Instrumentalizing Szeklerland Autonomy Through Szekler Memory Sites and Rites in post-1989 Romania
Abstract
In post-communist Romania, Szekler political and intellectual elites have taken advantage of a long discursive tradition on Szekler autonomy, which developed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries within the nationalizing states (Brubaker 1996) of Hungary and Romania. As part of the interwar ideology of Transylvanianism, a particular Szekler identity-construction mechanism was developed, buttressed by a rhetoric on geographical remoteness in relation to the centers of power of Budapest and Bucharest. More precisely, the Szekler-ization of geography was enabled by imagining and cultivating sites and rites of memory in the Szeklerland – from pilgrimages to the funerary monuments of Szekler cultural elites and the sanctifying of Hungarian and Szekler flags in public squares. Drawing on this context, my paper explores the post-1989 revival of Szekler commemoration narratives that have attempted to construct a Szekler life-world within Romania by linking memory to territory. Since minority rituals of memory, parallel to the official state ones, are no longer silenced in Szekler public spaces after the fall of communism, interwar realms of memory have been reframed and popularized. On the line suggested by Katherine Verdery in The Political Lives of Dead Bodies (1999), this analysis also looks at how funeral ceremonies shape the relationship between the Szekler community and “its†territory with the Romanian Other. In this respect, this study focuses on the attempt to rebury the Szekler pro-Nazi writer József Nyirő on Szekler (yet Romanian) soil. Apart from triggering a huge diplomatic incident between Hungary and Romania in the summer of 2012, it also pinpoints the reformulation of Szekler identity discourse within the Romanian post-communist context. In short, I will address questions regarding the practices of memory production permitted in present, the aims of Szekler elites in popularizing such practices and the way these aims shape the Szekler-Romanian relationship in the public arena.References
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[3] Bottoni, Stefano, "The Debate Over Hungarian National Unity from Trianon to the 'Status Law' (1920-2001)." The Contours of Legitimacy in Central Europe: New Approaches in Graduate Studies. Oxford: European Studies Centre, St Anthony's College, 2002.
[4] Brown, Kate. A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.
[5] Brubaker, Rogers. Ethnicity without Groups. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2004.
[6] —. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
[7] —. Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.
[8] Bucur, Maria, Heroes and Victims: Remembering War in Twentieth-Century Romania. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009.
[9] Diaconescu, Marius. "Mit și manipulare în conștiința secuilor prin manualul de istorie a secuilor." Historia, March 14, 2013.
[10] "Drapel secuiesc de doi metri, arborat în centrul municipiului Sfântu Gheorghe." Realitatea.Net. June 2013, 2013. http://www.realitatea.net/drapel-secuiesc-de-doi-metri-arborat-in-centrul-municipiului-sfantu-gheorghe_1197074.html (accessed November 1, 2013).
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[12] Feischmidt, Margit, and Rogers Brubaker. "1848 in 1998: The Politics of Commemoration in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia." Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2002: 700-744.
[13] Gândul. "Vona Gabor: Dacă apărarea drepturilor maghiarilor înseamnă conflict cu România, Jobbic își asumă asta." August 10, 2013.
[14] HotNews. "Traian Basescu, declaratii dure la adresa politicienilor maghiari: Romania isi va asuma leadershipul punerii la punct a Ungariei, care a devenit focar de instabilitate in regiune / Liderii unguri au fost indecenti, foarte probabil ca anul viitor nu va mai." August 12, 2013.
[15] Hutchinson, John. "Cultural Nationalism, Elite Mobility and Nation-Building: Communitarian Politics in Modern Ireland." The British Journal of Sociology, 1987: 482-501.
[16] Hutchinson, John. "Moral Innovators and the Politics of Regeneration: The Distinctiv Role of Cultural Nationalists in Nation-Building." International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 1992: 101-117.
[17] Hutchinson, John. "Re-Interpreting Cultural Nationalism." Australian Journal of Politics and History, 1999: 392-407.
