“The unification of all Romanians within a single state is civilisation’s most natural aspiration.”
Vasile Goldiș
1 December 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the Great Union of 1 December 1918, an event of particular importance in the history of our people, marking the fulfilment of the aspiration of all Romanians to live united within the same country, in a free, unified and independent state.
The Union of 1 December 1918 represents a crucial moment in an objective political and social process, being the logical outcome of the historical development of the Romanian people and of their struggle for the right to be free and masters of their own country.
The ideals of peace, freedom and independence were the most cherished aspirations of previous generations. In the struggle of the masses for freedom and a better, dignified life, the realisation of national unity was sought; this was expressed through their common origin, ethnicity, language, faith and shared customs, as well as the economic, political, social and cultural ties between the three Romanian provinces.
Nicolae Bălcescu emphasised our national unity in the following words: ‘National unity was the cherished dream of our valiant princes. For this, they toiled, suffered and died’1
The great figure of Prince Mihai Viteazul was the first to embody the fulfilment of this aspiration; referring to him, Nicolae Iorga said: “Since the year 1600, no Romanian has been able to conceive of union without his towering figure, without his broadsword or axe raised towards the heavens of justice, without his image, which is that of a pure and perfect tragic poem”2. That is why the union he brought about, even though it did not endure due to historical circumstances, has always remained in the consciousness of the Romanian people.
All the revolutionary movements that took place after the year 1600 led, first and foremost, to an initial stage – the Union of 1859 between Wallachia and Moldavia, which created the modern Romanian National State. Following this, step by step, the historical events experienced by our nation – the achievement of independence (1877), the First World War, which offered the Romanian people the historic opportunity to fight for the defeat of the Habsburg Monarchy – that is, the empire which oppressed the Romanians of Transylvania and Bukovina – and then the great battles of Oituz, Mărăști and Mărășești – chapters in our nation’s history – all of which led to the defence of our ancestral homeland and the forging of our national unity. The Great October Revolution of 1917, the defeat of the Central Powers, of which Austria-Hungary was a part, the collapse of the Habsburg and Tsarist empires, and the creation of new independent states, all served to further awaken the Romanians’ sense of freedom, unity and independence.
The Act of the Great Union was brought to the attention of the Romanian government and the Prime Minister, Alexandru Marghiloman, who was in Chișinău. It was then welcomed and endorsed throughout the Romanian lands in an atmosphere of explosive joy and patriotic, national enthusiasm. This mood was recorded by the newspaper Drapelul in Lugoj as follows: “This news has sparked indescribable excitement throughout Romania. Everywhere, this event is being celebrated with a solemnity befitting the historical significance of the moment, destined to lay new foundations for Romania’s economic development”3.
On 27 March 1918, a great historic event took place in the life of the Romanian nation: the union of Bessarabia with Romania 4. This act took place under very complicated circumstances: on the one hand, the Russian Revolution; on the other, the victory of the Central Powers; all of these factors influenced the course of events in Bessarabia and determined the outcome.
The union of Bessarabia with Romania was the culmination of a nationalist, voluntary, idealistic and selfless movement 5.
The ordeal of the Romanian people, caused by the Central Powers’ occupation regime and the burden of the Buftea Peace Treaty, lasted a few more months until the balance of victory on the fronts of the First World War began to tip decisively in favour of the Entente powers. The resumption, on various fronts, of the autumn offensive led to the capitulation of Bulgaria (29 September), Turkey (30 October), Austria-Hungary (3 November) and, finally, Germany (11 November), a chain of capitulations also driven by internal revolutionary unrest which would subsequently lead to the overthrow of the absolutist monarchies 6.
In Transylvania, the call to arms was issued on 29 October when representatives of the Romanian National Party and the Social Democratic Party, on the latter’s initiative, established the Central Romanian National Council 7, whose headquarters were established in Arad. On its initiative, National Councils were organised throughout Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș, whose purpose was to take over and organise political and administrative power in the face of the rapid collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire 8.
C.On 9 November 1918, the N.R.C. demanded, in a diplomatic note addressed to the Government in Budapest and in the form of an ultimatum, that Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș be placed ‘under its political authority’, but that this transfer should take place peacefully, as reported in the pages of the newspaper Românul: ‘We wish with all our hearts that the transition from the old world to the new may take place without upheaval or turmoil, without regrettable scenes and unnecessary loss of property and human life’9
The C.N.R.C.’s diplomatic note was answered by telegram, and a delegation from the Budapest Government, led by the Minister for Nationalities, was subsequently dispatched for negotiations. The negotiations failed because the Hungarian side sought to preserve historic Hungary within a democratic political and administrative framework, whilst the Romanian side sought self-determination and union with Romania.
