The Great Unification of the Romanian Principalities And
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Proceedings of the Annual Symposium of the Institute of Solid Mechanics and Session of the Commission of Acoustics, SISOM 2018 Bucharest 24-25 May THE GREAT UNIFICATION OF THE ROMANIAN PRINCIPALITIES AND THE BEGINNING OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ROMANIAN STUDIES IN MECHANICS AND APPLIED MECHANICS (mainly concerning the airplanes) Dan-Alexandru IORDACHE1 1Emeritus Professor, Section of Information Science and Technologies, Academy of Romanian Scientists, Bucharest, Romania As it is well known, we celebrate this year the centenary of the Great Unification of the Romanian principalities. The history of a people is an extremely complex matter. That is why this work tries to identify the dominant features corresponding to the Romanian people evolution. 1. HISTORICAL ELEMENTS CONCERNING THE ANTIQUITY In conditions when Romania belongs to the Euro-Atlantic Civilization [1], we have to remark that – even from antiquity - Dacia (and later) Romania had some singular positions in the frame of the European countries, at the Eastern border of this civilization. The map from fig. 1 (middle of the second century C. E., see [2]), indicates that our ancestors from Dacia have chosen – with their lives sacrifice – their belonging to the classical (Latin) Europe. Additionally, the border between the classical (Latin) populations and the migrating (German and Slavic ones, etc) starting from Scotland (the book [3] (a shepherd’s life and of his dogs) of the British James Rebanks from the border between Scotland and England tells about the activities of some English shepherds, extremely similar to the Romanian ones), continuing along the great rivers of Rhine and Danube and ending to the present territory of Romania, indicates the “Romania’s European high way”. Figure 1 - Romania’s European high way (middle of the second century C. E., see [2]) ACTA ELECTROTECHNICA, Volume 60, Number 1-2, 2019, Special Issue, ISSN 2344-5637, ISSN-L 1841-3323 24 Dan-Alexandru IORDACHE 2. ESSENTIAL HISTORICAL ELEMENTS FROM THE 19TH CENTURY We have to underline that not only the most learned of the Romanian people had the conscience of their origin, but even the leaders of the most advanced European countries (UK, France, Piedmont, etc) had this knowledge, that determined them to sacrifice [4] approximately 100,000 France troops, along with 25,000 British soldiers, and approx. 2,000 Piedmont ones, along with approx. half million Turkish troops, in comparison with approx. half million Russian soldiers, in order to determine the Russian empire to totally retire their army from the Romanian principalities [4], p. 27 and “resuscitate” these principalities and finally … Romania! We consider this war as a unique example when 5 countries - world powers, confront in a bloodiest war (with losses comparable with those of a world war) without practically any material benefit, excepting the blockage of the Russian advance towards Constantinople and … the subsequent appearance of the new state – that of the United Romanian principalities (see Fig. 2, that didn’t lose in this confrontation absolutely any troops!). Figure 2 - Enlarged Map of Crimea’s War (see [4], p. 23) 3. AN ENIGMA AND A HISTORICAL MIRACLE – THE ROMANIAN PEOPLE (GHEORGHE BRĂTIANU, HISTORIAN, 1898-1953 [10], P. 55) A Huge self-solving puzzle. We will indicate below the main stages [11] of the appearance of the basic components of the Romanian state: 3.1. Beginning of the return (after approx. 1600 years and from about 1000 km, see fig. 1) of some outstanding Macedonian-Romanian people (as the families of Spiru Haret, Eugeniu Carada, Nicolae Iorga, ACTA ELECTROTECHNICA, Volume 60, Number 1-2, 2019, Special Issue, ISSN 2344-5637, ISSN-L 1841-3323 The Great Unification of the Romanian Principalities and the Beginning of the Most Important Romanian Studies in Mechanics 25 etc. up to those of G. Hagi, Simona Halep, her colleague – the ex-European feminine champion at table tennis, etc), 3.2. Declaration of the independence of the Democratic Moldavian Republic (January 24/February 6, 1918) and of its Union with Romania (March 27, 1918), 3.3. Decision of the National Council of Bucovina (15/28 November 1918) concerning its Union with Romania, 3.4. Decision of the Great National Assembly (November 18/December 1, 1918) concerning the Union of Transylvania, of Banat and of the “Hungarian” country (the momentary denomination of Crişana) with Romania. 4. OTHER ESSENTIAL STAGES FOR THE CREATION OF THE ROMANIAN STATE 4.1. The organization of the Romanian education at the beginning of the 20th century The most important results were obtained by the Macedonian-Romanian professor Spiru Haret (1851- 1912), who: a) completed his PhD studies at Paris, with the elaboration of a Scientific Dissertation concerning the planetary orbital axes (1878), b) organized the Romanian education in the frame of his 3 stages (1897-1899; 1901-1904; 1907-1910) at the leadership of the corresponding Romanian ministry. 