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THE TRANSYLVANIAN PRESS AND NATION BUILDING∗

Cornel SIGMIREAN, Professor, PhD, ”Petru Maior” University of Târgu-Mureş

Abstract : The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 radicalized the national discourse in the Empire. The governments in Budapest promoted the idea of one nation in the Hungarian state. According to the official ideology, the Hungarian nation included all the nationalities living in its territory: , Slovakians, Croatians, Serbians, Ruthenians and of course Hungarians. In response, Romanians demanded the acknowledgment of their own individuality. The Transylvanian press in the second half of the 19th century reflects the nationalist polemic generated between the official ideology and the ideology of the Empire’s nations.

Keywords: Austro-Hungarian Dualism, Nation, Nationality, Transylvanian Press.

In a reference work regarding the formation of nations, Benedict Anderson considers that nation is an “imagined political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them […] the nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them […] has finite, if elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind”1. The new technology of communication (prints), books and the press contributed, according to Anderson, to the spread of nationalism. The press allowed a large number of people to imagine a community, in the end identifying with this community. Through the more accessible language of the press communication became more direct. Prints in various languages lead to the foundation of national consciousness. For the Romanians, as for all the nations in Central and South-Eastern Europe, the modern nation was born at the end of the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The ideological landmark of the Central European nations was the work of German philosophers Immanuel Kant, Fichte, but especially Johann Gottfried Herder, who was distinguished due to his treaty Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit 2. According to Herder, the engine of spiritual forces is language, a means destined for culture and the most profound education 3. Also, according to the German philosopher, each people has a unique collective soul – Volksgeist, that manifests itself through all the popular works, through all the songs, poems, stories and melodies of the common people.

∗ This paper was supported by the UEFISCDI-CNCS, Project PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0841, Contract Nr. 220/31.10.2011. 1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Verso, London and New York, 2003, pp. 6-7. 2 For nation building see: E. J. Hobsbawm, Naţiuni şi naţionalism din 1780 până în prezent, Chişinău, Editura ARC, Bucureşti, 1997; Ernest Gellner, Naţiune şi naţionalism. Noi perspective asupra trecutului, Editura Antet, 1997, p.7; Raoul Girardet, Naţionalism şi naţiune, Institutul European, Iaşi, 2003; Bernard Baertschi &Kevin Mulligan, Naţionalismele, Editura Nemira, Bucureşti, 2010; Hagen Schulze, Stat şi naţiune în istoria europeană, Polirom, Iaşi, 2003; Paul Lawrence, Naţionalismul. Istorie şi teorie, Editura ANTET, Bucureşti, 2005. 3 Victor Neumann, “Mitteleuropa între cosmopolitismul austriac şi conceptul de stat-naţiune”, in Europa Centrală. Nevroze, dileme, utopii, coord. Adriana Babeţi, Cornel Ungureanu, Editura Polirom, Iaşi, 1997, p. 147. 8

