Ciubotă, Viorel - Nicolescu, Gheorge - Ţucă, Cornel (szerk.): Jurnal de operaţiuni al Comandamentului Trupelor din Transilvania (1918-1921) 2. (Satu Mare, 1998)
Istorie şi Geografie Istorică / Geschichte und Landeskunde / Történelem és országismeret - Nationalităţi, minorităţi etnice şi stat / Nationalitäten, ethnische Minderheiten und Staat / Nemzeti és etnikai kisebbségek, állam
198 Gheorghe Iancu Americans insisted on the conclusion of minorities treaties. They got the support of Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Orlando and their aids, and the drafts of the treaties came into being. The minorities treaties obliged the signatories to guarantee to the minorities unlimited and absolute “protection of life and liberty”, without discrimination as to birth, language, religion, all being entitled to freely exercise their rights. Nationality was to be granted to all residents within the boundaries of the new state, except the ones who would choose to go elsewhere, assuring to them civil and political rights, the right to establish and operate religious, social and educational institutions, in which they could use their language of choice. The minorities were entitled to create private schools in their languages and to be educated in their mother tongues in state school, and the state was to provide the necessary funds for education and culture. Under the minorities treaties, the non-Romanian inhabitants of Romania got citizen rights and rights for collectivities, i.e. for denominations, but the treaties aimed at protecting the states as well. The minorities were supposed, under the treaties, to sincerely collaborate with the state, and it was denied the status of distinct political state groups. There was no talk about collective rights, which would have put in jeopardy state integrity and international peace. But, at the same time, minorities protection got international status. The guarantees were constitutional, as certain clauses became incorporated in the fundamental law, and international, as the clauses could not be altered by the action of the state only. The observance of the minorities treaties was placed under the control of the Council of the League of Nations and the guarantees were sufficient for the safekeeping of language, culture, ethnicity, economic position. Members of this Council, states, minorities, individuals, could refer matters to the Council, or to the Permanent Court of International Justice. On the 25-th of Octomber 1920, the Committee of Three was set up as a “court of first instance” between the Council on the one hand, and the state with minorities or the petitioners on the other. In the case of Romania, not one petition was entirely resolved in favour of claiment. After 1918, Romanian authorities brought education in the former Austro-Hungarian provinces in accord with the demographic-ethnic composition and with the new political situation. But, at the beginning of the interwar period, a new, unexpected situation appeared. The Hungarian Church hierarchies began creating again a plethora of confessional
