Transylvania's Romanians and the Kingdom of Romania

The people of Romania felt a natural concern and sympathy for their ethnic brothers in Transylvania. After the 1848 revolutions, many among the founders of the modern Romanian state staked their hopes on collaboration with Hungarian exiles; they expected that a liberal Hungary would emerge as a European middle power, free Romania from the grip of the great powers, and guarantee the political and national rights of Transylvania's Romanians. In the 1860s and 1870s, Romanians in the former principalities were preoccupied with the task of consolidating and defending their independent statehood. Support for their brethren in Transylvania came {3-678.} mainly from the intelligentsia and university students, although their government made the occasional gesture, as in 1868 and 1873, when it urged Gyula Andrássy to restore Transylvania's autonomy. The students, some of them in Vienna, were bearers of Romania's new cultural and literary orientations; in 1871, led by the poet Eminescu and the Transylvanian writer Ioan Slavici, they participated in a great pilgrimage to the grave of the Moldavian voivode Stefan the Great, in Putna, to celebrate the cultural unity of all Romanians.

The prestige of the new Romanian state was enhanced in the Russo–Turkish war of 1877–78. The attacking Russians were halted and ultimately defeated with the assistance of Romanians; indeed, some Russian troops placed themselves under the command of Romania's Prince Charles. At the time of Romania's war of independence, a number of young Romanians from Hungary crossed the Carpathians to join the struggle, causing considerable diplomatic embarrassment for the officially neutral monarchy. Collection drives were launched by enthusiastic Romanians in Hungary to send money, clothes, and sanitary supplies to the Romanian army, mainly to relieve the sufferings of the wounded. This burst of solidarity alarmed the Tisza government, for it was accompanied by a growing expectation that Romania would soon annex Transylvania. The authorities imposed restrictions on the collection drives but stopped short of an outright ban. In Hungary, popular response to the war was marked by a certain ambivalence, political and moral; the donors included a few Saxons and Hungarians as well.

Although Transylvanian Hungarians sympathized with the efforts of the Ottoman empire's subjects to throw off the Turkish yoke, they were more concerned by the growing might of Russia, and they followed the trend in liberal European public opinion by shifting their sympathy to the Turks. It was against this background that the Transylvanians Gábor Ugron, Balázs Orbán, and Miklós {3-679.} Bartha conspired to mount a quixotic operation. They set about recruiting a few hundred volunteers in Székelyföld and, with money probably supplied by the English, purchased some weapons. Their plan was to move into Moldavia, blow up a bridge on the Siret River to cut off the Russians' supply line, and foment rebellion in Russia's Polish domain. The scheme became widely known, and some Romanian intellectuals considered taking countervailing action, but Tisza proceeded to have the recruiting agents arrested and the weapons — some six hundred rifles — confiscated. Even Ugron had to lay low until the 'patriots under criminal investigation' were summarily pardoned.

After the Romanians gained their independence, the waves of romantic nationalism rode high beyond the Carpathians. So-called Daco–Roman calendars and maps, depicting a unified Romanian nation stretching from the Black Sea to the Tisza River, began to proliferate. Newspapers carried a growing number of articles dealing with Transylvania, some of them penned by residents of Hungary. The most hostile publications were banned from Hungary — never a very successful tactic, for the newspapers continued to cross the border, either secretly or under a new name. A few, ostensibly independent associations were formed in Bucharest to champion the cause of Romanians across the border. One, the Transilvania Society, had been founded by A.T. Laurian back in 1867. In 1882, Slavici helped to found the Carpati Society, which was ostensibly dedicated to assist young Romanian intellectuals in Transylvania but served from the outset to rally efforts at political union. Anticipating a war between Russia and Austria–Hungary, the leaders of the Carpati Society made plans for a coincident uprising by the latter empire's Romanians. They sent emissaries to drum up support in Transylvania and planned to disseminate proclamations inviting not only Romanians, but also Saxons, Serbs, and Banat Swabians to rise up against the Hungarians and back the creation of a Greater Romania. The Austro–Hungarian embassy in {3-680.} Bucharest was kept fully informed of these schemes by one of the society's leaders, and thus precautionary measures could be taken, although they proved to be superfluous. The zeal of Carpatia's leaders did not abate. In 1885, they concluded that 'people are ready to shed blood for their country, for their cup of woe overflows;'[34]34. Unitatea Naţională, 7 February 1885, quoted in T. Pavel, Miscarea Românilor, p. 94. they invited the people of Romania to unfurl the flag of irredentism and issued an emotional appeal urging Hungary's Romanian subjects to rise up in arms. After playing an active role in 1848–49, Axente Sever had retired to Brassó, where he now devised a rather naive plan for the annexation of Transylvania to Romania; it involved a Romanian offensive supported by an insurgent army of 150,000 Transylvanian Romanian (Móc) peasants from the Érc Mountains.

In the event, neither international politics nor domestic circumstances favoured the plans of these isolated but enthusiastic schemers. The Romanian kingdom was seeking the support of Germany and Austria–Hungary to counterbalance Russian pressures. Vienna favoured a closer relationship, for it saw an advantage in preserving Romania's stability. In 1883, by a secret treaty to which only the emperor and a few politicians were privy, Romania joined the Triple Alliance. Although the Bucharest government would not commit itself in writing to suppress anti-Austrian agitation, it nevertheless distanced itself from such activities. It adopted a twin-track approach, on the one hand providing some moral and material support for the national–cultural endeavours of Hungary's Romanians, and on the other hand using its influence to temper these ambitions and keep them within the bounds of legality. In 1883, the Carpati Society was placed under government supervision; two years later, the authorities suppressed an irredentist plot, confiscating pamphlets and expelling six organizers. Largely at the instigation of Kálmán Tisza, Austria–Hungary's diplomatic representatives kept vigilant watch over the Romanian movements and regularly made demarches for the suppression of political activities aimed at Transylvania.

{3-681.} By the mid-1880s, Vienna had developed a balanced approach. Through diplomatic pressure, it obtained the suppression or moderation of the various irredentist movements in Romania; at the same time, Vienna recognized that there was no immediate threat and tolerated the survival of a modest movement promoting Romanian unification. The Romanian government was willing to cooperate, within limits, and for a price. The present and future status of the Transylvanian Romanians became a prominent issue in domestic politics, and a bone of contention among competing parties. Vienna could not fully assert its influence in regard to Transylvania without risking the collapse of the Bucharest government and jeopardizing Romania's fragile link to the Triple Alliance. In Romania, successive governments tried to induce Vienna to adopt a more favourable minority policy, invoking their domestic vulnerability on the issue as well as their steadfast goodwill. Whenever the association with the Triple Alliance came up for renewal, the government in Bucharest would try to obtain some modest changes in Hungarian minority policy by threatening to abrogate the agreement. These initiatives met with more sympathy in Berlin than in Vienna.

The national movements were part of an inexorable historical process; the great powers could only try to limit their impact. Association with the Triple Alliance ostensibly turned the Bucharest government into a cooperative tool for dealing with the minority problems; in reality, it gave Bucharest a certain droit de regard over the national development of Transylvania's Romanians. At the very moment when Vienna thought that a device had been found to suppress or mitigate national movements, one that effectively isolated Bucharest from the Transylvanian issue, Romania began to take a more active interest in the political affairs and future of Transylvania's Romanians.