Unification of Moldavia and Wallachia

Administrative divisions of the Romanian United Principalities in 1864, five years after the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859.

The unification of Moldavia and Wallachia (Romanian: Unirea Moldovei și Țării Românești),[1] also known as the unification of the Romanian Principalities (Romanian: Unirea Principatelor Române)[2] or as the Little Union (Romanian: Mica Unire),[3] happened in 1859 following the election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince of both the Principality of Moldavia and the Principality of Wallachia. A potential unification between the two principalities, which shared a common Romanian ethnicity, language and culture, had been attempted to be avoided by the great powers for a long time, although it was allowed at the moment it happened.[4][5] The unification of these two states began a political struggle in the new country to find out which of the two regions would obtain "supremacy" and met some opposition in Moldavia by the so-called "separatists".[3]

Nowadays, in Romania, the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia is regarded as a prelude to the Great Union, a name used in Romanian historiography to refer to the unifications of Romania with the regions of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania in 1918 during or following the end of World War I.[6] It is also commemorated every 24 January through the Day of the Unification of the Romanian Principalities in both Romania[7] and Moldova.[2]

  1. ^ Ungureanu, Constantin (2012). "Conferința științifică "Unirea Principatelor Române din 1859: context istoric și semnificații actuale"" (PDF). Revista de Istorie a Moldovei (in Romanian). 1 (89): 153–154.
  2. ^ a b Vițu, Valeria (24 January 2018). "Ziua Unirii Principatelor Române, marcată și în R. Moldova". RFI România (in Romanian).
  3. ^ a b Ciobotaru, Diego (24 January 2014). ""Jos Cuza! Jos Bucureștiul!" - Fața nevăzută a Micii Uniri". Ziarul de Iași (in Romanian).
  4. ^ Hitchins, Keith (2014). A concise history of Romania. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–327. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139033954. ISBN 9780521872386.
  5. ^ Suciu, Dumitru (1993). From the Union of the Principalities to the Creation of Greater Romania. Center for Transylvanian studies, the Romanian Cultural Foundation. pp. 1–159. ISBN 9789739132725.
  6. ^ Andreescu, Mihail M. (2018). "Drumul către Marea Unire din 1 decembrie 1918". Studii și comunicări/DIS (in Romanian) (11): 57–65.
  7. ^ "Ziua Unirii Principatelor Române". Agerpres (in Romanian). 24 January 2020.