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His work represented a true pedagogy of nation formation in the space of the former Habsburg Empire, being used by most erudites from this European region. Among the first scholars who spread the work of the German philosopher in the Habsburg monarchy was the Italian Alberto Fortis, who was impressed by the way in which Herder exalted the popular genius and popular tradition in his work. Herder’s work influenced the political thinking of the Romanians Simion Bărnuţiu and Nicolae Bălcescu, of the Hungarians Kossuth, Széchenzi and Petöfi. Thus, in the first half of the nineteenth century, in the entire Central and South-Eastern European space, a movement of political revendications in the name of each nation was generated, each nation striving to discover a past that was as brilliant as possible. The Slavic peoples and the Hungarians discovered a glorious past in the Middle Ages, when they met periods of political accomplishments 4 . The Romanians in the former Habsburg Empire investigated their Ancient past, because in that era they discovered glorious moments of their origin, reclaiming themselves as descendants of the Dacians, but especially of the Romans. In mid-nineteenth century , province of the Habsburg Empire, almost all nations had their own national project, which the elites attempted to implement. The Hungarians, considering the attribution of the Saint Stephen Crown’s territories to the Habsburg Empire as a result of a dynastic union, on March 15th 1848 they proclaimed the reconstitution of the Hungarian state within the borders of the former medieval state5. As a result, Transylvania was annexed to Hungary. The Romanians, who ethnically represented the majority element in Transylvania, opposed it and joined Vienna in a war against the Hungarians. For the Romanians, the preferred solution in 1848 was that of the Empire’s federalization. Indisputably, the 1848 moment demonstrated the birth of the nations’ destabilizing pot ential for the old political structures of Central Europe 6. After the revolution, in the Habsburg Empire, a neo-absolutist regime was established and lasted until 1860. After the defeats suffered by Austria in the war with Piedmont and France, fearing an alliance between the Hungarians and France, which would have led to Hungary’s independence, Vienna renounced the absolutist governing regime in favour of a liberal regime. Through the Imperial Diploma of 8/20 October 1860 the transition to a new constitutional system of governing was announced, and through the Imperial Patent of 14/26 February 1861, by virtue of the historical federalism principle, the target was restoring the autonomy of the countries and provinces with a state tradition7. Thus, the autonomy of the Great Principality of Transylvania was acknowledged. The Hungarian political class rejected Vienna’s political project, boycotting Hungary’s representation in the Imperial State

4 Camil Mureşanu, În templul lui Ianus. Studii şi gânduri despre trecut şi viitor, Editura Cartimpex, Cluj- Napoca, 2002, p. 248. 5 See Liviu Maior, 1848-1849. Români şi unguri în revoluţie, Bucureşti, Editura Enciclopedică, 1998; Idem, Habsburgi şi români. De la loialitatea dinastică la identitatea naţională, Editura Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 2006, pp. 37-47. 6 Christian Chereji, Identităţi ale Europei Centrale 1815-2000, Editura Accent, Cluj-Napoca, 2004, p. 54. 7 Jean Bérenger; Istoria Imperiului Habsburgilor 1273-1918, Editura Teora, Bucureşti, 2000, p. 428; A. J. P. Taylor, Monarhia Habsburgică 1809-1918. O istorie a Imperiului Austriac şi Austro - Ungar, Editura ALLFA, Bucureşti, 2000, pp. 89-90. 9

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(Reichsrat), which included the Habsburg Empire province’s representatives. In 1863, the German newspaper Wiener Zeitung published the Imperial Rescript convening the Transylvanian Diet and the electoral norms of its convocation. After the elections, 48 Romanian representatives, 44 Hungarian representatives and 33 Saxons were elected. At its convocation, in 3/15 July in , the Hungarian representatives refused to participate, considering that the Diet is illegal and the 1848 laws must be applied, which stipulated Transylvania’s unification with Hungary. Nevertheless, the Sibiu Diet inaugurated the Romanians’ presence in the Transylvanian political life 8. Two laws voted by the Sibiu Diet – The law for the equal distribution of the Romanian nation and its confessions and The law for the introduction of the in administration granted the Romanians equality of rights with the other Transylvanian nations for the first time. It was at the core the victory of the herderian principle that language constitutes the fundamental identity element in the construction of the nation, represents a means of unifying the members of a nation, the condition of education and progress in the national culture. When presenting the project in the Diet, the Romanian deputy Vasile Ladislau Popp stated that “the nation without language is dead. A nation’s will is manifested through language” 9. Another deputy, George Roman, stated during the project’s debate that “… Today is also the day of the Romanian language’s resurrection, because from today on it will live in the official public communications. […] One cannot deny, this resurrection day has arrived” 10. Austria’s military defeat in the war with Prussia intervened, which transformed the Hungarians in Vienna’s privileged interlocutors 11 . The 1866 military failure led to the creation of Austro-Hungary by Emperor Franz Josef’s coronation in Budapest as on June 8th 1867. Thus, the Austro-Hungarian dualism was born, that lead to the restoration of Greater Hungary, with over 13 million inhabitants, of whom almost 7 million non-Hungarians. Transylvania, Slovakia, Voivodine, Carpathian Ruthenia and Croatia came under Budapest’s authority. The laws voted by the Transylvanian Diet between 1863-1864 were abrogated, and thus Transylvania lost its autonomy. The Ausgleich created two privileged, dominant, nations in the Danubian Empire, ruling the state’s affairs, the other nations being designed with secondary roles, lacking political relevance. An exception occurred in favour of the Poles and Croatians through special autonomy concessions. The Habsburg House ceased to represent a protector for the small nations, which lead to the radicalization of the discourse in the direction of separation and creation of their own states in the period that followed the dualism’s installation. Vienna’s decision produced consternation among the Romanians. The Romanians, the majority, were in favour of maintaining Transylvania’s autonomy. Others, like deputy Aloisiu Vlad, in the February 19th 1866 Diet meeting, spoke out for the federal organization of the monarchy: “I, honoured house, am a federalist! Federalist in the sense that I wish that all the

