Romanian Constitution, Regulamentul organik, Bucharest, 1832, original printed wrappers

Romania (Wallachia)

Regulamentul organik. Bucharest: [Ion Eliade Radulescu], 1832

2 parts in one volume, 4to (238 x 185mm.), 197, 56pp., woodcut emblem of Romania on first title-page, with blank leaf at end of preliminaries, woodcut head- and tailpieces (the headpiece on the title-page of the second section lettered "Hieromonakh Konstantie"), pp.110-114 and 147-150 blank, blank leaf at end of first section, original blue printed wrappers with the woodcut emblem of Romania, wrapper slightly worn and repaired at fore-edge

THE FOUNDATION DOCUMENT OF MODERN ROMANIA. This "Organic regulation" of Wallachia was a proto-constitution for the state devised while it was under Russian political influence. Previously subject to the Ottoman Empire, the liberation of Greece in 1821 had encouraged nationalist feeling, aided by Russian interventions (including the Russo-Turkish war), although the new state still had to give lip service to the Sultan in Constantinople. The principality of Wallachia was founded in 1831 and Moldavia in 1832, and the union of the two in 1859 (following the Crimean War) formed the basis of modern Romania, at which point this Constitution became redundant.

The constitution, loosely based on the French one of 1814, included numerous reforms which were designed to modernise and westernise the mechanics of government; it also contained the abolition of the death penalty, torture and the cutting of hands as a punishment. It also contained the separation of the different powers of government, including the separation of Church and State, although the Church still had a political voice in the new constitution. There were reforms for the tax system and the creation of national banks, but these were never implemented. It also contained a separate section about improving the situation of the Romany gypsies.

The language of this Constitution was the Romanian transitional alphabet, which formed the beginning of the re-Latinisation of the Romanian language, starting from 1828 and completed by the time of the unification of Romania in 1862, although the Orthodox Church continued to use Cyrillic texts.

The printer was Ion Eliade Radulescu (1802-1872), a writer and revolutionary who founded the first Romanian newspaper and translated European works into Romanian. He established his printing press in Bucharest in 1830, the first in Wallachia, and printed other official publications as well as works of literature.