Csángós

Csángó
Csángók

Regions with significant populations
Romania only
Languages
Hungarian (dialect), Romanian
Religion
Roman catholics (almost exclusively), Orthodox Christian
Related ethnic groups
Hungarians, Szeklers

The Csángó (Romanian: Ceangău, plural Ceangăi) are an ethnic group of Roman Catholic faith, some speaking a Romanian and some Hungarian dialect. They live mostly in the Bacău County in Romania, with many across the national frontier in Moldova. The Hungarian speaking Csángó settled there between the 13th and 15th centuries.

A little about the so-called "Csangos"

The so called Csangos, the Roman-Catholic inhabitants of the western part of Moldavia, have been the object of numerous disputes between the Romanians and the Hungarians regarding their origin, their culture, their traditions and the ethnical minority they belong to.

The explanation is rather simple: if the Magyar irredentist circles could acknowledge the Csangos as Magyar ethnics from the number and percentage of the Magyar ethnics in Romania would definitely be larger and it would justify, in the eyes of the people, the territorial claims they have. On the other hand, Hungary is interested in the Csango matter in a geostrategical manner because it is interested in crossing the Carpathians. This way the so called Csango-land would become an outpost of the so long dreamed autonomous Szekler county.

These assertions belong to the director of the European Center of Studies Covasna-Harghita, Ioan Lacatusu.

This fact is demonstrated by the heavy names which are involved in solving the so called Csango problem and in persuading the officials of the European Union that Romania cannot integrate unless the minimum wrights and liberties of the minority ( let us not forget the Transylvanian Memorandum presented at Bruxelles by Laszlo Tokes himself, or the letter conceived by other such grey eminences and signed by many decent manipulated Magyars to the integration commissioner Ollie Rehn in which the desperate situation of the Romanian Magyars; or the movie Made in Romania presented to the European Parliament which refered exclusively to the Csango situation). Unfortunately, with all this fuss about the subject, the European Union decided that Romania could join regardless of these conditions…

Considering the fuss made about this, who would believe that in Romania there are approximately 1266 Csangos, 307 of them having Magyar as their native tongue, 910 Romanians, 37 Csangos, 3 Gypsys and 9 with undeclared native tongue. If you listen to the Magyar extremists, there are about 60,000 – 250,000 Magyar speaking Csangos. Is that the reality? said somebody.

History from the Rumanian point of view

Rumanian scholars repeat:

Research has been made at the border between Hungaria and Austria and at the extreme Orient in order to find traces of the origin of Csango people. They said that Csango pronunciation is close to the idiom spoken in western Hungaria by a group of Magyars who settled on the valleys of Raba and Repce in the X-XII centuries, individuals from this region might have been sent to South- East Transylvania for military needs and they were able to cross the Carpathians in order to settle to Moldavia.

Another Hungarian researcher stated that the language the Romanians from Moldavia use different from the one Csangos use. Most of these researchers have the tendency to consider that Csangos are exclusively Magyar speaking people and those who speak Romanian do so as they have been assimilated. Such a deliberate attitude can only lead the research on a wrong path, especially considering there are very few pieces of information about the Csango origin.

Another source that feeds the assertions stated above is represented by the parish files, in which Magyar priests who were sent with Magyar catholic missions changed the names of their parishioners and of the places populated by Roman Catholics or even orthodox people in Moldavia. Magyarisation actions subjected to Romanians in Moldavia have been renewed in the years 1950. Those people were considered Magyar because of their catholic religion.

Dumitru Martinas’s thesis regarding the linguistic origin of Csangos can easily be guessed: Csangos are magyarised Transylvanian Romanians who became catholics living in the proximity of Szeklers. They emigrated to Moldavia in the 18th century and their history cannot be understood without knowing enough about the history of the Romanians from the Szekler county. The Csango history is nothing else than a painful episode, a scar in the soul of the Romanian history.

