Everyday ethnicity, national and a-national in everyday life in a multi-ethnic region, Transylvania 1918-1944 Research proposal State of the field, methodological considerations After an initial attempt to interpret the history of Hungarian minorities mainly as a story of national oppression and defense during the short period of success of the territorial revision only the last two and half decades brought a lasting scientific interest to this problematic in Hungary. Starting from the basics of research, chronologies, publication of relevant sources from Hungarian and Romanian archives, the main focus of historical works was laid on issues of politics – strategies of integration, plans of autonomy, histories of the main minority parties – or on larger structural problems, like education, the church etc. The works prepared in the last twenty years covered a wide range of topics, usually integrated in the theoretical framework of nation-building and minority nation-building (Zoltán Kántor) and social and economic modernisation as overarching processes of the respective states and communities. In case of Transylvania and inter-war Romania the most important results of this approach were works of Béla György on the history of the Hungarian Party in Romania, (Országos Magyar Párt) Nándor Bárdi's numerous source publications, Sz. Ferenc Horváth's monograph on the internal political division of the Hungarians and the effects of Nazism in the 1930s, Attila Gidó's works on the parting ways of the Jews according to different concepts of Jewishness or the text book on the history of Hungarian minorities, published by László Szarka, Nándor Bádi and Csilla Fedinec. Apart from studies of economic development with a narrower, micro-regional focus (for example András Tóth-Bartos's article on Háromszék county), only a handful of studies dealt with problems from a local perspective. Sándor Oláh wrote extensively on the local modernization efforts and the role of the state, János Pál published on the local – social – history of the Unitarian Church or Hunor Szolláth on the history of denominational education and local ecclesiastical communities in Sovata/Szováta. However, especially the latter, Szolláth's work remained uncritically embedded in the master narrative of the struggle over the local space of opposing nations-in-building. It is a general characteristic of the previous scholarship – with a few exceptions, most notably Holly Case's dissertation on Cluj/Kolozsvár and Zsuzsa Török's article on the Populist Literary Society – that it either studied the macro-level of the minority community or interpreted local developments in the light of the overall developments, not embedded in the context of locality. The portrayal of the period offered by these works is built around the notion of the struggle between a newly former national minority by compulsion, successor to a nationalizing state and a nationalizing state of the former minority. Although completely justified as one of the possible perspectives of minority history and not without sensitivity to important differences and nuances this assumption was the core of interpretations. However, while the historical studies on Transylvania pursued this line of interpretation, developments in contemporary anthropology posed an unitended challenge to this approach. In line with Rogers Brubaker's seminal essay, Ethnicity without groups, social anthropologist carried out research on contemporary development with the intention to reveal ethnicity and nationality as a contingent phenomenon, not given as ethnic entrepreneurs or nation-builders claim, rather permanently constructed in individual interactions. After a series of studies devoted to the phenomenon regarding encounters of Hungarians from both sides of the Romanian-Hungarian border, Brubaker, Margit Feischmidt, Jon E. Fox and Liana Grancea embarked on a project in which they attempted to discover everyday ethnicity in the life of the inhabitants of Cluj/Kolozsvár contrasted to the political discourse prevalent in the city's public. Their monograph proved that their method and approach can offer important insight to the social mechanisms of the construction of ethnicity, the meaning of nation and of the category of the national at the level of individuals. Furthermore, scholars of nationalism in the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, inspired by Brubaker developed a new methodological and theoretical framework for the study of nationality as a result of negotiation of different aims, expectations and policies. Pieter M. Judson focused on how nationality was