, are found in the plains, particularly those given over to cereal cultivation.
A belt of towns has grown up on the margins of the Subcarpathian region, and these often parallel another outer fringe of towns commanding the main trans-Carpathian passes. Examples of such “double towns” include Suceava and Bistrița, Făgăraș and Câmpulung, Sibiu and Râmnicu Vâlcea, Alba Iulia and Arad, and Cluj Napoca and Oradea. In contrast to Transylvania, which experienced considerable urban development during the Dacian and Roman periods, Moldavia did not begin to develop towns until the Middle Ages, when the old Moldavian capitals of Iași and Suceava had close commercial connections with the towns of Transylvania and derived benefit from trade passing between the Baltic and Black Sea ports.
Cobbled alley in the old section of Sibiu, Romania
Ethnic Romanians traditionally inhabited the countryside, while the cities were home to minorities: Hungarians, Germans, Jews, Greeks, and Armenians. This pattern began to change in the 19th century with the start of industrialization, and ethnic Romanians have become the majority in the larger cities.
Bucharest, Romania
Demographic trends
The substantial changes in the social composition of the population that took place in Romania as a result of increasing industrialization and urbanization were reflected in the rise of the working-class population. Similarly, the collectivization of agriculture transformed the rural population. Since World War II there has been a sharp rise in the proportion of the population that has received some kind of higher education. Differing rates of economic development in different parts of Romania have produced a movement toward towns and cities, largely for daily and seasonal work, so that less than half of the population lives in rural areas. The communist government sought to reduce migration across county boundaries by trying to ensure that each area had its share of development and that the benefits of modernization were spread throughout the country. They were only partially successful, and sharp regional contrasts persist.
Romania: Age breakdown
The population density of the country as a whole has doubled since 1900, though it is still lower than most central European states. The overall density figures, however, conceal considerable regional variation. Population densities are naturally highest in the towns, with the plains (up to elevations of some 700 feet [200 metres]) having the next highest density, especially in areas with intensive agriculture or a traditionally high birth rate (e.g., northern Moldavia and the “contact” zone with the Subcarpathians); areas at elevations of 700 to 2,000 feet (200 to 600 metres), rich in mineral resources, orchards, vineyards, and pastures, support the lowest densities.
Since the 1990s the population of Romania itself has declined. Several factors have contributed to this downturn. Primarily, abortions and birth control were restricted under communist rule; after the revolution the restrictions were lifted, causing a plunge in the birth rate. Secondarily, a sharp decline in the standard of living and in the quality and availability of public health and medical facilities has leveled off life expectancy. The number of stillbirths and infant deaths, which had fallen significantly from the early 1970s to the early ’80s, rose in the late ’80s and remained high through the early 2000s. The proportion of the population under age 15, which was about one-third in the 1980s, had dropped to less than one-sixth by the early 21st century. These statistics have caused concern regarding the deterioration of Romania’s population. The lifting of emigration restrictions also resulted in a loss of population, especially among minorities and particularly ethnic Germans. Moreover, many Romanians, especially young adults, emigrated from Romania after 1989, searching for economic opportunities in western Europe and North America.
Economy
Romania’s modern economic development dates to the opening of maritime trade routes to western Europe in the early 19th century. After independence in 1878, exploitation of the cereal lands, forests, and oil fields was complemented by a policy of encouraging industry, but, in spite of considerable success, Romania still had a predominantly agrarian economy at the end of World War II. The communist regime concentrated on the expansion of industry, with priority given to the heavy industries of metallurgy, chemical manufacture, and engineering. Industrialization was assisted by a flood of cheap labour from rural areas, where collectivization and discriminatory price-fixing meant that farmers not only lost their own holdings but secured only modest returns as farmworkers. It also benefited from close economic integrationwith the Soviet Union, which secured markets for manufactured goods while supplying raw materials and fuels at relatively low cost.
Socialist development transformed the economy. Industry’s contribution to national income rose from 35.2 percent in 1938 to 68.3 percent in 1986. Unemployment was avoided despite a substantial growth of population, and services were able to expand to meet demand. The transport system was modernized, and increasing numbers of families took vacations on the Black Sea coast and at mountain resorts. Nevertheless, incomes remained low and living conditions poor (with high housing densities and low welfare standards). Much of industry was inefficient, with overmanned factories achieving only low productivity and producing goods of inferior quality that could be sold only within the communist bloc (or in world markets at low prices that did not always reflect the actual costs of production). After large development loans were secured from Western creditors in the 1960s and ’70s, dependence on foreign capital was minimized by the settlement of all foreign debts during the 1980s. This left many sectors of industry starved of investment in new technology, and the persistence of a primitive command structure left people with little capacity to innovate and take initiatives. Moreover, serious pollution problems arose, especially in the chemical industry.
The postcommunist government faced a difficult transition toward a market economy. It approached privatizationcautiously, since few Romanians had significant capital to invest and many state-owned enterprises were not attractive to foreign investors. Despite expectations that the replacement of markets lost through the collapse of the Soviet Union would lead to a revival in production and that restructuring would then proceed gradually, the shift to a market economy was at best intermittent and slow. Throughout the 1990s the government had to support a large number of unemployed workers, and it was left with an antiquated industrial base. Nevertheless, many small retail and tourism-related businesses were created.
By the end of the 1990s, a mixed economy had evolved in Romania, and a trend toward a full-fledged market economy was clearly visible. Important sectors of heavy industry, mining, transport, and communications, however, remained under government control and were relatively immune to market forces. High unemployment and inflation rates led to an overall decline in the standard of living.
Despite an initial outpouring of foreign aid following the revolution in 1989, ongoing aid and investment was discouraged by confusing and inconsistent investment and tax laws and the widespread perception of corruption. It was not until 1997 that laws were changed to attract foreign investment to stimulate the economy. In 2001 the Romanian Agency for Foreign Investment was established. By the early 2000s the leading sources of foreign investment came from the Netherlands, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. Also during this period, gross domestic product (GDP) rose dramatically, more than quadrupling between 2002 and 2008, and inflation rates had dropped to the single digits by mid-decade.
Under the constitution, private property rights and a market economy are guaranteed. Natural resources are public property, but they can be leased. Thousands of state-owned enterprises (apart from utilities) were privatized under a program of the National Privatization Agency.
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Agriculture has traditionally been the backbone of the Romanian economy; more than one-third of the land is devoted to cultivation (including vineyards, orchards, and vegetable gardens). A radical land reform, begun in 1921 and completed in 1948, redistributed farmland from large owners to peasant farmers, but the restructuring of the economy after the communist takeover included the compulsory collectivization of agriculture, carried out between 1949 and 1962. Since 1989, state farms have been retained as large units of up to about 120 acres (50 hectares) with shareholders, but collective farms have been broken up into individual holdings—although in some areas they have been replaced by loose cooperative associations. Romania faced major problems following the breakup of these collective farms and the resulting uncertainty of ownership. These small individual plots became devoted to the subsistence crops traditionally cultivated by peasants. Despite a bountiful cereal crop in 1995, there was an overall downward trend in agriculture in the 1990s, as the endemic lack of capital investment and limited technologies continued to hinder the agricultural sector. Moreover, irrigation systems that had been installed during the communist era, especially on the southern and western plains, fell into disrepair by 2000. Restoration efforts have been under way with aid from the World Bank since 2003. In the early 21st century, more than one-fourth of the labour force was employed in agriculture, forestry, and fishing, but the industries accounted for less than one-tenth of the Romanian GDP.
The climate and relief of the extensive Romanian plains are most favourable to the development of cereal crops, although these also are found in the Subcarpathians and in the Transylvanian Basin, where they occupy a high proportion of the total arable land. Wheat and corn (maize) are most important, followed by barley, rye, and oats. Two-row barley is cultivated in the Brașov, Cluj, and Mureș areas, where it is used for brewing. The tendency is for the acreage of cereals to fall as yields increase and industrial crops require more land.
Vegetables and legumes—peas, beans, and lentils—are planted on relatively small plots. Peas are the predominant crop; maturing in time for an early harvest, they allow a second crop, usually fodder plants, to be grown on the same ground. Vegetable cultivation is particularly marked around the city of Bucharest, with specialization in the production of early potatoes, tomatoes, onions, cabbages, and green peppers. Similar gardening areas are found around Timișoara, Arad, Craiova, Galați, Brăila, and other cities. The most important potato-growing areas are the Brașov, Sibiu, Harghita, and Mureș districts. Other related crops include sugar beets; sunflower seeds, mostly on the Danube, Tisa, and Jijia plains; hemp; flax; rape; soybeans; and tobacco.
Hoeing potatoes near Cugir, in the foothills of the Transylvanian Alps of Romania
Romania can be counted among the main wine-producingcountries of Europe. It specializes in the production of high-quality wines, using modern methods; with the growth of the tourist trade, its wines are becoming known to, and appreciated by, a larger international public. Large quantities are exported annually. The best-known vineyards are at Odobești, Panciu, and Nicorești, though there are a half-dozen or more other major centres. Both white and red wines have won various international awards.
At an elevation between 1,000 and 1,600 feet (300 and 500 metres), orchards are found on almost all the hillsides on the fringe of the Carpathians. There is specialization in fruits with a high economic yield. Orchards have solved problems of soil erosion on many unstable hillsides.
Livestock raising has a very long history in Romania. Sheep can be raised wherever grass is available, whether in the Alpine pastures or the Danube plain and valley. About half the cattle are raised for beef, which is an important export. In the 1990s the livestock sector experienced many of the same declines that crop cultivation did; however, by the early 2000s the trend reversed, and beef exports increased. Dairy products are also an important component of Romanian agriculture, as are wool, eggs, and honey.
Romanian forests traditionally yielded sawn timber, but since the 1990s the emphasis has been placed on finished products. The country’s timber is used primarily for building materials, fibreboard, and furniture manufacturing. Reeds from the Danube delta produce cellulose, which is used to make hardboard.
The rivers of Romania, its lakes—especially the group around Lake Razelm—and its Black Sea coastal region support a well-developed fishing industry. During communist rule, ocean fishing in foreign waters was developed rapidly to supplement the domestic catch and to increase the export of meat. Since the 1990s, demand for fish has fallen, largely because of the reduction in fleet and resources and the increase in the price of fish relative to other animal protein products. The largest quantity of fish comes from the Danube River, and most of the annual catch is consumed fresh. In the mid-1980s Romania’s leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu, attempted to transform the Danube delta into a region of grain fields. Local residents were forced out as dikes were built to pump water out of the delta, and the grounds were flattened and planted with wheat and rice. Thousands of marine plants and animals were killed. After the revolution, the Romanian government created the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve in 1991 to oversee the restoration of the delta. Among the fish found in the Danube delta are carp, sheat fish, pike, and zander, along with fish that migrate from the Black Sea, such as the Danube mackerel and the sturgeon, which produces caviar, Romania’s most valuable fish product. In 2006, however, Romania issued a 10-year ban on commercial sturgeon fishing, citing concerns about the decline in sturgeon populations. Canneries are located at Tulcea, Constanța, and Galați. Trout farms are scattered throughout the country, though water pollution has endangered many of them. Mackerel, anchovy, and plaice can be caught on the Black Sea shore.
