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

schauung, would never accept a civilizational, post-Huntingtonian division ofRomania.Without entering an esoteric discussion about Orientalism, my argumentis that, in the discussion about Romania’s place on the Europeanmap, Transylvania is used not only to cement the argumentation of bothsides, but also as the main trope of political performance. This suggestsyet another well-rooted cliché: similar to Transylvania being consideredthe most advanced bastion of Romania, so is Romania regarded as the lastbastion of European civilisation in the face of “Oriental barbarism.” Whatconstitutes the appealing side of this story is that any Europeanised discourseis either parallel or produced as a reaction to various forms ofnationalism or autochthonism. 15ConclusionsTransylvania RevisitedI have argued in this essay, via the discussion of recent discursive tropes inRomania, that my vision of Transylvania is a critique of both Romania (seen asthe eternal nation-state), and of constructing a superfluous regional identity.Firstly, I think that both regionalists and integralists ignore a veryimportant element. After 1918, new vertical power relationships were formedin Transylvania that absorbed their vitality from the very existence ofBucharest. This is a fact that cannot be oversimplified by affirming a culturalmemory of separate cultural spheres. 16 Apart from futile variations onthis allegedly self-imposed superiority, Transylvania is too profound a partof Romania to be dispersed so easily. It is not a separate piece of the nationalpuzzle that respects the present political arrangements due (only) to centralistcoercion (as regionalists advocate), nor is it a part of Romania sincetimes immemorial (as integralists suggest). The union of Transylvania withRomania was, after all, the result of a process that conflated various pointsof reference – i.e., the myth of a common history, a unified land anda shared destiny – with favourable historical circumstances (1918 and 1945).In addition, to imagine (as the regionalists do) that just affirming a regionalidentity can express a benign, democratic Zeitgeist would neglect thepower of opposing interests in Romania and exaggerate the civic patriotismof Transylvanians (the recent elections illustrate this eloquently).Secondly, there is a sense of difference within Romania that should notbe discarded. Benefiting from interaction with various ethnic groups, Romaniansfrom Transylvania have gained a sense of cultural superiority, clearlyused in present debates on Romanian identity as powerful arguments. Withrespect to this form of difference, a variable scale of symbolic boundaries doesindeed separate Transylvania from other parts of Romania. Finally, I wouldsuggest that such considerations as those analysed in this essay acutely indicate203