Pe calea modernizării europene. Reintegrarea Basarabiei în spațiul românesc de cultură și civilizație (1918-1925)
Nicolae Enciu
în vol. România după Marele Război. Reconstrucții politice, instituționale și culturale, coord. Maria Tătar-Dan, Corina Teodor, Nicolae Enciu, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Mega, 2025, ISBN: 978-630-372-013-5, pp. 31-69.
Abstract
On the Path of European Modernization. Reintegration of Bessarabia into the Romanian Space of Culture and Civilization (1918-1925)
The union of Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania and Banat with the Old Kingdom of Romania in 1918 resulted in the removal of the borders imposed by foreign rule within the Romanian space of culture and civilization, and the establishment of a new state formation, known as “Entire Romania” or “Greater Romania”, when for the first time in history the state borders almost overlapped ethnic ones. The year 1918 marked the completion of the process of the formation of the Romanian nation state and, at the same time, the beginning of a new period in the contemporary history of Romanians, in which the main objective became the consolidation of territorial and political unity. As Prof. D. Gusti stated in those years, “if the unjust and narrow borders of yesterday’s homeland have disappeared and the union of the four branches of Romanians has been achieved, it must now be completed through unification and public merger, and the new soul of the Entire Romania must be sheltered in a new state, whose vault must be majestically supported by solid and imposing legal columns.” Starting from the consideration of the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Law on Administrative Unification of 14 June 1925, this communication deals with the main stages of Bessarabia from the Unification of 27 March/9 April 1918 to the administrative integration of 1925, with the final result of the unitary organization of the political and administrative structure, the functioning of a unitary economy on the entire national territory, a single legislation and the cultural unity of the New Romania through unitary institutions (school, church, etc.), cultural associations and instruments (language, social norms).