oppres LUDS. Turkish that Walachia was doomed to sink into a Turkish pashalic. The Turkish commander Mahmoud Bey became treacherously possessed of Nagul's young son and successor, and, sending him a prisoner to Stamboul, proceeded to nominate Turkish governors in the towns and villages of Walachia. The Walachians resisted desperately, elected Radul, a kinsman of Nagul, voivode, and succeeded with Hungarian help in defeating Mahmoud Bey at Grumatz in 1522. The conflict was prolonged with varying fortunes, but in 1524 the dogged opposition of the Walachians finally triumphed in the sultan's recognition of Radul. Michael the Brave. But, though Walachia thus escaped conversion into a Turkish pashalic, the battle of Mohacs in 1526 decided the long preponderance of Turkish control. The unfortunate province served as a transit route for Turkish expeditions against Hungary and Transylvania, and was exhausted by continual requisitions. Turkish settlers were gradually making good their footing on Walachian soil, and mosques were rising in the towns and villages. The voivode Alexander, who succeeded in 1591, and who like his predecessors had bought his post of the Divan, carried the oppres sion still further by introducing against the capitulations a janízary guard, and farming out his possessions to his Turkish supporters. Meanwhile the Turkish governors on the Bulgarian bauk never ceased to ravage the country, and again it seemed as if Walachia must share the fate of the Balkan states and succumb to the direct government of the Ottoman. In the depth of the national distress the choice of the people fell on Michael, the son of Petrushko, ban of Krajova, the first dignitary of the realm, who had fled to Transylvania to escape Alexander's machinations. Supported at Constantinople by two at that time influential personages, Sigmund Báthori and the English ambassador, Edward Barton, and aided by a loan of 200,000 florius, Michael succeeded in procuring from the Divan the deposition of his enemy and his own nomination. The genius of Michael "the Brave" (1593-1601) secured Walachia for a time a place in universal history. The moment for action was favourable. The emperor Rudolph II. had gained some successes over the Turks, and Sigmund Báthori, prince of Transylvania, had been driven by Turkish extortions to throw off the allegiance to the sultan. But the first obstacle to be dealt with was the presence of the enemy within the walls, and Michael had recourse to the same desperate expedient as the Montenegrins at a later date. By previous concert with the Moldavian voivode Aaron, on November 13, 1594, the Turkish guards and settlers in the two principalities were massacred at a given signal. Michael followed up these "Walachian Vespers" by an actual invasion of Turkish territory, and, aided by Sigmund Báthori, succeeded in carrying by assault Rustchuk, Silistria, and other places on the right bank of the lower Danube. A simultaneous invasion of Walachia by a large Turkish and Crim-Tatar host was successfully defeated; the Tatar khan withdrew with the loss of his bravest followers, and, in the great victory of Mantin on the Danube (1595), the Turkish army was aunihilated, and its leader Mustafa slain. The sultan now sent Sinan Pasha "the Renegade" to invade Walachia with 100,000 men. Michael withdrew to the mountains before this overwhelming force, but, being joined by Báthori with a Transylvanian contingent, the voivode resumed the offensive, stormed Bucharest, where Sinan had entrenched a Turkish detachment, and, pursuing the main body of his forces to the Danube, overtook the rearguard and cut it to pieces, capturing enormous booty. Sinan Pasha returned to Constantinople to dic, it is said, of vexation, and in 1597 the sultan, weary of a disastrous contest, sent Michael a red flag in token of reconciliation, reinvested him for life in an office of which he had been unable to deprive him, and granted the succession to his son. Conquest In 1599, on the definitive abdication of Sigmund Báthori in of Tran- Transylvania, Michael, in league with the imperialist forces under sylvania. General Basta, and in connivance with the Saxon burghers, attacked and defeated his successor Andreas Báthori near Hermannstadt, and, seizing himself the reins of government, secured his proclamation as prince of Transylvania. The emperor consented to appoint him his "locum tenens per Transylvaniam," and the sultan ratified his election. As prince of Transylvania he summoned diets in 1599 and 1600, and, having expelled the voivode of Moldavia, united under his sceptre three principalities. The partiality that he showed for the Rouman and Szekler parts of the population alienated, however, the Transylvanian Saxons, who preferred the direct government of the emperor. The imperial commissioner General Basta lent his support to the disaffected party, and Michael was driven out of Transylvania by a successful revolt, while a Polish army under Zamoyski invaded Walachia from the Moldavian side. Michael's coolness and resource, however, never for a moment deserted him. He resolved