1 December 1918 – The Mourning of Transylvania’s Detachment

The remembrance of Transylvania’s severance, of unkept promises, and of the wounded heart of a thousand-year-old homeland.

1 December is an official holiday for the Romanians, but for us Hungarians it is a painful anniversary.

In 1918, with a single stroke of the pen and by the decision of foreign great powers, Transylvania was torn from historical Hungary – from the homeland to which it had belonged organically, culturally, and politically for a thousand years – and attached to the Regat, which had been a kingdom for barely more than 37 years, since 14 March 1881, with the coronation of the German prince Karl Eitel Friedrich Zephyrinus Ludwig von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who became the first King of Romania under the name Carol I. This day is not a matter of political debate, nor a question of “ethnic conflict”. It is mourning. A wound that time has not healed…

The Great Romanian Promises – and the Reality

In 1918, the political elite of the Regat solemnly pledged that if Transylvania were to be annexed to Romania, the Hungarians, the Saxons, and the Transylvanian Romanians alike would enjoy full national, linguistic, and cultural rights. These promises were proclaimed in Gyulafehérvár, before the world and the great powers, written down on paper:

• full national freedom, • mother-tongue education at all levels, • proportional representation in public administration, • representation rights, • religious and cultural autonomy, • respect for existing historical rights.

With these promises, the Romanian leaders convinced the Transylvanian Romanians, the Hungarians, the Saxons, and above all the Entente powers. These promises created the political foundation for the detachment of Transylvania. Many within the Hungarian and Saxon communities disagreed with the union, yet they trusted that if Transylvania were to be annexed to Romania, those promises would at least be honoured. The result?Almost nothing of the Gyulafehérvár promises was fulfilled.Instead, the newly formed Romanian state structure in reality:

• closed or Romanianised most Hungarian and Saxon schools, • nationalised Hungarian–Saxon cultural institutions, • dismissed Hungarian–Saxon officials en masse, • initiated resettlements from the Regat, • and introduced a nation-state policy which not only failed to grant rights, but even stripped away the former freedoms of the Hungarian and Saxon communities.

Thus the peoples of Transylvania were confronted with the reality: what in 1918 had been presented as a modern, European “democratic promise” was in fact a centralised nation-state project which respected neither the past, nor its own pledges, nor the peoples living here. And all this not out of “historical necessity”, but with a politically directed aim of assimilation.

The resistance of the Transylvanian Romanians was real as well

Few speak of it today, but a significant proportion of the Transylvanian Romanians themselves were not enthusiastic about the union. Instead of raising the standards of the Regat to the level of Transylvania – which possessed nearly a thousand years of Hungarian and Saxon culture – it was from the Regat, the “old” Romanian kingdom that had existed for only 37 years and was still underdeveloped and inexperienced, that they transferred to Transylvania the new administration, the officials, the gendarmes, and masses of uneducated and unsocialised Regat Romanians…In the eyes of the Transylvanian Romanians, these newcomers were:

• less educated,

• less cultured,

• of a different mentality,

• and behaved dismissively and contemptuously towards Transylvania’s traditions.

A few examples illustrating how the Transylvanian Romanian intelligentsia viewed the situation:

Octavian Goga (Transylvanian Romanian poet and politician) – who later became Prime Minister of Romania – wrote the following in 1919:

Alexandru Vaida-Voevod (Transylvanian Romanian Prime Minister) complained in the Romanian Parliament as follows:

Romanian Press (Transylvania, 1920–1925) Several articles in Gazeta Transilvaniei and Patria contained statements such as:

Luliu Maniu, the Romanian national icon in Transylvania, said the following:

Maniu and the Transylvanian Romanians supported the plan for a “federal Transylvania” — a Transylvania that would not be absorbed under Bucharest, but would remain an autonomous province within a loose Romanian Federation. This idea was quarantined in the Regat, and Maniu died decades later in prison.

“Transylvanian Romanian League” – Memorandum (1921)

The memorandum specifically mentions:

• the mass transfer of officials,

• the marginalisation of Transylvanian Romanians,

• the influx of corruption.

Nicolae Iorga, one of the greatest scholars of Romanian history:

What the Loss of Transylvania Meant from the Hungarian Perspective?

The collapse of a world built over a thousand years:

• the loss of Hungarian schools, universities, churches, and museums,

• hundreds of thousands of Hungarian families suddenly becoming a minority,

• the confiscation of properties, lands, and institutions,

• the radical transformation of intellectual life and urban culture.

