Talk:Ferdinand I of Romania

Removal of large block text from article
The user Biruitorul removed these two portions of text from the article:

in "After the war" section: Romania before WWI was already a country in persistent social turmoil and under the threat of a revolution, tragedy avoided after the brutal repression of the 1907 peasant revolt only by the outbreak of the war. Some 10 000        peasants were killed by the Romanian Army during the 1907 crushed rebellion, which was the direct result of decades of political inertia: at the beginning of the (20th) century the Romanian political régime was the bad example in the Balkans, which anyway as a region had a bad political reputation in Europe. Class conflict was ripe for social explosions, the population being exploited and opressed by a parasitic landed aristocracy and their middlemen. As a consequence of the untenable statu quo, the first interwar years saw the adoption – unenthusiastically and in much diluted forms - of a land reform and of a new constitution (1923) as well as the extension of the democratic franchise to universal (male) suffrage. Because king Ferdinand I sided,  as his predecessor, king Carol I,  with the landed aristocracy and the corrupt oligarchy (groups politically defended after the war by the Liberal party and its substitute, People's Party of general Averescu p.262 in "Ten Years of Greater Roumania". Alexander Vaida-Voevod. The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 7, No. 20 (Jan., 1929), pp. 261-267. Published by the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Accessed: 19/11/2013. (p. 261: "Ten years of anxiety, disillusionment and experience followed. The first Government, the outcome of the free election which took place in October, I9I9, was quickly set aside. It was a Coalition Government representing five parties, the regional parties of the three united provinces and two parties from the old kingdom-that of Mr. Nicholas Iorga and the newly-born Peasant Party. They were in turn superseded by the majority elected in May, I920, in accordance with the "traditional methods" of the new Premier, General Averescu. His was a camouflage Government intended to hold the place for the omnipotent Liberal Party under Ion I. C. Bratianu. Brought into power as a result of the pressure and unlimited influence exercised by Bratianu upon King Ferdinand, it was forced in its turn to resign after holding office for less than eighteen months. Mr. Bratianu then remained in power till I926, when a second Averescu Cabinet was appointed, to be followed a year later by Bratianu once more. After the death of King Ferdinand and of Ion Bratianu himself in I927, the latter's brother Vintila remained at the head of the Government. p. 266: One encouraging symptom is that the antagonism artificially provoked by the Liberals while in office, and also by their substitutes in the Averescu party, between the new provinces and the old kingdom, between the various social classes, between the Roumanians and the minorities, even between different religious creeds, has disappeared as if by magic.") ) against the pro-democracy forces that won the first post-war elections, all these much-needed reforms finally did nothing  but add a new baroque and useless layer to the already crumbling façade   of the epigonic antebellum political system, a façade democracy which will produce before long a vigorous fascist backlash against it and against the corrupt dynasty that used it. Under this old Romanian political system the king easily manipulated the results of the elections, by dismissing an acting cabinet/prime-minister and thereafter choosing his favored party-leader as the head of a new cabinet in charge with organizing the ensuing elections; pp. 380-381 in "Competitive Elections in Developing Countries". Edited by Myron Weiner and Ergun Ozbundun. Chapter 10 ("Romania: 1919-1938"), by Mattei Dogan). Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1987. ("In Romania, the alternation in power was operated by the crown, which constituted the center of gravity of the political regime. […] One of the basic principles of any parliamentary democracy is that the government emanates from the parliament, which represents the electoral body. In appearance this principle was respected in Romania. But the king reversed the normal order in which the chief of a democratic state exercises his prerogatives, elections first, then formation of the government. This reversal can be explained by the profound social, cultural and political realities of the country. The king was obliged to reverse the order to save the façade of the democratic game. This reversal created what I call mimic democracy. This is how mimic democracy functioned. The king would revoke the government without a vote of no confidence by parliament. A new government would be appointed, which would immediately ask the king to dissolve parliament, where it lacked a majority. After a maximum interval of two months, as formally specified by the constitution, new elections were held. As we have seen, the new party in power until 1937 always succeeded in obtaining at least 40 percent of the national vote and thus was able to benefit from the majority premium, which gave it more than 60 percent of the parliamentary seats. […] a conservative leader and prime minister before World War I, Petru Carp, addressed to the king: "Give me the power and I shall make a Parliament in my image." The chronological order of the political process was as follows: revocation of the government, appointment of a new government, dissolution of parliament, new "elections", parliamentary majority for the new government. But one might observe that the population was consulted and that it could ratify or reject the new government. Here is the core of the matter: the electorate never put the party holding power in the minority until 1937. The fresh government knew how to manage the elections. It was not the king who exercised pressure on the electorate.") this new cabinet could, in turn, use at will the state power (police ) in order to guarantee electoral victory for itself and the fulfillment of the king`s political choice, pp. 38-40 în "The Sword of the Archangel – Fascist Ideology in Romania". Radu Ioanid (translated by Peter Heinegg). East European Monographs No. CCXXII, Boulder. Distributed By Columbia University Press, New York, 1990. ISBN 0-88033-189-5. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 90-83775. Printed in the United States of America. - "[…]; meanwhile, in Rumania “government by rotation” prevailed. This system, however, was marked by peculiar features, justifying the statement of Matei Dogan that in Rumania at that time there was no authentic democracy. […] The mechanism for assuming power in Rumania did not follow the classic scheme of elections that declare as winner one party, which then takes over the government. Instead, the sovereign dismissed the prime minister—the leader of the party previously in power—and named a new prime minister, chosen from among the heads of the opposition party. Several months later the new party in power organized the elections, thereby inevitably gaining an overwhelming majority, while the newly defined opposition went crashing to spectacular defeat. Thus the party in power was never demoted to minority status by elections taking place under its aegis. Government was not the expression of the parliamentary majority; quite the contrary, the majority came about from the will of the government, thanks to the intense dernagoguery of the politicians, the immaturity of the electorate, and the trafficking in votes. […] The peasantry, which made up 80% of the population of the country was represented by 1% of members of Parliament. Despite the fact that the Rumanian Parliament was, practically speaking, the expression of the government’s domination (at bottom, the will of the monarch), some energetic personalities in Parliament tried to make the most of the possibilities for action that the Parliament theoretically provided. […] This was how things stood at the moment when living conditions among the peasantry were the shame of the nation, and when illiteracy was widespread: in 1930 44.2% of the popuation of Wallachia and Moldavia, 61.3% of Bessarabia, 34.3% of Bukovina, and 33% of Transylvania could not read or write. Futile debates in Parliament kept up a noisy superficial disturbance, while Rumania, despite its rich natural resources, continued to be “the European country with the greatest number of illiterates, the highest mortality rates for both children and adults, the highest rate of sufferers from pellagra and malaria, the lowest productivity per hectare.” Electoral fraud is eloquently illustrated by comparing the results obtained at the polls by the large bourgeois parties between the two World Wars.") by the extensive use of intimidation, censorship and electoral fraud.  As such, the system ensured invariably ballot victory for all king`s governments organizing elections before the war,  as it ensured also ballot victory for all king`s governments organizing elections after the war, as long as king Ferdinand I reigned.    That unfortunate situation prevailed for the king himself had vested interests (he was a big land-owner ) in perpetuating his and the oligarchy`s grip on power. Politically speaking as the first fiddle in Romania, Ferdinand used the authoritarian system he inherited from his predecessor, the king Carol I, "Le Passage Du Socialisme Aux Capitalismes - Déterminants Socio-Historiques De La Trajectoire Polonaise Et Roumaine" (Thèse de Doctorat, Université de Montréal, 2002). Elena-Anca Mot. Publié dans la revue Transitions, Vol. 43-1 (2/2004) : "La Roumanie et l'intégration européenne", édité par Sorina SOARE. La revue Transitions est editée par l'Institut de Sociologie de l'Université Libre de Bruxelles et par l'Institut Européen de l'Université de Genève. ("La Roumanie a été le seul exemple authentique de deuxième servage en Europe orientale, le changement du système agraire étant le résultat du capitalisme industriel (développé en Occident) et non pas marchand comme dans les trajectoires endogènes de modernisation des structures féodales. […] En se dotant de structures institutionnelles fortement bureaucratisées, dans la tradition de l’autocratie et du despotisme féodal, la Roumanie a amorcé la transformation capitaliste sans la modernisation des structures sociales existantes qui restaient traditionnelles et arriérées : la loi agraire de 1864 proclame la fin formelle de l’ordre féodal (la fin du servage), qui se trouve à l’origine des transformations des structures économiques, mais les rapports agraires ont gardé, même après cette date, des résidus féodaux, qui ne seront réellement abolis qu’après 1945. […] À l’instar des autres pays qui ont réalisé la modernisation selon une démarche réactionnaire (la Prusse, le Japon, l’Italie), la Roumanie offre plutôt l’exemple d’un régime semi-parlementaire fondé sur un Etat avec un haut degré d’autonomie par rapport aux forces qui structurent la société. Les deux classes dominantes (la bourgeoisie et l’aristocratie foncière) formaient, de par leur origine et intérêts communs, une coalition réactionnaire, propre, selon les thèses de Moore, aux systèmes agraires en voie de modernisation “par le haut”18. Malgré le fait qu’on était loin du fascisme, on décèle, dès cette époque, quelques prérequis de cette forme politique : le maintien des structures paysannes à l’aide de la répression politique (les révoltes paysannes de 1888, 1907), une configuration conservatrice mettant en évidence l’alliance de la classe terrienne et de la bourgeoisie avec, dans les conditions d’un faible développement de cette dernière, une dominance de l’aristocratie et, enfin, le rôle moteur de l’Etat dans l’industrialisation permettant la modernisation sans le changement radical des structures. […] Pour l’instant, on a constaté que la Roumanie, bien que se dotant des institutions propres à la démocratie libérale, n’expérimentait au fond qu’une formule autoritaire semi-parlementaire.") and maybe even "enhanced" the king`s grip on the political life of the country, in order to cancel the effects of the post-war democratic reforms, "Social Change in Romania — 1860-1940". Kenneth Jowitt (editor). Authors: Kenneth Jowitt. Daniel Chirot. Keith Hitchins. Andrew C. Janos. John Michael Montias. Virgil Nemoianu. Philippe C. Schimitter. Institute Of International Studies, University Of California Berkeley. Regents Of The University Of California 1978. Research Series No. 36. ISBN 0-87725-136-3. "During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Romanian social organization and political development were comparable in many respects to contemporary Third World patterns. As in the Third World today, three characteristics dominated Romanian social and political reality. First, there was a striking gap between the social elite and the peasantry - what the Romanian scholar C. Dobrogeanu-Gherea termed "the abyss between urban and rural Romania." One contemporary Western scholar has suggested that "in no other European country of the interwar era was the moral and psychological chasm between the oligarchic, bureaucratic elite and the lower classes as wide and as deep." Second, there was - what in the last several decades has been a common occurrence - the mechanical transfer of liberal institutional facades from the West. The transfer was accompanied by a quasi-magical view of the power and character of those institutions. Referring to the enthusiasts of Western mdernization in mid-nineteenth century Romania, Dobrogeanu-Gherea noted that "[Western] political and … social institutions appeared to them as a kind of civilized dress, which by replacing the oriental style transformed [Romania] ipso facto from oriental to civilized." He went on to observe that underneath the Western "top hat and tails" Balkan culture and social relations continued to thrive ("să trăiască bine şi frumos"). Almost all Romanian analysts were sensitive to the discrepancy between the definition and operation of the institutions "imported" from the West.") the dismissal in 1920 of the pro-reform peasantist cabinet amounting in some historians’ view to nothing short of "a royal coup d’état" that aborted a genuine democratic evolution. These authoritarian  political practices, as bad as they already were immediately after the war, will be still further worsened, democratically speaking, under Ferdinand’s reign, when in 1926 the Liberal party changed the election act.

