The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1983 (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1983-04-01 / 4. szám

In the past, Transylvania was often referred to as the Switzerland of the Carpathian Basin, and rightfully so. Hungarian kings in the 11th and 12th centuries brought German settlers into the land, and these Germans built their own towns next to their Hungarian neighbors, and took their share in developing and defending the country. As the migrating Vlachs began to seep in from the South, trying to escape from their despotic rulers, they also found a place for themselves and became citizens of the country.

However, compared to Switzerland the tragedy of Transylvania was, and still is, that besides its beauty it is also a very rich land, yielding great quantities of all kinds of natural resources. Due to this riches, every conqueror has tried to possess it during the centuries. It was forced again and again under Habsburg domination, who used their well-known policy of “divide and conquer” by inciting the Rumanians to burn down Hungarian towns and murder defenseless Hungarian women and children while the men were on the battlefields fighting for liberty. The seeds of national hatred were thus sown into a land where peaceful coexistence was the only way to peace and prosperity. It must be regarded as a miracle that in spite of all this handicap the Hungarian diet in the city of Torda, Transylvania, declared, without dissent, religious freedom for all religions and all nationalities as the law of the land in 1568. (It is indeed a shame that in 1980 the very building in which this great historic event took place was tom down by the Rumanian authorities for being a landmark of the Hungarian past.)

After the Rumanian Kingdom was created in 1878 from the “United Principalities of Moldavia and Vlachia” under the rule of Hohenzollern king, the word “Rumanian” emerged to replace the name “Vlach”. From then on the same political intrigue, seting one Transylvanian nation against the other, came seeping across the borders from the South and the East, finally leading to the tragic dismemberment of Hungary, the thousandyear-old political, cultural and economical unit which defended for centuries Central and Western Europe from Eastern invaders, and held the delicate balance of power in that otherwise turbulent area for one thousand years. As a result, the Hungarian population of Transylvania, for ten centuries a very active part of the majority nation, became a minority in Rumania, and thorn in the political flesh of Rumanian nationalism.

IV

Understanding the reasons which created the situation, it should be clear to anyone that neither assimilation nor emmigration is the solution to the Transylvanian problem. It is not only historically false, but extremely dangerous to assume that in case the Ceausescu government yields to the pressure and makes emmigration easier, aid to that government by the American taxpayers should be resumed. Doing this without securing the survival of the three million Hungarians living under Rumanian rule would be the same as signing the death sentences of so many men, women and children. Since the clue to Transylvania is coexistence, the Rumanian government must be persuaded to recognize this fact and act accordingly. The basic conditions for a good beginning were published recently in a memorandum sent by the Hungarian Socialist Workers Federation of Transylvania to the signatory powers of the Helsinki Agreement, among them to the Government of the United States of America. Any government of good will would automatically accept the conditions listed in that memorandum for the sake of justice and tranquility. (The conditions in question are listed on page eight of this Quarterly.)

However, should Rumania stubbornly refuse to recognize the need for a peaceful and just coexistence between Rumanians and Hungarians in Transylvania, there can be only one solution left: the return of Transylvania to the mother-country, which took care of it for ten centuries and made it possible for all the different nationality groups to prosper in peace, each within its own cultured identity. Bibliography:

Macartney, C.A.: Hungary and Her Successors, The Treaty of Trianon and Its Consequences. (Oxford University Press, London-New York-Toronto.) Macartney, C.A.: National States and National Minorities, (Oxford University Press, London.) Miller, W.: The Balkan States (The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. IV, XVII and XVIII) Miller, W.: The Rise and Fall of the First Bulgarian Empire (The Cambridge Medieval History Vol.

III.)

Moravcsik: Hungary and Byzanthium in the Middle

Ages

(The Cambridge Medieval History Vol. IV.) Peisker: The Origin of the Rumanians (The Cambridge Medieval History Vol. I.) Zathureczky: Transylvania, Citadel of the West (Danubian Press, 1965)

Haraszti: Origin of the Rumanians, Vlach Origin, Migration and Infiltration into Transylvania. (Danubian Press, 1977)

Sanborn: Transylvania, the Hungarian-Rumanian Problem, Symposium (Danubian Press, 1979)

THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY