The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1983 (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1983-01-01 / 1. szám
The Hungarians of Transylvania: Not Ethnic Minority But MINORITY NATION! The definition of “ethnic minority” identifies a group of people which migrated into the country of another nation in search of food, shelter or religious freedom and for one reason or another failed to assimilate. Therefore the Vlachs, later called Rumanians, who entered the Hungarian Kingdom during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries as migrant workers and sheepherders, and failed to assimilate, lived and prospered as an ethnic minority within the Hungarian borders. On the other hand, the term “minority nation” refers to a group of people who lived in their own country for a long period of time as part of the majority nation, without ever changing location, but were tom off geographically from the rest of their homeland through a major political tragedy, usually as a result of war, and occupied by another neighbouring nation. When Transylvania was tom from the Hungarian motherland as a result of World War I and World War II, the Hungarians who were established on that land for ten centuries became a minority nation within Rumania. Politically they had to yield to the majority rale of the Rumanians. Nevertheless, the peace treaties guaranteed them the right to the unrestricted use of their own language, to the free development of their own culture through their own established cultural institutions, and their right to self-administration within their cities, towns, and villages. Today, the National-Communist Government of Rumania not only refuses to recognize these rights, but is embarked on a course of TOTAL ANNIHILATION of the almost three-million strong Hungarian MINORITY Nation within its borders, by the use of terror and extreme brutality. We ask the nations of this world to express their solidarity with the Hungarians of Transylvania by boycotting and “picketing” the Socialist Republic of Rumania until this problem is solved according the rales of civilized societies. VIII THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY
