THE EDGE OF EUROPE: HERITAGE, LANDSCAPE AND CONFLICT ARCHAEOLOGY by ROXANA-TALIDA ROMAN A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology School of History and Cultures College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham May 2019 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT The research presented in this thesis addresses the significance of Romanian WWI sites as places of remembrance and heritage, by exploring the case of Maramureș against the standards of national and international heritage standards. The work provided the first ever survey of WWI sites on the Eastern Front, showing that the Prislop Pass conflictual landscape holds undeniable national and international heritage value both in terms of physical preservation and in terms of mapping on the memorial-historical record. The war sites demonstrate heritage and remembrance value by meeting heritage criteria on account of their preservation state, rarity, authenticity, research potential, the embedded war knowledge and their historical-memorial functions. The results of the research established that the war sites not only satisfy heritage legal requirements at various scales but are also endangered. Hence, the threats that impend upon this valuable, but yet unrecognised heritage, calls for urgent measures in view of officialising legal heritage status and thus assuring preservation of the war sites. In addition to elucidating the research question, the work identified a new coherent scale of WWI heritage research coining the notion of conflictual landscape and hence approaching a category of war heritage that has hitherto remained unexplored. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of those around me. In particular I would like to thank my supervisors Henry Chapman and John Carman for their continued support, advice and, most of all, patience. I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Rațiu Family Charitable Foundation which annually supports Romanian students in the UK, as well as projects promoting human rights, democracy and civil society in Romania. I would like to thank Paul Brașcanu for granting me permission to use and reproduce materials from his impressive collection of WWI photography in this research. For their continued personal support, I would like to thank my family Rozalia Roman, Ioan Roman, Ionuț Roman, Natalia Roman, Antonio Roman and Maria Stan. I would like to extend a special thanks to Bogdan Bobînă from the Maramureș County Museum of History and Archaeology for his professional advice and for having encouraged me to pursue this project from the time that it was little more than a bold dream. CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………..… 1 1.1. Preamble…………………………………………………………………….......... 1 1.2. Thesis background, research context and broader themes…………………...…... 3 1.3. Thesis outline.…………………………………………………………………..… 8 2. BACKGROUND………………………………………………………………………..… 15 2.1. Introduction……………………………………………………………….…....... 15 2.2. Archaeology as link between heritage and history/memory……………….....…. 16 2.3. Approaches to WWI research – First World War archaeology……………...….. 21 2.4. WWI and remembrance…………………………………………………….….... 27 2.5. Memory, remembrance and its links to heritage……………………….....…...… 30 2.6. Heritage………………………………………………………………………...... 37 2.6.1. International heritage stakeholders…………………………………..... 37 2.6.2. AHD & UHD……………………………………………………...…....39 2.6.3. Laws and their place in heritage…………………………………...….. 43 2.6.4. Value ascription in heritage management and conservation practice internationally………………………………………………………………... 45 2.7. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..... 47 3. METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………………....... 54 3.1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………...… 54 3.2. Rationale………………………………………………………………………… 55 3.3. The First World War and Romania……………………...…………………......... 57 3.4. Research area………………………………………………………………......... 59 3.5. Methodology……………………………………………………………….....…. 64 3.5.1. First Objective……………………………………………………...….. 64 3.5.1.1. Archival research……………………………………….....…. 64 3.5.1.2. Site mapping…………………………………………….....… 65 3.5.1.3. Field survey…………………………………………….....…. 66 3.5.2. Second Objective…………………………………………………........ 68 3.5.2.1. Examination of Romanian heritage legislation………...…..... 68 3.5.2.2. Textual analysis of the national heritage standards…....…..... 69 3.5.2.3 Building of analytical evaluation sheets for the war remains... 