Country profile - Romania
Romania is a country in Central Europe, bordered in the north by Russia, in the west by Hungary and Serbia, in the east by the Black Sea, in the east and south by Bulgaria.
History
Fully independent since 1881 after centuries of Ottoman suzerainty, Romania began the Twentieth Century with hope for prosperity and the dream of a Greater, united Romania, torn between the flourishing Bucharest, the “Paris of the Balkans” and a backward countryside, between its French model for culture, education, military and administration and the German origins of its ruling monarchs, the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringens. After conquering Southern Dobruja over Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War (1913), Romania, with the outbreak of the Great European War, had to choose “liberating” their brothers in Hungarian Transylvania or in Russian Bessarabia. The latter finally prevailed in 1920, after years of neutrality and after the war had prevailed in favor of the Alliance, declaring war over Russia. Even if the Romanian performance in the war was almost anecdotal, it contributed to further extend the Eastern Front and saw a rapid takeover of Bessarabia, that was annexed by Romania in the Treaty of Kiev that concluded the war. Deeply popular and affirming itself as a rising power in the Balkans, Romania would declare war on Hungary in 1927 with the outbreak of the Danubian War, expecting the dream of a Greater Romania to be finally at hand.
In spite of brand new landships powered by the reserves of Ploesti old fields, the Romanian Army was fraught by political infighting and corruption and were unable to progress much in the Carpathians, the Hungarian Army managing to quell down Romanian uprisings in Transylvania and to hold the Carpathian passes ; as soon as peace was achieved with Serbia, the Hungarians were able to counter-attack in Summer 1929 and by 7 June 1930, the Hungarians had entered a deserted Bucharest, while Bulgaria took advantage of the Romanian rout to occupy and annex Southern Dobruja. The Treaty of Bucharest that followed forced Romania to give Hungary control of the passes of the Carpathian Mountains and to accept to pay large war indemnities, payable in oil. The utter humiliation of the First Hungarian-Romanian War sent shockwaves throughout Romanian society, with much hatred directed on King Carol II, a womanizer who had just inherited the throne when war was declared upon Hungary ; the defeat sent Romanian politics into utter chaos, benefitting mostly the pyrist, ultranationalist, fanatically Christian and antisemitic Legion of the Archangel Michael, also known as the Iron Guard, led by its Capitanul (“Captain”) Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. Riding on discontent from both veterans and civilians, the Legion managed to come in third in the 1933 parliamentary election and was invited into a coalition led by Prince Mihail Sturdza, until Codreanu managed to compel the King to appoint him Prime Minister by 1934.
Codreanu as Prime Minister engaged into a battle of influence against Carol II and his camarilla, promising to take Romania to glory, completing an ambitious land reform that endeared him to landless peasants and holding massive rallies that propelled popular support. The conflict between the Iron Guard and the Royal Court came to blows on 10 February 1938, with Carol II formally dissolving the government and trying to rule by decree ; provoking on his command massive demonstrations across the country and after winning the support of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Ion Antonescu, Codreanu managed to lead a counter-coup on 27 February, arresting the King and detaining him in Peles Castle in Sinaia. After persecuting and throwing into exile the few royal partisans the King retained, Codreanu announced, in a massive rally, the abolition of the monarchy and proclaimed a Romanian State, drawing on the pyrist and integralist principles of the Legion, with himself at his head as its Conducator (Leader). King Carol II would be executed less than three years later, in 1941, along with his whole family, with only Crown Prince Mihai being able to escape in disguise to Hungary.
The Romanian State managed to go beyond D’Annunzio’s and Maurras’ realizations in Italy and African France, establishing an extravagant and sometimes grotesque cult of personality around Codreanu (whose titles included Genius of the Carpathians and Danube of Thought), establishing a grandiose propaganda about Romanian history going back to the Dacians (in spite of historical reserves about this), building a corporatist economy built on small landowners, planification and modernization (its main legacy being the Danube-Black Sea Canal completed in 1958), consecrating Romanian Orthodoxy as the one and only religion and all aspects of life being led by Legionnary principles, all dissents being sent to labor camps in the Carpathians. Embroidered in Christian mysticism and a cult for death and war, Romanian Legionarism remains somewhat of a political anomaly in Europe, only a few steps away from the Polish Kingdom of God. But Codreanu’s worst legacy would be the extermination of the Romanian Jews, undertaken by 1941 with complete organization from the higher spheres of the state, going from wide pogroms to complete eradication in labor camps ; while the Jewish population in Romania numbered 250,000 by 1900, it was reduced to only 3,000 by 1975. The Roma population of Romania was also heavily persecuted, being forced to sedentarization in labor camps or heavily guarded ghettos in slums.
