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

IRINA CULICTable 3 suggests that about a quarter of Romanians identify primarilywith a regional/local type, thus maintaining a stronger regional than nationalidentity. Closer scrutiny of these respondents reveals that, contrary tosome expectations, the dwellers of Transylvania do not tend to identify in regionalterms to a greater degree than the average regional identification at nationallevel. (See Table 4).TABLE 4. Identification in regional terms by historical region.Region Percentage Percentage of those who identifiedin the sample themselves in regional termsTransylvania 34.5% 36.5%Muntenia 44.0% 32.2%Moldova 21.5% 31.3%TOTAL 100% 100%Source: Culic, Horváth, and Lazãr, Ethnobarometer: Interethnic Relations in Romania.Data for the Romanian sample, N=1253.This is not the case for the rest of Romania. People living in Munteniatend to identify themselves with a regional type to a relatively lowerdegree than the rest of the regional groups. In this respect, 77.5% ofMuntenians identified themselves in the first place as Romanians, comparedto 66.8% of Transylvanians and 63.3% of Moldavians.TABLE 5. Identification with regions, by cultural areasAreaPercentage Percentage of those who identifiedin the sample themselves in regional termsTransylvania 16.2% 18.6%North-West (Criºana, Maramureº) 6.2% 8.9%Banat 9.4% 8.5%Szeklerland 2.7% 0.5%Oltenia 10.7% 12.7%Muntenia 19.4% 5.5%Moldova 21.5% 31.3%Dobrogea 4.2% 9.3%Bucharest 9.7% 4.7%TOTAL 100% 100%Source: Culic, Horváth, and Lazãr, Ethnobarometer: Interethnic Relations in Romania.Data for the Romanian sample, N=1253.234