The Phanariot Era (1711/1716–1821)

After the betrayal by Dimitrie Cantemir and the suspicions concerning Constantin Brâncoveanu, the Ottoman Porte decided to appoint to the thrones of Moldavia (1711) and Wallachia (1716) princes drawn from the Greek merchants and officials of the Phanar quarter of Constantinople, hence the name Phanariots. The first Phanariot prince in Moldavia was Nicolae Mavrocordat, who also became prince of Wallachia in 1716. Reigns were short, often lasting only a few years, and princes secured them by paying large sums. The period lasted until the revolution of 1821.

The Phanariot regime had negative aspects: oppressive taxation, corruption, the sale of offices, political instability and the influence of the Greek elites. The peasants paid numerous taxes, in money and in kind, and worked whole days for the boyars, which led to mass flight into the neighbouring countries. In this period the Romanian lands lost part of their territory: Bukovina was occupied by the Habsburgs in 1775, and Bessarabia was annexed by Russia in 1812 through the Treaty of Bucharest. This latter loss, between the Prut and the Dniester, gravely affected the destiny of Moldavia.

Nevertheless, some Phanariot princes were reformers and men of the Enlightenment. Constantin Mavrocordat abolished the personal bond of serfdom of the peasants (“rumânia” and “vecinia”) in Wallachia in 1746 and in Moldavia in 1749, replacing it with obligations in labour and money. He reorganized the administration and the finances. Alexander Ypsilantis drew up a law code (1780), improved the administration of justice and founded schools. Grigore III Ghica reorganized the fiscal system and protected education. The princely schools of Bucharest and Iași brought the ideas of the Enlightenment into the Principalities.

On the international stage Russia became the dominant power in the region. By the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, Russia obtained the right to intervene on behalf of the Orthodox Christians of the empire and gained consulates in Bucharest and Iași. The Russo-Turkish wars brought repeated military occupations and devastation. The Treaty of Adrianople of 1829 ended the Ottoman commercial monopoly over the Principalities, which were then able to sell their grain freely in Europe. It also returned to Wallachia the raya towns of Brăila, Giurgiu and Turnu, which had been taken by the Turks.

Culturally, the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th prepared the national revival. Enlightenment ideas appeared, together with books in Romanian, newspapers (such as Ion Heliade Rădulescu’s “Curierul românesc” and Gheorghe Asachi’s “Albina românească”, 1829) and national schools. In 1818 Gheorghe Lazăr opened a school in Romanian at Saint Sava in Bucharest, and Gheorghe Asachi did the same at Iași in 1813. The revolution of 1821 led by Tudor Vladimirescu put an end to the Phanariot reigns, and in 1822 native princes were appointed.