The Eighth Tribe, 1978 (5. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1978-03-01 / 3. szám
March, 1978 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page 5 THE HUNGARIANS OF TRANSYLVANIA ACHILLES HEEL OF ROMANIAN NATIONALISM By Paul Lendvai Protests that have become public have drawn international attention to the position of the largest national minority in Europe, the 1.7 million Hungarians in Romania. First, Mr. Gyula Illyés, 75, the greatest living Hungarian poet in a Budapest daily, Magyar Nemzet, made a passionate protest against the violation of what he called the elementary human rights of Hungarians living in neighboring countries. Without mentioning any country by name, he complained about “a policy of apartheid” practiced against Hungarians. The two articles were generally regarded by the Hungarian public as being directed against Romania. The plight of Hungarians in Romania next became the subject of an open letter sent two months ago by Mr. Károly Király, a former top official of the Romanian Communist Party, to the Romanian leadership. The text was leaked a few days ago to foreign correspondents in Belgrade. Mr. Király, who was for several years first party secretary in the Covasna region in Transylvania, where Hungarians are in an overwhelming majority among the 199,000 inhabitants, between 1969-1972 belonged to the Central Committee and even to the supreme party body, the Executive Political Committee, as a candidate-member. Mr. Király complained that Hungarians are discriminated against in employment and education. “What particularly worries me is the obstinacy with which party functionaries from the bottom to the very top continue to ignore the problem,” Mr. Király said. He was one of the handful of people of Hungarian extraction in the Romanian leadership, until he resigned in April 1972 from all his positions and retired from public life. At the time his resignation was overshadowed by a large-scale reshuffle at the top. Now, however, it must be supposed that a conflict about the nationality question was the reason both for his disappearance from the political scene, and for a simultaneous purge in Tirgu-Mures, capital of another region in Transylvania, also inhabited primarily by Hungarians. The entire issue has so far been largely overlooked abroad, in contrast with the publicity surrounding the thorny problem of the emigration from Romania of ethnic Germans. The number of Germans, according to the latest census in January, 1977, was just under 360,000, which was 25,000 fewer than in 1956. Last year some 10,000 Germans were allowed to leave, and after the recent visit of Herr Helmut Schmidt, the West German Chancellor, to Bucharest, the German side concluded that the same rate of emigration could be expected during the next five years. According to German press reports, about 80 per cent of the Germans there wish to leave Romania. Neighbor The situation of the Hungarians is completely different. To start with, they number, according to official statistics, 1.7 million; according to conservative Hungarian estimates well over 2 million. Furthermore, they are part of a nation whose state is a direct neighbor of Romania. Last but not least, the Romanians regard every complaint as a prelude to territorial claims. During World War II, Hungary temporarily regained the northern part of Transylvania which, in 1918, had become part of Romania. Before all of Transylvania had been part of Hungary. The implications of the Hungarian question in Romania go well beyond the purely bilateral. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, one in three Hungarians fell under foreign rule. According to Mr. Illyés, there are now 15 million Hungarians between the Alps and the Carpathians, of whom only some 10 million live in Hungary proper. His estimate may well be exaggerated. But the fact remains that even according to official figures, some 600,000 Hungarians live in Slovakia and some 500,000 in Yugoslavia. A wave of aggressive Hungarian nationalism could, as in the interwar period, again pose a threat to stability in the Danube basin. Despite growing pressures at home, Mr. Janos Kádár has made no public allusion to the Hungarians in Transylvania. At a meeting last June, Mr. Kádár and President Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania signed a communique, stating that the minorities in each country (20,000 Romanians in Hungary and 1.7 million Hungarians in Romania) should “gradually become a bridge” between the two countries. However, at Romanian insistence, it was also clearly stated that the nationality question is within the jurisdiction of each of the two countries. Agreements were also signed to open consulates in Cluj, and on the other side of the border, in Debrecen, and to ease travel restrictions. But Romania insisted that the three major urban centers in these
