Forrai Ibolya szerk.: Néprajzi Közlemények 33. évfolyam - Csángók a 20. században, Élettörténetek (Budapest, 1994)

TCHANGOS IN THE XXth CENTURY - Life stories

TCHANGOS IN THE XX

m CENTURY Life stories In the regions of Central-Eastern Europe the number of rustic memoirs and life stories has substantially increased during the last decades. This phenomenon is connected, among others, with the changing civilizatoin. The Ethnographical Museum tried to collect individual life stories and memoirs, representative of the various cultural groups of society. The present volume includes three life stories which illustrates the fate of the Tchangos From the Moldavian and Gyimes regions in the course of the XX

th century. The name „Tchango" (Hung.: csángó) is used in literature since the end of the XVIII

th century as the denomination of various ethnic groups (from Moldavia, Bukowina, or Hungarians from Transylvania) forced to leave their native land. The Tchangos of Gyimes and Moldavia are living in the eastern outskirts of the Hungarian linguistic area, in Roumania. The first story is the biography of József Tankó, peasant holder from the Gyimes region. He was bom in 1916 and is living in Gyimesfelsolok, an outstanding personality in the social life of the village, a well-informed and widely-read man. The knowledge and acceptance of Tchango history and past are important for him. In May 1991 he recounted his reminiscences to his cousin, Gyula Tankó, who wrote them down. These notes are now being published under the title „Ilyen volt...", a colourful series of short stories revealing not only a personal fate but the habits of the Gyimes Tchangos in general as well. Outstanding events in the personal course of life: childhood, bachelorhood, popular dances, Roumanian and Hungarian military service, founding of a family, augmentation of the farmstead. At the same time we learn to know the past of local families, the contacts between the nationalities, the farming and the feasts of the Tchangos in Gyimes.