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Early in the nineteenth century, movements of literary, political, and
national revival emerged among
the peoples who inhabited the multinational Habsburg Empire. One of
the consequences of these
movements was the awakening of a keen sense of national consciousness.
Intense national rivalries
developed in the course of the assertions of national pride among Hungarians,
Rumanians, Slovaks,
Croatians, Serbs, and others. An acute Rumanian-Hungarian confrontation
emerged in the period after
1840 and reached its climax in political and military conflict in the
Revolution of 1848.
Although these movements of national revival frequently encouraged national
militancy, they should not
be seen exclusively in that light. Essentially these movements represented
highly diversified social,
cultural, and political aspirations, of which national consciousness
was one aspect among several.
Furthermore, national feeling was not necessarily an element of discord.
In fact, both before and after
the Revolution of 1848, prominent Hungarian and Rumanian leaders sought
to resolve national
animosities and create the basis for durable cooperation. These initiatives
proved to be partially
successful in moderating national conflicts in the course of the nineteenth
century.
As we survey the contemporary Rumanian-Hungarian controversy and its
historical origins, it is
instructive to reconstruct not only the divisive but also the conciliatory
aspects of the Rumanian and
Hungarian movements of reform in the nineteenth century. By doing so,
the author of this essay seeks
to contribute to a better understanding of a very crucial phase of
Rumanian-Hungarian relationships
and of the history of both peoples' national revival.
The Hungarian revival, developing from 1790 to 1848, consisted of a
great variety of literary,
intellectual, political, and public-policy aspirations. Their common
focus was the recognition that
Hungarian society and culture were in some manner underdeveloped and
that it was therefore
necessary to reform contemporary Hungarian society. The Hungarian revival
not only proposed the
ways of transformation, but sought to make specific contributions to
an improved society.
One of the key tendencies of the Hungarian revival was the movement
to develop a literate Hungarian
language as the medium of cultural, social, and political life. Two
distinct consequences of this
movement can be observed. It resulted, first, in a nationwide opposition
to the policies of Emperor
Joseph II to introduce German as the language of Hungarian public life.
Second, it encouraged other
nationalities, such as the Rumanians, to assert their own language
and to promote its development. The
second impact proved to be of lasting importance, particularly because
leaders of the Hungarian
national movement went so far as to seek to establish through legislation
and political action the
dominant position of the Hungarian language in public life.[1]
Another major concern of the Hungarian revival was the enactment of
social and political reforms that
would transform traditional Hungarian society into a modernized nation.
At least three major public
policies were involved in this aspiration. First, there was the intent
to reform the social and political
organization of Hungary in accordance with the equality of all persons
before the law, individual and
civil liberties, and a representative system of government. Another
set of proposals concerned the
political, constitutional, and economic relationships between Hungary
and the Habsburg Empire. Third,
Hungarian reform leaders increasingly recognized the need to consider
the aspirations of
non-Hungarian nationalities.
The Hungarian and Rumanian revivals had certain common elements, but
also a number of contrasting
features. One common element was that both movements derived their
inspiration from the
eighteenth-century European Enlightenment. For example, the Hungarian
Ferenc Kazinczy, modernizer
of the Hungarian language, was a faithful student of the French Enlightenment
and of German
classicism. Samuil Micu, the founder of modern Rumanian, was deeply
influenced by the contemporary
Austrian Enlightenment as a student at the University of Vienna. Other
examples abound. It is
conclusive that the common heritage of both movements included a keen
assimilation of the
Enlightenment and a strong desire to improve Hungarian and Rumanian
society.
But equally significant are the differences. One of these was the dominant
tendency of the Rumanian
movement to concentrate on the development of the Rumanian language,
the expansion of Rumanian
education, and the social improvement of the Rumanian people. In contrast,
the Hungarian movement
had a much more complex and a much broader scope. It was strongly committed,
as was the
Rumanian movement, to national advancement and improvement, but in
addition
it advocated programs of social and political reform, reorganization
of the Habsburg Empire according
to constitutional principles, and integration of emerging nationality
movements into a modernized
Hungarian society.
