The Role of Transylvania in the Process of Romanian Empire Building

After the emergence of the Romanian national consciousness, there was a continuous effort to unite the Romanians, who were scattered in several states, to create the so-called “Greater Romania”. In the 14th century, two almost ethnically homogeneous Romanian principalities, the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, were established in the Balkans. The first phase of the Romanian national awakening, however, did not take place here, but in neighbouring Transylvania, which belonged to the Hungarian crown. The first leaders of this movement were Transylvanian Greek Catholic church leaders, and it was only in the 19th century that intellectuals and politicians from the Transylvanian and Moldavian regions joined in. The main ambition of the movement was expressed by its slogan: “From Dniester to Tisza”, which meant the acquisition of the territories between the two rivers. As these areas were also inhabited by a Romanian-speaking population – mixed with other peoples –, the leading ideologists believed that the areas should be united to create the ideal homeland of the Romanians. According to the idea, in addition to the two principalities that were united in the second half of the 19th century and later became kingdoms, Bessarabia, which belonged to the Russian Empire, Dobruja, which belonged to Bulgaria, and Transylvania, the largest and most populated territory, were considered part of the Romanian homeland, the “Tara Romanesca”. In the stormy Balkan (and European) history of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the former two territories were attached to Romania for longer or shorter periods, but the most serious attempt was to acquire Transylvania, which was finally annexed in 1918, establishing “Greater Romania”.