Romanianization
After the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the post-war mass actions undertaken by the Romanian authorities were primarily directed against the Hungarian aristocracy and, at times, the Jews.
After a particularly violent protest in Cluj, Foreign Minister Nicolae Titulescu officially condemned the events in Bucharest newspapers.
After the coup d'état of 23 August 1944, Romania left the Axis and joined the Allies, and, as such, fought together with the Soviet Union's Red Army against Nazi Germany and Hungary, regaining Northern Transylvania.
During the fall of 1944, after the withdrawal of the Hungarian military forces and administration from Transylvania, the Székely Land was engaged and pillaged by the Romanian Gendarmerie and volunteers.
However, on 12 November 1944, the Soviets expelled 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 administration was not allowed to return until the communist-led government of Petru Groza was formed on 6 March 1945.
The urbanization policy, a natural phenomenon tied to economic development and the intention of transforming a predominantly agrarian country into an industrialized one, was followed throughout Romania, including in areas inhabited by minorities.
By the late 1950s, the regime of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej increasingly manipulated Romanian nationalism as a popular legitimizing device, applying more repressive policies toward the Hungarian minority.
[10] After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Magyar Autonomous Region was dissolved[dubious – discuss] and most key posts were filled by loyal Romanians.
Ethnic conflicts, however, never occurred on a significant scale, even though some violent clashes, such as the Târgu Mureș events of March 1990, did take place shortly after the fall of the Ceaușescu regime.
Even though Romania co-signed the European laws for protecting minorities' rights, the implementation has not proved satisfactory to all members of the Hungarian community.
However, the situation of the Hungarian minority in Romania has been seen as a model of cultural and ethnic diversity in the Balkan area:[14] In an address to the American people, President Bill Clinton asked in the midst of the air war in Kosovo: Who is going to define the future of this part the world... Slobodan Milošević, with his propaganda machine and paramilitary forces which compel people to give up their country, identity, and property, or a state like Romania which has built a democracy respecting the rights of ethnic minorities?
[15] The process is, with a lower intensity, active even today, irrespective of the political affiliation of the current government, partly because each party uses the ethnic minorities as scapegoats for their own electoral benefit.
The measures include: In June 2019, a Romanian crowd broke into the former Austro-Hungarian military cemetery in Valea Uzului, despite heavy police presence and a human chain of ethnic Hungarians protesting peacefully.
The cemetery was established in 1917 by Austrians and Hungarians as the burial place for the fallen heroes of WWI battles, and has also been used during WWII for the same purpose.
Eager to protect the burial site of their fallen heroes, some 1,000 ethnic Hungarians formed a human chain in silent prayer around the graveyard.
In 1775, Bukovina was annexed by the Habsburg monarchy, which offered certain currency in the public life for the two nations,[29] however the general policy on churches and education disfavored the Christian Orthodox population.
In 1918, following the collapse of Austria-Hungary, control over the whole of Bukovina fell under the Kingdom of Romania; same situation happens in Bessarabia after the relinquishment of Russian Empire.
