Bela K. Kiraly: The Hungarian Minority's Situation in Ceausescu's Romania

Romania - togelher with Albania - is the last state in Europe that has preserved most of the Stalinist traditions in its political process and govenunental structure. Romanian society remains in almost every detail, a totalitarian society, where the influence exercised by individuals and their various social units over public affairs is altogether insignificant.

In the late 1940s, a monolithic and centralized political structure emerged in the countries of Eastem and Central Europe. It liquidated all democratic institutions, elimixted opposition and established a monopoly of political control. The history of Romania, long-lasting Ottoman domination, Phanariot traditions and forced isolation from major European intellectual currents in modenn times, explains in part why a totalitarian dictatorship has been able to survive virtually intact. In fact, it has even set the foundations for the dynastic aspirations of the Ceausescu family over the past two decades. [42] Another reason for the survival of the Stalinist system is the ability of Romanlian leaders to exploit nationalism to legitimize their ends. This too is a refleclion of the country's historical legacy. This strategy first proved useful in foreign policy. Later, with the general devaluation of Romania's international standing, it has come to fill more and more of an internal function as a "substitute for democracy and economic well being."

Romania's present political system is thus a peculiar mixture of Stalinist dictatorship, traditional Byzantine and Balkan style despotism, and extreme chauvinism. Romania is simultaneously an autocratic and an ethnocentric state. Its present leaders justify the prevailing poverty and oppression less and less by referring to the ongoing needs of class struggle and more and more in temis of nationalistic aspirations. In line with fascist models, their ideology defines minorities and "foreigners" in general, as a source of danger. Thus, the minority becomes an alien scapegoat. The democratically oriented elements of the different natiomlities are prevented from coming together and joining forces in resistance because they are deliberately incited against each other. Divide and conquer is the tactic followed. The absence of individual and group rights, combined with police terror creates an atmosphere of fear and defenselessness. This state power penetrates all spheres of minority life.

The propagation of Romanian national supremacy and discrimination against minorities are complementary and logically related elements in nationalist ideology. In practice, however, during the past two decades the Romanian government has also made some tactial concessions to the minorities, including the Hungarians. (The rationale of this policy has been discussed above.) This was the case, for example, in the late 1960s when permission was given to set up a few minority institutions and organizations. A particularly promising development initially, from a political perspective, was the creation of the Hungarian Nationality Worker's Council - parallel with a German body bearing a similar name - as an "agency of interest representation." The members of this council were appointed by the goverment, usually by dint of a party resolution rather than through legal channels. During the first few years, in line with expectations, the Council discussed important matters of real concern to the minorities. In 1971, however, its representative role was eliminated. The Council did not meet for three years and its leading officials were dismissed. The members ousted from its leadership included the noted representatives of Hungarian intellectual life, such as Andras Suto, Geza Domokos, Edgar Balogh and Jozsef Meliusz. They were replaced by persons who had already established their subservience to the govemment's policy but who did not have either the minority's support nor did they have its interests at heart.[43]

To this day the Council does not have its own charter, does not have membership, and lacks an administrative arm. It convenes only on rare occasions. Initially, it met once a year; later, only sporadically, at widely spaced intervals and exclusively in connection with intemational developments. It is a typical front organization of the Stalinist-type political system. Its meetings are conducted in Romanian and only serve a demonstrative purpose. Moreover, in the Romanian-Hungarian interstate disputes of the past few years, the Romanian goventment has assigned the Council the disgraceful function of representing the official nationalist Romanian position concerning Hungary. [44] In its meetings, the desigmted speakers often have to read texts prepared for them. Those who are reluctant to do so, as happened, for example, afler the Council meeting held in early 1987 are called to account at their workplace or before the authorities. [45]

The Hungarians of Transylvania are not represented in the leading policy-rnaking bodies of the party. Those of Hungarian nationality who do occupy highly visible posts, e.g., Janos Fazekas and Mihaly Gere, live in complete isolation from the Hungarian community and do not appear formally on the political stage as persons of Hungarian nationality. Mihaly Gere's name, for example, appears in the Romanian press as "Mihai Ghere," the Romanianized variant of his name. Neither their former national community nor the secretary-general of the party who nominated them to their posts. regard these individuals as representatives of the Hungarian minority.

