THE NATIONALITIES PROBLEM IN TRANSYLVANIA 1867-1940

It was precisely in the period of the Compromise that Hungary's Romanian intelligentsia embarked on its historical role. Until then it had been composed almost exclusively of priests and teachers. Under Austrian autocratic rule, this class increased in numbers and prestige. Lawyers, landowners, state and county officials come to the fore. The Romanian leaders who, in many regards, had already declared their independence from the church leadership evolved from among these. From the point of view of living conditions and financial situations, the Romanian intelligentsia can be divided into three strata: the personnel of the Romanian churches (priests, teachers, professors), the professionals (lawyers, doctors, engineers, landowners, journalists, private white-collar) and finally the state and county civil servants. Their financial position was a function of the category to which they belonged. Since we will have occasion to discuss the fate of church personnel in connection with religion and the educational system, we shall limit our discussion here to the financial situation of the professional stratum, as well as to the data concerning the Hungarian state and county employees of Romanian background.

The numbers of professionals, particularly lawyers and doctors, increased from year to year in the period of the Compromise. In Hungary there were no restrictions on registration in Romanian- language state secondary schools, just as there was no restriction in Hungarian or foreign universities. In most cases the scholarships provided by the huge Gojdu foundation, the Astra, the Romanian banks of Hungary, or foundations in Romania itself completely covered tuition and other expenses of a sizable fraction of Romanian students. During the entire period Hungarian education policies nowhere hampered the training of a new generation of ethnic professionals to follow in the footsteps of their elders. In the fields of medicine and engineering, Romanian youth completed their studies mostly at universities in Vienna or abroad. Until 1898, that is for the first 31 years of the Dual Monarchy, medical diplomas obtained abroad were valid in Hungary without any adjustment or validation examination. Thus any Romanian doctor who obtained his or her diploma abroad could practice on Hungarian territory without the license being tied in any way to some validating examination. The calendar of the Romanian daily Tribuna commented on this procedure in the following manner:

Until now even those who attended institutions far more

renowned than the Hungarian faculties of medicine could

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practice medicine in our country. But in their all-pervasive rage to Hungarianize, they have now gone so far as to Hungarianize even by means of medical science.⁹⁶

With the exception of the validation examination we have found no regulation, no examination, or no requirement anywhere which the Romanians could denounce as an obstacle to their practice of a certain profession. Lawyers, doctors, and engineers could assume their duty without hindrance in a Romanian environment which was continuously improving economically. In 1908 there were about 250 lawyers, 150 doctors, and 50 engineers among the Romanians. ⁹⁷ If they settled in some Romanian town or in a place with a mixed population the Romanian press would immediately launch a campaign in favor of ethnic solidarity on their behalf. They suffered no financial discrimination in their profession on account of their ethnic background. It may be that, in some cases, the Romanian people of a certain village, inclined as they were to become involved in suits, felt they had a better chance of winning if represented by a Hungarian lawyer in court. The Romanian weekly of Szaszvaros came out very strongly against this mistaken belief: "Let all our ethnic brothers become convinced, that it is not the name of the lawyer or his nationality that wins in court, but justice, which is either in their favor or against them." ⁹⁸ The Romanians of Transylvania made similar pronouncements even after 1918. Slavici, Alexandru Vaida-Yoievod, Iuliu Maniu, and others, more than once resorted to pointing out the impartiality of the Hungarian judicial system, when they had to struggle against the arbitrariness of the politicians of the Regat.⁹⁹

From the 1860's on, in addition to lawyers and doctors, the stratum of bank clerks employed at Romanian financial institutions was becoming increasingly numerous. The Romanian banks, which had developed so spectacularly, offered great opportunities of livelihood to numerous members of the Romanian intelligentsia, as a matter of course. As the number of banks increased, so did the Romanian bank employees. According to statistics from 1900 there were altogether 605 clerks employed at Romanian banks that year: 54 with Albina, 27 with Victoria, 18 with Ardaleana, and so on. At the time of the First World War the number of Romanian bank employees must have been around 1 ,000 .

