Oltenia or Lesser Wallachia is a historical province of Romania. It is situated between the Danube, the Carpathian Mountains and the Olt river. The Olt separates Oltenia and Muntenia.
Little is known about this region afterward, during the Dark Ages, except for some occasional incursions of the Byzantine Empire against the migrating people that settled here. Notable among them were the Southern Slavs, who eventually merged in the Romanian population.
Around 1247 a new principality emerged in Oltenia under the rule of Seneslau, which would later merge with Muntenia to form the mediaeval state of Wallachia. From an unknown moment and up until 1831, the voivode was represented in Oltenia by a ban (marele ban al Craiovei - "the great ban of Craiova"), considered the greatest office in Wallachian hierarchy, and one that was held most by members of the Craioveşti family (from the late 1400s to about 1550).
During the 15th century, Wallachia had to accept the Ottoman suzeranity and to pay an annual tribute to keep its autonomy. However, many rulers, including the Oltenian-born Mihai Viteazul, fought against the Ottoman Empire, giving Wallachia brief periods of independence.
After 1716, the Ottomans decided to cease choosing the voivode from among the Romanian boyars and established the Phanariote regime: the rulers were to be appointed from the influential Greeks of the Phanar neighbourhood of Istanbul.
Two years later, in 1718 under the terms of the Treaty of Passarowitz, Oltenia was split from Wallachia and annexed by the Austrian Empire (de facto, it was under Austrian occupation by 1716), but in 1737 it was returned to Wallachia (see Austro-Turkish War of 1716-18 and Austro-Turkish War, 1737-1739). Under the occupation, Oltenia was the only part of Wallachia to experience Enlightened absolutism and Austrian administration, although these were met by considerable and mounting opposition from conservative boyars. While welcomed at first as liberators, the Austrians quickly disenchanted the inhabitants by imposing rigid administrative, fiscal, judicial and political reforms which were meant to centralize and integrate the territory (antagonizing both ends of the social spectrum: withdrawing privileges from the nobility and enforcing taxes for peasants). The perception of these measures led to a temporary resurgence of loyalism towards Ottoman rule, and a durable interest of the Wallachian boyars in a commitment to Russia.
In 1821, Oltenia and the county of Gorj were at the center of Tudor Vladimirescu's uprising (see Wallachian uprising of 1821). Tudor initially gathered his Pandurs in Padeş and relied on a grid of fortified monasteries such as Tismana and Strehaia.
Şerban Papacostea, "Oltenia sub stǎpānirea austriacă (1718-1739)", Bucharest, 1971
| Romanian historical regions: |
| Dobrogea : Cadrilater Moldavia : Bessarabia | Bugeac | Bukovina Transylvania : Banat | Crişana | Maramureş Wallachia : Muntenia | Oltenia |