Resources and power
Romania has an unusually rich and well-balanced mix of natural resources. Hydrocarbons are found across two-thirds of the country, and the petroleum industry dates to the 19th century. Oil deposits are found in the flysch formations that run in a band along the outer rim of the Carpathians and through the Subcarpathians. Deposits in the plains, notably near the town of Videle, have been tapped since World War II. The areas around Bacău and Ploiesti have long been famous for their oil-refining industry, and they have been joined by production from Pitești. Some oil also was discovered in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea in 1981. Romania had large reserves of natural gas, found mainly in Transylvania, where large deposits of methane gas and salt were first exploited for a chemical industry in the 1930s. These reserves, however, have been depleted.
A large lignite field in the Motru valley, in the southwestern part of the country, supplies two of Romania’s largest power stations, located in Rovinari and Turceni. One of the greatest problems facing Romania after World War II, when the Soviet Union demanded the delivery of Romanian petroleum as war reparations, was the very limited development of power stations based on other fuels. Nevertheless, under a plan spanning the years 1951–60 and supplemented by later plans, a remarkable rise in power output took place. The foundation for this increase was a series of large power projects, each having a capacity of 200,000 to 1,000,000 kilowatts. Both thermal and hydroelectric plants were built (though the largest capacities were installed in the Motru valley lignite field). Romania’s multiple river systems, coupled with the Danube, give the country considerable hydroelectric potential. At least three-fifths of electricity is generated at the Iron Gate. Two nuclear reactors were launched with Canadian assistance at Cernavodă, on the lower Danube, the first in the mid-1990s, followed by another reactor in the early 2000s.
The largest coal reserves are those of bituminous coal (soft coal); half of Romania’s bulk coal production comes from the Jiu Valley alone. Reserves of poorer-quality lignite increasingly are being tapped to meet energy requirements. Except for the Baraolt-Vârghiș Basin, which lies within the Carpathians, most of these deposits are found along the fringe of the mountain areas. There are concentrations in Moldavia, Transylvania around the city of Cluj, the Jiu Valley, and on the Danube floodplain. Anthracite (hard coal) is found in the Banat and Walachia regions. Mining is especially central to life in the Jiu Valley, where it is the only significant industry, and the frequent threat of widespread layoffs has long been answered by protests and strikes that have erupted into violent confrontations.
Coal-based manufacture behind a medieval castle-museum in Hunedoara, west-central Romania
A wide variety of metals are found in Romania. Major iron deposits are located in southeastern and southwestern Transylvania, the Banat, and the Dobruja. Manganese is mined in northern Transylvania near the headwaters of the Bistrița River and in the Banat. Chrome and nickel deposits are found near the Iron Gate along the Danube. Copper, lead, and zinc exist in the Maramureș near the headwaters of the Bistrița River and in the Apuseni Mountains, where silver and gold deposits and molybdenum are also found. Important bauxitemines are located southeast of Oradea. Minerals including sulphur, graphite, and mica are also found in limited quantities. Moreover, there are large salt deposits near Slanic, Tirgu Ocna, and Ocna Mures.
Manufacturing
After World War II Romanian manufacturing underwent a radical structural change. Three branches became much more important: engineering and metalworking accounted for 25.8 percent of all industrial production in 1990, compared with 13.3 percent in 1950, while electricity and fuels increased their share from 13.2 to 19 percent and chemicals from 3.1 to 9.6 percent. Two other branches, metallurgy and building materials, showed a slight relative advance. The main relative declines were in wood processing and paper, textiles and clothing, and food processing.
Development in the manufacturing sector in Romania following the 1989 revolution was discouraging and remained so throughout the 1990s. Because the heavy industry that the communist government had invested in had not received the required maintenance and modernization during the austerity of the 1980s, it became inefficient and uncompetitive. Furthermore, the manufacturing labour force became increasingly angered by the inflated salaries awarded to communist officials and the conduct of a largely naive and corrupt management class that was unfamiliar with international business practices. For all of these reasons, Romanian manufacturing struggled as it attempted to compete in the world market.
In the years following the revolution, the conflict between the former managers of heavy industry, who opposed transition to a market economy, and labourers, who sought reform, was at the heart of political developments in Romania. Administrations rose and fell based on their plans for the manufacturing, mining, metallurgy, and energy sectors and workers’ responses to them.
At the beginning of the 21st century, much heavy industry was standing idle or operating well below capacity. Light industry, on the other hand, proved to be a hopeful prospect, attracting some foreign joint-venture investment. The machine-building and metal-processing industry remains the main branch of the industrial economy, accounting for about one-fifth of bulk industrial production. It provides a good index of the changing priorities in the Romanian economy: before World War II it accounted for only 10 percent of the total, being exceeded in importance by food processing and even by the textile and ready-made clothing industry. Contemporary centres of production are Bucharest, Brașov, Ploiești, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Arad, Reșița, and many others, with a considerable degree of regional specialization. There has been a strong tendency to concentrate on such modern branches as the electronics industry, as well as to widen and diversify the range of production. Beginning in the 1990s, foreign electronic manufacturers opened facilities in Romania, attracted by low labour costs and the proximity to western European markets.
The Romanian iron industry has particularly strong connections with Galați, as well as with Călărași, Hunedoara, and Reșița (the last having a record of activity extending back to the 18th century). Smaller units exist at Brăila, Câmpia Turzii (near Turda), Iași, Oțelul Roșu, Roman, and Târgoviște. The nonferrous metallurgical industry, which also dates from the Dacian-Roman period, is largely concentrated in the southwest and west, with copper, gold, and silver production still active, especially in the Apuseni Mountains. Aluminum production is a more recent development; alumina factories at Oradea and Tulcea supply the aluminum reduction complex at Slatina in the Olt district.
In contrast to metallurgy (which relies on imports of ore and coke to supplement the modest domestic resources), the wood products industry is readily supplied with domestic timber. A chain of modern wood industrialization combines turns out a range of products, including furniture and chipboard, which have done well in foreign markets. The building materials industry also utilizes a wide range of resources across the country; cement manufacture represents an important subbranch. The main centres are at Turda, Medgidia, Bicaz, Fieni, and Târgu Jiu.
The long-established textile industry has also undergone steady development since its radical overhaul in the 1930s. The closely connected ready-made clothing industry has undergone considerable expansion, with heavy investment in new plants. Silkworm production retains a modest importance despite the introduction of synthetic fibres.
The food industry—formerly the foundation of the economy—has been all but eclipsed by the rapid development of other branches. It has, nevertheless, continued to grow in absolute terms, and processing plants are distributed throughout the country.
Finance
The initial euphoria after the 1989 revolution subsided during the 1990s as foreign investment declined. The financial stability of Romania was threatened at various times during this period by severe inflation. In an attempt to lower the inflation rate, the Romanian currency, the leu, was revaluated in 2005. The National Bank of Romania, founded in 1880, implements the monetary policy of the Ministry of Finance, managing budgetary cash resources and issuing currency. The Bucharest Stock Exchange opened in 1995, and by 1999 hundreds of companies were being traded. By 1998 there were dozens of banks in Romania, including foreign, domestic, and jointly owned institutions.
Trade
The modernization of the Romanian economy during the communist period resulted in a considerable upsurge in its foreign trade and commercial contacts, which involved more than 100 countries. Romania was the first member of Comecon(Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) to negotiate independently with the European Economic Community (later succeeded by the European Union [EU]), signing a trade agreement in 1980. The country also took part in numerous international fairs and exhibitions. Since the disbanding in 1991 of Comecon, great attention has been paid to broadening trade with less-developed countries as well as with industrialized Western countries. In the decade following the revolution, however, the Romanian government failed to implement many of the macroeconomic reforms that other eastern European countries with transitional economies had undertaken. Nevertheless, in 1993 the United States reinstated most-favoured-nation trading status with Romania, which had been suspended in 1988.
Romania: Major import sources
By the beginning of the 21st century, traditional Romanian exports such as textiles and clothing accounted for more than one-fifth of exports, followed by metals, electrical equipment, oil, and nonelectrical machinery. Significant imports included textiles, machinery and electrical equipment, chemical products, oil, and foodstuffs. Total foreign trade has increased since the 1990s, but exports have not kept pace with imports, resulting in a persistent deficit in balance of payments. By the mid-2000s, Romania was actively pursuing membership in the EU, which required that the country adopt measures to establish a free-market economy and curb corruption and smuggling. Romania was admitted to the EU in 2007, but its efforts to join the visa-free Schengen area were frustrated by other EU members’ concerns about possible abuses to the “borderless” system. Romania’s main trading partners are Italy, Germany, Hungary, France, and Turkey.
Romania: Major export destinations
Services
About one-tenth of Romania’s labour force works in the service industry. Tourism has the potential to become a significant source of income for the country. The unstable economy, ethnic tension, and widespread reports of deprivation and shortages caused a precipitous decline in tourism in the early 1990s. Most visitors were from neighbouring countries such as the Balkan states and Turkey. Efforts to improve accommodations, especially in the large cities, and a generally favourable exchange rate helped to restore tourism, and from the late 1990s to the early 2000s the number of foreign visitors doubled.
Tourist attractions range from winter sports in the mountains to summer seaside activities in the resort belt fringing the Black Sea, with health spas receiving special emphasis, including those that have been built on the salt lakes of Transylvania, most notably in the towns of Ocna Sibiului and Sovata. The historic town of Sighiůoara is a popular tourist draw. The towns of Năvodari, Mamaia, and Eforie were erected after World War II, and the older settlements of Mangalia and Techirghiol have undergone extensive redevelopment. Lakes—among which Lakes Tașaul, Siutghiol, Agigea, Techirghiol, and Mangalia are the most significant—further enhance the attractions of the region. Several of them contain deposits of mud and sulfurous hot springs believed to have therapeutic properties. The Danube delta too has become increasingly popular, because of the growing worldwide interest in ecology and conservation. Special features of interest to tourists include the mountain lakes and underground cave systems of the Carpathians and the fine churches and monasteries, with frescoes dating from the 14th to the 16th century, that are found in northern Moldavia. More generally, the folk costumes and the ancient folklore of Romanians, notably in the Carpathian Mountains, provide a reminder of the country’s long traditions.
Labour and taxation
Although high unemployment resulted from the collapse of communism, in the 1990s, as the number of people who migrated increased, a labour deficit arose in certain sectors of the economy, such as construction, agriculture, tourism, mechanical processing, and the clothing industry.
Women represent more than two-fifths of Romania’s labour force and generally work in retail, education, and health care. Child labour has been a problem in Romania, especially among Roma girls, with children generally working in agriculture, construction, and domestic service. Various child labourelimination laws were passed at the beginning of the 21st century; however, the problem still exists.
Among the hopeful signs that emerged in the 1990s was the growth of vigorous and independent labour unions as well as chambers of commerce and other nongovernmental organizations. Besides the Central Union of Consumer and Credit Cooperatives, a union of producers and credit institutions dating from the communist era, organizations appropriate to a private economy are emerging.
Romania has a wage tax, a corporate income tax, and a public finance tax. A value-added tax (VAT), a capital tax, and a global income tax also were implemented in the 1990s to attract foreign investment. A flat income tax at the corporate and individual level was introduced in 2004.
