Alina Mungiu Pippidi - Subjective Transylvania

8/13/2019 Alina Mungiu Pippidi - Subjective Transylvania

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Alina Mungiu Pippidi *

SUBJECTIVE TRANSYLVANIA:

A CASE STUDY OF POST COMMUNIST NATIONALISM **

'Having some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the BritishMuseum, and made search among the books and maps of the library regardingTransylvania !!!" one of the wildest and least known portions of #urope !!!" I read

that every known superstition of the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the$arphatians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool'!

Bram %toker& racula"

* Alina Mungiu Pippidi is a p li!i"al ps#"$ l gis! and a % u&nalis!' T&ain(d) !$ in R ania and !$( Uni!(d S!a!(s +,a&-a&d Uni-(&si!#. s$( )!ain(d

$(& P$D in S "ial ps#"$ l g# /& !$( Uni-(&is!# / Iasi in 0112' S$(pu)lis$(d in -a&i us n(3spap(&s and % u&nals ) !$ in R ania anda)& ad4 a ng !$(&s in 5 -(&n (n! and Opp si!i n4 T&ansi!i n4 Eas!Eu& p(an C ns!i!u!i nal R(-i(34 La N u-(ll( Al!(&na!i-(4 L( M nd(4F &(ign P li"#' ,(& ) 6 7R anians7 a/!(& 7817 3as !&ansla!(d in! 5(& an)# F&i(d(&i"$ E)(&! S!i/!ung9In!(&g&ap$ V(&lag in 011 +Di( Ru an(n na"$781.' S$( als au!$ &(d "$ap!(&s n R ania n -a&i us ) 6s pu)lis$(din B&i!ain4 ,unga and !$( US'

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** ;u(&i(s " n"(&ning !$is ) 6 s$ uld )( add&(ss(d ! :Alina Mungiu Pippidi4 02 A Bad Las"a& Ca!a&giu4 Bu"u&(s!i ?@09 2@ ??< 4 (9 ail: pippidi $ ! ail'"

1. FOREWORD

Background

The career Transylvania made as a centre of 'some sort of imaginative whirlpool', whilethe 'wildest and least known portion of Europe' is well-known. The land 'beyond thewoods' of despots and vampires, of werewolves and all sorts of monsters completelyoccupied the Western imagination to such an e tent that attempts to show mediaevalTransylvania as an enlightened place of religious tolerance, reform and learning was noteven noticed, although it is precisely this image inhabitants have of themselves. !isputedin the modern times between "ungary and #omania without the conflict ever reachingthe heights of conflicts in former $ugoslavia, Transylvania survived all through the %&th

entury as an ethnic mi of #omanians, "ungarians and (ermans. (ypsies are alsothere, but )uite unnoticed* +ews used to be there, but they were either decimated duringthe "olocaust, or they left during ommunist times. Encyclopedias show along time thechanging image of Transylvania in the West as rooted in fre)uent changes in its history,

but also the endurance of the core facts. The Encyclopaedia ritannica of 1 11 carriesechoes of toker's description of Transylvanian inhabitants as 'pictures)ue' e cept a fewlooking like (erman or /rench 'normal' peasants, when )ualifying the (ermans as 'themost advanced section of the population'. 0nfortunately they made only % ,&1 , while'The "ungarians and the 2eklers together number 314, 4', 'but by far the mostnumerous element, though long e cluded from power and political e)uality is formed bythe #umanians, 1, 5,%3% in number, who are spread all over the country. The gypsies of

Transylvania 6...7 are estimated at 8& &&&76...7. +ews, 9rmenians, ulgarians, #utheniansand (reeks are also represented in the medley of peoples'. The authors noteTransylvania's incorporation into "ungary since 13:3, adding' since that time the;agyari2ation of the principality has steadily been carried through, in spite of the bitter

protests and discontent of both a ons and #omanians. 9 "ungarian university wasfounded at '9 more liberal status granted to"ungarians seems to have settled the matter forever 6definitivement7.' This approvaltowards the ommunist solution of the minorities problem is shared by the

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mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Encyclopaedia 9mericana 61 37, which underlines the 'more enlightened nationality policies by the ommunist regime@. The %1,&&& s) m reported by ritannica,circumscribed by the borders of the "ungarian province of Transylvania since 135: had

become 5% s)uare miles in the 9merican Encyclopaedia, as other #omaniancontingent regions 6;aramures, anat7 were added to the lands between the

Transylvanian 9lps, Eastern arpathians and the 9puseni ;ountains. The fifteenthedition of Encyclopaedia ritannica 61 4 ;icropaedia7 sums in four lines this 'turbulent'history, saying> '9fter forming part of "ungary 611th-1:th century7 it was an autonomous

principality within the Attoman Empire 61:-15 century7 and then once again became partof "ungary at the end of the 15th entury* later it was incorporated into #omania. Thisedition also displays a beautiful 15th century oriental rug under the title of 'Transylvanianrug'* together with many others this rug made either in Turkey and imported or in some

part of European Turkey once decorated a hristian church in Transylvania. The9merican Encyclopaedia brings to date the demographics of Transylvania, noting thatfrom the about 5 million inhabitants of nowadays :8 B are #omanians, %8 B "ungariansand : B (erman and other nationalities. The last inter-ethnic clash did not make its way

into Encyclopedias> it dates from 1 & and left eight dead and hundreds inCured in the beautiful old town of Tg. ;ures, capital of the 2eklers 6 2ekelys7 region. The 2ekelysare the people among whom +onathan "arker was traveling> ' who claim to be descendedfrom 9ttila and the "uns', but nowadays see themselves as "ungarian. This minor clashdoesn't indeed seem noteworthy compared to other alkan contemporary violentdisputes* it is however notable beyond the Transylvanian conte t, as the first inter-ethnicviolent conflict after the =iberation year, 1 3 .

Approach

D started to think about this research while on a /ulbright /ellowship at "arvard

0niversity in 1 8. Dn between satisfying my need of political assertiveness by showingup at small rallies where we protested against the 0 policy towards osnia and thelectures of amuel "untington on the Freligious@ motives of the osnian conflict, D startedto wonder on the reasons of the so different approaches and understandings of thenationalism topic between us, East Europeans with a communist e perience, and ourWestern colleagues and friends, a difference which is marvelously mirrored in thecollection of essays by =arry !iamond and ;arc ?lattner 61 37. This is not to imply thatwe discovered something new in our e perience> it is Cust that our communist e perience

prevented us from forgetting some old truths, mainly on the human nature. ;ost of us,East Europeans, were stricken with the truth of /ukuyama's famous essay on the end ofhistory from the first words- only to be the first to realise afterwards the tremendousdistance separating political theory from the real world. ?olitical theorists have thismarvelous capacity of presenting ideas, at least in retrospect, as the sole responsible ofevents. When reading ?opper of


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ideology derived from social representations held by society, and their influence on thosesocial representations was a remote and late one. The same goes today, when the validityof /ukuyama's theory has no immediate practical importance. Dn theoretical battles, suchas are unfold in Cournals and academic amphiteatres he made a point so strong D think itcannot be essentially challenged. Dn the real life, however, we should have known better

than e pect people in underdeveloped countries as my own to show Fenthusiasm@ overmarket economy and institutional reforms - these abstractions whose application mostlygenerate poverty and disorder in the short term. Ance the communist regime overthrownwe were not to see Fenthusiasm@ e cept for national causes anywhere in Eastern Europe./rom the rallies in former oviet #epublics in 1 1 to the e traordinary mobili2ation inthe days of the occer World up in 1 3 no other cause was able to generate popularenthusiasm than national pride and solidarity, these not-at-all abstract, down to groundfeelings. This is not to say that /ukuyama is mistaken > he is not. "e may seem soinfluential with the present age in one hundred years as "egel or keen for a collective identity, not anindividual one, and la2y when it comes to choose between comple alternatives, soFcognitive misers@ 6/iske and Taylor> 1 347. 9dding to theis the terribleimpersonali2ation of ommunist societies 6Dnglehart and 9bramson> 1 57 there is littlewonder the most basic need of people in East Europe was identity, not freedom, and itwas a lucky historical development these two could go together in some places. Wherethey could not go together the need for identity was stronger. While the need for identity

prevails over the need for freedom, D think psychology prevails over political theory. Dt istherefore such an approach that D shall take on my topic. D have, on all accounts, little orno )ualification for another.

The issue

Dn the rather Fcompetitive@ area of East European ethnic conflict 2ones Transylvania wasuntil now luckier than osnia or


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in a world so different from the one before the %nd World War ,the last moment said,-although little evidence supports this- to have presented such a clear identity. /or the#omanian "ungarian elite the problem is to find a political formula which canaccomodate their very distinct cultural identity. /inally, for the international community,the Fnational problem@ of #omania is seen only as the containment of the ethnic

competition between #omanians and "ungarians in the strict legal and administrativeframework of #omania and Europe.

