The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1982 (9. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1982-01-01 / 1. szám
THE “RUMINIZATION” OF THE HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MAROSVASARHELY (TIRGU-MURES) Owing to a previous decision of the victorious allies after World War II, Transylvania and its principal city, Kolozsvár (Cluj) was re-annexed by Rumania. In 1945 the Ferenc József University, which until that time had been functioning in Kolozsvár, was phased out. Its faculty of medicine was transferred to Marosvasarhely, while its other faculties remained in Kolozsvár under the name of Bolyai (named for a famous 18th century Hungarian mathematician) University. From that new beginning a faculty of medicine was compelled to establish itself in a small provincial town of 30,000 inhabitants with facilities to provide only a few hospital beds for the training of physicians. Looking back on the last 35 years, it can be seen that all the initial difficulties were ovecome. The Marosvasarhely School of Medicine emerged as the intellectual center of the Hungarian ethnic group, a position which is being increasingly contested by the ruling Rumanian majority even though the Hungarians are the second largest nationality in the country. Beginning in 1945 the Medical School afforded training to an average of 1,000 students annually. During the following 15 years (up to 1960) about 3,000 of them graduated as physicians and chemists (pharmacologists), most of them Hungarian nationals. The number of Rumanianspeaking students never exceeded 25-30 per annum during those years. In the initial five-year period most of the professors were those who had come over from the faculty at Kolozsvár, but owing to the growing impetus of “rumanization” most of them gradually left for the Hungarian motherland. One who stayed on was the illustrious earnose-throat specialist, Professor Vince Vendeg who died there a few years ago. When the “Hungarian Autonomous Province” was set-up in the early fifties, the divorce from the alma mater in Kolozsvár was completed and the institution re-named “University School of Medicine and Pharmacology”. It was subdivided into four sections: 1) General Medicine; 2) Pediatrics; 3) Dentistry and Stomatology; 4) Pharmacology. During those years, the Dean, all of the professors, lecturers and assistants were Hungarian, except for two Rumanians, both of whom were bilingual, Rumanian-Hungarian. The Communist bias of the educational style had been pretty emphatic throughout that period, but the use of the Hungarian language was not impeded in the slightest. Moreover, the vast majority of Hungarian graduate physicians and pharmacists were provided jobs in Hungarian inhabited Transylvania and its periphery, in the districts of Szatmar, Nagyvarad, Arad, Nagybanya, etc. This “undisturbed”, if not idyllic, state of affairs did come to an abrupt end with the Hungarian national uprising of 1956. The Communist Party and Government of Rumania were evidently apprehensive lest the revolutionary fire in Hungary would spread to Transylvania, particularly to Kolozsvár and Marosvasarhely. Hence a campaign of suppression (anti-Hungarian in nature) was set in motion with the approval and support of the Soviet authorities. Great care was taken not to give the campaign an ideological character: it was directed against everything conveyed by the Hungarian language - folk songs, theatrical productions, novels, but primarily at education. That was the time it became evident they were attempting to eradicate the Hungarian language by using the slogan, “Rumanian is our mother tongue”. “Rumanization” became one of the principal drives of the Party, which succeeded in harnessing to it quite a few professors and students by bribing them or threatening coercion. At the same time came the demise of the University School’s Hungarian Folkloristic Art Ensemble which for many years had been doing a valuable cultural work. Its leader, a linguistic teacher named Korody, was first badly defamed and subsequently jailed for several years. Once the University Medical School’s Hungarian cultural life had been stifled, the rest was dealt with quickly. During the summer holidays of 1962 an assistant professor of the Rumanian Faculty of Medicine of the University of Kolozsvár, Dr. Ion Pop D. Popa, was appointed first to deputy head surgeon of Marosvar Surgical Clinic and six weeks later to lecturing professor. Later he was appointed Assistant Dean of the University School as well as its Party secretary. This meant that he was given practically unlimited powers. During the subsequent term undergraduates turned up from the "old kingdom” (the so-called “regat”) part of the country beyond the Carpathians, who spoke no other language but Rumanian. Although there were only 15-20 of these students, all practical work was thereafter to be conducted in Rumanian. All theoretical subjects were taught in both languages and the Hungarian students were compelled to attend both the Hungarian and Rumanian courses. To avoid such terrible waste of time, most Hungarian students volunteered for the Rumanian language courses. Marosvasarhely VI THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY
