Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

The Dislocated Transylvanian Hungarian Student Body5,507 university students received financial support in the form of tax-exemptedmeal tickets, and 1,920 others were granted direct financial support. Thesums, however, were hardly enough to live on. Only those students who wereliterally on the verge of starvation received such aid. Petrichevich, Jelentés azOrszágos Menekültügyi Hivatal négy évi mûködésérõl, p. 21.6The refugee students from Czechoslovakia and the Serb-Croat-SlovenianKingdom also had their associations. Yet, the most active among these was thatof the Transylvanians. See Andor Ladányi, Az egyetemi ifjúság az ellenforradalomelsõ éveiben (The university youth in the first years of the counter-revolution)(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1979), p. 103.7See Nándor Bárdi, “A Keleti Akció – A romániai magyar intézmények támogatásaaz 1920-as években” (The Eastern Action – support for Hungarian institutionsin Romania in the 1920s), in László Diószegi, ed., Magyarságkutatás,1995-96 (Hungarian studies, 1995-1996) (Budapest: Teleki László Alapítvány,1996), pp. 150, 157-158, 161-163. The sums disposed with for such purposeswere, nevertheless, relatively small, amounting to about 0.1-0.2% of the governmentbudget. For more on these matters, see Bárdi’s above-mentionedstudy.8Laky, “A magyar egyetemi hallgatók statisztikája 1930,” pp. 30-31.9Mária M. Kovács, Liberal Professions and Illiberal Politics: Hungary from theHabsburgs to the Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 54.10 In the first two decades after the turn of the century, the average rata of Jewishstudents was around 23-24%, with an exceptionally high percentage (sometimesdouble of the above-mentioned figures) in the medical faculty, and,despite a decreasing tendency, in the law and technical faculties. Exactly inthese faculties, massive Jewish presence may account for the eagerness ofimplementing the “Jewish quota.” For a comparison, the proportion of Jews in“Trianon Hungary” was around 6%. See Ladányi, Az egyetemi ifjúság, pp. 60-61; Mészáros, A magyar nevelésügy, p. 79.11 Mészáros, A magyar nevelésügy, p. 79; Kovács, Liberal Professions, p. 51; Kornis,Education in Hungary, p. 143; See also Randall Collins, “Market closureand conflict theory,” in Burrage et al., eds., Professions in Theory and History(London: Sage, 1990), p. 159.12 István Mócsy, The Effects of World War I. The Uprooted: Hungarian Refugeesand their Impact on Hungary’s Domestic Politics 1918 – 1921 (New York: BrooklynCollege Press, 1983), p. 191.13 Kovács, Liberal Professions, p. 56.14 Dezsõ Laky, ed., A M. Kir. Ferencz József – Tudományegyetem igazgatását érintõfontosabb törvények és rendeletek gyûjteménye (A collection of the major lawsand decrees concerning the management of the Royal Hungarian “FrancisJoseph” University) (Szeged: Városi Nyomda és Könyvkiadó, 1926), pp. 193-199; Kornis, Education in Hungary, p. 143.15 Kovács, Liberal Professions, p. 51; Mészáros, A magyar nevelésügy, p. 79.16 Andor Ladányi, Az egyetemi ifjúság, pp. 82, 113, 129-132.17 Dezsõ Schuler, “A tanulóifjúság védelme” (The social protection of students)in Hatósági és társadalmi embervédelem Budapesten (Official and social humanprotection in Budapest), vol. 1 (Budapest, 1936), pp. 296-297; for details on193