Transportation and telecommunications
Romania is located at a crossroads of European transport. Railways provide the main method of transportation for both freight and passengers in the country. There are good local rail connections with the main lines, including the two that cross the Danube, at Cernavodă (linking Bucharest with the Black Sea port of Constanța) and Giurgiu (connecting Romania with Bulgaria). Since the 1930s, diesel locomotives have been in service, and about one-third of the major lines have been electrified. Most of Romania’s system of national roads has been brought up to modern standards.
The main lines of communication tend to focus on Bucharest and include many scenic routes. The country has maritime connections with many countries, and the port of Constanƫa, which has undergone major expansion, plays a large role in the national economy. Finally, the Danube River, supplemented since 1984 by the Danube–Black Sea Canal from Cernavodă to Constanța, is a major transportation route between the Black Sea, the Middle East, and western Europe. The principal ports on the Danube are Drobeta-Turnu Severin, Calafat, Turnu Mǎgurle, Giurgiu, Calarași, Cernavodǎ, Brăila, Galați, Tulcea, and Sulina. Bucharest also is the main centre for air transportation. In addition to local travel, international traffic has grown in significance, and there are international airports in Constanța, Cluj-Napoca, Arad, Timișoara, and Sibiu. The great majority of flights by the Romanian national airline TAROM (derived from Transporturile Aeriene Române) are to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
Romania’s telecommunications sector was privatized in 2003. Within five years, the fixed-line market expanded substantially, and there was an increase in Internet availability. Romania has significantly more cellular phone subscriptions than people, which marks an exponential increase from 2000, when about one-tenth of Romanians subscribed to a cellular service.
Government And Society
Constitutional framework
Following the collapse of communism in 1989, a constituentassembly drafted a constitution that was approved by the Romanian parliament on November 21, 1991, and by referendum on December 8, 1991. This document established a bicameral parliament consisting of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate. Members of both houses are elected to four-year terms from each of the country’s administrative counties under a system of proportional representation: the number of seats allotted to each county is determined by the number of votes cast within the county, and the seats are divided among political parties according to their share of the vote. The president, who serves a five-year term, is elected directly by a popular vote. As commander of Romania’s armed forces and chairman of the Supreme Defense Council, the president has the power to declare martial law or national emergencies. Laws are approved by the majority vote of the members present in each chamber. In most cases, presidential decrees must be subsequently submitted for parliamentary approval and countersigned by the prime minister, who serves as the head of government. The president nominates (but cannot remove) the prime minister, who, along with the cabinet, is responsible for implementing the domestic and foreign policy of the state.
Local government
Romania is divided into 41 județ (counties) and the city of Bucharest. The central government appoints a prefect for each county who acts as the local representative for the national government. Mayors and community councils are directly elected by citizens.
Justice
The judicial system is headed by a Supreme Court of Justice, whose members are appointed by the president for six-year terms. Other elements include county courts, local courts (whose decisions may be appealed to county courts), and military courts. In the wake of Romania’s accession to the EU in 2007, judicial reform and anticorruption measures received renewed attention. In 2010 the EU published a report critical of the country’s faltering struggle against corruption, and it expressed concern about the record of the Romanian judiciary. Romania was one of only two members of the EU whose justice system continued to be closely monitored by the organization.
Political process
There is universal suffrage for all citizens age 18 and over. Before the 1989 revolution, the Communist Party of Romaniawas enshrined as the only legal political party and the leading force in Romanian society. The 1991 constitution replaced single-party rule with a democratic and pluralist system, but former communists have maintained prominence in politics through the formation of such parties as the Social Democratic Party (Partidul Social Democrat; PSD). Parties dating from before World War II have been revived, notably the National Liberal Party (Partidul Național Liberal; PNL) and the National Peasant Party (Partidul Național Țărănesc; PNT), which with smaller anticommunist parties formed the Democratic Convention of Romania (Convenția Democrată Română; CDR). The Democratic Liberal Party (Partidul Democrat-Liberal; PDL) emerged as a new centrist party in the early 21st century. There are also parties representing environmentalists, Romanian nationalists, Romania’s Hungarian minority, and the Roma.
Security
The Romanian police force is organized nationally under the Ministry of Administration and Interior. There is a national police force, a national gendarmerie (the military branch of the national police), and a border police force. Serious crimes are prosecuted by the Ministry of Justice.
Beginning in 1989, Romania sought to become part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In January 1994 it became the first eastern European country to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, but there was widespread disappointment in 1999 when Romania was denied entry into NATO. In preparation for membership, Romania, which occupies a strategic location on the Black Sea, was required to sign friendship treaties with its neighbours. Romanian troops were deployed to Afghanistan in 2002 as part of the International Security Assistance Force, and the following year Romania joined the U.S.-led coalition that occupied Iraq. In 2004 Romania was admitted to NATO.
Health and welfare
During communist rule, medical care was provided free by the state, and public funds were allotted also to pensions and health resorts for children and workers. The quality of medical service improved with the training of more doctors and the construction of hospitals in the main towns and as a result of the new drugs that became available from the country’s growing pharmaceutical industry. Since the early 1970s, life expectancy for Romanians has increased slightly; however, it is still lower than most other countries in central and eastern Europe, with the exception of most of the countries of the former Soviet Union. Medical services suffered from the austerity program of the 1980s, when priority was given to the repayment of foreign debts. The number of doctors and dentists per capita, which had risen rapidly from 1970 to 1985, failed to keep pace with the growth of population. Ancillarystaff actually decreased between 1985 and 1990. Medical treatment for the elderly was also restricted during the latter years of the Ceaușescu era.
Severe inflation, the difficulties of an economy in transition, and the government’s concomitant lack of resources to address the impoverished national health service greatly affected the health care system during the 1990s. The practice of giving underweight babies microtransfusions of unscreened blood resulted in large numbers of them testing positive for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), which causes AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). By the beginning of the 21st century, the transmission of the virus from mother to child was the main cause of the spread of the virus. This period also marked changes in the provision of health care, as private medical and pharmaceutical practices started to slowly emerge, though the majority of hospitals are still state-owned. A bill that would have increased privatization in the health care system was proposed in early 2012, but widespread protests led to the rescinding of the proposal and the collapse of the government of Prime Minister Emil Boc.
Under communist rule, in order to keep up population growth, abortion and contraception were made illegal, and large numbers of unwanted children were placed in orphanages. The appalling conditions in these orphanages attracted the attention of many international charities and adoption agencies; however, Romania’s lack of resources coupled with unclear policies and inconsistent legislation delayed a solution to the problem of Romanian orphans and street children. Since the 1990s the conditions have generally improved in Romania’s state-run orphanages (of which there were more than 200 in the early 21st century). Moreover, in 2004, as a way to end corruption in the system, the Romanian government passed a child welfare law prohibiting international adoption of Romanian orphans.
Housing
Since 1991 a significant number of new homes have been constructed throughout the country. Much of the housing boom was propelled by the emergence of a real-estate marketand an accumulation of wealth due to a free-market economy. Most of the income was spent on single family homes in the suburbs of Bucharest and on second homes and villas in rural areas. Typical housing for peasants in rural villages is a one- or two-room hut built of locally available materials: wood, stone, wattle, or mud with stucco covering.
Education
Throughout the communist period, education in Romania was strictly controlled by the state and reflected the country’s official socialist ideology. Following the revolution, private education was permitted, but it was largely restricted to higher education. Under the Ministry of Education, schooling is generally compulsory through age 16, and more than nine-tenths of the population is literate.
Higher education is provided by universities, polytechnical schools, vocational schools, and other institutes. University study traditionally lasts four to six years, depending on the particular discipline, and is modeled on the French system, with large lecture halls. Criticism of this system and interest in more student-teacher interaction attracted some students to the various private universities that were established after 1989. Nevertheless, most students attend state-run universities. The major Romanian universities are the University of Bucharest (1864), the Technical University of Iași (1937), and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (1948). The largest technical university in Romania is the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, founded in 1818 as the National School of Bridges, Roads, and Mines. Other polytechnic universities are found in the cities of Brașov, Craiova, Oradea, Suceava, and Timișoara. There are also public schools that cater to national minorities. The Babeș-Bolyai University (1956), in Cluj-Napoca, is a multicultural university, offering courses in Romanian, Hungarian, German, and Romany.
Cultural Life
Cultural milieu
Each geographic region in Romania has its own culture, which reflects and is the product of regional history. Transylvania and the Banat were ruled for many centuries by Austria and Hungary, and their architecture reflects Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque styles. Moldavia, in eastern Romania, has a culture that reflects its proximity to Ukraine and Russia, though traces of Tatar and other Central Asian influences have been identified in its folk art. The loggia, an open-air porch that evolved in the Mediterranean, was first incorporated into homes in Romania in Walachia. The region also traditionally absorbed influences from the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Middle East. The Hungarian, German, and Roma minorities, who are scattered throughout the country, maintain their own traditions, which are reflected in their folk arts, cuisine, and dress.
Romanian folk dancers performing at a folk festival
Daily life and social customs
Romanians’ lives are generally guided by the religious traditions to which they adhere. Thus, ethnic Romanians who follow the practices of Eastern Orthodoxy participate in elaborate customs and ceremonies during Holy Week and at Easter. The Hungarian and German minorities, who generally belong to the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, put a greater emphasis on the celebration of Christmas. The Hungarian and German communities also have traditional folk dress for both men and women that distinguishes them from ethnic Romanians and that is worn on special occasions. Among the ethnic Romanians, the folk costume has been tenaciously retained in the rural areas, and virtually every county has its own variant of colour and style. Silk, the weaving of which was long the occupation of peasant women in the south and southwest, has lent much to the beauty of local folk costumes, especially the richly embroidered blouses and head scarves.
Romanian cuisine owes much to Turkish and Greek cooking. Soups with meat, vegetables, and noodles, thick cabbage soup, pork stew with lots of garlic and onions, and stuffed cabbage leaves are all staple fare. Desserts include placinta (turnovers), saraille (an almond-flavoured cake covered in syrup), and baclava (a pastry made of thin layers of dough filled with nuts and topped with honey syrup). Moldavian wines and local beers are popular, and the potent palinca (a plum brandy) is usually served before dinner.
Romanian national holidays include the New Year (January 1 and 2), the Monday following Orthodox Easter, May 1, National Day (the day of Romanian unification with Transylvania, celebrated December 1), and Christmas Day. Mărțișor, on March 1, is the traditional celebration of the beginning of spring in Romania, when men offer women charms or other decorative objects tied with red and white ribbons, which are traditionally worn throughout the month.
The arts
Romanian culture offers a variety of forms of folk art that have survived years of outside interference and domination. Wood carvings, brightly ornamented costumes, skillfully woven carpets, pottery, and other elements of traditional Romanian culture remain popular and, with the growth of tourism, have become known internationally. Folk art is characterized by abstract or geometric designs and stylized representations of plants and animals. In embroidery and textiles, designs and colour schemes can be associated with particular regions of the country. Special folk arts of Romania include the decoration of highly ornamental Easter eggs and painting on glass, which sometimes includes religious icons.
