20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

796 Adina Berciu-Drăghicescuproper maintenance of our school premises, of the church and Romaniancemetery in Bitolia". 95The Romanians in the Yugoslavian Banat, who lived in about 80localities of which 35 were majority Romanian, enjoyed, to a certainextent, a minority treatment, which offered them a national life withinthe neighboring state. In 1919 in the Yugoslavian Banat there existed 66Romanian primary schools, out of which 18 were confessional schools,with 43 school masters and 48 communal schools, with 62 Romanianschool teachers.Under the government led by Take Ionescu, Gheorghe Derussi, theMinister of Foreign Affairs has established with the Yugoslav governmentto form a mixed commission, held in Belgrad, destined to set up school andchurch regime regarding the Serbs and Romanians in the Banat dividedbetween the two countries. Dr Valer Branişte, President, Dr. AtanasiePopovici, Dr. Atanasie Popovici and Onisifor Ghibu were appointed fromRomanian part in this commission. 96 The discussions were slow and went onuntil March 1933 when school agreement between Romania and Yugoslaviawas concluded and ratified by both countries in 1935. It stated that in primaryRomanian minority schools in the Yugoslavian Banat and in the primarySerb-Croat minority schools in the Romanian Banat, instruction languagewas Romanian, Serbo-Croatian respectively, starting from the third yearare taught as studying subjects Serbo-Croatian language and the Romanianlanguage respectively and history and geography were to be taught in thelanguage of the country which the respective schools belonged to. It hadalso provided that the school teachers have the same religious confessionand language as most students and the minimum number of students ofthese schools did not have to exceed 20. The necessary school teachers ofthese schools were trained in normal schools in Vârşeţ and Timişoara.In the school year 1939-1940 in the Yugoslavian Banat operated 33state primary schools, the courses of which were taught in the Romanianlanguage, and had 4,324 pupils and 79 school masters, out of them 40school masters were Romanians from Yugoslavia, paid by the Yugoslavianstate and 39 school masters from the country, paid by the Romanian state.Within the Romanian section near the Serbian state high school in Vârşeţoperated 4 Romanian lower grade classes, with 4 teachers from Romaniaand 203 pupils, and at the normal school in Vârşeţ attended courses, withthe 4 Romanian high school teachers, 27 Romanian students. 9795Ibidem, file 799/1923, f. 4.96Ibidem, file 326/1921, f. 39.97Ibidem, file 391/1941, f. 38-40.