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

ZOLTÁN PÁLFYwas reoriented, with the larger part being sent to the lost territories. 7 Withall these efforts, in the first half of the twenties, young Hungarians fromTransylvania with academic ambitions were oriented towards Hungarianhigher education (preferably Budapest).Originally, it was the war conjuncture that increased the number ofstudents in the capital, a trend that had already started one year before theinflux of refugees. The climax was reached in 1920-1922. Naturally, thedismemberment of “Magyar” universities in the lost territories accountedfor the mobility of most of the students. 8 The size of the student bodyalone, frustrated and distressed, would have been enough to trigger politicalradicalization. Yet, it was a unique combination of factors that led toa markedly illiberal, ethnically discriminatory legislation concerningaccess to higher education. All of the factions of the political right wereconvinced that the revolutions of 1918 and 1919 were to blame for the dismembermentof historical Hungary, and that no other social strata hada greater role in that revolutions than the urban “non-Hungarian” intellectuals,especially the Jews, who were commonly assumed to have playeda key role in anything that envisaged the “disintegration of the nation.” 9The 1920 numerus clausus law used the high rate of Jewish studentsin upper-level education as a starting point for filtering rightist-nationalistpolitical orthodoxy in educational and cultural matters. 10 Apparentlyaimed at limiting the number of students according to the needs of thecountry and according to the share of each nationality in the total population,it became a tool for political and ethnic discrimination. Haunted bythe threat of another revolution by a sizable intellectual proletariat, the“Christian-national” regime sought to turn the social crisis to its own benefit,undermining liberal competition in education by manipulating stateboundauthorizations regarding the cultural capital. 11 Forcing many liberalor left-wing intellectuals to leave the academic and professional marketand emigrate to the West was a consequence to be noticed only later, 12 but“it was commonly understood that the future ramifications of the numerusclausus bill reached far beyond matters of education.” 13The system of admission into higher education changed in 1920.Graduation at a high-school was no longer the sole criteria of acceptance.National and political credentials came to the fore. In order to obtain anenrollment permit, every student had to submit data referring to previouseducation, and additional certifications, warranting his reliability withregard to “national loyalty and moral rectitude.” Except for former armyofficers, members of the university battalions, and most of the refugees,each student had to go through a severe “disciplinary examination.” Failingthis meant exclusion from all the universities and academies in thecountry. 14 Though it was only in the capital and during the first 3-4 years182