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What happens when nation-builders in an independent state imagine themselves to have fallen behind kinfolk living under imperial oppression, and how does this affect their vision of a future of national unity? This paper explores the shapes that critical self-comparison could take among Romanians in the Kingdom of Romania around the turn of the twentieth century by considering three interconnected vignettes. First, it outlines the context in which politicized notions of mutual interdependence between the Kingdom and Transylvania allowed for comparison as self-criticism to take root and gain salience in the public sphere. It explores the implications that comparison as self-criticism had on ascribing agency and apportioning blame for causes of the disparity between state and kinfolk. Second, it examines two Transylvanian travelogues produced by major political and cultural figures on the fringes of the Romanian establishment, and, in a reflexive move, contrasts their politics of comparison. Third, it offers a grassroots perspective on how the travelogues of teachers and priests, as rank-and-file nation-builders, expressed these topoi. The article contributes to the nascent trend of considering historical comparisons in actors' own terms, and as historical processes unto themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature suggests ethnic diversity has a negative effect on development. Yet, we also know that government policies—e.g., recognizing multiple languages in minority-sizable areas—can attenuate these effects. In this paper, we ask: What are the socioeconomic implications of minority language recognition? We leverage a legal stipulation in Romania as a quasi-experiment: Minority languages are recognized as official in areas where the minority constitutes more than 20% of the population. We argue the recognition of minority languages builds social trust and facilitates efficiency in economic exchanges—mollifying the otherwise detrimental consequences of diversity. Using data at the municipality level, we find that in areas where only Romanian is recognized, ethnic diversity has a negative effect on development—a result consistent with the literature. This effect, however, is absent in areas where a minority language is recognized. The implications suggest that lowering the threshold for language recognition could promote even further development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the creation of a historical reference map of the mid-southern region of Transylvania (nowadays in central Romania) in 1848. This area was shaped by the presence of the Transylvanian Saxons, the ethnic German descendants of the settlers invited here by the kings of Hungary during the High Middle Ages. Transylvania became part of the Habsburg Empire at the end of the seventeenth century and was elevated to the status of a Grand Principality in 1765. The map is primarily based on historical cartographic documents and written publications, but also integrates digital geo-spatial datasets. It was produced at a scale of 1:400 000 and includes the hydrography, the administrative boundaries, the main roads, the postal stations and all the settlements attested in the Transylvanian Saxon administrative subdivisions before the mid-nineteenth century [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A leverage points perspective recognises different levels of systemic depth, ranging from the relatively shallow levels of parameters and feedbacks to the deeper levels of system design and intent. Analysing a given social-ecological system for its characteristics across these four levels of systemic depth provides a useful diagnostic to better understand sustainability problems, and can complement other types of cause-and-effect systems modelling. Moreover, the structured comparison of multiple systems can highlight whether sustainability challenges in different systems have a similar origin (e.g. similar feedbacks or similar design). We used a leverage points perspective to systematically compare findings from three in-depth social-ecological case studies, which investigated rural landscapes in southeastern Australia, central Romania, and southwestern Ethiopia. Inductive coding of key findings documented in over 60 empirical publications was used to generate synthesis statements of key findings in the three case studies. Despite major socioeconomic and ecological differences, many synthesis statements applied to all three case studies. Major sustainability problems occurred at the design and intent levels. For example, at the intent level, all three rural landscapes were driven by goals and paradigms that mirrored a productivist green revolution discourse. Our paper thus highlights that there are underlying challenges for rural sustainability across the world, which appear to apply similarly across strongly contrasting socioeconomic contexts. Sustainability interventions should be mindful of such deep similarities in system characteristics. We conclude that a leverage points perspective could be used to compare many other types of social-ecological systems around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes archaeological excavations in the Bandkeramik settlement of Olteni in Transylvania. Remains of early Neolithic longhouses were discovered, which are the first evidence of such structures in Romania. The ceramic finds allow dating the site to the later Notenkopf phase of the Linearbandkeramik. In addition, Olteni yielded the most extensive collection of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic sculptures in the entire Eastern Bandkeramik milieu. The excavations also included traces of the Boian and Precucuteni I cultures, as well as an Iron Age cemetery. [Extracted from the article]

