Romania History

A vivid, brilliant, darkly humorous and horrifying history of some of the strangest dictators that Europe has ever seen.

An essential new history of Central Europe, the contested lands so often at the heart of world history

The fifteenth-century Romanian Prince Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, is among the most intriguing personalities in medieval history. Already during his lifetime, his true story became obscured by a veil of myths. As a result, he has been portrayed both as a bloody tyrant — who degenerated down throughout the centuries into the fictional vampire of the same name created by Bram Stoker at the end of the nineteenth century — and as a national and Christian hero who fought bravely to defend his native land and all of Europe against the invading Turkish infidels. Even in recent times, communist and nationalist historiography has continued to obscure the real history of Dracula.

The trial of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, leader of the Legionary Movement in Romania, marked a critical moment in the history of the country between the two World Wars. It destroyed the last vestiges of democracy and laid the groundwork for the establishment of the royal dictatorship by Carol II.Romanian Crucible presents the transcript of the trial, for the first-time in English translation, edited and accompanied by an introductory study by two leading specialists on Romanian history, Gheorghe Buzatu and Kurt W. Treptow. The book also contains a series of appendixes, which include journal entries from Codreanu in prison.

Although Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, bringing an end to the Eastern Roman Empire which had survived its predecessor in the West by nearly one thousand years, this important book argues that Byzantium did not die, but continued to influence European history all the way up to the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The history and science of a cluster of dinosaurs found in the Hungarian region and the story of the aristocrat who discovered them.

Romanians and Hungarians have been linked throughout history since the Middle Ages. Both peoples have bravely fought to defend Christianity against Islamic terror, oftentimes shoulder to shoulder. Despite their close ties, controversies have often arisen leading to conflicts at various times throughout history, most recently at the beginning of World War II, when through the Diktat of Vienna, Hitler and Mussolini awarded large portions of Romanian territory to Hungary.