Letters from a teacher of Hungarian working in Moldavia secretly

• 1^st letter
• 2^nd letter
• 3^rd letter

Csoma Gergely: Erecting a memorial

Gergely Csoma:
Summer camp for Csángó children in Hargitafürdő (Băile Harghita)
and Magyarfalu (Arini)
25 August - 7 September 2002

Twenty-four Csángó Hungarian children and seventeen teachers took part in a one-week summer camp at the end of August 2002 in Hargitafürdő (Băile Harghita) The program was organized by the Romániai Magyar Pedagógusszövetség (Association of Hungarian Teachers in Romania). The children came from Pusztina (Pustiana), Klézse (Cleja), Magyarfalu (Arini) and Trunk (Galbeni), while the teachers were from Transylvania, Moldavia (Romania), and two of them from Hungary. The children had playful Hungarian lessons, three or four hours a day, they got acquainted with each other and the beauties of the hospitable country. Most of the children were from among those who had taken part in a special program in their village for a year, during which they had learnt Hungarian in extra lessons at private houses. The participation in the camp was a kind of reward for them, for the trouble they took with the afternoon and evening lessons for a year.

The last summer offered a number of summer holiday opportunities to Moldavian children wishing to learn Hungarian. Some of them:
Tiszadob - mother tongue and folk music camp, organized by Tamás Tündik
Szilágysomlyó (Simleu Silvaniei) - mother tongue camp
Eger - camp organized by the Petrás Incze János Kulturális Egyesület ("Petrás Incze János" Cultural Society)
Kőrispatak (Crişeni) - mother tongue and crafts camp
Kolozsvár (Cluj) - language puzzles camp, organized by the Heltai Foundation
Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc) - mother tongue camp, organized by the Németh Géza Egyesület ("Németh Géza" Society)

Altogether 230 children could learn Hungarian and get acquainted with Hungarian regions and people in different places. It is advisable that only those should be taken to such camps who have participated in extracurricular Hungarian courses before. When camping in Hungary, Moldavian children must not be exposed to nationalistic remarks - they can do nothing with them. It has to be acknowledged that they are descendants of Hungarians separated several hundreds of years ago and having lived as a minority since then, so they have to be educated and treated with love and avoiding extremes.

The methodological meeting of the camp in Hargitafürdő was led by Attila Hegyeli (responsible for the programs in the camp) and Erzsébet Borbáth. Together with teachers of Hungarian from Moldavia they worked out proposals for the success of children's further education. It is important that children having finished the eighth class in Romanian and having learnt Hungarian in their free time should continue their studies in Transylvania in Hungarian only after a preparatory year - in their own interest. Thus the dropping rate and the number of children going home from Transylvania disappointed and with a fiasco can be reduced.
It is natural and logical that only those Csángó children will have the chance to be successful in Hungarian schools in Transylvania who take part in the extra-curricular Hungarian instruction in their home village or complete the preparatory school year. Other attempts of taking children to Transylvania or Hungary for emotional or social reasons can cause catastrophes so they must be given up!

In the camp in Hargitafürdő children did not only learn but they also went on excursions and sang a lot of songs. They met Sándor Kányádi, the famous poet, and learnt a poem of his by heart. The week spent together was finished with a camp-fire.

Six children from Magyarfalu (Arini) could continue their "summer course" in their village under the guidance of Adél Mihálydeák, a teacher from Klézse (Cleja). Her helpers were Mátyás Csere and two other university students from Budapest and the writer of these lines, too.
There were "classes" from 9.00 to 12.30 in the morning, then from 3.00 to 6.00 in the afternoon every day: learning prayers, religious and folk songs, listening to tales and historical anecdotes, learning and playing children's games, drawing, origami, stringing beads etc. The participants, 25-30 children were happy and enthusiastic. This week has been "organized" for many years.
Andrea Drabek, Regina Bánkúti and Ágnes Benedek were university students when they first went to Magyarfalu, and since then, with the help of Laura Janku, a Csángó university student studying in Budapest, they are welcomed to instruct the children in Magyarfalu every summer.

Other summer courses - organized by Tamás Tündik and Ferenc Sólyom in Külsőrekecsin (Fundu Racaciuni), by the young Telkis in Lábnyik (Vladnic), by Ferenc Sipetz, Ilona and Tinka Nyisztor in Pusztina (Pustiana) - are excellent examples of work done by people feeling responsibility for their people. As a result of this, one-time Hungarians, now people deprived of their roots and values familiarize themselves with their prohibited culture.

Camp organizers and teachers have to be aware of the peculiar features of the religiousness of the Csángós, and they must not try to change them. I have met several examples of such attempts in Moldavia or in Csíksomlyó (Şumuleu). Csángó children must be helped with love, responsibility and humility, and without any ulterior motives.

Hegyeli Attila: Third Conference on the Education of the Moldavian Csángós
9 -10 November 2002, Szováta (Sovata), Romania

***

Programme
10 November, Sunday

Opening of the conference
by Pál István Lászlóffy, president of the Romániai Magyar Pedagógusok Szövetsége (Association of Hungarian Teachers in Romania)
and András Bartha, president of the Moldvai Csángó Magyarok Szövetsége (Association of Moldavian Csángó Hungarians)

In the morning:
lectures by Jenő Bilibók, Erzsébet Borbáth, Attila Hegyeli, Lajos Berszán, József Tőzsér
report by the leaders of the Balassi Intézet (Balassi Institute)

Discussion

***

In the afternoon:
comments by the representatives of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Government Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania and the Csángó Committee

Discussion

***

Adopting a final communiqué

Gergely Csoma: The Christmas Customs of the Moldavian Csángós

The Catholic Csángó Hungarians celebrate Christmas with deep faith and solemnity. Today's shopping fever and gift piling are unknown to the Moldavian Hungarians, and in many places they are not familiar with the Christmas tree, either. The custom of putting up and decorating a Christmas tree started to spread from towns in recent years due to the influence of television.

