Identity discourses on national belonging: the Hungarian minority in Romania

Veres, Valér (2014) Identity discourses on national belonging: the Hungarian minority in Romania. Romanian Journal of Political Science, 14 (1). pp. 61-86. ISSN 1582-456X

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Abstract

This paper deals with national representations of the Hungarian minority from Transylvania and its group boundaries within the context of the Hungarian and Romanian nation. The main empirical source is represented by qualitative data, based on a focus group analysis from 2009. It analyses the ways in which Hungarians from Transylvania reconstruct national group boundaries based on ideological discourses of nationalism, including specific differences that may be observed in discursive delimitations within the minority group. The study focuses on the following three research questions. The first one refers to the national boundaries indicated, to the interpretations given to belonging to a nation. The second one refers to the way people name their homeland and the interpretations they relate to it. The third one refers to the way Hungarians from Transylvania relate to Hungary. Based on focus group answers, two marked national discourses may be distinguished about the representations of Hungarians from Transylvania regarding nation and national belonging. The two main discourses are the essentialist-radical and the quasi-primordial – moderate discourse. Conceptually, the discourses follow Geertz’s typology (1973). As for the Hungarian minority form Romania, we may talk about a quasi-primordialist discourse which is also based on cultural nation, but it has a civic nation extension towards Romanians. That is why we call it quasi-primordialist, in other words „moderate”.

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