On the "Monumentul Memorandistilor" (Monument to the Memorialists) is a
quotation of Ioan Ratiu:
"Existenta
unui popor
nu se discuta,
se afirma!"
Ioan Ratiu
Cluj-23 mai 1894
The Romanian quotation translates to "The existence of a people is
not discussed, it is affirmed!".
"Ioan Ratiu was a Transylvanian Romanian lawyer and politician in the
Habsburg Monarchy. He was co-founder and chairman of the Romanian National
Party in Transylvania. He was also one of the protagonists of the Romanians'
memorandum movement against the Hungarian policy of Magyarization in the
Hungarian half of the empire. [...]
In 1892, as party leader, he was responsible for a petition to
Emperor Franz Joseph I, in which the signatories asked for the monarch's
assistance against the administrative, educational and electoral legislation
in Transylvania, which was perceived as unjust. As part of the policy of
Magyarization, the Romanians, who constituted the majority population in
Transylvania, were prevented from using their mother tongue in public and
from electing their own deputies. This letter, which has gone down in
history as a memorandum, resulted in the indictment of the leaders of the
National Party. Shortly after the memorandum was delivered to the Viennese
court, Ratiu's private house was attacked by Hungarian nationalists, which
also caused outrage in the Kingdom of Romania. In 1894, Ratiu and several
other politicians and activists were sentenced to prison terms. During the
trial in Cluj-Napoca, he uttered the phrase 'The existence of a people is
not discussed, it is affirmed" (Existenta unui popor însa nu se discuta, ci
se afirma). The saying today adorns the monument in Cluj-Napoca dedicated to
the activists."
Translated from source:
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioan_Ratiu