Rumanization

Romanianization (or Rumanianization or Rumanization) was the series of policies aimed toward ethnic assimilation implemented by the Romanian authorities during the 20th century. The most noteworthy policies were those aimed at the Hungarian minority in Romania as well as the Ukrainian minority in Bukovina and Bessarabia.

After the end of World War I, in 1th January 1918, the Romanian National Council (representing the majoritary Romanian population) and - soon afterwards - the representatives of the German population had taken the decision of unifying the province with Romania. The decision was contested by the Hungarian minority. In 1920, the Treaty of Trianon established the Romanian border with the new Hungarian state. However, Transylvania had a large Hungarian minority, of 25.5% according to the 1920 census. A portion of them fled to Hungary after the union; however, most of them remained in Romania and in the 1930s their number increased to 26.7% of the whole Transylvanian population. The increase in the proportion of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania was induced by the immigration of the Hungarians from Hungary and by the significant improvement of living standards of the Hungarian minority in Romania comparative with the living standards of the interwar Hungary's population. While Romania included large national minorities, the 1923 Constitution declared the country to be a nation-state, following the French model which was popular in many European nations at that time.

After the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the post-war mass actions of the Romanians directed against primarily the Hungarian aristocracy and at times Jews. The takeover did not happen without the reduction of the cultural and economic life of the Hungarians. While in accordance with the Agricultural Act of 1921 a number of Hungarian estates and lands were confiscated, the land reform openly favored the Romanians, the national group which used to be the victim of the unjust land allocation systems practiced under the Hungarian Kingdom's administrations.

Although Romania won the war, the Anti-Hungarian sentiments were not remitted. During the 1930s (in response to the Hungarian Revisionism) Anti-Revisionist demonstrations began in Romania, supported by Nationalist newspapers like the Universul. After a particularly violent protest in Cluj Foreign Minister Titulescu officially condemned the events in Bucharest newspapers. During the autumn in 1944, after the withdrawal of the Hungarian military forces and administration from Transylvania, Székelyland was engaged and pillaged by the Romanian Gendarmerie and volunteers. However, on 12 November 1944 the Soviet Red Army expulsed the returning Romanian authorities from Northern Transylvania with reference to the massacres committed by members of Iuliu Maniu's so-called Maniu Guard, and the Romanian authorities were not allowed to return until the government of Petru Groza was formed on 6 March 1945.(The Hungarian-Romanian conflicts in 1940 and 1944 are still controversial.)

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