{"id":169434,"date":"2019-12-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-07T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devrri.freshlemon.ro\/news-and-current-affairs\/newsflash\/the-national-assembly-in-alba-iulia-on-december-1st-1918-169434.html"},"modified":"2024-02-19T14:39:56","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T12:39:56","slug":"the-national-assembly-in-alba-iulia-on-december-1st-1918","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/features-and-reports\/rri-encyclopaedia\/the-national-assembly-in-alba-iulia-on-december-1st-1918-id169434.html","title":{"rendered":"The National Assembly in Alba Iulia on December 1st, 1918"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National
\nAssembly in Alba Iulia on December 1st, 1918, proclaimed the Union of
\nTransylvania with the then Kingdom of Romania, The 1,228 delegates thus confirmed
\nthe fact that Romanians in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire were part of the
\nGreater Romania project, initiated by King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie.<\/a><\/p>\n

December the 1st,
\n1928, was a cold winter day, yet it was also a day of joy. The Romanians do
\nhave a penchant for festivities, so today’s celebrating mood might make us
\nbelieve the general enthusiasm back then was a moderate one. Nevertheless,
\ndocuments of the time reveal the fact that crowds of people openly expresses
\ntheir joy around December 1st. It was the joy marking the end of a
\nbloodcurdling ending, that of the trench war, a joy that was blended into the
\nadvent of peace and the access to a new country, to Greater Romania, which
\nclaimed the lives of millions of servicemen on the front lines in the Carpathians
\nor around river Danube. The joy of the Romanians living in the
\nAustrian-Hungarian Empire was also bolstered by the fact that a great many of
\nthem had been in the line of duty for the whole four years of the war. They had
\nfought on the front line and had seen death in all its harrowing forms. The 12
\nbattles on the Isonzo river alone, along Italy’s border with Slovenia, according
\nto the testimonies of Transylvanian Romanians who fought there, were also
\nreasons for everybody to hail peace, from the bottom of their hearts.<\/a><\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

The press of
\nthat time, the correspondence, diaries and memoirs back then are written
\nevidence for the enthusiastic atmosphere around the day of December 1st,
\n1918. People wanted to organized themselves, to do away with the after math of
\nthe war, to bring back peace, economic prosperity and personal safety. The
\nearly days of winters were also the days of the first snowfall, what with the
\nfact that winter holidays were drawing near, while the return to normality made
\neverybody view events with great optimism. <\/a><\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

Clement Bolf\u0103 was
\nfrom the commune of Maieru, the County of Bistri\u021ba-N\u0103s\u0103ud. He was 90 in 2000.
\nHe recalled that in 1918, when he was an eight-year old child and a 1st-grader,
\nmobilizing joy seized the adults around him.<\/a><\/p>\n

I remember I was in
\nschool and I had a school teacher, Barna Ionuc, and he told us he had to travel
\nto Alba Iulia to take part in an assembly, because Transylvania united with the
\nMother Country. And when he came back he told us how it was and then taught us children
\nto sing The Union is written on our flag, The Great Round Dance , Join
\nyour hands and never part\/ all ye with Romanian heart. I was on the verge of
\ntears…The schoolteacher told us how Transylvania got united and how they cried
\nout in support of the union. When he came from Alba Iulia he set up a festivity
\nhere and we were singing and there was such a joy! Those were the days!<\/a><\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

Emil
\nWagner was a former member of the National Peasant Party and a member of the
\nRomanian National Party before 1918. He knew Iuliu Maniu, the leader of the
\nNational Peasant Party very well. In 2000, when he was 104 years old, he
\nrecalled the circumstances prior to December 1st 1918. Wagner was a
\nmember of the delegation that was to get in touch with the Romanian National
\nParty of Bukovina, being sent by Maniu together with Ilie Lazar, another
\nimportant leader of the National Peasant Party. Wagner recalled how in August
\n1981 Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, a leading politician of the Romanian National
\nParty and deputy of the Parliament in Pesta, had been empowered to demand the
\nindependence of Transylvania on behalf of the party:<\/a><\/p>\n

Vaida took the floor in the Hungarian Parliament and demanded the
\nindependence of Transylvania. Count Tisza, who was head of government, said
\nthat Vaida was a traitor. Then Iuliu Maniu took the floor demanding the same
\nthing. Then, Ferdinand, a member of the Habsburg family addressed parliament,
\nsaying We can’t blame these people as being traitors because they are our deputies,
\nthey are not traitors. It is normal that they should demand the independence of
\nTransylvania! Then, it was demanded that the independence of Transylvania
\nshould be subject to vote. Votes were cast, but Ferdinand did not vote.
\nHowever, his proposal exonerated Iuliu Maniu and Vaida and they were not
\nexecuted; Count Tisza had demanded that they should be executed.<\/a><\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

The
\nwomen’s involvement in the achievement of the Great Union was no less important
\nthan that of men. The mothers, wives, sisters or daughters of the great men who
\nachieved the union of December 1st 1918 were no less than their
\nsons, husbands, brothers and fathers. Lucia Mihaly of Apsa, the daughter of a
\ngreat Romanian lawyer, recalled that she had sewn the tricolour flag she had
\nhoisted in the balcony of their house in Sighet, Maramures. The new civil
\nservants swore allegiance to the Romanian state on that flag after December 1st, 1918. <\/a><\/p>\n

Lucia Mihaly:<\/a><\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

In 1918 my brother came from Cluj and brought a flag from Iuliu Maniu to
\nmy mother. I sewed it with coloured silk and my brother and I took the flag to
\nthe square in the middle of the town. Delegates from every village came there
\nto go to Alba Iulia and swore they would not come back without a result. They
\neither walked or went by wagon or on horseback because Hungarians didn’t let
\nthem go by train to Alba Iulia. My brother and Ilie Lazar carried the flag. And
\nwhen my brother came back I put the flag on the balcony; it was October 24.<\/a><\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

Can
\nthere be a greater joy when a four year long destructive war is over? All the
\nmore so when a new country is born.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World War One veterans reminiscing about the Great Union<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":130748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[31250,39265,31546],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-169434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-great-union","tag-greater-romania","tag-iuliu-maniu"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe National Assembly in Alba Iulia on December 1st, 1918 - Radio Romania International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/features-and-reports\/rri-encyclopaedia\/the-national-assembly-in-alba-iulia-on-december-1st-1918-id169434.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The National Assembly in Alba Iulia on December 1st, 1918 - 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