RANSYLVANIAN EVIEW Vol. XXVII T R No. 2 /REVUE DE TRANSYLVANIE Summer 2018 Contents/Sommaire ROMANIAN ACADEMY Chairman: • Paradigms Academician Ioan-Aurel Pop Romania’s Entry in the First World War As Seen in the Russian Military Press 3 CENTER FOR Andrei Emilciuc TRANSYLVANIAN STUDIES Organization and Activity of the Moldovan Military Congress (20–27 October 1917) 16 Vitalie Ciobanu Mihai Taºcã The Moldovan Bloc in the Country Council: The Creator of Bessarabia’s Destiny 33 Gheorghe E. Cojocaru The Cultural Prelude to Bessarabia’s Union with Romania 41 Ion Negrei The Union of Bessarabia with Romania in the Cultural Propaganda System of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (1960–1970) 53 Valentin Burlacu • Transsilvanica Historical-Economic Aspects Pertaining to the Bishopric of Transylvania As Reflected in the Pontifical Tithe Register (1332–1337) 68 Robert-Marius Mihalache Utopian Thinking in Transylvania: German and Hungarian Case Studies 83 Ştefan Borbély • Tangencies Religious Landscape in Post-revolutionary Russia: The Case of Ekaterinburg 92 Elena Glavatskaya On the cover: Infant Mortality Now and Then: MARC VERLAN, The Dual Role of Economic Resources 104 Welcome to Marioca’s World Gunnar Thorvaldsen (2014), oil on canvas, 120×90cm The Nurse and the Rural World: Transylvanian Review continues the A Successful Relation for Biomedicine 122 tradition of Revue de Transylvanie, Elena Bãrbulescu founded by Silviu Dragomir, which was published in Cluj and then in Sibiu • Literature between 1934 and 1944. Representations of History in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Transylvanian Review is published quarterly by the Center for Transylvanian The Remains of the Day 137 Studies and the Romanian Academy. Ana Maria Hopârtean • Editorial Events EDITORIAL BOARD CESARE ALZATI, Ph.D. Un récit exemplaire 142 Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione, Istituto di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea, Andrei State Università Cattolica, Milan, Italy • Book Reviews HORST FASSEL, Ph.D. Institut für donauschwäbische Geschichte WOLFGANG ZIMMERMANN and JOSEF WOLF, eds., und Landeskunde, Tübingen, Germany Die Türkenkriege des 18 Jahrhunderts: Wahrnehmen – KONRAD GÜNDISCH, Ph.D. Wissen – Erinnern Bundesinstitut für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa, (reviewed by Sandra Hirsch) 148 Oldenburg, Germany ANTONIO D’ALESSANDRI, HARALD HEPPNER, Ph.D. Sulle vie dell’esilio: I rivoluzionari romeni dopo il 1848 Institut für Geschichte, Graz, Austria PAUL E. MICHELSON, Ph.D. (reviewed by Ion Cârja) 150 Huntington University, Indiana, USA WILLIAM MULLIGAN, MoMčilo Pavlović, Ph.D. The Origins of the First World War Director of the Institute of Contemporary History, Belgrade, Serbia (reviewed by Iuliu-Marius Morariu) 153 ALEXANDRU ZUB, Ph.D. ALBERTO CASTALDINI, Academician, honorary director of A. D. Il Dio nascosto e la possibilità di Auschwitz: Xenopol Institute of History, Iaºi, Romania Prospettive filosofiche e teologiche sull’Olocausto EDITORIAL STAFF Ioan-Aurel Pop Daniela Mârza (reviewed by Francesco Fogliotti) 154 Ioan Bolovan Robert-M. Mihalache Raveca Divricean Alexandru Simon • Contributors 160 Maria Ghitta Florian D. Soporan Rudolf Gräf George State Virgil Leon Translated by This issue of the Transylvanian Review Bogdan Aldea—English has been published with the support Liana Lãpãdatu—French of Babeº-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. Desktop Publishing Edith Fogarasi Cosmina Varga Publication indexed and abstracted in the Correspondence, manuscripts and books ® Thomson Reuters Social Sciences Citation Index should be sent to: Transylvanian Review, and in Arts & Humanities Citation Index®, Centrul de Studii Transilvane (Center for Transylvanian Studies) and included in EBSCO’s and ELSEVIER’s products. 12–14 Mihail Kogãlniceanu St., Cluj-Napoca 400084, Romania. ISSN 1221-1249 All material copyright © 2018 by the Center for Transylvanian Studies and the Printed in Romania by COLOR PRINT Romanian Academy. Reproduction or use 66, 22 Decembrie 1989 St., without written permission is prohibited. Zalãu 450031, Romania [email protected] Tel. (0040)260-660598 www.centruldestudiitransilvane.ro ParaDIGMS Romania’s Entry in the First World War As Seen in the Russian Military A NDREI E M ILCIUC Press ON THE eve of the Great War, the “Romania—who had ob- Russian military press had a strictly served the war for two years— defined structure, which—to a great extent—was maintained during the had enough time to analyze war years. The central publication of the battle conditions, and the War Ministry was the scientific military magazine Военный сборник thus to prepare, perfect, and (The military almanac) (1858–1917), develop its armed forces.” as well as the Русский инвалид (The Russian invalid) (1862–1917) news- paper.1 These two were followed by the publications of the military dis- tricts and of the Cossack troops, i.e. The Military Newspaper in Vilna (is- sued by the chiefs of staff of the mili- tary district in Vilna, 1906–1915), The Military Newspaper in Turkestan (the chiefs of staff of the military district in Turkestan, 1906–1915), The Mili- Andrei Emilciuc tary Messenger of Warsaw (the chiefs of Senior researcher at the Institute of His- staff of the military district of Warsaw, tory, Academy of Sciences of Moldova. Coeditor of the vol. Primul Rãzboi Mon- 1906–1914), The Far East (the chiefs dial ºi Basarabia (1914–1918) (Culegere of staff of the military district of Ir- de studii ºi articole) (The First World kutsk, 1913–1914), etc. Apart from War and Bessarabia, 1914–1918: A col- the officials, there were also private lection of studies and articles) (2015). editors who issued periodicals dealing 4 • TRANSYLVANIAN REVIEW • VOL. XXVII, NO. 2 (SUmmER 2018) with military topics. Consequently, we shall mention here the military and liter- ary magazine Развѣдчикъ (The scout), edited in Saint Petersburg/Petrograd by librarian V. A. Berezovsky, a reserve captain in the Russian army. To sum up, at the outbreak of the war in Russia, approximately 60 periodicals devoted to military topics were being printed.2 In the context of the intensification of the war preparations, in order to secure the military plans and structures, several measures were adopted to strength- en the censorship. On 28 January 1914, the list of information prohibited for publication in the press for military reasons was published; this list would be completed with new interdictions in the issues of 12 and 26 July 1914.3 On 20 July/2 August, one day after Germany declared war on it, Russia adopted the “Provisional Regulation on Military Censorship,” diligently prepared in ad- vance. According to this regulation, a “total” military censorship was set up in all regions included in the military operations, while in the other regions the censorship was to be “partial.” Paragraphs from the articles and materials taken from the periodicals issued in the regions where the military censorship did not fully function would also be submitted for censorship. Typesetting a peri- odical in a printing house was allowed only after the editors had presented the permission to prepare for and to print bearing the signature of a local military censor.4 This only hindered the activity of journalists, whose materials would be published only when the information presented was no longer of interest for the public.5 In Saint Petersburg,6 the military censorship commission was set up on 20 July 1914, at the order of the Army General Staff, even though there was a military censor already working in that city. In the second capital, Moscow, which was not yet under the war regime, but was an important center for the publication of periodicals, in March 1915 the military censorship would also be instituted.7 Mention should also be made that, on 31 July 1915, the list of information prohibited from appearing in the press for military reasons would suffer another series of modifications and corrections. The restrictions were then expanded and also included the information that might have affected the diplo- matic and defensive security of Russia’s allies.8 In approaching the proposed topic, one should not omit the fact that, in wartime, the official press increased its propagandistic mission in order to con- vince the country’s citizens, the existing and the prospective allies, about the firm unity of the Russian people, about Russia’s force and the legitimacy of its military actions, on the one hand, and about the weakness of the enemy and their atrocities, on the other hand. A very important role in the management of propaganda during the war was played in the Russian Empire by the Informa- tion Office attached to the Directorate-General for Press and Prints. The office, which at the beginning of war had over 600 collaborators, had been set up PARADIGMS • 5 in 1906 in order to provide “positive” information to the press reflecting the government’s point of view. This office cooperated closely with the Petrograd Telegraph Agency, with the Office of Russian Journalists, as well as with other news agencies and offices, press commissions, as well as private publications. The Bulletin of the Information Office was published daily, and the government agencies supplied the official press releases to it. The Bulletin was meant for the editorial boards of the periodicals.9 As the Crown Council—convened at Peleº Castle in Sinaia, on 21 July/3 Au- gust 1914—decided that Romania should maintain its neutrality given the non- fulfilment of the conditions for the “casus foederis” mentioned in art. 2 of the treaty with Austria-Hungary, the Entente countries—especially Russia —were hoping to attract Romania on their side. Those circumstances required that the information published in the Russian press about the potential ally be carefully drafted in order not to harm the relations between the two states. Moreover, in the first months of the war, the Russian military press would publish data strictly related to the incidents and troops movements on Romania’s border, as well as information about the visits to Bucharest of certain high officials of the belligerent countries.