The Eighth Tribe, 1981 (8. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1981-01-01 / 1. szám

administration. Cities and townships with Hun* garian majority must also have their own Hungarian administration, including police force.

3. The re-establishment of all Hungarian educational institutions, including the Hungarian universities of Kolozsvár and Marosvásárhely.

4- The return of all confiscated archives, libraries and museums.

5. The re-establishment of Hungarian cultural organizations, literary societies, literary and professional publications, publishing houses.

6. The re-establishment of the freedom of the churches and church-related organizations.

7. The return of old Hungarian cemeteries under the care and authority of the Hungarian churches and cultural organizations.

8. All signs and markers in Hungarian-populated cities, towns and villages must be bi-lingual.

9. Those Hungarians who were deported from their native environment or have moved from their homes under duress, shall be allowed to return home and be employed there. Rumanians, who were moved into Hungarian towns and villages with the purpose of diluting the Hungarian character of the area or filling the better paying jobs at the expense of the native Hungarian population must be returned into their own provinces.

10. Equal opportunity in every field of human existence, including the termination of job-discrimination.

11. The termination of all harassments and intimidations in relation to nationality. This includes census, postal service, transportation and welfare as well as the treatment of visitors from foreign countries, and the treatment of those persons who receive these visitors.

12. Aid sent to individuals, churches or churchrelated organizations by individuals, churches or church-related organizations in foreign countries must be allowed to reach its destination, and serve the purpose it was donated for.

• * •

THESE DEMANDS REPRESENT NOTHING MORE

THAN NORMAL EXPECTANCE DUE A NATIVE POPULATION OF A COUNTRY, WHICH, DURING

THE COURSE OF HISTORY, FINDS ITSELF

TAKEN OVER BY ANOTHER NATION, AND

PLUNGED INTO THE UNFORTUNATE STATUS

OF A MINORITY.

VIII

FACTS AND FIGURES

(Reprinted from the book “Documented Facts and Figures on Transylvania”, Danubian Press, 1978).

In 1815 the spirit of the French revolution penetrated the borders. The Hungarian National Assembly, finally granted by a reluctant Emperor Francis I, demanded among others the re-unification with Transylvania. The Emperor rejected the demand. C. A. Macartney writes of this era in his book “Hungary” (Edinburgh, University Press, 1962) on page 103: “The system of government in all of the Habsburg provinces was autocratic. The Transylvanian Diet was indeed convoked regularly, but it was so tightly packed with ex-officio members as to forfeit any claim to represent the people. The military administration was purely authoritarian. The democratic evolution of the Transylvanian Principality could not continue under Habsburg domination.”

In 1822, according to the official (anti-Hungarian) census, conducted by Austrian administrative officials the total population of Transylvania proper was 1,500,000 of which 250,000 were registered as Germans, 700,000 as Rumanians and 550,000 as Hungarians. A later research, conducted by the newly established Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1947, proved that about 100,000 Hungarians who admitted mastering the German or the Rumanian languages also, were registered as Germans or Rumanians.

In 1847 both Houses of the Hungarian National Assembly passed unanimously the decision to reincorporate Transylvania into Hungary. However, negotiations with the Imperial Government on this subject became deadlocked.

In 1848 the Hungarian Liberty War errupted under the leadership of Louis Kossuth. The Hungarian National Assembly proclaimed the Republic. Transylvania was re-united with the Mother-Land. The Transylvanian Assembly in Kolozsvár voted in favour of equal rights for the Vlachs (Rumanians). (See: M. Ghyka “A Documented Chronology of Rumanian History” Blackwell, Oxford, 1941.)

In spite of this, the Transylvanian Vlachs again launched a well organized attack against Hungarian towns and villages, in support of the Habsburg forces. “These Wallachians committed such dreadful crimes against the elderly, women and children” wrote Mme. Lebergere, an eyewitness, whose memoirs were later published in Paris “that even the Austrians were ashamed at what was going on under their authority. The password was: total extermination of the Magyars!”

(To be continued)

THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY