{"id":225596,"date":"2020-01-24T09:40:10","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T07:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=225596"},"modified":"2020-01-24T09:58:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T07:58:00","slug":"161st-anniversary-of-romanian-principalities-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/161st-anniversary-of-romanian-principalities-union\/","title":{"rendered":"161st anniversary of Romanian Principalities\u2019 Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romanians celebrate on Friday the 161st<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of the Union of the Romanian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia, a highly important event in the country\u2019s history, which opened the way to the modernization of the Romanian state and society.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On January 24, 1859, as a result of the wish of the Romanian people, and in a favorable international context, the political unification of the then two Romanian principalities \u2014 Wallachia, today a southern region, and Moldavia, today\u2019s eastern region, was achieved under the ruler elect Alexandru Ioan Cuza.<\/p>\n

The union of the two principalities, which were under Turkish suzerainty, was back then one of the main desiderata of the Romanian people, alongside winning national freedom.<\/p>\n

The unification of the two principalities was also the essence of what was used to be called \u201cthe Romanian question,\u201d which came back to the attention of the big European powers amidst the Crimean War (1853-56).<\/p>\n

A genuine unification movement emerged at that time in the two principalities. Concurrently, the Romanian revolutionaries of the 1848 Revolution, self-exiled in Europe\u2019s big power countries, played an important part in winning the attention of the European politicians and the public opinion for the unification desideratum of the Romanian people.<\/p>\n

Political and cultural personalities closely followed this issue developments, voicing support and enthusiasm for the achievement of the unification.<\/p>\n

The Union of the Romanian Principalities was particularly supported by Emperor Napoleon III of France.<\/p>\n

Ad-hoc assemblies, convened in 1857 in Wallachia and Moldavia, under the 1856 Paris Peace Treaty, passed resolutions urging, among other things, the two principalities unification into a single country, to be called Romania.<\/p>\n

The 1858 Paris Convention drawn up by the big European powers \u2014 a real fundamental law for the two principalities \u2014 stipulated the maintenance of the two countries separated, under two different rulers, governed by two separate legislative assemblies and having two capitals.<\/p>\n

The Convention failed to specify that the rulers elected in the two countries shall be different people, and the Romanians, who resumed their fight for the unification with even greater zest, capitalized on this detail.<\/p>\n

On January 5, 1859, Moldavia\u2019s elective assembly unanimously elected Colonel Alexandru Ioan Cuza, a well-known 1848 revolutionary, as ruler.<\/p>\n

In Wallachia, the leaders of the unification movement had already thought about electing Al I Cuza its ruler.<\/p>\n

On January 22-24, the elective assembly was under great popular pressure, which led to the unanimous election on January 24, 1859, of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as ruler of Wallachia, bringing to fulfillment the unification of the two principalities. On February 8, Cuza was welcomed in Bucharest with pomp and circumstance.<\/p>\n

Facing the \u201cfait accompli,\u201d the big powers recognized Alexandru Ioan Cuza as ruler of both principalities, but the recognition was limited to his own person.<\/p>\n

In 1859-1861, Al I Cuza carried out vast political and diplomatic actions in order to gain recognition for his double election and permanent unification of the two principalities by unifying the governments and legislative assemblies in Iasi and Bucharest.<\/p>\n

In January 1862, the first single government and the first single Parliament of Romania became operational in Bucharest, the city designated as Romania\u2019s capital. In his inaugural speech to Parliament, Cuza solemnly declared \u201cthe final unification of the Principalities\u201d and that \u201cA new day is starting today for Romania, as it is finally entering the path that will lead to the fulfillment of its destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unification generated a favorable framework for the modernization of the Romanian society. Under Cuza\u2019s rule (1859-66), sweeping reforms were started in the economy, society, the judiciary, education, and the army.<\/p>\n

In 1877-1878, Romania conquered and proclaimed its state independence and, in 1918, following the Greater Union of December 1, 1918, when Transylvania joined in, the formation of the national unitary state of Romania was fully accomplished.<\/p>\n

Photography courtesy of alba24.ro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romanians celebrate on Friday the 161st\u00a0anniversary of the Union of the Romanian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia, a highly important event in the country\u2019s history, which opened the way to the modernization of the Romanian state and society. On January 24, 1859, as a result of the wish of the Romanian people, and in a favorable…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":225564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5078,526,246,13998,10366,5080],"class_list":["post-225596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anniversaries-and-commemorations","tag-alexandru-ioan-cuza","tag-anniversary","tag-romania","tag-romanian-prinicipalities","tag-stiri-ortodoxe","tag-union"],"better_featured_image":{"id":225564,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":700,"height":490,"file":"2019\/01\/unirea-principatelor-romane.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"unirea-principatelor-romane-360x360.jpg","width":360,"height":360,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/unirea-principatelor-romane-360x360.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":225596,"source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/unirea-principatelor-romane.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225596\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=225596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225596\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225564\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=225596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=225596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=225596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}