Cluj and the University During World War I

In the last years, the research of the history of Ferenc József University of Cluj has seen a new upswing, mainly due to the cooperation between the research groups from the Universities of Szeged and Cluj. The author of this paper is a member of these research groups, who has been commissioned to research the interaction between the University and Cluj in the framework of the monograph of university history to be published in 2021. Given the fact that it is the centenary of World War I, the aim of this study is to analyse the effects of World War I on Cluj and the University as well. The target of the research is exploring and analysing new sources, since the studies on the history of the University dealing with this topic refer almost exclusively to the memories of Sándor Márki, and there are some cases when this source, too, is misinterpreted. At the same time, the so-far published works of the university history hardly ever refer to archival sources. This is mainly due to the fact that the misfortunes of these archival sources (fragments being located in the archives of three different states) made them inaccessible for researchers. The records of the University Council of the University of Cluj and the records of the Faculty of Humanities have been digitalised in cooperation with the University of Szeged, further processing of these may lead to uncovering new information.

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