Bogdan I The Founder
The fate of the border district of Moldavia was decided in Maramureş where a certain Voivode Bogdan rose against the Hungarian king already in the 1340s. King Louis I labelled him “notoriously unfaithful” in 1349 after Bogdan had confiscated the domains of another Romanian noble family in Maramureş.
Having failed in his attempt to get rid of the Hungarian hegemony, Bogdan left Maramureş with his supporters and crossed the mountains into Moldavia, where he started a rebellion against the king in 1359 or 1365. He was also welcomed by the local people who had been discontent with the Hungarian domination. He expelled the descendants of Dragoş, declared himself independent and did not accept Hungarian vassalage any more.
Although King Louis I sent a task force to punish Bogdan, but the Romanian voivode came off victorious. Therefore, Bogdan can rightly be regarded the first ruler of the independent principality of Moldavia. This is also corroborated by the fact that the Turkish name for Moldavia was Kara Boğdan (‘Black Bogdan’) which refers to him.
The geographical names Moldova, Moldava and Moldavia, which took their origin from the river Moldva, spread strongly both in the Latin and Slavic documents from 1360 onward. In Byzantine documents, the new country was called Maurovlakhia (Μαυροβλαχία), that is ‘Black Vlachia’, in 1386 and Rusovlakhia (Ρωσοβλαχία), that is ‘Vlachia near Russia’, in 1391; and finally it was called Moldovlakhia (Μολδοβλαχία), that is ‘Moldavian Vlachia’, in 1401.
Read more about this topic: Foundation Of Moldavia
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