File talk:MagyarsOutsideHungary.png/Archive 1

I propose to rename it "Hungarians in the neighboring countries" and coloring Hungary with a different color. We have millions of Hungarian Americans that will not be presented here.
Plus: what happened to Hungarians in Austria and Slovenia? Squash Racket (talk) 07:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The map is based on this one http://sebok1.adatbank.transindex.ro/legbelso.php3?nev=KozEu

I don't see any municipality / village / town (or whatever is the lowest administrative division presented on the map) that has a Hungarian majority in Austria, Croatia or Slovenia.

I'll make the necessary modifications to the map, regarding color and title!

Scooter20 (talk) 10:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I modified the map, tell me what do you think!

Thanks! Scooter20 (talk) 11:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

BTW, you said "We have millions of Hungarian Americans that will not be presented here".

I wouldn't call a mere 1.5 million of Hungarian Americans as "millions of Hungarian Americans"! Because this way it sounds like that are in much greater numbers as they are in reality!

Scooter20 (talk) 11:09, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The number of Hungarian Americans is difficult to properly estimate depending on first, second etc. generations, and many Hungarians moving to the US from territories lost with Trianon are not counted as Hungarians, not to mention mixed marriages etc. I also wouldn't call 1.5 million people a "mere" 1.5 million people.

I didn't know only the majority populations were indicated. So as you can see that's pretty misleading (it confused me). "Ethnic Hungarian majorities in Hungary's neighboring countries" would sufficiently fit what the map tries to describe and this expression seems to be used in English.

Still, I have some concerns about the source. I don't know László Sebők and where he got this data from. A more reliable source wouldn't hurt even if not English. The colors are OK now.

Sidenote: The reasoning in that edit summary is wrong, that is hardly even tolerated on user pages, your political beliefs and your ethinicity absolutely don't belong here. Squash Racket (talk) 11:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I placed the notes on the map because I don't want people to think that I, as a Romanian, have created this map because I would support a "Greater Hungary", or that I would want to "violate the borders" of Romania or so on. I am just saying on the map page that this is not the case. That's it!

And by doing so, I am not trying to be offensive towards Hungarians or anything.

Scooter20 (talk) 11:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know László Sebők either, but I found on his site that he seems to have a lot of detailed ethnic maps on Transylvania at various periods in history, which seem pretty accurate to me.

This appears to be his site: http://sebok1.adatbank.transindex.ro/

Scooter20 (talk) 12:00, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

First: you didn't exactly write there what you have said here. Second: you shouldn't indicate anything, your remarks are inflammatory in this way and should be removed. We have separate maps of Greater Hungary, this is only an ethnic map.

And you forgot to answer this:

So as you can see that's pretty misleading (it confused me). "Ethnic Hungarian majorities in Hungary's neighboring countries" would sufficiently fit what the map tries to describe and this expression seems to be used in English.

Squash Racket (talk) 12:53, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why the title should be changed sine the two labels Area in Hungary where Hungarians are the majority and Area in neighboring countries where Hungarians are the majority explain sufficiently that the map shows areas (in Hungary and outside) where Hungarians are the majority of the population.

Scooter20 (talk) 13:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

It should be changed, because it's misleading. I only noticed the two lines below AFTER you had said it's about majority populations. First, I asked (above) where are the Hungarians of Austria and Slovenia. Squash Racket (talk) 13:06, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, fair enough!. If it will make you happy, I'll change the map title!

Scooter20 (talk) 13:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Done! Scooter20 (talk) 13:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, thank you. Regarding your notes: although this doesn't belong here, only on userpages, I'd remove the part about the "fairness" of Trianon and I don't mind. Trianon is the greatest tragedy for a whole nation, so you probably acknowledge, this is a bit inflammatory here. And if Trianon was "fair" based on ethnic composition, why isn't Székely Land independent based on the same reasons?
Leave in the part about Greater Hungary, if you insist. This is OK with you as a compromise? Squash Racket (talk) 14:52, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome!

I removed the note regarding Trianon, but my opinion remains the same, the Treaty of Trianon was fair.

The Kingdom of Hungary was a multi-ethnical nation and the only region that had a Hungarian majority was "Hungary Proper".

Transylvania (including Banat, Crişana and Maramureş) was inhabited by a Romanian majority.

