DESCENDANTS OF HUNS AND ROMANS.
Euro-Union is to face a tough goal trying to reconcile them with each other

Almost one and a half million Hungarians — that makes up more than 6% of population — live in Romania. In Transylvania, however, this rate goes as high as 20%. In the judeţs1 of Harghita and Kovászna Hungarians make up significant majority and would hardly ever be willing to recognize these territories as the primordially Romanian ones. Hungarians appeared there almost simultaneously with Romanians — although, this historical chapter is far from being unequivocal: its Hungarian and Romanian interpretations vary more than a little.

Jobbik and the crisis

Rebellious Hungarian nature puts itself on the map quite seldom, mostly during the elections and political crises. During the last parliamentary shifts, Magyars have seemingly failed to draw the attention of Europe, even despite the success of rightist radical Jobbik party.

Hungary’s orientation towards the foreign capital has led to the fact that financial crisis had the severe impact on the economic of the country. Forint exchange rate has decreased dramatically. Events of September, 2006 have become the time of the utmost civic tensions perhaps since violent 1956. Authority of Ferenc Gyurcsány and the socialist coalition took a disastrous nose dive after the much-talked-about informational leak, but only now right parties managed to reap the harvests of bloody protest marches. Policy of Euro borrowings — that the socialist government actively resorted to — adversely effected the situation. The latter have seriously discredited themselves. Quite a number of issues that concern each and every Hungarian citizen have not been solved yet.

All these events have overlaid the green wounds of Hungarian society — legacy of the world wars. The most tragic strike against Hungary is connected with the fact that achievement of ultimate national independence after the First World War became a true nightmare. Having lost its industrial potential, necessary connections with Austria and Czech Republic, the country itself shrunk — and mind that significant part of ethnic Hungarians fetched themselves outside of its boundaries.

For a long time after the Second World War it was impossible to voice the "right ideas" of any kind as long as the public need for them was quite obvious. Nowadays movement with a sonorous name Jobbik — Movement for Better Hungary — took that place. During the previous elections it gained more than 14% of the votes in Hungarian parliament, having become the third largest party in the country (all in all there are 47 deputy seats). At that, another right party — FIDES — has actually won the elections.

Can this party be considered a fascist one? Its leadership does not agree with that. Gábor Szabó — Jobbik representative — has emphasized that his party is not only completely legal organization, but it also features significant support from various stratums of Hungarian society. Today and henceforth it is to follow the established legal procedures. "None of our emblems has ever been a symbol of authoritarianism. We also do not strive for the exclusive and ultimate political power".

Gábor Vona — leader of the party — feels himself fully armed as long as he challenges Viktor Orban — FIDES leader — to the open political debates. At that he puts the special stress on Jobbik’s openness and readiness to discuss its positions, while Orban and the adherents of socialistic bloc are definitely not ready for discussions on the issue of crisis and actually deny (socialists do) its very existence.

So what does the party agenda consists of? Calculations of the electioneering costs (socialists have the biggest ones) conducted by the Jobbik representatives look verisimilar — and that is their criticism of corruption. Jobbik managed to bring its deputies to the Euro-Parliament and now it stands for creation of coalition with the nationalistic groups in the other countries, speaking, first of all, of Le Pen’s movement in France and British Nationalistic Party.

Vona interprets radicalism of his party as a prospect to the future. Speaking of condition of Hungary, he likens it to the man who was not just hit by a car, but rather been repeatedly run over by the freight trains — what kind of way can one find out from the situation like that? The only thing clear is that aspirin won’t be enough. It is the radical means that the situation requires. From the Mr. Vona’s standpoint, moderately right FIDES palms the Hungarian state off upon the ineffective pills — they do not offer any treatment at all and just worsen the patient’s state. As you’ve probably already guessed, Jobbik suggests life-saving surgery.

Vona claims that only his party has the stomach to conduct the radical economic reforms that would allegedly lead to salvation of the private retirement funds and impose additional taxes to the people with double citizenship who finance both socialists and FIDES. They also offer to reconsider the activity of the National Bank of Hungary. According to Vona’s opinion, yet another important problem is the danger of transition of Hungarian territories into the possession of foreign capital. Single amendment to the law on land ownership would have been enough to improve the situation in no time. He also stands for the cutbacks in the number of Hungarian parliamentarians, underlining though, that this measure by itself can hardly change anything in the social-political life of Hungary.

Hungarian-Gypsy wars

"Gypsy problem" — who first appeared in Hungary during the Emperor Sigizmund (1387-1437) rule (he also used to be a King of Hungary) — has a very special meaning for Vona and the rest of Jobbik leadership. At that time Gypsies, who have recently come from Byzantine Empire, proved themselves to be skilled gunsmiths and blacksmiths. Subsequently European attitude towards them changed. Up until XVIII century in quite a number of countries Gypsy men and women were automatically executed upon identification, while in Romania even in the middle of XIX century they have been enslaved. Nowadays there’s almost no nomad Gypsies left. Although certain Gypsy groups are engaged in criminal activity, including drug trafficking, most part of them has partially assimilated as far back as during the times of Maria Theresa rule and the rule of her son Joseph II.

