The history of Romania
Romania and Rumania; Romanian: România is a country located at the intersection of Central and Southeastern Europe, bordering on the Black Sea. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and Moldova to the northeast and east, and Bulgaria to the south. At 238,391 square kilometres (92,043 sq mi), Romania is the eighth largest country of the European Union by area, and has the seventh largest population of the European Union with 20,121,641 people (20 October 2011). Its capital and largest city is Bucharest - the sixth largest city in the EU.
The name "Romania," which was first used when the three regions of the country were united in 1859, reflects the influence of ancient Rome on the nation's language and culture.
The name "Romania," which was first used when the three regions of the country were united in 1859, reflects the influence of ancient Rome on the nation's language and culture.
One of the darkest and gruesomest periods in Romania's history was certainly the period when Transylvania was ruled - and entire Europe was terrified - by Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431–1476), who was a member of the House of Drăculești, a branch of the House of Basarab, also known by his patronymic name: Dracula.
He was posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș pronounced [ˈvlad ˈt͡sepeʃ]), and was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the Order of the Dragon, which was founded to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe. Vlad III is revered as a folk hero in Romania for his protection of the Romanian population both south and north of the Danube. A significant number of Romanian and Bulgarian common folk and remaining boyars (nobles) moved north of the Danube to Wallachia, recognized his leadership and settled there following his raids on the Ottomans.
As the cognomen 'The Impaler' suggests, his practice of impaling his enemies is central to his historical reputation. During his lifetime, his reputation for excessive cruelty spread abroad, to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The total number of his victims is estimated in the tens of thousands. The name of the vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula was inspired by Vlad's patronymic.
He was posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș pronounced [ˈvlad ˈt͡sepeʃ]), and was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the Order of the Dragon, which was founded to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe. Vlad III is revered as a folk hero in Romania for his protection of the Romanian population both south and north of the Danube. A significant number of Romanian and Bulgarian common folk and remaining boyars (nobles) moved north of the Danube to Wallachia, recognized his leadership and settled there following his raids on the Ottomans.
As the cognomen 'The Impaler' suggests, his practice of impaling his enemies is central to his historical reputation. During his lifetime, his reputation for excessive cruelty spread abroad, to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The total number of his victims is estimated in the tens of thousands. The name of the vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula was inspired by Vlad's patronymic.
Over the centuries, various migrating people invaded Romania. Romania's historical provinces Wallachia and Moldova offered furious resistance to the invading Ottoman Turks. Transylvania was successively under Habsburg, Ottoman, Hungarian or Wallachian rule, while remaining a (semi) autonomous province.
In August 1914, when World War I broke out, Romania declared neutrality. Two years later, under the pressure of the Allies (especially France desperate to open a new front), in August 1916 it joined the Allies. In May 1918, Romania was in no position to continue the war, and negotiated a peace treaty with Germany. In October 1918, Romania joined the war again.
The Union of 1918 united most regions with clear Romanian majorities into the boundaries of a single state. However, it also led to the inclusion of various sizable minorities, including Magyars (ethnic Hungarians), Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, etc., for a total of about 28% of the population (Magyars mostly in Transylvania; Germans in Transylvania, Bukovina, and Banat; Ukrainians in part of Bessarabia and Bukovina, Bulgarians in Dobrudja).
Recognized by the Romanian Constitution of 1923 and supported by various laws (education, electoral, etc.), national minorities were represented in Parliament, and several of them created national parties.
Two periods can be identified in Romania between the two World Wars. From 1918 to 1938, Romania was a liberal constitutional monarchy, but one facing the rise of the nationalist, anti-semitic parties, particularly Iron Guard, which won about 15% of the votes in the general elections of 1937. From 1938 to 1944, Romania was a dictatorship. The first dictator was King Carol II, who abolished the parliamentary regime and ruled with his camarilla.
During the Second World War, Romania tried again to remain neutral, but on 28 June 1940, it received a Soviet ultimatum with an implied threat of invasion in the event of non-compliance.
In 1940, Romania lost territory in both east and west. Because Carol II lost so much territory through failed diplomacy, the army supported seizure of power by General Ion Antonescu. For four months (the period of the National Legionary State), he had to share power with the Iron Guard, but the latter overplayed their hand in January 1941 and were suppressed. Romania entered World War II under the command of the German Wehrmacht in June 1941, declaring war to the Soviet Union in order to recover Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Romania was awarded the territory between Dniester and the Southern Bug by Germany to administer it under the name of Transnistria.
The authoritarian King Carol II abdicated in 1940, succeeded by the National Legionary State, in which power was shared by Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard. Within months, Antonescu had crushed the Iron Guard, and the subsequent year Romania entered the war on the side of the Axis powers. During the war, Romania was the most important source of oil for Nazi Germany, prompting multiple bombing raids by the Allies.
The Antonescu regime played a major role in the Holocaust, following to a lesser extent the Nazi policy of oppression and massacre of the Jews, and Roma, primarily in the Eastern territories Romania recovered or occupied from the Soviet Union (Transnistria) and in Moldavia. According to an international commission report released by the Romanian government in 2004, Antonescu's dictatorial government of Romania is responsible for the murder in various forms including deportations to concentration camps and executions by the Romanian Army and Gendarmerie and the German Einsatzgruppen of some 280,000 to 380,000 Jews on Romanian territories and in the war zone of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria.
On 20 August 1944 the Soviet Red Army crossed the border into Romania. On 23 August 1944 Antonescu was toppled and arrested by King Michael I of Romania who joined the Allies and declared war on Germany. On 31 August 1944 the Soviet Red Army entered Bucharest. Despite Romania`s change of sides its role in the defeat of Nazi Germany was not recognized by the Paris Peace Conference of 1947.
With the Red Army forces still stationed in the country and exerting de facto control, Communists and their allied parties claimed 80% of the vote, through a combination of vote manipulation, elimination, and forced mergers of competing parties, thus establishing themselves as the dominant force.
In 1947, King Michael I was forced by the Communists to abdicate and leave the country, Romania was proclaimed a republic, and remained under direct military and economic control of the USSR until the late 1950s. During this period, Romania's resources were drained by the "SovRom" agreements: mixed Soviet-Romanian companies established to mask the looting of Romania by the Soviet Union.
Soviet occupation following World War II led to the formation of a communist People's Republic in 1947, and the abdication of King Michael, who went into exile. The leader of Romania from 1948 to his death in 1965 was Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, the First Secretary of the Romanian Workers' Party, who first sowed the seeds of greater independence from the Soviet Union by persuading Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev to withdraw troops from Romania in April 1958.
After the negotiated retreat of Soviet troops, Romania, under the new leadership of Nicolae Ceauşescu, started to pursue independent policies, including the condemnation of the Soviet-led 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.
As Romania's foreign debt sharply increased between 1977 and 1981 (from 3 to 10 billion US dollars), the influence of international financial organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank grew, conflicting with Nicolae Ceauşescu's autarchic policies. Ceauşescu eventually initiated a project of total reimbursement of the foreign debt (completed in 1989, shortly before his overthrow). To achieve this goal, he imposed policies that impoverished Romanians and exhausted the Romanian economy. He greatly extended the authority of the police state and imposed a cult of personality. These led to a dramatic decrease in Ceauşescu's popularity and culminated in his overthrow and execution in the bloody Romanian Revolution of 1989. [1]
In 1966, the regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu decreed a ban on all forms of contraception and abortion with the aim of increasing Romania's population. Ceaucescu issued Decree 770, a program covering all fertile women unless they were over forty or were already taking care of four children.
By 1969, the country had a million babies more than the previous average. Thousands of kindergartens were built overnight. Children had to participate in sports and cultural activities.
