Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary

In the previous chapter we saw that on the eve of Hungary's millennium in 1895, Serbian, Slovakian and Rumanian minorities gathered at the Congress of Nationalities and vowed to help maintain the integrity of the "lands belonging to Saint István's Crown."

In June the next year, however, another kind of meeting was held in Vienna under the auspices or the Austrian Christian Socialist Party. This meeting was attended by several minority leaders and chaired by Karl Lueger, the extremely popular Mayor of Vienna, in the Svoboda (the Slavic word for "freedom") Auditorium, The participants passed a resolution which not only denounced the millennial festivities, but also expressed sympathy for all non-Magyar nationalities in Hungary suffering under "Jewish Magyar suppression." The resolution encouraged the minorities to persevere in their fight for a "just cause" which they felt would ultimately prevail.

Mayor Lueger was idolized by no less a personality than Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne. Ferdinand's ideas concerning the future of the Monarchy were almost diametrically opposed to those of Franz Joseph: whereas the Emperor-King did not discriminate against any of the peoples of the Monarchy, his heir hated the Magyars and the Jews.

Franz Ferdinand-the Hungarophobe

About the Magyars Franz Ferdinand once remarked sarcastically: "It was an act of bad taste on the part of these gentlemen ever to have come to Europe." As a further expression of his aversion to the land and its people, the Archduke ordered the curtains in his royal Pullman wagon to be drawn whenever he traveled through Hungary.

In contrast to the uncomplicated Franz Joseph, Franz Ferdinand had a complex personality: explosive in temperament, full of ambition, iron-willed, suspicious and frustrated by having to wait year after year for the death of his long-lived uncle, the Emperor In preparation for his own rule, Franz Ferdinand surrounded himself with a braintrust to draw blueprints for the transformation of the Monarchy. One member of this circle, Karl Lueger his prospective Foreign Minister, was a charismatic leader whose whipping horse happened to be "the greedy and grasping Magyar politicians" who were "the tools of Jews and capitalists."

Among Lueger's admirers was a then-obscure young man named Adolf Hitler, who in his autobiography extolled Lueger as "the greatest German mayor of all times," and "the last great German to emerge from the colonizing people of the Ostmark... a statesman greater than all the so-called diplomats of that period put together"

Franz Ferdinand intended to postpone his coronation as King of Hungary until the constitution had been remodeled, lest the oath of coronation prevent him from carrying out his grand design. Ferdinand's plan entailed the virtual division of historic Hungary into four parts, by force if need be. "It seems to me that Hungary has to be subjugated by the sword once every century, " he said in 1895. "I don't see how can we avoid this necessity... I shall find ways and means to wipe present-day Hungary off the map.

One of the best known exponents of such a reorganization was the Rumanian Aurel Popovici, who in his work written in l906, Die Vereinigten Staaten von Gross Österreich (The United States of Great Austria) advocated the division of the Habsburg Empire into fifteen autonomous units. According to this plan, each unit would have a legislature of its own for purely local matters while delegates would be sent to a central Parliament. Each autonomous unit would be allowed to choose its own official language, but German would serve as the common language of the army. Seats in the projected federal Parliament would be distributed as follows: Germans, 10; Yugoslavs, 5; Magyars, 8; Italians, 2; Poles and Ruthenians, 3 each; Czechs, 5; Slovaks, 2; and Rumanians, 4.

In this federation, the Rumanians of Transylvania would have been the biggest winners, since they would have had half as many votes in the Parliament as the Magyars in all of Hungary. As R.W. Seton-Watson in his Histoire des Roumains wrote:

The underlying motivation for favoring the Rumanians was Franz Ferdinand's idea of transferring Transylvania to the newly formed Rumanian Kingdom

(Wallachia and Moldavia), by this gesture enticing Rumania to join the Habsburg Empire as a new member of a planned federation.

The project was widely criticized, but it was the Magyars who reacted to it most vehemently, since it advocated the dismemberment of historic Hungary. Count István Tisza represented Magyar opinion when he said:

The Hungarian nation cannot abandon its right to stand on equal terms with all the other states united under the scepter of the common sovereign, and it can-not allow itself to be placed in a position of being outvoted by the others. It cannot surrender the constitutional rights which it has acquired at the cost of centuries filled with bloody combats; and it cannot permit itself to sink to the status of a province in an enlarged empire which would wield the supreme authority.

The Theory of Daco-Roman Continuity

At this time, Rumanian nationalism was fueled by a relatively new historical theory which gradually assumed a character of mythical force carrying the dream of Rumanian greatness toward realization.

At that time, theology students were sent by Magyar bishops to Rome where they came under the spell of classic Latin civilization. Two Uniate (Greek-Catholic) theologians studying at a college in Rome, Gheorghe Sincai and Samuel Micu Klein (Klein later became a bishop) found the similarity between Latin-Italian and Wallachian (Rumanian) to be thought-provoking. When they returned to Transylvania they developed the theory that the Wallachians were the descendants of the Romans who had settled in Transylvania during the second and third centuries. (The Emperor Trajan occupied Transylvania and made it a Roman colony in A.D. 106.)

The Romans evacuated the colony in 275, but, according to the new theory, the settlers who formed the civilian population remained behind and intermarried with the aboriginal Dacian inhabitants. Though much diminished in numbers during the ensuing centuries, they survived successive barbarian invasion by withdrawing to the high hills of the Carpathians. When the Hungarians arrived - so the theory goes - these settlers made an alliance with them to remain on equal terms. Later they lost this state of equality and became "second-class citizens" in Transylvania, the cradle of their race, despite the fact that they had the right of prior tempore and the Magyars were mere intruders.

The first political claims set up on this basis were embodied in the Supplex Libellus Valachorum of 1791, the "Declaration of Rights" of Rumanian nationalism.

At first, the Magyars refused to take the Daco-Roman theory seriously, regarding it as a myth without historical foundation. Later they brought up the following counter-arguments:

* The name "Romania or Romanians" never existed prior to l861. They always called themselves "Wallachs or Wallachian , as did other nations.

* There is no trace of Daco-Roman civilization in Transylvania: no roads, no remnants of cities, no archeological evidence pointing to a Daco-Roman continuity.

The Rumanians cannot bring proof of their existence for almost a thousand year period between 275 A.D. when the Romans departed and 1200. when their appearance in Hungary (Transylvania) is first mentioned. Such a national "hibernation" never occurred throughout history. A nation can not go into hiding for centuries, while in the meantime other nations conduct wars and build empires in their immediate vicinity.

* If the Wallachians had in fact been living in Transylvania since Roman times, why does the Rumanian language show affinity to Albanian? In addition to containing hundreds of words of Albanian origin, Rumanian is similar to Albanian in phonology and morphology.

* In claiming Latin ancestry, the Rumanians are omitting the fact that they had adopted the Latin alphabet only in the last century.

If the Wallachians were the original inhabitants of Transylvania, the Hungarian language should contain many Wallachian loan-words. Yet, there are few Wallachian derivatives in Hungarian, and Rumanian - even the version spoken in the old kingdom beyond the Carpathians - contains about 400 Hungarian loan-words.

If the Wallachians had been the original inhabitants of Transylvania, the names of towns and villages, rivers and mountains in the territory should have Rumanian roots. But just the opposite is the case. Documents dating to the end of the 13th century mention 511 place names related to Transylvania. Of these only three had Roman (Wallachian) names, in contrast to 428 names of Hungarian origin. In later centuries, the number of Wallachian place names gradually increased as the Wallachians moved in from the Balkans.

