History of Romania

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This article provides only a brief outline of each period of the history of Romania; details are presented in separate articles (see the links in the box and below).

Prehistory

The oldest modern human remains in Europe were discovered in the "Cave With Bones" in present day Romania.[1] The remains are approximately 42,000 years old and as Europe’s oldest remains of Homo sapiens, they may represent the first such people to have entered the continent.[2] The remains are especially interesting because they present a mixture of archaic, early modern human and Neanderthal morphological features.[3][4]

One of the fossils found—a male, adult jawbone—has been dated to be between 34,000 and 36,000 years old, which would make it one of the oldest fossils found to date of modern humans in Europe.[5] A skull found in Peştera cu Oase (The Cave with Bones) in 2004-5 bears features of both modern humans and Neanderthals. According to a paper by Erik Trinkaus and others, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in January 2007, this finding suggests that the two groups interbred thousands of years ago. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the skull is between 35,000 and 40,000 years old, making it the oldest modern human fossil ever found in Europe.[5][6][7]

Dacia

The earliest written evidence of people living in the territory of the present-day Romania comes from Herodotus in book IV of his Histories written 440 BCE. Herein he writes that the tribal confederation of the Getae were defeated by the Persian Emperor Darius the Great during his campaign against the Scythians.[8] The Dacians, widely accepted as part of the Getae described earlier by the Greeks, were a branch of Thracians that inhabited Dacia (corresponding to modern Romania, Moldova and northern Bulgaria). The Dacian kingdom reached its maximum expansion during King Burebista, between 82 BCE - 44 BCE. Under his leadership Dacia became a powerful state which threatened the regional interests of the Romans. Julius Caesar intended to start a campaign against the Dacians, due to the support that Burebista gave to Pompey, but was assassinated in 44 BC. A few months later, Burebista shared the same fate, assassinated by his own noblemen. Another theory suggests that he was killed by Caesar's friends. His powerful state was divided in four and did not become unified again until 95 AD, under the reign of the Dacian king Decebalus.

The Roman Empire conquered Moesia by 29 BC, reaching the Danube. In 87 AD Emperor Domitian sent six legions into Dacia, which were defeated at Tapae. The Dacians were eventually defeated by Emperor Trajan in two campaigns stretching from 101 AD to 106 AD,[9] and the core of their kingdom was turned into the province of Roman Dacia.

Roman Dacia

The Romans exploited the rich ore deposits of Dacia. Gold and silver were especially plentiful,[10] and were found in great quantities in the Western Carpathians. After Trajan's conquest, he brought back to Rome over 165 tons of gold and 330 tons of silver. The Romans heavily colonized the province,[11] and thus started a period of intense romanization, the Vulgar Latin giving birth to proto-Romanian language[12][13].

The geographical position of Dacia Felix made it difficult to defend against the barbarians, and during 240 AD - 256 AD, under the attacks of the Carpi and the Goths, Dacia was lost. The Roman Empire withdrew from Dacia Romana around 271 AD, thus making it the first province to be abandoned.[14][15]

Roman conquest of Dacia stands at the base of the origin of Romanians. Several competing theories have been generated to explain the origin of modern Romanians. Linguistic and geo-historical analyses tend to indicate that Romanians have coalesced as a major ethnic group both South and North of the Danube.[16] For further discussion, see Origin of Romanians.

Dark Ages

In either 271 or 275, the Roman army and administration left Dacia, which was invaded by the Goths.[17] The Goths lived with the local people until the 4th century, when a nomadic people, the Huns, arrived.[18] The Gepids[19][20] and the Avars and their Slavic subjects[21] ruled Transylvania until the 8th century.[19]. The Pechenegs,[22] the Cumans[23] and Uzes were also mentioned by historic chronicles on the territory of Romania, until the founding of the Romanian principalities of Wallachia by Basarab I around 1310 in the High Middle Ages,[24] and Moldavia by Dragoş around 1352.[25]

Different people from other kingdoms (or empires) lived with the Romanians, such as the Gothic Empire (Oium) from 271 until 378, the Hunnish Empire until 435, the Avar Empire and Slavs during the 6th century. Subsequently Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans and Tatars also raided and settled in the lands to various extents.

Bran Castle built in 1212, is commonly known as Dracula's Castle and is situated in the centre of present-day Romania. In addition to its unique architecture, the castle is famous because of persistent myths that it was once the home of Vlad III Dracula.

Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, Romanians lived in three distinct principalities: Wallachia (Romanian: Ţara Românească—"Romanian Land"), Moldavia (Romanian: Moldova) and Transylvania.

By the 11th and 12th century, the nomadic confederacy of the Cumans and (Eastern) Kipchaks (who are considered to be either the eastern branch of the Cumans or a distinct but related tribe with whom the Cumans created a confederacy) were the dominant force over the vast territories stretching from the present-day Kazakhstan, southern Russia, Ukraine, to southern Moldavia and western Wallachia.[26][27][28][29]

By the 11th century, the area of today's Transylvania became a largely autonomous part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Kings of Hungary invited the Saxons to settle in Transylvania. Also living in Transylvania were the Székely (székely magyar). They were an ancient Magyar tribe which had arrived after the Avars (they had the same language). Transylvania was part of the Kingdom of Hungary from the 10-11th century until the 16th century,[30] when it became the independent Principality of Transylvania[31] until 1711.[32] Many small local states with varying degrees of independence developed, but only in the 14th century the larger principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia emerged to fight a threat in the form of the Ottoman Turks, who conquered Constantinople in 1453.

Independent Wallachia has been on the border of the Ottoman Empire since the 14th century and slowly fell under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. One famous ruler in this period was Vlad III the Impaler (also known as Vlad Dracula or Romanian: Vlad Ţepeş), Prince of Wallachia in 1448, 1456–62, and 1476.[33][34] In the English-speaking world, Vlad is best known for the legends of the exceedingly cruel punishments he imposed during his reign and for serving as the primary inspiration for the vampire main character in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. As king, he maintained an independent policy in relation to the Ottoman Empire, and in Romania he is viewed by many as a prince with a deep sense of justice,[35] and a defender of both Wallachia and European Christianity against Ottoman expansionism.