This was the moment when a part of the Hungarian nation became strangers in the land of their ancestors. And even more than that, it was the spiritual fracture: the old Transylvania – the homeland of Apáczai, Gábor Bethlen, Bolyai, Arany, Mikszáth, and Áron Tamási – was now separated from the body of the mother nation.

1 December – A Day of Mourning and Remembrance

A memory of a historical injustice, in which the losers were not only the Hungarians and Saxons, but also the Transylvanian Romanians, whose own cultured, freer, more Western-oriented society was dismantled by the Regat’s political machinery and the influx of Regat settlers.

1 December marks the day when the following were taken away:

• historical Transylvania, which had for a thousand years been one of the pillars of Hungarian statehood and culture;

• the future of the Hungarian and Saxon communities living there, who overnight became strangers in their ancestral land;

• the centuries-old order and balance of Central Europe, overturned by a great-power diktat;

• and the free, natural, Central European-oriented development of the Transylvanian Romanians themselves, who had hoped for local autonomy but became subordinated to the centralised administration of the Regat.

The resistance of the Transylvanian Romanians was not a one-time, fading protest. Over the past century, it has reappeared in at least six major waves, from generation to generation, reflecting demands for Transylvanian autonomy or even full separation. This demonstrates clearly that a significant part of Transylvanian Romanian society never identified with the centralised Bucharest system, and felt much closer to Central European, Transylvanian traditions.

1919–1928: The Autonomous Transylvania Movement

The Maniu–Vaida Transylvanian Romanian elite demanded the fulfilment of the promises made at Gyulafehérvár: their own administration, their own government, and the creation of a Transylvanian model instead of the Regat’s colonising bureaucratic system.

1921–1926: The Transylvanian Autonomous League

This was the most openly separatist Romanian movement. Their memorandum called for Transylvania to be an autonomous province with its own parliament and laws. Bucharest banned the movement, and its leaders were closely monitored.

1930s: Romanian Federalists and the Separate Transylvania Constitution Project

Part of the Transylvanian Romanian elite openly declared: “The Regat is destroying Transylvania.” At this time, the first draft of an autonomous Transylvanian constitution was developed, envisioning a separate Transylvania within a federal Romania.

1948–1989: Covert Intellectual Resistance under Communism

The Romanian intellectual circle known as the “Modern Transylvanian School” secretly advocated for Transylvania’s distinct identity and the rejection of Regat centralisation through manuscripts and essays. This was the “samizdat of Transylvania,” which survived the dictatorship.

After 1990: New Romanian Separatist Parties and Movements

Following the regime change, several Romanian organisations promoted a Transylvanian Federation or an independent Transylvania. Their slogans included: “Transilvania – stat liber!” (“Transylvania – free state!”) and “Jos Bucureștiul!” (“Down with Bucharest!”). The Romanian secret services monitored several of their leaders.

After 2020: Modern Romanian Independence Communities

On social media, the Romanian “Independent Transylvania” movement has been reborn. Tens of thousands joined groups such as Ardealul Independent, Ardealul nu e România, and Transilvania Liberă. Their surveys indicate that 30–35% of Transylvanian Romanians would support the creation of a federal or independent Transylvania.

These well-documented waves – autonomist, federalist, separatist, and identity-preserving movements – clearly demonstrate that from the Romanian side, Transylvania never fully integrated into the Regat state model and has never reconciled with the situation. All these initiatives were formulated by Romanians, based on Romanian sources and led by Romanian leaders.

Finally, it is important to note that the situation of Transylvania is not a statistic or the edge of a map – it concerns the fate, culture, and home of millions of people. Transylvania is not merely a geographical concept, nor a possession, nor spoils, nor a political trophy…

Transylvania is a matter of the heart.

A matter of our heart!

… and of all those who have ever found a home, refuge, community, and homeland within it. That is why it is crucial that Transylvania has not only a past but also a future…

… a future in which it does not have to conform to, or serve, the political and economic burdens of a less developed, culturally less refined system, as it has been forced to since its detachment, but can finally live according to its own values, its own communities, and its own path of development.

… a future in which its historical communities are respected, where freedom and prosperity are not mere promises but realities, and where the people of Transylvania can decide for themselves the direction in which they wish to move forward.

writer: v. Tibor Huszárszki