Braids

History of Romania. General information about Romania

17.03.2022

Known in the Stynka Ripiceni grotto (on the right bank of the Prut), the lower layers of which date back to the Aurignacian and Solutrean times.

Already in the Chalcolithic era (c. 4000 BC), the first Indo-Europeans (Cernavoda Culture), who were familiar with horse breeding, entered the territory of Romania from the east.

At the end of the Bronze - Early Iron Age (IV century BC), the Hallstatt culture spread here, dominated by the Celts, and with which the beginning of the formation of the Thracian community is associated. In the later La Tène culture, the Thracians played the role of a cultural component equal to the Celts.

Antique era

Romania is a state in southeastern Europe, in the Lower Danube basin. In the east it is washed by the Black Sea. Territory -237.5 thousand square meters. km. Population - 23.2 million people (1990): 90% are Romanians, 6.9% are Hungarians, 3.1% are Germans, there are also representatives of other nationalities. The capital is Bucharest (2.3 million inhabitants). The state language is Romanian. Believers are predominantly Orthodox. Romania consists of 40 administrative units - counties, an independent administrative unit - the capital Buha Rest. Romania is a presidential republic. The current President of Romania is Ion Iliescu. The representative body exercising legislative power is the National Assembly, consisting of two chambers: the Senate and the Assembly of Deputies. The largest parliamentary party is the Party of Social Democracy. The most important opposition parties are united in the Democratic Convention.

The highest judicial power is exercised Supreme Court. The Cabinet of Ministers is the most important body of executive power. In the central and northern parts of Romania there are the Eastern and Southern Carpathians and the Transylvanian Plateau, in the west - the Western Romanian Mountains, in the south - the Lower Danube Plain, in the southeast - the Dobrudzha Plateau. The climate is temperate, continental. On the plains, the average temperatures in January are from 0 to -5 degrees, in July from 20 to 23 degrees. 300-700 mm of precipitation falls per year (in the mountains up to 1500 mm). Main river- Danube. 27% territo-forest, mainly in the mountains; on the plains (most of them are plowed) there is steppe and forest-steppe vegetation. In the 1st century BC e. - III century n. e. The Geto-Dacian tribes inhabiting the territory of Romania fought against Rome. At the beginning of the 2nd century AD e. The area of ​​Dacian settlement came under the rule of Rome and was turned into the Roman province of Dacia. After the departure of the Romans (217), the tribes of the Goths, Gepids, Avars settled on the territory of Romania, and the Slavs settled in the 6th-7th centuries. In the 14th century, feudal states were formed - Wallachia and Moldova, which fell under the rule in the 16th century. Ottoman yoke. Romania was formed in 1859 as a result of the unification of the principalities of Moldova and Wallachia under the rule of one ruler, elected by representative assemblies, Alexander Cuza, who received the title of Prince of Romania. In 1866, Cuza was deposed, Prince Charles (from the House of Hohenzollern) was elected to the throne and a new constitution was introduced. In 1877, Romania entered into an alliance with Russia against Turkey and declared its independence.

In 1881, Romania was proclaimed a kingdom. Romania took part in the 2nd Balkan War (1913); in 1916, on the side of the Entente, it entered the 1st world war. In 1918, Romania captured Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, which in 1940. she returned to the USSR. In 1927, King Carol II was expelled from the country. His five-year-old son Mihai became king. In 1930, Karol returned to his homeland, and Mihai became heir to the throne with the title of great military commander.

