Descending from a family keeping "strong the awareness of the rights of the unbending man", remaining "tenacious in its aspirations", Alexandru Lapedatu participated already in his school years, as many of his generation, in Romanian protests and demonstrations like the ones in Iași, in solidarity with the authors of the
Memorandum. During his University studies in Bucharest, he was an active member of the . At the beginning of the World War I, in Bucharest, he was nominated secretary of the Support Committee for the Refugees from Transylvania, Banat and
Bukovina (1914–1916). In January 1918 he co-founded in
Odessa the National Committee of the Romanian Refugees from Austria-Hungary that elected him as president, moved to Iași and became a political platform bringing substantive contributions in preparing Romania for the peace negotiations. In 1920, Alexandru Lapedatu was nominated as member of the Coronation Commission to organize the festivities consecrating
Ferdinand I as the King of all Romanians, formally closing the political process of the
Union of Transylvania with Romania. In 1927, upon King Ferdinand I's death, he was a member in the Senate delegation establishing the Regency and having it take the oath in front of the two Chambers of the Parliament. He joined the
National Liberal Party in 1920, when he was elected a member of the Central Committee and of the Permanent Delegation, becoming the undeniable leader of the liberals in Transylvania. At the foundation of the new
University of Cluj, Alexandru Lapedatu was elected as the first professor to represent it in the Romanian Senate from 1919 to 1920. His first elected office as a member of the National Liberal Party was in 1922 as a member of the
Assembly of Deputies from
Ceica (
Bihor). After this, he has been elected either in the Assembly of Deputies or in the Senate in all terms until 1940; he became
Senator for life in 1936 and was elected President of the Romanian Senate (16 November 1936 – 20 March 1937). He lost his seat in the Senat when the Parliament has been dismantled by the military dictatorship, but after the war he was elected for the last time in the Chamber of Deputies in 1946–1947. Alexandru Lapedatu was Arts and Cults Minister in the six Governments and State Minister in four Governments; from 9 June 1934, while State Minister in the Tătărescu (1) Government, he was also in charge of the Cults and Arts Department and the Minority Under-Secretariat; in addition to his mandate, he also was as ad-interim Minister of Labour, Cooperation and Social Assurance in the Barbu Știrbei Government (4-6 June 1927). As State Minister for Transylvania in the
Ion G. Duca Government, he co-signed the Journal of the Council of Ministers from 9 December 1927 that outlawed the fascist
Iron Guard; as revenge, members of the Iron Guard assassinated Ion G. Duca on 30 December 1933. His functions are listed in detail in the following table. Alexandru Lapedatu joined the
National Renaissance Front established by
King Carol II of Romania (Royal Decree Nr. 4321 from 15 December 1938) as the only political organization legally allowed in the country; Carol II transformed the Front into the Party of the Nation (Royal Decree Nr. 2056 from 22 June 1940) that was disbanded by the prime minister
Ion Antonescu (Decree of 9 September 1940) three days after Carol's abdication. After
King Michael's Coup d'état from 23 August 1944 that removed Ion Antonescu from power, the political parties prepared to re-enter the political life and Alexandru Lapedatu assumed leadership for the effort to rebuild the
National Liberal Party-Brătianu in Transylvania (a
parallel effort with the same objective was led by
Gheorghe Tătărăscu). Alexandru Lapedatu entered in some circumscriptions in Transylvania in an electoral cartel with the
Peasants' Party obtaining a modest and ephemeral electoral success in the
elections from 19 November 1946, when two candidates were elected: Lapedatu in Cluj and Vasile Netea in
Satu Mare, in spite of the tremendous pressure and falsifications perpetrated by the so-called Bloc of Democratic Parties dominated by the Communists. He soon recognized that the communist repression would prevail, but did not give up hope: on 30 September 1949, it was reported to the
Securitate that Alexandru Lapedatu "believes in the future of the nation and in the capitulation of Russia and of communism". His vision has been confirmed more than 50 years later, with the fall of the
Berlin Wall.
