The Hungarian minority of Romania (, ; ) is the largest ethnic minority in Romania. As per the 2021 Romanian census, 1,002,151 people (6% of respondents) declared themselves Hungarian, while 1,038,806 people (6.3% of respondents) stated that Hungarian was their mother tongue.
Most ethnic Hungarians of Romania live in areas that were parts of Hungary before the Treaty of Trianon of 1920. Encompassed in a region known as Transylvania, the most prominent of these areas is known generally as Székely Land (; ), where Hungarians comprise the majority of the population. Transylvania, in the larger sense, also includes the historic regions of Banat, Crișana and Maramureș. There are forty-one counties of Romania; Hungarians form a large majority of the population in the counties of Harghita (85.67%) and Covasna (73.74%), and a large percentage in Mureș (38.09%), Satu Mare (34.65%), Bihor (25.27%), Sălaj (23.35%), and Cluj (15.93%) counties.
There also is a community of Hungarians living mostly in Moldavia, known as the Csángós. These live in the so-called region of Csángó Land in Moldavia but also in parts of Transylvania and in a village of Northern Dobruja known as Oituz. In addition, sparse populations of Székelys are to be found across southern Bukovina, inhabiting several villages and communes in Suceava County. Aside from the aforementioned historical regions of Romania, Bucharest was also home in the past and still is to a sizable Hungarian-Romanian community.
History Historical background
The Hungarian tribes originated in the vicinity of the Ural Mountains and arrived in the territory formed by present-day Romania during the 9th century from Etelköz or Atelkuzu (roughly the space occupied by the present day Southern Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and the Romanian province of Moldavia). Due to various circumstances (see Honfoglalás), the Magyar tribes crossed the Carpathians around AD 895 and occupied what Hungarian historiography calls the Carpathian Basin (including present-day Transylvania) without significant resistance from the local populace.Fine, Jr., John V. A. (1994). The Early Medieval Balkans – A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century. The University of Michigan Press. p. 139. The precise date of the conquest of Transylvania is not known; the earliest Magyar artifacts found in the region are dated to the first half of the 10th century.
In 1526, at the Battle of Mohács, the forces of the Ottoman Empire annihilated the Hungarian army and in 1571 Transylvania became an autonomous state, under the Ottoman suzerainty. The Principality of Transylvania was governed by its princes and its parliament (Diet). The Transylvanian Diet consisted of three estates, whose cooperation was eventually codified under the 1437 Unio Trium Nationum pact: the Hungarian nobility (largely ethnic Hungarian nobility and clergy); the leaders of Transylvanian Saxons, i.e. German burghers; and the free Székely Hungarians.
With the defeat of the Ottomans at the Second Battle of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburg monarchy gradually began to impose their rule on the formerly autonomous Transylvania. From 1711 onward, after the conclusion of Rákóczi's War for Independence, Habsburg control over Transylvania was consolidated, and the princes of Transylvania were replaced with Habsburg imperial governors. In 1765, the Grand Principality of Transylvania was proclaimed, consolidating the special separate status of Transylvania within the Habsburg Empire, established by the Diploma Leopoldinum in 1691. The Hungarian historiography sees this as a mere formality. Within the Habsburg Empire, Transylvania was administratively part of the Kingdom of Hungary.
After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Transylvania became an integral part of the Kingdom of Hungary again, with Hungarian becoming the official language and Magyarization being introduced in the region not soon after.
Following defeat in World War I, Austria-Hungary disintegrated. The ethnic Romanian elected their representatives for Transylvania, Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș, who proclaimed the union of their regions with Romania on 1 December 1918. With the conclusion of World War I and the Hungarian–Romanian War (1918–1919), the Treaty of Trianon (signed on 4 June 1920) defined the new border between the states of Hungary and Romania. As a result, the more than 1.5 million strong Hungarian ethnic group of greater Transylvania found itself becoming a minority group within Romania.Kovrig, Bennett (2000), Partitioned nation: Hungarian minorities in Central Europe, in: Michael Mandelbaum (ed.), The new European Diasporas: National Minorities and Conflict in Eastern Europe, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, pp. 19–80. Also after World War I, a group of Csángó families founded a village in Northern Dobruja known as Oituz, where Hungarians still live today.
In August 1940, during the Second World War, the northern half of Transylvania was returned to Hungary by the Second Vienna Award. Historian Keith HitchinsHitchins, Keith (1994), Rumania: 1866–1947 (Oxford History of Modern Europe). Oxford University Press summarizes the situation created by the award: Some 1,150,000 to 1,300,000 Romanians, or 48 per cent to over 50 per cent of the population of the ceded territory, depending upon whose statistics are used, remained north of the new frontier, while about 500,000 Hungarians (other Hungarian estimates go as high as 800,000, Romanian as low as 363,000) continued to reside in the south. In September–October 1944, Northern Transylvania was retaken by the armies of Romania and the Soviet Union; the territory remained under Soviet military administration until 9 March 1945, after which it became again part of Romania. The Treaty of Paris (1947) overturned the Vienna Award and recognized the territory of northern Transylvania as being part of Romania.
After the war, in 1952, a Magyar Autonomous Region was created in Romania by the communist authorities. The region was dissolved in 1968, when a new administrative organization of the country (still in effect today) replaced regions with counties. The communist authorities, especially after Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime came to power, restarted the policy of Romanianization.