9nalysts are also divided. ome believe there isn@t any national problem in #omania andwould rather consider it from the human rights angle, making it a problem of collectiverights of a minority 6this is the aproach of human rights groups, most notably #omania's"elsinki (roup7. This tradition draws on the eausescu years and has adCusted little tothe new realities of post- ommunist #omania. Athers, such as Tom (allagher, point tothe national problem as to the main determinant of the political life and the main negativeelement preventing democrati2ation 6(allagher> 1 87. The latter seems to imply that themain cleavage of the #omanian society is the ethnic one, despite strong evidence against

this assertion 6both in the elections of 1 & and 1 % the public was divided on thecommunist-anticommunist cleavage line, a purely ideological cleavage, with the"ungarians supporting for ?resident the #omanian anti- ommunist candidate7.

Time seems so far to side with the optimists. ince the brutal confrontation of 1 &,despite occasional increase in tension and constant hatespeech in a part of the #omanian

press the situation improved steadily. The conclusion in 1 : of a bilateral treaty between#omania and "ungary led to the disappearance of the "ungarian theme in the electoralcampaign of fall 1 : - and the democratic opposition, allied with the "ungarian9lliance, won elections - the first democratic political alternance after the war, and onlythe second after the introduction of the universal vote in 1 13. 9fter victory the

"ungarian alliance Coined the government with the winning #omanian parties.!espite these favourable developments, a maCority of "ungarians keep perceiving aFconflict@ between "ungarians and #omanians. The immediate following of grantingsome self-government in the "ungarian dominated area 6the county of "arghita now hasall only "ungarian leaders, either government appointed or directly elected7 lead to theintense and bitter conflict of Adorheiu ecuiesc, where the local community instigated bythe town council brutally evacuated four #omanian nuns and prevented a wiss/oundation to start an orphanage on the grounds that this would change the ethniccomposition of the region. The legal amendments, meant to satisfy the long-enduringclaims of the "ungarian alliance, also had serious difficulties in passing through the?arliament, as members of the maCority rebelled against the political agreement between

party leaders and sided with the nationalist opposition. The electoral victory of HiktorArban@s /D!E I in the ;ay 1 3 "ungarian elections further endangered theconsociatonal e periment started in 1 : #omania. Arban had been attacking the#omanian-"ungarian treaty during his electoral campaign and at summer camps at

alvanyos he proved repeateadly to be an outspoken promoter of self-government for the"ungarian communities abroad. !uring the /ebruary 1 visit of #omanian ?rime;inister #adu Hasile to udapest Arban insisted a separate all-"ungarian university

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should be created for #omanian "ungarians. 9ll these developments show that there ismore to it than the optimism of 1 : led us believe.

This should have not come as a surprise, either. ircumstances only cannot be reliedupon to solve a problem which is ill-defined and constantly marginalised. The

conse)uence of the presence of a strong ethnic "ungarian party lead to a total disinterestof the #omanian parties for the topic of "ungarians. The post- ommunist parties were in principle opposed to the policy of revendications of !9"#, considering the "ungarianshave already too many rights. The anti- ommunist parties considered that since !9"# istheir ally it is to their concern only to bother with "ungarians@ problems and simply triedto find the best strategic ways of solving their punctual demands. o global vision wasever e pressed by a #omanian politician, and no national debate has ever taken place onthis issue.

Outline of this work

The purpose of this book is to provide this better definition of the problem and describethe alternatives for solving it. The author is therefore not interested in seeking somedefinitive historical truth about Transilvania, as a historian would perhaps do, and theTransylvanian past will be mentioned Cust to the e tent that it shades some light on the

present. D am not interested here in the obCective truth about the Transylvanian history,supposing such an obCective truth might be ever reached, but only in the presentFsubCective@ Transylvania. y this D mean the current synthesis of collective beliefs,

perceptions, attitudes and behaviors which, although subCective, give shape to a psychological reality more obCective than anything real in the world. Dt is the belief of thisauthor 6as D shall show in hapter 17 that it is FsubCectivity@ which e plains nationalismmuch better than anything else, that is, the Fpolitical imagination> which turns cultural

entities into political ones. Dn order to e ist, nations have to e press their politicalsubCectivity 6+enkins J ofos,1 : >1 7.

Dt is subCectivity that feeds the substance ethnic conflicts are made of. Dt is a subCectivematter of little practical conse)uence if the Kuebecois have a constitutional mention as aFdistinct society@ in the onstitution, if the #omanian "ungarians can study in "ungarianin a pure "ungarian 0niversity or a multilingual one, if outh Tyroleans have their

parking tickets in Dtalian or in (erman. =ittle should it matter also for the 9merican Drishor the (erman


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and attitude among elites6chapter 87* to establish if there is reason to talk of an ethnicconflict in #omanian Transylvania and if so, how serious this conflict is6chapter :7 * todiscuss the possible solutions and ways to deal with such conflict6chapter 57.

Methodological issues

!ata for this study was collected between 1 : and 1 3, in a two-steps strategy.

1. Kualitative interviewing

%. urvey 6+une 13-%4 1 37

Dnteviews conducted were both group interviews 614 focus groups in transylvania, plus acontrol one in ucharest with psychology students7 and in-depth interviews with politicalleaders, Cournalists, opinion leaders of both communities. The material recorded duringfocus groups was the main basis for the )uestionnaire used in the survey. Dn order to

gather the ma imum amount of significant material locations for the focus groups wereselected after the conventional division of the region in three areas, each with a differentcohabitation e perience, so to have a region with a "ungarian maCority 6the 2ekelys7, aregion with a #omanian maCority 6 luCL 9lba, istrita asaud, ihor, rasov,

luC, ovasna, "arghita, "unedoara, ;aramures, ;ures, atu-;are, alaC, ibiu.

ounties of anat were not included.The sample was made of 8 5 persons older than 18and is representative for the age, se , and ethnic structure of the region.

The si focus groups involving the #omanian population included >

Dntellectuals 6holders of some academic degree7, two groups, one in Tg. ;ures, one inluC*

?easants, two groups, one in Hiisoara 6 luC county7,a region and a village where#omanians make the maCority. and the other in =ive2i, a small village in the 2ekely land6"arghita county7, where the "ungarians have the maCority*

Workers, one group, luC*

9ged (reek- atholics, luC.

The seven "ungarian groups consisted of>

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?easants, two groups, one in ovasna ounty 6 an2iene7, pure "ungarian area, one in;ures county 6;iercurea iraCului7, ethnically mi ed area*

Dntellectuals, three groups 6 luC, Tg. ;ures, f. (heorghe, ovasna7*

9ged men, one group, f (heorghe, 6 ovasna county7*

Workers, one group, luC*

=ower middle class, one group, ;iercurea iuc, 6"arghita county7.

Ane additional focus group interview was performed with a group of 0niversity abes-olyai students, 8 #omanians and 8 "ungarians. This was the only ethnically mi ed

group.

Dnterviews with the #omanian groups were conducted in #omanian. Dnterviews with the

#omanian "ungarian groups were conducted both in #omanian and "ungarian.

0nless specified otherwise, statements reproduced in the book met the approval of thewhole groups, so can de considered as stereotypical statements. 9s is it usually the casewith )ualitative research our groups are not representative, but illustrative for the

population and the region under study. 6 urgess 1 :7. omplementary use of focusgroups and surveys were used before )uite successfully 6;organ > 1 > ch. 37 Each timewe considered a statement might be representative we included it in the survey)uestionnaire.

The region

Transylvania used to be an ethnic pu22le, with a mi of ethnic groups 6#omanians,"ungarians, 2ekelys, (ermans, (ypsies, +ews7, and religious communities 6#oman

atholic, ?rotestant, (reek atholic or 0niate, hristian Arthodo 7, united onlysuperficially under the same political leadership, but preserving each a sort of autonomy.This pattern was essentially changed during the ommunist regime > the (ermans were atfirst deported to the oviet 0nion in the talinist years on grounds of having collaboratedwith the during the war, then were allowed to immigrate to (ermany in e change forgenerous sums paid by the (erman state to the eausescu regime. Dn 1 &, when it

became obvious #omania was slow on the road to land restitution and creation of a newrule of law most of what was left of the (ermans, even aged people, emigrated to

(ermany. The +ews have been also submitted to persecution in outhern Transylvaniaunder the 9ntonescu regime and to the "olocaust in orthern Transylvania under"orthy. Dn the seventies eausescu traded them with Dsrael, the same he did with(ermans, so their number decreased until their almost total disappearance. That leftTransylvania to #omanians and "ungarians, and the intermediate stratum between thesehistorical rivals was gone. 0nlike anat, where historically cohabitation was closer to thecosmopolitan type, in Transylvania cohabitation was mostly of the inter-cultural type69braham, adescu, helcea > 1 47. This means that while in Timisoara, capital of

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anat, and the surrounding border areas people of various ethnic origins 6including alsoerbs, 9romanians,etc7 have traditionally lived together, keeping their cultural and

national identity reduced mostly to the private sphere and often engaging in transactional behavior, people in Transylvania lived alongside each other, but not together, beingseparated in compact groups of different ethnic origins.