in "Before the war" section: "It is still unclear though, whom he was finally "loyal" to, as long as after the World War One and the collapse of Austria-Hungary empire (which made possible that the province of Transylvania joins Romania to form the unitary Romanian national state), he was prevented to accept the crown of the Hungarian kingdom from the hands of Magyar aristocracy only by the stubborn opposition of the Romanian political parties, which refused to admit that the Romanian people live again into a multinational state, even one reigned by their Hohenzollern king.[64]

Footnote sizing?
Remus Octavian Mocanu, I notice that you have been working to add a sizable amount to this article. It certainly seems well researched, and is an interesting insight on his approach to ruling. I am a little puzzled, though, that so much of the content of your addition is in the footnotes, significantly more than in the text of the article. Is there some way you can re-organize this and pull more of it up into the main article so that the reader does not have to go back and forth so much? 1bandsaw (talk) 23:08, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I can and I will try to better the text as you suggest here as soon as possible, but unfortunately this section which I added recently (yesterday) is actually nothing new in the article, being an old contribution of mine that was deleted by someone not agreeing with the opinions of all those sources you noticed. So, the very section I have to improve now is potentially still threatened with new removals the first time a guy (and even the same user) feels he doesen`t like it. The very profusion of sourcing and quotations you noticed had the same reason to be there, that is to deter somehow those idolatrous Romanian nationalists that refuse any lucid and critical contribution on the subject in the Romanian version of the free encyclopedia, to delete it too in the English version! Otherwise, what I put in the text and arguably is confirmed repeatedly by many Western academic sources, doesen`t need to be so heavily supported in cumbersome footnotes... Fact is also that I ignore the extent to which remains healthy in an encyclopaedia, for a biographical article, to mention otherwise than shortly the political failures or contributions of the introduced figure. As a matter of fact Ferdinand inherited a political system and a host of political and cultural practices, his only failure being in maintaining it more than was useful and fair for the people and the country. Remus Octavian Mocanu (talk) 05:05, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Justifying today’s revert
I have removed ROM's edits to this article on a formal ground, as his quotes are a clear infringement of copyrights. But copyvios aside, his edits are in violation of several Wikipedia principles. I've already had this debate with him on ro.wikipedia.org, so I'm summing up my arguments:


