Romania

Romania is a country in southeastern Europe that is bounded on the north by Ukraine, on the east by the Republic of Moldova, on the southeast by the Black Sea, on the south by Bulgaria, on the southwest by Serbia and Montenegro (formerly Yugoslavia), and on the west by Hungary. The capital and largest city is Bucharest.

The total estimated population of Romania in 2003 was 22.3 million inhabitants, and the average population density was 94 persons per square kilometer (243 per square mile). The population was 55 percent urban. The Romanians, who constitute about 89 percent of the population, are descendents of the inhabitants of Dacia, the ancient land roughly equivalent to modern Transylvania and Walachia. Dacia was conquered by the Romans and incorporated into the Roman Empire in the early second century. The largest minority groups are Hungarians, who constitute 7 percent of the population and are settled chiefly in Transylvania; Roma (Gypsies), who comprise 2 percent of the population; and Germans, who make up less than 1 percent of the population. The religious groups are Romanian Orthodox (70%), Roman Catholic (6%), Protestant (6%), and other (18%). The official language of Romania is Romanian, a Romance language derived mainly from Latin.

Romania has a maximum distance from east to west of 720 kilometers (450 miles) and a maximum distance from north to south of 515 kilometers (320 miles). The Carpathians, a long chain of mountains, curve through northern and central Romania. The Danube River forms much of the country's southern and southwestern borders with Bulgaria and Serbia and Montenegro, and the Prut River divides Romania from its northeastern neighbor, Moldova.

history

The territory that is known as Romania first appeared in history as Dacia. Dacia was conquered by the Roman Emperor Trajan (c.e. 53–117) between 101 and 106 and incorporated in the Roman Empire. For the next thousand years, the Daco-Roman people were subjected to successive invasions by Huns, Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars. Slavs brought Christianity to the region in the fourth century. In the fifteenth century the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922) began its expansion in the Balkan Peninsula, and direct Ottoman rule began in 1526.

Until 1821 the ruling families were often of Greek origin, chosen from the Phanar district of Constantinople by the Ottoman Sultan. The period of Phanariot rule was one of the most oppressive and corrupt in Romanian history. By the mid-1800s a unification movement had gathered strength in the territories of Moldavia and Walachia. The 1856 Treaty of Paris that ended the Crimean War between the Ottoman Empire and Russia led to the union of Moldavia and Walachia and their autonomy under the name Romania in 1857.

A German ruler, Carol I (1839–1914), ruled Romania—first as prince and then as king—from 1881 to 1914. Carol's reign saw great economic expansion. The last traces of Ottoman rule finally disappeared as a result of a Russian-Romanian victory over the Ottomans in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and 1878. The full independence of Romania was recognized in 1878 by the Congress of Berlin.

When World War I (1914–1918) broke out, Romania declared a policy of armed neutrality . Romania later joined the Allies, however, in 1916 in their fight against Austria-Hungary and Germany. Romania hoped to gain several provinces of Austria-Hungary that had large Romanian populations. Romania emerged from the war having almost doubled its area and population.

During the 1920s, Romania had a parliamentary regime and a prosperous economy. After 1929, Romania was engulfed in the general world economic crisis. Large-scale unemployment and political unrest led to the rapid growth of fascist organizations. During World War II (1939–1945), Romania became an ally of Germany and declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941. Although the Romanian army advanced as far as southern Ukraine, it suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 and 1943. Soviet troops entered Romania in 1944. On December 30, 1947, the monarchy was abolished, and the People's Republic of Romania was then proclaimed, with a constitution similar to that of the Soviet Union. Power was passed to the Communist Party, and cultural and political institutions were reorganized to conform to Soviet models.

The political situation was stable after the war, and the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) allowed Romania to develop its own variety of socialism . This tendency increased after the 1960s, when the country did not follow the Soviet bloc 's lead in breaking diplomatic ties with Israel after the 1967 Arab–Israeli war or invading Czechoslovakia in 1968. In 1965 Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1901–1965), party chief for most of the previous twenty years, died and was succeeded by Nicolae Ceausescu (1918–1989). Although diplomatic in matters of foreign policy, Ceausescu strictly enforced communist orthodoxy in domestic affairs. He promoted a personality cult around himself and his family, censored the press, and restricted personal liberties.

The economy grew substantially in the 1960s and 1970s, but in the 1980s Ceausescu used virtually all of Romania's foreign currency reserves to pay the foreign debt, producing major food and fuel shortages. In 1989 Ceausescu's brutal suppression of antigovernment demonstrations in Timisoara turned the army against him. He and his wife, Elena, were charged with murder and embezzlement of government funds, and a secret trial took place. They were found guilty and executed on December 25, 1989.

The first elections after the fall of communism took place on May 1990. Ion Iliescu (b. 1930) was elected president, and his party, the National Salvation Front (NSF), won control of the legislature. A new democratic constitution was adopted by popular referendum in 1991. Iliescu was reelected president in the October 1992 elections. The NSF's Nicolae Vacaroiu (b. 1943) served as prime minister for most of Iliescu's first term (i.e., 1992–1996).

