I propose in the first place to present a series of arguments Gusztáv Molnár lists in support of an autonomous status for Transylvania (1), I go on to discuss the reception of such theories in Romania and the way in which they can be discussed there (2), furthermore referring to aspects related to the historical identity of Transylvania (3), concluding with the objective correlation of ideas concerning the particular character of Transylvania (4).
1) In a recent, highly interesting article1 the Hungarian political scientist Gusztáv Molnár pleads in favour of the decentralization of Romania, and of the reorganization of the country on a federal basis. Transylvania would form one of the principal constituent parts, her special cultural identity, her history and traditions being evident justifications for such a status. According to Molnár, such a form of government would best accord with the needs of European integration, since a united Europe tends to resettle on the basis of a three-tier structure; a federal European superstate, which regulates the economic life of the EU and assures peace at home and abroad, the nation-state, which continues as an intermediary form, and regional units, which will enjoy ever growing autonomy.
The importance of regions and local autonomies, of decentralization and federalization are, to be sure, nothing new in current political thinking. All the world agrees that such forms of organization are a better response to current needs when compared to the centralized nation-state, which has been marginalized by history. The special accent of Molnár’s article is given by the manner in which he applies such notions to Romania.
Molnár’s starting point is Samuel Huntington’s hypothesis that Western values are not of a universal nature.2 They appeared in a given, West-European, Roman Catholic and Protestant zone, within which a specific cultural tradition has developed. The modernization of the rest of the world, namely of zones in which other types of civilization have taken place, be they Orthodox, Islamic or Japanese, may be possible, but Westernization is not. Elements such as the political culture of the West, individualism, or a work ethic that is specifically Catholic or Protestant, cannot be truly achieved within the limits of another civilization.
Huntington charts the limits of Western civilization in this sense. His border in Eastern Europe runs to the east of Finland and the Baltic states and it dissects White Russia, the Ukraine and Romania. Transylvania and the Banat are as much within Western civilization as the Voivodina and Croatia, but extra-Carpathian Romania remains outside, together with the Balkans and the rest of the Orthodox world. Thus, in Huntington’s opinion, the ancient confines of the Holy Roman Empire and of the Habsburg domains, taken together with the limits of Roman Catholic and Protestant expansion in Eastern Europe, stabilize a limit for the eastern extension of the EU, furnishing a relevant criterion for the admission of new members.
Huntington’s provocative theory prompted lively criticism3 in many parts of the world, on the grounds that it is speculative and provides prophecies in the outmoded manner of a Spengler or Toynbee. In Romania it was criticized not only by competent commentators—thus, most unusually, the preface of the Romanian edition contained a pertinent critique of the book4—it was also politically exploited. In the 1996 electoral campaign PDSR, the party led by the then President Iliescu, used Huntington’s map to demonstrate the way the “external enemies” of Romania proposed to dismember the country in connivance with the Democratic Convention.
Although Gusztáv Molnár is in accord with Huntington as a whole, he stops short of the conclusion that Romania must needs be carved in two, between Western civilization and the Balkan world. On the contrary, he believes that Huntington’s general map must be nuanced in given particular cases. What Molnár does is to imagine the way in which the western half of Romania, that is Transylvania, might attract the remainder of the country to a place within the EU.
Molnár insists on the existence of decisive differences between Transylvania and the other Romania. These are due not only to local ethnic diversity but, in general, to the distinctive traditions of this province, traditions of a nature that generate the essential differences of the kind which Huntington theorizes on. Taking these differences between the Romanian provinces as his starting point, Molnár reaches the conclusion that only provincial autonomy within a federal structure can offer them a proper framework for development. It is precisely the neglect of local peculiarities that would provoke crises.