Even if Codreanu’s propaganda exalted dreams of irrendentism, the State decided to side with Russia as soon as Germany fell to Syndicalist forces in 1944, entering the Russian sphere of influence throughout the World War and the Greater Game, with Russian troops being deployed in Bessarabia. Russian influence forced Romania to back down after declaring a new war against Hungary in 1956, forcing both nations to a ceasefire in a month ; it also proved determinant for Codreanu in defeating a coup attempt from his former ally, Prince Alexandru Cantacuzino, in 1954, and having some humanitarian help in the nationwide hunger that stroke Romania in 1965-1966, after a poor harvest failed to be compensated by the corporatist economy. With the Great Slovakian Revolt striking Hungary, an aging Conducator declared a new war upon Hungary on 1968, that quickly ended in utter Romanian defeat, almost as embarrassing as was 1930; the Russians, by then fed up with Codranu’s unreliability, invaded Moldavia. With all promises from the harsh Romanian State in shreds, all of Romania felt into riots and rightful Mihai, the last of his line, crossed the Bulgarian-Hungarian border under popular acclaim ; on 21 August 1968, Codreanu was deposed in a military coup by Colonel Ion Mihai Pacepa, heading a military junta ; as Codreanu would die forgotten by all, in exile in Ankara in 1976, his downfall triggered a three-way Romanian Civil War, between the Bulgarian-backed monarchists, the Russian-backed Iron Guard and the democratic popular opposition.
The Romanian Civil War saw the complete devastation of Bucharest, while civilian refugees fled into Bulgaria and Hungary ; the democratic opposition was the first side to go in the Battle of Bucharest by 1969, while the Russians, having secured full control of Moldavia, decided to continue to hold their positions over the Dniester by proclaiming a Kingdom of Moldavia with support from the local elites, placing Prince Paul Muruzi as its King and local Governor Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgar as Prime Minister ; seeing that the chances of the Iron Guard were faltering, Colonel Pacepa decided to defect by 31 October 1970 to the monarchists with most of the Romanian State’s Army. By 6 July 1971, the Iron Guard had been totally defeated in Wallachia and was under total control of King Mihai and General Pacepa. The Treaty of Budapest, the same month, officially split the former Romania into Russian-controlled Moldavia and the fully independent Kingdom of Wallachia at the River Buzau. Bulgaria, that had largely supported Wallachia, took control of the whole Dobrudja region as spoils of war.
The Kingdom of Wallachia (or Kingdom of Romania, as it referred to itself), with its capital in the largely destroyed Bucharest, saw its legitimacy from the return of King Mihai, who promised to heal the utter destruction of the Romanian State and to rebuild Romanian society after thirty years of Legionary control. Integrating the Reichspakt to protect itself from Russian interests and earning massive economic help from the World Council to rebuild the country, Wallachia was first a military dictatorship ruled by General Pacepa until the 1977 earthquake in Bucharest and the massive demonstrations that followed led to General Pacepa’s dismissal in 1978, restablishing democracy under Prime Minister Mircea Ionescu-Quintus, who initiatied the National Reconciliation Process to help and refund the victims of the Romanian State (even if the Wallachian government forgot about the remaining Jewish population). In 1987, King Mihai was able to inaugurate the rebuilt administrative buildings in downtown Bucharest, consecrating Wallachia’s slow rebirth.
Moldavia, with its capital in Iasi, that had been integrated into Romania in 1859, was seen during its short existence as a Russian puppet state, a necessary state as formerly Russian Bessarabia had been part of Romania for fifty years and as its annexation would only endanger the fragile ethnic stability of the Russian Empire. With Paul Muruzi serving as King and local politician Usatiuc-Bulgar as Prime Minister, the small state saw massive Russian military presence, and settlement by some Russians was encouraged by Moscow at some degree.
After violent skirmishes in 1988, war between Wallachia and Moldavia erupted in December 1989 and quickly became a proxy war between Germany and Russia, each major nation refusing to directly implicate itself in the Romanian Conflict ; on 15 June 1990, the Wallachians entered Iasi and King Paul was murdered by a disgruntled veteran. The reunification of both countries seemed at hand but was vetoed by Russia, the peace saw the establishment of a political and economic union between both countries and the demilitarization of the River Buzau, with both countries proclaiming their neutrality and Romania ceasing to be a hot zone for the Greater Game. As Russian settlers and Slavic inhabitants of Moldovia immigrated into Russia, and as a military government was installed in Wallachia after a miners’ strike in 1990, Pan-Romanian parties came to power in both countries, through elections in Wallachia with Corneliu Tudor in 1992, and with a coup in Moldavia, through Anatol Salaru in 1994. Both countries made preparations as Russia was in shambles and on 1 January 1998, Romania was reunified, with King Mihai and Prime Minister Corneliu Tudor at its helm.
