DR. IOAN RAŢIU: „EXISTENŢA UNUI POPOR NU SE DISCUTĂ, SE AFIRMĂ!”
DR. IOAN RAŢIU: “THE EXISTENCE OF A PEOPLE IS NOT DISCUSSED, IT IS SAID!”

Summary/Abstract: Dr Ioan Rațiu enlisted in the fight for the establishment of the unitary Romanian national state. He was noted as a tribune in the army of Avram Iancu, then he was president of the Romanian national party and was the basic leader of the Memorandum. He remained famous through the words addressed to the prosecutor, on May 23, 1894, in Cluj, at the Memorandum Process, when he gave the “guilty” verdict: “What is being discussed here is the very existence of a people. The existence of a people is not discussed, it is said. That is why we are not longer accused here, we are accusers”.He was born in Turda on August 19, 1828, and comes from a family certified in Transylvania at the beginning of the 14th century, a family ennobled by Prince Gabriel Bethlen, in 1625.He studied in Turda, Blaj, then in Cluj and Budapesta, where the Hungarian pasoptist revolution also caught him, a revolution that began on March 15, 1848.He returns to Transylvania and participates in the 1848 revolution led by Avram Iancu, being part of the “Legion of Auraria and Salinae”, leading numerous battles against the Hungarian hostages.After the revolution, he begins his law studies in Vienna. He was named doctor in law in 1857, his doctoral thesis having the title ‘Theses ex universa jurisprudentia et scientiis politicis”. Then he practised law in Budapest, Cluj, Alba Iulia, Turda and Sibiu.He fights all the time for the rights of Romanians and the ideal of national unity.He is imprisoned for the guilt of defending his people. Even after his liberation, he continues his struggle for national unity and Union with Romania.His personality remains a shining page of history, it was the spark that lit the flame of the achievement of the Union from 1 December 1918, from Alba Iulia.

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