According to Magyar historians and many of their foreign colleagues, the ancestors of the Wallachian people were actually a neo-Latin tribe which was formed by the "Latinization" of the former Illyrian-Trachian tribes in the immediate neighborhood of the Albanian territory during the second to seventh centuries A.D. When they left that area and migrated187

to present-day Rumania, they picked up thousands of Slavic words. Rumanian, in addition to 2600 words of Latin origin, contains 3800 words of Slavic origin. In the beginning of the 19th century, 31% of the Rumanian vocabulary showed Slavic roots.

The literature on this dispute has been growing since the beginning of this century and, the refutation notwithstanding, the Daco-Roman theory has found acceptance in the majority of history books in the West as a by-product of the intensive anti-Magyar propaganda before and during World War I. The Magyars are outclassed in the art of propaganda by the Rumanians, and even more so by the Czechs, who brought this political tool to perfection.

Once a theory, correct or not, becomes a national myth, it remains immaterial whether it is based on truth or falsehood, - the important point is that it fulfills its role by nurturing national spirit. Daco-Romanism has been spread so assiduously in Rumania and abroad that it has become deeply rooted in national pride. Rumanian public opinion clings to it with ever-increasing fervor. Further this theory has recently evolved into a new "super myth" which holds that the Rumanian nation is actually 2050 years old.

The Daco-Roman idea was so widely propagated after the Compromise in 1867 that it impressed even Crown Prince Rudolph. Mór Jókai noted in his memoirs that while he was working with the Crown Prince on a monumental 24-volume history on the peoples of the Monarchy to commemorate the millennium, Rudolph included the Daco-Roman theory in the chapter written about the Rumanians. Jókai, whose docile attitude toward the Court otherwise was well known, vehemently protested this inclusion. The Crown Prince, trying to pacify him, replied: "It would make the Rumanians happy while causing no damage to Hungarian interests at all." It goes without saying that Rudolph's opinion prevailed, - although, in retrospect, he was dead wrong about the Daco-Roman theory's effect on the Magyars.

The Vision of a "Great Rumania"

After the Congress of Berlin (1878), attended by the great European powers, Rumania gained the status of a kingdom ruled by a German Hohenzollern king. This recognition gave new impetus to the Daco-Rumanian idea, whose adherents began to see their fledgling state as the kernel of a future "Great Rumania." Prompted by such a vision, an irredentist campaign was launched, secretly supported by the Rumanians of Transylvania. Sensing the sympathy of

Franz Ferdinand, Rumanian representatives compiled a memorandum in 1892 listing their grievances against the Magyars. They attempted to circumvent the Hungarian government by submitting the memorandum to Franz Joseph himself. But the Monarch declined to receive the petition and the Austrian ministry subsequently sent it to Budapest. In the meantime, however, the petition had been translated into seven languages and thousands of copies distributed in foreign capitals.

Twenty-eight of those who supported this action were arrested on charges "of inciting against the Magyar nationality," and put on trial in Kolozsvár (present-day Cluj-Napoca). The men were sentenced to prison terms. The real price for the trial, however, was paid by Budapest which was pilloried by the foreign press for its Magyarization policy. In Rumania this so called "Memorandum Trial" triggered an even stronger irredenta movement for which the League for Cultural Unity for All Rumanians (Liga Culturala) acted as a catalyst. Focusing on the Rumanians' claim to Transylvania. Daco-Roman agitation and indoctrination reached a fever pitch in the educational institutions of the Rumanian kingdom. The Rumanian government itself however, officially remained on friendly terms with its formal ally, the Monarchy

All the while, Transylvanian Rumanian representatives had been holding seats in the Hungarian Parliament. Later in 1930, one of these representatives, M. Juliu Maniu, the leader of the National Rumanian Peasant Party, revealed how in 1893, while he was still a student, he had left the following written oath at the Rumanian General Staff in Bucharest:

I swear to God and on my conscience and honor that I shall devote my life to the Rumanian cause and that I shall take part in the revolt that we are preparing.

Another former member of the Parliament, Theodore Mihali, wrote:

...Bucharest was aware of our aspirations, our discomfiture, our possibilities. At decisive moments it was Bucharest which guided our actions. Our relations with Bucharest were not of a private nature but part of the Party's political tactics. In the course of fifteen years I was given an audience by the King in Bucharest twenty-two times and His Majesty often expressed to me his conviction that the day would come when Rumania would annex Transylvania.

Since 1883 Rumania had been a member of the Triple Alliance, and that was her status when World War I broke out...

Admirable Flexibility or Contemptible Duplicity?

The great conflagration did not break out unexpectedly. The fuses had been burning slowly, especially in the Balkan peninsula, which had been the scene of short wars from 1912 to 1913. These were fought by the so-called Balkan League (Alliance), brought into being with Russian support and the participation of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro. For Russia, the Balkan League was a diplomatic master-stroke. It blocked further inroads into the Balkans by the Monarchy, and drove the Turks, who were hostile to Russia, out from the peninsula.

In 1912-13, the troops of the League jointly attacked Turkey and occupied a large part of her European territory. When it came to dividing the spoils, the victor states fell to quarreling over the distribution of the conquered territory. At this juncture, Rumania, a non-member and non-belligerent, suddenly also put in a claim for compensation as a reward for standing on the sidelines, that is, not attacking the Bulgarians from the rear while they were fighting the Turks.

Rumania, envious of enlarged Bulgaria, demanded that southern Dobrudja, a part of Bulgaria, be handed over to her. When a new war broke out between Serbia and Bulgaria over the spoils, Rumania attacked weakened Bulgaria, which was compelled to sue for peace after only a month of fighting. Needless to say, in the subsequent Treaty of Bucharest concluded in August of 1913, Rumania became the happy new master of southern Dobrudja.

The treaty also strengthened Serbia, Russia's primary protégé. Russia's main antagonist was the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which was anxious to prevent a Russo-Slavic takeover of the Balkans.

Rumania's effortless annexation of southern Dobrudja marked her as the real winner of the Balkan war. This was only the beginning of a series of diplomatic maneuvers that was nothing short of phenomenal. Whether one views Rumanian diplomacy as admirably astute and flexible, or, as its foes believe, as deceitful and hypocritical, the Rumanians have, indeed, shown a remarkable ability to end up on the winning side of an issue since their state was founded in 1878. What is more, the Rumanians loyalty - or lack of loyalty, as the case may be - has invariably resulted in new acquisitions of territories. In contrast, the inflexible Magyars, who stuck with their allies to the end, usually wound up on the loser's side.

A Policy of Wait-and-See

Rumania's attitude during the Balkan War was crucial to both Russia and Vienna, and each curried her favor. In secret negotiations, Rumania was able to elicit promises of support from both Vienna and Russia for her claims on Transylvania. Vienna's envoy at that time was Czernin, the confidant of Franz Ferdinand, who wanted Rumania to join the

Monarchy in return for which he was quite willing to reward her with Transylvania.

The Balkan War was barely over when on December 25, 1913 the newspaper Novoje Vremja in St. Petersburg revealed the existence of still another secret agreement. This one between Rumania and Serbia, was signed by their respective prime ministers, Maiorescu and Pasic. The agreement. reached in the presence of the chairmen of both joint chief of staffs (Avarescu and Putnik), intended to detach territories from Hungary and give them to Rumania anti Serbia.

When Rumania's leadership changed hands in January, 1914, the new Premier, the Russophile Ion Bratianu, held a long and secret conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov, described by Arthur J. May in his book, The Habsburg Monarchy:

...Sazonov promised Transylvania to Bratianu if Rumania would align herself with Russia, and he returned to St. Petersburg with the conviction that if a Russo-Austrian war broke out Rumania would side with the belligerent that seemed likely to be the victor and promised her the larger territorial advantages. At the very time that the Russians were ardently wooing Rumania, French publicists, André Tardieu for one, were busy in Bucharest cultivating pro-Entente sympathies.