It did not even occur to anyone neither to the management of the banks, to the state, nor to society at large that persons of Hungarian background as well, should be given employment with these Romanian

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financial institutions, even though they thrived thanks to Hungarian rediscount credits.

Among the professions it was law that offered the best opportunities for material advancement. This is demonstrated by the fact that a sizable fraction of the Romanian middle-size and large landowners, who rose between 1867 and 1918, came from the ranks of lawyers. At the time of the Compromise there were barely a few hundred Romanian owners of middle-size estates. Around 1900 there were 814 Romanian landowners with more than 100 holds of land, altogether 242,573 cadastral holds. ¹⁰⁰ According to a Romanian sociologist, by 1910 there were 26 Romanian large landowners, and 1455 owners of middlesize estates, while the number of smallholders (from 20 to 100 holds) was 69,062.¹⁰¹ After 1910 the class of middle-size landowners combined with professional activities increased in numbers and in the size of their holdings.

Looking over the aforementioned strata of Romanian society, we must agree with the Romanian view dating from 1912 which, upon comparing the social development of various Romanian provinces, found the Romanian society of Hungary to be the most advanced. The author noted:

There can be no doubt, that Transylvania has the merit of having placed the middle-class, especially the small entrepreneur and the landowner of middle-sized estates, on a solid footing. Having understood the by-word and calling of the times we reached the point where we are adequately represented in Transylvania and certain portions of the Banat of Temes, and especially in the 'Royal Land' of the Saxons, corresponding to the ratios of the ethnic groups living in these areas. Indeed, not only quantitatively speaking, but qualitatively as well. The future smiles at us even more promisingly in these regions. ¹⁰²

Apart from church employees, the largest stratum of the Romanian intelligentsia was composed of state, county, and local employees under state supervision. The Romanian and Hungarian data provide us with an extremely interesting picture of the numbers and position of the Romanian intelligentsia.

The Romanian Civil Servants.

It was during the period of Austrian autocratic rule that a significant number of intelligentsia of Romanian background first found posts

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in the state and county offices. Since the Hungarians were involved in passive resistance against autocratic rule, they resigned from their positions in the state and county offices. The Romanians did not share the same objections against the centralized Vienna regime, thus they occupied many of the posts left vacant by the Hungarians. During the first phase of autocratic rule the Romanians were usually placed in subordinate positions. The Vienna regime appointed imported Czechs into positions of leadership. But during the second phase of autocratic rule, the so-called Anton von Schmerling regime, the Romanians were also able to attain higher positions. During this time most of the functionaries in the counties became once again elected officials. The counties with a Romanian majority thus came under a completely Romanian administration, including civil servants. A special Romanian section was formed at the Court Chancellery, and four Romanian sections were added to the office of Transylvania. Romanian judges were also appointed to the royal court at Marosvasarhely [Tirgu Mures].

In 1861 the Emperor appointed the new county governors. The counties of Hunyad and Also-Feher received Romanian governors, as did the areas of Naszod and Fogaras (for the time being only as border guard regions, under the leadership of a captain-general). But since the Hungarians still did not recognize the Schmerling regime, and resigned their positions after their election or appointment, their places also were filled by Romanians. The deputy governor of Transylvania was a Romanian, Romanian administrators came to head the counties of Szolnok-Doboka and Kis-Kukullo and Romanian officials were appointed in overwhelming numbers even in those counties where Romanians did not enjoy numerical superiority. Since Romanians constituted the absolute majority in Transylvania as a whole, the provisory Schmerling system placed Transylvania under basically Romanian rule. In the counties with a mixed population, the Hungarians came under Romanian rule as well.

