Construcţia identităţii la maghiarii şi germanii transilvăneni. Raporturile cu statul român în anii 1918-1930
Identity-Building with the Transylvanian Hungarians and Germans. Relations with the Romanian State Between 1918-1930

Summary/Abstract: Identity-Building with the Transylvanian Hungarians and Germans. Relations with the Romanian State Between 1918-1930: In order to understand inter-ethnic relations in Transylvania one should focus on identities, which reveal the type of society in the area, relationships between various ethnic groups, the way they related to one another and defined themselves in relation to the existing state entities. Our paper emphasizes the fact that the identities of the Central and Eastern Europe minorities were influenced by the types of societies developed in this part of the world beginning with the 19th century, as well as by the two major views on defining a nation, the civil and the ethnic-cultural one. In this light, Transylvanian Hungarians were seen as a national minority belonging to the Hungarian nation, which they were related to by tradition, language, culture and even by a modern state entity, Austria-Hungary. In their case, identity-building followed the path of conciliation between the ethnic and civil ideas: they forged an ethnic and cultural identity rooted in the historical past, which was also their main argument in the confrontation with the Romanian state, while the adoption of Romanian citizenship was a more difficult process, marked by political dissensions. The identity of the Transylvanian Germans was less problematic, as they formed an ethnic minority before 1918 and did not have a fatherland that claimed territories of the newly established Romanian state. Minority identities were also determined by the policies of the states after World War I, which aimed at leveling administrative, economic and cultural structures and the minorities' discourse was deeply influenced by their relationship with the state they were living in and the latter's relations with their fatherlands.

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