Contacts between Romanian intelligentsia in Austria-Hungary and in Russia were quite strong already before 1914, as many saw a common goal: building a national homeland for all Romanians. There were many divergent visions on how this could be achieved: some wanted all lands inhabited by Romanians to be reunited under the Austrian crown, others wanted an independent Romanian state, which might be closer either to the Central powers or to the Entente. At the time, less than half of all Romanians lived within the borders of what was then the Kingdom of Romania, and due to its small size, it had almost no influence over the two big neighboring empires. As a result, the Romanian intelligentsia in Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia had to seek political empowerment by itself, exchanging methods and tactics with each other. Transylvanian newspapers in Romanian, such as "Ardealul" of Onisifor Ghibu were widespread in Bessarabia before World War I, where local newspapers such as "Cuvânt moldovenesc" and "Viața Basarabiei", although not completely outlawed, were targets of Russian authorities. With the overall recruitment for World War I, many representatives of Romanian intelligentsia found themselves as low-rank officers in Austrian and Russian armies.