Independence and monarchy
Romania become a kingdom in what year?
Romania
During the period of the Austro-Hungarian rule in Transylvania and Ottoman suzerainty over Wallachia and Moldavia, most Romanians were considered second-class citizens or even non-citizens in a territory where they formed the majority of the population. Following the Wallachian uprising of 1821, more insurrections followed in 1848 in Wallachia as well as Moldavia. The flag adopted for Wallachia by the revolutionaries was a blue-yellow-red horizontal tricolour (with blue above, in line with the meaning "Liberty, Justice, Fraternity"), while Romanian students in Paris hailed the new government with the same flag "as a symbol of union between Moldavians and Muntenians". The same flag, with the tricolour being mounted vertically, would later on be officially adopted as the national flag of Romania. After the failed 1848 Revolution, the Great Powers did not support the Romanians' expressed desire to officially unite in a one single state, which forced them to proceed alone with their struggle against the Ottomans. The electors in both Moldavia and Wallachia chose in 1859 the same leader –Alexandru Ioan Cuza– to be their Ruling Prince ("Domnitor" in Romanian). Thus, Romania was created as a personal union, albeit without including Transylvania. There, the upper class and the aristocracy chose to remain under Hungarian rule, even though the Romanians were by far the most numerous ethnic Transylvanian group and constituted the absolute majority. In an 1866 "coup d'état", Cuza was exiled and replaced by Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who became known as Prince Carol I of Romania. During the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War Romania fought on the Russian side, and as a result of it in the Treaty of San Stefano and the Treaty of Berlin, Romania was recognized as an independent state both by the Ottoman Empire and the Great Powers. In return, Romania ceded the district of Bessarabia to Russia and acquired Dobruja. In 1881, the principality was raised to a kingdom and Prince Carol became King Carol I of Romania. The 1878–1914 period was one of stability and progress for Romania. During the Second Balkan War, Romania joined Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Turkey against Bulgaria, and in the peace Treaty of Bucharest (1913) Romania gained Southern Dobruja.