Another highly significant difference was the divergent social status
of those who advocated the
Hungarian and Rumanian movements. The Rumanian movement was led by
members of the Uniate
clergy who had studied in Rome, Vienna, and Transylvania. As a result,
the leadership of the
Rumanians had very limited opportunities for political action. In contrast,
leaders of the Hungarian
movement were predominantly noblemen involved in political activities,
local governmental
administration, and public discussions. The Hungarian leadership was
very much an active political
elite, strongly influenced by public-policy, economic, and political
issues. These divergencies between
the Hungarian and Rumanian national movements suggest an additional
factor for the emergence of
potential animosities between the leadership of the two national groups.[2]
The Rumanian-Hungarian controversy emerged at a time when the Hungarian
revival advocated
programs to reconstruct traditional Hungarian social and political
institutions. An important element of
these programs was the proposal to make the Hungarian language dominant
in all aspects of public life.
Unfortunately, influential leaders of the Hungarian revival sought
to implement that proposal in such a
way that it provoked the justified concerns of non-Hungarian national
groups. An example of the
national discord aroused by this issue was the enactment of legislation
by the Hungarian Parliament in
1844 declaring Hungarian the official language of the kingdom of Hungary,
extending to all aspects of
public life.[3] Another matter of great anxiety was the frequently
expressed intent of prominent
Hungarian reformers to restrict the role of minority languages in Hungary
through legislation and
educational assimilation.[4]
While influential Hungarian leaders held these views, it is equally
important to note that several
prominent representatives of the Hungarian revival rejected them. Ferenc
Kazinczy and Ferenc
Kölcsey, two pioneers of the Hungarian literary revival, believed
in the inherent value of each national
language as a source of culture and enlightenment. Count Stephen Széchenyi,
the father of Hungarian
reformers, criticized these views in his public addresses of 1841 and
1842. In addition, the Hungarian
revival advocated the introduction of reforms that sought to attain
the advancement of all social and
ethnic groups in Hungary. All these examples illustrate that the Hungarian
revival comprised significant
elements of a social and political modernization
program that was potentially acceptable to Hungarians as well as to
non-Hungarian nationality
groups.[5]
The Revolution of 1848 witnessed the first important clash between the
Hungarian and Rumanian
national movements. But this clash was not at all predetermined. In
fact, at several points during the
revolution, initiatives were undertaken by both sides seeking a political
compromise. At the beginning of
the revolution, the Rumanian leadership of Hungary expressed its support
for the Hungarian cause.
Rumanian leaders endorsed the union of Transylvania with Hungary, which
was an important objective
of the Hungarian national movement.[6] In Transylvania, the question
of union with Hungary became
the subject of extended discussions among Rumanians. While it is true
that the Rumanian national
assembly of Balázsfalva (Blaj, Blasendorf) expressed its opposition
to union, it is also important to note
that influential elements of the Rumanian population in Transylvania
were prepared to accept union and
would have done so if other social and national demands had been seriously
considered by the
Hungarian leadership.[7]
Among the several complex problems that surfaced in the Revolution of
1848, one of the principal
causes of the conflicts between Rumanians and the Hungarian leadership
was unquestionably the
inadequacy of the reform measures incorporated into the Hungarian April
Laws of 1848. This
legislation established the constitutional basis for social and political
reforms in Hungary. Although
these laws expressed the principles of a representative political process,
a modernized social system,
and the constitutional protection of civil, political, and personal
liberties, they failed to meet the
expectations of the Rumanians in Transylvania in several important
respects. The April Laws failed to
secure peasant ownership of land, they preserved the position and influence
of the Hungarian nobility
both at the local and national levels of government and they designated
the Hungarian language as the
mandatory language of public life. Nor did they make provisions for
the protection of minority
nationality rights.[8]
The history of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and especially its
failure, illustrates well that the
inadequacies of the April Laws played a significant role in the Rumanian-Hungarian
confrontation.
Two problems were particularly crucial. First, peasant uprisings throughout
the revolutionary period
showed that the reforms of 1848 failed to satisfy the needs of the
peasants. Although members of the
Hungarian Parliament pressed for a modest program of peasant land allotment,
the revolutionary
leadership opposed its enactment. Second, the Rumanian military opposition
to the Hungarian
revolutionary
cause demonstrated that nationality rights had not been addressed in a satisfactory manner.
On the positive side, however, one should note that there was a recognition
on the part of Hungarians
and Rumanians of the importance of reaching a political understanding.
Based on that recognition, the
Rumanian-Hungarian controversy in 1848 could possibly have been resolved.
