For Want of A Sandwich - A Franz Ferdinand Lives Wikibox TL
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Rhodesia is a country in southern Africa, bordered in the North by Katanga and Tanganyika, in the west by Angola and Kalahari, in the south and the east by Azania (formerly Botswana and Mozambique).
History
Rhodesia began the XXth Century as separate countries, all united as colonies under the British Crown, as Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia. It was not until 1955, with Great Britain getting in bad terms with South Africa and the Empire preparing for independence, that the three entities would be united under the Dominion of Greater Rhdoesia and Nyasaland, envisioned as a single country under white rule, more secure than Kenya and that would be able to counterbalance the former Boer country. As Southern Rhodesia had been more developed than its neighbours, having been under self-rule since the 1920s, the region took the helm of the new federation, leading a modernization effort more effective than in other British colonies.
Nevertheless, the move would backfire against the British. The black majority, under Kenneth Kaunda in Northern Rhodesia and Henry Chipembre in Nyasaland, would agitate for black rule and Pan-Africanism ; undertaken by a Conservative government, the united Dominion would be criticized by the Labour government of Hugh Gaitskell, fearing that the situation in Rhodesia would evolve into a new Kenya or South Africa : in August 1962, London announced its resolve to dissolve the Dominion into separate entities and to prepare for a referendum on majority rule. Early elections in Rhodesia (where only white settlers were entitled to vote) gave a Conservative majority under Winston Field, who considered the move from London as an immediate threat against their very existence and proclaimed unilateral independence on 3 December 1962, with Field becoming President and his second, William Harper, as Prime Minister ; the 1963 Constitution inscribed the primacy of the white race in Rhodesian matters. In 1964, Rhodesia allied with South Africa.
Nevertheless, as relations between Great Britain and South Africa were rekindled, Rhodesia also accepted to come back into the Commonwealth, accepting to become a Kingdom on 6 July 1966,with Edward VIII getting proclaimed as King of Rhodesia. Meanwhile, the Rhodesian government intensified its repression of Black independantism, resulting in the assassination of Henry Chipembre in 1965 and Joshua Nkomo in 1974, as Pieter van der Byl came to power in 1968, enacting a Pyrist government and intensifying a rhethoric of “the proud and educated settlers threatened by the black savages”. As the opposition divided, as evidenced by the entry of Nyasa leader Hastings Banda into van der Byl’s government in 1970, the situation in Rhodesia finally resulted in a massive guerilla from 1972 to 1983, led by the Zanla and supported by Liberia and Kongo. In 1975, the assassination of van der Byl led to the rise of Richard Hope Ball, who intensified the repression and turned Rhodesia into a heavily militarized country ; it seemed that Rhdoesia would fall into the same chaos that stroke South Africa a decade later.
Nevertheless, in 1978, Minister of Defence Ian Smith, who had been the public face of repression within Rhodesia, managed to remove Hope Ball into a motion of no confidence ; Smith, even if he was a strict believed in the White Man’s Burden, was aware that white rule was untenable in Africa, that white Rhodesians were vastly outnumbered and that chaos and civil war would be the only future for the country. The new Prime Minister sent an open hand to the guerilla moderates, led by Reverend Abel Murozewa, who gladly accepted, resulting the 1980 Salisbury Agreement : a new Constitution was adopted, affirming the equality of all races under law, federalizing the country to put down the huge influence of Southern Rhodesia, and striking a powersharing deal with Smith and Murozewa as co-Prime Ministers. The two leaders also shared the Peace Nobel Prize in 1981, while only radicals led by Robert Mugabe continued the guerilla until he was killed in 1983 by German commandos.
The “Rainbow Nation” of Rhodesia undertook its democratization, becoming a Republic in 1982, with Ian Smith as President and Abel Murozewa as Prime Minister, until the direction of the Salisbury Agreement was confirmed by the outbreak of the South African Civil War in 1983 ; supporting the Pretoria government from the beginning, Rhodesia withdrew its support under the direction of Murozewa in 1988 after the detonation of a nuclear bomb by the Malan dictatorship, restoring support after the removal of Malan the following year, and focusing its efforts on the greeting of refugees, Boers and Blacks along. The outpouring destablizied massively Rhodesia, reaching 10 million people and camps becoming separate entities within the country. The racial strife reached Rhodesia with the country becoming the main destination for the three consecutive Boer Evacuations from 1990 to 1997, and Rhodesian troops being defeated by the Azanian People’s Front during the battle of Johannesburg and later defending the Afrikaner Boerstaat. The Boer refugees tried to stage a coup in Salisbury in 1997 in order to open a new front, but Murozewa managed to call on a general strike that defeated the coup. Smith resigned from the Presidency and Murozewa took his place, intensifying the democratization of the country and integrating the South African refugees.
