1.
Romanian Television
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Televiziunea Română, more commonly referred to as TVR, is the short name for Societatea Românǎ de Televiziune, or SRTV—Romanian public television. It operates five channels, TVR1, TVR2, TVR3, TVRi and TVR HD, along with six regional studios in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Timișoara, Craiova, of the regional studios of TVR only TVR Cluj broadcasts independently all over Transylvania. The other broadcast usually at the time on TVR2 and sometimes on TVR1. TVR1 has a national coverage of 99. 8% and TVR2 has 91% coverage—all of the other channels. Even though it not have the largest audience, it offers a wider variety of services, including webcasts. TVR is often slammed for being politicised and for being based on a hybrid financing system, drawing from the budget, a special TV tax. Civil society pressures to achieve depoliticisation of TVR have not yet been fruitful, TVR was established in 1956, in Bucharest and had its first broadcast on 31 December from a little building on Molière Street no.2. TVR moved in 1969 to a new building, the specially built television center on Dorobanților Avenue, a second channel, TVR2, was created in 1968. From 1966 to 1980, TVR had an open program policy, many films, serials, cartoons and other programs from the US and Western Europe were broadcast on the two main channels. In 1983, TVR introduced color television, although the rest of the Eastern Bloc countries adopted the Soviet-backed SECAM system, TVR chose to implement the PAL system. During the Revolution of December 1989, TVR was an important focal point of the events, rebels occupied the TVR building, in the afternoon of 22 December and announced that the Ceaușescus had fled. TVR changed its name to Televiziunea Română Liberă, Free Romanian Television, on 17 February 1990, TVR2 resumed broadcasting and TVRL became TVR1. But TVR would remain an instrument in the hands of the newly created National Salvation Front. FSN used TVRL, by far the most widely penetrating information source at that time in Romania, to protesters who were demanding a Communist-free government. This culminated with the June 1990 riots in central Bucharest, crushed by the miners called in by president Ion Iliescu, after the riots ended, Iliescu was shown on TV congratulating the miners for restoring law and order. A little while later, following protests from civil society, TVRL abandoned the L, after 1990, lacking any strategy, TVR fell into a deep crisis of identity. TVR changed its identity several times without any particular reason, on 1 January 1993, TVR, as a part of Radioteleviziunea Româna, was admitted as a full active member of the European Broadcasting Union. In 1995, TVRi was launched on 1 December, Great Union Day, in 1998, TVR International was renamed TV Romania International, with a completely different identity
2.
Stephen III of Moldavia
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Stephen III of Moldavia, known as Stephen the Great was voivode of Moldavia from 1457 to 1504. He was the son and co-ruler of Bogdan II of Moldavia who was murdered in 1451, Stephen fled to Hungary, and later to Wallachia. With the support of Vlad the Impaler, Voivode of Wallachia, he returned to Moldavia, Teoctist I, Metropolitan of Moldavia, anointed him prince. Stephen continued to pay a tribute to the Ottoman Empire. He broke into Poland and prevented Casimir IV Jagiellon, King of Poland, from supporting Peter Aaron, Stephen decided to recapture Chilia, an important port on the Danube, which brought him into conflict with Hungary and Wallachia. He besieged the town during the Ottoman invasion of Wallachia in 1462, two years later, he captured the town. He promised support to the leaders of the Three Nations of Transylvania against Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, Corvinus invaded Moldavia, but Stephen defeated him in the Battle of Baia. Peter Aaron broke into Moldavia with Hungarian support in December 1470, Peter Aaron and the boyars who had supported him were executed. He restored the old fortresses and erected new ones, which improved the system of Moldavia. The Ottomans expansion threatened the Moldavian ports in the region of the Black Sea, Stephen stopped paying tribute to the Ottoman sultan in 1473. Stephen defeated a large Ottoman army in the Battle of Vaslui in 1475, in 1476, the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed II, routed him in the Battle of Valea Albă, but the lack of provisions and the outbreak of a plague forced the Ottomans to withdraw from Moldavia. Taking advantage of a truce with Matthias Corvinus, the Ottomans captured Chilia, Corvinus granted two Transylvanian estates to Stephen to compensate him for the loss of the two ports. Stephen paid homage to Casimir IV of Poland who promised to him to regain Chilia and Cetatea Albă. From 1486, Stephen again paid a tribute to the Ottomans. During the following years, dozens of churches and monasteries were built in Moldavia. Casimir IVs successor, John I Albert, wanted to grant Moldavia to his brother, Sigismund. John Albert broke into Moldavia in 1497, but Stephen and his Hungarian and Ottoman allies routed the Polish army in the Battle of the Cosmin Forest. Stephen again tried to recapture Chilia and Cetatea Albă, but he had to acknowledge the loss of the two ports to the Ottomans in 1503, during his last years, his son and co-ruler, Bogdan III, played an active role in the government
3.
