Early Modern Romania

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Early Modern Romania is the portion of Romanian history that falls in the early modern period, roughly from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century (or from the union of Mihai Viteazul of 1600-1601, to the revolution of Tudor Vladimirescu in 1821.). During this period the Romanian lands were characterised by the slow disappearance of the feudal system, the distinguishment of some rulers like Vasile Lupu and Dimitrie Cantemir in Moldavia, Matei Basarab and Constantin Brâncoveanu in Wallachia, the Phanariot Epoch, and the appearance of the Russian Empire as a political and military influence.

Contents 1 After 1601 2 17th -18th Century 2.1 Phanariots 2.2 Russian Expansion 2.3 Bessarabia and Bukovina 3 Transylvania 3.1 The Habsburgs 3.2 The Revolt of Horea, Cloşca and Crişan 4 See also 5 Footnotes 6 References

[edit] After 1601

After the assassination of Mihai Viteazu, Basta's army persecuted Protestants and illegally expropriated their estates until, when Stephen Bocskay, a former Habsburg supporter, mustered an army that expelled (1605-1607) the imperial forces. In 1606 Bocskay concluded treaties with the Habsburgs and the Turks that secured his position as prince of Transylvania, guaranteed religious freedom, and broadened Transylvania's independence.^[1]

After Bocskay's death and the reign of the tyrant Gabriel Báthory (1607-1613), the Porte compelled the Transylvanians to accept Gábor Bethlen (1613-1629) as prince. Transylvania experienced a golden age under Bethlen's enlightened despotism. He promoted agriculture, trade, and industry, sank new mines, sent students abroad to Protestant universities, and prohibited landlords from denying an education to children of serfs.^[1]

After Bethlen died, the Transylvanian Diet abolished most of his reforms. Soon György Rákóczi I (ruled 1630-1640) became prince. Rákóczi, like Bethlen, sent Transylvanian forces to fight on the Protestant side in the Thirty Years' War; and Transylvania gained mention as a sovereign state in the Peace of Westphalia. The main responasble for the end of Transylvania's golden age was György Rákóczi II (ruled 1648-1660), a former ally of Moldavias and Wallachias Hospodars Vasile Lupu and Matei Basarab, and of the Cossack hetman, Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Allied with Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden he launched an ill-fated attack on Poland in 1657, without the prior approval of the Porte or Transylvania's Diet.^[1]

A Turkish and Tatar army routed Rákóczi's forces and seized Transylvania. For the remainder of its independence, Transylvania suffered a series of feckless and distracted leaders, and throughout the seventeenth century Transylvania's Romanian peasants lingered in poverty and ignorance.^[1]

During Michael the Brave's brief tenure and the early years of Turkish suzerainty, the distribution of land in Wallachia and Moldavia changed dramatically. Over the years, Wallachian and Moldavian princes made land grants to loyal boyars in exchange for military service so that by the seventeenth century hardly any land was left to be granted. Boyars in search of wealth began encroaching on peasant land and their military allegiance to the prince weakened. As a result, serfdom spread, successful boyars became more courtiers than warriors, and an intermediary class of impoverished lesser nobles developed. Would-be princes were forced to raise enormous sums to bribe their way to power, and peasant life grew more miserable as taxes and exactions increased. Any prince wishing to improve the peasants' lot risked a financial shortfall that could enable rivals to out-bribe him at the Porte and usurp his position.^[1]

In 1632 Matei Basarab (ruled 1632-1654) became the last of Wallachia's predominant family to take the throne; two years later, Vasile Lupu (ruled 1634-1653) was made Prince of Moldavia. The jealousies and ambitions of Matei and Vasile sapped the strength of both principalities at a time when the Porte's power began to wane. Coveting the richer Wallachian throne, Vasile attacked Matei, but the latter's forces routed the Moldavians, and a group of Moldavian boyars ousted Vasile. Both Matei and Vasile were enlightened rulers, who provided liberal endowments to religion and the arts, established printing presses, and published religious books and legal codes.^[1]

According to the treaties (Capitulations) between the Romanian Principalities (Wallachia and Moldavia), Turkish subjects were not allowed to settle in the Principalities, to own land, to build houses or mosques, or to marry. In spite of this restrictions imposed on the Turks, the princes allowed Greek and Turkish merchants and usurers to exploit the principalities' riches.

