After the 1848 Wallachian Revolutionary Government was overthrown by Ottoman troops, and a new hospodar was to be named, Sultan Abdülmecid I supported Barbu Ştirbei for the office, and he was awarded the throne for a seven-year term (under the provisions of the 1849 Convention of Balta-Liman). His reign began under the common occupation of Ottoman Empire and Imperial Russia, occupation which ended in 1851, when Barbu Ştirbei was awarded the Order of St. Anna by the Russian Emperor Nicholas I.
