The Salva Greek-Catholic Parish (Bistriţa-Năsăud County) during the First World War and before the Great Union

Abstract: Based on the information provided by the Bistrița-Năsăud Department of the Romanian National Archives, the present article tries to outline the situation of the Salva Greek-Catholic Parish during the First World War. We regard the role played by Priest Iuliu Morariu as quite important, for he has led this community between 1907 and 1946, and helped to preserve the spirit of national identity and morals in the context of the organised denationalisation activity promoted by the Austro-Hungarian authorities. This article also discusses the general situation of the village, the activity of the pupils from this Parish during the aforementioned period, and the way in which national identity was preserved thanks to the activity of the Greek-Catholic Gymnasium of the former Military Border District in Năsăud (town in the neighbourhood of Salva). Aspects like marriage, birth, child mortality, the lives of those who remained at home, that of the wounded soldiers coming back, the contribution of the Church to the formation of Romanian intellectuals (like the correspondent member of the Romanian Academy, physician Leon Daniello, who graduated from the above-mentioned Gymnasium of Năsăud during the war), and the peoples’ efforts despite the unfavourable context are emphasized here, in a research in which the documentary sources are compared with the pauper historiography on the investigated topic.