Search results

The two documents which are the subject of the present study, made to share property in the event of divorce, help to form an image on various aspects of daily life, poorly known from other sources: household size, land property, earnings in marriage furniture, tools, animals, prices, food, secular and religious involvement of the private life etc. In addition to legal information, both inventories, which stood at the base of documents on which the property was to be divided, reveal another perspective on social history of Arad in the late eighteenth century.

The paper aims at pursuing the development of the city of Oradea throughout history and the main phases it has undergone as a military city with important religious institutions, as a cultural centre, the diversity of architectural styles, as a multiethnic city with the personalities that have influenced the harmonious and sustainable development of Oradea.

This study submits to our attention some qualitative and quantitative aspects related to urban and semi urban habitat from the former Arad County in the eighteenth century. If in 1715 there were 6 market towns, at the end of the century were already 15. Based on the conscriptions, urbariums and census, I have tried to detect the evolution of market towns during the entire eighteenth century. Reform policy of the Habsburg absolutism has determined even an economic and demographic increase in the market towns of Arad County. Between those 15 market towns of the county existing in 1787 only Arad had obvious urban characteristics. Here was concentrated 6.15% of the county population. By comparison with other counties from Transylvania and Hungary, I have pursued to dignify and quantify different aspects of the urbanization degree in the Arad County registered in the eighteenth century. The development of market towns in Arad County has had the same evolution with those of Central and Eastern Europe, because the agrarian character of these localities was predominant. The evolution towards urbanization was evident along the eighteenth century both in terms of population growth and a great social mobility and also in light of the economic and municipal development. The transformations in the direction of modernization registered during the eighteenth century were the basement of the future process of urbanization of Arad County in the century that has followed.

After the peace of Karlovitz, the Mureş River became the official border between the two great empires: the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire. In this context was organized the military border Tisa-Mureş, and the first called to defend the region were the Serbs, recognized for their military skills. The authorities created the first militarized localities in the county of Arad simultaneously with the first arrival of Serb immigrants in this region. Their presence in the city of Arad and other settlements located on the right bank of the Mureş River changed the ethnic proportions in these areas.
The situation modified after Banat was conquered by Austrians and after the abolishment of the Tisa-Mureş military border. Most Serbs emigrated to the south of Mureş River and even in Russia, their share in the city and county of Arad decreasing significantly after the mid eighteenth century.

The first elections to which the Romanians from all the united historical provinces took part were the parliamentary elections of November 2-8, 1919. The elections were held on the basis of the articles of a new electoral law that introduced the universal vote in the electoral practice in Romania. Thus, the Romanian rural area has become an attractive electoral basin for the political parties. Subsequently, the extension of voting rights for women also made the rural area a constant provider of votes for the candidates of political parties in both parliamentary and local elections. The first election exercise under the conditions of an extended electoral space was the local elections of February-March 1930, which were held in stages. On February 5, 1930 elections were held at the county level, and between February 9 and March 16, 1930 at the level of communes. In the communes with several villages the elections for the local councils took place on the days of 9-12 February, in the ones with a single village between 9-12, 16-19, 23-26 February and 2-4 March, and in the cities and municipalities on March 14 and 16, 1930. On February 5, 1930 elections were held for the Cahul County Council. But, the results and the way of conducting the elections were contested. On February 21, 1930, the local review committee of Chișinau admitted the contest against the elections of February 5, 1930 of the Cahul County Council and invalidated the respective elections. The Minister of the Interior Theodor C. Marinescu by his telegram from April 30, 1930 ordered the Local Ministerial Director III Chisinau to comply with the order of the Ministry of Interior no. 1972 of April 2, 1930 and to dispose, according to art. 388 of Law 167/1929 "the convening of the electoral body for the election of the Cahul county council, whose election was invalidated, necessarily until June 1, 1930". In the circumstances created, the Local Ministerial Director III Chișinau ordered the summons of the voters from Cahul county on June 1, 1930, to conduct the county elections. At the new elections on June 1, 1930, only three electoral competitors entered the race, with one less than at the February 5 elections: the National Peasant Party with two lists and the Liberal Party with a list. On the electoral lists for the participation in the county elections of June 1, 1930, 40,403 voters were included in the 15 polling stations. 24,153 voters participated in the elections, which constitutes 59.78% of the total number of those included in the lists. A considerable number of votes - 1,050, were canceled, and 287 declared void. The number of legally cast votes was 22,816. In the result of the election the electoral competitors obtained the following results: The National-Peasant Party, on both lists - 17,903 votes or 78.47% of the legally expressed votes and the Liberal Party - 4,913 votes or 21.53% of the legally expressed votes. The elections of June 1 in the Cahul county council were held under the conditions that the National-Peasant Party had achieved an absolute victory in the other counties of the country - 81.77% of the county councilors' mandates. The meeting to establish the Cahul County Council took place on July 27, 1930. The Cahul County Council elected, for a period of 5 years, as president of the Delegation of the county council the lawyer S. Botezatu, who obtained 19 votes out of 30. Members of the delegation of the county council were elected councilors V.Uzun, C. Rădulescu, Gh. Chirciu and A. Sprînceană. With the validation of the county councilors and the legal constitution of the county council's governing bodies, we can consider that the epic of elections for the county council in 1930 were completed.