While Rhodesia managed to take on the new century as an united nation, as Smith (in 2007) and Murozewa (in 2010) both passed away, the nation became the main front against Azania, engaging in a continuous war against the Pan-Africanist and supremacist nation, fighting in Botswana, Mozambique, Nyasaland and Matabeleland, helping to the building of the Azanian Wall. Since 2018, Azanians have occupied Nyasaland and Matabeleland, a state of emergency has been proclaimed and the Rhodesian War has fought a war of attrition, digging trenches.
Political situation
Under the 1982 Constitution, adopted after the Salisbury Agreement, Rhodesia has been a multiracial federal parliamentary constitutional and democratic republic, inspired by the Constitution of the United States. In order to inscribe the equality of all in front of the law, since 2008, the Presidency and the Prime Ministership have to be jointly held by people from different races, exemplified by the power sharing by President Ian Smith and Prime Minister Abel Murozewa. The largely ceremonial Presidency has been held, since his election by the Senate in 2021, by Guy Scott, a former Senator for Livingstone, of Scottish origin, formerly member of the Rhodesian Reconciliation Front (center-right). Since the 2018 election, the Prime Minister, holder of the executive powers and leader of the ruling party in Parliament, has been Nelson Chamisa, an Assemblyman from Fort Victoria, hailing from the Movement for Zimbabwe (centrist), of Bantu origin. The Senate reflects the federal nature of the state while the House of Assembly is elected by universal suffrage, each sharing the legislative power, while the judiciary system is inspired by English common law, even if most of its rules have been amended since the proclamation of a state of emergency and martial law since 2018.
All discrimination based on race and racial prejudices is forbidden in Rhodesia, leading many to consider it one of the most progressives in the world, particularly in light of the South African Civil War that happened in the same decade ; however, critics point it out as a largely cosmetic rule, as it did nothing to take down the widening gap between races and doesn’t adress the issues of gender equality and homosexuality, that is still criminalized in Rhodesia. Others feel that the colonial heritage in Rhodesia is still present ; a referendum was held in 2008 in order to change the name of the country to Zimbabwe, in order to better reflect its Native heritage ; the referendum failed, with the “No” gaining at only 53 %, even if efforts have been made, such as the idea of powersharing between executive positions.
Social situation, population
With a small minority descending from the white settlers and a large, multiethnic coloured majority, Rhodesia seemed poised to meet the same fate than South Africa ; nevertheless, now numbering more than 50 million people and with a Constitution recognizing 22 official languages, the country has managed to become the example of the “Rainbow Nation”, with law and civil service acknowledging the equality of all races and providing for equal development. Nevertheless, the gap remains : the white minority, of European ancestry, is aging, urban, more educated and concentrates economic control, mostly landowning, while the black majority, made up of more than 100 ethnicities, is quite young, more scattered in the countryside, and is significantly poorer, even if a middle class has managed to rise and affordable college education is accessible for the youth ; equality between sexes and access to health remains however a massive concern in Rhodesia. Mass vaccination against the Katangan virus was nevertheless a success, leading to the near-eradication of the disease.
Nevertheless, the outpouring of refugees from the former South Africa, along with Botswana and Mozambique, has changed the demographic balance in Rhodesia, composed of people who lost everything in the war against Azania and radicalized factions from each race. If the richer Boers have managed since to depart to the United States or Europe, the capital and most populated city, Salisbury, has significantly expanded due to massive slums, along with massive refugee camps overseen by the World Council in Southern Rhodesia, where violence is a common occurrence and where Rhodesian police doesn’t dare to enter at times. Even if Rhodesia is widely considered as a democracy, the state of martial law that has endured since 2018 has led to a significant strain on opposition parties aligned on Pan-Africanism and massive insecurity from ethnic paramilitaries.