People start Christmas with cleaning the house and the yard. For Christmas day they bake bread and milk loaf. Moldavian milk loaf is different from the usual Hungarian one which is a kind of sweet bread with walnut, cocoa or poppy seed. Moldavian Christmas milk loaf is like a small round plaited pretzel, without flavouring. It is baked in an oven, and its bottom is sometimes burnt and covered with ash. It is a present for those going round the village chanting and singing colindas (Christmas carols) in Bukila/Buchila and Bogdánfalva / Valea Seaca.

At dusk children set out in twos or threes. People tie their dogs up so that they could not bite the children who go from house to house and start singing outside, at the window. The host or hostess comes in and gives them the pretzels, today also some biscuits, wafers and other sweets, as a reward. Children more and more often sing their Christmas songs in Romanian nowadays.
Traditionally they sang the following songs: István királyról szóló ének [Song about King Stephen], Örvendezzél, Betlehembe mentünk [Rejoice, we went to Betlehem], Pásztorok, pásztorok örvendeznek [Shepherds, shepherds are rejoicing], Csordapásztorok [Herdsmen], Boldog ház, hol Krisztus lakék [Blessed house, where Christ lived], etc.

It is an overwhelming experience to celebrate Christmas in Moldavia. There is singing in every part of the dark village, and among a lot of new songs translated into Romanian sometimes you can hear a beautiful old Hungarian melody. Streets are full of children carrying their round pretzels in their satchels (or plastic bags).
Lots of pretzels are needed, 80-100 pieces are baked in a house to avoid the shame of not having enough.

The older singers and relatives are invited into the house.
In many villages it is a custom to tell greeting poems.

Told by Anti László (60)
Collected by Gergely Csoma, Klézse / Cleja, 1993

They go to the house singing the song "Karácsony éjszakáján" [At Christmas Night], then tell the following poem:

At night people all go to the midnight mass.
Those who want to know the opinion of their domestic animals go to the stable and listen in. Animal' speech can be understood at Christmas night, and people can get to know the animals' opinion of their keepers.
Children has to eat garlic to be protected from worms.

Children used to go round the village with a Nativity play. I could record this play on a video tape in Lészped / Lespezi.

Sándor Veress in his book titled "Moldvai gyűjtés" [Moldavian collection] published the text of a Nativity play from Trunk / Galbeni, but he remarks that it was taken from Ketris / Chetriş. I have to add another remark to it: Pál Péter Domokos taught the text of the play to the youth of Trunk / Galbeni, and it was also him who sent costumes to them at the beginning of 1930. I heard it in 1985 from György Pánczél, a relative of the then leader of the group, János Pánczél.
I saw children in Nativity play costumes singing in Romanian in Nagypatak / Valea Mare in 1990.

Another feast with folk customs at Christmas time was the Holy Innocents' Day (28th December). Children went from house to house with apple tree twigs, they imitated beating with the twigs to bring God's blessing to the house and its habitants, and during this they told a poem:

Children got pretzels and left happily.

These customs can still be found in Moldavia, and some young Csángó Hungarians make conscious efforts to have old Hungarian carols on 24th December.

I could experience all these in Klézse / Cleja and Somoska / Şomuşca at Christmas in 2000.

Attila Hegyeli

The Moldavian Csángós want to learn Hungarian

To Erzsébet Borbáth,
with many thanks for all that I have learnt from her

This essay was written by a teacher. All teachers - and among them I myself - would prefer dealing with educational and methodological questions and concentrating on children rather than politics and political aspects of education. However, teaching Hungarian to Moldavian Csángó children is not free of politics at all. It was not like that in the 1950s, and after 1990 it became a political question again¹. I myself - similarly to twelve of my colleagues who, in January 2002, still cannot choose but teach Hungarian to Moldavian Csángó Hungarian children outside school in their homeland - would like to teach my subject (Hungarian language and literature) in the official Romanian state school.

However, this is not possible despite the will of many Csángó parents. In fact, Romanian authorities do all to put an end to the extra-curricular teaching of Hungarian language².

But the task of teachers is to teach, so we found the way to teach the language of their parents to children in Moldavia, as well as those teachers in Transylvania who taught Hungarian to lots of Csángó students in the last ten years.

In this essay I try to summarize the events leading to the presents situation and also outline the possibilities and chances of teaching Hungarian in Moldavia today.

It seems necessary to mention several historical facts to make the antecedents of the present educational conception clear. Thus we have to refer to the attempts at education made by the Magyar Népi Szövetség (Hungarian People's Association) in the 1950s. In 1948 and 1949 Hungarian classes started all over Moldavia. It occurred that the only language of instruction in a village was Hungarian, but in many cases Romanian and Hungarian education ran parallel. There used to exist a Hungarian teacher's training college in Bákó (Bacău). However, these were all brought to an end from the mid-1950s. Most schools were ordered to be closed in the autumn of 1953. In 1956 Hungarian became a subject in Romanian schools in many towns and villages, but two years later, in 1958 and 1959 Hungarian was expelled from schools³. Teaching Hungarian has not been allowed since then, but even speaking it in the school yard had been forbidden for many years. Lots of people in Csángó villages can talk about the brutal punishments for using Hungarian at school⁴.

Nevertheless the lesson drawn from the Hungarian instruction at that period, though it existed only for a few years, might be useful for us. The then students are still with us, and although they are grandparents now they remember their school time. The conclusion drawn from talks with them is clear: those who like to recall the memories of their teachers (mostly primary school teachers) and remember them as good teachers are willing to take a stand for their Hungarian origin and identity and are ready to act in the interest of the survival of their language and culture⁵. Of course, there are lots of other factors influencing people's attitude: family traditions, relatives' attitudes, workplace, connections within the Carpathian Basin etc. At the same time the opposite of the above-mentioned behaviour can also be observed: in villages where the Hungarian teacher's work was not very conscientious, many of the students became hangers-on of the Romanian ideology. This is a lesson we have to draw and learn from.

