BAROUL ALBA ÎN CONTEXTUL MARII UNIRI – AVOCATUL DR. CAMIL VELICAN, PRIMUL PRIMAR ROMÂN, DE DUPĂ MAREA UNIRE, AL ORAȘULUI ALBA IULIA

In this article the author presents the journalistic portrait of a prominent representative of the Transylvanian intellectuals’ elite – Camil Velican, whose biography belongs to the model of Transylvanian Romanian intellectual from the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century. Following his family’s tradition, Camil Velican opted for legal studies, heading at first for the Hungarian capital, where he attended, at the Royal Hungarian University, the classes of the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences (1897–1900). The model of the best Romanian students in Budapest attracted him to the Academic Society „Petru Maior”, where the talents of the national literature were formed. He continued his studies starting from 1900 at the „Ferenc József” University in Cluj, where he obtained his Ph.D. in Law in 1902, after which he dedicated himself to the profession of lawyer. Camil Velican was acknowledged as a prominent representative of the Romanian lawyer profession, a profession he practiced at the Bar of Alba, whose member he has been since 1903. With a rich political activity, he was the first Romanian Mayor of Alba Iulia after the Union of Transylvania with Romania on 1 December 1918. He had a successful career, both in administration and in the legal field, and he contributed, through his knowledge, to the economic and cultural development of the community to which he was fully committed. It must be noted that Alba Iulia was the first city where, on 20 November 1918, it was installed a Romanian administration, in which Camil Velican served as mayor. The activity in the role of mayor was a special one and contributed to the development of the city, which had become a very important one for the whole country, given the historical event which took place here. On 12 June 1937 it was prematurely interrupted the thread of a life during which he could have continued a prodigious activity in the most diverse areas of public life: politics, administration, economy, culture. Subsequently, under the communist regime, the name and activity of Camil Velican were intentionally forgotten, as well as of other achievers of the Great Union. Moreover, his family has been subject to some political persecution, specific to those regrettable old times. Even the change of paradigm in the Romanian society after 1989 did not change the old state of facts, the memory of the one who was Camil Velican being still ignored. Moreover, the house of the Velican family, which was one of the main places established for the reception of delegates and for assembly of the Transylvanian leaders in order to organize the day of 1 December 1918, continues to be nowadays in an unjustified and unjust state of decay.