National awakening of Romania
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 History of Romania | |
|---|---|
| Dacia | |
| The Middle Ages | |
| National awakening | |
| Kingdom of Romania | |
| World War II | |
| Communist Romania | |
| Romania since 1989 | |
During the period of Austro-Hungarian rule in Transylvania and Ottoman suzerainty over Wallachia and Moldavia, most Romanians were in the situation of being second-class citizens (or even non-citizens) in their own country. In some Transylvanian cities, such as Braşov (at that time the Transylvanian Saxon citadel of Kronstadt), Romanians were not allowed to even to reside within the city walls.
Increasingly, in the Romantic era, the concept of a national state emerged among the Romanians, as among many other peoples of Europe. Defining themselves against the nearby Slavs, Germans, and Hungarians, the nationalist Romanians looked for models of nationality in the other "Latin" countries, notably France.
1848-revolutia-Romania.jpg
As in most European countries, 1848 brought revolution to Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania, announced by the Tudor Vladimirescu's rebellion in 1821. Its goals - complete independence for the first two and national emancipation in the third - remained unfulfilled, but were the basis of the subsequent revolutions.
The Romanians' expressed desire to officially unite in a single state being unsupported by the Great Powers, the electors in both Moldavia and Wallachia chose the same person – Alexandru Ioan Cuza – as prince (Domnitor in Romanian). Thus, Romania was created as a personal union, albeit a Romania that didn't include Transylvania, where Romanian nationalism inevitably ran up against Hungarian nationalism. For some time yet, Austria-Hungary, especially under the Dual Monarchy of 1867, would keep the Hungarians firmly in control, even in parts of Transylvania where Romanians constituted a local majority.
In 1861 the Transylvanian Association for the Literature and Culture of the Romanians (ASTRA) was founded in Sibiu (then Hermannstadt), protected by an uncommonly enlightened local government composed largely of Germans.
Timeline
| 1812 | Russia annexes Bessarabia. |
| 1829 | Treaty of Adrianopole: Russia declares protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia. |
| 1834 | Russians withdraw from Moldavia and Wallachia. |
| 1846 | Customs union of Moldavia and Wallachia. |
| 1848 | Failed revolutions in the principalities and in Transylvania. |
| Russia reoccupies Moldavia and Wallachia. | |
| 1856 | Partial Russian withdrawal, following Crimean War. |
| 1859 | Alexandru Ioan Cuza unites Moldavia and Wallachia under his personal rule. |
| 1861 | ASTRA founded. |
| 1862 | Formal union of Moldavia and Wallachia to form principality of Romania. |
| 1867 | Formation of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, which assigns Transylvania to Hungary. |
| 1918 | After World War I, Transylvania, part of Banat, Bessarabia (Eastern Moldavia between Prut and Dniester rivers) and Bukovina unite with Romania. |
pt:O despertar nacional da Romênia ro:Renaşterea naţională a României