to throw himself on the emperor, rode to Prague, won over Rudolph by his singular address, and, richly supplied with funds, reappeared in Transylvania as imperial governor. In conjunction with Basta he defeated the superior Transylvanian forces at Gorosló, expelling Sigmund Báthori, who had again aspired to the crown, and taking one hundred and fifty flags and forty-five cannon. But at the moment of his returning prosperity Basta, who had quarrelled with him about the supreme command of the imperial forces, procured his murder (August 19, 1601). Thus perished Michael the Brave in the forty-third year of his age, after performing in the course of his short reign achievements which, considering the small resources at his disposal, nust place his name beside those of Hunyadi and Sobieski in the annals of eastern Europe. Not only did he succeed in rolling back for a time the tide of Turkish conquest, but for the first and last time in modern history he united what once had been Trajan's Dacia, in its widest extent, and with it the whole Rouman race north of the Danube, under a single sceptre. Michael's wife Florika and his son Petrushko were carried off Turkish into Tatar captivity, and Serban, of the Bassaraba family, was dominaraised to the voivodeship of Walachia by imperialist influences. tion. On his deposition by the Porte in 1610, there followed a succession of princes who, though still for the most part of Rouman origin, bought their appointment at Stamboul. Walachian contingents were continually employed by the Turks in their Polish wars, and the settlement of Greeks in an official or mercantile capacity in the principality provoked grave discontent, which on one occasion took the form of a massacre. The reign of the voivode Matthias Matthias Bassaraba, who succeeded in 1633, was an interval of comparative Bassaprosperity, and its length, twenty-one years, forms itself a panegyric. raba. He defended himself successfully against his powerful rival Vasilje Lupul, the voivode of Moldavia, and his Tatar and Cossack allies, and found a golden key to Turkish tolerance. He appears as a lawgiver, translating the Basilica of Jo. Comnenus, and founded many churches and monasteries. His last days were embittered, however, by an outbreak of military anarchy. On his death the Turkish yoke again weighed heavier on Walachia. The old capital Tirgovist was considered by the Divan to be too near the Transylvanian frontier, and the voivodes were accordingly compelled to transfer their residence to Bucharest. The mechanical skill of the Walachians was found useful by the Turks, who employed them as carpenters and pontonniers; and during the siege of Vienna by Kara Mustafa in 1683 the Walachian contingent, which, under the voivode Serban Cantacuzene, had been forced to co-operate with Serban the Turks, was entrusted with the construction of the two bridges Cantaover the Danube above and below Vienna. The Walachian as cuzene. well as the Moldavian prince, who had been also forced to bring his contingent, maintained a secret intelligence with the besieged, an intelligence continued by the voivode Serban after his return to Walachia. The emperor granted him a diploma creating him count of the empire and recognizing his descent from the imperial house of Cantacuzene, Serban meanwhile collecting his forces for an open breach with the Porte. His prudence, however, perpetually postponed the occasion, and Walachia enjoyed peace to his death in 1688. This peaceful state of the country gave the voivode leisure to promote its internal culture; and in the year of his death he had the satisfaction of seeing the first part of a Walachian Bible issue from the first printing-press of the country, which he had established at Bucharest. He had also caused to be compiled a history of Walachia, and had called to the country many teachers of the Greek language, whose business it was to instruct the sons of the boiars in " grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy." Immediately on Serban's death the boiars, to prevent the Porte Constanfrom handing over the office to the Greek adventurer who bid the tine highest, proceeded to elect his sister's son Constantine Brancovan. BranThe Turkish capidji pasha, then in Bucharest, was persuaded to put covan. the caftan on his head in token of Turkish approval, and the patriarch of Constantinople, who was also present, and the archbishop of Walachia, Theodosius, consecrated him together at the high altar of the cathedral, where he took the coronation oath to devote his whole strength to the good of his country and received the boiars' oath of submission. Brancovan, it is true, found it expedient to devote his predecessor's treasure to purchasing the confirmation of his title from the Divan, but the account of his coronation ceremony remains an interesting landmark in the constitutional history of the country. In his foreign relations with the Hapsburg power he displayed the same caution as the voivode Serban. In spite of the victories of the margrave of Baden at Pojarevatz, Nish, and Widin in 1689, it was only by an