Dezbateri ing theses voiced at the Transylvanian Diet. As an example, Alexandru Boh`\iel's observation is remarkable because it recognises that equality of nations cannot lead to the hegemony of any nation in any region of any country where other nations form the majority. “Every nation”, the Transylvanian Romanian deputy stressed, “should be able to exercise its rights in any part of the country. Consequently, I want to exercise my political rights in Sibiu County as much as the Saxons do, and similarly the Saxons should in Cluj County and the N`s`ud district”.51 In this respect, the Saxon deputy Konrad Schmidt's wording is even more precise, “the accomplishments of the new epoch: the concept of citizens' equality and national equality” fundamentally excludes such “exclusive” regimes whereby “the Saxons among the Hungarian nobles, the Hungarian nobles among the Szeklers and the Szeklers among the Saxons” could not exercise political rights. Moreover, he added, the country's intellectual and material development demands that Transylvania as a whole should be as open as possible. “It is absolutely vital for a country like Transylvania lacking adequate capital to encourage the influx of capital”.52 Whereas, following the collapse of communism, these legal tenets and political views gained a spectacular momentum, the ideal of the Transylvanian homeland-not less attractive and in itself legitimate-has been cruelly trampled on by history. Today, Transylvania is a part of the Romanian homeland to which the Transylvanian Romanians are, above all emotionally, and all the Romanian citizens legally and politically attached. On the other hand a large portion of Transylvania's Hungarian inhabitants feel emotional attachment to the Hungarian homeland, that is, the mother country, or kin-state, and with the implementation of the controversial Status or Benefits Law, Transylvanian Hungarians-to a certain extent- became legally attached to the Hungarian state.53 In this particular context it is impossible to pass over the proclamations of the personalities in the Pantheon of Romanian nationalism that 137 years ago committed them to the Transylvanian homeland, without being overcome with emotion. For example the Orthodox Bishop of Transylvania, Baron Andrei }aguna who always carefully for-
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mulated his words remarked in one of his speeches: “Gentlemen we are the children of the same mother and same country. […] As far as I am concerned, I would like to ask everybody once and for all, not to judge me on the basis of my Romanian nationality or Orthodox religion, but on the basis of my country and patriotism”. }aguna knew very well that “Transylvania, our homeland, together with His Majesty's other principalities and countries forms an inseparable and indivisible unity”, but “as a Transylvanian” he believed that his real homeland is Transylvania.54 One of the most influential Transylvanian Romanian publicists in the second half of the 19th century, George Bari\iu defined not only in positive terms, but negative terms as well what entails-in other words what confronts or is confrontingTransylvanian patriotism: “Four ghosts, four black monsters, or to express myself more precisely, four horrific demons have been lurking for some twenty years over the homeland. Four malevolent ghosts are scuttling up and down, sweeping across and flying about the country, causing endless restlessness and anxiety in the hearts and souls of people. And what are the names of these four ghosts, these frightful spirits? I call them pan-Germanism, pan-Slavism panMagyarism and Daco-Romanism”.55 We can say of the “terrifying demons” of 20th century pan-Germanism, and pan-Slavism (i.e. Hitlerism and Stalinism), that they have ravaged the Transylvanian landscape, but disappeared since. They have caused immense injury (for the exodus of the Transylvanian Germans, the destruction of the rich and colourful Transylvanian civil society, and the nationalisation of its institutions are their sins), yet the disappearance of the concept of a “Transylvanian homeland” from the stage of 20th century history is not their sin but of “Magyarism” and “Daco-Romanism”, or in modern terminology: of the rivalry between the Hungarian and Romanian nation states, which are equally exclusive ideologies regarding Transylvania. The definition of Transylvania, which embraces three nations as a “national home”, being an oxymoron56, it is not surprising that the chances for the recreation of the Transylvanian homeland emerge at a time, when-transgressing into the 21st century-more and more hairline-cracks appear in the previously perceived as rock-hard foundations of the two rival “national” homelands.
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