constructed in the so-called Borderlands between Czechs and Germans as often unintended consequence of the encounter between conscious nationalist activist from outside and the locals, who many times showed indifference towards the expectations formulated by the outsiders. Tara Zahra analysed how national indifference was transformed and gradually replaced by a conscious use of ideas and argumentative strategies by individuals who aimed to achieve personal advantages, often subverting the nationalists' intentions. Their research focuses on issues how people react to new ideas transmitted by „outsiders”, conscious activists of the changing concepts of the nation, how the stance of individuals changes with time and how they adapt themselves to the shifting concepts promoted by activists. Zahra brought this approach the farthest when recently she offered a new theoretical framework, national indifference and the „imagined non-communities” as an object of study, based on Brubaker's notion of ethnicity without groups. She claims it could help to reveal individuals' options, reactions to, decisions among nationalizing currents, affecting their everyday life, without presuming these individuals being conscious nationals in the sense and in the way the promoters of the respective policies conceive „nation”. Even though the antrophologists' approach bore fruits in other cases its impact on the historical research regarding Transylvania remained limited, not the least because of the belated start of wide-scale research activity due to political reasons. However, especially Holly Case's dissertation demonstrates how certain types of sources can be used in order to reconstruct the manyfold and complex set of attitudes, notions and concepts of ethnicity and nation that surfaced and were perceived in a multi-ethnic setting, Cluj/Kolozsvár. Based on judiciary and administrative files she was capable to sort out and categorize relationships between the state (or more precisely its representatives) and individuals in this regard. My earlier research (see below) also suggests how valuable certain types of documentation can be in reconstructing attitudes to the nation and the working of ethnicity. Regarding methodology and theory the project is based on the above outlined assumptions developed with the help of Brubaker's notion of ethnicity without groups. My aim is to transgress the concept of ethnicity as constituting groups, nationality being the foremost expression and form of the ethnicity of these groups. Rather I will address ethnicity and nationality as contingent phenomena of individuals, always constructed in the respective circumstances, during interactions. These interactions can range from encounters of individuals, both from inside or outside of the local community, to encounters between the state apparatus and individuals, and can be inter-ethnic or happen between members of the same nationality. In my research I use ethnicity and nationality as complementary of each other, but not synonyms. Ethnicity in my work is understood as the difference between individuals revealed or perceived in interactions and conceived in terms of generalized characteristics of groups. According to this generalization belonging to such groups define individuals and their actions and reaction in certain situations, therefore characteristics associated with the group will be characteristics of individual members. Differences experienced in interactions are seen as a consequence of these characteristics. The core of ethnicity is difference surfaced in these interactions. Nation and nationality is not alien from ethnicity, and the most common form of the latter. However, while ethnicity is inherent to interactions of individuals in the form of difference revealed, the nation is an overarching interpretation of the former, aiming to define the group and give a generally applicable understanding of the differences. Thus, while nationality is aimed to offer a general understanding of the differences of the world through assigning everyone to one of the ethnically defined nations. In this sense the nation is a construct applied to the individuals from outside, but not necessarily artificial in the light of existing differences, a kind of interpretative model for those concerned that can help conceptualizing differences. Nevertheless, the outcome and individual interpretation of interactions are not entirely determined by this framework, only restricted or limited. Intentions, conveyed meaning or perceptions can differ and the task of this research is to understand why this „deviation” exists and