The Future of Romanian-Hungarian Tensions in Transylvania

by Mihai Rad, Babes: Bolyai University, November 12, 2004

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”The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.” This is how Ralph W. Sockman, an American religious leader and orator compressed the complex relationships between a minority and a majority. How true his words are, and how false, at the same time! The whole meaning of his remark can differ totally from one country to another, from one part of history to another.

The tests of courage and tolerance were taken by the Hungarians and the Romanians living in Transylvania, but in a political and social context, the two words can be misleading and cause unrest. The Romanian majority and the Hungarian minority have been dealing with these issues for decades, with roots of the conflict that take us back in time several centuries ago. The only way to sneak a peek in the future is to retrace the steps of the past and to interpret the context of the present.

The Past

Transylvania is the western part of the Romanian state, a land the size of Kentucky and about 2.5 times bigger than Switzerland (1). The history of the region is dominated by tensions even from the 1st and 2nd century, when the Dacians, the Romanian’s ancestors, were occupied by the Romans. After the Romans retreated, a high number of their soldiers remained behind and married Dacian women. This was the beginning of the formation of the Romanian nation. In 1001, Transylvania became part of the Hungarian Kingdom and the new rulers tried to reorganize the social structures of the Wallachs (the name they used for Romanians). In 1526, after a battle with the Turks, the Hungarian Kingdom ceased to exist and Transylvania became an independent principality, under Turkish sovereignty. The year 1699 brought peace between the Turks and the Austrians who annexed the Transylvanian province, but it still kept some of its autonomy. The troubled history of the province continued and, in 1867, Transylvania was re-annexed to Hungary. In 1920, Transylvania had 55.1% Romanians and 34.2% Hungarians (2). Ten years later, as an effect of the Trianon Treaty, Romania annexed Transylvania, but then lost a northwestern part of the province in 1940, to Hungary. Transylvania was made whole again in conformity with the Paris Treaty in 1947, after the Second World War came to an end.

The united Romanian state had to deal with the ethnic and confessional diversity of the land. The conflicts that appeared had several causes. The legislation adopted by the Romanian State tried to offer complete equality between its citizens, but some of the minority leaders demanded extra rights and freedoms for their communities. This caused a reaction of the Romanian political forces, and the balance between courage and tolerance was put to the test again. One of the resolutions of the Romanian political class was to teach all paid state workers Romanian. The Hungarian minority was the only one to oppose this and most of the Hungarian public workers refused to learn the language and show their loyalty towards King Ferdinand of Romania. A few years after, the tension mitigated as the Hungarians who hadn’t emigrated to Hungary agreed to accept the new legislation. 

The years after 1930 amplified the strength of nationalism, not only in Romania but also in most other European countries. The Hungarian party continued to sustain an anti-Romanian position. On the other hand, some of the political organizations in Romania promoted nationalism. Such was the Christian-National Defense League, led by A.C. Cuza, who demanded the introduction of a numerus clausus (3), which meant ethnical proportionality in all state institutions and factories. The roots of nationalism grew strong and the phenomenon became a constant in the everyday social and political life.

The Present

Transylvania’s population in 1992 numbered over 7.700.000, out of which 73.6% are Romanians, 20.8% Hungarians and the rest are other nations like Gypsies, Germans, Ukrainians and so on (4). The spread of the Hungarian population in Transylvania is uneven – there are two counties, Harghita and Covasna, where they form very large groups and there are also some villages where the Romanian language is rarely heard, but there are also communities where there are no Hungarians. The highest level of tensions between the Romanians and the Hungarians is reached in the urban areas, where the political representatives provoke the other side to everlasting battles.

One of the biggest and most important cities in Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca, is home to quite a large Hungarian population. This city is also the home of Romanian extreme nationalism. The city’s mayor for 12 years, from 1992 until the spring of 2004, Mr. Gheorghe Funar, was also the loudest voice of the Great Romania Party, a political entity that focuses its actions and programs on nationalism. He was elected by the majority of the 300.000 inhabitants of Cluj for three consecutive elections, not based on his accomplishments as a mayor, which were mediocre, but for his nationalistic attitude and strong attacks against the Hungarian community. His anti-Hungarian attitude turned the city and the surrounding areas into a sad circus, where emotions greatly overshadowed reason. Funar wanted to show that Cluj and Transylvania are Romanian, so he began painting everything in the colours of the Romanian national flag – red, yellow and blue. Benches in parks, parts of the sidewalks and even the garbage cans felt the nationalistic touch. Even the traffic lights near the city hall were altered to the point where we had a red light, a yellow one and a bluish-green one. It took 12 years for the people in Cluj to reach a political maturity that would allow them to see behind the flashy “package” of nationalism and understand what the real issues of the modern times are.

