At the conclusion of World War I, Romania's annexation of territories of mixed population marked the beginning of a turbulent process of nation building. Drawing on original archival research, Livezeanu shows how the Bucharest government attempted, through dramatic reforms, to Romanize the newly annexed regions of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina. In these areas, the educated urban elites were substantially non-Romanian, and often Jewish. Although Romanian nationalists had previously tended to think of their peasant majority as a revolutionary menace, they now hailed the peasants as the key to their sweeping program of cultural integration. Focusing on the new educational system, Livezeanu examines the effects of nationalist strategies for transforming peasants into middle-class Romanians who could replace the "foreigners" as educated urban elites.