how it is shaped by the local context. Interactions and encounters have neither a single, dedicated meaning, nor are they symmetric in their interpretations. Exactly the possibility of different interpretation and meaning associated with these events makes it possible for ethnicity and nationality to be dynamic, fluid and contingent. As a consequence it is more promising to interpret individual reactions and understandings of encounters related to the concept of the nation, the latter also understood as a set of expectations and norms attributed to national membership, and simultaneously assessing the impact of the local context and individual histories instead of taking “nationality” granted. Although ethnicity remains relatively stable element of interactions in the form of difference, the individual understanding of nation and nationality can vary according to why and how these encounters are seen as national. As a result not only the nation or the a-national (national indifference, in case a supposedly national encounter is seen as not having such content) will gain significance, but the possible forms and enactments of the nation and the national by individuals or the lack of it. The question is not simply whether individuals accept or reject the notion of the nation in their everyday life, but rather why they opt for the former or the latter, how they conceive it if they take its existence granted and significant in certain encounters and how they define it through their actions? In a sense it is a process of permanent negotiation of the content of the national belonging, where everyone has agency, the state, the individuals and other institutions. Earlier research leading to the project The proposed project bases on a series of preliminary research regarding the Hungarian minority in Transylvania. (See the bibliography.) In a book and a series of studies (some of them forthcoming) I analysed the politics of identity and conceptualization of different in- and out-groups by the Transylvanian Hungarian elites. Later I extended this topic to the Romanian elite of the region, with a special focus on how the existence of a rival elite and its ideas affected the phenomenon of politics of identity of the Transylvanian Romanians. Another study of mine outlined the most important aspects of regionalist currents of thought in the everyday life, how much and how far these ideas were built on social experiences of difference between Old Kingdom and Transylvanian Romanians and how they were reflected in individual interactions, again laying special emphasis on the mutual influence on each other of the Hungarian and Romanian thinking. As a preliminary to the proposed project I scrutinized archival material in two countryside institutions, Sfantu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy and Cluj/Kolozsvár, especially files of the local administration and the courts dealing with conflicts where nationality was invoked. Material, topics, methods The aim of the research project is to collect, organize and interpret material revealing and highlighting how individuals understood ethnicity, how they expressed or “forgot” their supposed nationality, how far their lives were affected by the concept of „nation” and how they constructed and understood „national” in their interactions with the state, with institutions and with each other. Relying mainly on Brubaker's insights in Ethnicity without groups I will try to collect and interpret historical documents in this regard, a wide range of sources displaying events and interpretations of everyday life in specific urban and rural settings. As Holly Case demonstrated in her dissertation especially judiciary files of cases dealing with offenses against the nation are rich in material. However, while Case's focus lies on the different interpretation of the nation and the national by the state administration and by the individuals, on the basis of similar documents it is also possible to look at the interactions between individuals. Therefore the most important type of sources used will be files of the judiciary. Another important, but rather one-sided category of archival material is reports of the police and the state security service (Siguranta) on cases of conflicts invoking nationality. As a series of minor offenses were dealt with by the local administration their files are worth to scrutinize as well, just as press coverage of incidents, violence and grievances. These different materials offer various insights into the problem. The most complete of all are judiciary files. Documentation of trials usually consists