On the other hand, Bratianu's minister, Filipescu, told Hungary's Premier Tisza that if the Hungarian government refused Bucharest's demands regarding Transylvania, the Rumanians would not fight for the Triple Alliance, of which Rumania was a member. But when Filipescu talked to Czernin, the Austrian ambassador to Bucharest, he intimated that Rumania would like to join the Monarchy. At the same time, Filipescu asked the German ambassador to apply pressure on Vienna so that it would persuade Budapest to accept Rumanian claims.

As complicated as these maneuvers were, they were still only preludes to Rumanian diplomatic juggling acts in the years to come.

One of the participants in these acts was the French André Tardieu, the foreign policy editor of the Temps in Paris, who, when delivering a lecture in Bucharest, pointed toward Transylvania and called it the "Alsace Lorraine" of Rumania. Only after the war ended, did Russian Foreign Minister Isvolszky's correspondence reveal that Tardieu's writings had been "suggested" by the Russian embassy in Paris.

Tardieu had only pointed toward Transylvania, but the Russians did more. On June 14, 1914, the Russian yacht Standart, bearing Tsar Nicholas and his family, laid anchor at the Rumanian port of Constanza where they were greeted by King Carol and his family. Two days later, the Russian Foreign Minister. accompanied by Bratianu. entered Hungary and visited Brasso in Transylvania without the advance knowledge of the Hungarian government. It was a serious breach of diplomatic protocol. During this visit the Russians again promised that if Rumania would leave the Triple Alliance and join the Russian side, she could have Transylvania.

On June 24, Sazonov reported to Tsar Nicholas that Rumania would side with Russia and would allow Russian troops to cross Rumania to help Serbia should a conflict with the Monarchy arise, although none was in sight. But the Russians must have known something, the rest of the world did not know, because Hartwig, their ambassador in Belgrade, persuaded the old and sickly King Peter of Serbia to abdicate his throne in favor of the young Crown Prince Alexander on June 24, 1914.

Only a casus belli (reason for war) was needed to touch off war in the vulnerable South. The excuse was provided by the shots fired by Princip in Sarajevo, killing Franz Ferdinand and his wife on June 28, 1914. It was later discovered that the assassinations were the work of Serbian conspirators indirectly supported by the Russians.

Fence-Sitting Ends with a Fall - and a Rise

In the month-long diplomatic maneuvering that preceded the actual outbreak of war, Rumania's position was an enigmatic one. Bratianu balked at fulfilling his promise to come out openly on the Russian's side; in Hungary, Tisza discounted Rumania as an active ally, characterizing its leaders as fence-sitting opportunists.

Tisza's opinion proved to be correct. When Russian troops were victoriously advancing toward Hungary in the fall of 1914, Rumania signed a secret agreement with Russia which promised all Hungarian territories inhabited by Rumanians to Rumania. Since in 1915 Rumania still formally belonged to the Triple Alliance (Central Powers). she virtually' became the non-fighting ally of both belligerent parties at the same time.

Rumania actively entered the war only in 1916 when the great Russian offensive led by General Brussilov broke through the still unfortified Carpathians. The Russians captured 300,000 prisoners, and it seemed that they would win a quick victory against the Monarchy. Although officially still an ally of the Monarchy, Rumania declared war on the Central Powers in August, 1916, and promptly attacked defenseless Transylvania. She did this after receiving assurances from the Allied Powers in a secret pact signed in Bucharest, in addition to the Russian promise, that she would be given Transylvania, the South Hungarian Province of Bánát, and a good portion of the central Hungarian Lowlands as a reward for entering the war. "The Allies were able to buy her

over at a perfectly scandalous price." Professor Macartney later remarked in his book Hungary and Her Successors. The deal with Rumania included a proviso, however, that Rumania must not make a separate peace with the Central Powers,' if she did, the ''reward" offer would he considered null and void.

Rumania's active participation in the war, however, was short-lived. The Russians were driven back from Hungary, and after three months of fighting, Rumania's forces were expelled from Transylvania. On December 6, 1916, Bucharest fell, signalling the end of Rumania's role in the war. In spite of her promise to the contrary, she concluded a separate peace with the Monarchy in 1918, apparently forfeiting the territorial rewards the Allies had promised.

But for the Rumanians, the war of words had just begun. What Bucharest had lost on the battlefield, she would regain through a campaign of diplomacy and propaganda launched in the capitals of the Entente powers and supported by the Czechs, Masaryk and Benes. Rumania's ingenuity in defeat seemed to know no bounds. When Russia, a member of the Allied Powers and consequently Rumania's ally, collapsed, Rumania hastened to occupy Bessarabia.

But the grandest prize of all was won after the Central Powers were defeated: Rumania was able to enrich herself with territories taken from Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, including Transylvania, the main object of her ambitions. Not even the most sanguine Rumanian optimist would have dared hope in 1914 that his country would be able to annex territories from both her allies and her enemies (also former allies) - and that all these gains would be the result of only three months of fighting that had ended in defeat, after having made a separate peace with the Central Powers, an act that was to have disqualified her from any gain.

But the Rumanian King Ferdinand's promise to his people in 1914 to make Rumania profit from the war was kept beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and the deeds of that country during those years were perhaps the ultimate application of the principle: "To maneuver is to live."

A Repeat Performance

Twenty years later during World War II - whose origin lay in errors committed by the victors after World War I - Rumania delivered an astonishing "repeat performance" of her remarkable diplomatic maneuverability.

At the outbreak of World War II, Rumania had been a French ally and also had a defense alliance with the Poles. When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939,. she conveniently ignored her commitments there and she abandoned the Anglo-French guarantee on the very day France surrendered to the Germans at Compiegne in June, 1940. Instead, Bucharest sought protection at Hitler's side. By that time. however, a secret German-Russian agreement existed on the basis of which the Soviet Union demanded. and got back, Bessarabia from Rumania. The Hungarians refused Stalin's offer to carve Transylvania from Rumania by force, and pressed instead for a peaceful transfer. Bucharest, feeling cornered. asked for German-Italian arbitration, which restored about forty percent of Transylvania to Hungary.

The solution was regarded by everyone as temporary. Hitler used it as bait for both the Rumanians - to whom he promised restoration of northern Transylvania if they would act as loyal allies - and the Hungarians, to whom he also promised southern Transylvania if they would follow the Germans to "final victory."

Of the two, Bucharest proved to be Germany's more eager partner. The new alliance brought Rumania immediate benefit: she reappropriated Bukovina and Bessarabia from the retreating Russians. Later, Rumania sacrificed a hecatomb of her sons in the siege of Stalingrad. But when the Red Army bounced back and reached Rumania's borders, her government resorted to time-proven Rumanian tactics: On August 23, 1944, Bucharest suddenly switched sides, and declared war on her allies. The Rumanians regained northern Transylvania with the help of Soviet troops, descending on its Hungarian population with such a vengeance that finally Stalin had to intervene to stop the bloodbath. The atrocities of the returning Rumanian troops and guerilla bands were such that the Red Army itself expelled the Rumanian administration from the region and established a Russian military government.

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1947 the United States State Department favored returning some of northern Transylvania to Hungary,. but the Russians vetoed the plan because Rumania was already in the Soviet orbit, while Hungary was still resisting a Communist takeover. (See the chapter Glory in Defeat.)

The "Art" of Multiple-Dealing

Decades have passed since that "repeat performance." During the years between 1965 and 1989 Rumania was led by Nicolae Ceausescu, whose regime engaged in Stalinist violations of human rights on a tremendous scale. These violations included a policy of cultural genocide aimed at the 2.5 million ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania. In foreign policy, however, Rumania sometimes took a stand seemingly independent from the Soviet Union - an attitude that found favor in the West to

the point that the United States granted it "most favored nation" (MFN) trading status.

One intriguing instance of such independence was Rumania's dealing with Israel. The only Warsaw Pact country that refused to break off diplomatic relations with Israel after the Arab-Israeli war in 1967, Rumania also allowed Rumanian Jews to emigrate to Israel. Further, Ceausescu promised not to persecute those Jews remaining in his country, if' in turn, Israel would help create a favorable atmosphere for Rumanian diplomacy in America.

In the following years, Ceausescu's calculation paid off handsomely. Not only did this policy bring in a steady flow of cash, Israel reportedly paid up to $ 7,000 for every Jew allowed to emigrate to Israel, but it also enhanced his personal prestige in the West. He was showered with a multitude of medals and honorary titles during his visits in foreign capitals including Washington, London and Paris.

Among the special favors granted to Rumania by the US was in 1976 a shipment of a test atomic reactor fueled with several bombs' worth of enriched uranium. Details of this deal came to light only in the February 5, 1990 issue of the New York Times. The Rumanians themselves hinted at this nuclear "ado" in their hands at a meeting of the Warsaw Pact countries held in Bucharest in the summer of 1989: a Rumanian general boasted in a veiled threat aimed at Hungary that his country was capable of producing nuclear weapons and medium range rockets for their delivery. This sabre-rattling prompted Hungary to issue a strong diplomatic protest (New York Times, p. 3., July 11, 1989).

Ceausescu's clever diplomatic manipulations, whereby he managed to maintain friendly relations with both Israel and her Arab enemies, with the United States, the Soviet Union and even the Kremlin's adversary, Red China-overshadowed his

internal persecution of Hungarians. For decades the efforts of Western human rights organizations to have Rumania condemned and the persecutions stopped remained therefore exercises in futility.

An Unprecedented Personal Cult

Meanwhile, at home Ceausescu developed a bizarre personality cult seeing himself as the embodiment of the ideals of communism. The Conducator basked in such honorifics as "The Genius of the Carpathians," "A Giant among giants," "Chosen Titan among titans," - adjectives coined by his bootlickers. His official portrait showed him holding a sceptre, while "court" poets penned him tributes borrowing religious images to deify him as the "Chosen One." He staged vast, open-air festivals in his own honor with children's' choruses singing him hymns of praise.

Abroad, the Dec. 10, 1982 issue of the Paris Match featured him as "Caesar of the Danube," a "Rumanian Nero" with his wife, Elena, compared to Poppeia. Elena was variously hailed at home as the "woman-hero of science and culture," and even "mother of the fatherland." The prestigious Swiss Weltwoche called Ceausescu "Europe's last Barbarian."

/Read more about it in Appendix, p.368 /.

Ceausescu's morbid ideal was the creation of a Stalinist country with a Hitlerian touch: a nation of one race, one language, one faith, one class - under the rule of one party and one supreme leader - himself assisted by Elena. This was his goal for the future.

Another of his goals involved the past: to exalt Rumanian pride and nationalism. To this end he created the myth of a 2050 year-old "Romanian" nation, expanding the Daco-Roman continuity theory, and had history books re-written to extol Rumanian superiority over the minorities in general and the Hungarians in particular, the latter being branded "barbarian intruders from Asia." (N.B. In historical fact Rumania was created by the Congress of Berlin in 1878.)

Hungarians Marked for Annihilation

Ceausescu's obsession to create a nation of pure Romanian race and one language met a formidable obstacle, however. While he had succeeded in bartering away most of the Jews and most of the Germans, he could not physically remove the 2.5 million Hungarians in Transylvania, once the vital center of Magyar patriotism and culture, and part of Hungary for a thousand years.

Therefore, he determined to gradually destroy the Hungarians by depriving them of their traditions, language, religion and contact with their motherland.

Historical archives were confiscated, museums closed, cemeteries desecrated, libraries ransacked, churches closed or bulldozed. Possession of Hungarian books was forbidden, and Hungarian cultural institutions were merged with Rumanian establishments. One by one, Hungarian schools were abolished, the teachers dispersed, political activists and priests persecuted. Some of them were even beaten to death. Telephone calls were interrupted with official warnings against speaking Hungarian; at Hungarian weddings at least 75 percent of the music was mandated to be Rumanian as was the first name for the newborn. Children were beaten up when caught speaking Hungarian in school. Hungarians over 65 were denied state health care, and ambulances were instructed not to answer their calls. When escapees from Rumania were caught, they were forced to eat "Rumanian soil" before being beaten, incarcerated or killed by the Securitate, Rumania's dreaded secret police.

Most importantly, a dissolution of ethnic communities was carried out by dispersing Hungarians to disparate regions and replacing them with Rumanian settlers on a massive scale. Thereby the population profiles of formerly pure Hungarian cities and towns have been forcefully altered.

The Defiant Ones

Hungarians both inside and outside rose to defend themselves against such attempt of genocide. Károly Király, a member of the Rumanian Communist Party's Central Committee surprised the world in 1977 by writing a series of letters to Ceausescu bitterly complaining about the under-representation of minorities in the National Assembly, and denouncing the personality cult around the Conducator ("Fuehrer" in Rumanian). Mincing no words, he described the political atmosphere in Rumania "extraordinarily repressive," especially against the Hungarian population. He also called for fundamental change to save the country from economic disaster.

Copies of these letters, smuggled out, received widespread publicity abroad. Enraged, Ceausescu ordered Király arrested and sent into internal exile.

Still, the anti-regime defiance was spreading. The Magyars, the only Rumanian citizens to do so, started a samizdat periodical called Ellenpontok (Counterpoints). In September 1982, the editors managed to send a Memorandum to the Madrid Conference held to review human rights adherence to the Helsinki Final Act. The memorandum stated, in part:

"The wall of silence must at least be broken from somewhere on the inside, as must that enormous,

motionless and seemingly immovable block of tyranny and deprivation of rights which weights nightmarishly on every inhabitant of Rumania..." (See Appendix).

The memorandum made Ceausescu furious. He ordered an immediate manhunt and the editors' arrest. After a brutal 4-day interrogation, two editors - Attila Ara-Kovács and Károly Tóth were expelled from Rumania to Hungary. The third, Géza Szcs, remained in Rumania under virtual house arrest. Their lives were spared by the wide foreign publicity of their case.

The U.S. Congress Steps In

By this time such human rights organizations as the Helsinki Watch, Amnesty International, The Transylvanian World Federation and the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation also stirred protests against Ceausescu's atrocities. Members of the U.S. Congress were especially outraged, when they received proof that 20,000 Hungarian-language bibles sent from America to Transylvania had been confiscated by Rumanian authorities and recycled into toilet paper, On July 15, 1987, after several years of futile attempts, the U.S. Senate finally passed a bill to suspend Rumania's MFN status for six months. This action followed a similar suspension voted by the U.S. House of Representatives on April 30, 1987.

Two Books as Eye Openers

David Funderburk after serving for four years as US Ambassador in Bucharest, resigned in protest over the State Department's pro-Ceausescu policy. He wrote a revealing account of his experiences in a book entitled "PINSTRIPES AND REDS" (Selous Foundation Press, 1987).

Funderburk's book was given the silent treatment. A more damaging blow to official American-Rumanian relationship was delivered by none other than Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, head of the Rumanian KGB under Ceausescu until his defection to the West.

This book, "RED HORIZONS: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief" (Regnery Gateway, 466p. 1987) chronicled Ceausescu's diplomatic ploy of projecting his country as a maverick within the Soviet bloc as a way to obtain Western political, economic and technical support, enabling Rumania to serve as a conduit of Western technology to Moscow.

