So,
if we look at things this way, the events that took place on December 21
Through 25, 1989 and afterwads in the Harghita and Covasna counties, where the
majority population is made up of Hungarians and Szecklers, are actually a
continuation of certain ideas and actions orchestrated for a long time by those
who want to chase Romanians away from Transylvania. So, the relations between
Hungarians and Szecklers on one
side and Romanians on the other side, were never based on cohabitation but on
exclusivism, which brought about great suffering to the Romanians of
Transylvania, who were for centuries doubly exploited: socially and nationally.
For that, the myth of St. Stephen’s empire was invoked, according to which
Transylvania was conquered by the Hungarians and the borders of Hungary reached
the tops of the Carpathian mountains. But there is no document to confirm that
under the rule of this kind, the Eastern limits of the empire reached the tops
of the Eastern Carpathian mountains, because the fights with the Cumans, in the
late 11th century, only ended in the 13th century, before
the Tartar invasion. The conquest of Transylvania by
the Hungarians was accomplished in several stages, the last period being after
the settlement of the Saxons (of German origin) and of the Szecklers (according
to some analysts, they are a Hungarianized population of Thracian origin) in
that geographical area. In fact, even St. Stephen’s crown, that famous symbol
of Hungary’s expansionist tendencies, has nothing in common with the crown
offered by Pope Sylvester II to the Hungarian king: it is much more recent and
comes from Byzantium1. The military expansion of the Hungarian feudal state
to Transylvania - done gradually from the latter half of the 11th century until
the 13th century* - turned the isolated attempts
made by some warrior tribes, mentioned in the time’s chronicles as beginning in
the 10th century, into a large-scale, organized action. There has been much
talk about the lack of documents to certify the existence of the Romanians in
Transylvania, after the Roman withdrawal at the beginning of the first
millennium, leaving aside the fact that in those times only the great wars were
recorded and Transylvania had become a sort of passing route for various
migrating peoples.
However,
there are testimonies attesting to the existence, as early as the 4th century
until later, in the 11th- 12th centuries, of an“old Romanian civilization”. It
had developed within territorial communities living in valleys or other areas
defended by high relief contours. They formed the so-called valley
principalities which were, in their turn, grouped in“tări” - countries (from
the Latin word“terra”). Latin or Byzantine chroniclers (Flavius Claudius
Iulianus, Auxentius of Durostorum, Claudius Claudianus, Orosius, Priscus
Panaites, Theophanes Confesor, Theophilactus Simocata, Mauricius, Kedrenos, Anna
Comnena, Kinamos, Theodoros Prodromos, Koniates, Manasses), Armenian Moses
Chorenatzis, Russian Nestor, Western chroniclers (Rogerius, from Hildesheim, or
Chronicon Budense, Chronicon Dubnicense, Chronicon Monacense, Chronicon Pictum
Vindobonensis, Biterolf and Dietleib, Nibelungenlied), as well as inscriptions
on stone, clay, patterns, candle holders, metal objects tell both of the
presence of the Romanians and of their polities over the whole territory of
today’s Romania, Transylvania included, and of their relations with the known
world, centuries before the Hungarians had moved their tents from Asia or from
the easternmost areas of Europe towards its centre, to the places inhabited by
Romanians and other peoples, in their attempt to acquire a country sword.
The
Szecklers took up the Romanian songs and ballads and many words of Latin
origin. After the establishment of the Dualism (in 1866) the Hungarianzation
became a true superior “raison d’etat.” The
Ivsrern was so designed by the Hungarian legislation to make the other ethnic
groups forget their language, allowing themselves to be overwhelmed, in time,
by the “music of the superior language.” In all those who spoke
Hungarian were listed as Hungarians. But under religion, the truth was coming
out, as only the Romanians were (Greek) Orthodox or Greek Catholic; Hungarians
and Szecklers were Calvinist and Roman
Catholic. In 1910, for example, in the Odorhei under nationalities, Rornanians
were listed with 2,840 individuals, but the Orthodox religion had 5,528
believers; in the Micfalau commune, six Romanians were listed, but the Orthodox
and Greek Catholic religions had 928 believers. The statistics of 1733, 1750,
snow that in the so-called “Szeckler block”-the area where majority-there were
many Romanian enclaves; in less than 170 years, whole communes were completely
Hungarianized, so the initial, basic Romanian character of the region was
changed. Relatively recent statistics, starting with the 18th century, prove
very clearly that Romanians still accounted for 30% of the Szeckler region
population, but that percentage dropped in 200 years to 5%. Of the 100 of the former Trei Scaune country, in 1733 there
were Romanians left in 94 communes, and in 1940 there was no Romanian communes
and only in 22 communes the population increase was normal.