The contradictory discussions between Romanians and Hungarians concerning the origin of the catholics in Moldavia materialized for the first time in a decision taken by the government lead by Antonescu in the ‘40s, when Petre Ramneteanu was sent to settle this matter once and for all. He established what the genetic origin of the population was by using the hemaglutination of the blood method. After comparing the clues it came out that the Csangos have the same biological blood compound Romanians have.

After the great schism from 1054 many Romanians from Transylvania, Pannonia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serby kept their catholic creed just as those from Moldavia did.

The first written advice sent to the pope Gregory the 9th is from 14th of November 1234 and it expresses the discontent that the Romanians from the catholics bishopric of the Cumanians refused to take the holly communion bread from the Magyar priest.

In this respect comes the refusal of the Romanians to become Magyar, rather turning towards Transylvanians or Saxons.

Rumanian say: "Assimilation is a false problem"

From the diary of a Rumanian nationalist at the Csango Conference held in Iasi in 2001:

For the first time in history, Magyar and Romanian specialists sat down at the green table on July the 6th 2002 in Iasi at the international seminar "The origin, the language and culture of Csango". For the first time Romanian and Magyar researchers sit together face to face trying to settle the old dispute: are the Csangos Romanians or Magyars? Although late, this discussion wouldn’t have made it to the green table if the Magyar counterpart wouldn’t have gone to the European Council Parliamentary Assembly trying to claim the Moldavian Csangos were Magyar. The result? The 1521 recommendation through which the Romanian state is almost summoned to support the tragic situation of the csango villages in Moldavia giving them certain rights such as education and religious service in Magyar language. The moral author of this recommendation is the Finnish lady Tytti Isohookana Asunmaa, European Council reporter on the cultural Csango matter, herself being present that day at the seminar. Even from the beginning of the debates Mrs Asunmaa declared for the uralic origin of Csangos – family of peoples related to the Hungarian and the Finnish ones – claiming that Csangos are the descendants of some Finnish soldiers who settled in Moldavia in the 17th century(!). not a word about the possible Romanian origin of the Csangos! No wonder, since the Finnish Member of Parliament dodged all contact with the local authorities listening only to the complaints of the Csango Magyar Association from Moldavia which is a section of DUMR (The Democratic union of the Magyars from Romania).

The elegant conference hall of World Trade Center from Iasi was filled with great disputes."Csangos = Magyars = all the citizens of Roman catholic religion in Moldavia ". This was the thesis all Magyar researchers sustained with rather fanatical arguments instead of scientific ones. Since Romanians have been Orthodox then all the Roman Catholics belonged to another ethnic group, meaning the Magyar nation. Vilmos Tanczos, lecturer at the University Babes Bolyai from Cluj Napoca, presented to the audience a map full of tens of Moldavian cities supposed by founded by Magyar soldiers who watched the eastern borders of the Hungarian Kingdom. Jaszvasar (Iasi), Barlad (Bârlad), Szeretvasar (Radauti), Husz (Husi), Bake (Bacau), Szucsava (Suceava) and many others, all of them being, in the opinion of the Magyar researcher, Magyar cities, founded by Magyars. Even the date of the censuses (at the one in 2002 only 1266 people declared themselves Csango, a small part of the Catholics of the diocese of Iasi which gathers approximately 265000people) have been considered fake, always deformed, always tricked by some abusive assimilation political strategies.

Calm, using scientific proof easy to verify, the Romanian participants stood firmly on their positions. Thus , professor doctor m. d. Stelian Dumitracel from the Filological Institute Al Philipide from Iasi demonstrated that the first documentary registration of the settlement being of Latin origin Villa Iassyorum. Anton Cosa claimed to be surprised by the name of seminar itself: I consider using the term Csango to describe an ethnical group unjustified. We must speak about the catholics in Moldavia, not about the Csangos in Moldavia as they don’t represent an ethnical group, but a religious one. \

