Atlas cu hărți din vremea „Ungariei Mari”, oferit de un oficial maghiar unor diplomați europeni. Reacția MAE

2 Comentarii

1. 

   pilu

   luni, 30.12.2024 at 11:14

   Ungurii ăştia nu-s sănătoşi, dacă o data la ceva vreme nu bagă bâta prin gard, să vadă lumea cât sunt de importanţi.

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2. 

   Pop Ciprian

   joi, 02.01.2025 at 15:48

   To the kind attention of Their Excellencies the Permanent Representatives on NATO member states at the NATO headquarters in Brussels

   To Their Excellencies, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia and my country, Romania

   Dear Sirs,

   First of all, let me start by sending my best wishes as the new year 2025 has just opened its doors, hoping that it will bring joy and health to you and your loved ones, peace and prosperity to your peoples and all the very best for your future professional agenda and endeavors.

   I am Ciprian – Dorel Pop, Romanian travel Guide and journalist.

   I came across the news of a controversial historical atlas (or at least that’s how the press is presenting it) presented as a gift by His Excellency, Ambassador István Balogh, Hungarian Permanent Representative at NATO.

   I have no idea with what feelings you have received that gift, but, as a travel guide, out of common sense, patriotic feeling and personal initiative, I would like to have your attention with a little introduction about my Nation’s history, the one that I would normally do with my tourists and I would very much appreciate, it would mean such a lot to me if you had read it and acknowledged the receipt.

   Dear Sirs, you have to know that the land of Romania has never been a territory uninhabited by human beings, an open invitation to immigration and colonisation, a kind of sleeping beauty waiting for „prince charming” from far away to wake her up to life. A few metres only, under our feet, often under buildings and corn-fields, in the green valleys of the country’s many rivers, at the foot of the hills or even in the glades and caverns in the mountains or on the coast of the Black Sea there is an immense anthropological and archaeological museum which opens from time to time its treasure-houses to proclaim that the land of Romania has been inhabited and a civilized area since times immemorial: in no case later and not less than other parts of Europe.

   It is a certitude, and it has repeatedly been proved, that a million years ago, in the Paleolithic age, tribes of humans living from picking natural products and from fishing and hunting, inhabited the mountain caves and the valleys of the numerous brooks and rivers which rise in the Carpathian Mountains.

   Today covering 238,390 square kilometres and populated by 22,400,000 inhabitants, Romania is part of an area limited to the south by the lower course of the Danube – if we exclude Dobrogea, which lies on the right bank of the river when it turns north before reaching its delta – and the Carpathian arc to the north. The Carpathians describe a wide curve to join the Northern Carpathians to the north and the Balkans to the south; these are mountains whose average altitude appears quite low (between 1100 and 1300 m, with some peaks reaching over 2000 m). They separate Moldova from Transylvania and also Wallachia from the latter, while at the same time constituting the backbone of the Romanian whole, formed by the union of these three geographical and historical regions that have long had divergent destinies, but shared the unity of language and religion. Marked by a strong human presence, the Carpathians have played the role of refuge when the country has been crisscrossed by successive waves of invaders and it is from them that the Romanians have repeatedly set out to continue their activities on the Wallachian plain. A veritable water tower supplying the lower Danube with most of its tributaries, the Transylvanian plateau, rich in mineral resources, has been revealed since Antiquity as the center of gravity of independent Dacia before becoming the heart of the province given to Rome by Trajan. Crisscrossed by the Prut and the Siret, the Moldavian plateau occupies the east of the country while Wallachia (or Muntenia) is crossed by the Arges and the Olt. Separated by the Milcov, the two historical principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia experienced a sublime community of destiny linked to Ottoman domination while Transylvania, also long tributary to the sultan, had above all to undergo Austrian domination (in fact mainly Magyar) which contributed strongly, in reaction, to the Romanian national awakening and to keeping the national feeling over the centuries. The temperate continental climate, the wealth of the Wallachian plain and of Dobrogea, the abundance of waterways and forests provided from the outset, with a maritime frontage endowed with several good port sites, important assets to the Romanian land. On the other hand, it found itself in a position to be coveted by several predatory empires – the Ottoman, the Russian and the Austrian – and this state of affairs weighed heavily on the Romanian people, for many centuries.

   In the Late Neolithic, the Cucuteni-Tripolje culture dominated east of the Carpathians, characterized at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC by very beautiful painted ceramics and very schematized anthropomorphic and zoomorphic representations.