The failure of the negotiations in Arad was immediately followed by preparations for a large national assembly on the plain where Horea and Cloșca were martyred in Alba Iulia, in front of the Fortress into which Mihai Viteazul had entered triumphantly hundreds of years earlier.
An important step towards the Great Union took place on 15 November 1918, when the Congress of Bukovina decided to annex Bukovina to Romania.
The day when those grand ideals were realised had arrived. It powerfully summoned the Great National Assembly to Alba Iulia on 1 December 1918 – just as it had in 1848 on the Field of Liberty at Blaj – which voted unanimously for the UNION of Transylvania with Romania. As a symbol of the awareness of national unity and the desire to realise and establish a unified Romanian nation-state, the more than 100,000 elected representatives of the nation, workers, peasants, intellectuals and craftsmen, gathered in Horea’s Field, cried out: ‘We want to unite with the Country’ and resolved that Transylvania should be united with Romania, for ever.
On 1 December 1918, a large Romanian national assembly was also held in Sighetul Marmației. This assembly resolved that Maramureș should unite with Romania without any conditions. On the same day, Vasile Filipciuc undertook to establish and publish the Romanian newspaper Sfatul, as the official organ of the Romanian National Council. Its first issue appeared on 7 December.
Ilie Mișcuția, an officer from Arad and an eyewitness to the events of that time, described this crucial moment in our nation’s history as follows: “The departure for Alba Iulia was set for 30 November, a gloomy day with a bitter wind and snow. Whilst it was freezing outside, in the hearts of all Romanians the thermometer showed very high temperatures. I, accompanying Dr Ștefan Cicio Pop and the other members of the Romanian National Council, set off during the night of 30 November on a train consisting of over 50 goods wagons. I am convinced that Alba Iulia had never seen such a crowd. On 1 December 1918, over a hundred thousand peasants, workers, intellectuals and representatives of Romanians from every corner of Transylvania gathered on the plateau of Mihai’s citadel. What a fluttering of the Romanian tricolour! I cannot forget the moment when Vasile Goldiș read out the draft resolution announcing the unanimous approval of Transylvania’s union with Romania. That moment moved us to tears. The entire Romanian community in Alba Iulia was stirred by the joy of this momentous event: from now on, all our brothers would be united under a single flag, the Romanian tricolour! Forgetting our tiredness, the cold and our hunger, we all experienced unforgettable moments. The sufferings endured over many centuries were forgotten. No one had eyes for the past, but only for the day ahead. Those of us who had voted for the Union knew that we were returning home with the satisfaction of having fulfilled the golden dream of the Romanians, that we were bearers of joy, that from now on we and our children would live in a free, Romanian country. We knew that we would never again hear words of derision from anyone. I was fortunate enough to experience those moments, and I thank God for deeming me worthy to bear witness to the day of 1 December 1918’10
“Forgetting our tiredness, the cold and our hunger, we all experienced unforgettable moments. The sufferings endured over many centuries were forgotten. No one had eyes for the past, but only for tomorrow. Those of us who had voted for the Union knew that we were returning home with the satisfaction of having fulfilled the golden dream of the Romanians…”
The Great National Assembly took place in two separate but interconnected sessions, forming a single assembly. The Union of Alba Iulia was voted on and proclaimed by a constituent assembly held in the ‘Military Casino’ hall and composed of elected deputies as well as ex officio members of parliament. And after the union had been voted through by this constituent assembly, it was submitted for approval and ratification by a plebiscite of the crowds of over one hundred thousand Romanians gathered on Horea’s Field. It was a proclamation and affirmation of the will of the entire Romanian people of Transylvania, through a lawful vote of legal and plebiscitary validity, expressed through the exercise of the right to self-determination.
The Constituent Assembly was opened with a brief address by Ștefan Cicio Pop, President of the Central National Council in Arad. Afterwards, Ioan Suciu read out the report validating the 1,228 official delegates. This meant that the National Assembly had been legally constituted. Consequently, the National Council in Arad concluded its mission, and Ștefan Cicio Pop relinquished his mandate in favour of the Assembly, which then proceeded to form the presidential bureau. Gheorghe Pop de Băsești, Bishops Ignatie Papp and Demetriu Radu were elected by acclamation as Presidents of the National Assembly. The President asked the Assembly to express its views on the draft document concerning the union, and the crowd in the hall responded with a thunderous round of applause, cheers and prolonged ovations, expressing their unanimous vote in favour of the union. There was a frenzy of excitement when the President declared that the act of union had met with general and unanimous consent. Thus, union was voted through.
