The early history of Romanian-Ottoman relations
An overview of the relations with the Ottomans from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
Steliu Lambru, 21.09.2026, 14:00
When we rank how far back our relationships with other nations go, ties with the Ottomans come in second, right after our millennium-old relations with the Hungarians. Wallachia was the first Romanian principality to make contact with the Ottomans, starting in the final quarter of the 14th century. Moldavia followed in the second half of the 15th century, and Transylvania became the third in the first quarter of the 16th century. Across five centuries, Romanian-Ottoman relations were generally defined by cultural-civilizational influence and varying levels of Ottoman political control over the Romanian lands, with the 17th and 18th centuries marking the peak of that influence. Transylvania was the first of the three principalities to break free from Ottoman control at the end of the 17th century, after roughly 170 years of dominance. Meanwhile, Moldavia and Wallachia, which united in 1859 to form Romania, finally gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, marking the dawn of a brand-new chapter in bilateral relations between Romanians and Turks.
Today, historians estimate there are between 130 and 150 million Ottoman documents worldwide. Out of those, the National Archives of Romania hold some 120,000 items, mostly in the form of microfilms and photocopies. To find out how these complex relations actually began, we turned to one of Romania’s most prolific scholars of Ottoman history, Professor Tasin Gemil. He pointed out that the terminology commonly used today by both historians and the general public to describe the Ottoman state calls for some important corrections and clarifications.
“We’ve grown used to saying ‘the Ottoman Porte’ or ‘the Ottoman Empire.’ These are borrowings, primarily from French, like La Sublime Porte. But ‘Ottoman Porte’ isn’t actually correct, it’s an exonym, just like ‘Ottoman Empire.’ If you look at the official documents of the Porte, the actual title used is Devlet-i Aliyye-i or Devlet-i Aliyye-i Osmaniye, which translates to the Great or Majestic State, or the Great or Majestic Ottoman State. There is no mention of a so-called ‘Ottoman Empire’. Instead, you find titles like ‘the Porte’ or ‘the Step.’ Other documents use poetic metaphors and epithets to indicate where a decree originated, such as the Most Glorious Residence of the Sultan, the Great Threshold, the Threshold of Happiness, the High Porte, the High Step or the Place of Happiness. But these were never official names, they were simply metaphors. Westerners just mistook those metaphors for official titles. So, the proper, official name of the Ottoman state was Devlet-i Aliyye-i Osmaniye: the Great or Majestic Ottoman State”.
At the end of the 13th century, Osman, ruler of Bithynia, a state in Asia Minor in the region surrounding Constantinople, went on the offensive against the other rulers and expanded his territory across Anatolia. It was he who would give his name to the Turks who would later conquer the capital of the Byzantine Empire and establish an empire spanning three continents. Less than a century after defeating the Christian peoples of the Balkans – Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and Albanians – the Ottomans turned their attention north of the Danube, where they came into contact with the Romanians.
“Relations between the Romanians and the Ottomans go back further than the establishment of official ties. They began in the mid-14th century, when the Ottomans advanced into the Balkans. Vlaicu Vodă was the first ruler to send his troops to fight the new invaders in the Balkans. But these were not yet direct relations. Direct relations began with Mircea the Elder and Bayezid, known as the Thunderbolt. In 1595, following what is known as the Battle of Rovine – although we do not know whether the battle actually took place there or how it ended – Mircea was forced to give up the throne. Bayezid installed his brother, Vlad I, who is wrongly referred to in Romanian historiography as the Usurper. He was no usurper at all. He was of princely blood and had every right to the throne.”
Romanian-Ottoman relations acquired a legal basis through treaties of vassalage, as was customary in the Middle Ages. Little is known about the first treaty, dating from 1395, and Tasin Gemil points out that what we know about it comes from later records.
“We do, however, have information about a treaty concluded by Mircea in 1417. Sultan Mehmed I came as far as Dobruja and sent his troops from there. His representatives probably presented Mircea with such a treaty. We find echoes of this treaty in the 15th-century chronicle of Idris Bitlisi, who says that the treaty had been renewed. This means that Mircea’s treaty of 1395 had been renewed. So, in 1417, the treaty was renewed and an ahidnâme [treaty of vassalage] was issued. We can be more certain about this episode. We also have information that two of Mircea’s sons remained as hostages at the Sultan’s court and that he undertook to pay a tribute of 3,000 gold coins.”
Thus began half a millennium of Romanian-Ottoman relations, during which attitudes and customs broadly described as “Oriental” would take shape. In the 19th century, the process of modernisation would come to regard Orientalism as its irreconcilable adversary. (VP & MI)