exercise of force that the imperial troops secured winter quarters in Walachia, and, though after the battle of Pultava in 1709 Brancovan concluded a secret treaty with Czar Peter, he avoided giving open effect to it. The tranquillity which he thus obtained was employed by Brancovan as by his predecessor in furthering the internal wellbeing of the country, with what success is best apparent from the description of Walachia left by the Florentine Del Chiaro, who Del visited the country in 1709 and spent seven years there. He Chiaru's describes the stoneless Walachian plain, with its rich pastures, its descripcrops of maize and millet, and woods so symmetrically planted tion of and carefully kept by Brancovan's orders that hiding in them was Walachia out of the question. Butter and honey were exported to supply. the Grand Signor's kitchen at Stamboul; wax and cattle to Venice; and the red and white wine of Walachia, notably that of Pitesti, to Transylvania. The Walachian horses were in demand amongst Fall of Brancovan. The Fanariote or the Turks and Poles. Near Ribnik and elsewhere were salt-mines From this period onwards the Porte introduced a new system with regard to its Walachian vassals. The line of national princes ceases. The office of voivode or hospodar was sold to the highest bidder at regime. Stamboul, to be farmed out from a purely mercenary point of view. The princes who now succeeded one another in rapid succession were mostly Greeks from the Fanar quarter of Constantinople who had served the palace in the quality of dragoman, or held some other court appointment. They were nominated by imperial firman without a shadow of free election, and were deposed and transferred from one principality to another, executed or reappointed, like so many pashas. Like pashas they rarely held their office more than three years, it being the natural policy of the Porte to multiply such lucrative nominations. The same hospodar was often reappointed again and again as he succeeded in raising the sum necessary to buy back his title. Constantine Mavrocordato was in this way hospodar of Walachia at six different times, and paid on one occasion as much as a million lion-dollars for the office. The princes thus imposed on the country were generally men of intelligence and culture. Nicholas Mavrocordato, the first of the series, was himself the author of a Greek work on duties, and maintained at his court Demeter Prokopios of Moschopolis, who wrote a review of Greek literature during the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries. Constantine Mavrocordato was the author of really liberal reforms. He introduced an "urbarium " for the peasants, limiting the days of "angaria," or forced labour for the landlord, to twenty-four, and in 1747 decreed the abolition of serfdom. But | the new system could not but be productive of grinding oppression, and the swarms of "hungry Greeklings" who accompanied the Fanariote rulers from Stamboul made their rule doubly hateful. Numbers of the peasantry emigrated, and the population rapidly diminished. In 1745 the number of tax-paying families, which a few years before had amounted to 147,000, had sunk to 70,000. Yet the taxes were continually on the increase, and the hospodar Scarlată Ghika (1758-61), though he tried to win some popularity by the removal of Turkish settlers and the abolition of the "vakarit," or tax on cattle and horses, which was peculiarly hateful to the peasantry, raised the total amount of taxation to 25,000,000 lion-dollars. The Turks meantime maintained their iron grip on the country by holding on the Walachian bank of the Danube the fortresses of Giurgevo, Turnul, and Orsova, with the surrounding districts. But the tide of Ottoman dominion was ebbing fast. Already, by the peace of Passarovitz (Pojarevatz) in 1718, the banat of Krajova had been ceded to the emperor, though by the peace of Belgrade in 1739 it was recovered by the Porte for its Walachian vassal. In 1769 the Russian general Romanzoff occupied the principality, the bishops and clergy took an oath of fidelity to the empress Catherine, and a deputation of boiars followed. The liberties of the country were guaranteed, taxation reformed, and in 1772 the negotiations at Fokshani between Russia and the Porte broke down because the czarina's representatives insisted on the sultan's recognition of the independence of Walachia and Moldavia under an European guarantee. By the treaty of Kutshuk Kaimardji, concluded in Treaty of 1774, Russia consented to hand back the principalities to the Kutshuk sultan, but by Art. xvi. several stipulations were made in favour Kaimof the Walachians and Moldavians. The people of the princi- ardji. palities were to enjoy all the privileges that they had possessed under Mahomet IV.; they were to be freed from tribute for two years, as some compensation for the ruinous effects of the last war; they were to pay a moderate tribute; the agents of Walachia and Moldavia at Constantinople were to enjoy the rights of nations, and the Russian minister at the Porte should on occasion watch over the interests of the principalities. The stipulations of the treaty of Kutshuk Kaimardji, though deficient in precision (the Walachians, for instance, had no authentic record of the privileges enjoyed under Mahomet IV.), formed the basis of the future liberties in both principalities; and, as from this period onwards Walachian history is closely connected with that of Moldavia, it may be convenient before continuing this review to turn to the earlier history of the sister principality. Moldavia.