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George Bariț

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George Bariț

George Bariț(often rendered asGeorge Barițiu,Hungarian:Báricz György;4 June 1812 – 2 May 1893), was anethnic RomanianAustro-Hungarianhistorian, philologist, playwright, politician, businessman and journalist, the founder of theRomanian languagepress inTransylvania.

Biography

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Born in Jucu de Jos,Kolozs County,Principality of Transylvania(today part ofJucu,Cluj County,Romania), he was the son of theGreek-Catholicpriest Ioan Pop Bariț, and of Ana Rafila. He attended school in Trascău (todayRimetea,Alba County), and then highschool inBlajandCluj.Originally trained for priesthood, he decided instead to become a teacher at the Romanian language commercial school inBrașov.

Bariț's statue in front of theASTRA PalaceinSibiu

In 1838 he founded inBrașovthe first Romanian newspaper in his native region, and named itGazeta de Transilvaniaand its supplement "Foaie pentru inimă și minte"(Paper for the Mind, Heart, and Literature) at the request of publisher Johann Göt.[1]Politically active, he was an important personality in therevolution of 1848in Transylvania, establishing connections withRomanian nationalistsandradicalsinWallachiaandMoldavia,and usingGazetaas one of the main political voices demanding equal rights forRomaniansandHungariansafter theHungarianrevolutionary government beganpressingfor Transylvania to be removed from directAustriansupervision to be reunited with Hungary.

After the revolutionary episode, in the period between the creation of an Austrian military government for the region and theAusgleich,Bariț returned to cultural and business activities. In 1861, alongsideAndrei Șaguna,Timotei Cipariu,he foundedAsociația Transilvană pentru Literatura Română și Cultura Poporului Român(ASTRA). He was its first secretary, and subsequently became its president.

Between 1852 and 1872 Bariţ was the Commercial Director of one of the first manufacturing companies in Transylvania with Romanian private capital, theFabrica de hârtie din Zărnești(Pulp and paper factory in Zărnești, located west of Brașov in central Romania). During the 1870s he also acted as an adviser to the Founder and the Board of Administration of theBanca Albina,the first bank with private Romanian capital in Transylvania.

As a result of the first free elections in Transylvania in the spring of 1863, following Austria's introduction by imperial decree of representative democracy in its territory in 1861, Bariț became a Member of Parliament in theDieta Transilvaniei(Transylvanian Parliament) where the ethnic Romanians formed the majority. After 1863, he participated as one of the twenty-six official parliamentary delegates of the Transylvanian Parliament in the second (1863–1864) and third (1864–1865) parliamentary sessions of the central Austrian Parliament (Reichsrat, nowNational Council of Austria) in Vienna. There, as a full Member of Parliament, a full Member of the Finance Committee and a full Member of the Committee for the Transylvanian Railway, he held several speeches on the imperial financial and trade policies, on foreign policy, on central policies of the government in Vienna towards the Romanian Church United with Rome, and promoted reforms of public finance in Transylvania, as well as specific local interests of Transylvania within the Austrian empire. After mid-1865 he did not continue to go to other sessions of the central Parliament in Vienna, since the political effects of theAusgleichmoved Transylvanian central representation from Vienna to Budapest.

In December 1866, following the beginnings of the Ausgleich, Bariţ initiated and drafted together withIoan Rațiu(1828–1902), the first Memorandum of the Romanians of Transylvania, addressed directly to emperorFranz Josef I of Austriaand signed by 1,493 Transylvanian intellectuals, asking for the maintenance of the administrative and political autonomy of Transylvania within the Austrian empire and within Austrian supervision. This Memorandum was submitted to the emperor in December 1866 and is a precursor of a second memorandum, theTransylvanian Memorandum,submitted in 1892.

Between 1884 and 1888, Bariț served as president of theRomanian National Party in Transylvania and Banat.

When ASTRA began publishing the reviewTransilvania,Bariț was the main person involved in its editorial ventures, and became one of the authors of the very first Romanian-language Encyclopaedia (published inSibiu) after his death, between 1898 and 1904). His main personal work, published between 1889 and 1891, wasPărți alese din Istoria Transilvaniei pre două sute de ani în urmă( "Selected Episodes of the Past Two Hundred Years in Transylvania's History" ).

Bariț was a founding member of theSocietatea Literară Română(1866), a precursor to theRomanian Academy.Of the latter he was elected in 1868 its head of the historical section, its vice-president in 1876 and its president in 1893. He died in Sibiu a couple of months after his election and is buried in the graveyard of the "Biserica dintre Brazi" church in the city, along with other major Romanian Transylvanian leaders.

Works

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  • Cuvântare scolasticească la ecsamenul de vară în Școala românească din Brașov și Cetate,1837
  • Deutsch-Rumänisches Wörterbuch, Dicţionariu român-german,1853–1854
  • Dicționariu românesc-unguresc, Magyar-román szótar,1869
  • Părți alese din istoria Transilvaniei pre două sute de ani în urmă,I-III, Sibiu, 1889–1891
  • Două drame familare,drama, 1891

References

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  1. ^Cornis-Pope, Marcel; Neubauer, John (2010).History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe, vol 2.John Benjamins. p. 258.ISBN9789027234582.
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