Music remains an especially vibrant medium of expression in Romania. Major instruments are the cobza (a stringed instrument resembling a lute), the tambal (a hammered dulcimer), and the flaut (flute), which is the most common folk instrument. Other musical instruments played in Romania are the alphorn, bagpipes, a pear-shaped lute, and nai (panpipes). Energetic Roma songs are closely associated with this area of eastern Europe, and folksinging and dance festivals are popular throughout the country. Folk music includes dance music, laments known as doinas (which are unique to Romania), ballads, and pastoral music. Folk melodies are preserved in the music of modern Romanian composers such as Georges Enesco.
By the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, Romanian artists who were attracting international attention included poets Mihail Eminescu and Tudor Arghezi, storyteller Ion Creanga, painter Nicolae Grigorescu, and playwright Ion Luca Caragiale.
During and after World War II, many leading Romanian artists and intellectuals emigrated to elsewhere in Europe and to North America to escape oppression. Among them were playwright Eugène Ionesco; poet, essayist, and commentator Andrei Codrescu; philosopher Emil Cioran; writer and film director Petru Popescu; sculptor Constantin Brancusi; and historian of religion Mircea Eliade. Tristan Tzara, a Romanian-born French poet and essayist, is known as a founder of Dadaand wrote many of the first Dada texts.
Eminescu was the driving force behind a school of poetry that influenced Romanian writers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Ionesco, who gained fame while working in France, inaugurated the Theatre of the Absurd with his one-act “anti-play,” The Bald Soprano, which features his recurrent themes of self-estrangement and the difficulty of communication. Many literary works were based on Romanian ballads and folklore. Perhaps the best-known of these revolved around the vampire myth captured in the Bram Stoker novel Dracula(1897) and several later films on the subject. The character Count Dracula was based on Prince Vlad III (Vlad Țepeș [“the Impaler”]), who was the ruler of Walachia and built the fortress of Bucharest in the 13th century.
Romanian filmmaking dates to the turn of the 20th century, and the country’s first feature film, Independence of Romania, was made in 1912. The National Cinematographic Office was set up in the 1930s. Following World War II and the nationalization of the industry, three large studios were constructed (one for making feature films, one for documentaries, and another for animation), and in the following decades Romania produced many films. Several prominent Romanian directors, including Liviu Ciulei, Lucian Pintilie, and Andrei Serban, moved effortlessly between film and theatre. The expense involved in film production and the limited amount of government support after 1989, however, significantly reduced Romania’s film output in the 1990s.
In the early 21st century, filmmaking in Romania underwent a resurgence. Foreign productions began to make use of the extensive facilities developed at Castle Film Studios near Bucharest, and, following the international success of director Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), critics began trumpeting the “Romanian New Wave” in filmmaking. Other films by Romanian directors that were widely praised include Cătălin Mitulescu’s The Way I Spent the End of the World(2006), Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006), and Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) and Beyond the Hills (2012).
In the early years of the communist period, strident Socialist Realism was mandated for all the arts in Romania. By 1965 communist authorities had lifted certain restrictions, but no work that unabashedly criticized the regime was allowed; those who wished to enjoy full honours and privileges of citizenship rendered homage to the communist state and its leaders.
Romanian architecture stagnated during the communist period; its most famous structures were stale reproductions of the Soviet style referred to as “wedding cake,” or Stalinist Gothic. The best-known of these were the Casa Scînteii (“House of the Free Press,” constructed 1952–57) and the Palatul Parlamentului (“Palace of Parliament,” 1984–89), longtime communist ruler Nicolae Ceaușescu’s creation and one of the largest buildings in the world, requiring the clearing of large areas of downtown Bucharest.
By adopting the Soviet style, the Romanian government turned its back on two quite distinctive native Romanian architectural traditions. The first was a national style associated with the late 19th- and early 20th-century architects Ion Mincu and brothers Grigore Cerchez and Cristofi Cerchez, who modernized the 17th-century Brâncoveanu style, with its characteristic floral motifs and stone sculptures. The second tradition was that of interwar modernism, which flourished particularly in Bucharest and drew attention to the accomplishments of such architects as George Matei Cantacuzino, Horia Creanga, and Marcel Jancu. Buildings in this style include the Library of the Romanian Academy and the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest, along with the Hotel Bellona in Eforie.
Following the revolution of 1989, the Romanian state made no demands on its artists, but the confusion of the past and the difficulties of transition turned the attention of many intellectuals and artists away from the humanities and fine arts and toward history, journalism, economics, and political science.
Cultural institutions
The Romanian Ministry of Culture is responsible for the support and encouragement of cultural life and cultural institutions throughout the country. In the early years of the communist period, Romania’s cultural institutions were generously supported by the government as it sought to gain prestige and to maintain control of the arts. Later, however, when the Ceaușescu government focused on retiring the country’s international debt, such support diminished considerably. Following the 1989 revolution and the overall decline in the standard of living, Romanians had less discretionary income to spend on cultural activities. Moreover, with only limited government support, the performing arts struggled to find sources of funding in the private sector.
Bucharest is the cultural capital of Romania and is home to numerous theatres, of which the largest is the National Theatre. The city holds an annual theatre festival. Music is central to Bucharest’s cultural life; the city is home to an opera house as well as the George Enescu Philharmonia and the Romanian National Orchestra. Notable museums in Bucharest include the National Museum of Art of Romania (badly damaged by a fire in the 1989 revolution but since reopened), the National History Museum of Romania, the Grigore Antipa National Natural History Museum (named for Romania’s most illustrious naturalist), the Romanian Peasant Museum, and the open-air National Village Museum, which has assembled examples of peasant homes and other traditional buildings from throughout the country. Other large Romanian cities have their own regional history museums. The Brukental Museum in Sibiu (1817) houses the personal art collection and library of Baron Samuel von Brukental. The Museum of Natural History and Archaeology in Constanța has an important collection of Greek and Roman artifacts from the ancient city of Tomis (7th century BCE). In addition to subsidizing cultural institutions, the Romanian government awards scholarships and other grants to artists, composers, and writers.
Bucharest is home to the three largest libraries in the country: the National Library of Romania, the Central University Library of the University of Bucharest (damaged during the revolution but since restored), and the Library of the Romanian Academy. The Romanian Academy (founded in 1866 as the Romanian Literary Society) is renowned for preserving the Romanian language and culture and is responsible for coordinating the work of research institutes. The Academy’s seat is in Bucharest, but it also has branches in Iași, Cluj, and Timișoara.
Sports and recreation
The traditional Romanian sport is oina, which is played with a bat and a leather ball and resembles baseball. Football (soccer), however, is by far the country’s most popular sport, and all the big cities have stadiums and teams in the national professional league. The Romanian national team periodically has enjoyed international success, especially in the 1990s, when it was led by Georghe Hagi, one of the era’s finest European players. In general, Romanians participate in sports and recreation through membership in clubs, the most popular being dedicated to cycling, football, handball, tennis, rugby, and martial arts. Basketball, volleyball, handball, and skating are also popular.
Romania’s first Olympic appearance was at the 1924 Winter Games in Chamonix, France, and it was the only Warsaw Pactcountry to attend the boycotted 1984 Los Angeles Games. Romanian women have excelled in gymnastics, most notably Nadia Comăneci, who earned six medals at the 1974 Montreal Games, and Romanian men and women have performed well in various rowing events. Among the country’s other legendary athletes are Iolanda Balas, who dominated the women’s high jump during the late 1950s and the ’60s, and tennis player Ilie Nastase.
Romania’s busiest sporting and recreational regions are in the Carpathian Mountains and along the Black Sea coast. In summer, mountain areas attract rock climbers and hikers, and in winter they draw skiers and snowboarders. On the coast, the Danube delta attracts bird-watchers, and beaches are crowded during warm weather.
Media and publishing
Following the revolution, there was a rapid expansion of media representing a variety of regional and political interests. The economic decline of the 1990s caused many publications to cease production. Among Romania’s leading newspapers are Libertatea (“Freedom”) and Jurnalul Naţional (“National Journal”), both of which are published in Bucharest. Monitorul Oficial (“Official Monitor”) is the government newspaper. In-depth coverage of political news can be found in Evenimentul Zilei (“Events of the Day”). Adevărul (“The Truth”) replaced the former Communist Party paper in 1990. Numerous privately owned publishing houses emerged after 1990, but many became relatively inactive during the economic downturn, issuing only an occasional title. Publishing rebounded in the early 21st century but only to about one-fifth of its former level.
The Romanian Press Agency, known by its foreign acronymRompres, is the country’s official news service. Privately owned Media Fax was launched in 1991. There are also foreign news agencies that are based in Bucharest. Since the 1990s, state-run Romanian Radio and Television has faced competition from dozens of private radio and television channels. One of the most successful television outlets is PRO-TV, which airs international programs.
On the whole, Romanian media has received widespread criticism for being overly influenced by the government, and, indeed, there have been occasional incidents of politically motivated prosecution of journalists. The constitution upholds freedom of expression but prohibits defamation of the country and the government.Vasile S. CucuDavid TurnockErnest Latham
History
Antiquity
The Dacians
The Carpathian-Danube region in which the Romanian ethnic community evolved was settled about 2000 BCE by migratory Indo-Europeans who intermingled with native Neolithic (New Stone Age) peoples to form the Thracians. When Ionians and Dorians settled on the western shore of the Black Sea in the 7th century BCE, the Thracians’ descendants came into contact with the Greek world. The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BCE, called these people Getae (Getians). Together with kindred tribes, known later to the Romans as Dacians, who lived in the mountains north of the Danubian Plain and in the Transylvanian Basin, the Getae developed a distinct society and culture by the second half of the 4th century BCE.
The expansion of Rome into the Balkan Peninsula in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE decisively affected the evolution of the Geto-Dacians. To oppose the Roman advance, they revived their old tribal union under the leadership of Burebista(reigned 82–44 BCE). From its centre in the southern Carpathians, this union stretched from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and from the Balkan Mountains to Bohemia. It posed such a threat to Rome’s ascendancy in the peninsula that Julius Caesar was preparing to undertake a major campaign against the Geto-Dacians when he was assassinated in 44 BCE. In the same year, Burebista was also assassinated, by disgruntled tribal chiefs who opposed his centralizing rule. His imposing tribal union disappeared with him.
The final showdown between Rome and the Geto-Dacians came at the beginning of the 2nd century CE. By that time the Geto-Dacians had reconstituted a powerful state that, under their resourceful ruler, Decebalus, threatened Rome’s Danubian frontier. Geto-Dacian civilization was at its height, but its flourishing economy, prosperous cities, and bustling trade throughout southeastern Europe posed as great a challenge as its army to Rome’s ambitions in the region. To end the danger, the emperor Trajan mounted two campaigns between 101 and 106 CE to force Decebalus into submission. The Romans triumphed, and, with his state in ruin, Decebalus committed suicide.
Trajan's campaign in DaciaSarmatian and Roman cavalry at battle during Trajan's campaign in Dacia, relief from Trajan's Column, Rome
For more than a century and a half the Transylvanian Basin and the plain to the south constituted the Roman province of Dacia. Officials, soldiers, and merchants from all over the Roman world settled alongside the native Dacians. Although the population was ethnically diverse, Roman administration, numerous cities, and the Latin language brought about intense Romanization and rapid integration into the empire. Dacia, in turn, supplied the empire with grain and preciousmetals.
