Un memoriu al ieşenilor la sfârşitul Marelui Război. Îngrijorările şi speranţele unui nou început
A memorial of the people of Iaşi at the end of the Great War. Concerns and hopes of a new beginning

Summary/Abstract: The basis of the research is the content of a Memo of the people of Iaşi drafted up in the month of December 1918. The document is dated January 6, 1919, and it was created in order to be presented before King Ferdinand in Iaşi, on January 24, during his highly anticipated participation to the 60-year celebration of the Unification of Principalities. The preamble of the document mentioned the sacrifices made by Iaşi and by Moldavia, both the recent ones – during the war – and those accumulated throughout the six decades from the constitution of the Romanian state. In the following lines, the wishes of people from Iaşi and of Moldavians in general were outlined. The text of the memo was accompanied by a list featuring several thousand signatures (as well as the full name of petitioners, their occupation and their address). Upon analyzing the list, I have concluded that the persons who adhered to the ideas expressed in the document addressed to the king were renowned initiators and supporters such as Metropolitan Pimen Georgescu, Nicolae Iorga or Petru Poni; local personalities such as N. A. Bogdan or Gh. Ghibănescu; priests, owners, masters, clerks, merchants, workers, university students, teachers, pensioners, etc, including politicians of almost all colours. The purpose of my research – besides the analysis of memo contents, even of the list of signatories – is to reconstruct the context of the document. Furthermore, I will also see how many of the hopes of the new beginning – expressed by the people of Iaşi through that gesture of great engagement – actually became reality in the two decades until the subsequent world conflagration.

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