International missions In 1917, the
Central Powers armies occupied Bucharest and were advancing towards Iași. The Romanian Government decided to move the
State Treasury to Russia in two transports, delegating Alexandru Lapedatu to accompany the second one that included cultural goods. He left Iași for
Moscow on 28 July 1917, and stayed there until 19 December 1917, experiencing the arrival of the
Bolshevik revolution. Alexandru Lapedatu was a member of the Romanian delegation to the
Paris Peace Conference (1919), participating in the negotiations on three instances: December 1918 – June 1919, taking part in the signature ceremony of the
Treaty of Versailles; again July – August 1919 participating in the incipient phase of the negotiations concerning
Bessarabia; and finally December 1919 – March 1920, contributing to the negotiations with
Hungary that will be concluded by the
Treaty of Trianon. On 31 March 1922, he was nominated as a delegate and technical adviser in the Romanian Delegation to the
Genoa Economic and Financial Conference (10 April – 19 May 1922) in which representatives from 34 nations addressed the
Europe restoration in the aftermath of
World War I. Alexandru Lapedatu was the head of the Romanian delegation to the
Inter-Parliamentary Conferences in Rome (1936) and in Paris (1937), and also participated in the XXXV Conference in Oslo (15–19 August 1939), one of the last efforts to secure peace just a few days before the beginning of the
World War II.
Romanian Participation in the Paris Peace Conference (1919) Alexandru Lapedatu engaged politically in working for the Romanian unity in 1918, as President of the National Committee of the Romanian Refugees from Austria-Hungary, established in Odessa on 21 January 1918, then moved to Iași. It pursued the political unity of all Romanians and intended to represent them in
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk's Nationality Association in
Kiev. Through this committee, Lapedatu connected with key political personalities in Romania and, thanks to the support from the French Ambassador, the Count of Saint-Aulaire, established contacts the
Triple Entente's representatives. On 6 / 19 October the Committee issued a Declaration, distributed to all political actors including
King Ferdinand I, contesting the manifesto of
Charles I of Austria proclaiming the federalization of the Empire and demanding that all territories inhabited by Romanians be united with Romania. Experiencing the depressing installation of a German Mission in Iași as a consequence of the
Treaty of Bucharest (1918), Alexandru Lapedatu published the paper "
Chestiunea transilvană" ("The Transylvanian Issue") in
Neamul Românesc, stating that the solution will be found when the situation of all nationalities will be addressed in the peace negotiations at the end of the war, expected to happen soon. In his letter from 28 June 1918 to the President of the National Liberal Party,
Ion I. C. Brătianu, Alexandru Lapedatu, convinced that the war was going to be ended soon, expressed the urgent need for a document summarizing the Romanian position in the upcoming peace negotiations, specifically addressing: 1) the geographical, ethnical, social, cultural and political situation of the Romanians in relationship with the other nationalities; 2) the historical and political evolution between Romanians and Hungarians; 3) the denationalization policies in Transylvania and Bukovina; and 4) the impossibility to implement autonomy, federalization and the unavoidable dismantling of the Danube monarchy to create new national states. In recognition to his competence, Alexandru Lapedatu was nominated between 1919 and 1922 as an expert in the Romanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1918); the documents he authored were submitted by Romania to the Conference and were used by the Romanian Delegation as basis for the negotiations.
The Cultural Policy in the United Romania Alexandru Lapedatu had cultural activities in various associations and foundations, such as in the
Asociația Transilvană pentru Literatura Română și Cultura Poporului Român (ASTRA) (Transylvanian Association for the Romanian Literature and the Culture of the Romanian People) that proclaimed him honorific member (8/9 November 1924), then elected him member of the "demographic and ethnology-politic section" (14/15 September 1935). For ASTRA he provided funding, held conferences, supported the publication of the ASTRA library, and donated the Fund "Al. I. Lapedatu". Alexandru Lapedatu expressed his conviction that promoting the cultural development is an essential mission of the State and the nation, and proposed and implemented policies pursuing the enhancement of the cultural and artistic prestige of all cities, and of the country as a whole. Alexandru Lapedatu formulated the principles of the monument preservation and restoration already in 1911. Under his leadership, the Transylvania Section of the Historical Monuments Commission executed in 1929–1948 more than 240 conservation and restoration projects, addressing Romanian heritage such as antiques
Roman and
Dacian vestiges, medieval stone churches and monasteries, wooden architecture, rear glass painted icons, the
