AGERPRES PRESENTS:
The Great Union Day on December 1st, 1918 was a huge chance.
This people may have lived divided,
but it was divided in Romanian states, that's what everyone forgets.
It's a perfectly legitimate act, the natural act of coming home,
an act of reunification of a territory devastated by force.
It was a historic moment of great Romanian enthusiasm.
The Union was a long-awaited moment.
THE HISTORY OF A PEOPLE
THE IDENTITY OF A NATION
ROOTS ACROSS BORDERS
THE GREAT UNION, 1918
ROMANIA AFTER 100 YEARS
WE THINK ROMANIAN
WE SPEAK ROMANIAN
WE FEEL ROMANIAN
THE GREAT UNION ROMANIA AFTER 100 YEARS
AN AGERPRES PRODUCTION
The burning magma which gave birth to the modern Romanian state
was the First World War.
During that period,
Romanians were forced to fight brother against brother.
They were not the only ones in this painful situation.
The First World War meant a huge sacrifice for all Romanians.
LAVINIA BETEA, HISTORIAN
It is estimated that on its fronts,
the death toll was around 335.000 Romanians.
To this we add the civilian casualties,
because the Union did not happen without the loss of civilian lives.
About a tenth of Romanians lost their lives.
This was the price paid for the Great Union.
Oprea Vasile, born in 1912.
VASILE OPREA, VETERAN, 106 YEARS OLD
October 27th.
That's when the Germans came.
They passed by our gate.
They were buying eggs and drinking them.
For kids, like myself, they had candies.
During this period, Romanians were in a dire situation.
Transylvania and Banat were a part of Austro-Hungary since 1867.
Bessarabia, as well as Bucovina, were part of the Russian Empire.
My grandfather, Teodor Purice,
MARIOARA PURICE, GRANDDAUGHTER OF A SOLDIER OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
married in Mahala after coming from Ostrita, beyond the Pruth.
And he stayed here and established our lineage in Mahala.
He was a soldier in the First World War for four years, first line.
He fought for the Austrians, in the Alps.
Against the Italians.
It wasn't just Romania that regained its historical provinces
and managed to bring all Romanians under the same flag.
The time for liberation had come
for the Czech as well, from under Austro-Hungarian rule,
and Slovakia, huge parts of Poland...
Poland didn't exist before that.
There was no Poland on the map. It was re-established in 1918.
The Baltics were incorporated in the Russian Empire.
They regained their political identity
in 1918 as well. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
In other words, it was a movement of all peoples.
Because the snow was very big,
they received an order to dig a tunnel.
They were supposed to get to the Italian side.
The Italians dug as well, only on their side.
So they were digging against each other.
And as he was digging, my father wanted to rest.
So he had this little shovel that he kept at his waist.
We had it at home for quite some time.
So he stuck the handle of the shovel in the snow wall,
and when he stuck it, a passage was formed to the Italian side.
They were digging on the other side.
They were all on their guard,
and in that night they ambushed the Italians and defeated them.
Just as a biography depends on the time and place of birth of an individual,
so does the evolution of a community depend on the course of history.
Thus, French historian Ferdinand Lot stated
that the Romanian folk is an enigma and a miracle.
This miracle was accomplished on December 1st, 1918,
through the Great Union.
The union happened because of the following traits
that existed for a long time: origins, language, tradition, religion, etc.
But also because of an exceptional internal political system.
There is one more political component, the international one.
Because in modern history one cannot change the borders
without being recognized by the international community of states.
If the great powers don't recognize you, the internal struggle is futile.
BORDER BETWEEN ROMANIA AND THE MOLDAVIAN REPUBLIC
<i>I always think about</i>
<i>Crossing the Pruth</i>
<i>Crossing the Pruth</i>
<i>Because it saddens me</i>
<i>Because it saddens me</i>
<i>Having sisters abroad</i>
<i>Having sisters abroad</i>
The Russian Empire that fuelled the Romanian dream of unification
was going through unpredictable events in 1917.
After three years of war, the country was weakened,
and the front had been destroyed by Bolshevik propaganda.
ION VARTA, DIRECTOR STATE ARCHIVES, MOLDAVIAN REPUBLIC
Many Russian soldiers deserted the first line on the Romanian Front
and passed through Bessarabia which became a kind of boulevard.
They were retreating, they were leaving the front line.
And these armed soldiers, but completely famished
were angry on everything and everyone and they were extremely dangerous.
Many of them were taken over by this Bolshevik flame.
And while passing through Bessarabia,
as groups, but also as individuals, their behaviour was violent.
They abusively took goods,
they physically attacked and executed innocent people.
We were on the brink of a civil war.
And the Romanian Army intervention at the beginning of January 1918
saved Bessarabia from this havoc.
There was peace and quiet after the arrival of two Romanian divisions.
The National Moldavian Party drafted a project
for national and territorial autonomy.
The struggle was there.
Lenin, aside from the fact that he removed the country from the war
after the Bolsheviks seized power,
he issued a decree for the right of people to self-determination.