The new Romania entered into a nationalist rhetoric under the guidance of Corneliu Tudor, who draw inspiration upon the nostalgia from the Codreanu regime ; Russophones were persecuted in the former Moldavia and Tudor reaffirmed its dreams for a Greater Romania, finally taking over Transylvania and reconquering Dobruja ; even if both countries were members of the Reichspakt, a new war against Hungary was declared in 2004, and ended in a new Hungarian victory and a return to statu quo ante. This conflict, along with Tudor’s decision to grant Romanian citizenship to all ethnic Romanians in Hungary, led the Reicshpakt and the European Community to expel Romania in 2007. Even the 2009 hunger and the refusal to acknowledge the Jewish genocide in 2012 failed to impede Tudor’s popularity and after his death in 2015, a military coup by General Mircea Chelaru followed to avoid infighting and instability. King Mihai, who had been the monarch of the Romanians officially since 1938 and officiously since 1968, died in 2017 and was succeeded by his eldest daughter Margareta.
Political situation
According to its Constitution, adopted upon reunification on 1 January 1998 and modeled on the Constitution of Wallachia, Romania is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, the Constitution providing for sizeable autonomy for both former countries of Wallachia and Moldavia. Citizenship is based on jus sanguinis as in Germany, thus controversially granting Romanian citizenship to Hungarians of Romanian origin and emigrated Romanian Jews, but also depriving Roma inhabitants from Romanian citizenship. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislative powers and based on the Napoleonic Code ; as the monarch only retains ceremonial powers save for a right to veto, most executive powers are concentrated on the Prime Minister, appointed by the monarch upon assent of the majority of the unicameral Parliament. The Constitution also officially establishes claims upon Hungarian Transylvania and Bulgarian Dobruja, considering both areas, constituant of Greater Romania, as being “under foreign occupation”.
Since 2017, Margareta of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen has been Queen regnant of Romania, as the eldest daughter of King Mihai, who had the succession law modified in 1987 to allow his daughter to ascend, basing the reform upon the Russian law of succession ; married to Scottish-born commoner Prince Iasi (born Gordon Brown), her heir is Crown Prince Mihai, who would bear the near of Brown-Hohenzollern.
Since a military coup on 30 October 2015, the Constitution has been suspended and the office of Prime Minister has been occupied by General Mircea Chelaru, Chief of the Romanian General Staff, who has since placed the country under a state of emergency and has claimed to be only running current affairs, promising to have civilian rule reinstated. General elections, earlier expected to happen in 2017 and 2021, have been cancelled, first due to incapacitation of the King and second due to the Wuchang Pneumonia pandemic. It seems now that General Chelaru has been taking inspiration from his colleague Pierre de Villiers in France and is here to remain. He has been actively pursuing reintegration of Romania into the Reichspakt, promising to tone down the official propaganda against Hungary and Bulgaria.
Social situation, population
Crossing the Carpathians allow the average traveller to hear speak Romanian in both countries, but the differences between the fate of Romanians in Hungary or in Romania is very different ; as the Hungarian Romanians urbanized themselves and enjoy an average standard of living, it is now more populated than Romania itself, that had to experience thirty years of Legionary oppression, four wars against Hungary, a Civil War, a genocide of its Jewish population, while cities have been deserted due to Codreanu’s promises for a bright future for small landowners and farmers (and the hungers in 1965 and 2009 proved this policy wrong) and the utter destruction of Bucharest, once the Little Paris of the East, in both the Civil War and the 1977 earthquake. The same contrast can be seen with formerly Romanian and currently Bulgarian Dobruja, and the Romanian diaspora, focused in Germany, France, Australia, Russia and the United States, continues to grow in face of the military dictatorship and continued economic distress.
The legacy of the Romanian State is also quite noticeable in the pyramid of ages, as the natalist policies of Codreanu encouraged Romanian women to stay at home and to benefit from state support, only managing to overpopulate state-run orphanages, street gangs and the fertility rate to drop in the ensuing years, making the Romanian government fear a boomer effect as soon as more and more Romanians will reach the age of retirement. The chauvinistic and irredentist streak of the government since reunification has also led to a complete suppression of local minorities, most notably the Roma, that were heavily persecuted under the Romanian State and are still being denied basic civil rights and citizenship as of 2021, many of them preferring to go into Bulgaria or Hungary. The rift is also noticeable between Wallachia and Moldavia, the former having benefitted from some democracy and some help from the World Council and the Reichspakt and the latter having served as a backwater and a garrison of the Russian Army.
