Looking back in time, the age of Michael the Brave seems to represent the “best of times” in the early modern history of the Romanian people. Michael’s defeat of the powerful Ottoman armies and his unification of the principalities served to inspire Romanian patriots of later generations and in that way contributed to the founding of the modern Romanian state. Michael and his contemporaries were not, however, under the influence of any nationalist ideal. The act of unifying the three principalities was undertaken out of military necessity and the quest for political and economic power. Michael became prince of Wallachia, Transylvania and Moldavia as three separate and distinct principalities. The idea of ruling over a unified Romanian nation-state was alien to Michael. Yet, in Michael the Brave, Romanian patriots, yearning for the establishment of a national state, found a legendary hero because his achievement marked the only time that their dream of uniting the Romanian lands had ever been achieved.
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