-Tho mention of Vlachs on the borders of Galicia in Early 1160 (Nic. Chon., p. 171) gives just ground for believing that a MolRouman population existed in Moldavia at least as early as the first davian half of the 12th century. Under the successive domination, how history. ever, of Petchenegs, Cumans, and Tatars, it occupied as yet a subordinate position. It was not till 1352 that the Tatars, already weakened by Polish assaults on the Podolian side, were expelled from this Cumanian region by the Transylvanian voivodo Andreas Laszkovich. It is in fact to the period immediately succeeding this event that the first establishment of an independent Rouman state in Moldavia is referred by the concurrent testimony of Moldavian, Russian, and Hungarian sources. According to the native traditional account, as first given by the Moldavian chroniclers of the 17th and 18th centuries (Grigorie Urcchie and Miron Costin), Dragosh the son of Bogdan, the founder of the new principality, emigrated with his followers towards the end of the 14th century from the Hungarian district of Marmaros in the North Carpathians. The story is related with various fabulous accompaniments. From the aurochs (zimbru), in pursuit of which Dragosh first arrived on the banks of the Molda, is derived the ox-head of the Moldavian national arms, and from his favourite hound who perished in the waters the name of the river. From the Hungarian and Russian sources, which are somewhat more precise, the date of the arrival of Dragosh, who otherwise appears as Bogdan, in Moldavia appears to have been 1359, and his departure from Marmaros was carried out in defiance of his Hungarian suzerain. In the agreement arrived at between King Louis of Hungary and Rival the emperor Charles IV. in 1372, the voivodate of Moldavia was claims of recognized as a dependency of the crown of St Stephen. The over- Poland lordship over the country was, however, contested by the king of and Poland, and their rival claims were a continual source of dispute Hungary, between the two kingdoms. In 1412 a remarkable agreement was arrived at between Sigismund, in his quality of king of Hungary, and King Jagietto of Poland, by which both parties consented to postpone the question of suzerainship in Moldavia. Should, however, the Turks invade the country, the Polish and Hungarian forces were to unite in expelling them, the voivode was to bo deposed, and the Moldavian territories divided between the allies. During the first half of the 15th century Polish influence was preponderant, and it was customary for the voivodes of Moldavia to do homage to the king of Poland at Kamenicc or Snyatin. In 1456 the voivode Peter, alarmed at the progress of the Turks. the Great. Stephen who were now dominant in Servia and Walachia, offered Sultan Mahomet a yearly tribute of 2000 ducats. On his deposition, however, in 1458 by Stephen, known as "the Great," Moldavia became a power formidable alike to Turk, Pole, and Hungarian. Throughout the long reign of this voivode, which lasted forty-six years, from 1458 to 1504, his courage and resources never failed him. In the early part of his reign he appears, in agreement with the Turkish sultan and the king of Poland, turning out the Hungarian vassal, the ferocious Vlad, from the Walachian throne, and annexing the coast cities of Kilia and Cetatea Alba or Bielogorod, the Turkish Akierman. In the autumn of 1474 the sultan Mahomet entered Moldavia at the head of an army estimated by the Polish historian Dlugoss at 120,000 men. Voivode Stephen withdrew into the interior at the approach of this overwhelming host, but on January 17, 1475, turned at bay on the banks of Lake Rakovietz and gained a complete victory over the Turks. Four pashas were among the slain; over a hundred banners fell into the Moldavian hands; and only a few survivors succeeded in reaching the Danube. In 1476 Mahomet again entered Moldavia, thirsting for vengeance, but, though successful in the open field, the Turks were sorely harassed by Stephen's guerilla onslaughts, and, being thinned by pestilence, were again constrained to retire. In 1484 the same tactics proved successful against an invasion of Bajazet. Three years later a Polish invasion of Moldavia under John Albert with 80,000 men ended in disaster, and shortly afterwards the voivode Stephen, aided by a Turkish and Tatar contingent, laid waste the Polish territories to the upper waters of the Vistula, and succeeded in annexing for a time the Polish province of Pokutia that lay between the Carpathians and the Dniester, Moldaviu Exclusive of this temporary acquisition, the Moldavian