History of Romania
Topic: About Romania (Mar 21, 2006)
Greater Romania (România Mare)
Great Romania (1920 – 1940)
The Romanian expression România Mare (literal translation “Great Romania”) generally refers to the Romanian state in the years between the First and Second World Wars and, by extension, to the territory Romania covered at the time. Romania achieved at that time its greatest territorial extent, managing to unite all the historic Romanian lands (which were also inhabited by a majority of Romanians). Historically, “Great Romania” represented one of the ideals of Romanian nationalism. It is still seen by many as a “paradise lost”, often by comparison with the “stunted” Communist Romania.
To exploit the nationalistic connotation of the term, a nationalist political party uses it as its name.
The Romanian term “România Mare” is sometimes translated as “Great Romania”, both to refer to the historic notion, and to translate the name of the political party.
In 1918, at the end of World War I, Transylvania and Bessarabia united with the Romanian Old Kingdom, Transylvania united by a Proclamation of Union of Alba Iulia voted by the Deputies of the Romanians from Transylvania; Bessarabia, having declared its independence from Russia in 1917 by the Conference of the Country (Sfatul T,arii), called in Romanian troops to protect the province from the Bolsheviks who were spreading the Russian Revolution. The union of the regions of Transylvania, Maramures,, Cris,ana and Banat with the Old Kingdom of Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon which recognised the sovereignty of Romania over these regions and settled the border between the independent Republic of Hungary and the Kingdom of Romania. The union of Bucovina and Bessarabia with Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Versailles. Romania had also recently acquired the Southern Dobrudja territory called the Quadrilateral from Bulgaria as a result of its victory in the Second Balkan War in 1913.
The Union of 1918 united most regions with clear Romanian majorities into the boundaries of a single state. However, it also led to the inclusion of various sizable minorities, including Magyars, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, etc, for a total of about 28% of the population (Magyars mostly in Transylvania, Germans in Transylvania, Bukovina, and Banat, Ukrainians in Bessarabia and Bukovina, Bulgarians in Dobrudja). Recognized by the Constitution and supported by various laws (education, electoral, etc.), national minorities were represented in Parliament, and several of them created national parties (the Magyars in 1922, the Germans in 1929, the Jews in 1931), although a unique standing of minorities with autonomy on a wide basis, provisioned at the assembly of Transylvanian Romanians on 1st December, 1918 were not fulfilled.
Two periods can be identified in Romania between the two World Wars. From 1918 to 1938, Romania was a liberal constitutional monarchy. Worth mentioning is the rise of the nationalistic, anti-semitic party Iron Guard, which earned about 15% of the votes in the general elections of 1937. From 1938 to 1944, Romania was a dictatorship. The first dictator was King Carol II himself, who abolished the parliamentary regime and ruled with his camarilla. Following the severe territorial losses of 1940, King Carol II was forced to abdicate, replaced with his son King Mihai, but the power was taken by the military dictator Ion Antonescu. In August 1944, Antonescu was arrested by King Mihai.
In 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which stipulated, amongst other things, the Soviet “interest” in Bessarabia.
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