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Romania Ottoman Domination and the Struggle for National Unity and Independence
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the lands of
modern
Romania became a battleground for Ottoman armies invading
southeastern Europe and for local voivodes who
resisted
their incursions. Moldavia and Walachia succumbed and
accepted rule
by the Ottoman Empire despite some great victories won by
their
armies and voivodes such as Stephen the Great,
Voivode of
Moldavia (1457-1504). Although Ottoman suzerainty proved
to be
relatively lenient, the sultans forbade the principalities
to
maintain armies that could be used to fight for
independence.
Michael the Brave, prince of Walachia (1593-1601), defied
them,
briefly emancipated and united the principalities, and
defeated
Ottoman armies in 1596. But the latter reasserted control
over the
principalities and killed Michael in 1601.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the
expanding
Russian and Habsburg, or Austro-Hungarian, empires began
to contest
Ottoman domination of the Balkans and fought many battles
against
the Ottoman armies on the territory of Moldavia and
Walachia. A
Walachian voivode, Tudor Vladimirescu, led a
brigade of
6,000 men fighting in tsarist ranks in the Russo-Turkish
War of
1806-12. Vladimirescu received the Russian Order of St.
Vladimir
for his service. In 1821 he led a rebellion in Walachia
against
Ottoman rule. Tsar Alexander I, however, did not approve
of his
actions, and Vladimirescu fell out of favor with the
Russian
Empire.
In 1848 Romanian nationalists formed an armed force to
fight
for the liberation and unification of the principalities
into a
modern state. Recognizing the challenge that this
development
implied, Russian and Habsburg armies invaded to forestall
unification. The unsuccessful revolution of 1848 showed
that there
would not be a Romanian nation-state, independent of
control by any
empire, until the military power needed to defend it was
established.
Data as of July 1989
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