BEHIND THE SCENES OF A NATIONAL SHOW: THE CORONATION OF KING FERDINAND I AND QUEEN MARIA AT ALBA IULIA (15 OCTOBER 1922)
BEHIND THE SCENES OF A NATIONAL SHOW: THE CORONATION OF KING FERDINAND I AND QUEEN MARIA AT ALBA IULIA (15 OCTOBER 1922)

Summary/Abstract: The present study examines the complications that the confessional situation of King Ferdinand I (namely the fact that, as a Catholic, he was excommunicated for almost two decades by the Holy See due to the flagrant violation of certain rules of conduct, and the reconciliation granted to him by the pontifical court at the end of the World War I presupposed the observance of strict conditions) generated in relation to the design and conduct of the royal coronation in Alba Iulia, on 15 October 1922. The plans of the various political decision-makers regarding the coronation ceremony, or the intentions of the Orthodox Church (an institution that had aspired to mark the event from a religious point of view) were meticulously negotiated at the top of the Catholic Church, a scenario of the coronation ceremony having thus been staged (mise en scène) in accordance with the requirements formulated by the pontifical diplomacy. This is therefore the aim of the present study, namely to untangle, for the first time in historiography, the complicated threads of an important public spectacle – the coronation of Romanian sovereigns in Alba Iulia – in whose preparation political intrigue, religious passions and diplomatic pressure were consumed.

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