Now, thirty-five years later, the issue of teaching Hungarian to the Csángós and teaching them in Hungarian is the question of the day again. The silencing decades of communism have been followed by a series of chaotic Csángó-rescuing actions of liberated Hungarian efforts.

As the Csángós had not had any interest group for a long time, then later when it was established it worked with a very low efficiency, there was no organization to coordinate the tasks in the field of education. The Hungarian government and civil sphere were ready to help as well as Hungarian people in Western Europe and Transylvania. These intentions and actions at the beginning of the 1990s were imbued with strong national feelings but mostly lacked professional competence.

What were these attempts?

I. There was a naive initiative in Moldavia which tried to satisfy the demands for teaching Hungarian in Csángó villages but without professional teachers and unsystematically - which makes all kinds of instruction impossible in the long run. Such attempts were that of Mihály Perka in Szabófalva (Săbăoani) and that of József Fazakas and Katalin Fehér in Lészped (Lespezi)⁶. András Duma in Klézse (Cleja) also tried to teach Hungarian to Csángó children for a short time. All these attempts failed, partly because of the objections of the Romanian authorities, and partly because of the shortcomings of the method. The energies put into it were wasted. The efficiency, or rather the inefficiency of this kind of instruction is shown by the fact that only a few of the participating students continued their studies in Hungarian.

II. There were no connections between the instruction mentioned above and the education of the Csángós in Transylvania. The point of the latter system, started at the beginning of the 1990s and still existing, is that Moldavian Csángó children are taken to Hungarian schools in Transylvania. This form is much more efficient since children are taught by professional teachers. However, these teachers were not prepared and made prepared for this special task. An outstanding figure of that period was Erzsébet Borbáth, then head teacher of József Attila Primary School in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc). It was due to her professional skills, vocation and organizing ability that the whole system escaped failure. Of course, lots of teachers played an important role here, but it is her who unquestionably deserves the credit for the survival of this process for so many years. She was the first to recognize that this was a special educational task and could not be dealt with separately. It was also her who realized that giving lessons to these children was not enough, also their life and fate had to be followed with attention. Thus hundreds of Moldavian Csángó children could learn in Hungarian in schools in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc), Udvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc), Kovászna (Covasna), Régen (Reghin), Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfăntu Gheorghe), Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) and Bukarest (Bucureşti). The enormous expenses of the instruction were covered by the church, the Hungarian government, individuals and entrepreneurs from Romania and abroad. Unfortunately, the task of organization got into the teachers' hands because there was no strong Csángó interest group to take up this job.

I deliberately do not recite statistics showing how many students went to Hungarian classes, how many of them dropped out and how many of them were successful. Numbers seem irrelevant if we think of those children (unfortunately not one, not a dozen, but more than a hundred) in the life of whom this attempt meant a break. A lot of them could not bear the consequences of the careless step of adults and Csángó-rescuers: they were sent to (usually very good) Hungarian schools after the weak Romanian classes. The recruitment of the children was accidental, and we cannot even say now who exactly convinced their parents and assembled the children. The criterion for the pre-selection in the villages was not children's abilities, but in many cases family relations or social conditions. Thus the preparatory summer camps organized by Erzsébet Borbáth and her colleagues meant a secondary selection from a restricted group of children. It must be mentioned that there were some years when there was no pre-selection at all.

At best Csángó classes were set up, in worse cases Csángó children were put among Szekler (Hungarian) pupils to learn. However, the time for transition to and preparation for learning in Hungarian was very short in both cases. Teachers could not pay enough attention to the linguistic, social and cultural closing up of the Csángó children. In such circumstances only the best students could satisfy the requirements⁷.

Teaching Hungarian to Csángó children needs special methodology, lots of attention, skilled teachers and enough time. Experience shows that the more complex an educational problem is the more effort it requires from the teacher, that is the more difficult the language acquisition is the more prepared teachers are needed⁸. In many cases the Csángó dialect of Hungarian language is spoken incorrectly in Csángó villages because of the advanced stage of assimilation. It varies with families and villages whether we can speak about mother tongue, bilingualism, intermingling of languages or language loss in connection with Hungarian⁹.

Pedagogical failure in this field costs dearly, which multiplies the responsibility of teachers and organizers. Moldavian Csángó children at home go to Romanian schools, which are, deliberately, of very poor educational quality. Students leaving these schools are far behind the requirements in each subject. That means that teaching them Hungarian, reading, writing and spelling in Hungarian, and filling up the gaps in their knowledge about Hungary are just some of the problems. These children must be brought to the required level in the other subjects, too. There is another problem with these weak Romanian schools: if a child leaves his or her school let us say at the age of twelve and goes to a Hungarian school on a scholarship, he or she can never come back to the Romanian school later. This leads to a break in many children's life who have to give up their studies in Hungarian schools for some reason, but this cannot be acceptable in any case. Unfortunately, there are lots of sad examples: especially attempts in Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfăntu Gheorghe) and Kovászna (Covasna) ended in failure.

Despite all the difficulties and fiascos, there are some well prepared Csángó students, who, after having left the above-mentioned schools, gave good accounts of themselves at universities in Romania and Hungary, and who will be the Hungarian-speaking intellectual class of the Csángós.

Hungarian-speaking primary school teachers have been instructed at the Teacher's Training College in Székelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc), most of whom teach in Transylvania, but three of them came home to Pusztina (Pustiana) and one to Dioszén (Gioseni)¹⁰.

III. A third way of instruction was to send children to secondary school to Hungary. There have been only a few attempts, but it seems that these were even more inefficient than those in Transylvania, since children were not given special attention and it was much more difficult for them to adjust to the world of Hungarian towns and schools.

