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

More Than Just Neighbors: Romania and Hungary Under Critical Scrutinyphysics, in which universal categories such as Time (not just history),Space (not just territory), Being (not just ethno-national character) arebeing indigenized, while the local categories such as Discourse (not justlanguage) are being raised to the level of the universal –, Hungarians andRomanians share just about everything. Although Hungary proudly sits inCentral Europe, while Romania is drifting between a putative CentralEurope, a threatening, abominable Eastern frontier, and the dreadedBalkans, the two countries face similar challenges, and have similarresources, especially human.By using a variety of academic idioms, by concentrating on many differenttopics, the young authors contributing to this pioneering volumecome quite close to the perspective I have briefly sketched above. Newmethods, new theories, new objects of scholarly curiosity, but also a newcommonality of vision distinguish this book from the bulk of what is beingpublished in the respective mainstreams of Romanian and Hungarian historicalstudies. More obviously Romania, where national communism hasseverely impacted historical studies, and its legacy has to be “distanced”systematically by means of canonical controversies, public debates, thereform of training and research institutions, the two countries have producedmainstream historical discourses that, by their close associationwith ethno-national and nation-state legitimating narratives, ought to becritically reconstructed. The task is monumental, and may be doomed ifundertaken as a holistic project. On the contrary, time has come for piecemealrevisions, based on groundbreaking research on details. To be sure,research on details has long been a refuge of the best historians in dürftigerZeit. This is not the type of work I have in mind. Rather, I plead forpainstaking work on relevant details (along the lines of the elusiveeccezionale normale suggested by microhistorians), and also for the vitallynecessary theoretical and methodological horizon that simultaneouslybrings antiquarian innocence to an end, and avoids the ideological andpolitical traps that have so effectively marred the work of the best peoplein our profession. In other words, concentrating on the micro, while fullycognizant of the macro, and aware of the intermediate; pursuing a wertfreiresearch agenda, but also being able to gauge the complexities of historicaldiscourse: narrative, epistemological, ideological, political. Breakingthe mould of, subverting, “deconstructing,” and eventually replacing theexisting historical vulgates in Romania and Hungary is a long-term project.Modestly, each and every of us could at least take a few steps. Major, overarchingsyntheses will undoubtedly follow suit.These young authors are not alone. Some of their teachers and manyof their colleagues, at universities in Hungary, Romania, and elsewhere,are already at work. And – who knows? Before we know it, a regional third305