The paper celebrates the life and work of Professor Liviu Maior, a reputed historian in Romania and abroad, with an impressive contribution to the field of Transylvanian and Romanian history, approached in a broad European context, a politician and a diplomat, appreciated for the professionalism and loyalty with which he served Romania and the universally valid democratic values, and at the same time a founder of research institutions in the field of history, educational institutions and culture. Attention is given to his latest research, dealing with the national movement of the Transylvanian Romanians, with Alexandru Vaida Voevod, and with the Great War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the reforms that shaped the fiscal policies of Greater romania, amid the changes brought forth within the country after the Great Union of 1918. The addition of the new provinces, with special emphasis on Transylvania, prompted the government in Bucharest to tailor a comprehensive set of measures in the areas of direct and indirect taxation, meant to take into account the specific development of the former, as well as to further the modernization efforts emblematic of romania's orientation in the interwar period. The data from Statistical Yearbooks published at that time provides us with an insight into the types of taxes envisaged, the manner in which budgets were executed, and the contribution of each province to the overall national budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki Girard, 1859) is a small, viviparous, freshwater fish, member of the Poeciliidae family, living in shallow or slow-flowing waters. The paper aims to review several aspects related to the biology of the species and its history in Romania as an introduced species. G. holbrooki is an euribiont species, except for adapting to very low temperatures. The species was introduced in many locations in Romania at the beginning of the last century. Our attempts to identify the species in Transylvania failed, and the last water in Transylvania where it could still be found dried up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 100th anniversary of the union of Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia with Romania (1918) and of the signing of the Treaty of Trianon (1920), which meant international recognition for Romania's western border, is an opportunity to analyze impartially the historical documents justifying that process. This is all the more necessary because the Hungarian side strongly criticized it. The paper deals with the establishment of the Romanian and Hungarian nation-state borders. It analyzes Hungarian, German, Romanian, West European and American historical documents which outline the evolution of the boundary between the Romanian and the Hungarian ethnic blocs previous to the year 1918, the basis for the current political frontier, as well as inter- and postwar documents challenging the recourse to false scientific arguments on the union of Transylvania with Romania. To conclude, from 1750 to 1918, the ethnic boundary between Romanians and Hungarians constantly shifted eastwards as a consequence of the Hungarian authorities' political decisions, the present political borderline running along the ethnic one of 1918. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to investigate the role of linear transportation infrastructure (roads and railways) in the spread of invasive alien plant species and their impact on the habitat 91E0* Alluvial forests with Alnus glutinosa and Fraxinus excelsior, in the ROSCI0298 Crișul Alb Gorge Natura 2000 site. In the 30 plots analysed were observed the following invasive alien plant species: Amorpha fruticosa, Fallopia japonica, Impatiens glandulifera and Acer negundo, which are recognized at European and global level as potential threats to biodiversity. Presence of this invasive alien plant species has changed the structure and functions of the Alluvial forests with Alnus glutinosa and Fraxinus excelsior in 70% of the analysed plots and also influenced the conservation status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will present the customs regarding the Hungarian reformed funeral songs in the area by the stream Nádas, an area that is located in the heart of Kalotaszeg in Romania. The paper follows a theoretical and a practical thread. In the theoretical part I examined the funeral song-material of old Hungarian song collections, while the practical part describes my visits to a number of villages with significant folk traditions, inhabited by Hungarians, where I collected and summarized the musical traditions associated with funerals. In this paper I will shortly report on my findings, observations and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to describe the manner in which the Transylvanian Saxons were presented in four Romanian local newspapers of Braşov between 1 June 2005 and 31 June 2008. The analysis focuses on whether the newspapers wrote about the German minority in a positive, negative or neutral manner, in the articles that are relevant for the purposes of this paper. The analyzed newspapers are all local Romanian newspapers of Braşov: Monitorul Expres, Transilvania Expres, Bunã ziua Braşov and Gazeta de Transilvania. The study starts from one scientific question and leads to four hypotheses. 201 articles, published between 1 June 2005 and 31 June 2008, have been selected and included in the code sheet. The data have been evaluated with the help of the SPSS statistical software. A total of 739 references have been evaluated. 16 references were positive, 723 neutral and not a single one was negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author analyses the descriptions and images that reflected the Romanian social structure in Transylvania during the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century. Thus, the aim of this paper is mainly to reveal the ideological functions fulfilled by these images, in the political context of that period. Such images belong to both internal Romanian and foreign observers. Among the internal observers there are two categories of images: those which belong to the intellectuals of the Enlightenment ,and some others drawn by the Romantic intellectuals. The study's conclusions show that the majority of internal observers considered that Transylvania's Romanian society should be described as a homogenous and undifferentiated mass, essentially comprised of peasants. Within the building process of such an image, the direct observation of the realities, which might have shown that the Romanians from Transylvania had always had significant social elites, counted for less. In contrast, promoting the image of a peasant nation was considered to bring more important psychological and political benefits. At first, the Romanian intellectuals of the Enlightenment struggled against such a leveling image and showed that the Romanians also have strong elites, similar to those of other nations. Nevertheless, the next generation, the Romantic one which was influenced by Herder's ideas, considered that the essence of the Romanian nation was to be found only among the peasants. In the context of the 19th century which was dominated by the democratic and nationalistic ideas, the Romanian intellectuals believed that the image of a nation composed of a large mass of peasants will better serve their political purposes. As a consequence, within their writings, they neglected the historical role of the Romanian elites from Transylvania, considering that these elites had not adequately served the interests of the masses, of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There is an ongoing debate in the literature regarding the causes behind fertility transition. Especially, the relative importance of economic modernization versus cultural adaptation is hotly debated. The paper takes Transylvania, the eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as an example. The period of 1880–1910 was a time of fast modernization and industrialization in Transylvania, and it created large territorial differences in economic development. The ethnic and religious composition of the area is versatile; mainly Orthodox Romanians, Catholic Hungarians, and Protestant Germans populated the area. Data: A cross-sectional database has been created by matching census and vital statistics records for 4112 settlements, for the 1900–1910 period. Method: OLS regression is used to model crude birth rates by settlement. The factors affecting fertility are modeled using the Easterlin–Crimmins framework. Results: An explanation placing economic factors (demand and supply) in first place, but accepting the secondary role of innovation factors as barriers to implement fertility regulation, fits the data about Transylvania well. Discussion: Previous research results regarding Hungary could not show the effect of some socio-economic variables on fertility, due to the high level of aggregation. They favoured cultural explanations, and shown Hungary as an exception to the rules of demographic transition. In contrast, this paper shows that the classic explanatory factors like infant mortality, migration, literacy, and secularization do explain fertility differentials in Transylvania at the turn of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents some new contributions to the Collembola fauna of the county Sălaj in Transylvania (Romania), a region the springtails of which is practically unexplored. 19 species are reported, one of them (Sminthurus nigromaculatus Tullberg, 1871) is new to the fauna of Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The activity of the Romanian national councils, from Lower Alba county and the activity of the Romanian National Council of Blaj are extended and of great interest. Regarding the events that preceded the Great Union of 1918, historians have written extensively both general and particular works, addressing different viewpoints, studying this exceptional episode of our national history. Our approach is intended to be a short introduction of the tense atmosphere from the end of the year 1918 and an analysis of the activity of the Romanian National Council of Blaj. Such research topics were subjects for historians, as Marcel Ştirban and Viorica Lascu, especially with the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Great Union (1968). However, during the last half century this subject was abandoned. Gradually historians returned to this topic, mainly because we are approaching the 2018 moment (centenary of the Great Union). In this context we intend to bring our humble contribution to the existing knowledge of the activity of this organism, by reinterpreting the studies and the papers, published so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief research paper is in the same time a study of modern world history, but also that of compared imagology. The researched theme can be regarded as an unprecedented one because the study presents the image of a West European country reflected in the main Transylvanian newspaper from the modern period, "Gazeta de Transilvania". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief research paper is in the same time a study of modern world history, but also that of compared imagology. The researched theme can be regarded as an unprecedented one because the study presents the image of a West European country reflected in the main Transylvanian newspaper from the modern period, "Gazeta de Transilvania". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pavel Vasici-Ungureanu, a 19th century Romanian physician known in the age mainly thanks to his contribution to the creation of the ASTRA society's scientific section. His later preoccupations came closer and closer to the field of medical anthropology, among which we shall mention: Anthropology or Brief Knowledge on Man and His Characteristics (Buda, 1830); Dietetics or the Knowledge of Maintaining One's Complete Health (Buda, 1831), and The Anthropologic Catechism (Timişoara, 1870). The aim of the present paper is to highlight the original contribution of this Romanian scientist, one of the pioneers of medical anthropological, hygienic, and dietetic research. Unfortunately, his lifework has remained unknown in general partly due to the low number of printed copies, partly on account of the Cyrillic letters in which the first works were published. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper researches the anthropo-toponyms registered in a document of great importance for the Transylvanian anthroponymy and toponymy of the first half of the 14th century. The document is The Register of the Pontifical Tithes for 6 years in Regard to Transylvania (1332-1337), published as Socotelile lui Iacob al lui Berengariu şi Raimund de Bonofato, strângătorii dijmelor De şase ani din Regatul Ungariei, in the volume Documente privind istoria României, veacul C. Transilvania, vol. III (1331-1340) (Bucharest, 1954), doc. 56. The analysis focused on the spread of the Christian anthroponyms in settlement names, the anthropo-toponyms containing saint's names, the large variety of anthroponyms used in establishing settlement names, as well as on new typological categories and possible ways in which an anthropo-toponym could have emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Harghita Mountains is not a simple mountain range in the Carpathians. It is also a symbolic place of identity, created by the transylvanism, the interwar literary movement of the Hungarian minority in Romania, and strengthened later by the communist reorganization of the count. Our paper analyses its various aspects in a novel by Áron Tamási, Abel in the deep forest, and a drama by András Sütő, Advent on the Hargita. Although reflecting two different historical periods, the thirties and the eighties, the issues are similar: it is a place of cosmogony, a Paradise, a field of interethnic encounter and the school of life. The basic opposition is rooted in the Hungarian minority's deteriorated political situation: the novel's thirst for knowledge makes way, in the drama, for a passive wonder waiting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research is focused on a document often left aside by the Romanian historiography - the 1887 memorandum project elaborated by Ioan Slavici. The paper can be considered a forerunner of the 1892 memorandum and represents the result of a deep compromise between the real political ideas of its author and the Romanian National Party's official agenda. Thus, shortly after its elaboration, Slavici resigned from the leadership of the national movement and never again made mention of the project's ideas. Alongside the description and analysis of the document's content, the conclusions of our article explore the possibility of alternative explanations for the strong pro-Habsburg position of the writer, presenting the opportunity of relating his political imaginary with some recurrent psychological behavior identified by one of his recent biographers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The plague epidemics of 1718-19 greatly affected the foreign trade of the Romanian Principalities, and also the international trade in Central and Eastern Europe, leading to a complete interruption of commercial exchanges following the closing of the borders of Imperial Hungary and given the uncertainty of the routes in the areas affected by pestilence. On the basis of a critical analysis of the correspondence between the Venetian ambassador to Vienna and the Provveditori e Sopraprovveditori alla Sanità of the Serenissima, this paper presents the impact of the bubonic plague on the foreign trade of the Romanian Principalities, especially in what concerns the commercial relations between Transylvania, Wallachia and Venice. These unpublished Venetian sources refer to the position of the Romanian Principalities at the periphery of world economy, after the conclusion of the Peace Treaty of Passarowitz (Požarevac), which led to the annexation of Little Wallachia by the Habsburgs, thus causing a reduction in Wallachian exports and the rise of a new competitor-- the Habsburg Empire--in the commerce with the Ottoman Levant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I analyze the expenses made around 1500 on school teachers, mess sung, sculptures and paintings belonging to the parish church or to the town hall, and goldsmith-wares of the towns of Brasov, Sibiu, Sighisoara, Medias and Cluj-Napoca. Most of these expenditures were related to the parish church, which is a manifestation of the urban communalization process. The total sum of these expenses represented only some percentages of the total expenses of the towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genus Centaurea is one of the most complicated genera because it shows a great morphological diversity. For this reason, in Romania it has been little studied in the scientific literature. This paper presents the species of the genus Centaurea that grows in the Transylvania area. The study includes some morphological observations of Centaurea species from Transylvania and the description of some critical species from