the reports of the investigation carried out by the police or the gendarmerie, proceedings of interrogations of accused(s), witnesses and accusers. It means a repeated narration of the events from different angles providing a material analogous to the material of contemporary anthropologists. Therefore, a similar approach in analysing these narratives is possible, notwithstanding obvious differences and not forgetting the critique of the sources. The different stories of the actors and witnesses offers a wide variety of interpretations of situations if at least one of the parties invoked nationality and filed a complaint based on this assumption. As a consequence, everyone affected and concerned was compelled to develop his or her own interpretation of what constitutes national in these situations. The reasoning, the references used can reveal both the effect of the discoursive environment on individual’s conceptualization of the nation and of personal socialization processes, just as the impact of the local context on adaptation or rejection of these notions formulated outside the community. The other types of documents are less revealing in their one-sidedness, but nevertheless indispensable. They offer insight into the „official” conceptualization of nationality and simultaneously into the practices behind official discourses, many times deeply affected by the local context. Furthermore, they still consist important references to everyday life and interactions and constitutes a basis for assessing the value of the often exaggerated or distorted press material. Another, secondary, but still important material to study will be the documentation of the 1930 census, especially the cases when people objected what the commissioners registered as their nationality. Recent research by Attila Seres revealed the value of such complaints as it demonstrates different attitudes to a situation when one's official identity is at stake. The reactions to alleged fraud or misinterpretation of one's nationality and the arguments invoked, the social composition of people filing complaints or accepting the arbitrary practice again highlights individual's concepts of nationality and its importance in a specific situation. The diversity of the material allows for the addressing of significant problems from many angles and perspectives, those of the individuals, representatives of the state and leaders of other institutions. It enables the analyses of images and conceptualizations of others, both by individuals and the state, how differences or similarities embedded in these concepts were invoked, referred to and used in the individual situations. How these interactions, the way they unfolded and the interpretations later attached to them reflected or neglected public discourses? How individual actions could have gained national significance and meaning? How existing differences in local contexts shaped and influenced the understanding of the category of “national”? As the core of the material is a series of narrations of events it is possible to carry out an analyses focused on similarities and differences, on the identification of tropes and stereotypes and blind spots in the narrations. Furthermore, if a closer look at the social background and status of the persons involved is possible it would allow for a differentiation of the typical understanding of nation and ways of expressing ethnicity according to certain groups defined by age, occupation, education and other specific characteristics. However, regarding the social background it is important to note some differences, reflected in geographical extent of the research. Not only urban and rural were categories implying significant social differences of their inhabitants, possibly affecting everyday ethnicity and notions of nationality. Cities were different according to their ethnic composition and economic structure, ranging from large and industrialized multi-ethnic locations to mono-ethnic agrarian market places and the rural ethnic setting was also different in regions with mixed population and in locations where national others were only represented by a small group of administrative personnel. Interethnic interactions, ethnicity and nationality could differ as a function of these socio-demographic factors as well. Meanwhile interactions between perceived members of the same national group could have taken characteristics of inter-ethnic encounters and these could have found their way in public discourses as well. Therefore it is of primary importance to situate these interactions not only in a local context but in the