Greater Romania
- See "România Mare" for other meanings
Kingdom of Romania Kingdom of Great Romania Regatul României Regatul României Mari | |||||||||
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| 1918–1947 | |||||||||
Coat of Arms (since 1922)
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| Anthem: Trăiască Regele | |||||||||
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| Capital and largest city | Bucharest | ||||||||
| Common languages | Romanian | ||||||||
| Government | Constitutional monarchy | ||||||||
| Head of State | |||||||||
| Ferdinand I of Romania | |||||||||
| Michael I of Romania Carol II of Romania Michael I of Romania | |||||||||
| Legislature | Adunarea Deputaţilor and Senatul | ||||||||
| Historical era | Interbellum Years | ||||||||
• Kingdom enlarged | 1 December 1918 | ||||||||
• | 30 December, 1947 | ||||||||
• Kingdom abolished | 30 December 1947 | ||||||||
| Currency | Romanian Leu (NA) | ||||||||
| Calling code | NA | ||||||||
| ISO 3166 code | RO | ||||||||
| Internet TLD | NA | ||||||||
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| History of Romania |
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 Romania portal |
Great Romania (România Mare) generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First and Second World Wars, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever.
The name and its meanings
The original Romanian term România Mare did not carry the expansionist and irredentist sense of its English translation. The literal translation in English is actually Great Romania. The name was coined right after World War I, when Romania came to include all the historical Romanian provinces, by comparison with Small Romania, or the Regat, which did not include the provinces of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina. An alternate name for România Mare, coined at the same period, was România Întregită (Whole Romania or Integrated Romania). România Mare was seen (and is still seen by many) as the natural national Romanian state, and a symbol of national renaissance.
The term România Mare acquired an irredentist meaning after the Second Vienna Award and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which lead to the separation from Romania of Northern Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina.
Nowadays, the term is most often used in English to convey a nationalist meaning, though it does not have expansionist meaning in Romanian. When used in a political context, especially with reference to the Greater Romania Party, is conveys in English an irredentist connotation, mainly concerning territories taken after World War II by the Soviet Union, and now part of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. In Romanian, the Greater Romania Party (or rather Great Romania Party) is known as the party formed around former Securitate officers and some former Communist Party activists, lead by Corneliu Vadim Tudor, which appeals to nationalist sentiments to promote an anti-reform agenda. The party is known for anti-Western, anti-Hungarian, anti-Gypsy declarations, but very few anti-Slav ones.
History
In 1918, at the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Romanian Old Kingdom. Transylvania (the last of the three to do so) united by a Proclamation of Union of Alba Iulia voted by the Deputies of the Romanians from Transylvania, and supported two weeks later by the vote of the Deputies of the Germans from Transylavania (the Hungarians from Transylavania, about 24% at the time, did not elect Deputies at the official dissolution of Austro-Hungary, since they were considered represented by the Budapest government of the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungary). In Bukovina (the second of the three to vote for union), a National Council representing the entire population of the province voted for union with Romania. However, while the Romanian, German, Polish and Jewish deputies voted for, the Ukrainian deputies (representing 37% of the population at the time) voted against. Bessarabia, having declared its sovereignty in 1917 by the newly-elected Council of the Country (Sfatul Ţării), was faced with the disorderly retreat of disbanded Russian troops through its territory in January 1918, and called in Romanian troops to protect the province from the Bolsheviks who were spreading the Russian Revolution. The orderly retreat of the Romanian troops after the marauders were pushed over the Dniester river impressed the Moldavian intellectuals and after declaring independence from Russia on 24 January 1918, Sfatul Ţării voted union with Romania on 9 April 1918: of the 148 deputies, 86 voted for union, 3 against, 36 abstained (mostly the deputies representing the minorities, 30% at the time) and 13 were not present.
The union of the regions of Transylvania, Maramureş, Crişana and Banat with the Old Kingdom of Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon which recognised Romanian sovereignty over these regions and settled the border between the independent Republic of Hungary and the Kingdom of Romania. The union of Bukovina and Bessarabia with Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Versailles. Romania had also recently acquired the Southern Dobruja territory called the Cadrilater ("Quadrilateral") from Bulgaria as a result of its victory in the Second Balkan War in 1913.
Romania retained these borders from 1918 to 1940. In that year, it lost Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, lost the considerable territory of Northern Transylvania to Hungary in the Second Vienna Arbitration, and lost the Cadrilater to Bulgaria in the Treaty of Craiova. In the course of World War II, Romania (in alliance with the Axis Powers) took back Bessarabia and was awarded further territorial gains at the expense of the Soviet Union (Transnistria or western Yedisan or western New Russia; these were lost again as the tide of war turned) as compensation for Northern Transylvania.
After the war, Romania regained the territories lost to Hungary, but not those lost to Bulgaria or the Soviet Union, and in 1948 the Treaty between the Soviet Union and communist and Soviet-occupied Romania also provided for the transfer of 4 uninhabited islands to the USSR, three in the Danube delta and one on the Black Sea.
See also
- History of Romania
- List of famous Romanians who were born outside present-day Romania
- Tatarbunary Uprising
Banat  (1918–)a |
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Dobruja  (1878–) |
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Moldavia  (1859–)b |
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Transylvania  (1918–)ag | |
Wallachia  (1859–)b | |
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