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| Media Headlines 10/05/2011 |
| (2011-05-10) |
| Last updated: 2011-05-11 18:20 EET |
Tuesday’s newspapers devote a great deal of space and attention to the anniversary of 155 years since the German House of Hohenzollern ascended the throne of Romania.
During their rule, Romania emerged as a modern and independent state while all principalities with a Romanian-speaking majority population rallies under their sceptre. Irrespective of their sympathy towards one political side or the other, all newspapers in present-day Romania have shown deference and gratitude towards the Romanian Royal Family.
The daily paper JURNALUL NATIONAL hails May 10th 1866 as quote “the day prince Carol of Hohezollern came to Bucharest”. At the time he “discovered a country where transportation was burdensome, with no trains, with cobblestone roads and squalid streets”.
The freshly-installed king then “decided to build cast iron bridges, a network of railways, banks offering agricultural loans, churches and schools. He also increased the numbers of the Romanian military, thus improving it”. The very same daily recalls that May 10th is also “the day when Romania gained its independence in 1877”, when king Carol himself led his army in the Russo-Turkish war.
It was also on this day that Romania became a kingdom. Ferdinand, Carol’s heir to the throne, also known as Ferdinand the Loyal, did not hesitate to wage war on motherland Germany during WWI to protect the national interest of Romania. After WWI, the Kingdom of Romania united with Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania, three regions that had previously been part of multinational neighbouring empires. “May 10th has long ceased being an official holiday for the Romanian people, who have cast it into oblivion”, writes the daily JURNALUL on a rather sorrowful tone.
Not everyone, however, seems to share in the forgetfulness. The daily paper EVENIMENTUL ZILEI writes that the bust of ninety-year-old Michael I, the last king of Romania, was unveiled on Monday in Calarasi, southern Romania. In 1947, the Soviet occupation army forced him to step down and go into exile. In the mid 1990s, King Michael returned to Romania.
At present, he is still held in high esteem by a few monarchist diehards in Calarsi. The daily EVENIMENTUL quotes one as saying “the countries with monarchies are much more developed countries.” The daily paper ADEVARUL also indulges in an exercise in counterfactual history: “What would have happened if King Michael had returned to Romania following the 1989 revolution and reclaimed the throne, thus reinstating the situation prior to the Bolshevik coup-d’etat of 1940?” The very same daily offers the answer: “We would live in a less exciting country, with less headline-making scandals, but we would be less distressed than we are today”.
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