Hungarians In Romania Research Articles

Între ideologie și identitate culturală (Piese cu tematică istorică la Teatrul de Stat din Sfântu Gheorghe, în anii 1960-1970)

In the context of political liberalization in the 1960s, Hungarians in Romania, taking advantage of new cultural opportunities, quickly adapted to the new conditions. After the administrative reform, following cultural concessions, a phenomenon similar to that in Romania of reinventing and reproducing the historical past took place in Hungarian cultural institutions. Theatre played an important role in this cultural phenomenon. The State Theatre of Sfântu Gheorghe participated very actively in all the cultural initiatives to promote ethnocultural identity and local values initiated by the new political and cultural elite in Covasna County, founded in 1968. The main aim was therefore to rediscover, care for and promote the local historical past (Transylvanian and Szekler) in the context of the cultural policy of the time and the communist ideology through historical plays. The success, or lack thereof, of these plays should be sought in this context rather than in their literary and dramatic value. The theatre of Sfântu Gheorghe, in search of new forms after 1968, took up, accepted these plays, these historical themes, managed to slip them through the institutions of censorship and put them on stage. These plays are characterized by a lack of professional maturity, by ideological clichés. They are telling examples of how and to what extent the local Hungarian intelligentsia tried and failed to adapt to the new cultural conditions in the country, in these political-ideological conditions, how it tried to find Hungarian cultural alternatives and to what extent it managed to process and stage these themes.

ANDREI SILVIU AND NICOLAE RAJKOVIČ, DEFENDERS OF THE CITY OF ORADIA, KILLED BY HUNGARIAN HORTYSTS ON 9 OCTOBER 1944

The battles for the liberation of Oradia and Bihor from the Hortyst-German occupation involved a number Romanian Army divisions (the 3rd Mountain Brigade and Tudor Vladimirescu Brigade), as well as divisions of the Red Army and were particularly ferocious and long-lasting (5 September - 12 October 1944). Several offensives and counter-offensives of the Hungarian-German and Romanian-Soviet military divisions took place with the purpose of preserving/liberating the city of Oradea, the administrative centre of Bihor County, a critical land and air communications hub for the entire western region (roads, railways, airport). In the battles for Oradea, the region experienced several days of power vacuum, with the fascist troops retreating from the city in order to prepare for a counter-offensive, while the Romanian-Soviet troops were regrouping outside the city for a decisive offensive (25 September - 28 September). At the same time, three citizens of the city, i.e. Andrei Silviu – a Romanian ethnic, a former civil servant with the City Hall and reserve officer of the Romanian Army, who had a local Israeli wife, Nicolae Rajkovič - a Romanian citizen of Serbian origin who was a local barber, and Papp Tibor – a civil servant with the City Hall, a Romanian citizen of Hungarian origin, established a “civil guard” comprising 45 citizens of Oradea with different nationalities, who were armed with rifles from a City Hall warehouse. The role of the guard was to maintain peace in the city and to defend the life and property of the citizens, primarily the workshops and shops in the city against the lumpenproletariat who were prone to looting. The return of fascist occupiers in the city leads to the arrest of the three guard organisers. They are brought in front of a military court and sentenced to death for organising “partisan troops behind the front”. Andrei and Rajkovič are shot in the Oradia Fortress three days before (9 October) the liberation of the city (12 October), while Papp is saved by his family and sentenced to 15 years in prison, due to the fact that he was a Hungarian ethnic. Although historians and patriotic local councillors proposed (in 2007, 2013, 2015, and 2020) that the two murdered locals should be honoured as heroes of the city, the political parties or coalitions that held the majority in the Oradea City Council (the Democratic Party (PD) + the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), the National Liberal Party (PNL) + the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR)) kept rejecting the initiative. This year, several cultural and patriotic organisations will bring up the proposal once again, since the idea behind it still makes a valid point.

MINORITY POLITICAL AGENCY AND ORBÁN’S MONO‑PYRAMIDAL RULE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EFFECTS OF HUNGARIAN KIN- STATE POLICIES IN ROMANIA AND UKRAINE AFTER 2010

My comparative analysis focusing on Hungarians in Romania and Ukraine tries to describe how Viktor Orbán’s kinstate policy affected minority political agency, e.g., strategies of ethnic bargaining and institutions governing minority elites. I investigate security‑oriented approaches within the framework of international relations (IR) and I propose a broader analytical model for mapping kinstate policy effects on minority groups. I have in view the changes that occurred after May 2010, when the second Fidesz government was elected. Post‑2010 Hungarian kinstate policies foster a homogeneous concept of the nation and try to integrate minority Hungarians into the mono‑pyramidal rule of Orbán’s increasingly authoritarian regime. This process, although detrimental to intra‑ethnic democratic functioning, cannot be described properly through IR related models focusing on macro‑political aspects and programmatic elements of ethnic bargaining. Therefore, I employ a more nuanced concept of minority political agency including meso‑level strategies of governing minority institutions and building networks of political patronage. Based on quantitative analysis of kinstate subsidies and semi‑structured interviews conducted with key minority actors, I conclude that effects of Hungarian kinstate policy are the most visible at meso‑level, as Hungarian communities were incorporated into Orbán’s regime through minority institutions. The comparison between the cases proved to be useful because I was able to distinguish between two different models of incorporation, a more monolithic local level intra‑ethnic autocracy in Ukraine and a more decentralized patronage‑based incorporation in Romania. The dissimilitudes are due to initial differences in the organization of the two minority fields on the one hand, and the path‑dependent relationship between Fidesz and the dominant minority elite faction, on the other.

Report on the Self-perceived Health Condition of Minority Hungarians in Central and Eastern Europe

In this article, we analyze the health condition of minority Hungarians in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, and Ukraine using data from a transnational survey conducted in 2018-2019. The study’s main focus is on assessing the subjective health status and behavior of adult Hungarians in each region, identifying key social determinants, and investigating whether minority Hungarians’ health indicators are more similar to their respective countries or Hungary. Proxies for physical health, such as chronic illnesses, medication use, and hospitalizations, show marginal variations across regions. Age, financial status, living in rural areas, and living alone after marriage are linked to the onset of chronic diseases. Physical activity and healthy eating habits vary among regions, influenced by age, education, and marital status. Smoking rates range from 25% to 33%, with gender and age playing significant roles. Alcohol consumption patterns are affected by gender, education, income, and urban residence. In terms of mental health, we utilized the PHQ-8 depression scale, and have observed a higher prevalence of depression among minority Hungarians compared to their host countries and Hungary. Relationships and social interactions play vital roles in mental health outcomes. The subjective assessment of health reveals variations among regions, with social factors such as age, gender, education, and living arrangements influencing self-perceived health.

The Autonomy Movement of Hungarians in Romania

Abstract While the issue of the Szekler autonomy has attracted considerable tabloid interest in the past two decades, it is rarely addressed in more systematic, scholarly accounts available for a wider international audience. The political project of achieving some form of autonomy has been on the agenda of several political actors speaking in the name of Romania’s sizeable Hungarian minority after 1989 and constitutes the object of heated debate between those actors and authorities of the Romanian state. In 2020 this debate recorded a peak which will seemingly require a new approach on behalf of protagonists, if the project is meant to be kept alive. This paper aims to fill some of the above-mentioned scholarly gap by providing an account of the parliamentary reception of the draft autonomy conceptions submitted by ethnic Hungarian politicians to Romania’s parliament in the three decades that passed since the regime change. Based on a content analysis of documents produced during the legislative process, we identify the most important arguments, as well as a number of procedural tricks deployed by Romanian politicians and political parties against the autonomy initiatives. We also emphasize the differences between the reception and trajectories of the bills, which is clearly related to the authorship and political backing of the various autonomy drafts. This comparative analysis also allows the formulation of a number of conclusions concerning the prospects of the Hungarian autonomy movement.