Obviously, Transylvania is the area which suffers most due to the presence of a centralized political framework out of keeping with both tradition and European standards, being drawn in an unnatural way towards the Balkan world by the suffocating and indifferent ambience of Bucharest. On the other hand, if Transylvania enjoyed governmental autonomy, she could without let or hindrance assert what is specifically Transylvanian, civilizational values of historical origin, integrating much more rapidly with West-European structures. This would have the gift to direct the other Romanian provinces to the same course. This scenario would, in additon, offer the only realistic chance to Romania, for the alternative would be the final allocation of the country, with or without Transylvania, to the circle of the damned, that of the failed states in Huntington’s map.
n 2) To be sure, Gusztáv Molnár’s arguments and conclusions do not come to a stop at what I here presented in a diagrammatic way, and even perhaps extended some of the consequences of his statements into a personal vision. No doubt, a proper view of Molnár’s position demands a reading of his article. On the other hand, the very idea of articulating an opposed position appears an extravagance, not, to be sure, in relation to what Molnár has to say, but as a function of my own. (I must admit that, in view of my own reservations and doubts, I would not have undertaken this task, if Gabriel Andreescu had not asked me, as a historian, to do so.)
Romanian public opinion in the broadest sense of the term react to terms like “federalism” or “autonomy”, not to mention the less familiar “devolution”5 with a knee-jerk rejection. The use of these words compromises whatever is intended. The collective emotions they stir up allow them to be used as instruments of diversion and demagogy. Some time ago Virgil Nemoianu remarked with heavy irony, that as the citizen of a respected and prosperous federal state (the U.S.) he feels offended when that form of government is looked on as something shameful in Romania.6
In such conditions autonomy, and even less so federalism, is favourably discussed only in Hungarian minority publications and by certain theoreticians7 who do not even address the political elite, let alone the general public. Besides, the Constitution of Romania stresses not only the
national but also the unitary character of the country, thus excluding any federal hypothesis. The circumstance that Romanians have for decades now been accustomed to take pride in the unitary nature of their state, not being able to conceive of another form of organization for their country, is thus blessed by the law and the constitution.
Given that “federalism” or the “autonomy of Transylvania” are here discussed by a Hungarian who, what is more, claims that he is mindful of what is good for Romania or the country’s European integration, discussing such notions appears to most to be futile and ridiculous, if not downright suspect. A great many Romanians, regardless of whether, in 1996, they voted for nationalist parties or for those of the left, or for those of the centre or centre-right, “know” full well that “the Hungarians want Transylvania” in the depths of their sinful hearts, and that the tale of its federalization is sewn with a scandalously visible thread. For extreme nationalists it perhaps serves as an occasion for the “unmasking” of an otherwise well-known danger, a violent negation whose function is to permanently alert the vigilance of the nation and to celebrate daily the festivities of confrontation. For moderate nationalists, the majority today, it is a matter that barely deserves attention, a matter that is regrettable, since it brings grist to the mill of the extremists.
This diagram of attitudes totally blocks communication, since a stereotype serves as the starting point. Such a range of expectations offers no scope to dialogue or rational criticism.
As a consequence, the articulation of a position on this question, in terms of a reasonable perspective, suffers much owing to a context unfavourable to its reception, especially if the purpose of the action is an effective public message and not a mere display of a personal conviction.
On the one hand, bearing in mind my own commonplace prejudices, that is that the Western integration of Romania is both possible and desirable, and that decentralization and autonomy are essential aspects of this process, I could subscribe to Gusztáv Molnár’s view without further comment. If such decentralization also presupposed the autonomy of Transylvania much like Sicily’s or Catalonia’s, or even Scotland’s or Bavaria’s, as far as I am concerned, there is no problem. Well and good!
On the other hand, I am not all that sure that this is possible. A whole series of objections could be raised and reservations could be mentioned in relation to Molnár’s specific arguments, not to mention Huntington’s theses, which would have to be discussed by competent people in the context of the theory of international relations. What intrudes at this point is the difficulty I mentioned earlier, that of relevant public action. Does it make sense to add my own criticism of Gusztáv Molnár even if it pretends to be rational since, thanks be to God, there are more than enough others to do the job.
