From Voivodships to Empire [antikvár]

TO THE READER It is a hundred years ago now that Benedek Jancsó, the greatest Romanlogoist in Hungary, wrote: „We must find out about Romanian political movements, because they mean great danger for Hungarians." At that time he wrote his books in vain. But if we read his words today and match them up against our national tragedies, the comparison is striking. Did Jancsó foresee the events? Was he perhaps some kind of soothsayer? Of course not. All that happened was that he knew the Romanian naüonal movements and the Romanian policy which worked implacably towards the ralization of roma-nian goals. In Hungary after 1919 it was realized in both political and academic circles that the history of the Romanians, the fundamental aims of Romanian policy and Romanian mentality had to be known so that the relationship between Hungary and Romania could be „handled" at all. In the 1920s and 1930s books published in Hungary dealt mainly, and perhaps understandably, with the Treaty of Trianon and its consequences. This was because both the policy of the time and the writers of history considered it of the utmost importance to defend the interests of the Hungarians who ended up in Romanian territory after the signing of the Treaty. Benedek Jancsó and some other authors, mainly those involved in prehistoric studies (Lajos Tamás, Márton Roska, Árpád Buday, Anndrás Al-földy and others), were soon followed by others, researchers mto the history, ethnography, literaturte and education in mediaeval and modem Romania, who continued research into the period between the Romanian ethnoge-nesis and our day (István Kniezsa, Elemér Mályusz, Imre