20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Romanian schools in the Balkan Peninsula during the 20 th century 795our trends collide with the consuming aspirations of the state where we aremeant to survive". 91Faced with the refusal of the local authorities, Adam Coe and IoanVuloagă submitted a new application form to the Ministry of Education inBelgrad. The situation of the Romanian teachers in southern Yugoslaviawas critical. Due to their internment in Bulgaria during the war, thenwandered about in Romania and obtained Romanian citizenship andpassport, and at their return Serbian authorities have questioned them onthe causes of changing the citizenship, without deciding whether they couldexercise the election right and to choose representatives of the Romaniancommunities, who would protect their interests. The Ministry of PublicEducation in Romania decided in 1921, that the members of the teachingstaff in the Balkan Peninsula to opt for citizenship of the States in whichthey developed their activity "... not to give our teaching staff the characterof missionaries, away of the environment in which they are called to fulfilltheir cultural work." 92On February the 14 th , 1921, Adam Coe showed in a memorial that aftergoing at the school inspectorate in Bitolia, with the address of the countrywhere the passage was reproduced "... the Serb-Croat-Slovene Governmentstated it has made no objection to the reopening of the Romanian schoolsin Serbia", were called to the city Prefecture where they were made awareof the Order issued by the Ministry of Education in Belgrad in Decemberthe 27 th , 1920, which established: "... nor even the vanquished Romaniansare able to open national schools without the approval of the ministry". 93Romanian state continued diplomatic steps to persuade the Serb stateto allow the reopening of the Romanian schools in Macedonia. An addressof the Ministry of Foreign Affairs towards the Ministry of Public Educationissued on December the 8 th , 1922, stated that on the grounds of a telegramreceived by I.G. Duca, this one in the talks with Ninici, obtained formalpromise "... that will satisfy our demands". 94 Not even this promise wasobserved, because in 1923 P. Marcu, resort chief service within the Ministryof Public Education stated: "After the ministry has remunerated for sixyears the teaching staff of these schools, although all this period he didnot deploy any school activity, in the autumn of 1922, the distribution ofthe entire teaching staff in the schools of Greece and Albania was decided,leaving there the pensioners and few cleaning service people to care for the91A.N.I.C., fund of the Ministry of Public Instruction, file 326/1921, f. 8.92Ibidem, f. 10.93Ibidem, file 325/1921, f. 19.94Ibidem, file 776/1922, f. 77.