8 Istoria Transilvaniei, vol. III, coord. Ioan-Aurel Pop, Thomas Nägler, Magyari András, Academia Română. Centrul de Studii Transilvane, Cluj-Napoca, 2008, pp. 413-416; The fundamental work on the Sibiu Diet was written by Simion Retegan, Dieta românească a Transilvaniei(1863-1864), Editura Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 1979. 9 Teodor V. Păcăţianu, Cartea de Aur sau luptele politice-naţionale ale românilor de sub coroana ungară, vol. III, Sibiu, 1905, p. 268. 10 Ibidem, p. 265. 11 Jean Bérenger, op.cit., p. 430. 10

SECTION: HISTORY LDMD I peoples of this monarchy having a historical past, by applying wisely and using the nationalities’ interests, to form a federative state each of them, because the bases of this federalism are shown to us by the actual situation of the Austrian monarchy, and because I am convinced in my heart, that the great future of Austria can be reached only through such federalization of the nations, respectively of the countries” 12. Developing the idea of the monarchy’s federalization, he proposed the creation of three political entities: “[…] it should be divided into three larger groups, namely: Saint Stephen’s Crown, Saint Venceslav’s Crown, to which Galicia and other Slavic elements should belong, and Saint Leopold’s Crown, composed by the other provinces of the monarchy” 13. In the case of Transylvania, he recommended the status it had “before the Mohács catastrophe,” a military status similar to that of Croatia’s. Most political representatives from Transylvania and the press were against the unification. The Albina newspaper, shortly after the Emperor’s coronation as king of Hungary, wrote: “The legal and constitutional terrain on which the Romanian nation from Transylvania stood in the virtue of the articles of law brought by the Sibiu Diet and sanctioned by His Maj. the Emperor, this terrain bilaterally created, through a unilateral disposition is pulled from under the Romanians’ feet […]. Where are the laws that offer the guarantee of our adored nationality’s existence? 14 The Romanians’ political reaction to the dualism’s consecration was done in the formula established in 1848. They submitted a memorandum, The Blaj Pronouncement, a political document adopted on 3/15 May 1868, at the commemorative assembly of the 1848 Revolution, through which the political act of the dualism’s creation was rejected, demanding instead the autonomy. The Ausgleich, indisputably, radicalized the Central-European nationalism, finally proving to have been a solution that undermined the empire rather than consolidating it, rendering the reformation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire impossible. The disputes on the national ground dominated Hungary’s political life in the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The debates in the Pest Diet about the Draft Law of the Nationalities are eloquent in this sense. Beginning with 1866, in the Pest Diet various opinions about the relationship between “political nation” and “nationality” were noted. As Raoul Girardet shows, “no other word emphasizes the equivoque and ambiguity to a greater extent” 15, as the one linked with the nation. Deák Ferenc, Hungary’s Prime Minister, in his project to of address to the throne message, in the January 27th 1866 Diet session, showed that only one political nation existed in Hungary, the Hungarian nation, nationalities being part of the Hungarian nation. In reply, Romanian deputy Iosif Hodoş stated that he does not consider “nationalities as parts completing political nations, but as parts completing the country” 16. On November 24th 1868, the Draft Law of the Nationalities was discussed in the agenda of the Budapest Diet. Three projects were proposed. The first was the parliamentary commission project, the second belonged to the “nationalities,” and the third, proposed during

