Közigazgatási törvények fogadtatása Háromszéken a helyi sajtó tükrében. 1925–1930
The Reception of Administrative Laws in Háromszék as Reflected in the Local Press – 1925-1930

Summary/Abstract: The Romanian Public Administration Act of 1925 was the first comprehensive legislation that determined the functioning of the country’s local administration in the period between the two world wars. The application of the law meant a new system for the 76 counties and 144 towns of Romania. In our study, we examine the laws of 1925 and 1929. As a source of the research we used articles published in the Székely Nép, a local newspaper. These articles reflect the attitude of the local population and the local elite in relation to the new situation. The laws governing local public administration were developed based on a western model. They served the interests of various Romanian parties, so they never achieved their original goal: the creation of a strong self-government. Since the implementation methodology of the laws was never published, the Romanian Minister of the Interior and the prefect of the county were constantly involved in the management of local affairs. A lot of terms related to administration before the First World War continued to live on in the thinking of locals. In addition, most of the local officials who worked in administration had difficulty using the state language. While the official documents were written only in Romanian, everyday communication in the public administration was in Hungarian. Knowledge of the Romanian official language was the privilege of only a few local intellectuals. There was a great deal of adherence to the status of traditional Székely villages. The concept of a rural municipality made up of several villages was almost incomprehensible to the local leaders, because in the past there were only single villages with their own administration. The general situation is clearly reflected in the articles of the local press, which shows the daily struggle of the local elite in managing public affairs within the new borders of a country with a politically uncertain leadership.

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