A Békés Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 28. (Békéscsaba, 2006)

Csobai Lászlóné: The Romanian population in Bedő and Méhkerék, attested by the historical researches of the last two decades

Csobai Lászlóné SZENDREY 1968 Szendrey J.: Egy alföldi uradalom a török hódoltság után. I. Budapest, 17-145. ZSÚPOS 1989 Zsúpos Z.: Date istorice §i etnografice despre Micherechi, In: Emilia Martin Nagy (szerk.): Din tradijiile populäre ale românilor din Ungaria. Budapest, 1989. 7-28. The Romanian population in Bedő and Méhkerék, attested by the historical researches of the last two decades - Mrs. Csobai László Resume The author tries to summarize the results - that she thinks are the most important - of her own research during the last few years concerning Bedő and Méhkerék communities. In her summary she puts her finger on the historical characteristics of the two settlements of the formal Bihar county based on historical statistics. We can learn from this summary, that the assimilation of the population hangs over Méhkerék settlement. Although traditional values still exist, neither the Romanian native- speaking school nor the Romanian local government is able to stop the process of assimilation, because by this time the process of changing the mother tongue has started even in Méhkerék. In Bedő this process has started much - so to speak a few decades - earlier, because of the peculiar historical circumstances, and by now the result is that within the scope of school education Romanian language is only thaught as a foreign language. The children don't acquire Romanian at home as their mother language, their mother tongue is Hungarian, even in the families with a Romanian identity. The study highlights the fact that the result of the national census and of the following research pointed out that the population lost its identity, the assimilation in language and the changing of mother tongue are processes that are continuously gaining ground, but the predominance of the population of Romanian birth is still provable. Csobai Lászlóné Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum H-5600 Békéscsaba, Széchenyi и 9. E-mail: csobai@bmmi.hu 278