The U.S. State Department officially shifted its position on Rumania a year later, possibly influenced by Pacepa's book. In any case, the U.S. Secretary of State, George Shultz stated on June 16th, 1988:

"...In a sense the word Eastern Europe is a misnomer. It implies that all those countries are the same. What we see is that they are very different. Among them, Romania, on a scale of internal repressiveness, is the worst.

Paradoxically, the strongest blow to US illusions about Ceausescu came from the Conducator himself. After the U.S. Congress had finally voted to suspend MFN for Rumania, he pertly renounced MFN, thereby making the suspension meaningless.

A "Grand Design" - With Consequences

Behind Ceausescu's cocky gesture on MFN lay a cold-blooded reason: he felt fed-up by continuous U.S. Congressional scrutiny of Rumania's human rights record, a scrutiny that would hinder him in carrying out his long cherished "grand design."

Shortly thereafter he announced with great fanfare the most sweeping - and ominous - plan of his regime so far: the liquidation of 8000 villages, with their residents to be relocated as state laborers to 500 "agro-industrial complexes," and housed there in multi-story block houses equipped with communal amenities. The new system, called "systematization," would do away with the different lifestyles of village and city dwellers. The target date was set as the year of 2000 A.D.

The plan of "systematization," would do away with the country's minorities as well - an unspoken aim of Ceausescu's regime. Thousands of villages, mostly inhabited by Magyars, would be bulldozed to the ground - including churches, cemeteries, museums and other monuments - all mementoes of Transylvania's Hungarian past.

The old adage, "Sow wind, reap whirlwind" proved true once again. The reaction to Ceausescu's ominous design was swift, manifold and worldwide.

The flow of Magyar refugees from Rumania, a process which had started years ago, now assumed flood-like proportions. Tens of thousands arrived in Hungary during the spring of 1988, to be followed by other thousands at a slower pace.

With the flood of refugees increasing daily, the alarm bells sounded all over Hungary. A political firestorm swept the land, precipitating the fall of János Kádár. His abysmal record in protecting Magyar minorities in the neighboring countries was one of the reasons he was replaced next year.

Under a new, reform-minded leadership, protests against the Ceausescu regime multiplied, culminating in the largest mass demonstrations in Hungary since the revolution of 1956. On June 27, 1988, 100,000 demonstrators. chanting national hymns, wielding banners and placards denouncing the "Red Dracula" marched to Heroes' Square in Budapest.

A declaration issued by intellectuals evoked the terrible era of the Jewish Holocaust:

"...the planned destruction wrapped into an economic explanation is scheduled to start in the Hungarian-inhabited regions as a poorly camouflaged 'final solution' of the Hungarian problem in Transylvania...

The same doom awaits Hungarian villages as was the fate of blazing synagogues,. symbols of our century's darkest period... Everything has been set,. the Prince of Darkness may issue his order to open the floodgates of horror and hatred any time now... We implore the governments of the world to exercise their influence to prevent such an irreparable destruction..."

The first reaction to the rally held in Heroes' Square came from Bucharest. Ceausescu, furious over the demonstration, ordered the Hungarian consulate in Kolozsvár (Cluj) to be immediately closed and travel between the two countries severely curtailed. Fanning his ire had been an earlier statement of the Hungarian government. which said:

"It should be made clear that the Hungarians living in the countries surrounding us, including those in Transylvania, are part of the Hungarian nation. These people have every reason to expect the Hungarian state to be responsible for them, too, and to voice their problems with determination."

Thus an unprecedented cold war broke out between two countries of the Soviet bloc, with tens of thousands fleeing from one Socialist country to another.

Worldwide Uproar Condemns Ceausescu

Suddenly, the consequences of Ceausescu's "grandiose design" burst onto the front pages of the world press. The media unanimously condemned what Le Monde of Paris called "an insane absurdity," the work of a "madman heading a gang of criminals."

The Economist of London, in an article entitled ''Pogrom in Rumania '' also saw a European catastrophe in Ceausescu's village razing plan, and called for international action to stop it.

In the United States the Washington Post headlined the same action as "Romania: A Modern Horror Story." Topping all these was an international press review compiled in the READER's DIGEST under the title, "Romania's Reign of Terror" (See the Appendix).

The uproar in the world press was matched by voices raised by church leaders and many international organizations including the Protestant World Federation, the International Society of Human Rights, the World Congress of P.E.N. Club held in Seoul, and the Council of Europe. Demonstrations at Rumanian embassies were held in dozens of capitals worldwide. The Parliament of Europe condemned Rumania "for its brutal excesses against Transylvanian Hungarians." During the debate preceding the resolution, Archduke Otto v. Habsburg called Ceausescu "The Pol Pot of Europe who has excluded Rumania from the community of civilized countries."

Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, also joined the condemnation. In an unprecedented comment on foreign affairs, he attacked Ceausescu at length, saying he "had embarked on the wholesale destruction of his country's cultural and human heritage" and is bent "on devouring the soul of a nation." The next day The London Times published a drawing of Ceausescu, depicting Rumania's head of state with Dracula-like fangs.

At the Vienna Human Rights Conference in January, 1989, Rumania was put on the pillory, and was treated as a "black sheep" among the 35 nations participating. Cornered by heavy criticism, Rumania did sign a comprehensive resolution for the protection of human and minority rights; but backtracked from it the next day. "It is outrageous and illegal." lamented the US representative about the Rumanian move.

Last but not least, on February 6th, 1989, French Prime Minister Michel Rocard called on the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva to investigate the plight of "the unhappy people of Rumania." His request was unprecedented in that no government leader has ever before addressed the commission. Subsequently, the UN Commission voted 21 to 7 to appoint a Special Rapporteur to investigate and report on the situation in Rumania.

This UN resolution, however, turned out to be a hollow victory, because the Rapporteur was not allowed to enter Rumania.

Despite international outrage, Ceausescu remained unrepentant, and might have continued his genocidal policy for years had history not intervened dramatically in 1989.

That year the world was witnessing with awe the break-up of the Soviet Union's satellite empire, a break-away initiated by Poland and Hungary, and within months, followed by East Germany, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.

Rumanians Fed Up, Too

Only Nicolae Ceausescu's Rumania remained a holdout. "Rumania would change, when pears grow on poplar trees," he declared. Rumanians were to continue the Stalinist way "perfected" by their ruler: a way of life marked by incredible economic hardship and constant fear, while Hungarian anti Rumanian villages would be bulldozed out of existence by the thousands.

Still, not every Rumanian and Hungarian could be intimidated. Among ethnic Rumanians it was a

woman poet, Doina Cornea, a university professor in Kolozsvár (Cluj) who carried high the flag of defiance. An ardent nationalist, who would keep aloof from the country's minorities, including Hungarians, she began a campaign of anti-regime letter writing in 1982, a campaign which made her known internationally, and detested by Ceausescu personally. In 1988 Doina fired off three open letters; one to the Human Rights Conference in Cracow, one to Radio Free Europe, and one to Ceausescu against the village destruction plan. "We call upon you to stop the demolition of villages! It is a sacrilege!" she wrote. For this letter and others, Doina Cornea was beaten and put under house arrest by Securitate men. Her world-wide reputation spared her from more drastic punishment.

The same fate awaited Dumitru Mazilu, who also used letters as tools of protest. Former chief of the Rumanian Foreign Ministry's legal department, Mazilu expressed his people's suffering in a letter sent in 1989 to the United Nation's Subcommittee on Human Rights. In it he wrote:

'The peoples of Romania are forced to live in utmost misery by leaders whose only "virtue" consists in shameless lying and torturing people, outdoing the cruelest tyrants. Many Romanians commit suicide, unable to bear the barbarian aggression by bulldozers, the inhumane living conditions imposed upon them by their despots. A growing number of young people demand an end to the barbarity and the return of civilized government.