Carol I of Romania
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Carol I, born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was the ruler of Romania from 1866 to 1914. He was elected Ruling Prince of the Romanian United Principalities on 20 April 1866 after the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup détat, in May 1877, he proclaimed Romania an independent and sovereign nation. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War secured Romanian independence and he was proclaimed King of Romania on 26 March 1881. He was the first ruler of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty, which ruled the country until the proclamation of a republic in 1947, during his reign, Carol I personally led Romanian troops during the Russo-Turkish War and assumed command of the Russo/Romanian army during the siege of Plevna. The country achieved internationally recognized independence via the Treaty of Berlin,1878 and he married Princess Elisabeth of Wied in Neuwied on 15 November 1869. They only had one daughter, Maria, who died at the age of three, Carol never produced a male heir, leaving his elder brother Leopold next in line to the throne. In October 1880 Leopold renounced his right of succession in favour of his son William, who in turn surrendered his claim six years later in favour of his younger brother, after finishing his elementary studies, Karl entered the Cadet School in Münster. In 1857 he was attending the courses of the Artillery School in Berlin, up to 1866, when he accepted the crown of Romania, he was a Prussian officer. He took part in the Second Schleswig War, including the assault of the Fredericia citadel and Dybbøl, an experience which would be very useful to him later in the Russo-Turkish war. Although he was frail and not very tall, prince Karl was reported to be the perfect soldier, healthy and disciplined. He was familiar with several European languages and his family was closely related to the Bonaparte family, they enjoyed very good relations with Napoleon III of France. The former Domnitor of united Romania, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, had expelled from the country by the leading noblemen. Cuzas double election, both in Wallachia and in Moldavia) had been the basis on which the Romanian Principalities unification was recognized by the European powers, with him gone, the country was in danger of disintegration. As Romanian politicians searched for a successor, Napoleon suggested Karl, napoleons recommendation weighed heavily with Romanian politicians of the time, since Romania was strongly influenced by French culture. Another factor was Karls blood relation to the ruling Prussian family, ion Brătianu was the Romanian politician who was sent to negotiate with Karl and his family the possibility of installing him on the Romanian throne. Due to the conflict between Prussia and the Austrian Empire, Karl travelled incognito by railroad from Düsseldorf to Baziaș. He received there a Swiss passport from a Swiss public clerk, friend of his family, from Baziaș he travelled by boat to Turnu Severin, as there was no railroad to Romania. As he crossed the border onto Romanian soil, he was met by Brătianu and he was elected Domnitor on 20 April
4.