This decree...
and this freedom were suppressed in 1922,
after the Soviet Union was established.
The context is an important element
for accomplishing your ideal,
but without the desire of Bessarabian Romanians,
that act could not take place.
Ukraine strived as well for autonomy
and incorporating among its territories Bessarabia.
Faced with this,
Moldavians on the other side of the Pruth requested help from Petrograd.
They received it.
An institution was established
that would deal with all the preparations.
For a whole month it prepared the field
so that on November 21st, 1917
the first meeting of the Bessarabian Parliament, the Country's Council, took place.
During this first meeting,
the hymn, "Awaken thee, Romanian!" was sung
and the Romanian flag was brought in the room.
The Council had among its members,
and leaders,
Constantin Stere, Pantelimon Halippa
and Ion Inculet, the Country Council's President.
On March 27th, 1918
in the building that today hosts the Arts Academy in Chisinau,
there was a majority vote.
Out of the 135 deputies in the Country Council,
86 were for the union with Romania.
The event on March 27th had...
An immense spiritual charge.
In the city, everyone was celebrating.
The enthusiasm was huge.
The celebrations were held in Iasi
and they were very animated.
The parents of this historical act rose to the occasion
and showed incredible maturity.
They set an example for all Romanians in the estranged territories.
The example of Bessarabian Romanians was followed by Bucovina,
and, a bit later, by the other Romanians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
What should they have done ? The grip had weakened.
They returned home. They did the same as Bessarabian Romanians.
FOLK GROUP "ARMONIA"
Bucovina, Bucovina, you are still estranged
Taken away from your mother, Stolen by strangers
<i>The heart's crying and sighs</i>
<i>For you, Bucovina</i>
<i>The cuckoo's singing in the forest,</i>
<i>Even our village can hear it</i>
MIDDLE SCHOOL NO. 6, CERNAUTI, UKRAINE
The year 1918 marked the destruction of these monarchies:
The Russian, the Austro-Hungarian, the German and the Ottoman Empires.
During that time Romanians strived for national unity.
They got engaged in the fight for national liberation,
in the fight for the unification in a sole state of all the territories
that used to be a part of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires.
But the hatchet had been unburied
between the ethnicities that lived within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Everyone wanted a bigger state in the detriment of their neighbours.
In the autumn of 1918,
the territories around Cernauti, Radauti and Siret
were claimed by both Romanians and Ukrainians.
On October 25th,
the Ukrainians established their own organization
with the purpose of affiliating to the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada.
They decreed that Bucovina belonged to Ukraine.
In Cernauti,
the National Council was created.
Write this, please.
The National Council, the representative authority in Cernauti.
This National Council was led
by President Iancu Flondor...
Who decreed the unification of Bucovina with Romania.
However, Ukrainians claimed
that Bucovina is part of their Ukraine.
The Ukrainians called on a council of their own,
People's Vece (Council).
DUMITRU COVALCIUC, HISTORIAN CERNAUTI, UKRAINE
They had 600 participants in the square next to the theatre
and they decided their union with Soviet Russia.
On the night of November 3rd...
They brought thousands of Ukrainian peasants on the streets
and these peasants started terrorizing the Romanian population,
breaking into ammunition depots,
breaking into supply storage houses,
where food was stored...
They carried out acts of robbery and anarchy.
In that situation, when people were dying here,
Iancu Flondor sent a courier to Iasi.
He sent Vasile Bodnarescu, a lawyer, to the Romanian Government
to ask for the intervention of the Romanian Army.
On November 11th, 1918,
the Romanian Army led by gen. Iacob Zadik entered Cernauti.
Iancu Flondor saluted the Romanian Army from the balcony of this building
and the square was flooded by Romanians.
It was a national triumph.
On November 15th,
The Romanian National Council convened Bucovina's General Congress.
The Jewish and Ukrainian representatives refused to take part.
All Romanians, supported by Poles and Germans
decreed Bucovina's union with the country,
with Romania, with the Kingdom of Romania.
Listen to what happened at the constitutive assembly.
"The assembly decides the union of Bucovina in its entirety,
with the other provinces,
in a national independent state and it will proceed to this effect
in full solidarity with Romanians from Transylvania and Hungary.
Without Iancu Flondor
the union would have been inevitably delayed.
He made no compromise in the national struggle.
He was the man who returned Bucovina to the motherland.
I have only great admiration and respect for him.
MIONA MICLESCU, IANCU FLONDOR'S GRANDDAUGHTER
I did not know him personally,
because our ancestors had short lives.
He died 13 years before I was born.
He was involved in politics at a young age.
The politics of Romanians in Bucovina had been very complicated.
Parties appeared and disappeared.
They were influenced by the Austrian model.
I couldn't have had more than an emotional connection.
He was everything for my father.
He worshipped him.
My grandfather was his most precious thing in the world.
I wasn't allowed to touch the five things he still had from grandpa.
He had some business cards
on which him and his wife had written some notes.
"Dear Lenticu" and it was signed "Unticu", meaning him.
And I started babbling "Dear Lenticu, Unticu".