IV. An international preparatory institute (Nemzetközi Előkészítő Intézet) was also established, but especially in the first few years the drop-out rate was very high, mostly due to the new and entirely different culture and milieu. However, similarly to the instruction in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc), this school could also escape complete failure owing to the teachers' attitude and work. Ten children could start their studies here every year, but there were terms when these vacancies (with Hungarian state scholarships) were not filled because of the shortcomings of organization. After a preliminary training in Hungarian language and different subjects in this institute, students were given the opportunity to choose a university or college in Hungary where they could start their studies without a real entrance exam. Drop-out rate was really high because, though they could avoid measurement at the entrance exam, later the requirements were the same for everyone. This meant a great trial to the Csángó students, who were far behind the others in their knowledge of their subjects. Moreover, they found themselves face to face with a totally different new culture in Budapest, Debrecen, Szeged or elsewhere.

The declared aim of the educational attempts in the last decade was to create a Csángó Hungarian intellectual class. Despite all failures, several very estimable young people graduated from Hungarian universities and colleges. Some of them returned home, but most of them did not since their degree is not accepted in Romania. After graduation provision and scholarship guaranteed them for a long time is over, and what remains is the expectation of their returning home and working for Hungarian culture and identity. They must find the way of how they can do it.

Nevertheless, there are good examples. President of the Moldvai Csángómagyarok Szövetsége (Association of Moldavian Csángó Hungarians - hereinafter MCSMSZ) András Bartha, vice president and teacher Jenő Bilibók, teachers Szilvia Róka and Valentin Ghiurca, etnographer and leader of MCSMSZ in Pusztina (Pustiana) Tinca Nyisztor live and work in their homeland, and this is of greatest importance from the point of view of the Csángós' interests¹¹.

The major changes in the state of education of the Moldavian Csángó Hungarians around the turn of the millennium were the following:

1. With the retiring of Erzsébet Borbáth the Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc) centre of the education of Csángó children ceased to exist. This centre was transferred to Gyimesfelsőlok (Lunca de Sus), where parish priest Lajos Berszán (now head teacher) started a school, to which dozens of Csángó children have been coming to learn for three years.

2. Instead of amateur educational attempts extracurricular courses were started in Moldavia in Klézse (Cleja) and Pusztina (Pustiana) in term 2000/2001, with the instruction of specialized teachers. This means mostly teaching Hungarian language in private form, which is considered illegal by the Romanian authorities.

3. Fortunately, recruitment to Hungarian secondary schools is over.

4. A system of summer courses has developed in several villages in Moldavia (e.g. in Magyarfalu /Arini/, Külsőrekecsin /Fundu-Răcăciuni/, Somoska /Şomuşca/), in which Hungarian is taught with the participation and help of university students mostly from Hungary.

5. There have been summer camps for Csángó Hungarian children, but these have not been coordinated yet. Some of these camps are of educational character.

6. Interest in higher education in Hungary has increased due to better propagation and the "ripening of the fruits" of the process started in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc).

The chances or rather the lack of chances of adjusting to official Romanian educational system must be mentioned, too. After 1990 parents in Klézse (Cleja), Pusztina (Pustiana) and Lészped (Lespezi) requested several times that their children could learn Hungarian language at school either as an optional language or as their native language, in 1-4 lessons a week. They did not want education in Hungarian but teaching Hungarian language to their children. At best their petition was registered, but in most cases it was ignored. With the help of various forms of intimidation and humiliation, the Moldavian Romanian nationalist triumvirate (church, state authorities and school) achieved their aim: in no Moldavian village did parents made any request for term 2001/2002. Seeing the possibility of organizing Hungarian courses outside school they gave up the humiliating process of writing requests without results but causing lots of troubles. The MCSMSZ maintains its standpoint according to which the community should claim their legal right, but parents are not so determined. Leaders of the school inspectorate in County Bákó (Bacău) as well as the authorities and the church declared at a meeting that they do not want to give any chance to the official instruction of Hungarian in Csángó villages¹². In their opinion the Csángós are of Romanian origin, and some sporadic requests for teaching Hungarian at schools reflect not real parental demand but Hungarian nationalist ambitions all around the Carpathian Basin.

What and with what purpose do we, Hungarian teachers want to teach to Moldavian Csángó Hungarian children?

The aim of teaching might be dual. One is to give a basic experience of "Hungarianness" as wide as possible, sufficient for the children even if they do not continue their studies in Hungarian later to be able to decide what identity they want to choose. It means that we offer another alternative beside Romanian culture by showing the Hungarian one. This "demonstration" must be interesting, taken from life and positively strengthening. Another aim is to bring up an "elite class" by selecting children for further education. In this case children's life should be followed with attention and they should be supported until they are adults. This demands very serious work both from teacher and student, and can be carried out only in a tutorial system.

According to the two aims above, the themes of instruction must be broadened. Topics should vary from the Hungarian alphabet to all sorts of information about Hungary and Hungarians. At each level the main character of the educational process must be the student and not the syllabus. Children should set the pace of instruction, but only those can take part in the so-called "elite" education whose pace is fast enough.

Now I would like to set down to the description of the system which, in my opinion, is essential to the success of teaching Hungarian to Moldavian Csángó children (under the prevailing conditions). The whole system counts on Hungarian help since it is an illusion to expect Romanian state support in cases concerning the Moldavian Csángós. When there is a real chance of the Romanian authorities' considering the question, official instruction will be invited and welcome at once. It is recommended that children from of kindergarten age to the sixth class should be educated in their village. The possibility of extracurricular Hungarian courses must be ensured in each considerable Csángó village.

Professional teachers living (or staying) there would teach children in rented houses. In term 2001/2002 this can be organized in nine villages. Here children will be divided into groups according to age and knowledge of Hungarian. Adults can also take lessons if they want. Courses will be based on a skeleton syllabus, but teachers can adjust them to the actual demands. I would like to emphasize that these points of education and these teachers will be in constant touch with each other, and methodology training and meetings will be held regularly. We hope that we have to rent houses for the courses just for a short time and soon there will be a well-equipped community centre in each village where the lessons can take place.

The basic ideas and the methodology of this kind of instruction are the following:

1. The declared aim in the first year of instruction is to teach the Hungarian alphabet to the children, to teach them to write and read in Hungarian by themselves on their level, and to improve their speaking skills. A secondary aim is to give them an elementary knowledge of Hungary, and also some religious education in Hungarian (words of prayers and the mass, religious songs etc.).