Those individuals who do exhibit real potential for representing the interests of their minority have all been gradually removed from leading party and government positions. In 1987, Jozsef Szasz was relieved of his post as party secretary in Harghita county, which is 80% Hungarian. He was replaced by an ethnic Romanian, Aurel Costea, while Szasz was transferred to Romanian-inhabited Turnu-Severin. Of all the regions inhabited by Hungarians, the party organization of Covasna county alone still has a first secretary bearing a Hungarian name, Istvan Rab. However, he too, rates as being of Romanian mtionality since in his home he communicates in Romanian with his own family. During the present decade, the number of persons of Hungarian nationality has been drastically reduced in the leading posts of the organs of central or local public administration. There are no cabinet ministers of Hungarian nationality, although three deputy ministers are still Hungarian.

In 1977, Karoly Kiraly wrote a public letter to the meeting of the CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) concerbing the intolerable conditions of existence of the Hungarian minority. Kiraly's voice was heard because he had been a Hungarian who occupied important political posts in Romania during the early 1970s. Subsequently he has been subjected to relentless persecution and harassment. In his 1977 letter he pointed out, among other things, taha the ethnic composition of the Grand Natioml Assembly (Romania's parliament) was not a true reflection of the countly's actual ethnic profile. Since Kiraly's letter the underrepresentation of minorities has become even more pronounced.[46]

The armed forces (army, police, and state security service) are all traditioml bastions of Romanian nationalism. The minorities are systematically excluded from leadership or even membership in them. By the middle of the 1980s, all officers of ethnic minority origin had been re moved from posts of military leadership. The dismissal of lower-echelon officers is now in progress. Among senior officers of the para-military formations (Patriotic Guards, Homeland Falcons), which had been set up as organzations for civilian policing or education in the militarist and nationalist spirit, it is virtually impossible to find persons of minority origin even in those parts of the country largely inhabited by a minority population.

The state security service, Securitate, employs minority members only as subordinate agents and informers, but reserves upper echelons exclusively for "pure" Romanians. Only ethnic Rormanians are considered loyal to the regime. The secret police play a particularly important role in the implementation of anti-minority policies. They intimidate noted personalities belonging to the minorities, employing drastic and unconstitutional means, including unlawful house searches and interrogations, which are frequent occurrences. In recent years, even criminal measures have been employed, disguised as accidents and suicides.

An additional important "responsibility" of the Romanian secret service is to spread false information in the West concerning the situation of minorities in Romania. Besides dissemination of such information and related disinformation activities, its agents attempt to obstruct resolutions condemning Romania at international forums, and hinder the cooperative efforts of democratic forces in the Romanian and Hungarian emigre communities with respect to the minorities. [47] In these activities, the Romanian government has successfully established close links with the Iron Guard [48] and other emigrant organizations of the extreme right.

There is a strong ideological affinity binding today's Romanian tota1itarian regime with the earlier Iron Guard traditions as well as with contemporary intellectual trends among extreme right Romanian emigrants. A common element of their intellectual consensus is the claim that the Romanians are an ancient nation dating back thousands of years. Furthermore their civilization is superior to those of the peoples surrounding them. This view is a vulgarized version, hardened into political dogma, of the much debated Daco-Roman theory postulating a "Romanian" presence and continuity in the region. The theory dates back to the beginning of the Transylvanian Romanian national movement, and arose initially as an ideology of Romanian national aspirations in the face of Hungarian national supremacy. Today, however, it is directed mainly against the minorities, above all, against the Hungarians. [49]

The present image of Hungarians is a direct consequence of this official Romanian ideology. According to the government's official distortion, the Hungarian people arrived on Romanian soil as a conquering barbarian horde of Mongolian origin, who migrated to Transylvania in the ninth century. There they subjugated the indigenous Romanian population, a people who had originated from the intermixing of Dacians and Romans. The invaders took over many of the subjugated people's institutions and, during the thousand years that followed the conquest, they oppressed the Romanians and attempted to Hungarianize them.

