ROMANIANS AND HUNGARIANS FROM A
Razvan Maties
This
article analyzes various aspects of interethnic relations in a Transylvanian
village inhabited by Romanians and Hungarians. As opposed to previous
impressionistic studies about relations between Romanians and Hungarian in
1. Introduction
This research was carried out
in the summer of 2000 with the generous support of the Ethnocultural
Diversity Research Center (EDRC)
2. Theoretical considerations
In the study concerning a
typology of ethnic relations in Central and
There are also many surveys,
which gave use useful hints about relations between Romanians and Hungarians in
Irina
Ana Kantor made another study concerning ethnic
relations in Transylvanian villages. Here, the author emphasizes,
"non-nationalist policies on small scale led by nationalist parties",
as a characteristic of many ethnic mixed villages. Therefore "no member of
the Hungarian community of the village was ready to give up co-operation for
hostility".
Cheia
village is located in
3. Methodology
The empirical research from Cheia village was carried out in July-August 2000. Our
hypothesis was based on the following empirical generalization: A better
communication among member of the community would lead to a better community
development. Nevertheless, setting up this hypothesis allowed us to
undertake a comprehensive evaluation of interethnic relations in Cheia. We employed one quantitative and two qualitative
techniques.
First, we administered 65
questionnaires in Cheia. We selected the subjects
randomly, however, taking account of the ethnic composition of the village.
Afterwards, we organized three focus groups. We selected participants from
subjects who responded to questionnaires. We hoped to have approximately seven
participants for a focus group, but time some of the invited subjects did not
show up. Thus, six people each made up the first focus group of five persons,
the second and the third. For the first focus group we invited only Romanians,
for the second only Hungarians, whereas the last one was ethnically mixed. The
third method consisted of three interviews with local leaders. We interviewed
the mayor of Mihai Viteazul
and the two priests from the community: the Romanian and Hungarian priest.
4. The Research
There were two major issues
that we tried to evaluate in our empirical research: interethnic relations and
interethnic communication.
First of all we made a
preliminary visit to the community, where we met the Hungarian priest and the
wife of the Romanian priest. The purpose of this visit was to introduce us, and
to explain the nature of our research in the village. This proved a very useful
step, because some of the locals asked the priests during the Sunday mass about
our stay in the village inquiring whether it was safe or not to talk to us.
5. Interethnic relations:
The first step was the
analysis of the questionnaires. 90.3% of the respondents answered to the
question "How do you consider relations among Romanians and Hungarians in Cheia?" that these are collaborative, 4.9% defined
their relations as of mutual ignorance. No subject spoke of a "confliction
relationship".
When we asked, do you think
that Hungarian children should study together with Romanian children? 70.5%
fully agreed, 24.6% agreed and only 1.6% did not agree. To the question about
encouraging interethnic marriages, 77% agreed and only 4.5% dismissed such
marriages.
During focus groups we asked
general "easy questions" about community problems, the needs of the
village; and we have also put two "sensitive" questions, from which
we tried to see the subjects’ opinions on ethnic relations in Cheia village.
So, during focus groups we
asked the following question: "Do you think that Hungarians/Romanians are
better householders than Romanians/Hungarians?" The Romanians from first
focus group answered:
There is no difference between
Hungarians and Romanians.
They are not better
householders, but they [―i.e.,
Hungarians―] are more solidarity among themselves and help each other a
lot.
They are not better
householders as Romanians, … [but] are more proud of
themselves and also very solidary among themselves.
They are just as good
householders as Romanians are. It depends on the situation, …
some are better some are worse.
A good householder is a food
householder [sic!], no matter whether he’s a Romanian, a Hungarian or a Gipsy.
At the second focus group we
got the following answers from Hungarians living in Cheia:
Look around in the village and
observe peoples’ backyards, and you se if he is a good
householder, no matter whether he is a Hungarian or a Romanian.
In the courtyard of people who
are not good householders you will see nothing, only poverty.
The second "hard
question" posed during focus groups was "It is true that Romanians
and Hungarians see only their problems, with no interest for the other?"
The participants from the first focus group protested saying:
No, no. We lived here like
brothers; there are no divisions among Romanians and Hungarians, we all live
the same life, they [i.e., the Hungarians] are as much individualistic as us,
they are also disgusted by so many promises.
One subject in the second
focus group said:
There are no differences. … We
live here peacefully; we don’t have problems with each other.
During the mixed focus group
we received the following answers:
There are both Romanians and
Hungarians who are worse householders.
Who is a good administrator
and hard worker he has …
When we asked about relations
between Hungarians and Romanians, the answers were very categorical:
I have always had good
relations with Hungarians…there were no problems between us.
I did not hear of such a
thing, I have always had Hungarian friends; we did not have any problems with
each other.
I cannot say that there are
problems…for instance, my child is studying in the Romanian school and he has
never complained about somebody offending him for the reason that he is a Hungarian.
During interviews we asked the
same question from the focus group, but we tried to have a more
"free" conversation. When we asked about the industriousness of the
citizens from Cheia, the Hungarian priest admitted
that: [Hungarians]…have richer households, have more animals […] work harder
than Romanians. The Romanian priest admitted this only partially, considering
that "… Hungarians and Romanians are the alike. Here in the village there
are all the alike".