   1. The alphabet: Compare the Hungarian letters to those in the Romanian alphabet (which is already known). Notice the similarities and differences in writing and pronunciation, both in the case of vowels and consonants. After going through the whole alphabet (relatively quickly, depending on the group's responsiveness) the new knowledge must be fixed by lots of practice.

   2. Writing skills must be developed in parallel with teaching the alphabet. It is important that children write down quite a great extent of Hungarian texts (they might as well copy them) so that they get familiar with the characters and written forms, then gradually they must pay more and more attention to spelling and correctness. At first children do not have to be corrected except if they make a serious mistake in pronunciation. For instance confusing a and o does not have to be corrected because these sounds are very close to each other in the Moldavian Csángó's language and they can be distinguished from each other only by dint of lots of practice. Lots of exercises must be done concerning the difficult sounds and letters. The principle of gradience must be followed in each case so that the mass of new pieces of information do not seem too much and chaotic.

   3. Reading skills start to develop after getting familiar with the alphabet by means of practising. At first we train by reciting simple but pleasant-sounding poems together. Children can learn to sing the musical version of some of these poems even if they do not understand the content perfectly.

      
      

      Firstly they have to make friends with the strange sounding - similarly to the strange characters in writing. Children should come to like the sounding of Hungarian language and it should echo in their ears as they hum the songs. When reading together each child needs the text of the poems, possibly decorated with colourful drawings. Gradually the texts can be more and more difficult, and by this we can start extending vocabulary. However, it is important that there be only a few unknown words at one time. These words (got into the language at the time of the language reform, or modern words) are good to be recorded in a vocabulary book.

   4. The point in developing speaking skills is to strengthen children's self-confidence. Children who understand Hungarian but speak it rarely or who have only a passive knowledge of it should learn to speak it confidently, at first just giving short answers to questions, then creating whole sentences.

2. Children must be divided into groups according to age and knowledge of Hungarian.
   Recommended grouping:
   • children of kindergarten age and in the first class
   • from second to fourth class
   • from fifth to eighth class
   • adult groups can be set up where needed

   Beginner and advanced level groups can be formed according to the knowledge of the children, the date of their starting the course (many of them join during the term) and their progress.
   
   It is good if children in the kindergarten and in the first class of school are taught by skilled kindergarten teachers. If it is not possible, teachers should apply kindergarten methods. These children are really responsive to learning Hungarian, they do not have any prejudices yet, and they are not influenced adversely at school. Children going to the first class should come to this group because they do not know the Romanian alphabet yet, but we teach the Hungarian alphabet by comparing it to the Romanian one.

3. Since the instruction is optional, it is crucial that children want to go to the lessons and enjoy them and themselves.

4. Application of frontal method, which treats teaching new things as publication of data, is not recommended. The co-operation between teacher and student must be creative and entertaining on each lesson.

5. The educational character of these lessons is also very important. Mainly those children who are going to continue their studies in Hungarian schools or classes must be prepared for the new, strange, Hungarian environment.

6. It is also of primary importance to get the children acquainted with the local traditions. It can be carried out with the help of local singers and musicians in each village.

The most important aim is to make children feel positively towards Hungarian language and culture: to make them interested in it (with playfulness), to make them have good experience of it (with preparedness), to make them sure that the language they speak is really Hungarian (with positive feedback), to get them acquainted with elements of Hungarian culture they have not been familiar with so far (during excursions, competitions etc.), and gradually make them prepare for a wholly Hungarian instruction.

Selection of children can be started from the sixth class. They can be chosen and sent to schools to Transylvania according to their knowledge, family background, suitability etc. If we choose and send students attending the sixth or seventh class to learn Hungarian somewhere else, the main point in choosing the destination school must be how willing they are to receive our children. If an educational centre, satisfactory both pedagogically and from the point of view of infrastructure, develops in Gyimesfelsőlok (Lunca de Sus) we will certainly send our children there.

In my opinion, these children could be admitted to a Hungarian school under the following conditions:

1. Possibly students should come from villages where private instruction described above already exists, and they should have a recommendation given by their Hungarian teacher.

2. They should take part in a preparatory summer camp before starting the new school. This camp should be run with the help of specialized teachers and it should last at least a month. During this period students should meet some sections of each subject they are going to learn at the new school so they could acquire the special vocabulary of that field and also improve their knowledge. They should be tested at the end of the camping, and they could be chosen to continue their studies in a Hungarian school on the basis of the test results and also of teachers' opinion.

Students should not change school just before they go to the eighth or twelfth class.

From the ninth class the procedure can be the same as with younger children, but in this case there cannot be one centre of education. Schools must be chosen according to the students' fields of interest and abilities. Thus children starting the ninth class in a Hungarian school, coming either from the Gyimesfelsőlok (Lunca de Sus) centre or from any Moldavian village, must be given the chance to choose either a grammar school or any kind of vocational or technical school.

In each case the following two conditions must be fulfilled:

1. Students must have daily extra lessons with specialized teachers at least in the first two years of their studies.

2. A private tutor must be appointed to each of them to follow their life with attention and help them work out their problems until they have finished their studies.

This careful provision is essential so that not to lose any child during the educational process, because that would mean a final ending of their studies and a break in their life. That might be an experience which would later turn children against Hungarians and not into spokesmen for them in their community (negative compensation).

The next step after the secondary education and the school-leaving exam is university education, which also must be of free choice. Students, according to their knowledge and ability, should be allowed to continue their studies at a university either in Romania or Hungary.

The budget of the system must be worked out, too. If the expenses cannot be wholly covered, the number of the participating students must be reduced instead of a decline in the quality of education. Financial resources should be granted firstly by the Romanian government but they refuse to subsidize us, so further on we have to rely on financial support by Hungarian cultural spheres.