12 Teodor V. Păcăţian, op.cit., p. 33. 13 Ibidem. 14 Albina, 17/29 July 1867, Nr. 166-173, p. 1. 15 Raoul Girardet, op.cit., p .13. 16 Ibidem, p. 84. 11

SECTION: HISTORY LDMD I the debates and which would also be voted, had Deák Ferenc as a main author. The draft law presented by the parliamentary commission did not include any guarantee regarding the observation of the nationalities’ language rights. In 1866 the nationalities’ representatives elaborated a Draft Law in the Cause of Languages and the Country’s Nationalities 17. In Paragraph 1 it was declared: “The peoples that constitute the country, not understanding here Transylvania and Croatia, are: the Hungarians, Romanians, Serbians, Germans, and Ruthenians”. Paragraph 2 explained: “The Hungarian inhabitants constitute the Hungarian nation, the Romanians the Romanian nation, the Slovaks the Slovakian nation, the Serbians the Serbian nation, the Germans the German nation, the Ruthenians the Ruthenian nation, and all these nations are acknowledged and declared as the same number of nations of the country, as themselves by the same number of factors of public rights and constitutive parts of the homeland, declare themselves equally entitled both regarding politics and language, on the basis of freedom, justice and fraternity.” The Romanian, Slovakian and Serbian deputies advocated for a draft law of the nationalities based on the idea of the individuality of nations, on the ethnic idea of nation, which maintained the legal and political recognition of the individuality and the genetic equality of the nations in the state18. The government’s project refused to acknowledge other national individualities on Hungary’s territory apart from the Hungarian one. The project was opposed by Alexandru Mocioni, in a speech considered by Nicolae Bocşan as “one of the most original pages of political philosophy” from the sixties 19. His theory on nation is based on the idea of the nation’s individuality, opposed in the field of political practice to the Hungarian idea of political nation. The nation – Mocioni stated – represents “a complex of people strongly bound together by genetic, geographical, historical connections, and consequently also language connections, because it contains in its core the seed of morality and because it commands self-consciousness: it is personality, legal person” 20 . The 1868 Law of the Nationalities resulted, theoretically far from Kossuth’s chauvinism. It attempted to reconcile the Hungarian national state with the existence of the other nationalities in Hungary: it granted rights to the minorities, without creating a multinational state. The minorities had the right for local government in their own language; in the state school, any nationality “that lived together in a sufficiently large number” had the right to education in its own language “until the level where superior education starts”. An admirable law, but none of its provisions were implemented21. The law was criticised and contested by the Romanians, noting its contradictions. In the law both the “nation” and “nationality” terms were used. Several times there were indications of incompatibilities that occurred between the existence of a sole nation (in the understanding of the law, the Hungarian) and of the nationalities, the plural marking the existence of several nations, not only one 22. There were serious terminological confusions:

17 Ibidem, pp. 432-445. 18 Nicolae Bocşan, Ideea de naţiune la românii din Transilvania şi Banat, Presa Universitară Clujeană, Cluj Napoca, 1997, p. 142. 19 Ibidem, p.161. 20 T. V. Păcăţian, op. cit., p. 475. 21 A. J. P. Taylor, op.cit., p. 119. 22 Luminiţa Ignat-Coman, “Identitate reprimată. Legislaţie şi deznaţionalizare în Transilvania dualistă”, în 140 de ani de legislaţie minoritară în Europa Centrală şi de Est, volume coordinated by Gidó Attila, Horváth István, 12