Unexpectedly, the end of the seminar was to come the second day when all the participants lead by Mrs Asunmaa and three minibuses filled with members of the press stated out towards two of the most representative Csango villages in Moldavia: Butea and Sabaoani, in order to prove "on the spot" all the things discussed the day before. What they saw there was beyond their expectations. Dressed in their traditional Romanian costumes, riding glorious horses, the Csangos came to welcome the guests caring Romanian flags. On the both sides of the road there were kilometers of fences covered with traditional Romanian rugs and hundreds, thousands of peasants shouting that they are and have always been Romanian. Absolutely all the people from Butea declared that in their village have never been a single Csango and the word itself is an offense to them as no one in this settlement speaks Magyar. Petre Demeter greeted the guests with a big sign which said "We are Romanian, not Csangos! Neither my father or my grandfather have ever heard a single Csango word in this village. How can somebody come and convince us that we are what we are not in fact?" Mrs Asunmaa was accompanied to the church by a group of women who tried to show her that their costumes were Romanian and tried to tell her the same thing by using different gestures.

Almost two thousand people kneeled behind Monsignor Gherghel and Priest Alois Damoc saying together the prayer "Our Father". From the stage near the cathedral, the principal of the school from Butea, Greta Predoi, told all the guests that "People from Butea feel, they are and have always been Roman Catholic Romanians!" and everybody started to sing along the national song "We are Romanians!" .

Sabaoani, the village with over ten thousand people is undoubtedly the biggest catholic community in Moldavia. They said that there wouldn’t have been so many people gathered there not even if the Pope himself had come. The same colored rugs, the same traditional costumes worn by almost eight thousand Moldavian peasants and not a single word about being Csango. "Sabaoani, we are Romanians" said a big sign set in front of the stage in the festival hall of the village where the guests sat. There the priest of the village told everybody that "The name Csango or Bozgor addressed to us constitutes a great insult which brings a lot of grief in our Romanian hearts. What a paradox! To be proud of being Romanian and others to come and tell you and speak for yourself and say that you are Csango…"

Bacau, the 1st and the 2nd of June 2006, the international scientific conference "Csangos from Moldavia-Endangered Culture and heritage". Event organized with Hungarian funds, with guests that spoke exclusively about what the Hungarians expected. This time, the conference was peaceful - nobody contradicted anybody. Surprisingly….

Here are some declarations of the speakers:

Meinolf Arens, historian at the Hungarian Institute in Munich: "we can only understand the real origin of the Csangos by excluding the myth of the Dacian – Roman continuity on the territory of the nowadays Romania. Only by analyzing in parallel the migrations of the Romanians and Magyars in Moldavia we can prove that Csangos are and have always been Magyar ." 'Dioszegy Laszlo, member of the curator of the Foundation Teleki Laszlo from Budapest – "the Romanian researchers didn’t come today at the conference because they are afraid of something. Not only those who declare themselves Romanian, but others who spectacularly denied the official Romanian position at the conference in Budapest, that is the denial of the existence of an ethnical Magyar minority in Moldavia"; Varga Andrea – historian from Budapest, who, according to her own declarations, has been studying for more than 10 years the archives from Bucharest – " the book of Dumitru Martina which introduced in the conscience of the people in the ‘70s the thesis of the Romanian belonging of the Csango is a work of misinforming of the Security, as he used to be an officer of UM 0544 – Misinformation Service. The Security recruited 80% of the Catholic priests and determined them to cooperate."

Hegyeli Attila, responsible for educational problems in the Magyar Csangos Association of Moldavia (MCAM) "the Romanian authorities try to stop the process of introducing Magyar language in Csango county. Recently the Education Inspectorate of Bacau tries to prevent this process by approving less teacher positions than stated by the law and hires teacher only with a year contract so they cannot get a salary for the summer"; Iancu Laura, member of MCAM Magyar Csango original from the village Arini county Bacau, emigrated to Hungaria, Budapest: "We , the Csangos, are marginalized here in Romania because we are Magyar. If we go to Hungaria, it is very difficult to us because, due to the abusive actions of the Romanian state authorities we don’t have any schools un Magyar language and we almost forget this language. Those who get to learn in the schools from Hungaria, even if they don’t come home anymore, mustn’t forget to serve their community by all means possible."

