Personalities of Greater Romania
On December 1, 1918, Transylvania united with the Kingdom of Romania, laying the groundwork for Greater Romania.
Steliu Lambru, 01.12.2025, 14:00
On December 1, 1918, Transylvania united with the Kingdom of Romania, laying the foundation for Greater Romania. Thousands of Romanians gathered in Alba Iulia for the National Assembly, which ratified the union, a long standing vision for both the elites and the lower classes.
The Archive of Radio Romania’s Oral History Center has an exceptional sound document. It is the voice of Cardinal Iuliu Hossu, a Greek Catholic bishop at the time, who read the resolutions of the Assembly to the crowd gathered in Alba Iulia. Martyr and survivor of communist prisons, Iuliu Hossu was born in 1885 and died in 1970. The document summarizes the political, economic, social and civic aspirations of the Romanians at that time. The recording was made clandestinely in 1969, a year before the death of this great man of the Romanian nation. For Cardinal Hossu, the religious dimension was the most important contribution to the union: “Brothers! The fulfillment of ages is upon us. When God Almighty declares through his people his righteousness, thirsting through the ages. Today, by our decision, Greater Romania is enacted, one and undivided, with all Romanians uttering across these lands: we unite through the ages with our motherland, Romania! I, the servant of God, Bishop Iuliu Hossu of Cluj-Gherla, spoke these words, in a lower voice, but with love in Your love and in Your mercy, Lord, which You pour out on our people and on our country and protect it from all danger. So that it may rise in righteousness and truth.”
The words of Iuliu Hossu, a cleric and politician of great importance, expressed the wish of all those who believed in the dream of Greater Romania: “The national union of all Romanians in Transylvania, Banat, and the Hungarian Country, gathered through their rightful representatives on December 1, 1918, decree the union of these Romanians, and all the territories inhabited by them, with Romania. The National Assembly proclaims first and foremost the inalienable right of the Romanian nation to the the entire Banat Country, between the rivers Mures, Tisza, and the Danube. The National Assembly reserves the above mentioned territories provisional autonomy up and until the gathering of the Constituency, based on universal suffrage. In relation to that, as fundamental principles in the foundation of the new Romanian state, the National Assembly proclaims the following: full national freedom for all cohabiting peoples, each people will be educated, administered and judged in its own language, by individuals from its own bosom. Each people shall gain the right to be represented in legislative bodies and governance, proportional to the number of individuals that are part of it. Equal rights and full autonomous freedom for all confessions in the state. The full appliance a clean democratic regime in all areas of public life, universal, direct, equal, secret suffrage, in communes, proportionally for both sexes aged 21, for representation in communes, counties or parliament. Full freedom of association and assembly, free propagation of human thought; radical agrarian reform shall be made by enlisting all estates, especially the major ones. It shall be made possible for the peasant to create a property, at least as much as he and his family can work. The guiding principle of this agrarian reform is granted on the one hand by social leveling, on the other by the potentiation of production. The same rights and advantages are granted to the industrial labor class as those legislated by the most advanced industrial states of the West.”
Cardinal Iuliu Hossu saw that astral moment with full clarity: “The National Assembly expresses its desire that the Peace Congress bring about the communion of free nations in such a way that justice and freedom may be assured for all nations, large and small alike, and that, in the future, war as a means of regulating international relations, may be eliminated. The Romanians gathered in this National Assembly salute their brothers in Bukovina, freed from the yoke of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and united with the motherland Romania. The National Assembly salutes with love and enthusiasm the liberation of the nations hitherto subjugated from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, namely the Czechoslovak, Austro-German, Yugoslav, Polish and Ruthenian nations, and decides that this greeting be brought to the attention of these nations. The National Assembly humbly bows before the memory of those brave Romanians who in this war shed their blood for our dream, dying for the freedom and unity of the Romanian nation. The National Assembly expresses its gratitude to and admiration for the Allied powers who, through the great battles fought bravely against an enemy prepared for war for many decades, saved civilization from the clutches of barbarism.”
The words of the martyr Iuliu Hossu have reached today’s Romanians as a testimony to the legitimacy of what was done then, for a present and a future worthy of the sacrifices made by the generations of the Union. They reaffirm the fact that man’s happiness is when he lives in freedom together with his fellows and with minorities, being the one who makes his own destiny. (EE)