ommunism, but mostly the blind moderni2ation imposed by ommunism changedTransylvania enormously. Ane maCor change was the modification of its ethniccomposition > besides changes we mentioned above, eausescu's industriali2ation of theseventies led to subse)uent arrival of #omanians from the old 1 87. Hillages of#omania were deserted of the younger generations, while cities and towns received alarge number of peasants with a very different life style than the urban one.

omparing Transylvania with other areas of ethnic conflict also calls for somespecifications. D saw fit for the present book to compare Transylvania only with otherregions of the Ffirst@ world, although Transylvania belongs geographically to the second.;ore than one reason can be summoned up to e plain this, /irst, Transylvania had anorganical development > nothing happened in #omania after 1 13, or in the rest ofEastern Europe to that effect that can be compared to the mass scale social and nationalengineering of the former oviet 0nion 6including genocides and mass deportation7.=ittle ground for comparison can be found with post-colonial countries, either. 9ttemptsof assimilation of the other ethnic groups in Transylvania had merely an administrativecharacter, and they were not violent. Even in eausescu's times the most aggressive state

policy was to distribute Cobs to university graduates in areas far from their home - but

even then it was not mandatory to accept these Cobs if one assumed the risk to seek a Cob by himself . pontaneous violence between the two groups, e cepting the war times, isalso lacking - the Tg. ;ures case is the e ception, not the rule. There are no records ofordinary violence or confrontational behavior in bars, night clubs or such - both groups

behave peacefully. /or these reasons D think it is only correct to compare Transylvania tosimilar regions of the developed world, although #omania's current (!? falls far beyondthis category I tend to believe that for the study of ethnic identity and conflict a culturalmodel as embodied in the political and institutional culture is far more more importantthan economical statistics . 9nd in this respect, Transylvania is undoubtely a Europeanregion > both by its rich European past and by its present culture. There is also no party in#omania's today ?arliament not to have in its political program the goal of achieving theEuropean integration of #omania.

Ane last e planation is perhaps necessary to Custify our decision to discuss elites apartfrom ordinary people. ?ost- ommunist #omania has a limited e tent of participant

political culture > the interest in politics is the lowest of the 4 countries reported byDnglehart in the World Halues urvey 6Dnglehart >1 37. Dn these circumstances the

political culture of the elites, of people closer to the centers of political decisions mattersenormously 6"ague, "artop and reslin, 1 %>817 and may differ substantially from the


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political culture of ordinary citi2ens. ocial representations of history 6what "allbwachswould have called 'collective memory'7 such as we describe in hapter can be found atelites members as well. "owever we can easily differentiate in elite members between theshared common representations, their own personal cognitions organised by a logic closerto political opportunism and their political rhetoric, often closer to the former than to the

latter. What is internali2ed in an ordinary citi2en and member of an ethnic group is oftena consciencious e ercise of the use of common beliefs, representations and images by anelite member, who may even have a distance from these views.

an a work about a conflict fail to have a fate other than conflictual G We doubt so."owever, we felt a local view was necessary in order to understand Transylvania better.(eorge chopflin was right to warn Westerners that for many of East entral Europeinhabitants the hypothesis their ethnic identities are conte tual and not essential, artefactsof a cultural and nationalist heritage and not inherent is unnacceptable.6 chopflin >1 3> 17. ?sychologically, there are good reasons for that, as D shall attempt todemonstrate. Dn practice it matters little the reason for what people believe something, but

the intensity of their beliefs and the personal risks they would assume to protect them, bethey rational or not. D chose a region in a moment of peace only to show thatfundamentals of the conflict are always there, and that what should be adressed by

policy-makers is not the acute attack but the disease itself, to the e tent that such diseasescan find a cure.

Acknowledgements

The research for this book was generously supported by the European ommission 6the?"9#E program7, the oros /oundation 6#esearch upport cheme ?rogram7, and

9TA. D am indebted to orin Donita and ;onica otnaru for the survey data, to 9lice

!umitrache, =evente alat, Teddy ugar and #afael "eckman for support with the focusgroups, and to 9urora =iiceanu for making me read "enri TaCfel when a doctoral student./inally my gratitute goes to my husband, historian 9ndrei ?ippidi, who was the firstreader and critic of this work both in ucharest and at "arvard.

2. Nation and identity in Contemporary Europe1. Theoretical conte t of this study

Df one looks the item called 'nationalism' in the lackwell !ictionary of ?olitical Thoughtone will find out that, although it is still debatable if nationalism is a political ideology, itis beyond doubt the most successful one ever. This contradiction in terms may alonee plain why such a vast literature of many scholarly fields have tried to e plainnationalism and nationalism> and why there is so little agreement to nowadays on whatthis theory has produced that is valuable in creating a policy to manage national conflicts,

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now that the fren2y of ethnic-or rather national- revivals seems to have moved from theThird World to the old Europe.

This chapter does not mean to review the vast body of literature on the topic ofnationalism and ethnic conflict. Dnstead it will focus on the theories that most influenced

the present work and try to work out a typology of nationalism out of these theories, onethat would also provide a framework for East European nationalism as D see it. D shalltherefore challenge more than one of the current assumptions on either alkan or WestEuropean nationalism> and in doing so D shall draw more upon the work of social

psychologists than to the other students of nationalism. D agree, however, with Edwardsand =iebkind 6in reakwell> 1 %7 that nationalism cannot be approached from the

perspective of only one academic field, ignoring the others* and that anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers and political scientists need to interact more in order not toseclude the theoretical and empirical data within the boundaries of each discipline.

#eviewers of this huge body of literature agree there are two main trends within the

sociological and anthropological theory of nationalism> the primordialist and theinstrumentalist ones. "istorians and political scientists, even when not attempting toe plain nationalism as an entity, but rather to coin its specific features in one society oranother are in their turn either influenced by or influential in providing arguments for oneof these two theories. The almost infinite number of cases and faces under whichnationalism displays itself prevents theories from providing a typology to encompassthem all 6 mith> 1 3 . "owever one can find reliable knowledge on nationalistic

behavior of groups in a large body of facts historians, anthropologists and psychologistsmanaged to put together. 9nthropologists are very influential and their mark onnationalism theory is a strong one. ocial psychologists are less so. The only theoreticianto acknowledge some social psychology influence is !onald "orowit2, who was

influenced by the ristol school. "orowit2, in turn, provides important arguments for asocial psychological approach to ethnic identity and nationalism. =iebkind 6in reakwell>1 %>1317 was however right to point that > 'While social psychologists may need toknow more about research in ethnic identity within other disciplines, no other disciplinecan do without the social psychology of ethnic identity'. ;y point goes even further> Dthink it is social psychology that provides the in-between approach to primordialism andinstrumentalism, and D shall try to prove my point here.

ation and nationalism are the key concepts of social theory. Ethnic or national identityis the key concept of social psychology> when other theorists use it, as in 9nthony

mith's ' ational Ddentity' they simply confuse 'nation' with 'national identity'. 6 mith>1 1>> p 147. The same goes for the synonymous use of 'ethnicity' and 'ethnic identity' insociological literature. mith defines both 'national identity' and 'nation' as a namedhuman population sharing an historical territory, common myths and historical memories,a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for allmembers'. The difference between 'ethnie' and 'nation' is at the core of many polemics.T.


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territory, 'cleansing' it, as it is fashionable to say today, is to 'ethnificate' it, according toAomen, who blurs the distinction between national groups with some e perience with astate of their own and others who were never in possession of a state. owadays, when somany groups with little or no previous e perience of a national state - osnia, 0kraine,

lovenia, lovakia- actually got a state of their own the potential of every ethnic group in

becoming a nation seems very powerful. "owever the stress on territory of Aomen is ane aggeration. mith, like 9nthony (iddens, emphasi2es not so much the territory per se as the political conse)uences of legally controlling a territory, that is, of having a state.

The definition of 'nation' and 'ethnie' seems however to have become more 'subCective'lately, under the influence of the influential criti)ue of authors like Walker onnor. Dn the

mith and "utchinson anthology on ethnicity the subCective elements prevail. Ethnicity istherefore defined by>

1. a common proper name, to identify and e press 'the essence' of thecommunity*

%. a myth of common ancestry, a myth rather than a fact, a myth thatincludes the idea of a common origin in time and place and that gives anethnie a sense of fictive kinship, what "orowit2 terms a 'super-family'6"orowit2, 1 38,*ch. %7*

. shared historical memories, or better, shared memories of a common past or pasts, including heroes, events and their commemorations*

4. one or more elements of common culture, which need not be specified but normally include religion, customs or language*

8. a link with a homeland, not necessarily its physical occupation by theethnie, only its symbolic attachment to the ancestral land, as with diaporas

peoples*

:. a sense of solidarity on the part of at least some sections of the ethnie's population 69.!. mith, 1 3:> ch.%7.