"Never touch them and never speak about them like that."
That was it. It was all taboo.
An interesting thing is...
The correspondence between Iancu Flondor
and the Government representatives in Iasi.
I found a letter from Nicolae Iorga to Flondor.
"Iancu, hurry Bucovina's union with the country, or we lose Transylvania."
Transylvania...
Until 1918, it was never a Romanian country,
in the political sense of the word. It wasn't run by a Romanian elite,
unlike Bukovina,
which until 1775 was part of Moldova.
All the boyars, all the elite was Romanian.
Bessarabia until 1812 was as well a part of Moldavia.
The regions West and East from the Pruth were both Moldova.
However, Transylvania which had been under foreign rule for so much time
was better organized for the Great Union.
Probably because its leaders knew that it was very difficult to succeed.
After the entry of the United States of America in the war,
the Entente gathered new strength.
President Woodrow Wilson motivated this entry in the war
as a desire for the whole Europe to become a space for democracy.
And a group of experts from the United States
drafted a program
known simply as "The Fourteen Points".
The tenth point had a decisive role for the future of Europe.
It provided for the right to self-determinate
for the peoples in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Yes, the union was an internal political decision.
Because the unification of Transylvania was really well organized.
And I will tell you why.
There were Romanian national parties established in the 19th century,
which later on, around 1881, united in the National Romanian Party.
It had one branch in Transylvania and one in the west, in the Banat region.
And they united for the good of the nation.
This party coordinated the union.
The leaders of the National Romanian Party met
on October 12th, 1918.
And Vasile Goldis read the Declaration of Self-Determination.
It supported the Romanian cause.
His speeches were so fierce, I could say,
MARIUS GREC, HISTORIAN, ARAD
and so well supported by a logical rhetoric,
that the Hungarian authorities tried to moderate him.
He was offered a position in the Government in Budapest.
Vasile Goldis's answer was very simple.
"I don't want anything for me."
"Give everything to my nation."
And of course, things started changing.
The Union of 1918 was created in this house.
ALEXANDRU BIRTOLON, STEFAN CICIO-POP'S GRANDSON
I am the grandson of Stefan Cicio-Pop,
President of the National Supreme Council,
who orchestrated the Great Union on December 1st, 1918.
Here is where the preparations were made and then they left for Alba-Iulia.
In Arad,
three main characters lived and acted.
Vasile Goldis, Stefan Cicio-Pop and Ioan Suciu.
They played an important part
in choosing Alba-Iulia as the city where the union would be proclaimed,
but also in the actions taken
from the beginning of the 20th century until 1918, and even afterwards.
Actually, this is the place
where the whole revolution of Romanians from Transylvania was organized.
CORNELIU PADUREANU HISTORIAN, ARAD
Here is where all the orders came from,
including the formation of the Romanian National Councils
for all the towns and villages inhabited by Romanians.
This is where the Romanian National Guard was created.
It was a historic moment of great Romanian enthusiasm.
It wasn't easy, there were obstacles.
Some of the Romanians
did not want this unification to start from Arad,
but to have the headquarters in Sibiu.
To be protected...
Even Mr Goldis,
a great Romanian,
told my grandfather: "Istvan..."
Because you know that Stefan in Hungarian is Istvan.
"Istvan, you're crazy. Do you want us all to get killed by the Hungarians?"
And my grandfather asked:
"Gheorghe, how many kids do you have ?" "Istvan, you know I have none."
My grandfather replied: "I have six children
and I teach all of them at home
that there's nothing to be afraid of because we're Romanians
and we want Greater Romania."
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
In that moment there was a raising awareness
that brothers could kill each other instead of being together.
And then many Romanians, even the undecided ones said:
Rather than having to shoot my own brother,
who has an order to shoot me and doesn't know that I am Wallachian...
Rather than having that happen,
it's best that we fight for what is right.
On this street there were soldiers who came
to form the National Guards,
under my grandfather's supervision.
And in the yard of this house there was a table
with a Bible on it, a priest and the Romanian flag.
Tens and hundreds of people waited at the gate
to enroll in the National Guards.
I came in the Hall of the Union
to see if I can find
some writings and stories
about my grandfather's cousin,
lawyer Nicolae Tecau
who, after returning from the war as an infantry lieutenant,
participated in this manifestation on December 1st, 1918.
DANIEL TECAU, NEPHEW OF THE FIRST COMMANDER OF THE NATIONAL GUARD
On this occasion he became
the first Commander of the National Guard.
Here in Arad, in this house,
Vasile Goldis, the main character, wrote
the Resolution for the Union of Romanians in Transylvania
and the Hungarian parts, in Banat,
Crisana, Maramures and Transylvania.
Stefan Cicio-Pop was the de facto President of the Assembly.
The de jure President was Gheorghe Pop de Basesti,
but as he was quite old, he delegated this responsibility
to Stefan Cicio-Pop.
I have to tell you one thing. My grandfather...
On his deathbed he called the entire family and told them
to listen carefully.
After his death,
the remaining family members should withdraw from politics
until the moment when
they would earn so much money from their jobs,
that they could make politics for the people, for the nation.
