Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

CRISTINA PETRESCU37 See Ion Nistor, “Basarabia sub gospodãria româneascã” (Bessarabia underRomanian administration), in his Istoria Basarabiei, pp. 321-323.38 Actually, among the arguments used by the proponents of the modernist-constructivistapproach to nation-building, industrialization ranks high. Industrializationgenerates internal migration from villages to cities or from region toregion, breaking the local ties and favoring integration into larger communities.Therefore, as Eric Hobsbawm notices, a nation exists only in the contextof a particular stage of technological and economic development. See EricHobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1789 (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1990).39 This policy of assimilation by cultural propaganda and education was analyzedin great detail by Irina Livezeanu. The Romanian Liberal governments of theinterwar period, as she demonstrates, counted much on the role of schoolingin the process of nation-building. Thus, in Bessarabia a standardized, compulsory,mass education system was implemented, similar to the one that functionedin the Old Kingdom, which aimed at creating a common mass culture.See Livezeanu, Cultural Politics, pp. 97-120.40 The lessons were usually held in the local pub (bodegã), because that was theonly place in the village where a large room with tables could be found. Thispre-war process of instruction was described to me by several Bessarabianteachers, such as Nicolae Brãduleac from Sofia, Ion Motruc and Vasile Morarufrom Alexãndreni, Teofana and Petre Gherman from Hãsnãºeni, and also bymy grandfather, Nicolae Mãgãleasa. A similar system was used in France, asEugene Weber shows in his Peasants into Frenchmen, p. 305.41 One of my informants remembers that his mother had the opportunity to learnonly the letter “a.” This happened because after the first day of schooling theagreement between the villagers and the teacher was broken, due to some misunderstandingregarding the payment of the latter.42 Besides the persons interviewed by the author, an American observer ofBessarabia, Charles Upson Clark, expressed the same opinion. See his UnitedRomania, p. 84.43 On the outcome of this project and its criticism, coming especially from theNational Peasant Party’s ministers, see Livezeanu, Cultural Politics, pp. 35-41.44 This was an arrangement easy to settle because, in Bessarabian villages, therewas a well-established institution of unpaid mutual help, called clacã. By thissystem, when somebody had to build a house, all others came and worked forfree, expecting to be helped when their turn would come.45 According to the data provided by Ion Nistor, until the First World War therewas no Romanian primary school, while in 1920-1921 there were already 1233,and in 1932-1933 their number increased up to 2185. See Nistor, Istoria Basarabiei,p. 308.46 The rural literacy in Bessarabia was even lower, only 34.1%, while the averagefor the rural areas of Greater Romania was 51.3%. The urban rate was considerablyhigher, 62.6%, but this was of little significance for the process ofnation-building since the Romanian element was very weak in cities. The lowliteracy of Bessarabia was exceptional as compared with the other historicalprovinces of Greater Romania. In 1930, the former Austro-Hungarian territoriesstill had the highest percentage of literacy: the Banat 72.0%, Transylavania172