Probably, thousands and thousands of articles have been written about Hungary and Viktor Orbán, including in the Romanian space, especially after the events of the last few days. Various articles, all kinds, from radical against and to the opposite, positive, which is very good, it means that there is freedom of speech, a valuable commodity that is no longer available even in all countries of our space… .

Writing about modern Hungary is not easy at all, especially when it is present in your life, in your work… It is one thing to write about this topic 500 kilometers away, knowing things from the press and perhaps from lines taken from repertory football galleries, another – to write from a distance of less than 200 kilometers from the pose – subjective, of course! – someone who has a permanent connection with this country and its people.

A problem arises here: how to write about Hungary and not write about its inhabitants? About which? About Hungarians in Hungary or also about Hungarians abroad? How to write about modern Hungary without referring to the Hungary of the past? How to write about Hungary without plunging into one’s own private life, one’s own past, where perhaps Hungary and Hungarians are constantly present? It is difficult, and from what I will write next, you will see how difficult it is. And one more preliminary clarification: many of the readers of this text will find themselves in similar or similar situations to mine.

First of all, a biologically and culturally important part of me is connected with Hungary. One of the four languages ​​spoken in my family growing up was Hungarian. The first capital of the country I visited as a child was Budapest, where I had and still have relatives. But I had and still have relatives of Hungarian nationality and speakers of the Hungarian language in today’s Slovakia. Yes… difficult.

As a child, I heard about the year 1956, and in my understanding since then and to this day, the October Revolution of 1956 is an event of a global scale. I admire and respect “1956” immensely. Then, as a teenager, I visited (I don’t know how many times) Budapest and saw things there that I couldn’t see in Romania. Then I heard about Janos Kadar and the beginning of liberalization, then there were the first free elections, those free elections in which the ancestors of FIDESZ (I hope I am not mistaken) had on the poster the broad nape of the Soviet officer and the inscription TOBAPISCHA KOHETS! A poster that continues to move me every time I look at it. Hungary is increasingly turning into an economic success story. After 1990, I don’t think there was a year that I didn’t go through Hungary or there two or three times. I got to know all its regions and important cities, and I got to know Budapest with my eyes closed. And more importantly, this is a city that I love and feel at home in.

Secondly, my quality as a historian prompted me from the beginning to research and think about topics directly or indirectly related to Hungary. In addition to other discoveries that you make as a student of history or as a young historian in the 1990s, there was also the discovery of the organic connection of the history of Hungary with the history of Transylvania and the history of Romania. Now, after so many years, I easily and carelessly navigate Hungarian history, read its historians (unfortunately, only in languages ​​other than Hungarian), and it seems completely normal.

If we talk about historians, then I also discovered that Hungarian historiography is not so black as all kinds of national-communist publications like “The Dangerous Game of Falsification of History” slandered, that it is a historiography that can be – it is true – involved, subjective, which has its disadvantages (which historiography does not have them?), but also with a lot of advantages. In Hungarian historiography, you can find a lot of information, answers and very good interpretations on historical topics related to Transylvania or Romanian history. In a word, the history of Hungary is also my history, the history of the space with which I deal and in which I live. But I will not develop this fascinating topic here.

Third, I live in Cluj, Hungary, and Hungarians are a part of my life. I go out, they speak Hungarian and I like it. I like that in Cluj you can hear Hungarian and more and more other languages ​​besides Romanian on the streets. This is a sign of normality. The boulevards, streets, monuments, which I look at with joy, speak of the old Kolosvar, of the treasure city, I pass through Union Square and greet our King Matthias with love. Many of my friends and colleagues are Hungarian, they are very nice people with whom I always have something to talk about. I even allow myself, being of Romanian-Slovak origin, to tell them things that they don’t really hear from Romanians… Not to forget the hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian students who passed before me in seminars and courses, some 25 years ago.

I like to think that I am a person who is open to several cultures and national histories, and that I have the ability to assert things, to give judgments, but also to be critical. Including in relation to Hungarians or Hungary.

But about today’s Hungary.

I have always admired this country (and in its pre-1918 form) for many reasons: historical, cultural, economic, touristic and even political. But in about 20-25 years, I began to notice signs, which until a certain point I attributed to a more special political culture, such as Hungarian. This is at first strange and then a little disturbing insistence on the Trianon question and the status of Hungarian minorities abroad. Nota bene, I had the opportunity to observe this in Romania and Slovakia, and in Slovakia things were said on both sides much more strongly than in the case of Romania.