this area. The observations were made on voucher specimens (accepted species and their synonyms) of the Herbaria of the Natural History Museum, Sibiu, but some other species were observed in the field. This study compared the characteristics of the involucral bracts, inflorescences and achene features, with keys to determine the principal species of Centaurea. Some critical species were compared with species collected from the Transylvania area in the years 2010 and 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During its whole medieval existence, Hungary preserved its heterogeneous structure, in spite of the homogenizing policy promoted especially by the Angevins. In recent papers it is estimated that around A.D. 1500 Hungary had 4 million inhabitants, which we deem slightly exaggerated. But let us nevertheless admit that the number is real. At the time of their invasion Pannonia, the Hungarians must have amounted to about 100,000-120,000 people. If at the end of the Middle Ages the kingdom had 4 million inhabitants, of which more than 3 million were Magyars, as claimed of late, it means that the Magyar population grew about 30 times in about half a millennium, something happened nowhere in Europe at that time. It follows that both the demographic data (scarce as they are) and the ethno-confessional ones lead us to the conclusion that, without the possibility of specifying the exact number of inhabitants in absolute figures, the proportion of non-Magyars and non-Catholics in medieval Hungary constantly remained more important than that of Magyars and Catholics. Whole provinces, such as Slovakia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Sirmium, Voivodina, Transylvania, Banat, Crişana, Maramureş, the area inhabitded by the Cumans etc., are constantly presented in different sources such as Slavic, Romanian, "schismatic," or "heretical." The towns were, as we have seen, mostly German. It follows that the ethnic and confessional image of medieval Hungary, although modified by the Reformation and then by the Counter reformation, does not differ essentially from the one outlined before the First World War, when the "minorities" officially accounted for more than a half of the entire population. In other words, these "minorities" have always represented a majority, whence the lack of viability of the kingdom that inherited the tradition of the "holy crown" of Saint Stephen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the Transylvanian banking system in the first decade after the Union of 1918, presenting the development of the Romanian banking network, the profile of its banks (683 in 1922, 1,228 in 1928), their main fields of activity, their contacts with the political class (represented in its boards), and also the flaws and the fragility of the banking system during the period in question. In the first interwar decade, most of the newly created banks had little capital. To a considerable extent, their activity was based on the capital of their customers, in the form of deposits, and especially on credit. Although the banking system developed massively and sometimes chaotically in the 1920s, the fragility of this system (poor capitalization and units lacking financial power) at both national and local level cannot be denied. This weakness was largely due to the many difficulties faced by the Romanian economy after World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the emblems and rituals that help creating the symbolic space of a “home” or “fatherland” which transcends the borders of nation-states and generate cultural intimacy between people living in different countries and under different political regimes. After a glance at some symbolic condensations of Hungarian-ness, with special regard to the territorial marking and the dead, it focuses on the recent transformations of an annual pilgrimage in Transylvania into ritual staging of Hungarian “homeland” across borders and regardless of religious affiliations. Remaining for centuries the religious feast of the local Szekel population, a minority Magyar-speaking Catholic group, after 1989 the pilgrimage of Csiksomlyo/Sumuleu, in today's Romania, developed into a powerful manifestation of Hungarian patriotism. Set in a multi-linguistic and multi-religious area, this pilgrimage provides a sophisticated ritual framework and the symbolic tools to negotiate the various groups' belonging to, and their hierarchic ordering in, the cultural construct of “the fatherland”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of two major categories of demographic sources--divorce trials and marriage dispensations-the paper presents the manner in which marital bonds were established in the rural society of Transylvania at the middle of the 19th century, and how they were planned by the parents--who, in most cases, decided the future of their children--and by the future spouses themselves. In keeping with the traditional peasant mentality, the aim was to achieve the social and personal fulfillment of individuals within the social group in which they had been born or, in the ethnically mixed villages so numerous in Transylvania, within their ethnic group. Consequently, nobles married nobles, rich married rich, poor people married other poor people, Romanians married Romanians, Hungarians married Hungarians, Saxons married Saxons. The picture is further complicated by a series of factors, such as: different family fortunes within the same social group, different traditions among the villages of the former serfs, of the border units, of the small nobles, differences dictated by gender, age, by the previous marital status (widow/ers), interdenominational and interethnic marriages, etc. significant cases from the literature of that time