Regarding the Szekely Land / Tinutul Secuiesc. It's true that it is mainly inhabited by Hungarians / Szeklers (80-90%) but you cannot break individual parts of a region and declare them independent just because they don't have a Romanian majority.

If this were the case, then you would probably take every city, town or village with Hungarian majority and declare it independent. This is not the case.

My opinion is that the Szekely Land is too small in size and population to be independent. If Hungarians would be the majority in all of Transylvania then you would be able to talk about independence. But they aren't and they never were.

Scooter20 (talk) 15:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

And another thing.

The Hungarian minority in Romania is has much more rights that the Romanian minority (in the Kingdom of Hungary, but majority in Transylvania) had during the Hungarian rule.

Romanians are much more tolerant and humane towards the Hungarian minority as opposed to the lack of interest and care of the Kingdom of Hungary towards the Romanian minority.

Scooter20 (talk) 15:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we should go into debates over this, but I don't really agree with you. Romanians also had their issues in the past and for example Nagyvárad (now Oradea) have been heavily Romanianized. In a written notice the European Commission warned Romania in 2008 (!) to secure mother tongue education for the Csangos of Moldavia. I don't even want to cite the Ceausescu era.
The Hungarian minority has more rights, because we live in the 21st century, not because Romanians are "more humane and tolerant". Romanians have a majority in Transylvania since Hungarians allowed them to settle there when they were fleeing the Turks.
If Trianon was fair, then complete independence of Székely Land is also fair. "I think that", well, they (the Székelys) think otherwise. If you consider the Treaty of Trianon somewhat unfair, then maybe autonomy is enough for Székely Land. Squash Racket (talk) 16:09, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we could debate over this for months and solve nothing so we should probably stop.

The origin of Romanians is disputed. Some scholars are saying that they arrived from South of the Danube in the Kingdom of Hungary and others that they were Romanized Dacians which lived there before the arrival of the Hungarians in Europe.

I tend to agree with the 2nd theory (Daco-Romanian continuity).

Oradea was mainly inhabited by Hungarians in 1910 because they forced the Romanian population to live in rural areas outside the city. This was the case in other Transylvanian cities (like Cluj-Napoca). However, despite Hungarians possibly being the majority in urban areas, the Romanians were the majority of the population.

You talk about Romanianization but seem to ignore the more effective Magyarisation which was done during the Hungarian rule.

I don't believe that Romanians fled from the Turks into Transylvania. They were living there along with Slavs before the Hungarian arrival. Just think about. How could a populace fleet in such numbers as to become the majority in a principality such as Transylvania and not to depopulate the place where they left? Plus there are no records of such a mass-migration. And one would think that such a mass-migration would be documented in history.

As I said before, the Szekely Land is too small in surface area and population size, not to mention too far away from Hungary proper (right in the heart of Romania), to qualify for independence.

Scooter20 (talk) 18:01, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Romanians weren't forced to live in rural areas, they were rural, agricultural people by nature. Germans and Jews weren't forced to live "outside of the city"? And I repeat: Romanians became a majority in Transylvania only after the Turkish wars.

Romanianization is more effective of course. I don't want to go into details of the Ceausescu era, but probably you too realize that while Magyarization lasted for two decades, Romanianization is ongoing since 1920 with irreversible effects.

The origin of the Romanians is debated, but they were not a majority in Transylvania until the Turkish wars regardless of that debate.

Montenegro became independent from Serbia in 2006 with with less population than that of Székely Land. And Székelys only want autonomy, so your answer sounds like you haven't read my response above. Squash Racket (talk) 08:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Romanians were agricultural and rural by nature, that's true. But they were also force to live outside cities. Romanians were considered 2nd class citizens. Why wasn't the Romanian language official (along with Hungarian and German) if they were the majority? Why weren't they allowed to be part of the political class? Why the Kingdom of Hungary recognized only 3 nations in Transylvania (which all together where the minority): Magyars, Saxons and Szeklers?

Romanians didn't became a majority after the Turkish wars. Show me a source that mentions this mass migration. Romanians were indigenous to Transylvania, as they were to Wallachia and Moldavia. They were living there before the Hungarian arrival in Europe. Hungary tried to colonize Transylvania, that's what they did. Just like the Russians that expanded into non-Russian populated Siberia. But, fortunately (for Romanians) the Hungarian attempt of Magyarizing all of the indigenous Romanian population eventually failed. Romania played her cards right and managed to recover most of its Romanian inhabited territories under foreign rule (and managed to lose some of them in World War 2).

If Romanianization was nearly as efficient as Magyarization (there were a few hundred thousand Romanians left in post-Trianon Hungary and today there's hardy 14.000 left) there wouldn't be 1.4 million Hungarian people in Romania.

Magyarization lasted for 2 decades? You must be joking. It began when the Hungarians arrived in Romanian / Vlach inhabited Transylvania up to 1920's when it returned to Romania.

The Szekely land cannot be independent because, among others:

• It's part of Romania.
• It's in the heart of Romania, hundreds of kilometers from "Hungary proper".
• It's quite small in terms of surface area and population size
• It's one of the poorest regions of the country and would not survive without funding from Bucharest.

BTW, this discussion is going nowhere, I think we should stop or continue elsewhere.

Scooter20 (talk) 10:13, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Romanians weren't forced to live in rural areas, they were rural, agricultural people by nature. Germans and Jews weren't forced to live "outside of the city"? Romanians were Eastern Orthodox, that's why they were in lower status, which was absolutely natural at the time all over Europe as Roman Catholicism was the official religion.

Romanianization is more effective of course. I don't want to go into details of the Ceausescu era, but probably you too realize that while Magyarization lasted for two (or three?) decades, Romanianization is ongoing since 1920 with irreversible effects. As you very well know the competing theory says Romanians came from the Balkans and arrived to Transylvania only in the 12th century. So let's just say we don't know the full truth about that. Even Romanians place Magyarization in the late 19th century.

The origin of the Romanians is debated, but they were not a majority in Transylvania until the Turkish wars regardless of that debate. Quoting the book Cross And Crescent The Turkish Age In Hungary (1526-1699):

The great immigration waves can be connected to the devastation in the population caused by major campaigns. In the Fifteen Years War for instance a serious loss was experienced by the Hungarian inhabited part of the Mezőség where a significant number of Romanian ethnic groups had settled. The Transylvanian wars between 1657 and 1661 had similar consequences. Romanians reached the northern and eastern edges of the lowland of Hungary, and the territories inhabited by Saxons and Székelys (Hungarians of Transylvania). (...) The 150 years of Turkish conquest and warfare fundamentally altered the ethnic picture of Hungary in the Middle Ages.

Montenegro became independent from Serbia in 2006 with with less population than that of Székely Land. And Székelys only want autonomy, so your answer once again sounds like you haven't read my response above. Squash Racket (talk) 10:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, this discussion is going nowhere.

I don't believe in most Hungarian sources, since they are expressing only the Hungarian point of view.

First, provide a neutral source (by neutral I mean not Hungarian, Romanian, German or Austrian).

The origin of Romanians is disputed. I believe that they were indigenous in Transylvania before the Hungarian invasion. You seem to believe otherwise. This is going nowhere so we should STOP.

I told you some of the reasons why the Szekely Land cannot be independent. And I'm not going to repeat them.

Montenegro was not in the heart of Serbia, neither is Kosovo.

Regarding autonomy, I'm not sure why the Romanian government won't allow autonomy to the Szekely land. I believe the main reason might be because it would be a big step towards independence, which obviously violates the borders of Romania.

Like I said, If Hungarians were a majority in all of Transylvania then you would be able to speak of independence, but that is not the case.

This discussion is going nowhere, so don't be surprised if I would, at some point, stop discussing.

Scooter20 (talk) 11:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it would be nice to foresee where your provocative actions might lead, so it would be nice if this discussion stopped here.
You haven't provided any sources for your claims, so probably it's time to do so. I did.
I believe Romanians came from the southern part of the Balkans and arrived in Transylvania in the 12th century. You believe otherwise, I accept this.
I told you clearly that if Trianon was fair, independence of Székely Land is also fair. So Székelys are very humble to only ask for autonomy. Nobody really cares where that territory is. What matters is that a sizable, clear ethnic majority population larger than Montenegro fights for its self-governance rights. Squash Racket (talk) 11:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)