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

National Prejudices, Mass Media and History TextbooksOn 18 October 1999, Anghel Stanciu, a Greater Romania Party(PRM) deputy, questioned the Minister about education policy implementedin the curricula, in view of the general coordinates established bythe law of education. The same day, Adrian Nãstase, then vice-presidentof PDSR, gave an interview to Cotidianul. Nãstase described the textbookas being a result of “Hungarian revisionism and the radically homogenizinginternationalism.” In the next weeks, the main arguments were orientedalong two main directions. On the one hand, the coordinator of thetextbook was accused of being supported by external forces, mainly Hungarianones. On the other hand, the Minister of National Education wasaccused of “taking too literally” the Recommendation 1283 of the Councilof Europe. During November 1999, the scandal erupted again and again.Finally, 64 deputies signed a motion, entitled “The educational policy promotedthrough the textbooks of Romanian history.” This episode signaledthe political interests behind the scandal. Nevertheless, some of the consequenceswent far beyond the political conflict.The Incriminated Aspects of the New TextbooksAs already mentioned, it was the textbook coordinated by Sorin Mitu thatbecame the center of contention. 3 In the eyes of the opposition, it was a palpableproof for the claim that the government was profoundly anti-national.Very soon, the commentators, the critics and the politicians involved in thedebate turned to the issue of the curricula and to the way in which the textbookswere designed. In this way, the other textbooks came into scrutiny aswell, especially concerning the goals of national education. In this section,I review the main arguments against Mitu’s textbook. Most of them wereindicating some divergences from the ethno-national “vulgata.”A. The first contested sentence was the title of the second lesson. 4The keyword was “imagine”, as all commentators underlined that thisimplies that ethno-genesis is not true but a phantasm: “The next sub-chapteris much more relevant (chap. 2): ‘Ethno-genesis: How do Romaniansimagine their origins.’ Consequently, in the author’s perspective, does‘imagination’ successfully replace the historical proof?” 5B. On the next page, a Roman sculpture representing Decebal, theDacian king, is reproduced. The text devoted to this picture says: “TheRoman artist wished to emphasize the eyes of a committed person, his delicatebut still powerful nose, his raised and protuberant cheeks, as well ashis sensual lips. Thus, his face combines nobleness and decided character,qualities attributed to Decebal by his Roman enemies.” 6It is difficult to estimate how many people actually read this, butthere was a huge wave of anger against the text that dared to describe95