Editing History of Romania (section)

=== United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia ===

After the unsuccessful 1848 revolution, the [[Great Powers]] rejected the Romanians' desire to officially unite in a single state, forcing the Romanians to proceed alone in their struggle against the Turks.<ref>{{Citation|last =Bobango|first =Gerald J|title =The emergence of the Romanian national State|publisher=Boulder |year=1979 |location=New York |isbn= 978-0-914710-51-6}}</ref>

The aftermath of the [[Russian Empire]]'s defeat in the [[Crimean War]] brought the 1856 [[Treaty of Paris (1856)|Treaty of Paris]], which started a period of common tutelage for the Ottomans and a Congress of [[Great Power]]s—the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]], the [[Second French Empire]], the [[Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia]], the [[Austrian Empire]], [[Prussia]], and, though never again fully, Russia. While the Moldavia-Wallachia [[Partida Națională|unionist campaign]], which had come to dominate political demands, was accepted with sympathy by the French, Russians, Prussians, and Sardinians, it was rejected by the Austrian Empire, and looked upon with suspicion by Great Britain and the Ottomans.

Negotiations amounted to an agreement on a minimal formal union, to be known as the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia but with separate institutions and thrones and with each principality electing its own prince. However, the Moldavian and Wallachian elections for the [[Ad hoc Divans|ad-hoc divans]] in 1859 profited from an ambiguity in the text of the final agreement, which, while specifying two separate thrones, did not prevent the same person from occupying both thrones simultaneously and ultimately ushered in the ruling of [[Alexandru Ioan Cuza]] as ''Domnitor'' (Ruling Prince) over both Moldavia and Wallachia from 1859 onwards, [[Unification of Moldavia and Wallachia|uniting both principalities]].<ref name="Principalities">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LBYriPYyfUoC&pg=PA114 |title=The establishment of the Balkan national states, 1804–1920 |date= 20 September 2012|isbn=978-0-295-80360-9 |access-date=2012-03-28|last1=Jelavich |first1=Charles |last2=Jelavich |first2=Barbara |publisher=University of Washington Press }}</ref>

[[File:Battle at river Skit 1877.jpg|thumb|Clash between Romanians and Turks during the [[Romanian War of Independence]], November 1877]]
Alexander Ioan Cuza carried out reforms including abolishing serfdom and started to unite the institutions one by one in spite of the convention from Paris. With help from unionists, he unified the government and parliament, effectively merging Wallachia and Moldavia into one country and in 1862 the country's name was changed to United Principalities of Romania.

Romania was created as a personal union that did not include Transylvania, where the upper class and the aristocracy remained mainly Hungarian, although Romanian nationalism clashed with Hungarian nationalism at the end of the 19th century.{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Identity conflict of the sango minority of Romania |url=https://munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/20109/thesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y}}</ref> Austria-Hungary, especially under the [[History of Hungary|Dual Monarchy]] of 1867, kept the territory firmly in control even in parts of Transylvania where Romanians constituted a vast majority.{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}