Трансильванская школа: истоки современной румынской культуры.

The Transylvanian School (Școala Ardeleană) was a cultural movement which was founded after part of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Habsburg ruled Transylvania accepted the leadership of the pope and became the Greek Catholic Church (c. 1700). The links with Rome brought to the Romanian Transylvanians the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment. The Transylvanian School's major centres were in the cities of Blaj (Balázsfalva), Oradea (Nagyvárad), Lugoj (Lugos) and Beiuș (Belényes).

The name Transylvanian School (Romanian: Școala Ardeleană) was not used contemporarily even though its members had a sense of belonging to a group. The literary historian Ovid Densusianu, along with Sextil Pușcariu, preferred the use of şcoala latinistă (Latin School) or școala transilvăneană. The latter also used the expression direcția latinistă (Latin Direction), and in a similar manner the Italian Romance scholar, Mario Ruffini, wrote of la scuola latinista rumena. Eventually, although the debate along the correct name and implicitly the nature and influence of the movement continued with scholars such as Nicolae Iorga and Lucian Blaga, the syntagm Școala ardeleană translated as "Transylvanian School" prevailed, and it is sometimes used for post Enlightenment scholars and ideas influenced by the Transylvanian School and originating from Transylvania.

The Transylvanian School marks the beginnings of modern Romanian culture, contributing to the national awakening of Romania. Their ideas and writings influenced latter Romanian scholars, some of whom activated in neighbouring Wallachia and Moldavia:
Aaron Florian, Alexandru Papiu Ilarian, August Treboniu Laurian. The Transylvanian School believed that the Romanians and the Aromanians were part of the same ethnic group. Its teachings influenced some prominent Aromanian figures such as Nicolae Ianovici or Gheorghe Constantin Roja.

While considered founders and civilizing force in the cultural domain by Titu Maiorescu (himself related to Petru Maior) and the members of Junimea, the Transylvanian School and later "latinists" scholars were criticised for their reliance on German and Latin loanwords. Contemporary thinkers, such as Mihail Kogălniceanu and Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, as well as later academicians criticised the abusive "purification" of the language proposed at various extents by the School and some of the later scholars influenced by it. Another contemporary, Ion Heliade Rădulescu, although himself influenced by the School in his early years of activity, vividly criticised the School's insistence of using an etymological spelling and analogical adaptations of words directly from Latin. The harshest criticism came however during the Communist Regime when the rivalry between Romanian Orthodox Church and Romanian Greek Catholic Church was employed politically, with the Greek Catholics being accused as far as being "non Romanian agents of the West", or even as "Hungarians" since the latter were seen as Catholics. The hostility escalated to marginalization of public figures such as the Greek Catholic bishops and clerics from regional history. The Transylvanian School, as a group affiliated originally with the Greek Catholic Church, was dethroned as the political movement that contributed to Romanian national identity in favor of a "nationalist Orthodox resilience that enabled the Romanian population to survive centuries of foreign rule".