Romania Unitary state
| ROMANIA | / HISTORY |
History and trends
Romania is a parliamentary Republic. Its Constitution was adopted on 21 November 1991 and amended in October 2003.
Modern-day Romania was formed through successive mergers of peoples from the pre-Roman, Roman and Middle Ages periods.
Romania became a constitutionally and administratively unified state in 1862. Romania fought alongside the Russians in the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), which led to full independence in May 1877. However, the country was forced to cede Southern Bessarabia to Russia in return for Dobruja, with a Bulgarian and Turkish population (Treaty of Berlin, 1878).
As the central European empires collapsed, Romania was reinstated and its borders expanded.
Transylvania became part of Romania following the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1919-1920, but its borders were redrawn once again in the aftermath of World War II. Romania was governed by a series of dictatorships, under the pro-Nazi Ion Antonescu then the pro-Soviet Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. In 1965, Romania became a Communist state and was led by Nicolae Ceaușescu until the regime collapsed in 1989 – the last communist regime in Western Europe to do so. Newly democratic Romania joined the European Union in 2007, but extremely low voter turnout and rampant corruption problems point to the persistent fragility of its young institutions.
Romania has 217 towns (orașe) and 103 cities (municipii).
The cities are more developed and more urbanised than the towns, and generally have a population of 15,000-20,000 or more.
There are 2,861 municipalities, divided into 13,092 villages. The villages and smaller settlements do not have their own government and are therefore not considered political divisions, but rather administrative cantons (ocoluri) of the municipalities.
Ecclesiastical territorial entities:
Romania’s Churches receive public funds, have their own TV channels, are able to award nationally recognised qualifications, and play an important role in the nation’s educational, cultural and political life. As such, it is worth exploring the country’s system of ecclesiastical territorial entities.
Romania has three dominant Churches:
- The Romanian Orthodox Church is the country’s main religious organisation. Some 80% of the population identifies as Orthodox Christian. Territorially speaking, the Church is divided into 6 metropolitans and 24 archdioceses and dioceses (1 metropolitan with 4 archdioceses and dioceses in Moldova, and 2 dioceses in Hungary and Serbia).
- The Catholic Church in Romania has two ecclesiastical provinces: the Archdiocese of Bucharest (containing the dioceses of Iași, Oradea Mare, Satu Mare and Timișoara) and the Archdiocese of Alba Iulia, which is immediately subject to the Holy See and whose adherents are predominantly ethnic Hungarians.
- The Romanian Greek Catholic Church has two archeparchies and seven “eparchies”: the Archeparchy of Bucharest (with the Eparchy of Iași) and the Archeparchy of Fagaraș and Alba Iulia (with the eparchies of Cluj-Gherla, Lugoj, Oradea Mare and Maramureș).
Historical regions:
Present-day Romania has been formed over time from mostly Romanian-speaking regions around the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube, each with its own history and traditions.
As such, Romania covers several historical regions that date back to mediaeval times, some of which are partly situated in neighbouring countries. Until unification in 1918, the regions of Romania dating back to the Middle Ages were typically divided into three separate “lands”:
- To the north-west, the region generally known as “Transylvania” (Transilvania or Ardeal in Romanian) comprises the former Principality of Transylvania itself, under Hungarian rule (now in central Romania), and, to the west, some areas that were once part of the Kingdom of Hungary:
- Banat (shared with Serbia – the Serbian part is in Vojvodina)
- Crișana (shared with Hungary – the Hungarian part is called Körösföld)
- Marmatie (shared with Ukraine – the Romanian part is in the județ of Maramureș, while the Ukrainian part is in Carpathian Ruthenia).
Transylvania is one of the most culturally and historically complex regions. Two of its cities are an important part of Romanian culture: Sibiu (joint European Capital of Culture with Luxembourg in 2007) and Brașov (in the heart of the area where Bran Castle is situated).
- To the south, the region generally known as “Wallachia”, comprising Oltenia, Muntenia plus, according to some authors, Dobruja (others argue that this region is shared with Bulgaria – Dobrogea in Romanian and Dobrudzha in Bulgarian).
- To the north-east, the region generally known as “Moldavia”, comprising the former principality of the same name. Moldavia has historically been shared two ways:
- the first (defunct) arrangement saw the region successively form part of the former Bessarabia (1484-1538), then Bukovina in 1775, and new Bessarabia (the central-eastern part of the country) in 1812 – the names of these last two regions emerged during this period
- the second arrangement, from 1940 to this day, under which the southern half of Bukovina and the western half of the former principality remained in Romania, two-thirds of new Bessarabia (eastern half of the former principality) became part of the Republic of Moldova, and the northern half of Bukovina, a small fragment of western Moldavia (Herța region) and one-third of new Bessarabia (Hotin in the north and Bugeac in the south) were part of Ukraine.
Some nationalist parties call for these regions to be reintegrated into Romania, but the country makes no official claim over these territories and has recognised its present-day borders with its neighbours through a series of treaties.
Today, the Ukrainian section of the former Principality of Moldavia only has a small ethnic Moldovan population. Conversely, they make up 98% of the population of Romanian Moldavia and identify both as Moldovans (in the geographical sense) and Romanians (by culture and language).
In the Republic of Moldova, where they account for two-thirds of the population, they are constitutionally prohibited from identifying as both Molodvans and Romanians. Instead, they are forced to choose between the two identities (most choose to identify as Moldovans to avoid being considered a national minority in their own country).
These historical provinces are often mentioned in connection with folk music, regional cuisine and dialects, customs, traditional architecture, and cultural traits more generally.
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Key reforms: Local government reforms:
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