Finally, we should remember Dumitru Martinas’s brother, priest Martinas. His statement made in a study from 1942 says: "It is time that we shouldn’t disrespect the history and the realities and give the Moldavian catholics the right to be called and to be real Romanians. Their love for the people and country shouldn’t be insulted anymore, they shouldn’t be pointed out to be Hungarians and foreigners through language and school books. They shouldn’t carry the unpleasant nickname of Csangos as Csangos do not exist, the only ones who exist are the Catholic Romanians".

Bibliography swowing the Rumanian point of view

Selective bibliography showing to Rumanian point of view

We present you a small share/part of the books, studies, documentaries, articles used in the set up of this page by taking over some short quotations which would urge the reading. The Csango theme bibliography is much too large to be summed up in a few lines. Most of the indicated sources already contain bibliographic sending (links) so that, step by step, he/she who wishes to consider thoroughly the subject can discover many more thematic works.

Ferro, Teresa – The Catholic Missionaries in Moldavia IDC Press Publishing House, Cluj Napoca, 2006

Teresa Ferro is the Romanian language and literature professor at the University of Udine, Italy.

The approach on the Moldavian Catholicism is meaningful also as it comes from a foreign author fully accustomed to Romanian language and culture; the book gives off a spirit of clarity, precision and balance; the work is historical, cultural and linguistic study at the same time being a very rare type of study, that is why its importance must be emphasized. (Ioan Aurel Pop - Preview)

She studied, along her career, different aspects, less approached, of our culture: the concordance between the idioms spoken in the meridian regions of Italy and different Romanian dialects; the phenomenon of transition from the Latin language to Protoromanian (the ancient Romanian language) which was spoken in the Carpathian Danubian and Balkan space; as well as the first Romanian written texts, all these, as an attempt to overturn the already well-known relation between center and outskirts, between Rome and the Eastern Latinity.

The matter of the Catholic missionary work in the east represent a constant concern un the preoccupations of Teresa Ferro, the present work being the result of a decade of research and efforts to bring out unknown or lesser studied documents for the archives of the Congregation De Propaganda Fide, of the archives of the Arch gymnasium of Bologna and of other archives. And this is just the beginning so that The Catholic Missionaries in Moldavia to be set up as a prologue of a much larger research.

(Monica Avram, County Library, Mures – the author of a review article on the book)

The Latin communities of Moldavia are bragging with their ancient tradition but the name “the Catholics of Moldavia” stands for different realities along the almost eight centuries of Catholic presence in the Romanian region.

As a wish to synthesize, we can distinguish between three periods in the history of the Catholicism from Moldavia: the oldest, medieval, in which there are the first weakly organized attempts of missionary activity when the interest of the Popes in the Romans of the East was manifesting itself; the political – religious expansion of the Hungarians beyond the mountains, and later on, the Moldavian rulers concern to be on good terms with Rome and Catholicism. There is sufficient proof that in this phase the Catholics from Moldavia were very few and that most of them were not Romanian ethnics.

The second period which we can situate towards the end of the 16th century up to the half of the 18th century opens with the real hopes of the Roman counter part to draw Orthodox people from Moldavia to join Catholic Church as the Catholics were forced to fight against the Protestant movements; this period is dominated by missionary activity of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide which chooses Moldavia as its first province. Even so, in the entire second phase the Moldavian Catholics continue to be very few and most of them not Romanians.

The third period, which starts in the second half of the 18th century and continues until the Union of the Principalities and which precedes the situation of today, is characterized by a considerable increase of the number of the Catholics from Moldavia and the efficient organization of the Mission and the settlement of the ecclesiastic structures. During this last phase, which – as seen – proves to be the most problematic one, the Catholics – even though they have fled from Transylvania, and even though they were called Hungarians, speak very well the Romanian language or maybe a large number of them have Romanian as their native tongue, this being the case, they were not all Catholics, meaning Greek – united, in the origin land“.

