Kingdom of Romania

The Kingdom of Romania (Romanian: Regatul României) was a constitutional monarchy that existed from 13 March (O.S.) / 25 March 1881 with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian royal family), until 1947 with the abdication of King Michael I and the Romanian parliament's proclamation of the Romanian People's Republic.

Kingdom of Romania
Regatul României (Romanian)

Bucharest
(1881–1916, 1918–1947)
Iași (1916–1918)

Bucharest (1881–1916, 1918–1947) Iași (1916–1918)

Romanian^[1]

List

Crimean Tatar, German, Hungarian, Yiddish, Romani, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Gagauz and others

Romanian Orthodox (State Religion)^[2]

Romanian

Unitary parliamentary
constitutional monarchy

under a

Fascist dictatorship
(1937–1938)
Royal dictatorship
(1938–1940)
Legionarist totalitarian diarchy (1940–1941)
Fascist military dictatorship
(1941–1944)
People's democracy
(1945–1947)

Parliament
(1881–1937; 1939–1940)
None (rule by decree)
(1937–1939; 1940–1946)
Assembly of Deputies
(1946–1947)

Senate
(1881–1937; 1939–1940)

Assembly of Deputies
(1881–1937; 1939–1940)

13 March 1881

10 August 1913

4 June 1920

29 March 1923

20 February 1938

14 September 1940

21 January 1941

23 August 1944

12 September 1944

6 March 1945

30 December 1947

137,903 km² (53,245 sq mi)

295,049 km² (113,919 sq mi)

7,900,000

20,058,378

1938^[d] estimate

$2.834 billion

Romanian Leu

From 1859 to 1877, Romania evolved from a personal union of two principalities: (Moldavia and Wallachia) called the Unification of Moldavia and Wallachia also known as "The Little Union" under a single prince to an autonomous principality with a Hohenzollern monarchy. The country gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire during the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War (known locally as the Romanian War of Independence), after which it was forced to cede the southern part of Bessarabia in exchange for Northern Dobruja. The kingdom's territory during the reign of King Carol I, between 13 (O.S.) / 25 March 1881 and 27 September (O.S.) / 10 October 1914 is sometimes referred to as the Romanian Old Kingdom, to distinguish it from "Greater Romania", which included the provinces that became part of the state after World War I (Bessarabia, Banat, Bukovina, and Transylvania).

With the exception of the southern halves of Bukovina and Transylvania, these territories were ceded to neighboring countries in 1940, under the pressure of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Following the abolishment of the 1923 constitution by King Carol II in 1938, the Kingdom of Romania became an absolute monarchy, only to become a military dictatorship under Ion Antonescu in 1940 after the forced abdication of King Carol II, with his successor, King Michael I being a figurehead with no effective political power. The country's name was changed to Legionary Romania.

The disastrous World War II campaign on the side of the Axis powers led to King Michael's Coup against Ion Antonescu in 1944, as a result of which the Kingdom of Romania became a constitutional monarchy again and switched sides to the Allies, recovering Northern Transylvania. The influence of the neighbouring Soviet Union and the policies followed by Communist-dominated coalition governments ultimately led to the abolition of the monarchy, with Romania becoming a Soviet satellite state as the People's Republic of Romania on the last day of 1947.

Economy[edit]

Pre-Kingdom Era to World War I[edit]

At the time of the proclamation of the Kingdom, there were already several industrial facilities in the country: The Assan and Olamazu steam mills, built in 1853 and 1862 respectively, a brick factory built in 1865, and two sugar factories built in 1873, among others. In 1857, the first oil refinery in the world was built at Ploiești.^[23] In 1880, after several railways were built, the CFR was founded. After proclamation of the Kingdom, the pre-established industrial facilities began to be highly developed: 6 more, larger, sugar factories were built and the railway network was expanded more. Another, more modern brick factory was built in 1891.^[24]

Agriculture[edit]

Despite all of these industrial achievements, the overwhelming majority of Romania's economy remained agricultural.^[24] In 1919, a staggering 72% of Romanians were engaged in agriculture. The Romanian peasantry was among the poorest in the region, a situation aggravated by one of Europe's highest birth rates. Farming was primitive and machinery and chemical fertilizers almost unheard of. The Regat (prewar Romania) was traditionally a land of large estates worked by peasants who either had little or no land of their own. The situation in Transylvania and Bessarabia was marginally better. After peasant calls for land reform snowballed into an avalanche, King Ferdinand had to oblige, especially once the Russian Revolution had encouraged peasants to take the matter in their own hands. The land reform passed in 1921 accomplished little however. Large landowners still controlled up to 30% of Romania's land, including the forests peasants depended on for fuel. The redistributed plots were invariably too small to feed their owners and most peasants could not overcome their tradition of growing grain over cash crops. Nothing was done to remedy basic problems such as rural overpopulation and technological backwardness. Draft animals were rare, to say nothing of machinery, actual productivity was worse than before. Romanian agriculture struggled in the international market, and with the onset of the Great Depression, collapsed completely.

Expansion and growth[edit]

Romania's 1913 GDP at the 1990 exchange rate amounted to $11.7 billion.^[25] However, the 1990 dollar was 9.27 times weaker than the 1938 dollar.^[26] Thus, Romania's 1913 GDP at the 1938 exchange rate amounted to $1.262 billion.

The 1938 Romanian GDP amounted to 387.204 billion lei, with a GDP per capita of 20,487 lei at an estimated population of 18.9 million.^[6] The 1938 average exchange rate was of 1 leu for US$0.00732.^[7] Romania's 1938 GDP thus amounted to $2.834 billion.

Romania's public debt as of 1 April 1938 amounted to 112,267,290,144 lei, of which 78,398,078,964 lei consisted of external debt.^[27] Total public debt thus amounted to 29% of Romania's 1938 GDP, while public external debt amounted to just over 20%.