The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1983 (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1983-10-01 / 10. szám
“RUMANIANS OF HUNGARIAN DESCENT” or “HUNGARIAN SPEAKING RUMANIANS” are FALSE AND DECEIVING TERMS There was a time, not so long ago, when the gentlemen in our State Department, entrusted with representing American interests in Rumania, either did not know or refused to recognize the fact that there are a large number of Hungarians forced to live in that country from the day Transylvania has been occupied by the Rumanian army in 1918. The Rumanian census claims only 1.8 million Hungarians in 'Transylvania, while scholastic research indicates there are about three million Hungarians today spread over the entire country known as Rumania. As the Ceausescu government began to dismantle the many century old Hungarian cultural institutions in Transylvania by rumanianizing the schools, confiscating libraries, church archives, museums destroying historical markers, cemeteries, old churches, etc., abolishing the Hungarian language from public life, ordering the compulsory surrender of every Hungarian book, printed matter, private letter, picture in private possession under the penalty of three years in prison, and destroying the confiscated material, thus waging an ever-increasing war against the ethnic identity and historic past of the Hungarian population: the international reaction to these, and other, even more barbaric events, forced our Department of State to recognize the cumbersome fact that there are Hungarians in this unfortunate province, whose national and cultural rights were guaranteed in two separate peace treaties, signed by the representatives of the Rumanian government. However, in order to minimize the problem in the face of American public opinion, some State Department officials coined the terms “Rumanians of Hungarian descent” and “Hungarian speaking Rumanians” in order to put the existing situation into “proper perspective”. Since here in America we are used to talk about “Spanish speaking Americans” or “Americans of such and such descent”, who are all good Americans, those who don’t know the difference may easily fall into the trap of the State Department’s terminology, and become critical of those noisy “Rumanians of Hungarian descent” or “Hungarian speaking Rumanians” who refuse to assimilate into the Rumanian nation. For some it may be difficult to understand at first, but the fact is that the original and propel meaning of the word “nation” is not the population of a certain geographical and administrative unit, but, as the New World Dictionary says: “a historically developed community of people with a distinctive culture and language in common”. Dictionaries of pre-World War I. edition even insist on “common origin or blood-line”. The Hungarians of Transylvania, whose forefathers settled there over one-thousand years ago, created, established, and defended the Hungarian homeland for many centuries, are definitely an integral part of the Hungarian nation, sharing the same history, the same culture and the same language. They can not be penalized for the misfortune which fell upon them when as the result of a war they did not start, they found themselves suddenly taken over by a neighboring country and thrown into minority status. The terms “Rumanians of Hungarian descent” or “Hungarian speaking Rumanians” are just as false as it would be to call the entire present-day population of the State of Florida “Cubans of American descent” or “English speaking Cubans” in the event that one day Florida should be annexed by Cuba on the basis of a small margin of Spanish speaking majority — descendants of today’s Cuban refugees in that State. The Rumanians — in spite of their falsified history — entered the Eastern part of the Hungarian Kingdom, known as Transylvania, as refugees and migrant workers mostly during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. The simple fact that they were more prolific than their hosts did not give neighboring Rumania the right to claim part of the Hungarian homeland with a large and well established Hungarian population, just as Cuba would not have the right to claim Florida. There can be no doubt about it that the Transylvanian Hungarians are part of the Hungarian culture-circle and part of the Hungarian nation. The brutal efforts of the Rumanian government to deprive them of their Hungarian heritage and Hungarian identity by exposing three million human beings to the most barbaric discrimination and humiliation the world has ever known, is an outright crime against humanity. TO ALL PERSONS OF HUNGARIAN ANCESTRY Learn about your Hungarian Heritage: Read the EIGHTH HUNGARIAN TRIBE magazine, of which the Transylvanian Quarterly is a supplement publication. Especially printed for those who do not understand the Hungarian language. Published monthly: $10.00 per year; $12.00 in Canada. P. O. Box 637, Ligonier, Pennsylvania 15658. IV THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY
