Árpád HORNYÁK

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0029

Abstract: The study examines Yugoslavia’s attitude towards the Hungarian government’s initiative (from 1923-1924) to obtain an external loan under the supervision of the League of Nations. It can be seen that Hungary’s efforts to obtain a loan have attracted the attention of all states in the Little Entente. If the Czechoslovaks were more concessive, the Romanians and Yugoslavs sought to ensure that the Hungarian loan would not affect their political interests, nor would affect the Budapest pay for war reparations. According to Belgrade the matter of the Hungarian loan was a purely political issue. If Hungary would receive the loan it would become an even worse neighbor to Yugoslavia than before and would increasingly believe that revision was a possibility. However, following negotiations with Hungary, as well as pressure from the Great Powers (Great Britain, France and Italy), which were interested in Hungary obtaining the loan, the states of the Little Entente accepted the international financial plan. As a result, in March 1924 the agreement on the conditions for the loan was signed.

Keywords: Hungary; Yugoslavia; League of Nations; loan; interwar period.

Krzysztof NOWAK

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0028

Abstract: The article is a kind of reflection on the occasion of the centenary of the Polish-Romanian military alliance and tries to discuss the problems that Poland faced on the path to this alliance. We can safely say that the process started between Warsaw and Bucharest in 1918-1921 was one of the pillars of Polish foreign policy in the interwar period. The article presents the motivations of the Polish military spheres that were at the source of Poland’s rapprochement with Romania, but above all the obstacles and complications that emerged on the path to the alliance formed in March 1921. It was mainly about Ukrainian matters, the threat from the Bolsheviks, the problem of Polish-Czech and Polish-Hungarian relations, Romania’s frequently changing foreign policy priorities. As shown in the article, based largely on the analysis of sources, Poland was dependent on the alliance with Romania than vice versa, and it was the Polish side that was more active.

Keywords: Poland; Romania; alliance; interwar period; Little Entente.

Lucian LEUŞTEAN

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0027

Abstract: The aim of the article is to make some new contributions on the attempt of February-March 1920 to change the Romanian-Hungarian border, the one made at a time when the peace meeting had briefly moved to London and the British and Italian leaders proposed to renegotiate the border line, a position that seemed capable of prevailing despite French opposition. The present article is an endeavour to provide evidence, from unknown or relatively little-known sources, about the man who, in early March 1920, succeeded in blocking the attempt to change the borders established in 1919 in favour of Hungary. Allen Leeper is the name of the Australian-born British diplomat who managed to convince his superiors – Eyre Crowe, Lord Curzon and David Lloyd George – that it was neither fair, just nor practical to alter the border lines already established and announced to all parties concerned. In the end, nothing changed, and the line proposed by the experts in 1919 was to find its place in the peace treaty Hungary signed with the Allied and Associated Powers on 4 June 1920 at Trianon.

Keywords: Peace Conference; Romanian-Hungarian frontier; Foreign Office; Allen Leeper; Treaty of Trianon.

Stefano SANTORO

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0026

Abstract: This article examines some of the most significant Italian periodicals between 1917 and 1919, both the conservative and the radical ones, with the aim of analysing the perception of the image of Bolshevism in Italy, from the Russian February Revolution to the attempts to export the Bolshevist experience in Central and Eastern Europe.

Keywords: Bolshevism; Conservatism; Socialism; Italy; press; political perception.

Claudiu-Lucian TOPOR

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0025

Abstract: My research focuses on the impact of military occupation in the area of the German operations armies. The documents in the local archives show significant differences between the everyday life of the population in the counties integrated to the Militaerverwaltung in Rumaenien structure by comparison to the region allotted to the operations zone. In the latter case, the traffic restrictions were harsher, and everyday needs (food, fuel, shelter) were extremely difficult to meet. The examples that serve to form a picture of life in that era are related to the administration of some districts (Brăila, Putna, Buzău) that Romanian historiography does not discuss so much nowadays. It is about everyday life in these regions under occupation, the troubles people had, their needs and the memory of those hard times.

Keywords: operations army; Romania; German administration; First World War.

Ştefan CRĂCIUN

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0024

Abstract: The present study aims to highlight the beginning of the Romanian-Swiss diplomatic relations. Nicolae B. Cantacuzino, Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was appointed as the first Minister Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary Envoy of Romania to Bern, leading the legation between May 1911 and August 1912. If for the Swiss officials the opening of the Romanian legation was an opportunity to relaunch the economic exchanges, for Romania the interest was represented by the opportunity to observe the foreign policy pursued by the neighbors of Switzerland.

