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A Short History
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Transylvania A Short History |
Groza remains a controversial figure. He completed some of his studies in Budapest, spoke Hungarian well and was very fond of the almost legendary Hungarian poet of the turn of the century, Endre Ady. He promised in very liberal speeches that the Romanian-Hungarian relationships would be placed on a new basis. In spite of these nice -- and, perhaps, honestly meant -- words, under his rule as Prime Minister the mass internments, confiscations, and deprivations of civil rights of the Hungarians continued "without interference". The "legal framework" for these action was the concept that virtually the entire German minority and a large number of Hungarian adult males were considered to be war criminals and enemies of the Romanian people and of the Romanian state.
Confronted with these harsh realities, Groza's proposals for regional federations, customs unions and the "spiritualization" of the borders, were worth very little. It is even possible that the appealing declarations and proposals had no real intent behind them and were made only to serve as a base for the peace treaties and to assure favorable recognition of Romania by the West.
At the end of December 1947, we had the odd situation where a country, which came under Soviet influence at the end of World War II, was still a kingdom. Petru Groza and the Communist Gheorghiu Dej (1901-1965), a local product and not a Moscow emigre, put an end to this, forcing King Michael to abdicate and to leave the country. The Romanian People's Republic was proclaimed. This then formally prepared the ground for Romania to become integrated into the increasingly homogenized group of Soviet satellites. At this time it was the integration which was impressive. Later a relative separation becomes prominent. Even later this was viewed as a meritorious event.
At the same time, Hungary, as a consequence of the internal power struggle of the Communists, increasingly leaned toward the Moscow emigré group, the first leader of the Romanian Communists, Gheorghiu-Dej, gained his position primarily at the expense of the former Muscovite comrades and non-Romanian rivals. About the middle of 1952 he added the post of Prime Minister to that of First Secretary, while Groza was "kicked upstairs" and was given the presidency of the Parliament -- a largely ceremonial position.
When we consider those massive, but largely misdirected economic, cultural and political changes which convulsed, with minor variations, all the "Socialist" countries, they really facilitated the segregational and/or integrational nationality policies which persist with some ups and downs in Romania to this day. Even under the extreme rule of Gheorghiu-Dej, there were indications that some of the issues could be normalized. Namely, there were provisions in the new constitution, which was modeled after the Soviet one, but which contained certain nationality rights. Accordingly, the area of the former regions of Csík, Erdõszentgyõrgy, Gyergyószentmiklós, Kézdivásárhely, Maroshévíz, Marosvásárhely, Régen, Sepsiszentgyõrgy and Székelyudvarhely were united into the Hungarian Autonomous Province. "The Hungarian Autonomous Province (MAT) encompassed the largest area inhabited by Hungarians, it represented only about one third of the entire Hungarian population of Romania. According to the 1956 census the MAT had a total population of 731,387 of which 77.3% (565,510) were Hungarians and 20.1% (146,830) were Romanians. The proclaimed autonomy became totally illusory, since the Provincial Statutes under which the laws were to be administered, were never enacted." (Andrea R. Süle)
MAT was finally disbanded in 1968, just at the time when otherwise, transiently perhaps, some nationality rights and opportunities beckoned. Let us keep, however, to the time sequence. The forced industrialization was no longer limited to the Regat and reached Transylvania, resulting in the influx of large numbers of Romanian workers. In the meantime the still better educated and more skillful Hungarian -- and German -- workers could not be spared. For the higher positions, however, the non-Romanians had a much better chance if they moved beyond the Carpathians and away from the land of their co-nationals.
After all the escapes to Hungary after 1945, Transylvania's manpower loss was further aggravated by a significant move to the Regat. Another, demographically even more natural phenomenon, was the increase of mixed marriages. In these cases it was usually the Hungarian spouse who wanted the children to be raised as Romanians to spare them the miseries of belonging to a minority nationality. In the "Socialist" countries everything was done according to "The Plan". It can be considered to be according to a plan, (without quotation marks), that in Transylvania the Romanians were favored not only in industry, but also in educational, hospital and office positions, while the new minority intellectuals were enticed to move to Romanian areas with offers of employment or were forcibly moved to such areas. It was frequently easier to be a Hungarian in Bucharest than in Kolozsvár or in Nagyvárad.
It was the practice in Hungary at this time that the enlisted army personnel was stationed as far away from their homes as possible. In Romania, this same practice resulted in Hungarian boys serving in the Regat, or in the Danube delta -- a huge concentration camp -- while the Transylvanian barracks were filled to the rafters with Romanian enlisted personnel.
