---
title: "Sextil Pușcariu"
chunk: 3/9
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextil_Pușcariu"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:03:14.223615+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

By October 1918, Pușcariu had regained Bukovina, joining the Romanian nationalist caucus forming in that region. As reported by eyewitness Teodor Bălan, his presence there was a "great fortune" for Romanian groups, since Pușcariu indicated the "straight path ahead" for his conationals. On 12 October, he founded the newspaper Glasul Bucovinei, which had as its limited initial goal the protection of rights for the province's Romanians, who formed an overall minority of the local population. However, Glasul also preserved a hidden agenda, namely: "to shatter the respect and fear inspired by the Austrian Empire and to militate for the ideal of pan-Romanian unification." Events quickly evolved, and Pușcariu served as a vice president of the Romanian National Council (CNR) that worked for the union of Bukovina with Romania. This initiative pitted Pușcariu against the loyalist Aurel Onciul, who vetoed all projects for Bukovina's merger with Romania.
Pușcariu was also co-opted by the General Congress of Bukovina, a CNR body which claimed to be the provisional parliament of Bukovina, in opposition to the Ukrainian assembly; from 27 October 1918, he served on its foreign policy committee, alongside Alexandru Hurmuzachi and Gheorghe Grigorovici. On 9 November, he helped Ilie Lazăr organize armed resistance to the Ukrainian Galician Army, which had occupied Czernowitz. These irregulars held their ground until the arrival of Romanian regulars under Iacob Zadig on 11 November. One day later, Pușcariu, who relinquished his General Congress seat, was sworn in as secretary of state for foreign affairs, under President Iancu Flondor, serving in this capacity to 18 December, when the cabinet transferred powers to a regular Romanian administration. On 17 November, he left on official mission to Iași, addressing thanks for Zadig's intervention. It was here that, on 22 November, he resumed contacts with Nistor, head of the Romanian Mission in Bukovina, with whom he reached an agreement on the recognition of the union. He networked with Romanian nationalists in both Transylvania and the Moldavian Democratic Republic (or Bessarabia). He advised the former "never to reach a compromise with the Hungarians", while announcing the latter that Bukovina had become a Romanian province.
Pușcariu also met Romanian Premier Ion I. C. Brătianu, who advised him to push ahead with the union, noting that unification needed to be demanded and enacted without waiting on international arbitration. Pușcariu reports that all of Brătianu's decisions on this issue were pre-approved by a bedridden Alexandru C. Constantinescu. Pușcariu and Nistor traveled back to Czernowitz, then known as Cernăuți, where Nistor joined the CNR and drafted the act of union. This document was in fact co-written by Duca and Constantinescu and Ion G. Duca—as Duca himself testified in his memoirs.
During his absence, Glasul Bucovinei was reorganized into an official daily of the CNR, with Pușcariu as manager. After this recognition, he worked very closely with Nistor, helping him organize the radically nationalistic Democratic Unionist group from a base of Glasul intellectuals. However, he was himself inactive politically, and later stated that he had grown disillusioned with politics. He remained more involved in literary matters. In January 1919, writing in Glasul, Pușcariu penned a strongly positive review of Poemele luminii, the debut volume by Transylvania's Lucian Blaga, helping launch his career. Transylvania united with Romania on 1 December 1918, but Pușcariu was unable to attend the festivities at Alba Iulia, being sick in bed with a case of influenza he had caught at Iași. Disease had also prevented him from welcoming in Cernăuți a Bessarabian unionist delegation on 28 November.