[18] Kántor, Zoltán. "Nationalizing Minorities and Homeland Politics: The Case of the Hungarians in Romania." In Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian and Hungarian Case Studies, 249-274. Budapest: Regio, 2001.
[19] "Kelemen Hunor despre declaraţiile liderului Jobbik: Chiar şi prostiile circulă liber; respingem astfel de afirmaţii!" RFI România. August 12, 2013. https://www.rfi.ro/articol-stiri-politica-43372-kelemen-hunor-declaratiile-liderului-jobbik-chiar-prostiile-circula (accessed November 1, 2013).
[20] Kuper, Adam. The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformation of an Illusion. London: Routledge, 1988.
[21] Kürti, László. The Remote Borderland: Transylvania in the Hungarian Imagination. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
[22] Libertatea. "Steagul secuiesc a fost inventat de Mihai Viteazul." March 17, 2013.
[23] Liktor, Katalin. "Reményik Sándor transzilvanizmusa." Edited by István Dobos and Bene Sándor. A magyarságtudományok önértelmezései: A doktoriskolák II. nemzetközi konferenciája. Budapest: Nemzetközi Magyarságtudományi Társaság, 2008. 100-103.
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[26] Mohay, Tamás. TöredeÌkek az ünneproÌ‹l. Budapest: Nap, 2008.
[27] Neubauer, Jown. "Conflicts and Cooperation between the Romanian, Hungarian and Saxon Literary Elites in Transylvania, 1850-1945." In Cultural Dimensions of Elite
Formation in Transylvania (1770-1950), by Viktor Karadi and Zsuszanna Török, 159-185. Cluj: EDRC Foundation, 2008.
[28] Nora, Pierre. Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. III vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996-98.
[29] Pál, Judit. "The Transylvanian Lord Liutenants after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise." In Cultural Dimensions of Elite Formation in Transylvania (1770-1950), by Viktor Karady and Zsuzsanna Török, 138-158. Cluj: EDRD Foundation, 2008.
[30] Rhodes, Colin. Primitivism and Modern Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994.
[31] România Liberă. "Ce spune premierul despre arborarea steagului secuiesc pe instituții." October 12, 2013.
[32] Rush, Ronald. Prehistories of the Future: The Primitivist Project and the Culture of Modernism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.
[33] Sata, Kinga. "The Idea of the "Nation" in Transylvanianism." In Nation-Building and Cotnested Identities: Romania and Hungarian Case Studies, by Balázs et al. Trencsényi, 42-60. Budapest: Regio Books, 2001.
[34] Smith, Anthony. National Identity. Harmodsworlh: Penguin, 1991.
[35] "Steagul secuiesc a fost inventat de Mihai Viteazul." Libertatea. March 17, 2013. http://www.libertatea.ro/detalii/articol/ steagul-secuiesc-istorie-mihai-viteazul-moise-secuiul-selimbar-439419.html (accessed November 1, 2013).
[36] Sturm, Tristan, and Nicholas Bauch. "Geopolitics Conversation Nationalism and Geography: An Interview with Rogers Brubaker." Geopolitics, 2010: 185-196.
[37] Török, Zsuzsanna. "Planning the National Minority: Strategies of the Journal Hitel in Romania, 1935-44." Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 2001: 57-74.
[38] Turda, Marius. Eugenism și antropologie rasială în România: 1874-1944. București: Cuvântul, 2008.
[39] Verdery, Katherine. The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
[40] Verdery, Katherine, Transylvanian Villagers: Three Centuries of Political, Economic, and Ethnic Change. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
Published
2015-08-01
How to Cite
SZEDLACSEK, Petru.
Instrumentalizing Szeklerland Autonomy Through Szekler Memory Sites and Rites in post-1989 Romania.
Култура/Culture, [S.l.], n. 9, p. 39-54, aug. 2015.
ISSN 1857-7725.
Available at: <https://journals.cultcenter.net/index.php/culture/article/view/131>. Date accessed: 23 mar. 2026.
Section
English Articles
Keywords
sacred rituals, nationalizing space, realms of memory, identitarian discourse, local autonomy
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