 * He's piecing together different bits and pieces with the aim of blaming Ferdinand for all the ills of interwar Romania. He falsely argues that he is trying to balance this article with negative criticism - nothing against that in principle - but whereas Ferdinand is widely considered a weak personality in Romanian and Anglo-Saxon historiography (having been frequently manipulated by Queen Mary and Ionel Brătianu), ROM is trying to make him look like some kind of an authoritarian ruler.
 * Some of the inferences he makes are absurd (questioning Ferdinand's loyalty towards Romania for considering the project of a multinational state!) and clearly original research.
 * Some of the sources he uses are rizible (e.g. using World Education Encyclopedia to write a biographical article)
 * Although I dread the word, he manipulates sources. Take "These authoritarian practices" for example; if you consult the source (World Education Encyclopedia), you'll see the sentence there refers to the whole Interbellum. While Ferdinand died in 1927 and can't be accused of authoritarianism, Carol II indeed established an authoritarian regime later (1938).

And so forth. --Mihai (talk) 10:24, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I concur. The pattern of edits, selective quotes and citations from obscure non-English sources, lengthy POV commentaries in the notes, and overall anti-Ferdinand slant of the article contrary to prevailing historical consensus on the king's reputation is unmistakable, and very clearly violates our due weight standard (It's also very similar to the bias which has dominated Wikipedia's article on Ferdinand's as-yet-still-living grandson, Michael I of Romania, as I noted here.) FactStraight (talk) 04:28, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

-
 * "He's piecing together different bits and pieces with the aim of blaming Ferdinand for all the ills of interwar Romania."


 * First, it is worth to say that "those different bits and pieces" Mr. Pita mention are ALL from… different Western historians and political scientists works. He asserts that I am "blaming Ferdinand of ALL the ills of interwar Romania?" Not at all! I am just taking the very opinions of those academic sources I cite but disturb Mr. Pita so much as to attack them as "infringement of copyrights", and put them in the article. Nothing more. The footnotes are not, or at least they would not be "infringement of copyrights", if Mr. Pita and those like him would be honest enough to admit and let in the article those assertions without all this ample quotations: I am not against the practice to let the assertions with only the indication of an academic work and author, and with no verbatim citing.
 * In order to supress critical information against their idol, Mr. Pita and his friends generally adopt the unfair tactics of deleting critical contributions when not extensively sourced (remember please those "bits and pieces"!), but as now is obvious, deleting critical contribution also when heavily sourced goes too for them. So there is no escape from such vandals' tactics…
 * Mr. Pita disingenuously showed us actually the fact he fears the expert opinions I let speak in my contribution, by removing not only the text & footnotes in the article, but removing also all the footnotes I put with the my deleted addition in my first comment here, i.e. on the very page where content is to be though discussed…
 * So, he seems to agree to discuss, but not and never when proofs from the academic works are visible; it kind of intimidates him. :) Actually banning expert opinion facilitate a lot his slander against me, as those accusations of "manipulating sources". As a matter of fact, there is NO general blaming against Ferdinand in my addition, just those critical asseassements concerning his manipulation of the political system in order to protect his interests, AS  THEY  APPEAR  MENTIONED  IN  WESTERN  ACADEMIC  LITERATURE. So, the "blaming for ALL the ills of interwar Romania" is just another ridiculous "straw man".


 * Mr. Pita : […] whereas Ferdinand is widely considered a weak personality in Romanian and Anglo-Saxon historiography (having been frequently manipulated by Queen Mary and Ionel Brătianu), ROM is trying to make him look like some kind of an authoritarian ruler.


