Transylvania: The Hungarian Minority in Rumania [antikvár]

Nationalism has a thousand faces. It blurs the vision of the man with the sharpest eye. It invades every human weakness. It deals in tradi- tion, piety, pride in race, profes- sional jealousy, in all virtues and vices. —Ady Endre INTRODUCTION Faced by the challenges of a rapidly changing world order, the eighteenth century unleashed a number of revolutionary forces which today continue to play a vital role in Eastern European politics. None, however, has lent itself to as much controversy and emotional reverie as the force generated by nationalism. Receiving its impetus from the French Revolution, it is perhaps the single most important factor governing relations within the Soviet bloc. Nationalism has emerged as one of the heroic stalwarts of national unity and, oftentimes, of minority anguish. Growing out of a mythical conception of an ideal fatherland, Eastern European nationalism is based on a set of deeply-rooted socio-political beliefs wherein each country has developed its own special brand of collective pride. This collective pride is an "emo- tional fusion and exaggeration of nationality and patriotism."l To be sure, nationalism received its impetus from the French Revolution, but it did not commence with the French Revolution. This latter is a purely arbitrary and perhaps fallacious assumption made by many writers on the subject. Nationalism, as a sense of cultural identity, existed prior to 1789. However, it was not until the revolu- tion, with its accompanying proposition that individuals and com- munities have a right to attach themselves to whichever states they wish, that nationalism acquired territorial and political connota- tions. Properly stated, the French Revolution provided the climate of thought from which the doctrine of nationalism could finally emerge in the early nineteenth century.2 The concept of nationalism is a European invention which assumes different shades of meaning in the Eastern sector than in the West.3 It purports to supply a theoretical construct for the principle of sovereignty advanced by the French Revolution. The construct remains theoretical because no doctrine can provide