The constant pressure of migratory peoples on the long, exposed boundaries of Dacia led the emperor Aurelian to withdraw the Roman army and administration in 271–275. The upper classes and many urban dwellers followed, but the majority of the population, who lived in the countryside and were engaged in agriculture, stayed behind. Once again, the Danube became the frontier of the empire, although written and archaeological evidence points to continued trade and to the maintenance of military bases on the north bank of the river until the 6th century. In addition, during this period there was an intensified propagation of Christianity, which had been only sporadically present in old Dacia.
The fate of the Romanized, or Daco-Roman, population north of the Danube after Aurelian’s withdrawal has been a subject of great controversy. Many scholars, especially Hungarians, argue that Romanization in Dacia was, in fact, modest and that the later Romanian population living north of the Carpathians was not native to the region but migrated there from south of the Danube. Other scholars, including the majority of Romanians, insist that a substantial Romanized population maintained itself continuously in old Dacia and that the ethnogenesis of the Romanian people occurred precisely there. The account that follows expands upon the latter interpretation.
The Slavs
For nearly eight centuries after the withdrawal of the Roman administration and army, Dacia was overrun by a series of migratory peoples. The earliest of them—the Visigoths (275–376), the Huns (end of the 4th century to 454), and the Germanic Gepidae (454–567)—had little impact on the Daco-Roman population. But the Avars’ defeat of the Gepidae in 567 opened the way for a massive advance of Slavs into Dacia. Together with the Avars, the Slavs then broke through the Danube frontier of the Byzantine Empire in 602 and occupied much of the Balkan Peninsula. Now, for the first time since Trajan’s conquest, Dacia was cut off from the Roman (Byzantine) world.
The Slavs achieved political and social preeminence in Dacia in the 8th century, but even then they were undergoing assimilation by the more numerous Daco-Romans. Their position was enhanced in the 9th century when the rulers of the first Bulgarian empire extended their control over Dacia following Charlemagne’s crushing defeat of the Avars in 791–796. Local Slav chiefs apparently entered into a vassal relationship with the Bulgarian tsars, who, after the conversion of Boris I to Christianity in 864, served as religious and cultural intermediaries between Dacia and the Byzantine Empire.
Romanians and Hungarians
The ethnogenesis of the Romanian people was probably completed by the 10th century. The first stage, the Romanization of the Geto-Dacians, had now been followed by the second, the assimilation of the Slavs by the Daco-Romans.
Between the 10th and 14th centuries new political formations emerged in the Carpathian-Danube region. The Hungarians, who had settled in Pannonia at the end of the 9th century and who entered Dacia in the 10th century, overwhelmed the Slavic-Romanian duchies, or voivodates, that they encountered there. In the 11th century they made the territory north of the Carpathians, which was to become known as Transylvania, a part of the Hungarian kingdom. To the south a number of small voivodates coalesced by 1330 into the independent Romanian principality of Walachia, and to the east a second principality, Moldavia, achieved independence in 1359.
The Middle Ages
Between Turkey and Austria
Between the 14th and 18th centuries the Romanian principalities of Moldavia and Walachia evolved as part of the Eastern Orthodox religious and cultural world: their ecclesiastical allegiance was to the patriarchate of Constantinople; their princes emulated the Byzantineemperors and drew their written law from Byzantine codes; their economy was agrarian and their society rural; and their art and literature followed Eastern religious and didacticpatterns. Yet the Romanians also possessed qualities that set them apart from their neighbours and drew them westward: they spoke a language derived from Latin, and they recognized the Romans as their ancestors.
Nearly four centuries of Ottoman Turkish domination between the 15th and 19th centuries reinforced the Romanians’ attachment to the East. Hardly had the principalities achieved independence than they were forced to confront the relentless advance of Ottoman armies into southeastern Europe. By recognizing the suzerainty of the sultan and by paying him annual tribute, the Romanians avoided direct incorporation into the Ottoman Empire. The Romanians thus preserved their political institutions, laws, and social structure, and they avoided a massive settlement of Muslims onto their land.
The autonomy of the principalities was not seriously compromised until the beginning of the 18th century. The princes carried on their own foreign policy (although such action violated their formal vassal status), and they even joined anti-Turkish coalitions in order to throw off Ottoman domination. The reign of Michael the Brave of Walachia (1593–1601) marked the high point of Romanian autonomy. In order to help drive the Ottomans out of Europe, Michael adhered to the Holy League of European powers and the papacy; he thus regained full independence and even united Moldavia and Transylvania under his rule. But the breakup of the coalition ended his brief success, for the Romanians were too outnumbered to stand alone against the Ottomans.
The heaviest burden of Ottoman suzerainty was not political but economic. The tribute rose steadily, and demands for goods of all kinds—grain, sheep, and lumber, supplied at less than market value—knew no bounds. The Ottomans prized wheat especially, and by the end of the 16th century Constantinople had become dependent on supplies from the principalities.
Ottoman domination reached its height in the 18th century during what is generally known as the Phanariot regime. The Romanian principalities were now vital military bulwarks of the empire, as Russia and the Habsburg monarchy pressed relentlessly against its frontiers, and Ottoman officials decided to replace native princes with members of Greek or Hellenized families from the Phanar district of Constantinople who had amply demonstrated their loyalty to the sultan. As a consequence, the autonomy of the principalities was drastically curtailed, and the payment of tribute and the delivery of supplies rose precipitously. Greek influence in the church and in cultural life expanded, despite opposition from native boyars (nobles) and churchmen. Yet many of the Phanariot princes were capable and farsighted rulers: as prince of Walachia in 1746 and of Moldavia in 1749, Constantin Mavrocordat abolished serfdom, and Alexandru Ipsilanti of Walachia (reigned 1774–82) initiated extensive administrative and legal reforms. Alexandru’s enlightened reign, moreover, coincided with subtle shifts in economic and social life and with the emergence of new spiritual and intellectualaspirations that pointed to the West and to reform.
Society in Walachia and Moldavia
The political system in the principalities resembled an oligarchy rather than an absolute monarchy. The prince was indeed the central figure and exercised broad executive, legislative, and judicial powers. Yet his authority was not unlimited, for he depended on the boyars and the clergy for crucial material and moral support. The boyars sat in the highest councils of state and assisted the prince in governing and dispensing justice. The higher clergy shared these civil responsibilities, since a separation of church and state was still an alien idea. Nevertheless, despite the involvement of boyars and clergy in political life, representative institutions failed to develop—perhaps primarily because of the lack of cohesiveness among the boyars. Although they were able to impose a so-called boyar regime on the princes in the 17th century, they were unable to secure their predominance by a strong institutional base.
Society in the two principalities was rural. It was highly stratified, and social mobility was strictly limited. The great boyars, few in number, monopolized political and economic power, but the lesser boyars and myriad other groups enjoyed numerous privileges, especially exemptions from taxation. The mass of peasants bore the main burdens of society and received little from it in return. Merchants and artisans, organized in guilds in order to restrict competition and to ensure profits, lent urban life its particular air, but they found no place in the prince’s councils. Nor did they exercise self-government, because cities were the property of the crown.
The economies of the principalities rested upon agriculture. The estates of boyars and monasteries formed the superstructure of agricultural production, but the peasants, who worked the land in traditional ways, supplied the draft animals and tools and made fundamental decisions about what to raise and how. By the beginning of the 18th century, the majority of peasants had sunk to the level of serfs.
Romanians in Transylvania
Outside the principalities lay Transylvania, whose government and economy were dominated in the countryside by the Calvinist and Roman Catholic Hungarian nobility and in the cities by the Lutheran German-speaking Saxon upper class. A large Romanian population lived there also, but Romanians were excluded from public affairs and privileges because they were overwhelmingly peasant and Orthodox. Their fortunes improved when Transylvania was brought under the Habsburg crown at the end of the 17th century. In order to strengthen the Roman Catholic Church as a unifying force, Austrian officials and Jesuit missionaries persuaded a portion of the Romanian Orthodox clergy to accept a union with Rome in 1697–1700. In return for recognizing the pope as head of the Christian church and accepting a few minor changes in doctrine, Romanian clerics were promised a political and economic status equal to that of Roman Catholic priests.
Although the advantages promised the new Eastern rite Catholic, or Uniate, clergy by the union fell short of expectations, they did allow a vigorous, public-spirited Romanian intellectual elite to form under the guidance of Bishop Ion Inochentie Micu-Klein (in office 1729–51). In the second half of the 18th century, Micu-Klein’s disciples strove to achieve recognition of the Romanians as a constituent nation of Transylvania. They also elaborated a modern, ethnic idea of nationhood based on the theory of Roman origins and the continuous presence of the Daco-Romans in Dacia since Trajan’s conquest. It was to serve as the ideology of the Romanian national movement in the 19th century.
Nation building
Between the end of the 18th century and World War I, the Romanians turned away from the East and toward the West. Commercial exchanges and foreign investment expanded, and the penetration of Western ideas and institutions obliged Romanian politicians and intellectuals to consider new models of development.
The united Romanian principalities after 1859
The growing role of Russia
The immediate objective of Romanian boyars—the traditional leaders of society—was independence. In the last quarter of the 18th century, success seemed near, as Russia, in the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774), gained the right to protect the Orthodox Christians of the Ottoman Empire. As a result, Russian influence in the principalities increased; but the boyars were reluctant simply to exchange Ottoman for Russian domination, and they were dismayed by Russia’s annexation of the Moldavian region of Bessarabia in 1812.
The international crisis caused by the War of Greek Independence had important repercussions in Moldavia and Walachia. Because all Greeks were now suspect, the Ottomans abolished the Phanariot regime and restored the native Romanian princes. Another consequence was Russian dominance in the principalities. The Treaty of Adrianople (Treaty of Edirne) of 1829, which ended another Russo-Turkish war, established a virtual Russian protectorate over the principalities and reduced Ottoman suzerainty to a few legal formalities. Paradoxically, the treaty also raised a challenge to Russian hegemony by abolishing the Ottomans’ commercial monopoly and opening the principalities to the international market.
The Russian protectorate, despite a promising beginning—notably the promulgation of constitutions, which brought unaccustomed order to government administration—increased Romanian resentment of Russia. Liberal, Western-educated boyars demanded political reform and an end to foreign domination, which kept authoritarian princes in power. Many of these boyars and other intellectuals formed the vanguard of the revolutionaries of 1848. Responding enthusiastically to the overthrow of conservative regimes in Paris and Vienna, they drafted liberal constitutions and proclaimed their intention to form governments that would be responsive to the economic and social needs of the common people. But they lacked a mass following and an organization, and they relied too heavily on the power of ideas to bring about social change. In Moldavia the prince quickly put down their agitation for reform, but in Walachia more-radical “forty-eighters” established a provisional government to carry out reform and prevent foreign intervention. Despite desperate efforts, they failed to gain support from France and Great Britain, and in September 1848 a Russian army occupied Bucharest and dispersed the provisional government.
Independence
In the 1850s forty-eighters led the struggle for the union of Moldavia and Walachia, which they regarded as an essential preliminary to independence. This time they had the support of the western European Great Powers. The victory of the European allies over Russia in the Crimean War brought an end to that country’s domination of the principalities and placed them under the collective tutelage of the West. The powers stopped short of recognizing the union of the principalities or their independence, but the Romanians themselves settled the matter of union by electing the same man, Alexandru Cuza, as prince in both Moldavia and Walachia in 1859.