wider social and economic realities of Transylvania. It is also a period when public discourses regarding the nation went through a significant change. Protagonists of the nations in the region immediately after he WWI were still rooted in a 19th Century understanding of the nation, while the new generations coming to the fore in the 1930s appropriated a more organic and integral version sometimes influenced by ideas borrowed from Germany, Italy etc. Therefore it is unavoidable to take into account such changes as well and the generational belonging of actors. Possible results and their significance The primary result of the research project will be the collection of material on this aspect of ethnicity and nation and a monograph elaborated on this topic. As the main approach of the historical research to the problem up to this moment built mainly on nation-building it is a novelty in itself. Methodologically and theoretically it offers not only an extension of methods of contemporary anthropology to history, but simultaneously offers the possibility to trace back in history certain phenomena – for example imagery of the region and its social acceptance - they analyzed with a contemporary focus. Furthermore, it could enhance our knowledge on the workings of ethnicity and the construction of the nation on individual level with the use of an earlier neglected material. Taken into account geographical and chronological differences and modifications, the importance of traditions and institutions promoting them, the individual socialization, the influence of new currents of national thinking and new forms of the concept of the nation on individuals in the specific and diverse local contexts it also can contribute to the critical reassessment of Tara Zahra's recent theory of the national indifference. The rich diverse material analyzed offers a chance to escape the pitfall of binary opposition of national and non-national (nationally indifferent) behavior and action implied in Zahra’s theory and perceive social action and interactions as situated in a broad field where seeming indifference can have a different but still national significance and meaning rooted in traditions, socialization and the local ways ethnicity is constructed. Bárdi, Nándor: A budapesti kormányzatok magyarságpolitikai intézményrendszere és stratégiája 1918-1938. Kisebbségkutatás, 2007. 1. 7-18. Bárdi, Nándor – Fedinec Csilla – Szarka László (szerk.): Kisebbségi magyar közösségek a 20. században. Gondolat, Budapest, 2008. Bárdi, Nándor: Keleti Akció. Regio 1995. 3. sz. 89-134.; 4.sz. 3-28. Bárdi, Nándor: Die minderheitspolitischen Strategien der ungarischen Bevölkerung in Rumänien zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen. Südost-Forschungen 1999. R. Oldenburg Verlag, München, 267311. Bárdi, Nándor: Összezárkózás és szétfejlődés. Kísérlet a magyar kisebbségek történetének periodizációjára. In: Nemzet a társadalomban. Szerk. Fedinec Csilla, TLA, 2004, 251-274. Bárdi, Nándor: A romániai magyar elit generációs csoportjainak integrációs viszonyrendszere (1918 –1989) In: Bárdi Nándor – Simon Attila (eds.): Integrációs stratégiák a magyar kisebbségek történetében. Fórum Kisebbségkutató Intézet-Lilium Aurum Könyvkiadó, Somorja-Dunaszerdahely 2006. 41–66. Bárdi, Nándor: Javaslatok, tervek, elképzelések az erdélyi kérdés kezelésre. (A magyar elképzelések 1918 – 1940.) Magyar Kisebbség, 2004. 1-2. 329–376. Bárdi, Nándor: Az erdélyi kérdés mint közigazgatási probléma. Magyra Kisebbség, 1998. 1. http:// www.jakabffy.ro/magyarkisebbseg/index.php?action=cimek&lapid=8&cikk=m980114.htm (Accessed February 28, 2011.) Bocholier, Francois: Iuliu Maniu nemzedéke és az impériumváltás. In Nemzet a társadalomban. Ablonczy Balázs – Fedinecz Csilla (szerk.) Teleki László Alapítvány, Budapest, 2005. 99–116. Bocholier, Francois: Le Transylvanie, de l'Autriche-Hongrie à la Grande Roumanie. Lés elites Transylvanies, entre identité régionale et essor des sentiments nationaux. Előadás a Programme Pluri-formations 2002-2005 sorozatban, La Transition, Univerité Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1) 17– 18. Brubaker, Rogers – Feischmidt, Margit – Fox, Jon. E. - Grancea., Liana: Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2006. Brubakers, Rogers: Csoportok nélküli etnicitás. Beszélő, 2001. 7-8. 