Elită și destin național. Bursierii „Gojdu” în perioada interbelică
Elite and national destiny. “Gojdu” scholarships in the interwar period

Summary/Abstract: „Gojdu Foundation” offered thousands of scholarships that contributed to the birth of a generation of exceptional Transylvanian intellectuals. It represented a generous pool for the selection of future political and cultural elite. By its direct involvement in the events from the autumn of 1918 this elite had a significant contribution to the unification of the Transylvanian province with Greater Romania. It is essential to highlight that 42 out of the 250 members elected in The Great Romanian National Council (the first parliament of the Romanians from Transylvania and Banat) had been Godju Foundation’s alumni. The integration of Transylvania in Greater Romania offered new opportunities to the Romanian intellectuals from Transylvania. They actively contributed to the process of “redefining the nation”, to the integration of the new provinces in the structures of the new state, to the fulfillment of the entire political, social and cultural edifice that resulted from the 1918 political will of the Romanians. In the cultural domain, more than 25 alumni had university careers in Cluj, Timișoara, Sibiu, Iași, Cernăuți, 19 becoming due to their cultural and scientific achievements members of the Romanian Academy. Numerous alumni of the same foundation embarked on political careers. Two of them, namely Ocatavian Goga and Petru Groza became prime-ministers and around ten became ministers and state secretaries, over thirty being, at one time or another, deputies and senators in the Romanian parliament. A large percentage of them represented local elites being active as doctors, lawyers, judges, mayors, vice-mayors, prefects, viceprefects, etc. The unification of Transylvania with Romania offered the Transylvanian Romanian elites a major chance to affirm and climb the social hierarchy.

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