Romanian-Hungarian relations of late

You may recall that Traian Băsescu, president of Romania, and Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, are allegedly great friends. I will never forget an interview with Zsolt Németh at the time of the Romanian elections when it initially appeared that Băsescu would lose the elections. Németh looked devastated, as if Hungary's whole future depended on Băsescu being president of Romania.

Fidesz leaders, who every summer make a pilgrimage to Transylvania for a week of lectures and speeches held for members of the Hungarian minority, were actually campaigning on behalf of Băsescu two summers ago. After Băsescu won and so did Orbán, Romanian-Hungarian friendship seemed to be thriving. I doubted that this honeymoon between the two countries would last long because the Orbán government's intense nationalism sooner or later was bound to adversely affect the newly found cooperation.

I already talked about the sorry end of the Romanian Embassy's effort to rent space for the celebration of the Romanian national holiday on December 1 in the National Theater. Jobbik raised hell and eventually Róbert Alföldi, the director, had to retreat. As I said, that was certainly not a friendly gesture toward such a supposedly great friend of the country.

A few months later the head of the Romanian social democratic party talked about "the danger" Băsescu's and Orbán's friendship posed for Romania. He called them "men of narrow vision who strive for absolute power." Since then, thanks to Wikileaks, we know that the friendship between Băsescu and Orbán is only skin deep. Băsescu called Orbán "the last disgusting little nationalist of Europe" in the presence of the American ambassador to Bucharest.

Then there were all the speeches of Hungarian politicians on and around March 15, the Hungarian national holiday. László Kövér gave a speech in Târgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely) in which he championed for territorial autonomy of the area where the so-called Szeklers are in the majority. The Romanians fiercely oppose any suggestion of territorial autonomy on constitutional grounds. Kövér portrayed such demands as legitimate and modern and as "coinciding with the will of God." Crin Antonescu, the leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), retorted that Viktor Orbán "should occupy himself with governing Hungary and nothing else, and it would be a good idea to decide the will of God only on the territory of Hungary."

Kövér's speech was not unique in being unacceptable to Romania. The wife of the Hungarian ambassador to Bucharest added a few words of her own to the message Viktor Orbán sent to the Transylvanian Hungarians. The wife, quoting Albert Wass, finished her speech with "Be Transylvania again what it used to be!" Romanian politicians asked Orbán to distance himself from the speeches, but Orbán is not the kind of guy who distances himself from anyone or anything Fidesz. 

A couple of months later, toward the end of May, the Hungarian ambassador was called in to the Romanian Foreign Ministry. The Romanians wanted to know what the offices of the Szekler Land (Székelyföld) where the Hungarians demand territorial autonomy are doing in the Magyar Régiók Háza (House of Hungarian Regions) in Brussels. The Romanians expressed their expectation that no official representative of the Hungarian government would be present at the opening of the offices. The Romanians called attention to "the strategic partnership" that supposedly exists between the two countries.

Well, if the Romanian Foreign Ministry calls in the Hungarian ambassador, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry must reciprocate. Ireny Comaroschi, the Romanian ambassador, was asked to have a chat with Zsolt Németh, the undersecretary. This time the cause of the friction was the newly restored statue of King Matthias in Cluj (Kolozsvár), birthplace of the famous fifteenth-century Hungarian king.

Every time I hear about another nationalistic upheaval over a statue I must think of the days when I was studying irredentist propaganda between the two world wars. I tried to put myself in the shoes of some British or American diplomat receiving yet another complaint from the Hungarian government that such and such famous Hungarian poet's statue was removed in Czechoslovakia or Romania. By now one would think that the era of statues is over. But no, not long ago there was the controversy over the memorial for the thirteen generals executed in Arad in 1849 which was eventually re-erected. And now here is the statue of King Matthias.

As it turned out, an old plaque in Romanian was placed on the recently restored statue that carries a sentence by Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940), a famous Romanian historian. The sentence reads: "He was victorious in battle; he was defeated only by his own nation at Baia (Moldvabánya) when he attacked the invincible Moldavia." The plaque was placed on the statue in 1932 and was removed by the Hungarians in 1940 when Hungary occupied Northern Transvylania. Gheorghe Funar, the anti-Hungarian mayor of Cluj, put it back in 1992. The debate continues between the Romanians and the Hungarians as to whether replacing the plaque either in 1992 or now, after the restoration, was legal or not.

At the heart of the controversy is King Matthias's ethnic origin. He was the son of János Hunyadi and Erzsébet Szilágyi. On his mother's side he certainly had Hungarian roots. His father, on the other hand, most likely had a Romanian background. The János Hunyadi family, the little we know of it, were modest Romanian nobility from Hátszeg/Haţeg in Hunyad County in Transylvania. His father's name first appeared in documents as the recipient of Hunyad Castle (Vajdahunyad or today Hunedoara). However, both János Hunyadi and his son considered themselves Hungarians. After all, the multi-ethnic nobility of the Kingdom of Hungary in a generation or two became totally assimilated.