To be sure, in the opposite case, that of acceptance of his point of view, there is the danger of this sticking in the throat of the nationalists. There is no pleasure in seeing yourself sworn at in the papers, but it is nevertheless a risk worth taking. Although to be in disagreement with what Eugene Ionesco has called the rhinoceroces of various kinds is perhaps not a title to glory or an end in itself, it is at least both an index of your own normality and a good example in the eye of public opinion. On the other hand, opposing the idea of the autonomy of Transylvania, shoulder to shoulder with the vigilant defenders of national unity, could place you in a truly embarrassing position, and may be damaging to the public spirit at home, which is anyway oversaturated with such polemic messages.
n 3) In what follows I shall tackle Gusztáv Molnár’s central theme, that of the specific historic identity of Transylvania, which, in his way of seeing things, underlies the possibility and necessity of autonomy or even of devolution.
A highly interesting aspect is that Gusztáv Molnár’s view that Transylvania differs from the rest of Romania in her traditions and in civilizational factors such as the work ethic of her inhabitants, is largely shared by Romanians, be they sages or just ordinary folk. The difference is that Romanians, unlike Molnár, do not draw any consequences relating to politics or administration from this observation.
In support of his ideas concerning what is peculiar to Transylvania, Molnár refers to a number of Romanian authors who generally belong to the liberal part of the Romanian political spectrum, from Horia Patapievici, Emil Hurezeanu and Alexandru Cistelecan to Gabriel Andreescu. What is paradoxical about the situation is that he could have garnered the same sort of opinions from the works of the most fiery nationalists, be they Transylvanian or natives of the Old Kingdom. Their respect for the seriousness and orderliness of the Transylvanian, as opposed to the Balkan frivolity of Bucharest, is in no way less than that of the authors listed above. The wide currency of such opinions, in such diverse places, suggests that their source is not a critical analysis of reality but either a well-intentioned statement of something obvious or else a stereotype or conventional wisdom.
Let us consider then the nature of Transylvania8 and in what measure she differs in her spirit and civilization from the rest of Romania. This will help us to establish whether these differences are of a nature that could provide a basis for political autonomy.
It is beyond any possible doubt that, as regards history or chronology, “Transylvania” antedates “Romania”. Transylvania has unambiguously been a politico-administrative reality since the 16th century at the very least. Romania as an idea appears in the thinking of Romantics, Romanian and foreign, in the early nineteenth, and as a state Romania was constituted after 1859. All this should be obvious to any historian, yet it has not been perceived as such in the way Romanians think about history. Romanian historiography, in projecting present wishes or realities back into the past, has constructed an imaginary Romania which descends deep into the well of time, whose traces are met with at every step, from the “unified state” of Burebista, which imposes itself along the ideal borders of 1918, to the unification carried out by Prince Michael the Brave. But there is more to it than that, the whole of Romanian history is imbued in this sense, it is profoundly teleologic, progressing as if according to law towards the union of all the Romanian territories as fulfilled at Alba Julia (Gyulafehérvár). All prior efforts of Romanians served that purpose, inscribed in the book of fate of all generations, everything that they achieved in their culture was subordinated to this ideal.9
In the light of such an evolution, in virtue of the fact that Romania really always existed as a project, inscribed from the beginnings of time in the geography of the territories which she occupies today, the priority of Transylvania is, on the level of Romanian historical thinking, simply pulverized. The actual formula which Romanian historians, starting with Iorga, have used to deal with this problem is that of “Romanian lands”. That can be stuck onto any reality, be it political, ethnographic, cultural or even geographical, in the given space, right from the moment of ethnogenesis. Transylvania herself is considered par exelsis a “Romanian land,” from right back in the Dark Ages, when there were no written sources, from the time of princes with curious names like Gelu,10 Glad or Menumorut, all the more so later, as we approach 1918, at a time when she was administratively part of the Kingdom of Hungary, or an autonomous state under Calvinist princes, pre-eminently Hungarian in law and institutions, institutions from which Romanians were almost completely excluded.