territory tire. 1500. at this period extended from the river Milcov, which formed the boundary of Walachia, to the Dniester. It included the Carpathian region of the Bukovina, literally "the beechwood," where lay Sereth and Suciava, the earliest residences of the voivodes, the maritime district of Budzak (the later Bessarabia), with Kilia and Bielogorod, and the left bank of the lower Danube from Galatz to the Sulina mouth. The government, civil and ecclesiastical, was practically the same as that described in the case of Walachia, the officials bearing for the most part Slavonic titles derived from the practice of, the Bulgaro-Vlachian czardom. The church was Orthodox Oriental, and depended from the patriarch of Ohrida. In official documents the language used was the old Slovene, the style of a Moldavian ruler being Natchalnik i Voievoda Moldovlasi, prince and duke (Germ. "Fürst" and "Herzog") of the Moldovlachs. The election of the voivodes, though in the hands of the boiars, was strictly regulated by hereditary principles, and Cantemir describes the extinction of the house of Dragosh in the 16th century as one of the unsettling causes that most contributed to the ruin of the country. The Moldavian army was reckoned 40,000 strong, and the cavalry arm was especially formidable. Verantius of Sebenico, an eye-witness of the state of Moldavia at the beginning of the 16th century, mentions three towns of the interior provided with stone walls-Suciava, Chotim, and Njamtz; the people were barbarous, but more warlike than the Walachians and more tenacious of their national costume, punishing with death any who adopted the Turkish. Moldavia In 1504 Stephen the Great died, and was succeeded by his son, tributary Bogdan "the One-eyed." At feud with Poland about Pokutia, to the. despairing of efficacious support from hard-pressed Hungary, the Turks, new voivode saw no hope of safety except in a dependent alliance with the advancing Ottoman Power, which already hemmed Moldavia in on the Walachian and Crimean sides. In 1513 he agreed to pay an annual tribute to Sultan Selim in return for the sultan's guarantee to preserve the national constitution and religion of Moldavia, to which country the Turks now gave the name of Kara Bogdan, from their first vassal. The terms of Moldavian submission were further regulated by a firman signed by Sultan Suleiman at Buda in 1529 by which the yearly present or "backshish," as the tribute was euphoniously called, was fixed at 4000 ducats, 40 horses, and 25 falcons, and the voivode was bound at need to supply the Turkish army with a contingent of a thousand men. The Turks pursued much the same policy as in Walachia. The tribute was gradually increased. A hold was obtained on the country by the occupation of various strongholds on Moldavian soil with the surrounding territory,-in 1538 Cetatea Alba (Akierman), in 1592 Bender, in 1702 Chotim (Khotin). Already by the middle of the 16th century the yoke was so heavy that the voivode Elias (1546-1551) became Mohammedan to avoid the sultan's anger. The. At this period occurs a curious interlude in Moldavian history. impostor In 1661 the adventurer and impostor Jacob Basilicus succeeded Jacob with Hungarian help in turning out the voivode Alexander and Basilicus. seizing on the reins of government. A Greek by birth, adopted son of Jacob Heraklides, despot of Paros, Samos, and other Egean islands, acquainted with Greek and Latin literature, and master of most European languages, appearing alternately as a student of astronomy at Wittenberg, whither he had been invited by Count Mansfeld, as a correspondent of Melanchthon and as a writer of | " he historical works which he dedicated to Philip II. of Spain, Basilicus, finding that his Egean sovereignty in partibus was of little practical value beyond the crowning of poet laureates, fixed his roving ambi tion on a more substantial dominion. He published an astounding pedigree, in which, starting from "Hercules Triptolemus wound his way through the royal Servian line to the kinship of Moldavian voivodes, and, having won the emperor Ferdinand and Albert Lasky to his financial and military support, succeeded, though at the head of only 1600 cavalry, in routing by a bold dash the vastly superior forces of the voivode, and even in purchasing the Turkish confirmation of his usurped title. He assumed the style of Baaλebs Moλdaßías, and eluded the Turkish stipulation that he should dismiss his foreign guards. In Moldavia he appeared as a moral reformer, endeavouring to put down the prevalent vices of bigamy and divorce. He erected a school, placed it under a German master, and collected children from every part of the country to be maintained and educated at bis expense. He also busied himself with the collection of a library. But his taxes -a ducat for each family-were considered heavy; his orthodoxy was suspected, his foreign counsellors detested. In 1563 the people rose, massacred the Hungarian guards, the foreign settlers, and finally Jacob himself. The expelled voivode Alexander was now restored by the Porte, the schools