History of Romania: from Dacia to the EU in 2,000 years

Understanding Romania requires understanding why it is a Latin enclave in a Slavic and Hungarian sea, why its culture is divided between Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia, why it had Eastern Europe’s harshest communism and why it celebrates its national day on 1 December. Everything has a historical explanation. This post summarises 2,000 years in a ten-minute read, with the milestones that really matter for the traveller.

Dacia: the ancestors (circa 500 BC - 106 AD)

Before the Romans, the territory of modern Romania was inhabited by the Dacians, an Indo-European Thracian people. Their king Burebista (82-44 BC) unified the tribes and even allied with Pompey against Caesar. A century later, Decebalus (87-106 AD) resisted two wars against Trajan. In the second, Rome won, incorporated Dacia into the Empire, and Trajan celebrated the victory with Trajan’s Column in Rome — detailed visual document of the conquest.

What remains today: ruins of Sarmizegetusa Regia (Dacian capital, Western Carpathians), museums in Deva and Cluj. The Dacian myth is central to modern Romanian nationalism.

Rome in Dacia (106-271 AD): the Latin origin

Rome colonised Dacia intensively for 165 years. Roman settlers brought vulgar Latin, which mixed with Dacian and evolved into Romanian, a Romance language like Spanish. Rome abandoned Dacia in 271 AD under Gothic pressure. But the linguistic Latinity survived the subsequent 1,500 years of Slavic, Magyar and Turkish invasions. This is the “Romanian mystery”: how a Latin island survived in a non-Latin sea.

What remains today: few monumental Roman ruins (Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa in southern Transylvania), but the language is the living monument.

Middle Ages: three separate principalities (9th-14th c.)

During the High Middle Ages, three regions of modern Romania developed separately:

Transylvania (centre-west): fell under the Kingdom of Hungary from the 11th c. Hungarian kings colonised with Saxons (Germans) and Szeklers (Hungarians) to defend the eastern border. These Saxons founded Sibiu, Brașov, Sighișoara, Bistrița — walled cities that still exist today. Transylvania was Hungarian for 900 years, something that conditions its architecture and culture.

Wallachia (south): Romanian Orthodox principality founded by Basarab I in 1310. Capital in Curtea de Argeș, then Târgoviște, then Bucharest. Paid tribute to the Ottoman Empire from 1417.

Moldavia (east): Romanian Orthodox principality founded around 1359 by Bogdan I. Capital in Suceava, then Iași. Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) was prince of Wallachia, not Transylvania. Ștefan cel Mare was prince of Moldavia (1457-1504), won 34 of 36 battles against the Turks and founded Bucovina’s painted monasteries.

What remains today: Bucovina monasteries, Saxon fortified churches, medieval Transylvanian cities.

The Ottoman era (15th-19th c.): tribute and resistance

Wallachia and Moldavia were tributaries of the Ottoman Empire for three centuries, but were never territorially conquered like Bulgaria or Serbia. They maintained internal autonomy, Orthodox Christianity, local nobility and Romanian language. In exchange they paid annual tribute and accepted that the Greek phanariotes (Ottoman administrators) ruled the principalities from 1716.

Transylvania passed from Hungary → Ottoman Empire (after 1541 and Mohács) → Habsburg Empire (from 1699, after Austro-Turkish wars). Under the Habsburgs, Transylvania lived three centuries of Austrian rule with continued Saxon colonisation and repression of the Romanian-Orthodox majority.

What remains today: mosques and Ottoman sweets in Dobrogea; Habsburg architecture in Alba Iulia, Cluj, Oradea, Timișoara; Romanian revolutionary movement of 1848 led by Nicolae Bălcescu.

Independence and unification (1859-1918)

1859: Alexandru Ioan Cuza is elected prince of both Wallachia and Moldavia simultaneously. He unifies them de facto, creating the United Principality of Romania.

1881: Romania proclaims itself independent kingdom after the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78). Carol I (Karl von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, German) is crowned first king.

1918 (the key date): 1 December, at the end of WWI and after the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved, the Romanians of Transylvania proclaim union with the Kingdom of Romania in Alba Iulia. Eastern Moldavia (Bessarabia, today Moldova) also joins temporarily. România Mare is born — “Greater Romania”, with roughly the geographical shape you know today.

Interwar period (1918-1940): the “Little Paris”

Bucharest flourished as a cosmopolitan capital. Great art deco and neo-Romanian architecture arrived. The Romanian intelligentsia was connected to Paris — Brâncuși sculpted from France, Cioran wrote in Paris, Eliade researched religious behaviour in Chicago, Ionesco revolutionised French theatre. Romania produced disproportionately cultural geniuses for its size.

But fascism also emerged: Iron Guard (Orthodox fascist movement of Corneliu Codreanu), anti-Semitic persecutions, dictatorship of King Carol II (1938-40).

1940: under Nazi-Soviet pressure, Romania lost Bessarabia (to the USSR), Northern Transylvania (to Hungary) and Southern Dobrogea (to Bulgaria). National tragedy.

WWII and communism (1940-1989)

Romania allied with Nazi Germany (1941-44) under Marshal Antonescu, participated in the invasion of the USSR and was co-responsible for the Romanian Holocaust (300,000 Jews and 25,000 Roma murdered or deported). In 1944, after the Soviet advance, King Michael I deposed Antonescu and Romania changed sides.

1947: USSR-imposed communists abolished the monarchy. People’s Republic of Romania followed by Socialist Republic.

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1947-65): brutal Stalinism, purge of intelligentsia, forced agricultural collectivisation.

Nicolae Ceaușescu (1965-89): initially more open, gained Western popularity for opposing the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. But from the 70s he hardened progressively. 1980s: programmed famine (food exports to pay foreign debt), North Korean personality cult, demolition of Bucharest’s historic centre to build the House of the People, contraceptive ban, omnipresent Securitate (secret police).

December 1989: revolt in Timișoara → Bucharest → fall and execution of Ceaușescu on 25 December. 1,104 dead. Romania was 1989’s only bloody revolution in Eastern Europe.

Democracy and EU (1989-present)

1990s: chaotic transition, Ion Iliescu (ex-communist) ruled with ambiguities. Mineriads (miners called by the government to repress demonstrations, 1990, 1991, 1999). Dubious privatisation of industry.

2004: Romania joins NATO. 2007: Romania joins the EU alongside Bulgaria. 2024: Romania joins Schengen by air and sea (March). 2025: Romania joins Schengen by land (January).

Post-1989 presidents: Iliescu, Constantinescu, Iliescu, Băsescu, Iohannis (ethnic Saxon German, symbol of that minority’s rehabilitation).

Today: one of the EU’s fastest-growing economies, diaspora of 3-4 million Romanians in Western Europe (especially Italy and Spain), positive migration from Moldova and Ukraine, structural corruption challenge but continuous improvements. Current presidency in transition after 2024-25 elections that were annulled and repeated. Volatile politics.

For the traveller

Visiting Romania with this history in mind changes everything:

• Seeing Alba Iulia without understanding 1 December 1918 is missing 80% of the meaning.
• Entering the Palace of Parliament without knowing it cost one sixth of the historic centre is mere architecture.
• Visiting Bucovina without knowing the frescoes are 16th c. anti-Ottoman propaganda is just looking at paintings.
• Touring Transylvania without knowing it was Hungarian for 900 years is missing the difference with Wallachia.

Far Guides’ complete Romania guide includes a detailed chronology, family tree of main leaders, and recommended complementary readings (Eliade, Cioran, Patapievici).