In the winter of 1944, the Romanian and Soviet armies liberated Maramureş from foreign ccupation, but the territory was not restored to Romania.
With the tacit support of the Soviet garrison, a group of local Communist activists attempted to annex the territory. A march by peasants from Borşa and other Maramureş villages (15,000 participants) thwarted this plan, forcing the (Soviet) Allied Control Commission to allow the return of Maramureş to Romania, along with other parts of Transylvania.
Ilie Lazăr was the foremost politician of Maramureș, a people’s tribune, and has been compared by journalist Reuben H. Markham to the fathers of the American Revolution.
