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1907 Romanian Peasants' RevoltThe 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt took place in March 1907 in Moldavia, mostly because of the discontent of the peasants about the inequity of land ownership, which was in the hands of just a few large landowners, who leased it to the peasants. At that time peasants formed up to 80% of the population and about 60% of them held very little or no land at all, while the latifundia owned more than half of the arable land. The revolt began on the lands of the landowner Mochi Fischer, in the village of Flămnzi (the name seems predestined, as it literally means "Hungry men"); Fischer refused to sign the contracts with the local peasants. The Austrian-Jewish family of Fisher used to hold about 75% of the arable land in three Romanian counties of the Moldavia region (the so-called "Fischerland"). The peasants, fearing that they would remain without work and more important, without food, began to act violently. Mochi Fischer was scared and fled to a friend of his in Cernăuţi, leaving the peasants without the contracts signed. The fear of remaining without the land, combined with some alleged Austro-Hungarian instigators led the peasants to revolt. The revolt soon spread across most of Moldavia. The Conservative government (Partidul Conservator) couldn't handle the situation and the Liberals (Partidul Naţional-Liberal) of Take Ionescu assumed power. At 18 March the emergency state is instaured, then the general mobilization, 140,000 being recruited by 29 March. The Romanian Army began firing at the peasants: allegedly 11,000 peasants perished and more than 10,000 were arrested. The number of victims is not really known and not even what happened is not clear, as Charles I of Romania wanted that all archives of these days to be destroyed, so the Liberal government would not be held responsible by an eventual Conservative government. The numbers reported by the diplomats which were at the time in Romania were: between 3,000 and 5,000 (Austrian diplomats' figures) and between 10,000 and 20,000 (French diplomats' figures). Historians put the figures between 3,000 and 18,000, with the most commonly used figure being 11,000.
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