Bandini, Marco, Code. General Visit to All the Roman Rite Catholic Churches from the Province of Moldavia, 1946- 1948, Good Press/Presa Buna Publishing House, Iassi 2006

Being ordained as an archbishop on the day of 21st of August 1644, Marco Bandini left for Moldavia on the 3rd of September 1644 accompanied by Petru Parcevich, as his secretary. Bandini was to work as an administrator or an apostolic vicar. During his apostolic mission in Moldavia (1644 – 1650), Marco Bandini wrote numerous letters addressed to his superiors in Rome.

The Archbishop Marco Bandini died in Bacau 1650; his death being probably hastened by George Kutnarski, Polish secretary of the prince”. (University professor doctor Traian Diaconescu – Introduction)

“In Romanian the village is called Fantanele (…) the Hungarians live in only twelve houses, where 58 persons live, including the children. They go to the church in Bacau. There are over 100 Romanian houses in which 400 people are living.

Piatra lui Craciun (the Stone of Christmas)

A long time ago it used to be a clean Hungarian market town, nowadays there are only three Hungarian houses in which 16 persons live, including the children, and only one of the elders, Ioan, speaks their native tongue. There are 300 Wallachian (Romanian) houses and about 800 Wallachians”.

Martinas Dumitru, The Origin of the Moldavian Csangos, The Scientific and Enciclopedic Publishing House, Bucharest, 1985

“A posthumous debut is always a tragedy! ... The tragedy of Dumitru Martinas who did not live to see his book printed or even noticed! (…) Dumitru Martinas was a Csango, himself; this fact bans the suspicion of him having a bigger interest in either possible solution”. (Ion Coja, Postrface)

“It seems that the puzzling Csangos from Moldavia come on roundabout ways from a lesser known era of our history, fact which could not satisfy the formerly researchers. As it was impossible to cancel their past, its adjustment has been tried. In this long and laborious effort of correction, one element of great scientific importance was left out and that is: Csango`s language is Romanian. It was thought that by silencing what the original language of an entire population was and by substituting it with a foreign language, language which did not fit the population and which these people could never learn correctly their historic past will be buried in oblivion and the assimilation to the Hungarian population will be assured. The experience failed, as the Csangos were not disposed to forget their language.

In some villages, especially in the county of Bacau, the inhabitants, formerly stronger Szeklerised, in the other relations use the Romanian language. This Hungarian language population is not of Magyar breed, as many people think and as usually the Magyar authors say when it comes to the Moldavian Csangos. It is a Romanian origin population, which suffered a deeper degree of Szeklerisation from the linguistic point of view.but all the other traditional ethnographical coordinates are Romanian: the way people dress, the customs, the way of life, the type of the old houses and of the farmsteads. (…) for the ethnographers, even for those who are not familiarized with the this matter, it is sufficient to look at the images from the two volumes created by Peter Pal Domokos and Laszlo Mikecs, from which we took quotations, in order to be convinced that the population in question is indisputably Romanian and the process of Szeklerisation could not change anything in the matter of material life and the artistic creation”.

Pal, Iosif, Petru The Origin of the Catholics in Moldavia and the Franciscans, Their Centuries Old Sheperds Serafica Printing House, Sabaoani – Roman, 1942

The families with clean Romanian names who came here (in Moldavia) from Transylvania, after a short time appear with their names translated into Hungarian: Medvesdin from Ursaru, Farcas from Lupu, Hallasz from Pescaru, Vass from Feru, Kovacs from Fieraru; or even a stranger phenomenon took place, the Romanian surname was left out and the Christian name of the father or of the grandfather translated into Hungarian was adopted. Even my name is not the real one. In 1781 the statistics of the Halaucesti parish shows that: my grandfather – Petru Pauli Dumitras, Petru son of Paul (Pavel) Dumitras; and a line bellow my father’s elder brother who was already married, is named Aron Petru Pal! Where was left our real name: DUMITRAS?