What, then, about nationG Ds the difference between the two as fragile as being an ethniclovene in $ugoslavia and a national lovene in independent loveniaG To be sure, the

difference is fragile enough. Dt mainly consists in subCective elements, as Walker onnor

pointed out>With but very few e ceptions , authorities have shied from describing thenation as a kinship group and have usually e plicitly denied any kinship

basis to it These denials are customarily supported by data showing thatmost nations do in fact contain several genetic strains. ut this lines ofreasoning ignores the dictum that it is not what but what people perceiveas is which influences attitudes and behavior. 9nd a subconscious belief in

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the group's separate origin and evolution is an important ingredient ofnational psychology. 6 onnor >1 4, 1 57

Walker onnor is right to stress the failure of theory to e plain the ethnic revival indeveloped Europe. Dt is the minority nationalism in the West, not in the East, which rises

the most serious )uestions. Would nationalism be found entirely in the underdevelopedworld the instrumentalist theories would e plain it all. ince, however, Wales, cotland,orse, the as)ue country and outh Tyrol cannot be accommodated in the framework

described for the Third World by enedict 9nderson we have to look for anothere planation. /urthermore, we have to search for a single e planation, even if compleand manifold, to e plain nationalism in both worlds.

ince 'nation' is so disputed a term 'nationalism' has also at least two maCor differentcontemporary interpretations. Ane is the definition employed by (ellner and 1 4> 1:37

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Ane e planation which comes close to the psychological understanding of nationalism isone's bond with one's culture. We see the world from the perspective of our culture andcannot see it differently. Aur thought is shaped by culture- notably by language andeverything entailed by it. (eert2 was right to assert that 'a country's politics reflect thedesign of its culture'>

' ulture, here, is not cults and customs, but the structure of meaningthrough which men give shape to their e perience, and politics is notcoups and constitutions, but one of the principal arenas in which suchstructures publicly unfold.'

6(eert2 1 5 > 11-1%7

ulture, is, however, achieved by sociali2ation. ?rimordialism came under attack for itsunderstanding of 'culture' as a 'given' thing, as a 'primordial attachment'. 6Eller and

oughlan >1 7

' y a primordial attachment is meant one that stems from the 'givens'-or,more precisely, as culture is inevitably involved in such matters, theassumed 'givens'-of social e istence> immediate contiguity and kinconnection mainly, but beyond them the givenness that stems from being

born into a particular religious community, speaking a particular language,and even a dialect of a language, and following particular social practices.These congruities of blood, speech, custom and so on, are seen to have anineffable, and at times overpowering, coerciveness in and of themselves.Ane is bound to one's kinsman, one's neighbor, one's fellow believer ,ipsofacto* as the result not merely of personal affection, practical necessity,

common interest, or incurred obligation, but at least in great part by virtueof some unaccountable absolute import attributed to the very tie itself. Thegeneral strength of such primordial bonds, and the types of them that areimportant, differ from person to person, from society to society, and fromtime to time. ut for virtually every person, in every society, at almost alltimes, some attachments seem to flow more from a sense of natural -somewould say spiritual - affinity than from social interaction.6(eert2, 1 : ,1&3 -11&7

?rimordialism was strongly attacked for what was seen as a confusion made by primordialists between something e isting and something primordial, so without asociogenesis . /or my purpose D think it is useful to purify the 'givens' of this'metaphysical' origins and see them simply as 'psychological givens', ac)uisitions of anearly conte t that prove unshakable for most people during their lives. We can safelyassume these 'givens' will be the main identity-providers for most people, so their use ormisuse will be more influential and stronger than any later affinities or affiliations 6as

political parties evoked by arry7. The focus of the debate, in my view, should not be noton the innate character of the 'givens'. Dt is rather on the ethnic or national identity as'given' or 'invented'. Df we see the 'given' in cultural terms, as the only lens we can look

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upon the world through and 'create order out of chaos' as in cosmogenesis reported byhistorians of religion such as Eliade, then identity is more 'given' that 'invented'. Dt iscertainly 'learned' but learned does not mean invented. Everything is learned, includingknowledge about the self. The self is there before we learn about it> and identity is part ofthe self, and is simultaneously personal and collective. 9llport's concept of 'in-group' is

perhaps the most useful here>

'Dt is difficult to define an in-group precisely. ?erhaps the best that can bedone is to say that members of an in-group all use the term 'we' with thesame essential significance. ;embers of a family do so, likewiseschoolmates, members of a lodge, labor union, club, city, state, nation. Dna vaguer way members of international bodies may do the same. omewe-organi2ations are transitory 6e.g. an evening party7 some are

permanent 6e.g. a family or clan7.' 69llport > 1 84> 17

The main thing is that members of the in-group tend to favor the in-group and stereotype

and discriminate against members of the out-group. ince this attempt to a definition by9llport many evidence was gathered to e plain this behavior. "ere is where social psychology, notably "enri TaCfel and the ristol school make their importantcontribution to the theory of ethnic and national identity, seen as a particular form ofsocial identity in general, social identity being originally defined by TaCfel as a person'sknowledge of group membership. The 'minimal group paradigm' added to this animportant element of social comparison, as TaCfel asserted that groups define themselves

by comparison with other groups. ompared to earlier e periments of heriff and"ovland who organi2ed a competition between two groups for an uni)ue pri2e, TaCfel'se periments showed that even when social membership is established arbitrarily 6by acoin toss, e.g.7 it significantly influences behavior. Even when assigned randomly in a

group TaCfel's subCects displayed immediately strong in-group favoritism and out-group preCudice. This behavior is also little influenced by the presence of an uni)ue reward, soit cannot be e plained by a 'scarcity of resources' hypothesis. Dn one of the e periments,for instance, the possible rewards are distributed between groups as follows> 1. in-groupand out-group profit combined is ma imal %. profit of in-group is ma imal . difference

between in-group profit and out-group profit is ma imal. ubCects tend to choose thethird variant, so they are more interested to have the superiority of their group ma imalthan earn more in absolute terms. Dn order to illustrate this theorem TaCfel uses a #ussian

proverb 6which, by the way, in different variants, is e tremely common in the alkans aswell7 with a benevolent (od offering to grant a wish to Dvan 'but only you have toremember your neighbor will get twice what you get'. 9fter a long meditation Ivan asks#od to remove one of his eyes .

!eveloping this theory further, Turner 61 47 increased the weight given to cognitiveaspects of identification. 9ccording to Turner social identities are defined as 'cognitivegroupings of oneself and some class of stimuli as the same...in contrast to some otherclass of stimuli@ 6Turner at all> 1 35> 447. ategori2ation is fundamental in ourunderstanding of identification. categori2ation is our main tool of 'make-meaning'.9llport had already stated that we need categories, we even need stereotypes to put some

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order in the world that would otherwise appear to us as an anarchical pu22le ofinformations. /urthermore, people are lately seen by psychologists as 'cognitive misers',so prone to give in to the easiest, effortless alternative when making a cognitive choice.6/iske and Taylor> 1 347

The fact that groups seek ma imal differentiation lead TaCfel and his followers to theelaboration of what is known as the social identity theory. (roup strife for positive socialidentity, and this is obtained via differentiation and competition among groups. 6TaCfel>1 547. TaCfel also considered that social categories carried important affective meaning,and he spoke of 'great heights of intensity that social identification may involve 61 3%7./or TaCfel affect operated primarily through self-esteem. ocial identification is thusdesirable because it is seen as a source of self-esteem . (roups need to be high on self-esteem, and members develop various strategies to cope with its scarcity., culminatingwith deserting the group when everything else fails 6TaCfel and Turner> 1 5 7. at havaand teen 61 8, )uoted by


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connection> 1. e istentially language is very significant to the individual as an instrumentfor naming the self and the world %. essentially primary sociali2ation is a matter oflinguistic interaction . social representations as the cognitive connection tissue of aculture are e pressed in language 4. language is the medium of the ethnic group's 6moreor less7 mythological conception of its common origin, and 8. of all ethnic markers

language is one of the most salient. 6)uoted by =iebkind, in reakwell, 18&7. /ishmanalso comments on why the language is such as salient dimenssion of a group's identity>

Dt becomes clear why language is more likely than most symbols ofethnicity to become the symbol of ethnicity. language is the recorder of

paternity, the e presser of patrimony and the carrier of phenomenology.9ny vehicle carrying such precious fright must come to be viewed ase)ually precious, as part of the freight, indeed, as precious in and of itself.6in (iles, 1 557.

/urthermore, as studies by (iles and his colleagues prove, ethnic group members identify

more closely with someone who shares their cultural background. 9s (iles 61 557 putsit >

'/or instance, Welsh bilinguals would consider themselves more similar toan Englishman who spoke Welsh than to a Welshman who spoke English.Dt seems that one's behaviour, and in particular one's language behaviour,is a truer reflection of one's ethnic allegiance. '6 %:7

ow this sounds as old a truth as humanity. Ane's language is the main provider ofidentity. Dt is based on the observation of this fact, however unsupported at the time byscientific knowledge, that states forced their linguistic policies upon linguistic minorities

in order to obtain good subCects or good citi2ens. o when why are groups based on linguistic difference entitled to states of their own Gthe answer is> for convenience. "umans seek convenience, and we tend to look upon thisas rational behavior. 9gain, is convenience enough to claim legitimacyG ertainly not.

ut one should not disregard the force of a drive based merely on convenience-seekingand be assured it will always prevail in front of more comple and more soliciting typesof motivation.

