Wallachia is a geographical region of modern-day Romania, as well as one of the two historical Romanian principalities that laid the foundation for the establishment of the modern Romanian state. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians. Wallachia was traditionally divided into two sections, Muntenia (Greater Wallachia) and Oltenia (Lesser Wallachia). Dobruja could sometimes be considered a third section due to its proximity and brief rule over it. Wallachia as a whole is sometimes referred to as Muntenia through identification with the larger of the two traditional sections.
Wallachia began to form as a principality around the 13th century, following the gradual unification of several smaller Romanian political entities. By 1330, the state had consolidated following Basarab I's victory in the Battle of Posada against the Kingdom of Hungary, ushering in a period of relative independence. In 1417, Wallachia was forced to accept the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire for the first time; this suzerainty lasted until the mid-19th century. However in general Wallachia was able to preserve autonomy within the Empire as well as experience interruptions to Ottoman rule brought about by local rulers such as Vlad the Impaler and Michael the Brave and later external powers such as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian Empire.
In 1859, Wallachia united with Moldavia to form the United Principalities, which adopted the name Romania in 1866 and officially became the Kingdom of Romania in 1881. Later, following the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the resolution of the elected representatives of Romanians in 1918, Bukovina, Transylvania and parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș were allocated to the Kingdom of Romania, thereby forming the modern Romanian state.
Etymology
The name Wallachia is an exonym, generally not used by Romanians themselves, who used the denomination "Țara Românească" – Romanian Country or Romanian Land, although it does appear in some Romanian texts as Valahia or Vlahia. It derives from the term walhaz used by Germanic peoples and Early Slavs to refer to Romans and other speakers of foreign languages. It was used to designate Gaulic-speakers (see Wales and Cornwall) and Romance-speakers (see Wallonia and Megálē Vlachía); and subsequently, due to the survival of the Romance-speaking communities in the eastern parts as pastoralists, shepherds in general (an association made by the Hellenes, Magyars, and Serbo-Croats).
In Slavonic texts of the Early Middle Ages, the name Zemli Ungro-Vlahiskoi (Земли Унгро-Влахискои or "Hungaro-Wallachian Land") was also used as a designation for the region. The term, translated in Romanian as "Ungrovalahia", remained in use up to the modern era in a religious context, referring to the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan seat of Hungaro-Wallachia, in contrast to Thessalian or Great Vlachia in Greece or Small Wallachia (Mala Vlaška) in Serbia. The Romanian-language designations of the state were Muntenia (The Land of Mountains), Țara Rumânească (the Romanian Land), Valahia, and, rarely, România. The spelling variant Țara Românească was adopted in official documents by the mid-19th century; however, the version with u remained common in local dialects until much later.
For long periods after the 14th century, Wallachia was referred to as Vlashko (Bulgarian: Влашко) by Bulgarian sources, Vlaška (Serbian: Влашка) by Serbian sources, Voloschyna (Ukrainian: Волощина) by Ukrainian sources, and Walachei or Walachey by German-speaking (most notably Transylvanian Saxon) sources. The traditional Hungarian name for Wallachia is Havasalföld, literally "Snowy lowlands", the older form of which is Havaselve, meaning "Land beyond the snowy mountains" ("snowy mountains" refers to the Southern Carpathians (the Transylvanian Alps)); its translation into Latin, Transalpina was used in the official royal documents of the Kingdom of Hungary. In Ottoman Turkish, the term Eflâk Prensliği, or simply Eflâk افلاق, appears. In old Albanian, the name was "Gogënia", which was used to denote non-Albanian speakers.
Arabic chronicles from the 13th century had used the name of Wallachia instead of Bulgaria. They gave the coordinates of Wallachia and specified that Wallachia was named al-Awalak and the dwellers ulaqut or ulagh.
The area of Oltenia in Wallachia was also known in Turkish as Kara-Eflak ("Black Wallachia") and Küçük-Eflak ("Little Wallachia"), while the former has also been used for Moldavia.