I hope that a good system can be set up instead of the chaotic confusion of the recent past, and in this educational process Moldavian Csángó students will be the main characters and the winners. And I also hope that the country of which we are minority citizens will understand sooner or later that the Hungarian education of the Csángós is European value and essential to maintain Romania's richness.

Bibliography

Borbáth Erzsébet - ERŐSS Péter 1993 Általános tájékoztató az Erdélyben tanuló moldvai csángómagyar gyermekek anyanyelvi oktatásáról és neveléséról, Csíkszereda, Domokos Pál Péter Alapítvány 1-2.
Borbáth Erzsébet (szerk.) 1994a Szebb falu földön, moldvai csángó gyerekek vallomásai a szülőföldről. Csíkszereda, József Attila Általános Iskola 1990-1994.
Borbáth Erzsébet 1994b A moldvai csángó gyerekek kétnyelvűsége. In: Édes anyanyelvünk 1. sz.
Csapó György 1994 Hogyan ásta alá Fehér Kati az államrendet ... In: Erdélyi Napló, 1994. júl. 6.
Gazda Árpád 2001 Általános európai ügy a csángóké. In: Krónika, 2001. dec. 29.
Hegyeli Attila 2000 Hat nemzetiség egyetlen faluban? Egy moldvai csángó falu etnikai identitásáról. In: Pozsony Ferenc szerk.: Csángósors. Moldvai csángók a változó időkben. Magyarságkutatás könyvtára XXIII. Kiadja a Teleki László Alapítvány. Bp. p.83-96.
Kapalo James 1993 Közelebb a csángókhoz. In: Művelődés 3. sz. p. 30-31.
Pálfy Zoltán 1997 Moldvai csángó diákok erdélyi iskolákban. In: Regio 3-4 sz. Budapest p. 58-79.
Sylvester Lajos 2000 Csupa csapás az élet. Az elsorvadt moldvai magyar oktatás és a csángó szétrajzások emlékkönyve. Sepsiszentgyörgy.
Vincze Gábor 2000 Csángósors a II. világháború után. In: Pozsony Ferenc szerk.: Csángósors. Moldvai csángók a változó időkben. Magyarságkutatás könyvtára XXIII. Kiadja a Teleki László Alapítvány. Bp. p. 203-210.

¹ cf. Kapalo, 1993 and Pálfy, 1997.
² For the events of this field in 2001 see Gazda, 2001.
³ For more data and copies of authentic documents see Vincze, 2000.
⁴ For a collection of these see Sylvester, 2000.
⁵ For the characteristic features of Csángó identity see Hegyeli, 2000.
⁶ See e.g. Csapó, 1994.
⁷ Summaries of the secondary education in Transylvania: Borbáth - Erőss, 1993; Pálffy, 1997.
⁸ In spite of their little knowledge of Hungarian, children can make rapid progress if well-prepared teachers work with them conscientiously. This can be reflected by an anthology of compositions written by Csángó Hungarian children studying in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc). See Borbáth, 1994a.
⁹ Borbáth, 1994b.
¹⁰ They have to teach at official state schools in Romanian. In Pusztina (Pustiana) Silvia Scripcaru and Margit Nyisztor teach only in Romanian at the official school, while Simona Barnat teaches only in Hungarian but outside school. In Dioszén (Gioseni) Mónika Farkas teaches in Romanian at the state school and in Hungarian at home.
¹¹ Jenő Bilibók, Szilvia Róka and Valentin Ghiurca take part in the extra-curricular educational program as teachers of Hungarian.
¹² It was the first meeting of Dumitru Martinas Society, in which the author of this essay also took part (incognito). The aim of this society is to make the culture of the Csángós as similar to that of the Romanians as possible, that is total assimilation as soon as possible. The leaders of this society are of Csángó origin, and its wide membership (recruited with the help of the church) is not really aware of the true aims of the society. The society and its aims are openly supported by the Romanian government, as it was stated by the prime minister in a television interview.

Remarks

to the paper "The Changos of Moldavia" by Jean Nouzille

Background

The available references on the Chango issue would make up an imposing library. Finnish, German, Hungarian and Romanian scholars have been dealing with the history, language, and ethnography of this extraordinary ethnic group living in the Moldavian part of Romania. Since the Chango issue has become a political problem, a steadily growing number of papers have been published with the aim to justify the Romanisation, the artificially accelerated assimilation of the Changos.

Irrelevant for the Council of Europe

Jean Nouzille's paper entitled "The Changos of Moldavia" is a fine example of those political pamphlets. Namely from the point of view of minority protection and human rights the origin of a given ethnic group is fully irrelevant, if we are dealing with the civil, political, economic and cultural rights of the community concerned. Nonetheless it certainly deserves a few comments (to keep silence would mean to agree).

The paper is discussing extensively the Romanian origin of the Hungarians of Moldavia. In this respect it has to be pointed out that dozens of historical, linguistical, ethnographic and religion-historical sources prove the Hungarian origin of the Changos.

At any rate, we think that the Council of Europe is not concerned with the issue of their origin, which is of subordinate importance for the present situation, but rather with the unsettled real problems of the Changos, and the tensions resulting from the very fact that those problems are still unsettled.

The Chango issue is a timely problem of human rights versus assimilation

This is proved by an attached example of the latest requests, in which 10 Moldavian Chango parents from Cleja village request their 14 children to be given lessons of their mother tongue (i.e. Hungarian), referring to two very recently issued Decrees of the Ministry of Education (nr. 3113/31.01.2000 and 3533/31.03.2000). (Annex)

Para 1 of Article of the Recommendation 12201/1993 adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 1 February 1993 formulates the right to education in the mother tongue as follows.

"Any individual belonging to a national minority has the right to learn his/her mother tongue and to education in his/her mother tongue in an appropriate number of schools and state institutions of education and instruction, distributed according to the geographic distribution of the minority".

The nationalist Romanian politics of our days is insisting very aggressively and most consequently on the assimilation of the several tens of thousand strong Hungarian community living isolated in Moldavia, lacking civil and clerical intelligentsia.

