Global InformationBanat of Craiova information
| Banat of Craiova Banat von Krajowa Banatul Craiovei | |||||||||||||
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| Province of the Habsburg monarchy | |||||||||||||
| 1718–1739 | |||||||||||||
 Flag
 Coat of arms after 1723
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 The Banat of Craiova shown in the bottom right corner of a French map from 1898 | |||||||||||||
| Capital | Krajowa (Craiova) | ||||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||||
• 1739 | 34,346 families (officially registered) | ||||||||||||
| Government | |||||||||||||
| Ban / Prezes | |||||||||||||
• 1719–1726 | Gheorghe Cantacuzino | ||||||||||||
• 1726–1728 | Georgius Schramm von Otterfels | ||||||||||||
• 1728–1732 | Joachim Czeyka von Olbramowitz | ||||||||||||
• 1732–1733 | J. H. Dietrich | ||||||||||||
• 1733–1739 | Franciscus Salhausen | ||||||||||||
| Historical era | Early modern Europe Ottoman–Habsburg wars | ||||||||||||
• Treaty of Passarowitz | 21 July 1718 | ||||||||||||
• Territorial organization | 22 February 1719 | ||||||||||||
• Reorganization | 27 April 1729 | ||||||||||||
• Ottoman reconquest | November 1737 | ||||||||||||
• Treaty of Belgrade | 18 September 1739 | ||||||||||||
| Subdivisions | |||||||||||||
| • Type | Counties | ||||||||||||
| • Units | Dolj, Gorj, Mehedinți, Romanați, Vâlcea | ||||||||||||
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| Today part of | Romania | ||||||||||||
The Banat of Craiova or Banat of Krajowa (German: Banat von Krajowa; Romanian: Banatul Craiovei), also known as Cisalutanian Wallachian Principality (Latin: Principatus Valachiae Cisalutanae) and Imperial Wallachia (German: Kaiserliche Walachei; Latin: Caesarea Wallachia;[1] Romanian: Chesariceasca Valahie), was a Romanian-inhabited province of the Habsburg monarchy. It emerged from the western third of Wallachia, now commonly known as Oltenia, which the Habsburgs took in a preceding war with the Ottoman Empire—in tandem with the Banat of Temeswar and Serbia. It was a legal successor to the Great Banship of Craiova, with the Wallachian Gheorghe Cantacuzino as its native leader, or Ban. Over the following years, native rule was phased out, and gave way to a direct administration. This provided the setting for Germanization of the bureaucratic elite, introducing the governing methods of enlightened absolutism and colonialism.
Habsburg rule over Oltenia only lasted two decades, which fit within the reign of just one Austrian Emperor (and titular "Prince of Cisalutanian Wallachia"), Charles VI (1711–1740). Its steady encroachment on the privileges of native boyars, as well as its added pressures on the serfs and the free peasants, were highly unpopular, undermining Austrophile positions in Wallachia as a whole. The period witnessed collective tax resistance and internal migration, in an effort to conceal the total number and location of contributors. Charles VI and the Serbian Orthodox Bishops in Belgrade took charge of the Wallachian Diocese of Râmnic, curbing its traditional privileges while allowing it to maintain cultural autonomy. Some timid steps were taken toward Catholicizing Oltenia, with Catholic Bulgarians as the main proxies. Despite being pressured from above, Râmnic Bishops were able to expand their influence into southern Transylvania, providing it with support against the spread of Greek Catholicism.
Popular resistance required a steady adaptation of the administrative apparatus, which included more accurate censuses, relief of some feudal obligations, and heavy penalties for tax offenders. The process was directly supervised by Austrian officials, including Franz Paul von Wallis in the 1730s. It was cut short by an unexpected Ottoman reconquest in late 1737, which brought another devastation of Oltenia, but also witnessed the reestablishment of self-rule by the Romanians. "Imperial Wallachia" formally ended in 1739, when the Ottoman Empire recovered Serbia and Oltenia (which was returned to Wallachia) after the Treaty of Belgrade.
The claim to Oltenia was formally revived during the 1770s by Joseph II, but died out a decade later. The Banat of Temeswar, which became home to a sizable community of Romanian Oltenian and Bulgarian refugees, was kept by the Habsburg monarchy and its successors until 1918. Though rejected by the mass of the people, the Habsburg experiment in Oltenia produced some lasting changes, with some institutions maintained in place by Wallachian Prince Constantine Mavrocordatos. Austrian influence, which introduced the region to organized guilds and a postal system, also provided Wallachians with a linguistic template for modernization and re-Latinization.
- ^ Lazăr, p. 81