The Third-level Digital Divide among Elderly Hungarians in Romania

AbstractThe aim of the present study is to examine the characteristics of the third-level digital divide among elderly Hungarians (over 65 years of age) in Romania. The third level of digital divide indicates the emergence of digital habits in the Bourdieusian sense, which provide real benefits in different areas of everyday life. Hungarian elderly people in Romania are clearly lagging in terms of the third-level digital divide. The explanation for this is partly to be found in the limits imposed by the characteristics of their age and partly in their socio-economic situation. Elderly Hungarian people in Romania tenaciously adhere to their usual ways of life and previously established daily habits, and their repertoire does not integrate the use of digital technology. The results obtained in this study of elderly Hungarians in Romania are in line with the research results of digital inequalities, according to which there is a relationship between the degree of digital competence, the structure and usefulness of digital activities, and inequalities according to the traditional dimensions of social stratification (economic, cultural, individual).

ЭЛЕКТОРАЛЬНЫЙ РЕГИОНАЛИЗМ: СЛУЧАЙ ДЕМОКРАТИЧЕСКОГО СОЮЗА ВЕНГРОВ РУМЫНИИ

The article analyzes the dynamics of the regionalism strategy of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians of Romania (UDMR), representing the interests of the Hungarian minority, in the 1990s-2010s. The study uses official policy documents and manifestos of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, official electoral data, materials of coalition interactions and parliamentary debates, along with materials from the Manifesto Project Database. The results of the analysis show that the strategy of the regionalist party is transforming: from the rigid and consistent ethnolinguistic regionalism of the 1990s-2000s, in the 2010s the party is shifting to a more flexible adaptive strategy, which is a synthesis of moderate regionalism and competent positioning of the party as a coalition partner with a centrist social-economic agenda. The regionalist agenda is used by the party during the years of electoral activity, which serves as a tool for achieving institutional opportunities for participation in the national political process (shared-rule). The UDMR intention to expand the party's political subjectivity is not the main aim but the tool and opportunity for lobbying the interests of the regional community. The turn of the Hungarian regionalists from a strategy of confrontation with the Romanian unionist parties to a strategy of bargaining and cooperation is also the result.

The Hungarian Community of Transylvania in Its Relations With the Romanian Communist Authorities From the 1950s to the 1980s

The historical experience of Hungarian-Romanian relations in previous eras affected the relations of the Hungarian national minority of Transylvania with the Romanian communist authorities from the 1950s to the 1980s. The concept of Romania as a unitary national state excluded the idea of Hungarian territorial autonomy even within its narrowest borders; Transylvanian Hungarians were declared an integral part of the Romanian political nation. This caused growing resistance from the consolidated Hungarian minority with a highly developed national identity and with the intelligentsia, which perceived itself as the guardian of the 1000-year-old Hungarian state and cultural traditions in Transylvania. The reaction of the Transylvanian Hungarian intelligentsia to the growing Romanian nationalist challenge changed as the Ceauşescu regime evolved, giving rise to different behavioral strategies. In the late 1960s, when Romania’s independent policy was internationally recognised the dominant attitude was to influence the situation through dialogue with the authorities. Later, from the end of the 1970s, the participation of Transylvanian Hungarians in the Romanian dissident movement intensified. The policy of the K.d.r regime concerning the Hungarians in Romania also changed depending on the state of Hungary–Romania relations.

The Third-level Digital Divide among Elderly Hungarians in Romania

The Third-level Digital Divide among Elderly Hungarians in Romania

Структурно-функціональні особливості етнополітичного менеджменту в Україні та Румунії: компаративний вимір.

The article represents a comparative analysis of the structural and functional features of public authorities which are regulated the ethno-national processes in Ukraine and Romania. The author considers four levels of the ethnopolitical management in two countries of the Central and Eastern Europe: presidential, governmental, parliamentary and regional as well.Due to the objective circumstances, the presidential level of ethnopolitical management in Ukraine has not yet been formed. In the former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko it has been represented at the separate departments of President Administration of him. The Institute of Commissioner of the President for the Affairs of Crimean Tatar People has acted. In Romania within the structure of President Administration of Klaus Johannis there are some departments that are relevant to the ethnopolitical issues. The Department for Relations with Romanians Abroad is presented separately.The governmental level of the ethnonational area of Ukrainian society is being reformed. The Department of Religions and Nationalities at the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine is being transformed into the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, which will have its representative offices in the regions of Ukraine. In Romania, the Council of National Minorities, Department for Interethnic Relations, Department of National Minorities at the Ministry of Culture and National Identity, Department of Minorities at the Ministry of National Education are operated. A separate governmental structure is the Ministry of Romanians from everywhere.In the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine the ethnopolitical management is represented by the Committee on Human Rights, De-Occupation and Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories in Donetsk, Luhansk oblasts and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the City of Sevastopol, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations. In the Romanian Chamber of Deputies the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania and the Parliamentary Group of National Minorities are represented.At the level of Local Self-Government in the regions with multi-ethnic population the special commissions of deputies are formed. For example, the Permanent Commission on Education, Science, Culture, Spirituality, Youth Policy, Physical Education and Sports, National Minorities and Information Policy in Transcarpathian Regional Council is operated. Similarly, in Satu Mare County (Romania) the Commission of Low, Discipline, Relations with citizens, Minority issues is operated. At the same time, at the level of state administration the Department of Nationalities and Religions of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration is functioned. The issues for ethnopolitics in the separate region in Romania at the level of Prefectures are delegated.

Hungarians in Romania

Hungarians in Romania

A változások kezdete, az erdélyi magyarok kiengedése a nyugati határon 1985-től

In the last few years of socialism, the position of Hungarians in Romania gradually worsened. Their difficulties were increased by the significant tension, also present between the contemporary Hungarian and Romanian party and governmental organisations. The purpose of the top-secret measure allowing the Hungarians coming from Romania and having legal residence in Hungary to travel on to Austria or Yugoslavia was to make their life easier.

The passport as means of identity management: making and unmaking ethnic boundaries through citizenship

ABSTRACTThis paper explores how the non-resident citizenship made available for Hungarians living beyond Hungary’s borders impacted the national identification of newly naturalised non-resident Hungarians. Through the analysis of 51 semi-structured in-depth interviews with recently naturalised Hungarians in Romania, Serbia, the U.S. and Israel, the paper compares how citizenship as a legal institution is perceived, practiced and consumed by Hungarians living in Hungary’s neighbouring countries and overseas diasporas. Not denying the instrumental implications of the Hungarian passport, the paper argues that it is also an important means of constructing national identities. My empirical research shows that the passport strengthens the holder’s sense of belonging to the national group. In addition, citizenship is also considered as a valuable symbolic asset which can be instrumentalised as means of social closure. Non-resident Hungarians use their Hungarian passports to prove their European ancestry and/or belonging to the Hungarian nation. At the same time, the passport also enables its holder to distance herself from the populations in their home-states in order to elevate the holder’s social status.

The Efforts Towards Minority Protection in Europe in the Past Decades and Their Impact on the Situation of Hungarians in Romania

This contribution describes minority protection efforts in Europe in the past decades and their impact on the situation of Hungarians in Romania. It starts by elucidating the minority-friendly legal framework already present in Romania before 2007, and then by drawing up the developments caused by the access of Romania to the European Union. In Romania, minorities are indeed protected by law, but it seems that the major problem lies in their concrete implementation.

Europeanization and Collective Rationality in Minority Voting

This article addresses the question of how European integration shaped minority electoral strategies, which constitute the primary form of political mobilization among minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. Comparing six cases in five new member states of the EU – Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia; Russian‐speakers in Estonia and Latvia; Poles and Russian‐speakers in Lithuania – we find that minority voters across the region pool electoral resources behind specific political parties considered most likely to pursue minority interests; regardless of how they began organizing politically in the early 1990s. We identify three aspects of Europeanization with important indirect impact on these developments.

