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December 1, Romania's National Day
Thanks to an auspicious decision of the National Assembly in Alba Iulia, central Romania, December 1, 1918 witnessed the fulfilment of the wish for complete national unity. Having entered World War I in 1916 on the side of the Entente precisely for national unification, Romania was about to earn a right to national unity at the huge price of human and material sacrifices.
National consciousness has accompanied Romanians along centuries. The area bordered by the Carpathians, the Danube and the Black Sea, a space that witnessed the birth of Neolithic and Aeneolithic cultures of great significance to the world heritage, such as the Hamangia and the Cucuteni cultures, is the place where the then inhabitants, the Gaeto-Thracians achieved political and military unification in the 1st century BC under King Burebista. Under King Decebal (87-106 AD) Dacia was conquered by Emperor Trajan and an intense Romanisation ensued that continued even after the withdrawal of the Roman Army under Emperor Aurelian (270-275). The ethnogenesis of the Romanian people concluded in the 8th-9th century. Proof to their consciousness of their Roman origins is the fact that they were calling themselves 'români' or 'rumâni.'
Connections among the third Romanian provinces that emerged in the Medieval Ages - Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania - as well as their actions to get rid of the Ottoman dominance over them would also lead to the idea of a political unification. In 1600, the three provinces became unified under the authority of ruler Michael the Brave. Although short-lived, this union would stay deeply etched on the minds of Romanians.
The end of the 18th century brought to Transylvania, who had fallen under Habsburg occupation, an intensification in the fight for political emancipation of the Romanians there and to Wallachia and Moldavia an intensification of relations with West, particularly France, with a strange influence of the French culture and civilisation. Achieving national unification became one of the main ideals of Romanians in the 19th century. In the 1848 Revolution, which spread to all three Romanian provinces, some programmes were calling even for Moldavia's unification with Wallachia and Romanians of Transylvania intensified their demands for a national identity and rights.
The 1859 double election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as ruler of Moldavia and Wallachia led to the Union of the Romanian Principalities. In 1866 Prince Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen is brought to the throne, and after the 1877-1878 Romanian-Turkish-Russian War Romania won independence from the Ottoman Empire. In 1886, Romania became a kingdom. Relations between Romanians from the kingdom and those in Transylvania became increasingly more intense.
At the end of WWI, Basarabia and Bucovina united with Romania, March 27 and November 28, 1918, respectively, while on December 1, 1918 a Grand National Assembly convened in Abba Iulia attended by nearly 100,000 participants from the provinces of Transylvania, Banat, Crisana and Maramures. The 1,228 delegates of Romanians from these provinces, until then part of the Austria-Hungary Empire, unanimously passed a resolution proclaiming the union with Romania of all Romanians and all territories inhabited by them.
In his speech to the Assembly in Alba Iulia, George Pop de Basesti remembered the crucial moments in the Romanians' national odyssey concluding: 'We want to break free from the chains of our souls by accomplishing the big dream of Michael the Brave, the union of all those who speak the same language, obey the same law, in one and inseparable Romanian state.'
Voted amidst high enthusiasm, the Resolution became the historical document that accomplished the Greater Romania, the century-old dream of Romanians.
'Through this sage proclamation the unity of our people is complete. Trajan's Dacia and Romania for a short time united by Michael the Brave came to life for all eternity, for as long as the Romanian people endures on Earth,' daily Libertatea wrote back then.
Following the Paris Peace Conference, peace treaties were signed in the aftermath of WWI, among which was a treaty that made official the documents that enshrined the unification of the Romanian provinces with motherland Romania.