Even the inscriptions on the crosses over the graves were written in Hungarian by the Hungarian teacher who came from Transylvania, even where Romanian was the only spoken language… These Hungarian teachers/psalm readers, along with some Magyar priests, when the parish statistics were made – the parish statistics represented the only bureau of the population evidence in the old days – changed the Romanian names of the families into Magyar ones or gave them Hungarian nicknames which replaced the real surnames”.

Zaharia, Dumitru Csangos – a Historical Fiction, Communication, Scientific Session of Sfantu Gheorghe, 1997

“One of then first forgers of the past of the Transylvanian Romanians was the Szekler missionary Petru Zold, priest at the Catholic church of Delnita, Ciuc. On the 7th of December 1780 he left for Moldavia where he stayed for a very short while. On the 11th of January 1971 was already in Transylvania, where he wrote a report of the most unfit to the truth about the Moldavian Catholics”.

Study of the University “Spiru Haret” , Bacau branch, accomplished in the years 1994 – 1995 in 21 places from the region Bacau – Roman – Neamt – Iassi with Roman Catholic religion population (can be found in the newspaper “Monitorul de Bacau”, numbers of the 13th and the 17th of February 1996):

“The opinions of the subjects about themselves are the following: 91% consider themselves to be Romanian, 6.3% Csangos and 2.7% Magyars

Declaration of the subjects during the study:

“I consider myself Romanian. I am Romanian, as I live in Romania and I was born here”.

“It troubles me that the Hungarians come and say that we are Magyars. It is not true. I am Romanian. I live in Romania. I am not Hungarian”.

“There are four interested families, who have never worked in their entire lives, they do not know how to beat a nail, they do not know to value a work chart, or, I don’t know, a job. They went to UDMR and they consider themselves Hungarians. Let’s see the traditional costume from Cleja and let’s see their traditional costume. There is a huge difference”.

“In my family, the parents and the grandparents told us that our ancestors were Romanians who were banned from Transylvania and settled here”.

“That’s what I learned from my parents: that I am Romanian. I can’t say otherwise”.

“You mustn’t betray your own country. If you are a patriot… you were born here, you speak Romania; this is your country, the country you were born in. Those who want to introduce Magyar language in here, in this village… There is no such thing. Those who want Magyar language are people who want advantages. That’s what they are after. We are Romanians”.

Lechintan, Vasile, An Unknown Document of 1772: the Csangos from the Region of Bacau Are Romanians Emigrated from the Szekler Region – weekly “Romanul” the 27th of March – the 2nd of April 1994

“In 1772 Conscriptio jobbagiorum incesti sedis siculicalis kasszon in Moldaviam sub moderno turcico bello profungientium was being performed, that is a conscription of the peasants of the Szekler chair of casin who emigrated to Moldavia during the Turkish war of those days. Taking advantage in the troubles of the Russian – Turkish War the Romanian peasants crossed the mountains to their Romanian brothers on the other side. The conscription is nominal and mentions the village from where they fled and the village in Moldavia where they settled.

Colligated with the civilian state registers of the Greek Catholic Romanian parishes from the villages that used to belong to the Szekler Chair of Casin, the document, which has an exceptional historical importance and is deposited at the State Archives, Cluj Napoca branch, brings unquestionable proof concerning the Romanian origin of the Moldavian Csangos especially of those who live in the area of Bacau”.

Vergatti, Radu, Stefan Csangos’ Enigma, study which can be accessed at the address www.rocsangos.home.ro

“The rivers of ink which flowed in Budapest over this matter cannot change the course of history that already happened and the reality remains indisputable no matter how you look at it.

The Csangos declare themselves Romanian of Roman Catholic religion, as it can easily be seen both from the study of the documents at the museums, national archives and even at the Vatican, as well as from the direct observation of the traditions, the traditional costumes, the way of life identical to that of the Romanian people, the language used in schools or churches regardless of their Catholic or Orthodox denomination.

