Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/387

RUMANIA On the other hand, it is not at all necessary to suppose that all or even a majority of the inhabitants of reorganized Rumania came from the south. The number was probably relatively few. The study of the head form of the modern Rumanians shows dolichocephaly in the east, the breadth of the head increasing to brachycephaly in the west. This eastern dolichocephaly along the Black Sea is regarded by many as a survival from a primitive long-headed race, which formerly occupied almost all Eastern Europe before the Slavic invasions. If this be true, it shows a continuance of race in spite of invasions. It is also noteworthy that in physical type the Rumanians differ but slightly from the Bulgarians, which would seem to show that the mass of the people have been but slightly affected by their conquerors. The Rumanians may then be regarded as a mixture, varying in different regions, of this primitive population with Roman colonists, and Teutonic, Slavic, and Mongol invaders. Consult: Rosny, Les Romains de l’Orient, aperçu de l’ethnographie de la Roumanie (Paris, 1885); Hunfalvy, Ethnographie von Ungarn (Budapest, 1877).

. The modern Kingdom of Rumania, which dates in its present political organization only from 1881, was formed by the union of the two kindred principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (qq.v.). These countries form the greater part of the large area conquered by the Emperor Trajan ( 101-106) and made the Roman Province of Daci.a (q.v.). The Dacians, according to the Roman accounts, were a warlike race, and under their King, Decebalus, made a vigorous resistance to the conquest. During the reign of Alexander Severus, in the second quarter of the third century, the province began to suffer from the inroads of the Goths, and in the reign of Aurelian (270-275) it was finally abandoned to these Germanic invaders, with whom the Emperor established an honorable alliance. A majority of the inhabitants crossed to the south of the Danube, but many remained among the Goths and introduced the arts of Roman civilization. The Goths were later crowded out by the Huns and the country was overrun by successive barbarian invasions. The present inhabitants are of a much mixed race, their language being a Romance tongue.

In the eleventh century the Cumans, a Turkish people, established themselves for a time in Moldavia, and two centuries later the country fell into the hands of the Nogai Tatars and the people were driven into the forests and mountains. The history of the period of recovery of Wallachia and Moldavia from the barbarians and of their organization into States is very imperfectly known and is not of particular importance.

In the latter part of the thirteenth century we find a Wallach, or Ruman, principality in the region between the Lower Danube and the Transylvanian Alps, which took its place in the map of Europe as Wallachia. A little later by the side of this arose another Wallach principality, which took the name of Moldavia, from the River Moldava, an affluent of the Sereth. Both principalities had to face the tide of Turkish invasion which after the middle of the fourteenth century swept over Southeastern Europe. At the same time they had to contend against the kings of Hungary. By the beginning of the fifteenth century Wallachia had become a vassal State of the Ottoman Empire, being forced to pay regular tribute; Moldavia held out a century longer. It was long, however, before the Turks succeeded in actually subjecting the principalities to their sway, and more than once they suffered defeat at the hands of the Kuman voivedes or princes. The rule of the voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia presents a dismal and bloody record, vigor and ability on the part of the princes going hand in hand with savagery. For a moment, at the close of the sixteenth century, the Wallach, or Ruman, nationality was brought under the sway of a single monarch, Michael the Brave of Wallachia, who brought Moldavia and Transylvania (inhabited in great part by Wallachs) under his sceptre. Michael was assassinated in 1601 and this Great Rumania vanished, to be revived in the dreams of the Rumanian patriots of today, whose aspirations are directed to the establishment of a Dacian realm of which Transylvania shall form a part.

In the seventeenth century the hold of Turkey (then in its decline) upon the principalities was gradually tightened, and at last their independence was practically extinguished. ‘The Rumuanian soil, however, was not opened to the Turks for settlement. The onslaughts of Russia upon the Ottoman Empire introduced a new and sinister element into the life of the principalities. In 1710 the voivodes sought to free their States from the Turkish yoke with the assistance of Peter the Great. (See .) The Czar was hemmed in by the Turks on the River Pruth (1711) and eseaped only by agreeing to a humiliating peace. After this the Porte ruled Moldavia and Wallachia through hospodars or governors taken from among the Greek Fanariot families (see ), who, in their greed and lack of sympathy for the inhabitants, exploited the principalities in a merciless manner. Many of the families of the boyars or nobles became allied with the Fanariot houses and Greek became the official language. This tended very much to obscure the national feeling. Again and again the armies of Russia, in her wars with Turkey, traversed and occupied the unhappy provinces. Bukowina, in 1777, and Bessarabia, in 1812, were severed from Moldavia and annexed to Austria and Russia respectively. The ambitious designs of Russia looked to the incorporation of Moldavia and Wallachia in the empire of the Czar. And the fact that their inhabitants belonged to the Greek Church afforded a pretext for interfering in the affairs of the principalities. The outbreak of the Greek struggle for independence, the first episode of which was enacted at Jassy in 1821 (see ), put an end to the Fanariot rule in the two Danubian Principalitics and boyars were allowed to choose the hospodars from natives.

The Rumanian language took its place again, and, under the stimulus of the teaching of the history of the people, promoted especially by four Rumanian historians, Śincai, Maior, Asachi, and Lazar, a spirit of nationality was developed which looked to independence and gave a new unity to the ideas and purposes of the two States.

In the Treaty of Adrianople of 1820 Turkey was forced to accord to Russia a protectorate over the Danubian Principalities. The hospodars, among whom were some strenuous and enlightened rulers of the family of Ghika (q.v.). were reduced almost to the position of lieutenants of the Czar. But the schemes of Russia aroused 