Transylvania and the Hungarian-Rumanian Problem [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Since the principle of true progress demands a constant betterment of all conditions that regulate man's relations to his political, social, cultural and economical environment, it is mandatory that we keep careful vigil over the quality of humán existence resulting from our fast changing world. However, governing ideologies on one side, and economical necessities on the other, tend to push toward the establishments of larger and larger political units, in which the smaller nationality groups are more and more engulfed into the strangulating webs of centralized and self-serving administrative policies of the ruling majorities. It is important, therefore, that we pay special attention to the fate of those minorities which were created by the political changes of this century, in order to detect and remedy unnecessary sufferings caused by infringements on the rights of these people who were placed by force under the rule of others. The ideál solution would be, of course, if progress and prosperity within these newly created political units would be secured by a willing and multilateral cooperation between the coexisting nationality groups inhabiting the same country, with each group enjoying complete cultural and administrative freedom. The greatest obstacles to such desired humán progress seem to be man's inborn tendencies for intolerance, and prejudice, nurtured and used much too often by unscrupulous political leaders. The results of such practices culminate usually in a distorted self-image of the ruling majority, an extreme stage of nationalism, called chauvinism, thereby creating intolerable situations through oppression and sometimes even extermination of subdued nationality groups helplessly at the mercy of an aggressive majority nation. It should be the obligation of all those whose position enables them to notice, observe, research and evaluate any such abuses, to make their findings known to the rest of the world in order that definite steps may be taken on the international, political, and economical level toward the elimination of these dangerous frictions, thereby ensuring a better future for all mankind. Such a trouble-spot seems to be in our days the ever increasing problem of Transylvania. The symptoms of the problem are given in this book by a distinguished group of scholars, knowledgeable of the complexities of East-Central Europe, who have done extensive research concerning the multiple aspects of this problem. In their opinion the situation in Transylvania has outgrown the limits of a local conflict, and gained international proportions during the recent years. It must be pointed out that the prevailing situation concerning the nationality groups inhabiting Transylvania is especially aggravated today