ABSTRACT
Over a million men living in Romania after 1919 became beneficiaries of veterans’ rights. This chapter explores their responses. Thousands of veterans wrote individually and collectively to IOVR about their problems, leaving behind a rich trove of personal stories. Veterans’ associations lobbied on their behalf and published accounts of their activities, enhancing the personal perspective through broader institutional reflections about the fate of the veterans in interwar Romania. Other observers, such as the media and politicians, provide additional documentary evidence about these issues, offering an unparalleled opportunity to gain a better understanding of how masculinity and citizenship became entwined through the framing of the new IOVR veterans’ benefits. How veterans experienced and then sought to shape their personal relationship with the Romanian state via the IOVR policies is the main focus of this chapter.
