Suchergebnisse

The ethnic structure of this region has been strongly influenced by the evolution of different historical-geographical, and political factors, but also by the evolution of the confessional structure. Ethnicity, from this point of view, is closely related to religion. What is typical and important to note is that the ethnic structure is very diverse. In addition to Romanians and Hungarians, also Gypsies, Germans, Slovaks, Jews, Ruthenians, and Serbs are present; other ethnic groups are numerically insignificant. For this period we identified two important categories of documents relating to ethnic identity of Transylvanians: 1. records made by the Austrian state authorities; 2. Church documents. They must be viewed and analyzed with great care because they do not correspond directly to the necessity to establish ethnic identities. The documents that are available to us do not allow for an accurate determination of a person's ethnicity. Given the lack of a variable on nationality from the few censuses conducted by the Hungarian State, we propose based on analysis of other documents (particularly those of ecclesiastical origin) to: a) check the mother tongue, b) establish religious identity and c) run an onomastic study.

A common argument for the nomination of the Romanian city of Sibiu as European Capital of Culture 2007 by the European Commission is the actual local multiculturalism, which makes the city seem somehow different when regarding the more general ethnic background in Romania. The aim of this article is therefore to map the local multiculturalism and identify its limits. The conclusion is that the local context is multicultural in fact, yet some ethnic tensions are to be taken into account. These tensions are rather symbolic and still weak, and are related to the way one might conceive local public space. The findings not only confirm the initial supposition, but they could become a starting point for a future comparative analysis of ethnic contexts in Romania.

Mixed marriage is one of the factors providing the link between interethnic and interreligious communities. Ethnic and confessional diversity of the population imposes a communication, an interference of different ethno-confessional communities. As these communities were living together, it was natural that this "cooperation" should be visible in the case of marriage. Given the context, mixed marriages acquired an innate multiculturalism due to the need for living together. The "social barriers" completed the ethnic and confessional differences. The State becoming more and more powerful in time imposed itself and promoted a new perception of mixed marriage through a lay legislation. On the other hand, in the mixed Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic communities, inter-confessional marriages were more easily accepted officially as both confessions were under the same hierarchic authority, the Pope. It is important to get a glimpse of the ethnic structures and their dynamics, as well as of the confessional realities to have a clear image in the analysis of interethnic or inter-confessional marriages. Marriage may be one of the social mechanisms to change the demographic volume of certain communities not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively, and to alter traditional spiritual values.

The trans-ethnic voting ant the current cooperation between the Saxon and the Romanian communities in Sibiu/Hermannstadt could easily make believe in a perennial peaceful cohabitation. But the ethnic relations at the beginning of the XXth century are rather dissimilar, since they are marked by the strong affirmation of the Romanian community - especially by its political and cultural values - in the cadre of a multi-ethnic state - as Austria-Hungary - and of a Saxon dominated city - as Sibiu/Hermannstadt. The conflict between elites is pointed out by the prejudices enounced and by the symbolic weight of the disputes. More deeply, there is a conflict between two diverging political projects: the preservation of autonomy and of collective rights by the Saxon community, and the political, economic and cultural integration of the city into the recently made Romanian National state, in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Treaties. The two political projects originate -in fact- into distinctive models of citizenship: an exclusive citizenship, promoted by the Saxon community as a heritage from the Middle Ages; an integrative citizenship, preferred by the Romanian state in order to obtain a full allegiance from the new citizens. Since Romania has unexpectedly become a multi-ethnic state and minorities were more educated, urbanized and politically active, supporting the Romanian element became vital. The unsuccessful political strategies of Romanian elites, before 1920 -and of Saxon elites afterwards- lead to external sources of power: the Romanian National state and Nazi Germany. Whether Romanian authority proves to be quite successful, the German influence has disastrous consequences for the Saxon community. The persecutions and vexations following the German defeat in 1945 mark out the beginning of the great migration for the German community in Transylvania, following eight hundred years of coexistence.

By analyzing the parliamentary debates of 1866-1867 on foreigners' (notably Jews) requests for naturalization and property rights, this article tries to identify the parliamentarians' answers to the following questions: On what grounds were foreigners accepted as Romanian citizens? How did the parliamentarians define the foreigner? What was required from a foreigner in order to become a citizen? The overall objective is to identify some major themes that preoccupied the representatives of the nation, circumscribed around the primordial character of the "union" and of "nationality", with a special focus on the solutions proposed by the liberals. The argument is that the Parliament, by its vote, instead of granting citizenship rights, merely established the conditions according to which one could become a Romanian. In other words, the Romanian legislators considered it to be of outmost importance to recognize the quality of being a Romanian, that is, a member of an ethnic body, and not to define citizenship as a legal membership. "To be a Romanian" was more of an ethnic belonging, a "given", than citizenship or civic loyalty, defined through political and civic rights. It seems that citizenship was crushed by the primordial character of ethnic loyalty and by the weight of the state as expression and guarantor of the Romanian nation. In engaging the parliamentary debates about naturalization, the article attempts, first, to draw more nuanced conclusions about the lately much-debated character of citizenship in Romania and Eastern Europe during the mid-19th century. And second, such an analysis may provide a better understanding of the nature of political representation during the same period.