The annulment, on the level of symbolic Romanian geography, of the real priority of Transylvania is only one of many eloquent examples of the way in which “Transylvania” is related to “Romania” in Romanian culture. Transylvania is always presented as an integral component part of Romania, not just from the point of view of the present politico-administrative reality but also from those of historical belonging and the essence of civilization. Considering Transylvania as an autonomous element apart, within the framework of Romanian civilization, is hindered by the fact that Romanians define her not as any old place, but as the kernel of what is specifically Romanian, as the essence and heart of what it means to be Romanian.
This special quality is manifest in a variety of concrete historical hypostases. Transylvania is the fatherland of King Decebal and at the same time the cradle of Romanian Latinity, thus the privileged space of ethnogenesis and of the sources. Later, this becomes the zone where Latinity is rediscovered by the Transylvanian School, thereby constructing the modern model of Romanian identity which then crosses the Carpathians, still in the care of Transylvanians. Later Transylvania becomes the ideal space of the national struggle, presenting to all Romanians a model of resistance confronting denationalization and of the emancipation movement. In general, Transylvania has the role of a symbolic cistern which continuously nourishes, like a heart, replenishing the energies of the Romanian nation, as she did through Prince Dragosh and the Black Prince, through Gheorge Lazar, the educator, or Badea Cârtan, thanks to the ethnic infusion which—according to Romanian historians—Transylvanians have always provided for the somewhat feeble regions on the other side of the Carpathians.
Naturally we are able to assert today that all these manifestations of the myth of unity reflect, or rather construe, historical reality only in an extremely deformed way. But this does not alter the fact that public opinion views tradition through such simplifying spectacles, and that this is the historical reality for Romanians, despite the fact that it is obsolete. There are, no doubt, many Romanian historians today who, imbued by a critical spirit, offer alternatives to the embarrassingly vulgar traditional historiography. Quantitatively the latter is still dominant, and it is likely that those who profess the traditional version will be able to change their ways. For that reason a dialogue with them does not make much sense. It is only oblivion which will reduce them to silence, turning them into objects for analysis in the museums of the future.
It follows that the manner in which the history of Transylvania has so far been construed in Romanian culture, in an unbreakable correlation with the Romanian past, is categorically unfavourable to an awareness of the local character of the province, at least on the part of Romanians. As we shall see, much the same is true for Hungarians.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle in the way of a distinctly Transylvanian awareness of history which could serve as a foundation for a possible autonomy, is that there is no such thing as a single “Transylvania”. There are many Transylvanias. Though the same geographic space may be under discussion, what Romanians mean by Transilvania is not what Hungarians mean by Erdély; what Saxons meant by Siebenbürgen before they seized the day and left the place, was something different again. This is a radical difference between Transylvania and Scotland, Bavaria or Catalonia. There local autonomy is based on a shared mode of understanding and defining the region which does not depend on ethnic origin.
In Transylvania it was Romanians and Hungarians in particular who developed separate visions concerning the place which they both inhabited. Notions of separate development, of segregation and domination, but especially the prospects of conflict and the struggle for the division and possession of this place, were the favoured modes through which each community construed its very own Transylvania. The idea of joint use of Transylvania by Romanians and Hungarians has had to give way—almost always so far—to processes tending to fragmentary possession, which entail relations of dominance between one group and the other.11
It must be stressed, however, that this ethnocentric, differentiated definition of Transylvania was not always present, for it is the specific product of the nationalism of the modern age. In the Middle Ages, and especially at the time of the Principality (the 16th and 17th centuries), Transylvanian elites professed an understanding of the country which included diversity as a component, that is a mixed, non-homogeneous, character. The basis of common institutions was the 1437 agreement between the three “nations” (that is the three estates), which was complemented, in 1568, by that between the four received religions. Truth to tell, Romanians, like the serfs, were excluded because of their overly pronounced social and religious otherness, but their later mention as “tolerated” completes the image of a Transylvania conceived as a sum of diverse elements.