Hungarian
writer Benczies Gustav, in his work MagyarosodCs
és published in Budapest in 1883, showed Timis county had 4,560 Hungarians,
183,628 Romanians, 67,847 Germans, 3,000 2,245 Slovaks, 18,320 Serbs, 830
Montenegrins, again proving the Romanian majority.
Regarding the policy to sideline and even eliminate the
Romanian there are telling examples issued by the Hungarian tion for a long
time. In 1429, king Sigismund decided to destroy all Romanian offspring5, and the 1552 Rules to enforce Article
28 of the Diet in Târgu Mures, providing for the pursuit and punishment of
criminals say: “The Romanian shall not be allowed to
denounce a Hungarian or a Szeckler, but the Hungarian and the Szeckler shall be
denounce the Romanian.”6 One
should notice the fact that racist ideology was applied and spread overtly,
without any disguise it. After the proclamation of the Austro-Hungarian
dualism, Budapest issued further numerous anti-Romanian laws, among up by
Apponi, regarding compulsory education in Hungarian, the total suppression of
the Romanian education, which as a matter of fact, only existed as a
confessional education, the recording of births under Hungarian names, a.o.
Actually, the Hungarians continueded a policy started centuries before, when
Hungary’s Angevin dynasty forebid the Romanians to have buildings made of stone
or brick (including churches), or when the Romanians were labelled as a
tolerated nation by the three privileged and dominant nations (Hungarians,
Szecklers and Transylvanian Saxons). But the most sharp offensive of its racist
ideology was launched by Budapest during the inter-bella period and WW2 in
widely circulated newspapers and periodicals, in “works” also edited in a large
number. The tenets of this ideology were extremely variegated, from Hungary’s
“historical rights”, “maimed” by the peace concluded after WWI, to the divine
“support” and “intervention” in favour of the Hungarians. Thus in the volume Justice for Hungary we can find the
following “scientific” argument: “Hungary was also created by God as a unitary
country”. At the same time, Hungary was called upon to protect Europe against
the communist threat in the East, as to defend the continent’s culture thanks
to “the Hungarians’ cultural superiority” as to the neighbouring nations,
a.s.o. In one of the eight memoranda addressed by Hungary to the peace
Conference after WWI, it was said: “Our cultural superiority is a fact, ... we
are permanently the most solid stronghold of Western culture before the
Orient”. Budapest’s ideology also launched other aberrant racist theories,
among which “the Hungarians’ racial superiority”, based on their kinship with
... the Japanese, or on the “historical living space”. The widely circulated
Hungarian daily MagyarNemzet from May
17, 1942 published, in the article ‘The Living Space and the Outlook of Saint
Stephan”, the idea of creating “the millennium-old Hungarian living space” by
swallowing large parts of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, as a “vital
necessity for Western Europe, (Hungary being-ed.n.) the Eastern stronghold of
Europe’s security ... representing (the creation of millennium-old Hungary-ed.n.),
above all a common European interest”. Especially since, read the same article,
“the Magyar living space has been created by the Hungarian God ... (and) the
Hungarian living space will always resurrect because this is God’s will”.
(Sic!) What should have been done, once this living space acquired? We are told
by the same ideology of Budapest. Deputy Urmancsi Nándor advocated the creation
of a great Hungarian empire where should be brought, beside the Hungarians in
Hungary and in the “temporarily occupied territories”, the Hungarians from
America, Africa, Asia, “after which we shall get rid of parasites. Those
miserable people must be eliminated.” The leader of the most powerful political
party in the inter-bella period (Crosses and Arrows), Szálassy Ferenc, required
that “the great Magyar Carpathian-Danubian country” should include Hungary with
“Croatia, Slovenia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Hercegovina, to which should be annexed
Transylvania, Banat, Slovakia, Ukraine, as well as other territories”. In Szálassy’s
theory, aberrations grow wild: Hungary should even go beyond the Danubian basin
and-neither more nor less-participate in the division of the World. He said:
“The new order that must be established ... will divide the world into three
zones: I. the German order, which will include Weastern Europe and the European
Soviet Union; 2. the Japanese order, in Asia and America; 3. the Hungarian
order, in South-Eastern Europe”. The putting into practice of this ideology,
even on a less extended that suggested in Szálassy’s aberrations, consistently
aimed at eliminating the non-Magyar nations. Telling in this respect are the
words of writer Gëza Kosztelski, who, as “a man of culture”, strukc the key not
in the “elite” world of Budapest: Later,
writer Géza Kosztelszky, as a “man of culture”, was making the following
statements: “Let us leave aside the conventional lie according to which we
claim we do not wish to kill the non-Hungarian nationalities. Yes, we want to
destroy them, we must destroy them.”7
Baron Aczél Ede, in a speech at Simleul Silvaniei, continued these ideas,
in an even more concrete way: “These Romanians wearing peasant shoes must be
exterminated, killed, as they are our enemies (...) Priests teach love of the
people, but this is just a trap, because God only helps brutal force, and we
all must use this brutal force to kill and exterminate these Wallachians.
Religion, with its Ten Commandments read: “You shall not kill,” “You
shall not steal,” “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife,” for these are
sins. Is this a sin? No, it is not. The true sin would
be not to exterminate this gang (...) of crude peasants (...). We will organize
a St. Bartholomew night (...) and will even kill babies in their mothers’
wombs.”8 The oath taken by Hungarian
extremist Dücsö Csaba, taken in the 20th century, does not need any
explanation: “I do not wait for revenge to come. I do not wait. I will kill
every Romanian I run into! I will kill each and every one of them. There will
be no mercy. At night I will set fire to the Romanian villages! I will implate
to the whole population; I will poison the water wells and I will even kill the
babies in cradles! Generally, I will destroy this nation of thieves and
bastards. There will be no mercy for anyone. Not for the babies in cradles,
not for the mother who will give birth to a child. I will kill every Romanian
and then there will only be one nation in Transylvania, the Hungarian one, my
nation, my flesh and blood. I will future Horeas and
Closcas powerless (leaders of the Romanian people’s rebellion in Transylvania,
1748). There will be no mercy!9
And the“strongest” argument in support of this was provided in the same
brouchure:”The blood of Attila, Arpad and Genghis Khan throbs in our veins!”
These
are basic ideas underlying the self-styled “Hungarian superiority”, so
frequently asserted in the Mediaeval documents. “The
Romanians are just a nation of peasants and serfs, an uneducated, barbarian nation, immersed in superstitions,
vice, inclined to all evils. There are many of them, it is true (sic!), but
there are many of a worthless crowd.”10
The
way in which these ideas were practically achieved is proved by the tumultuous
history of Transylvania, the sufferings and persecutions of the Romanians,
which held as a purpose either to completely assimilate them to the Hungarians
or to make them abandon their native regions. Werboczi’s
Tripartite condemned them to “eternal
serfdom”, the Aprobate and Compilatex,
unique laws of a discriminating nature, considered them as tolerated in
their own country, Emperor Leopold’s diplomas had the same defamatory nature.
Following
the first union of the Romanian States, achieved during Michael the Brave’s
reign (Prince of Wallachia between 1594-1601, who accomplished the first union
of the three principalities inhabited by the Romanians, Wallachia, Moldavia,
and Transylvania in 1600- ed.n.), the Hungarian nobility’s reaction was
especially harsh regarding the Romanians; thus it was stated once, upon the
occasion of one of their gatherings that: “The purpose
of all his (Michael the Brave - ed.n.) plots and endeavours has been to deplete
the Hungarians, the Szecklers and the Transylvanian Saxons and to populate this
wonderful land, which has bred and fed us, with Romanians.”11 As a result, the day of his defeat at Miraslau by General
Basta (Commander-in-chief of the Hapsburg army during Emperor Rudolfs reign -
ed.n.) was considered a true national holiday, all the inhabitants being
obliged to celebrate it under the threat of hard penalties, years after that.
The reprisals which followed against the Romanians were truly frightful.
