Századok – 2002
Tanulmányok - Makkai Béla: A kivándorolt magyarság anyaországi támogatása a 20. század elején Ploiesti példáján I/3
A KIVÁNDOROLT MAGYARSÁG ANYAORSZÁGI TÁMOGATÁSA. 29 lebecsülendő eredményeket ért el. A végcélnak tekintett (s a világháborús viszonyok által is stimulált) tömeges hazatérés ugyanakkor a romániai iparváros magyar közösségének teljes felszívódásával fenyegetett. Az áttekintett források alapján nehéz volna megválaszolni azt a kérdést, hogy a Nagy-Románia honpolgáraivá váló helyben maradó magyarok számára az anyaországi akció jóvoltából nyert „útravaló" s a református egyház autonómiája mennyiben biztosítottak elégséges fedezetet a túléléshez. Ez azonban a ploie§ti magyarság történetének már egy másik fejezete, amelynek feltárása elsősorban a romániai magyar tudományosságra vár.169 GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR COMMUNITIES OF EMIGRANT HUNGARIANS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST CENTURY ON THE EXAMPLE OF PLOIEÇTI by Béla Makkai (Summary) The so-called Romanian Action, pursued by the Hungarian government in the two decades preceding the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, was aimed at preventing the fatal national-political consequences of mass emigration. The care for Hungarian enclaves, which had previously been undertaken by social organisations, was taken over by the government at the turn of the century. The long-term aim was to help the emigrees to retain their national identity via the church and the school, in order to prepare their future resettlement in Hungary, as happened with the Székelys of Bukovina. In fact, the support for the Hungarian colonies in Transalpine Romania was on the last account destined to counterbalance Romanian separatism in Transylvania and to preserve and increase of the „racial force" of the mother country. On the other hand, passive resistance by the papal court, and the precarious alliance with Romania which had been existing since 1883 made it impossible for the Hungarian government to support the Catholic Csángó, a minority of Hungarian language and culture, but of Romanian citizenship. An important part of the program of active support for the Hungarian minorities was the protection offered to the Hungarian colony of Ploie§ti, which established itself in 1829. The „oil city", with a population of some 40.000 at the turn of the century, threatened with rapid assimilation the 2000 or so local Hungarians. Their survival was supported by assistance given to the local churches, and by establishing those communal organisations which played a crucial part in transferring cultural heritage, before all Hungarian-speaking schools. The improvement of the general state of illiteracy was of course not contrary to the intentions of the Romanian government, yet it did whatever it could in order to „romanise" the language, books and syllabi used in educational institutions which had been established with foreign money. In the atmosphere of excessive nationalism the care of Hungarian culture was therefore only possible through the mediation of the Austro-Hungarian consulate, of the autonomous Calvinist Church, and of the Roman Catholic Church, which, however, was at that time subject to a Kulturkampf-like persecution in Orthodox Romania. That the whole program amounted to no more than a mere assistance to the self-preservation of minority Hungarians is showed by the example of the multi-ethnical Catholic school of Ploie§ti. For the Hungarian government rejected as a mere waste of effort the forcible assimilation of children of foreign citizenship (even if it tolerated, on the basis of the principle of free choice of school, the schooling of its own non-Hungarian speaking citizens). That is why it organised, alongside the already existing Calvinist school, an independent Hungarian Catholic school. The Churches involved made it possible for the state to proceed effectively and yet to remain covered. But it needed a lot of discretion and effort on the part of the government to convince the representatives of the Churches involved of the superiority of national interests over the religious ones. In view of the threat of assimilation the priests were encouraged to collect all Hungarian children to schools without regard to denominations. (The boarding-schools established along the 169 A „folytatás" egy hazai történész kutatásai jóvoltából máris körvonalazható. Ld. Bárdi Nándor: A Keleti Akció = Regio: kisebbségi szemle, 1995/3. és 1995/4. szám.
