Rumania
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Rumania. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a The total area in 1920 was 122,282 square miles, as against 53,489 square miles prior to the World War. The territory added following the war included Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania, Crisana, Maramuresh, and a part of Banat. Old Rumania included the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and the province of Dobrudja on the Black Sea. The total population in 1920 was about 17,- 400,000. The capital is Bucharest, with a population of about 300,000. Other important cities are Jassy, Galatz, Braila, and Giurgevo. Topography. The surface is mainly occupied by undulating and well-watered plains of great fertility, gradually sloping upward to the Carpathians on the N. and W. borders, where the summits range from 2,650 to 8,800 feet above sea-level. The entire kingdom is in the basin of the Danube, which has a course of 595 miles in Rumania, forming the boundary with Bulgaria nearly the whole way. Its chief Rumanian tributaries are the Olta or Aluta, Ardjis, Jalomitza, Sereth, and Pruth (on N. W. border). The Danube forms a number of marshy lakes as it approaches the alluvial region of the Dobrudja, through which it discharges itself into the Black Sea by the St. George, Sulina, and Kilia channels. The climate is much more extreme than at the same latitude in other parts of Europe; the summer is hot and rainless, the winter sudden and very intense; there is almost no spring, but the autumn is long and pleasant. Rumania is an essentially agricultural and pastoral state, fully 70 per cent. of the inhabitants being directly engaged in husbandry. The chief cereal crops are maize, wheat, barley, rye, and oats; tobacco, hemp, and flax are also grown; and wine. is produced on the hills at the foot of the Carpathians. Cattle, sheep, and horses are reared in large numbers. Excellent timber abounds on the Carpathians. Bears, wolves, wild boars, large and small game, and fish are plentiful. The country is rich in minerals of nearly every description, but salt, petroleum, and lignite are the chief minerals worked. Manufactures are still in a rudimentary state. Production and Commerce. - Trade is fairly active, but is almost entirely in the hands of foreigners; the internal trade is chiefly carried on by Jews, whose numbers and prosperity are constant sources of anxiety to Rumanian statesmen, and who are in consequence subject to certain disabilities. The chief exports are grain (especially maize), cattle, timber, and fruit; the chief imports, manufactured goods, coal, etc. Before the World War Germany, Great Britain, and Austria- Hungary appropriated by by far the greatest share of the foreign trade, the bulk of which passes through the Black Sea ports. The chief agricultural crops in 1919 were as follows: wheat 1,320,000 tons, rye 87,000 tons, barley 257,000 tons, oats 207,000 tons. The acreage under forests amounted to about 18,750,000. In the year 1915 the imports amounted to £13,185,821, and the exports to £22,581,469. The chief imports were metals and manufactures, vegetables, textiles and manufactures, wool, hair and manufactures, vegetable seed, etc. The principal exports were grain, petroleum, beans, oil, seeds, and foodstuffs. The output of petroleum has rapidly increased in recent years. In 1919 it reached over 44,000 tons. Other minerals worked to some extent are copper, iron manganese, and salt. Sugar is grown on an extensive scale and tobacco is produced in important quantities. People. The Rumanians, who call themselves Romani, claim to be descendants of Roman colonists introduced by Trajan; but the traces of Latin descent are in great part due to a later immigration, about the 12th century, from the Alpine districts. Their language and history both indicate that they are a mixed race with many constituents. Their language, however, must be classed as one of the Romance tongues, though it contains a large admixture of foreign elements. In Rumania there about are 4,700,000 Rumanians; 834,000 Jews and the remainder Gipsies, Bulgars, Magyars, Germans, Greeks and Armenians in the order named. Three-fourths of the population are peasants, who till 1864 were kept in virtual serfdom by the boiars or nobles. In that year upward of 400,000 peasant families were made proprietors of small holdings averaging 10 acres, at a price to be paid back to the State in 15 years. In 1918, 91,695,714 inhabitants belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church. Education. - Education is compulsory and is improving from year to year, although there is still much to be desired. There were in 1918-19 5,764 elementary schools, with 11,088 teachers and 