We also asked the mayor of Mihai Viteazul village about the
relations among Romanians and Hungarians in Cheia.
When we asked him about the possibility of some interethnic tensions he
replied:
No. We never had conflicts
among us and this is clearly not the case. […] In Cheia
village, but also in Cornesti and Mihai
Viteazul, there are no interethnic problems. We are a
case, a happy one, perhaps.
Generally, the mayor considers
that there are no differences between Romanians and Hungarians concerning
householder ability.
6. Intra-community communication
We also tried to examine the
level of interethnic communication, and assess which are the main channels of
communication.
To the question, "With
whom do you discuss the village’s problems?" 14.8% of the subjects named
family, 65.6% mentioned the neighbors, and 9.8% said that they discuss problems
with their friends, and 9.8% don’t discuss or don’t know.
As we could see, the bulk of
information (ex) change happened among neighbors. In Cheia
the neighborhood represents the main communication environment among people.
Therefore we asked them "Do you believe that you could solve this problems with your neighbors?" This question
together with another question ("Do you think that you could have a
certain influence on the decision making process concerning your
village?") had the purpose of gauging the importance of local initiatives
in solving community problems.
The answers showed rather
distrust in local initiatives. Just 41% believed that they could solve some of
the problems in cooperation with their neighbors, while 54.1% gave a negative
answer. Furthermore, only 19% believed that could influence the decision-making
process, while 73% responded with no.
We also asked "How often
do you discuss these problems?" 28.3% discuss this daily, 38% weekly, 3.3%
monthly and 20% discuss such things only if specific problems occur.
Another point of interest
constituted the main channels of in formations in the community. Since local
elections were held just a month before, we tried inquiring about the ways in
which people from Cheia got information about
candidates and parties. So, we asked subjects from where did
they know about the candidates for the race to the city hall.
From the subjects, 19.7% said
that they knew the candidates from direct meetings with them, 29.5% from
electoral posters, 27.9% from discussing with their neighbors, family or
friends and 23% did not respond. No one mentioned media as a source of
information.
7. Community problems
During our research we noticed
some problems that the local community faced. Generally, subjects were very
unsatisfied with the current situation from their village. 84.1% considered Cheia village the poorest among neighboring villages. The
reason lied in the fact that they compared it to other villages making up Mihai Viteazul commune. In such a
context, Cheia received less attention from the local
administration. In the third focus, group people told us that:
Until now, Mihai
Viteazul village treated Cheia
as a stepson. This the most burning issue here in the village.
The new mayor of Mihai Viteazul confirmed this
state of affairs:
They did not get the same
treatment on local level. … They have been ignored … significant problems have
been taken care of in other villages, like water and gas facilities, but not in
Cheia…
The mayor told us that some of
community problems are solved such as the restoration of the school and the
kindergarten, the repairing of some roads, public lighting, piped water supply
to an extent of 70%. So, according to local officials, significant steps have
been taken and other measures will shortly follow.
7. Conclusions
As a result of our research in
village, Cheia we did not find a conflict or any kind
of ethnic tension among Hungarians and Romanians. At least, this is the result
of our empirical research. We noticed that interethnic relations are a very
sensitive issue. Questions concerning this issue incite a lot of emotions in
respondents. Nevertheless, they do not mention specific, ethnically related
problems. Actually, they gave us generous answers, stressing the lack of ethnic
tensions. The community leaders confirmed what people said. But, the level of
community co-operation is very low. Albeit Romanian respondents often mention
very good relations among Hungarians as a group ("they are more solidarity
with each other"), the social relations among all members of Cheia community are low. People, i.e., Hungarians and
Romanians, are more concerned with their own backyard than with community
problems. It is difficult to mobilize people from the village to do something,
due to the profound distrust in local initiatives. The former mayor did nothing
to help Cheia community,
therefore people become very dissatisfied with the local administration. At the
time when we made the research (a month after local elections were held) people
were on a stand-by position. They voted with the hope that the new
administration will turn a concerned eye towards them. Some respondents, 31.1%,
said that they know well the new mayor, while 8.2% said that they know him very
well. The cumulative percent of those who know something about the mayor is
60.7%, which proves that people from Cheia have cast
an informed vote in hope of a better administration.
Another important issue
discovered in the village was the true "sense" of a mixed community.
We knew that we will find a mixed community, but inside the village we expected
to find a distinct separation of houses, an invisible line: "down the
village are the Romanians" and "up the village are the Hungarians".
But this was not a realistic assumption, moreover, we found a genuinely mixed
community. We couldn’t find a separation line, or any distinctive line: even
the churches (Orthodox and Unitarian) are located very close of each other.
People from Cheia community, both Hungarians and Romanians, are having
the same social and economical problems that create a sense of serious
discomfort in the community. Ethnicity and the mix we noticed do not explain
lack of activity in the community.
The explanations for the lack
of activity rely on different grounds. A possible explanation could be the less
attention from the local administration in solving local demands. But such
hypothesis belongs to another research.
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