Mihai Eminescu
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Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an member of the Junimea literary society and worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul. His poetry was first published when he was 16 and he went to Vienna to study when he was 19. The poets Manuscripts, containing 46 volumes and approximately 14,000 pages, were offered by Titu Maiorescu as a gift to the Romanian Academy during the meeting that was held on 25 January 1902, notable works include Luceafărul, Odă în metru antic, and the five Letters. In his poems he frequently used metaphysical, mythological and historical subjects and his father was Gheorghe Eminovici from Călinești, a Moldavian village in Suceava county, Bucovina, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. He crossed the border into Moldavia, settling in Ipotești, near the town of Botoșani and he married Raluca Iurașcu, an heiress of an old aristocratic Moldavian family. The date of his birth was confirmed by the elder sister, Aglae Drogli. Mihail or Mihai was born in Botoșani, Moldavia and he spent his early childhood in Botoșani and Ipotești, in his parents family home. From 1858 to 1866 he attended school in Cernăuți and he finished 4th grade as the 5th of 82 students, after which he attended two years of gymnasium. The first evidence of Eminescu as a writer is in 1866, on 25 February his poem De-aș avea was published in Iosif Vulcans literary magazine Familia in Pest. This began a series of published poems. Also, it was Iosif Vulcan, who disliked the Slavic source suffix -ici of the poets last name. In 1867, he joined Iorgu Caragiales troupe as a clerk and prompter, both of these were among the leading Romanian theatrical troupes of their day, the latter including Matei Millo and Fanny Tardini-Vlădicescu. He soon settled in Bucharest, where at the end of November he became a clerk, throughout this period, he continued to write and publish poems. He also paid his rent by translating hundreds of pages of a book by Heinrich Theodor Rotscher, also at this time he began his novel Geniu pustiu, published posthumously in 1904 in an unfinished form. On 1 April 1869, he was one of the co-founders of the Orient literary circle, whose interests included the gathering of Romanian folklore, on 29 June, various members of the Orient group were commissioned to go to different provinces. That summer, he quite by chance ran into his brother Iorgu, an officer, in Cișmigiu Gardens. Still in summer 1869, he left Pascalys troupe and traveled to Cernăuţi and he renewed ties to his family, his father promised him a regular allowance to pursue studies in Vienna in the fall
5.
Michael the Brave
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Michael the Brave was the Prince of Wallachia, Prince of Moldavia and de facto ruler of Transylvania. He is considered one of Romanias greatest national heroes and he is seen by the Romanian historiography as the first author of Romanian unity and his rule over Wallachia began in the autumn of 1593. Two years later, war with the Ottomans began, a conflict in which the Prince fought the Battle of Călugăreni, the war continued until a peace finally emerged in January 1597, but this lasted for only a year and a half. Peace was again reached in late 1599, when Michael was unable to continue the war due to lack of support from his allies, in 1599, Michael won the Battle of Şelimbăr and soon entered Alba Iulia, becoming the imperial governor of Transylvania. A few months later, Michaels troops invaded Moldavia and reached its capital, the Moldavian leader Ieremia Movilă fled to Poland and Michael was declared Prince of Moldavia. Michael kept the control of all three provinces for less than a year before the nobles of Transylvania and certain boyars in Moldavia and Wallachia rose against him in a series of revolts. Thereafter, Michael allied with the Imperial General Giorgio Basta and defeated an uprising of the Hungarian nobility at Gurăslău in Transylvania, immediately after this victory, Rudolf ordered the assassination of Michael, an action carried out on 9 August 1601 by Bastas men. Michael was born under the name of Pătraşcu. In 1601, during a stay in Prague, he was portrayed by the painter Aegidius Sadeler, who mentioned on the portrait the words aetatis XLIII, Very little is known about his childhood and early years as an adult. His mother was Theodora Kantakouzene, a member of the Kantakouzenoi, a noble family present in Wallachia and Moldavia, the latter had him swear before 12 boyars that he was not of princely descent. Still, in May 1593 conflict did break out between Alexandru and Michael, who was forced to flee to Transylvania and he was accompanied by his half-brother Radu Florescu, Radu Buzescu and several other supporters. He was supported by the English ambassador in the Ottoman capital, Edward Barton, Michael was invested Prince by Sultan Murad III in September 1593 and started his effective rule on 11 October. He was considered a traitor as he had forced to purchase the title of Domnitor. Not long after Michael became Prince of Wallachia, he turned against the Ottoman Empire, Mihai continued his attacks deep within the Ottoman Empire, taking the forts of Nicopolis, Ribnic, and Chilia and even reaching as far as Adrianople. In 1595, Sigismund Báthory staged a plot and had Aaron the Tyrant, voivode of Moldavia. Ştefan Răzvan arrested Aron on charges of treason on the night of 24 April and sent him to the Transylvanian capital at Alba Iulia with his family, Aron would die poisoned by the end of May in the castle of Vinc. Sigismund was forced to justify his actions before the European powers, later on, in the same city of Alba Iulia, Wallachian boyars signed a treaty with Sigismund on Michaels behalf. According to the treaty, a council of 12 great boyars was to take part alongside the voivode in the rule of the country
6.