Transylvania thus came under Romanian rule; Romanian officials and civil servants were in charge of administration, of the judicial system, and of other affairs handed over to them by Vienna. The non- Romanians, however, were not pleased with this arrangement. Saxons and Hungarians complained alike, because in many instances the Romanian functionaries began their tenure of office in an arbitrary fashion, abusing their power. They introduced Romanian as the official language even in areas where the Romanians were in a minority. ¹⁰³

The Austrian statesmen of Vienna also looked askance at the style of leadership of the Romanian officials. Their doubts arose primarily from foreign policy and security considerations. They were aware of

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The Hungarian and Saxon leaders, even the Austrian generals, had no illusions regarding Romanian irredentist intentions even if they knew nothing about Cuza's secret trips to Transylvania. Occasionally some news item or report regarding the Romanian plans did surface in the press. In the mid-sixties a member of parliament and newspaper editor from Craiova blurted out the matter in Mehadia [Mehadia] and other places. The newspaper Gazeta Transilvaniei reported on this "compromising" revelation with a note of irritation. The delegate, although the most intelligent among his colleagues, felt so confident about "the imminent union of all Romanians," that he made open statements in front of Austrian generals and Hungarian lords. As the newspaper asserted, he not only compromised by his act the Romanian leaders in Transylvania and Romania, but also "hastened the union of Transylvania and Hungary.'' ¹⁰⁴ Indeed, the Romanian irredentist plans influenced the attitudes of the Hungarian leaders of Transylvania in their policy of seeking union with Hungary. The foreign policy factors which led to the fall of the Schmerling regime in 1865 are well-known. Austria's diplomatic isolation, hints of the coming of an Austro-Prussian confrontation, the famous Easter article of Ferenc Deakall contributed to a rapprochement between Austria and Hungary. Now the ground was shaking under the feet of the Romanian leaders of Transylvania, who only recently had felt so confident. Transylvania had been practically in their hands between 1862 and 1866; they were in charge of administration, of the judicial system, of the counties with a Romanian majority. The Emperor gave them support against the Hungarians. But now, when reconciliation with Hungary was on the agenda, their leadership role was no longer secure. From then on, all their efforts were aimed at preventing union

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with Hungary and securing autonomy for Transylvania. Under the given relations of power, however, their efforts could not have succeeded once the irredentist plans had been revealed.

After Austria reconciled with Hungary in 1867, the National Assembly in Budapest voted in favor of the union of Transylvania and Hungary. Thus Transylvania became once again an organic part of Hungary, as it had been prior to 1541, and the regulation of the affairs of the Romanians of Transylvania and other areas inhabited by Romanians, at their highest level came under the jurisdiction of the Hungarian National Assembly in Budapest, that is, of the Hungarian government responsible to it. In 1868, as the Hungarian administrative apparatus was set up in Transylvania, the majority of the civil servants in the counties where the Romanians predominated were Romanians. Of course, the government of Transylvania itself ceased to exist. But the Romanian civil servants who had served in the period of Austrian autocratic rule remained at their post at least in those state positions or in those autonomous entities which were not affected by the change in public administration. It did not occur to anyone to dismiss them. The Captain General of Fogaras (Toma Vasilie) remained a Romanian. ¹⁰⁵ Alexandru Bohatielu kept his post as Captain- General of Naszod as well, whereas Zarand county remained entirely and exclusively under Romanian leadership. According to a comment from a later date, around 1867, "Zarand was the most important nest of Romanianism, with a Romanian governor and an entirely Romanian administration.'' ¹⁰⁶' In those counties where there was a sizable Romanian population mixed with Hungarians, the deputy governor and other officials were Romanian, under a Hungarian governor.

Thus for instance, in the county of Belso-Szolnok (later Szolnok- Doboka), the governor, Karoly Torma, appreciated Romanian officials greatly and practically surrounded himself with Romanian personnel. The deputy governor of the county was Todor Brehariu, the chief judge; the well-known nationalist, Gabril Man de Boereni (Gabriel Manu), and half of the sheriffs, many of the chancellors, assessors to the orphan's court, and public prosecutors were Romanian as well. ¹⁰⁷ The situation was similar in several counties with a Romanian population, including Maramaros and Krasso. At the same time, in those areas where the Romanians mingled with the Saxons, the latter would not allow any of the Romanians to participate in the administration of the communities. The Romanians raised the issue with the leader of the Saxon community, requesting that their ethnic group be represented in proportion to their numbers. The Comes rejected the request on the grounds that in the "elections in the community it is not possible to

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take all ethnic and religious interests into consideration, only those of the community itself, whereas the political community has no nationality or religion." ¹⁰⁸ In most places the Saxons strove for exclusive leadership and managed to lead the Romanians as they pleased. The complaints of the latter were all in vain, and the statement in one of their newspapers has to be accepted at face-value: "Here we stand, deprived of our constitutional rights, and once again at the mercy of others' pleasure."