It is difficult to estimate to what degree this situation can be considered as underpinning habits of coexistence and tolerance, given the presence of different ethno-cultural and religious communities. Romanian historiography insists on the discrimination which Romanians suffered, which compromised the very idea of tolerance. Since these historians looked on the Romanians as the most numerous inhabitants, of the longest standing in the province, that is the principal and essential element in Transylvania, their exclusion thus appeared as a conspiracy by a few privileged people, which was directed against the majority of the population. Hungarian historiography prefers to see the glass as half full, setting religious toleration in 16th-century Transylvania against the wars of religion which, at the time, ravished other parts of Europe.
Oversimplification and actualization of this sort, however, ignores precisely what was specific for the period, which is in no way related to the standards and sensibilities of our time. The diversity and particularism which were true of Transylvania were in fact characteristic of medieval society.
The way the historical notion of the diversity of Transylvania was perceived at the threshold of the modern age, towards the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth century, appears far more interesting to me. Taking a 1746 edition of the chronicle of Anonymus as their starting point, Romanians in the first place, but also a number of Hungarian
historians, looked on the legendary pact concluded once upon a time between Tuhutum’s conquering Hungarians and the indigenous Romanians, left leaderless after the death of Gelu, as the foundation of the Transylvanian political community.
Such an original contract in its character lays a foundation which belongs to neither the Hungarians nor the Romanians (as it will belong, to one or the other, in all later manifestations), but par excellence to both, who can only jointly possess the country, as the organic parts of a single political structure. The first Romanian political programme, anticipated by Bishop Inochentie Micu in 1743, formulated as the Supplex Libellus Valachorum in 1791, and implemented up to 1848, had as its objective the recognition of the Romanians in Transylvania as a collective entity enjoying equal rights with the other nations and denominations in Transylvania. This, the Romanians at the time thought, was only possible within the framework of a shared home, Transylvania.
It is true that, in the eyes of Transylvanian Romanians, other founding events, such as Trajan’s conquest of Dacia, layed the foundations of the cultural and natio-nal community of Romanians as a people, wherever they lived. At a political level, however, they could not imagine any organizing formula other than that of an autonomous Transylvania within the framework of the Habsburg empire, based on the coexistence of all its nations.
Starting with the 1848 Revolution, this vision of a politically jointly possessed and used Transylvania, symbolized by the treaty between Gelu and Tuhutum, gave way to other images for the political space of Transylvania. The twelth-century chronicle of Anonymus has continued to this day to serve Romanians as the mythological reference within the scenario of their relations to Hungarians, but their reading of it is now different. It is now evidence for the historical conflict between Romanians and Hungarians and for the dramatic problems generated by coexistence.
What Romanians have stressed since then is the breach of the original treaty manifest in the exclusion of Romanians from the constitutional arrangements of medieval Transylvania. The fact that Hungarians did not respect the treaty entails the right of Romanians to renegotiate their positions in Transylvania. Up to the middle of the 19th century, they desired no more than to regain their equality alongside the others. After this, the idea developed, step by step, that the Romanians had the right to dominate Transylvania, a situation which was bound to feed an eternal state of conflict with the Hungarians. What nationalism as a modern ideology has stressed is the right to self-determination, and not the need for coexistence with a foreign nation on the same territory, and, particularly, within the same state. The formula is a state for each nation. Such a notion compromised from the outset the Transylvanian idea, which implies a contract of political coexistence on the same territory and within the same state.
In the course of the 19th century the idea of an autonomous Transylvania, jointly possessed by Hungarians, Saxons and Romanians, just about vanished. This change in the direction of development was initiated by the Hungarians, due to their ideological and cultural advances when compared with Romanians. In the 17th century, the autonomous principality of Transylvania was a symbol of persistent Hungarian statehood, in the eighteenth, Transylvanian particularism was a way in which the Hungarian nobility resisted Habsburg centralization, but with the birth of romantic nationalism the idea of the union of Transylvania and the Kingdom of Hungary conquered all Hungarian hearts. In 1865, the last Transylvanian Diet, meeting at Kolozsvár (Cluj/Klausenburg), abrogated the autonomy of the province and decided for union with Hungary.