The reign of Cuza, a forty-eighter, was a crucial stage in the achievement of independent statehood. He brought about the administrative union of the principalities in 1861 and initiated an ambitious program of political and social reform, which culminated in 1864 in an extension of the franchise, the enactment of land reform, and the promulgation of a new constitution that assured the prince’s predominance in government. He also promulgated legislation that diminished the role of the Orthodox clergy in civil affairs, thereby contributing to the secularization of Romanian society. By initiating these changes on his own authority before seeking permission from his nominal suzerain, the Ottoman sultan, Cuza asserted the de facto independence of Romania, as the united principalities were now known. But his authoritarian methods made many enemies, and these foes united in 1866 to force his abdication.
The reign of Cuza’s successor, Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (prince, 1866–81; King Carol I, 1881–1914), coincided with new achievements in nation building: a constitution, based in large part on Western models, was promulgated in 1866; political groupings coalesced into two major political parties, the Liberal and the Conservative, which were the primary engines of political life until World War I; and formal independence was achieved through participation in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. In order to enhance his country’s and his own prestige, Carol obtained the Great Powers’ formal recognition of Romania as a kingdom in 1881.
During Carol’s reign the main features of the Romanian parliamentary system were defined. The king himself was the key figure in both domestic and foreign policy. A relatively small political class shared power with him, and a narrow franchise excluded the mass of the population from direct participation in political life. Yet freedom of the press and of association were generally respected, and this allowed the opposition ample scope to air its views.
Carol’s main objective in foreign policy (shared by the majority of Liberal and Conservative leaders) was to make Romania a regional power and an indispensable ally of the Great Powers in maintaining international stability, thereby guaranteeing his kingdom’s security and vital interests. To this end Carol and a small number of ministers made Romania a member of the Triple Alliance in 1883. The primary attraction was Germany, whose military and economic power they admired and hoped to use as protection against Russia. But the majority of Romanians were sympathetic to France, and for this reason the treaty was kept secret. Also, Romania’s adherence to the Triple Alliance was under constant strain because of friction with Germany’s partner, Austria-Hungary.
By 1900 the primary issue in dispute between Romania and Austria-Hungary had become the Hungarian government’s policy of assimilating the Romanians of Transylvania. To achieve this goal, Budapest restricted the use of the Romanian language in education and public affairs and diminished the autonomy of the Orthodox and Uniate churches—the principal Romanian cultural bulwarks. The Hungarians also rejected Romanian demands for collective political rights as a nationality, while the Romanians resisted integration into a Hungarian national state. Compromise proved impossible, for both sides were convinced that ethnic survival itself was at stake.
Romanian society: between tradition and modernity
The traditional structures of Romanian society remained largely intact during this period. The great majority of people continued to live in the countryside. The large landowners, although small in number, exercised enormous political and economic power through the Conservative Party. The peasantry formed the broad base of the rural population. At the top was a narrow stratum of well-off peasants, whose relatively comfortable circumstances contrasted sharply with the condition of the landless and other poor at the bottom of the scale; in between lay the bulk of peasants, who lived out precarious existences. In the cities a middle class of industrialists, bankers, and professionals rose to political and economic prominence and, through the Liberal Party, challenged the great landowners for leadership of the nation.
Agriculture remained the foundation of the national economy and provided the majority of the population with its livelihood. Agricultural production grew but, because of obsolete methods and tools, at a lower rate than the increase in land brought under cultivation. By the end of the century both landlords and peasants had become dependent on the raising of grain, especially wheat, for export and had thus exposed themselves to the vagaries of the international market. In 1907 harsh working and living conditions led to a massive peasant uprising; the deaths of many peasants gave a powerful impetus to reform, but change came slowly.
Other branches of the economy were experiencing more significant changes. Beginning in the 1880s, industry, which benefited from government protection and foreign capital, supplied an increasing quantity of consumer goods. Yet by 1914 it still lacked such crucial elements of a modern industrial base as metallurgy. Foreign trade expanded, especially with Germany and Austria-Hungary, and was characteristic of underdevelopment in consisting of exports of agricultural products and raw materials and imports of manufactured goods. Accompanying this accelerated economic growth were the reorganization of financial structures—notably the foundation of large private banks and of the National Bank of Romania in 1880 as the coordinator of financial policy—and a major expansion of the railroad and highway networks.
Romanian intellectuals observed with mixed feelings the course of development that their country had taken since the early decades of the 19th century. Titu Maiorescu, the leading literary critic of the second half of the 19th century, spoke for the influential Conservative group Junimea (Youth) when he criticized the Romanians’ sharp “deviation” from an agrarian past and ascribed to it the “contradictions” of contemporary Romanian society. Constantin Stere, the chief theorist of Romanian populism, argued at the turn of the century that Romania could become a prosperous, modern state by following the “laws” of development specific to agrarian societies. But others, such as the Liberal economist Petre Aurelian, who promoted industrialization, insisted that Romania must follow the Western model to become strong and secure.
Greater Romania
New lands and peoples
World War I proved decisive in the development of modern Romania. In 1916 the country entered the war on the Allied side in return for French and British promises of territory (in particular Transylvania) and a steady supply of war matériel through Russia. But the war went badly, and by the end of the year the Romanian army and government had been driven back into Moldavia. The Russian Revolution cut Romania off from all Allied assistance and forced it to conclude a separate peace with the Central Powers in May 1918. Upon the Central Powers’ collapse later that year, Romania reentered the war in time to gain a victor’s place at the Paris Peace Conference. But victory had come at the cost of enormous human and material destruction.
Greater Romania after World War I.
As a result of the war, Greater Romania—the expanded nation-state encompassing the majority of Romanians—came into being. Through the acquisition of Transylvania and the Banatfrom Hungary, Bukovina from Austria, and Bessarabia from Russia, the country’s territory was doubled. Romania’s population also doubled to more than 16 million—and it now included substantial minorities, particularly Hungarians in Transylvania and Jews in Bessarabia, which raised the non-Romanian population to almost 30 percent of the total.
The majority of Hungarians chose to stay in Transylvania rather than emigrate to Hungary, so in 1930 they formed 31 percent of the population of the province. Nonetheless, they strove to preserve their ethnic and cultural distinctiveness and resisted integration into Greater Romanian society. The Romanian government—and Romanians generally—remained wary of Hungarian irredentism, the centre of which, they were certain, was Budapest, and they rejected demands from the Hungarians in Transylvania for political autonomy. The German-speaking Saxons, 7.7 percent of the population of Transylvania in 1930, were also eager to maintain their ethnic separateness in the face of Romanian nation building, and, to a certain extent, they succeeded at the local level. The Jewishcommunity, 4.2 percent of the country’s population in 1930, was subject to discrimination, as anti-Semitism had adherents in all social classes—although acts of violence were rare until the outbreak of World War II.
From democracy to dictatorship
The fundamental political issue in interwar Romania was the struggle between parliamentary government and authoritarianism. In the 1920s the prospects for democracyseemed bright, for the two strongest parties supported representative institutions. The Liberal Party, the dominant political force of the decade, sponsored a revision of the constitution in 1923 that protected middle-class political and economic values. The National Peasant Party was headed by the recognized pillar of Romanian democracy, Iuliu Maniu. Its overwhelming victory in the elections of 1928, the freest in Romanian history until the 1990s, was the high point of Romanian democracy.
Iuliu Maniu.German Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv)
Two events boded ill for the future of democracy: the accession of Carol II to the throne in 1930 and the world economic depression. The new king had a disdain for democracy and intended to make himself the “decisive force” in national affairs. He was aided by the collapse of agricultural prices and widespread unemployment, which undermined confidence in democratic government and encouraged many to seek salvation in extremist politics. Some joined the Iron Guard, the most-successful political movement on the far right, which propounded a mixture of nationalism, Orthodox spirituality, and anti-Semitism. Few Romanians were attracted to the Romanian Communist Party; outlawed in 1924, it carried on a precarious existence because of its subordination to the Soviet Communist Party, its antinationalist stance, and its neglect of peasant interests. Carol’s solution to the country’s problems was to proclaim a royal dictatorship in 1938 and to dissolve all political parties.
Carol II
In foreign policy the primary objective of all interwar Romanian governments was to protect the frontiers of Greater Romania. Eager advocates of the principle of collective security and staunch defenders of the international system constructed by the treaties of Paris, they helped to form regional alliances (notably the Little Entente in 1921 and the Balkan Entente in 1934) and adhered to international peace and disarmament conventions. But they saw in France and Britain the chief guarantors of the postwar international order.
The foundations of this foreign policy were gradually undermined in the 1930s. Faith in France and Britain was shaken by the indifference of those two countries to the economic plight of Romania during the Great Depression and by their failure to counteract Germany’s repeated violations of the Treaty of Versailles. Relations with the Soviet Unioncontinued to be strained over Bessarabia, and even the resumption of diplomatic relations in 1934 did not relieve Romanian politicians of the fear of attack. They looked to Germany for protection, but to no avail. The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of August 23, 1939, and the defeat of France in June 1940 deprived Romania of Great Power support. Between June and September 1940 the Soviet Union took Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, Hungary took northern Transylvania, and Bulgaria took the southern Dobruja. King Carol’s dictatorship could not survive the catastrophe, and he was forced to abdicate on September 6.
Shifts in society and economy
Romanian society and economy between the wars offered striking contrasts between persistent underdevelopment and burgeoning, if uneven, industrialization and urbanization. Massive land reforms, undertaken in 1918–21, transferred 15 million acres (6 million hectares) from large landowners to smallholders, thus reinforcing peasant agriculture. Geared to the raising of grain for export, it was inefficient in organization and primitive in technology and could not keep up with overpopulation and crushing debt. Meanwhile, industry registered impressive increases in steel, coal, and oil production. By 1939 almost all domestic needs for food, textiles, and chemicals could be met by domestic producers, but Romanian industry could not yet provide all the technology and machines necessary for its own continued growth.
The state expanded its role as a coordinator of the economy, thanks mainly to the Liberals, who were eager to build a strong economy and thereby consolidate the new nation-state. Convinced that the era of classical economic liberalism had passed, the Liberals were committed to a directed economy based on systematic organization and well-defined goals. They focused their attention on industry as the most certain way of bringing Romania into the modern world and provided favoured industries with numerous advantages, including direct financing. The Liberals were also economic nationalists who were anxious to avoid economic subordination to foreigners. But they were also realists: knowing that domestic capital was inadequate for their purposes, they cultivated good relations with the Western powers, which controlled international commerce and financial markets.
The structure of Romanian society continued to follow prewar patterns. The population grew steadily, because of a high birth rate in rural areas, but the mortality rate, especially among children, also remained high. The majority of the population continued to live in the countryside and to depend on agriculture as their primary source of income. Social differentiation, one of the consequences of growing capitalist relations, sharpened the distinction between well-off peasants and the majority of smallholders, who lived on the edge of poverty. The great landowners as a class had disappeared with the postwar land reforms, and their place was taken by a gentry that was largely middle-class in outlook. Romanian society as a whole was becoming more urban, as the number and size of cities increased and their role in the national economy expanded. Bucharest, by far the largest city, occupied a special place as the capital and as the industrial, financial, and cultural centre of the country. It was from there that the middle class, which had now come into its own, exercised its immense economic and political power.
