2. Photographer Samoilă Mirza
• Samoilă Mârza was an Austro-
Hungarian-born Romanian
photographer. A native of
Transylvania region and a veteran of
World War I, he is best known for
taking the only photographs of the
Great National Assembly at Alba
Iulia that proclaimed the Union of
Transylvania with Romania on
December 1, 1918. The day is
celebrated as Romania's national
holiday, and, with time, Mârza's
images acquired political and
documentary significance.
3. • Born to peasant parents Ștefan and Ana in Galtiu village,
Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Mârza attended a Greek-Catholic
primary school in the village and high school in Alba Iulia. Between
1909 and 1911, his parents sent him as apprentice to a photographer in
Sibiu, where he learned the profession. With the outbreak of World War
I in 1914, he was mobilized and sent into battle as a soldier in the
Austro-Hungarian Army, where he served first on the Austrian front in
Galicia, reaching as far north as Riga, before being transferred to the
Italian Front in 1916. As part of the army's topographic and
photographic service for over three years, he took pictures of fighting
soldiers and scenes of the war's devastation, likely making him the
first Romanian war photographer
4. • As the war drew to a close in late 1918,
Mârza was in Trieste, whence he left for
Vienna together with many other
Transylvanian Romanian soldiers. He
arrived there in early November, planning
to head home.
5. • That month in the Austrian capital, he took three pictures
depicting the blessing of the first tricolor flag belonging to
the Central National Romanian Council, in the presence of
General Ioan Boieriu, of political leader Iuliu Maniu and the
assembled troops. Together with several thousand
soldiers, he returned to Transylvania from Vienna in order
to participate at the Alba Iulia assembly. The road through
Budapest and Arad was blocked by Hungarian forces
hostile to the Council, so they went instead via Zagreb,
Belgrade and Timişoara, where Serbian forces allowed
them to pass provided they were disarmed.
6. • The Great National Assembly at Alba
Iulia proclaimed the Union of Transylvania
with Romania on December 1. That
morning, Mârza took three pictures of his
fellow villagers before heading for the city.
7. • Arriving with a delegation from Galtiu
around 11 a.m. on a cloudy day, he carried
his camera, then about fifteen years old, in a
sheepskin bag, his tripod and glass plates
on a bicycle.