 * Mr. Pita is trying here another straw man: the fact of being manipulated by his spouse and Mr. Bratianu, doesn't preclud the posibility of him being the supreme factor in matters of political power in Romania, as repeatedly the academic sources I quoted mention. So, finally, Mr. Pita is trying here to supress expert opinion with nothing more than his confusions.... As Victoria Brown tells us in her article, "One key to royal power was the peculiar Rumanian system of having the king appoint a new prime minister before parliamentary elections were held. Because the party just given power was then allowed to "make the elections" in its own interests, the king's choice of minister effectively determined the complexion of the new parliament. The theoretical power of the Rumanian monarch was further enhanced by his constitutional rights of absolute veto and dissolution of parliament […]" The same opinion expressed in "War and National Consolidation, 1887-1941 (History of the Balkans – Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press 1999. First published 1983. ISBN 0-521-27459-1 (Vol. 2) paperback.)" by Barbara Jelavich: "In 1884, under Liberal sponsorship, a bill on electoral reform was passed. Although the franchise was made broader, the system of voting by electoral colleges, which served to exclude the majority of the population from real political influence, was retained. Moreover, as previously, the government in power was able to control the elections through patronage and the police. The king could appoint a new ministry of his choice and then dissolve parliament and hold a new election. The government in office could assure itself of a victory in the voting by use of the centralized administrative system, and thus win sufficient support in the chamber. This procedure gave the king a pivotal role between the two parties."). Or as Myron Weiner and Ergun Ozbundun. write in "Competitive Elections in Developing Countries". Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1987: "Mattei Dogan, in his study of the electoral process in prewar Romania prepared for this volume, suggested that a political system may have all the institutions associated with democracy – political parties, elections and legislatures – but still not be democratic because power is exercised behind the scenes. In prewar Romania, he wrote, monarchical power was not always apparent because elected governments were free to do as they wanted so long as what they wanted was also in accordance with the wishes of the monarch; but when a government failed to conform to those wishes and interests, it was replaced by a new government, which submitted itself to the electorate for what proved to be automatic confirmation. Dogan thus reminded us that the presence of parties, elections and parliaments is not in itself sufficient proof that a democratic system exists. Prewar Eastern Europe, several Latin American countries in the 1920s and 1930s, prewar Japan, and several contemporary countries in Africa and South and Southeast Asia have had and now have similar "democratic systems" – what Dogan called "mimic democracies" – with elections that do little more than provide the appearance of popular sovereignty and popular legitimation for governments ruled by monarchs, the military and oligarchs. Like the king in the Allice in Wonderland, who says "sentence first, judgment latter", these are countries guided by the principle "government first, electionsa latter".


 * Mr Pita: "Although I dread the word, he manipulates sources. Take "These authoritarian practices" for example; if you consult the source (World Education Encyclopedia), you'll see the sentence there refers to the whole Interbellum. While Ferdinand died in 1927 and can't be accused of authoritarianism, Carol II indeed established an authoritarian regime later (1938)."


 * Unfortunately the whole interbellum is… the whole interbellum, no matter how much we wish not to be, and that’s including Ferdinand's years of ruling too. But let us leave aside that single source of expert opinion concerning the authoritarian nature of Ferdinand's regime for now, because in my contribution I also quoted other academic sources that mention the authoritarian character of our monarchs, Ferdinand included. Let us see some of them:


 * "Unquestionably Carol lacked confidence in and had little respect for the democratic process. In this regard his attitude was similar to that of his father Ferdinand, and, for that matter, of the entire crowned dynasty of the Hohenzollern and the uncrowned of the Bratianus. His political philosophy, if he had one, was that of dynastic authoritarianism: the King was the ultimate source of political decision and the initiator of meaningful political action." (p. 112 in "Native Fascism in the Successor States 1918-1945". Edited by Peter F. Sugar. American Bibliographical Center Clio Press ("ABC-Clio") Inc. 1971. Santa Barbara California 1971. Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 71-149636. ISBN 0-87436-074-9.)


 * Well, now we have a whole authoritarian dynasty of Hohenzollern, King Ferdinand included. :) But if these already two sources still aren't enough to convince sceptics, take another one:


 * "The Royal Dictatorships: Having a king as the head of the state was one of the peculiarities of the authoritarian régimes in Balkan (Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece). It is worth to stress the fact that these monarchs doesn’t tried to challenge the liberal parliamentarism as long as constitutionally or in practice they kept a decisive role. They named and dismissed cabinets, granted power to prime ministers and parties and organized elections they cheerfully manipulated." («Les dictatures royales: La présence d’un roi à la tête de l’État était une des particularités des régimes autoritaires dans les Balkans (Roumanie, Bulgarie, Yougoslavie, Grèce). Il est important de relever que ces monarques ne cherchèrent pas à remettre en question le parlementarisme libéral dans la mesure où, constitutionnellement ou en pratique, ils gardaient un rôle décisif. Ils contribuèrent à faire et défaire les cabinets, accordaient pouvoir aux premiers ministres et partis et organisaient des élections qu’ils manipulaient allégrement.») (source : «L'Effondrement de la Démocratie, Autoritarisme et Totalitarisme dans l'Europe de l'Entre-Deux-Guerre». Juan J. Linz. Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, 2004/4 Vol. 11, p. 531-586. DOI : 10.3917/ripc.114.0531.)