In the pre-war years, Romania was a backward agrarian country. The main occupation of 3/4 of the population was agriculture. Agricultural products made up a significant part of the export. Income from of this production went mainly to landowners, owners of huge areas of land. Small and medium-sized peasants, entangled in debt bondage, went bankrupt. There were feudal remnants in the village. Industry was poorly developed. In terms of economic potential, Romania lagged behind Western European countries by almost 100-150 years. Only oil production, forest development and some other industries that were of interest to foreign capital reached significant proportions. According to 1938 data, the share of foreign capital in the oil industry was almost 92%, in the production of electricity and gas - 95%, in metallurgy - 74%, in the chemical industry - 72%, in woodworking - 70% Many industries used imported raw materials. The oil monopolies that dominated the Romanian economy collaborated with Nazi Germany. Germany, with the assistance of the Romanian bourgeoisie and landowners, turned Romania into an anti-Soviet springboard. In the fall of 1940, after Northern Transylvania was transferred to Hungary by Hitler’s decision, Karol went into exile for the second time. General Ion Antonescu became the country's prime minister in form and dictator in essence. Formally, the parliamentary monarchy was preserved. 18-year-old Mihai became a monarchical screen for the military-fascist dictatorship of Antonescu. By royal decree, Antonescu was awarded the title of "conductor" - Fuhrer, leader of the nation. At the beginning of October 1940, large formations of German troops were introduced into Romania. On June 22, 1941, Romanian dictator General Ion Antonescu ordered his troops to cross the border along the Prut River and “defeat the enemy in the East.” King Michael expressed his gratitude to him “for the joy of living through the glory days of our ancestors.” On July 1, the crossing of the Prut began. At first, entry into the war enjoyed some support from the Romanian public. This, of course, affected the attitude of the population to the events of June 1940, when the Soviet Union included Bessarabia (occupied in 1918 by Romanian troops) and Northern Bukovina, which never belonged to Russia.

Romania deployed the second largest military contingent after Hitler's against the USSR. Its armies fought near Odessa, in the Crimea, on the Don, in Stalingrad and in the North Caucasus - they fought there and died. On November 15, 1943, Antonescu, who by that time had been promoted to marshal, testified in a letter to Hitler: “In 1942, we gave 26 divisions with the best weapons and sent almost all the heavy artillery to the front. On the Don and below We lost 18 divisions in Stalingrad, and the remaining 8 divisions were destroyed in Kuban. We lost 250 thousand people and the weapons of 24 divisions. By the beginning of 1944, the losses of Romanian troops at the front reached 660 thousand people. The defeats dissipated the chauvinistic frenzy. The country, exhausted by the war and plundered by the Nazi occupiers, was in poverty. Opposition to the Antonescu regime grew. Desertion in the army was increasing. The workers went on strike. Peasants sabotaged food supplies. The intelligentsia was concerned about the fate of the homeland, which was being dragged into the abyss by the dictator. The leaders of the formally dissolved but still existing “historical parties” - the National Liberal Party (NLP) and the National Tsaranist Party (NCP), who had previously unconditionally supported Antonescu, began to look for a way out of that -peak. At first, this manifested itself in the condemnation of the boundless conquest program (the development of the so-called Transnistria, i.e., the lands between the Dniester and the Bug with the center in Odessa, and the creation of “Great Romania”) and the promotion of a “minimum program” (Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina). Later, an active search began for a way out of the impending disaster through an agreement with Great Britain and the United States.

The defeat and capture of the Romanian armies in Stalingrad, the flight from the North Caucasus, the defeat of German troops in the battle of Kursk and Belgorod, the withdrawal of Italy from the war - all these events of 1943 showed that the hour of reckoning was near for the Romanian rulers. The organizer of resistance to the Antonescu regime was the Communist Party of Romania (CPR), which was underground. The merits of the communists in the patriotic movement are undoubted. The CPR was the only political force that from the very beginning opposed the alliance with Hitlerism. In the second half of 1943, on the initiative of the CPR, the Patriotic Anti-Hitler Front arose with the participation of several democratic organizations. The leaders of the National Liberal and National Tsaranist parties were not included in it. They hoped that they would be able to get out of the war with the help of Great Britain and the United States, while pinning their hopes on the so-called Balkan option put forward by the British Prime Minister Churchill. The latter, counting that the forces of the Western powers, having crashed like a wedge into the continent, would thereby block the Soviet Army’s path to both the West and the Balkans, acted as the backbone of a strike into the “soft underbelly of Europe.” But this plan was not implemented. Success Soviet troops in the summer - autumn of 1943 were so great, and the likelihood for the Anglo-American expedition to get stuck in the Balkans was so real that another “threat” arose: that the “Reds” might not reach the English Channel while the Anglo-Americans were unraveling Balkan nodes. At the allied conference in Tehran (late 1943), the timing of the opening of a second front in France was agreed upon. The leaders of the Romanian “historical parties” launched a feverish activity to establish contacts with the Western allies of the USSR. They sent emissaries to Ankara and Cairo, and made soundings in Madrid and Stockholm. Antonescu was not interfered with, he even tried to connect to these contacts. Observing allied loyalty, diplomats from England and the United States advised in response to enter into negotiations with the government of the USSR. On March 27, 1944, the Soviet Army crossed the Romanian border. On April 2, the Soviet government declared: “The entry of Soviet troops into Romania is dictated solely by military necessity and the ongoing resistance of enemy troops” and “does not pursue the goal of acquiring any part of Romanian territory or changing the existing social system.”