are given as examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investigation of families and of matrimonial behavior with the Transylvanian Romanians between the middle of the 19th century and World War I, in the context of the general population of the province (in 1850 the Romanians represented roughly 55% of the population of Transylvania) fully reveals the modernizing tendencies affecting Transylvanian society at that time. Our paper presents the agents of change, the factors that altered demographic behavior and family relations with the Romanians, as well as the visible, measurable effects of these developments. The end of feudalism in Transylvania after the Revolution of 1848 brought with it a change in judicial and socio-economic relations, presently based on an economy of exchanges and of capital transfers, on the circulation of labor, etc., but also a different marital behavior and new moral norms within the community. The increased mobility of the population (the increased number of seasonal wage-seekers traveling inside and outside the province, emigration, the early urbanization and industrialization, etc.) also affected Transylvania, in terms of human relations, of the areas and criteria for marital selection, of the family lifecycle, and especially of the ecclesiastical authority over private matters. If, until that point, the Church had been legally given almost full control over all matters pertaining to birth, marriage, and death, gradually, in the second half of the 19th century, as the society became more secular and the state increasingly modern, the competences of the Church were gradually transferred to the state. In 1894-1895, the Hungarian state passed a number of laws that secularized all marital affairs, marital life, and divorces. The secularization, which made considerable progress towards the turn of the 20th century stimulated the modernization process, but essential in this respect were the social and economic developments following the end of feudalism and the establishment of an industrial capitalist society, with its massive impact upon both individuals and communities. Gradually, before World War I, more and more people in Transylvania ceased to obey a higher authority (religion, community, family, etc.) and began to pursue their own interests and desires. Paradoxically enough, the state authorities supported them, limiting the religious constraints, as dictated by the interests of the state itself. The outcome was individual emancipation and a liberalization of family and matrimonial relations, not only with the Romanians, but also within the entire population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the life of a community--and especially of a rural community--bells have always played a significant number of religious, social, symbolic, and identity-shaping functions. The present paper deals mainly with the manner in which Romanian communities in Transylvania experienced the loss of their church bells during the political and military conflicts that ravaged the province during the 19th and the 20th centuries (the Revolution of 1848-1849, the two world wars). The church bells of the Romanian rural communities suffered most during World War I. Both Communities and individuals felt the loss of the bells requisitioned for the war effort, as it was their sound that defined their identity, marked every stage in their lives, and announced their moments of joy, sadness, and danger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a follow-up to a presentation given at the study-day 'Religion and Ethnicity in Transylvania' on the 17th of October 2006, organized by the section Kerkinactie of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands and Centrum IIMO (University of Utrecht). The article aims to present the positions and the functions of Lutheranism in the contemporary Transylvanian society. It formulates the thesis that Lutheranism in Transylvania has the potential for offering a major theological forum where inter-ethnic living together could be evaluated and explored with a responsibility and mission for the people of Transylvania which considers ethnic diversity not as maius malum but as maius bonum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hitler's coming to power in Germany had its key consequences upon the fate of the German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. The German community in Romania constituted no exception. After 1933, a process of radicalization can be noticed in the case of the Transylvanian Saxons, one of the several German-speaking groups in Romania. The phenomenon has already been analyzed in its political and economic dimensions, yet not so much in its social ones. This article looks at the latter aspect, its argument being that the Nazification of the Transylvanian Saxon community can be best comprehended by using a conceptual framework developed by political scientist Donald Horowitz in the early 1970s. The analysis uses a series of contemporary sources (diaries, issues of the official periodical of the Lutheran Church in Transylvania, Kirchliche Blatter), but also a wide range of secondary sources, academic and literary. Consequently, the article shows that especially after 1933, the Lutheran affiliation, highly relevant for the production and reproduction of the traditional model of Transylvanian Saxon identity, shifted from the status of a criterion of identity to a mere identification indicium. At the same time, the attraction of a (Pan-) German identity, with its Nazi anchors, became stronger and the center of gravity for Transylvanian Saxon identity radically moved towards German ethnicity, in its National-Socialist understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]