1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt
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The 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt took place in March 1907 in Moldavia and it quickly spread reaching Wallachia. The main cause was the discontent of the peasants about the inequity of land ownership, which was in the hands of just a few large landowners.
[edit] Background
Most large landowners preferred to live in the cities and did not want to bother with the administration of their properties. Therefore, they leased their domains to intermediaries (arendaşi), in exchange for a fixed rent (arendă). The arendaşi in turn would administer the land and try to make a good profit in short time. At that time peasants formed up to 80% of the Romanian population and about 60% of them held very little or no land at all, while the latifundia owned more than half of the arable land. The fact that most arendaşi where not ethnically Romanian (most were Jewish, some Greek) also contributed to further tensions.
[edit] Course of events
The revolt began on the lands administered by one arendaş, Mochi Fischer, in the village of Flămânzi (the name seems predestined, as it literally means "Hungry men"). He refused to sign the contracts with the local peasants. The Austrian-Jewish family of Fischer used to lease about 75% of the arable land in three Romanian counties in Moldavia (the so-called "Fischerland").
The peasants, fearing that they would remain without work and more importantly, without food, began to act violently. Mochi Fischer was scared and fled to a friend of his in Cernăuţi, leaving the peasants without the contracts signed. The fear of remaining out of work, combined with some alleged Austro-Hungarian instigators led the peasants to revolt. The revolt soon spread across most of Moldavia, with several landowner's properties destroyed and many arendaşi killed or wounded. The Conservative government (Partidul Conservator) couldn't handle the situation and stepped down, so the Liberals (Partidul Naţional-Liberal) of Dimitrie Sturdza assumed power.
On the 18 March a state of emergency was declared, then general mobilization, 140,000 being recruited by 29 March. The Romanian Army began firing at the peasants: allegedly 11,000 peasants perished and more than 10,000 were arrested.
The number of victims is not really known and not even what happened is clear, as Carol I of Romania ordered all documents pertaining to these events to be destroyed, so the Liberal government would not be held responsible by an eventual Conservative government.
The numbers reported by diplomats who were in Romania at the time are as follows: between 3,000 and 5,000 (Austrian diplomats' figures) and between 10,000 and 20,000 (French diplomats' figures). Historians put the figures between 3,000 and 18,000, with the most commonly used figure being 11,000.
The events continued to resonate in Romanian conscience, and were the subject of one of the best novels of the interwar period, Răscoala ("The Revolt"), by Liviu Rebreanu, published in 1932. It also formed the subject of a painting by Octav Băncilă, and of a monumental statue which can still be seen in Bucharest.
[edit] References
- (Romanian) Anton Caragea, 1907: Rascoala sau Complot? ("1907: Rebellion or Plot"), Magazin Istoric, 2003. Accessed January 3, 2006
- (Romanian) Ion Luca Caragiale, 1907 din primăvară până'n toamnă ("1907 From Spring to Autumn")