Of course, the Trianon is a complex topic. On the one hand, for Hungarians it was a tragedy experienced very intimately until it became a national trauma. It’s a point of view I don’t agree with, but I understand it. On the other hand, from the point of view of others (Romanians, Slovaks, etc.), Trianon was a triumph. The question of the status of national minorities (the Hungarian minority in this case) is no less a complex and sensitive topic, we all know it, and those who are part of minorities and have dilemmas of identity settlement, those who are somewhere between majority and minority and have their own dilemmas. Somewhere there is a discussion about the rights that the minority in the country should have, but here you can also remember that it should also have responsibilities. But what are the international norms in this field? What is the practice of minorities in other countries? What is happening in terms of European integration and Europe of regions? Complex.

But nothing complicates matters worse than the Trianon question, and especially the question of the Hungarian minorities, like politics. And here you have to be careful with everyone concerned: both commentators, and politicians themselves (I doubt that many have such an ability), and ordinary citizens. But beyond politics, it’s the relationships between people and how they treat each other that can have dire consequences. It had been circulating on Facebook for a while and I really appreciated it, a slogan that said “Don’t let yourself be manipulated!”. Here’s the thing…

Returning to Hungary and Hungarian politics. Around 1989-1990, a young leader with a great future, raised “by Soros”, Viktor Orbán, appeared more and more persistently in Hungarian politics, who over time followed completely different paths than those he followed at first. Over the years, he made more and more political gestures, which caused me surprise, then stupor, then indignation. For example, the visit (2015?) of Vladimir Putin to Budapest, the first moment of the visit was the laying of wreaths by Orbán and Putin at the monument to the Soviet soldiers who died in 1956. I won’t go into detail here about the big themes of his politics, but no, I can’t help but notice his tenacity. Viktor Orbán is a very good politician, and he knew which buttons (electoral, ideological) to push to get the maximum result. I will not discuss here what he did and did not do, how he – and his governments – supported the Hungarian minorities outside Hungary’s borders. From the granting of citizenship, subsidies for ethnic Hungarian schoolchildren, for private universities, foundations and even the purchase of castles and economic investments. These things are worth appreciating. My question as a minority (since culturally I am also a minority in modern Romania) is how far does this go? How far is decent to go?

Of course, the topic of Orbán’s participation in the Tušnad summer school and his speech there is relevant now. In this context, I ask myself the question, is it normal when the prime minister of a foreign country (and a neighboring country with which we want to have good relations) participates in such an event? My answer is yes. Of course!

I am not discussing here whether it is a private or an official visit. I don’t know how the problem in international relations is posed from this point of view. But even if it was private, the visit was made not as a simple person (as the former Prime Minister of England did, who came to Cluj to see his favorite team play with the CFR), but as a high-ranking governor of Hungary. This is where things get sensitive.

The aspect that worries me is the absence of the Romanian authorities, the president, the prime minister, the foreign ministry, etc. It is like a bank with Hungarians who came to Transylvania and found it deserted. Considering that your country is being visited by the prime minister of another country, a neighboring, close and somewhat problematic country, the Romanian authorities should have been with Orbán during his visit to the summer school in Tušnad. Not aggressively, but friendly. It was a good opportunity to organize a joint meeting of the government, for example…

Viktor Orban gave an interesting speech in Tushnada, in which he touched on many topics. Speech is as much as ideology. Among the topics covered, he questioned the European, pro-Western value system of the country where he spoke. This is not a problem either, as we have freedom of opinion. He then discussed migrants and the demographic and cultural transformations that Europe is undergoing in these new conditions, and he got to the races with harsh words about “race mixing”. I was outraged from the first minute I learned about the topics of the speech, and I was even more outraged after reading the speech in its entirety. Perhaps, thinking about the end of the West, migrants, the danger of the denationalization of Europe and Hungary and the danger of racial mixing are some serious, disgusting words, but before which you shrug your shoulders and say: “Oh no … it’s Orbán”, but history teaches us that the great horrors of the 20th century began with a few obscure ideologues speaking out on all sorts of topics… continue reading the article at Contributors.ro