The Eighth Tribe, 1980 (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1980-01-01 / 1. szám

speak Hungarian. But even without their national language they regard themselves as Hungarians.

Despite their long isolation and the fact that they are an island of cultural traditions in an alien sea, the Chango’s language, their music and folk songs are gems of Hungarian folklore. Some of the ballads and songs collected in Chango villages are of such ancient times that they have long been forgotten by Hungarians west of the Carpathians.

To locate and preserve these ancient songs and traditions is becoming more and more difficult. Today, the Rumanian authorities put every possible obstacle in the way of other Hungarians who wish to visit the Chango-region, and Changos can visit Hungary only if they can prove that they have living relatives there.

This ruthlessly enforced isolation makes the Changos to become more and more the “forgotten Hungarians”, as their poet, Demeter Lakatos, named them.

Between 1972 and 1978 the Rumanian communist government arrested and deported one by one all the Hungarian priests, leaving the churches of these Chango communities without clergy. Hungarian music, Hungarian dances, the performance of traditional Hungarian “rituals” like the Christmas pageant, the New Year procession, dating back more than seven centuries, are strictly forbidden.

If the outside world does not voice soon a strong protest in behalf of the Changos, not only a colorful spot will fade away from the European ethnicum, but more than two hundred thousand human beings will suffer again intolerable tribulations (trials and tribulations) by the hands of our world's most ruthless dictatorship: the Ceausescu-government of Rumania.

Transylvania and the Hungarian-Rumanian Problem, a symposium, 330 pp. maps, statistics, bibliography, cloth ..............................................................$18.00

Wass: Deadly Fog at Dead Man’s Landing, novel ....$ 5.00 Wass: Hungarian Legends, illustrated, second edition, cloth..................$10.00 paper..................$ 8.00

Haraszti, Andrew: The Ethnic History

of Transylvania ..........................................................$10.00

Haraszti: Origin of the Rumanians. The Vlach

origin and migration ..................................................$ 5.00

Nánay, Julia: Transylvania, the Hungarian

Minority in Rumania.................................................$ 5.00

Wass: Documented Facts and Figures on Transylvania, paper .......$ 4.00 hardbound .......$ 5.00

THE DANUBIAN PRESS Rt. 1, Box 59 Astor, Florida 32002

AN APPEAL

TO THE HONORABLE JIMMY CARTER TO DEMONSTRATE A CONCERN OVER HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AGAINST THE 2.8 MILLION HUNGARIANS IN RUMANIA

Your eloquent statements on the importance of morality in foreign policy have instilled a new hope in the approximately one million Hungarian-Americans throughout the United States. We wholeheartedly agree with your position that this nation “can not look away when a government tortures people, or jails them for their beliefs or denies minorities fair treatment.” (Speech to National Convention of B’nai B’rith, September 8, 1976). All too often over the past years our leaders have, as you said, “rationalized that there is little room for morality in foreign affairs” and have placed a higher value on commercial and political considerations. In contarst to this trend,

\ ou have not only expressed the need for our country to restore a healthy respect for fundamental human lights, but you have pointed out the means, United States trade policy, for achieving this end. We applaud the position which you summed up in the following manner: “If other nations want our friendship and support, they must understand that we want to see basic human rights respected, and this includes the rights of Hungarians wherever they may be.” (Cablegram to Hungarian organizations, October 23, 1976).

Our purpose now is to call your attention to a concrete and specific opportunity for implementing the ideals you have espoused. Rumania is one country which, by any definition of the phrase, “denies minorities fair treatment.” The dictator of that country, Nicolai Ceausescu, is currently waging a systematic and increasingly aggressive campaign of forceful assimilation against the 2.8 million native Hungarian inhabitants of Rumania. The principal elements of this brazen assault consist of falsification of population statistics; gross discrimination in the field of education; dissolution of compact minority communities and dispersion of ethnic professionals; curtailment of cultural opportunities for minorities; refusal to permit bilingualism; falsification of history; confiscation of ethnic church archives; obstruction of contracts with relatives abroad; and persecution of minority religious institutions. Each of these abusive measures is fully documented in the material attached to this memorandum.

As President of the United States, you will have several means at your disposal to exert pressure on the Rumanian Government to reverse this policy of oppression. Your Administration will, as a matter of course, be making contacts with representatives of

THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY

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