Among social theorists and politicians, the prewar debate over national identity and over models of development intensified with the creation of Greater Romania. The “Europeanists,” such as the literary critic Eugen Lovinescu, saw no alternative to the Western model, since Europe intellectually was drawing closer together. On the opposite side were the “traditionalists”—for example, the journalist and theologian Nichifor Crainic—who insisted that the country remain true to its Eastern Orthodox spiritual heritage. In between stood the economist Virgil Madgearu, who advocated a “third way” of development, neither capitalist nor collectivist but rooted in small-scale peasant agriculture.
World War II
Theories of development became academic during World War II. In September 1940 General Ion Antonescu forced Carol II to abdicate, and Antonescu and the Iron Guard established an authoritarian National Legionary State. Never a member of the Guard, Antonescu nonetheless intended to use its popularity to rally support for the new regime. Yet, despite their shared contempt for democratic institutions, these new partners were incompatible. Antonescu stood for order, while the Guard shunned economic and social planning. Mutual hostility culminated in open war in January 1941. Antonescu, supported by the army, was victorious and destroyed the Guard as a significant political force. For the next three and a half years he ruled the country as a military dictator.
Antonescu, IonIon Antonescu (right) with Joachim von Ribbentrop, 1943.German Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv), Bild 183-B23201, photograph: Laux
Antonescu based his foreign policy on an alliance with Germany, which he was certain would win the war. In June 1941 he (and the majority of Romanians) joined enthusiastically in the German invasion of the Soviet Union in order to gain back Bessarabia and northern Bukovina and to end the Soviet threat once and for all. But Antonescu showed little restraint in committing Romanian manpower and resources to the German war effort, for he expected thereby to recover northern Transylvania. The consequences proved disastrous, and after the Battle of Stalingrad he lost hope that Germany would win the war.
The main concern of both Antonescu and the democratic opposition, led by Iuliu Maniu, was to avoid being overrun by the Red Army. But complex negotiations between Maniu and the Western Allies in 1944, which were intended to allow Romania to surrender to the West, obliged the Romanians instead to deal directly with the Soviet Union. As Antonescu clung desperately to the German alliance, Maniu and King Michael, who had succeeded his father, Carol II, took the initiative in overthrowing the dictatorship on August 23 and in establishing a new government committed to the Allied war effort against Germany. The occupation of Bucharest by the Red Army a week later marked the beginning of a new era in Romanian history.
Michael
Communist Romania
The seizure of power
During the three years after the overthrow of Antonescu, a struggle for power took place between the democratic parties, which held fast to the Western political tradition, and the Communist Party, which was committed to the Soviet model. The communists, though they had few supporters, came to power in the spring of 1945 because the Soviet Union had intervened forcefully on their behalf. The decisive factor was the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s approval of a seizure of power, which he gave during a visit to Moscow in January 1945 by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, the leader of the so-called “native” faction of the party (composed mainly of ethnic Romanians), and Ana Pauker, who headed the “Muscovites” (those who had spent their careers mainly in the Soviet Union and were not ethnic Romanians). Extraordinary pressure by Soviet authorities forced King Michael to appoint a procommunist government led by the fellow-traveler Petru Groza on March 6.
Romania after World War II
Between the installation of the Groza government and the parliamentary elections in November 1946, the Communist Party used its control of the security apparatus and other key government agencies to suppress the opposition. The democratic forces were led by Maniu, the National Peasant Party leader. Maniu had the king as an ally, but he despaired of success without vigorous intervention by the American and British governments. These indeed protested the communists’ tactics, but, when they officially recognized the Groza government in February 1946 in return for the promise of early elections, they gave up any remaining leverage they might have had. The communists postponed the elections because they lacked adequate support among the population and needed more time to cripple the opposition. When elections finally took place on November 19, 1946, the official tally gave about 80 percent of the vote to the communists and their allies, but strong evidence indicates that the results were falsified in order to hide a substantial victory by the National Peasants.
The year 1947 was the final year of modern Romania: liberal political and economic structures and individualist mentalities nurtured during the preceding century gave way to a collectivist model of development and an alien ideology. With the signing of a peace treaty in February 1947 that ratified the terms of the 1944 armistice and returned northern Transylvaniato Romania, Western influence in the country came to an end. The Communist Party proceeded to eliminate the remaining opposition in a campaign that culminated in show trials and the condemnation of Maniu and other democratic leaders to long prison terms. The final act was the forced abdication of King Michael and the proclamation of the Romanian People’s Republic on December 30, 1947. The communists were now able to accelerate the Sovietization of public life, which was to result in an isolation from the West far more complete than that which the Romanians had experienced at the height of Ottoman domination.
Imposition of the Soviet model
From 1948 to about 1960, communist leaders laid the foundations of a totalitarian regime. They provided themselves with a formal political structure in 1948 by adopting a Soviet-style constitution that reserved ultimate authority for the party. Governmental institutions served merely as the machinery to carry out party decisions. The party also established the Securitate, the centrepiece of a vast security network. It dissolved private organizations of all kinds and severely curtailed the ability of churches to perform their spiritual and educational tasks. In their place, and mainly in order to mobilize public opinion, it created mass organizations in every sphere of activity. A further step in the consolidation of power was the purge of Pauker and the Muscovites by Gheorghiu-Dej in 1952.
In reordering the Romanian economy, the party adopted Stalinist principles: rigid central planning and direction, as well as emphasis on heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods. It also undertook the forcible collectivization of agriculture, a campaign completed in 1962.
In cultural and intellectual life, the communists expected Romanian artists and writers to subordinate their creativity to party directives and to contribute works that were relevant to contemporary society. A particular aspect of Romanian cultural life in the 1950s was Sovietization, or Russification. Soviet accomplishments in all fields were held up as models to be emulated, and a massive effort was undertaken to make Russian the second language for Romanians. This campaign, however, failed to wean the Romanians from their Western sympathies and instead intensified their traditional Russophobia.
The Soviet Union formalized its domination of Romanian affairs through various devices: Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), created in 1949 to coordinate economic activity within the Soviet bloc; the Warsaw Treaty Organization (or Warsaw Pact), formed in 1955 to counteract the Western allies’ North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); and Soviet “advisers” throughout the Romanian party and government. Integration into the Soviet sphere was evident in Romania’s unstinting support of Soviet foreign policy.
National communism
The decade of the 1960s brought a period of relaxation at home and defiance of the Soviet Union in international relations. Although no genuine political liberalization took place and there was no retreat from the fundamentals of the Stalinist economic model, the intrusiveness of the regime in individual lives was curtailed. The availability of consumer goods and housing improved, and such social services as health care, education, and pensions—all positive accomplishments of the communist regime—became more generous. Change was especially evident in cultural and intellectual life, as scholars were permitted to broaden the scope of their research, and writers dealt with subjects that previously had been forbidden. A notable innovation was the flourishing of cultural exchanges with the United States and Europe, which signaled the resumption of old ties with the West and an end to Russification.
The source of this relaxation lay in the emergence of Romanian national communism, which was accompanied and in part stimulated by growing friction with the Soviet Union. Strains in the relations between Gheorghiu-Dej and Soviet party leaders came to the surface in the late 1950s. Gheorghiu-Dej feared that the de-Stalinization campaign launched by the new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, might force him from power, since he had been (and continued to be) one of the most rigid of Stalinists. But he also objected to Khrushchev’s insistence that Romania abandon its headlong drive to industrialize and, instead, accept the more modest role of supplier of agricultural products and raw materials to the designated “industrial powers” of Comecon. Tension between the two leaders culminated in a so-called “declaration of independence” by the Romanian Communist Party in 1964.
After Gheorghiu-Dej’s death in 1965, his successor as head of the party, Nicolae Ceaușescu, redoubled efforts to lessen the country’s dependence on the Soviet Union. Ceaușescu sought to expand economic relations with the West and skillfully played on the widespread anti-Soviet sentiments of the population in order to mobilize support for the Romanian party. The high point of his “independent” foreign policy was his denunciation of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Nicolae Ceaușescu
The reaction of Soviet leaders to Romania’s “independence” was relatively benign. Ceaușescu’s challenges—even his refusal to allow Warsaw Pact maneuvers on Romanian territory and his stubborn opposition to the economic division of labourwithin Comecon—did not seem to them dangerous enough to require military intervention. They calculated, correctly, that Ceaușescu knew the limits of defiance. Especially reassuring for them was Ceaușescu’s contempt for Western institutions and values, his maintenance of the party’s monopoly of power, and his continued membership in the Warsaw Pact.
In domestic affairs, Ceaușescu brought the period of relaxation to an end with his July Theses of 1971, in which he demanded a return to rigid ideological orthodoxy and reasserted the leading role of the party. In the nearly two decades of “neo-Stalinism” that followed, the Communist Party intensified its control of mass organizations and intruded more deeply than ever before into the daily lives of citizens. Ceaușescu promoted a cult of personality that was unprecedented in Romanian history and that served as the foundation of a dictatorship which knew no limits. To prevent the emergence of other power centres, he continually rotated officials in both the party and the government and relied increasingly on members of his family (notably his wife, Elena) to fill key positions. In an effort to pay off the large foreign debt that his government had accumulated through mismanaged industrial ventures in the 1970s, Ceaușescu in 1982 ordered the export of much of the country’s agricultural and industrial production. The resulting extreme shortages of food, fuel, energy, medicines, and other basic necessities drastically lowered living standards and intensified unrest.
His adherence to the Stalinist economic model had disastrous consequences: both industry and agriculture fell into disarray, and the standard of living steadily deteriorated. In foreign affairs, the West withdrew the financial credits and commercial advantages that it had earlier granted to Romania as a reward for its independence, and, in order to keep the economy afloat, Ceaușescu was obliged to turn once again to the Soviet Union. This act was doubly painful for him, because it not only increased his dependence on an old antagonist but also occurred at a time when its new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, was promoting reform—a course utterly abhorrent to Ceaușescu.
Among Ceaușescu’s grandiose and impractical schemes was a plan to bulldoze thousands of Romania’s villages and move their residents into so-called agrotechnical centres. As economic and political conditions deteriorated, the position of Romania’s minorities became increasingly precarious. The regime sought to weaken community solidarity among the Hungarians of Transylvania by curtailing education and publication in their own language and by promoting the immigration of Romanians into cities with large Hungarianpopulations. The Hungarians feared especially an extension to their rural communities of Ceaușescu’s “village systematization” campaign, which had as its primary objective the destruction of the peasantry as a distinct social class and had already caused the leveling of numerous Romanian villages. The Saxon and the Jewish communities, on the other hand, ceased to be significant political problems for the regime. Both had suffered heavy losses as a result of World War II, and afterward their numbers steadily declined through emigration—the Saxons to West Germany and the Jews to Israel.
Collapse of communism
The revolution of 1989
By the late 1980s, Ceaușescu had transformed Romania into a police state. Institutions and organizations, even the Communist Party itself, had been eviscerated and had become mere instruments for carrying out his will. The Securitate had become the chief prop of his rule. Physical hardship and moraldespair overwhelmed the society. Yet the Ceaușescu dictatorship, which had come to seem unassailable, was overthrown in the course of a single week in 1989.
