patriotic opposition, and the unsuccessful issue of the war waged against Turkey and her Western allies (1853-56) deprived Russia of her hold on the Danubian Principalities.
The Congress of Paris in 1856 recognized the need of 2 modification of the relations of the Porte to the principalities, but would not concede complete independence. They were organized as the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, each having its own hospodar and government, but with a common commission of sixteen members and a general court of justice. In 1859 both elected the same hospodar, a boyar of Moldavia, Prince Cuza, and in 1861 he was proclaimed Prince of Rumania under the name of Alexander John 1. (q.v.). The Sultan recognized the new adjustment, and the long desired union was accomplished. Prince Alexander was deposed in 1866 because of his arbitrary government, and Prince Charles of Hohenzollern was elected as hereditary Prince under a modern constitution, it being found impossible to reach an agreement on any member of the native nobility. An efficient army was organized by Prince Charles on the Prussian model, and when war broke out between Russia and Turkey in April, 1877, Rumania entered into alliance with Russia, giving the armies of the latter free passage through Rumanian territory. On May 21st the Rumanian Parliament declared the country independent. The Rumanian army joined the Russians in the field, and in the operations at Plevna the forces of the principality bore an important and wholly creditable part. (See Russo-Turkish War.) The Berlin Congress in 1878 recognized the independence of Rumania, but in spite of the protest of the Rumanian envoys restored to Russia the strip of Bessarabia, touching the Pruth and the Danube, which had been annexed to Moldavia in 1856. Rumania, however, received the Dobrudja. It was further stipulated that difference of religious profession should not disqualify from the exercise of full civil and political rights in Rumania. The last stipulation introduced the Semitic question into the politics of the new State by bringing a quarter of a million Jews into its citizenship, a condition which has never been acquiesced in by the Christians, who have continued to persecute the downtrodden race, many of whom have emigrated to the United States. In 1881 the Government declared Rumania a kingdom, and this was accepted by the Powers. In 1893 King Charles summoned his nephew and heir, Prince Ferdinand, to the kingdom and the latter’s son was baptized into the Greek Church.
Bibliography. Reclus, Nouvelle géographie universelle, vol. i. (Paris, 1875); Beaure et Mathorel, La Roumanie: géographie, histoire, organisation politique, judiciaire, religiouse (Paris, 1878); Samuelson, Roumania Past and Present (London, 1882); Rosny, Les populations danubiennes (Paris, 1885); Laveleye, The Balkan Peninsula (London, 1887); Bergner. Rumanien: Eine Darstellung des Rumania Land und Leute (Breslau, 1887): Cremer, Avutiile minerale ale Romaniei (Liège, 1888); Arion, La situation economique et sociale du paysan en Roumanie (Paris, 1895): Richard, La Roumanie à vol d’oiseau (Bucharest, 1895); Bley. La Roumanie: étude economique et commerciale (Paris, 1896); Krauss. Bucarest und Rumanien (Leipzig, 1896); Miller, Roumania (London, 1896); de Gubernatis, La Roumanie et les Roumains (Florence, 1808); de Bertha, Magyars et Roumains devant l’histoire (Paris, 1899); Lahovari, Geographisches Lezicon von Rumania (Bucharest, 1809 et seq.); Benger, Rumania in 1900, trans. by Keane (London, 1900); Bengeseo, Bibliographie franco-roumaine du XIXème siecle (Brussels, 1895).
RUMANIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. Rumanian Language. A Romance tongue spoken in three dialects, the Daco-Rumanian, in Rumania, Transylvania, Bessarabia, the Hungarian Banat, and Bukowina—that is, in old Dacia, by about 9,000,000 people; the Macedo-Rumanian, in Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, and Epirus, by several hundred thousand people; and the Istro-Rumanian, in Istria, by about 3000 people. The Daco-Rumanian dialect comprises the Wallachian, Moldavian, Transylvanian, and Banatian sub-dialects. The Rumanian developed from the vulgar Latin spoken in Dacia and Mœsia under the intluence suecessively of the Turano-Bulgarian, Albanian, Slavic, Hungarian, Turkish, and Modern Greek. These influences affected little the grammatical structure of the language, but greatly changed its vocabulary. About 3800 words are Slavic, about 2600 come from the vulgar Latin, about 700 are Turkish, 650 Greek, 500 Hungarian, and 50 Albanian.
The spelling of the language is pretty nearly phonetic. Rumanian has two guttural vowel-sounds, the one written ă, ĕ, and the other î, â, ê. As in Italian, c and g, when followed by e or i, have a soft (palatal) sound. There is a post-positive article:om, ‘man:’ omul, ‘the man;’ oameni, ‘men;’ oa-menii, ‘the men,’ frate, ‘brother,’ fratele, ‘the brother,’ frați, ‘brothers;’ frații, ‘the brothers;’ floare, ‘flower,’ floarea, ‘the flower;’ flori, ‘flowers;’ florile, ‘the flowers.’ The cardinal numbers from 11 to 19 are formed by means of the word spre-on: un-spre-zece, etc.: those from 20 to 90 by means of the plural of zece ‘ten:’ două-zecĭ (20), treĭ-zecĭ (30), etc. The declensions and conjugations are very much like those of Italian. There are three declensions and a neuter eender. Very frequently in nouns the plural differs materially from the singular: Om ‘man;’ oameni, ‘men;’ cap, ‘head;’ capete, ‘heads;’ soră, ‘sister:’ surori, ‘sisters.’ There are four conjugations. Verbs have two forms in the infinitive, a short and a long one: lăuda, laudare, ‘to praise:’ tăce, tăcere, ‘to be silent;’ duce, ducere, ‘to lead;’ dormi, dormire, ‘to sleep.’ The future and conditional present are formed with auxiliaries; voĭū fugi, aș fugi, ‘I shall run,’ ‘I should run.’ The passive is rendered by the third person singular: Mă bate, te bate, îl bate, ‘I am, thou art, he is beaten.’ The language is rich in suffixes, especially for the formation of diminutives: Ioan (John), Ionică, Ioniță, Ionașcu, Ienache, Ienăchel, etc.
Rumanian Literature. Unlike other Romance literatures, Rumanian did not grow up under the influence of Occidental civilization, but down to the nineteenth century at least it was influenced by the Orient. It divides itself into three periods:
The Slavic Period (from the middle of the sixteenth century to 1710). The literature of this period is medieval and religious in character. The old religious literature was written in Slavic. The desire to reach the commen people led to
