Or, how to win friends and influence Hungarians. If you find history boring, skip this one.
Romania has a large Hungarian minority, especially in Transylvania. Transylvania used to be part of Hungary. Romania took it in 1918.
Transylvania wasn't the only piece of Hungary that was lost. Hungary used to be a big country. (It was part of Austria-Hungary, but let's keep this simple.) More than 75% of it was taken away in 1918 -- to Yugoslavia, to Czecheslovakia, and to Romania.
Now, the Hungarians weren't too happy about this. They adopted a slogan: Nem, nem, shoha. That's Hungarian for "no, no, never". What it means is,
"I will never accept the division of our country." It was the slogan of those who believed that Great Hungary would one day rise again.
Well, Great Hungary has never come back (except for a few years during the Second World War, and we don't talk about that). And now it's not going to. Over the last 50 years, Hungarians have tended to drift out of the old Hungarian territories that are now part of other countries, and move into Hungary itself. Meanwhile, some of those other countries -- especially Romania under Ceacescu -- have moved their own people into the old Hungarian territories. Transylvania used to be about 40% Hungarian; now it's only about 25%.
It's not realistic for Hungary to contemplate taking back a territory whose inhabitants are now non-Hungarian by 3 to 1. And Hungary realizes this. Hungarians still do not exactly love Romanians, but the old, Great Hungary nationalism seems to be mostly dead.
But Hungarians /remember/ it. It's part of their 20th-century history.
So I've discovered that when I say "nem, nem, shoha" to a Hungarian, they're completely astonished. And it's usually a very good (if somewhat peculiar) ice-breaker.
But -- here's the interesting thing -- Romanians have no idea what it means. They just look at me blankly.
Okay, maybe I shouldn't expect Romanians to know much Hungarian history. But "nem, nem, shoha" was the slogan of Great Hungarian nationalists, and Great Hungarian nationalism was Romania's nightmare for 70 years. In fact, right up until his last week in office, Ceacescu was still making fairly obvious references to "aliens" who would "destroy the territorial integrity of the nation" -- i.e., the rebels against him were really in the pay of the Hungarians.
It's striking. I've tried out the phrase on a dozen or so educated Romanians, and not one had any idea what I was babbling about. Not that this is necessarily a Romanian thing. I suspect I could turn around and do the same thing with the Hungarians.
It's a bit unnerving to have two groups living next to each other and completely ignoring each others' history. On the other hand, it could be worse (see: Yugoslavia). If you're ignoring each other, you're not killing each other.
More on this interesting (well, to me) topic in a bit.
Posted by douglas at August 10, 2003 11:50 PMThe Magyar proportion of Transylvania's population fell that much? I didn't know that. I'd thought that there was a slight increase in the Romanian proportion from two-thirds in the late 19th century to three-quarters now, aided by Saxon emigration and the lower Magyar birth rate.
Posted by: Randy McDonald at August 15, 2003 02:45 AMWell, I see that for some people history start only in 1918. If you would have gone earlier than that, it would have made a bad point on your post, huh?
Why don't you say from which country did the Austrian Empire took the lands from in the beginning? I mean, if you have an idea, only the word "Empire" and it tells you that there was some conquering of other territories. Austro-Hungarian Empire TOOK Transilvania first from the Romanians. And try to go even further back in history. Have you ever heard about the migration of ugro-finnic people (part of the tartars) in Europe? Why don't you search when the Hungarians first came to Europe (what century), what people was already in those lands, ask why there are only 2 countries in Europe to speak this type of language (Hungary and Finland, who are both ugro-finnic) among the rest of countries that speak Latin, Anglo-Saxon or Slavic-based languages?
In an era that looks for globalisation, people who still try to stir ultra-nationalist feelings, would be called what?
> Well, I see that for some people history start only
> in 1918. If you would have gone earlier than that,
> it would have made a bad point on your post, huh?
Since the point of my post was that Romanians and Hungarians don't seem to be interested in each others' history -- no, I don't think it would have.
[snippage]
You have some wrong facts here.
1) Finno-Ugric peoples are not Tartars. They are a completely different group. Tartars come from Central Asia, but the FUs come from northeastern Europe, the region around the northern Urals. Their languages are completely unrelated, too.
2) There are three countries, not two, that speak FU languages: Hungary, Finland, and Estonia. (There are also millions of FU speakers who don't have their own countries -- the Mordovians, Mari, Udva, and Karelians, among others. Two of these groups have their own autonomous republics inside Russia, BTW.)
I'm not even touching the issue of "who was in Transylvania first". I'm familiar with both the 'Romanian continuity' argument and the Hungarian counter-arguments, and I'm not interested in discussing it here.
I have no idea why you think I'm trying to "stir ultra nationalist feelings". 'Nem nem shoha' is an ultra-nationalist slogan, but if you read the post, I'm not expressing support of it -- I'm just saying that Hungarians know what it means, and Romanians don't. Which seems pretty strange to me. That's all.
Doug M.
From some personal history I know that an unknown number of those hungarians were magyarized romanians. I have an aunt that got caught up in the great name change fight and she and I have different last names.
I don't say that this is the cause of all the drop in the % of hungarians in transylvania. I just know that it was a factor. You'd probably get better numbers if you looked at it over time. As I recall there was a great drop right at 1918 (which is part people correcting their ethnicity, part hungarians leaving now that they weren't top dogs anymore) and a very slow drop thereafter.
Like many things in that corner of the world, the situation is somewhat complex.
Posted by: TM Lutas at February 10, 2004 08:33 AM