The Wallachian Revolution of 1848 was a Romanian liberal and nationalist uprising in the Principality of Wallachia. Part of the Revolutions of 1848, and closely connected with the unsuccessful revolt in the Principality of Moldavia, it sought to overturn the administration imposed by Imperial Russian authorities under the Regulamentul Organic regime, and, through many of its leaders, demanded the abolition of boyar privilege. Led by a group of young intellectuals and officers in the Wallachian Militia, the movement succeeded in toppling the ruling Prince Gheorghe Bibescu, whom it replaced with a provisional government and a regency, and in passing a series of major progressive reforms, announced in the Proclamation of Islaz.
Despite its rapid gains and popular backing, the new administration was marked by conflicts between the radical wing and more conservative forces, especially over the issue of land reform. Two successive abortive coups were able to weaken the Government, and its international status was always contested by Russia. Despite managing to rally a degree of sympathy from Ottoman political leaders, the Revolution was ultimately isolated by the intervention of Russian diplomats and repressed by a common intervention of Ottoman and Russian armies, without any significant form of armed resistance. Nevertheless, over the following decade, the completion of its goals was made possible by the international context, and former revolutionaries became the original political class in united Romania.
Origins
The two Danubian Principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia, came under direct Russian supervision upon the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, being subsequently administered on the basis of common documents, known as Regulamentul Organic. After a period of Russian military occupation, Wallachia returned to Ottoman suzerainty while Russian oversight was preserved, and the throne was awarded to Alexandru II Ghica in 1834—this measure was controversial from the onset, given that, despite the popular provisions of the Akkerman Convention, Ghica had been appointed by Russia and the Ottomans, instead of being elected by the Wallachian Assembly. As a consequence, the Prince was faced with opposition from both sides of the political spectrum, while also attempting to quell the peasantry's discontent by legislating against the abuse of estate lessors. The first liberal movement, taking inspiration from the French Revolution and having for its stated purpose the encouragement of culture, was Societatea Filarmonică (the Philharmonic Society), established in 1833.
Hostility towards Russian policies erupted later in 1834, when Russia called for an "Additional Article" (Articol adițional) to be attached to the Regulament, as the latter document was being reviewed by the Porte. The proposed article sought to prevent the Principalities' Assemblies from modifying the Regulament any further without the consent of both protecting powers. This move met with stiff opposition from a majority of deputies in Wallachia, among whom was the radical Ioan Câmpineanu; in 1838, the project was nonetheless passed, when it was explicitly endorsed by Sultan Abdülmecid I and by Prince Ghica.
Câmpineanu, who had proposed a reformist constitution to replace the Regulament entirely, was forced into exile, but remained an influence on a younger generation of activists, both Wallachian and Moldavian. The latter group, comprising many young boyars who had studied in France, also took direct inspiration from reformist or revolutionary-minded societies such as the Carbonari (and even, through Teodor Diamant, from Utopian socialism). It was this faction who would first explicitly publicize the demands for national independence and Moldo-Wallachian unification, which it included in a wider agenda of political reforms and European solidarity. Societatea Studenților Români (the Society of Romanian Students) was founded in 1846, having the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine for its honorary president.
Pre-revolutionary events and outbreak
In October 1840, the first specifically revolutionary secret society of the period was repressed by Prince Ghica. Among those arrested and taken into confinement were the high-ranking boyar Mitică Filipescu, the young radical Nicolae Bălcescu, and the much older Dimitrie Macedonski, who had taken part in the uprising of 1821.
The new ruler, Gheorghe Bibescu, released Bălcescu and other participants in the plot during 1843; soon afterwards, they became involved in founding a new Freemason-inspired secret society, known as Frăția ("The Brotherhood"), which was to serve as the central factor in the revolution. Early on, Frăția's nucleus was formed by Bălcescu, Ion Ghica, Alexandru G. Golescu, and Major Christian Tell; by spring 1848, the leadership also included Dimitrie and Ion Brătianu, Constantin Bălcescu, Ștefan and Nicolae Golescu, Gheorghe Magheru, C. A. Rosetti, Ion Heliade Rădulescu, and Ioan Voinescu II. It was especially successful in Bucharest, where it also reached out to the middle class, and kept a legal facade as Soțietatea Literară (the Literary Society), whose meetings were attended by the Moldavians Vasile Alecsandri, Mihail Kogălniceanu, and Costache Negruzzi, as well as by the Austrian subject Constantin Daniel Rosenthal. During the early months of 1848, Romanian students at the University of Paris, including the Brătianu brothers, witnessed and, in some cases, took part in the French republican uprising.
Rebellion broke out in late June 1848, after Frăția's members came to adopt a single project regarding the promise of land reform. This resolution, which had initially caused dissension, was passed into the revolutionary program upon pressures from Nicolae Bălcescu and his supporters. The document itself, destined to be read as a proclamation, was most likely drafted by Heliade Rădulescu, and Bălcescu himself was possibly responsible for most of its ideas. It called for, among other issues, national independence, civil rights and equality, universal taxation, a larger Assembly, responsible government, a five-year term of office for Princes and their election by the Assembly, freedom of the press, and decentralization.
Originally, the revolutionary grouping had intended to take over various military bases throughout Wallachia, and planned to simultaneously organize public gatherings in Bucharest, Râmnicu Vâlcea, Ploiești, Romanați County and Islaz. On June 21, 1848, Heliade Rădulescu and Tell were present in Islaz, where, with the Orthodox priest Șapcă of Celei, they revealed the revolutionary program to a cheering crowd (see Proclamation of Islaz). A new government was formed on the spot, comprising Tell, Heliade Rădulescu, Ștefan Golescu, Șapcă, and Nicolae Pleșoianu—they wrote Prince Bibescu an appeal, which called on him to recognize the program as the embryo of a constitution and to "listen to the voice of the motherland and place himself at the head of this great accomplishment".