For a long time after the vote in favor of union there was no essential change in the position of Romanian county officials. In 1873 we find the following Romanian officials in the counties with a sizable Romanian population: In the county of Arad there was chief notary Teodor Szerb, chief prosecutor Lazar Ionescu, deputy notary Iosif Cordianu, the accountant Dimitrie Onika, the president of the orphan's court George Constantini, the accountant Stefan Sorban, and the recorder Boldizsar Dancs. In the county of Krasso we find Lieutenant Governor George Ivacskovics, the deputy governor Szilard Ghica; and four Romanian sheriffs. In the county of Zarand there were deputy governor Iosif Hodosiu, chief notary Sigmund Borlea, and prosecutor George Secula. In the area of Fogaras (not yet a county) there were chief administrator Laszlo Tamas, his deputy Ion Codru Dragosianu, chief notary Daniel Gremoiu, prosecutor Ion Romanu, first deputy notary Teofil Francu, second deputy notary Petru Popa, cashier Nicolae Cipu, controller George Negria, deputy physician Nicolae Cintea, archivist George Boeriu, superintendent of forests George Vintila, veterinarian Petru Popu, president of the orphan's court Ion Grama, clerks of the court Ion Florea and Hilaria Duvlea, public guardian Toma Cipu, notary of the orphan's court Efrem Pandrea, the entire service personnel, and all the clerical personnel. ¹⁰⁹ The situation was similar in the Naszod region. The following officials were active there: chief administrator Alexandru Bohatielu, his deputy Florian Porcius, chief prosecutor Joakim Muresianu, archivist Iliea Burduhosu, head physician Dr. Stefan Popa, and sheriffs Florian Marianu, Toma Hontila, Daniel Lica, Ion Issipu, Nicolae Russu, and Ilies Cincia. ¹¹⁰

According to the roster, with the exception of the surgeon Janos Manschutz, the entire body of civil servants of the Captaincy, including the support staff, consisted of pure ethnic Romanians. In the fifth year of the Hungarian administration, therefore, county and community autonomy still prevailed unaltered. The voters within the counties continued to run the counties, through elected officials, in the spirit of autonomy. The situation in the free towns was similar. If the residents of the city included Romanians, these were usually adequately

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represented by officials of Romanian extraction. Karansebes, Arad, Fogaras, and Naszod became centers of the Romanian intelligentsia, as did Balazsfalva and Belenyes.

In the era of the Compromise, there were many Romanians even at the highest levels. The leading statesmen of the period, such as Gyula Andrassy, Deak, and Jozsef Eotvos, liked to see Romanian higher officials represent Romanian affairs in the ministries and offer solutions to problems. Eotvos was particularly favorably-inclined towards the Romanians. In his ministry George Joanovici, a deputy secretary of Romanian extraction, was the leader of the Romanian section; Ioan Puscariu was attached to him as ministerial councilor. In addition there were four junior clerks in the Romanian section: ¹¹¹ George Szerb, Rosiescu, Gherasim Ratiu and Draganescu. Puscariu was appointed to edit the Romanian text in the periodical of the public schoolteachers Neptanitok Lapja. For this purpose the ministerial councilor employed several Romanian law students, who were handsomely compensated for the translation work ¹¹² There were Romanians in other ministries as well, and in the highest judicial posts. At the Royal Court, the highest Hungarian court, we find the Romanian judges Aldulinau, Puacariu, and Faur. Dr. Gallu, Cimpenariu, Besanu, and Manuil Gojdu were judges of the Court of Appeal. ¹¹³ They enjoyed enormous prestige as judges and could not be removed. They consciously represented the specific interests of Romanians. Judge Puscariu, who was a member of the Supreme Court from 1869 to 1890, relates in his book that, having been assigned to the Estates Section, he broke with precedent right from the start. In the suits regarding estates he disregarded the content of the contracts between serfs and landowners that came into being in the fifties, if they were detrimental to the people (i.e. to the Romanians).¹¹⁴ From their lofty positions the judges of Romanian background did not neglect to attend to the grievances the Romanian nation may have suffered, and they had the power to do so. We shall see that the judges of Romanian background continued to do what they felt was their duty in this regard.