were destroyed, and the country relapsed into its normal state of barbarism. His successor Ivonia was provoked by the Porte's demand for 120,000 ducats as tribute instead of 60,000 as heretofore to rise against the oppressor, but after gaining three victories he was finally defeated and slain (1574), and the country was left more than ever at the mercy of the Ottoman. Voivodes were now created and deposed in rapid succession by the Divan, but the victories of Michael the Brave in Walachia infused a more independent spirit into the Moldavians. The Moldavian dominion was now disputed by the Transylvanians and Poles, and in 1600 Michael succeeded in annexing it to his "Great Dacian realm. On Michael's murder the Poles under Zamoyski again asserted their supremacy, but in 1618 the Porte once more recovered its dominion and set up successively two creatures of its own as voivodes-Gratiani, an Italian who had been court jeweller, and a Greek custom-house official, Alexander. As in Walachia at a somewhat later date the Fanariote regime The seemed now thoroughly established in Moldavia, and it became the Fanariote rule that every three years the voivode should procure his confirma-regime. tion by a large backshish, and every year by a smaller one. The prince Vasilje Lupul, however, an Albanian, who succeeded in 1634, showed great abilities, and for twenty years succeeded, in maintaining his position on the Moldavian throne. He introduced several internal reforms, codified the written and unwritten laws of the country, established a printing press, Greek monastic schools, and also a Latin school. He brought the Moldavian Church into more direct relation with the patriarch of Constantinople, but also showed considerable favour to the Latins, allowing them to erect churches at Suciava, Jassy, and Galatz. During the wars between Sobieski and the Turks Moldavia found itself between hammer and anvil, and suffered frightfully moreover from Tatar devastations. The voivode Duka was forced like his Walachian contemporary to supply a contingent for the siege of Vienna in 1683. After Sobieski's death in 1696, the hopes of Moldavia turned to the advancing Muscovite power. In 1711 the voivode Demetriu Cantemir, rendered desperate by the Turkish Demetriu exactions, concluded an agreement with the czar Peter by which Cantemir. Moldavia was to become a protected and vassal state of Russia, with the enjoyment of its traditional liberties, the voivodeship to be hereditary in the family of Cantemir. On the approach of the Russian army the prince issued a proclamation containing the terms of the Russian protectorate and calling on the boiars and people to aid their Orthodox deliverers. But the iron had entered into the people's soul. The long Turkish terrorism had done its work, and at the approach of a Turkish and Tatar host the greater part of the Moldávians deserted their voivode. The Russian campaign was unsuccessful, and all that Czar Peter could offer Cantemir and the boiars who had stood by him was an asylum on Russian soil. In his Russian exile Cantemir composed in a fair Latin style Cantehis Descriptio Moldavia, the counterpart so far as Moldavia is mir's concerned to Del Chiaro's contemporary description of Walachia. descripThe capital of the country was now Jassy, to which city Stephen the tion of Great had transferred his court from Suciava, the earlier residence Moldavia, of the voivodes. It had at this time forty churches-some of stone, some of wood. Fifty years before it had contained 12,000 houses, but Tatar devastations had reduced it to a third of its former size. The most important commercial emporium was the Danubian port of Galatz, which was frequented by vessels from the whole of the Levant from Trebizond to Barbary. The cargoes which they here took in consisted of Moldavian timber (oak, deal, and cornel), grain, butter, honey and wax, salt, and nitre; Kilia at the north mouth of the Danube was also frequented by trading vessels, including Venetian and Ragusan. Moldavian wine was exported to Poland, Russia, Transylvania, and Hungary; that of Cotnar was Officers of state. Continuation of in Cautemir's opinion superior to Tokay. The excellence of the Moldavian horses is attested by a Turkish proverb; and annual droves of as many as 40,000 Moldavian oxen were sent across Poland to Dantzic. Moldavia proper was divided into the upper country or Terra de sus, and the lower country, or T'erra de josu. Bessarabia had been detached from the rest of the principality and placed under the direct control of the seraskier. It was divided into four provinces-that of Budzak, inhabited by the Nogai Tatars; that of Akierman or Cetatea Alba, the Greek Monkastron, a strongly fortified place; and those of Ismaila and Kilia. The voivodes owed their nomination entirely to the Porte, and the great officers of the realm were appointed at their discretion. These were the Great Logothete (Marele Logofetu) or chancellor; the governor of Lower Moldavia-Vorniculu de l'erra de josu; the governor of Upper Moldavia-Vorniculu de t'erra de sus; the Hatman or commander in