Blackwell Reference Online

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Romania's turbulent history of struggle and revolution dates back as far as the first century. The legacy of recent history, however, begins in the eighteenth century, when Romanians, swept up in the waves of nationalism and ambitions of self-rule washing over Europe, began their struggle for establishing an independent Romanian state, free from foreign interference. The nationalist goal was to unite under one rule the three principalities in the Balkan region, which contained the majority of Romanians; they were Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania. The Romanians in these three regions each labored under a different foreign ruler. Even in the early twenty-first century, Romania is mired in territorial disputes. Transylvania, the most contested region, receives special attention due to its vocal Hungarian minority. The Romanians in independent Moldavia, on the other hand, seek unification with Romania. These territorial disputes, along with worker struggles, constitute much of Romania's history.Moldavia and Wallachia, vassal states to the Russian and Ottoman empires respectively, housed the native Romanian elite known as the boyar class, namely wealthy landowners, but the peasantry constituted the majority of the population. Transylvania, on the other hand, belonged at the time to Hungary, which was united with Austria under Hapsburg rule and free from Turkish influence. The Austrian ... log in or subscribe to read full text