The theories of TaCfel and (iles go well together. /urthermore, there is evidence that it isthe e posure to another language which strengthens the feelings of identity and theloyalty towards one's ethnic group or language. Weinrich 61 54, )uoted by (iles, 1 557observed>

Dt is in the situation of language contact that people most easily becomeaware of the peculiarities of their language as against others, and it is therethat the purity of the strandardi2ed language most easily becomes thesymbol of group integrity. =anguage loyalty breeds in contact Cust asnationalism breeds on ethnic borders.

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hapman et al 6in (iles, 1 557 make the same point, )uoting a study which shows thatthe strongest feelings of language loyalty among the Welsh were in the English-speakingcounties of Wales. This induces the conclusion that e posure to the difference is actuallyincreasing nationalistic feelings, making one aware of the distinction between the self andthe others' group. Ddentity is seen in terms of social comparison> any element of

competition will only further differentiate and oppose the two groups. The vaguer the borders, the greater the chances the two groups will interact in real-life competition, thestronger the nationalistic feelings bred by the groups. o classification of nationalism orethnic conflict should ignore this factor of outmost importance.

$.$. !astern and %estern !uropean &ationalism

Ane of the most important challenges for the theorists of nationalism is to create atypology that would encompass all national and historic peculiarities. The furtherchallenge for an East European is to understand the difference between 'Western' and'Eastern' type of nationalism. Dndeed this difference is at the core of all nationalism

classifications. The review of the e isting literature would prompt one to say that it isEastern Europe, beyond any doubt, which turned good 'Western' nationalism into evil'Eastern' one. ut things are indeed more complicated than that.

D shall insist here only on three of the large number of theories pointing to the differencesamong Western and Eastern European variants of nationalism. Ane is the theory of "ans


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o it was a conscientious act of building an ideology for instrumental puposes, but thosewho started it in the East- the "ungarian

Dt is, in general, a necessary condition of free institutions that the boundaries ofgovernment should coincide in the main with those of nationality....Where the sentimentof nationality e ists in any force, there is a prima facie case for uniting all the members ofthe nationality under the same government, and a government to themselves apart. This ismerely to say that the )uestion of government is to be decided by those governed.

6135%, in ?rinciples of #epresentative (overnment7


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cultures, ever came to life as states, and the underlying opinion the world would have hadmore to gain had 2echs, for instance, continue to write in (erman than in 2ech.

(ellner is not, however, to be treated lightly, despite his entral European nostalgias. Tothe theory of

#oughly speaking and allowing for certain complications Europe falls intofour times 2ones, resembling those global maps one sees at airports, whichindicate the different time in the various vertically defined stretches of theglobe.

6...7 The Westernmost time 2one is that of the 9tlantic coast of Europe.The point about this 2one is that from the late ;iddle 9ges, if not earlier,it was occupied by strong dynastic states, which roughly, even if only veryroughly, correlated with cultural areas. Df nationalism re)uires the

marriage of state and culture, then in this 2one the couple has beencohabiting long before their union was acclaimed by nationalist ;anifest!estiny.6...7 ationalism did not draw on peasant cultures so as to invent anew literate one> rather it strove to replace peasant idioms by an e istingcourt or urban speech6...7 ?easant had to be turned into proper speakingnationals, but no national "igh ultures had o be forged from peasantmaterials.6...7

The ne t 2one to the East was different. far from possessing ready-madedynastic states, it was an area of )uite e ceptional political fragmentation,endowed with effective political units much smaller than the geographical

e tension of the two locally dominant "igh ultures. The maCor meta- political unit of the area, the "oly #oman Empire, had long ago lost anyeffective reality, and by the time of the coming of the age of nationalismhad ceased to e ist even in name. ut if the region lacked pre-e isting

political units ready for the nationalist re)uirements, it was e ceedinglywell e)uipped with pre-e isting, codified, normative "igh ultures.6...7 ohere was indeed a need for polity-building, though not for culture-

building.

Dt was the ne t time 2one to the East which presented the greatest problems from the viewpoint of the implementation of the nationalist principle of one culture, one state. 6...7;any of the peasant cultures werenot clearly endowed with a normative "igh ulture at all. ome even hadno name. "igh ultures had to become co-e tensive with entire societies,instead of defining a restricted minority. "ere both cultures and politicshad to be created, an arduous task indeed. ationalism began withethnography, half descriptive, half normative, a kind of salvage operationand cultural engineering combined. Df the eventual units were to be

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compact and reasonably homogenous, more had to be done> many, many people had to be either assimilated, or e pelled, or killed.' 6118-1157.

9ccording to (ellner, we have therefore similar nationalism in ritain, /rance and pain,the first time 2one- he admits independent Dreland was however a political novelty in the

area. We then have the (erman and Dtalian cases- a second time 2one, and EasternEurope- the third. The fourth is #ussia, with all the small nation enclosed first by the2arist Empire, then by the oviet 0nion, seen as a successor.

The theory of (ellner is bright. "e is right to notice the difference between thewidespread "igh ulture in the West and its confinement to a much smaller elitist groupin the West. "e is right to notice both polity and culture had to be created in the East,

polity only in proper entral Europe, and only minor adCustments of the two in the West."owever, there are important points in which this theory fails to provide ade)uateanswers.

1. (ellner does not account for the strong recurrence of ethnic revival movements in theWest. he sees Dreland as an e ception and notes with some satisfaction the failure of thenew Drish state to create a new culture as well. "owever, the Welsh, the cots, the

as)ues, the atalans, the orsicans are falling behind Dreland in their effort to find asuitable political form to e press their -perhaps minor- cultural difference from theirfellow citi2ens in the states they belong to.

%. (ellner fails to e plain nationalistic behavior of ritish and /rench beyond the limitsof Western Europe, in, say, Transvaal, 9lgeria, Dreland.

%. (ellner's theory does not e plain why the worst nationalism developed in (ermany

and to some e tent in Dtaly. We are left without a clue to that.

. (ellner considers political models were lacking from the tradition of Eastern Europe. Dthink he is again wrong to generali2e this assumption. Dn outh East Europe the

y2antine model was a strong model all through the ;iddle 9ges, as ulgarians, erbsand #omanians tried to reproduce it in their own polities and even to e pand it to theneighboring areas under their political domination. D fail to see any notable difference

between the y2antine model and harlemagne's one depicted for Western Europe. Anlythe Attoman occupation confiscated this development. ?oland also had a state tradition

before being partitioned between great powers, and a strong one, too.

The typology which comes closest to the grounds in ?eter ugar's. ugar has a muchmore nuanced version than (ellner's. "e considers East European nationalism, forinstance, similar to the Western one due to its anticlerical, egalitarian and constitutionalapproach. ut the degree to which the model was pursued in Eastern Europe wasdependent on the development of EE societies. ugar considers the 2echs came closer toa Western version of nationalism- although not similar, labelling it 'bourgeoisnationalism'. ?oland and "ungary lacked a middle-class as developed as the 2echs sotheir nationalism couldn't be but aristocratic, and so it stayed until the end of the second

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WW. Dn #omania nationalism was a state proCect, in fact a government one, and ugarsees it as 'the proCect' of the government, subordinating all the others. #omanian, (reekand Turkish nationalism are coined as *bureaucratic'. /inally, erbia and ulgaria, whichlacked an aristocracy, a bourgeoisie, and a state as well, developed a populist, massnationalism, animated by the low, peasant clergy and the small traders.

This e cellent typology is highlighted further by (eorge chopflin's understanding of thedifferences in political traditions between East and West Europe. chopflin asserts

bluntly but orrectly the backwardness as the central feature of Eastern Europe, andopposes the political development of the two Europes balancing the weight between stateand society, the city and the countryside, the intelligentsia, the bourgeoisie and the

peasantry. 9utonomy and the separation of spheres is identified as the Western way ofdevelopment, discretionary power of the state over the society as the Eastern way. #uleof the law and separation of powers, due to the initial opposition between the secular andthe religious rulers became the norm in the West* church subordinated to the state thenorm in the East. The cities were at the heart of the Western development -not only

economical, but political as well- with their entailed concept of citi2enship, while theEast had no cities in the proper sense> the peasants and the peasant mentality continued todominate politics even after 1 13, while states were the e pression of a skillful

bureaucracy, able to survive thorough political change, but with little ability for anythingelse. chopflin goes into much more detail, and his application from country to country is

Cust> D consider however that the core elements mentioned here are enough for the purpose of this work.

