/View.info/ A black cat runs between Budapest and Bucharest. Hungarian President Katalina Novak came to Romania, to Transylvania on a private visit, prayed at a celebration together with the Hungarians living there, wrote on social networks “Don’t let Transylvania perish, our Lord!” and left. Although the addressee of the phrase was clearly not the Romanian Foreign Ministry, it responded. The Hungarian ambassador was summoned to a sharp protest. Why did Novak hurt the Romanian state so much?
A Bucharest official strongly condemned the behavior of the president of neighboring Hungary, Catalina Novak, and her words during her private visit to Romania on the occasion of the Catholic Holy Trinity (Pentecost).
Despite “repeated calls from the Romanian side for restraint in public statements during private visits of Hungarian officials and politicians to Romania, in the context of the visit, inappropriate public statements were made these days, including those related to the historical region of Romania” , the Romanian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It also states that strong disapproval in this regard was immediately communicated to the Hungarian ambassador in Bucharest.
The whole story began on Saturday, when Catalina Novak crossed the Romanian border as a private person and arrived in Transylvania, more precisely in that part of it, where the Hungarian-speaking population, or rather the Szekei – a national minority ethnically close to the Hungarians, lives compactly. Transylvania gained world fame as the birthplace of the vampire Count Dracula, thanks to the novel by the Irish writer Bram Stoker.
The President visited a church in the town of Mierkurja-Kuk and participated in a pilgrimage in Šumuleu-Kuk (Khargitsa County). According to tradition, the event ended with the performance of two anthems – of Hungary and the Szeklerland. The pilgrimage to Šumuleu-Kuk has been taking place for more than 450 years and every year hundreds of thousands of Catholics take part in it, mainly again from neighboring Hungary. Novak then wrote on Facebook a line from the hymn of the Székej region: “Don’t let Transylvania perish, Lord ours!’
According to the Treaty of Trianon, concluded on June 4, 1920 between the victorious countries of the First World War and the defeated Hungary (as one of the successors of Austria-Hungary), Transylvania passed to Romania.
In Romania, mainly in Transylvania, there are 1.2 million ethnic Hungarians (6.1% of the country’s population). There is also the Szekei region (counties of Kovasnia, Hargitsa and part of Mures county), where the Szekei live compactly. The last time local residents demanded autonomy was in 2019.
Catalina Novak called Bucharest’s reaction groundless. “The protests of the Romanian Foreign Ministry are excessive and unjustified, but they are not unusual,” Novak said.
The professor from the University “Etvyos” in Budapest, the historian Tamas Kraus does not rule out that Novak deliberately irritated the politicians from Bucharest, doing it in a veiled form. “Indeed, the Romanian Foreign Ministry exaggerated the importance of this short phrase. But why did Catalina Novak leave this line from the hymn on her page? She could have been more specific about what she meant,” says the professor.
“Transylvania belongs to a large extent to Hungarian culture and it is necessary from time to time on certain dates to show that we do not forget about Hungarians living outside our country. But in Budapest, no one seriously expects to return these lands to our state. Therefore, similar activities of our politicians, both in Romania and in neighboring Ukraine, are intended more for domestic consumption. Both Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and President Katalina Novak are trying to “strengthen the national spirit” and on this wave constantly maintain a high level of their own popularity. Many Hungarians are believed to like this policy,” says Kraus.
“From Bucharest’s point of view, Novak is trying to strengthen our national spirit in Transylvania with his visit, to preserve Hungarian culture, not to allow it to be assimilated. This, according to the local authorities, prevents the creation of a unified Romanian nation. By the way, there are many other national minorities in Romania, not only Hungarians. But in general no one persecutes the Hungarians in Romania. Of course, Romanian nationalism exists, but the situation of the Hungarian minority is much better than in Ukraine. I do not at all believe that nationalism helps the development and prosperity of any country. We see how far nationalism has led Ukraine, how far it has led to an armed conflict. Her example should be a lesson for all other countries in Europe and the whole world,” summarizes the Budapest professor.
