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Romania: Difference between revisions
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Romania's entry into World War I mostly came about under pressure from the Allies and promises that they could annex Transylvania from Hungary. It proved to be a disaster, with the Germans, Austrians, Bulgarians and Ottomans all ganging up on a poorly organised army and forcing it to retreat up to Moldova, where they held together for a few more years before finally capitulating. As part of the Peace of Bucharest of March 1918, Romania [[Disproportionate Retribution|was reduced to a vassal state occupied by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, had several of its territories yanked away again and would have a German monopoly on oil exports for 99 years]]. Said peace treaty was never completely ratified because King Ferdinand refused to sign it, and Romania re-entered the war one day before the armistice with Germany was signed and well after the military forces of the Central Powers had been thrashed on the Western Fronts. The Allies eventually kept their word, giving Transylvania to Romania (but Romania had to twist their hand a bit by starting a [[Curb Stomp Battle|Curb Stomp War]] with Hungary in 1919 and occupying and plundering it for about a year or so, and then milking some abusive armistice terms), which had also regained the Romanian-dominated area (Moldova between the Prut and Dniester rivers) in the meantime. Greater Romania was born.
Greater Romania lasted between 1919-1940 and is generally regarded as Romania's one period of [[Glory Days]] in history, when its culture was flourishing, reforms were implemented to address social ills, the economy was doing well and Bucharest was legitimately called "The Paris of the East" - it's okay as long as you don't mind the worrying popularity of far-right groups (like the Iron Guard) or [
Once the 1946 elections where thoroughly frauded to make the Communists win <ref> The main argument in the Communist Party was whether they should give themselves a "reasonable" 70% victory or at least 90%</ref>, the King was deposed and thrown out and the parties banned, Communism took over - it's a reasonable claim to argue that Romania had one of the worst regimes in Eastern Europe during the [[Cold War]]. Amazingly enough it only had two leaders. The first, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1948-1965), presided over horrible repression, the nationalisation of industry, the violent collectivisation of agriculture, the institution of the Five-Year Plans and the foundation of the infamous [[State Sec|secret police]] ''Securitate'' ("Security"), all with appropriately Stalinist zeal. The next was Nicolae Ceauşescu, who managed to be [[Up to Eleven|even worse]] than Dej and is routinely credited for destroying the country thanks to his policies.
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The Romanian version of the [[Hole in Flag]] revolutions was the only one that got seriously violent. Then again, the Ceauşescu regime was seriously unpleasant (complete with the mental hospitals and destroying the economy to repay the foreign debt). While this makes Romania probably the worst of the post-Stalin Soviet Bloc countries, ironically Ceauşescu at first had gained some popularity for his independent foreign policy and challenging the authority of the Soviet Union. This however had more to do with him admiring himself more than the respective Soviet leaders than with being a good human.
The Revolution saw 1,104 deaths, with Ceauşescu and his wife receiving a machine-gunning, on camera, as a Christmas present. It too counts as a [[Meet the New Boss]], since in the entire chaos the second rung of the Communist Party ended up in power. Try to steer clear of this subject, since there's so many unknowns and suspicious details going around that it's a prime source of [[Epileptic Trees]] and [[Poison Oak Epileptic Trees]] - where the USA has [[Who Shot JFK?]]?, Romania has What Really Happened In 1989? and What The Hell Was Up With [
Romania has many long-standing problems, one of them being [[Orphanage of Fear|nasty orphanages]]. This had to do with Ceauşescu wanting to boost the Romanian population by all means, even if this involved many mothers not being able to care for so many unwanted kids, abandoning them instead, so they ended up in... right. And we haven't even gone into the chaotic post-Communist situation, the Mineriad, the inefficient education system, the severe corruption and plain [[They Just Didn't Care|incompetent governments]]...
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* In ''[[Harry Potter]]'', Ron's brother, Charlie Weasley, works with dragons in Romania.
* In ''[[Twilight (Literature)|Twilight]]'''s ''[[Breaking Dawn]]'', some of the most ancient vampires come actually from Romania, angry at the Volturi clan for destroying their castle and the other Romanian vampires.
* ''[[South Park]]'''s answer to the Elian Gonzalez debacle, ''Quintuplets 2000'', involved Romanian quintuplets... whose home country is apparently still Communist, and certainly dominated by grey, bland architecture and an economy and populace so poor that a few hundred US dollars makes one "rich" there. Probably not the best depiction, and not necessarily all that accurate, either it turns out (current-day Bucharest, at any rate, is [
** The older bits of Bucharest are pretty. The Communists did their best to hack the place apart and fill it with depressing architecture. It's all a matter of finding the old parts that escaped relatively unscathed.
* An ''unintentional'' depiction occurred in an episode of ''[[Charmed (TV)|Charmed]]'', where an old woman "gypsy", instead of speaking ''Romany'' (which she was allegedly speaking), was actually speaking, yes... Romanian, which is a ''completely different language''. Methinks that show was even more low-budget than I thought!
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* Wallachia is the location of the [[Our Wormholes Are Different|first gateway]] to the Vampire World, and the birthplace (not to mention undeath place) of the [[Big Bad|Big Bads]] from the first two books of the ''[[Necroscope]]'' saga.
* Romania as represented in ''[[Scandinavia and The World]]'' is a vampire who steals, in keeping with the typical exaggeration of stereotypes. He also re-enacted Dracula with the Netherlands, at least until England threw them out of his garden.
* ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia (Manga)|Hetalia]]''. Another [[Moe Anthropomorphism]] of [http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/28100000/Romania-official-character-hetalia-28116403-1197-1217.jpg Romania] is mentioned in Hungary's bio and relationship chart, and apparently doesn't get along with her. By now, he had appeared in Volume 4 and wears a [[Nice Hat]]. He may be a homage or reference to Dracula because of his [[Red Eyes, Take Warning|red eyes]] and [[Cute Little Fangs|cute little fang]].
* Though presented as Kazakhstan, the village at the beginning of ''[[Borat]]'' is in Romania.
* A ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'' episode revolves around Romania, due to the fact that Alex wants to travel there for entertainment, and she doesn't know exactly where it is located (or what ''[[Book Dumb|it actually is]]''). Her father explains to her that Romania is a country in Europe, filled with gymnasts and vampires.
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* [[The Mafiya]]: most business and politics enterprises are almost entirely dependent of personal or family relationships, even more visible outside large cities. Stepping on the wrong people's toes in business or inter-gender relationships may have unfortunate results. Having the right friends always helps.
* [[Royals Who Actually Do Something]]: From the way Julia Gelardi describes it, Romania was severely losing at the first few weeks of the Paris Peace Conference<ref>backing the theory that the Allies only promised the country territory to get it into [[World War I]] in the first place</ref>, so in a fit of desperation PM Ionel Brătianu asked Queen Marie to travel to France to represent the country. Marie proceeded to use her charisma and reminders about Romania's considerable losses to charm-bully the Allies onto her side, and the conference ended with Romania receiving all it set out to gain (and then [[What the Hell, Hero?|starting a curbstomp war with Hungary and pillaging it in retaliation]]). [[Broken Aesop|Clearly, if you want to expand a country's territory, you should join the war, get beaten, re-join at the last minute and then send your monarch to annoy everybody else into giving you what you want.]]
* [[Slave to PR]]: Romanians [[Turn of the Millennium|of the 2000s]] are masters of online campaigns (in the English language nevertheless). In the recent past, they have [
* [[Vodka Drunkenski]]: Romania is the [
== the Romanian flag ==
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