LIVING TOGETHER –ETHIC NORMS OF MINORITIES LIVING IN HUNGARY Ana HOȚOPAN UNGARIA Abstract We may say that the peaceful life in a village wi th a mixt… [629888]

455
LIVING TOGETHER –ETHIC NORMS OF
MINORITIES LIVING IN HUNGARY

Ana HOȚOPAN
UNGARIA

Abstract

We may say that the peaceful life in a village wi th a mixt population was preserved due tothe respect
towards one’s fellow citiyens, first of all, even if these had a language, a culture and a civilisation that differed from
their own. Reciprocity in the moral conduct, the ethic ru les and those of social behaviour preserved these values.

The great majority of the Romanians in Hu ngary have lived to a greater or smaller
extent together with other ethn ic minorities along their histor y. The fact has resulted in
interethnic cultural influences and has im posed a certain behavi oral conduct among
individuals. Thus an unwritte n ethic code of behavior wa s born which was rigorously
observed by all members of the different ethnic entities which lived together. The
cohabitation of the people of a different mo ther tongue has influenced their way of
thinking, making them sensitive and curious to another culture, strengthening thus their
linguistic, traditional and cultural tolerance. At the same time the crit ical spirit has become
more acid, through comparison to the others ’ way of living, finding similarities and
differences ceaselessly.
Even if the cohabitation of several nationalities has resulted in a change in the
specific national costume, lo sing its most important ethic signs, several small elements
have been preserved for a long time. Thus, on e could tell on the basis of a person’s looks
what nationality they belonged to for a lo ng time. For example, the Romanian women
wore their hair plaited in tw o plaits set around their head s, while the Hungarian women
would wear only one plait. The Romanian wo men wore a flat bun, while the Hungarian
ones a pointed bun. Up to the 60s and 70s, the Romanian women did not cut their hair
and would not walk around bare-headed. The Hungarian men would wear a hat, the
Romanians a cap, the Serbs, a rounded cap. The Hungarians and Germans would wear
trousers, while the Romanians wore men’s whit e linen culottes (izmene) or wide white
linen culottes (gaci). For a long time the Roma nian women used to wear “a scarf around
their head” (cârp ă după cap) instead of a winter coat. Th ese exterior signs of the clothing
would oblige people that once in a community pl ace, at the fair, weddin g, shop a.s.o. they
should behave according to the circumstances. For ex ample, the Romanians of
Micherechi, upon going to the fair in the neighboring village of Sercad, during the week,
would dress into their Sunday best, would avoid speaking loud and initiate conversations
at a distance, so specific to country folk, as well as they strived to communicate with
people in their own language. The same respect was paid to the shopkeeper, the mayor,
the railway man and all the clerical staff of the locality who we re Hungarians by
nationality, being employed in their positions, by the state with a specific political aim.
Since they were not good speake rs of Hungarian, their strive occasioned many ridiculous
situations. Thus in most of the communes where there live minorities, a series of

456happenings are circulated up to the present da y. In Chitighaz, for example, the following
story is told:
“Long ago, the rich people would employ hands to work for them. Well, among
them there were Romanians as well as Hung arians, mixed together. And they would get
food daily.
Once they were given meat soup at noon. I mmediately, the Hungaria n served himself to
all the meat, so the Romanian was left only wi th the stock to eat. After a while, when the
Hungarian helped himself again to meat, the Romanian bare no more and hit him on his
arm. And since he could not speak Hungaria n well, told the othe r one who, naturally
could not speak Romanian we ll either: “Ne báncsa clon ț! Mai horpotyi a zama!” (Keep
your beak off! Slurp some broth!”
Another happening from Micherechi:
“Auntie An ă, wife of Buricoiu (Big Navel), went to the shop to buy “golund” (string) for
her husband’s underwear. Well, the shopkeeper, uncle Gyuszi , could not speak Romanian
well. She kept thinking what the word for golund was in Hungarian and she finally asked
for: “Kérek olyan hosszú, ami mozog a gatyába!” (Please give me that long thing which
moves in the underwear.”
In each Romanian community in Hungar y, for the local people, the newcomers
were vagrants. In Bedeu, such a vagrant is th e Jew. He has other cu stoms, he would dress
differently and would comb his hair in a different style. Th e most impressive element was
his long and curly hair. The Romanians would crop their hair short in order not to be
mistaken for him. In Micherechi, the vagrants used to be the Hungarian Gypsies who came from other regions. Th eir careless, vivid clothing would make the Romanians
consider their external appearance very impo rtant. Otherwise they were told “you look
like Regina”, a little Gipsy girl named Regina.
In order to fade away the distance between the two ethn ic characteristics, and to
surmount the language barrier, in order to express the belonging to the same community,
the desire to live together, the Hungarians who had recently come to live in the village,
especially those who came by way of marriage, would try to integrate into the new
community as soon as possible, continuing to speak Hungarian, but intermingling
Romanian words as well, during the first stage, especially th e swear words: “May ill health
enter his stomach! To hell with you!” (A bety esig álljon bele a gyomrába! A draku vigyen
el!”)
A not very becoming thing happened in Chitighaz, leaving traces in the
Romanians’ spoken language. The children of the believers would spy on the Jews living
in the village, through the window, during thei r devine service. Thes e, although they could
speak both Romanian and Hungarian, would pray still in their mothertongue. „The
strange sonority of Hebrew was perceive d by them as a cont inuos <bruma-bruma-
bruma> (the same as frost, in Romanian). Thus in Chitighaz the belief that the Jews are
praying to frost, since their Jewish Easter falls when the first frost comes, was spread
around. This explains the local appearance of the saying „He is muttering as the Jew when
asking for frost.(He is mumbling, speaki ng to himself, unintelligibly)” (Mondr ănește ca
jidovii când cer brum ă.). Although the proverb was used quite frequently, the people
would be reluctant to use it in the presence of a Jew.
The ethic conduct and the resp ect towards the ethnic diffe rences, can be seen best
in the practice of several custom s. A brief selection will follow:
In Apateu, on the last Tuesday before Lent starts, the following tradition of
Romanian origin was practiced. The main protagonists of th is local tradition were the