[edit] 17th -18th Century

Although centuries of continued attacks and raids from Turks, Tartars, Poles, Hungarians, and Cossacks, had crippled Moldavia and Wallachia and caused economical and human loses, the counties were relatively adapted to this type warfare. In the second half of the 17th century, Poland suffered a similar series of attacks: Swedish, Cossack and Tartar attacks, ultimately left Poland in ruin, and the lost as a Central European power (see The Deluge (Polish history)).

Unlike Catholic Poland and Hungary, which despite being Christian countries, constantly tried to take control of the Orthodox Moldavia and Wallachia, a new possible ally was Russia, which apparently possessed no danger to Moldavia, due to geographic and religious aspects.

In the early 17th century, Moldavia had unfortunate experiences in their efforts for Russian assistance from Ivan III and Alexis Michaelovitch against the Turks and Tartars. Under Peter the Great, Russia strength and influence had grown, and it seemed be an excellent ally for Moldavia. Numerous Moldavians and Wallachians enlisted in Peter’s army, which contained one squadron only of Romanian cavalry. Under Constantin Cantemir, Antioh Cantemir and Constantin Brâncoveanu, Moldavia and Wallachia hoped that with Russian help they might drive out the Turks from the border cities (Chilia, Cetatea Albă).

Charles XII of Sweden, after his defeat in 1709 at the Battle of Lesnaya, sought refuge in the Tighina, a border ford of the Turkish vassal state of Moldavia, guarded by Ottoman troops. As a response, Peter came to Iaşi in 1710. There he re-signed the Russian-Moldavian treaty of alliance (previously signed at Lutzk in 24 April 1711), which provided for the hereditary leadership his close friend Dimitrie Cantemir (son of Constantin Cantemir and brother of Antioh Constantin) who was supposed to bear the title of Serene Lord of the land of Moldavia, Sovereign, and Friend (Volegator) of the land of Russia, but not as a subject vassal, as under the Ottomans. Although at that time Russia’s western border was the Southern Bug River, the treaty stipulated that the Dniester should be the boundary between Moldavia and the Russian Empire and that the Budjak would belong to Moldavia. The country was to pay not a cent of tribute. The Czar bound himself not to infringe the rights of the Moldavian sovereign, or whoever might succeed him. Considering him the savior of Moldavia, the boyars held a banquet in honor of the Czar and to celebrate the treaty.

In response, a great Ottoman army approached along the Prut at the Battle of Stanilesti in June 1711, the Russian and Moldavian army were crushed. The war was ended by the Treaty of the Prut on July 21, 1711. The Grand Vizier imposed very drastic terms. The treaty stipulated that Russian armies shall abandon Moldavia immediately, renounce his sovereignty over the Cossacks, destroy the fortresses erected along the frontier, and restore Otchakov to the Porte. Moldavia was obliged to assist at and to support all expenses for the reinforcements and supplies which traversed Moldavian territory. Prince Cantemir, many of his boyars ^[2] and of the Moldavian army had to take refuge in Russia.

As a result of their victory of the 1711 war, the Turks placed a garrison in Hotin, rebuilt the fortress under the direction of French engineers, and made the surrounding region into a sanjak. Moldavia was now shut in by Turkish border strips at Hotin, Bender, Akkerman, Kilia, Ismail and Reni. The new sanjak was the most extensive on Moldavian territory, comprising a hundred villages and the market-towns of Lipcani-Briceni and Suliţa Noua. Under the Turks, Bessarabia and Transistria witnessed a constant immigration from Poland and the Ukraine, of Ukrainian speaking landless peasants, largely fugitives from the severe serfdom which prevailed there, to the districts of Hotin and Chişinău.

The existing Moldavians in the Russian armies were joined by newly joined Moldavian and Wallachian Hussars (Hansari in the Romanian language) from the 1736-39 war. When Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph von Munnich entered Iaşi, the capital of Moldavia, Moldavian Auxiliary troops on Turkish service changed side and joined the Russians. They were officially constituted into the “Regiment number 96 - Moldavian Hussars” (“Moldavskiy Hussarskiy Polk”), under Prince Cantemir, in October 14, 1741. They took part in the 1741-43 war with Sweden, the 1741 and 1743 campaign at Wilmanstrand and Helsinki. During the Seven Years' War they fought at the Battle of Gross-Jagersdorf (1757), Battle of Zorndorf (1758), Battle of Kunersdorf (1759) and the 1760 capturing of Berlin.

