Craiova, is the largest city in southwestern Romania, the seventh largest city in the country and the capital of Dolj County, situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia.

The uprising of 1821 was a social and political rebellion in Wallachia, which was at the time a tributary state of the Ottoman Empire. It originated as a movement against the Phanariote administration, with backing from the more conservative boyars, but mutated into an attempted removal of the boyar class. Though not directed against Ottoman rule, the revolt espoused an early version of Romanian nationalism, and is described by historians as the first major event of a national awakening. The revolutionary force was centered on a group of Pandur irregulars, whose leader was Tudor Vladimirescu. Its nucleus was the Wallachian subregion of Oltenia, where Vladimirescu established his "Assembly of the People" in February.