O identitate difuză. Repertoriul narativ contemporan al românilor din Ungaria
A Diffuse Identity: the Contemporary Narrative Repertoire of the Romanians from Hungary

Summary/Abstract: The process of urbanization and the breaking up of the traditional, closed communities led to the acceleration of the assimilation process of the Romanian community from Hungary. The contemporary genres of the folkloric narrations (scraps of oral history, autobiographies, “true stories”) are lacking the specific identity elements. The ethnical self-defining of the studied groups are mostly composed by elements of religious belonging and local patriotism. An entire series of stories present the origin of the nicknames used to identify the individuals with similar names in the community. Such cases were quite often in the Romanian communities. But these nicknames also worked as marks of ethnic identity in the periods when Hungary led a strong policy of Magyarisation of the names of foreign origin. Some Romanian inhabited settlements have their own “story of origin” (Pusztaottlaka, Méhkerék). In these stories, local participants are presented as heroes with supernatural powers or holly aura. These heroes represent for the locals the Pantheon of Historical Heroes. In this way, in the collective memory of the Romanians from Hungary, none of the legendary heroes of the national culture were preserved, only their local heroes are perpetuated. There is only one exception: the case of Baba Novac, a captain in the army of the Romanian Prince Michael the Brave. The most specific difficulty the researcher is facing when studying the Romanian communities from Hungary is the usage of the local dialect, being a problem especially for those coming from Romania. In order to study the narrative repertoire of the Romanians from Hungary, bilingualism is necessary. Because of the complex social and historical background, in the case of Romanian communities from Hungary, bilingual members of the group usually regard as their own the Romanian culture, developed mainly from elements of folkloric tradition and Orthodox religion. After 1920, Romanians lived in small, isolated communities in the South-East of Hungary, being politically and administratively separated from the large masses of Romanian population from Banat and Transylvania. The prestige of the own national language decreased, especially as a result of the on-going urbanization process that ended the closed communities.

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