692,896 pupils. There are also a number of secondary schools, normal schools, and high schools. There are two universities at Bucharest, one at Jassy, and one at Kolozsvar, founded in 1919, and one in Cernauti, founded in 1920. Transportation. There are about 7,240 miles of railway, all of which are under the direction of the State. The railway system was partly disorganized as a result of the military campaigns, but has been extensively repaired. The merchant marine of Rumania in 1919 consisted of 158 vessels of 71.158 tons. Army and Navy. - Military service is compulsory and universal from the ages of 21 to 46. In 1920 the approximate strength of the army was 250,000, organized in five army corps and seven army groups. The navy consists of a protective cruiser, a training ship, and a number of gunboats, coast guard vessels, etc. Finances. For the year 1916-1917 the revenue and expenditure balanced at $124,624,000. The public debt on June 30, 1918, was about $1,025,000,000. Government. A constituent Assembly elected in May and June, 1920, unified the different constitutions of old Rumania, Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transylvania. There is a legislature of two houses. The Senate consisted in 1920 of 170 members and the Chamber of Deputies of 347 mem- ۱ bers. All citizens of over 21 years of age paying taxes are electors. The executive is vested in a Council of Ministers. History. The country that is now Rumania was anciently part of Dacia, which was conquered by Trajan and made a Roman province in A. D. 106, a great many Roman colonists being then settled in it. In the 3d century it was overrun by the Goths, and subsequently by the Huns, Bulgars, Avars, and Slavs, all of whom have left more or less distinct traces on the land and people. At the beginning of the 9th century Rumania formed part of the great Bulgarian kingdom, after the fall of which in 1019 it nominally belonged to the Eastern Roman empire, re, though soon taken possession of by Turkis Turkish tribes. Wallachia and Moldavia were long divided. About 1241 Radu Negru, "Duke" of Fogeras, is said to have founded a voivodeship in Wallachia, which finally fell under Turkish supremacy after the battle of Mohacs in 1526. The boiars retained the nominal right of electing the voivodes till 1726; but thenceforward the Sultan openly sold the office to the highest bidders, who, without security of tenure, mercilessly plundered the unfortunate province so long as their power lasted. In Moldavia, Dragosh or Bogdan, about 1354, founded a kingdom, much as Radu had done in Wallachia, and it, too, fell under the overlordship of the Porte after the death of the voivode, Stephan the Great, in 1504. The Turks subsequently introduced the same custom of selling of selling the hospodarship or voivodeship. In both provinces the government was most frequently purchased by Phanariotes, Greek inhabitants of the Phanar district of Constantinople. The successive wars between Russia and Turkey, the first of which began in 1768, were on the whole beneficial to Rumania, for the Russians gradually established a kind of protectorate over their fellow- Christians on the Danube. The treaty of Paris in 1856, after the Crimean War, confirmed the suzerainty of the Porte, but preserved the rights and privileges of the Danubian principalities, and added to them a part of Bessarabia. In 1858 the two provinces, each electing John Couza as its hospodar, were united by a personal union which in 1861 was formally converted into a real and national union. Couza, who assumed the title of Prince Alexander John I. in 1860, was forced by a revolution to abdicate the throne in 1866, and Prince Charles of Hohenzollern - Sigmaringen was elected to reign in his place. In the Russo- Turkish War of 1877-1878 Rumania sided with Russia and proclaimed its independence of Turkey. This claim was recognized by the treaty of Berlin in 1878, but Rumania was compelled to retrocede to Russia the part of Bessarabia which it acquired at the close of the Crimean War, and to receive the Dobrudja in exchange. In 1881 the principality declared itself a kingdom. When the Balkan War (q. v.) broke out in 1912, Rumania was at first neutral, but joined with Serbia and Greece in the second Balkan War against Bulgaria and as a result was awarded a part of the Dobrudja. King Charles died in 1914 and was succeeded to the throne by Crown Prince Ferdinand. Rumania was neutral in the World War until 1916 when she joined the Allies. At first success rewarded her arms, but owing largely to the failure of Russia to render promised help, her resistance crumbled under the swift invasion of powerful German armies. By the Peace Treaty of May, 1918, Bulgaria received that part of the Dobrudja awarded to Rumania in 1913, Germany obtained concessions in petroleum, salt, etc., and Austria obtained mountain-passes, and mineral rights. (By the Peace of Versailles in 1919, all these concessions forced from Rumania were abolished.) In 1918 Bessarabia, after being ravaged by the Bol sheviki, voted almost unanimously on April 9, 1918, for union with Rumania.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