This potential is
particularly evident from the negotiations toward an understanding
between Hungarian and Rumanian
leaders. In response to Rumanian demands, the Hungarian government
drafted a bill on nationality
rights just prior to the defeat of the revolution. Nicolae Balcescu,
a prominent leader of the Rumanian
revolutionary movement, encouraged this initiative and was prepared
to establish political cooperation
with the Hungarian government. These efforts came too late to have
any impact in 1848--49. Yet it is
worthwhile, in the context of this discussion, to recall the Hungarian-Rumanian
negotiations and
particularly to consider the analysis of the Transylvanian problem
as stated by Balcescu in 1849.
It is not legitimate, useful, or possible to suppress the non-Rumanian
population of Transylvania, which
constitutes almost a third of its population. Extended settlement has
established definite and undeniable
rights even for very small nationalities. The rights of any nationality
are sacred and should be
respected. The way of nature supersedes historical rights, since man
possesses the earth and not the
earth man. The solution to the problem of Transylvania should not be
sought by the domination of any
one of the people that live there, but by establishing equal rights
for each individual and each nationality,
in order to establish harmonious cooperation.[9]
Following the failure of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, an important
phase of the
Rumanian-Hungarian relationship began. In the period from 1860 to 1870,
a series of political initiatives
were undertaken, designed to reexamine the nationality conflicts of
1848 and to develop effective
approaches to their resolution in a spirit of mutual understanding.
To a large extent, the initiators of
these approaches had been prominently involved in the revolutionary
events of 1848. Painfully aware
of the failure of their efforts, they attempted to address the question
of nationality rights from a new
perspective. For these reasons, the postrevolutionary period provides
one of the most significant
historical experiences for understanding not only the nineteenth century,
but also the contemporary
Hungarian-Rumanian controversies relating to Transylvania.
One should note, by way of historical background, that the Rumanians
of Transylvania made significant
social, cultural, and political progress as a result of the Hungarian
revolutionary legislation of 1848.
As provisions of the emancipation of serfs were implemented in the 1850s,
a total of 173,781 Rumanian
peasant families, constituting approximately fifty percent of the Rumanian
population of Transylvania,
acquired land amounting to an average of ten acres and became independent
landholders. This
development made possible the establishment of a Rumanian landholding
class in Transylvania. The
city of Brassó (Brasov Kronstadt) in southern Transylvania became
a thriving center of commerce,
benefiting primarily Rumanian commercial establishments. Over 100 Rumanian
commercial firms
operated in the city in the 1850s. But the most important Rumanian
attainment was in the field of
cultural and educational development. Both the Rumanian Orthodox church
and the Rumanian Uniate
church attained autonomous status and the right to establish their
corporate organizations, including
educational institutions. As a result, over 300 new Rumanian Orthodox
schools were established in the
period after 1848.[10]
Starting in 1861, serious discussions of the nationality question surfaced
again. The occasion for these
discussions was the convocation of the Hungarian Parliament in 1861
to draft a response to imperial
governmental initiatives for restoring Hungarian constitutional self-government.
One element of the
Hungarian response was to recognize, during the session of the Hungarian
Parliament in 1861, the
importance of protecting the rights of national minorities in Hungary.
The principal spokesman for such a Hungarian position was the prominent
Hungarian reform leader,
József Eötvös. Eötvös proposed to the Hungarian
Parliament of 1861 the selection of a parliamentary
committee to prepare a report on the protection of nationality rights.
Eötvös was delegated chairman of
this committee and was responsible for the majority report, submitted
to the Hungarian Parliament in
June, 1861. This report is one of the most important documents in the
evolution of the postrevolutionary
initiatives to define and protect the rights of national minorities
in Hungary. Therefore, a review of its
recommendations is crucial to an understanding of the Rumanian-Hungarian
confrontation in the
nineteenth century.[11]
Eötvös's report outlined a solution for the protection of
nationality rights that was based on the free
exercise of personal and political rights within a decentralized constitutional
state. Since the 1840s,
Eötvös had advocated reforms of Hungarian political and social
institutions, based on the protection of
civil and political liberties within a representative constitutional
order. To a large extent, the April Laws
reflected the program developed by Eötvös and his associates
on the question of constitutional
procedures. Eötvös approached the protection of national
minority rights in 1861 on the basis of the
same principles,
arguing that the assurance of civil liberties was the cornerstone of
any lasting program to safeguard
national minority rights. His position is stated in an earlier essay
on nationality rights:
"If we seek the guarantee for the exercise of nationality rights in
the freedom of the individual, then the
existence of the diverse nationalities in the state will become the
guarantee of individual and
simultaneously of political freedom."[12]
In the report of 1861, Eötvös specified several types of guarantees
to protect nationality rights. First, all
citizens would have the right to address municipal, county, and state
officials in their native language.
