Dragoş Cotlarciuc, an (almost) unknown expert on Baltic Region at the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,1938-1939

Bogdan-Alexandru SCHIPOR

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2025-0020

Abstract: On March 17, 1938, the Polish minister in Tallinn handed the Lithuanian minister in the capital of Estonia a communique by which Warsaw asked Lithuania to immediately establish diplomatic relations, without any preconditions. The Polish government considered this to be the only way by which the border problems between the two states could be settled without jeopardizing the peace.
Our analysis is focused on the way in which diplomacy from Bucharest received and analysed an element that often remains a secondary one in the evolution of Europe since 1938. The transformation of the Polish ultimatum into a favourable precedent for Germany or other great powers with interests in the region also raised the concern of public opinion in Romania. In this context, the Political Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest ordered the drafting of a study on the Polish-Lithuanian Border in March 1938. The document was drawn up by two authors (a rare thing in itself for such a document), two career diplomats, Dan Geblescu and Dragoş Cotlarciuc, both of whom were at that time at one time secretaries of legation first class in the Central Administration of the Ministry and, certainly, experienced diplomats. Almost unknown in historiography, the study of the two diplomats has two components. The first interprets and explains the legal status of the Vilna region within the borders of the Polish state, arguing and justifying its inclusion in the borders of the Polish state, and the second part explains the situation in March 1938 and the context of the Polish ultimatum to Lithuania. The conclusion of the study, although it finds arguments for Poland’s gesture of force, questions its compatibility with certain international commitments of the two states, including the Briand-Kellog Pact, signed by both Poland and Lithuania. However, at the beginning of 1939, the same Dragoş Cotlarciuc draw another study, this time entitled The Neutrality of the Baltic States, dated on February 3, 1939. The Romanian diplomat emphasized that Poland had always sought to attract the Baltic countries into its zone of political influence. However, the Polish plans in this direction were constantly opposed by Latvia and Lithuania, which did not want to give up their neutrality. On the other hand, Dragoş Cotlarciuc pointed out that the German press was writing in 1938 about the Polish plans to create a Helsinki-Bucharest axis or a large block of neutral states, which would connect the Baltic Sea with the Black Sea, under the tutelage of Warsaw. Such a political construction would have been a variant of the Warsaw-Budapest-Belgrade-Rome axis.

Keywords: The Baltic States; Romania; Poland; Alliance; Neutrality; Ultimatum.