Cultural and territorial autonomy and the issue of Hungarian identity
Cultural and territorial autonomy and the issue of Hungarian identity

Summary/Abstract: The first part of the study looks at the historical context of the symbolic and territorial competition between Romanians and Hungarians, dwelling on the issue of Transylvania and the competition for historical legitimacy. It bridges, against this background, the question of Hungarian identity to a concept developed elsewhere as a part of a national minorities doctrine: that of community privacy. Territorial autonomy, currently invoked in several Hungarian projects, represents one possible answer to the need for the community privacy of Hungarians in Romania. Another manifestation of community privacy is cultural autonomy. The study then discusses the provisions of the current draft law on the statute of national minorities in Romania and shows that it has reduced cultural autonomy to its political dimension. This form of reductionism, together with the role granted to organizations of citizens belonging to the national minorities, harms the internal democracy of minority communities. Given the current political and social context, in order to be successful in their promotion of autonomy the relevant actors in the Hungarian community must overcome their differences and agree on a set of minimal goals as an expression of their identity as a community.

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