Nicolae Sentivani în Revoluţia românilor de la 1848
Nicolae Nicolae Sentivani in the Romanian Revolution of 1848

Summary/Abstract: The study introduces to the reader the biography of a less known, but significant personality among the 19th century Transylvanian Romanians living in the Saxon seat of Orăştie (Mühlbach). Nicolae Sentivani (1796-1856), the author’s ancestor, was the Greek-Catholic priest in Turdaş, then, after his first wife’s death, he remarried, leaving priesterhood, and became the village notary. During the years of the revolution, between May 1848 and the summer of 1849, Nicolae Sentivani involved himself in the organization and struggles of the Romanian revolutionary forces, taking over both the administration and the military control over the Orăştie seat. Historical documents testify his great capacity in working out programmatic acts and grievances of the local Romanian population, as well as his special abilities as a military commander, namely as a tribune (since January 1849) and prefect (since April 1849) at the head of the Romanian legion organized in the Sebeş prefecture. After the revolution, together with other great Romanian revolutionaries from Transylvania, Nicolae Sentivani was decorated by Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, on 16 October 1852 personally receiving for his merits the St. Ann Cross 3d class. Aurel Răduţiu’s study depicts an unknown biographical portrait of a Transylvanian Romanian fourty-eighter, shaping a chapter of local history from Turdaş. Moreover, from now on historiography has to reconsider the multiple roles, as a priest, notary, military leader and national militant, played by this interesting personality, Nicolae Sentivani, including him in the gallery of the forerunners of the Romanian national movement in Transylvania in the first half of the 19th century.

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