‘Historical Truth and the Realities of Blood’: Romanian and Hungarian Narratives of National Belonging and the Case of the Moldavian Csangos, 1920–45

Abstract

This chapter discusses a number of themes that led to the refashioning of the ethnicity and national identity of the so-called Csangos,¹ the Hungarian. and Romanian-speaking Roman Catholics of Moldavia,² during the interwar period and World War II. This refashioning was advanced primarily through the histo. riography of the period, first by Hungarian historians and ethnographers who entured into the Csango-inhabited lands in western Moldavia; subsequently by Romanian historians and scientists; and, finally, by the Csangos’ own Roman Catholic clergy. I use this chronology of events to structure my thematic examination of the cultural politics of the past in Romania and Hungary, specifically in terms of the Romanian and Hungarian historiographical production on national belonging that facilitated the ethnicization and historicization of the Csangos (as either ethnic Romanian or Hungarian nationals, as the case maybe). I then narrow the context with a look at the Csangos and their Catholic clergy, who, through their own historiographical production on the community, became arbiters of the Csangos’ ethnic identity and consciousness. As this case study of the Csangos shows, the discourses of identity in Romania and Hungary provided a readymade template for the Csangos to fashion their own historical narratives about their ethnic origins and, hence, national belonging. The case study also shows how, in turn, such discourses reproduced images of the Csangos capable of being appro. priated by Hungarian and Romanian historiographie traditions and inserted into the respective national metanarratives.