The Transylvanian Memorandum was a petition

Petition

A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer....

 sent in 1892 by the leaders of the Romanians

Romanians

The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

 of Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

 to the Austro-Hungarian

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

 Emperor-King Franz Joseph

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...

, asking for equal ethnic rights with the Hungarians, and demanding an end to persecutions and Magyarization

Magyarization

Magyarization is a kind of assimilation or acculturation, a process by which non-Magyar elements came to adopt Magyar culture and language due to social pressure .Defiance or appeals to the Nationalities Law, met...

 attempts.

Status

After the Ausgleich

Ausgleich

The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 established the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Compromise re-established the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hungary, separate from and no longer subject to the Austrian Empire...

of 1867, although Romanians formed the majority of Transylvania's population, they had not been awarded legal status as a nation.

The Memorandum itself was written by the leaders of the Romanian National Party of Transylvania and Banat

Romanian National Party

The Romanian National Party , initially known as the Romanian National Party in Transylvania and Banat , was a political party which was initially designed to offer ethnic representation to Romanians in the Kingdom of Hungary, the Transleithanian half of Austria-Hungary, and especially to those in...

 (PNR) - among others, Ioan Raţiu, Gheorghe Pop de Băseşti

Gheorghe Pop de Basesti

Gheorghe Pop de Băseşti was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian politician. He was the vice-president and then the president of the Romanian National Party at a time when Transylvania was part of the Kingdom of Hungary inside Austria-Hungary.Born in the Transylvanian village of Băseşti , he...

, Eugen Brote, Aurel Popovici

Aurel Popovici

Aurel C. Popovici was an ethnic Romanian Austro-Hungarian lawyer and politician of Serb origin...

, and Vasile Lucaciu

Vasile Lucaciu

Vasile Lucaciu was a Romanian Greek-Catholic priest and an advocate of equal rights with the Hungarians in Transylvania....

. It asked for political rights

Right

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...

 to be awarded to Romanians, as well as raising a debate on the Kingdom of Hungary

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...

's policies of intolerance towards Romanians.

Consequences

Franz Josef, without reading it, forwarded the memorandum to Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 parliament, which, also without reading it, sent it back to the head of delegation. After printing and spreading the document the authors were charged with incitement committed through the press and most of them sentenced to prison ranging from two months to five years. Although in 1895 they were freed by royal amnesty, the outcome contributed to a decrease in loyalism to the Crown, with many leaders of the PNR turning towards the goal of union of Transylvania with Romania

Union of Transylvania with Romania

Union of Transylvania with Romania was declared on by the assembly of the delegates of ethnic Romanians held in Alba Iulia.The national holiday of Romania, the Great Union Day occurring on December 1, commemorates this event...

.

However, activism for union per se was largely held off until after World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and the Treaty of Trianon

Treaty of Trianon

The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...

, with Romania itself oscillating between alliances with the Central Powers

Central Powers

The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...

 and the Entente

Allies of World War I

The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...

, and with the parallel offer made by Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Franz Ferdinand was an Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia, and from 1889 until his death, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia...

 (the heir apparent

Heir apparent

An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting, except by a change in the rules of succession....

) to negotiate for a compromise (see United States of Greater Austria

United States of Greater Austria

The United States of Greater Austria was an idea created by a group of scholars surrounding the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand that never came to pass...

).