Economy
A mostly rural country, Rhodesia is rich in natural resources, cultivating tobacco, tea, cotton sugarcane , while enjoying massive copper, nickel, platinum, diamond, coal, asbestos, gold and iron deposits, leading Rhodesia to be considered, along with Katanga, as “Africa’s bread and metal basket”, drawing hydroelectric power from the 1959 Kariba Dam ; the Murozewa government made much to draw the rural population out of subsistence agriculture, along with applying massive taxes on foreign companies in order to keep some economic independence. This economic situation, however, leads Rhodesia to rely massively on imports for manufactured goods, leading to a looming inflation on the Rhodesian dollar ; the strain of the continuous war on Azania also leads to a deterioriation of the economy in favor of a massive war effort, and Rhodesia is considered as tettering on bankruptcy and will be relying on foreign aid in the near future.
Military
Since the outbreak of the guerilla in 1972, continuing with the South African Civil War and the War on Azania, Rhodesia has been at war for almost 50 years, with Azanian troops entering its territory in 2017. Considered one of the best militaries of the world, the Army also reflected the changes within the country, with an overall command being equally divided between whites and blacks. Benefitting from state of the art German equipment along with military help from Britain, the United States and Germany, the Rhodesian Army was forced to withdraw north of the southern portion of the Azanian Wall, making a tactical retreat from Matabeleland and Nyasaland, and has managed to hold the ground against Azanian forces, fighting a re-enactment of the Great European, complete with trenches, barbed wire, anti-personnel mines along with massive bombings on Azanian positions. Propaganda has called Rhodesia “the vanguard of civilization” and the Rhodesian military, that has held tremendous power since the proclamation of a state of emergency in 2018 and the reestablishment of the draft, remains very popular in the country.
Culture
Even if the Rhodesian curriculum insists on the “considerable efforts made by the British settlers to civilize the area”, an oddity in Africa seen nowhere but in French Algeria, the government made much effort to glorify the heritage of the kingdoms of Zimbabwe of Mutapa that dominated the region, restoring and opening to the public the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Even if the proximity of Azanian threat is a reality, Rhodesia benefits a lot of tourism, for its historical riches but also its natural ones, such as the Victoria Falls in Northern Rhodesia. With a growing cinema and music industry, Rhodesia is also renowned for its literature, led by such figures such as Tsitsi Dangarembga and exiled artists from South Africa, even if the latter is more evidenced in Europe or the United States. Its sports teams, in soccer or in the Olympics, have also been distinguished.
History
Rhodesia began the XXth Century as separate countries, all united as colonies under the British Crown, as Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia. It was not until 1955, with Great Britain getting in bad terms with South Africa and the Empire preparing for independence, that the three entities would be united under the Dominion of Greater Rhdoesia and Nyasaland, envisioned as a single country under white rule, more secure than Kenya and that would be able to counterbalance the former Boer country. As Southern Rhodesia had been more developed than its neighbours, having been under self-rule since the 1920s, the region took the helm of the new federation, leading a modernization effort more effective than in other British colonies.
Nevertheless, the move would backfire against the British. The black majority, under Kenneth Kaunda in Northern Rhodesia and Henry Chipembre in Nyasaland, would agitate for black rule and Pan-Africanism ; undertaken by a Conservative government, the united Dominion would be criticized by the Labour government of Hugh Gaitskell, fearing that the situation in Rhodesia would evolve into a new Kenya or South Africa : in August 1962, London announced its resolve to dissolve the Dominion into separate entities and to prepare for a referendum on majority rule. Early elections in Rhodesia (where only white settlers were entitled to vote) gave a Conservative majority under Winston Field, who considered the move from London as an immediate threat against their very existence and proclaimed unilateral independence on 3 December 1962, with Field becoming President and his second, William Harper, as Prime Minister ; the 1963 Constitution inscribed the primacy of the white race in Rhodesian matters. In 1964, Rhodesia allied with South Africa.
Nevertheless, as relations between Great Britain and South Africa were rekindled, Rhodesia also accepted to come back into the Commonwealth, accepting to become a Kingdom on 6 July 1966,with Edward VIII getting proclaimed as King of Rhodesia. Meanwhile, the Rhodesian government intensified its repression of Black independantism, resulting in the assassination of Henry Chipembre in 1965 and Joshua Nkomo in 1974, as Pieter van der Byl came to power in 1968, enacting a Pyrist government and intensifying a rhethoric of “the proud and educated settlers threatened by the black savages”. As the opposition divided, as evidenced by the entry of Nyasa leader Hastings Banda into van der Byl’s government in 1970, the situation in Rhodesia finally resulted in a massive guerilla from 1972 to 1983, led by the Zanla and supported by Liberia and Kongo. In 1975, the assassination of van der Byl led to the rise of Richard Hope Ball, who intensified the repression and turned Rhodesia into a heavily militarized country ; it seemed that Rhdoesia would fall into the same chaos that stroke South Africa a decade later.
