Was there one Romanian revolution in 1848?

Chapter

27 March – August 1848

The petition

27 March/8 April, 35 points

The answer

33 points accepted, then repression

The exile

Cernăuți, August: the Wishes

On the morning of 27 March/8 April, the hall of the Petersburg Hotel in Iași filled to the doors: about 1,000 people – great boyars opposed to Sturdza, young liberal boyars, townsfolk. News of the February revolution in Paris had roused them weeks before, after small meetings and manifestos against despotism; now the moderates won: a petition to the prince, then the assembly's dispersal.

A committee chaired by the poet Vasile Alecsandri drafted the 35-point Petition-Proclamation: a moderate liberal regime, with no overturning of the country's order – strict adherence to the law, a new Assembly, and a national bank.

Sturdza received the petition on 9 April, accepted 33 of its 35 points, but rejected the dissolution of the Assembly and the national guard. The leaders demanded all or nothing; that evening the prince withdrew to the barracks and crushed the movement – hundreds arrested, while the fugitives, among them Alecsandri and the young officer Alexandru Ioan Cuza, took the road to Transylvania and Bukovina.

A national bank «to facilitate commerce» and the abolition of tariffs «harmful to agriculture and commerce».

The Petition-Proclamation, 27 March 1848, after the historical account

Meanwhile In Paris the monarchy had fallen in February; the news lit up Iași before any student had returned from there.

Chapter

3 – 5 May 1848

The assembly

3/15 – 5/17 May, Câmpia Libertății

The program

The National Petition, 16 articles

The voice

Bărnuțiu, 2/14 May, in the cathedral

On the morning of 2/14 May, Blaj cathedral was full when Simion Bărnuțiu rose to speak: no unilateral change in Transylvania's government, with patience and moderation – and with an oath of allegiance to the Emperor. The leaders – Bărnuțiu, Șaguna, Iancu, Barițiu – had decided as early as 18 April to convene a Great National Assembly, and on 30 April, St Thomas's Sunday, a first assembly had met.

On 3/15 May tens of thousands gathered on the field named from then on Câmpia Libertății, the Field of Liberty. The next day, on 4/16 May, August Treboniu Laurian presented the crowd with the National Petition in 16 articles – a national program, not a social one: the nation, the Diet and the Church came first, not the throne.

Each point read out was acclaimed with «Așa!» – «So be it!» – and the crowd shouted «Noi vrem să ne unim cu țara!», «We want to unite with the country!». The Emperor, to whom Blaj had sworn allegiance, remained the Romanians' surety.

Noi vrem să ne unim cu țara! – We want to unite with the country!

The crowd's cry at Blaj, 3/15 May 1848

Meanwhile That same summer the diets voted the union of Transylvania with Hungary, sanctioned by the Emperor in June – the very union Blaj had rejected.

Chapter

9 – 13 June 1848

The proclamation

9/21 June, 22 points

Bucharest

11 June: Bibescu accepts

The abdication

13 June: Bibescu leaves

On the field at Islaz, a Danube port of Romanați beyond direct Turkish control, the Proclamation was read out for all to hear on 9/21 June – 22 provisions with the value of a constitutional act, written by Ion Heliade Rădulescu. The field has been called Câmpul Regenerării, the Field of Regeneration, ever since.

It was a new country on paper: independent government, separated powers, equal rights – and a responsible prince, elected «for five years only».

The people, said the Proclamation, rise «not to break their foreign ties»: it demanded autonomy, not a break with the Porte. The clăcași were made owners «through compensation», and the throne was given «for five years only» – while the title of «prince» was struck out, fit only «for those who know the languages of Europe».

On 11 June Bucharest rose, the crowd filled the streets before the palace, and Bibescu accepted the Proclamation; on 13 June he abdicated and left the country for Brașov. The provisional government took the reins of the Wallachian summer, under the motto «Dreptate, Frăție!» – «Justice, Brotherhood!» – of the Frăția society.

Emancipația clăcașilor ce se fac proprietari prin despăgubire: the emancipation of the clăcași, made owners through compensation.

The Islaz Proclamation, point 13

Meanwhile On 7 July the Russians had already entered Moldavia, lest a government like Bucharest's be born there.

Chapter

September 1848 – May 1849

Spirea

13 September: two and a half hours

The occupation

25 September: Bucharest falls

The peace

1 May 1849: Balta Liman

On 13/25 September Fuat Pasha's Ottomans entered Bucharest, and on Dealul Spirii about 900 Romanians awaited them – infantry and Captain Pavel Zăgănescu's firemen. The fight lasted two and a half hours, with 48 Romanians and 158 Turks dead; by evening the city was pacified, and on 25 September the occupation sealed the end of the Wallachian revolution.

The Russians had crossed into Wallachia on 27 September; Moldavia had received them as early as 7 July, and on 1 May 1849 the Convention of Balta Liman placed the Principalities under Russo-Turkish control. In Moldavia the new prince, Grigore Alexandru Ghica, called Kogălniceanu, Alecsandri and Ion Ionescu de la Brad into his government.

Transylvania went on burning in the war of 1848–1849, where Iancu earned in the Apuseni the name of «Prince of the Mountains». Three different summers, three different endings: the petition crushed in one evening, the assembly drowned in war, the proclamation extinguished on Dealul Spirii.

Dreptate, Frăție! – Justice, Brotherhood!

The Frăția society's motto, the Wallachian summer's cry

Meanwhile On 1 May 1849 the Convention of Balta Liman placed the Principalities under the joint control of Russia and the Porte.