Calvin Synod Herald, 1979 (79. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1979-11-01 / 11-12. szám
REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA 7 Hungarians in Transylvania WHAT HAPPENED TO BORIKA BODO TWF reports from Transylvania — On June 28, 1979, three young girls in Szék, Transylvania, were singing old Hungarian folk songs while working in the field. They were admonished twice by the supervisor to sing only Rumanian songs because they live in the land of the Rumanian people. However, the three girls continued singing Hungarian songs. Late afternoon a police vehicle arrived at the scene, picked up the three girls, and took them to the police station in Kolozs (Cojocna). Arriving there, they were stripped, each given ten lashes with a whip by chief Morariu, and raped. Next morning the parents of the girls were at the police station. Two of the girls were released. But the parents of Borika Bodó, 16, were told that their daughter had to be taken to Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca) in order to stand trial for tearing down the Rumanian flag and spitting on it. The Bodó family went to Kolozsvár but the authorities there did not seem to know anything about their daughter. Borika Bodó disappeared. She was last seen by the two other girls being dragged out from the cell by chief Morariu. Where is Borika Bodó? The Eighth Tribe, Oct. ’79 Ceausescu! Where is Borika Bodó? Kurt Waldheim! Where is Borika Bodó? János Kádár! Do you know where Borika Bodó is? • • o SYMPOSIUM ON TRANSYLVANIA Sponsored by the Ethnic Heritage Programs of Kent State University and the American Hungarian Educators’ Association (Washington, D.C.) a symposium on Transylvania was held last May 18-20 in the Student Center of Kent State. Invited scholars from all over the country (Columbia University, University of Pittsburgh, Colorado, NotreDame, Toronto, Duquesne University, Rutgers State University and others) reviewed and discussed some of the political, economical, cultural and national aspect of Transylvania in the last few hundred years, including the present situation of the national minorities. American scholars, including Hungarian and Rumanian bom ones, participated in the symposium, as lecturers or with commentaries. The symposium was divided into four separate panels, devoted to 18th and 19th century development of Transylvanian history. Transylvania’s literary heritage, international relations and the fate of Transylvania, the status of non-Rumanian nationalities in view of Rumanian minority policies. The sessions were attended by some 100 invited guests many of them participating in the discussons. Panel chairmen were James B. Gidney, Larry R. Andrews, Lawrence S. Kaplan, and Robert W. Clawson, all from Kent State University. Acknowledgement for the preparation of this successful event is due to John F. Cadzow (director Ethnic Heritage Program), Andrew Ludanyi (Ohio Northern University) and Ms. Enikő Molnár Basa (President, American Hungarian Educators’ Association). A note worth to make is that with the objective and detached presentation of the subject matters by the lecturers, Hungarian-American scholarship was at best during the whole course of the educational and enlightening symposium on the much disputed land of Transylvania. Summing up the quintessence of the many lectures in brief this is how Prof. Louis J. Elteto (Portland State University) put it: “1. Hungarians were not a chauvinist-nationalist people and have not oppressed Transylvanian Rumanians (when Transylvania belonged to Hungary. Ed.). 2. The Hungarian national consciousness evolved first in Transylvania; it is still alive in Transylvanian Hungarians and in their literature and culture. 3. Transylvania did not get into Rumanian bond by historical rights or by the strength of Rumanian unity myths, nor by the will of the Rumanian people, but, with brutal simplicity, by the international politics of the big powers. 4. The present Rumanian system stands on the most chauvinist-nationalist basis; its conduct toward national minorities is immoral; Rumania sanctifies its course of action by a fascist myth built upon a shaky historical theory used for political purposes. Above all the primary value of the symposium was that Transvlvania became object of scholarly level interest in the United States.” o e e HUNGARIAN INTELLECTUALS TURN TO RUMANIAN INTELLECTUALS Sixty-two Hungarian intellectuals in Rumania addressed a 26 page letter to their Rumanian counterpart. The subject of the letter is the Rumanian nationalism which knows no limit. Its goal is to eradicate everythng what is Hungarian in the country by the year of 2000. The letter writers ask protection from the mad nationalism emphasizing that everything is presently done in Rumanian against Hungarians is the shame of Europe and the entire cultural world. The mood of the letter indicates despair on the part of Hungarians when it says: “Humiliated and deceived we write this letter, not on behalf of ourselves but of the more than 2 million Hungarians, because they (the Rumanians) deprived us of our ardent hopes for the future, and humiliated us because they degraded us to be second rated citizens whose right to use their mother tongue is diminishing day by day. What we dreaded for many years, it became reality; we can have our children educated in Hungarian schools in very limited degree only.” Carpatian Observer, Aug. ’79