Again after Horea’s uprising, thousand of Romanians were
tortured and killed for daring to rise in arms against “the superior race.”12
The
Revolution of 1848 proved once again that the only wish of the Hungarians was
to annex Transylvania for good. And, in this respect, everyone was agreeable,
noblemen or liberal elements alike. “Never”- said
Kossuth (the leader of the Hungarians during the Revolution of 1848 - ed.n.)-
“have I agreed to the opinion that there could exist different political
nationalities in one country.”13
In the Diet of Bratislava, Kossuth stressed again: “I shall never, absolutely
never, acknowledge under the holy Hungarian crown a nation or nationality other
than the Hungarian one. I know there are individuals and peoples who speak
another language, but only one nation does exist here.” On October 10, 1848,
upon the occasion of his proclamation to the Romanians, Kossuth threatened in
very harsh terms that if the Romanians did not submit to the Hungarians’
wishes, woe on them: “Otherwise, upon god in heavens, who defends justice, the
ones guilty will bear the pitiless severity of the law. Our brave army (...)
will set out against you and woe on any mutinous element, and three times alack
for all the instigators. You had better not be born
because no one shall receive mercy or indulgence (...) The Hungarians and the
Szecklers shall all rise to exterminate the traitors and the disobedient
rebels.”14 The Szkeclers
applied most zealously these ideas, gaining a special “fame” by the
full-bloodedness and attrocities perpetuated. Thus, the superintendent of the
Zlatna estate addressed Avram Iancu thus: “If you disobey, I shall truly bring over the Szeckler soldiers and you know how savagely
these behave.”15 (Avram Iancu-hero
of the Revolution of 1848 in Transylvania - ed.n.)
Referring
to the Hungarian annexational tendencies regarding Transylvania, Count
Figuelmont, ex-president of the council, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Austria-Hungary, asked: “If the Hungarian nation claims primacy and wants to
play the lead, has not one the right to ask for their credentials?” And he
further provided an answer “The Hungarians should not forget that they were the
last to come from Asia, without annals, no history and motherland.” In 1851, Nagyoytai Cserey Mihaly, commenting on Hungary’s influence upon Transylvania, stated, among others:
“Transilvania’s misfortune has always originated in Hungary and has been caused
by the Hungarians.”16
After 1867, the policy of denationalizing the Romanians
was mainly achieved by educational institutions. This way, the number of
schools with tuition in Hungarian and Romanian evinced the following evolution
in Transylvania:17
|
Year |
||
|
1871 |
1890 |
1900 |
|
|
Hungarian |
5,818 schools 2,878 schools |
9,994 schools 2,5812 schools |
10,325 schools 2,157 schools |
After the achievement of the nation state, far
from the Romanians was the thought of avenging the centuries of humiliation,
intolerance, and oppression that they had been subjected to by the Szecklers
and the Hungarians. Thus, article 7 of the 1923
Constitution, read: “In Romania, difference in religious faith and
denominations, ethnic extraction and language does not impinge on the exercise
of civil rights…“20 And article 5 included the citizens’ rights “who,
regardless of ethnic origin, language or religion, enjoy
freedom of conscience, liberty of educational activities, freedom of the press,
liberty of free association and meeting and any of the other liberties
therefore established by law.”21
Article
1 of the Constitution lays down that “the Kingdom of Romania is an indivisible
unitary nation state -.” To this the spokesmen of the Szecklers and the
Hungarians responded bitterfully, like in 1991, actually trying to dispute the
unitary character of the Romanian state.
