Islaz Constitution

(Islaz Proclamation, Proclamaţia de la Islaz), a draft bourgeois constitution, never adopted, for the principality of Wallachia.

The Islaz Constitution was part of an appeal framed by N. Balcescu, Rumanian revolutionary democrat; its reading to the peasants of the village of Islaz (hence the name) on June 9, 1848, was the signal for launching the Revolution of 1848 in Wallachia. The constitution declared Wallachia a republic; proclaimed bourgeois democratic freedoms and the political equality of all citizens; and provided for the abolition of corvée and serfdom, the allotment of land to the peasants in return for redemption payments, and elimination of the persecution of national minorities, the death penalty, and corporal punishment.