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Chapter III
The Population Profile of the Hungarians in Romania



The 1980 census in Hungary puts the total population of the country at 10,710,000 inhabitants. According to various statistics, surveys and estimates, some 250-500 thousand are of non-Hungarian origin, i.e., belong to national and ethnic minorities. The latest censuses conducted in the neighboring states showed the number of inhabitants of Hungarian nationality or Hungarian speaking to be as follows:[9]Czechoslovakia 630,000 (700,000); Soviet Union - 171,000 (200,000); Romania 1,670,000 (2.1 to 2.2 million); Yugoslavia - 420,000 (460,000); and, Austria - 50,000. The latter figure includes the original Hungarian settlements of Burgenlauld, as well as Hungarian groups dispersed throughout Austria. According to estimates based on various criteria, the Hungarian diaspora in the West, mainly in North America and Westem Europe, numbers betveen 1.0 and 1.5 million. Few other ethnic communities within and outside Europe are characterized by a similar geographical dispersion and political fragmentation.[10] Owing to this fact, the minority question constitutes a fundamental social, cultural, and political issue for Hungary and for the Hungarian nation as a whole.
The Hungarians of Romania, by virtue of their numbers and cultural development, are the most significant Hungarian ethnic group outside Hungary. They are the largest national minority in Europe, and this fact in itself lends considerable political weight to any change in their status.
The Hungarian inhabitants of Romania are citizens of a multinational state comprised of regional units. These units have undergone different historical and cultural developments, and have evolved different ways of life. From the perspective of its social and cultural features, Transylvania is the most developed and diversified region in the country and the most heterogeneous in terms of its ethnic composition. Historical differences manifest themselves not only, and not even primarily, in statistical indices but more in the form of competing and conflicting cultures, value systems, and lifestyles adopted by particular regions and communities.[11] In an attempt to obliterate historical and cultural diversity, official Romanian policy attempts to establish a "unified Romanian national state." This is linked to the policy of "homogenization" and the general lowering of the socio-economic status of the entire population, particularly to the detriment of both the minorities and the Romanians living in Transylvania.
The last census in Romasia (1977) recorded a total population of 21,559,910 inhabitants, of which 10.9% (2,352,419) belonged to national minorities.[12] A breakdown of the country,s population with respect to national and linguistic affiliation, based on the official census data for the period 1948 to 1977, is presented in Table 1.
According to the Hungarian census conducted in 1910, there were 1,670,000 Hungarian-speaking people in the territory ceded to Romania after World War 1. Following both World Wars, the Hungarian population suffered a considerable decline as a consequence of population transfers. Transfers continued in smaller numbers after 1945, then picked up again after 1980. According to official statistics, the number of Hungarians increased by 10% between 1948-56. but then came to a sudden halt. In actuality, the rate of natural increase among Hungarians remained relatively high, although the actual increase in numbers was not reflected in either the 1966 or 1977 censuses.[13] Neither assimilation into the ethnic Romanian population nor emigration is able to account for the above discrepancies and is most likely the result of misrepresentations in the counting of the population.
The census of 1956 was the last census to publish data on nationalities by settlements (villages. etc.). We are therefore compelled to rely upon its data alone for representing the territorial distribution of Hungarians. Consequently, our data reflects the situation of more than thirty years ago. Since that time the overall percentage of minorities living in cities has been reduced. No general census has been conducted in Romania since 1977. At a party conference in December 1987, the president of Romania merely announced that the population of the country had risen to 23 million. However. taking into consideration the natural demographic trends and ethnic distribution along religious lines in Transylvania, the present number of Hungarians in Romania must be, according to conservative estimates, between 2.1 and 2.2 million, i.e., 9.5% of the total population.[14]

Table 1

Distribution of the Romanian Population by Ethnic Group and Mother Tongue (censuses of 1948-1977)


 1948
1956
1956
1966
1966
1977
1977
Population
by mother tongue
by mother tongue
by nationality
by mother tongue
by nationality
by nationality
by nationality mother tongue
Number in thousands
Romanian
13,598
15,081
14,996
16,771
16,747
19,004
19,207
Hungarian
1,500
1,654
1,588
1,652
1,620
1,707
1,671
German
344
395
383
388
383
359
332
Jewish
(Yiddish)
139
134
146
5
43
26
25
Gypsy
-
67
104
49
64
230
76
Other
292
258
270
238
246
233
248***
Total
15,873
17,489
17,489
19,103
19,103
21,559
21,559
In percentages
Romanian
85,7
86,2
85,7
87,8
87,7
88,1
89,1
Hungarian
9,4
9,5
9,1
8,6
8,5
7,9
7,8
German
2,2
2,2
2,2
2,0
2,0
1,7
1,5
Jewish
(Yiddish)
0,9
0,2
0,8
x
0,2
0,1
0,1
Cypsy
-
0,4
0,6
0,3
0,3
1,1
0,4
Other
1,8
1,5
1,6
1,3
1,3
1,1
1,1
Total
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0

* Based on preliminary census data.
** Based on definitive census data.
*** Of which: 44.875 were of "different tongues and nationalities." Source: Romanian statistical data published in Erdely tortenete [A History of Transylvania] (Budapest. 1986). Vol. 3. 1766.