457maids in waiting. “On that ev ening the lads would walk about the streets, in turn and
would scatter feathers, chaff and would stam p these into the snow or mud, on the
sidewalk, in front of the gates of the unmarried girls, so that they would have to clean up.
They usually would make use of hen feathe rs, and would write on paper the following
verses:
“Three baskets of feathers to your bed
And you stayed unmarried yet.”
Since the Romanians in Apateu lived toge ther with the Hungarians, the custom
was also extended to the Hung arian girls, with the difference that they would write on
their paper in Hungarian: “Three baskets of feathers under your bed In your mother’s yard, you’re still unmarried!”
In Săcal, where the Romanian and Hungaria n children would play together, they
would watch the storks at spring time, and when it flew above th em, they would shout
out in a chorus, sometimes in Ro manian, sometimes in Hungarian:
“Stork, stork,
Bring us a new baby! (in Hungarian)
or
“There comes the stork bringing a newborn!” or
“Stork, stork, little stork,
Bring a baby – that ’s your work!”
In Hungarian Cenad, where Hungaria ns, Serbs and Romanians would live
together, the dance used to be organized separately: th e Hungarian dance, The Serbian
dance, the Romanian dance. Each ethnic group had a rich repertoire. Provided young
people belonging to different ethnic groups visited one another, th e musicians would first
play the Romanian tunes, for example, at a Romanian dance, and then the Hungarians
would follow: the czardas and the unguras. In Cenad, quite often, the Romanians would
organize the dance together with the Serbs. In this case, first a series of Romanian dances
would be played, and then a series of Serb ian dances would foll ow. The verses were
shouted by all the participants, sometimes in Romanian, sometimes in Serbian as all Serbs
spoke Romanian, but even if not all Romanians could speak Serbian, they knew the verses well. The youth of the village, irrespective of their national ity would know all the dances,
be they Hungarians, Romanians or Serbs. In Micherechi, the young people coming to the
dance from a different village coul d join the party free of charge.
Being very religious, the Romanians would make the sign of cross when passing
any place they considered sacred. In S ăcal, “the p[people would make the sign of cross
when the bells tolled, when pass ing by a church, near the cross at the end of th e village, at
the cross placed on th e farm of Martonffy and the one near the cemetery, but also before
sitting down at table.” Although the Romanians in S ăcal were Orthodox, they would cross
themselves in front of the cross on Marton ffy’s farm, who was a Hungarian by origin.
The explanation is that the Ma rtonffy brothers had played an important role in the lifeof
the villagers. They had travelle d to America and upon their return home, they have put
into practice their experience gained over th ere. They had taught the villagers how to
cultivate the land in a mode rn way and that brought abou t wealth for the Romanian
peasants in the village. The respect for the brothers was shown in that way as well.
Due to the different religions, the Orthod ox and Catholic holi days would not fall
at the same time of the year. Easter, for ex ample, in mixed communities were celebrated