At the time of the vote for the union in 1868, and even five years later, the old administrative structure of Transylvania, dating back to the Middle Ages, remained unaltered this included the Szekely and Saxon sees, and the Romanian districts of military origins at Naszod and Fogaras. This made uniform administration most difficult and rendered the overseeing of the execution of central directives almost impossible. Therefore the Hungarian government gradually undertook to organize the uniform administration of Transylvania, along with other parts of the country. This led to the abolition of the Szekely and

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Saxon sees of Transylvania, as well as to the reorganization of the districts of Fogaras and Naszod. In the course of reorganization the sees and districts were transformed into counties, while the other counties were reorganized as well. The names of the sees were retained in the names of the counties which derived from them; the see of Csik became the county of Csik, the see of Marosszek became the county of Maros-Torda, the district of Naszod became the county of Beszterce-Naszod, and the district of Fogaras became Fogaras county. The proportion and representation of individual nationalities in the administrative units changed also. With the formation of the county of Maros-Torda the Szekelys of Haromszek were joined administratively to a larger mass of Romanians. Their situation altered as a result: from then on they had to have consideration for the Romanians as well. On the other hand, the situation of the Romanians of Zarand changed as well, since the county of Zarand was united with Hunyad as a result of the reorganization, and there were Hungarians living in the latter area. It seems that this move had a lot to do with the attitude of the Romanian leadership. Regarding this attitude, it suffices to refer to the speech delivered by the Romanian representative, later deputy governor of Zarand, Iosif Hodosiu, to the Romanian electoral district of Brad [Brad] in 1869. At a time when the Romanians were present in the ministries and the courts, and in the local autonomous administrations, the counties, and elsewhere, and a Romanian leadership was usually in charge of their affairs, DR. Hodosiu declared, amidst a demonstrative round of applause from his Romanian audience:

At least until 1867 we and the Romanian nation were not condemned to the unheard-of insult of being hanged by the Hungarian nation; until then we and the Romanian nation did have a sweet and beautiful country which was not melted into Hungary and in which we lived as Romanians, as the Romanian Nation. ¹¹⁵

Such declarations filled some of the Hungarian leaders with distrust toward Romanian officials. They regarded the union of Hungary and Transylvania as a basic part of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, and many considered any opinion against the union, any Romanian demand for autonomy, as unconstitutional. This feeling was all the stronger because, since 1869, when Romanian leaders adopted a resolution in favor of passive resistance, Romanian officials resorted to the sharpest denunciations of the policies of the Hungarian government of Budapest. Hodosiu, the representative to the Hungarian parliament, had described

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the union as "the hanging of the Romanian nation." A few years later his colleague, representative Sigmund Borlea, used even stronger language in his attacks against the Hungarian government and its agencies. Since the Minister of Finance had handed down a decision against the request to nullify the fees pertaining to the transfer and entry into the land register of the estate donated for the welfare of the Romanian secondary school at Brad, Borlea came out strongly against the decision and against the government. The speech he delivered, reprinted in the newspaper, included the following tenets: "This [the demand for a fee] i8 the shame of the century and the debasement of humanity; the height of crudity and savagery, shame, and dishonor on such a government. Let this be the last offense thrown into the face of the Romanian people." At the same time he appealed to the Romanians to donate for the benefit-of the secondary school at Brad, since "the tyrants of the world are persecuting and battering" the Romanian nation.¹¹⁶

The anti-government and anti-Hungarian pronouncements of Romanian representatives and county officials did not result in reprisals against those who uttered them. They may have elicited occasional distrust, but no one gave serious consideration to limiting the autonomy of counties or municipalities. Prime Minister Andrassy, and the Hungarian, Saxon and Szekely representatives from Transylvania were well aware of the feelings of the Romanians and their irredentist endeavors, even when the latter were expressed only in somewhat veiled forms. But in 1877-78, at the time of the Russo-Turkish war and thereafter, as a result of the role Romania played in the war, the irredentism of the Romanian intelligentsia of Transylvania did surface in several places. The more sanguine Romanian youths, especially in the counties of southern Transylvania, expected the Romanian army to move right in for the occupation of Transylvania, once Plevna was taken. ¹¹⁷