Ion Antonescu
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Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier and authoritarian politician who, as the Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, presided over two successive wartime dictatorships. After the war, he was convicted of war crimes and executed and he was a military attaché to France and later Chief of the General Staff, briefly serving as Defense Minister in the National Christian cabinet of Octavian Goga. During the late 1930s, his political stance brought him conflict with King Carol II. Antonescu nevertheless rose to prominence during the political crisis of 1940, and established the National Legionary State. After entering Romania into an alliance with Nazi Germany and the Axis and ensuring Adolf Hitlers confidence, in addition to leadership of the executive, he assumed the offices of Foreign Affairs and Defense Minister. Soon after Romania joined the Axis in Operation Barbarossa, recovering Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, after a brief detention in the Soviet Union, the deposed Conducător was handed back to Romania, where he was tried by a special Peoples Tribunal and executed. This was part of a series of trials that also passed sentences on his various associates, while these groups elevated Antonescu to the status of hero, his involvement in the Holocaust was officially reasserted and condemned following the 2003 Wiesel Commission report. Born in the town of Pitești, north-west of the capital Bucharest and he was especially close to his mother, Lița Baranga, who survived his death. His father, an officer, wanted Ion to follow in his footsteps. During his childhood, his father divorced his mother to marry a woman who was a Jewish convert to Orthodoxy, after graduation, in 1904, Antonescu joined the Romanian Army with the rank of Second Lieutenant. He spent the two years attending courses at the Special Cavalry Section in Târgoviște. Reportedly, Antonescu was a zealous and goal-setting student, upset by the pace of promotions. In time, the reputation of being a tough and ruthless commander, together with his reddish hair, Antonescu also developed a reputation for questioning his commanders and for appealing over their heads whenever he felt they were wrong. During the repression of the 1907 peasants revolt, he headed a unit in Covurlui County. In addition to restricting peasant protests, Antonescus unit subdued socialist activities in Galați port and his handling of the situation earned him praise from King Carol I, who sent Crown Prince Ferdinand to congratulate him in front of the whole garrison. The following year, Antonescu was promoted to Lieutenant, and, in 1913, during the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria, Antonescu served as a staff officer in the First Cavalry Division in Dobruja. After 1916, when the Kingdom of Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, bulgarian and Imperial German armies decisively defeated their ill-equipped and poorly defended Romanian adversaries in the Battle of Turtucaia on and advanced into Dobruja. When enemy troops crossed the mountains from Transylvania into Wallachia, Antonescu was ordered to design a plan for Bucharest
7.
