the text - Corvinus Library - Hungarian History

HUNGARIAN REFUGEES FROM
TRANSYLVANIA, THE NORTHERN
AND SOUTHERN REGIONS
The first wave of refugees came after the First World War. In
November 1918, at the end of the appearance of the Romanian
troops, close to 200,000 people left Transylvania. Most of them
were intellectuals or members of the public administration. On
December 1st, 1918, at Gyulafehervar, Transylvania was joined to
the Romanian Kingdom, promising complete eguality to all
minorities. "All peoples have the right to their own education, its
governance and dispensation of justice in its own language, its
autonomous public administration run by people of its own
ethnicity." - so says the declaration of unification. Then it continues:
"All peoples have the right, proportionately to their numbers, to full
representation in the legislative bodies and the government." *1
This proclamation, reflecting the European spirit, did, indeed,
promise the Hungarian population eguality, freedom of language,
autonomy, education, and eguality of language before the courts.
Although after the Romanian occupation, the higher-ranking
officials of the public administration were dismissed, care was taken
to replace them with Hungarian-speaking Romanians. They did not
touch the schools; theaters, cultural institutions, and publishers
remained. Only the staff of the supervisory authority became
Romanian. This engendered some illusions on the part of the
Hungarian and other ethnic populations regarding the Romanian
state's tolerance of her minorities.*2
In the Trianon peace treaty, Transylvania was annexed to
Romania; this represented the loss of some one-and-a-half million
Hungarians on a territory of 102,000 km2. In the peace treaty
Romania accepted the responsibility for minority rights, general
eguality of rights, and the free use of national languages It also
empowered the representatives of the minorities to turn to the
League of Nations for remedying their grievances. This spirit
embued the l923 Romanian constitution, even though it meant
regression on some points from the proclamation of Gyulafehervar..
From that moment on, an ever-widening rift appeared between
the Constitution and its practice. Fewer Hungarians profited from
the division of the great landed estates; they could receive smaller
and more limited bankloans as did the Romanians to maintain their
farms and small industries. At the same time, higher taxes were
levied in the Hungarian inhabited regions. The division of the large
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