The archive documents and the historical research confirm a territory South – East of the Carpathians which was always inhabited by Romanians organized economically, politically, culturally, socially and religiously. The first migration took place in the 13th century when the Hungarian extended beyond the Carpathians where it encountered the resistance of the locals.

The Pope Gregory the 9th wrote un the year of 1234 to the king Bela of Hungary about the fact that the locals were not accepting Catholicism easily and that Transylvanians cross the Carpathians “…are joining the Wallachians and becoming one people with these”.

Catholicism as a religion, gains ground as a result of the efforts of some clerical personalities who had the same political and military interests to merge the South and East of the Carpathians territories as the Magyar kingdom had”.

Popescu, Ion Longin A False Problem. Csangos from Moldavia interviews with the Monsignor Stefan Erdes, dean of Bacau, professor doctor Anton Cosa, Gheoghe Bajan, the president of “The Dumitru Martinas” Roman Catholic Association of Moldavia – accessible on the virtual archive of the “Formula As” magazine www.formula-as.ro/reviste_498_44_-o-falsa-problema%93ceangaii%94-din-moldova%93am-fost,-suntem-si-vom-fi-romani%94...-.html

“And yet, you are called “Csangos” not “Romanians”. It seems that we are in the middle of an identity crisis… The so called identity crisis of this community represented and will represent a permanent false problem grafted especially on the interests which have their cause outside of Romania.

We practically assist at an aggression of the Romanian identity of the Roman Catholics. Against all evidences, out of at least, blamable reasons, which belong to the specific will/wish of glory and cheap fame of a certain nation, somebody allows him/herself to crucify a religious community in order to reach political goals. I find out with unlimited sadness that godless people come in the name of some chimaeras and stir the spirits of our community. What happens is, under a linguistic form, an attempt to apply a “final solution” to the Roman Catholic Romanians of Moldavia. Briefly, our truth is only one: we were, we are and we will always be Romanians in this too sweet, too wealthy and too tolerant country to be left alone”.

Florea, Ion A. Romanian Elements in the Structures of Surnames of Catholics in Moldavia, study accessible on the address convorbiri-literrare.dntis.ro/IFLOREAnov3.html

“The system of surnames of Moldavian Catholics as it comes out the materials ulterior to the 17th century up to the present, brings out numerous Romanian elements which can be reported either to the pan – Romanian onomastics, either to the Transylvanian Romanian onomastics. As Dumitru Martinas thought it in the book of his life, the origin of the Moldavian Catholics without excluding the subsequent major contribution of the Moldavian elements to the foundation of their individuality must be searched for in Transylvania especially in the zones close to Moldavia in the “Szekler Region” (in which Romanians were denationalized through language and name as G. Popa – Lisseanu demonstrated by obvious examples in his book “The Szeklers and the Szeklerisation of the Romanians”, Bucharest, 1932) as well as in Nasaud, Tara Barsei and Tara Fagarasului and ever farther. (documents and examples are to be seen in Stefan Metes “Romanian Emigration from Transylvania in the 13th – 20th Centuries” Scientific Publishing House, Bucharest, 1971)”'

Virlan – Blaj, Cerasela, Maria, Catholic Communities in Moldavia. Case Study: Villages with Roman Catholic in the Vicinity of the Town of Roman, accessible at the address www.jsri.ro/old/html%20version/index/no_3/cerasela_maria-articol.htm

“The Catholic population in Moldavia doesn’t raise serious question marks about the tolerance degree of the Romanian people, but it brought out serous problems to historiography. Claimed both by the Magyar historians and some of the Romanian historians as well, this population in majority declared themselves to be of Romanian origin during the census of 1992. The term “Csangos” used mainly to designate this population was used for the first time by Petru Zold in the 13th century wit6h the meaning of “half breed”, “mixed nationality” (we will see in what circumstances) and taken over by the Magyar historiography in the last decade and by the Romanian historiography also, but is not used and accepted by the great majority of people who are named this way, as the term is considered derogatory. The confusion starts from the fact that these communities are studied as an unitary homogenous whole although there can be observed obvious differences.”

