Szittyakürt, 1979 (18. évfolyam, 2-12. szám)
1979-07-01 / 7-8. szám
AUGUST 1979 FIGHTER Page 5 POLISH-HUNGARIAN FRIENDSHIP AND COOPERATION Dr. Géza Sz. Éles, chairman of the Col. Kovdts Memorial Committee in Cleveland, Ohio, has been for many years a diligent and unselfish fighter for the Hungarian cause in the world wide struggle and a faithful promoter of the Polish-Hungarian Cooperation and Friendship. In the last issue of the Fighter (Vo\. V, No. 2) he has written extensively on Poles and Hungarians and in reaction to that Dr. Karol Ripa, the president of the Polish-Hungarian World Federation a past Consul for the Polish people writes the following letter to Dr. Éles: Dr. Géza Sz. Eles April 9,1979 Chairman Col-Kovats Memorial Committee DEAR DR. ELES: Many thanks for the copies of the Fighter and the beautiful pictures “Kovats’ Death Charge.” I distributed the Fighter to members of the Board of Directors of the Polish-Hungarian World Federation and I shall send them to prominent Polish leaders also presidents of various ethnic groups. The text of the Fighter is a most wonderful expression of Polish- Hungarian friendship and cooperation in particular your article “Poles and Hungarians.” It is a masterpiece of convincing proof—that Poles and Hungarians are brothers since 1000 years. For the Polish-Hungarian World Federation your article is and will remain almost a political “Bible.” Heartfelt congratulations. The Federation has now 75 delegations in the United States and in 16 countries of the Western World including Australia and South Africa. All will get the Fighter. I am sending by same mail $300.00 to Dr. Tibor Udvardy—our contribution for the Col. Kovats Memorial Committee on April 21, 1979. Saturday there will take place the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Polish-Hungarian World Federation where I will make a motion to contribute additional $200 in particular for distribution of literature concerning the Polish- Hungarian friendship. I wrote a few weeks ago a longer article entitled “Polish-Hungarian Cooperation” and I mailed it to Dr. Tibor Udvardy. He asked me for my short biography and picture—which I also mailed to him recently. As you will probably know: my right leg has been amputated above the knee (blood-clot). To my greatest regret and sorrow I shall not be able to go in May to Charleston, S.C. My thoughts and my heart will be with you and all present at that historic event... For same reason I could not go to Rome for the inauguration of Pope John Paul II—who is honoring me with his friendship.in particular in his letters written from Krakow where Karol Wojtyla was Cardinal. A few days ago I received the Pope’s Apostolic Blessing. Dear Dr. Eles: We should be happy to have your great name on the list of members of the Polish- Hungarian World Federation. Enclosed please find the official invitation and application. Annual dues are $5.00—but this is not important. Hoping for our future cooperation to the benefit of Hungary and Poland —1 am Cordially yours Dr. Karol Ripa President, Polish-Hungarian World Federation and Affiliates former Consul General of Poland Honorary citizen of Chicago Dr. Karol Ripa, the president of the P.-H. W. F. and A. submitted the following memorandum in behalf of P. -H. W.F. Hamburg Affiliate to the U.S. Department of State in May, 1979. MEMORANDUM of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS of the POLISHHUNGARIAN WORLD FEDERATION HAMBURG AFFILIATES — April 21, 1979. To * * * The Head, Section for the Defence of Human Rights, US Department of State, Washington, D.C., USA. MEMORANDUM CONCERNING THE PLIGHT OF CSÁNGÓ-HUNGARIANS IN MOLDAVIA, AND HUNGARIANS IN RUMANIA GENERALLY Dear Sir, We trust that the plight of the over 3 million strong Hungarian minority in that part of Rumania which had been detached from Hungary at the end of WW I is not unknown to you. At present, we would like to draw your attention to the cultural agony of the ethnic entity of the Csángó-Hungarians (in Rumanian ceangai) who, approx. 60.000 strong in 92 still Hungarian villages, live in the eastern parts of Rumania, i.e. Moldavia, in the general area of the towns Bacau, Roman, and Turgu Ocna. A part of these Hungarian settlements dates from the 9th cent., i.e. prior to the settlement of the Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, for the immediate prior homeland lay between the Black Sea and the Carpathian Mountains. However, the majority of the Csángó-Hungarians is descended from settlers who moved into the area in question from the early 13th cent, on, largely as tillers of the soil and as people versed in handicrafts. These settlers constituted from approx. 