They shouldn't make a job out of politics,
and let themselves be paid.
Without the awareness of elites,
regardless whether they represent culture or politics, there is no success.
We, as people, have elites.
Sometimes we criticize them, we're not happy with their decisions,
but in the great historical moments,
the elites rose up to the occasion.
Ioan Suciu left for Alba-Iulia a few days before December 1st
in order to start the preparations,
and Stefan Cicio-Pop contacted the Hungarian authorities,
and requested additional carriages
for the train that was going to bring the participants to Alba-Iulia.
ILEANA MORARIU, GRANDDAUGHTER OF A PARTICIPANT AT THE GREAT NATIONAL GATHERING
A few months before the departure, women weaved tricolour flags,
people put on their best suits
in order to represent the outskirts of Sibiu
in Alba-Iulia.
Of course people went from here to Alba-Iulia with their carriages,
on their horses and probably even by foot.
They took shortcuts, not the main road.
Over the hills.
And in Alba-Iulia they felt proud
together with the other inhabitants of the surrounding villages
that they took part in this great event, desired by our ancestors,
the Great Union of the Romanian people.
There was commotion in the village,
girls and boys prepared their national costumes.
AUREL SINTIMBREAN, SAMOILA MARZA'S GRANDSON
The old women weaved a big flag with three colours.
They also weaved a banner which read:
"Long live the Union and Greater Romania !"
They gathered in the morning of December 1st, 1918
and left on foot towards Alba-Iulia
together with priest Iosif Serban,
the mayor, teacher Marza,
and, of course, accompanied by photographer Samoila Marza.
Upon arrival they were greeted with food and everything.
EMIL CRETU, GRANDSON OF A PARTICIPANT AT THE GREAT NATIONAL GATHERING
Everything was organized for those who took part in the manifestation.
The chorus from our village sang patriotic songs.
They celebrated as they knew best.
With roasted calf, lamb,
and with a lot of wine.
After reading the act,
all Romanians gathered there threw their hats in the air.
Good for those who found theirs. Who didn't, found a different hat.
Six hundred delegates and another 628 representatives
for the cultural and professional associations in Transylvania were elected that day.
They gathered around the Casino building
where the coordinators of this union were gathered.
There was a moment of great enthusiasm.
Old Gheorghe Pop de Basesti was from here, from Salaj.
He wanted to live to see the Union.
They brought him in a carriage to Alba-Iulia, he voted for the Union,
and shortly after coming back home he passed away
and his last words were: "I did what I had to. I can die now."
Some lived with this ideal.
I'm overwhelmed by emotion.
This is a unique moment in my life.
I am here in front of these official documents
concerning my family.
It is... a great honour for me.
It is...
A family of true Romanians, that's all that I can say.
And I am part of this family of true Romanians.
It's hard for us to say
what was discussed in the hall of the Casino,
because back then there were no stenographs, no recordings,
much less movie cameras. They didn't even have microphones
so that the delegates outside the building could know
what was being said inside.
The decisions taken in the hall were communicated
through other speakers who shouted them to the delegates outside.
In order to photograph the festivities,
Arthur Bach was hired as photographer.
On Union Day, this photographer didn't show up
to fulfil his commitment and to photograph the Union.
The truth was
that he didn't embrace this historical event.
The event was saved by Samoila Marza.
He accompanied the other villagers
for this special occasion.
He took...
Very few photos.
Because the weather was bad,
the camera was heavy, complicated,
people should stand still.
His father sold a pair of oxen in order to buy his camera.
That's how valuable a camera was back then.
All his photos,
I could say, all his fortune was
a bike, the camera, the copying machine,
his photographic plates and his bag. That was all his fortune.
Prof. Anghel from the Union museum bought his photos.
With part of that money
he bought a better camera, a "top notch" one, as he said,
and wanted to take photos at the Union semicentennial.
Unfortunately, he didn't make it.
This is a photograph. It depicts the Union.
It's the Great National Assembly in Alba-Iulia.
It's taken by a great photographer.
- Do you know what I asked myself ? - No.
I asked myself... What am I ?
I asked my mom, because moms are the first people you ask.
I asked her: "Mom, what am I?" "You're a human being."
And then I asked: "Anything else ?"
And she said: "You're Romanian."
And because I knew a bit about other countries, I said:
"Why am I not French ?"
And she said: "You were born in Romania, you speak Romanian,
you know your history and you love your country.
That's what makes you Romanian."
And then I realized she was right.
But then I thought about leaving to another country, like Italy,
and having a family there,
would I become Italian... or anything ?
And I asked my mom again.
I already had my own opinion like everyone when they ask something.
She said that "if you would have a family there,
probably you would become."
But probably.
I knew that the "probably" may mean no.
And I made a research about this.
And I found out that wherever I'd go, whatever family I would have
and wherever I would die, whatever happened to my life...
You were born in Romania and you will still be Romanian.
At the end of the painful First World War
neither the winners, nor the defeated were happy.
In the end, Romanians had won a lot
and these events were perceived
as a sign from the divinity.
The sign that God...
supported the righteousness of their ideal.
I really think that this great act of 1918
was done by the Romanian people
who knew how to react to a favourable international context.
The Great Union was appreciated
by the Romanian Royal family
and the coronation of King Ferdinand and Queen Mary
was celebrated in Alba-Iulia,
the place of the Great Union.
Greater Romania had a surface bigger by 1/3 than the Old Kingdom
and around 8.5 million more citizens.
This new state, this unitary state,
posed great problems to its administrators.
There was the issue of an agrarian reform.
The peasants went to war because they were promised land.
There was the issue of institutions
that would represent the cultural unity of Romanians.
There was the issue of modernization, of industrialization,
of a modern Constitution, an adequate legislation
for the citizens of a modern Romania.
But Greater Romania had but a short time for all this,
a short time for history,
no more than two decades,
because, as I said,
the great complaints generated by the decisions taken at peace conferences
will light the fires of an even tougher, even more tragic conflict:
the Second World War.
There was such an enthusiasm, that the people who made the union...
Their generation was left overwhelmed by this,
and they couldn't even imagine
that something more uplifting than the union can even exist for the Romanian people.
The people who had the misfortune to see the year 1940
were awoken to reality and realized
that the edifice built in 1918-1920
wasn't as solid as we had imagined.
Yet again, the country was caught between two deadly ideologies this time:
between the world domination ambitions nurtured by two evil geniuses.
I'm talking about Nazism and Communism, Hitler and Stalin.
In the summer of 1940,
The Soviet Union gave Bucharest an ultimatum,
claiming Bessarabia, Bucovina and the Hertza region,
that it had never possessed.
As a result,
3.7 million Romanian citizens woke up overnight as Soviet citizens
and entered this Soviet tumble of deportations and imprisonments,
that continued with the Second World War.
I was at home.
And I left when the order came.
They called for mobilization and we left to the...
...to the unit.
There, I was sent to the Central Ammunition Depot in Bucharest.
I was afraid of the Russians, that they would take me...
They would catch everyone of us and send us off to the camps...
I had two brothers.
One died while serving at the Bucharest Heavy Artillery Unit.
He came home and died.
The second one died on the front.
My other brother died in a camp in Kazakhstan.
He was two years older than me.
Yeah, he worked on the railroads...
...three railroads in Sibiu. That's where he was.
And the Russians caught him...
He worked in Russia with the others.
And he was sent off to the camps
Dolgan Gherasim, this is my grandfather who never came back,
and Dolgan Constantin in July,
they were sent off to Siberia.
Hitler, the other evil genius of the 20th century,
through his acolytes near the Romanian borders,
took away other territories from our country.
On August 30th, 1940, through the Vienna Award,
Romania was forced to give Hungary a territory of over 40,000 sq km,
on which lived almost three million people.
Almost two weeks later, Prime Minister Ion Antonescu was forced to sign
the treaty by which Romania conceded South-Eastern Dobrogea to Bulgaria.
The region was known as "Cadrilater".
As of that moment, Greater Romania stopped existing.
But the losses incurred in the summer of 1940 were only the beginning of the disaster.
My parents were deported in 1941 to Siberia, because they were seen as rich.
DUMITRU MITITEI, PRIEST "STEFAN CEL MARE" CHURCH, MAHALA, UKRAINE
They were a little rich, as they had a horse and an ox.
And they were sent off to Siberia.
My mother was only 15 years old when she was deported
together with her family, her parents, a sister and a brother.
Those who have no past, have no future. We cannot forget them,
because they were deported for something insignificant, for nothing.
She would always cry about it.
She used to tell me: "I was one of those sent to Siberia."
"All I wanted was to come home, to eat potato peelings, not even potatoes."
After the Second World War, there was a long desperate period
that can't even be compared to the period after the First World War,
when, although Romanians endured a lot of hardship and destruction,
they were enthusiastic,
and they were extremely hopeful that they would build a new country.
After the war, these feelings changed.
They felt they would have to live off the remains of a country, that was crippled.
<i>"Hunger is a powerful feeling, you can't even imagine it..."</i>
I was four years old and my brother was one year old.
AURORA BUJENITA SURVIVOR OF THE SIBERIAN DEPORTATIONS
There was this rumour that the Russians are coming
and they are threatening the Romanians and our world.
And, one night, someone knocked on our window.
Grandma woke up and told mom:
"Anghelina, go open the door, I think Gheorghe came home."
Mom went and opened the door,
grandma lit up the lamp, cause we didn't have electricity back then.
When mom opened the door, soldiers, militia and whatnot entered the house,
they had guns,
and asked us to leave the house in 10 to 15 minutes.
The liberators from the East came with their tanks
and a political regime that Romanians didn't want.
And the car was waiting on the road and they made us go into the car.
Being in a hurry, what could they take?
I remember them taking some corn flour. Why do I remember this?
Because on the road, for as long as we went, I cried because of hunger
and they gave me in my hand some corn flour and I licked it,
to ease my hunger.