The review in 2003 of the territorial-administrative structure for the purpose of replacing the 10 districts with 32 districts, and the creation of 252 new administrative-territorial units of the first level was, to a certain extent, a return to the old administrative organization of the Soviet period.
Democratization of the society needs to change the focus towards local initiative and the strengthening of regional centers. The improvement of the administrative-territorial structure is an effective lever to encourage local initiative and to successfully implement the functioning of the public administration.
The logical organization of a State's territory contributes to the judicious ordering of state power and administration. It meets the general interest and fully meets the local needs and requirements contained in the administrative-territorial units.
The administrative organization of the territory must meet the judicious division of the territorial limits taking into account the traditions, mentalities and the needs for good governance and democratic criteria.
The option for a particular model of administrative-territorial organization must be the result of deep scientific investigation.
The territorial-administrative reform requires a thorough preparation. It is necessary to provide substantiation of political, economic, social and financial standing of such actions. The problem of financial resources, which primarily refers to training local taxation, is a vital issue. This is because it involves financial autonomy, a central component of local autonomy, without which the decentralization can not work. Insufficient training can lead to some unexpected consequences or compromising actions.
In organization and demarcation of territorial administrative units (by number, structure, size, etc.) the social, material, financial costs and all the activities related to them can not be neglected for a short, medium or long term.

Perioada anilor 1818-1828 reprezintă o etapă deosebită în procesul organizării administrative a Basarabiei. În istoriografie această etapă a fost definită de unii autori ca perioada autonomiei Basarabiei. Referitor la noţiunea de autonomie a Basarabiei în cadrul
Imperiului rus, consider că ea nu reflectă adecvat esenţa acelei perioade şi este exagerată. Această perioadă poate fi definită ca o autonomie administrativă doar din perspectiva propagandei imperiale ruseşti. Cercetarea structurii şi funcţionalităţii sistemului
administrativ introdus în regiune în 1818 îmi permite să constat că deosebirea sa principală
faţă de cele aplicate în guberniile centrale consta în instituirea Consiliului Suprem abilitat
să exercite puterea deplină administrativă şi judecătorească în regiune.

The policy of colonies subjugation by the metropolis knows a great variety of methods and practices. A method of national oppression of Bessarabia, used by tsarism, was the administrative policy promoted in the region. Moreover, the respective administrative principles have been faithfully taken by the Soviet administration system. There are analyzed the particularities of the administrative policy of the Russian Empire in Bessarabia (1812-1917).

Local power is carried out within the territorial boundaries of local municipalities that are delimited by each other through clearly defined borders and their degree of autonomy and vitality and depends, to a large extent, on the principles underlying the territorial organization of this public power.
The author considers that the territorial organization of the public power in the Republic of Moldova must be carried out on the basis of the following principles: a) respect for human rights, b) respect for historical, national and local traditions, c) economic and financial sufficiency, d) ensuring the participation of the population in the management of local public affairs, e) maximum proximity of the local public authorities to the inhabitants, f) population consultation on issues related to the territorial organization of the public power, g) legality, h) respect of the scientific achievements.
It was concluded that there is no strict dependence on the process of the territorial organization of public power to the objective criteria for creating territorial systems for the exercise of public power. Unlike other systems, the system of territorial organization of public power is much more static. This is a necessary condition for the proper functioning of the public authorities, which must have a permanent and clearly defined territorial area of activity.
The territorial organization of power in the Republic of Moldova was influenced by the factors of social, economic, organizational, national, historical, political nature. Each of the listed factors can determine the most important aspects of the territorial structure at certain stages of state development.

The administrative policy promoted by the Russian authorities in Bessarabia was closely linked to the developments and trends of the Russian's internal and external policy. Based on the concrete and historical conditions of the moment and expected objectives, the tsarism has become aware that the pursuit of the colonial policy towards the annexed peoples requires the application of some subtler methods, different from those applied in the other regions of the Russian Empire. The expansionist interests of the Empire have largely determined the process of administrative organization of the Bessarabia: from the granting of the status of provisional administrative autonomy to the transformation into a Russian governorate.

During the three decades of independence, in the Republic of Moldova has been undertaken
several actions regarding the territorial reorganization of the local power and administrative
mechanisms at subnational level. But these were insufficient, and in some
cases badly achieved, being ostentatiously rejected by the political actors and officials
from the state and local public authorities. In general, the reforms and restructuring of
the public administration at the local level and, implicitly, of the territorial organization
of the local public power, have been achieved according to the political tactics and
changes, but not on the basis of coherent strategies and with clearly defined goals.
Chronologically, the process of reforming the territorial organization of the local power
has covered three distinct stages:
First stage: perpetuation of the soviet-type centralized territorial administrative delimitation,
which covers the period from the declaration of Independence till the end of
the 1998.
Second stage: trying to build the territorial system of exercising the local public power
in the spirit of the decentralization and local autonomy principles, which lasted from
the end of the 1998 till 2003.
Third stage: returning to the centralized territorial organization of the local public
power, which started in 2003 and lasts until now. There was a return at the soviet
system of local public power organization; the number of local collectivities of the first
level was increased by 30% compared to the previous period.
In this article has been analyzed these three distinct stages of the reforming process of
the local power territorial organization in the Republic of Moldova.

