Ion Bratianu: Romania

Makers of the Modern World: The peace conferences of 1919-23 and their aftermath
By Keith Hitchin

The Romanian Prime Minister Ion Bratianu (1864-1927) is one of the lesser-known figures who attended the Peace Conferences, largely because after 1945 the Romanian Communist regime virtually wrote him out of the country’s history until its fall in 1989. This book is the first major biography of Bratianu to appear in any language, based as it is on considerable original research.

As Prime Minister (1914-1918) and Minister of War (1914-1918) Bratianu took the decision to intervene in the war on the side of the Allies in 1916.He leads the Romanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and is mainly responsible for its negotiating stance. His often strained relations with the Big Four and the Supreme Council were further eroded when Romania invaded Hungary. Romania, however, in the end signed and adhered to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye with Austria, Neuilly-sur-Seine with Bulgaria, the Treaty of Paris (1920), the Treaty of Trianon with Hungary, and the minorities treaty.



Keith Hitchin is Professor of History at the University of Illinois and specializes in Southeastern Europe, Romania, Transylvania, the Kurds, Central Asia, and nationalism. Among his more recent books are Rumania, 1866-1947, in the Oxford History of Modern Europe series (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1994), The Romanians, 1774-1866 (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1996), A Nation Discovered: Romanian Intellectuals in Transylvania and the Idea of a Nation, 1700-1848 (Bucharest: Encyclopaedic Publishing House, 1999). He is an honorary member of the Romanian Academy.