Clashes at the Sajóbábony town in November of 2009 have become a vivid milestone of the conflict aggravation. Some radical Jobbik representatives even speak of the possible beginning of Hungarian-Gypsy civil war...which was largely instigated by the Jews. In fact Jobbik actively creates a number of subsidiary companies with an incline to the ethnic purges. That has quite an unpleasant smell, especially given the mass murders of Jews and Gypsies during the Second World War.

It’s curious that the radical organization like that (judging both by their words and deeds) manages to keep certain liberal charm — given the background of Vona and even Orban, Krisztina Morvai has quite a favorable image. She is a mother of many children and law teacher at the university; she is also an experienced participant of various European liberal organizations who fiercely denies presence of any fascist component in her movement. It is thanks to her Jobbik managed to secure its presence in the European Parliament.

It’s quite characteristic that moderate FIDES seemingly treats Russia far worse than Jobbik, whose representatives are yet not deprived of specific Hungarian nostalgia for the Eastern relatives who were not engaged in the early medieval resettlement of legendary leaders. Ugrian unity is not treated as a mere name here. At the same time it is clear that after FIDES coming to power (officially Viktor Orban became Prime Minister on the 29th of May, 2010) relationship with Russia would deteriorate a little, at least comparing to the "socialistic" period of Gyurcsány. We may assume that the second Prime Minister’s term of Orban would not be colored with the same anti-Russian shades as it happened in the beginning of his political career. Quite a number of his statements and attempts to reconcile with the incumbent Russian authorities make the evidence of that.

Transylvania is a headache for both Romania and Hungary

Yet another important problem that had never lost its urgency during last hundred years is the issue of Transylvania. Even respectable FIDES does not believe current situation to be fair. Latest significant event in the history of that mysterious European region is presentation of Nobel Prize in the field of literature to Herta Müller — German author for whom Transylvania and especially her native Banat has always been a part of ancient Siebenbürgen2, which was populated by the descendants of medieval German settlers until recently. Transylvania has always been a vivid proof of the fact that in Europe (especially in the Central Europe) it is impossible to define where the territory populated by one nation ends and the territory of another starts.

Almost one and a half million Hungarians — that make up more than 6% of population — live in neighboring Romania. In Transylvania, however, this rate goes as high as 20%. In the judeţs of Harghita and Kovászna Hungarians make up significant majority and would hardly ever be willing to recognize these territories as the primordially Romanian ones.

Hungarians appeared there almost simultaneously with Romanians — although, this historical chapter is far from being unequivocal: its Hungarian and Romanian interpretations vary more than a little. Certainly, Romanian historiographers tend to believe Romanians to be the descendants of Romans who have mixed their bloods with even more ancient autochthons. Romanian language (and, respectively, its Moldavian variant) has a certain resemblance with Latin. Medieval sources, however, contain very few mentionings of Wallachians and in general, matter of the origins of Romanian nation remains open. Resettlements of nomadic Polovtsians and Mongols have changed the ethnic situation so dramatically that by the XIV century it became hardly possible to determine the real descendants of Romans. Let us not forget that Hungarians traditionally stuck to the version of their Hun roots. So the name of Buda town (that merged with Pest only in the XIX century) considered to ascend to Attila’s relative Bleda.

Csango people — mysterious nation, speaking the ancient Hungarian language

Since XIII century Hungarian population was spreading in three different directions: to the South — to Croatia, as well as to the East as long as Transylvanian territories were conquered by the nomadic Magyars as far back as in the XI century. Exactly in XIII century Csangos started to set themselves apart — even today they keep using the ancient Hungarian language and populate the Romanian Moldova. According to certain statements their number may reach 250 thousand people, though only 60 thousand of them actively use the language.

In a great degree, they’ve managed to keep their culture and their language thanks to their "alien religious nature" comparing to the Romanian population. Cshangos remained to be Roman Catholics despite the decree of 1562 stipulating the obligatory rebaptization of all the Christian non-Orthodox groups. Version of Romanian scientists, stating that Csangos are in fact Romanians who adopted Hungarian language seems to be far less probable. Their persistence in the matter of saving their language with considerable amount of medieval grammar standards make the evidence of the opposite. At the present time, given the Romanian attempts to enter the European community, there’s an issue of the future destiny of this minor nation with its own peculiar culture. Euro-Union functionaries voiced apprehensions that without education in Csango language it may disappear in the nearest future.

