Romania

ROMANIA

ROMANIA. The principalities of Walachia and Moldavia, formed in the fourteenth century, were the nucleus of what would become modern Romania in the nineteenth century. Their populations were ethnically the same, spoke the same language, and professed the same Orthodox faith; and their political institutions, culture, and historical development throughout the early modern period were similar. They were situated at the crossroads of East and West: their Latin heritage linked them to Rome; their religion drew them to Constantinople.

The decisive force in the international relations of the principalities from the middle of the fifteenth to the end of the eighteenth century was the Ottoman Empire. Despite the heroic efforts of princes such as Stephen the Great of Moldavia (ruled 1457–1504) to defend their independence, both countries were eventually forced to recognize Ottoman suzerainty, Walachia between 1420 and 1480 and Moldavia between 1484 and 1498. Under the terms of ahd-names (treaties) granted by the sultans, they accepted vassal status and agreed to pay an annual tribute, to participate in Ottoman military campaigns, and to sever direct political relations with foreign countries. But both principalities avoided occupation by the Ottoman army and the settlement of Muslims on their territory, and they preserved their political institutions, laws, and economic and social structures, thus escaping the incorporation into the Ottoman Empire to which the peoples south of the Danube had been subjected. Their relationship with the Ottoman Empire constantly evolved and became increasingly restrictive and burdensome. By the eighteenth century the sultans were treating the principalities as mere provinces and their princes as Ottoman functionaries. Yet the heaviest burdens they bore were economic and fiscal, as the Ottomans continually increased the amount of the tribute, the number and size of bribes, and the quantities of foodstuffs to be delivered at fixed prices.

Opposition to the Ottomans was constant, but the majority of princes were realists. Aware that their countries were too weak to challenge Ottoman supremacy directly, they looked for support to Poland, the Habsburg empire, and Russia. Theirs was the classic strategy of playing powerful neighbors off against one another, thereby securing independence. One of the high points of this delicate game was the reign of Michael the Brave of Walachia (ruled 1593–1601), who allied himself with the Habsburgs and won several significant victories over Ottoman armies, notably at Calugareni in 1595. He also brought Moldavia and the principality of Transylvania under his rule for a brief time, but his enemies prevailed, and the Ottomans regained their predominance over the principalities. Other significant attempts to throw off Ottoman rule occurred a century later. Constantin Brâncoveanu of Walachia (ruled 1688–1714) cooperated with Austria, and Dimitrie Cantemir of Moldavia (ruled 1710–1711) turned to Peter the Great of Russia to regain independence, but neither alliance was successful, and both princes lost their thrones.

The Ottomans, convinced that they could no longer trust native princes, dispensed with elections altogether and appointed princes mainly from among important Greek families of the Phanar (Lighthouse) district of Constantinople. During the so-called Phanariot regime, which lasted until 1821, Ottoman political interference in the principalities' internal affairs, economic and fiscal exploitation, and corruption reached its height. Yet it was also an era of significant reforms under forward-looking princes such as Constantin Mavrocordat (ruled six times in Walachia and four times in Moldavia between 1730 and 1769), who reorganized administrative, judicial, and fiscal institutions and abolished serfdom in Walachia in 1746 and in Moldavia in 1749, and Alexandru Ipsilanti of Walachia (ruled 1774–1782, 1796–1797) and Moldavia (ruled 1786–1788), who introduced new governmental reforms and undertook the codification of laws. In the latter decades of the eighteenth century, the striving for independence became more intense and was led by the boiers (nobles). Their efforts coincided with Russia's own policy of aggrandizement against the Ottomans and brought an easing of Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji (1774) required the sultan to respect the autonomy of the principalities guaranteed in the ahd-names and enabled Russia to intervene regularly on their behalf.

The economy of the principalities rested on agriculture. Production was organized around large estates controlled by the boiers and the monasteries, which were worked by peasants, many of whom were serfs (before 1746 and 1749) or were dependent in some other way. There were also free peasants who had their own holdings, but their numbers steadily declined. Artisan crafts were practiced in villages as well as towns, where they were organized into guilds; production was mainly consumed locally. Local commerce was carried on by small merchants, artisans, and peasants, while long-distance and transit trade was mainly in the hands of foreign merchants. Among the main exports of the principalities were foodstuffs, timber, and salt, the bulk of it going to the Ottoman Empire, which monopolized their foreign trade.

Society was dominated by the boiers, who formed a hereditary estate and owed their status to control of land and to posts in government. The great majority of the population (about 600,000 in Walachia and 400,000 in Moldavia in 1700) consisted of peasants, who bore the greatest share of taxation and other public burdens but had few civil or political rights. The native middle class was small, mainly because of the modest level of urbanization, the artisan industry, and commerce, and it exercised little influence in public affairs. The clergy of the Orthodox Church, to which the great majority of Walachians and Moldavians belonged, was the primary spiritual force, especially in the villages.

Cultural and intellectual life until the eighteenth century reflected the principalities' primary orientation toward the Byzantine-Orthodox world. Education was the province of the church, and monasteries were the centers for the copying and diffusion of manuscripts, which were almost all religious in nature. The majority of books, the printing of which began in 1508 with a liturgy book, were also religious. Slavonic persisted as the official language of the church and the princes' chancelleries until the seventeenth century. But influences came from the West, too. The Reformation stirred religious debate and hastened the replacement of Slavonic by Romanian. Contacts with Western scholarship helped transform chronicles into true histories, as in the works of Miron Costin (1633–1691), which revealed a new, secular consciousness of man's destiny. The Enlightenment brought the elites still closer to Europe and provided them with the analytical tools they needed to define their condition and chart their future. By the end of the eighteenth century, the transition from a medieval to a modern society was underway.

See also Balkans ; Habsburg Dynasty: Austria ; Orthodoxy, Russian ; Ottoman Empire ; Poland ; Russia .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Duţu, Alexandru. Romanian Humanists and European Culture: A Contribution to Comparative Cultural History. Bucharest, 1977.

Hitchins, Keith. The Romanians, 1774–1866. Oxford, 1996.

Iorga, Nicolae. Histoire des Roumains et de la Romanité orientale. Vols. 4–7 (10 Vols.). Bucharest, 1937–1940.

Maxim, Mihai. Tǎrile Române si Înalta Poartǎ. Cadrul juridic al relatiilor româno-otomane în Evul Mediu. Bucharest, 1993.

Mihordea, V. Mâitres du sol et paysans dans les Principautés Roumaines au XVIIIe siècle. Bucharest, 1971.

Pippidi, Andrei. Traditia politicǎ bizantinǎîn Tǎrile Române în secolele XVI–XVIII. Bucharest, 1983.

Keith Hitchins