GHEORGHE CLIVETI

Abstract

As is well-known, Romania proclaimed its independence in May 1877 and gloriously participated in the war against Turkey. Despite these national history facts, the small Principality faced serious difficulties on the way to the international recognition of its sovereignty. Prince Carol and Prime Minister Brătianu refused the Russian-Ottoman conditions attached to Romania’s independence by the Treaty of San Stefano. The Romanian statesmen wished for the independence of Romania to be recognized by all the Great Powers, before the beginning of the preliminaries to the Berlin Congress. Instead of this, the Guaranteeing Powers mutually agreed that the issue referring to Romania’s independence was to be subjected to their deliberations during the Congress. In such a situation, Romanian diplomacy had to justify, at the same Congress, the international recognition of the Principality’s independence. Nevertheless, the Great Powers assumed the exclusive latitude for a very tough recognition. Therefore, it is of great historiographical importance to reveal the deliberations of that Congress, which implied in fact a conditional recognition of Romania’s independence.

Keywords: Romania’s independence, Concert of Europe, Guaranteeing Powers, deliberations of the Berlin Congress.

THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN AND THE ISSUE CONCERNING THE RECOGNITION OF ROMANIA’S INDEPENDENCE

Gheorghe Cliveti, PhD, professor at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, director of the A. D. Xenopol History Institute (Romanian Academy). Among other works, he authored Europa francezăși cauza română (1789–1871) [French Europe and the Romanian Cause (1789–1871)] (Iași, 2010) and România și “alianțele germane,” 1879–1914 [Romania and the “German Alliances,” 1879–1914] (Iași, 2015).