The key word here is development> development of the society, its economy and its political institutions. ugar and chopflin provide such good theories because they pointat key issues of development. (ellner is right to stress this development is culturally

dependent. ugar points out an essential e ternal element in the political development ofEastern Europe, more and more under evaluated nowadays> the 'e ternal pressures6(erman, #ussian, y2antine, Attoman7' that 'never ceased' 6p 87. "e is then right tonotice that if initially this prompted local nationalism, it then turned to negative effects,as all strangers were seen as threats 6 :7. Ather authors remarked nowadays how thise ternal factor, decisive in many cases, disappeared from the Western conscience. Df

alkani2ation was initially described as a fragmentation of cultures and polities in a backward environment,' a prey to the machinations of the great powers' 6?aul cott;owers, )uoted in Todorova 47 today's A ford !ictionary dropped all allusion to thehistorical role of autocratic powers so alkani2ation is seen as a phenomenon entirelyentailed in some structural default of the people or the region- or both. "owever, as

political scientists know, for comtemporary emerging democracies the strongestinfluencing factor is not an internal institutional or cultural one, but the e ternal conte t.The undemocratic turn of all Eastern Europe at the end of the %nd WW was not entailedin its history and not a conse)uence of its failure to attain a democratic regime> it was theconse)uence of the influence first of a2ism, then of oviet #ussia, on these small, in-

between countries. D think the same can be said about historic Eastern Europe. Thedecisive role in the evolution of these countries was played by (ermany, #ussia, theAttoman and the "absburg Empires. The legacy of East European nationalism is to a

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large e tent their legacy, too. Df one looks at the roots of conflicts between nationalities inthe alkans, for instance, one will always find out the Attomans manipulation of elites atthe heart of it. Dt is a grave delusion to indulge ourselves with the idea that these empireswere tolerant political entities struggling to keep peace among small savage tribes 6in allthe alkan wars infinitely less people died than in the massacre of 9rmenians by the

Attomans in the same period7. They were autocratic underdeveloped states themselves playing divide et impera, encouraging conflict and political corruption in order todominate. 9ny ritish colony in the world received more in terms of a viable politicaland social order model than East Europe got during its whole history of subordination,even if an hierarchy of legacies can be sketched, with the "absburgs on top with some

positive achievements as well and the Attomans at the botttom.

The two criterias D underlined all along are the identity and the political development.?erceived threats to identity are the source of nationalism. This factor tends to beunderrated, but it is crucial. Dt@s also impossible to change via policy- or almost. ?oliticaldevelopment, seen in a full geert2ian meaning 6politics as an e pression of culture7 can

either ease or aggravate the perception of this threats and the answer to them. D triedaccordingly to range a few cases of nationalism, however as diverse as to include theusually hard to classify ones, according to this two criterias in /igure 1. The combinationof the two criterias can make us both range with relative easiness the cases and predict acertain type of nationalism and nationalistic behavior as well. Dn describing the types ofnationalism resulting D used both the what is the social basis of nationalism resulting from this situations6elite andLor massLandLor state7 and its resilience 6e pressed in the pair of oppositestransitory-lasting7. The main advantage of this classification is that it ranges cases seen ina specific historical moment. Dt is not enough to compare nations> one has to comparenations in similar phases of development to make some sense of nationalism. !espite the

wide variety of cases, and the specificities of each case authors complain aboutnationalism can be framed.

9 national group can be roughly e posed to another group in four ways> either aliens areliving in neighbor states, or in another national group inside the same state, they can berulers or the dominating elite, or they can be the immigrants. 9ccording to the stage ofdevelopment of the respective society, this e posure leads to a pattern of nationalistic

behavior. Dn cases of advanced development and distance of any possible rival group6situation 17 we deal with a national group high on self-esteem that can display only aform of Fcivic@ nationalism. Dn case problems of development appear nations start lookingover the borders, but they obviously tend to settle when their problems are settled."aving the others in another state is obviously the best situation-only history did not

provide many cases of the sort.

When groups are inside the same state the problems is the most serious, because it islasting. The third situation, of having foreigners as rulers, is usually a transitory one> awar of independence will sooner or later come and relieve the group in an inferior

position. When, however, the group which is better-off is not made of foreigners, but oflocals, the conflict is terrible 6the e ample of "utu and Tutsi7. either e)uality not

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seggregation have proven to be great solutions so far. The situation seems to bemanageable only in conditions of advanced development and practice ofconsociatonalism 6the enelu is a good e ample7. onsociatonalism seems to haveworked in =iban, too, in difficult circumstances. =ow development and territorialseparation leads from civil war to war among neighbors- so it is not a solution.

Dn the case of newly independent states, which used to be ruled by foreign elites, the maintype of nationalism is centered on state-building. 9 fair dose of insecurity in these newstates will persist for a while, so former ruling elites turned into minorities will bediscriminated against. 9s it looks this is Cust a historical phase that we witness now in the

altics, but it was e perienced by the rest of the world as well in similar situations 6 mostof eastern Europe, for instance, after countries became independent at the end of the lastcentury and beginning of this one7.

(igure )! Types of nationalism

$*%#%#+ -%./#T- TH#

I((#/#0$#

-LITI$*L#1#L- M#0T

T2 # -(0*TI-0*LI%M

3est #urope4

Modern and

contemporaryBritain, (rance

0eighborstates

*dvanced $ivic nationalismliberal, based on

citi5enship"

Modern6ermany,,

7apan, /ussia

interwar Hungary

0eighborstates

Low %tate nationalismaggressive whileunderdeveloped8transitory

contemporary

(rench $anada

Belgium

Bas9ues, %cots,3elsh,

Irish, /omanianHungarians

0eighborgroups in onestate

%imilar:advanced Lasting elitenationalism focusedon symbolicgrounds

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&multiethnicpostcolonial

states

&Hungary in theHabsburg

#mpire, $roatiaand %erbia

in former2ugoslavia

& ost&$ommunist,/ussia, %erbia,,/omania

0eighborgroups in onestate

.neven:low Lasting mass ethnicnationalism

/omania,Bulgaria,6reece,

under -ttomanrule8

oland, $5ech,$roats,

/omaniansunder 6ermans,

/ussiansHungarians

*lien rulers orelites

Low #lite, then statenation&building8more or less ethnicnationalismdepending on thee;posure

Italy during *ustrian

occupation8

Baltics during%oviets

*lien rulers orelites

*dvanced:evensuperior

#lite, then popularsupport for statenationalism directedagainst formerruling groups

3est #urope,.%, $anada Homogenousbut forimmigrants

*dvanced:moreor lessprosperous

Low support fornationastideology:dependenton the economiccapacity ofabsorbtion

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Irish,


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with the losers of the two world wars and the terrible represion of 1 8: alienated moreand more "ungarians from the initial aristocratic nationalism> however it did not changethe character of this nationalism where it lasted. (eorge aranyi was right in this respectto assert that the remarkable thing about the "ungarian nationalism is that 'the more itchanges, the more it remains the same'.6in ugar> 1 : > p. %8 7. "ungarian nationalism

was the only aristocratic-type of the area> former minorities in (reater "ungary 6 roats,lovaks, #omanians7 all presented a combination of state and peasant nationalism, whichfavored the development and success of populist peasant parties between the two worldwars. "ungarian %&th century nationalism was built on the idea that the Trianon Treaty isunacceptable, so it was revisionist in its essence. aranyi recalls how twice a day millionsof children were re)uired to recite, long with their prayer before and after the school, the';agyar reed'>

D believe in one (od,

D believe in one /atherland,

D believe in one divine eternal Truth,

D believe in the resurection of "ungary. 9men' 6in ugar> 1 : * p.%337.

ommunism appeased "ungarian revisionism in a large e tent 6although a simple searchof the word FTransylvania on the Dnternet produces more revisionist materials thananything else7. "owever, its echos were clear in the rhetoric of anti- ommunists whocame to power after 1 3 . /irst +os2ef 9ntall, ?rime ;inister from 1 & to 1 4,declared that he is the ?rime ;inister of all the "ungarians, including those living asminorities in border-states, then Hiktor Arban, the younger generation of conservatives,

made similar declarations in his electoral campaign for the 1 3 elections that he won.The policy of acting as an advocate of the "ungarian minorities rights and notably totheir right of self-government can be seen, in this respect, as a more liberal form of thesame nationalism. (eorge aranyi already noted that 'the issue of the ;agyar minoritiesmay be more deeply interowen with the larger )uestion of ;agyar nationalism than isgenerally assumed' 6in ugar> 1 : * p. &:7.

There is, however, an important change in the "ungarian nationalism to be recorded, butthis is due to the maCor historical change "ungary undergone after the 1st WW. /rom theabsurd dreams of assimilating a population larger than its own 6'Who is either naive orstupid enough to believe that million "ungarians are able to assimilate the other half of

the countryG' asked Askar +as2i, the most liberal "ungarian politician ever, in 1 1%. 6inugar> 1 34> %&:7, "ungarian nationalists turned to a dream of elaborating a network ofself-governed "ungarian minorities in the bordering countries which would makeTrianon superflous and come the closest to bring all the "ungarians again togetherwithout going against "elsinki and re)uiring a modification of the borders. The mostimportant document, in this respect, is ?rofessor /erenc (lat2's 6now ?resident of the"ungarian 9cademy7 (uide for a onduct towards ;inorities 61 for the Englishversion )uoted here7, a basic document created to endow "ungarian diplomats with a

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coherent proposal at the European organi2ations. The essence of nationalism in this self-government proposal, which is not otherwise deprived of all merit, is however theinsistence of having "ungarian an official second language and giving up the legalobligation of all "ungarian minorities in learning the official language of their homecountries.Dt is significant this policy proposal did not originate in HoCvodina, or

Transylvania, or with a "ungarian minority, but came from a semi-official "ungarianoffice in udapest. This is revisionism in a well-mannered, polished contemporaryEuropean form.

