Proceedings

journals, the activity of professors association, the professors' role in national
accounting profession organisation.
2. TRANSYLVANIAN ACCOUNTING SCHOOL-THE DEVELOPMENT
PHAS – BEFORE 1918
2.1. The Romanian territories social, historical and economic context before 1918
Before 1918 the Romanian territories were considered individual countries. In history,
Romanian principalities existed mainly independently of one another (at least in a
formal manner), due to mainly external pressures.
Transylvania is one of the Romanian historical territories situated in the North West
part of Romania. In ancient times it was part of the Dacia Kingdom and Roman Dacia.
Since the 10th century, Transylvania became a province of the Kingdom of Hungary.
After the Battle of Mohacs in 1526, it was part of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom,
out of which the Principality of Transylvania emerged. Most of the time, in the 16th
and 17th century, this Principality was vassal to the Ottoman Empire, and in some
periods to the Habsburg Empire. At the end of the 17th century, Transylvania came
under the control of the Habsburg Empire.
From 1437 to 1848, medieval political power in Transylvania was shared between the
mostly Hungarian nobility, German burghers, and the seats of the Székely people (a
Hungarian ethnic group), while the population was made up by Hungarians, Szeklers
and Germans and Romanians) Starting then, Transylvania was in name attached to
Habsburg-controlled Hungary, though it had a separate status, being subjected to the
direct rule of the emperor’s governors. In practice Transylvania was severed from
Hungary until 1867 when, after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, the separate
status of Transylvania ceased and it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary as
part of Austrian-Hungarian Empire.
Transylvania became part of Romania only after the First World War, and at that time
the country was represented by Moldavia and Wallachia, other two Romanian
territories, unified in 1859, and gained their independence in 1878 (recognized at the
international level).
Because all of these historical conditions, in Romania capitalism imposed rather late
in comparison with West European countries, which generated a slower development
of accounting in our country. If in the western countries the industrial revolution
started at the beginning of the 17th century, Romania had been until the beginning of
the 19th century a country still in late Middle Ages.
Romania’s economy was still based on a feudal agriculture, the industry almost didn’t
exist, the manufacturers, in classical view, appearing only in the middle of 18th
century. The trade, which was the main economic factor contributing to the
development of capitalism had a lot to suffer in the Romanian historical provinces,
being strongly influenced in the second half of the 16th century by the instauration of
Turkish and Austro Habsburg Empires monopoly (Muresan, 2007). Consequently,
due to the change in international context (in our influence sphere the Turkish Empire
starts losing ground in favour of the Russian empire), until the beginning of the 19th
~ 920 ~