   Under the influence of elements coming from the east, livestock breeding took on growing importance between the Carpathians and the Danube at the end of the Neolithic.

   -1900 -800 BC: Bronze Age. It was marked by the flowering of brilliant cultures such as those of Otomani and Periam-Pecica, which were part of the general context of the „urnfield” civilization. The importance of weapons and gold ornaments reveals the existence of an aristocratic society characteristic of Europe in the 2nd millennium, many of whose features were reproduced during the later Hallstatt period, marked by the extension, in the west of present-day Romania, of the culture known as „tumular tombs”.

   Second half of the 7th century BC: Beginning of Greek colonization on the coasts of the Black Sea (Pontus Euxinus). This was mainly the work of colonists from Miletus and Megara. Apollonia and Odessos were founded on the current Bulgarian coast, Istros (Histria) on the Romanian coast at the mouths of the Danube (which the Greeks called Ister), Tyras at the mouths of the Dniester. These trading posts which traded with the natives of the hinterland profoundly modified the indigenous civilizations. Histria, Romania’s oldest urban settlement, was founded by the Milesians at the end of the 7th century BC, Callatis (Mangalia) a century later by Greeks from Heraclea of Pontus in a region rich in cereals, which made it a grain exporting port. Founded by the Milesians, Tomis (Constantza) only appeared at the beginning of the 5th century BC. Wine, oil, luxury products were exchanged for wheat, honey, gold and slaves. These Greek trading posts reached their peak during the Hellenistic period.

   -514 BC: Darius’ expedition to Scythia. This was the occasion for Herodotus to later mention in his Inquiry the presence of the Getae of Dobrogea, whom he distinguished from the Thracians. We can therefore consider that in the middle of the first Iron Age, the Daco-Getae were already distinct from the mass of neighboring Thracian tribes.

   – 80 BC: Transylvania appears under the government of Burebista as the center of a true Dacian state. The First and the Greatest King of the Thracians 2.050 years ago Burebista, uniting a large number of their first independent Geto-Dacian tribes established centralized state and moved the centre of the historical development of the Geto-Dacians from the sub-Carpathian region inside the arc of the mountains. Strabo characterizes him in the following words: „Having become the leader of his people, who were exhausted after continuous wars, the Geta Burebista raised the Getae so high by military training, abstention from drinking and strict obeying of orders that in a few years he built up a strong state and made his Getae the masters of most neighbouring peoples, making even the Romans fear him” which, we should say, was not little, as the Roman empire was a giant state at that time.

   Strabo, referring to Burebista’s military strength, estimated his army at around 200,000 men well armed and trained. However, his large and strong kingdom was supported not only by the army, but also by the caste of the priests who played an exceptionally important role in the Geto-Dacian state. The great priest Deceneu, for instance and his followers were a kind of viceroys with judicial and legislative powers. An entire administration busied itself with collecting taxes, regulating trade, agriculture, animal breeding and crafts. The state founded by Burebista stretched to the north as far as the Wooded Carpathians, to the south as far as the Balkans, to the east beyond the Dniester, to the west as far as the middle part of the Danube. A recent archaeological discovery of exceptional importance for determining the degree of autochthonous civilization is the large store of Geto-Dacian iron tools found at Lozna (county of Botoşani) which has been preserved intact since the first century before our era.

   101-102: Trajan’s first campaign against the Dacians. The Romans commit twelve legions and advance as far as Sarmizegetusa, where the Dacian king Decebalus accepts their conditions but in fact prepares his revenge.

   105-106: Trajan’s second campaign against the Dacians. Advancing in a convergent manner from Moesia and Pannonia, the legions seize the Dacian stronghold backed by the Carpathians and Decebalus kills himself. These campaigns have been immortalized by the reliefs of Trajan’s Column built in 113 and by the commemorative monument dedicated to the Roman conquest and erected in 109 at Adamclisi. A province of Dacia is formed; It was divided in two in 119 between a Lower Dacia and an Upper Dacia, grouping the centre and the north of the country, the first administered by a procurator of equestrian rank, the second by a legate of senatorial rank capable of directing, if necessary, military operations. A limes danubianus was established, running from Turnu Severin in the west to the south of Braila in the east, via Craiova and Ploiești. The limes Alutanus, which extended along the course of the Olt, was established at the time of Septimius Severus. Administratively, three Dacias were created in 158-159 under the reign of Antoninus: the Porolissensis in the north (named after its metropolis Porolissum), the Apulensis in the center, rich in various mineral resources, where Apulum was the headquarters of a legion (the XIII Gemina), and finally the Malvensis in western Wallachia. The first and third were left to two procurators, the legate retaining the government of the Apulensis. After 168 and because of the permanence of the barbarian threat, the three Dacias were grouped by Marcus Aurelius into a single one, placed under the orders of the legate installed in Apulum. The ancient royal city of the Dacians, Sarmizegetusa, where the conquering emperor had established a colony (Colonia Ulpia Trajana Dacica) was a prosperous and flourishing city during the time of the pax romana.