Economy
One of the poorest economies in Europe, Romania has suffered from three decades of enforced and rurally-based corporatism, a civil war, the destruction of its political and economic capital (Bucharest), more than two decades of national division and has been unable to keep track of the rapidly changing European economy. The skilled workforce and low wages in Romania has made the country one of Europe’s leading destination for industry and manufacturing despite not being part of the European Community, with more than 33 % of German cars being made in Romania, with transport equipment, pharmaceuticals, printing and robotic parts, military gear, footwear, textile, agricultural products, mobile technology and information security softwares being made inside the country. In spite of this industrial cornucopia, foreign investment has failed to rain upon Romania, due to massive foreign debt (mostly due to the reconstruction of Bucharest) and high running inflation, with the aging population being also a factor for future upheavals, along with the lack of interest into ecologically updating Romania’s industry.
Along with the industry, Romania has also a massive mining industry, with considerable natural resources such as coal, iron core, copper, chromium, uranium, gold, feldspar, marble and pyrites, but also fossil fuels, with Ploiesti oil fields making Romania’s the highest producer of oil during the World War ; years of poor management along with destruction during the Civil War have since disrupted the production of oil. Rebuilt by Germany after the partition, Romanian mining industry has been looked down by European investors due to ecological concerns and the passage to a service-dominant economy after the 1980s economic krach. Even if it remains a large provider of employment, the imports of its resources has since turned towards Russia, China and Latin America.
Military
Suspended from the Reichspakt since 2007, due to the Tudor administration’s decision to grant Romanian citizenship to Romanian inhabitants of Hungary,, Romania had lost all its wars since its successful participation in the Great European War, four times against Hungary (1927-1930, 1956, 1968, 2004). Equipped with outdated German equipment and some leftovers from the Russian presence in Moldavia, with some of its navy vessels in the Black Sea and airplanes dating back to the 1980s, the Romanian Army has also a reputation for corruption and incompetence, a fact denied by the current military regime, in place since 2015. In spite of its poor performances, the Romanian Army still rules as a kingmaker over Romanian politics and of tremendous influence, having its own television channel for example. Romania is also noticeable for the number of firearms present in its civilian population, from the hunting rifle to the military-grade assault weapon, another legacy of the Romanian State that encouraged the Cult of the Warrior and the preparedness of all Romanian males, another feature that would turn against them in the Romanian Civil War.
Culture
Once heavily Francophile, Romanian culture veered from its French model after the Syndicalist Revolution, turning more towards Italy for inspiration ; it led, in a certain way, to the rise of pyrism in Romania in form of the Legion of the Archangel Michael. Subject to close political supervision and a lasting shadow of the Orthodox Church, cultural life was all but suppressed during the Romanian State, all energies being redirected to propaganda and exaltation of the Christian and national mystique, along with folk traditions ; even writers who had been supporters of the Iron Guard, such as Mircea Eliade or Emil Cioran, were forced into exile or imprisoned due to their unorthodox positions. Ever since, the Romanian diaspora was blooming culturally, with such artists as Tristan Tzara, Constantin Brancusi, Paul Celan or Eugen Ionescu making their careers in Germany. Since reunification, Romania has been blooming and even encouraged by the military regime, mostly in cinema, with Cristian Mungiu and Cristi Puiu enjoying excellent careers in Babelsberg.
In sports, Romania has also been noticeable, mostly in the early 1990s, with ASA Bucuresti rising to the summit of European soccer. Also noticeable was gymnast Nadia Comaneci, running for Moldavia in the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games and winning a record twelve gold medals in all three competitions, becoming one of the best athletes ever to compete in the Olympics. She would later serve as Minister of Sports in Corneliu Tudor’s administration.
The ultranationalist rhetoric of the Romanian State, somehow revived during the Tudor era, has led to a jingoistic interpretation of Romanian history, proclaiming the Romanians to be the direct heirs of the Roman Empire and the beacon of civilization in the Balkans. It is common to see grandiose epic films about the deeds of Vlad Tepes and Stephen the Great, and it has led to some incidents that were heavily derided in the Western World, such as Corneliu Tudor petitioning the World Council to have Trajan’s Column, that commemorates Roman victory against the Dacians, repatriated from Rome to Romania to be destroyed, or posters proudly proclaiming Codreanu to be “the new Dracula”,in front of the extensively restored Bran Castle. Nevertheless, the mixing of politics with history, also known as “Dacianism”, have led Romanian universities to be the subject of ridicule.
