Speaking One’s Tongue in Transylvania

”When I travelled in the Transylvania region of Romania in 1993, relations between ethnic Hungarians and ethnic Romanians were still tense. There had been outright confrontation and violence in 1990, particularly in Targu Mures. By 1993, the conflict had largely migrated to the political realm. In Cluj – the old Hungarian town of Kolosvar – the nationalist politician Gheorghe Funar had taken over as mayor. He banned signs in Hungarian. He put a plaque on the statue of King Matyas in the town center that qualified his military successes – a deliberate provocation to ethnic Hungarians who revere Matyas”, according to John Feffer, journalist at Huffington Post.

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