On April 12, V.M. Molotov made public the following condition of the truce with Romania, which was perceived in the world as generous: a break with Nazi Germany and a joint struggle against it with the anti-Hitler coalition; restoration of the pre-war Soviet-Romanian border; compensation to the USSR for losses caused to it by the actions of Romanian troops and occupation; release of allied prisoners of war; security allied forces freedom of movement throughout Romania in accordance with the needs of the war. The Soviet statement spoke of the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania, which in the fall of 1940, by decision of Hitler and Mussolini, was transferred to Hungary. Antonescu rejected these proposals and announced that he was going over to total war. But he was no longer the master of the situation in the country. In April 1944, the Communists and Social Democrats reached an agreement on the creation of the United Workers' Front. At the same time, 66 prominent scientists, members of the Academy and professors of the University of Bucharest turned to Antonescu with open letter, calling for an immediate end to the war. In June, the National Democratic Bloc (communists, socialists, tsaranists, liberals) was formed, with the goal of achieving Romania’s exit from the war and its accession to the United Nations, the removal of Antonescu and the establishment of a constitutional democratic regime in the country. But with -There was no agreement between the participants in the bloc; the leaders of the NLP and NCP continued maneuvers, seeking a separate agreement with the Western powers and the landing of an Anglo-American landing in Romania. At the same time, they tried to encourage Antonescu to agree to a truce. The royal entourage had long ago lost faith in the victory of the Hitler coalition and was looking for a way out of the impasse with the preservation of the institution of the monarchy and the Hohenzollern dynasty on the throne. Back in 1943, the king began to probe the waters, coming into contact, through those close to him, with circles that were actually or potentially opposed to the dictatorial regime. The critical moment came in August 1944. On August 20, a breakthrough by the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front began the Iasi-Kishinev operation ("Iasi-Kishinev Cannes") against a 900,000-strong enemy group (25 German and 22 Romanian divisions).

History of Romania

Ancient Romania was inhabited by Thracian tribes. In the 1st century BC. Greece founded the state of Dacia to protect itself from Rome. Dacia passed to Rome in 106 AD, becoming a province of the Roman Empire. As a result of attacks from the Goths in 271, Emperor Aurelius recalled the Roman legionaries back to the south of the Danube, but the Wallachian peasants remained in Dacia, forming the Romanian people. By the 10th century, small Romanian lands had formed, and their unification led to the creation of the principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania. Since the 10th century, the Magyars came to Transylvania, and to XII century it became an autonomous principality under Hungarian rule. In the 14th century, Hungarian troops tried unsuccessfully to capture Wallachia and Moldavia.

During the 14th and 15th centuries, Wallachia and Moldavia resisted the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. During the struggle, Prince Vlad Tepes of Wallachia (known as the "Impaler" because he rarely ate without being accompanied by a writhing, impaled Turk) became a hero and was later associated with Dracula. In the 16th century, Transylvania passed to the Ottoman Empire, at the same time Wallachia and Moldavia submitted to the Turks, but retained their autonomous position. In 1600, all three Romanian provinces were united by Prince Mihai Vitazul of Wallachia after he joined forces with the ruling princes of Moldavia and Transylvania in the fight against the Turks. The unification lasted only a year, then Mihai was defeated by the combined Habsburg-Transylvanian forces, after which he was captured and beheaded. Transylvania passed to the Habsburg Empire, and Wallachia and Moldavia remained Turkish suzerainties until almost the end of the 19th century. In 1775, the northern part of Moldavia, Bukovina, was annexed by Austria-Hungary. Then in 1812 the eastern territory, Bessarabia, passed to Russia. After the Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829), Ottoman ownership of the principalities ended.

After 1848, Transylvania fell under the rule of Austria-Hungary and “Magyarization” began. In 1859, Alexandru Ioan Cuza was crowned on the thrones of Moldavia and Wallachia, creating a new state, which was named Romania in 1862. Charles I inherited the throne in 1866, and Dobruja became part of Romania in 1877. In 1881, Romania began to be called a kingdom, and Charles I became its king. He died at the beginning of the First World War. His nephew Ferdinand I inherited the throne and entered the war in 1916 on the side of the Triple Entente. His goal was the liberation of Transylvania from Austria-Hungary. In 1918, Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania became part of Romania.

In Romania after the First World War, numerous political parties, including the Legion of the Archangel Michael, better known as the fascist Iron Guard. The party, led by Cornelius Codreanu, dominated the political arena by 1935. Charles II, who inherited the throne after the death of his father Ferdinand I, declared the state a royal dictatorship in 1938 and abolished all political parties. In 1939, he pacified the Iron Guard, which he had previously supported, executing Codreanu and other legionnaires. In 1940, the USSR occupied Bessarabia, and Romania was forced to hand over northern Transylvania to Hungary on orders from Germany and Italy. Southern Dobruya was transferred to Bulgaria. Based on all this, numerous rallies broke out, so the king summoned Generalissimo Ion Antonescu to pacify the discontent. Antonescu forced Charles to abdicate, transferring power to Charles's 19-year-old son Michael, and then introduced a fascist dictatorship, proclaiming himself ruler. In 1941 he joined Hitler's anti-Soviet war. When approaching Soviet Army to the Romanian border in 1944, Romania switched sides to Russia.

The Soviet transfer of Transylvania to Romania helped the Moscow-backed communists win elections in 1946. A year later, King Michael was forced to abdicate and the Romanian People's Republic was formed. A period of state intimidation began when pre-war leaders, prominent intellectuals and suspicious dissidents were rounded up and sent to prison camps. In the late 1950s, Romania began to move away from Moscow, seeking an independent foreign policy under the leadership of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1952-1965) and Nicolae Ceausescu (1965-1989). Ceausescu decried Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, which earned him respect and economic assistance from the West.

The rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s meant that the United States no longer needed Romania and removed its status as “the most beloved nation.” Ceausescu decided to export Romania's food supply to pay off the country's huge debt. While Ceausescu and his wife Elena (his first deputy prime minister) lived in luxury, the people tried to survive, since the rationing of bread, eggs, flour, butter, salt, sugar, beef, potatoes was mocking, and by the mid-1980s 's there was no meat at all. In 1987, riots broke out in Brasov and were brutally suppressed. After regime after regime began to collapse in Eastern Europe, on December 15, 1989, priest Lazlo Toks preached against Ceausescu in a church in the city of Timisoara. That same evening, a group of people gathered at his house to protest the decision of the Reformed Church of Romania to remove Tox from his post. Clashes between protesters, police and army continued for 4 days. On December 19, the army joined the protesters. On December 21, Bucharest workers loudly protested against Ceausescu during a mass rally and street clashes between protesters, police and army. The next day, the Ceausescu family tried to escape from Romania, but were arrested, convicted by an anonymous court and shot on Christmas Day.

Today it is believed that members of the National Salvation Council, who seized power after Ceausescu's death, planned his overthrow several months before December 1989, but premature rallies forced them to act earlier. A provisional government came to power, headed by Ion Iliescu.

Early history.

The history of the Romanian people begins in the second century AD, when the legions of the Roman emperor Trajan settled in the territory where the Thracian Dacian tribes lived. The formation of the Romanian people took place through the merger of the Romans and the local population in a territory that almost coincides with the territory of present-day Romania. However, this merger was not completed, since at the end of the third century, in view of the looming threat of a barbarian invasion, the Roman legions were recalled. Few Roman socio-cultural institutions survived and survived, although Christianity, introduced by the Romans, began to embrace more and more people in the second century AD. The departure of the Romans left the Romanians, a partially Christianized Daco-Roman people, face to face with the barbarian invasion.

The next millennium is the darkest page in Romanian history. In the 6th century. Slavic tribes settled in the territory of present-day Romania. In the 7th and 8th centuries. Bulgarians migrated here and settled south of the Danube. At the end of the 9th century. many parts of what is now Romania were captured by the Hungarians. During the second half of the 13th century. they established their suzerainty over Wallachia and Moldavia, which became semi-autonomous provinces. Some historians claim that during these invasions the indigenous Daco-Roman population was completely destroyed. Others believe that some Daco-Romans survived and are the ancestors of modern Romanians.

