László Diószegi:
"The history and the present of the Moldva Csangos"

The Moldva Hungarians (the Csangos) live in two bigger blocks: in Szucsava and Romanvasar up north and around Bako and Tatros down south and on the bank of Szeret.
How big of an ethnical people are they?
Because of the lack of trustworthy sources, it is a difficult task to determine exactly how many people we are talking about.
On the basis of the travelers of the Medieval Times it was determined that the majority of the Catholic people in Moldva had Hungarian names, and they spoke Hungarian. The first official census of the Principality of Moldva in 1859 states that in the counties of Bako and Roman, where most Csangos lived, 90% of Roman Catholics were Hungarians. According to one publication, issued in Bucharest: "There are complete settlements with Csango families, where they know no Romanian words, like Forrofalva or Klezse for example."
According to the Romanian census of 1930, 23,000 Hungarians lived in Moldva. This data is contradictory to the calculation of previous statistics and to the experiences on the spot. The fact, however, that the census of 1930 stated only one Hungarian each in Klezse and Forrofalva proves the census to be distorted. Even despite the forced assimilation, it is impossible that the two villages became entirely Romanian by 1930 because according to trustworthy information, the Csangos living there did not even speak Romanian at the turn of the century.
The censuses after World War II practically made the Csangos disappear. In 1950 the Hungarian Alliance registered in vain about 60,000 Moldva Hungarians. According to the official censuses they were 17,105 registered in 1956, 8,332 in 1966, 4,258 in 1977 and 2,165 in 1992.
So how many could those Moldva Csangos be who speak Hungarian, and claim to be Hungarian still today? According to the search and experiences on the spot by researchers it is certain that the Hungarians of Moldva are between 50,000 and 70,000; however, this number drops fast day by day due to the assimilation.
 

Who are the Csangos?
Today it is proven by the ethnography data and the licensed sources about the origin of the Moldva Hungarians that the Csangos moved to Moldva from the west, from the Carpathian Basin. It is also known that the first Csango settlements of Moldva were established by the Hungarian kings. On the right bank of the river Szeret, the function of the border guards set up in the XIII century was to parry the attacks of the Tartars. People were resettled from the valley of Szamos to the northern territory and from the Land of Szekely to the southern territory. The number of the Csangos continued to grow in the following centuries by voluntary migration.
In the XV century, the Huszitas, Hungarian refugees from southern Hungary, found shelter among the Csangos, and their pastors finished the Bible translations here.
Also, the refugees of the Rakoczi Revolution, the border guards, as well as the Szekelys who migrated from their hardship all increased the Csangos' population.
Documents and certificates of the archives prove that Hungarians lived in Moldva from the XIII century on, far earlier than the XVII century.

 

The Csangos' fate
The assimilation of the Csangos started before the XIX century. At this time, however, the misfortunate ethnical group did not suffer from ethnical but rather from religious repression of the majority. Pastors did not like going to the edge of the Roman Catholic world where the majority was Orthodox. If the Vatican sent a pastor there every now and then, they cared more about their own enrichment instead of the worshippers. The pastors sent to Moldva were not even Hungarians, but Italians, Bosnyaks, and Polish who did not speak Hungarian, and they did not even want to learn it for a couple of years of ministration. Thus, the Csangos, who only spoke Hungarian at that time, worshiped in a language unintelligible to them, and they were absolved in a language unintelligible to them as well.
At the time of the awakening of nations, new tribulations awaited the Csangos. The Romanian nationalism spreading rapidly tried to assimilate Moldva Hungarians into Romanians by all means. There were no Hungarian schools and the Hungarian language was forbidden in government offices.
After centuries of repression, the most promising era of the abandoned Moldva Csangos began after World War II.
At this time in Romania, the Csangos were considered to be part of the Hungarian ethnicity. Thus, Hungarian departments were started in the schools, and in Bako a Hungarian teacher training college was established. The priests coming from the Csangos shrove in Hungarian, and in the temples Hungarian speech could be heard again. The Hungarian Alliance was allowed to open an office in the Csango villages to represent the Csangos.
The unfortunately short positive period was followed by the assimilation provision starting in the middle of the 1950's that was violent beyond belief and without precedent in Europe. The Hungarian schools and pre-schools were closed down; in the churches it was forbidden to speak the "language of the evil". Those Csangos who had Hungarian consciousness were registered, hunted down and terrified. It was forbidden to contact Hungarians in Hungary or even in Transylvania in any way. Visitors from Hungary were held up by police on the roads and turned back, and even the Hungarians from Transylvania were supervised at all times while visiting Csango villages. Due to the anti-Hungarian church, and the lack of Hungarian schools, newspapers, books and broadcast, the ethnic group, out of necessity, lost its intellectuals. This resulted in having a defenseless, terrified group of people left without representatives through present day.
The Romanian events in 1989 brought hopeful changes for the Moldva Csangos. The Csangos took the chance to organize themselves in a short period of time. They formed their representatives, started a Hungarian newspaper, and addressed petitions to the Church and the Government for the rights of Hungarian religion practice and for the rights of teaching the Hungarian language in schools. The experiences of the past years show that even if their requests and proposals are in accord with the European standard and Romanian laws, the local administration keeps sabotaging them.