nd themselves pressured by
the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. Borders arranged by the
victorious powers after World War I increased Romania's territory but
also increased its minority population, particularly the Hungarian.
Between the two world wars the country experienced a period of fascist
dictatorship and aligned itself with Nazi Germany early in World War II,
but it eventually overthrew the fascists and finished the war on the
side of the Allies.

The borders arranged after World War II formalized the loss of territory
to the Soviet Union but have remained stable since the end of the war.
In the postwar chaos of the late 1940s, with Soviet troops occupying the
country, Romania deposed its king and emerged as a communist state under
the close scrutiny and supervision of its powerful northern neighbor,
the Soviet Union. After the death of Josef Stalin the Romanian
leadership began a slow pursuit of nationalist goals, which continued in
the early 1970s. Although the Moscow-Bucharest ties have often been
strained, the Romanians have carefully avoided a break that would
provoke a reaction such as the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in
1968.

The Romanian people see themselves as a Latin island surrounded by Slavs
and Magyars (Hungarians). They are proud of their long, distinctly
different historical development and consider that their history is
important to them as proof of their ethnic uniqueness in the area and as
proof that Romania belongs to the Romanians.

EARLY ORIGIN

The earliest recorded inhabitants of the area included in present-day
Romania were Thracian tribes, known as Dacians, who settled in the area
well before the Christian Era and established a major center in
Transylvania (see fig. 2). These people practiced a primitive form of
agriculture and engaged in limited trade with Greek settlements along
the western coast of the Black Sea. By the middle of the first century
A.D. the Dacians had grouped themselves into a loosely formed state
ruled by a series of kings who attempted to expand their power to the
north and west and, most aggressively, to the south into the area below
the lower Danube River.

[Illustration: _Note._ Internal boundaries have not been shown
because of the long history of expansion, contraction, and
shifting borders and because the provinces are no longer
political entities.

_Figure 2. Romania, Historic Provinces._]

In their advance southward the