Nouzille's paper intends to create a "scientific" background for this assimilation which is utterly incompatible with the spirit and the aims of the Council of Europe. However, in crucial issues it is based on unprofessional theories and unscientific statements. Its argumentation is not scientific but ideological. For these reasons it is unsuitable to serve as a basis for the objective discussion of the protection of the Chango minority culture.

2

The changing and elusive number of the Changos in Moldavia

The Hungarians of Moldavia (Changos) are living in two major blocks: in the North in the surroundings of the towns Suceava and Roman, in the South in the surroundings of Bacau, and on the banks of the rivers Tatros and Siret. (1).

It is very difficult to determine their number, due to the lack of reliable sources. According to the descriptions given by medieval travellers, the great majority of the Roman Catholics in Moldavia had Hungarian names and spoke Hungarian (2). According to the first official census made in the Moldavian Principality (1859) 90 percent of the Roman Catholics were of Hungarian nationality (3). In a lexicon published in Bucharest at the end of the 19th century (4) it is stated that "there are entire villages with Chango families, where not a word of Romanian is spoken, e.g. Forrófalva and Cleja."

Considering the data on the nationality contained by the different census executed in the 20^th century one has to keep in mind that in the time of developing nationalism the politics of the east European countries was directed on the creation of a nation-state, displaying virtually no tolerance towards the coexisting minorities. For this reason the census statistics in many cases are not reliabe, manipulated, and contradictory. This is in particular true for the case of the peripherically situated Changos.

The Romanian census of 1930 registered 23 thousand Hungarians in Moldavia (5). This figure is obviously in contradiction with calculations deduced from earlier statistics and with the on-the-spot experience (6). In each of the two villages mentioned above, only one single Hungarian was registered. It is hardly believable that the two fully Hungarian villages should have become fully Romanian in 30 years.

After World War II, the Changos officially became almost disappeared. Although the Hungarian Popular Association registered about 60,000 Hungarians in the 50s (7), the official census indicated 17.105 in 1956, 8.332 in 1966 and 4.258 in 1977.

After all, what may be the actual number of those Changos who are Hungarian-speaking and declare themselves to be Hungarians? According to the local experience and research performed by Hungarian scholars it is still somewhere between 50 and 70 thousand, but is steadily decreasing due to the intensive assimilation process.

Some words on their controversial past

It has been proved by ethnographic data and written sources that the Changos have come to Moldavia from the West, from the Carpathian basin (8). The first Chango settlements in Moldavia were ordered to be set up by Hungarian kings. The task of the frontier-guard settlements established in the 13th century was to throw back the Tartar incursions. Their population was steadily increasing by voluntary emigration from Hungary (mainly from Transylvania) in subsequent waves, until the 18th century (9).

The Hungarian (and in part Saxon) origin of the Roman Catholics of Moldavia was admitted by Romanian historians, too. (10, 11)

It was as late as in the 1980s that a previously marginal theory became widely propagated (by D. Marinos), assuming that the Changos are Romanians turned Hungarians, and should be called "Romanian Catholics" instead of "Roman Catholics".

3

This pseudoscientific theory promptly obtained enthusiastic political support and eventually has become the officially adopted, only admissible theory. It has provided the so badly needed "scientific" basis for the forced Romanization of te Changos.

Varieties of assimilation

1. The assimilation process started, in fact, much earlier than the nationalistic 19th century. But in early times it was of religious rather than national nature. Namely the Roman Catholic Changos were living among Orthodox Romanians, and up to the present day have never obtained from the Vatican to have Hungarian-speaking priests. They had even to pray in a foreign language.

2. In the time of the 19th century's "national revival" all possible measures were taken to accelerate the process of assimilation. There were no Hungarian-language schools, and the use of Hungarian in the offices was prohibited (12).

3. A much more promising intermezzo occurred after World War II. At that time the Changos were considered in Romania as part of the Hungarian national minority. Hungarian-language classes were started in the schools, and even a Hungarian-language Teachers' College was established in the town of Bacau. Priests of Chango origin accepted confessions in Hungarian, and Hungarian-language psalms were sung in the churches. The Hungarian Popular Association was allowed to open offices in the Chango villages in order to organize the protection of their interests.

4. This episode of "sunshine" did not last long. From the mid-fifties on unconceivably aggressive measures of assimilation followed. The Hungarian kindergartens and schools were closed, it was forbidden to use the "devil's language" in church (13). Those Changos who sticked to their Hungarian nationality were persecuted and intimidated. It was forbidden to have contact with Hungary, and even with the Hungarians living in Transylvania. People coming from Hungary were stopped by the police and sent back. Even Transylvanian Hungarians were allowed to enter the Chango villages under severe control only (14).

Missing completely Hungarian-language schools, books, and newspapers, and due to the adverse attitude of the ecclesiastic authorities, the Chango ethic group has lost its intelligensia. As a result, the 80s witnessed the tragic spectacle of an extremely helpless and intimidated group of people.

"Catch 22" of the present

The political changes that occurred in Romania in 1989 brought about new hopes and new chances.

Para (3) of Article 32 of the new Romanian Constitution states: "The right of persons belonging to national minorities to learn their mother tongue and the right of being educated in that language is guaranteed; the modalities of the implementation of these rights is defined by law."

The Education Law nr.84/1995 was amended in 1997 (urgent Governmental decree nr. 36/1997) as follows: (Article I, para 4, art.8.: (1) Education at all levels is done in the Romanian language. It is also done, according to the provisions of this Law, in the languages of national minorities, and in internationally used languages. (2) In each settlement are organized and function units, classes or formations of study with Romanian as the language of instruction, and, in cases, with national minority languages as the language of instruction, or mother tongue scholarity is assured in the most appropriate locality where it is possible."

4

The Changos promptly took advantage of the possibilities: they founded associations to protect their interests, launched a Hungarian-language newspaper, submitted applications to the Church and to the State requesting permission of Hungarian-language church services and education.

