"The Paris of the East"

Bucharest was never destined to be the capitol of Romania. Before Romania became a united polity in the 1860's, Romania was divided into three major regions (as noted in a previous post) - Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania. Transylvania was under constant occupation and/or administration by Hungary and the Austro-Hapsburgs. Iasi was the capitol of Moldova and shows more Russian influences than the other regions of the country. At least two other capitols existed for Wallachia, one at Curtea de Arges and the other in Targoviste. When the Ottoman empire pressed forward across the Balkans, the Danube river posed a natural obstacle to Turkish advances just as it had to the previous Roman and Byzantine empires.

The Sublime Port in Istanbul never succeeded in occupying Romania in its entirety, but instead set up a tribute system. Much of Romanian history from the 15th to the 18th centuries consists of attempts to ward off Turkish oppression, just as most of the 19th to 20th centuries consists of efforts to mitigate Russian influence. At any rate, Bucharest was a compromise capitol. For centuries Romania was culturally in a rather unique geo-political position as a Latin speaking, Christian Orthodox people wedged into a vortex between the three dominant empires of the East - the Catholic Austro-Hungarian empire, millions of Orthodox Slavs in the Russian empire, and the Islamic Ottoman empire stretching from Balkan forests to the sands of the Arabian penninsula.

Security has therefore always been a primary concern of the Romanian people, and as such, unlike those great cities clearly within the Hapsburg realm (Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest) Romania's immediate proximity to the Ottoman occupied Balkans meant the nation could never afford to build a majestic capitol along the Danube. As Romania gained political independence and national unity under King Carol I after 1866, however, Bucharest began to thrive. The Balkan wars and Russo-Turkish conflicts destroyed much of the city on several occasions, yet by the 1920's growing economic prosperity, the collapse of the Central Powers following WWI, ever modernizing Western infrustructure (the Orient Express ran through Bucharest for example), and a strong French influence lent a certain charm to the city which became known as the "Paris of the East."