history of Romania

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major treatment
- In Romania: History
  The Carpathian-Danube region in which the Romanian ethnic community evolved was settled about 2000 bce by migratory Indo-Europeans who intermingled with native Neolithic (New Stone Age) peoples to form the Thracians.
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administration of Gheorghiu-Dej
- In Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
  …the longtime head of the Romanian Communist Party, prime minister (1952–55), and president of Romania’s State Council (1961–65).
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Balkan Entente
- In Balkan Entente
  agreement between Greece, Turkey, Romania, and Yugoslavia, intended to guarantee the signatories’ territorial integrity and political independence against attack by another Balkan state (i.e., Bulgaria or Albania). The agreement provided for a Permanent Council, composed of the members’ foreign ministers, that would coordinate legislation and foster economic cooperation.
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Bessarabia
- In Bessarabia
  …and voted to unite with Romania in December. The Treaty of Paris (Oct. 28, 1920) confirmed this union, but the Soviet Union never recognized Romania’s right to the province. After the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact was signed (Aug. 23, 1939), the Soviet Union demanded (June 26, 1940) that Romania cede Bessarabia…
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Bronze Age
- In history of Europe: Control over resources
  Iron appeared in Romania about 1700 bce and in Greece shortly after. During the Middle and Late Bronze Age, it occurred infrequently except in Iberia, Britain, and some other parts of western Europe. The earliest iron was used for small knives, pins, and other personal objects and for…
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- In history of Europe: Rituals, religion, and art
  Late Bronze Age hoards from Romania, among the largest ever, contained up to four tons of bronze objects. At the same time, large collections of unused tools, newly taken from their molds, were deposited together in France.
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Bukovina
- In Bukovina
  …Ukrainian in the north and Romanian in the south, while in the towns there were also a number of Germans, Poles, and Jews. When Romania achieved independence in 1878, it sought unification with Bukovina. It did so because Bukovina was not only the historical cradle of the Moldavian principality but…
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- In Ukraine: Ukraine in the interwar period
  >Romania. Transcarpathia was joined to the new country of Czechoslovakia. Poland incorporated Galicia and western Volhynia, together with smaller adjacent areas in the northwest. The lands east of the Polish border constituted Soviet Ukraine.
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- In Ukraine: Bukovina under Romanian rule
  In the formerly Austrian province of Bukovina, Ukrainians constituted two-fifths of the total population but two-thirds in the northern half (in 1931). Following the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy, northern Bukovina was briefly proclaimed part of the Western Ukrainian National Republic, before the…
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Communist takeover
- In history of Europe: A climate of fear
  In Romania in 1945, the U.S.S.R. insisted that King Michael, who had set up a coalition government, should accept in it communist ministers of the interior and of justice. In the subsequent 1946 election campaign, the communists broke up rival meetings, persuaded printers to boycott opposition…
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- In 20th-century international relations: The end of East–West cooperation
  compelled the King of Romania to appoint a Communist-dominated government, Tito’s Communists assumed control of a coalition with royalists in Yugoslavia, Communists dominated in Hungary and Bulgaria (where a reported 20,000 people were liquidated), and the Red Army extended an invitation to “consult” with 16
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democratization
- In 20th-century international relations: Liberalization and struggle in Communist countries
  …lockstep were the Bulgarians and Romanians. The former had an easy time of it after the Communist party secretary and president, Todor Zhivkov, resigned on November 10. Within a month crowds in Sofia called for democratization, and the Central Committee leader voluntarily surrendered the party’s “leading role.” Romania, however, suffered…
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fascist movement
- In fascism: National fascisms
  In Romania the Iron Guard (Garda de Fier)—also called the League of Christian Defense, the Legion of the Archangel Michael, and All for the Fatherland—led by Corneliu Codreanu, was dissolved by the dictatorial regime of King Carol II in 1938. In 1939 Codreanu and several of…
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Little Entente
- In Little Entente
  among Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania during the period between World Wars I and II. Based on several treaties (1920–21), it was directed against German and Hungarian domination in the Danube River basin and toward the protection of the members’ territorial integrity and political independence. During the 1920s the three…
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North Atlantic Treaty Organization
- In North Atlantic Treaty Organization
  Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004); Albania and Croatia (2009); Montenegro (2017); North Macedonia (2020);
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postwar boundary changes
- In 20th-century international relations: Peace treaties and territorial agreements
  Romania ceded northern Bukovina and Bessarabia back to the U.S.S.R., which also claimed Petsamo and the Karelian Isthmus from Finland and the Carpatho-Ukraine region from Czechoslovakia. Hungary returned northern Transylvania to Romania. Italy
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Russian protectorate
- In protectorate
  …form the independent state of Romania.
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Warsaw Pact
- In Warsaw Pact
  Poland, and Romania. (Albania withdrew in 1968, and East Germany did so in 1990.) The treaty (which was renewed on April 26, 1985) provided for a unified military command and for the maintenance of Soviet military units on the territories of the other participating states.
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World War I
- In 20th-century international relations: Efforts to break the stalemate
  …the Dobruja and Thrace should Romania and Greece intervene. Bulgaria joined the Central Powers on September 6, 1915. In Romania the Allies had the upper hand despite a treaty, renewed in 1913, binding Bucharest and its Hohenzollern dynasty to the Triple Alliance. Romania’s main ambition was to annex Transylvania, a…
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- In World War I: The Eastern Front, 1916
  Second, it hastened Romania’s unfortunate entry into the war.
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- In World War I: Eastern Europe and the Russian periphery, March–November 1918
  The Romanian armistice of December 1917 was converted into the Treaty of Bucharest on May 7, 1918. Under this treaty’s terms, southern Dobruja was ceded to Bulgaria; northern Dobruja was put under the joint administration of the Central Powers; and the latter obtained virtual control of…
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Moldova

In Moldova
…became a part of Greater Romania, and it reverted to Russian control in 1940–41 and again after World War II, when it was joined to a strip of formerly Ukrainian territory, the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, on the left bank of the Dniester River (Moldovan: Nistru) to form the…
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In Moldova: Cultural milieu
…historical ties between Bessarabia and Romania and the ethnic kinship of Moldovans and Romanians are still reflected in the culture of Moldova. The development of Moldovan culture after World War II, however, followed the prevailing pattern of the Soviet Union as a whole. The state assumed responsibility for the content…
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In Moldova: Independent Moldova
…the question of union with Romania, and the Moldovan-dominated government found it impossible militarily to subdue Russian separatists. Such political stalemates complicated efforts to reshape Moldova’s socialist economy through investment and trade from abroad.
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design of flag
- In flag of Moldova
  …Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Romania, and its symbols are derived from historical and cultural links with Moldavia and Romania. Its flag of December 1917 was the traditional Romanian tricolour of blue, yellow, and red in horizontal format. In the centre was the head of an aurochs, an extinct European…
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relations with

Austria-Hungary
- In Austria: Foreign policy, 1878–1908
  …defensive agreement between Austria-Hungary and Romania. The Triple Alliance and the Romanian Alliance not only strengthened the international status quo but also gave security to the internal order of the Habsburg monarchy by weakening the irredentist movements in Transylvania and the Italian parts of Austria-Hungary. (See also Irredentist.)
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- In Austria: Conflict with Serbia
  …Serbia, Austria-Hungary also had alienated Romania, which had shown resentment against the Habsburg monarchy because of the treatment of non-Hungarian nationalities in Hungary. Romania thus joined Italy and Serbia in support of irredentist movements inside the Habsburg monarchy. By 1914, leading government circles in Vienna were convinced that offensive action…
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Bulgaria
- In Bulgaria: The Balkan Wars
  …territory they had occupied, and Romania demanded compensation for its neutrality. When Geshov was not able to negotiate a compromise, he resigned in favour of Stoyan Danev, who reflected Ferdinand’s desire for a military solution. On the night of June 16–17 (June 29–30) Bulgarian forces began the Second Balkan War…
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Czechoslovakia
- In Czechoslovak history: The establishment of the republic
  with Yugoslavia and Romania that gave rise to the Little Entente—a defensive military pact against German and Hungarian aggression. France was the only major power that concluded an alliance with Czechoslovakia (January 1924). Relations with Italy, originally friendly, deteriorated after Benito Mussolini’s rise to power in 1922. Czech…
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Europe
- In history of Europe: The mood of Versailles
  Romania similarly comprised both Transylvania, formerly Hungarian, and Bessarabia, formerly Russian. Reconstituted Poland was equally an amalgam, and in 1921, after Józef Piłsudski’s campaign against the U.S.S.R., it moved its eastern frontier more than 100 miles beyond the so-called Curzon Line established in 1920. Yugoslavia,…
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Hungary
- In Hungary: Revolution, counterrevolution, and the regency, 1918–45
  Serb, Czech, and Romanian troops installed themselves in two-thirds of the helpless country, and, in the confusion, orderly social reform was impossible. The government steadily moved leftward, and on March 21, 1919, Károlyi’s government was replaced by a Soviet republic controlled by Béla Kun, who had promised Hungary…
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- In Hungary: Economic and social change
  …the rift between Hungary and Romania deepened. Ethnic disturbances in Romania had continued even after the fall of the Ceaușescu regime, and in February 1990 Hungary renounced their 1979 bilateral agreement, which made it impossible for Hungarians in Romania to hold dual citizenship. The continued mistreatment of the Hungarian minorities—particularly…
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- In Hungary: War and renewed defeat
  Otherwise, so he believed, Romania (now pro-Axis) would persuade Hitler to reverse the Second Vienna Award. Accordingly, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941), Bárdossy sent a token force to assist in what everyone expected to be a brief operation. The strength of the Soviet resistance upset…
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- In Hungary: Political reforms
  They were particularly incensed by Romania’s policy of reapportionment and relocation of the rural population, which, if fully implemented, would have destroyed a large number of ethnic Hungarian settlements and in effect would have advanced the cause of the policy of mass assimilation. By granting asylum to refugees from Transylvania…
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Ottoman Empire and Turkey
- In Ottoman Empire: Reform efforts
  …much of central Hungary and Romania, and only an accidental Ottoman triumph in 1596 enabled the sultan to recoup. The Habsburgs then agreed to the Treaty of Zsitvatorok (1606), by which Ottoman rule of Hungary and Romania was restored. The treaty itself, however, like the events that led up to…
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- In Ottoman Empire: The people
  …virtually independent areas as Egypt, Romania, and Serbia) in the period immediately prior to the losses of 1878 is estimated to have been about 26 million. Natural increases and Muslim immigration from Russia and the Balkans virtually made up the losses, and in 1914 the population was increasingly homogeneous in…
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Transylvania
- In Transylvania
  …in World War I, the Romanians of Transylvania in late 1918 proclaimed the land united with Romania. In 1920 the Allies confirmed the union in the Treaty of Trianon. Hungary regained about two-fifths of Transylvania during World War II (Vienna Award; August 1940), but the entire region was ceded to…
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U.S.S.R.
- In Soviet Union: Into the war: 1940–45
  …d’état by King Michael of Romania resulted in that country’s changing sides. In September the U.S.S.R. declared war on Bulgaria, hitherto neutral in the Soviet-German conflict, and a pro-Allied coup brought that country onto the Soviet side as well.
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- In Soviet Union: Foreign policy
  The maverick was Romania, which had managed to convince Moscow to remove its troops from the country. Under the leadership of Nicolae Ceauşescu, it became aggressively nationalist. It reoriented its foreign trade away from the Soviet bloc, concluded a trade agreement with the United States in 1964, and…
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treaty of