The Romanians, on their part, somewhat more slowly, ran the same course towards an annulment of the particularism of the province. It is true that for some considerable time they continued to support the autonomy of Transylvania, officially up to 1905, since this was the only imaginable formula in that context, and their attachment towards the Habsburg Empire as such was, in fact, wiped out only by the First World War. But already in 1848, they specially insisted on a separatist form of organization, on a communal ethnic basis, becoming increasingly interested in their national rather than in Transylvanian autonomy.
Hungarians and Romanians thus similarly acted in favour of a homogenization of Transylvania, be it in relation to Hungary, after 1867, or to Romania, after 1918. Their supreme desire was to unify all members of the national community in a single unit, initially of a cultural and symbolic nature, ultimately of a political character. What should be stressed is that both Hungarians and Romanians imagined a centralized, unified, national state not as a possible option, that could be discussed in terms of function and efficiency, but as a guarantee of survival in the midst of “alien tribes”, surrounded by the terrors of real or imagined dangers. The autonomy of Transylvania was increasingly considered an unfortunate palliative, in the absence of something better, at a time when the balance of powers did not permit the direct expression of more impertinent longings. The Transylvanianism of part of the Hungarian elite between the wars had such a compensatory function, as did the autonomism of the Romanians in the Austro-Hungarian period.
Historians today, expected to express a judgment in relation to such developments, are faced with the usual problems met with when comparing different sets of values. From a present point of view we can say, if we wish, that the desire to annihilate the political autonomy of Transylvania was a regrettable error. Romanians may well complain that their identity was impoverished by the wiping out of real differences between the provinces,12 Hungarians may complain that severe oppression by Hungarian governments in the Austro-Hungarian period provoked a reaction on the part of the national minorities, thus perpetuating national conflicts.13
The question is, however, whether, in the context of the given period, other courses would have been possible. The answer must needs be negative. Things have happened as they have, one cannot start afresh and experiment with something better. To be sure, confining oneself to stating what is the case is not an excuse or justification for what ought to be condemned, to say that this is how it happened is no excuse for the way it happened; nor is it the historian’s business to accuse, except in very general terms. What matters is that we explain the past, if that is what we are interested in, and that we understand that the sense that we make of it today is very different to the sense it had in its own time, so different that the past as properly understood cannot form the basis of any current conduct.
It must be said therefore that whatever more or less invented historical traditions of Transylvanian particularism may claim, the Romanian and Hungarian inhabitants have, since the beginning of the modern period, preferred a separate to a common political existence, and have preferred to be closer to Bucharest or to Budapest than to each other or to any illusory Transylvanian capital cities. If we presume today that this sort of political national exclusivity damages the Transylvanian political community, we nevertheless have to understand that it has its roots in a certain past. If what we want is a different future, that can only be based on transcending and putting aside this particular past. To do so will be extremely difficult, albeit it is worth hoping that it will not prove impossible.
n 4) All the same, even if we agree that Transylvanian Romanians and Hungarians in the modern period have subjected their regional to their national identity, that they think of what unites them with their fellow Romanians or Hungarians in other provinces as more important than what links them to each other, we may still ask ourselves whether such subjective collective perceptions do not flagrantly ignore reality. Regardless of what Transylvanians thought, were there not in fact real civilizational structures, values, attitudes, mentalities, capable of conferring a distinct character to this province? The Habsburg heritage—the Empire’s well-ordered bureaucracy, or the spirit of Central Europe—has it not imprinted a character on this region which categorically distinguishes it from the other Romanian provinces?
