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Concept
Danubian Principalities
Summary
The Danubian Principalities (Principatele Dunărene, Дунавске кнежевине) was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg monarchy after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) in order to designate an area on the lower Danube with a common geopolitical situation. The term was largely used then by foreign political circles and public opinion until the union of the two principalities in 1859. Alongside Transylvania, the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia became the basis for the Kingdom of Romania, and by extension the modern nation-state of Romania.
In a wider context, the concept may also apply to the Principality of Serbia as one of The Principalities of the Danube, which came under the suzerainty of the Porte from 1817.
Moldavia and Wallachia
The two emerged as vassals of the Hungarian Crown (in the case of Wallachia, Hungarian suzerainty had been present for the polities which preceded the unifying rule of Basarab I), and remained so until their independence (1330 for Wallachia and 1359 for Moldavia). In 1476 Wallachia and in 1538 Moldavia came under formal Ottoman suzerainty, preserving their self-rule in all aspects, except for the period of the so-called Phanariote Rule (1711 - 1821), when foreign affairs were dictated by the Sublime Porte.
After a marked decline in independence and prosperity over the 17th and 18th centuries, further independent and insurgent rules, which connected the two countries with Habsburg and Russian Empire offensives during the Great Turkish War, were blocked by the Ottomans by the introduction of Phanariote rules over the two countries (1711 in Moldavia and 1714 in Wallachia).
These, while connected with the first administrative reforms, generally had to rely on spoliation, and coincided with a disastrous stage in the countries' history, given that the two became a major theatre of war in a series of confrontations between Russian, Habsburg, and Ottoman forces (until the mid-19th century, they frequently came under temporary Russian or Habsburg occupation, and sometimes administration — as happened to the regions of Oltenia, Bukovina, and Bessarabia).
Official source
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