4.2. Location of the most important components of the Romanian army at the end of the first World War (December 1918) Despite of the extremely difficult conditions of the Romanian army in the last months of the first World War (compressed by the German army in the Northern third of Moldova), the end of this war has found the Romanian army at the Western borders of the re-unified Romanian territory. For this reason, the communist rebellious Hungarian army led by Béla Kun (March 19 – August 1, 1919) - that attacked the Romanian troops in the central Transylvania - was promptly stopped and finally destroyed even at Budapest by the Romanian army, that installed instead the counter-admiral Miklós Horthy (1868 – 1957; [5]). 4.3. Location of some of the most important Romanian high-schools at the end of the first World War Besides the ethnic components of a certain people, its multi-layered structure is also very important. Given being some layers could be partially or even completely wiped out, in time, some existing layers - but located at beginning in the depth of the considered nation structure – could surge and change completely the ethnic image of the studied people. I’ll exemplify this matter with an example well-known by me, which is also instructive for the style of the education matters in the interval 1915-1940: in order to complete his high-school studies, my father was financially supported by his older brother – Dumitru (born on September 1899), who has completed already (1917) his secondary studies at the private high-school “Emanoil Gojdu” from Oradea Mare, becoming then (military) officer in the frame of the Oradea garnison. My father (born on February 1906) had a regular attendance at this high-school (“Emanoil Gojdu”) in classes VI-VII (the years 1922-1924), where he completed (in 1923-1924) the real section. In the frame of the school-leaving examination (September 1924), my father – who was oriented towards law and economic academic studies - presented successfully the dissertation “The Rolle’s theorem and some of its main applications”, obtaining so his graduation certificate with the special mention “cum laudae”. ACTA ELECTROTECHNICA, Volume 60, Number 1-2, 2019, Special Issue, ISSN 2344-5637, ISSN-L 1841-3323 26 Dan-Alexandru IORDACHE 5. WHERE THE ROMANIAN SPECIALISTS WERE PREPARED FOR THEIR ACTIVITIES AT THE EUROPEAN LEVEL? 5.1. Scientific preparation Excepting Professor Eugen Bădărău (from the Bucharest University) who completed his PhD studies in Russia, all other Romanian academic professors from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century had their doctoral studies accomplished in the frame of some occidental Universities (mainly from France, UK, Germany, Italy). 5.2. Technical preparation A unique example – that of eng. Henri Coandă (1886-1972, his father was a Romanian general, and the mother – a French lady), who created the first turbojet airplane in 1912 at Paris [6], p. 107. One finds so that the best Romanian creators were permanently oriented for their preparation and applications towards the most advanced Western countries. This trend continued during the battles from the Summer of the year 1917, when e.g. the Romanian aeronautics was permanently supported by the French specialists (see V. Avram, S. Turturică “The war of biplanes: the Romanian aeronautics during the battles from the Summer of 1917” [10], pp. 48-53. 6. WHICH WERE THE SUPPORT BASES OF THE ROMANIAN ARMY FOR THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE GREAT UNION OF ITS PRINCIPALITIES? 6.1. Despite of its unimaginable Romania’s losses at the beginning of the 1st World War [7a], namely an army who lost 60% from its troops and ⅔ of its territory, the Romanian population didn’t capitulate: (i) a large part of its people took the refuge in the Northern part of Moldova, and the remaining population at their houses oppose a passive but obvious resistance, 6.2. The support of the allied Western powers (of the France, mainly, that sent in Romania a true small army, coordinated by General Berthelot), as well as – in the first part of the 1st World War - of the Russian army, 6.3. The basic layers of the social structures (especially in Transylvania, see section 3.3 and [9]); we have to point out that inside the increasing Romania’s population (e.g. 15,950,000 citizens in 1920 and 18,252,900 in 1930), there were (1930) different nationalities that contributed to our country results: Romanian people 12,981,324 (71.9%), Hungarian 1,425,507 (7.2 %) up to 21% in Transylvania, Germans 745,421 (4.1 %), but up to 29% in Banat and 8% in Transylvania, Jews 728,115 (4.0%), but up to 10.8% in Bucovina, and 7% in Bessarabia, Ukrainian 582,115 (3.2%), Russian 49,150, Bulgarian 366,384, Gypsies 260,501 (1.5%), Turks 154,772, Gagauzi 105,750, etc – while the percentages of the different nationalities (indicated by [11a]) are approximate, the numbers of people correspond exactly to census from 1930 [11b].