The answer, in my opinion, is that almost nothing concrete has survived of such a heritage, with the exception of a sea of memories, regrets and nostalgia with nothing to back them. They are like the ancient townscapes made colourful today by a population which is totally indifferent and alien to the medium in which it moves. This grandiose work of destruction was not accomplished by either 19th-century nationalism, nor by the “Romanization” and “Old Kingdom carpetbaggery” of the Romanian authorities between the two wars. It was the efficient and dramatic achievement of the Communist regime.
No doubt much has survived, fragments and relics in the midst of the general misery, monuments, libraries and archives, old people who preserve the memory, distorted by nostalgia, of another powerfully idealized world. Generally, the Transylvanian character is kept up at the level of a collective memory entertained by survivors and by new generations who seek in it a symbolic compensation for the slings and arrows of present reality. To be sure, even this memory would be something in the remaking of attitudes and social behaviour if it had the tiniest backing in reality, if it were not a simple means of evasion, a compensatory myth designed to justify the turning of one’s back on reality.
In spite of regional stereotypes, Transylvania today perfectly resembles the
rest of Romania. Whoever still speaks of the civic spirit, the insistence on a job
well done, the neatness and cleanliness
of Transylvanians, obviously does not live in a high-rise housing estate in a Transylvanian town, he has never called on
the services of a Transylvanian decorator or plumber, he has never emptied his rubbish bin, picking his way between ever present heaps of refuse and the overspill of rubbish lorries, all amid a general inertia.
One could say that these are inessential superficialities. But what remains beside them? Do Transylvanian factories operate better than those in other parts of the country, are there more foreign investors, are public services, schools or health services better than what is on offer in Jassy or Bucharest? Much has been made of the way Transylvanians voted in 1992 and 1996, the fact that President Constantinescu obtained more votes in Transylvania than in other parts of the country. Does this reflect a political particularism? But aren’t electoral fluctuations also a superficial matter? All the more so since the anti Iliescu-party attitudes in 1996, which motivated those who changed the balance of power, were very likely even stronger in Transylvania not because more favoured reform but because a section of Transylvanian nationalists no longer wished to share Iliescu’s fortunes.
No doubt the de-mythologizing of Transylvania—or, rather, a critical discussion of Transylvania and of the image of Transylvania in Romanian public thinking—is an ungrateful and unpopular task. In the midst of so many negative images of Romanian identity, Transylvanian “seriousness” and “thoroughness” are uplifting elements, designed to put heart into a man. In the last resort, such a commonplace is something likeable, and could even have an active function, perhaps motivating towards the actual assumption of attitudes and behaviours of that kind. From the point of view of Transylvanian particularism, it is indeed the single element on which the sharing of a self-image and of a specific identity or group solidarity could be based.
But what is of at least equal importance is that such an image should not be in dramatic disharmony with reality, that it should not camouflage sins of omission, or become a source of self-illusion and of an erosion of the critical spirit. Precisely because it is a widely held belief, it can be manipulated with ease, offering an illusion and a desire as a legitimating guiding post in the place of a systematic search for the truth.
Thus, in conclusion, one must insist that, although Transylvanian particularism is a regional stereotype of wide currency amongst Romanians and Hungarians, Transylvanians and natives of the Old Kingdom, nationalists and liberals, what is problematic is that this image has scant backing in either economic or social reality or in the concrete historical heritage. It is based merely on the collective recall of a tradition which was first eroded by the paradigm of an integral national state and then almost totally destroyed by the Communist regime.

Finally, returning to the issue with which we started, that of granting an autonomous status designed to provide a more suitable framework of development both for Transylvania and the rest of Romania, what I have argued so far is that, in the absence of the necessary bases, such a process is not feasible today. Decentralization and local autonomy are no doubt necessary conditions in a democratic state adapted to what the age demands. But what are the regional units which can be considered in the case of Romania, in conditions where differences between provinces have been systematically wiped out, whether by an integrated nationalist model, or by socialist socio-economic planning?