"A Mighty Fortress Is Our Church"

Amidst the disorganized voices of opposition, a Hungarian Protestant pastor in Temesvár (Timisoara) became the focal point of resistance. So much so that both the pastor, László Tkés, 37, and his city were destined to play a fateful role in the dramatic turn of events which took place before the end of 1989 in Rumania.

A tall, handsome man with a booming voice, who had developed strong religious and patriotic convictions, Tkés was the right man at the right place in the right time. As he said, "the education I had in my family was to resist Satan and to stand up to injustice... To protest is the very essence of the word Protestant..."

Thinking of his city's past which, as a strong Hungarian fortress, was besieged several times centuries ago, Tkés saw himself as a depository of a national heritage, and as a symbol. "I'm a symbol, and in that the servant of God" - he declared. In fact, the pastor's fortitude was fed more from the wellspring of his religion than by his patriotism. He would often quote from the Bible to justify his political actions, which went far beyond of mere letter writing. He resisted attempts to remove him from his "fortress," and sought to organize other church leaders for united action. His paramount credo was love for his brethren, be they Hungarians, Rumanians, Germans or Jews; his life goal to help promote Rumanian-Hungarian reconciliation.

A thorn in the side of Ceausescu's regime for years for his outspokenness and "disobedience," Tkés finally ran afoul of authorities in August, 1989 for an interview given clandestinely and smuggled to Hungarian television. During the interview he said:

"...In the ministers' meeting last September, I proposed that every minister... should contact the other churches - Catholic, Orthodox and others - to coordinate their stands, to make clear what the village destruction scheme means for churches...

"In one word, what we wanted to say was that the Church cannot just sit and watch what is happening...

"For us Hungarians the present is a lime of greatest danger. Our institutions have been systematically destroyed - our language, schools and other social institutions. Now, I feel, they will launch a frontal attack against the Catholic Church itself. This, and the Reformed Church make up the entire Hungarian population in Rumania...

"The rights stipulated by the basic documents of the UN, and by the Helsinki Declaration are, day by day, brutally violated...

"Although the world raised a word of protest... the scheme has not been abandoned... only the methods have been changed... I know of villages where people were forced to sign an application to be resettled in the blockhouses to be built...

Thus, instead of a spectacular village destruction, they apply the policy of atrophy hard to be traced. So, for instance, the doctor of the village is removed, its school with a small number of pupils is closed. This compels the children to go to the school of another large community. It compels the patients to go to see the doctor in the neighboring village. Very often they cease the supply of electricity and other utilities. They cut the supplies of the shops. So the position of the inhabitants becomes more and more hopeless and they feel forced to leave their village. This is a diabolical scheme, indeed..."

"The question is... how far will God allow them to go, for we can place all our trust in God alone. This hope is reflected in our hymn, the song of Martin Luther: "A mighty fortress is our God." I could paraphrase it, adapting it to our present conditions, saying: "A mighty fortress is our Church," for this, alone has remained to us... our church!"

Following the interview's broadcast, the persecution began in earnest. Tkés was denied a ration book making him unable to buy bread, meat or fuel. Parishioners who tried to bring him provisions were confronted by the Securitate. The pastor was barred from meeting relatives, and his closest aide, Ern Ujvárossy, was found dead in a nearby forest. The telephone was shut off, except for threatening calls at midnight.

Tkés repeatedly received summons to resign and leave his parish, summons supported by his frightened bishop. Still, Tkés refused to leave his flock, whose religion and ethnic identity were in jeopardy.

In a letter, headlined "The Siege of Temesvár," he wrote on October 6th, l989:

"The siege of Temesvár" is in progress in our church, in all our villages, towns and cities... Now they are trying to liquidate them with tricks, under the false semblance of legality... A life and death struggle is being fought on the Transylvanian ramparts of our nation... We are holding out, damned to hopelessness but still hoping for divine deliverance... "HE who was sent to us by God is struggling on our side [Luther]."

In November, 1989, four masked thugs broke into the apartment where Tkés lived with his wife, who was pregnant, and beat and stabbed him.

In a videotape smuggled to Hungary by two friends the pastor reported: "They break our windows every day. Now they've started breaking them in the church as well."

Throughout Tkés' ordeal, the pastor's main source of strength, next to his trust in God, lay in the tremendous increase of worshipers in his church. In addition to Protestants, Roman Catholics and Unitarians, even Rumanians of the Eastern Orthodox faith regularly attended Tkés' services.

"... There is no task more important than the reconciliation between the Rumanian and Hungarian peoples," he wrote - "the pulling down of the existing barriers so that we can present a united front in the fight for a democratic transformation of our society."

The pastor could not have dreamed that a united front of Rumanians and Hungarians soon will emerge in Temesvár to spark events of apocalyptic proportions.

An Apocalyptic Finale

December 15, 1989 was the day the Securitate planned to arrest Rev. Tkés, and remove him - finally - from his parish. The impending arrest, however, triggered an unexpected and dramatic chain-reaction. Alerted by rumors, hundreds of Hungarian parishioners formed a protective ring around Tkés' home and the rectory. Soon, the ring was reinforced by onrushing ethnic Rumanians and Germans including university students. All signs pointed to an emerging riot.

At 3:00 AM on Dec. 16, the Securitate stormed the parish and after manhandling him in the church, led the pastor and his pregnant wife away to carry them off to the village of Meny (Maneu).

The pastor's removal by force was but oil onto the fire smoldering in the streets of Temesvár. What had started as a vigil yesterday, now erupted into something more ominous. Angry mobs smashed shop windows, burned Ceausescu's books and portraits, besieged the communist party headquarters and police stations. Temesvár thus became the scene of a local revolution, an uprising which was to spread quickly to Kolozsvár (Cluj), Arad, Brassó (Brasov) and Marosvásárhely (Tirgu-Mures) - all cities with heavy Hungarian populations. They and the Rumanians suddenly found themselves fighting side-by-side against their common enemy, Ceausescu.

By Sunday morning, December 17, Temesvár, the center of resistance, was ready for a full-scale confrontation. The Conducator blinded by his megalomania, was unable to see with the eyes of his mind the writing on the wall, the "Mene-Tekel..." for his 24-year rule. Upset by the continuous rioting, he commanded: "I want calm to be restored in Timisoara in one hour. Call everyone. Give orders, and execute them!"

Ceausescu's command was obeyed. The massacre which followed claimed hundreds of unarmed victims, many of them women and children. Their exact number will remain unknown, because most of the corpses have been quickly cremated to cover up the magnitude of the carnage. Ceaseless adulation for 24 years had driven the dictator over the brink of insanity into a nightmare world where peoples' lives, especially if they were Hungarians, held no value whatsoever.

The massacre at Temesvár shocked and revolted the world. More importantly, it finally jolted Rumanians from their long torpor. On December 21, during a speech delivered from the balcony of his palace in Bucharest, Ceausescu started a venomous diatribe against the Magyars, blaming the riots on "revanchistes" bent on recapturing Transylvania. As his rasping voice rose to a shout, his arms flailing the air in anger, the crowd of a hundred thousand in the square below suddenly burst into boos and jeers. Then the crowd began to chant: Timi-soara! Timi-soara! Timi-soara!

A deified tyrant just a moment before, Ceausescu had turned into a defied and fallen despot the next. Panic-stricken, he and his wife, Elena fled the palace on a helicopter, only to be captured and executed by a firing squad on Christmas Day. The inglorious demise of the dictator and Elena signaled the end of furious street battles, fought between the Securitate and pro-revolutionary forces in and around Bucharest.