Between
the two World Wars, despite all liberties granted by the Romanian state,
national oppresion, discrimination and chauvinism did not disappear in
Transylvania. The most influential shareholders in the
main plants, mines or trading enterprises continued to beto the Hungarians,
Szecklers, S axons or Jews, as well as the owners of over 80% of the shops,
workshops or restaurants in Transylvanian towns. The number of newspapers,
papers, magazines printed in Hungarian was bigger than those printed in
Romanian22
In
1940, under an auspicious international concourse of events and with Italy and
Germany’s great helps, through the Vienna Award, Hungary was granted 43,492 sq
km of Romania’s north-western territory, inhabited by 2,667,000 people, the
bulk of them being Romanians. During four years (1940-1944), the Romanian
inhabitants of that region were faced with procedures and behaviours by the
invaders, which reminded of the Mediaeval period. Thus,
only between August 30- November 1, 1941, 919 murders, 4,126 torturings, 15,893
arrests, 78 collective devastations, and 447 individual ones took place.23 And let us offer some
instances to prove the truth of our statements. On September 9, 1940, at Träznea,
100 people were killed, out of which 68 were identified. The village was
destroyed with cannons, grenades, the houses were set on fire, priest Traian
Costea was shot dead in his head; then pulled over the wooden gallery of the
presbytery which was set on fire. Among the victims there were children aged
between two and seven years; also old people aged between 60 and 80 (Säläjan
Ion- two years old; Brumar Aurica- five years old; Birjoc Gherasim seven years
old, Birjoc Maria- 81 years old; Birjoc Grigore- 74 years old). 155 men, women
and children were killed at Ip, 21 Romanians, and among them a pregnant woman,
killed at Zaläu, four Romanian peasants -at Comär. At
Huedin, the paramilitary Ion Negru was hanged in a tree, barrister E. Moga and
wife were ill-treated, professor Gh. Herdea shot in the back, Vasile Popa was
hanged by his feet and then his arms were broken.24
On September 10, 1940, the Orthodox rector Aurel Munteanu was
savagely tortured and eventually assassinated: “A Hungarian officer arrested
him in the street when he was going to a funeral. First, he was beaten with the
fists and then with clubs until he fell down. Then, his tongue was pulled out
with other pieces of flesh, at the same time when his hair and head skin were
torn away; having finished these operations, the executioners twisted his arms
until his bones were broken. The peak of animality was
reached when Budai János Gyepu stabbed him in the mouth with a stick and with
such strength that the stick pierced his nape.” After taking into account the
above mentioned deeds, the Hungarian Royal Court in Cluj conclusioned: “The
motive of their deed was that general human (to put it better-Hungarian-ed.n.)
feeling which is normal to all the true members of a dignified nation.”25 Thus, the Hungarian
“dignified nation” was encouraged to resort to such acts as murder and torture
in order to display and prove its patriotism. During
the same period, the authorities tried to force the Romanians into changing
religion, so as, when the civil administration was to be installed, the
Romanian Church should face an accomplished fact.26
On November 12, 1940, in the Budapest House of Deputies, the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Count István Csáky declared:“I hereby declare Hungary’s claim
to be the first among equals (primus inter pares) in the Danubian area.” But as
artificial states do not obtain unless force is employed, in 1944, Transylvania
again re-entered the Romanian borders, thus being annulled the political
sentence given by the fascist states in 1940. Again the Hungarians and
Szecklers felt frustrated, trying, by employing all means, to undermine the
Romanian state’s authority. Hence the invocations of the punishments set by
the“Iuliu Maniu” Guards upon those who had committed all kinds of savage acts
against the Romanians. Therefore, Stalin ordered the establishment in the very
heart of the Romanian territory of the Hungarian Autonomous Region, placed
under Soviet administration. This was an extra reason for the Soviet armies to
be stationed in the area. After the ascension to power of Petru Groza’s
government on March 6, 1945, the Romanian state was allowed to administer
Transylvania, under one condition imposed by the Soviets, namely that the
Hungarian Autonomous Region be maintained. Altogether, in Romania, the Szeklers
and the Hungarians enjoyed all their rights after World War II (native tongue
education, a great number of publications, representatives in all local and
national institutions etc.), nonetheless, all the time having an anti-Romanian
attitude which they have fully displayed when the internal course of events
allowed it. The Hungarians enjoyed their rights even during Nicolae Ceausescu’s
dictatorship (the use of their native tongue, native tongue educational
institutes, publications), consequently this not being the real motive of the
deeds done after December 1989.
In
Budapest, revisionism has been permanently supported with all means, certain
different publications holding first place in theoretically preparing the plan
which was to be applied with the achievement of an auspicious international
atmosphere. “It is a fact - ”reads a publication - “that Transylvania’s future
is not Romania’s internal affair anymore. This future
is a Hungarian, Slovakian and Polish, Serbian and Ukrainian, Greek and
Armenian, Jewish and Gipsy affair.”27
In his article, “Unnepronto” (which can be translated as ‘The
Disturber”), the Hungarian writer Geza Pogonáts stated: “In Romania the present
is unreal. The only reality, which does not exist, is the future. But another
reality is that the minorities’ situation needs not only be improved (...) because the mere problem of
nationalities must disappear once and for all, not under a trapdoor, or by
being blown in the wind, but by an autonomous Transylvania or, which is even
more radical, by new ethnical borders.” So over and over again, Romania was
being harassed. What kind of forces hide behind this kind of statements?