The uprising that led to Ceaușescu’s downfall began with minor incidents in the Transylvanian city of Timişoara starting on December 16. The following day Ceaușescu ordered his security forces to fire on antigovernment demonstrators there. The demonstrations spread to Bucharest, and on December 22 the Romanian army went over to the demonstrators’ side. That same day Ceaușescu and his wife fled the capital in a helicopter but were captured and taken into custody by the armed forces. On December 25 the couple was hurriedly tried and convicted by a special military tribunal on charges of mass murder and other crimes. They were executed that day. No formal dissolution of the Communist Party took place; it simply melted away.
The Romanian “revolution” of 1989 appears to have been a combination of spontaneous uprising by the general populace and conspiracy against Ceaușescu organized by reform communists and disaffected elements of the Securitate and army. A loose coalition of groups opposed to Ceaușescu quickly formed the National Salvation Front (NSF) to lead the country through the transition from communism to democracy, but, by the spring of 1990, fundamental differences had arisen within this group over the direction and pace of change. Those who favoured the removal of all former communists from positions of authority and the rapid introduction of a free-market economy left the NSF. Those who remained—the majority of them former communists—transformed the NSF into a political party that showed little enthusiasm for Western economic practices.
In elections held in May 1990, the NSF won handily, in part because of its control of the media and in part because of the failure of the opposition to mount an effective campaign. The opposition consisted of reconstituted National Peasant and Liberal parties, but these were led by returned émigrés whose programs harked back to the interwar period and seemed foreign to the mass of voters. To counter their anticommunist appeal, the NSF raised the spectre of unemployment and inflation, which they claimed would run rampant in Romania if the opposition came to power; they also promised to protect the social benefits put in place during the communist era.
The NSF assumed formal direction of the country with the inauguration of its head, Ion Iliescu, as president on June 20, 1990. An advocate of state direction of the economy before 1989, Iliescu, as president, remained wary of private enterprise and the move toward a free market. Disagreement over the pace of economic reform caused the NSF itself to break apart, and Iliescu’s supporters formed the Democratic National Salvation Front (DNSF). The party maintained its political dominance, as evidenced by its successes in parliamentary and presidential elections held in September and October 1992, in which Iliescu was reelected and his party emerged as the largest in the parliament. A loose coalition of opposition parties, the Democratic Convention, also made a significant showing.
New constitution
The approval by referendum of a new constitution on December 8, 1991, setting up a democratic republic, had given promise of political stability. Nonetheless, grave problems beset the new government. Particularly troublesome was a resurgence of nationalism, which exacerbated relations between Romanians and Hungarians in Transylvania and encouraged the rise of ultranationalist organizations. But the most intractable problem of all remained the economy. The loss of markets following the collapse in 1991 of Comecon(whose members received the bulk of Romania’s exports) and an inability to find new markets in western Europe had catastrophic consequences for an economy already undermined by several decades of mismanagement and inefficiency under Ceaușescu.
Little progress was made between 1991 and 1996 in solving the pressing economic problems left over from the Ceaușescu era. The elections of 1992 brought no significant political change, and the country continued to be governed by Iliescu and former communists. In a sense, they governed by default, because in the 1940s and early 1950s the noncommunist political class had been destroyed or forced into exile. Yet democracy prevailed as party politics returned to something like the give-and-take of the interwar years, and a variety of opinions could be expressed in a diverse newspaper press and even on television and radio, where government influence was strong.
Iliescu pursued closer relations with western Europe, and in November 1992 his government introduced the economic reforms, including price liberalization, recommended by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to bring Romania in line with other emerging market economies. The result was soaring inflation (reaching about 300 percent) and rising unemployment. Deteriorating living conditions, mounting corruption, and the inability of the DNSF—renamed the Party of Social Democracy in Romania (Partidul Democrației Sociale din România; PDSR) in 1993—to revive the economy and ensure essential social services led to widespread unrest and strikes. In 1996 Iliescu lost the presidency to Emil Constantinescu, the leader of the Democratic Convention of Romania (Convenția Democrată din România; CDR), whose party had formed a centre-right coalition with the Social Democratic Union (Uniunea Social Democrată; USD) and the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (Uniunea Democrată a Maghiarilor din România; UDMR). In 1997 the former monarch Michael, whom the communists had forced to abdicate in 1947, returned to Romania after 50 years in exile.
Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea quickly sought to restructure and privatize the economy, and the new government had some success in alleviating tensions between Romanians and Hungarians. However, continued economic recession—the economy contracted by more than 15 percent between 1996 and 2000—and corruption led to a collapse of support for the CDR. As a result, Iliescu was returned to power in the elections of 2000. The following year, the ruling PDSR was reorganized as the Social Democratic Party (Partidul Social Democrat; PSD). In 2004 it was ousted from power by another centre-right coalition of parties, including the Democratic Party (Partidul Democrat; PD), whose Traian Băsescu was elected president.
Keith Arnold Hitchins
In the first years of the 21st century, gross domestic product(GDP) began showing positive growth, inflation fell, and privatization was accelerated. In March 2004 Romania entered the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and in January 2007 it joined the European Union (EU).
In the spring of 2007 the Romanian parliament voted to impeach President Băsescu, but the result of a subsequent referendum allowed him to remain in office. Parliamentary elections in 2008 resulted in a near tie between the leftist PSD and the Democratic Liberal Party (Partidul Democrat-Liberal; PDL), Băsescu’s new centrist party; the two parties formed a centre-left coalition government that December. This government lasted only until October 2009, when the PSD left the coalition in protest over the dismissal of a PSD member from a ministerial post. With a caretaker government still in place, no clear winner emerged in the country’s presidential election in November 2009. In a runoff election held the following month, Băsescu won the vote by less than a percentage point, prompting runner-up Mircea Geoană of the PSD to contest the results in court. Romania’s ConstitutionalCourt subsequently ruled in favour of Băsescu, who took office in December. The president asked Emil Boc, who had been heading the caretaker government, to continue serving as prime minister, this time at the helm of a new coalition government comprising the PDL and the Democratic Allianceof Hungarians in Romania.
Băsescu, TraianRomanian Pres. Traian Băsescu waving his country's flag in front of a crowd of supporters on December 6, 2009
Discontent with the government simmered throughout 2010 as Boc implemented a series of austerity measures that were required as a condition of a €20 billion ($26 billion) loan that was granted in 2009 by the EU, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Sales tax was increased to 24 percent, and the salaries of public workers were cut by one-fourth. As the euro zone struggled with an ongoing public debt crisis, Romania’s economy continued to falter, and in February 2011 the EU and the IMF granted the government an additional €5 billion ($6.8 billion) line of credit. In return, the government pledged to accelerate privatization plans for state-owned enterprises. However, a scheme to partially privatize emergency health care services proved to be the tipping point for many Romanians. In January 2012 Raed Arafat, a popular health minister, resigned over the matter, and violent street protests left more than 50 people injured. Arafat was ultimately reinstated in his position, but by that time the demonstrations had begun to focus on wider issues related to the government’s austerity program, its perceived corruption, and its apparent disconnect from the Romanian people. As protests continued in the streets of Bucharest, Adrian Nastase, a former prime minister (2000–04), was sentenced to two years in prison for misusing campaign funds. After almost a month of civil unrest, the Romanian government collapsed. On February 6, 2012, Boc resigned as prime minister, and Băsescu appointed Justice Minister Cătălin Predoiu interim prime minister. Later that day Băsescu nominated intelligence chief Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu to succeed Boc, and Ungureanu began talks with coalition leaders about the composition of his cabinet and the formation of a new government.
austerityAntiausterity protesters in Bucharest, Romania, carrying a banner that compares Pres. Traian Băsescu to the evil cyborg from the Terminator film franchise, September 28, 2010
Ungureanu continued the budget-cutting policies of his predecessor, and protesters returned to the streets with renewed intensity. Opposition lawmakers headed by Victor Ponta of the PSD had united under the banner of the Social-Liberal Union (Uniunea Social Liberală; USL), and they brought down the two-month-old government in a vote of no confidence on April 27, 2012. Ponta, who became prime minister the following month, acted quickly to solidify his power, prompting criticism from EU officials when he stripped Romania’s Constitutional Court of its oversight function and orchestrated the impeachment of his political rival, Băsescu. As in 2007, Băsescu was subject to a referendum on his presidency, but the vote, held on July 29, 2012, fell short of the 50 percent participation rate required to validate the result. After the failure of the referendum, Ponta and his allies used various measures in an attempt to prevent Băsescu from returning to office. On August 21, 2012, the Constitutional Court ruled the impeachment invalid, and Băsescu was reinstated a week later. Despite widespread criticism from the EU and declining domestic popularity, Ponta was reaffirmed as prime minister when the USL was victorious in parliamentary elections in December 2012.
A string of high-profile corruption trials in 2013 might have restored faith in the Romanian political class, but Ponta pushed for the sacking of a key prosecutor, and a fresh round of squabbling and intrigue commenced. The credibility of the ruling parties suffered an additional blow later that year when the Ponta government voiced its approval for an open-cast gold mine at Roșia Montană in spite of concerns about the project’s effect on the region’s groundwater supply. Widespread protests ensued, and Ponta withdrew authorization for the mine pending a parliamentary investigation.
RomaniaDemonstrators forming a human chain around the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, in September 2013. They were protesting a government-approved plan for a cyanide-extraction-based gold mine in the town of Roșia Montană
Ponta suffered a series of reverses in 2014, including the investigation of a number of prominent allies on corruption charges. Nevertheless, he appeared certain to triumph in his bid to capture the presidency in elections that November. In the first round, Ponta finished well ahead of his chief challenger, Klaus Iohannis, the mayor of the Transylvanian city of Sibiu and a member of Romania’s small German Lutheran minority. The initial round of polling was plagued with irregularities, however, with instances of multiple voting observed in PSD strongholds and tens of thousands of Romanians living abroad unable to cast their votes because of prohibitively long lines at embassies. Members of the diasporahad traditionally voted against the PSD, and concerns registered by other European governments led to the resignation of Ponta’s foreign minister. On November 16 Romania experienced its highest voter turnout since 2000, and Iohannis vaulted to the presidency with a convincing victory in the second round of balloting. Ponta remained prime minister at the head of a cohabitation government, but he faced frequent calls from the opposition to step down.
Iohannis, KlausKlaus Iohannis walking past an honour guard at his presidential inaugural ceremony in Bucharest, Romania, December 21, 2014
In July 2015 Ponta was charged with money laundering, fraud, and tax evasion. The accusations dated to a period before he was elected prime minister, so the prosecutorial immunity he enjoyed as a result of that office did not apply. Although he decried the indictment as politically motivated, Ponta resigned as leader of the PSD to devote time and effort to his defense. He rejected Iohannis’s request that he resign as prime minister, however. On October 30, 2015, a fire at a Bucharest night club claimed dozens of lives and left scores injured. Thousands took to the streets to protest government corruption and a regulatory regime that would allow for such a tragic lapse in public safety. Within days, Ponta announced his resignation.
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