Description
Book SynopsisThis study explores the little-known history of the Hungarian Autonomous Region (HAR), a Soviet-style territorial autonomy that was granted in Romania on Stalin's personal advice to the Hungarian Székely community in the summer of 1952. Since 1945, a complex mechanism of ethnic balance and power-sharing helped the Romanian Communist Party (RCP) to strengthenwith Soviet assistanceits political legitimacy among different national and social groups. The communist national policy followed an integrative approach toward most minority communities, with the relevant exception of Germans, who were declared collectively responsible for the German occupation and were denied political and even civil rights until 1948. The Hungarians of Transylvania were provided with full civil, political, cultural, and linguistic rights to encourage political integration. The ideological premises of the Hungarian Autonomous Region followed the Bolshevik pattern of territorial autonomy elaborated by Lenin and Sta
Trade ReviewA particular merit of Stefano Bottoni’s unique study is his instructive analysis of the genesis of the Hungarian Autonomous Region (HAR) and of what he terms its ‘Stalinist eco-system,’ one which confronted questions of political ideology, national and cultural identity, and economic backwardness. As the author points out, the creation of this region, along with the Yugoslav experiment, was the only example of integrative minority policy in postwar East-Central Europe, and represented an attempt to solve a deeply rooted national question by giving administrative ‘autonomy’ to a predominantly Hungarian region of Transylvania. The ideological underpinning of the region, dictated to the Romanian Party by the Soviet leadership in 1952, followed the Bolshevik pattern of territorial autonomy elaborated by Lenin and Stalin in the early 1920s. The Hungarians of the Region became a ‘titular nationality’ and were accorded significant cultural rights. However, the Romanian leadership also used the region as an instrument of political and social integration of the Hungarian minority into the communist state. -- Dennis Deletant, Georgetown University
Stefano Bottoni’s book on the Hungarian Autonomous Region in socialist Romania is revelatory in its details of high politics, the history of communism, and everyday life. Bottoni has used Hungarian, Romanian, and Soviet sources meticulously to tell a lively, convincing, and important story of Stalin’s imposition of a territorial solution to Romania’s most bewildering national problem. He sets this in the broad context of longue durée Transylvanian history, postwar communism and nationalism, the purges, the thaw, intra-bloc conflict, and ethnic politics. -- Irina Livezeanu, University of Pittsburgh
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Nationalism and Communism in a Stalinist Ecosystem Chapter 1: Managing Ethnic Diversity: From Greater Romania to the Soviet Model Chapter 2: Stalin’s Gift: The Creation of the Hungarian Autonomous Region Chapter 3: Romanian Drivers in the Hungarian Car: Center and Periphery after Stalin Chapter 4: The Stalinist Greenhouse: Everyday Life in a “Little Hungary” Chapter 5: The Impact of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Romania Chapter 6: Checkmate: The Launch of the Romanian National Communist Project Conclusion: Overcoming Stalin’s Legacy?