Today, "Transylvania proper" (bright yellow on the accompanying map) is included within the Romanian counties (județe) of Alba, Bistrița-Năsăud, Brașov, Cluj, Covasna, Harghita, Hunedoara, Mureș, Sălaj (partially) and Sibiu. In addition to "Transylvania proper", Transylvania in its modern, wider sense includes Crișana, and may include part of the historical Banat region; these regions (dark yellow on the map) are in the counties of Arad, Bihor, Caraș-Severin, Maramureș, Sălaj (partially), Satu Mare, and Timiș.
Post-communist era
In the aftermath of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, ethnic-based political parties were constituted by both the Hungarians, who founded the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, and by the Romanian Transylvanians, who founded the Romanian National Unity Party. Ethnic conflicts, however, never occurred on a significant scale, even though some violent clashes, such as the Târgu Mureș events of March 1990, did take place shortly after the fall of Ceaușescu regime.
In 1995, a basic treaty on the relations between Hungary and Romania was signed. In the treaty, Hungary renounced all territorial claims to Transylvania, and Romania reiterated its respect for the rights of its minorities. Relations between the two countries improved as first Hungary, then Romania, became EU members in the 2000s.
Politics
The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ) is the major representative of Hungarians in Romania, and is a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. The aim of the UDMR is to achieve local government, cultural and territorial autonomy and the right to self-determination for Hungarians. UDMR is a member of the European Democrat Union (EDU) and the European People's Party (EPP). Since 1996, the UDMR has been a member or supporter of every governmental coalition.
Political agreements have brought the gradual implementation of Hungarian in everyday life: Public administration Law 215/2002 stipulates "the use of national minority languages in public administration in settlements where minorities exceed 20% of the population"; minority ethnics will receive a copy of the documents in Romanian and a translation in their language; however, official documents are preserved by the local administration in Romanian only; local administration will provide inscriptions for the names of localities and public institutions under their authority, and display public interest announcements in the native language of the citizens of the respective ethnic minority under the same 20% rule.
Even though Romania co-signed the European laws for protecting minorities' rights, the implementation has not proved satisfactory to all members of Hungarian community. There is a movement by Hungarians both for an increase in autonomy and distinct cultural development. Initiatives proposed by various Hungarian political organizations include the creation of an "autonomous region" in the counties that form the Szekler region (Székelyföld), roughly corresponding to the territory of the former Hungarian Autonomous Province as well as the historical Szekler land that had been abolished by the Hungarian government in the second half of the 19th century, and the re-establishment of an independent state-funded Hungarian-language university.
However, the situation of the Hungarian minority in Romania has been seen by some as a model of cultural and ethnic diversity in the Balkan area: In an address to the American people, President Clinton asked in the midst of the air war in Kosovo: Who is going to define the future of this part the world... Slobodan Milošević, with his propaganda machine and paramilitary forces which compel people to give up their country, identity, and property, or a state like Romania which has built a democracy respecting the rights of ethnic minorities?Tom Gallagher, "Modern Romania: the end of communism, the failure of democratic reform, and the theft of a nation", p. 216, NYU Press, 2005
Notable Hungarians of Romania Sports Many ethnic Hungarians<ref></ref</ref> have won Olympic medals for Romania. Iolanda Balaș (Jolanda Balázs) (2G) High-jump 1960 and 1964. Ileana Silai (Ilona Gergely) (S) 800m 1968 Ecaterina Szabo (Katalin Szabó) (3G-individual, 1G-team 1S-individual) Gymnastics 1984 Emilia Eberle (Hungarian-German) (1S-individual, 1S-team) Gymnastics 1980 Zita Funkenhauser, of mixed German-Hungarian origin and a Hungarian speaker (as her Germany-born children). Gabriela Szabo (1G, 1S, 1B) 1996, 2000 (father Hungarian) Corneliu Oros (B) Team-volleyball Noemi Lung (Noemi Ildikó Lung) (S, B) Swimming 1984 Elena Horvat (Ilona Horvath) (G) team-rowing 1984 Viorica Ioja (Ibolya Jozsa) (G, S) Team-rowing 84 Aneta Mihaly (S) Team-rowing 1984 Herta Anitaș (S, B) Team-rowing 1988 Eniko Barabas (Enikö Barabás)(B) Team-rowing 2008 Elisabeta Lazăr (Erzsébet Lázár) (B) Team-rowing76 Ladislau Lovrenschi (László Lavrenszki) ( B) Team-rowing 72 (S) 88 Ioan Pop (János Pap) (2B) Team-sabre (B) 76, (B) 84 Alexandru Nilca (Sándor Nyilka) Team-sabre (B) 76 Vilhelm Szabo (Vilmos Szabó) (B) Team-Sabre 1984 Monika Weber-Koszto (S) Team-foil 1984 (+ 1S, 2B for Germany) Marcela Zsak (S) Team-foil 1984´ Rozalia Oros (Rozália Orosz)(S) Team-foil 1984 Olga Orban-Szabo (Olga Orbán Szabó) (2B) Team women's´foil 1968,1972 (1S) Women's Foil Individual 1956 Ileana Gyulai-Drimba (Ilona Gyulai) (2B) Team-women's foil 1968,1972 Ecaterina Stahl-Iencic (Katalin Jencsik) (2B) Team-women's foil 1968,1972 Reka Zsofia Lazar-Szabo(1S, 1B) Team Women's´foil 1992, 1996 Simona Pop Stefan Birtalan (István Bertalan) (1S, 2B) Team-Handball 1972, 1976,1980