TRANSYLVANIA AND THE THEORY...

Notes

[2] Istoria Romaniei, ed. C. Daicoviciu, Bucharest, 1960, vol. II, p. 47.

[3] Cf., for example, two articles by R. S. Popescu in Limba romana, Bucharest, XXII, 4, 1973, pp. 309:514 and XXIV, 3, 1975, pp. 263-266: 1. Kniezsa, "Kelet-magyarország helynevei" (The place-names in eastern Hungary), in Magyarok és románok, (Hungarians and Rumanians), ed. J. Deer and L. Galdi, Budapest, 1943, pp. 111-013

[4] There are convincing signs that Saxons, Jews, and other minorities also suffer from the heavy-handed Rumanian ethnic policies. The fact that a substantial portion of German Rumanians emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany as soon as the two nations had concluded the Reunification of Families Act of 1966 seems to suggest that they were dissatisfied in Rumania. This idea is supported by McArthur (1976a:365) who writes: "To check the youth's 'Romanianization' (Saxon) parents promote 'Germanization' even if they do not really like that either. German identity is thus the last boundary separating Saxons from Romanians." One must inquire about the reasons for Saxon emigration, since in Germany "the family is lonely, displaced and yearns for the comfort of the relatives they have left behind. Rather than return to Romania or otherwise admit that the dream has not come true, they write back and say: it's wonderful here, please come." In view of these findings, is it not possible that Rumanian ethnic policies are partly to blame for Saxon emigration? McArthur does not explore this possibility. Similarly, it is not difficult to assess the reasons Jews have been leaving Rumania at a rate of 3,000-5,000 a year since the 1950s (Gilberg 1974:458, quoting "well-informed sources in Washington"). Does the author of this article analyze growing anti-Semitism and ethnic policies in Rumania as possible forces behind Jewish emigration? He does not. For an analysis of Rumanianization, see Burks (1966:107), whose diagnosis of the fate of Saxons and Jews in Rumania is summed up in these words: "No doubt the time will come when both minorities will have virtually disappeared."

[5] Among my sources is the Committee for Human Rights in Rumania. Since Hungarians neither in Rumania nor in Hungary have any way of opposing Rumanian policies, a group of their compatriots, the CHRR, was established in the United States in 1976. While I am not a member of this nonaligned organization I am familiar with its purpose and activities. Like other human-right groups, it monitors grievances and publicizes discriminatory policies. Its paid political advertisements consist of quotations from Rumanian government communications and articles written by named staff cor- respondents of newspapers with worldwide circulation (e.g, the Manchester Guardian, Le Monde, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Times /London/, Neue Züricher Zeitung, the International Herald Tribune, and others).

[6] "Les origines de la nation roumaine sont demeurées jusqu'a present plus obscures. La these dite de la continuité, faisant des Roumains les descendants des Daces romanises, est actuellement abandonee."

TRANSYLVANIA AND THE THEORY...