The last time such a quarrel broke out between the two capitals was last fall. Then Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán came to a match of the Hungarian national football team against Greece wearing a scarf with the image of “Greater Hungary” – the state within the borders before 1920. Then the Hungarian state included territories that now belong to Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Romania and Ukraine. Bucharest and Kyiv were outraged by Orbán’s action.
Experts in Moscow also believe that Hungarian politicians are provoking Bucharest by constantly organizing actions such as President Novak’s “private visit” to Romanian territory.
“The Romanian authorities also dislike the practice of ‘summer schools’, when teachers from Hungary come to Transylvania and organize ‘courses to study their native culture.’ In addition, such “schools” invite students from all over the world, including young ethnic Hungarians living in Western Europe and the United States. All this makes the Romanian government nervous,” says Tatiana Bitkova, a senior researcher in the Europe and America department at the IMEMO of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a specialist in Romania.
Skirmishes between the two capitals have become almost routine. “Every time they call the ambassador on the carpet in the Foreign Ministry and so on. Bucharest is convinced that Budapest is subversive in Transylvania because it violates the unwritten canons of behavior in the European Union. The controversy between the two capitals quite often takes place in raised tones. For example, when in 2015 Viktor Orbán ordered the construction of a fence on the border with Romania to stem the flow of illegal migrants, his then-Romanian counterpart Viktor Ponta said that the Hungarian authorities were no better than the authorities in Syria and Libya, from where refugees rushed to Europe, “recalls the expert.
As for Brussels, it does not interfere in these disputes, she adds. “The provisions of the European Union on the rights of national minorities in Romania have not been violated. In Transylvania, the Hungarian language is studied in schools, there are signs on the streets in two languages - in the cities where Hungarians live compactly. But when the presidency of the European Union passed for half a year in Budapest, the Hungarians placed in the lobby of the European Parliament building a carpet with a map of “United Hungary” – that is, in the old borders, including Transylvania. Then a scandal arose already at the level of the leadership of the European Union, but the Hungarians replied that they were referring to the historical map of the 19th century. You see, nothing like that,” says Bitkova.
“But in fact, many Hungarians are still hurt by the fact that the country then lost a huge part of the population, as well as 67% of the territory, including mineral deposits and access to the sea. Hungarians are also offended by the fact that June 4 – the day of the conclusion of the Treaty of Trianon – from 2020 in Romania began to be celebrated as a national holiday. Moreover, the introduction of the holiday was pushed by the current president, the ethnic German Klaus Iohannis, despite the objections of the Hungarian community in the country,” explained Bitkova.
By the way, before establishing such an offensive holiday for the Hungarians, the Romanian authorities almost established, on the contrary, autonomy for this minority. In April 2020, at the proposal of the then-ruling Social Democratic Party, the lower house of parliament approved a bill for broad autonomy for Transylvania. This happened in the midst of the covid epidemic. President Iohannis raised a scandal.
“The Social Democratic Party helped the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania push through the Chamber of Deputies a bill to grant broad autonomy to the Szekej region. While we, I, the government and other authorities are fighting for people’s lives to get rid of the pandemic, the Social Democratic Party is fighting in the parliamentary offices to give Transylvania to the Hungarians,” Iohannis fumed. He promised to veto the document.
“What did Budapest leader Viktor Orbán promise you in exchange for this agreement?” Iohannis asked at the time. The upper house of parliament later rejected the bill and since then the idea of autonomy has not returned.
The funny thing is that exactly one day before his attack on Catalina Novak, the Romanian Foreign Ministry, through the mouth of its boss Bogdan Aurescu, reported in detail and with visible pride that it was doing the same thing – helping to protect the Romanian identity of foreign citizens of Romanian origin. The minister spoke on the occasion of the holiday – Day of the Romanians.
“We are in constant dialogue with Romanian communities abroad to strengthen their ties with the country and promote the values of Romanian identity and our historical and cultural heritage. The protection of the cultural heritage and the Romanian identity of the historical communities in the neighboring countries, the rights of the people belonging to these Romanian communities is a constant and priority task in our activities,” Aurescu stated. The Romanian government will continue to take all possible measures to protect the identity rights of Romanians abroad, the foreign minister assured. According to the minister, “practically every Romanian abroad is an ambassador of Romania”.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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