Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Nationalist nonsense
All this Zamfirmania has got me thinking about the complex and dicey relationship between Romania and its neighbor to the northwest, Hungary. When I was in Budapest in 2002, the Hungarian faculty bombarded me with their version of history. Romania, I was told, is nothing but a nation of charlatans who stole Hungary's rightful land through some shifty political maneuvering after both World War I and II.
On a trip to Cluj, a medium size city in Transylvania, the Hungarians took us to a Roman ruin site that (or so they told us) Romania fabricated in order to establish their claim to the region, which does include a sizable number of ethnic Hungarians. (These folks live like serfs in sad little villages with dirt roads and more livestock than cars. I'm pretty sure this is where Borat's footage of "Kazakhstan" was actually filmed.)
Why, you might be asking, would Roman ruins prove that Transylvania rightfully belonged to Romania? Well, as the name might imply, Romanians claim to be the true descendants of the Rome, as in the republic and empire. They allegedly get around any historical inaccuracies by essentially saying, "Oh, we were hiding in these here mountains for centuries after the fall of Rome. You just weren't looking hard enough."
This of course smacks of bullshit to the unbiased observer. The main problem I've come to realize is that what the Hungarians presented as historical fact was in reality greatly distorted by their own nationalist fervor and inadequacy issues. I suppose anybody would do the same after their country was occupied or ruled by everyone in the region going back centuries, including the Ottomans, Hapsburgs, Nazis and Soviets, then lost two-thirds of its territory after finding itself on the wrong side of both world wars, and now serves as the European Union's backwater and the world's porn factory.
Anyway, Google yields little data about fake Roman ruins in Cluj. Likewise, there's not much information available to verify the claim that the "real" Romanians were in exile during the Middle Ages. Fact is, the Romans were in what is now Romania until about 275 AD, at which various nomadic peoples invaded...including the Huns! This means that Hungary's beef with Romania goes back well over 17 centuries. Needless to say, this will not be resolved anytime soon.
On a trip to Cluj, a medium size city in Transylvania, the Hungarians took us to a Roman ruin site that (or so they told us) Romania fabricated in order to establish their claim to the region, which does include a sizable number of ethnic Hungarians. (These folks live like serfs in sad little villages with dirt roads and more livestock than cars. I'm pretty sure this is where Borat's footage of "Kazakhstan" was actually filmed.)
Why, you might be asking, would Roman ruins prove that Transylvania rightfully belonged to Romania? Well, as the name might imply, Romanians claim to be the true descendants of the Rome, as in the republic and empire. They allegedly get around any historical inaccuracies by essentially saying, "Oh, we were hiding in these here mountains for centuries after the fall of Rome. You just weren't looking hard enough."
This of course smacks of bullshit to the unbiased observer. The main problem I've come to realize is that what the Hungarians presented as historical fact was in reality greatly distorted by their own nationalist fervor and inadequacy issues. I suppose anybody would do the same after their country was occupied or ruled by everyone in the region going back centuries, including the Ottomans, Hapsburgs, Nazis and Soviets, then lost two-thirds of its territory after finding itself on the wrong side of both world wars, and now serves as the European Union's backwater and the world's porn factory.
Anyway, Google yields little data about fake Roman ruins in Cluj. Likewise, there's not much information available to verify the claim that the "real" Romanians were in exile during the Middle Ages. Fact is, the Romans were in what is now Romania until about 275 AD, at which various nomadic peoples invaded...including the Huns! This means that Hungary's beef with Romania goes back well over 17 centuries. Needless to say, this will not be resolved anytime soon.
# posted by workplex @ 11:33 
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