The years from 1990 to 1996 were dominated by many economic difficulties and ethnic turmoil. These issues caused Iliescu and his team to lose the elections held in November 1996. This marked Romania's first peaceful transition of power. The new president, Emil Constantinescu (b. 1939), and his government, initially headed by the popular Bucharest mayor Victor Ciorbea (b. 1954), pledged to implement a comprehensive plan of economic reform in an attempt to counter Romania's seven years of lackluster progress toward a free market economy. Although the new government tried to reform the economy, they were unable to do much to decrease generalized corruption and increase the standard of living of the population. Ciorbea was forced to resign in 1998, and several interim and short-term prime ministers were able to accomplish little.

The parliamentary elections held in November 2000 restored to power the party that had governed the country between 1992 and 1996 (i.e., the NSF). In presidential elections in the same month, Iliescu finished first, with 37 percent of the vote, and he won the runoff elections on December ahead of Corneliu Vadim Tudor (b. 1949), the leader of the far-right Greater Romania Party. Prime Minister Adrian Nastase (b. 1950) headed the government for most of Iliescu's second term.

The elections of December 2004 produced another transition. Traian B?sescu (b. 1951) was elected president in the December 12th run-off election. C?lin Popescu-T?riceanu (b. 1952), leader of a center-right coalition of parties including the Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, and the Romanian Humanist Party, was named prime minister. International assessments of the 2004 elections reported some irregularities, but indicated that the elections were generally free and fair.

socioeconomic conditions and quality of life

The political and economic changes that have taken place in Romania since the 1980s have made daily life difficult for many ordinary citizens. Few Romanians can afford luxuries and food prices are high, relative to the country's low minimum wage. Housing is relatively poor by European standards. Most apartment buildings were built during the communist period and are cramped, with minimal facilities. Overall, Romania ranked sixty-ninth among the 177 countries on the United Nation's 2004 Human Development Index, in the "medium development" category, lower than all Western European countries.

Among the most serious social problems in Romania are the high rate of unemployment and the low standard of living resulting from the country's transition from a planned economy to a market economy . Other social problems are generated by the ethnic minorities. The most significant are the conflicts that occurred between ethnic Hungarians and Romanians in Transylvania at the beginning of the 1990s. The Roma (Gypsy) minority also has been a target of harassment and hostility. On the other hand, the party which represents the Hungarian minority (the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania) has been represented in the parliament since 1990 and participated in the government from 1996 to 2000.

Corruption also remains a significant problem. Transparency International ranked Romania eighty-ninth (tied with Iran and the Dominican Republic) on its 2004 Corruption Perceptions Index. Government efforts to fight corruption have become prominent, however, in part because of Romania's desire to qualify for membership in the European Union.

Although these problems have not been fully solved as of mid-2005, Romania has made significant progress. In April 2005, for example, the European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution that endorsed Romania's membership in the European Union scheduled for January 2007.

government

The 1991 Constitution proclaims Romania to be a democracy and market economy, in which human dignity, civic rights and freedoms, the unhindered development of human personality, justice, and pluralism are supreme guaranteed values. The constitution directs the state to implement free trade , protect the principle of competition, and provide a favorable framework for production. The constitution provides for a president, a parliament, a Constitutional Court, and a separate system of lower courts that includes a Supreme Court. The constitution guarantees the principle of division of legislative, executive, and judicial powers.

The president of Romania, who is elected by direct popular vote to serve no more than two four-year terms, serves as the chief of state, represents the country in foreign affairs, and serves as the commander of the armed forces. The 1991 Constitution stresses that the president may not belong to any political party.

The president officially appoints a prime minister to head the government. The prime minister is generally the leader of the party with the majority of seats in parliament. As chief of government, he is responsible for selecting a cabinet to help carry out the operations of government. The government makes executive policies and applies the laws and regulations passed by the parliament. Although the prime minister is the actual center of power in the country, the constitution offers the president some prerogatives that serve as checks on the prime minister's power.

Romania has a bicameral (two-chamber) parliament called the National Assembly. Its lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, has 346 seats, of which 19 are reserved for ethnic minorities. The upper house, the Senate, has 143 seats. Members of both houses of parliament are elected to four-year terms according to a modified system of proportional representation . All citizens aged eighteen and over are eligible to vote. The parliament is the highest legislative authority of Romania and has the right to ask the president and the prime minister to present detailed reports about their activity.

The Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority in Romania. Its members are appointed by the president at the proposal of the Superior Council of Magistrates. Each of Romania's forty counties has a county court and several lower courts, or courts of first instance. Romania has a Constitutional Court charged with ensuring a balance of power among the organs of government. The procurator general is the highest judicial official in Romania and is responsible to the National Assembly, which appoints the procurator general to a four-year term.