The erosion of media trust raises concerns about the ways in which the conduit of political information could undermine citizens' trust in democracy. While a large body of research in western democracies shows that media trust is contingent on specific media-system, political and cultural factors pertaining to national contexts, little is known about the sources of media trust in the new democracies from Central and Eastern Europe. Based on statistical analyses of public opinion surveys, this research tests if levels of trust in various traditional (television, radio, written press) and alternative mediums (Internet and online social networks) are differentiated along political party lines and depending on media consumption patterns in post-communist Romania. The results reveal a stronger association between trust in political parties and trust in traditional mediums, while trust in online media is more strongly linked to consumption patterns. These findings have practical, theoretical and normative implications for the functioning of democracy in post-communist societies.

The Jews of Hungary had to face difficult situations at the end of the war. Before the Holocaust, they were approximatively 756 000-800 000 people in the extended Hungary, so it shows Tamás Stark in the study Hungarian Jewry during the Holocaust and after liberation. From them almost 600 000 died during Nazi and Hungarian persecutions. Budapest was an important train station for the returned Jews. Once they arrived in Hungary they saw that the series of difficulties continue. They were in impossibility to regain their old houses, they did not have sufficient money to survive. They were helped by the international organization Joint Distribution Committee to survive. Hungarian antisemitism was a feeling that did not manifest all of a sudden, it grew in time. The interwar period time was a time when this antisemitism manifested itself including through the law numerus clausus which limited the number of Hungarian students in universities and which was imposed in these years. Antisemitism was abolished immediately after the end of the war. Most Jews chose the path of assimilation in Hungarian communist state in spite of the persecutions which they had suffered before. A new system was emerging on the horizon, the communism, which promised the equality of all citizens in the Hungarian state, no matter of their ethnic background. A lot of Jews accepted this system and chose to keep secret the fact that they were Jews and did not tell their children about their origin.

The parish registers of civil status, although the main sources of documentation for historical demography, are used with significant results by the other sciences such as history, ethnography, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, etc.. The perspectives of approaching the rural community and family have expanded considerably using these sources of ecclesiastical origin documentaries. The first researchers who refer to a systematic methodology that uses the parish registers of civil status as documentary sources for the completion of demographic data suggest the use of other sources, hitherto unused for this purpose. They will apply a new method, a modern innovation, the stripping and analysis of parish registers of civil status within the meaning of the reconstruction of demographic events (birth, marriage, death).
The family reconstitution method, by analyzing the parish registers of civil status proposed by L. Henry and M. Fleury, has revolutionized the field of study dealing with people. Louis Henry believes that the parish registers of civil status is the ultimate source of information for the pre-state period and this is precisely the reason for which he proposes restoring the family's biological life. Church registers are only able to give us an insight into the family in rural areas, at least for the second half of the XIX century. Church documents, the fundamental sources for researching family life, are of two categories: 1. civil status registers and annual reports of the parishes, 2. Church authorities funds, documents and minutes recorded by the bishops. These documents are complex sources for the researcher interested in historical demography, social history, and the economic history of toponymy, birthdays, etc.
Processing the data contained in these records requires a specific methodology. They allow us to observe trends that have occurred on the long-term demographic events such as: birth, marriage or death. These records are presented for a long time as their only source of documentation regarding civil status and demographic events in the life of most people. Researching these records can unveil important features of natural population movement, the phenomenon of birth, of marriage, the divorce or death. Then, an analysis of form and content of these registers can capture the cultural universe of the priests who fill these records.
These Church documents proved to be important, especially where other documentary sources (mainly those in the category of records made by the state) have proved insufficient, incomplete and unclear. The parish registers of civil status in this case are suitable for both a qualitative analysis, and a quantitative one at the level of local communities. Beyond their usefulness and significance of documentary source, these documents should be regarded as being subjective because they were managed by priests (every priest is then an exponent to promote demographic and confessional "realities" and such realities were viewed from the perspective of his own religious convictions). The parish registers, however, prove to be the only documents that allow us to penetrate the privacy of individuals in each community. A documentary is also undeniably a good dowry that researchers should promote and use in their research not only locally but also to verify and demonstrate certain behaviours and overall trends.

Cahul district of the Republic of Moldova has a natural, economic and tourist potential still poorly exploited in the Euroregional context. For a better capitalization of the existing potential and opportunities, the enhancement of the cultural and archaeological heritage from all historical epochs is welcome.
The beneficial effects will be felt firstly, at the level of infrastructure, by building tourist sites and, secondly, by improving the tourist experience and performance. The premises of a viable neighborhood, such as the Lower Danube, are also given by the way in which the identity and cultural resources of the communities that are part of the Euroregion are distributed and capitalized. Recourse to events and processes during historical development is necessary and useful, especially since there is sufficient evidence of good coexistence at the Mouth of the Danube and its inclusion in the natural course of the history of western civilization.