History
Fully independent since 1881 after centuries of Ottoman suzerainty, Romania began the Twentieth Century with hope for prosperity and the dream of a Greater, united Romania, torn between the flourishing Bucharest, the “Paris of the Balkans” and a backward countryside, between its French model for culture, education, military and administration and the German origins of its ruling monarchs, the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringens. After conquering Southern Dobruja over Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War (1913), Romania, with the outbreak of the Great European War, had to choose “liberating” their brothers in Hungarian Transylvania or in Russian Bessarabia. The latter finally prevailed in 1920, after years of neutrality and after the war had prevailed in favor of the Alliance, declaring war over Russia. Even if the Romanian performance in the war was almost anecdotal, it contributed to further extend the Eastern Front and saw a rapid takeover of Bessarabia, that was annexed by Romania in the Treaty of Kiev that concluded the war. Deeply popular and affirming itself as a rising power in the Balkans, Romania would declare war on Hungary in 1927 with the outbreak of the Danubian War, expecting the dream of a Greater Romania to be finally at hand.
In spite of brand new landships powered by the reserves of Ploesti old fields, the Romanian Army was fraught by political infighting and corruption and were unable to progress much in the Carpathians, the Hungarian Army managing to quell down Romanian uprisings in Transylvania and to hold the Carpathian passes ; as soon as peace was achieved with Serbia, the Hungarians were able to counter-attack in Summer 1929 and by 7 June 1930, the Hungarians had entered a deserted Bucharest, while Bulgaria took advantage of the Romanian rout to occupy and annex Southern Dobruja. The Treaty of Bucharest that followed forced Romania to give Hungary control of the passes of the Carpathian Mountains and to accept to pay large war indemnities, payable in oil. The utter humiliation of the First Hungarian-Romanian War sent shockwaves throughout Romanian society, with much hatred directed on King Carol II, a womanizer who had just inherited the throne when war was declared upon Hungary ; the defeat sent Romanian politics into utter chaos, benefitting mostly the pyrist, ultranationalist, fanatically Christian and antisemitic Legion of the Archangel Michael, also known as the Iron Guard, led by its Capitanul (“Captain”) Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. Riding on discontent from both veterans and civilians, the Legion managed to come in third in the 1933 parliamentary election and was invited into a coalition led by Prince Mihail Sturdza, until Codreanu managed to compel the King to appoint him Prime Minister by 1934.
Codreanu as Prime Minister engaged into a battle of influence against Carol II and his camarilla, promising to take Romania to glory, completing an ambitious land reform that endeared him to landless peasants and holding massive rallies that propelled popular support. The conflict between the Iron Guard and the Royal Court came to blows on 10 February 1938, with Carol II formally dissolving the government and trying to rule by decree ; provoking on his command massive demonstrations across the country and after winning the support of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Ion Antonescu, Codreanu managed to lead a counter-coup on 27 February, arresting the King and detaining him in Peles Castle in Sinaia. After persecuting and throwing into exile the few royal partisans the King retained, Codreanu announced, in a massive rally, the abolition of the monarchy and proclaimed a Romanian State, drawing on the pyrist and integralist principles of the Legion, with himself at his head as its Conducator (Leader). King Carol II would be executed less than three years later, in 1941, along with his whole family, with only Crown Prince Mihai being able to escape in disguise to Hungary.
The Romanian State managed to go beyond D’Annunzio’s and Maurras’ realizations in Italy and African France, establishing an extravagant and sometimes grotesque cult of personality around Codreanu (whose titles included Genius of the Carpathians and Danube of Thought), establishing a grandiose propaganda about Romanian history going back to the Dacians (in spite of historical reserves about this), building a corporatist economy built on small landowners, planification and modernization (its main legacy being the Danube-Black Sea Canal completed in 1958), consecrating Romanian Orthodoxy as the one and only religion and all aspects of life being led by Legionnary principles, all dissents being sent to labor camps in the Carpathians. Embroidered in Christian mysticism and a cult for death and war, Romanian Legionarism remains somewhat of a political anomaly in Europe, only a few steps away from the Polish Kingdom of God. But Codreanu’s worst legacy would be the extermination of the Romanian Jews, undertaken by 1941 with complete organization from the higher spheres of the state, going from wide pogroms to complete eradication in labor camps ; while the Jewish population in Romania numbered 250,000 by 1900, it was reduced to only 3,000 by 1975. The Roma population of Romania was also heavily persecuted, being forced to sedentarization in labor camps or heavily guarded ghettos in slums.