They would also be entitled to receive communications from these authorities
in their native language.
Second, all municipalities and counties would be assured the right
to determine their official languages
of communication to be used in public deliberations and official communications.
At the same time,
they would be obligated to use second and third languages if requested
by minority populations. The
only restriction on the choice of languages by these jurisdictions
was the rule proposed in the report
that all counties should communicate with the central Hungarian government
in the Hungarian
language. Third, the report outlined the rights of associations, schools,
churches, and nationality
organizations. Each church parish would be free to determine its official
language of communication
and the language used in school instruction. Each church would be entitled
to establish primary and
secondary schools and to determine for those schools the language of
instruction. Each association and
organization would be free to establish educational, cultural, and
social institutions and to promote their
development according to their charters of organization.[13]
Several characteristics of Eötvös's proposals should be noted.
First, their underlying principle was that
individual and minority rights should be safeguarded by the guarantees
of the rights of citizenship,
which were exercised by all citizens regardless of their ethnic identification.
As a result of these
guarantees, civil, political, and minority rights would be protected
by a commonly accepted
constitutional process. Further, Eötvös provided for an uncommonly
free choice of language usage by
individuals, municipalities, counties, educational institutions, and
private organizations. His most
farreaching proposal was the controversial provision to allow counties
the choice of their official
languages. In addition, the report reflected Eötvös's conception
of a pluralistic and autonomously
organized political structure, in which a variety of ethnic, religious,
political, and cultural loyalties could
be sustained without fear of repression or persecution. Given the complexity
of ethnic relationships in
Hungary and Transylvania, this conception
represented possibly the most realistic approach to a political system
capable of protecting minority
nationalities in a constitutional and representative governmental process.
In sharp contrast to Eötvös's program on nationality rights
stood the approach advocated by national
congresses of Serbian and Slovak intellectuals in 1861. The aim of
their proposals was to organize
autonomous national territories, separated from each other by linguistic
boundaries, in which one
nationality exercised supreme political control. The Serbian congress
proposed the creation of a
Serbian territory, to be governed by a Serbian national assembly and
a Serbian national executive.
Within that territory all political affairs would be conducted in the
national language, but each township
would have the right to determine its language.[14] The Slovak congress
proposed a similar approach,
with the added requirement that only the Slovak language would be used
in school, church, and political
affairs.[15]
Of great interest is an intermediate proposal, prepared by two Rumanian
members of the Hungarian
Parliament of 1861, Louis Wlad and Sigmund Popovics. They were the
authors of a minority report on
nationality rights submitted to the Hungarian Parliament in 1861. Their
recommendations agreed
substantially with Eötvös's definition of linguistic rights
for individuals, governmental jurisdictions, and
organizations, while extending the right of counties to use minority
languages in communications with
the central Hungarian government. The Rumanian report also accepted
Eötvös's recommendations on
the cultural and educational autonomy of churches, associations, and
educational organizations. The
principal difference from Eötvös's draft was the declaration
that all peoples inhabiting Hungary and
Transylvania should be recognized as nations with equal rights, particularly
in regard to their use of
languages.[16]
Two significantly divergent approaches to the protection of nationality
rights can be distinguished as
they evolved in the 1860s. One based nationality rights on the coercive
power of one linguistic majority,
dominant within a specific territory. This conception sought to establish
the equivalent of a unitary
national state and intended to suppress or assimilate national minorities.
Within such a system of
government, national minorities were not permitted to exist. The approach
developed by Eötvös was
designed to safeguard, within a decentralized and representative political
process, the rights of minority
and majority nationalities at all levels of governmental jurisdiction.