Ethnicization or de-ethnicization? Hungarian political representation in the Romanian parliament

The main goal of the paper is to understand how substantive representation of minorities works through ethnic parties and what the relationship between substantive and descriptive representation is in this specific case. Focus on the traditional understanding of substantive representation is common when analyzing the representation of minorities and marginalized groups, but only a few studies look at the substantive representation of national minorities from a constructivist approach, and even fewer are centered on Central and Eastern Europe. The paper argues that besides ethnicizing their demands, representatives of minorities have a wide array of strategies to achieve their goals. Using the parliamentary representation of Hungarians in Romania as a case study, I show that the strategies chosen in ethnic claims-making are context-dependent: ethnicizing messages are used only in specific cases, while de-ethnicization is applied in debates thought to be important for their community. These are part of a ba...

Ideas, structures, and the (un)conventional politics of minority rights in Romania and Ukraine

This article uses a paired comparison of ethnic politics in postcommunist Romania and post-Soviet Ukraine to explore the example of language policy implementation, empirically speaking. It argues that the (variable) behaviours of linguistic minority elites—the Hungarians in Romania and the Russophones in Ukraine—are driven by elites’ ideas (or ideational elements), theoretically speaking. In Romania, a politics of interethnic compromise and the quid pro quo gained the upper hand. In Ukraine, a politics of confrontation carried the day. In these two cases, the divergence—in behavioural terms—had had far-reaching political consequences, the latter affecting the level of cooperation and the amount of trust amongst the ethnic groups. These findings enrich our understanding of the behaviour of these particular groups in politics and of the policies toward them.

Hungarian Minority Politics in Post-Socialist Romania: Interests, Strategies, and Discourses

AbstractThis paper analyses the integration strategies formulated by the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania and the Hungarian political elite in the post-communist period. It argues that the internal debates of the political community are formulated in a field where other actors (the Hungarian and the Romanian state, political parties, European institutions, etc.) carry out their activities, which deeply influences both the chosen strategies and the needed resources for their implementation. Moreover, it questions the monolithic organization of the minority organization, showing that DAHR as the representative of the minority community was shaped by several internal debates and conflicts. Also from 2003 these conflicts have grown beyond the borders of the organization and since 2008 we can follow a whole new type of institutionalization. In achieving this, I introduce three strategies - individual integration, collective integration, and organizational integration - which are chosen by different fragments of the Hungarian minority elite both toward the Hungarian and the Romanian political sphere. Throughout the 1989-2012 period, the outcome of the conflict between the supporters of these strategies is deeply influenced by the policies of the two states.

Shifting linkages in ethnic mobilization: The case of RMDSZ and the Hungarians in Transylvania

The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) has been the most stable actor in the Romanian party system over the past two decades. However, in this article, we argue that beyond this apparent stability, the linkages between RMDSZ and its voters have undergone a gradual, yet significant shift. The ethnic block voting of Transylvanian Hungarians was closely connected to the concept of a self-standing and parallel “Minority Society,” and to the practices of institution building that the minority elites engaged in in the early 1990s. However, since its first participation in the Romanian government in 1996, RMDSZ has gradually departed from this strategy, a phenomenon that was also closely connected to a process of elite change within the organization. The present RMDSZ leadership puts less and less emphasis on policy programs that could reinforce the institutional system of the minority; consequently, it is unable (and unwilling) to organizationally integrate the community activists of the minority society who previously had played a key role in the process of (electoral) mobilization. At the rhetorical level, RMDSZ did not abandon the goal of building a parallel Hungarian minority society, but in its linkages to the Hungarian electorate, clientelistic exchanges have become predominant.

Regional Design, Local Autonomy, and Ethnic Struggle: Romania’s Syncopated Regionalisation

Despite many institutional features being changed during the post-communist transition, the regional administration in Romania witnessed a very limited change in post-communist times. Although it was a total political failure, the recent reshaping of the regional administration triggered a vivid public and scholarly interest on the matter. The purpose of the article is to shed new light on political constraints operating when it comes to reshaping regional design in Romania. Whereas official arguments pointed towards the necessity to address EU conditionality, the reshape was more likely underpinned by the government’s attempt to gain electoral advantages in the local elections scheduled for 2012. The decisive opposition made to the project by the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (Uniunea Democrată a Maghiarilor din Romania) reveals the importance that ethnic factors have played in this context.