In public education, the principal issue was the preservation of the national language in instruction in the face of determined efforts to curtail this. Highlighting higher education, the Transylvanian Hungarian population, by virtue of its numbers, would be entitled to several universities and a number of disciplines and professions could be taught rationally. Yet in 1959 the only Hungarian University, in Kolozsvár, established in 1872 and named after the Bolyais, was coerced into a merger which terminated its separate existence. They also gradually limited, or did not appropriately expand Hungarian professional education, and thus forced the Hungarians, trying to better themselves, into the industrial arena, already over-developed according to Romanian and "Socialist" principles.
In spite of all this, there was a considerable increase in Hungarian books and other publications, both in Transylvania and in all of Romania. As far as content was concerned, however, this was subjected to and crippled by such a rigid censorship as we had never experienced in Hungary. It was part of the whole picture that the intelligencia -- primarily the authors -- whom they allowed to speak, were kept amenable by relatively generous honoraria. The Transylvanian Hungarian writers, those who published, lived at a much higher economic standard than their counterparts in Hungary. What was more important, however, was the tragedy of the silenced, maladjusted and emotionally crippled creative artists. The emigration which continues to this day is a greater loss to Transylvania -- in the natural course of events -- than it is a gain to the host country, even though the latter is not insignificant.
After Stalin's death in 1953, the imposition of uniformity on the Communist Camp stopped, and then was cautiously reversed. In the case of Romania, this was manifested in the establishment of an individual path which -- surprisingly -- led to the Romanization of the country's foreign policy, a matter usually tightly controlled by the Soviet leadership. The internal policies remained insensitive toward internal demands.
It was also astonishing to what degree the Soviet Union tolerated Romania following its own path. For us it is of particular significance that while in 1956 the armored units sent to crush the Hungarian revolt came to Budapest from Temesvár, in 1958, Romania "took in" the deported Imre Nagy and his associates after the Yugoslav betrayal. In 1958 the Soviet troops were withdrawn from Romania. This suggests that the Soviet leadership was hardly concerned about a Romanian turn around after this gesture. It also suggests that the Romanian leadership had self-confidence, and believed that it could maintain its rule without the assistance of Soviet bayonets. It proved this for three additional decades, but at the cost of an ever increasing and increasingly repressive dictatorship.
We now come to the penultimate chapter of our history. After Gheorghiu-Dej's death in March 1965, power was assumed by the 47-year-old Nicolae Ceausescu, who in the Soviet type gerontocratic hierarchy was considered a youngster. Even though he acted like a modest and loyal spear-carrier during the life of his former chief, he soon found a way of making his predecessor and his group responsible for all the ills of the country. The merry-go-round of personnel changes that characterized his entire rule began at this time, and became increasingly idiosyncratic. In the beginning he was forced to try to find some common ground with the nationalities and the first few years of his rule brought a certain moderation. Later on, he became the typical expression of traditional Romanian nationalism. He inscribed himself among the "great builders" of history. In this he caused more harm than just the irrational use of the natural resources or the crippling effects of forced labor on hundreds of thousands of human beings. In his radical building program in Bucharest, whole historically and artistically important quarters were leveled and even the historic buildings of the still favored Orthodox Church were demolished. The same megalomanic building and societal restructuring drive targeted hundreds of small settlements in Transylvania for destruction. It did, or should have, become necessary for the population to move to the futuristic urban developments.
It was at this time that a paradoxical advantage was fatally threatened. With the exception of the Székelyfõld, the least agriculturally productive parts of Transylvania were spared the imposition of collective farming organizations. In spite of the inclement climate, the poor soil and the manifold administrative restrictions, the private agricultural enterprise, left to its own devices in these areas, produced relative prosperity. Fortunately, the destruction of villages began only at the very end of the maniacal dictator's life. Its tragic potential was demonstrated, but was not carried to completion.
Among the demographic and migratory processes affecting Romania and, quite particularly Transylvania, there was one chapter in Ceausescu's "nationality policy" that was highly "successful". Namely, the way he permitted the Romanian Jews and the German nationals to emigrate in return for a substantial head tax. This was a true "ethnic cleansing" which also showed a very large financial profit. While it is obviously a highly questionable affair, perhaps it is a rational decision on the part of Israel and Germany to pay the price which, disguised as compensation for the cost of education and care, was in fact a ransom for the people who had become hostages. The number of people thus redeemed was very large. Since many of the Jews and most of the Germans (Saxons and Svabians) who were allowed to leave the country, came from Transylvania, this had a marked effect on the ethnic composition of the region. The multinationality was decreased and the Romanian-Hungarian duality was strengthened. The third ethnic group which just recently began to consider themselves a separate nationality, the Gypsies, complicated the situation, particularly since their numbers were growing rapidly. The Romanian Gypsy problem was even more serious and difficult in the Regat.