   The Roman state continued by leasing the exploitation of the gold resources of the region, already begun under the Dacian kings.

   274: Faced with barbarian pressure, the abandonment of „Trajan” Dacia was decided under the reign of Aurelian – some authors believe that the evacuation had already begun under that of Gallienus. The name of „Aurelian” Dacia would henceforth designate, south of the Danube, a part of Moesia. From the time of Diocletian, an entire diocese of Dacia – divided into five provinces – would extend south of the Danube and the Sava.

   Once the regions north of the Danube had been abandoned, the question arose of the continuity that should or should not be established between the inhabitants of Romanized Dacia and the Wallachians who returned to history eight centuries later. This problem is of great importance insofar as the answers given vary according to the interpretations made of this episode in the history of the Danube regions by the Romanians, the Germans and the Magyars.

   More than a century ago, when the supporters of the various „nationalities” were clashing, the question was perfectly summed up by the text of the Latin historian Vopiscus (“sublato exercitu et provincialibus reliquis… abductosque ex ea populos in Moesia collocavit”) it means only that Aurelian withdrew the army and the civil servants (provincialibus); but apart from a small part of the colonists who were able to be transplanted to Moesia, the mass of the population remained in Trajan’s Dacia, defending and maintaining its land at its own risk and peril. If already, under Hadrian, the Roman citizens seemed too numerous to be resigned to abandoning them to the Barbarians, their number must have been much greater under Aurelian, the Roman occupation of Dacia having lasted from the year 106 to the year 274, that is to say for one hundred and sixty-eight years.

   Every common sense historian or sociologist realizes the absurdity of a system that would have such a large population transported entirely to Moesia and then re-emigrated en masse several centuries later, from the Balkan peninsula to the vast cirque formed by the Carpathians… During the period of the invasions, the descendants of Trajan’s colonists were naturally forced to abandon the flat country for security reasons, in order to seek refuge in the high valleys of the Carpathian mountains; when they reappeared under the name of Vlachs, it was first in the mountainous regions that they were reported. With the return of relative security, they reappeared in the plains of Transylvania, Bukovina, Bessarabia, Moldavia and Wallachia, say many historians.

   The use of the Romanian language argues in favor of this continuity – the grammar is entirely Latin and six-tenths of the vocabulary is of Latin origin (three-tenths of Slavic origin, the rest of Turkish, Greek, Magyar or German origin).
   The toponymy of the plains and waterways in Transylvania has remained exclusively Latin in the highlands, not to mention all the names of rivers, which constitutes a major argument in favor of the Romanian interpretation of the history of the region. Under the reign of Diocletian (284-305), present-day Dobrogea became the province of Scythia Minor which, despite the destruction inflicted by the Goths, experienced a very fine boom during the Late Roman Empire and the Byzantine era, at least until the 7th century, despite the ravages caused by the Avars in 587 and 599. 4th-6th centuries: It was during this period that Christianity gained its first followers north of the Danube, as evidenced by certain archaeological remains.

   Who Remained in Dacia?
   Those who always lived in it, have never abandoned it and will never abandon it; the native population, the Geto-Dacians partly or completely romanized; those who had reaped the harvest of this land from times immemorial, who had cut and polished the stone, had worked the metals: copper, bronze, iron; had domesticated and bred the animals and fowls; had hunted in the forests and fished in the waters of their country, who had buried or incinerated their dead in this land; those who had fought to defend it; those who had created the gods, the calendar, the art of medicine, the charms, the dances and music. Slavery, which had never existed in Dacia as a social institution of its own, before the coming of the Romans, disappeared again. With a sense of nostalgia for the gentile community and in the absence of the authority of a centralized state, the romanized population of Dacia organized itself in village communities, often protected by a „fossatum” or ditch which has given the Romanian language a fundamental word for our history: „sat”, meaning village. Roman culture, in its organized form, again now on the southern frontier of ancient Dacia, continued to irradiate; still maintained its frontier on the Danube, after the migrators.

