Greater Romania () was the Kingdom of Romania during the interwar period,Cas Mudde. Racist Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe within its borders achieved after the Great Union; or the related pan-nationalistPeter Truscott, Russia First: Breaking with the West, I.B.Tauris, 1997, p. 72 ideal of a nation state which would incorporate all Romanian-speakers.Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building & Ethnic Struggle, 1918–1930, Cornell University Press, 2000, p. 4 and p. 302Lavinia Stan, Lucian Turcescu, Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania, Oxford University Press, 2007 p. 53

In 1920, after the incorporation of Transylvania, Bukovina, Bessarabia and parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș, the Romanian state reached its largest peacetime geographical extent (295,049 km2). Today, the concept serves as a guiding principle for the unification of Moldova and Romania.

The idea is comparable to other similar conceptions such as Greater Bulgaria, Megali Idea, Greater Yugoslavia, Greater Hungary and Greater Italy.Giuseppe Motta, Less than Nations: Central-Eastern European Minorities after WWI, Volume 1 , Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, p. 11

Ideology The theme of national identity had been always a key concern for Romanian culture and politics.Vladimir Tismaneanu: Fantasies of Salvation: Varieties of Nationalism in Postcommunist Eastern Europe. In: Envisioning Eastern Europe: Postcommunist Cultural Studies, Ed. Michael D. Kennedy, University of Michigan Press, 1994, p. 121 The Romanian national ideology in the first decades of the twentieth century was a typical example of ethnocentric nationalism. The concept of "Greater Romania" shows similarities to the idea of national state.Petre Berteanu, Romanian nationalism and political communication: Greater Romania Party (Partidul Romania Mare), a case-study, In: Jaroslav Hroch, David Hollan, George F. McLean, National, Cultural, and Ethnic Identities: Harmony Beyond Conflict, CRVP, 1998, pp. 161–176 The Romanian territorial claims were based on "primordial racial modalities", the essential goal of them was to unify the biologically defined Romanians.Aristotle Kallis, Genocide and Fascism: The Eliminationist Drive in Fascist Europe, Routledge, 2008, p. 75

Evolution

Before World War I

The union of Michael the Brave, who ruled over the three principalities with Romanian population (Wallachia, Transylvania and Moldavia) for a short period of time, was viewed in later periods as the precursor of a modern Romania, a thesis which was argued by Nicolae Bălcescu. This theory became a point of reference for nationalists, as well as a catalyst for various Romanian forces to achieve a single Romanian state., p. 211–13.

The Romanian revolution in 1848 already carried the seeds of the national dream of a unified and united Romania, though the "idea of unification" had been known from earlier works of Naum Ramniceanu (1802) and Ion Budai-Deleanu (1804).Juliana Geran Pilon, The Bloody Flag: Post-Communist Nationalism in Eastern Europe : Spotlight on Romania, Transaction Publishers, 1982, p. 56 The concept owes its life to Dimitrie Brătianu, who introduced the term "Greater Romania" in 1852. The first step in unifying Romanians was to establish the United Principalities by uniting Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859,Pablo Cardona, Michael J. Morley, Manager-Subordinate Trust in Different Cultures, Routledge, 2013, p. 119 which became known as Romania since the 1866 Constitution and turned into a Kingdom in 1881, after gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire. However, before the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, the elite of the Transylvanian Romanians did not support the concept of "Greater Romania", instead they wanted only equality with the other nations in Transylvania.Iván T. Berend, History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century, University of California Press, 2013, p. 112 and p. 252 The concept became a political reality when, in 1881, the Romanian National Party of Transylvania gathered Romanians on a common political platform to fight together for Transylvania's autonomy. According to Livezeanu the creation of Greater Romania with "a unifying concept of nationhood" started to evolve in the late 1910s.Tristan James Mabry, John McGarry, Margaret Moore, Brendan O'Leary, Divided Nations and European Integration, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013, p. 113 and p. 117 World War I played a crucial part in the development of Romanian national consciousness.

World War I The Treaty of Bucharest (1916) was signed between Romania and the Entente Powers on 4 (Old Style)/17 (New Style) August 1916 in Bucharest.Constantin Kirițescu, "Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României: 1916–1919", 1922, p. 179 The treaty stipulated the conditions under which Romania agreed to join the war on the side of the Entente, particularly territorial promises in Austria-Hungary. The signatories bound themselves to keep secret the contents of the treaty until a general peace was concluded.

Lucian Boia summarised the territorial extent of the nationalist dream as following:

The phrase "De la Nistru pana la Tisa" (From Dniester to Tisza) is well known to Romanians, it defines the limits of an ideal Romania, though we should note that the Romanian population extends in the east beyond the Dniester, while both banks of the Tisza are completely Hungarian for most of the river's length. To the south, the Danube completes the symbolic geography of Romania: an enclosed space between 3 rivers, with an area of 300.000 sq km, comparable to that of Italy or the British Isles. Rivers then are perceived as natural borders, separating Romanians from Others.Lucian Boia, "Romania: Borderlands of Europe", Reaktion Books Publishing, 2001, p. 59

Interwar Romania

The concept of "Greater Romania" materialized as a geopolitical reality after the First World War. Romania gained control over Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania. The borders established by the treaties concluding the war did not change until 1940. The resulting state, often referred to as "România Mare" or, alternatively, as (roughly translated in English as "Romania Made Whole," or "Entire Romania"), was seen as the 'true', whole Romanian state, or, as Tom Gallagher states, the "Holy Grail of Romanian nationalism". Its constitution, proclaimed in 1923, "largely ignored the new ethnic and cultural realities".Keith Hitchins, A Concise History of Romania, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 183,

The Romanian ideology changed due to the demographic, cultural and social alterations, however the nationalist desire for a homogeneous Romanian state conflicted with the multiethnic, multicultural truth of Greater Romania. The ideological rewriting of the role of "spiritual victimization", turning it into "spiritual police", was a radical and challenging task for the Romanian intellectuals because they had to entirely revise the national identity and the destiny of the Romanian nation. In accordance with this view, Livezeanu states that the Great Union created a "deeply fragmented" interwar Romania where the determination of national identity met with great difficulties mainly because of the effects of the hundred years of political separation.Konrad Hugo Jarausch, Thomas Lindenberger, Annelie Ramsbrock, Conflicted Memories: Europeanizing Contemporary Histories, Berghahn Books, 2007, pp. 39–42 Due to the inability of the government to solve the problems of the Transylvanian Romanians' integration and the effects of the worldwide and national economic depression, "the population gradually lost its faith in the democratic conception of Greater Romania".

The Great Depression in Romania, which started in 1929, destabilised the country. The early 1930s were marked by social unrest, high unemployment, and strikes. In several instances, the Romanian government violently repressed strikes and riots, notably the 1929 miners' strike in Valea Jiului and the strike in the Grivița railroad workshops. In the mid-1930s, the Romanian economy recovered and the industry grew significantly, although about 80% of Romanians were still employed in agriculture. French economic and political influence was predominant in the early 1920s but then Germany became more dominant, especially in the 1930s.William A. Hoisington Jr, "The Struggle for Economic Influence in Southeastern Europe: The French Failure in Romania, 1940." Journal of Modern History 43.3 (1971): 468–482.

Territorial changes

Bessarabia

Bessarabia declared its sovereignty as the Moldavian Democratic Republic in 1917 by the newly formed "Council of the Country" ("Sfatul Țării"). The state was faced with the disorderly retreat through its territory of Russian troops from disbanded units. In January 1918, the "Sfatul Țării" called on Romanian troops to protect the province from the Bolsheviks who were spreading the Russian Revolution.Ion Nistor, Istoria Basarabiei, Cernăuți, 1923, reprinted Chișinău, Cartea Moldovenească, 1991 and Humanitas, Bucharest, 1991. Charles Upson Clark, Bessarabia: Russia and Roumania on the Black Sea Pantelimon Halippa, Anatolie Moraru, Testament pentru urmași, Munich, 1967, reprinted Chișinău, Hyperion, 1991, p. 143 After declaring independence from Russia on 24 January 1918, the "Sfatul Țării" voted for union with Romania on 9 April 1918. Of the 138 deputies in the council, 86 voted for union, 3 against, 36 abstained (mostly the deputies representing minorities, 52% of the population at the time)Results of the 1897 Russian Census at demoscope.ru: Молдавский и румынский: 469,852; 451067; total population--"Moldavian and Romanian: 920,919 people", and 13 were not present. The United Kingdom, France, Italy and Japan recognized the incorporation of Bessarabia through the Treaty of Paris. The United States and the Soviet Union however refused to do so, the latter maintaining a claim to the territory for the whole interwar period. Furthermore, Japan failed to ratify the treaty, which therefore never entered into force.

Bukovina

In Bukovina, after being occupied by the Romanian Army,Volodymyr Kubijovyč, Arkadii Zhukovsky, Bukovyna, in "Encyclopedia of Ukraine", Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2001Sherman David Spector, "Rumania at the Paris Peace Conference: A Study of the Diplomacy of Ioan I. C. Brătianu", Bookman Associates, 1962, p. 70 a National Council voted for union with Romania. While the Romanian, German, and Polish deputies unanimously voted for union, the Ukrainian deputies (representing 38% of the population according to the 1910 Austrian census)Donald Peckham, Christina Bratt Paulston, "Linguistic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe", Multilingual Matters, 1998, p. 190 and Jewish deputies did not attend the council. The unification was ratified in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

Transylvania

On 1 December 1918, the Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia proclaimed the union of Transylvania and other territories with Romania in Alba Iulia, adopted by the Deputies of the Romanians of Transylvania, and supported one month later by the vote of the Deputies of the Saxons of Transylvania. The Hungarians of Transylvania, about 32% at the time (including the Hungarian-speaking Jewish community), and the Germans of Banat did not elect deputies upon the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, since they were considered represented by the Budapest government of Hungary, nevertheless on 22 December 1918 the Hungarian General Assembly in Cluj (Kolozsvár) reaffirmed the loyalty of Hungarians from Transylvania to Hungary. In the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, Hungary was forced to give up all claims over Transylvania and the treaty set the new borders between the two countries.

World War II losses