or Roumania, a kingdom of southeastern Europe. It includes the old provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. It extends from Hungary, that is to say, the Carpathian mountains, to the Black Sea . It lies chiefly on the north bank of the Danube, by which it is separated from Servia and Bulgaria. The Pruth forms a considerable part of the boundary between Rumania and Russia. The surface consists in the main of extensive agricultural plains. The foothills of the Carpathians are covered with forests of oak, fir, and beach that still shelter the stag, wild boar, wolf, fox, and Carpathian goat. The hare and the marten are hunted for fur. The Danube and the Pruth abound in food fishes. The mountains yield copper and rock salt . Some gold is found. There are deposits of sulphur, asphalt, and petroleum. Aside from the forest region, which comprises possibly a sixth of the surface, and saline lakes near the mouth of the Danube, Rumania is fertile. The climate is continental. The summer is dry and hot. The winter is severe for that latitude, the Danube being frozen over for a month or two. The chief productions are wheat, maize, rye, barley, oats, tobacco, hemp, and flax. The grape flourishes on the sunny slopes of the Carpathians. Cattle, horses, sheep, and swine are the important domestic animals. Trade is largely in the hands of Jews. Corn, meat, timber, and fruits are the chief exports, most of which go by way of the Danube and the Black Sea. There are important lines of railway. The country is covered well by telegraph and telephone lines. The monetary unit is the leu, plural lei, about five to our dollar. The government is a limited monarchy. The legislature consists of two houses. A senator must be forty years of age and have an income of virtually $2,000. Voters are divided into three colleges, according to income and education. All must be of full age and pay taxes. Those who cannot read and write and have an income of less than sixty dollars a year are grouped into fifties. Each fifty is entitled to select a representative to cast one vote and only one for the entire fifty. Over nine-tenths of the people belong to the Orthodox Greek Church . Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Armenians, and Mohammedans are tolerated. The Orthodox clergy are paid by the state. A system of public education is gathering headway. Military service is compulsory. The government monopolizes the sales of salt and tobacco,--this as a source of revenue. Bucharest is the capital. Rumania is a part of the old Roman province of Dacia formed by Trajan in 106 A. D. The name signifies Roman. Although the region has been overrun by Goths, Huns, Bulgarians, Magyars, Slavs, Tartars, and Turks, the Rumanian language is half Latin to this day. The next language element in importance is the Slavic or Russian. The people were converted to Christianity during the eleventh century. Hungary, Russia, and Turkey have striven for the possession of Rumania. In the sixteenth century the Turks took the Rumanians under their protection. In 1802 the Russians interfered. Insurrections and revolutions without number resulted finally in shaking off the last vestige of Turkish rule, and the independence of Rumania was proclaimed in 1878. STATISTICS. The following statistics are the latest to be had from trustworthy sources: Land area, square miles 50,720 Population (1907) 6,684,265 Jews 269,000 Gipsies 500,000 Bucharest 276,000 Jassy 77,000 Galatz 62,000 Number departments 32 Members of state senate 120 Representatives 183 Salary of King Carol $235,000 Bonded indebtedness $279,000,000 National revenue $80,000,000 Miles of railway 1,989 Number postoffices 3,277 Acres of improved land 19,000,000 Agricultural Products-- Corn, bushels 76,500,000 Wheat, bushels 65,000,000 Oats, bushels 17,500,000 Barley, bushels 20,000,000 Rye, bushels 2,500,000 Flax, bushels 175,000 Potatoes, bushels 4,000,000 Tobacco, pounds 1,724,000 Wine, gallons 50,000,000 Domestic Animals-- Horses 864,000 Cattle 2,589,000 Sheep 5,655,000 Goats 232,000 Swine 1,709,000 Petroleum, gallons 19,514,000 Exports $92,000,000 Imports $84,000,000 Exports of cereals $80,000,000 Exports of wool $5,000,000 Tons of coal mined 140,000 Percentage of adult illiteracy 78.0 Teachers in public schools 6,194 Pupils enrolled 877,000 See Turkey ; Hungary ; Russia