Even if Codreanu’s propaganda exalted dreams of irrendentism, the State decided to side with Russia as soon as Germany fell to Syndicalist forces in 1944, entering the Russian sphere of influence throughout the World War and the Greater Game, with Russian troops being deployed in Bessarabia. Russian influence forced Romania to back down after declaring a new war against Hungary in 1956, forcing both nations to a ceasefire in a month ; it also proved determinant for Codreanu in defeating a coup attempt from his former ally, Prince Alexandru Cantacuzino, in 1954, and having some humanitarian help in the nationwide hunger that stroke Romania in 1965-1966, after a poor harvest failed to be compensated by the corporatist economy. With the Great Slovakian Revolt striking Hungary, an aging Conducator declared a new war upon Hungary on 1968, that quickly ended in utter Romanian defeat, almost as embarrassing as was 1930; the Russians, by then fed up with Codranu’s unreliability, invaded Moldavia. With all promises from the harsh Romanian State in shreds, all of Romania felt into riots and rightful Mihai, the last of his line, crossed the Bulgarian-Hungarian border under popular acclaim ; on 21 August 1968, Codreanu was deposed in a military coup by Colonel Ion Mihai Pacepa, heading a military junta ; as Codreanu would die forgotten by all, in exile in Ankara in 1976, his downfall triggered a three-way Romanian Civil War, between the Bulgarian-backed monarchists, the Russian-backed Iron Guard and the democratic popular opposition.
The Romanian Civil War saw the complete devastation of Bucharest, while civilian refugees fled into Bulgaria and Hungary ; the democratic opposition was the first side to go in the Battle of Bucharest by 1969, while the Russians, having secured full control of Moldavia, decided to continue to hold their positions over the Dniester by proclaiming a Kingdom of Moldavia with support from the local elites, placing Prince Paul Muruzi as its King and local Governor Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgar as Prime Minister ; seeing that the chances of the Iron Guard were faltering, Colonel Pacepa decided to defect by 31 October 1970 to the monarchists with most of the Romanian State’s Army. By 6 July 1971, the Iron Guard had been totally defeated in Wallachia and was under total control of King Mihai and General Pacepa. The Treaty of Budapest, the same month, officially split the former Romania into Russian-controlled Moldavia and the fully independent Kingdom of Wallachia at the River Buzau. Bulgaria, that had largely supported Wallachia, took control of the whole Dobrudja region as spoils of war.
The Kingdom of Wallachia (or Kingdom of Romania, as it referred to itself), with its capital in the largely destroyed Bucharest, saw its legitimacy from the return of King Mihai, who promised to heal the utter destruction of the Romanian State and to rebuild Romanian society after thirty years of Legionary control. Integrating the Reichspakt to protect itself from Russian interests and earning massive economic help from the World Council to rebuild the country, Wallachia was first a military dictatorship ruled by General Pacepa until the 1977 earthquake in Bucharest and the massive demonstrations that followed led to General Pacepa’s dismissal in 1978, restablishing democracy under Prime Minister Mircea Ionescu-Quintus, who initiatied the National Reconciliation Process to help and refund the victims of the Romanian State (even if the Wallachian government forgot about the remaining Jewish population). In 1987, King Mihai was able to inaugurate the rebuilt administrative buildings in downtown Bucharest, consecrating Wallachia’s slow rebirth.
Moldavia, with its capital in Iasi, that had been integrated into Romania in 1859, was seen during its short existence as a Russian puppet state, a necessary state as formerly Russian Bessarabia had been part of Romania for fifty years and as its annexation would only endanger the fragile ethnic stability of the Russian Empire. With Paul Muruzi serving as King and local politician Usatiuc-Bulgar as Prime Minister, the small state saw massive Russian military presence, and settlement by some Russians was encouraged by Moscow at some degree.
After violent skirmishes in 1988, war between Wallachia and Moldavia erupted in December 1989 and quickly became a proxy war between Germany and Russia, each major nation refusing to directly implicate itself in the Romanian Conflict ; on 15 June 1990, the Wallachians entered Iasi and King Paul was murdered by a disgruntled veteran. The reunification of both countries seemed at hand but was vetoed by Russia, the peace saw the establishment of a political and economic union between both countries and the demilitarization of the River Buzau, with both countries proclaiming their neutrality and Romania ceasing to be a hot zone for the Greater Game. As Russian settlers and Slavic inhabitants of Moldovia immigrated into Russia, and as a military government was installed in Wallachia after a miners’ strike in 1990, Pan-Romanian parties came to power in both countries, through elections in Wallachia with Corneliu Tudor in 1992, and with a coup in Moldavia, through Anatol Salaru in 1994. Both countries made preparations as Russia was in shambles and on 1 January 1998, Romania was reunified, with King Mihai and Prime Minister Corneliu Tudor at its helm.
