Austria had imposed a repressive regime on…

Austria had imposed a repressive regime on Hungary after quashing the revolution of 1848-49, and rules Transylvania directly through a military governor, with German again becoming the official language.

Austria had abolished the Union of Three Nations and granted citizenship to the Romanians.

Although the former serfs have been given land by the Austrian authorities, it is often barely sufficient for subsistence living.

These poor conditions have obliged many Romanian families to cross into Wallachia and Moldavia—known since 1862 as the Romanian United Principalities—in search of better lives.

Romanians enjoy equal status in Transylvania for only a short time.

The need to shore up the weakening empire presses Vienna toward compromise with Budapest.

Emperor Franz Joseph of Habsburg in 1865 convenes a second Transylvanian Diet, this time with a Hungarian majority, which abrogates the 1863 legislation and endorses unification of Hungary and Transylvania.