Reverend Tkés - a "tool in God's hand" as he would describe himself - had thus become the spark that lit the flame of the Rumanian uprising which overthrew Ceausescu. Fittingly, the Christian Science Monitor dubbed him the "Father of Rumania's Revolution." Tkés survived his capture and returned to his parish to continue as a "missionary" for a Hungarian-Rumanian reconciliation. As to his role in history, TIME magazine remarked: "The once obscure minister has already joined the ranks of Eastern Europe's foremost fighters for liberty." (Jan. 1. 1990).

Days of Euphoria

The days of Christmas week, 1989, were red letter days for Rumania. The tyrant was gone. Christmas - banned for decades by the state - could be celebrated again. An almost miraculous solidarity between Rumanians and Magyars added a glow of special warmth to the festive atmosphere.

The people of Hungary instantly embraced the Rumanian revolution as their own: tens of thousands formed queues to give blood, and to donate food and clothing to their brethren in Transylvania. They followed the breathtaking developments with feverish excitement, as radio and television provided around-the-clock coverage. Meanwhile, endless columns of trucks loaded with food and medical supplies crossed the border day and night, braving Securitate snipers.

A steady flow of transport planes, filled to capacity, aided the effort, as did the Hungarian Army, which provided massive help from its own supplies.

Even more touching was the help streaming into Transylvania from Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Carpatho-Ruthenia, themselves subjects of forced assimilation. Thus, the entire Hungarian nation, a nation, "without boundaries" in the Carpathian Basin united in a magnificent outpouring of Hungarian spirit. Beyond the Carpathian Basin, the Hungarian diaspora in the free world also sprang into action in a way reminiscent of the days of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Communities were quickly mobilized, donations collected, airplanes chartered, columns of trucks in Europe rented and funds personally delivered to needy Transylvanian cities, villages, churches and families.

In the rapturous days of the revolution, the new government of Rumania formed by the National Salvation Front (NSF) solemnly declared:

"Our commonly shed blood has proven that a policy based on forced assimilation and hate-mongering against minorities: a campaign of calumny system-

atically conducted against neighboring Hungary and the Hungarians in Romania could not destroy the trust, friendship and unity between the Romanian people and the national minorities. The National Salvation Front condemns the policy conducted by the defunct dictatorial regime against the national minorities and solemnly declares: It will guarantee and realize the individual and collective rights of nationalities, and their right to freedom...

The National Salvation Front holds possible and rightful these minorities' ambitions to maintain and cultivate their relations with their mother country to whom they are tied by common language, by cultural and historical traditions..."

Simultaneously Rev. László Tkés, Károly Király, Géza Domokos, András Süt and other Magyars were invited, along with Rumanian freedom fighters such as Doina Cornea and Dumitru Mazilu to join the National Salvation Front.

Abroad, a common front of Rumanians and Hungarians seemed to take shape, too. A statement of solidarity signed by dozens of prominent Magyars and Rumanians, the latter including Paul Goma, Eugene Ionecso, Ion Ratiu and Dorin Tudoran, was published in the New York Times and other newspapers. The statement said, in part:

"The tragic events of the past weeks are a new testimony of unity and brotherhood among Hungarians and Rumanians...

We are convinced that the best guarantee for a peaceful and prosperous Romania lies in this newly found unity of her peoples which should prevail from now on. provided that a truly free, democratic social order is allowed to emerge...

The position of Romania and Hungary on the map of Europe and their old as well as very recent history portend a common destiny that must be forged so as to insure the full flourishing of their remarkable human resources in stable, open societies. We hope and believe that we have witnessed the rebirth of such societies in Eastern Europe during the last historic weeks of 1989."

In Romania itself the quickly formed Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania issued its own appeal, saying in part:

"'We are appealing to every Hungarian in Romania to become a combatant of Hungarian-Romanian friendship in the struggle ahead of us. Let us show the world that we have not been infected by the virus of hatred which had emanated from Ceausescu's dictatorship. Let us demonstrate that we can and dare to be great in our struggle for safeguarding human dignity.

There is no place in our ranks for anti-Romanian manifestations; unity and friendship with Romanians shall serve as our guiding principle..."

Euphoria Followed by a New Ordeal

There is a Hungarian proverb which says that "every miracle lasts but three days." (Minden csoda csak három napig tart).

As if to prove this old truism, the heartening words and initial gestures did indeed, become but a short-lived "miracle." The vision of common glory and brotherly understanding became just a mirage.

Ingrained attitudes cannot be changed overnight. Anti-Hungarian agitation, nurtured in Rumania for decades, soon re-emerged. As Transylvanian Hungarians began reviving their press, reclaiming their schools, restoring their minority institutional life, and displaying bilingual signs, a vocal segment of Rumanian society became infuriated. The government, involved in a mudslinging election campaign in which Magyar-bashing promised to be a vote-getting tactic, gave in to the nationalistic pressure.

Signs of such a cave-in popped up all over Rumania:

The Front-controlled media gave but scant account of the huge amount of aid Rumania received from Hungary during and after the revolution. On the other hand, anti-Magyar pronouncements made at political meetings were given wide publicity.

The Rumanian Ministry of Culture restored the ban Ceausescu had issued on the import of Hungarian language books, except the Bible.

Attila Pálfalvy, the Deputy Minister of culture, was relieved from his office a few weeks after his appointment.

Anti-Magyar leaflets were distributed on all trains and buses in Rumania, with their texts spread through official telex networks countrywide.

Despite efforts by the Hungarian government, the Hungarian consulate in Cluj (Kolozsvár), closed by Ceausescu, has not been allowed to reopen.

NSF leaders used Ceausescu-type terminology in criticizing Hungarian efforts to restore ethnic rights and institutions. Prime Minister Roman spoke of the "gravity of nationalist-chauvinistic and revisionist instigations carried out by certain circles from Hungary against Romania.

The opposition's attitude was mirrored in a TV interview by National Peasant Party leader, Ion Alexandru:

"The minorities are fighting a futile battle for regaining various rights now, because after free elections, the new Romanian government will void such privileges anyway."

Pogrom in Tirgu-Mures

More ominous than these phenomena was the birth early in 1990 of a radical, chauvinistic organization named Vatra Romanesca (Romanian Cradle). As described in the April 9, 1990 issue of US News, "Romania's Vatra Romanesca blends nationalism, Christian mysticism and barely concealed anti-Semitism. Some analysts liken the group to the fascist Iron Guard of Rumania's pre-World War II days...The clarion calls of blood-and-soil nationalism is attracting welling numbers to its ranks."

Vatra is essentially a radical nationalist lobby with close connections to local councils of the National Salvation Front, seeking the continuation of Ceausescu's policy of forced assimilation of ethnic minorities.

Pressure from this segment of Rumanian opinion, fortified by pronouncements from the opposition, led the Bucharest government to postpone the implementation of its promises to restore Hungarian schools. This decision in turn touched off strikes and demonstrations by Hungarian students in Tirgu-Mures (Marosvásárhely) and other Hungarian-populated cities. Their demonstrations took the form of candle-light processions with the students carrying books and candles as symbols of protest.

Counter-demonstrations by the Vatra fanned the flames of interethnic hatred, culminating in an unprecedented anti-Magyar pogrom in Tirgu-Mures on March 19 and 20. The violent attacks on Hungarians were carried out by thousands of Rumanian peasants from outlying mountain villages, who were given alcohol and bused into town for the occasion. Their weapons included pitchforks, axes, bludgeons and scythes.

Despite constant appeals from besieged ethnic Hungarians, the army and the police made no serious attempt to stop the attacks, which ended only after army reinforcements finally arrived.

