1907 Romanian Peasants' revolt

220px

A cavalry patrol sabring the rioters in the streets of Comănești (Illustrated London News)

220px

Infantry escorting prisoners through Piatra Neamț (Illustrated London News)

The 1907 Romanian Peasants' revolt took place in March 1907 in Moldavia and it quickly spread, reaching Wallachia. The main cause was the discontent of the peasants about the inequity of land ownership, which was in the hands of just a few large landowners.

Background

Most large landowners preferred to live in the cities and did not want to bother with the administration of their properties. Therefore, they leased their domains to intermediaries lessors, in exchange for a fixed rent. The lessors in turn would administer the land and try to make a good profit in a short time. At that time, peasants formed up to 80 percent of the Romanian population and about 60 percent of them owned small crops, or no land at all, while the large landowners owned more than half of the arable land.

The blame for the revolt was initially put on Jewish intermediaries, given that many of the lessors were of Jewish background—especially in Northern Moldavia. The revolt, triggered in Moldavia against Jewish landowners, quickly spread southward, losing some of its anti-Semitic character and becoming basically a protest against the existing system of land tenure.

Course of events

File:A cavalry patrol watching the burning of farmhouses by the rioters near Bujeu.jpg

A cavalry patrol watching the burning of farmhouses by the rioters near Bujeu.

File:A vedette waiting on the highway at Braila for an expected outrage by the peasants.jpg

A vedette waiting on the highway at Brăila for an expected outrage by the peasants.

The revolt began on the lands administered by one lessor, Mochi Fischer, in the village of Flămânzi due to Fischer's refusal to renew the leasing with the local peasants. The Austrian-Jewish family of Fischer used to lease about 75 percent of the arable land in three Romanian counties in Moldavia (the so-called "Fischerland").

The peasants, fearing that they would remain without work and, more importantly, without food, began to act violently. Mochi Fischer was scared and fled to a friend of his in Cernăuți, leaving the peasants without signed contracts. The fear of remaining out of work, combined with the activities of some alleged Austro-Hungarian instigators, led the peasants to revolt. The revolt soon spread across most of Moldavia, with several landowners' properties destroyed and many lessors killed or wounded. The Conservative government (Partidul Conservator) couldn't handle the situation and resigned, and the Liberals (Partidul Național-Liberal) of Dimitrie Sturdza assumed power.

On 18 March a state of emergency was declared, then general mobilization, with 140,000 soldiers being recruited by 29 March. The Romanian Army began firing on the peasants; thousands of peasants perished and more than 10,000 were arrested.

Casualties

Peasants

The exact number of victims is unknown, and even the events are not clear, because the government ordered the destruction of all documents relating to this uprising, to hide the size of massacre.

Historian Markus Bauer mentions an official figure of 419 deaths, greatly underestimated, while the unofficial figure, circulated by press and widely accepted, of about 10,000 killed peasants, was never proven to be real. The same figure of 419 deaths was mentioned by Ion I. C. Brătianu in the Romanian Parliament. The data available to the Prime Minister Dimitrie Sturdza indicated 421 deaths between 28 March and 5 April 1907. Likewise, about 112 were injured and 1,751 detained. Newspapers patronized by Constantin Mille, Adevărul' and Dimineața, gave the figure of 12,000 to 13,000 victims. King Carol I mentioned "several thousand" in a conversation with the Minister of England in Bucharest.

According to figures given by Austrian diplomats, between 3,000 and 5,000 peasants were killed, while the French Embassy mentions a death toll ranging between 10,000 and 20,000. Historians put the figures between 3,000 and 18,000, the most common being 11,000 victims.

Army

Only ten members of the Army were killed in the revolt: an officer, lieutenant I. Nițulescu, killed in Stănești, two sergeants and seven soldiers. Four others were injured: an officer, captain Grigore Mareș, wounded also in Stănești, two sergeants and a soldier. 75 soldiers of the Regiment 5 Dorobanți Vlașca have appeared before military courts, 61 being sentenced to hard labor for life, and 14 to five years in prison for revolt.

Reactions

Many intellectuals, among them Nicolae Iorga, Alexandru Vlahuță, Ion Luca Caragiale, Constantin Stere, Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, Radu Rosetti, protested against the violent intervention of the forces of repression. Others emphasized, therewith, together with a sustained press release of socialists, through Mihail Gheorghiu Bujor, that the government had a special responsibility for the fate of the peasantry and the country in general, and therefore was required an urgent solution to the "peasant question".

Impact

The events continued to resonate in the Romanian conscience, and were the subject of one of the best novels of the interwar period, Răscoala ("The Revolt"), by Liviu Rebreanu, published in 1932. It also formed the subject of a painting by Octav Băncilă, and of a monumental statue which can still be seen in Bucharest.

References

• (Romanian) Ion Luca Caragiale, 1907 din primăvară până'n toamnă ("1907 From Spring to Autumn")