And they also took some...
...apples, pears, some dried vegetables,
and we used to give them to my brother when he cried.
He was only one year old and was still breastfed.
On the road, because of hunger and pain,
mother lost her milk, she didn't have anything to feed him,
but we didn't have anything else, so...
We received some dark bread and salted fish once a day.
And we received water only once a day.
What you drank is what you got.
We cried on the road, as we were, because of thirst, that horrible thirst.
And we didn't cry so much of hunger, as of thirst.
And wherever we went, if it rained,
mother would take to the little window,
a little window with bars,
she would take out her hands and catch some raindrops
and she would put it on our lips.
I used to cry: "I'm hungry, mama! I'm hungry!"
"Make the sign of the cross with your tongue"
"and pray to God to give you strength so you can bear through it all."
And I asked mother:
"Why should I make the sign of the cross with my tongue and not with my hand?"
Mother says: "Don't do it with your hand, lest someone might see you."
Though we all had the same reasoning, we suffered the same,
traitors are sure to be found always anywhere.
I think there are no places free of treason.
ELENA NANDRIS MAYOR OF MAHALA VILLAGE, UKRAINE
There are wounds that will bleed for your whole life,
even if, on the surface they healed,
on the inside, they cry and bleed.
I think this can be applied to our community here, in Mahala,
because until 1991 we couldn't share our pain with anyone.
Moreover, a third of the village people were killed at Lunca
and taken away, deported to Siberia.
Many other families got separated,
brothers from sisters.
Some children and parents crossed the border with the Romanian Army.
Those who were able to, those who were not, stayed here,
and they were separated for years and couldn't meet again.
Until 1991, and even after 1991,
our people couldn't tell anyone,
they were afraid, it was forbidden to talk badly about Siberia,
it was forbidden to talk about Lunca,
it was forbidden to take...
Even when someone went to leave a candle at the cross,
they wouldn't do it officially, but in hiding.
Hunger is horrible. I hope nobody experiences it.
You can't even imagine how it feels.
And we got to where they cooked for the people there,
and there were potato peels, cabbage leaves,
but they were rotten, in the garbage.
I used to go there and look for food with my little hands,
I used to look for potato peels, cabbage leaves
and I would take them directly to my mouth,
forget about washing them or cleaning them up a bit.
If you didn't put them in your mouth, someone else would grab them.
That's how I lived there for a year.
During that period, since we got there in July,
grandma died in September.
She couldn't fight the hunger anymore.
My aunt hung on... But she still didn't last more than a year.
She would work with my mother in the forest and, one morning, the commissar came,
but aunt couldn't get up from bed to go to work.
He pushed her and called her lazy. "Get up and go to work!"
And she said: "I'll go in a minute."
Mother said: "Mariuta, let's go!"
And she said: "Go, Anghelina, I'll come soon."
And that was her last time. She died then.
I thought she was sleeping and didn't want to listen to mother...
But she died.
When mother came back one day, she found grandmother lying there dead.
She cried, she screamed...
She slept with grandmother's body that night.
Then, when we returned to Mahala, you know what George Cosbuc wrote?
"Kiss my motherland's earth for me."
Everyone...
...on their knees,
regardless of the winter and snow...
Everyone, on their knees, kissed the land,
thanking God for being back home again.
In one year, Bessarabia, and I mean during 1940-1941,
from June 28th, 1940 until July 16th, 1941,*
for as long as this demented occupation took place,
Bessarabia registered a huge loss.
<i>To the total of 550 people we add four missing children.</i>
<i>"Daddy got arrested, he was taken away and we never got to see him again..."</i>
<i>I always think about</i>
<i>I always think about Crossing the Pruth</i>
<i>Crossing the Pruth</i>
We are twins born in 1938, on the 9th of February.
We are twin sisters and we are always together.
Without her, I'm nothing and she's nothing without me.
<i>Because it saddens me</i>
<i>Having sisters abroad</i>
<i>Having sisters abroad</i>
<i>Today, I woke up early in the morning,</i>
<i>Today, I woke up early in the morning And I came to the bridge of flowers</i>
<i>And I came to the bridge of flowers</i>
<i>You have water and stones, Pruth</i>
<i>You have water and stones I have just longing and grief</i>
<i>I have just longing and grief</i>
- There are more songs. - I miss it.
And the longing is so bad.
That's life.
When she came to see my grandfather in Iasi, our mom was pregnant with us.
He called her, because he needed help.
She was pregnant with us.
And then we were born in Sculeni, here, at the maternity.
And then the war started.
The war started in 1940.
We got evacuated with other people from here, to Falesti Raion.
We were sent to a village, to Calinesti.
During that time, while at Calinesti,
father came to Sculeni to find us, but he couldn't find us anymore.
And he said: "Only a few families were left at Sculeni."
And he said that Doichita and the girls were taken to Calinesti.
The Pruth was about to be closed down. The crossing was forbidden.
He heard about it and crossed it, he wanted to see us.
He swam across during the night.
He tied up his clothes.
Around his neck, around his head.
