‘The village has straight streets and houses in line’: the foundation of new settlements following the appropriation of the newlyweds in nineteenth century Romania

Abstract

During the nineteenth century, the Romanian provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia underwent a series of political, economic and social transformations, all part of the reforms aimed to consolidate the Romanian national state. An important aspect of these transformations concerned the agrarian property and the condition of peasantry. A series of laws, starting with the Organic Regulations, imposed in the 1830s by the Russian Empire, up until the appropriation of newlyweds and the selling of the state’s domains, in the last decades of the century, contributed to the evolution of the Romanian landownership regime. This paper is focusing on the appropriation of newlyweds, which was passed by the Parliament in 1878, and the subsequent foundation of planned settlements on the public domains. The article investigates the foundation process of these new settlements using information extracted from archive documents, published statistics and historical maps. The analysis concentrates on the localization, morphology, and toponymy of these settlements. Particular attention was given to the evolution of rural planning policies in nineteenth century Romania, following the creation of these new villages. Finally, the paper underlines the importance of the findings to the historical geography of settlements in Romania.