Origin of The Romanians - Historic Background

Historic Background

Three major ethnic groups (the Dacians, Illyrians, and Thracians) inhabited the northern regions of south-eastern Europe in Antiquity. The Illyrians first came into conflict with the Roman Republic around 160 BC. Rome organized their territory into the province of Illyricum a century later, and split it into two parts (Dalmatia and Pannonia) along the river Sava in 9 AD. The Romans continued to expand towards the territories of the Thracian tribes, where they set up the province of Moesia in 15 AD, and Thracia in 46 AD. Present-day Dobruja in Romania was soon also attached to Moesia.

The Romans annihilated the Dacian kingdom to the north of the Lower Danube under Emperor Trajan in 106. Its western territories were organized into the province of Dacia, but Maramureș, Moldavia and further regions (inhabited by the Costoboci, Bastarnae and other tribes) remained free of Roman rule. The Carps, the Germanic Goths and Taifali, and other neighboring tribes made several raids against the province from the 230s. The Romans officially abandoned Dacia under Emperor Aurelian (270–275), who also organized a new province bearing the same name ("Dacia Aureliana") south of the Lower Danube.

Thereafter pressure from the Goths forced significant groups of Bastarnae and Carpians to seek asylum in the Roman Empire. Although Roman forts were erected north of the Danube in the 320s, the river became the boundary between the empire and the Goths in the 360s. The Roman state was divided into two parts in 395 which led to the appearance of an Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire.

Meanwhile, from 313, the Roman Empire had begun to transform into a Christian state. Roman emperors also supported Christian missionaries. For instance, Ulfilas was consecrated bishop in the 340s with jurisdiction in the lands dominated by the Goths. The Huns destroyed all these polities between 376 and 406. The Hunnic Empire's center of power was transferred to the lowlands on the river Tisa by the 420s, but the empire collapsed after a rebellion of the subject peoples in 453. Thereafter the Gepids dominated Banat, Crișana, and Transylvania.

The Ostrogothic Kingdom annexed Dalmatia in 493, while the Kutrigurs, Antes, Sclavenes and other tribes made frequent raids against the Balkans. The Eastern Roman Empire revived under Emperor Justinian I (527–565) who had about 600 forts repaired or built to defend these territories. However, the Avars, who had subjugated the Gepids and other tribes, invaded the Balkans from the 580s. In thirty years all Roman troops were withdrawn from the peninsula, where only Thessaloniki and a few other towns remained under Roman rule.

The next arrivals, the Bulgars, established their own state on the Lower Danube in 681. Their territorial expansion accelerated after the collapse of the Avar Khaganate in the 790s. The ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire, Boris I (852–889) converted to Christianity in 864. A synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church promoted a liturgy in Old Church Slavonic in 893.

Bulgaria was invaded by the Hungarians in 894. A joint counter-attack by the Bulgars and the Pechenegs (a nomadic Turkic people) forced the Hungarians to leave their dwelling places and to cross the Carpathians. Historians still debate whether they encountered a Romanian population in the territory.

The Byzantines occupied the greater part of the First Bulgarian Empire under Emperor John I Tzimiskes (969–976). The Bulgars regained their independence in the reign of Samuel (997–1014). However, Emperor Basil II of Byzantium conquered all Bulgaria around 1018.

The first bishop consecrated for the Hungarians was a Greek sent around 952 from Constantinople to the territories ruled by the gyula, one of their leaders. However, the head of the Hungarian tribal federation, Stephen was baptized according to the Western rite. Crowned the first king of Hungary in 1000 or 1001, he expanded his rule over new territories, including Banat (ruled up to that time by Ahtum, a chieftain who had received baptism from Greek priests).

Pushed by the Ouzes (a coalition of Turkic nomads), Pecheneg groups sought asylum in the Byzantine Empire in the 1040s. After the Ouzes there followed the Cumans (also a Turkic confederation) who took control of the Pontic steppes in the 1070s. The Cumans also plundered the eastern territories of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 1090s. Thereafter, specific groups, including the Hungarian-speaking Székelys and the Pechenegs, defended the kingdom's frontiers. The arrival of mostly German-speaking colonists in Transylvania in the 1150s also reinforced the Hungarian monarchs' rule in the region.

New taxes introduced by the Byzantine authorities provoked an uprising in the Balkan Mountains in 1185. The local Bulgarians and Vlachs achieved their independence and established the Second Bulgarian Empire in coalition with the Cumans. A chieftain of the western Cuman tribes accepted Hungarian supremacy in 1227. The Hungarian "expansion across the Carpathians" (Florin Curta) was halted by the large Mongol campaign against Eastern and Central Europe in 1241. Although the Mongols withdrew in a year, their invasion caused destruction in the whole region.

The unification of small polities ruled by local Romanian leaders in Oltenia and Muntenia led to the establishment of a new principality, Wallachia. It achieved independence under Basarab the Founder, who defeated a Hungarian army in the battle of Posada in 1330. A second principality, Moldavia became independent under Bogdan I (c. 1363–c. 1367), a Romanian nobleman from Maramureș.