Irredentisrn/ Fascism! Extremism? Who is interested in changing the contour of
the borders established by international treaties? Coming to an end with our
historical investigation regarding Transylvania, the conclusions to be drawn
are as follows: by virtue of the first occupant’s right (jus primi occupantis)
and of, the majority population, Transylvania is a Romanian land, the
Hungarians and Szeklers coming to this region in the second millennium. They
found here a population (the native Romanian population) which already had well
established social and economic structures, whose traditions and customs are
fully proved by archaeological discoveries and historical documents. NO
HISTORICAL DOCUMENT TELLS WHERE THEY CAME FROM AND WHEN. BECAUSE THE ROMANIANS
DID NOT COME TO TRANSYLVANIA. THEY HAVE BEEN BORN AS A PEOPLE IN TRANSYLVANIA.
THEY BELONG HERE. THEY ARE THE NATIVES OF THE PLACE. Over the relations between
the Hungarians and the Szecklers, on the one hand and the Romanians, on the
other hand, the phantom of St. Stephen’s empire has always hovered bringing
about conflicts, the anti-Romanian attitude going on from one generation to
another, with the stress on the Hungarians and Szecklers’“superiority”, and an
undeseribable violence and savageness in moments of crisis; during the
contemporary period, being interested in the revision of the peace treaties
concluded after World War I, Hungary has carried on an intense propaganda
intended to prepare the grounds for farreaching political actions, helped by
other states, for this reason using the Hungarians and the Szecklers in
Transylvania; their part is to cause artificial conflictual states in order to
render sensitive the European public opinion.
And
this in spite of the agreements reached within OSCE, even in spite of
Budapest’s statements made on the occasion of various international conferences
on the integration of Central and East-European states within the structures of
Western Europe. It is likely that a too long - at historical scale -
cultivation of the myth of their racial and cultural“superiority” and also a
too long - at historical scale as well - nourishing of their lust for lands that
have never belonged to them, make many of today’s Hungarian politicians, as
they made those of yesterday, unable to detect, to understand the trends of
historical development. And one of them is that of the European integration of
peoples, but not an arbitrary one, an integration of FREE PEOPLES, therefore
PEOPLES GRANTED HUMAN RIGHTS.
Far
from being optimistic regarding the future - especially after what happened
after December 1989 in the counties with a majority of Hungarian and Szecklers
population - let us express our vision as to Transylvanian problem by employing
a suggestive passage from N. Balcescu’s work, Istoria românilor sub Mihai Voevod Viteazul “The problem to be
thought out in Transylvania does not consist merely in what the Romanians, the
Hungarians, the Saxons and the Szecklers will do in order to be left alone in
that country or to drive away the other peoples, but in searching the means to
live together in peace.”
pp.
27-28.
a.
The conquest of Transylvania, begun by the Hungarian tribes in the 11th
century, may be deemed as concluded by the Hungarian kingdom in the 13th
century, which ruled it until 1541, when the Hungarian state vanished from
history, being divided between Austria and Turkey. The Hungarian state would
not revive until 1918.
After 1541, Transylvania becomes an autonomous
principality under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, having the same status
as the other two Romanian countries: Wallachia and Moldavia. For a short while
Transylvania gets united to the other two Romanian countries, forming together
(Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia), in 1599-1660, the first mediaeval
Romanian union state under the rule of prince Michael the Brave, after which it
re-acquired its previous status. In 1661, the principality of Transylvania
acknowledged the Hapsburg suzerainty and decided to sever bonds with the
Ottoman Empire. After the proclamation of the Austro-Hungarian dualism (1867),
up to 1918, Transylvania was practically ruled from Budapest.
b.
Even during the three centuries of Hungarian domination (13th- 16th),
Transylvania preserved internal organization - a principality with its own
feudal strata. According to a Hungarian historian, Sándor Szilágyi,
“Transylvania and Hungary could never be confounded, they have always been two
different countries.” (Erdelyiország tórténete, 1, Pest, 1859). Transylvania
had its own ruler (the voivode), old autochthonous administrative titutions,
army, laws, coin, and education.
mlnentuns,
1915.
political
one based on the acknowledgment of three nations in Transylvania - the
Hungarians, the Szeklers and the Saxon-and of four creeds: Catholic, Calvinist,
Lutheran, and Unitarian)
II,
III
the North-Western Romania, Sept- 1940-Oct. 1944),
Bucharest, 1985, p.71