Hungarian Autonomous Province
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The Hungarian Autonomous Province (Romanian: Regiunea Autonomă Maghiară, Hungarian: Magyar Autonóm Tartomány) was an autonomous region in the Romanian Peoples' Republic between 1952 and 1968. It comprised ten districts of the territory inhabited by a compact population of Székely Hungarians. The total population of this province was, according to the 1956 census, composed of: Hungarians (77.3%), Romanians (20.1%), Gypsies (1.5%), Germans (0.4%) and Jews (0.4%). The official languages of the province were Hungarian and Romanian and the provincial administrative centre was Tîrgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely).
Its status laid out in the 1952 Constitution, the Region encompassed about a third of Romania's Hungarians, the rest living either in more Romanian areas or along the border with Hungary, where an ethnic-based region might have stoked fears of irredentism and security concerns. In practice, the region's status differed in no way from that of the other sixteen regions and it did not enjoy autonomy of any kind–laws, decisions and directives from the centre were rendered compulsory by the very constitution that created it, and the State Council of the Autonomous Region was merely a façade. The Region's only distinguishing features were that most of its officials were Hungarian, the Hungarian language could be used in administration and the courts, and bilingual signs were put up on public buildings. Moreover, the specifically Hungarian wing of the Romanian Communist Party was abolished in 1953, ending any mechanism for defending of the Hungarian minority's collective rights.[1]
In December 1960 a governmental decree modified the boundaries of the Hungarian Autonomous Province. Its southern part was attached to Stalin Province, which was later renamed Braşov County. In place of this, several districts were joined to it from the southwest. The province was no longer called the Hungarian Autonomous Province but the Mureş-Hungarian Autonomous Province, after the River Mureş (Maros). The ratio of Hungarians was thus reduced from 77.3 percent to 62 percent.
In 1968, the Romanian government put an end to the administrative division of the country into regions and re-introduced the judeţ (county) system, still used today. This also automatically eliminated the Mureş-Hungarian Autonomous Province and replaced it with counties that are not identified with any nationality. The three new counties formed on the majority of the territory of former Hungarian Autonomous Province are Mureş, Harghita and Covasna.
In two of these counties, Harghita and Covasna, Hungarians form the majority of inhabitants. The Romanian law enables the usage of the language of an ethnic minority which forms at least 20% of the population of a municipality in relation with the administration, and the state provides education and public signage in the language of the respective ethnic minority.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Deletant, Dennis, Ceauşescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965-1989, pp. 109-110. M.E. Sharpe, London, 1995, ISBN 1563246333
[edit] See also
- Hungarian minority in Romania
- Székely
- Székely Land
- Ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureş
- Northern Transylvania
- Transylvania
[edit] External links
- Map: Közigazgatási Beosztás 1956 Map of the administrative divisions in Transylvania in 1956, including the Hungarian Autonomous Province
- Map: Közigazgatási Beosztás 1966 Map of the administrative divisions in Transylvania in 1966, including the Mureş-Hungarian Autonomous Province
- Map: A Székelyföld autonómiája, 1952-1968 ("Autonomous Székelyföld, 1952-1968"): Map of the Hungarian Autonomous Province (1952-1960) and Mureş-Hungarian Autonomous Province (1960-1968)
- Map: Republica Populară Română, Structura Administrativ-Teritorală (1952) ("Romanian People's Republic, Administrative-Territorial Structure (1952)"), showing the Hungarian Autonomous Province ("Reg. Autonomă Maghiara").