In accordance with this interpretation, the Hungarians are said to have inherited their ancestor's arrogant, impetuous, and quarrelsome nature. Their present efforts to protect their cultural rights is seen as an endeavor to restore their Transylvanian dominance. They are accused of seeking more rights for themselves than the Romanians enjoy in their own ancestral lands. In their souls they are believed to secretly harbor revisionist, irredentist, and even fascist sentiments, although outwardly they pretend to be gentle and upright people. They speak of friendship, all the while waiting for their chance to take bloody revenge on the Romanians, thereby repeating their fomier atrocities. This is why their very presence constitutes a threat to present-day Romania. No matter where they may happen to be, Hungarian Transylvanians are believed to possess character traits and ambitions in common with their relatives and other co-natiolials across the border. For this reason, all contacts between them are regarded as suspicious and potentially threatening.

The above allegations varied in form and detail are constantly elaborated upon and expanded. More and more space and time is devoted to this anti-Hungarianism in Romanian journalism and literature, in an ideologized form of historiography, and in the curriculum of public education.

This anti-minority propaganda is poisoning majority-minority relations. Frequent repetition enhances the authenticity of any allegation, especially if it appeals to the vanity of the majoriy population to which it is addressed. Its acceptance is also facilitated by the anti-Hungarian legacy in the writtngs of a few formerly renowned Romanian persomlities, writing in a substnltially different ideological context. It is also conversely thrue that, since the period of national awakening, certain Hungarian cultural and political figures have similarly entertained false notions about Romanians, notions prompted by actual territorial disputes and social conflicts.

The basic problem today is that a large part of the Romanian population passively accepts the distortions based on the prevailing national ideology. The main responsibility for propagating this ideology rests with the statemonopolized information service, which makes it virtually irnpossible for Romanian citizens to become exposed to different views and ideas, whether originating from Romanian or Hungarian sources or from others.

The fact of the matter is that for many generations now people of different languages and denominations have been living together on Transylvanian soil. They have developed many positive forms of coexistence over the centuries. During the course of the last two centuries the development of modern nationalism has put Hungarian and Romanian ideologies on a collision course precisely over the question of territorial rights. In the tragic conflicts of the l9th and 20th centuries, both Hungarians and Romanians have experienced discrimination and deprivation of rights.

Under Ceausescu the exclusivist ideology of Romanian nationalism enjoys the full support of a totalitarian state power. In spite of this, some of the traditioml Transylvanian tolerance has survived in everyday life and in many fields of human contact. Manifestations of the rudiments of human solidarity are still visible, especially in relations between those Romanians and Hungarians wbose fathers and grandfathers lived side by side within the same community.

On the level of individual contact, people of different nationalities frequently help one another and cooperate in maintaining relations between colleagues. neighbors, and friends, e.g., in procuring some of the basic necessities of life difficult to obtain in Ceausescu's Romania. In more direct personal contacts, but exclusively in private, opposition is also voiced to the regime of oppression imposed upon everyone.[50]

Personal experience clearly demonstrates that anti-Hungarian instigation least affects farmers of purely Romanian districts, who exhibit traditional Romanian hospitality and politeness towards foreigners The indigenous Romanian population of Transylvanian towns formerly largely-inhabited by Hungarians, are likewise difficult to incite, as they are the people who have had the most contacts with Hungarians and possess direct experiences with the Hungarian people and their culture.