1225 onward the basis of Christianization under the kings of Hungary among heathen Kumans, Petchenegs, and Tatars, coming from Asia. —We note that at the beginning of the 13th century there were no Rumanian (until the 1870 ’s Wallachian) settlements in Hungary proper, and only a few recent ones north of the Danube (the ancestors of the later “northern Rumanians” then still lived south of the Danube). As the Rumanian (Wallachian) herdsmen gradually drove their flocks of sheep into areas under Hungarian suzerainty their conversion from the fold of Byzantium to that of Rome was also attempted (in fact, with little success). In the ensuing centuries the later principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia gradually became Rumanian-speaking. Still, the Hungarian and at times German, settlers were very welcome there for their skills. However, the situation has changed dramatically since the birth of Great Rumania (1918-20).',) Beginning with 1930 the Csángó-Hungarians have been allowed to hear only Rumanian sermons in their own churches. In the course of the last 50 years the Hungarian language has been banned both, from their churches and their schools. Even if linguists carry out research on the long-isolated language of these people, they are permitted to publish only those portions of their findings which have to do with the influence of the Rumanian language. The officially appointed church leaders of the Csángó-Hungarians are adverse to the Hungarian language. The appointed bishop of this flock does not even know Hungarian. These people are not permitted even to sing their beautiful hymns in their own churches. Priests whose mother-tongue is Hungarian are not allowed to come to them. Neither can they have physicians who understand and speak Hungarian. It is hardly necessary to point out the inhumaneness of such a treatment. This is the now largely successful pattern according to which Rumania is determined culturally to obliterate the largest minority in its realm, the Hungarian populace of over 3 million souls. First isolate them, then take away their universities and other institutes of higher learning by merging them with Rumanian institutes, then gradually cut out—as allegedly superfluous their famous, centuries old schools of secondary education, in which so many Rumanian boys in the past also received their education, then make primary schooling ever more difficult for Hungarian children, then plunder the famous old Hungarian archives and libraries under the pretext of “preserving” them, then very effectively break up and/or disperse the closed Hungarian communities under the guise of industrial necessity. All these are completed steps in the western half of Rumania. During the year 1980 Rumania is going to celebrate the “2050th” anniversary of the founding—a foundation documented nowhere in history—of the “first centralized Dacian State” whose center is claimed by Rumania to have been exactly in the territory which the Kingdom of Rumania —called into being in 1881 —received as war booty from Hungary in 1920. Now everybody shall learn —so it has been announced in Bucharest—that the original inhabitants of the territory which Rumania had been given by the victors of WW I (an area approx. 10.000 square km.s larger than truncated Hungary itself, the latter covering 92.000 squ. km.s) were the ancestors of the Rumanians. Conversely, the Hungarians merely intruded into that area at a much later date Gust where the villages, towns, church administration centres of the alleged Rumanian incolatus were during all the centuries from 2050 years ago remains a mystery; neither the records of the neighbouring peoples not those of the Rumanian (Wallachian) principalities know anything about such; Hungarian documents which have consistently preserved hundreds of place names of Slavic origin in the Carpathian Basin for example have no trace of a single Daco-Rumanian one). This Memorandum has been written and presented in order to bring urgent relief to our Csángó-Hungarian brothers and sisters, but also to focus the attention of all people who stand up for truth and human dignity: on the fate that befell and still oppresses the autochtonous Hungarian population in that part of Rumania which fell to that country as war booty in 1920 and again in 1947. We trust that the Section for the Defence of Human Rights of the Government of the USA, in consideration of the obligation of the latter as guarantor of the pertinent treaties of 1920 and 1947, respectively, will not hesitate to take the necessary steps in order to remove Rumania’s oppression of its Hungarian minority. With the expression of our appreciation for your action, we are, Sir, yours truly: yy “ Where are you King Stephen Sought by the Magyar Brethren Garbed in mourning dress Stands before you wee pin’ . . . and the day will come — a newer St. Stephen’s Day, when they 11 shed their mourning garb and together they 11 utter the holy prayer . . Gyula Völgyi (Értesítő, July-Aug/79) Translated by Mén-Apó