Keywords: Nicolae B. Cantacuzino; diplomatic history; international relations; Switzerland; Romania.

Aleksandr STYKALIN

Ioan-Augustin GURIŢĂ

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0023

Abstract: Iuliu Scriban was one of the most important Romanian theologians of the first half of the twentieth century, with an impressive publishing activity. He also corresponded, throughout his life, with many personalities of the Church of the time, both in the country and especially abroad. One of those with whom he exchanged a few letters was Arsenie Stadnitsky, one of the most learned hierarchs of the Russian Church of the first four decades of the twentieth century. We publish six letters found in the State Archives of the Russian Federation sent by Iuliu Scriban, between August 1907 and December 1910, during his term in Bucharest, Baden-Badsk, Baden-Stadt respectively in Novgorod. In these epistles the common interest of the two in the great problems of the Christian world, in the events that took place in the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant spaces, in the disturbances in the Romanian Orthodox Church or in the Russian Orthodox Church, etc., is very well observed. From the writings of the young archimandrite, it is clear what the „reading grid” theologians in the West, Romania and Russia had, what they were interested in, how they were preparing to fight the currents that could harm Orthodoxy and how they thought it could meet the challenges facing people of the Church.

Keywords: Romanian Orthodox Church; Russian Orthodox Church; Catholic Church; Romanian theologians; Tsarist Russia.

Remus TANASĂ

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0022

Abstract: The “millet” was an ethno-religious community within the Ottoman political system, created in order to facilitate the act of government and the relationships between the numerous religions and ethnicities ruled by the Sultans and Ottoman authorities. The Armenian “millet” was defined by three dimensions that shaped for better or worse the “Armenian question”. Firstly, the geopolitical characteristic of the Empire: the center of power where most important decisions were made was Istanbul, while the powder keg of the matter in discussion was Eastern Anatolia. Secondly, the daily cohabitation of Armenians and Kurds at the eastern border of the Empire, where they needed to share and fight for the same land and resources. Last but not least, the diplomatic interests that transformed the Ottoman Empire into an open field of battle for influence. All this elements shifted the commitments of the Armenian leaders and the decisions of the Ottoman government in such a way that the path from “millet” to “self-determination” blended together gradual reform and secessionist activity.

Keywords: Ottoman Empire; 19th Century; millet; modernization; national awakening; Islam; Armenian Question.

Andrei MELINTE

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0021

Abstract: The present study analyzes the process of the founding of new towns in Wallachia in the period between the adoption of the Organic Regulation in 1832, going until the establishment of the Union of Romanian Principalities in 1859. On the one hand, the new towns are discussed with regard to their emergence; on the other hand, the towns that appeared as a result of a long process of emancipation from private control are treated. Two events positively influenced this process: the provisions of the Russian-Turkish Peace Treaty in Adrianople and the measures taken following the adoption of the Organic Regulation. Significant changes can be seen from the economic, administrative, social, ethnic, as well as municipal point of view. These transformations are visible both in the case of the old reorganized towns and in the case of the new ones, which we are dealing in the present study. The freedom of trade of the Romanian Lands after 1829 largely influenced the development of new towns.

Keywords: Wallachia; Organic Regulation; town; merchant; Danube.

Mihai-Cristian AMĂRIUŢEI

Simion-Alexandru GAVRIŞ

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2021-0020

Abstract: The peace of Adrianople and the adoption of the Organic Statute brought about some important changes in the governance of the Moldavian Principality. New institutions, employing a significant number of civil servants, emerged. Perhaps the most influential of them was the Interior Ministry, which controlled the country’s administration both at the central and local level. Closely linked to the Interior Ministry was the Health Committee, an institution coordinating the sanitary policies adopted in the Principality. At the same time, the authorities established new rules governing the status and behavior of the public servants, and their relation to the superior authorities. In 1834, the government began the evaluation of his employees according to the so-called service records, containing professional, but also personal data. The National Archives in Iaşi are preserving two files containing the service records of the civil servants in the Interior Ministry and the Health Committee for the year 1834 – possibly the most complete and systematic collections of such documents. These general registries allowed us to sketch a „group portrait” of the bureaucrats in the two institutions, comprising information about their age, countries of origin, education, marital status, property, employment or professional experience.

Keywords: administration; civil servants; service records; Interior Ministry; Health Committee.