[edit] Phanariots

See main article: Phanariots

A very important demand of the Treaty of Prut was that Moldavia and Wallachia shall have only appointed rulers. The Phanariots would be appointed as Hospodars from 1711 to 1821 (see main article Phanariots. The late 18th century is regarded as one of the darkest time in Romanian History. The main goal of most Phanariots was to get rich and then to retire.

Under the Phanariots, Moldavia was the first state in Eastern Europe to abolish serfdom, when Constantine Mavrocordat, summoned the boyars in 1749 to a great council in the church of the Three Hierarchs in Iaşi. In Transylvania, this reform did not take place till 1784, as a consequence of the bloody revolt of the Romanian peasantry under Horea, Cloşca and Crişan. Bessarabia was now still more attractive to the Polish and Russian serfs. The former had to serve their masters free for 150 days every year, and the latter were virtually slaves. Clandestine immigration from Poland and the Ukraine flowed particularly to the boundaries of Bessarabia, around Hotin and Cernăuţi.

[edit] Russian Expansion

By the late 18th century and early 19th century, the real intentions of expansion of Russia were clear. Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania found themselves as a clashing area for three neighboring empires: the Habsburg Empire, the newly appeared Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.

In 1768, a six-year war broke out between Russia and Turkey (see Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774). The Russians took Hotin, Bender and Iaşi, and occupied Moldavia the whole extent of the war. In 1772, the partition of Poland gave Galicia and Lodomeria to Austria, and Volhynia and Podolia to Russia, so that Moldavia was now in immediate contact with the Austrian and Russian Empires. In the Peace of Kuchuk-Kainarji (1774) Turkey ceded to Russia the country between Dnieper and Bug, but retained the Bessarabian border fortresses and their sanjaks. Moldavia kept its independence, under Turkish suzerainty, as heretofore. Catherine self-assumed the right of protecting the Christians of the Romanian Principalities.

In 1775, Empress Maria Theresa of the Habsburg Empire took advantage of the situation and occupied the northern extremity of Moldavia, called Bucovina, marching the Austrian armies through Cernauti and Suceava, considered the holy city of Moldavia, as it preserved the tombs of Stephen the Great and other Moldavian rulers. The occupation was acknowledged with a treaty between the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire, despite the protests of Grigore Ghica, the Hospodar of Moldavia. Grigore Ghica would be assassinated in 1777, at Iaşi, by Austrian paid Turkish troops.

In 1787, Russia and Austria declared war on Turkey (see Russo-Turkish War (1787-1792)). Empress Catherine wished to install Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin as Prince of Dacia, as Russian vassal state corresponding to the ancient Roman Dacia, and thus to approach her final goal, Constantinople. In 1788 war started, but Turkey's preparations were inadequate and the moment was ill-chosen, now that Russia and Austria were in alliance. After a long list of failures, the Ottomans were forced to surrender. The Peace Treaty was signed at Iaşi (see the Treaty of Jassy) on January 1792. It stipulated that the Moldavia shall remain a Turkish vassal, that Dniester was the frontier between Moldavia and the Russian Empire, and that the Budjak shall pass under Russian control.

In 1806, Napoleon encouraged Czar Alexander Pavlovitch to begin another war with Turkey. Russian troops occupied again Moldavia and Wallachia under General Kutussoff who was made Governor-General of the Romanian Principalities. The foreign consuls and diplomatic agents had to leave the capital cities of Iaşi and Bucharest. After the Russian broke the truce with a surprise attack against, the Ottomans entered peace negotiations. At Giurgiu and at Bucharest (see Treaty of Bucharest, 1812), the Russian annexed the Budjak and the eastern part of Moldavia, which was called Bessarabia.

[edit] Bessarabia and Bukovina

See main articles: Bessarabia and Bukovina.

This territory, which according to the official Russian census of 1816, 92.5 % of the population was Romanian (419,240 Romanians, 30,000 Ukrainians, 19,120 Jews, 6,000 Lipovans), would be held by Russia until 1918. During this time, the area would see a decrease in Romanian population due to constant emigration to Moldavia and Wallachia. For example, from 550,000 inhabitants in 1832, in 1829 there were 412,000 inhabitants. The main reasons for fleeing were the harsh Russian system of serfdom, still in existence (until 1861) ^[3], and the brutality and massacres of the occupying forces ^[4].

