Rubin Patiția

Rubin Patiția (–June 13, 1918) was an Austro-Hungarian ethnic Romanian lawyer and political activist. A native of the Transylvania region, he trained as a lawyer, settling in Alba Iulia in the 1870s and using his position to advance the local Romanian community. Patiția achieved prominence as a signatory of the Transylvanian Memorandum in 1892, an act that eventually led Patiția to spend time in prison. Soon after 1900, he began to withdraw from politics, dying near the close of World War I, shortly before the union of Transylvania with Romania.

Biography Origins and education Born in Câmpeni, Alba County, in the Țara Moților region of Transylvania, Patiția's father Ioan was a Romanian Orthodox priest, and his younger sister went on to marry a priest. In the spring of 1848, in the family home, Patiția met Avram Iancu, who had arrived to discuss participation by the moți in the upcoming Blaj Assembly. The ensuing Transylvanian Revolution of 1848 deeply marked Patiția's development.

Patiția attended primary school in Neagra, the Transylvanian Saxon school in Sibiu for three grades, the Romanian gymnasium in Beiuș and the Lutheran gymnasium in Sibiu (with instruction in German), and a final year of gymnasium in Beiuș, where he perfected his Romanian. He took the graduating examination in 1862. In September 1852, Patiția again met Iancu, imprisoned in Alba Iulia. In 1866, he graduated from Sibiu's Saxon law academy. the latter married Zaharia Munteanu, himself a lawyer and participant in the national movement of Romania's Transylvanians.

Political involvement Patiția played an important role in the 1870 foundation of an Astra chapter for Alba Iulia. He became its secretary in 1872 and a life member in 1887. As such, he was indicted and interrogated in May 1893, and tried and sentenced at Cluj a year later for his participation in the process. Patiția was held at Vác prison until September 1895, After Rațiu's death in 1902 and the PNR's shift toward an activist stance, which became party policy in 1905, the aging Patiția gradually withdrew from politics.