INVESTIGÂND PRIMUL RÃZBOI MONDIAL DIN PERSPECTIVA UNEI ANCHETE INTERBELICE
Researching the First World War from the Perspective of an Investigation from the Interwar Period

Summary/Abstract: In 1920, Teodor Păcăţian, an important member of the ASTRA Association, relaunched an older project which had taken shape during the war, that of achieving a monumental statistics of the human and material sacrifices made by the Romanian communities in Transylvania, Banat, Crişana and Maramureş during the years 1914-1918. Questionnaires were sent to each municipality and town, containing, apart from quantitative topics, four other questions referring to war aids, war damages, the nature and the protagonists of the events occured in the autumn of 1918 and also the participants at the National Assembly from Alba-Iulia. The answers to these questions outline major social convulsions produced by the extreme changes of the war, the period analyzed representing a very unstable time for the Transylvanian society. The investigation made by Teodor Păcăţian captures a moment of transition from empire to national state, a shift of powers which was acutely felt in the former territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Trying to reintroduce an essential source in the historical circuit, our study analyzes the motivation, the stages and the limits of this inquiry and also its relevance for the new research on the First World War.

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