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“All of Hungary’s citizens form even in accordance with the fundamental principles of the constitution from a political point of view, one nation, the Hungarian nation” 23. Whereupon, in the same paragraph, to state “all the homeland’s citizens, irrespective of their nationality are equally-legitimate members of this nation”. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the idea of nation would know a doctrinaire development in accordance with the European ideologies. The contributions of Alexandru Mocioni, Aurel C. Popovici, Iosif Pop, Vasile Goldiş, and many others are important in this sense. For example, Aurel C. Popovici, in his famous work The United States of Greater Austria, published in Leipzig in 1906, emphasized the idea of the ethnic in the representation of the nation. Iosif Pop in his works The Legal Concept of Nation- Nationality, published in Vienna in 1885, and in The Romanians and the Daco-Romanianism. Political Studies, published in Budapest in 1910, based on Alfred Kremer and Rudolf Herrnirit’s ideas, developed an idea of nation based on the ethnic or genetic nationalities’ individuality theses, as the author named them 24. The Hungarian political nation, as it was conceived by the Law of the Nationalities in 1868, as a sum of all the nationalities in the Hungarian state, was considered by Iosif Pop a fiction. Vasile Goldiş, culturally intimate with the radical groups of the Hungarian bourgeoisie clustered around Jászi Oszkár’s Huszadik Század magazine, the Oradea “Darwin” Group and the Budapest “Galilei” Group, promoted the idea of the nations’ autonomy, considered that communities resulted from the interaction of individual characters and destinies25. Certainly, the Romanian political leaders’ opinion regarding the political realities in the Empire was not unanimous. Likewise, the Romanian press was situated on diverging positions. In 1871, a consortium formed by 50 Romanians created the newspaper Patria, with the purpose of presenting an opposition to the national press, subservient to the Budapest government. From its first issue, the newspaper’s programme mentioned that Patria: “Will always stand on the territory of legality, it will never have separatist tendencies, but patriotic Romanian ones because the country in which we live is also our country” 26. In opposition to the Romanian press, which promoted the policies of the National Romanian Party from Transylvania, with the objective purpose of regaining Transylvania’s autonomy, the Patria newspaper declared in section 7 of its programme that: “‘Patria’ (the newspaper – o. n) instead of separatism and alienation will promote collaboration between us, Romanians, proximity, understanding, and brotherhood of the Romanians with the other peoples of our homeland with whom we live and wish to die together”. The newspaper discouraged any initiative regarding Transylvania’s autonomy. The laws voted by the Transylvanian Diet in 1863, the Patria newspaper considered that cannot be taken into consideration because they were not sanctioned by the emperor. Returning to Transylvania’s autonomy between 1791 and 1848, meant for the Romanians, in the opinion of the Patria newspaper, quoting from the old legislation, that: “In

Pál Judit, Editura Institutului pentru Studierea Problemelor Minorităţilor Naţionale Kriterion, Cluj-Napoca, 2010, p. 121. 23 T. V. Păcăţian, op. cit., pp. 791-793 24 N. Bocşan, op.cit.,p. 210 25 Ibidem, p. 215. 26 Patria, I, nr.1, 14 September/2 October 1871, p. 1. 13