Nevertheless, in 1978, Minister of Defence Ian Smith, who had been the public face of repression within Rhodesia, managed to remove Hope Ball into a motion of no confidence ; Smith, even if he was a strict believed in the White Man’s Burden, was aware that white rule was untenable in Africa, that white Rhodesians were vastly outnumbered and that chaos and civil war would be the only future for the country. The new Prime Minister sent an open hand to the guerilla moderates, led by Reverend Abel Murozewa, who gladly accepted, resulting the 1980 Salisbury Agreement : a new Constitution was adopted, affirming the equality of all races under law, federalizing the country to put down the huge influence of Southern Rhodesia, and striking a powersharing deal with Smith and Murozewa as co-Prime Ministers. The two leaders also shared the Peace Nobel Prize in 1981, while only radicals led by Robert Mugabe continued the guerilla until he was killed in 1983 by German commandos.
The “Rainbow Nation” of Rhodesia undertook its democratization, becoming a Republic in 1982, with Ian Smith as President and Abel Murozewa as Prime Minister, until the direction of the Salisbury Agreement was confirmed by the outbreak of the South African Civil War in 1983 ; supporting the Pretoria government from the beginning, Rhodesia withdrew its support under the direction of Murozewa in 1988 after the detonation of a nuclear bomb by the Malan dictatorship, restoring support after the removal of Malan the following year, and focusing its efforts on the greeting of refugees, Boers and Blacks along. The outpouring destablizied massively Rhodesia, reaching 10 million people and camps becoming separate entities within the country. The racial strife reached Rhodesia with the country becoming the main destination for the three consecutive Boer Evacuations from 1990 to 1997, and Rhodesian troops being defeated by the Azanian People’s Front during the battle of Johannesburg and later defending the Afrikaner Boerstaat. The Boer refugees tried to stage a coup in Salisbury in 1997 in order to open a new front, but Murozewa managed to call on a general strike that defeated the coup. Smith resigned from the Presidency and Murozewa took his place, intensifying the democratization of the country and integrating the South African refugees.
While Rhodesia managed to take on the new century as an united nation, as Smith (in 2007) and Murozewa (in 2010) both passed away, the nation became the main front against Azania, engaging in a continuous war against the Pan-Africanist and supremacist nation, fighting in Botswana, Mozambique, Nyasaland and Matabeleland, helping to the building of the Azanian Wall. Since 2018, Azanians have occupied Nyasaland and Matabeleland, a state of emergency has been proclaimed and the Rhodesian War has fought a war of attrition, digging trenches.
Political situation
Under the 1982 Constitution, adopted after the Salisbury Agreement, Rhodesia has been a multiracial federal parliamentary constitutional and democratic republic, inspired by the Constitution of the United States. In order to inscribe the equality of all in front of the law, since 2008, the Presidency and the Prime Ministership have to be jointly held by people from different races, exemplified by the power sharing by President Ian Smith and Prime Minister Abel Murozewa. The largely ceremonial Presidency has been held, since his election by the Senate in 2021, by Guy Scott, a former Senator for Livingstone, of Scottish origin, formerly member of the Rhodesian Reconciliation Front (center-right). Since the 2018 election, the Prime Minister, holder of the executive powers and leader of the ruling party in Parliament, has been Nelson Chamisa, an Assemblyman from Fort Victoria, hailing from the Movement for Zimbabwe (centrist), of Bantu origin. The Senate reflects the federal nature of the state while the House of Assembly is elected by universal suffrage, each sharing the legislative power, while the judiciary system is inspired by English common law, even if most of its rules have been amended since the proclamation of a state of emergency and martial law since 2018.
All discrimination based on race and racial prejudices is forbidden in Rhodesia, leading many to consider it one of the most progressives in the world, particularly in light of the South African Civil War that happened in the same decade ; however, critics point it out as a largely cosmetic rule, as it did nothing to take down the widening gap between races and doesn’t adress the issues of gender equality and homosexuality, that is still criminalized in Rhodesia. Others feel that the colonial heritage in Rhodesia is still present ; a referendum was held in 2008 in order to change the name of the country to Zimbabwe, in order to better reflect its Native heritage ; the referendum failed, with the “No” gaining at only 53 %, even if efforts have been made, such as the idea of powersharing between executive positions.