The overwhelming majority of the people of Hungarian nationality lives on the territory annexed by Romania under the Treaty of Trianon, i.e., in Transylvania. Other major groups of Hungarians outside this region are in Bacau (Bako) county in Moldavia and in Bucharest. the capital of Romania.
The earliest Hungarian settlers in Moldavia are known as "Csango." This particular ethnic Hungarian community, separated long ago from the Szekelys[15] of Transylvania, has for centuries existed in Romanian surroundings outside the borders of the Hungarian state, east of the Carpathians. For historical and geographical reasons, this group of Hungarians is the most seriously endangered by Romania's policy of forced assimilation. They have been completely isolated from the outside world by the Romanian government. They have no Hungarian-language schools at present and were allowed virtually none in the past, with the exception of a very limited number in the period following World War II.[16] The Hungarians of Moldavia have remained faithful to Catholicism in a Romanian Orthodox sea. From the Middle Ages to the present, their religion has preserved their distinct identity. At the same time, however, their priests were unfamiliar with the Hungarian language. This contributed to a decline in the use of their mother tongue. In the 1600s the Vatican sent monks and priests who spoke Hungarian poorly or not at all, to the Hungarian-inhabited settlements of Moldavia. Later from the latter half of the 19th century the creation of the Kingdom of Romania and the growth of nationalism chhanged the situation of the Csangos from bad to worse. Romanian became the official state language and also the language of sermons and prayers in the Hungarian churches. The forced assimilation of the Csango Hungarians became a prelude to the anti-minority policies pursued by Romania following its expansion after the World War I. These policies have been implemented through a systematic campaign conducted with increasing ruthlessness to the present writing. Nearly all Moldavians Catholics are of Hungarian descent and their number far exceeds 100,000. Those whose mother tongue is still Hungarian, number about 70-80 thousand at the end of the 1980s.
The breakdown of the population by religious affiliation largely corresponds to the national groupings of Romania. The Hungarians are mostly Catholics and Calvinists, while others are Unitarians or belong to one of the smaller Protestant denominations. Table 2 presents the regional distribution of Hungarians, while Table 3 presents the distribution and numbers of their religious denominations.
The 1977 census showed 22% of the totaJ population of Transylvania to be Hungarian. Other nationalities inhabiting this region in substantial numbers are Germans (Saxons and Swabians), South Slavs, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Jews, and Gypsies. According to the 1977 census, the ethnic minorities comprise 29.1% of the total popu1ation of the region.
The estirnated Hungarian ratio of the total population of Transylvania today exceeds 24%. A large concentration of Hungarians live in some 500 communities in the Szekely region. The geographical expanse of this region coincides roughly with the adminstrative territory of the earlier Hungarian Autonomous Region. This Region had been formed in 1952 but was later dissolved in l960 through an administrative reorganization of Romania. Despite the new administrative limits - detrimental to the Hungarian minority - and continuous Romanian mass immigration into the area, the proportion of Hungarians in the populations of the two counties of Harghita (Hargita) and Covasna (Kovaszna) in the Szekely region still exceeds 80% and 70% respectively, while in Mures (Maros) county it is a little below 50%. Other important Hungarian-inhabited districts are located in the border zone with Hungary, mainly in Satu-Mare (Szatmar), Bihor (Bihar) and Arad and in the central counties of Cluj (Kolozs), and Salaj (Szilagy) in the northwestern part of Romania.

Table 2

Estimates of the Number of Hungarians in Romania by Major Hungarian-lnhabited Areas (1977 and 1987)


1977 1977 1987
Regional Area Census
Estimate
Estimate
Transylvania
1,651,000
1,850,000
2,030,000
Bacau county
4,000
80,000
70,000
Bucharest
8,000
100,000
100,000
Remaining parts of Romania
8,000
?
?
Total
1,671,000
2,030,000
2,200,000


Despite relatively dense senlement patterns, the Hungarian minority, under Romania's current system lacks any sort of economic and social autonomy. Subordination and overcentralization characterizes all aspects of life. The material bases of self-government and self-adrninistration, along with pertinent political conditions, were completely abolished in the 1950s. Furthermore, by the end of the 1970s, the methods of "war com munism" were introduced into economic management. Moreover, in recent years even the cultivation of household plots in villages has been subjected to central economic planning. In December 1981 an exceptionally severe "decree on labor discipline" was issued, and in January 1985 direct military administration was established in industrial concerns declared to be of "vital importance."


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