Southeast Europe

laws concerning education. For example, the Law Decree No. 278/1973 issued by the
Romanian State Council on May 13, 1973, states that “in townships where primary
schools offer instruction in the languages of cohabiting nationalities, … sections or
classes taught in Romanian shall be organised, irrespective of the number of students.”
The same decree stipulates that the minimum number of children in a class shall be at
least 25 in primary school classes and 36 in secondary school classes for minorities
(Joó, 1994:48).
Official propaganda abused and aggravated some traditional nationalist themes, such as
the continuity of the Romanian people on the same territory, the predestined role of the
Romanian nation, the importance of the Dacian roots, and the ethnocentrist myths. After
the visit paid by Ceausescu to China in 1977 the regime moved to an increasingly
personalised power. All these influenced the attitude toward the Hungarian minority and
implicitly, the relations with Hungary in 1980’s (Iordachi, 1995-1996).
In December 1989, the communist regime fell dramatically (see section 1.1). Protests in
the western town of Timişoara triggered the event. Members of the Hungarian
community protested to prevent the eviction of the local Hungarian pastor, Tőkés
László, whose anti-government sermons had set the regime against him. Romanians and
members of other minorities joined the protesters, who were eventually fired on by the
army. News of the violence spread and a hostile crowd in Bucharest overthrew the
dictator some days later. He and his wife were executed on Christmas Day 1989.
(Tismăneanu, 1999)
Immediately following these events, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania
(DAHR) was formed, securing all the votes of the ethnic Hungarian electorate and
proving the strength of the Hungarian identity in Romania. Their inclusion in the
government since 1996 is a clear indication of how much this has progressed and the
extent to which they are now accepted, albeit unwillingly by some (Bárdi, 2000).
At present, the goals of the Hungarian national minority are, on the one hand, the
administrative decentralisation of the country, with a special emphasis on the different
forms of autonomy (territorial, cultural, personal); and, on the other hand, the
maintenance and/or establishment of a separate institutional system, especially of a
separate Hungarian university. Both of these goals reflect the concern for the
preservation of the Hungarian national identity.
2.2.1 The minority’s resistance to or acceptance of assimilation
One cannot talk about assimilation of the Hungarian minority in Romania before the
end of the First World War when Transylvania was annexed to Romania. The Romanian
Communist Party (RCP), which assumed power following the Second World War,
adopted a policy of forced assimilation rather than integration for all minorities in the
country. This was implemented in three ways. Language and education policies are
probably the most effective means of destroying minority identity. After the Hungarian
uprising of 1956, the RCP began to systematically destroy Hungarian-language
education at all levels. Prior to this, the Groza Government had entertained some more
lenient policies (see Section 6.1).
Assimilation began in the late 1950s. First, ethnic Romanians were moved into
Transylvania, and ethnic Hungarians and Germans were moved out, many of the latter
opting to leave for Germany. Secondly, a minimum quota had to be met in order for
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