 * Here it is obvious that the author focused his attention NOT on the late period of the interwar years, when under royal dictatorship were held elections in the single-party political system (only with the party created by King Carol II as sole contender): it describes the very practice of Ferdinand manipulation of parlamentiarism which was extensively explained by the sources Mr Pita delete in the article and here in the "talk" section too, because he doesn’t like what they prove, i.e. the fact that there was then a façade democracy.
 * But let us use our brains a little: how can be called a political system and his leader that use rigged elections to put his men in office and keeps martial law for ALL his peace-time years of reign? For except the WWI years, in ALL the years King Ferdinand ruled, the country (Romania) lived continuously under martial law! I think, as the experts like Juan J. Linz and Peter F. Sugar do, that we deal here with an authoritarian regime. Other experts seem to agree with us, for take another proof from an academic work:


 * "From 1920 to 1928, Romania was dominated by the National Liberal Party (PNL) under Ionel Bratianu. This was the party of Romania’s rising urban bourgeoisie, brash nouveaux riches who were voraciously committed to self-enrichment, industrialization, economic nationalism (a combination of protectionism and ‘nostrification’, involving the transfer of company assets from foreign to native private ownership), embezzlement, nepotism and corruption. They introduced a new constitution in 1923, but perpetuated deeply corrupt, clientelistic and repressive modes of governing. Peasant and proletarian radicalism and discontent was not assuaged, and Romania remained under martial law from 1920 to 1928 and again from 1933 to 1945, while elections continued to be rigged by governments enjoying royal favour." […] This bold, attractive and potentially trail-blazing socio-economic experiment was tragically ill timed. The 1930s depression slashed export earnings, peasant incomes and state revenues, caused widespread bankruptcies, unemployment and labour unrest, exacerbated inter-ethnic tensions, increased support for fascist movements, scuppered plans for trade liberalization and increased public spending on social reforms and welfare provisions, and bitterly disappointed and divided the PNT and its initially enthusiastic supporters. Largely due to global conditions beyond its control, Romania lost its best chance in decades to break out of the vicious circles of poverty, ignorance, clientelism, corruption and authoritarianism in which it had been trapped by its rapacious ruling classes. Instead, the 1930s depression launched Romania on a course towards nationalist, fascist and ultimately Communist étatism, clientelism, corruption and authoritarianism. ("The Balkans: A Post-Communist History". Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries. 1st ed. Routledge 2007 (Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group, an informa business)


 * So, to resume the historians` conclusion: under King Ferdinand I, Romania lived a continously martial law, when the elections were rigged by governments having the royal favor; and by finally electing, soon after Ferdinand`s death, a peasantist government exactly when the 1929 crisis wreaked havoc, "the country lost its best chance in decades to be freed of corruption and authoritarianism in which it had been trapped by its rapacious ruling classes."
 * Although Ferdinand regime is indeed considered authoritarian by experts as those quoted above, Mr Pita and other hagiographers think otherwise; the balanced truth about their idol seems to be unbearable. If his/their opinion, that Ferdinand didn’t use at that time an authoritarian political system, can be sourced, I have no problem of having it included in the article`s text alongside with the academic opinions expressed by those I cited: I am not a vandal, and the readers eventually can read and judge for themselves about the weight of each cited source and each point of view. But for now what we have is no source or contribution, but just insistent and repeated deleting of the text and sources Mr Pita and his friends doesn’t like because they are critical.


 * The choice now for those in power to enforce the rules here is quite ease one in my opinion: one option is to let the vandalism prevail. The other is to take the side of those that contribute decently to the project: "do not remove sourced information from the Encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased", was already blatantly and repeatedly infringed on this article page and, ridiculously!, also on the "talk" page (I will put my footnotes back after posting this reply). "Vandalism", for to delete A  VAST  BLOCK  OF  TEXT  SOURCED  BY  NO  LESS  THAN  71 SOURCES  and justify that with just a frivolous objection to an assertion about the "authoritarian" character of the dealt with historical figure, it is all-too-obvious just that, and a thinly veiled attempt to purge the article of anything doesn’t fit the vandals' opinion. They don’t just modify those assertions that seem to them biased, they remove the whole text, in order to hide the truth of the period and of the dealt-with historical figure, in all its complexity.


 * Let see now what thinks Mr. Factstraight: he thinks that I used "selective quotes and citations from obscure non-English sources".
 * What mean "obscure" to him need to be clarified by giving some examples. What means "selective quotes", that`s too to be explained yet: that almost any citation or quote IS unavoidably a selection, it seems he fails to realize. What are my quotes guilty of to be more "obscure" or "selective" than any others used in Wikipedia, where there still is a lot of text with NO source cited, it still remains to be clarified too, if he`s hoping to be taken seriously as anything than a biased kings- and monarchy-lover intolerant to any critical assessment of a king.
 * But let`s see the list of those "obscure" and "non-English sources":