   For three centuries, as long as the conquest of Dacia, continued. The Romans continuous interest in Dacia, managed to reconquer a part of it, north of the fortifications, consisting of a moat and a wall built on the Danube, in the 4th century, building a huge earth system, which stretched from Drobeta-Turnu Severin to the bend of the Carpathians (in Buzău county). Later, known as Novac’s furrow, this system of defense, protected the empire against the continuous infiltration of the Sarmatians and the Goths.

   In the same 4th century the Roman edifice close to the port of Tomi (Constanța) was built where one of the largest mosaics in the world (2,000 sq m) was discovered together with a famous treasure of sculptures. The Roman money treasures spread all over Dacia, and dating from the centuries which followed the abandoning of Dacia by the Roman legions, are one of the convincing proofs of those links, one of them, found at Sarmizegetusa, includes coins from the time of emperor Valentinian I (364-375), another one, found at Cluj-Napoca, includes coins which reach the time of Theodosius II (408-450).

   A proof, somehow paradoxical is the fact that even death proves the uninterrupted life of the Daco-Roman population in Dacia, the old cemeteries of the time of the Roman rule were still used in the 4th century by the descendents of the Daco-Romans. Recent archaeological discoveries have furnished new evidence, from all over Romania, that the autochthonous population continued to develop both in the towns and the cities, as well as outside them, even after the departure of the Roman authorities.

   Utensils, ceramic, necropolises bear witness to the Buildings fortifications, continuity of Daco-Roman cohabitation and the roman housing of the autochthonous population.

   If it had not been for that, the strength of the Latinity of the Romanians it could not have endured for two thousand years.

   12th century: The texts testify to the gradual emergence, between the Danube and the Carpathians, of a people destined to play a crucial role in this region. These are the Vlachs, also called Vlachs in ancient times, then later designated under the name of Romanians. Chronicles, epics and ancient charters testify to the presence of the Vlachs in the region from the early Middle Ages.

   The Russian Chronicle of Nestor states, at the end of the 11th century, that the Hungarians met the Vlachs, at the same time as the Slavs, as soon as they crossed the Carpathians in 898 and that Slavs and Vlachs coexisted in the region

   Simon Kéza wrote in 1205 that „the Vlachs were ancient shepherds and colonists of the Romans” and that they have remained in Pannonia ever since. The Germanic poem of the Niebelungen shows us the Vlachs placed under the authority of their king Ramung (the Roman) established in the neighborhood of Poland.

   The anonymous notary of the Hungarian king, Bela III, in his chronicle „Gesta Hungarorum” mentions the Wallachian voivodeships of Gelu, Menumorut and Glad, in Transylvania, which opposed a tough resistance to the Hungarian invaders. Romanian state organizations are mentioned in the same period of time and also in relation with the coming of the Hungarians and the fighting between the Wallachians and the former, in the chronicle of Kiev therefore by a Slavic source.
   The Byzantine chronicler Skylitzes writes in 976 about the „Chervanari Wallachians” in the Balkan peninsula;
   Next, in 1020, in an edict of the Byzantine emperor, Basil II, the „Wallachians” are mentioned;

   In 1050 the Persian geographer Gardizi refers to a Christian population, different from the Slavs and Hungarians, which lived on the present-day territory of Romania;

   In the second half of the 11th century the Romanians are mentioned by the Armenian doctor Vardan,

   In 1116 a Byzantine chronicler refers to the presence of Wallachians in the Byzantine army about which it is said that they are colonists who came in old times from Italy;
   In 1214 the Icelandic poet Snorri Sturlason referred to the „country of the Wallachians”.
   The charters of the kings of Hungary written in the 11th and 13th centuries describe the Vlachs occupying Transylvania since time immemorial: „a tempore humanam memoriam transeunte per majores; avos atavosque… possessa” (charter of 1231).

   In 1263, there were Vlachs in the army of King Bela IV.

   I could also add some more other references, but I do not think it necessary as I don’t want to become boring. What I consider more important, though, is to point out that during that old period, besides the three large voivodeships of Glad, Menumorut and Gelu, in Banat, Crişana and central Transylvania, there also existed other state formations such as: the Banat of Severin, the Cnezat or principality of loan in southern Oltenia, the cnezat of Farcas in northern Oltenia, the voivodeship of Seneslau Wallachia, the Dukedom of Kean, near the region of in southern Birsa, the cnezat of Tigheci in south-eastern Moldavia, the state formations of Tatos, Sestlav and Satza in Dobrogea alongside smaller ones as well. These leaders of Romanian political formations had to fight in turn against the Hungarian kings and the Tartar khans, always raising their sword to defend themselves against attacks from the west or the east.

