Die Ansichten Ottokars von Czernin über die Einstellung der politischen Elite Rumäniens bezüglich des liberalen Reformprogrammes von 1913-1914
The views of Ottokar Czernin on the attitudes of the Romanian political elite regarding the liberal reform program of 1913-1914

Summary/Abstract: The reforms program proposed by I.I.C. Brătianu and the starting of the legal process for the Constitution’s revision profoundly stirred up the Romanian political life at the end of 1913 and in the first half of 1914. The vivid debates and controversial discussions on this topic which comprised the political parties, the press, the Parliament, also drew the attention of the diplomatic plenipotentiary representatives at Bucharest. The diplomatic reports drawn up by them and sent to the government of the states that they represented, contained important information, detailed analyses of the manner in which the political parties from Romania understood the problem of the two important reforms that worried the Romanian society for a half of century, the agrarian reform and the electoral reform. At the same time, the foreign diplomats’ attention was also drawn up by the way in which the parliamentary elections were organized, by the politicians’ behavior, noticing different reactions of the electoral body. Some of the diplomatic reports contain solid analyses of the Romanian electoral system, statements of some political personalities as well as numerous details referring to the agrarian reform. These documents are interesting also from the perspective of the conclusions and of the assessments made about the political class, the political parties or the electoral system in general. In the following pages we have in view to present 5 such diplomatic reports signed by the plenipotentiary minister of Austria-Hungary Empire in Bucharest, Ottokar von Czernin. The documents are from The Central Historical National Archives, Bucharest, folder Royal House, vol. I, 1865-1914 (Carol I). The opinions drawn out from these documents come to throw a much clearer light over the intentions of the political class of Romania, to proceed to state’s modernization and to impose a state of social calm. The conclusions are mostly realistic, relevant, and sometimes pessimistic when they referred to the liberals’ capacity to democratize the state’s structures.

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