Hunedoara and
Bran Castles, the Suțu Palace and the Filipescu House in Bucharest etc. After 1918, the Commission for Historic Monuments also undertook large restoration works on monuments belonging to Hungarian or
Saxon minorities including Roman Catholic or Evangelical churches in Cluj-Napoca,
Sibiu, Brașov,
Alba Iulia,
Sighișoara etc. As Cults and Arts Minister for almost seven years, he pursued a wide the areas of activities: • He initiated and/or supported the establishment of museums in Bucharest (National Pinacoteca, "
Theodor Aman", "
Kalinderu", "
Simu"); in Cluj-Napoca (
Ethnographic Museum, Museum of the Romanian Language, the
National History Museum); in
Vidra ("
Avram Iancu" Museum); in
Turnu Severin (remains of the
Trajan's bridge across the Danube built by
Apollodorus); in Alba Iulia (Museum of the Union), in
Constanța (Dobrogea Museum); as well as in many other cities among which
Turda,
Sighișoara,
Oradea,
Arad,
Sighetu Marmației,
Timișoara,
Dej,
Băile Herculane,
Caransebeș,
Târgu Mureș,
Sarmizegetusa,
Năsăud,
Bistrița, Brașov,
Făgăraș,
Blaj,
Sibiu,
Zalău, Satu Mare,
Deva,
Piatra Neamț etc. • He supported financially and participated in the unveiling of public monuments dedicated to Romanian historic and cultural personalities among which
Gheorghe Lazăr (Cluj, 1924); Avram Iancu (
Baia de Criș, 1924);
Ion Creangă,
Nicolae N. Beldiceanu,
Dimitrie Anghel,
Nicolae Gane and
Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea (Iași, 1924);
Ioan Mihaly of Apșa (Sighetu Marmatiei, 1925);
Stephen The Great (
Chișinău, 1925);
Michael the Brave (1926,
Guruslău, dismantled in 1940 by the Hungarian authorities);
B.P. Hasdeu (1927);
D. Onciul (1927);
Vasile Alecsandri (mausoleum in
Mircești, 1928);
Horia, Cloșca and Crișan (
Alba Iulia 1929);
Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea (Oradea, 1934);
Ecaterina Teodoroiu (
Târgu Jiu, 1935);
Vasile Lucaciu (Satu Mare, 1935);
Spiru Haret (1940) etc. • To stimulate the development of the national culture, Alexandru Lapedatu as Minister of Cults and Arts institutes in 1925 the National Awards for Culture and Arts. Considering that establishing theatrical institutions in the national language is a moral duty in the new provinces, a direct contribution to the cultural unification, he collaborates with the dramatic authors, actors, directors and producers, submits to the Parliament for adoption and signs the Law Regarding the Organization and Administration of the National Theaters and the Performances Control in Romania adopted by the Parliament on 21 March 1926, establishing a safety net for the artists, with payment, retirement, litigation and other rights, and the obligation to also show original plays in Romanian language besides the international repertoire.
The General Regime of the Cults in Romania (1928–1948) The first challenging task of Alexandru Lapedatu as a minister has been to establish a legal frame for the cults in the unified Romania. He presented the statement of reasons for the law clarifying that in the united Romania, besides the Orthodox Church, the State recognized the following cults: Romanian Greek-Catholic (united), Catholic (of Latin, Greek and Armenian ritual), reformed (Calvin), evangelic-Lutheran, Unitarian, Mosaic, Muslim and finally Baptist (recognized only in Transylvania), each governed by a different legislation in the regions coming from Russia,
Austria, Hungary,
Bulgaria respectively the Kingdom of Romania. The framework was set by the Constitution from 1923 that guaranteed absolute freedom of consciousness and equal treatment for all cults, except that it stipulated that the Orthodox Church was dominant, and the Greek-catholic cult has priority. While acknowledging the historical merits of the two cults highlighted by the Constitution, Alexandru Lapedatu worked towards a legislation reinforcing State sovereignty and secularism. • First, he proposed a law to elevate the status of the head of Romanian Orthodox Church to the rank of a Patriarch; it was adopted by the Parliament on 25 February 1925, with his signature as the responsible minister; • Second, he worked with the Orthodox Church to define its Statute unifying the regional specificities; upon his proposal, the Parliament adopted the Statute by the law from 6 May 1925, with his signature as the responsible minister; • Third, he collaborated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to restart the negotiations on a Concordat with the
Holy See and concluded them on 15 January 1926 when an official text was agreed upon by both parties; the Concordat was signed by his follower on 10 May 1927 and ratified on 12 June 1929. Since the two exceptions mentioned in the Constitution were no more in the position to challenge State prerogatives, it was now possible for Alexandru Lapedatu to submit to the Parliament, after animated consultations and debates, a project that obtained almost the unanimity of votes both in the Chamber of Deputy and in the Senate; it was adopted on 22 April 1928 and remained in power until 1948. It was an essential achievement toward the unification of the young Romanian State. ==Death==