Democratic Union Party (Romania)

The Democratic Union Party (Romanian: Partidul Democrat al Unirei or Partidul Democrat al Unirii, PDU) was a political group in Romania, one of the political forces which claimed to represent the ethnic Romanian community of Bukovina province. The PDU was active in the wake of World War I, between 1919 and 1923, having for its leader the historian and nationalist militant Ion Nistor. It was formed by Nistor and other activists who wrote for the regional periodical Glasul Bucovinei, and, as a consequence, the party members were commonly referred to as Glasiști ("Glas-ists").

The PDU favored a centralist administration, pushed for Romanianization in public life, and was generally hostile to the centrifugal tendencies of other communities, primarily Ukrainians, Germans, Poles and Jews. These together formed a relative majority of Bukovina's population, and Nistor's agenda met with sustained opposition from all sides of the region's political spectrum, although the PDU was successful in rallying to its cause some individuals from all these communities. In addition, the PDU clashed with the moderate or autonomist Bukovinian Romanians, whose leaders were Aurel Onciul and Iancu Flondor.

Democratic Union politicians helped organize the administration of Bukovina, speeding its absorption into Greater Romania, and, in 1919, formed part of the government coalition backing Premier Alexandru Vaida-Voevod. The PDU was later allied to the dominant National Liberal Party (PNL), helping it return to power with a nationwide centralist agenda, consolidated by the adoption of a new Romanian Constitution, in 1923. The same year, Nistor merged his party into the PNL.

Origins

Bukovina met World War I as an eastern province of Austria-Hungary, on the empire's border with the Kingdom of Romania. A Romanian traditional region, it had a Romanian plurality of 42 to 48% before 1918.