The example above can be extended to the whole Transylvanian region and the situation can be partly explained by two main arguments: first of all, Romanians have been losing and regaining their land over and over for the last 2000 years. Through history, parts of the country were annexed by the Russians, the Ottomans, the Hungarians and so on and then Romanians had to fight and compromise to get them back.

The second argument is that the anger and hatred have been passed on by older generations. Most of the Transylvanian Romanians who are over 70 years old today still recall fleeing from the Hungarian army in the 1940s. The senior citizens of today were kids at that time and they were permanently marked by the terror in their parents’ voices, by the fact that they had to leave their homes, and by the hunger and pain that followed. They still remember hiding in salt mines, living in the dark for months, with one constant thought: the Hungarians are coming to kill us. Today, those same people hear the Hungarian community asking for rights and privileges and their hatred surfaces instantly. 

In the 2004 mayoral elections, Gheorghe Funar lost because the arguments above have lessened their strength. Extreme nationalism couldn’t convince any more and lost its followers . The Romanians in Cluj realized that nationalism kept investors away, that it drained most of the energy and a lot of the resources of the community. Romania and Hungary are partners in NATO now, instead of enemies a few decades ago, we have become allies in the last years. The fear of losing Transylvania to Hungary is totally unjustified in the present, as NATO would never allow tensions like these to arise between two of its members.

The tensions have diminished, but they haven’t died. The Hungarian minority has a main political party, UDMR (The Hungarian Democratic Union in Romania), which sometimes fuels the dissensions. In their 2004 political program, UDMR resurrected some controversial issues, like having a Hungarian State University. This Romanian State regards this idea as an unjustified request, as most universities in Romania have sections where the courses are held in Hungarian. UDMR also demands that Romanian history and geography should be taught in Hungarian in schools with Hungarian classes. They also want higher wages for teachers who hold their classes in Hungarian (5). The Hungarian party leaders know that Romania’s most important goal in the near future is to join the European Union in 2007. Naturally, UDMR seizes this opportunity to link most of their demands to this event, highlighting the role of respecting minority rights in the perspective of Romania’s integration in EU. The important role of the Hungarian minority is recognized by the Romanian state too, and a good proof for this is the constitutional reform from October 2003.

Several changes were made to the old Constitution and the new document received large support from the minority groups in Romania. One of the most important changes targeted the former Article 41 on the “right to private property”, which created numerous obstacles to minority groups. The new Article 44 guarantees equal protection and rights under the law for private property, "irrespective of its owner" (6). Another amendment crystallized in Article 128 allows Romanian citizens belonging to national minorities to use their mother tongues in court. This represents a great improvement from the past article 127, which stipulated that members of ethnic groups were only enabled to have an interpreter in court. These changes were a step forward for the Romanian State, as the issue of minority rights is one of the top problems to be addressed in the perspective of joining EU. The democratization of Romania also meant respecting the Copenhagen criterion of protecting the rights of national minority groups and considering Hungary a future ally in the European Union. In conclusion to the constitutional reform, an article from Radio Free Europe states: “Many Hungarian leaders in Romania saw the constitutional referendum as an opportunity to secure greater rights for themselves while the Romanian government successfully used the vote to demonstrate its serious commitment to democratic reforms” (7). 

The Future

It is hard to change people’s views and opinions, especially if they grew up with ideas that now have deep roots in their mind. Some people will never really take a look at the objective reality around them and they won’t really care that Romania and Hungary are partners in NATO and will probably become allies in the European Union as well. Some Romanians will still keep their anti-Hungarian feelings and march on the theme of “defending the land”, in spite of all the evidence that Transylvania is no longer under any danger of being lost to Hungary. On the other hand, the Hungarian extremists will keep the battle flags up and continue to demand more and more rights and they will always complain about the State’s lack of democracy in their matters.

Voices of protest will always be heard, anywhere, at any time, but the current wave of a united Europe is stronger than all dissensions. Over time, bound together by the military relationships implied by NATO and the economic reality of the European Union, Hungary and Romania will slowly get over their troubled past. The Romanian and Hungarian populations in Transylvania have to adapt to the rigors of globalization and redirect their energies towards living together. The test of courage and tolerance will have to be taken again and again by the generations of the present and those of the future and there is real hope that the mistakes of the past will be avoided.

Sources:

1. http://www.rotransilvania.as.ro/istorie.php

2. Dumitrescu, Nicoleta, Romanian History, Study Book for the XII-th Grade, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2000, p. 141

3. http://www.rotransilvania.as.ro/istorie.php

4. Evenimentul Zilei, Electoral Campaign under the Mark of Autonomy, 17 OCT 2004

5. The Romanian Constitution, 2003, p. 27

6.Landau, David Adam, Constitutional Lessons From Romania: The Minority Rights Factor, 27 October 2004, Volume 6, Number  20

7http://www.rmdsz.ro/script/mainframe.php?lang=ro(UDMR website)

The Romanian Constitution

DESIGNER: Greg Montano, New Media Design, SUNY Cortland, USA

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