The xenophobic agitation exerts the strongest impact on those people who have been moved from Romanian villages into Hungarian-inhabited towns or who have recently migrated to Transylvania from the Old Kingdom[51] of Romania. These newcomers are the ones who are the most inclined, for reasons of livelihood, to assume the pose of privileged autochthonous inhabitants. Also strongly affected by anti-Hungarian propaganda are those young people who have recently lefl school and have been raised in an atmosphere of overt chauvinism. We find among the latter those who disparage, menace, and sometimes even assault, as has happened on a number of occasions in recent years, members of ethnic minorities because they forget that they "eat Romanian bread" and dare to speak Hugarian in the street and on public vehicles. [52]

In such an athmosphere it is extremely difficult lo exchange words openly or even in private with Romanians concerning the situation of the Hungarian minority. The subject is taboo. Whenever the issue is raised, the Romanian response is generally confined to a rationalizing approach, with the reply that "we are all in the same boat "

Cautious answers or silence may signify either understanding or compassion which many do not dare to express. Public expressions of compassion or understanding would be tantamount to high treason. Only if a real democratic political system, which allowed for differing opinions and interests, were to be established in Romania would it be possible to find out who in fact nurses solidarity with the oppressed ethnic minorities living within the country.

Such a change may also enable members of the Hungarian minority to discover their real friends in the process of solving common problems. It will be primarily up to Romanian democratic forces to ensure that the jointly hoped for change, when it takes place. does not lead to the shattering of yet another illusion. The Hungarian and other minorities hope that democracy will bring about the long-awaited self-govenunent and equality of rights of all peoples.

From the late 1940s onwards the Hungarians of Transylvania have not had, nor could they legally have, any independelin nd democratic organizations for the expression and realization of their interests. No personal opinions could be voiced at public forums concerning their situation. Over the past four decades, the resistance or protest of one or another noted intellectual (priest, poet, teacher) has found expression either in the theological exposition of some sermon or in the metaphor of a poem, and in tragic cases has even taken the form of protest suicides. The complete hopelessness and helplessness generated by the forced merger of the Hungarian university in Cluj with the local Romanian university, led to the Hungarian professors and student leaders - Laszlo Szabedi, Zoltan Csendes and his wife, and Sandor Toth - to take their own lives. [53]

The second half of the 1970s witnessed the politization of Hungarian minority resistance to persecution and discrimination. There were some like Gyorgy Lazar. a pseudonym, and others like Lajos Takats, a former rector of the Hungarian university in Cluj, or Karoly Kiraly. a public figure and former member of the Central Comminee of the Romanian Communist party who published memoranda, open letters, and situation reports in the Western press. [54] Prior to their publication, they also forwarded these protests to the party and government organs of Romania and to international human rights organizations.

In Romania today, the espousal of minority, human, and religious rights involves tremendous risks. The machinery of Romanian state terrorism and its brutal methods of intimidation and silencing have been publicized worldwide by the repons of Amnesty Interntional; by witnesses testifying at U.S. congressional hearings dealing with the granting of most-favored-nation status: by annual repons on human rights prepared by the U.S. State Depanment. and by documentary accounts published by Ion Mihai Pacepa, a Romanian general of the state-security service who defected to the West. [55]

The beginning of the 1980s saw a number of young Transylvanian intellectuals (Attila Ara-Kovacs, Geza Szocs, Karoly Antal Toth, and others) start a Hungarian underground infomiation bulletin entitled Ellenpontok (Counterpoints). Only nine issues appeared before its authors were arrested and expelled from Romania. These expellees moved to Hungary and other states further to the West. The short-lived Ellenpontok followed by the establisment of the Hungarian Press of Transylvania. an underground news bulletin reporting on the sintuatin of the Huligarian minority in Romania and the growing number of protest activities, including the appearance of a new samizdat publication, called Kialto Szo (Anguished Cry), all indicate a more active stage in the resistance of the minority. These actions have occurred in response to the rapid deterioration of the situation in Rornania and the government's policy goa1 aimed at the total cultural annihilation of all minorities.

Bela K. Kiraly: The Hungarian Minority's Situation in Ceausescu's Romania