Maria Tătar-Dan
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. 309-326.

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Part of the research project PN-IV-P8-8.3-ROMD-2023-0134: National and Cultural Paths and Convergences: Transylvania and Bessarabia, this paper proposes an analysis of the monuments dedicated to the Union, as symbolic forms of cultural integration and consolidation of national identity in the new framework of Greater Romania. Proposals for the construction of such monuments appeared as early as the first years of the interwar period, coming from both the Old Kingdom and the new provinces. Although most of the initiatives remained at the project stage, they reflect the desire to anchor a symbolic discourse of unity and national belonging in the public space. Conceived as material expressions of the moment in 1918, the Union monument projects conveyed and legitimised, in the public space, the image of a unified nation, capable of overcoming regional and ethnic differences. By analysing these material symbols of identity, the paper offers a perspective on how Greater Romania was imagined, disputed, and represented, highlighting the complexity of the process of building a common national culture in the interwar period, in a context marked by ethnic diversity, economic constraints, and political challenges.

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