Iuliu Hossu în memoria colectivă românească: o perspectivă socioonomastică
Iuliu Hossu in the Romanian Collective Memory: a Socio-onomastic Perspective

Summary/Abstract: The proclamation of the “Year of Cardinal Iuliu Hossu” through a law enacted in 2023 aimed to honor one of the most dignified patriots of our nation, who played a “decisive role in the achievement of the Great Union and in the efforts undertaken to save the Jews during the Holocaust” (Art. 1). During the Second World War, Iuliu Hossu placed moral responsibility above confessional, ethnic, or political boundaries, demonstrating that love for one’s neighbor is universal and unconditional. After the establishment of a pro-Soviet government, Hossu made no compromises, remaining faithful to his principles and beliefs, choosing imprisonment and a martyr’s death over apostasy.In this study, based on socio-onomastic criteria, we analyze the ways in which his name is commemorated in the Romanian public sphere—through hodonymy, the patronage of churches, and the naming of educational institutions. The homage paid to the first Romanian cardinal can be traced not only in street nomenclature, but also in the increasing number of monuments, in books dedicated to evoking his life and work, as well as in cultural, religious, diplomatic, numismatic, and philatelic events dedicated to his memory. Alongside the other Greek-Catholic bishops, he was beatified in 2019, as the supreme reward the Church could bestow upon him.

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