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Romania The Reign of Joseph II
Emperor Joseph II (1780-90), before his accession,
witnessed
the serfs' wretched existence during three tours of
Transylvania.
As emperor he launched an energetic reform program.
Steeped in the
teachings of the French Enlightenment, he practiced
"enlightened
despotism," or reform from above designed to preempt
revolution
from below. He brought the empire under strict central
control,
launched an education program, and instituted religious
tolerance,
including full civil rights for Orthodox Christians. In
1784
Transylvanian serfs under Ion Ursu, convinced they had the
emperor's support, rebelled against their feudal masters,
sacked
castles and manor houses, and murdered about 100 nobles.
Joseph
ordered the revolt repressed but granted amnesty to all
participants except Ursu and other leaders, whom the
nobles
tortured and put to death before peasants brought to
witness the
execution. Joseph, aiming to strike at the rebellion's
root causes,
emancipated the serfs, annulled Transylvania's
constitution,
dissolved the Union of Three Nations, and decreed German
the
official language of the empire. Hungary's nobles and
Catholic
clergy resisted Joseph's reforms, and the peasants soon
grew
dissatisfied with taxes, conscription, and forced
requisition of
military supplies. Faced with broad discontent, Joseph
rescinded
many of his initiatives toward the end of his life.
Joseph II's Germanization decree triggered a chain
reaction of
national movements throughout the empire. Hungarians
appealed for
unification of Hungary and Transylvania and Magyarization
of
minority peoples. Threatened by both Germanization and
Magyarization, the Romanians and other minority nations
experienced
a cultural awakening. In 1791 two Romanian bishops--one
Orthodox,
the other Uniate--petitioned Emperor Leopold II (1790-92)
to grant
Romanians political and civil rights, to place Orthodox
and Uniate
clergy on an equal footing, and to apportion a share of
government
posts for Romanian appointees; the bishops supported their
petition
by arguing that Romanians were descendants of the Romans
and the
aboriginal inhabitants of Transylvania. The emperor
restored
Transylvania as a territorial entity and ordered the
Transylvanian
Diet to consider the petition. The Diet, however, decided
only to
allow Orthodox believers to practice their faith; the
deputies
denied the Orthodox Church recognition and refused to give
Romanians equal political standing beside the other
Transylvanian
nations.
Leopold's successor, Francis I (1792-1835), whose
almost
abnormal aversion to change and fear of revolution brought
his
empire four decades of political stagnation, virtually
ignored
Transylvania's constitution and refused to convoke the
Transylvanian Diet for twenty-three years. When the Diet
finally
reconvened in 1834, the language issue reemerged as
Hungarian
deputies proposed making Magyar the official language of
Transylvania. In 1843 the Hungarian Diet passed a law
making Magyar
Hungary's official language, and in 1847 the Transylvanian
Diet
enacted a law requiring the government to use Magyar.
Transylvania's Romanians protested futilely.
Data as of July 1989
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