The history of Romania has never been as idyllic and peaceful as its landscapes. This land inhabited by resolute, hardworking, dignified, and courageous people has always been tested by waves of invaders attacking this part of Europe. Romania is a relatively young state. It was founded in 1859 through the union of Moldavia and Wallachia. Later, in 1878, Dobruja joined, and in 1918, Transylvania and Bukovina, and for a period, Bessarabia as well. Before this moment, the entire territory was politically, economically, and religiously divided. The only common element has always been the Romanian language. It is said that the current territory of Romania has been continuously inhabited for 40,000 years. The most solid argument is the discovery made in 2002 at the “Cave with Bones” (Caraș-Severin County) of three skeletons considered to be the oldest human remains in Europe of modern man. Another peak moment in the history of these lands is the Cucuteni Culture (5500 – 2750 BC), one of the most fascinating and mysterious civilizations which developed largely in the region of Moldavia and used painted ceramics. Fragments of their craftsmanship are beautifully decorated vessels with famous spiral motifs or with anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures. The first population on the Carpathian-Danubian-Pontic territory whose name we know was the Thracians, mentioned in Homer’s epics “Iliad” and “Odyssey.” The historian Herodotus (484-425 BC) claimed that “the Thracian people are the most numerous in the world after the Indians” and that “if they had a single leader or if the Thracians could agree among themselves, their people would be invincible and much stronger than all other peoples.” In the 1st century BC, King Burebista of the Dacians controlled a territory similar to modern Romania. According to the Greek historian Strabo, “having risen to the head of his people, exhausted by frequent wars, the Getae Burebista elevated it so much through exercises, abstinence from wine, and obedience to commands that within a few years he created a powerful state and subdued most of the neighboring populations, becoming a threat even to the Romans.” However, the Dacian state reached the height of its power under King Decebalus (85 – 106 AD), who at the end of his reign was forced to fight two wars with the Romans, resulting in their conquest and colonization of part of Dacia, which became a Roman province. The Dacian-Roman wars are depicted on the spiral relief of Trajan’s Column in Rome. This was followed by 165 years of Roman rule. According to Christian tradition, Saint Andrew is credited with bringing Christianity to the area, but historians disagree on the exact moment when the locals adopted Christianity. This was followed by centuries during which migrating tribes used this territory as a corridor to Western Europe in search of better pastures and living conditions. The beginning of the new millennium (10th-11th centuries) found the population north of the Danube as the only Latin people in Eastern Europe and the only Latin people of the Orthodox rite. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the first Romanian state formations appear. The principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania are formed. Germans, having arrived in Transylvania at the behest of the King of Hungary, founded several cities in Transylvania. Thus, between 1211 and 1225, the Teutonic Order settled in the current territory of the Land of Bârsa (at the invitation of King Andrew II of Hungary) to help the Kingdom of Hungary defend its eastern border from the incursions of migrating peoples. Many fortresses and fortified churches, such as Prejmer (a UNESCO World Heritage site) or Feldioara, date back to this period. The conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II in 1453 caused a shockwave throughout Christian Europe. Through battle or tribute, the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia managed to keep the Turks at bay. This is the era of rulers considered heroes: Mircea the Elder, Stephen the Great, Vlad the Impaler, Petru Rareș. The buildings of that time—churches, monasteries, fortresses, princely courts—reflect these rulers who encouraged local culture and defended Christian traditions. In Transylvania from the 14th to the 16th centuries, numerous fortresses and fortified churches were also built by the Saxons to protect their rural communities. In 1600, under the leadership of Michael the Brave, the unification of Wallachia, Transylvania, and Moldavia took place, the union completed in Iași in May 1600. The union lasted only a year, as Michael the Brave was defeated by the Turks and the Habsburgs. Transylvania later came under Habsburg control, and Ottoman suzerainty continued in Wallachia and Moldavia. In 1699, Transylvania was ceded to Austria by the Ottoman Empire. Almost a century later, in 1774, part of Moldavia (which would later be called Bukovina) was annexed by the Habsburg Empire. Under the progressive Habsburg Empire, these two Romanian provinces thrived economically and culturally. However, the Austrians were Catholics, and the Great Schism of 1054 had led to the Papacy anathematizing the Orthodox. The Habsburgs destroyed Orthodox churches, killed priests, and forced the inhabitants to convert to Catholicism. In 1848, another important moment occurred when all the Romanian provinces joined one by one the revolutionary movement that had swept across Europe. These were the years when nationalist sentiments gained strength, the common origin of the inhabitants of the Romanian provinces was discussed, and national consciousness was affirmed. In 1859, under the leadership of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the union of the Romanian Principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia) was achieved, a personal union realized through his double election in Iași and Bucharest. Seven years later, the German prince Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was proclaimed the ruler of Romania. Romanian diplomacy sought to gain support from the great royal houses of Europe to achieve independence. This marked the beginning of an era of modernization and prosperity for the Romanian lands, with key moments being the year 1878 when Romania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire and 1918 when the Great Union was realized by the incorporation of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina into Romania. Interwar Romania, also known as Greater Romania, benefited from the context of the collapse of empires and the proclamation of the right of peoples to self-determination. Being among the victors, Romania during this period was part of Europe’s “sanitary cordon” against the threat of Soviet Bolshevism. It was a time of great changes: a new constitution, one of the most progressive in Europe, agrarian reform, universal suffrage. In the cultural sphere, this is the era when the Romanian school of painting reached maturity, the capital acquired a flourishing appearance under the avant-garde architecture of the time, earning it the title of “Little Paris.” New theaters, exhibition halls, museums, concert halls were opened, and publishing houses competed to publish very young authors: Eugène Ionesco, Mircea Eliade, Nae Ionescu, Camil Petrescu, Liviu Rebreanu, Mihail Sadoveanu, George Bacovia, Mihail Sebastian. It was the era of universal genius Constantin Brâncuși and the dadaist Tristan Tzara. In 1939, the outbreak of the Second World War found Romania to be a powerful country economically, with a flourishing agriculture that had turned it into the granary of Europe. Having joined the war on the side of the Axis Powers, Romania reversed its position on August 23, 1944, joining the Allies. Immediately afterward, Soviet troops stationed on Romanian territory, which thus fell within the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union. The communists took power and forced King Michael to abdicate, proclaiming the People’s Republic of Romania. The communist rule in Romania was one of the most repressive and brutal regimes in Eastern Europe, characterized by numerous crimes, torture, and deportations. From former landowners to students, from priests to intellectuals, from political opponents to peasants who refused to turn in their land for collectivization—all became enemies of the new regime, which did everything possible to annihilate them. This period was marked by two terrible decades during which hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives in communist prisons. Romania is more widely known internationally after World War II as part of the socialist bloc due to the excesses of the former dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. Although he earned the appreciation and aid of the West when he condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia as a result of the Warsaw Pact (1968) and turned Romania into the first Eastern Bloc country to establish official relations with the European Community (1974), Ceaușescu earned international scorn through his adoption of a personality cult based on extreme Asian traditions and constant violations of the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens. Ceaușescu was removed from power during the revolution in December 1989, which left over a thousand dead. In 1991, under a new constitution, Romania became a republic with a multiparty system, market economy, and individual rights—freedom of expression, religious freedom, and private property. Since then, Romania’s path has consistently aligned with Euro-Atlantic structures, with significant milestones being 2004 when it became a NATO member and 2007 when it joined the European Union.