   The Vlachs were not then simple shepherds or peasants attached to their land, they had an aristocracy made up of voivodes, village judges, large landowners who had their privileges confirmed by the Hungarian sovereigns. They had county assemblies (congregationes) and met in communities (universitates) which claimed rights or defended their customs.

   Small in number and subordinate to the Magyar aristocracy, this Romanian aristocracy was to become Magyarized but it was from it that a John Hunyadi and a Mathias Corvin would later emerge.

   These Romanians had an alphabet whose use they had communicated to their neighbors the Szeklers. This was the Paleo-Slavic alphabet, that of their ecclesiastical language received with Christianity from their neighbor the Bulgarian Empire.

   From the final conquest of Transylvania by the Hungarian king Saint Stephen (997-1038), the development of a Romanian state was compromised by that of the Magyar state, especially since the Hungarians, who had become Catholic, persecuted the Romanians who remained Orthodox.

   12th-13th centuries: The Wallachians appear more clearly in Transylvania and spread east of the Carpathians. Several small principalities are formed, the union of which will lead to the formation of Wallachia and Moldavia. Principalities of this type are identified at this time in Moldavia: the Slavic ones of Jassy and Barlad, or the Romanian ones of Oltenia, of Lesser and Greater Wallachia – which should not be confused with the Thessalian “Greater Wallachia” , respectively in the hands of the ban Bessaraba and the voivode Seneslav.

   Other similar small “states” then exist in Bucovina. It was within this population, in which Slavic and Romanian elements mixed, that the Transylvanian colonists came to settle, unifying the separate principalities and steadily increasing the importance of the Latin element, which would lead to a complete assimilation of the Slavic elements.

   1290: The first Wallachian principality was founded by a certain Radu Negru (Rudolph the Black), sometimes called Tugomir Bassaraba, who, as a vassal of the King of Hungary Vladislav the Kouman, left his duchy and crossed the Carpathians to establish his capital at Campulung. He married his daughter to the King of Serbia, Stefan Milioutine and, with the strength of this alliance, was able to escape Hungarian tutelage.

   1330: The Hungarian king Charles Robert of Anjou is defeated at Posada by Alexander Bassaraba, a successor of Radu Negru, when he tries to impose his authority on him. Charles Robert’s successor, Louis the Great, also fails and, in 1377, Radu II is able to acquire complete independence from the Hungarian throne.

   Meanwhile, the Wallachian state expands further towards the Black Sea, occupying the entire territory between the mouths of the Danube, present-day Dobrogea including the city of Silistria, as well as part of Bessarabia, which takes its name from the Wallachian princes of the Bessaraba dynasty.

   1349: The Transylvanian prince Bogdan settled in Suceava and founded the principality of Moldavia. This region had been conquered earlier by Prince Dragos, at the time when Radu the Black was settling in Wallachia, but Dragos and his descendants, Sas and Balk, remained subject to the King of Hungary. It was against this situation that Bogdan rose up, who came to defeat Balk and in turn to establish an independent state in Moldavia. To face the expeditions launched by Louis of Hungary, Bogdan had to recognize the suzerainty of the King of Poland. It was clear that for the Romanian principalities, the main adversary remained, at the time of their birth, the Kingdom of Hungary, from which they were separated by the Carpathians. Conversely, they naturally turned towards Bulgaria and Serbia: the Danube was not a border and the common adherence to Orthodoxy was a powerful factor of rapprochement.

   The story goes on…

   Another relevant episode is Mohacs!

   In the battle of Mohács, held on August 29, 1526, the Hungarian army was defeated by the superior Ottoman forces, led by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, accentuating the crisis of Hungarian society. Basically, the Hungarian kingdom disappears from the map of Europe, coming under Turkish rule. Buda (1539) and Hungary proper (1541) are transformed into pashalics, instead Transylvania will be recognized as a separate state – the Principality of Transylvania.

   In 1541, the Principality of Transylvania was recognized by the Ottoman Empire as an independent state, which paid the Ottoman Porte an annual gift of complacency, worth 10,000 ducats. In this capacity, it participated as a belligerent country in the 30-year war and concluded a series of treaties with European countries on equal footing.