 * "The Suicide of Europe – Memoirs of Prince Michel Sturdza, Former Foreign Minister of Rumania". Western Islands Publishers 1968. Belmont, Massachusetts. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-58284. Printed in the United States of America.
 * "The New Rumanian Constitution". D. Mitrany. Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, Third Series, Vol. 6, No. 1. (1924), pp. 110-119. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of "the British Institute of International and Comparative Law". Accessed: 02/09/2013.
 * "The Market, Tradition and Peasant Rebellion: The Case of Romania in 1907". Author(s): Daniel Chirot and Charles Ragin. Source: "American Sociological Review", Vol. 40, No. 4 (Aug., 1975), pp. 428-444. Published by: American Sociological Association.
 * „Romanian peasants revolt in Moldavia beginning in March to protest their inability to buy land; they also protest their exploitation by the crown and by grain merchants such as Leopold Louis-Dreyfus. Some 10,000 die before Carol I can regain control of the country in April.” - James Trager, "1907" The People's Chronology, James Trager, 3rd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Gale Virtual Reference Library. GALE CX3460601907).
 * „Rascoala: the last peasants' revolt”, Markus Bauer, History Today, Sep. 2010, Vol. 60, Issue 9, p.47.
 * "Romania: A Country Study". Federal Research Division. Library of Congress. Edited by Ronald D. Bachman. Research Completed July 1989. 2002 Blackmask Online
 * „The Market, Tradition and Peasant Rebellion: The Case of Romania in 1907”, Daniel Chirot and Charles Ragin, American Sociological Review, Vol. 40, No. 4, Aug., 1975, pp. 428-444.
 * "A History of Eastern Europe - Crisis and change" (Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries. Routledge 1998. ISBN 0-203-00725-5.).
 * "Outcast Europe: The Balkans, 1789-1989 - From Ottomans to Milosevic". Tom Gallagher. Routledge 2001. Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
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 * "Conditions of Democracy in Europe, 1919-39". Systematic Case Studies. Edited by Dirk Berg-Schlosser (Professor of Political Science, Phillipps University, Marburg, Germany) and Jeremy Mitchell (Lecturer in Government, The Open University, Milton Keynes, England) in association with International Political Science Association. First published in Great Britain 2000 by Macmillan Press Ltd. (ISBN 0–333–64828–5). First published in the United States of America 2000 by St. Martin’s Press, Inc. (ISBN 0–312–22843–0).
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 * Besides ALL THESE  English sources listed above and extracted from my addition in the article, the text I wrote was supported also by other 2 sources in French (history or social science academic articles) and a Romanian translations of the PhD thesis of a Spanish historian. Well, considering the dozens of above sources in English, ALL of academic origin, the whole footnoting in my humble opinion makes not a lot of "obscure" and "non-English" sources. :) What`s still more ridiculous: he seems to be not disturbed at all by other sources mentioned in the reference section of the article, that are in Romanian language. Remus Octavian Mocanu (talk) 08:57, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * None of which alters my fundamental point and that of the others who have challenged and/or reverted Remus Octavian Mocanu's recent edits, "...overall anti-Ferdinand slant of the article contrary to prevailing historical consensus on the king's reputation is unmistakable, and very clearly violates our due weight standard". Wikipedia is not a venue for publication of novel or alternative interpretations of history and fact: in bios on historical figures, we reflect the prevailing views. Interpretations of historical facts and figures are always evolving, but Wikipedia's due weight policy does not allow us to reflect them until they are perceived by scholars as the widely-accepted, mainstream view of the topic. So far, the notion that Ferdinand undermined Romania's independence through "authoritarianism", manipulated "the political system in order to protect his interests" and behaved in a way that casts into doubt his loyalty to Romania is not the way this man is characterized in mainstream historical literature that hasn't been selected to emphasize his authoritarianism, manipulativeness and disloyalty. Nor is it the responsibility of editors here to disprove Remus Octavian Mocanu's thesis: he must do the convincing because he seeks to modify this article to reflect a POV nearly opposite to that of prevailing opinion, as cited heretofore. So far, I'm not convinced. FactStraight (talk) 19:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I`am afraid you cannot be convinced (and actually no one needs to convince you, as long as other's contributions are sourced and you are allowed to add YOUR points of view, and of course, their sources; for now though, you have showed us none), simply because you are biased. You invoke "DUE", but you showed nowhere with other sources that really the points of view of all those historians and political experts I cite are less prominent than yours (which one and where????????), and that as such deserve less space in article; and btw, "less space is not exactly "no-space-at-all", as you suggest by deleting sourced contributions, and infringing with that the rules which ask you "to not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased; instead, try to rewrite the passage or section to achieve a more neutral tone. Biased information can usually be balanced with material cited to other sources to produce a more neutral perspective, so such problems should be fixed when possible through the normal editing process."