60–66. Case, Holly: A City Between States. The Transylvanian City of Cluj-Kolozsvár-Klausenburg in the Spring of 1942. Dissertation submitted to the Department of History and the Committee on Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the of the requirements for a degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History and Humanities. Stanford University, 2004. Egry, Gábor: Az „erdélyiség színeváltozása”. Kísérlet az Erdélyi Párt ideológiájának és identitáspolitikájának elemzésére 1940–1944. Napvilág Kiadó, Budapest, 2008. Egry, Gábor: Minority Elite, Continuity and Identity Politics in Northern Tarnsylvania: the Case of the Transylvanian Party. In Cultural Dimensions of Elite Formation in Modern Transylvania(18501950), Viktor Karády, Zsuzsanna Török (eds.), Editura CRDE, Cluj, 2008, 186–215. Egry, Gábor: Crossroad of Parallels. Regionalism and Nation-Building in Tranylvania in the First Half of the 20th Century. In Blomquist, Anders – Iordachi, Constantin – Balázs Trencsényi (eds.): Comparisons and Entanglements: Hungary and Romania beyond national narratives. Stanford University Press (forthcoming) Egry, Gábor: Erdélyi inga. Erdély-konstrukciók két uralomváltás között, 1918–1940. (in Romanian) In Sorin Antohi (ed.): România Mare. Pluritatea din unitate. Polirom, Iaşi. (forthcoming) Egry, Gábor: Drawing borders. Identity, politics, nation and region in interwar Transylvania. In New Europe College Yearbook, 2010 (forthcoming, 2011) Egry Gábor: Erdely képek, Erdély mítoszok. In Romsics Ignác (szerk.): A magyar jobboldali hagyomány (1900 – 1948). Osiris, Budapest, 2009. 506–533. Egry, Gábor: Front-line, No Man's Land or Fortress?: The Hungarian Minority Elite in Romania between National Identity and Regional Self-Consciousness 1918-1944. Auxiliary Historical Disciplines, VI. (2010) Demeter, Gábor – Peykovska, Penka (eds.): Political, Social, Economic and Cultural Elites in the Central- and Eastern-European States in midernity and post-modernity. 168188. Egry, Gábor: Létezik-e kisebbségtörténet?: Bárdi Nándor - Fedinec Csilla - Szarka László (szerk.) Gondolat Kiadó - MTA Kisebbségkutató Intézet, Budapest, 2008. KORUNK XX:(5) pp. 103-107. (2009) Feischmidt, Margit: Megismerés és elismerés: elméletek, módszerek, politikák az etnicitás kutatásában. In Idem: (ed.) Etnicitás – különbségteremtő társadalom, MTA ENKI – Gondolat Kiadó, Budapest, 2010. Gidó, Attila: Úton. Erdélyi zsidó társadalom- és nemzetépítési kísérletek, 1918-1940. Pro Print, Csíkszereda, 2009 György, Béla: A romániai Országos Magyar Párt története (1922–1938). Doktori disszertáció, ELTE BTK 2006. György, Béla: Iratok az Országos Magyar Párt történetéhez. Pro Print Kiadó, Csíkszereda, 2003. Hirschausen, Ulrike von: Einleitung. In: Idem: Die Grenen der Gemeinamkeit. Deutschen, Letten, Russen und Juden in Riga 1860-1914. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006. 11-34. Horváth Sz. Ferenc: Elutasítás és alkalmazkodás között. A románai magyar kisebbség politikai stratégiái 1931–1940. Prop Print Kiadó, Csíkszereda, 2007. Judson, Pieter M.: Guardians of the Nation. Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2006. K. Lengyel Zsolt: Auf der Suche nach dem Kompromiß. Ursprünge und Gestalten des frühen Transsilvanismus 1918-1928. Verlag Ungarisches Institut, München, 1993. Kántor Zoltán: Kisebbségi nemzetépítés - a romániai magyarság mint nemzetépítő kisebbség. REGIO, 2000. 3. 219–241. Magyarok kisebbségben és szórványban. A Magyar Miniszterelnökség Nemzetiségi és Kisebbségi Osztályának válogatott iratai, 1919-1944. Bán, D. András – Diószegi, László – Fejős, Zoltán – Romsics Ignác (eds.). Teleki László Alapítvány, Budapest, 1995. Pál. János: Vissza- és elrománosítási kísérletek a székelyföldi unitárius egyházközségekben Magyar Kisebbség, XIII. 2008/1-2., 186–253. Poenaru, Florin – Pulay, Gergő: Why Ethnicity? Everyday Nationalism in a Transylvanian Town. East-Central Europe, 36 (2009) 130–137. Oláh, Sándor: Kivizsgálás. Írások az állam és a társadalom viszonyáról a Székelyföldön. Pro Print, Csíkszereda, 2008. Seres, Attila: Magyar levéltári források az 1930. évi romániai népszámlálás nemzetiségi adatsorainak értékeléséhez. (Manuscript) Szolláth, Hunor: Egy erdélyi református egyházközség, Szováta küzdelme a templomépítésért. Magyar Egyháztörténeti Vázlatok, 2008/1-2., 63–76. Tóth-Bartos, András: Háromszék vármegye gazdaságának fejlesztésére tett próbálkozások. In Észak-Erdély – változásban. Limes 2006. 2. 107 – 116. Török, Zsuzsanna: Planning the National Minority. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Volume 7, Number 2, Spring 2001, 57–74. Zahra, Tara: Kidnapped Souls. National Indifference and the Battle fro Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900 – 1948. Cornell University Press, Ithaca – London, 2008. Zahra, Tara: Imagined Noncommunities. National Indifference as a Category of Analysis. Slavic Review 69., no. 1. (Spring 2010) 93–119.