Attempt to unite in 1848 (sub Austria)

I want to write about an interesting historical episode, which I don’t think many of you know – the attempt to unify the Romanians during the 1848 revolution.

After the revolutions of 1848 failed in Wallachia and Moldova, some of the revolutionaries (including Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Mihail Kogălniceanu, Vasile Alecsandri, Gheorghe Sion) took refuge in Chernivtsi, in Austrian Bucovina. There, together with other revolutionaries from Transylvania and Bukovina (Hurmuzachi brothers, Iordachi Wassilko, Aaron the Fist) drafted a motion which they gave to the Bessarabian Alec Russo to go with her to Vienna.

The motion called for the unification of Wallachia, Moldavia, Bucovina and Transylvania into a great Romanian duchy, under the House of Habsburg, and for Franz Joseph to also receive the title of Grand Duke of the Romanians.

Not much came of it, except that Bucovina received autonomy and Bucovina Romanians were recognized as the titular nation of Bucovina. However, many Romanian leaders in Bukovina, although fighters for national rights, were quite loyal to the Viennese monarchy, which they saw as an ally against the Hungarians, but, especially in the case of Bukovina, as an ally against Russia. Many Bucovinians argued that only Austria is the guarantor of the preservation of Romanian identity in the face of Russification imposed by the Russians under the guise of Orthodoxy.