The constitution provides for an independent judiciary. International assessments, however, have indicated that the judiciary remains subject to political influence.

nicolae ceausescu (1918–1989)

Born in Scornicesti, Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu was raised in a peasant family. Joining various revolutionary and social movements of the times, he became a full-fledged member of the Romanian Communist Party in 1933.

Ceausescu was imprisoned in 1936 and again in 1940 for his Communist Party activities. While in prison, Ceausescu became a protégé of his cell mate, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who would become the Communist leader of Romania beginning in 1952. After the death of Gheorghiu-Dej in March 1965, Ceausescu succeeded to the leadership of Romania's Communist Party; in 1967, he became head of state as well. He soon won popular support for his independent, nationalistic political course, which openly challenged the dominance of the Soviet Union. In the late 1960s Ceausescu virtually ended Romania's active participation in the Warsaw Pact military alliance, and he condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces (1968) and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union (1979). Ceausescu was elected to the newly created post of president of Romania in 1974.

While following an independent policy in foreign relations, Ceausescu's domestic policy adhered closely to the communist orthodoxy of centralized administration. His secret police maintained rigid controls over free speech and the media and tolerated no internal dissent or opposition. In an effort to pay off the large foreign debt that his government had accumulated through its mismanaged industrial ventures in the 1970s, Ceausescu in 1982 ordered the export of much of the country's agricultural and industrial production. The resulting drastic shortages of food, fuel, energy, medicines, and other basic necessities drove Romania from a state of relative economic well-being to near starvation.

Ceausescu's regime collapsed after he ordered his security forces to fire on antigovernment demonstrators in the city of Timisoara on December 17, 1989. The demonstrations spread to Bucharest, and on December 22 the Romanian army defected to the demonstrators. That same day Ceausescu and his wife were captured and taken into custody by the armed forces. On December 25 the couple were tried and convicted by a special military tribunal on charges of mass murder and other crimes. Ceausescu and his wife were then executed by a firing squad.

citizens' freedoms, rights, and liberties

The 1991 Constitution guarantees the right to vote and to be a member of an official registered party for all citizens who are eighteen and over. The constitution also guarantees all personal freedoms, rights, and liberties. That these rights and freedoms are generally meaningful is clear from the assessments of Romania's record offered in the U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2005. The country report for Romania found the general state of the rights of Romanians to be secure but also noted that instances of police abuse, especially directed against the Roma minority, have occurred, as well as some instances of intimidation of free expression that have not been effectively controlled by the government.

Although Freedom House rated Romania as one of the world's "free" nations, these and other problems led Freedom House to give it ratings of 3 and 2, respectively, on its 7-point scales (a score of 1 indicates maximum freedom) that assess a country's observance and protection of political rights and civil liberties. Romania's performance should perhaps be judged at least partially in light of its recent past, however. At the time of the downfall of Ceausescu, Romania was as repressive as any country in the world, according to Freedom House.

political parties

Between 1948 and 1989 the only political organization allowed in Romania was the Communist Party. Led by Ceausescu after 1965, it controlled all aspects of government. It was dissolved after communism began to collapse in 1989, and many other parties emerged.

The most powerful party after 1989 was the NSF. It was constituted from many former members of the Communist Party and won the 1990, 1992, and 2000 elections. In the early 2000s, the main opposition party was the Democratic Convention of Romania, a coalition led by the Christian Democratic National Peasant's Party. It won the 1996 elections but broke up into many political formations after it lost the elections of 2000. About two hundred political parties were registered in Romania in 1994; however, only a small percentage of these were represented in the government.

personal security

The death penalty was abolished in December 1989 and is forbidden by the 1991 Constitution, which also guarantees freedom from torture, illegal imprisonment, and any other form of discrimination. The constitution provides for freedom of assembly, and the government respects this right. Workers have the right to form unions and strike.

Travel within the country is not restricted, and citizens who want to change their place of residence face no legal barriers. Religious freedom is respected, although some nontraditional religious organizations sometimes encounter difficulties when attempting to register with the state.

See also: Ethnic Cleansing; Moldova; Stalin, Joseph.

bibliography

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Freedom House. "Romania." Freedom in the World 2004. New York: Freedom House, 2004. <http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/survey2005.htm>.

Hitchins, Keith. Rumania: 1866–1947. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1994.

Pasti, Vladimir. The Challenges of Transition: Romania in Transition. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1997.

"Romania." CIA World Factbook 2004. Washington, DC: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 2004. <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ro.html>.

Transparency International. "Romania." Corruption Perceptions Index. New York: Transparency International, 2005. <http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2004/cpi2004.en.html#cpi2004>.

U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. "Romania." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2005. <http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41703.htm>.

Verdery, Katherine. National Ideology Under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu's Romania. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Watts, Larry. Romanian Cassandra: Ion Antonescu and the Struggle for Reform, 1916–1941. New York: East European Monographs, 1993.

World Bank. Romania: Human Resources and the Transition to a Market Economy. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1992.

Bogdan Alex Fratiloiu