   After almost 200 years of Ottoman occupation, the salvation of the Hungarian nation came from Austro-Hungarian dualism, a compromise to which the House of Habsburg was forced to preserve political, economic and military hegemony in Central Europe. After 1848, the Austrian and Hungarian politicians realized that the self-determination of the peoples is the great danger that threatens them both and therefore they re-evaluated the political relations between their countries, relations damaged during the revolution of 1848-1849, when it came to armed struggles between them. Apart from Hungarians and Austrians, no one was interested in maintaining historical Austria and the Hungarian Crown.

   In their turn, the Austrians were in great difficulty, due to the loss of the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, known as the Seven Weeks War. The war was fought for the hegemony of the Habsburg Empire in Germany and control over the Venetian region and marked the continuation of the German unification war, at the same time ending the unification process of Italy around the Kingdom of Sardinia.

   Defeated in the war, Austria ceded the province of Holstein to Prussia and left the German Confederation, and Italy annexed the Venetian region. In the end, it was the rejection of Austria’s attempt to unify the German states under the Habsburg scepter and the transfer of German hegemony to Prussia.

   On February 5, 1867, the Austro-Hungarian dualistic pact was signed.

   The day of June 8, 1867, when Franz Josef was crowned king of Hungary, is, in fact, the end of Austrian absolutism and the beginning of Austro-Hungarian dualism.

   The dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy created in 1867 was led by the emperor of Austria, who was, at the same time, king of Hungary. Although on the international level the Austro-Hungarian Empire presented itself as a single state, having as common bodies three ministries – foreign, war and finance -, in reality the dualistic monarchy meant the existence of two distinct states, with their own parliaments, governments, administrations and legislation .

   The Austro-Hungarian dualist state was divided into Cisleithania, respectively Austria, with the capital Vienna, and Transleithania, i.e. Hungary, with the capital Budapest.

   Cisleithania included: 1. Bohemia, 2. Bukovina, 3. Carinthia, 4. Carniola, 5. Dalmatia, 6. Galicia, 7. Kustenland, 8. Lower Austria, 9. Moravia, 10. Salzburg, 11. Silesia, 12 .Styria, 13. Tyrol, 14. Upper Austria, 15. Vorarlberg Osterreich.

   Transleithania: 16. Hungary, 17. Croatia-Slovenia, 18. Bosnia and Herzegovina.

   As can be seen, Austria preserved the autonomy of the provinces, while Hungary incorporated Transylvania, abolishing it as a distinct administrative entity, with the clear intention of Hungarianizing all its inhabitants.

   Inside Transleithania, exclusively Hungarian authorities were established, under the leadership of the Budapest government. On June 12, 1867, under Hungarian pressure, the emperor repealed the laws voted by the Sibiu Diet in 1863-1864 regarding the equal rights of the Romanian nation and the Romanian language. The next step was the incorporation of Transylvania into the Hungarian state, losing its political-territorial individuality, i.e. the status of a voivodeship and then of an autonomous principality that it had for several centuries. In all these three eras – the era of voivodeships from ancient times until 1526, the era of the independent principality from 1526 to 1691, the era of the autonomous Grand Principality (1691-1867), when the Emperor of Austria also held the position of Grand Prince of Transylvania – this Romanian province and -preserved autonomy from the central power based in Vienna.

   The lines presented above prove that Transylvania belonged to Hungary only during the period 1867-1918, so only 51 years!!!

   After that, in June 1867, Emperor Franz Josef sanctioned the law regarding the union of Transylvania with Hungary, five decades of privations and humiliating injustices followed for the Romanians in this province, the years in which the Hungarian authorities fiercely applied the policy of forced Hungarianization.

   Years have passed, we’ve been together in NATO for so long now and I’d like to believe that between the peoples of Romania and Hungary there are sincere friendly feelings, but if any officials are trying to stir up any rigmarole, I consider a moral duty to try to offer a light into the real history.

   Hoping that my lines have not been too boring, I’d like to thank you for your attention and also, to take this pleasant opportunity to send to you many blessings and my best wishes for 2025 and to offer a little present, a historical, geopolitical, ethnographical and economical Atlas titled “ROUMANIA in the course of ages”.

   A avail myself of this opportunity to renew to Your Excellencies, the assurances of my highest consideration.
   Yours faithfully,
   Ciprian – Dorel Pop
   Romanian professional travel guide, journalist, Spanish language registered translator

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