#omanian nationalism, as D already asserted, was much more changed- and it was not achange for the better. The state nationalism after the formation of the (reater #omaniawas directed towards builing the state and the nation and integrating together #omanianswho had belonged to different states and political traditions for hundreds of years. Dt isunanimously considered to have been a clumsy policy, which alienated bothTransylvanian #omanians and essarabian #omanians, treated as second-ranked#omanians. ;inorities also received less than they had been promised in terms of self-

government, but they kept their cultural autonomy intact. This state nationalism washowever very close to the Western type liberal bourgeois nationalism> its stronger accentswere due to the backwardness of the political institutions and society both, that the statedesperately tried to solve in only one generation.

The #omanian elite, however, turned more and more from this design towards anothertype of nationalism. We have both psychological and sociological reasons to account forthat, in the words of two famous nationalists of the interwar times>

The bourgeoisie used to be a pioneer of the whole nation, this is whynationalism automatically had a bourgeois hue6...7. Anly later, in our

times, nationalism started to break free from the charm of liberalism andceasing to be mingled with the interests of liberal capitalist bourgeoisiestepped into its autonomous full blown form which is totalitariannationalism.

6;ihail ;anoilescu, economist and theorist of corporatism, 1 4%7

Aur enophobia is reasonably grounded in the historical ine)uality between minorities and us. Were we a formed nation, our fight with themwould be less dramatical in shape.

6#omanian born Emil ioran, symphati2er of the fascist Dron (uard, latera famous /rench essayst, in 1 :7

9cknowledging the historical handicap of #omanians but surpassing it via an act of will6'Aur nationalism has to start from the wish to revenge our historical sleep, from amessianic idea, from the will to make history, wrote ioran7 was the basis of this 'new'nationalism. Dt was to be as short-lived as the "ungarian 'neo-nationalism' of ount


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state under the blows of first fascists, then ommunists, the #omanian liberal nationalismwas gone forever. The #ight was completely destroyed in prisons or its representativesemmigrated as ;ircea Eliade and Emil ioran. The #omanian fascists had also killed in1 4& the spiritual father of the #omanian nationalism, historian icolae Dorga. Aften

portrayed as an anti- emite and a fierce nationalist Dorga was in fact a 'nation-maker'

character on the type of ;asaryk. Dn his famous 1 %4 conference on nationalism Dorgaspeaks more as a civic than an ethnic nationalist, declaring national minorities have aright to their own culture, and asking for 'a political solidarity with nations who livealongside us'. "e actively opposed tearing down of "ungarian statues and monuments inTransylvania, even when they comemorated characters who allegedly played a negativerole in the #omanian history. The simple fact that almost all the "ungarian monumentssurvived shows that the main trend politicians of the interwar times 6Dorga was also a

prime ;inister and leader of a small nationalist party7 weas still closer to the bourgeoisnationalism thant to the totalitarian nationalism decribed in 1 4% as an emerging victor

by ;anoilescu.Df one is to analyse this time one has to look at facts more than at therhetoric. 9 far-right enophobic rhetoric is to be found in this epoch 6rasist ichifor

rainic is its foremost e ponent7, but it never succeeded in becoming a main trend, noteven in the newspapers. "owever, this literature was a source of inspiration for theommunist times new nationalists 6veritably 'new', this time7 as 1 47

Ane can easily imagine what happens to a young nation, formed mostly by peasants,when submitted to the heavy repression and uniform education of the ommunist age.?revious research D did in 1 % and 1 4 led to the surprising conclusion that collectivememory of #omanian peasants stops in the fifties, and the stalinist years are seen by thesurvivors 6who were usually speared by repression7 as 'a golden age'. eausescu sei2edthe opportunity of winning this rather brain-washed population in the early seventies,

when his speechwriters started to )uote #omantic 1 th century nationalists and inventedan original ideology labeled afterwards as 'national-communism'. This ideology presentedthe past in a simplified and mistified version, making the unity of all territories inhabited

by #omanians as the main goal of national history, something that never was 6 oia>1 337The success of #omanian sportsmen and women 6 adia omaneci is the most famouse ample7, the independent stand of eausescu from ;oscow when 2echoslovakia wasinvaded in 1 :3 all led to the consolidation of this 'new' nationalism. ot to be mistaken,it was an 'ethnic' version, praising the values of '#omanianess', presented as the historical'e ception' of a =atin hristian people who defended the West from the Dnfidel Turk,resisting both the "ungarian nationalism and the lavic attempt to con)uer it, an island ofEuropeannes among barbarians. Hia television, movies, and te tbooks, this version

prevailed over a tradition e tinguished in ommunist prisons with the almost one million#omanians affected by the stalinist repression. urrent national social representations asdisplayed in the #omanian contemporary mass-media belong with this tradition, not theold one Herdery is speaking about. While the "ungarian nationalism changed to remain)uite similar in essence, the #omanian one was entirely reinvented and forged anew. Thisnew ideology made Transylvania from a central feature of the national theory the centralfeature as the cradle of the !aco-=atin population. This accounts for the fiercenationalism concerning the Transylvanian )uestion both in ommunist and post-

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ommunist times compared to the low interest and involvement in the ;oldova 6formeressarabia7 province, even in 1 1, when chances were for a possible reunification.

(aspar ;iklos Tamas, the contemporary leading "ungarian political theorist went to theheart of the matter when deacribing the 'etno-anarchists', the 'apolitical and anti-political'new type of nationalists. "is e amples range from ;ilosevic to ;oldovan politicians

who came to say they are not omanians, but a 'new' nation, to identify this breaking withthe tradition and forging of 'new' nationalism. 9long with communism this new ideology,e)ually created to suit the purpose of an elite 6namely the same7 is only another particularform of what Tamas sees as an incessant attack on 1 th entury European =iberalism.6Tamas> 1 :7

This is not to say that in the present-day #omanian and "ungarian elites only one type ofnationalism can be found. We shall discern many others in the chapter dedicated to elites.We needed to trace, however, the most important trends in the %&th century history of

both nations in order to make some sense of the present day #omanian and "ungariannationalism.

3. National or Regional? Contemporary Identity Attribution in Contemporary!ran yl"ania

The group interviews and the survey were concerned with answering a set of related

)uestions, such as> What is the Fnation@ the "ungarians from #omania identifythemselves withG What geographic entity do they consider their countryG !o they feelcloser to coregionals, or to conationals, regardless of the regionG What stereotypes areused to portray their ethnic group, and the others@ groupG

This chapter will also challenge on one of the important assumptions made by a culturaland political trend which considers Transylvania in itself a separate Fsociety@, displayinga culture which is different from the rest of #omania, and a separate identity of itsinhabitants - the FTransylvanian identity@. This hypothesis implies that nationalities livingin Transylvania, #omanians and "ungarians mainly, have more common than distinctivefeatures, that can be discerned in their current perceptions of their civili2ation and

behavior. Dn other words, this means Transylvanians tend to form an in-group with otherTransylvanians, regardless of their ethnic origin, towards the rest of #omanians, and,respectively "ungarians.

The Fseparate identity@ hypothesis relies mainly on the different historical development ofTransylvania from the other #omanian inhabited regions. #omanian nationalist

politicians, but many scholars also, protested at the line dividing Transylvania from therest of #omania in amuel "untington@s Fmap of civil2ations@ from his famous and

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controversial essay on the clash of Fcivili2ations@. o doubt "untington was right, interms of development, to point at Transylvania as to a distinct region, closer to entralEurope than to the alkans. ut the many ambiguities due to the way the concept ofFcivili2ation@ is used in this conte t show here. Tramsylvania is the homeland of at leastthree distinct cultures 6"ungarian, #omanian, (erman7, with the #omanian hristian

Arthodo population enCoying a relative maCority since at least the Emperor@s +oseph DDfirst census in the area 615 17. This pattern is in fact a multicultural one, with the#omanian culture closer to the alkan Arthodo one, and the "ungarian and (ermancloser to atholic and ?rotestant entral Europe. !ue to the absence of geographicallyclustered communities 6e cept the 2ekelys area7, resulting in the very poor segregationof ethnic groups 6#omanians and "ungarians mingle inside the same counties, cities,villages, blocks of flats even7 we tend to look upon Transylvania as to an uni)ue societyshared by various 6mainly two7 cultures. o what is perhaps true in terms of historicaldevelopment may be less so in contemporary social reality.