The session of the Constituent Assembly drew to a close with speeches by the two co-presidents, followed by the blessing and closing remarks of Bishops Demetriu Radu and Ioan Ignatie Papp. Then everyone sang the national anthem: ‘Awaken, Romanian’.
Thus ended centuries of national suffering; the last barriers that had separated Romanians from Romanians were removed, though they had never been able to prevent them from speaking the same language, singing the same songs of longing, nurturing the same aspirations, or to exchange their material possessions. Now, however, on the foundations of the new national edifice, they could build, through united efforts, more and more durably; they would be able to offer more extensive material and spiritual creations; the channels of material production would pulse with the necessary vitality to fuel the further modernisation of the national economy in accordance with the demands of historical progress. Romania, as a new political reality—that of a unitary national state—was recognised by the Paris Peace Treaties, which enshrined an outcome born of the turmoil, struggle and sacrifices of many generations and, ultimately, enshrined an objective product of the historical, social, economic, political and cultural development of the Romanian people and the Romanian nation.
Today, 100 years after the Great Union was achieved, we can align our thoughts of gratitude and appreciation for the heroes of that historic achievement with those expressed by a titan of Romanian intellectual life, himself a leading figure on the historical stage of those events: Nicolae Iorga. He wrote: ‘Without forgetting anyone who contributed to this act of Union, from the general and the Transylvanian leader down to the lowliest soldier and peasant, let our tribute of gratitude be directed today towards this entire people, wherever they may be and from all ages, martyrs and heroes’11”.
With the realisation of the Great Union, the centuries-old aspirations of the Romanians to live and work within one and the same state found their natural fulfilment, the ideals for which representatives of numerous generations of forebears had fought and sacrificed themselves; ultimately, the fulfilment of a necessity springing from the very substance of historical national development.
The Great Union, as a historical achievement, was made possible because history itself—through what constituted both the material and spiritual creation of the Romanian people—served as a foundation and a unifying force, at the same time, for the unitary national state which, in turn, was intended to be and would become a new, stimulating framework for a different, faster pace and a new rhythm of economic development, thereby creating a different way of life for the people, a different image of the nation itself.
The formation of the Romanian unitary national state constituted a formal recognition by the state of the large Romanian national market, whilst at the same time opening up a favourable common path for the development of our economy on all fronts.
After the union, however, it soon became apparent that the economic territories of the Old Kingdom and Transylvania complemented one another very well, and that the process of economic integration could proceed without any serious upheavals. Consequently, with a vast national market at its disposal and all the necessary conditions for cooperation, despite the hardships inherited from the war, the Romanian economy was to develop significantly in the years that followed 12.
The newspaper Românul, well-known at the time, assessed the act of union as follows: “The unanimous will that prevailed at Alba Iulia shook and tore down the final boundary, the last remnant of the borders with which the long tyranny of history had torn apart the very being of the Romanian nation for centuries on end. The hostile borders have perished. Upon their graves, the dance of universal joy is performed. We are one people, one land, one state. Long live the entire Romanian nation in its own country”13
- 1
Nicolae BĂLCESCU, The History of the Romanians under Mihai-Vodă-Viteazul, Cartea Românească Publishing House, Bucharest, 1942, p. 142.
- 2
Nicolae IORGA, Around Mihai Viteazul, Imprimeria Națională, Bucharest, 1936, p. 118.
- 3
Drapelul, 13 April 1917, cited in: University Lecturer Dr Marin BADEA, The Economic History of Romania, Independența Economică Publishing House, Brăila, 1999, p. 164.
- 4
This statement is based on the speech delivered by A.V. Boldur in the main hall of the University of Iași on 27 March 1943; he is the author of The History of Bessarabia, published by Victor Frunză, Bucharest, 2nd edition, 1992, p. 498.
- 5
A.V. BOLDUR, The History of Bessarabia, p. 499.
- 6
Associate Professor Dr Marin BADEA, The Economic History of Romania, pp. 164–166.
- 7
Next: C.N.R.C.
- 8
Ion ARDELEANU, From the Geto-Dacian State to the Unitary Romanian State, Științifică și Enciclopedică Publishing House, Bucharest, 1983, p. 600.
- 9
Associate Professor Dr Marin BADEA, The Economic History of Romania, p. 169.
- 10
Ilie MIȘCUȚIA, ‘…I, too, was in Alba Iulia’, in Mitropolia Banatului, Vol. XXVII, Nos. 10–12, 1978, p. 653.
- 11
Nicolae IORGA, op. cit., p. 122.
- 12
Academician N.N. CONSTANTINESCU, The Economic History of Romania, Editura Economică, Bucharest, 1997, p. 382.
- 13
Românul, Year VII, No. 49, 30 December 1918 (12 January 1919), p. 5.