Social situation, population
With a small minority descending from the white settlers and a large, multiethnic coloured majority, Rhodesia seemed poised to meet the same fate than South Africa ; nevertheless, now numbering more than 50 million people and with a Constitution recognizing 22 official languages, the country has managed to become the example of the “Rainbow Nation”, with law and civil service acknowledging the equality of all races and providing for equal development. Nevertheless, the gap remains : the white minority, of European ancestry, is aging, urban, more educated and concentrates economic control, mostly landowning, while the black majority, made up of more than 100 ethnicities, is quite young, more scattered in the countryside, and is significantly poorer, even if a middle class has managed to rise and affordable college education is accessible for the youth ; equality between sexes and access to health remains however a massive concern in Rhodesia. Mass vaccination against the Katangan virus was nevertheless a success, leading to the near-eradication of the disease.
Nevertheless, the outpouring of refugees from the former South Africa, along with Botswana and Mozambique, has changed the demographic balance in Rhodesia, composed of people who lost everything in the war against Azania and radicalized factions from each race. If the richer Boers have managed since to depart to the United States or Europe, the capital and most populated city, Salisbury, has significantly expanded due to massive slums, along with massive refugee camps overseen by the World Council in Southern Rhodesia, where violence is a common occurrence and where Rhodesian police doesn’t dare to enter at times. Even if Rhodesia is widely considered as a democracy, the state of martial law that has endured since 2018 has led to a significant strain on opposition parties aligned on Pan-Africanism and massive insecurity from ethnic paramilitaries.
Economy
A mostly rural country, Rhodesia is rich in natural resources, cultivating tobacco, tea, cotton sugarcane , while enjoying massive copper, nickel, platinum, diamond, coal, asbestos, gold and iron deposits, leading Rhodesia to be considered, along with Katanga, as “Africa’s bread and metal basket”, drawing hydroelectric power from the 1959 Kariba Dam ; the Murozewa government made much to draw the rural population out of subsistence agriculture, along with applying massive taxes on foreign companies in order to keep some economic independence. This economic situation, however, leads Rhodesia to rely massively on imports for manufactured goods, leading to a looming inflation on the Rhodesian dollar ; the strain of the continuous war on Azania also leads to a deterioriation of the economy in favor of a massive war effort, and Rhodesia is considered as tettering on bankruptcy and will be relying on foreign aid in the near future.
Military
Since the outbreak of the guerilla in 1972, continuing with the South African Civil War and the War on Azania, Rhodesia has been at war for almost 50 years, with Azanian troops entering its territory in 2017. Considered one of the best militaries of the world, the Army also reflected the changes within the country, with an overall command being equally divided between whites and blacks. Benefitting from state of the art German equipment along with military help from Britain, the United States and Germany, the Rhodesian Army was forced to withdraw north of the southern portion of the Azanian Wall, making a tactical retreat from Matabeleland and Nyasaland, and has managed to hold the ground against Azanian forces, fighting a re-enactment of the Great European, complete with trenches, barbed wire, anti-personnel mines along with massive bombings on Azanian positions. Propaganda has called Rhodesia “the vanguard of civilization” and the Rhodesian military, that has held tremendous power since the proclamation of a state of emergency in 2018 and the reestablishment of the draft, remains very popular in the country.
Culture
Even if the Rhodesian curriculum insists on the “considerable efforts made by the British settlers to civilize the area”, an oddity in Africa seen nowhere but in French Algeria, the government made much effort to glorify the heritage of the kingdoms of Zimbabwe of Mutapa that dominated the region, restoring and opening to the public the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Even if the proximity of Azanian threat is a reality, Rhodesia benefits a lot of tourism, for its historical riches but also its natural ones, such as the Victoria Falls in Northern Rhodesia. With a growing cinema and music industry, Rhodesia is also renowned for its literature, led by such figures such as Tsitsi Dangarembga and exiled artists from South Africa, even if the latter is more evidenced in Europe or the United States. Its sports teams, in soccer or in the Olympics, have also been distinguished.
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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Ferdinand Viktor Albert Meinrad (Sigmaringen, German Confederation 24 August 1865 - Sinaia, Romania 20 July 1927) was the King of Romania from 10 October 1914 to his death, hailing from the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, succeeding his uncle, Carol I, and in turn succeeded by his son Carol II.