Matthias certainly didn't know any Romanian because we have documentary evidence that when Romanian delegates arrived from Moldavia and he heard them speak, on the basis of his knowledge of Latin he discovered that Romanian belonged to the Latin branch of the Indo-European language family. On the other hand we know that he spoke Hungarian, German, Czech, and Latin.

So, in this latest controversy Romanians and Hungarians are fighting over King Matthias's ethnicity. As for the Iorga quotation there is no question that Matthias was beaten at Baia (1467) by the troops of Moldavia's Ştefan cel Mare (Steven the Great). In fact, the Hungarian king even got wounded in this battle. The disputed part is the allusion to his Romanian nationality.

The Hungarians were so upset over the Iorga quotation that Oszkár Füzes, the Hungarian ambassador to Bucharest, himself went to Cluj to join a group that called for covering the "objectionable" quotation with flowers. Policemen told the ambassador that he can place his flowers only next to the plaque, but Füzes refused to follow their advice and instead went to the statue of Áron Márton, Catholic bishop of Transylvania who died in 1981, and placed his flowers there.

But that's not the end of the story. An older man today glued a ribbon depicting the colors of the Romanian national flag on the base of the statue. He did that in spite of police presence; the statue is guarded day and night. Two hours later the ribbon was removed.

While all this is going on in Cluj, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry is officially demanding the removal of the plaque.

It never ceases to amaze me how agitated nationalists can get over a question that is in actuality a non-issue. In fifteenth-century Europe nationality played no part in the social fabric of society. In the twenty-first century fighting over Matthias's nationality shows the total ignorance of both sides about the historical realities of earlier times. Unfortunately these ridiculous fights over historical facts can ruin relations between the two countries. 

 

Comments

[Odin's lost eye]

The horrors, death and destruction caused by puffed up little men who play the Tribal/Racist/Nationalist/Patriotic/Religious card are the worst of the dark stains in the record of human history.

These puffed up little toads create such havoc for their own power and glory. Oh how I hate them! There are enough problems in this world -hunger, dieses, drug addiction, poverty etc- without these cockroaches setting neighbour against neighbour, class mate against class mate etc in the name of something ephemeral.

We have seen ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ in the Balkans, in Rwanda where the Hutu killed some 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi (1,174,000 in all). The Killing fields of Cambodia and the death factories of Auschwitz – Birkenau, Dachau.

Who cares who the ancestors of King Matthias were and what tribe they came from? What is important is what he (Matthias) did and what he did not do. To the inhabitants of Cluj, Matthias is important. His birthplace brings in Gumps (tourist) who bring in money.

Finally I must apologise to the members of the order of Blattaria (Cockroaches) for using your name in this context. I am aware that even cockroaches have to ‘draw the line’ somewhere!

[NWO]

This is pathetic.

Informative post, however.

[Minusio]

As the discussion isn't so lively, may I ask something off-topic?

About three weeks ago, the government mailed a questionnaire about state benefits. It had two barcodes (type C 128) above the name of the addressee. The explanation for the reason why it is there is totally inacceptable. But that is a different discussion.

I managed to decipher the barcodes for my girlfriend's questionnaire. But they are only groups of numbers. Who has access to the list of codes so that we can decipher these numbers? Sunny Boy? Anyone?

[Erik the Reader]

Actually Hunyadi János was never of Romanian origin, but Cumanian. His father bore the same pagan Vajk forename like Saint Stephen the first christian king of Hungary.

[Eva S. Balogh]

Read on, Erik! There are too many documentary evidence that János Hunyadi came from a Romanian boyar family. Is there something wrong with this? Cuman is better?

[Jim]

The whole Cumanian identity question is a huge mess. Medieval documents even refer to some Cumanians -- the Asenids and Basarabs -- as "Vlachs" -- i.e. Romanians (rather than Turks). No one really knows anything about this for certain. But yes, the preponderance of sources considers Hunyadi to be Romanian.

[someone]

This is the root of the problem with the "flaky" Hungarian identity. We get these "True Hungarians" who want to prove it the whole world that Hungarians are so darn special, but of course not all of them, but only those who have some bloodline that only comes from "who knows where". They run into trouble, as Hungarians are from a nomadic heritage, and beside they have been occupied, they have occupied, they were raped and they were raping. They were mixing through centuries. Kings and Queens, princes and princesses were marrying each other for political reasons aside from heritage all over Europe, and this has never been a problem, more so a "peace keeping mission". Then you get alike of Kover, Orban, (and of course you can go back to others), who start to come up with some superiority theory, and because of that, they try to protect the clean line (like for dogs). I for one I find this offensive, but not those "smart ones". (by the way how about Austrian heritage from the monarchy?) Fortunately (or unfortunately to them) they run into a little problem time to time, called historical facts. I think Hungary needs a little forensic DNA digging amongst those true Hungarians to deliver the news, that "yes" they do have some Turkish blood, yes, they do have some Romanian in them, and forbid some Jewish heritage here and there.