Background
Most large landowners preferred to live in the cities and did not want to bother with the administration of their properties. Therefore, they leased their domains to intermediaries lessors, in exchange for a fixed rent. The lessors in turn would administer the land and try to make a good profit in a short time. At that time, peasants formed up to 80 percent of the Romanian population and about 60 percent of them owned small crops, or no land at all, while the large landowners owned more than half of the arable land. The anti-Semitic propaganda sought to blame the revolt on Jewish intermediaries, and many of the lessors were indeed, Jewish--especially in Northern Moldavia--but anti-Semitism does not explain the magnitude of the uprising, which rapidly spread to areas where there were very few, or no Jewish intermediaries, at all. The height of the uprising was in Oltenia (South-West of the country), where Jewish presence was minimal and where most of the intermediaries were Romanians.
Read more about this topic: 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt
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