Born to Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and one-time candidate to the throne of Spain, Ferdinand became heir presumptive to his childless uncle Carol, King of Romania (first as Prince from 1866 to 1881 and later as King), once his father and elder brother had renunciated their claims ; born a Catholic, Ferdinand was required to have his children raised as Orthodox, to which he agreed, and marrying into the British royal family in 1893, marrying Marie of Edinburgh. After giving birth to six children, the prince became King of Romania, then a rising country in the Balkans, in 1914.
When the Great European War broke out in 1916, the Entente hoped that the Romanian francophilia, along with their appetites on Hungary, would draw Romania to their side ; owing to his family links with the German royal family, Ferdinand prefered to remain neutral, until the pro-German Conservative party came to power in 1918 and the shifting tides in the war decided Romania to declare war on Russia in 1920 ; the Russians were in a state of disarray by then, and the Romanians quickly progressed and annexed Bessarabia, a long claimed area that was confirmed as a spoil of war in the Treaty of Kiev in 1921. This expansion allowed Ferdinand and the Conservative Party to remain very popular, enabling the Conservatives to have a new Constitution drawn to their advantage in 1924.
When Ferdinand died in July 1927 and succeeded by his once playboy son Carol, the newly established Danubian Federation was in a state of disarray, with Hungary and Croatie declaring independence, and on his deathbed, he knew that his successor’s first decision would be to declare war on Hungary and target Transylvania, completing the task of uniting all Romanian lands and fulfilling the dream of a Greater Romania, as he had already taken advantage of the Great European War to add Bessarabia to his demesne.
How mistaken he was.
General Ion Mihai Pacepa (28 October 1928-14 February 2021) was a Romanian politician and military officer ; as head of a military junta that overthrew longtime Capitanul Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, he led the Romanian State during the Romanian Civil War (1968-1971), before defecting to the monarchist forces in 1970 and becoming Prime Minister for the newly established Kingdom of Wallachia from its independence on 2 July 1971 to his dismissal on 16 July 1978.
Born in Bucharest to Transylvanian migrants, who had fled the Danubian War, Ion Mihai Pacepa adhered to the Iron Guard in his youth and joined the Romanian military after graduating in industrial chemistry. Serving in the Second Hungarian-Romanian War and benefitting from military training in Russia, Pacepa was a rising colonel in the Army when the Third Hungarian-Romanian War started in 1968. After the war ended in utter defeat, Pacepa joined other military officers in a military coup on 21 August 1968 against the aging Capitanul ; taking the head of the military junta, he failed to deal with the various uprisings across the country that erupted into the Romanian Civil War.
If Pacepa, as acting head of the Romanian State, was very successful into destroying democratic opposition during the Battle of Bucharest (1969), he could only see the tide turning against the Romanian State, when Russian forces invaded Bessarabia before declaring its independence as the Kingdom of Moldavia ; as the war became limited to Wallachia, monarchist forces enjoyed more and more successes and Pacepa decided to take contact with King Mihai and his supporters in order to strike a deal ; after being promised the leadership of the future kingdom and his elevation to the rank of General and head of the royal army, Pacepa defected on 31 October 1970, surrendering the majority of the Romanian State’s Army and the whole, ruined city of Bucharest. He then led the Royal Army against the remnants of the Romanian State, before the Treaty of Budapest split Romania between Moldavia and Wallachia, a situation that would last until 1997. As promised, King Mihai appointed General Pacepa as the first Prime Minister of the token kingdom.
General Pacepa would rule as an iron-fisted dictator, quelling dissent and concentrating his forces into rebuilding Wallachia ; nevertheless, the earthquake of 4 March 1977 that further destroyed Bucharest proved to be the last draw to Pacepa’s rule, after it was revealed that humanitarian relief and financial help had been embezzled by the Prime Minister. After riots asking for democracy had begun throughout Wallachia during the spring of 1978, and after being informed of the scandal, King Mihai decided to dismiss his Prime Minister on 16 July 1978, establishing democracy in the process.
Pacepa only retired from the Wallachian military in 1995, but was still sidelined during the existence of the small state, trying to form his own political party, the Conservative Party (Partidul Conservator), that only enjoyed mediocre success in general elections. Insisting upon taking full command during the Moldavian-Wallachian War, he was only given administrative tasks during the war. Ion Mihai Pacepa retired from political and military duties in 1995 ; two years later, Romanian was reunified. Quite forgotten, the General died of Wuchang pneumonia on 14 February 2021, living from a small military pension in an apartment in Bucharest.