Such an approach was anchored on
the protection provided by a common constitutional system and common
rights of citizenship.[17]
Eötvös's approach is particularly significant as a response to the
Rumanian-Hungarian confrontation in the 1860s. Prominent Rumanian spokesmen
supported Eötvös's
position, as developed in his parliamentary statements and the Report
of 1861. Ioan Faur, a Rumanian
member of the Hungarian Parliament of 1861, stated the position of
Rumanian moderates in his
parliamentary address of June 10, 1861, approving the proposal of Eötvös
that Hungary could best fulfil
the needs of national minorities by recognizing and implementing minority
rights through extended rights
of citizenship.[18] A comparable position was developed in the minority
report of 1861, prepared by
Wlad and Popovics. Unfortunately, Eötvös's recommendations
never became law. In 1867--68, when
his proposals were seriously considered by the Hungarian Parliament,
a storm of nationalist opposition
blocked their enactment. At that time, Eötvös's approach
was again supported by moderate Rumanian
groups, particularly the Rumanian political journal Concordia.[19]
During the final discussions in the
Hungarian Parliament on the nationality bill, Eötvös's position
was strangely vindicated by Louis Wlad,
when he proposed in his parliamentary address of November 26, 1868,
that Eötvös's report of 1861 be
used as the basis of a Nationality Act that would guarantee the rights
of all national minorities.
Significantly, Wlad accepted the provisions of Eötvös's original
recommendations of 1861 as a fully
satisfactory solution for the protection of the Rumanian minority.
He made the following comment in
the course of his address:
I wish to observe... that the majority bill dispenses privileges because
it determines that the official
language of counties will be the Magyar and permits exceptions only
in so far as officials are ignorant
of Magyar. This provision clearly contradicts the bill of 1861 prepared
under the direction of the
minister of public instruction, which permitted the free use of languages
by townships and counties.[20]
Though Eötvös's recommendations on the protection of minority
rights were not accepted by the
Hungarian Parliament in 1868, he did exert considerable influence on
Hungarian policies of education
that substantially contributed to the extraordinary educational and
cultural development of Rumanians in
Hungary and Transylvania in the four decades after 1868. As Minister
of Public Instruction from 1867
to 1871, Eötvös's major achievement was the preparation,
enactment, and substantial implementation of
the Elementary Education Act of 1868. This law assured organizational
autonomy and self-government
to all churches, associations, and school systems, with particular
guarantees of freedom of choice in the
language of instruction and religious education. The law also authorized
townships to establish
tax-supported public schools, where all children would receive instruction
in their
native language.[21] Eötvös was also instrumental in the enactment
of legislation guaranteeing the
corporate self-government of the Rumanian Orthodox church, a policy
that he believed essential to the
cultural and educational growth of the Rumanian nationality.[22]
These policies enabled the Rumanians of Translyvania to establish and
conduct their own system of
education in private, religious, and tax-supported public schools.
They were guaranteed the free use of
Rumanian as the primary language of instruction and the free exercise
of their religion. The progress of
Rumanian education can be evaluated by a brief survey of the educational
development of the
Rumanian Orthodox schools in the period after 1870. There were 1,294
Rumanian Orthodox schools in
Hungary and Transylvania in 1870. Forty years later, in 1919, their
number was 1,238. In the
intervening period, Hungarian governments sought to weaken Rumanian
schools, but largely as a result
of the charter of autonomy secured by Eötvös for Rumanian
education these policies proved
ineffective. By comparison, Slovak Catholic schools declined from 1,236
in 1870 to 253 in 1910.[23]
Joseph Eötvös prepared the way for a judicious approach to
the protection of national minorities that
has application even in our own day. He demonstrated that the protection
of national minority rights is
possible only in a political system based on self-government and the
free exercise of rights of
citizenship. Even though his approach to nationality rights was not
implemented in pre-World-War-I
Hungary or in contemporary Rumania, his recommendations for resolving
conflicts of nationality
suggest a sane and humane policy for twentieth-century political practice.
The basic premise of his
approach can be summarized on the basis of his major political treatise,
The Influence of the Ruling
Ideas of the 19th Century on the State, published in 1851:
If the absolute sovereignty of the majority is recognized, then every
majority --- especially in the age of
national aspirations --- will employ its power for the suppression
of minority nationalities, so as to make
the state identical with the concept of nationality. If the absolute
sovereignty of the majority is not
recognized, then each nationality will be guaranteed certain inalienable
rights which are independent of
the sphere of state sovereignty.[24]
Transylvania - The Roots of Ethnic Conflic