70 3.5.2.4. Comparative analysis………………………………..…….… 70 3.5.3. Third Objective………………………………………………………... 71 3.5.3.1. Examination of international heritage legislation…...……..... 71 3.5.3.2. Textual analysis of the World Heritage standards…….....….. 72 3.5.3.3 Building of hypothetical nomination for the World Heritage List of the war sites………………………................................……...…... 73 3.5.3.4. Comparative analysis…………………………………….….. 73 3.6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….…… 74 4. HISTORICAL REVIEW…………………………………………………………….……. 76 4.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………….….. 76 4.2. The Romanian Kingdom in WWI……………………………………………..... 77 4.3. The 1916 Romanian Campaign………………………………………………..... 83 4.4. The 1917 Romanian campaign………………………………………….…….… 86 4.4.1. The Mărăști Battle…………………………………………………...... 87 4.4.2. The Oituz Battle……………………………………………….…….… 88 4.4.3. The Mărășești Battle………………………………………….………... 89 4.5. The 1918 Romanian campaign…………………...…………………….……….. 91 4.6. The Union of the Romanian historical provinces with the Romanian Kingdom... 94 4.7. WWI in the Romanian historical provinces appendant to the Austro-Hungarian Empire………………………………………………………..…………………….... 99 4.8. Maramureș………………………………………………………………….….. 102 4.9. The Prislop Pass – the link between Maramureș and Bukovina……...………... 109 4.10. The Maramureș–Bukovina front……………………………………................ 113 4.11. The imperial transport systems in Maramureș and Bukovina..…………….…. 115 4.12. The human dimension of the war – civilians and war prisoners………..….…. 122 4.13. WWI in literature and folklore…………………………………………..…..... 124 4.14. Conclusions………………………………………………………………….... 129 5. ASSESSMENT OF THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF WAR IN THE PRISLOP PASS AREA/THE PRISLOP PASS CONFLICTUAL LANDSCAPE……………….….……….. 135 5.1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………..... 135 5.2. Research sector 1………………………………………………………………. 140 5.3. Research sector 2……………………………………………………...……….. 203 5.4. Research sector 3………………………………………………………………..234 5.5. Conclusions………………………………………………………….……….… 241 6. HERITAGE BY LAW NATIONALLY………………………………………………... 251 6.1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………. 251 6.2. The evolution of heritage legislation in Romania………………...…………..... 252 6.3. The formation of contemporary heritage legislation………………………...… 261 6.4. The List of Historic Monuments……………………….…………………….... 269 6.5. Romania and the heritage arena/The Romanian Territorial Development Strategy……………………………………………………………………………... 273 6.6. Conclusions………………………………………………………………......… 275 7. HERITAGE BY LAW INTERNATIONALLY………..………...………………..…….. 279 7.1. Introduction……………………………….………………………………….… 279 7.2. The link between national and international heritage legislation……………… 280 7.3. International heritage legislation……………………………………………..… 282 7.4. The European Year of Cultural Heritage………………………….………........ 288 7.5. The World Heritage ranking process and criteria………………….…………... 290 7.6. The Wooden Churches of Maramureș……………………………….………… 298 7.7. Conclusions………………………………………………………….…………. 301 8. RESEARCH OUTCOMES……………………………………………….……………… 304 8.1. Introduction……………………………………………………….………….… 304 8.2. The material culture of war in Maramureș – The Prislop Pass conflictual landscape……………………………………………………………………….….... 306 8.3. Heritage by law in Romania……………………………………...………….… 313 8.4. Heritage by law internationally……………………………………………….... 322 8.5. Main findings….……………….………………………………………...…….. 342 8.6. Implications…………...………………………………………………………... 350 8.7. Future research……………………………………………….………………… 357 8.8. Conclusions………………………………….……………………………….… 359 APPENDIX 1: Cultural tourism as highlighter of the versatility of heritage value……….. 365 APPENDIX 2: King Ferdinand’s proclamation to all Romanians…………………..…...... 367 APPENDIX 3: The offensive in Transylvania………………………………...………....… 368 APPENDIX 4: The defence of the South Front…………………………………………… 370 APPENDIX 5: The defence of the Carpathian Mountain passages…………………….…. 372 APPENDIX 6: The defence of the Muntenia territory………………………………….…. 374 APPENDIX 7: The declaration of self-determination presented by Alexandru Vaida-Voevod to the Hungarian Parliament of Austria-Hungary………………………………………….. 375 APPENDIX 8: New York Times article describing the National Assembly of Alba Iulia that decided the Great Union on the 1st of December 1918………………………………........... 376 APPENDIX 9: Iuliu Maniu’s speech in occurrence of the National Assembly of Alba Iulia – Great Union, 1st December