O scrisoare inedită a lui Ioan Axente Sever despre comandanții forțelor române din Transilvania în 1848−1849
An Unpublished Letter of Ioan Axente Sever about the Romanian Forces Commanders in Transylvania in 1848-1849

Summary/Abstract: Ioan Axente Sever (1821-1906) was an intellectual from Transylvania, who arrived in Bucharest as a professor. He was propaganda officer during the Bucharest revolution of 1848. After the defeat of the revolution south of the Carpathians, he crossed the mountains and became leader and military commander (prefect of Legion I) in Transylvanian. In autumn 1848, together with other commanders (Avram Iancu, Simion Balint), he wrote a report on the events he witnessed. These reports were published in German, in Vienna, in newspapers from 850 and 1853. The reports meant to demonstrate that the Romanians in Transylvania were loyal to the emperor in Vienna and that they fought with Hungarian troops because the government in Budapest did not recognized Romanian’s rights as a nation.After 46 years, in 1895, Axente Sever responded to a request from the „Astra” Association to write a list with the Romanian commanders of the revolution. This six pages long letter is unknown and has not been published, although several volumes of documents from the years 1848-1849 were edited. The letter published in this paper is compared by the authors with other known lists of commanders. It appears that Axente Sever’s memory was still very good. He remembers dozens of names of comrades in arms, details of the fights with Hungarian forces. Unlike the 1849 report, written immediately after the end of hostilities, in 1895 Sever drafted a list with the names of the 15 prefects of the Romanian forces in Transylvania, who had several dozens of deputies. He indicated that at that moment there was no such list and considered it his duty to write one, as one of the few survivors. The published document, with notes and explanations, confirms other historical sources and completes them.

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