458once for the Hungarians, and once for the Roma nians, at an interval established by the
church. Although Easter would not always be celebrated with the same amplitude by the
two ethnic groups, great care was taken that the sacredness of the event should not be
disturbed through the daily routine of the ot her group. In other wo rds, they would not
work the fields, or wash, or drive their ca rts along the road in the village a.s.o.
By rapport a cultural hierarchy was estab lished among the ethnic groups. Thus in
Aletea, wherethere were five times more Germans than Romanians, where the German
population consisted mainly of land owing farmers, while the Romanians had no
possessions, the Germans considered themselves superior to the Romanians considered
servents whom they would empl oy to work on their lands. Otherwise their opinion of the
Romanians was they these were industrious people and trustwor thy. In most of the cases,
the relationship between the landlord and th e servant was humane and satisfactory, but
not one of equality. „In the house of the land lord, the servants would eat at a separate
table, but received the same food as the lord ’s family.” There were occasions when the
landlord would behave as a dict ator saying: „At noon, if yo u her that my penknife is
closing, meaning that I have finished my meal, you are to finish eating as well!” These
words were not uttered frequently, as the people knew th e rule and would act accordingly.
The same thing would happen in the case of the Roma nians in the commune of
Micherechi and of the Gipsies. The hired hands, although would work together with the
rest, were fed separately at table: Gipsie s on one hand, Romanian s on the other. The
Gipsies had separate cups for drinking water, cutlery and pl ates reserved only for them.
The villagers wshowed more in dulgence only towa rds the Romanian Gipsies from their
commune. In an interview give n to Izvorul magazine. Aunt Anuta of Deli, a Gipsy from
the village, confessed that the people of Mi cherechi, would not refrain from her; she
would be invited to sit at table with them: „Come here, Aunt Annie! God forbid, we are
treating you as ourselves! Because we know wh at kind of people you are. You do not steal
and do not walk around begging . You work just like ourselve s, decently! (…) There were
times when they would pick at us, but we also washed and washed our clothes
properly!…”
Among Romanians it was considered unpo lite to invite someone to your house
and not treat one’s guest to some food. Th e Gipsy, wether Roma nian or Hungarian
would never enter people’s houses. If he ha d any problem with the master, he would call
out at the gate until he came out of the house.. The Romanian would not be invited into a
Gipsy’s house either. Thus an embarassing situation was avoide d, that of refusal. It was
not becoming to eat or drink from a Gipsy. The Gipsies were invited into the house and
served with cakes and brandy only as part of the carol singer’s group., at weddings or
other traditional feasts when they were the musicians.
On any occasion the plural, polite form was used when addr essing the elderly
people by the youth, or parents by children, strangers by the villagers. The Gipsy was
always addressed in the singular , with the exception of the local Gipsies, who live din the
same community. The Gipsies who were begging along the village, it was becoming to be
offered some food, even if just a piece of bread. They we re never sworn at or mocked at.
The Romanian citizens coming from Ro mania were approached with marked
curiosity by the local Romanian s. Between the two World Wars, the peasants living in the
Western carpathians would come to the plai ns in carts which seemed strange to our
villagers. They were welcommed in a friendly mannerd, and goods we re exchanged. Their
presence was at the same time a pretext for me rriment as they also brought a dancing bear

459along. Their way of living, thei r way of talking seemed intere sting. They were considered
as belonging to their own ki n. Their poverty brought abou t sympathy and compassion.
After the totalitarian regime in the tw o countries, Hungar y and Romania, was
overthrown, more and more Romanians came from farther away territories of the
motherland in order to work as hired hands in th e hothouses in Micherechi. The contact
of the villagers with these people was benefic. If so far the tenden cy of the villagers was
to spek exclusively the local dialect, mingling Hungarian words, or passing easily from Romanian to Hungarian, now they had to make efforts to spek literary Romanian in order
to be understood by the newcomers. These yo ung people have been integrated into the
community quite soon as they marries young girls in the vi llage. Their presence in the
commune influences not only th e language, through revitalisation, but has a positive
effect on the traditions, cust oms and religious life as well (m ost of them belonging to the
Pentecost denomination).

Bibliography

Bencsik J. Date etnografice, în Izvorul, 1983, Gyula
Bencsik J. Date privitoare la via ța populară a românilor al ăteni, în Izvorul, 1996, Gyula
Bucin, M. Imagine și stereotipie etnic ă, în Annales , 2000, Gyula
Colta, E.R. Românii din Bedeu – istorie oficial ă și tradiție orală, în Izvorul, Nr. 20, 1999,
Gyula Garami, I. Din istoricul și obiceiurile s ăcălenilor, în Izvorul, Nr. 22, 2002, Gyula
Garami, I. Mânc ăruri și pregătirea lor la S ăcal, în Izvorul, 2003, Gyula
Garami, I. Obiceiuri legate de na ștere la săcal, în Izvorul, 2001, Gyula
Hoțopan, A. S ărbători calendaristice la românii din Cenadul-Unguresc, în Izvorul , 1995,
Gyula
Martin, E. Norme etice în societatea tradi țională, în Simpozion , 2000, Gyula