SECTION: HISTORY LDMD I everything that concerns the administration or justice or economic offices they will hire Transylvanian indigenous Hungarians, also Szeklers and Saxons 27. The Patria newspaper’s opinions represented peripheral attitudes among Romanians. In reply, the Albina newspaper considered that the “Patria magazine is antinational, being subsidized by the Hungarian government to destabilize the Romanian national body. Similar attitudes, attached to the Romanian national programme, were formulated by the newspapers Gazeta Transilvaniei, Federaţiunea, Familia, Telegraful Român, Unirea, later by the newspapers Tribuna poporului, Românul, and other Romanian publications. After 1884 Tribuna had a major role in promoting the national programme. The Sibiu magazine illustrated very well Ioan Breazu’s assessment, a very good connoisseur of Transylvanian press, who wrote that: “Transylvania’s press was for a century the gigantic laboratory of national consciousness” 28. We try to illustrate the Transylvanian press phenomenon through the work of publicist Teodor V. Păcăţian, while he was at the Tribuna. He was one of the greatest Romanian journalists, being present for over sixty years in the pages of Transylvanian newspapers and magazines 29. Between 1896 and 1900 he assumed at the invitation of Ioan Raţiu the Tribuna magazine, between 1901 and 1917 he was editor of the Telegrafului Român. He published in 8 volumes The Golden Book; or The Political-National Struggles of the Romanians under the Hungarian Crown, a history in documents of the Romanians in Hungary and Transylvania. In order to substantiate the national politics promoted in the Transylvanian press, Păcăţian translated into Romanian a series of works from philosophers and jurists well-known in the epoch: The Struggle for Law and The Purpose in Law by Rudolf de Ihering, Freedom by John Stuart Mill, The Principles of Politics by Fr. Holtzendorf, The History of Politics by Frederic Pollock, et al. Most articles published in the Tribuna were dictated by everyday realities of political struggle, the magazine being the main press organ for the National Romanian Party from Transylvania. T. V. Păcăţian’s Tribuna period coincided with a difficult period in the party’s life. The new chief of the Romanian government in Bucharest, D. A. Sturdza, appointed on October 4th, 1895, promoted a conciliation policy with the Hungarians, tempering the political activity of the Romanian leaders in Transylvania. D. A. Studza’s involvement in the national issue amplified the crisis in R. N. P., triggered by the memorandists’ pardon, in September 1895, which put the old politicians face to face, grouped around Ion Raţiu, still followers of the passivism political line, and the new generation, like Eugen Brote, who suggested transition to activism 30. The liberal politician’s policy also meant the reduction of subsidies for the Tribuna magazine and the start in 1897 of a new magazine in Arad, Tribuna Poporului, which would orient itself toward the activist tactics, however, without doing it decisively31. At Păcăţian’s arrival to the Tribuna, the magazine was affected by the taking

27 Ibidem. 28 Ion Breazu, Studii de literatură română şi comparată, vol. I, ed. Mircea Curticeanu, Editura Dacia, Cluj, 1970, p. 158. 29 See Cornel Sigmirean, Teodor V. Păcăţian. O viaţă de cărturar, Editura Veritas, Tîrgu Mureş, 1996. 30 Keith Hitchins, Conştiinţă naţională şi acţiune politică la românii din Transilvania 1868-1918, Editura Dacia, Cluj, 1992, p. 63. 31 Lucian Boia, Eugen Brote 1850-1912. Destinul frânt al unui luptător naţional, Second Edition, Editura Humanitas, Bucureşti, p. 202. 14

SECTION: HISTORY LDMD I over of the Typographic Institute and the two gazettes Tribuna and Foaia Poporului by the Raţiu-Coroianu group, which resulted in the old tribunists’ retirement from the Tribuna, I. Russu-Şirianu, G. Bogdan Duică, and others. As the editor of the Tribuna, Teodor V. Păcăţian promoted the R.N.P. policy, which militated for the continuation of passivism, proving that in the Budapest government’s policy no important change occurred that would justify renouncing passivism. Moreover, the new Hungarian Prime Minister, Bánffi Dezső, continued the policy of restricting the autonomy of the Romanian schools and churches. In 1896, the Budapest government disallowed the Electoral Conference of the Romanian dietary voters, scheduled for October 26th. The retort of the Tribuna’s editor is particularly virulent: “When all the country’s parties come, and before the Diet elections we are denied our existence as a nationality, it is our turn to show that we exist, that no worldly power cannot wipe us from the face of the earth, that we are an element, which they are indebted to always take into consideration” 32. Păcăţian considered the passivist tactic as the certain method of denouncing a policy of denial of national rights in front of the world. With all the attempts of discouraging the Romanians’ political movement, Păcăţian urges through his optimism to resistance: “We are a nation proclaimed in 1848 in itself as a free and independent nation […] that asks and claims rights that it deserves, based on nature’s right, on the one hand, and on the other, on the basis of historical right” 33. In 1897, he leaves the Tribuna and for Bucharest, probably to avoid a prosecution for a lawsuit filed for an article about the way in which the Mehadica peasants’ trial was judged 34. He returned to Transylvania, in January 1899. In the Tribuna’s 3/15 January 1899 issue, the R. N. P. leaders, adepts of passivism, dr. I. Raţiu, George Pop de Băseşti, dr. Teodor Mihali, Rubin Patiţia, Iuliu Coroianu, Alexandru Filip, Patriciu Barbu and Gherasim Domide, publish a Call to the People’s Frontrunners. Defending the Tribuna’s orientation, in opposition with the Tribuna Poporului, the Call underlined the newspapers’ role in the Romanians’ national life, journalism being the strongest means of fighting, “it is the weapon with which we fight for our rights in the frames of the laws; the only terrain on which we can manifest our national desires and claims” 35. In those circumstances, Păcăţian published several articles on the concept of nation. According to his view on nation, which coincided with that of the majority of the Romanian politicians’, every people from the country should be included in the concept of nation, “that in its totality is a nation and only in its particularities, in its striking characteristics, which grant its distinctive character and constitute its national individuality, is nationality 36 . Păcăţian rejected the juridical distinction between nation and nationality, as it was proposed by the Hungarian politicians. T.V. Păcăţian’s conception of nation, as is for the majority of Romanian philosophers, was based on the German concept of nation, which defined it from an ethnic point of view, as a natural or cultural communion. As a political solution, Păcăţian proposed the formula of federalizing the Austro-Hungarian empire by forming national areas in which the official language in justice, administration and in public instruction should be the language of the nations that populate the said area. “Thus –

32 Tribuna, nr. 220, 5/17 October 1896, p. 1. 33 Idem, nr. 54, 8/20 March 1897, p. 1. 34 Idem, nr. 364, 3/15 December1897, p. 2. 35 Idem, nr. 2, 3/15 January 1899, p. 1. 36 Idem, nr. 28 October (9 November) 1899, p. 1. 15

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Păcăţian wrote – the separation of peoples from each other and investing them with rights to govern themselves, this is the only possible solution for the definitive solution of the national matter in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy”37. For the substantiation of his theses regarding the federalization of the Empire, Păcăţian refers to the work of the philosopher Stahl, The Philosophy of Law, in which it is shown that “juridical science established that the peoples’ national individuality can be preserved only if their independence is constituted” 38. In favour of the federalist idea, Păcăţian cited the work of philosopher Holtzendorff, The Principles of Politics, in which he analysed the development of the national idea for the peoples in Austro- Hungary and Turkey, considering that the national movement leads either to “the disappearance, assimilation of weaker nationalities, provoked by the intellectual superiority, or in the context of wars, to the detachment of territories inhabited by a nationally compact population” 39. As a journalist, Păcăţian could not publicly partake to the outcome suggested by Hozendorff, but proposed “an intervention from the Emperor to achieve a national delimitation in the way that modern science requires it and how the monarchy’s peoples desire it”40. The Transylvanian press from the second half of the nineteenth century illustrate what Antony Smith called “mass nationalism”, a phenomenon that was generated by the social and economic development of society, in parallel with mass literacy, which allowed access to the national propaganda for the great mass of the people 41. In this phenomenon that is related to nation building and national discourse, the press had a major role, radicalizing national resentments that cancelled any possibility of reconciliation, in the sense of a constitutional monarchy and the creation of the political frame which would assure equality among the Danubian Empire’s nations. For the Romanians in Transylvania, the identity discourse’s leitmotif that dominated political life was the idea that the Romanians represent a distinct nation and that the only solution to assure equality is the Empire’s federalization. In the autumn of 1918, amid the dissolution of the Empire, by virtue of the right to self- determination, the Romanians opted for the formula of Transylvania’s autonomy, and, eventually, for the unification with Romania, expression of the idea of the nation’s triumph.

37 Idem, nr. 37, 18 February/2 March 1899, p. 1. 38 Idem, nr. 40, 21 February/5 March 1899, p. 1 39 Idem, nr. 41, 23 February/7 March 1899, p. 1 40 Ibidem. 41 Christian Chereji, op.cit., p. 66. 16