Metadata: Collection of nationality registers
Collection
- Country:
- Romania
- Holding institution:
- Maramureş County division of the Romanian National Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Arhivele Naţionale. Direcţia judeţeană Maramureş
- Postal address:
- Bulevardul Bucureşti 26, Baia Mare 430052, judeţul Maramureş
- Phone number:
- 0262-437948
- Email:
- maramures.an@mai.gov.ro
- Reference number:
- Fond 63
- Title:
- Collection of nationality registers
- Title (official language):
- Colecţia de registre de cetăţenie
- Creator/accumulator:
- Commissions for nationality rights; mayor’s offices
- Date(s):
- 1924/1946
- Language:
- Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan
- Extent:
- 182 registers
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- This fonds comprises the nationality registers introduced for Transylvania and Bukovina by Mârzescu law of 1924 which made it compulsory to establish nationality rights for all inhabitants of these provinces which entered the Romanian state after the First World War. Families were entered into these registers upon providing written evidence that they had been resident in the respective province since before the First World War. The registers include the name of the head of the family, his profession, birth place, birth year and residence, the name, birth year and birth place of his wife, the names, birth place and birth year of their children and the number of the resolution by which their nationality right was recognised. The registers were revised in 1938 by the Goga-Cuza government (the first antisemitic government of inter-war Romania) - and by the regime of royal dictatorship of Carol II (1938-1940), with the result that one third of the Jewish population lost their nationality rights which including the right to passports, to work in a series of liberal professions etc. A third revision took place in 1946 which made it possible to estimate the Jewish population of the localities of these provinces after the Holocaust.
- Archival history:
- The nationality registers were held by the County Inspectorate of the Militia (the name of the Police in the Communist period) and were transferred in 1969 and 1975 to the Maramureş County division of the Romanian National Archives. They have been open for research only for the last few years.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- After the First World War Transylvania and Bukovina became part of Romania. Because this was a period of intense immigration to Romania of Jews from Russia, Ukraine and Poland due to pogroms and other atrocities there, the Romanian state adopted in 1924 the Mârzescu law (named after the Secretary of Justice of that year) which limited the nationality right in these provinces to families who had lived there since before the First World War. In in the residential towns and cities of the Transylvanian counties commissions were installed, chaired by the mayors of these localities, including the police chief and a representative of the Ministry of Justice, whose responsibility it was to register those families whose nationality right had been recognised. The status of these families was revised in 1938 according to a law adopted by the antisemitic Goga-Cuza government and by 1940 one third of the Jewish families had lost their nationality rights. A third revision took place in 1946 which permitted an estimate of the losses caused by the Holocaust for the Jewish population.
- Access points: locations:
- Transylvania
- Subject terms:
- Census
- Citizenship
- System of arrangement:
- The registers of nationality are arranged by locality. Within the families are registered in alphabetical order.
- Finding aids:
- Inventory No. 347, held by the Maramureş County division of the Romanian National Archives.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Romanian Institute for the Research of National Minorities
- Author of the description:
- Anton Dörner (retired researcher), Ladislau Gyémánt (emeritus professor) 2017