But he was arrested three days later, when he first came.
He was taken away and we never saw him again.
We didn't see him again until 1960.
We didn't know anything about him and he didn't know anything about us.
For instance, we found in the archives of the former KGB
only the fourth part of a file containing four parts,
in which we could identify about 300 people that were shot
between the months of November 1940 to March 1941.
But, for now, we can't tell how many were shot in total.
And this is only about the first year.
But a lot of people were sentenced to prison.
Shortly, the prisons became full,
the prisons in Bessarabia,
since many people were suspected of collaborating with the Romanian authorities.
VICTOR IGNAT SON OF MIHAIL IGNAT, DEPORTED IN SIBERIA
My father didn't want to leave. He said: "I'll stay. So what if the Bolsheviks come?"
"I'll give them my land and I'll stay to live here."
No. He was arrested and sent off to Siberia.
The Russians convinced him that, in 20 years,
the entire world will speak Russian.
From 1948 to 1958-1960, we had 10 to 12 years, if not more,
of an international proletarian regime, that's what everyone forgets.
Nationalism had to be eradicated.
Great Romania became a taboo topic,
the Great Union became a taboo topic,
you couldn't talk about territorial losses or the unity of the Romanian people,
nor about our Latin origins.
We were taught that we were not only related to Slavs, but that we are Slavs,
that we speak a Slavic language, Latin inscriptions had to be destroyed,
and we were taught that the future would belong to a sole global people,
with its centre in Moscow.
<i>"I'll give them my land and I'll continue to live..."</i>
When I started speaking, I only spoke Russian.
My father knew the language, but my mother didn't, so we didn't talk.
And mother made efforts to communicate with me.
Her hands would hurt when she would talk to me.
I said: "I don't want to attend the Russian school anymore."
"I want to attend the Moldavian school. I want to be desk mate with Petrea Barbu."
And...
For a whole week, I was taken to the Russian school
and, at eight in the morning, I would be at the Moldavian school.
My Russian language teacher asked:
"Why didn't your son come to class, is he ill?"
"Victor? What? He's not ill." "He hasn't come to school for a week."
"Victor!"
I went outside...
Look, here, on the porch.
I went outside and...
He asks: "Where have you been this week?"
"At school."
"The teacher says you haven't been to school!"
"I attended the Moldavian school."
"Who's your teacher?" "Mihail Luchianovici."
"I am his father."
"Did he come here with me, did I introduce my son to you?"
"What gives you he right to receive a foreign kid in class?"
"He told me he wanted to attend a Moldavian school"
"and, knowing you, I said to myself: why not?"
"But I don't understand why he attends the Russian school."
And then I heard.
"Young man..."
"In 20 years, the entire world will speak Russian."
And as he were there, Mihai, we would call him Mihai now,
he threw the axe he was holding right into the ice.
"The whole world will never speak Russian !"
And he realized he said something he could get shot for
or sent to Siberia for life.
And he left the axe there
and the axe handle was shaking there, above the ice.
Like this...
Big pause.
For the first time, I saw my father confused.
"Is this what you think?" he asks.
And he stops the axe handle. "Yes, that's what I think!"
And father looks at me.
He must've remembered that his ancestors were free peasants,
our forefathers going back to Stephen the Great, and asks:
"Son, do you want to attend the Moldavian school?"
And I say: "Yes."
"I'll allow it. I'll bring in the papers on Monday."
And he turns to me and says:
"If you come home with a low mark, I will kill you myself, understood?"
And I say: "Yes." "Do you still want to attend the Moldavian school?"
"Yes."
An enormous change, like the sovietisation of Romania
required the destruction of cultural figures,
of people with a historic background, of influential people.
And, not by chance, among the first people to be imprisoned were
the enablers of the Great Union of 1918.
Those still alive were persecuted
and then sent to jail,
and their descendants suffered for many years to come.
"For this is the purpose of Romanians: to fight for union and their holy land."
The Russians gave an order
to destroy the entire Romanian intellectual class
and to send them all to labour camps
or to arrest them
and destroy the intellectual class and the Romanian opposition
to the Russian machine and collectivization and this form of government.
We were arrested at 9 PM right from this room.
There was a small desk behind you,
and I was doing my homework.
It was snowing slowly outside.
I had been playing outside, and I came back to start my homework.
I heard when Toni, our help,
opened the gate, nine people entered the house
and left a policeman at the gate, so we couldn't get out.
The local militia officer was Romanian and he managed to get in touch
and tell my mother to dress me in warm clothes,
because we weren't coming back.
They took us to the Securitate,
and they didn't ask my mother anything.
So we were in their basement and at least we weren't alone.
There were more than 60 people in a room.
There was no place to sit.
It was clear that we would have the same fate as the Jews in Germany.
That's what I thought as a child.
We forget that our duty is to promote good
and to try to be better,
not because religion asks for it,
but because living in a community means being a good person.
We are always tempted to do evil things.
My plea is also for these past 100 years
since the Union of Romania, which was an extraordinary thing.
