History of Romania
Topic: About Romania (Mar 21, 2006)
Romania during World War II
As a result, in 1940, Romania lost territory in both east and west: In June 1940, after issuing an ultimatum to Romania, the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Two thirds of Bessarabia were combined with a small part of USSR to form the Moldavian SSR. Northern Bukovina and Budjak were apportioned to the Ukrainian SSR. In August 1940, Northern Transylvania was awarded to Hungary by Germany and Italy through the Second Vienna Arbitration.
As a result of the ratification by King Carol II of the yielding of Northern Transylvania to Hungary, southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria, and Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to USSR in 1940, general Ion Antonescu was supported by the army to seize the leadership of Romania. Romania entered World War II under the command of the German Wehrmacht in June 1941, declaring war to the Soviet Union in order to recover Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Romania was awarded the territory between Nistru and the Southern Bug by Germany to administrate it as Transnistria.
In August 1944, a coup led by King Michael, with support from opposition politicians and the army, deposed the Antonescu dictatorship and put Romania’s armies under Red Army command. Romania suffered additional heavy casualties fighting the Nazi Army in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
The Paris Peace Treaty at the end of World War II rendered the Vienna Dictat void, Northern Transylvania returning to Romania having an autonomous status for a few years, though eventually abolished, but Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and southern Dobrogea weren’t recovered. The Moldavian SSR became independent only in 1991, under the name of Republica Moldova.
Romanian territory during the 20th century: purple indicates the Old Kingdom before 1913, orange indicates Greater Romania areas that joined or were annexed after the Second Balkan War and WWI but were lost after WWII, and rose indicates areas that joined Romania after WWI and remained so after WWII.
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Romanian territory during the 20th century: purple indicates the Old Kingdom before 1913, orange indicates Greater Romania areas that joined or were annexed after the Second Balkan War and WWI but were lost after WWII, and rose indicates areas that joined Romania after WWI and remained so after WWII.
Communist Romania
Soviet occupation following WWII led to the formation of a communist Peoples’ Republic in 1947 and the abdication of king Michael, who went into exile.
In the early 1960s, Romania’s communist government began to assert some independence from the Soviet Union. Ceaus,escu became head of the Communist Party in 1965 and head of state in 1967. Ceaus,escu’s denunciation of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and a brief relaxation in internal repression helped give him a positive image both at home and in the West. Seduced by Ceaus,escu’s “independent” foreign policy, Western leaders were slow to turn against a regime that, by the late 1970s, had become increasingly harsh, arbitrary, and capricious. Rapid economic growth fueled by foreign credits gradually gave way to wrenching austerity and severe political repression.
The decades-long rule of President Nicolae Ceaus,escu became increasingly draconian through the 1980s.
December 1989 marked the fall of Ceaus,escu and the end of the communist regime in Romania, a violent change, which resulted in more than 1000 deaths during the key events of Timis,oara and Bucharest. After a weeklong state of unrest in the city of Timis,oara, Ceaus,escu lost his grip on power. A mass rally summoned in support of Ceaus,escu on December 21, 1989 turned hostile and the Ceaus,escu couple was forced to flee Bucharest. However, they ended up in the custody of the army, and after being tried and convicted for “genocide” and other crimes by a kangaroo court, they were executed on December 25, 1989. The series of events known as the Romanian Revolution of 1989 remain to this day a matter of debate, with many conflicting theories as to the motivations and even actions of some of the main players.
Ion Iliescu, a former Communist Party official marginalized by Ceaus,escu, attained national recognition as the leader of an impromptu governing coalition, the National Salvation Front (FSN) that proclaimed the restoration of democracy and civil liberties on December 22, 1989. The Communist Party was outlawed, and Ceaus,escu’s most unpopular measures, such as bans on abortion and contraception, were rolled back.
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