Kosovo’s Actions Hearten a Hungarian Enclave

[Marulus]

Sfantu Gheorghe Journal

Kosovo’s Actions Hearten a Hungarian Enclave


Petrut Calinescu for The New York Times
A Romanian shepherd on the outskirts of Sfantu Gheorghe, the capital of a region in central Romania where Hungarians vastly outnumber Romanians.

By NICHOLAS KULISH

Published: April 7, 2008

SFANTU GHEORGHE, Romania — Dozens of wreaths trailing ribbons in red, white and green, the colors of the Hungarian flag, covered the base of a memorial to the 1848 revolution in the town park here on a recent day. Deep in the heart of Romania, just one lonely garland bears the country’s own blue, yellow and red banner.


Petrut Calinescu for The New York Times
Romanians there complain that Hungarian memorials, like the one above, are flourishing.


The New York Times
Hungarians in central Romania want regional autonomy.

New Year’s is celebrated twice here, first at the stroke of midnight and then an hour later, when it is midnight in Budapest. When Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February, hundreds of the town’s Hungarians took to the main square to demonstrate in favor of Kosovo, and by extension their own aspirations for autonomy.

A Hungarian minority group is pressing for greater autonomy in a region where its members outnumber Romanians. A new and more radical organization, the Hungarian Civic Party, has risen to challenge the establishment Hungarian party, which has been a member of each coalition government since 1996.

Those who argue that independence for Kosovo has set a bad precedent tend to talk about frozen conflicts outside the European Union — Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in Georgia, and Transnistria in Moldova. But even in the European Union, borders are often arbitrary. Many ethnic minorities, like the Basques and the Roma, remain stateless while others, like the Hungarians in Romania, as well as in Slovakia and Serbia, are still separated from their brethren.

The Hungarian minority here, known as Szeklers, certainly believe their time for independence has arrived and that their proposed semi-autonomous state, Szeklerland, is an impending reality.

“Kosovo is an example, and a very clear one, that if the community wants to live under self-government, we have to declare very loudly our will,” said Csaba Ferencz, vice president of the Szekler National Council, a local Hungarian group founded in 2003 with autonomy as its stated goal. Szeklers are a distinct ethnic group from the Magyars, Hungary’s dominant population.

Their chances of success appear slim, but they are pressing ahead to the chagrin of Romanians here, who say that as a local minority they have fewer rights than Hungarians do as a nationwide minority.

The Hungarian region, comprising part of Mures County and all of Harghita and Covasna, where Sfantu Gheorghe is the capital, was once a border area of the Hungarian kingdom defended by the Szeklers. After World War I, the Szeklers found themselves smack in the middle of Romania, a few hours drive north through the Carpathian Mountains from Bucharest.

The conclusion of the war is best remembered for the harsh terms imposed on Germany. But the peace agreement signed by Hungary in 1920, the Treaty of Trianon, was arguably even tougher. Hungary lost roughly two-thirds of its territory and population, including one-third of its Hungarian speakers, in the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a loss that to this day is known as the Trianon trauma. (Hungary regained most of its lost territories temporarily during World War II.)

Nowhere is the Hungarian minority larger or more vocal in its demands for greater independence than in Romania. Hungarians make up 1.5 million of Romania’s 22 million people, about half of them Szeklers. Little wonder that Romania, a member of the European Union and the host of the just-completed NATO summit meeting, joined Slovakia, Serbia and Russia in refusing to recognize Kosovo.

Unlike the Kosovars, the Szeklers are asking for autonomy within Romania rather than complete independence, leaving foreign policy and national defense in the hands of the government in Bucharest. Szeklerland would be nearly 4,000 square miles, with just over 800,000 people, three-quarters of them Hungarian.

The headquarters of the Szekler National Council sits in a large tan stucco house, a short walk from the center of town. Out front hang both the European Union flag and that of the Szeklers, a blue field with a horizontal gold stripe across the middle and a gold sun and silver star on either side. The house was previously the home of a lawyer dedicated to the cause of Hungarian self-rule.

The council shares its headquarters with the newly minted Hungarian Civic Party, which was approved in March to take part in elections, as an alternative to the mainstream Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania. The Democratic Union stands accused, by Romanians in particular, of old-fashioned ethnic machine politics. But their Civic Party opponents accuse them of selling out.

“Since 1996 they are in the government and we think once they were, they represented the interests of the Romanian majority and not the Hungarian minority,” said Zoltan Gazda, president of the Sfantu Gheorghe branch of the new party.

“We have always respected the Romanian laws in our fight for autonomy, but if this does not have a good ending it may raise up other kinds of tensions,” Mr. Gazda said. “We have signals that the discontent can increase with conflicts.”

Municipal elections on June 1 will be a test of strength between the two Hungarian parties before parliamentary elections later in the year. They are likely to work out an arrangement to ensure that they do not split the vote in the national race.

Under Communism, the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu tried to dilute the Hungarian populations by moving Romanians into areas where they were concentrated, particularly along the border with Hungary.

Romanians here say the government in Bucharest has subordinated their interests in exchange for Hungarian parliamentary votes. For example, said Rodica Parvan, a Romanian member of the town council, the national government does nothing while subsidies to churches and schools, which are largely segregated, are distributed unequally by the Hungarian-dominated local government.

However, most of the complaints by the Romanian residents are over symbolic snubs, such as the council meetings held only in Hungarian and Hungarian-language carols played at Christmastime. On March 15, the Hungarian national holiday marking the beginning of the 1848 revolution against Hapsburg rule, Ms. Parvan was dismayed to see the Romanian flag in front of the county government seat hanging at half-mast.

“They told me the wind blew it down,” she said.

[source]

[Uri]

As far as I know, the situation in Erdèly (Transylvania) is that the hungarians and szeklers lived there for centuries, but the romanians considered themselves descendants of the ancient dacians, assimilated to the romans, so, the problem is served.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Uri

As far as I know, the situation in Erdèly (Transylvania) is that the hungarians and szeklers lived there for centuries, but the romanians considered themselves descendants of the ancient dacians, assimilated to the romans, so, the problem is served.

The problem is that two nations lay claim on one and the same territory. For centuries Erdely-Transylvania was politically part of the Hungarian kingdom, although having a certain degree of autonomy, having its own prince and assembly. The population was mixed, with Hungarians, Romanians and Germans ("Saxons") living side by side. I think that already in 16th century Romanians became numerically dominant in the province. Transylvania was annexed by Romania after the First World War. First it was occupied by the Romanian Army and then the new factual situation was confirmed by the Versailles Treaty (Trianon Treaty, to be more precise) in 1919. Transylvania has been part of Romania ever since that date, with a short interruption between 1938 and 1945, when Romania had ceded one part (but not the whole!) of Transylvania, the part densely inhabited by Hungarians, to Hungary. That cession was effected through the pressure of Hitler's Germany, which was bent on settling ethnic disputes among its allies (both Hungary and Romania were part of the Axis).