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

ZOLTÁN PÁLFYmanifested in indirect forms, namely in cultural politics. The care forHungarian minorities outside the new borders and the preparation for therevision of these borders were inseparably inter-linked in both officialpolicies and non-governmental actions. Moreover, the principles of theMinority Treaty legitimized the maintenance of strong cultural links withthe minorities in the successor-states, making it possible to circumvent thecharge of direct political irredentism.In the defeated, forcibly demilitarized country, culture and educationwere seen as qualitative compensations for quantitative loss. The need fora substantial reform in this field was already formulated at the end of thecentury, and this demand re-surfaced under the pressure of the new conditions.Count Kunó Klebelsberg, Minister of Education and Religion (1922-1931), declared that maintaining the pre-war intellectual potential for thebenefit of the much smaller “Trianon Hungary” was absolutely imperative –”the Ministry of Education should also be the Ministry of Defense.” Hencethe size of the higher educational network and the impressive reforms carriedout in the school-system during his time. 1In order to translate the idea of “silent” cultural warfare intoeveryday reality, special care had to be taken for the institutional basisof culture. Higher education was regarded as the chief factor in puttingHungarian culture and national traditions into practice, let alone thecultural supremacy claimed by the official elite. Hungary was left withtwo universities, one in Budapest, and a much smaller one in Debrecen,founded only in 1912. With two other institutions being “in exile,” therewere ample debates concerning their future. Both were willing to maintaintheir separate legal status and did not wish to merge with either theBudapest or the Debrecen faculties. All of the parties concerned werenonetheless conscious of the political dimensions of the problem. Mergingthe universities on the grounds that there were no means or reasonsfor Hungary to retain four universities would have meant a serious setbackto the revisionist argumentation. Merging would have meantrenouncing the legal continuity of the refugee universities, that isrenouncing Hungarian “cultural supremacy,” which was seen as a majorargument on behalf of “Trianon Hungary” for reclaiming its lost territories.Furthermore, in the argument supporting the cause of four universities,there was a concern for the future Hungarian minority studentscoming from the lost territories, as well as for the enhancement of educationalopportunities by decentralization. 2It was finally in this spirit that the re-location (to Pécs and to Szegedrespectively) of the refugee universities, as separate institutions of highereducation and inheritors of the “lost” universities, was finally carried outin 1921. It is noteworthy that the Romanian authorities found this move180