However, the experience of the past years (1997-2000) have proven that even the permission obtained from the Ministry of Education in Bucharest (by Minister Andrei Marga himself on 4 March 1998) does not help: they are simply ignored and not implemented by the organs of the local administration (in particular by Mrs P. Florescu, head of the School Inspectorate of Bacau County). The parents who signed the petition are submitted to serious psychological pressure in order to withdraw their request. In most - but not all - cases with success.

We think that this is certainly not the right and justifiable solution of the problem.

1. BENDA, K. (ed.): Collection of Moldavian Chango-Hungarian documents (1467-1706), in Hungarian, vol.1, p.24
2. ibid., Bandinus report, 2 March 1648, p. 342
3. Population de la Moldavie. 1859
4. Marele Dictionar al Romaniei. Vol.I-V.
5. Recensamentul general al populatii Romaniei. Vol.18, 407-438
6. DOMOKOS, P.P.: The Hungarians of Moldavia (in Hungarian)
7. GUNDA, B.: Ethnographic research on the Moldavian Hungarians. (IN hungarian)
8. LÜKŐ, G.: The Changos of Moldavia. (In Hungarian)
9. PANAITESCU:, P.P.: Hungarian penetration to the region east of the Carpathians.
   In: BINDER, P: Romanian historians about the Hungarian and Saxon Roman Catholics of Moldavia and Oltenia (XVI.XX.c.), 52-57), - In Hungarian
10. KÓSA, L.: Regional historical segmentation of the Hungarian people. (In hungarian)
11. Csángó Újság (Chango Newspaper), 17 March 1990, quoting N. Iorga.
12. see (6)
13. DIÓSZEGI, L.: Interviews with Z. Kallós. - Collection of Historical interviews. (In Hungarian)
14. DIOSZEGI, L.: Report on a trip to Moldavia. - MKI Archives

The Chango issue is a problem of the culture of Europe. The forced assimilation of the Changos would do harm to the ethnic and cultural diversity of Europe. The Hungarians of Moldavia, due to their long-time isolation, have preserved a rather archaic dialect and folklore. Their existence is one of the treasures of European ethnography; their disappearance by assimilation would mean an irremediable loss.

The Chango issue is a timely problem of human rights. The right to maintain one's national identity, to have education and religious services in one's mother tongue, is one of the basic rights of any member of humankind living anywhere in the world. This must be true also for the Changos of Moldavia in Romania, disregarding their origin.

Vilmos Tánczos: Hungarians in Moldavia
http://www.kia.hu/konyvtar/erdely/moldvang.htm

Hungarian Csángós in Moldavia
Essays on the Past and Present of the Hungarian Csángós in Moldavia

Edited by Diószegi László

Contents

Benda Kálmán
THE HUNGARIANS OF MOLDAVIA (CSÁNGÓS) IN THE 16TH - 17TH CENTURIES (Translated by Dudich Endre) ................ 7
Brief History of Moldavia ......................................................................................................................................... 7
A Review of Historical Research  ............................................................................................................................ 10
Moldavia in the 16th and 17th Centuries ................................................................................................................. 15
Geographical Arrangement of the Hungarians of Moldavia ........................................................................................ 17
Number of Hungarians in Moldavia ......................................................................................................................... 24
Social and Economic Status of the Hungarians in Moldavia ....................................................................................... 27
Self-consciousness and Education of the Hungarians of Moldavia
The Prominent Role of the Church ......................................................................................................................... 31

Vincze Gábor
AN OVERVIEW OF THE MODERN HISTORY OF THE MOLDAVIAN CSÁNGÓ-HUNGARIANS
(Translated by Nagy Ildikó Noémi) ........................................................................................................................ 51
1. The Csángó-Hungarians in bourgeois-nationalist Romania .................................................................................... 51
1.1 Changes in the populations of Catholics and Csángó-Hungarians ........................................................................ 51
1.2 The reasons for the language switch among the Hungarian Catholic population .................................................... 53
1.3 The tools of Romanian assimilation politics ....................................................................................................... 54
1.4 The connection of the Moldavian Csángós to Hungary ........................................................................................ 55
1.5 The Moldavian Csángós in Greater Romania ..................................................................................................... 57
1.6 Attempt at the relocation of the Csángó-Hungarians to Hungary during World War II. ........................................... 59
2. Reparation or emancipation? Moldavian Csángó-Hungarians in the years of the "People Democracy" (1945-1959) .... 63
2.1 The continuation of emigration fever after World War II ..................................................................................... 63
2.2 The Csángó Politics of Stalinist Romania ........................................................................................................... 65
3. The "virtual disappearance" of Csángó-Hungarians in the decades of natinal-communism ....................................... 70
4. The Emantipation Struggles of Csángó-Hungarians in Post-Communist Romania 1999-2000 (a perspective) ............. 72

Pozsony Ferenc
CHURCH LIFE IN MOLDAVIAN HUNGARIAN COMMUNITIES (Translated by Nagy Ildikó Noémi) .................................... 83

Tánczos Vilmos
ABOUT THE DEMOGRAPHY OF THE MOLDAVIAN CSÁNGÓS (Translated by Korompay Margit) ................................... 117
The Term "Csángó" ........................................................................................................................................... 117
The Problem of Origins ...................................................................................................................................... 118
History, Internal Classification, Historical Demography ......................................................................................... 119
The Use of the Hungarian Language-Linguistic Assimilation .................................................................................... 125
Knowledge of the Hungarian Language Today ...................................................................................................... 128
Linguistic Knowledge and Ethnic Identity. Some Conclusions ................................................................................. 136

Domokos Mária
THE CHARACTER OF THE CSÁNGÓ FOLK SONG AND THE HISTORY OF ITS RESEARCH
(Translated by Pokoly Judit) ............................................................................................................................... 149
Music examples ................................................................................................................................................ 156

Benő Attila and Murádin László
CSÁNGÓ DIALECT - CSÁNGÓ ORIGINS (Translated by Nagy Ildikó Noémi) ............................................................ 163

LIST OF SETTLEMENT NAMES ............................................................................................................................. 177