On 26 June 1812, Tsar Alexander II promulgated the Special Colonization Status of Bessarabia. Bulgarians, Gagauz, Germans, Jews, Swiss and French colonist were brought. In 1813, the Russian language was imposed as official administration, school and church. The Russian Police imprisoned and expelled most of the Romanian intellectuals, to Dorpat (Estonia), Wenden (Lithuania), Pinega and Onega (in Arkhangelsk Oblast), and even to Manchuria.

Bukovina (including North Bukovina), which at that time (1775) had a population of 75,000 Romanians and 12,000 Ukrainians, Jews and Poles, was annexed to the Habsburg held province of Galicia, and colonized with Ukrainians, Germans, Hungarians, Jews and Armenians. They were granted free lands and exclusion from paying any taxes. Between 1905 and 1907, 60,000 Romanians were promised more land, and were send to Siberia and the Central Asian provinces. Instead, further Byelorussians and Ukrainians would be brought. The official languages in school and administration were German and Polish.

[edit] Transylvania

[edit] The Habsburgs

In 1683 Jan Sobieski's Polish army crushed an Ottoman army besieging Vienna, and Christian forces soon began the slow process of driving the Turks from Europe. In 1688 the Transylvanian Diet renounced Ottoman suzerainty and accepted Austrian protection. Eleven years later, the Porte officially recognized Austria's sovereignty over the region. Although an imperial decree reaffirmed the privileges of Transylvania's nobles and the status of its four "recognized" religions, Vienna assumed direct control of the region and the emperor planned annexation.^[5]

The Romanian majority remained segregated from Transylvania's political life and almost totally enserfed; Romanians were forbidden to marry, relocate, or practice a trade without the permission of their landlords. Besides oppressive feudal exactions, the Orthodox Romanians had to pay tithes to the Roman Catholic or Protestant church, depending on their landlords' faith. Barred from collecting tithes, Orthodox priests lived in penury, and many labored as peasants to survive.^[5]

Under Habsburg rule, Roman Catholics dominated Transylvania's more numerous Protestants, and Vienna mounted a campaign to convert the region to Catholicism. The imperial army delivered many Protestant churches to Catholic hands, and anyone who broke from the Catholic church was liable to receive a public flogging. The Habsburgs also attempted to persuade Orthodox clergymen to join the Uniate Church, which retained Orthodox rituals and customs but accepted four key points of Catholic doctrine and acknowledged papal authority.^[5]

Jesuits dispatched to Transylvania promised Orthodox clergymen heightened social status, exemption from serfdom, and material benefits. In 1699 and 1701, Emperor Leopold I decreed Transylvania's Orthodox Church to be one with the Roman Catholic Church; the Habsburgs, however, never intended to make the Uniate Church a "received" religion and did not enforce portions of Leopold's decrees that gave Uniate clergymen the same rights as Catholic priests. Despite an Orthodox synod's acceptance of union, many Orthodox clergy and faithful rejected it.^[5]

In 1711, having suppressed an eight-year rebellion of Hungarian nobles and serfs, the Austrian empire consolidated its hold on Transylvania, and within several decades the Uniate Church proved a seminal force in the rise of Romanian nationalism. Uniate clergymen had influence in Vienna; and Uniate priests schooled in Rome and Vienna acquainted the Romanians with Western ideas, wrote histories tracing their Daco-Roman origins, adapted the Latin alphabet to the Romanian language (see Romanian alphabet), and published Romanian grammars and prayer books. The Uniate Church's seat at Blaj, in southern Transylvania, became a center of Romanian culture.^[5]

The Romanians' struggle for equality in Transylvania found its first formidable advocate in a Uniate bishop, Inocenţiu Micu Klein, who, with imperial backing, became a baron and a member of the Transylvanian Diet. From 1729 to 1744, Klein submitted petitions to Vienna on the Romanians' behalf and stubbornly took the floor of Transylvania's Diet to declare that Romanians were the inferiors of no other Transylvanian people, that they contributed more taxes and soldiers to the state than any of Transylvania's "nations", and that only enmity and outdated privileges caused their political exclusion and economic exploitation. Klein fought to gain Uniate clergymen the same rights as Catholic priests, reduce feudal obligations, restore expropriated land to Romanian peasants, and bar feudal lords from depriving Romanian children of an education. The bishop's words fell on deaf ears in Vienna; and Hungarian, German, and Szekler deputies, jealously clinging to their noble privileges, openly mocked the bishop and snarled that the Romanians were to the Transylvanian body politic what "moths are to clothing". Klein eventually fled to Rome where his appeals to the pope proved fruitless. He died in a Roman monastery in 1768. Klein's struggle, however, stirred both Uniate and Orthodox Romanians to demand equal standing. In 1762 an imperial decree established an organization for Transylvania's Orthodox community, but the empire still denied Orthodoxy equality even with the Uniate Church.^[5]