Bucharest
- In Treaty of Bucharest
  …7, 1918), settlement forced upon Romania after it had been defeated by the Central Powers during World War I. According to the terms of the treaty, Romania had to return southern Dobruja to Bulgaria, give Austria-Hungary control of the passes in the Carpathian Mountains, and lease its oil wells to…
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San Stefano
- In Treaty of San Stefano
  Montenegro, and Romania was recognized. The boundaries of Serbia and Montenegro were extended so as to be contiguous, while Romania was compelled to cede southern Bessarabia to Russia, receiving the Dobruja from Turkey in exchange. Bosnia-Herzegovina was to be autonomous. Parts of Asiatic Turkey were ceded to
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World War II

In 20th-century international relations: The Eastern front
…Germany signed a pact with Romania for oil and arms transfers. Stalin then forced the Romanian government to hand over Bessarabia and northern Bukovina (June 26, 1940), and annexed Estonia, Latvia (July 12), and Lithuania (August 3) to the U.S.S.R. Hungary and Bulgaria now demanded Romanian
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In 20th-century international relations: Soviet advances in the east
…a share of influence over Romanian affairs. Bulgaria, which was not at war with the U.S.S.R., tried to establish its neutrality, but the Red Army occupied it anyway and set up a “Fatherland Front” in which Communists were predominant. When Soviet and Romanian troops invaded Hungary in October, Horthy tried…
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In World War II: Central Europe and the Balkans, 1940–41
and Hungary into Romania, the oil fields of which he was anxious to secure against Soviet attack and the military manpower of which might be joined to the forces of the German coalition. In May 1940 he obtained an oil and arms pact from Romania; but, when Romania,…
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In World War II: The Eastern Front, June–December 1944
…government came to power in Romania on August 23 and not only suspended hostilities against the U.S.S.R. but also, on August 25, declared war against Germany. This long-premeditated volte-face opened the way for three great wheeling movements by the Red Army’s left wing through the vast spaces of southeastern and…
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Axis powers
- In Axis powers
  included Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia (after Czechoslovakia had divided in 1939) in November 1940, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in March 1941, and, after the wartime breakup of Yugoslavia, Croatia (June 1941). Finland, although it did not formally
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treatment of Jews
- In Holocaust: The extermination camps
  In Romania it was primarily the Romanians themselves who slaughtered the country’s Jews. Toward the end of the war, however, when the defeat of Germany was all but certain, the Romanian government found more value in living Jews who could be held for ransom or used…
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