Beyond the Lajta, for a long time, they did not know or did not wish to notice that the Romanian affairs were becoming increasingly bizarre and would be worthwhile subjects for a Kafka or an Orwell. When during the 1970s, as part of the Romanian cultural revolution, the Ceausescu regime issued ordinances for the better protection of the national treasures, they did not realize that this would entail the "nationalization" of such irreplaceable museum and archival treasures, which under rigid centralized control would be lost forever to scientific inquiry. Particularly if they did not seem to be supportive of the various historic, demographic and other theories which were raised to the level of Romanian political creeds.
When they forbade that a citizen of a foreign country stay overnight in a private home -- this projected a ban of a foreigner even entering such a home -- and further demanded a detailed accounting of any contact with a foreign national, this made it impossible for the minorities to have direct contact with family members from abroad. It was a clear violation of human rights and was even made worse by classifying such contacts as a seditious act and treason. In practice these dreadful ordinances were never rigidly enforced, but their existence in this century in Europe is almost unimaginable. Similar tendencies were shown only in Albania.
Yet, Romania was consistently thought of by the West as the Cinderella of the Eastern block. The reason for this can be found in the fact that Romania resisted Soviet demands in some areas and did not always conform to the pattern of Satellite behavior. It did not break diplomatic relations with China and with Israel and its athletes participated in the Los Angeles Olympic games. Even more importantly, in 1968 it vigorously opposed the Warsaw Pact Nations' intervention against Prague. It did this under the principle of national sovereignty and non interference into the internal affairs of another country. In fact, it did these things to be able to preserve its own internal dictatorship, free from foreign threats and interference. This, according to the ideas and illusions of the Ceausescu clan prevented the Czechoslovakian type of détente which was a major nightmare in Romania. They were wrong. But not entirely.
Ceausescu's megalomania kept the country from falling into debt, because every burden was piled onto the back of the peoples of Romania. Europe of the 1980s cannot even imagine the deprivations -- food rationing, intermittent power outages, the limitations of heating fuel causing freezing home temperatures -- that they had to suffer for years on end. The cup of suffering overflowed in 1989, although the background and the details of the events taking place at the end of that year are still shrouded in mystery. It seems likely that one part of the Romanian leadership was getting ready for just such an event. This group noting the cracks in the Eastern block and being concerned about the increasingly important Western attitudes began to view the activities and absurdities of the dynastic Ceausescu clan and its Praetorian Guard as a major burden. Their preparations for a power take-over were disturbed, but their activities were accelerated by the popular movement developing on behalf of László Törõk, the Hungarian Reformed Minister of Temesvár, who was sentenced to dismissal from his congregation for criticizing the system. The brutal police-military activities directed against this movement turned out to have been exaggerated by the reports generated during the rapidly evolving events. There is no doubt, however, that at Christmas in Temesvár the seeds of a popular rebellion were germinating. Such a popular uprising was fully justified by the crimes committed against the Hungarian minority and against the people of Romania in general. The counter attack of the regime which was already under way threatened the outbreak of a civil war. Yet, the events took a different turn .
For reasons not entirely clear, within days and even hours, the center of gravity of the events was transferred from Temesvár to Bucharest, which for this and other reasons also developed a revolutionary atmosphere. The events, under way, took a different direction and there was also a shift in emphasis. This was further influenced by the fact that Ceausescu, flying back from abroad completely misunderstood the situation and acted accordingly. Everything came together and resulted in an almost bloodless, very peculiar coup d'etat. A coup d'etat whose only bloody and brutal act was the summary court-martial of the Ceausescu couple and their immediate execution, shown on television. This had a shocking effect that may well have been responsible for preventing a civil war.
The December 1898 coup d'état resulted in effect in an obvious change of the system, even though this was almost certainly not the original intent but was mandated by the pressures of the day. Was it the intent? Perhaps? Yet, that it turned out in this way was due primarily to events that took place outside Romania and to geopolitical and world political factors that influenced the instigators of the coup d'état.
The evolving multi-party system and the new parliamentary framework made it possible for parties to develop along the lines of nationalities and ethnicity. This increased freedom to the point where justified ethnic endeavors got mixed up with party politics. At the same time the activities of the parties serving minority ethnic interests are impeded by the phalanx of Romanian parties who may differ from each other in some areas but who are as one in their nationalistic sentiments.