History
Ancient times
In the Second Dacian War (AD 105) western Oltenia became part of the Roman province of Dacia, with parts of later Wallachia included in the Moesia Inferior province. The Roman limes was initially built along the Olt River in 119 before being moved slightly to the east in the second century, during which time it stretched from the Danube up to Rucăr in the Carpathians. The Roman line fell back to the Olt in 245 and, in 271, the Romans pulled out of the region.
The area was subject to Romanization also during the Migration Period, when most of present-day Romania was also invaded by Goths and Sarmatians known as the Chernyakhov culture, followed by waves of other nomads. In 328, the Romans built a bridge between Sucidava and Oescus (near Gigen) which indicates that there was a significant trade with the peoples north of the Danube. A short period of Roman rule in the area is attested under Emperor Constantine the Great, after he attacked the Goths (who had settled north of the Danube) in 332. The period of Goth rule ended when the Huns arrived in the Pannonian Basin and, under Attila, attacked and destroyed some 170 settlements on both sides of the Danube.
Early Middle Ages
Byzantine influence is evident during the fifth to sixth century, such as the site at Ipotești–Cândești culture, but from the second half of the sixth century and in the seventh century, Slavs crossed the territory of Wallachia and settled in it, on their way to Byzantium, occupying the southern bank of the Danube. In 593, the Byzantine commander-in-chief Priscus defeated Slavs, Avars and Gepids on future Wallachian territory, and, in 602, Slavs suffered a crucial defeat in the area; Flavius Mauricius Tiberius, who ordered his army to be deployed north of the Danube, encountered his troops' strong opposition.
From its establishment in 681 to approximately the Hungarians' conquest of Transylvania in the middle of the tenth century, the First Bulgarian Empire controlled the territory of Wallachia. With the decline and subsequent Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria (from the second half of the tenth century up to 1018), Wallachia came under the control of the Pechenegs, Turkic peoples who extended their rule west through the tenth and 11th century, until they were defeated around 1091, when the Cumans of southern Ruthenia took control of the lands of Wallachia.
Beginning with the tenth century, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and later Western sources mention the existence of small polities, possibly peopled by, among others, Vlachs led by knyazes and voivodes.
When the Latin Empire was established in 1204, the territories in the northern borders of this Venetian creation were named "Wallachia & Bulgaria" or "Second Bulgarian Empire". An alternative name used in connection with the pre-mid 13th century period is the Empire of Vlachs and Bulgarians. Variant names include the Vlach–Bulgarian Empire and the Bulgarian–Wallachian Empire.
In 1241, during the Mongol invasion of Europe, Cuman domination was ended—a direct Mongol rule over Wallachia was not attested. Part of Wallachia was probably briefly disputed by the Kingdom of Hungary and Bulgarians in the following period, but it appears that the severe weakening of Hungarian authority during the Mongol attacks contributed to the establishment of the new and stronger polities attested in Wallachia for the following decades.
Establishment of state
Throughout the 13th century, numerous records of Vlach political entities on both sides of the Carpathians had begun to emerge. One of the first written pieces of evidence in correlation to local Vlach voivodes concerns the ruler Litovoi, who was first mentioned in the Diploma of the Joannites in 1247. Litvoi ruled over the Țara Litua, corresponding to modern day northern Oltenia. By 1272, Litvoi had gained control over more land on each side of the Carpathians, specifically further along the northern Wallachian Plain and Hațeg Country in Transylvania. Litvoi refused to pay tribute to King Ladislaus IV of Hungary, and in 1277 war broke out with the Hungarians, where he died in battle before 1280. His successor was his brother Bărbat, who ruled until 1288. The continuing weakening of the Hungarian state by further Mongol invasions in the late 13th and early 14th century, as well as the fall of the Árpád dynasty, further paved the way for the gradual unification of Wallachian polities and the assertion of independence from Hungarian rule.