The new Romania entered into a nationalist rhetoric under the guidance of Corneliu Tudor, who draw inspiration upon the nostalgia from the Codreanu regime ; Russophones were persecuted in the former Moldavia and Tudor reaffirmed its dreams for a Greater Romania, finally taking over Transylvania and reconquering Dobruja ; even if both countries were members of the Reichspakt, a new war against Hungary was declared in 2004, and ended in a new Hungarian victory and a return to statu quo ante. This conflict, along with Tudor’s decision to grant Romanian citizenship to all ethnic Romanians in Hungary, led the Reicshpakt and the European Community to expel Romania in 2007. Even the 2009 hunger and the refusal to acknowledge the Jewish genocide in 2012 failed to impede Tudor’s popularity and after his death in 2015, a military coup by General Mircea Chelaru followed to avoid infighting and instability. King Mihai, who had been the monarch of the Romanians officially since 1938 and officiously since 1968, died in 2017 and was succeeded by his eldest daughter Margareta.
Political situation
According to its Constitution, adopted upon reunification on 1 January 1998 and modeled on the Constitution of Wallachia, Romania is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, the Constitution providing for sizeable autonomy for both former countries of Wallachia and Moldavia. Citizenship is based on jus sanguinis as in Germany, thus controversially granting Romanian citizenship to Hungarians of Romanian origin and emigrated Romanian Jews, but also depriving Roma inhabitants from Romanian citizenship. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislative powers and based on the Napoleonic Code ; as the monarch only retains ceremonial powers save for a right to veto, most executive powers are concentrated on the Prime Minister, appointed by the monarch upon assent of the majority of the unicameral Parliament. The Constitution also officially establishes claims upon Hungarian Transylvania and Bulgarian Dobruja, considering both areas, constituant of Greater Romania, as being “under foreign occupation”.
Since 2017, Margareta of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen has been Queen regnant of Romania, as the eldest daughter of King Mihai, who had the succession law modified in 1987 to allow his daughter to ascend, basing the reform upon the Russian law of succession ; married to Scottish-born commoner Prince Iasi (born Gordon Brown), her heir is Crown Prince Mihai, who would bear the near of Brown-Hohenzollern.
Since a military coup on 30 October 2015, the Constitution has been suspended and the office of Prime Minister has been occupied by General Mircea Chelaru, Chief of the Romanian General Staff, who has since placed the country under a state of emergency and has claimed to be only running current affairs, promising to have civilian rule reinstated. General elections, earlier expected to happen in 2017 and 2021, have been cancelled, first due to incapacitation of the King and second due to the Wuchang Pneumonia pandemic. It seems now that General Chelaru has been taking inspiration from his colleague Pierre de Villiers in France and is here to remain. He has been actively pursuing reintegration of Romania into the Reichspakt, promising to tone down the official propaganda against Hungary and Bulgaria.
Social situation, population
Crossing the Carpathians allow the average traveller to hear speak Romanian in both countries, but the differences between the fate of Romanians in Hungary or in Romania is very different ; as the Hungarian Romanians urbanized themselves and enjoy an average standard of living, it is now more populated than Romania itself, that had to experience thirty years of Legionary oppression, four wars against Hungary, a Civil War, a genocide of its Jewish population, while cities have been deserted due to Codreanu’s promises for a bright future for small landowners and farmers (and the hungers in 1965 and 2009 proved this policy wrong) and the utter destruction of Bucharest, once the Little Paris of the East, in both the Civil War and the 1977 earthquake. The same contrast can be seen with formerly Romanian and currently Bulgarian Dobruja, and the Romanian diaspora, focused in Germany, France, Australia, Russia and the United States, continues to grow in face of the military dictatorship and continued economic distress.
The legacy of the Romanian State is also quite noticeable in the pyramid of ages, as the natalist policies of Codreanu encouraged Romanian women to stay at home and to benefit from state support, only managing to overpopulate state-run orphanages, street gangs and the fertility rate to drop in the ensuing years, making the Romanian government fear a boomer effect as soon as more and more Romanians will reach the age of retirement. The chauvinistic and irredentist streak of the government since reunification has also led to a complete suppression of local minorities, most notably the Roma, that were heavily persecuted under the Romanian State and are still being denied basic civil rights and citizenship as of 2021, many of them preferring to go into Bulgaria or Hungary. The rift is also noticeable between Wallachia and Moldavia, the former having benefitted from some democracy and some help from the World Council and the Reichspakt and the latter having served as a backwater and a garrison of the Russian Army.
