Front: Tudor Vladimirescu (1780-1821), national revolutionary hero and leader of the popular uprising of 1821 in Walachia

The autonomist movement in Serbia influenced a former officer in the Russian army, Vladimirescu. He initially allied himself with the Greek revolutionary society, the Philikí Etaireía ("Friendly Brotherhood") that sought to overturn Turkish rule throughout the Balkans.

With the Etairist rising in Moldavia under Prince Alexander Ypsilantis (March 1821), however, he disavowed the Greek leadership of the revolution in the Romanian principalities. He organized a popular rising in Walachia to evict the predominantly Greek administration of the Turkish government and end the spoliations of the native Romanian aristocracy (boieri). His eventual accommodation to the provisional aristocratic government at Bucharest, however, eroded his considerable initial support. When Ypsilantis suspected Vladimirescu of conspiring with the Turks to cut off the retreat of the Greek revolutionary forces from the Bucharest region, he ordered the arrest of the Romanian leader, who was court-martialed and executed.

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Front: Alexandru loan Cuza (1859-1866), a prince

Valahia and Moldova were united to form the Romanian nation-state in 1859. It adopted the name of Romania. Prince Alexandru loan Cuza instituted reforms which contributed to the modernization of the new state.

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Front: Nicolae Balcescu (1819-1852), Romanian historian, writer and revolutionary

Balcescu was a passionate student of history. At the age of 19, he joined the army, and in 1840, participated in plot against landowner D. Filipescu. The conspiracy was discovered, and Balcescu was incarcerated in the Margineni Monastery where he stayed for two years.

Upon his release, he formed a secret organization called Fratia (Brotherhood) with Ion Ghica and Christian Tell. In order to further study history, Balcescu went to France and Italy and was editor of a magazine entitled Magazin istoric pentru Dacia (History Magazine for Dacia), which first appeared in 1844.

Following popular uprisings in France in 1844, Balcescu was inspired to return to Bucharest to participate there in the June 11th revolution. He was, for just two days, both Minister and Secretary of State of the provisional government put in place by the revolutionaries. As part of the liberal faction, he was for the appropriation of land by peasants and universal suffrage.

Balcescu was arrested on September 13 of that year by the authorities of the Ottoman Empire who had stifled the revolution. He then managed to escape and left for Transylvania from where he was then expelled by Habsburg authorities.

By 1849, Balcescu was in Budapest to negotiate an agreement between Romania and Hungarian revolutionaries, but after this agreement was signed, the Hungarian revolution was overthrown.

He died in Palermo of tuberculosis at 33 years of age.

Back: The Roman Athenaeum concert hall in Bucharest