Federalization needs a powerful civil society, with clearly outlined communal interests, and a tradition and skill in the practical defence of these interests. But it is precisely this civil society which is lacking in Romania today, be it that it was too weak from the outset to resist pressure by the state, or that this pressure was too strong in the course of time. If decentralization is necessary for the proper functioning of civil society, decentralization cannot occur in the absence of a civil society, and we are caught in a highly disturbing vicious circle.
There is nothing to be federalized in Romania today. The only available constitutive elements are a centralized state which administers almost everything inefficiently, and a levelled society lacking the skills of cohabitation in a political community. Turning these elements into the fluid forms of illusionary self-government or of a number of historical traditions whose combination may generate just about anything, would be useless alchemy. At the present moment, existing administrative units, that is the counties, are the only possible basic units that can be considered in the process of decentralization. If these would at least cease to be simple transmission belts of the central administration, and local collectors of state taxes, if the greater part of the income collected stayed with the county, and local councils used these as they pleased to finance the police, schools and hospitals, it is possible that Transylvanians or Moldavians would in time learn what it means to live in a political community.
Until the centralized state withdraws from the economy through privatizing, from the life of local communities by decentralizing and from the minds of men through emancipating them from the tutelage of a state-centred collectivism, Romania will have no Transylvania that can be federalized, but will continue in her condition of general, integral and national misery.

NOTES

1 n Molnár Gusztáv: “Problema Transylvana”. Altera, 1998/8. English version: The HQ, No. 149. 1998, pp. 49–62
2 n Samuel P. Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York, 1996.
3 n Horia-Roman Pataievici: Politice. Bucharest, 1996, pp. 235–236.
4 n Iulia Motoc: Preface to the Romanian edition of Huntington op. cit. Bucharest, 1998.
5 n Devolution = the transfer of some of the constitutional functions of a state to a regionally elected parliament.
6 n Virgil Nemoianu: “Diagnostic roma×nesc: prezent, trecut, viitor.” (Romanian Diagnosis: Present, Past, Future) In: Iordan Chimet (ed): Momentul adeva×rului. (The Moment of Truth.) Cluj/Kolozsvár 1996, pp. 144–145.
7 n See the outstanding Daniel Barbu: Sþapte teme de politica× roma×neasca×. (Seven Themes in Romanian Politics) Bucharest, 1997, pp. 124–127.
8 n The expression “What is Transylvania” refers to the title of a historical pamphlet by Stefan Pascu, Ceausescu’s “court” historian, published in 1984, in several languages (The Ed.).
9 n For a historiographic analysis of the myth of unity see Lucian Boia Istoria sþi mit in consþtiintþa roma×neasca× (History and Myth in the Romanian mind, pp. 145–176.
10 n Gelu has become quite a popular Christian name thanks to a poem by Cos¸buc. It no longer bears the exotic overtones of the other two names.
11 n See Enikoý Magyari-Vincze: Antropologia politicii identitare natþionaliste (The Anthropology of Nattionalist Identity Policy) (Cluj, EFES, 1997) for a persuasive presentation of Transylvania as a dual space, defined in different ways by Romanians and Hungarians, to which I am indebted for some of the above ideas.
12 n Sorin Antohi: Exercitþiul distantþei. Discursuri, societatþi, metode (The Exercise of Distance. Discourses, Societies, Methods) Bucharest, 1997. pp. 304–305.
13 n Indeed, sometimes one wonders whether the identification and stressing of such errors, going back to 1848, on the part of Hungarian historians, is not an expression of an unconscious regret. In the absence of such “errors,” given greater understanding of the just grievances of the national minorities, such historians implicitly argue, the national minorities might not have helped to break up Hungary.
See e.g., Makkai, László: Magyar–román közös múlt (A Common Hungaro-Romanian Past) 2nd ed. Budapest, Héttorony Könyvkiadó, pp. 218–220).

**

Sorin Mitu
is a Romanian historian teaching at the Babesþ-Bolyai University in Cluj (Kolozsvár).