[edit] The Revolt of Horea, Cloşca and Crişan

Emperor Joseph II (ruled 1780-90), before his accession, witnessed the serfs' wretched existence during three tours of Transylvania. As emperor he launched an energetic reform program. Steeped in the teachings of the French Enlightenment, he practiced "enlightened despotism," or reform from above designed to preempt revolution from below. He brought the empire under strict central control, launched an education program, and instituted religious tolerance, including full civil rights for Orthodox Christians. In 1784 Transylvanian serfs under Horea, Cloşca and Crişan, convinced they had the emperor's support, rebelled against their feudal masters, sacked castles and manor houses, and murdered about 100 nobles. Joseph ordered the revolt repressed, but granted amnesty to all participants except their leaders, whom the nobles tortured and put to death before peasants brought to witness the execution. Joseph, aiming to strike at the rebellion's root causes, emancipated the serfs, annulled Transylvania's constitution, dissolved the Union of Three Nations, and decreed German the official language of the empire. Hungary's nobles and Catholic clergy resisted Joseph's reforms, and the peasants soon grew dissatisfied with taxes, conscription, and forced requisition of military supplies. Faced with broad discontent, Joseph rescinded many of his initiatives toward the end of his life.^[6][7]

Joseph II's Germanization decree triggered a chain reaction of national movements throughout the empire. Hungarians appealed for unification of Hungary and Transylvania and Magyarization of minority peoples. Threatened by both Germanization and Magyarization, the Romanians and other minority nations experienced a cultural awakening. In 1791 two Romanian bishops—one Orthodox, the other Uniate—petitioned Emperor Leopold II (ruled 1790-92) to grant Romanians political and civil rights, to place Orthodox and Uniate clergy on an equal footing, and to apportion a share of government posts for Romanian appointees; the bishops supported their petition by arguing that Romanians were descendants of the Romans and the aboriginal inhabitants of Transylvania. The emperor restored Transylvania as a territorial entity and ordered the Transylvanian Diet to consider the petition. The Diet, however, decided only to allow Orthodox believers to practice their faith; the deputies denied the Orthodox Church recognition and refused to give Romanians equal political standing beside the other Transylvanian nations.^[6]

Leopold's successor, Francis I (1792-1835), whose almost abnormal aversion to change and fear of revolution brought his empire four decades of political stagnation, virtually ignored Transylvania's constitution and refused to convoke the Transylvanian Diet for twenty-three years. When the Diet finally reconvened in 1834, the language issue reemerged as Hungarian deputies proposed making Magyar (Hungarian) the official language of Transylvania. In 1843 the Hungarian Diet passed a law making Magyar Hungary's official language, and in 1847 the Transylvanian Diet enacted a law requiring the government to use Magyar. Transylvania's Romanians protested futilely.^[6]

At the end of the 17th century, following the defeat of the Turks, Hungary and Transylvania become part of the Habsburg Monarchy. The Austrians, in turn, rapidly expanded their empire: In 1718 an important part of Wallachia, called Oltenia, was incorporated into the Austrian Empire and was only returned in 1739.

[edit] See also

• List of Wallachian rulers (up to 1859)
• List of Moldavian rulers (up to 1859)
• List of Transylvanian rulers (up to 1918)

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain.

• Charles Upson Clark: Bessarabia: Russia and Roumania on the Black Sea [1];
• Stanislaw Schwann: Marx-Engels Archives, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, Holland;
• Karl Marx - Însemnări despre români, Ed. Academiei RPR, Bucureşti, 1964
• Pop, Ioan Aurel, Istoria Transilvaniei medievale: de la etnogeneza românilor până la Mihai Viteazul ("Histori of medieval Translyvania, from the ethno-genesis the Romanians until Mihai Viteazul"), Cluj-Napoca.