hibernate initializes lazy objects traversed by the persist operation;
for example, in this case (the project is attached):
class A has bidirectional one-to-many relationship to classes B1, B2, B3, B4
(b1List, b2List, b3List, b4List)
B1 has bidirectional one-to-many relationship to C1
(c1List)
B2 has bidirectional one-to-many relationship to C2
(c2List)
if we try persisting C2, it will also initialize B1, C1, B4 ... and other existing C2's
(you may find a more complete description of the issue at http://forum.hibernate.org/viewtopic.php?p=2340004#2340004
)
actually a better description is "initializing lazy objects ..."