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

ZOLTÁN KÁNTORthat the ethnocultural basis of organization, which increasingly characterizedthe Hungarian politics of nation-building after the Compromise of1867, prevailed after a part of that nation became a national minority.Obviously, the framework had changed dramatically, but the politics basedon the ethnocultural conception of the community remained dominant.The nationalizing process of the national minority characterized theHungarian social and political life in Romania since 1918. Besides strivingfor different forms of autonomy and self-government, the political elite,with the help of the intelligentsia, has been engaged in the establishmentof separate Hungarian institutions. The idea behind this practice is thatwithout such institutions Hungarian culture cannot be preserved and promoted.The nationalization process of the national minority has beeninfluenced both by the “nationalizing state” and by the “external nationalhomeland.” 1The policy of the nationalizing state, in our case Romania, questionsthe legitimacy of the claims formulated by the Hungarian elite as essentialfor its nationalizing process: the decentralization of power and the establishmentof institutions that reproduce the Hungarian elite. The externalnational homeland, in our case Hungary, supports this nationalizationprocess with political and financial resources. At the same time, it alsoinfluences the self-perception of the members of the national minorityand plays an important role in the power-relations within the nationalminority. In this paper, I focus on the nationalizing minority and on a particularpolitical measure of the external national homeland, namely the“Law on Hungarians Living in Neighboring Countries.” 2 The analysis ofthe politics of the Romanian national state, which, nonetheless, has anessential influence on the nationalizing politics of the national minority, isbeyond the limits of this paper.The Theoretical FrameworkAt a theoretical level, I consider that one should focus on the processes ofinstitutionalization, both of the majority and of the minority, unfolding onan ethnocultural basis. Methodologically, my account derives from RogersBrubaker’s work, entitled “Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and theNational Question in the New Europe.” His statement about nations andnationalism is valid also for national minorities:Nationalism can and should be understood without invoking “nations” assubstantial entities. Instead of focusing on nations as real groups, weshould focus on nationhood and nationness, on “nation” as a practicalcategory, institutionalized form, and contingent event. “Nation” is a cat-250