chief; the high chamberlain-Marele Postelnicu ; the great Spathar, or swordbearer; the great cupbearer-Marele Paharnicu; and the treasurer, or Vistiernicu, who together formed the prince's council and were known as Boiari de Svatu. Below these were a number of subordinate officers who acted as their assessors and were known as boiars of the Divan (Boiari de Divanu). The high court of justice was formed by the prince, metropolitan, and boiars: the Boiari de Svatu decided on the verdict; the metropolitan declared the law; and the prince pronounced sentence. The boiars were able to try minor cases in their own residences, but subject to the right cf appeal to the prince's tribunal. Of the character of the Moldavian people Cantemir does not give a very favourable account. Their best points were their hospitality and, in Lower Moldavia, their valour. They cared little for letters and were generally indolent, and their prejudice against mercantile pursuits left the commerce of the country in the hands of Armenians, Jews, Greeks, and Turks.. The pure-blood Rouman population, noble and plebeian, inhabited the cities and towns or larger villages; the peasantry were mostly of Little Russian and Hungarian race and were in a servile condition. There was a considerable Gipsy population, almost every boiar having several Zingar families in his possession; these were mostly smiths. From this period onwards the character of the Ottoman domination in Moldavia is in every respect analogous to that of Walachia. Fanariote The office of voivode or hospodar was farmed out by the Porte to regime. a succession of wealthy Greeks from the Fanar quarter of Conetantinople. All formality of election by the boiars was now dispensed with, and the princes received their caftan of office at Constantinople, where they were consecrated by the Greek patriarch. The system favoured Turkish extortion in two ways: the presence of the voivode's family connexions at Staniboul gave the Porte so many hostages for his obedience; on the other hand the princes themselves could not rely on any support due to family influence in Moldavia itself. They were thus mere puppets of the Divan, and could be deposed and shifted with the same facility as so many pashas-an object of Turkish policy, as each change was a pretext for a new levy of "backshish." The chief families that shared the office during this period were those of Mavrocordato, Ghika, Callimachi, Ypsilanti, and Murusi. Although from the very conditions of their creation they regarded the country as a field for exploitations, they were themselves often men of education and ability, and unquestionably made some praiseworthy attempts to promote the general culture and wellbeing of their subjects. In this respect, even the Fanariote regime was preferable to mere pasha rule, while it had the further consequence of preserving intact the national form of administration and the historic offices of Moldavia. Gregory Ghika (1774-1777), who himself spoko French and Italian, founded a school or "gymnasium" at Jassy, where Greek, Latin, and theology were taught in a fashion. He encouraged the settlement of German protestant colonists in the country, some of whom set up as watchmakers in Jassy, where they were further allowed to build an evangelical church. Carra, a Swiss who had been tutor to Prince Ghika's children, and who published in 1781 an account of the actual state of the principalities, speaks of some of the boiars as possessing a taste for French literature and even for the works of Voltaire, a tendency actively combated by the patriarch of Constantinople. Cession of Bukovina. Russian protection. The Russo-Turkish War, which ended in the peace of Kutshuk Kaimardji, was fatal to the integrity of Moldavian territory. The house of Austria, which had already annexed Galicia in 1772, profited by the situation to arrange with both contending parties for the peaceful cession of the Bukovina to the Hapsburg monarchy. This richly-wooded Moldavian province, containing Suciava, the earliest seat of the voivodes, and Cernautii or Czernovitz, was in 1774 occupied by Hapsburg troops with Russian connivance, and in 1777 Baron Thugut procured its formal cession from the sultan. The Bukovina is still an Austrian province. Walachian and Moldavian History from the Treaty of Kutshuk Kaimardji in 1774 to the Establishment of the Roumanian Kingdom. -The treaty of Kutshuk Kaimardji was hardly concluded when it was violated by the Porte, which refused to recognize the right of the Walachian boiars to elect their voivode, and nominated Alexander Ypsilanti, a creature of its own. In 1777 Constantine Murusi was made voivode of Moldavia in the same high-handed fashion. The Divan seemed intent on restoring the old system of government in its entirety, but in 1788 the Russian representative extracted from the sultan a hattisherif defining more precisely the liberties of the principalities and fixing the amount of the annual tribute-for Walachia 619 purses exclusive of the bairam and other presents amounting to 130,000 piasters, and for Moldavia 135 purses and