Hungarian Elites in the Romanian Parliament during the Interwar Period
Hungarian Elites in the Romanian Parliament during the Interwar Period

Summary/Abstract: The study of the Hungarian political elites in Romania during the interwar period still remains an area still opened to research. Even on behalf of Romanian historiography, several studies only superficially discuss the Hungarian political elites in Romania, but these are presented very stereotypically, as petrified relics of feudal society. The current thesis, according to which the elite of the Hungarian Party was made up only of barons and counts, and that it was not at all representative for the Romanian Hungarians, not supporting their interests, has become embedded in Romanian historiography and journalism as far back as during the interwar period, and was further emphasized later during the communist period. In spite of the fact that the greater part of the Romanian Hungarian parliamentary elite was comprised of barons and counts, the image is not so unitary as shown by Romanian historiography. The formation of regional political clusters may be observed, with the orientations inside the Hungarian Party (conservative rightist, reformist leftist), the differences between the political views of the old monarchy political group and the youth, the differences between the political strategies of the two orientations, and the differences in respect to the attitude toward Romanian political parties. Such differences occasionally lead to separations from the Hungarian Party (Bernády György, Kós Károly), but these did not threaten the party’s position on the political stage. At the same time, Hungarian historiography also didn’t strive to complete the picture as when it refers to the interwar period Hungarian political elite in Romania, it almost exclusively refers only to the elites of the Magyar Union and the Hungarian Party. It does not acknowledge, or does not want to acknowledge the individuals who have managed to get into the Parliament in Bucharest with the occasion of the 1919 elections. I hope I have managed to answer some questions, but I am aware of the fact that there are still many other questions waiting to be answered.

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