Fałszywi Węgrzy? Asymilacja kulturalna i „zamiany” tożsamości w Transylwanii: madziaryzacja i rumunizacja
False Hungarians? Cultural Assimilation and Identity Shifting in Transylvania: Magyarization and Romanianization

Author(s): Horatiu Burcea
Subject(s): Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: anthropology; historical ethnography; cultural assimilation; Central Europe; Transylvania
Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the issue of cultural assimilation in terms of Romanianization and Magyarization from an anthropological perspective, backed by a historical ethnography conducted in the Transylvanian village of Ghimeş-Făget, Bacău. The two concepts are readings of social change based on the assumption that the deep social transformations that Transylvania experienced during the changes of rule in the region between Hungary and Romania were parallel to the implementation of deliberate strategies of assimilation. More than simple reforms, these social changes are considered to have created shifts in the population’s language, religion, sense of historical heritage and national identity. According to this perspective, Transylvania thus became Magyarized during Hungarian rule, and Romanianized after 1920. Focusing on the evolution of the educational system as a key factor in the execution of these policies, this paper attempts to demonstrate how these two processes can be related to each other and become, in a sense, complementary; it also develops an interpretation of the phenomenon of re-assimilation through the concept of „national therapy.”

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