The pogrom of Tirgu-Mures left a toll of eight dead and 365 injured. Among the horrors shown on television world-wide was the mob beating to death a Hungarian university professor. András Süt, a renowned Hungarian writer sustained severe injuries and the loss of an eye.

Outraged, the Hungarian government promptly expressed shock over the carnage and sent appeals to the United Nations and the Council of Europe. On April 5th, the Council appealed to Bucharest to secure minority rights. The NSF reacted ambiguously continuing its vacillating stance toward the Hungarian problem since the beginning of 1990. Such vacillation was attributed to campaign tactic: the NSF may have opted for a more nationalistic line, because it had an eye on the May 20 elections.

As it turned out, the NSF won the election overwhelmingly while the Democratic Union of Hungarians came in a distant second, but still ahead of other opposition parties. The Magyars won 41 seats, the highest number ever, in the parliament.

Whether Romania's present leaders would keep their solemn promises made to their Hungarian comrades-in-arms during the glorious Christmas revolution of 1989, remained to be seen.

Reconciliation Torpedoed by Extremists

By 1995 this question had a negative answer. Remnants of the Ceausescu regime and adherents of the Vatra Romanesca had succeeded in changing the political atmosphere of the country from a promised reconciliation to renewed intolerance toward minorities, including Magyars and Jews.

The flare-up of anti-Jewish sentiment was triggered by a revelation in the July 1,1991 issue of the New York Times, which pointed out:

In the past the Romanians and the world had been kept in the belief that only Germans and Hungarians took part in the killing of the Jews of the country. The truth - never admitted by Bucharest - is that pogroms against Jewish men, women and children were carried out by the Romanian military and police also, whose cruelty shocked even the Germans.

According to Rabbi Moses Rosen's estimate, 400,000 Jews fell victim to such massacres. These facts were brought up in a lecture held in Bucharest by Nobel Prize winner Eli Wiesel, who was particularly upset by the one minute silent tribute the Romanian parliament accorded to the memory of executed war criminal Marshal Jon Antonescu, who had been responsible for killing 250,000 Jews.

In view of all these occurrences, in September, 1992 the United States Congress voted 238 to 88 to deny Romania the Most Favored Nation (MFN) status. Nevertheless, after Romania's skillful diplomatic wrangling, Congress restored this status just one year later, in October, 1993.

The next day a statue of Ion Antonescu was unveiled in the town of Slobozia near Bucharest, in the presence of Romanian officials, the first statue of a war criminal from Eastern Europe since World War II. In an article titled Fascism on a Pedestal in the December 7, 1993 issue of the New York Times, the Romanian writer, Andrel Codrescu commented:

Romania is thumbing its nose at American concerns and underscoring the growing feeling in Eastern Europe that the United States is incapable to form a policy in the region... General Antonescu's statue is facing squarely at the United States. It is as if a statue of the founder of the Ku Klux Klan were erected in Washington in a ceremony attended by Administration officials. Only it's far worse than that. Romania has erected a tribute to mass murder.

In 1994, after restoration of its MFN status Romania's exports to the U.S. tripled. Much earlier, in the elections held in the fall of 1992, Iliescu's party won again, thanks to his pre-election alliance with extremist parties, whose anti-minority agitation has been gaining ground ever since. An on-going example is the campaign against Bishop László Tkés, who remains the most respected Hungarian and the foremost champion of minority rights in Transylvania. The official use of the very name "Transylvania" is no longer permitted.

Taking a look at the growing extremist influence in Romanian politicks, the London Economist in its February, 1995 issue reported that "nationalism, never far from the surface, has broken through in Romania into government." After negotiation with Georghe Funar's Romanian National Unity Party (RNUP) the government was reshuffled, and four new ministers were appointed, who are close in their ideology to Funar's extremist party. In January 1995 the Romanian government led by President Iliescu formally approved a four-party coalition characterized by fierce nationalism.

This was a sort of reaction to a meeting held earlier by Hungarian organizations, initiated by their representative party in the parliament, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR). On this occasion a Coordinating Council of Local Self-Government (CCLSG) was formed to promote their minority rights, including local autonomy.

The Hungarians' formation of this council prompted an uproar among Romanian parties. Georghe Funar called for the DAHR to be banned and proposed that Bucharest initiate negotiations with Budapest for a population exchange. Other politicians, including some cabinet ministers, also condemned the DAHR as "anti-national, irredentist and chauvinist," and threatened governmental counter-measures.

On February 1, 1995 in Paris the daily Le Monde observed:

The hysterical and frequently xenophobic reactions which have followed the creation of the CCLSG are totally disproportionate. The specter of a dismemberment of Romania is not borne out by an examination of the facts... There is no irredentist movement in Hungary, apart from a handful of marginalized extremists... The Hungarian minority issue serves as a diversion... It reinforces the collaboration between the party in power and three extremist, ferociously anti-Hungarian factions... By keeping alive the danger of Hungarian separatism... Romanian authorities find an easy pretext for opposing any decentralization of power, which is the keystone of democratic transformation...

Musing about Iliescu's flip-flop positions regarding the Magyars, Bishop Tkés complained:

One day the government supports the extremists, the next day it condemns them. It is the same with our party - one day they threaten us, the next day they say they didn't mean it. (Financial Times, February 14,1995.)

To the outside world, however, Romania presents a more tolerant face, prompting an official of the Hungarian foreign ministry to comment:

It is the ever strengthening impression of our office that a double entry political guidebook must exist in Bucharest, providing rules of behavior at home and abroad. One side is for the diplomats, advising them to display endearing eagerness abroad to embrace the European standard of value and to advocate Romanian-Hungarian cooperation in a positive and pragmatic way. The other side, destined for home consumption, is not interested in improvement of relations, and by words and practice seeks to promptly eliminate even the smallest results in this direction... Such a two-faced behavior misleads international opinion.

Internal policy can also be contradictory. For example, the Constitution declares: "National minorities have the right to education in their native language at all levels and forms of education." (Article 32, paragraph 3.)

This assurance is contradicted by Article 118 of the new Educational Bill, submitted to the parliament in December, 1994, which provides: "Education at all levels is in the Romanian language."

This Article is under heavy attack not only by the Hungarians, but also by officials of the Council of Europe, whose Recommendation 12O1-1933 states:

Every person belonging to a national minority shall have the right to learn his/her mother tongue and to receive an education in his/her mother tongue at an appropriate number of schools and of state educational and training establishments, located in accordance with the geographical distribution of the minority.

(On April 1995 the General Assembly of the Council of Europe made Recommendation 1201 mandatory for all its present and future members.)

Although the Romanians continued to contest this Recommendation's validity, it carried enough moral weight to remain a stumbling block toward the conclusion of a long-planned bilateral "basic treaty" with Hungary, a treaty that would help diffuse ethnic tensions threatening to derail both countries' drive for acceptance into the European Union. While Hungary is ready to relinquish eventual claims to any revision of the Trianon frontiers, the Romanians show unwillingness to incorporate the Council of Europe's Recommendation into the treaty to help protect minority rights and the existence of ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania.

Romanian attitude towards minorities has alarmed international diplomats, who fear that the Greater Romania Party and other extremist parties can wreak political havoc in the area.

To help reconcile the Romanians and their Hungarian minority, former President Carter hosted an initiative in Atlanta, in February, 1995 attended by the entire leadership of Transylvanian Hungarians and by Romanian diplomats from Bucharest. The conference, which was organized by the Research Institute Project on Ethnic Relations (PER), ended with a friendly "agreement to disagree" on every disputed problem. Although a basic treaty between Hungary and Slovakia was concluded on March 19, 1995 in Paris, a similar agreement between Romania and Hungary has yet to be reached.

Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary