This resulted in the creation of a Progressive Peasants' Fellowship, which dominated the Diet of Bukovina and, in 1904, passed an electoral reform project drafted by Benno Straucher.

[4] According to scholar Irina Livezeanu, the "relative liberalism" of the Austrian administration promoted an "accommodationist" climate, in which the elites were less tempted to group on competitive national bases—Onciul illustrated such a spirit.

[5] Historian Teodor Bălan believes that Onciul's ascendancy was directly owed to the new Governor of Bukovina, Konrad zu Hohenlohe, who wished to calm the situation after a season of Romanian–Ukrainian political battles.

[25] Onciul also extended this federal model to solve the national issue of Romanians being divided over several states: a scheme proposed by Privitorul around 1902 was to somehow incorporate the Kingdom of Romania into Austria.

[29] The party's original manifesto argued: For ten years now, we have repeatedly tried to reason with our boyars into giving the people its fair share of public life, but all our attempts have been in vain.

[30]The effect of this discourse is assessed by Gafița as follows: "The democrats' orientation toward predominantly social demands, as opposed to those of a national-political substance reaped momentary electoral gains, but also numerous losses for the Romanian emancipation movement as a whole.

On November 10, Onciul, Straucher, Smal-Stotskyi, Wassilko, Hierotheus Pihuliak and Theodor Lewicki signed a manifesto condemning the Romanian parties in exceptionally harsh terms, accusing them of having stalled democratic progress.

[47] Onciul's other essays denied the existence of Ukrainization in northern Bukovina, claiming that the Cheremosh Valley had always been a Ukrainian heartland; this stance was immediately challenged from within the party by Zaharia Voronca.

[51] During the political realignment that followed Flondor's resignation, Ociul was able to succeed with his policy of alliances outside his ethnic group, creating a tighter version of the 1903 League.

There followed liberal and nationalist bills (including the establishment of a state bank, the lifting of propination laws, and the creation of a Romanian History Chair at Francis Joseph University), but the more radical measures proposed by the PȚD were vetoed by Koerber.

[58] As the PNPR reconstituted itself around Dorimedont Popovici and the paper Apărarea Națională, Onciul himself began pressing for Flondor's return to politics, and for a reunification of Romanian nationalists.

[59] The party exposed anti-Romanian sentiments expressed by the other Fellowship partners (in particular by Smal-Stotskyi) and Ukrainian attempts to control the regional bank, and won instead support from various German deputies.

It is being replaced by legions of foreigners who share neither our custom nor our language, and the pitiful Romanian people, sucked to its marrow by the tolerated usurers, is driven to all corners of the Earth by the indifference of present-day potentates.

[69] On July 17, the PȚD merged into Modest Grigorcea's reconstructed National Romanian Party (PNR), but continued to function informally as a Democratic wing, still putting out Voința Poporului to October 1908.

[73] Running on PNR lists for the by-elections of Chernowitz—Sereth—Storozynetz, Onciul easily won a seat in the Austrian House of Deputies, and was reelected at Gura Humora in the full-term elections of 1907.

[75] At the time, the faction drew its funds from corrupt practices, taking over control of the local Raiffeisen credit union, which Lupu, as president of the public bank, used for high-risk investments in the forestry business.

Voința Poporului openly embraced economic antisemitism during the peasants' revolt in neighboring Romania, indirectly criticizing the Jewish middle class in Bukovina.

[83] In October 1908, the PNR, including its Democratic wing, merged with the Apărarea Națională group to form the Christian Social Romanian Party of Bukovina (PCSR).

[89] Onciul also worked intensely to unify the various Romanian groups under the antisemitic banner, and also publicly denounced liberalism in all its forms, insisting that the PȚD had always stood for the "thoroughly conservative peasantry".

[92] During the congress of November 1910, Flondor announced his resignation; Onciul was reconfirmed as vice president, delivering a speech about the coming victory of the Romanian element over the Ruthenians.

"[98] During the House election of July 1911, Lupu was defeated at Bojan by Constantin Isopescu-Grecul, who claimed that the Raiffeisen scheme had been intended to destroy the Bukovinian Romanian banks.

Although Chisanovici joined Isopescu-Grecul on a goodwill tour of the Kingdom, he and Onciul were denounced as Austrian agents, and measures were taken to cut down Romanian subsidies for Foaia Poporului.

[102] Depicting the rump PNR as party "of parsons and kikes" acting "on government orders", Foaia Poporului was in turn attacked as a "sellout to Jewish finance".

[110] The group's generic populism was replaced with agrarianism: it claimed to have divorced from the intelligentsia, and to be focused on "ensuring that the peasants are happy"—according to Cocuz, this reinvention was "ridiculous" and "farcical".

[117] From the early stages of war, Onciul was more radical than the Concordia elites in supporting the Austrian cause, adopting the imperial slogan A.E.I.O.U..[118] This issue took the forefront in July 1914, at the Schoolteachers' Congress in Suczawa.

[135] Foaia Poporului, published as a newspaper of the "National Peasants' Party", continued to press for the loyalist agenda during October,[136] although the empire slowly disintegrated (see Republic of German-Austria).

1923, various Arcași became sympathetic toward the National-Christian Defense League (LANC), and were in correspondence with its Bukovinian affiliate, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, ultimately splitting from Dugan-Opaiț's apolitical mainstream.

[155] The following year, it published a piece by Dugan-Opaiț, who claimed that Nistor, as the Minister for Bukovina, wanted the Arcași banned, and that the movement had been marginalized during a national festival at Chișinău.

[158] Others, in large part recovered and again reorganized by Dumitru Străchinaru, remained primarily loyal to the Romanian King, Carol II, and in 1935 marched at his "Feast of the Restoration".

[165] Arcași groups disappeared under the Iron Guard's National Legionary State but were again revived by Doboș in 1943, this time as subgroups of the Society for Romanian Culture and Literature.