“The Hardships of the Beginning”. The “Foreign Character” of Transylvanian Towns in the Interwar Press

Abstract The Union of 1918 stands in the Romanian historiography as the great event of the national history, the moment when Romanians who had been living for centuries under foreign rules came together in one united country. Despite the enthusiasm of those days, soon it became obvious that putting together areas with different histories, different backgrounds and different cultures was not such a simple process. The difficulties and the setbacks of the aftermath of the Great Union entered more recently the attention of the Romanian historiography, preoccupied for a long time rather on its significance for the nation than on its hardships. The present study addresses one of the issues debated in the interwar Romanian press, regarding the extent to which Transylvania was getting loose of its foreign marks and gaining a Romanian character.