 * I know, your problem is that you (and your friends) simply are not able to show that your biased opinion is the prominent one. You don’t have any source to assert that! Nowhere you can find a source asserting that the point of view of all those academic sources I used is anyhow wrong or even in minority. Impossible! That`s unfortunately your problem... As for me, be sure that I tried to know what are the academic opinions about Ferdinand and his political regime, no matter what these opinions are: I sincerely try to avoid prejudices and I like to understand. So, I wait you to prove that really the statements of the authors I cited are in minority, and to show with larger number of sources that your point of view is in majority: "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;" Good luck! :) Remus Octavian Mocanu (talk) 05:05, 17 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Once again, the burden of proof for obtaining a consensus to retain your version rests with you -- we aren't obliged to convince you that your version should not remain once your additions have been challenged by more editors who disagree than agree with it. You may not edit against consensus and there have now been enough objections expressed to know that your preferred version does not have a consensus among those addressing this issue in this article. FactStraight (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh no my dear Factstright, you are wrong, my job is already done and even very decently done, once I cited numerous academic works asserting the same for each statement I put there in the article. First you wrongly accused me of "citing non-English sources", and of "citing obscure sources". After showing you the most obvious thing, i.e. you are wrong, you failed to excuse yourself, changing your mind that actually your objection is allegedly my sources are in minority. I challanged you - as the Wikipedia rules provides - to show us that your opinon is supported by sources proven to be in majority. Of course it is clear and obvious you know nothing about the subject Ferdinand I, and you possess no source that contradict what are stating the many historians and political scientists I cited, because in fact you have just prejudices and your grudge is just against any critical assessments of royals.
 * You talk about "many editors", but all these "editors" have no informed opinion sourced in academic works as mine… they have nothing except idolatrious prejudices. Fact is these type of editors are worth nothing for this project as long as their "contribution" remains to delete the sourced additions of those that really prove that basic respect for rules and the relative truth as mirrored by the expert opinion.
 * Unfortunately for you and for all those like you, after a bout of senseless destruction of the work of others you went hopeful to fish those staid sources that support your simple gut feeling ideea about what was and have done King Ferdinand, but after each laaaaaarge trawl of the literature you actually never read or possess on the subject, you come back exactly how you departed, that is emptyhanded. Finally vandalism it is all what you know and can for the poor King Ferdinand of our, the Romanians… Not worth to remember you what you can for the truth… It is already obvious for me that you don’t know really what mean this notion.
 * Now you wrongly think that the rules on Wikipedia are asking us to get a consensus between an informed and sourced opinion and… a mere prejudice SUPPORTED  BY  NOTHING.  I surmise you are wrong and I’ll ask for help from administrators. I showed in my last reply that according to the DUE rule (NPV rule) you invoked,  YOU  HAVE  TO  PROVE that your puny opinion is really the majoritarian one  HELD  BY  EXPERTS  (and not by editors, as you think, my dear… :) ), by "substantiating it with references to commonly accepted reference texts". Otherwise you have no majority viewpoint, in contrast with mine who for each statement get support generally by many citations from different academic works.
 * And btw, once again I remind you that a sourced addition doesn’t have to be deleted just because some editors think it is biased, because these editors, if they really are editors and not vandals, have ALL the latitude to contribute and correct BY  ADDING  THEIR  SOURCED  ADDITIONS  in order to prove their point of view. Only the vandals disregard this rule, because they have no sources to prove that what I put in the article is wrong or a minority opinion. That’s the very definition of vandalism, and by any rate and reading you are noxious to this project of Wikipedia and to its credibility as long as you act like that: here it’s just like some foible kids, not caring at all for the rules and for decency or their image, are playing insipid legerdemains. Remus Octavian Mocanu (talk) 05:37, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Those who have repeatedly disagreed with your undue edits haven't blanked the page -- we've reverted to the thoroughly cited version that reflected, on the whole, the prevalent view of Ferdinand before you began selectively editing and citing to distort that. So our preferences have been expressed -- and you lack the consensus to compel the article to reflect your POV. Wikilawyering and belittling those whose viewpoint differs from yours won't create the consensus you need to build. FactStraight (talk) 06:05, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

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Ordinal
Shouldn't the title of this page be "Ferdinand, King of Romania"? He was the only king of Romania named Ferdinand. Like how Queen Victoria is known as "Victoria" as opposed to "Victoria I". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.44.0.57 (talk) 21:03, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Depends on commmon usage. For instance, King Carlos I of Portugal, who is the only Portuguese king named Carlos, but most contemporary sources and modern historiography almost always refer to the king with his ordinal. Depends completely on practice. I don't know about this case specifically, but there is no standard form, only common usage. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 01:39, 9 October 2019 (UTC)