This no longer timid attitude of a good part of the Romanian intelligentsia rendered the government distrustful of any purely Romanian leadership at the county level. Therefore, from the eighties on, the government introduced the practice of placing higher posts in Hungarian or Saxon hands. Saxon or Hungarian governors were appointed to head counties with overwhelming Romanian majorities; yet the Romanian deputy governor and the largely Romanian civil service remained at their posts. Thus, for instance, the Saxon Guido Bousznera became governor of Fogaras county in 1892; next to him and subordinated to him we find the following officials: deputy governor Daniel Gremoiu, chief notary Ion Turcu, deputy notaries Aron Popa-Radu and

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Nicolae Csato, prosecutors Mor Kapocsinyi and Andrei Miku, president of the orphan's court Alexandru Nagy, chief clerks Ion Florea and Artur Benedek, public guardian Lajos Bohm, county physician Dr. Stefan Pop, cashier Gregoriu Negrea, controller Ion Ganea, and census-taker Adolf Klosz. The sheriff of the district of Torcsvar, Jacob Popaneciu, was also Romanian as were the sheriff Stefan Hocsa and the physician Dr. Nicolae Cintea. In the district of Arpas [Arnasu] the sheriff Aldulea Metian and his deputy Carol Rusz were also Romanian. ¹¹⁸

The situation was about the same in other counties with a Romanian population. Romanian sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, and other leading county and municipal officials were still able to function undisturbed in the year of the Memorandum, 24 years after Transylvania was reunited with Hungary.

The Romanians in leading positions in the counties and municipalities were always able to intervene in defense of autonomy without hesitation or fear of reprisals, whenever they felt Romanian interests were at stake. At the end of 1884 the permanent commission of Fogaras recommended that the pay of the notaries of the villages and of district doctors in the employ of the community be disbursed from the sums deposited into the municipal treasury because the individuals concerned could retrieve their salary from there more regularly. This proposal, however, was rejected by the administrative committee, which was dominated by Romanians; they felt the approval of such a proposal would convert the Romanian notaries into instruments of the central government, or the government might be able to replace them by Hungarian notaries, inasmuch as "our notaries," observed the Romanian source, "are not familiar with the official state language." ¹¹⁹ Romanian national sentiment was even more marked in Naszod. When the news of the Romanian victories of 1878 arrived, the Romanian officials, the professors, students, and firemen's band paraded in closed ranks, praising the heroes of the Romanian battles. "The official circles [i.e. the Hungarians]" observed the chronicler of the demonstration, "knew nothing about these events which took place among us [i.e. at Naszod]."¹²⁰ There was only one way, this could have happened: Naszod's leaders were all Romanians. The same factor explains the participation of the Hungarians in the demonstration at Balazsfalva. There, upon receipt of the news of the fall of Plevna, Romanian as well as Hungarian residents lit up their houses to celebrate - so complete was the Romanian leadership there. ¹²¹

In addition to the positions at the county or town level, a good number of Romanian intelligentsia occupied the post of notary in the villages. If we go by the 1884/85 yearbook of the notary publics, in most

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counties with a Romanian population the majority of notaries had Romanian surnames. Lacking a census of nationalities (the editors of the yearbook were not interested in the nationality of the notaries), we must go by these surnames: In this 17th year of the union, there were 41 Romanian notaries in Arad county, 22 in Beszterce-Naszod, 35 in Hunyad, 53 in Krasso-Szoreny, and 29 in Szeben. ¹²² Actually, the total was probably far larger since many places, including Szolnok- Doboka and Torda-Aranyos counties, had failed to send in data to the editors of the yearbook. Moreover, even surnames that did not have a Romanian sound frequently belong to Romanians as well. If we reflect upon the significance of these data Romanian notaries, Romanian sheriffs, Romanian deputy governors, county offices dominated by Romanians we may conclude that in the period of the Memorandum, and of the sharpest press attacks against the Hungarians, certain Romanian counties in Hungary actually enjoyed Romanian administrative autonomy.

