1 Decembrie

Posted by Catalin (Bucharest, Romania) on 10 December 2007 in Abstract & Conceptual and Portfolio.

DECEMBER 1, ROMANIA'S NATIONAL DAY

The First World War changed the geo-political landscape of Europe and killed 10 million people. A feeling of the end of civilization and the frustrations of the defeated was predominant in the years after 1918. The nation states in Central and Eastern Europe were born from the dismembered empires of the time, the Ottoman, Russian and Austrian-Hungarian empires. The international political context, rather than the centuries old aspirations for independence allowed these provinces to become unitary states. The birth certificate of central and east-European states was the proclamation of the nations’ rights made by president of the United States Widrow Wilson.

On December the 1st 1918, Transylvania united with the Romanian Kingdom following a resolution by the Great Assembly in Alba-Iulia. The union was the result of Romania’s foreign policy and its participation in the First World War, alongside France, Great Britain, Russia and the United States. Transylvania’s union with Romania was the ultimate moment in the birth of the Romanian modern state. The first province that joined Romania was Bassarabia in the east. On February the 4th, 1918 the Republic of Moldova proclaimed its independence following the Bolshevik Revolution. On March the 27th, the Country Assembly of Bassarabia voted Bassarabia’s union with Romania, based on the “Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples from Russia.”

As Germany and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire lost the First World War, a General Congress of Bucovina was ogranised in Cernautzi, north-east of Romania. The representatives of Romania, Poland, German and Rutenians or Russians voted for “the unconditioned union of Bucovina in its old borders with the Kingdom of Romania.” 3 days after the proclamation of the Bucovina’s union with Romania, a number 1228 delegates from across the Romanian historical provinces voted Transylvania’s union with Romania. The document signed on December the 1st, 1918 was recognized by the representatives of the German and Jewish communities in Transylvania in January 1919. In August 1919, the Great Union was also recognized by the representatives of the ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania. December the 1st has been Romania’s National Day since 1990

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