Preservation of Csango language during the last few centuries, however, gives the evidence of the opposite. At the same time in quite a number of European regions there’s a tendency for English language to oust the national languages, and thus the danger of Csangos extinction is far from being overcome. Despite the apprehensions of Romanian politicians, matter of preservation of Csango culture has nothing to do with the claims of Transylvanian Hungarians to restore their unity with their native state, due to the isolated region that this minor nation inhabits.

Up until the XVIII century evidence of Csango existence was scarce. Speaking about Csango, people seemingly implied Catholics of non-Hungarian origin. Perhaps, the situation in the region resembled the events that took place in certain parts of Croatia where Serbs, adopting Catholicism, were automatically considered to be Croat, and Croats adopting Orthodoxy were considered Catholics. If some Serb or Croat adopted Islam, this man was considered to be Bosnian. Still, as we’ve mentioned, various national features of Csango people — e. g. their music — indicate that they belong to the Ugrian ethnic family.

Recently, situation aggravated due to the ban on private teaching of Hungarian in certain villages. Romanian authorities do not render much support to the wish of Csango parents for their children to keep their own culture — they treat parents’ requests as whims or displays of Hungarian nationalism.

Romanian nationalism is at the crossroads

Peculiarity of Romanian historical path in the XX century consists in the fact that this economically weak country that has the access to the oil fields was repeatedly making the right choices, allowing it to expand its territory. First of all this may be applied to the Second Balkan and the First World War. During the Second World War Romanians supported Third Reich but quite promptly switched sides and joined Allies and King Mihai was even decorated with the Victory Order by Joseph Stalin. Afterwards, when the communist regime, being the USSR satellite had the upper hand, Mihai was even granted the time to collect his personal belongings before departing abroad. Weakness of the Romanian state and the doubtfulness of the fact that Soviet Union would have supported Romania against its other satellite-state (Hungary) forced Nicolae Ceauşescu government to attempt carrying out their own policy, implying huge borrowings and, therefore certain restraints in the economic life.

Today Romanian politicians understand that the optimum variant to gain electorate is to stand for Romanian entry to the EU. Entire historical path that Romania has made — since the XV century it strived to break free from Turks, while its ruling boyar elite was trying to send its children to study in Europe — eventually brought Vlad Tepes descendants to such decision. But rooted peculiarities of Romanian language, poor readiness to become a part of the contemporary post-industrial society still hold the national mentality in the grips. And the fact that Romanian territories have always been a place of habitation for various nations — from Thracians and Celts to Romans, Slavs and Hungarians — cuts an important figure here. A little bit late attempt to build up a national state still features a certain political energy and support from some Romanians. EU has been dictating its laws for a long time now and the minorities — are they Hungarian or German ones — gain an additional ace in their fight for the late rehabilitation.

László Tőkés factor

During the Ceauşescu rule some magazines were published in Hungarian but later they were withdrawn by the "Securitate"3 that was conducting quite effective repressions against the publishers. Romanian authorities also banned certain confessional holidays, in particular — Reformation day (in the past quite a number of Hungarians joined Luther’s movement and have been supporting it since then). Since the spring of 1989 the whole story unfolded around pastor Tőkés who was suspected of anti-governmental agitation. Decree stipulating his transfer from Timișoara to some out-of-the-way parish was issued, but the latter events have suddenly taken quite unexpected turn. In December of 1989 people started to cordon off the Timișoara district where pastor lived. People sought to secure safety (and perhaps save the very life) of the pastor. Though Tőkés appealed to the crowd, asking it to break up and mayor of the city has granted his oral guarantees that nothing would happen to the pastor, people stayed at their places. By the evening fire brigades appeared but also many Romanians came to help Hungarians. That’s when the first shouts "Off with Ceauşescu" sounded. The rest of this story is well-known.

Pastor Tőkés was promoted and now he is the bishop of Oradea, continuing his fight for the restoration of Reformist Church rights (including the proprietary ones). In 2007 Tőkés was elected to the Euro-Parliament, while not being a member of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania. His activity became a severe strike against the Greater Romania Party — major nationalistic power in the country. It was exactly László Tőkés who initiated the Euro-Parliament petitions, claiming the necessity of observing the Hungarian population rights in Romania — speaking, in particular, of their right for the education on their native language. Tőkés activity is all the more important because of his support from both Viktor Orban’s FIDES party and Romanian President Băsescu. In 2006, during the sitting of Romanian parliament, Băsescu dubbed the Romanian political regime before 1989 to be barbarian and called for investigation of its crimes. Special committee was formed — it consisted of Romanian historians — that prepared a huge document, describing the exact crimes of the communist regime.

We may assume that later on the situation in the region would settle down but for now the role of such rightist organizations as Greater Romania Party or Jobbik remains unclear. We also can’t rule out the possibility that they will manage to successfully fit the pan-European political process, having found similar nationalistic allies everywhere, from Scotland to Italy. Presence of Hungarian minority abroad would surely promote the popularity of Jobbik-type organizations.

By Andrey Lotmenzev