The Irredentism of Romanian County Officials.

In a report written after World War I, a Romanian member of the intelligentsia provides interesting proof that Romanian national autonomy did exist; he writes regarding the causes on behalf of which Romanians took advantage of this autonomy. In 1887 the report's author was vacationing at the Mehadia spa where he got acquainted with Simon Popescu, a professor of religion from the St. Sava secondary school in Bucharest. During the conversation Popescu inquired about everything: where was he from, who was the notary in his small village, who was the postmaster, who the sheriff, and what was the relationship among them. Once he had obtained all this information from his new acquaintance, and found out that all the individuals mentioned were Romanian, he handed over 100 forints and asked for a favor. His request was as follows: a package would soon be delivered in his village, addressed to a certain Bela Fegyverneky; he was to send an envelope from that package to six addresses provided to him (of which five belonged to lawyers). If there were any problems he should refuse the package and await the arrival of the addressee, Bela Fegyverneky. The new acquaintance of the professor of religion from Bucharest accepted the mission and, on his return to the village, awaited further developments. A few months later he received a letter from Bucharest advising him that the package was on its way. Not long there-after the Romanian postmaster received an order from the sheriff to the effect that a package addressed to Bela Fegyverneky should not

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be delivered to anyone until he, the sheriff, was notified of its arrival. The notary of the village was named Janos Topan. He had been reassigned there from Arad county because of his ardent Daco-Roman sentiments. The sheriff of the district was likewise a Romanian, Petru Viua. He had been transferred from Oravica [Oravita] because back there he would "turn even the stones into Romanians." As soon as the aforementioned package arrived and the sheriff was notified, the notary and the sheriff went to the post office. The Romanians, all three officials of the Hungarian state, wrote up a memorandum about the fact that a package had arrived for an unknown, non-existent recipient. Therefore they opened the package and noted that it contained old newspapers. These old newspapers were actually copies of the notorious irredentist proclamation issued in Bucharest in 1885. The sheriff took ten copies, the notary five. The remainder was taken over by the member of the Romanian intelligentsia who had been entrusted with the mission in Mehadia, and he duly sent them to the given addresses. This was how the irredentist proclamation was distributed among Romanians of the Bansag. ¹²³ The contents of the proclamation are well known: the authors call upon the Romanians living on Hungarian territory to take up arms against the Hungarian "oppressors" and kill them.

The above Romanian account sheds light on Hungarian policy vis-a-vis ardently-nationalist Romanian officials of the Hungarian state. If someone such as Petru Vuia, former sheriff of Oravica should, in the words of the Romanian chronicler, "turn even stones into Romanians," he exposed himself, at the most, to the danger of a transfer. His job was not in jeopardy for having translated his Romanian nationalist feelings into acts. As we can see, even if transferred, it would be to another Romanian region, rather than to some distant province of the country among a different ethnic group. Petru Vuia was still posted to Krasso-Szoreny in 1892, the district where he had participated in the dissemi nation of copies of the Romanian irredentist proclamation. We can imagine the possibilities for disseminating this proclamation in those counties where the majority of the notaries and of the sheriffs were Romanian. But since the Hungarian political police were not totally incompetent either, the Hungarian authorities were aware, or at least suspected (after all, the Romanian newspapers wrote about the matter rather openly) the role played by officials of Romanian nationality in the spreading of anti-Hungarian irredentist movements. Nevertheless, it did not occur to them to dismiss the Romanian officials and substitute Hungarians for them. If someone was caught performing a forbidden act, that person was sentenced, but other Romanian officials went

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unharmed. Until World War I, even until 1918, in most places we find officials of Romanian nationality who remained Romanian, even while working for the Hungarian state.