At the age of three years the children were medically examined. Disabled and orphaned children were in huge numbers brought into homes like Cighid or psychiatric hospitals, where they lived under inhumane conditions. Many children died within a few weeks because of hunger, frostbite or diseases.
By 1969, the country had a million babies more than the previous average. Thousands of kindergartens were built overnight. Children had to participate in sports and cultural activities.
At the age of three years the children were medically examined. Disabled and orphaned children were in huge numbers brought into homes like Cighid or psychiatric hospitals, where they lived under inhumane conditions. Many children died within a few weeks because of hunger, frostbite or diseases.
Many deaths were caused by the mere fact that women, including wives of secret Romanian agents, famous TV presenters and actresses, had to undergo illegal abortions. Many women were jailed for having them. Many children born during this period, were not planned and therefore unwanted by their parents.
The children's home Cighid, near the Hungarian border, was discovered in spring 1990 by western reporters. The pictures of sick and malnourished children were published in many newspapers and were shown on many TV stations around the world. Observers described the sight of Cighid with terms like "Child Gulags" or "the Romanian Euthanasia Program".
Many of the children who were brought up in the Romanian orphanages in the 1980s had HIV/AIDS. Orphanage staff would inject blood as a food substitute. The syringes were not changed and with some contaminated blood, the disease spread quickly.
Mike Carroll was one of the first photographers to travel to Romania after the fall of the communist regime in 1989.
On Christmas Eve 1989, the phone rang at Mike Carrollʼs house. Mike was a renowned photojournalist. His work appeared in Rolling Stone, People and The New York Times. The caller asked Mike to travel to Romania to document the fall of the communist regime and the assassination of Romanian despot Nicolae Ceausescu. To top it off, he wanted Mike to leave that night.
Mike packed his gear and headed for Romania - a place he couldn't find on a map just 24 hours earlier. When he arrived, he walked into one of the most appalling scenes of the 20th century - orphanages packed with the dead and dying victims of a pediatric AIDS crisis. His incredible photographs and heart-wrenching stories of the plight of 400,000 Romanian children ran in The Boston Globe and The New York Times and opened the eyes of the western world to this horrific secret. Carroll was nominated for a Pulitzer prize.
Deeply shaken by his experience, Carroll compulsively returned to Romania with suitcases full of clothes and medication. That single day, that hideous experience in the orphanages and morgues of post-communist Romania, set Carroll on a twenty-year odyssey to bring help to a population of children in need, in a country that he hardly knew.
The sensational stories of the Dickensian orphanages of Bucharest have faded from the news. The gold rush to adopt those stricken children once dominated the headlines is now distant history, but still, Carroll and his small band of disciples labor in obscurity to bring social change to Romaniaʼs youth.
On Christmas Eve 1989, the phone rang at Mike Carrollʼs house. Mike was a renowned photojournalist. His work appeared in Rolling Stone, People and The New York Times. The caller asked Mike to travel to Romania to document the fall of the communist regime and the assassination of Romanian despot Nicolae Ceausescu. To top it off, he wanted Mike to leave that night.
Mike packed his gear and headed for Romania - a place he couldn't find on a map just 24 hours earlier. When he arrived, he walked into one of the most appalling scenes of the 20th century - orphanages packed with the dead and dying victims of a pediatric AIDS crisis. His incredible photographs and heart-wrenching stories of the plight of 400,000 Romanian children ran in The Boston Globe and The New York Times and opened the eyes of the western world to this horrific secret. Carroll was nominated for a Pulitzer prize.
Deeply shaken by his experience, Carroll compulsively returned to Romania with suitcases full of clothes and medication. That single day, that hideous experience in the orphanages and morgues of post-communist Romania, set Carroll on a twenty-year odyssey to bring help to a population of children in need, in a country that he hardly knew.
The sensational stories of the Dickensian orphanages of Bucharest have faded from the news. The gold rush to adopt those stricken children once dominated the headlines is now distant history, but still, Carroll and his small band of disciples labor in obscurity to bring social change to Romaniaʼs youth.
The legacy of communism
In the following documentary, 'The Spectre of Tyranny' by filmmaker Mohamed Kenawi for AL JAZEERA WORLD, a Romanian journalist discovers that the dictatorship of the past still casts an influence over people's lives today.
In December 1989, Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian president, was deposed and, along with his wife, shot by a firing squad after a secret military tribunal found them both guilty of crimes against the state.
The death ended the dictator's 24 years as community party leader - 21 of them as Romania's president.
The dictatorship that lasted 50 years caused social problems, poverty, and political and economic instability, especially the last 20 years of Ceausescu's regime.
The Romanian people publically displayed great affection for their leader, but Ceausescu's rule was built on fear - in particular fear of his notorious secret police called the Securitate.
Dorin Dobrincu, a historian, says: "The Romanian people suffered schizophrenia in the 80s and this situation hasn't changed over the years. Many have a double personality. What they say at home is different from what they say in public. Today people teach their children to have a split personality and not to talk about anything outside the home."
The new government has pledged that democracy would replace the tyranny of Ceausescu's rule and promised to allow free speech, free thought and free enterprise in Romania.
But how much has really changed?
Romania: The Spectre of Tyranny follows Elena Vijulie, a young Romanian journalist, as she uncovers the continuing legacy of dictatorship in Romanian society today long after the fall of communism over 20 years ago.
"Although the Ceausescu regime in Romania is long gone, its shadows still linger and continue to influence the lives of people. You can see this clearly in the relationship between citizens and the ruling parties," Vijulie says.
"It's obvious in the way the political institutions have failed to establish an effective regime. It is also evident in the behaviour of people used to living under a regime that neglects their daily needs."
Meeting fellow Romanians from all walks of life, Vijulie discovers that the dictatorship of the past still casts an enduring influence over the lives of people today who, as in the past, live under the rule of a governments that seems to care little for their wellbeing. [3]
In December 1989, Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian president, was deposed and, along with his wife, shot by a firing squad after a secret military tribunal found them both guilty of crimes against the state.
The death ended the dictator's 24 years as community party leader - 21 of them as Romania's president.
The dictatorship that lasted 50 years caused social problems, poverty, and political and economic instability, especially the last 20 years of Ceausescu's regime.
The Romanian people publically displayed great affection for their leader, but Ceausescu's rule was built on fear - in particular fear of his notorious secret police called the Securitate.
Dorin Dobrincu, a historian, says: "The Romanian people suffered schizophrenia in the 80s and this situation hasn't changed over the years. Many have a double personality. What they say at home is different from what they say in public. Today people teach their children to have a split personality and not to talk about anything outside the home."
The new government has pledged that democracy would replace the tyranny of Ceausescu's rule and promised to allow free speech, free thought and free enterprise in Romania.
But how much has really changed?
Romania: The Spectre of Tyranny follows Elena Vijulie, a young Romanian journalist, as she uncovers the continuing legacy of dictatorship in Romanian society today long after the fall of communism over 20 years ago.
"Although the Ceausescu regime in Romania is long gone, its shadows still linger and continue to influence the lives of people. You can see this clearly in the relationship between citizens and the ruling parties," Vijulie says.
"It's obvious in the way the political institutions have failed to establish an effective regime. It is also evident in the behaviour of people used to living under a regime that neglects their daily needs."
Meeting fellow Romanians from all walks of life, Vijulie discovers that the dictatorship of the past still casts an enduring influence over the lives of people today who, as in the past, live under the rule of a governments that seems to care little for their wellbeing. [3]
List of References
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Romania
2) http://www.sxu.edu/student-life/ministry/crpd/sweeney/hand_held_film_general/hand_held_synopsis.asp
3) http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2012/10/2012108112728441748.html
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Romania
2) http://www.sxu.edu/student-life/ministry/crpd/sweeney/hand_held_film_general/hand_held_synopsis.asp
3) http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2012/10/2012108112728441748.html