[12] By then, Rosetti and his men were perceived as extremists even among the leftist Wallachian émigrés: Nicolae Bălcescu, a radical, complained that the Rosettists were "communists", and that their supposed critique of property as theft was irritatingly obstructionist.

[46] Românul played host to the Albano-Romanian aristocrat Dora d'Istria, being one of the first local periodicals to acknowledge her literary work (her text, L'Italia s'è fatta!, was published by Rosetti in December 1860).

Pantazi Ghica, the lawyer and Romantic author, published Orășanu's appeal from prison, addressed to the readers of Românul and Nikipercea, then opened a donation list for the anti-Cuza protesters arrested in Oltenia.

[82] Italian observers received such news with concern: Nuova Antologia wrote that the "persecution" of liberal newspapers, and in particular the shutting down of "Romanulu, press organ of the democratic leader Mr. Rossetti [sic]", jeopardized Cuza's good reputation.

[100] These efforts blended with the creation of a Romanian volunteer army: in a letter to Românul, Dunka's father Ștefan offered his services as an officer; meanwhile, in Austrian Transylvania, a military invasion by Romania was being factored in as a likely scenario.

Making frequent study trips to Transylvania (where Românul was available at 40 florins annually),[105] Hasdeu wrote ideological articles against all forms of regionalism, praising the newly founded Academic Society as the vanguard of ethnic uniformity.

[106] Distanced from the group, and acting as Romanian diplomatic agent in Pest, Radu Ionescu censured such projects: "People of influence do not take into account the annexation of Transylvania, as that would be very difficult for us, given [the region's] varied races".

[119] Térra accepted Jewish emancipation, condemned the renewed spread of antisemitic violence in the provinces, and accused the radical "Red" ministers, Ștefan Golescu and Ion Brătianu included, of being hypocrites.

[120] By late 1868, the liberals' opposition to the status quo, and especially the toleration of Bulgarian revolutionaries on Romanian soil, generated an international scandal, and the radical cabinet of Nicolae Golescu was intimidated into relinquishing power; "Whites" leader Dimitrie Ghica took over the premiership.

[122] Again in the opposition, Românul was eventually convinced to tone down its pro-Bulgarian activism, assuming the official government position and, according to Appleton's American Annual Cyclopædia, "exhort[ing] the inhabitants of Bulgaria to preserve tranquility.

Unlike Hasdeu's liberals, Românul and Trompeta Carpaților were supporters of the measure, although Carada made sanguine comments about the "feudal" coinage inscription ("Lord of the Romanians") and the conspicuous absence of senators from the royal ceremony.

[138] Carol, who found that German support for his rule was not forthcoming (due to the Strousberg dispute), resorted to a publicity stunt, publishing an ultimatum-like defense of his principles in the Augsburger Allgemeine (afterwards translated by all Romanian newspapers).

[149] Românul journalists were again united in their criticism of Russian expansionism, and the newspaper claimed that Domnitor Carol was secretly negotiating the Budjak's cession to Russia; it also called for a better administrative and defense system in that region.

"[163] The newspaper was actively promoting the patriotic cult of Wallachian prince Michael the Brave, noted for his conquest of Transylvania and Moldavia, and helped determine the ultimate location of his statue: University Square, downtown Bucharest.

[186] From early 1877, when Romanians woke up to the news that the Ottoman Constitution regarded them as mere subjects of the Empire (Article 7), Românul styled itself the voice of "patriotic indignation", addressing letters of protest to Midhat Pasha, the Grand Vizier.

[187] Also then, the PNL founding figure "Mazar Pașa" Lakeman returned to Rosetti's gazette with an analytical essay, Armata teritorială față cu resursele țării ("The Territorial Army Faced with the Country's Resources").

On 25 December 1881, he commented in Românul: "Happily the Roumanians may now congratulate themselves on having solved, in favour of the nation, the most burning and dangerous question, and that, we can now own, in a way contrary to the manifest will of the Powers and to the very spirit of the Treaty of Berlin" (as quoted in 1903 by William Evans-Gordon).

[220] Still, Românul participated in the effort to legitimize Ion C. Brătianu's prudent foreign policy: it republished a Daily Telegraph essay, which promised a return of the Budjak to those who maintained independence from Russia and did not provoke Austria-Hungary.

Rosetti voted in favor of granting Carol a large demesne and, in his Românul articles, produced statements such as "the throne is an altar" (according to the anti-Rosettist observer Georges Bibesco, the 1848 revolution was thus nullified by its very instigators).

[226] Rosetti gave some backing to a Transylvanian nationalist league called Romanian Irredenta, or Carpathians Society, that militated for a "Daco-Romanian Empire", suggested overthrowing the King, and managed to attract in its ranks the Bukovina-born Eminescu.

In a Românul article of February 1882, N. Xenopol stated the case for a revolution in Romanian letters, endorsing the literary realism of a dissident Junimist, Ioan Slavici; he also began a bitter dispute with Eminescu, which reverberated in the liberal newspapers.

[200][237] It also vehiculated its director's ideas about modifying the other sections of his own 1866 Constitution: renouncing the "Kingdom" title, fully incorporating Northern Dobruja, creating a legislative commission from legal specialists, and even disestablishing the Citizens' Guard.

[200] The notion of eliminating the 1st college, representing the country's elite, was attacked by the Conservatives as unsound;[200][238] the PNL as a whole picked up on the proposal, arguing that "Romania's new social and political context" had elevated the standing of regular Romanian voters, but it still would not follow Rosetti on granting voting rights to all literate men.

[85] Under Vintilă Rosetti, Românul established its own printing press (purchasing the enterprise of C. Petrescu Conduratu and renting the townhouse of Constantin Barozzi) and signed a distribution contract with Havas, the international news agency.

A contributor, N. Ținc, was convinced by Caion's faint proof of Caragiale's plagiarism, assessing that the Junimist "megalomaniacs" were morally bankrupt (the editorial was not published by Vintilă Rosetti, but survives in the Românul archives).

Loosely associated with Junimea, but previously a conservative figure among the 1848 revolutionaries, poet Vasile Alecsandri set the tune for this polemic when, in the 1860s, he suggested that Românul had introduced Wallachians to the journalistic practice of character assassination.

His lyrics make a transparent reference to Rosetti, aștept să văd sub trăsnet hidoasa pocitură / Care-a sădit în țară invidie și ură ("I await to see a bolt striking down the hideous fright / Who has planted envy and hatred in this soil").

[312] As argued by Șerban Cioculescu, the "Third Letter" rhetoric was hopelessly outdated: Eminescu's main quarrel was with the more enterprising National Liberals, rather than with the left-leaning Rosettists; moreover, Rosetti was no longer the "internal Plevna" conspirator vilified by the classical conservatives.

[317] Caragiale's play O noapte furtunoasă, which mocks the Citizens' Guard as a docile instrument of the "Reds", also introduces Rică Venturiano as a caricature of the Rosettist youth, speaking and writing in macaronic sequences, and editing the ardently republican gazette Vocea Patriotului Naționale ("Voice of the National Patriot")—quite possibly a direct reference to Românul.

[149] In March 1879, Caragiale returned with other pieces against the radicals, including mock promises that, if created a republic, Romania would be run by the Citizens' Guards and the tavern-keepers, "Patriotism" would be a skilled profession, and Rosetti would be instituted a "Chief Rabbi".