It must be emphasized that the terror of the Ceausescu era, its intellectual-ideologic, political and economic absurdities were not limited to the Hungarians and to other minorities. This regime, extreme even in the Eastern block, was a Romanian national tragedy. Since the various changes have taken place, the minority concerns have come out into the open but have not been resolved. Even where the conditions have improved there is the continuous threat of the fundamentalist Greater Romania ideals. Under this heading there is a real possibility of further restrictions of the minorities.
During the mid 1980s, and particularly since 1989, further tens of thousands have left, are leaving, or escaping from Transylvania. They are going to Hungary or further to the West to emigrate or, at least, for temporary work. Their reception in the mother country is ambiguous. The population of Hungary has been decreasing due to high mortality combined with a low birth rate. Thus, the "blood transfusion" created by the immigrants should be welcome. They would be welcome also if the Transylvanian immigrants or migrant workers were to take jobs that are left vacant by the native Hungarians, in spite of the very high rate of unemployment. This trend, incidentally, is not new. With some interruptions, it has been going on since the 1920s. The migration, if viewed from the perspective of Transylvania, is alarming since it further erodes the number of Hungarians in Transylvania. There are also considerable numbers of Romanians who are pleased to work, or would like to work and settle in Hungary. This suggests that the migration is largely an economic matter and only secondarily due to nationality issues.
In conclusion: We must add something to this history of Transylvania which had been approached intentionally from a Hungarian point of view. Namely, the history of Romania for the past 100-150 years is undoubtedly a success story. For us, its most significant component is that it moved Transylvania beyond the territory of Hungary. It is a fascinating example of the creation of a national state, in the most recent times, taking full advantage of opportunities and not necessarily ensuing from historical circumstances or precedents. A thousand years from now Romania may recall these times in the same way that we think back to the conquest by Árpád and the founding of the country by St. Stephen. It is a bitter and insoluble problem for the Hungarians that this successful creation of a country had to take place in opposition to us and largely at our expense. It remains only a hope today what the poet Attila József, who was partly of Romanian extraction, wrote in 1936: "The battles fought by our ancestors, / are transmuted into peace by remembrance..."
And last but not least, while the limitations in space prevent me from including the extensive bibliography of my source materials, I must emphasize the outstanding assistance I have received from tThe History of Transylvania, edited by Béla Kõpeczi and published in Hungarian by the Akadémia Kiadó in Budapest.
Abrudbánya Abrud, Romania Agyagfalva Lutia, Romania Alparét Olpret, Romania Alsó-Tatárlaka Trtria, Romania Arad Arad, Romania Bábolna, near Boblna, Romania Alparét Balázsfalva Dbca, Romania Barcaság, the Bárca, Czech Republic Berettyó Barcu, Romania Bihar Bihor, Romania Bihar Mountains Bihor Mountains, Romania Biharvár Biharia, Romania Brassó Braov, Romania Csanádvár Cenad, Romania Dés Dej, Romania Déva Deva, Romania Doboka county Dbca, Romania (former) Erdõszentgyörgy Sngeorgiu de Pdure Etelköz area now in the Ukraine Galambóc Golubac, Yugoslavia Gyergyószentmiklós Gheorghieni, Romania Gyulafehérvár Alba Iulia, Romania Háromszék Trei Scaune, Romania Havasalföld, Valachia, east of the Carpathians Havaselve Karlóca Sremski Karlovci, Yugoslavia Kézdivásárhely Trgu-Secuiesc, Romania Kolozsvár Cluj-Napoca, Romania Lajta Leitha, Austria Lipótszentmiklós Liptovsk Svty Mikula, Slovakia Madéfalva Siculeni, Romania Maros Mure, Romania Maroshévíz Toplia, Romania Marosvásárhely Trgu Mures, Romania Nagyvárad, Várad Oradea, Romania Nándorfehérvár Belgrade, Yugoslavia Papolc Ppui, Romania Pozsony Bratislava, Slovakia Rélgen Sepsiszentgyörgy Sfntu Gheorghe, Romania Szászfenes Floreti, Romania Szeben Sibiu, Romania Székelyföld Székelyland, an area of Transylvania, now in Romania Szerémség Syrmien, Croatia Szörény, Szörénység district between the Danube and the Temes rivers, Romania Temes river Romania Temesköz area between the Temes and Danube rivers in Romania Temesvár Timiuara, Romania Udvarhely, Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania Székelyudvarhely Vajdahunyad Hunedoara, Romania Várna Varna, Bulgaria Verecke pass Ukraine Zalatna Zlatna, Romania Zimony Zemun, now part of Belgrade, Yugoslavia
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Transylvania A Short History |