Hello, this is a sample of my two entities: @Entity public class Post implements Serializable { @OneToMany(mappedBy = "post", fetch = javax.persistence.FetchType.EAGER) @OrderBy("revision DESC") public List<PostRevision> revisions; @Entity(name="post_revision") public class PostRevision implements Serializable { @ManyToOne public Post post; private Integer revision; @PrePersist private void prePersist() { List<PostRevision> list = post.revisions; if(list.size() >= 1) revision = list.get(list.size() - 1).revision + 1; else revision = 1; } So, there's a "post" and it can have several revisions. During persisting of the revision, entity takes a look at the list of the existing revisions and finds the next revision number. Problem is that Post.revisions is NULL but I think it should be automatically populated. I guess there's some kind of problem in my source code but I don't know where. Here's my "persistence" code: Post post = new Post(); PostRevision revision = new PostRevision(); revision.post = post; em.persist(post); em.persist(revision); em.flush(); I think that after persisting "post", it becomes "managed" and all the relations should be populated from now on. Thanks for help! (Note: public attributes are just for demonstration)