The revolutionary executive left Islaz at the head of a gathering of soldiers and various others, and, after passing through Caracal, triumphantly entered Craiova without meeting resistance from local forces. According to one account, the gathering comprised as many as 150,000 armed civilians. As these events were unfolding, Bibescu was shot at in Bucharest by Alexandru or Iancu Paleologu (the father of French diplomat Maurice Paléologue) and his co-conspirators, whose bullets only managed to tear one of the Prince's epaulettes. Over the following hours, police forces clamped down of Frăția, arresting Rosetti and a few other members, but failing to capture most of them.
Provisional Government
Creation
Early on June 23, Bibescu also attempted to regain the loyalty of his Militia forces by an order to take a renewed oath of allegiance—the officers agreed to do so, but added that under no circumstances did they agree to shed the blood of Romanians. In the afternoon, the Bucharest populace, feeling encouraged by this development, rallied in the streets; around four o'clock, the church bells on Dealul Mitropoliei began sounding the tocsin (by banging their tongues on only one side of the drum). Public readings of the Islaz Proclamation took place, and the Romanian tricolor was paraded throughout the city. At ten o'clock in the evening, Bibescu gave in to the pressures, signed the new constitution, and agreed to support a Provisional Government as imposed on him by Frăția. This effectively disestablished Regulamentul Organic, causing the Russian consul to Bucharest, Charles de Kotzebue, to leave the country for Austrian-ruled Transylvania. Bibescu himself abdicated and left into self-exile.
On June 25, the two proposed cabinets were reunited into Guvernul vremelnicesc (the Provisional Government), based on the Executive Commission of the Second French Republic; headed by the conservative Neofit II, the Metropolitan of Ungro-Wallachia, it consisted of Christian Tell, Ion Heliade Rădulescu, Ștefan Golescu, Gheorghe Magheru, and, for a short while, the Bucharest merchant Gheorghe Scurti. Its secretaries were C. A. Rosetti, Nicolae Bălcescu, Alexandru G. Golescu, and Ion Brătianu. The Government was doubled by Ministerul vremelnicesc (the Provisional Ministry), which was divided into several offices: Ministrul dinlăuntru (the Minister of the Interior, a position held by Nicolae Golescu); Ministrul dreptății (Justice – Ion Câmpineanu); Ministrul instrucției publice (Public Education – Heliade Rădulescu); Ministrul finanții (Finance – C. N. Filipescu); Ministrul trebilor dinafară (Foreign Affairs – Ioan Voinescu II); Ministrul de războiu (War – Ioan Odobescu, later replaced by Tell); Obștescul controlor (the Public Controller – Gheorghe Nițescu). It also included Constantin A. Kretzulescu as President of the City Council (later replaced by Cezar Bolliac), Scarlat Kretzulescu as Commander of the National Guard, and Mărgărit Moșoiu as Police Chief.
The Wallachian revolutionaries maintained ambiguous relations with leaders of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, as well as with the latter's ethnic Romanian adversaries in Transylvania. As early as April, Bălcescu, who maintained close contacts with many Romanian Transylvanian politicians, called on August Treboniu Laurian not to oppose the unification of Transylvania and revolutionary Hungary. In parallel, secretive negotiations were carried out between Lajos Batthyány and Ion Brătianu, which were in connection to a project of creating a Wallachian–Hungarian confederation. Although it drew support from radicals, the proposal was ultimately rejected by the Hungarian side, who notably argued that this carried the danger of deteriorating relations with Russia. Progressively, Romanian Transylvanians distanced themselves from the rapprochement, and clarified that their goal was the preservation of Austrian rule, coming into open conflict with the Hungarian revolutionary authorities.
The following day, the new administrative bodies issued their first decrees. One of them instituted the horizontal tricolor with the inscription DPEПTATE – ФРЪЦIE ("Justice – Brotherhood" in Romanian Cyrillic as used at the time). A national motto for Wallachia, Dreptate, Frăție ("Justice, Brotherhood"), was also introduced. It proclaimed all traditional civil ranks to be destitute, indicating that the only acceptable distinctions were to be made on the basis of "virtues and services to the motherland", and creating a national guard. The Government also abolished censorship, as well as capital and corporal punishment, while ordering all political prisoners to be set free. In line with earlier demands, a call for unification of all Romanian-inhabited lands, as "one and indivisible [nation]", was officially voiced during that period. However, this view was still only shared by a relatively small and highly factionalized section of the intelligentsia.
The official abolition of Roma slavery was sanctioned by a decree also issued on June 26. This was the culmination of a process begun in 1843, when all state-owned slaves had been liberated, and continued in February 1847, when the Orthodox Church had followed suit and set free its own Roma labor force. The decree notably read: "The Romanian people discard the lack of humanity and the shameful sin of owning slaves and declares the freedom of privately owned slaves. Those who have so far had the sinful shame of owning slaves are forgiven by the Romanian people; and the motherland, as a good mother, shall compensate, out of its treasury, whosoever shall complain of detriment as a result of this Christian deed". A three-member Commission was left to decide on the matters of legal implementation and compensation for slave owners—it comprised Bolliac, Petrache Poenaru, and Ioasaf Znagoveanu.
The authorities publicized their reforms by making use of new press institutions, the most circulated of which were Poporul Suveran (a magazine edited by Bălcescu, Bolliac, Grigore Alexandrescu, Dimitrie Bolintineanu and others) and Pruncul Român (published by Rosetti and Eric Winterhalder). In parallel, the Bucharest populace could regularly hear public communiques read on the fields of Filaret (known as the "Field of Liberty").