Romania ROMANIA AND TRANSYLVANIA TO THE END OF WORLD WAR I, 1861- 1919
Figure 2. Boundaries of Romania from the Congress of Berlin, 1878, to the
Treaty of Trianon, 1920.
Based on information from Eugene Horvath,
Transylvania and the History of the Rumanians, Astor,
Florida, 1976.
Bas relief celebrating Romanian independence from the Turks,
outside Casa Armatei in Bucharest
Courtesy Karen Friedel
Statue of Michael the Brave, Bucharest.
Courtesy Scott Edelman
After discussions in Paris, the European powers and the
Ottoman
Empire ratified Cuza's election, and the United
Principalities
officially became Romania in 1861. Almost immediately Cuza
initiated a reform program. Encountering resistance from
oligarchic
boyars, the prince appealed to the masses and held a
referendum
that approved constitutional provisions giving him broad
powers to
implement his program. The government improved roads,
founded the
universities of Bucharest and Iasi, banned the use of
Greek in
churches and monasteries, and secularized monastic
property. Cuza
also signed an agrarian law that eliminated serfdom,
tithes, and
forced labor and allowed peasants to acquire land.
Unfortunately,
the new holdings were often too expensive for the peasants
and too
small to provide self-sufficiency; consequently the
peasantry's lot
deteriorated.
Cuza's reforms alienated both the boyars and Romania's
mostly
Greek clergy, and government corruption and the prince's
own moral
turpitude soon eroded his popularity. In 1865 an uprising
broke out
in Bucharest. Afterward, animosity toward the prince
united the
leaders of Romania's two political parties, the pro-German
Conservatives, backed by the boyars and clergy, and the
pro-French
Liberals, who found support in the growing middle class
and favored
agrarian reform. On February 23, 1866, army officers loyal
to the
country's leading boyars awoke Cuza and his mistress,
forced the
prince to abdicate, and escorted him from the capital. The
next
morning street placards in Bucharest announced the
prince's
departure and rule by a regency pending the election of a
foreign
prince.
Data as of July 1989
|