further gifts to the extent of 115,000 piasters. By the peace of Jassy in 1792 the Dniester was recognized as the Russian frontier, and the privileges of the principalities as specified in the hattisherif confirmed. In defiance of treaties, however, the Porte continued to change the hospodars almost yearly and to exact extraordinary installation presents. The revolt of Pasvan Oglu in Bulgaria was the cause of great injury to Walachia. The rebels ravaged Little Walachia in 1801-2, and their ravages were succeeded by those of the Turkish troops, who now swarmed over the country. Exaction followed exaction, and in 1802 Russia resolved to assert her treaty rights in favour of the oppressed inhabitants of the principalities. On the accession of Constantine Ypsilanti the Porte was constrained to issue a new hattisherif by which every prince was to hold his office for at least seven years, unless the Porte satisfied the Russian minister that there were good and sufficient grounds for his deposition. All irregular contributions were to cease, and all citizens, with the exception of the boiars and clergy, were to pay their share of the tribute. The Turkish troops then employed in the principalities were to be paid off, and one year's tribute remitted for the purpose. The boiars were to be responsible for the maintenance of schools, hospitals, and roads; they and the prince together for the militia. The number of Turkish merchants resident in the country was limited. Finally, the hospodars were to be amenable to representations made to them by the Russian envoy at Constantinople, to whom was entrusted the task of watching over the Walachian and Moldavian liberties. This, it will be seen, was a veiled Russian protectorate. In 1804 the Serbs under Karageorge rose against the Turkish dominion, and were secretly aided by the Walachian voivode Ypsilanti. The Porte, instigated by Napoleon's ambassador Sebastiani, resolved on Ypsilanti's deposition, but the hospodar succeeded in escaping to St Petersburg. In the war that now ensued between the Russians and the Turks, the former were for a time successful, and even demanded that the Russian territory should extend to the Danube. In 1808 the Russians, then in occupation of the principalities, formed a governing committee consisting of the metropolitan, another bishop, and four or five boiars under the presidency of General Kusnikoff. The seat of the president was at Jassy, and General Engelhart was appointed as vice-president at Bucharest. By the peace of Bucharest, however, in 1812, the principalities were restored to the sultan under the former conditions, with the exception of Bessarabia, which was ceded to the czar. The Pruth thus became the Russian boundary. The growing solidarity between the two Rounian principalities "Heter received a striking illustration in 1816, when the Walachian and ist Moldavian hospodars published together a code applicable to both move. countries, and which had been elaborated by a joint commission. ment. The Greek movement was now beginning, and in 1821 Alexander Ypsilanti entered Moldavia at the head of the Hetærists, and prevailed on the hospodar Michael Sutzu to aid him in invading the Ottoman dominions. To secure Walachian help, Ypsilanti advanced on Bucharest, but the prince, Theodore Vladimirescu, who represented the national Rouman reaction against the Fanariotes, repulsed his overtures with the remark "that hi.. business was not to march against the Turks, but to clear the country of Fanariotes." Vladimirescu was slain by a Greek revolutionary agent, but Ypsilanti's legion was totally routed by the Turks at Drăgăshani, and the result of his enterprise was a Turkish occupation of the principalities. In 1822 the Turkish troops, who had committed great excesses, were withdrawn on the combined representations of Russia, Austria, and Great Britain. The country, however, was again ravaged by the retiring troops, quarters of Jassy and Bucharest burnt, and the complete evacuation delayed till 1824, when the British Government again remonstrated with the Porte. By tho convention of Akierman between the Russians and the Turks in 1826 the privileges of the principalities were once more confirmed and they were again ratified in 1829, under Russian guarantee, by the peace of Adrianople. By this peace all the towns on the left bank Peace of of the Danube were restored to the principalities, and the Porte Adrianundertook to refrain from fortifying any position on the Walachian ople, side of the river. The principalities were to enjoy commercial free- 1829. dom, and the right of establishing a quarantine cordon along the Danube or elsewhere. The internal constitution of the countries was to be regulated by an "Organic Law," which was drawn up by assemblies of bishops and boiars at Jassy and Bucharest, acting, however, under Russian control. The Organic Law thus elaborated was by no means of a liberal character, and amongst other abuses maintained the feudal privileges of the boiars. It was ratified by the Porte in 1884, and the Russian army of occupation thereupon withdrew. |