Wallachia's creation is held by local traditions and folk tale to have been the work of Radu Negru, a legendary figure who according to tradition, crossed the Carpathians from Transylvania to the Wallachian Plain in 1290 alongside a large following of fellow Vlachs in order to establish the nation. Radu Negru is typically connected with Basarab I of Wallachia, who was first mentioned in a Hungarian charter in 1324, as a voivode who held lands south of the Carpathians and paid tribute to Hungary. Throughout the rest of the 1320s, Basarab expanded his influence, seizing control of the Banate of Severin and launching raids into Transylvania. By 1330, Basarab had established his rule over both sides of the river Olt as well as come into ownership of fiefs in Transylvania, establishing his residence in Câmpulung as the first ruler of the House of Basarab. Basarab refused to grant Hungary the lands of Făgăraș, Almaș and Severin and pay tribute to Charles I of Hungary, who invaded Wallachia but was decisively defeated at the Battle of Posada, which led to the consolidation of the Wallachian state. According to historian Ștefan Ștefănescu, Basarab extended his lands to the east, to briefly comprise lands as far as Chillia Nouǎ in the Bugeac - reportedly providing the origin of Bessarabia.
There is evidence that the Second Bulgarian Empire ruled at least nominally the Wallachian lands up to the Rucăr–Bran corridor as late as the late 14th century. In a charter by Radu I, the Wallachian voivode requests that tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria order his customs officers at Rucăr and the Dâmboviţa River bridge to collect tax following the law. The presence of Bulgarian customs officers at the Carpathians indicates a Bulgarian suzerainty over those lands, though Radu's imperative tone hints at a strong and increasing Wallachian autonomy. The medieval structure of Wallachia was modelled after the Bulgarian one, including the adoption of Old Church Slavonic feudal terminology such as ocină - inherited land. Under Radu I and his successor Dan I, the realms in Transylvania and Severin continued to be disputed with Hungary. Basarab was succeeded by Nicholas Alexander, followed by Vladislav I. Vladislav attacked Transylvania after Louis I occupied lands south of the Danube, conceded to recognize him as overlord in 1368, but rebelled again in the same year; his rule also witnessed the first confrontation between Wallachia and the Ottoman Empire (a battle in which Vladislav was allied with Ivan Shishman).
1400–1600
Mircea the Elder to Radu the Great
As the entire Balkans became an integral part of the growing Ottoman Empire (a process that concluded with the fall of Constantinople to Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror in 1453), Wallachia became engaged in frequent confrontations in the final years of the reign of Mircea I (r. 1386–1418). Mircea initially defeated the Ottomans in several battles, including the Battle of Rovine in 1394, driving them away from Dobruja and briefly extending his rule to the Danube Delta, Dobruja and Silistra (c. 1400–1404). He swung between alliances with Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, and Jagiellon Poland (taking part in the Battle of Nicopolis), and accepted a peace treaty with the Ottomans in 1417, after Mehmed I took control of Turnu Măgurele and Giurgiu. The two ports remained part of the Ottoman state, with brief interruptions, until 1829. In 1418–1420, Michael I defeated the Ottomans in Severin, only to be killed in battle by the counter-offensive; in 1422, the danger was averted for a short while when Dan II inflicted a defeat on Murad II with the help of Pippo Spano.
The peace signed in 1428 inaugurated a period of internal crisis, as Dan had to defend himself against Radu II, who led the first in a series of boyar coalitions against established princes. Victorious in 1431 (the year when the boyar-backed Alexander I Aldea took the throne), boyars were dealt successive blows by Vlad II Dracul (1436–1442; 1443–1447), who nevertheless attempted to compromise between the Ottoman Sultan and the Holy Roman Empire.
The following decade was marked by the conflict between the rival houses of Dănești and Drăculești. Faced with both internal and external conflict, Vlad II Dracul reluctantly agreed to pay the tribute demanded of him by the Ottoman Empire, despite his affiliation with the Order of the Dragon, a group of independent noblemen whose creed had been to repel the Ottoman invasion. As part of the tribute, the sons of Vlad II Dracul (Radu cel Frumos and Vlad III Dracula) were taken into Ottoman custody. Recognizing the Christian resistance to their invasion, leaders of the Ottoman Empire released Vlad III to rule in 1448 after his father's assassination in 1447.