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

IRINA CULICtrolling Reproduction in Ceauºescu’s Romania (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1998); and Katherine Verdery, What Was Socialism, and What ComesNext? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), especially chap. 2, “The‘Etatization’ of Time in Ceauºescu’s Romania,” pp. 39-57.13 For instance, through quotas in the party leadership or educational institutions,along with other differentiating characteristics such as sex, residence,and class.14 Katherine Verdery, National Ideology Under Socialism: Identity and CulturalPolitics in Ceausescu’s Romania (Berkeley: University of California Press,1991).15 I take Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of social space as outlined in many of hisworks. See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1977); Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgementof Taste (London: Routledge, 1992); and Practical Reason: On the Theory ofAction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998).16 Initially, this was a discussion paper presented at Collegium Budapest; a moreelaborated study was subsequently published in Daedalus, and included asa chapter in Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, pp. 23-54.17 Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, p. 57.18 Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, p. 57.19 Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, p. 58.20 I am not talking of persons of mixed-origins, who experience more complexidentification problems, and whose practices and identity construction dependboth on the family context – the language and ethnic belonging of the personwho takes care of the baby, the structure of the family, etc. – and on the largerstructural socialization set-up of the child.21 It is important for Hungarians that their nationality is asserted alongside theircitizenship. For example, the new Romanian passports only have one heading,“Naþionalitate” (Nationality), standing for citizenship (where the authoritiesfilled in “Romanian” automatically). I know of cases of Hungarians whorequired having their passport changed so that it became clear that their citizenship,and not nationality, is Romanian. Under this heading it is now specified:“Romanian citizen.”22 Data from a previous research are presented in Irina Culic et al., BazinulCarpatic: Români ºi maghiari în tranziþie – Imagini mentale ºi relaþii interetnice înTransilvania (The Carpathian Basin: Romanians and Hungarians in transition– Mental images and interethnic relations in Transylvania) (Cluj-Napoca:Research Center for Interethnic Relations, 1998).23 Except for the use of minority language in courts.24 That is, civil, political, and social rights. See T.H. Marshall, Citizenship andSocial Class, and Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950).25 According to Ethnobarometer, there is no significant difference in the averageincome, possession of home appliances (except for color TVs and automaticwashing machines, which Hungarians are better provided with), or appeal toalternative sources of income. Nevertheless, 58.5% of Romanians, comparedto 26.3% of Hungarians, declared that they experienced situations when theywere short of money for buying food, respectively 60.2% of Romanians, com-244