The next period of Romanian history began with the creation of the Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. respectively. The society of that time bore characteristic feudal features: the prince was surrounded by courtiers and nobles who owned land; distribution of small parts of boyar estates to military small-scale nobles was carried out; developed rapidly serfdom.

From 1415 until the creation of the Phanariot regime in 1711, Wallachia and Moldavia were ruled by law by local princes, but in fact by Turks and boyars. The boyars intrigued with the Porte (the government of the Ottoman Empire) in order to preserve the Wallachian and Moldavian thrones for members of their families. Whenever, however, a prominent military or political leader emerged, such as Michael the Brave in Wallachia (1593–1601) or Peter Rares in Moldavia (1527–1546), the conflicting parties were temporarily reconciled and stood together against the Turks, supporting the ruler. But at the same time, the boyars were also responsible for much of the political chaos that manifested itself in the succession of 112 princes in Moldavia and Wallachia in the 16th and 17th centuries.

At the very beginning of the 18th century. Greek merchants from Constantinople, called Phanariotes, replaced the princes and boyars and began to rule the principalities, establishing control over all economic resources. Princely posts were sold at auction in Constantinople to the highest bidder, usually Phanariots. The reign of the Phanariots is considered by most historians to be the most disastrous period in the history of the country. Probably the most characteristic thing for this period 1711–1821 was the extremely large turnover of Phanariot princes - in both principalities, the posts of princes were occupied by about a hundred rulers.

The next important stage of Romanian history began in 1821, when the Romanian princes returned to the Moldovan and Wallachian thrones, and ended in 1878 with the achievement of state independence. Russian interests in the Romanian principalities emerged under Peter the Great, the first Tsar, who tried to establish active contacts with the Romanian princes against the Turks in the early 18th century. Towards the end of this century, Russian influence further increased after Catherine the Great formulated the doctrine that Russia was the primary protector of Orthodox Christians living within the Ottoman Empire and was particularly interested in protecting the Romanian principalities. Supported by anti-Greek members of the Romanian nobility, she viewed the Romanian principalities as a natural sphere of Russian influence.

Russia became the first defender of the national, anti-Phanariot revolution, which culminated in the restoration of the power of the Romanian princes in 1821. This revolution was led by Tudor Vladimirescu, a Russian army officer of Romanian nationality. After the Russian-Turkish War of 1826–1828, Russia, according to the Treaty of Adrianople (1829), received a protectorate over the Romanian principalities. The subsequent Russian occupation (1828–1834) had serious consequences. During the reign of the talented and enlightened Count Pavel Kiselev, the foundations of the new Romanian state were laid. The first constitutional assemblies, called divans, became the beginnings of future ministries. An educational system was created and road construction began. Moderate industrialization and the creation of a fairly active system of foreign trade in grain, timber and honey led to the expansion of a small middle class and ensured the continued dominance of the boyars. In 1848–1849, Russian troops suppressed nationalist uprisings in the principalities and the revolutionary spirit that had developed there under the previous Russian occupation, thanks in part to Kiselev's liberalism.

The revolutionary movement in Romania was mainly a product of French liberal ideas, adopted by young boyars returning to the country after studying in France. Despite the unsuccessful outcome of the revolutions and the opposition of the Russian occupation authorities, who remained here until the Crimean War (1853–1856), the desire for independence dominated among young intellectuals and politicians. Their efforts, as well as the participation of Russia and France at the end of the Crimean War, finally led to the creation of the autonomous United Principalities, or Romania, in 1859.

Prince Alexandru Ion Cuza, leader of the boyars, was elected in 1859 as the first ruler of the joint administration of both provinces. The path to independence lay through internal reforms, primarily agrarian reform and the emancipation of the serfs in 1864. The boyars overthrew Cuza even before he could implement his program, and elected the German prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as prince of Romania in 1866, who was crowned 1881. Romania gained final freedom from the Turks in 1878, when, at the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), European countries recognized Romania's unilateral declaration of independence of May 10, 1877.