Mircea Eliade
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Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was an interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the experience of reality into sacred and profane space. His literary works belong to the fantastic and autobiographical genres, Early in his life, Eliade was a journalist and essayist, a disciple of Romanian far-right philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and a member of the literary society Criterion. In the 1940s, he served as cultural attaché to the United Kingdom, several times during the late 1930s, Eliade publicly expressed his support for the Iron Guard, a fascist and antisemitic political organization. His political involvement at the time, as well as his far right connections, were frequently criticised after World War II. Noted for his vast erudition, Eliade had fluent command of five languages and he was elected a posthumous member of the Romanian Academy. Born in Bucharest, he was the son of Romanian Land Forces officer Gheorghe Eliade, an Orthodox believer, Gheorghe Eliade registered his sons birth four days before the actual date, to coincide with the liturgical calendar feast of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. Mircea Eliade had a sister, Corina, the mother of semiologist Sorin Alexandrescu, Eliade kept a particularly fond memory of his childhood and, later in life, wrote about the impact various unusual episodes and encounters had on his mind. He described this stage in his life as marked by an unrepeatable epiphany, I would slip into it as into a fragment of time devoid of duration—without beginning, middle, or end. During my last years of lycée, when I struggled with profound attacks of melancholy, but even though the beatitude was the same, it was now impossible to bear because it aggravated my sadness too much. By this time I knew the world to which the room belonged was a world forever lost. Robert Ellwood, a professor of religion who did his studies under Mircea Eliade, saw this type of nostalgia as one of the most characteristic themes in Eliades life. After completing his education at the school on Mântuleasa Street, Eliade attended the Spiru Haret National College in the same class as Arșavir Acterian, Haig Acterian. Among his other colleagues was future philosopher Constantin Noica and Noicas friend, growing up, he aimed to find and record what he believed was the common source of all religious traditions. The young Eliades interest in exercise and adventure led him to pursue mountaineering and sailing. With a group of friends, he designed and sailed a boat on the Danube, in order to cultivate his willpower, he would force himself to swallow insects and only slept four to five hours a night. At one point, Eliade was failing four subjects, among which was the study of the Romanian language, instead, he became interested in natural science and chemistry, as well as the occult, and wrote short pieces on entomological subjects
8.
Alexandru Ioan Cuza
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Alexandru Ioan Cuza was Prince of Moldavia, Prince of Wallachia, and later Domnitor of the Romanian Principalities. He was a prominent figure of the Revolution of 1848 in Moldavia and he initiated a series of reforms that contributed to the modernization of Romanian society and of state structures. Born in Bârlad, Cuza belonged to the boyar class in Moldavia, being the son of Ispravnic Ioan Cuza and his wife Sultana. Alexander received an urbane European education, becoming an officer in the Moldavian Army and he married Elena Rosetti in 1844. In 1848, known as the year of European revolutions, Moldavia and Wallachia fell into revolt, the Moldavian unrest was quickly suppressed, but in Wallachia the revolutionaries took power and governed during the summer. Returned during the reign of Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica, he became Moldavias minister of war in 1858 representing also Galați in the ad hoc Divan at Iași. Cuza was acting freely under the guarantees of the European Powers in the eve of the Crimean War for a recognition of the Prince of Moldavia, Cuza was a prominent speaker in the debates and strongly advocated the union of Moldavia and Walachia. In default of a prince, he was nominated as a candidate in both principalities by the pro-unionist Partida Națională. Cuza was finally elected as Prince of Moldavia on 17 January 1859 and, after street pressure changed the vote in Bucharest, also Prince of Wallachia and he received the firman from the Sultan on 2 December 1861 during a visit to Istanbul. He was recipient of the Order of Medjidie, Order of Osmanieh, Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, although he and his wife Elena Rosetti had no children, she raised as her own children his two sons from his mistress Elena Maria Catargiu-Obrenović, Alexandru Al. Thus Cuza achieved a de facto union of the two principalities, the union was formally declared three years later, on 5 February 1862, the new country bearing the name of Romania, with Bucharest as its capital city. Thus, he was regarded as the embodiment of a unified Romania. His first measure addressed a need for increasing the resources and revenues available to the state. Cuza got his parliaments backing to expropriate these lands, state revenues thereby increased without adding any domestic tax burden. The land reform, liberating peasants from the last corvées, freeing their movements, in attempting to create a solid support base among the peasants, Cuza soon found himself in conflict with the group of Conservatives. A liberal bill granting peasants title to the land they worked was defeated, then the Conservatives responded with a bill that ended all peasant dues and responsibilities, but gave landlords title to all the land. Cuza vetoed it, then held a plebiscite to alter the Paris Convention and his plan to establish universal manhood suffrage, together with the power of the Domnitor to rule by decree, passed by a vote of 682,621 to 1,307. He consequently governed the country under the provisions of Statutul dezvoltător al Convenției de la Paris, with his new plenary powers, Cuza then promulgated the Agrarian Law of 1863
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