-rom the historic cradle/ to the contemporary margin/

The results of our survey show that #omanian "ungarians have a distinct nationalidentity 6"ungarian7, but acknowledge their contract as #omanian citi2ens with a largemaCority and consider #omania is their country 6/igures %, 7. 9fter 3& years of beingincorporated in the #omanian tate practically no "ungarian defines himself asF#omanian@. The 8 B "ungarians and 1& B #omanians who look upon Transylvania astheir Fcountry@ are a restricted minority in the total sample. one of the respondentsindicated "ungary as their country. ince Transylvania has been the homeland ofTransylvanian "ungarians for almost a millenium, and they are outnumbered by#omanians in the region 6 the report is >17 the result is hardly surprising. Transylvaniais a part of the #omanian state, but is their homeland also. eton-Watson was right when

describing the situation in the seventies to point that the maCor conflict was that the#omanian ommunist state wanted in e change for its liberal policies that "ungariansadmit they are "ungarian-speaking #omanians, and they would not, consideringthemselves part of the "ungarian nation, altough they accepted their #omanianciti2enship as a fact 6 eton Watson> 1 55> 1347

Table 1 and % about here

To be a Transylvanian "ungarian means to share your loyalty between state and country.Dt is not an easy life, with "ungary Cust across the border. "owever it is the e perience ofthe freedom to travel to "ungary after 1 &, to an e tent unprecedented before, that playsan essential part in self and heteroidentification and stereotyping. 9s focus group

participants put it 6each paragrapgh indicates a different speaker7>

0ntil 1 & D lived in #omania as in a foreign country, until 1 &-D thoughtD belonged to the ethnic "ungarian minority, and that between "ungariansin "ungary and myself there is no difference but in the past : years Dreali2ed there is something else.

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Even by saying that D@m a "ungarian from Transylvania D admit somehowthat D have less rights than "ungarians from "ungary, but that is asituation D share with every citi2en of #omania who is "ungarian. ince Dam born and come from a long line of ancestors in Transylvania D say D ama "ungarian from Transylvania and that makes me very proud.

When D say "ungarian from Transylvania that says it all> the nation D belong, the fact that D am a #omanian citi2en and most of all to what partof #omania D belong. 6"ungarian intellectuals@ groups, luC and Tg.;ures7.

D am "ungarian and all the other possible answers are not correct. The"ungarian nation is only one. Dt has subdivisions, for instance we are

2ekelys, but mainly we are "ungarians, ;agyars. 6"ungarian old mengroup, f. (heorghe, 2ekelys7

The old men from the 2ekelys were considerably more nationalist than the intellectualsfrom multicultural luC. /or the latter, #omania is their country since Transylvania is a part of it and Transylvania is their homeland, the historical Fcradle@ of the civili2ationthey belong to. They feel close only to other "ungarians who share this specifice perience, that is, other "ungarians from Transylvania. /or the old 2ekelys, whoevoked nostalgically the short reunification with "orthyst "ungary during the war years,stating a difference between "ungarians from #omania and "ungarians from "ungarywas politically incorrect, since the F;agyar nation is Cust one@. ational identification ismuch stronger than regional identification 6for both ethnic groups7, and nationalidentification is not however done with the country 6"ungary7, but with a national group6"ungarians7.

What are the main determinants of self-ascriptionG /irst, the language.

ince D can hardly e press myself in #omanian or in any other languagethen the logical result is that D can't get dressed in that coat. Therefore Dcan be a whole only when D am at ease in my language and culture. D thinkthat says it all. 9nd if D feel "ungarian so D want to stay until my death.

D had two maternal languages, if you want, my father is a #omanian whocame from Timisoara here to the 2ekelys area where 3& B are"ungarians, and my mother is "ungarian and D spoke no #omanian at all

until 1% when D started to learn it in school, and D feel "ungarian, even myfather learned "ungarian after staying here so long. D don't know, if theyhave gone to ;oldova instead now D would be #omanian 6workers, Tg.

ecuiesc7.

?eople interviewed in the groups stated it is e tremely rare if not at all unlikely forsomeone to have a double identification, even if it comes from a mi ed family and is

bilingual. Everyone with a mi ed background in our groups identified himLherself as

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"ungarian. #eligion is seen as important for ascription, mainly for the #omanian group, but not essential, while other characteristics such as physical appearance are disregarded,although there is some perception of a difference>

D had fun once with a colleague> we waited at the e it of the 0niversity

trying to guess who was "ungarian, who was #omanian. 9nd in mostcases we guessed right 6"ungarian students, luC7.

?eople e pressing this view were however Cust a few and isolated by the rest of thegroups. =ower educated groups especially insisted Fall people look the same, it doesn'tmatter what they are@.

9 poll done in 1 5 by the abes olyai 0niversity showed that language was animportant element of identification for 5 B of the "ungarians, self ascription for 34 B,Fhaving a "ungarian parent@ for 55B and being Fclose to the "ungarian culture@ for 53 B.

elf-ascription was considered as important as the maternal language also on the

#omanian sample of the same poll 60 * #esearch enter for Dnterethnic #elations>1 37

The most common feeling associated with this identification is pride.

We here are the cradle of the "ungarian civili2ation.

We come from a very civili2ed region, with traditions in religioustolerance which was unknown to Western Europeans.

"ere is the place where freedom of religion was first legali2ed.

We speak a more pure "ungarian that "ungarians in "ungary, Cust as#omanians from Transylvania speak the best #omanian language in#omania.

9s TaCfel stated, self-evaluation is always made by comparison with other groups, andthe pride of being a "ungarian from Transylvania is reported to #omanians from outsideTransylvania, "ungarians from "ungary and even the Freligious intolerant@ WesternEuropeans.

9longside pride this identification is related to various frustrations.

orders kept changing in this part of the world, this is not people's fault. Dhave some friends in a ;aramures village who never changed home, butduring the time they were in four different countries. 6workers, luC7

"owever it is not the comparison with #omanians or the treatment they@re subCected by#omanians which make #omanian "ungarians feel inferior. Dt is their relationship with"ungarians from "ungary, which disturbs them>


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When D was in "ungary D said F"ello@ to an old man who happened toknow D was from Transylvania. D saluted him in "ungarian and heanswered me in #omanian. tupidity can be the only e planation for this,in my view.

When D was in "ungary D visited the fathers-in-law of a friend of mine.9nd they were surprised D speak such a good "ungarian. D never felt soinsulted in my life.

The most significant fact is that we're not even called ;agyars, as theyare, when we go there. We're called #omano. 9nd #omanians are calledWallachs, when not dirty Wallachs. 6Workers@ group, luC7

The conclusion of these negative e perienced was very well synthesi2ed by anintellectual of Tg. ;ures>

We, Transylvanians, sometimes feel like second rank "ungarians whencompared to "ungarians from "ungary and second-rank #omanianciti2ens when compared to #omanians. We sometimes feel betrayed by

both@ 6"ungarian intellectuals, Tg. ;ures7.

What seems like an irreversible loss for Transylvania and is strongly resented isTransylvania@s presence as a cultural, political, spiritual 'center'. Either from ucharest orfrom udapest today@s Transylvania is a marginal region. Even the memories of old menfrom the "orthyist times, otherwise seen as a golden age, display this frustrationTransylvania was treated as a margin and all the civil servants positions emptied by theseverance of #omanians were occupied by "ungarians from "ungary and not locals.

The ' 2ekely' identity survived only as a Flocal@ identity. With one e ception, the rest ofthe F 2ekelys@ we discussed with considered Fit is the #omanian nationalists who say

2ekelys are anything else than "ungarians@. !ue to their homogenous presence in theirareas, 2ekelys are in fact less interested in cohabitation than other "ungarians. Theyoung ones ignore completely the fact that 2ekelys have a different ethnic background,and the older ones invented imaginative e planations in order to e plain the traditionallydifferent way of writing which persisted until the 1 th century saying Fshamans onlywrote like that@.

#omanians want to put this 2ekely coat on us but anytime and to anyone

we 2ekelys here we tell we belong to "ungary. Df #omanians from;oldova and #omanians from #omania are unable to unify, to put thesame hat on their heads as they should there is no need to put 2ekelyscoats on us.

There is a different tradition here, but is mostly social. "ere we had nonobles and no serfs, only e)ual people, warriors defending the border.

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That e plain why we are different form the rest of the "ungarians inTransylvania. 6workers, Tg. ecuiesc> old men, f (heorghe7.

!efenses built during the 3& years of #omanian domination make even intellectuals denythe original ethnic background of the 2ekelys was different 6the writing was close to

Turkish7 and consider the idea as Fa propaganda thesis of eausescu@. When confrontedwith the "istory of Transylvania edited by the "ungarian 9cademy 6and bitterly disputed by eausescu@s historians7 they were stunned to discover this is not propaganda, buthistory, and tried to e plain it as a mistake, or a concession 6interview with "ungarian;? by the author7.

tereotypes of "ungarians from "ungary compared to "ungarians from #omaniadevelop easily>

They are more concerned with their Cobs and their well being, while weare more patriots than they are. "ere the national feelings, the feeling that

you belong to a

Alina Mungiu Pippidi - Subjective Transylvania

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