At first sight, on the basis of this evidence it remains a mystery why the Romanian press kept sounding accusations, complaints, or protests against the Hungarian state. Yet there was scarcely a Romanian newspaper which did not accuse it of oppression, of forceful Hungarianization, or of relegating the Romanians into the background and preventing their progress. Occasionally the Hungarian press responded to these charges. It pointed to the employment of Romanian civil servants, the enrichment of Romanian peasants, the development of general culture among the Romanians, the invalidity of the generally voiced Romanian discontent. All this had no effect. "We are unhappy," wrote the Tribuwea of Nagyszeben in reply, "and it does not matter whether the Hungarians recognize or not the validity of our discontent. But we are unhappy, and this is the only relevant fact the throne [i.e. the government in Vienna] and the Hungarians must bear in mind.'' ¹²⁴ Later, in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of World War I, when even the Romanian press had to recognize the favorable material position attained by the Romanians living under Hungarian rule, it was more difficult to provide grounds for the anti- Hungarian charges of the Romanians. As we have seen, after the Romanian Jacquerie of 1907 a number of Romanian newspapers described how much better off were the Romanian peasants of Hungary than their brothers living in Romania. In the spring of 1913 the leaders of the Romanian Economic Association also made observations to this effect. They studied the economic conditions in Hungary and declared, on the basis of their observations, that the Romanian peasants of Hungary lived under favorable conditions, and that the rumors regarding the oppression of the Romanians did not conform to reality. A Romanian newspaper of Arad deemed the declaration an "unforgivable political blunder" and accused the Association of ignorance stubbornly insisting on the fact of Hungarian oppression. ¹²⁵

If indeed the Romanian peasants of Hungary did not have serious reasons for dissatisfaction, we find genuine grounds for the complaints of the Romanian intelligentsia. They were often unfairly overlooked when it came to appointments to government positions. More than once a Hungarian official was appointed to an important post instead of a Romanian, merely as a result of political influence. In 1910 there were 181,788 civil servants in Hungary and only 6.35% of them were of Romanian nationality. ¹²⁶ That percentage corresponds to barely one-third of the Romanians living in the country. If we take the size of

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the ethnic group into consideration, their proportional representation should have reached 20%; on the other hand, in that case, Romanian irredentism would have assumed frightening proportions, endangering the Compromise and Hungarian rule. The Hungarian governments were not about to take such a chance, all the less so since the bankrupt Hungarian lesser nobility were looking for positions which they deserved because they had participated in the war of liberation with heart and soul. They regarded the Romanians reeking government positions as dangerous competition, not only from a nationalist point of view, but also from an economic one. They counted on the sympathy of the government against the Romanians, and seldom in vain. Hence Romanian members of the intelligentsia were often unable to find civil service jobs, even though many of them had completed university studies, at home or abroad. They experienced discrimination on the basis of nationality. It was mostly they who set the tone for the anti-Hungarian Romanian press. Since they could find employment commensurate with their education only with difficulty or not at all, many of them moved to Romania, where they became the principal 0proponents of the anti-Hungarian mood.

The Hungarian governments considered these Romanian complaints unjustified. They felt that there were enough officials of Romanian nationality in office. Indeed, it was possible to find Romanians everywhere within the administration - in the judicial system and the ministries, even at the highest levels. They did not have to conceal their ethnic background. The aforementioned author writes that "most of them achieved their rank because they were top caliber, because of their undeniable professional qualifications." Their competence was recognized and their nationality was no obstacle to their career. The Hungarian governments felt this was enough, in and of itself, to demonstrate their understanding and generous policy with regard to the Romanians. They were aware that the German and Russian governments dealt differently with the nationalities under their rule. When a German administration was set up in Alsace-Lorraine, all the leading civil service posts were given to Prussian officials. ¹²⁷ Nor did tsarist Russia spoil the Romanian population of Bessarabia by giving them Romanian officials. All this, however, was no comfort to the Romanians who had applied for those positions. True enough, they did not lack a means of livelihood because the Romanians of Hungary benefited from the favorable economic predicament. Those who were unable to enter the civil service had no difficulty finding a place in the professions: in industry, in banking, in commerce, in the editorial offices of newspapers. Nevertheless, the bitter aftertaste of having been overlooked and kept

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down, did not go away easily; after all, wherever they looked, they could find other Romanians doing quite well in relatively high administrative posts.

THE NATIONALITIES PROBLEM IN TRANSYLVANIA 1867-1940