Economy
One of the poorest economies in Europe, Romania has suffered from three decades of enforced and rurally-based corporatism, a civil war, the destruction of its political and economic capital (Bucharest), more than two decades of national division and has been unable to keep track of the rapidly changing European economy. The skilled workforce and low wages in Romania has made the country one of Europe’s leading destination for industry and manufacturing despite not being part of the European Community, with more than 33 % of German cars being made in Romania, with transport equipment, pharmaceuticals, printing and robotic parts, military gear, footwear, textile, agricultural products, mobile technology and information security softwares being made inside the country. In spite of this industrial cornucopia, foreign investment has failed to rain upon Romania, due to massive foreign debt (mostly due to the reconstruction of Bucharest) and high running inflation, with the aging population being also a factor for future upheavals, along with the lack of interest into ecologically updating Romania’s industry.
Along with the industry, Romania has also a massive mining industry, with considerable natural resources such as coal, iron core, copper, chromium, uranium, gold, feldspar, marble and pyrites, but also fossil fuels, with Ploiesti oil fields making Romania’s the highest producer of oil during the World War ; years of poor management along with destruction during the Civil War have since disrupted the production of oil. Rebuilt by Germany after the partition, Romanian mining industry has been looked down by European investors due to ecological concerns and the passage to a service-dominant economy after the 1980s economic krach. Even if it remains a large provider of employment, the imports of its resources has since turned towards Russia, China and Latin America.
Military
Suspended from the Reichspakt since 2007, due to the Tudor administration’s decision to grant Romanian citizenship to Romanian inhabitants of Hungary,, Romania had lost all its wars since its successful participation in the Great European War, four times against Hungary (1927-1930, 1956, 1968, 2004). Equipped with outdated German equipment and some leftovers from the Russian presence in Moldavia, with some of its navy vessels in the Black Sea and airplanes dating back to the 1980s, the Romanian Army has also a reputation for corruption and incompetence, a fact denied by the current military regime, in place since 2015. In spite of its poor performances, the Romanian Army still rules as a kingmaker over Romanian politics and of tremendous influence, having its own television channel for example. Romania is also noticeable for the number of firearms present in its civilian population, from the hunting rifle to the military-grade assault weapon, another legacy of the Romanian State that encouraged the Cult of the Warrior and the preparedness of all Romanian males, another feature that would turn against them in the Romanian Civil War.
Culture
Once heavily Francophile, Romanian culture veered from its French model after the Syndicalist Revolution, turning more towards Italy for inspiration ; it led, in a certain way, to the rise of pyrism in Romania in form of the Legion of the Archangel Michael. Subject to close political supervision and a lasting shadow of the Orthodox Church, cultural life was all but suppressed during the Romanian State, all energies being redirected to propaganda and exaltation of the Christian and national mystique, along with folk traditions ; even writers who had been supporters of the Iron Guard, such as Mircea Eliade or Emil Cioran, were forced into exile or imprisoned due to their unorthodox positions. Ever since, the Romanian diaspora was blooming culturally, with such artists as Tristan Tzara, Constantin Brancusi, Paul Celan or Eugen Ionescu making their careers in Germany. Since reunification, Romania has been blooming and even encouraged by the military regime, mostly in cinema, with Cristian Mungiu and Cristi Puiu enjoying excellent careers in Babelsberg.
In sports, Romania has also been noticeable, mostly in the early 1990s, with ASA Bucuresti rising to the summit of European soccer. Also noticeable was gymnast Nadia Comaneci, running for Moldavia in the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games and winning a record twelve gold medals in all three competitions, becoming one of the best athletes ever to compete in the Olympics. She would later serve as Minister of Sports in Corneliu Tudor’s administration.
The ultranationalist rhetoric of the Romanian State, somehow revived during the Tudor era, has led to a jingoistic interpretation of Romanian history, proclaiming the Romanians to be the direct heirs of the Roman Empire and the beacon of civilization in the Balkans. It is common to see grandiose epic films about the deeds of Vlad Tepes and Stephen the Great, and it has led to some incidents that were heavily derided in the Western World, such as Corneliu Tudor petitioning the World Council to have Trajan’s Column, that commemorates Roman victory against the Dacians, repatriated from Rome to Romania to be destroyed, or posters proudly proclaiming Codreanu to be “the new Dracula”,in front of the extensively restored Bran Castle. Nevertheless, the mixing of politics with history, also known as “Dacianism”, have led Romanian universities to be the subject of ridicule.
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