THE PROCLAMATION OF THE UNION OF ALL ROMANIANS
<i>It's a solemn moment!</i>
<i>The union of these provinces with the motherland.</i>
It hurts me every time when we go to the Pruth
and we wait to cross the border.
Every time I cross it, and I did this thousands of times,
back and forth again,
in the middle of the bridge, there's a red line.
It's torture.
I don't want to see that line.
Romanian brothers, my dears,
until I was six years old, I did not speak Romanian,
we did not have access to the Latin writing
and only in 1989 we got to have Romanian literature,
we realized that our classic writers are your classic writers,
your classic writers are ours, as well...
Let's make it so that, in a while,
let's say in 2018, we could really say
that we are a whole...
...and not say that this one is born in Bessarabia...
Yes, he's Bessarabian, he was born there, but he's Romanian.
Say no more, to quote Mihai Eminescu.
"The only constant trait of this world
and the only one representing its unity is change."
I didn't say this, but ancient philosopher Heraclitus.
Will there ever be a Greater Romania again?
"You can't bathe twice in the same water,"
says Heraclitus again.
Romania will never be the same as it was back then,
because history does not repeat itself.
Circumstances changed, as well.
But where there is a Romanian majority,
the possibility continues to exist,
because that Romanian majority, depending on circumstances
may decide to live together with the rest of their people.
So this Romanian unity that you are talking about
might materialize in a European context.
And the idea of European integration for the Republic of Moldova
should also be at our forefront.
Thus, we will see them closer to us
and we will be closer to them.
Otherwise, if the people of Moldova will ask for unification,
I don't see a reason why Romania would refuse.
It will be an act of national will
and it will depend on the approval of the great powers,
because not even today we can't change borders
without the approval of the great powers.
The future is unpredictable.
On the other hand, I would say that, at this point in time,
given how things are evolving
and the presence of Romanians everywhere in the world,
this enormous overflow
due to modernity and current technologies,
makes us believe that we have an even larger Romania than in 1918.
What matters the most is, however, the affirmation of our Romanian nature
through the Romanians that are inside the borders and outside them.
How can we assert it?
Through the everlasting values of humanity: truth, good and beauty,
in the name of us being Romanians.
...let's pray for our priest brothers,
Romanians from everywhere,
for their health and redemption.
Lord, have mercy!
God is merciful and people loving
We worship Thee, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Now and forever.
Amen!
Faith and soul have no borders.
That is why we pray for Romanians that are everywhere in this world,
be it Ukraine or Romania.
They took a branch from a tree.
And we, in 1918, tried to put it back,
to mend it with some...
So that it gets glued back to the body.
And it caught on, but they came again and broke it time after time..
And it stuck back. And now I think it got stronger, it's more vigorous,
it gets back to normal.
Let's be human beings, with respect for one another.
We are Romanians, and Romanians are always happy, daring
and never lose their temper.
We are Romanians and we would like for the country to know of our existence,
and that we are and will be, even if some may not like it.
We are Romanians and nobody can prove the contrary.
Family is always united and, even if, for example...
Look, I am pretty good example.
Me and my mother live in Cluj and my father lives somewhere else.
Even if my mother and father don't talk to each other...
I love my father and we are a family.
If my father would get along better with my mother and we would be together,
just like the Romanian Principalities did, we would be a lot happier.
In the same manner, Romanians were happier after they united.
Because they were finally united.
We are Romanians
and even more so than the people in Romania, in the motherland.
"States are timely inventions,"
"which humans created by force,"
"while nations are living things,"
"that are born, develop and fulfil their historic role"
"through the will and grace of God." Iancu Nistor
My boy!
Deep down, I have been and I am Romanian.
My girl is also Romanian.
She sings, and she sings in Russian.
"My dear, I've got nothing against this,"
"I like Russian culture and I like Ukrainian culture,"
"but let Russians sing in Russian,"
"Ukrainians sing in Ukrainian, since they have beautiful songs,"
"but let Romanians sing in their language."
And now she sings in Romanian and that makes me very happy.
When I hear Romanian music, though, deep down, I am Romanian
and my child is Romanian and my niece is also Romanian.
And when we hear Romanian music, we all smile and start to dance.
We have traditional costumes...
We are Romanians. We feel Romanian, we don't...
That's who we are. That's how we've been since forever.
The earth is our connection...
Because that's where our roots are,
our ancestors' roots, and we exist here.
Gentlemen, blood is thicker than water.
I love my family very much, my cousins,
the Romanian language and Romania.
We know you are Romanian because you were born here,
you protect your country, you love it...
Well, some may not love their country anymore,
but their hearts, no matter what, will continue to be Romanian.
I...
I always dreamt about it and will say this...
I hope that, sometimes, maybe Bucovina will be reunited,
it will be united with Romania.
We all have the right to education, life, health, family and a home.
We all have the right to this.
Romania and Bessarabia are like twin sisters,
just like me and Olga, twins.
- Of course. We are... - We speak the same language.
And people who left should return home to us in Romania.
If nobody will shoot me, I will say that Romania is...
...my historic homeland...
I...
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