The Truth about the Csangos in Romania – collection of articles about the Roman Catholic population in Moldavia, accessible at the address eresulcatolic.50webs.com/adevcg.html

“Who are the Csangos from Romania? Magyars, continuing their old policy forged documents and paid simple people who aren’t really familiar with history. (…) As it can be seen from the documents made available by the Romanian Csangos themselves, they don’t consider they are Magyar at all. Their language doesn’t have any Magyar influence, on the contrary”.

Chelaru, Ioan Csangos, from Enigma to the Truth, Senat Session of the 13th of February 2006, discourse accessible at the address www.cdep.ro/pls/steno/steno.stenograma?ids=6034&idm=3,02idl=1

“I consider that it is the time to assert, again, that we, those ones who represent this Christian Catholic minority in Moldavia, are the descendants of a Romanian Magyarised population and that we aren’t and have considered ourselves an ethnic minority. I don’t deny that we are and we probably will remain a religious minority, but that’s a totally different thing. (…) “I find that, in the last 10 or 15 years, appeared more theories and assertions with tendentious character concerning the involvement of the church in the so called assimilation policy which is supposedly brought against the Magyar Csangos, a consequence of these theories might be dividing the communities of the Catholic Christians in Moldavia. I have encountered extremely serous assertions totally unjustified against a church which promotes balance and harmony among its believers. Thus, it has come to the point where the Vatican was accused that by creating the Roman Catholic Bishopric in Iassi all that it did was to participate at the process of transforming the Magyar Csangos into Romanians”.

Bichir, Florian – “How to Invent a Minority. Attila the Godfather of the Moldavians!” In the magazine “National Geographic” the Csangos are presented as the direct descendants of Attila, “the Whip of God”!” – Documentary accessible at the address www,punctecardinale.ro/oct_2005/oct_2005_6.html

“Despite all the alarm signals drawn by the Roman Catholic Bishopric in Iasi and by the “Dumitru Martinas” Association or by the Romanian Academy, the attempt to Magyarise intensified in the region of the Roman Catholics of Moldavia. Scholarships granted to children who want to study in Magyar language, food help for the poor families who, in exchange, have to declare themselves Magyar, trips to Hungaria, all these in order to “buy the identity of as many Romanians possible”. The representants of the Romanian “Csangos” in the area accuse the forced Magyarisation policy which, not on a few occasions leads to open conflicts. Thus, on the 23rd of May 2005 the Magyar authorities inaugurated a Magyar school in the village Racaciuni from Bacau, manifestation which created the opportunity for real conflicts between Romanians and… Romanians. At the event were present: the wife of the Hungarian president, Mdal Dalma, the ambassador of Hungaria in Bucharest, Janos Tereny, and the executive president of UDMR, Csaba Takacs, this event consisted of putting a basement stone to the Magyar language school in Racaciuni, an initiative of the Csango Association in Romania which chose the premises for the education institution: one situated in the middle of a grain field that was bought with 87000 euros. A group of Romanian young people (with a Romanian flag and a banner which said: “We are Romanians”) wanted to attend the ceremony, but they were forbidden and weren’t allowed in. We have started with healthy principles. We considered that such a school doesn’t belong in a village where the majority of the population is made of Romanians” declared a group of young Catholics employees of the Foundation “Saint John Calabria” from the same village. Ionut Cici and Sebastian Unguru added that they had no intention of manifesting in any way, they simply wanted to be present there with the Romanian flag and their banner “in a sea of green – white – red”.

External links

• Template:En icon Template:It icon Template:Ro iconAssociation of Friends of Csangos
• Associaton of Csángó-Hungarians in Moldova
• The Csángó (Chango) minority culture in Moldavia (Romania)
• The Moldavian Csángós: ‘National Minority’ or ‘Local Ethnie’? by James A. Kapalo (M.A. Dissertation, 1996)
• Course of Csángó-Hungarian languages
• Template:Ro icon Fundaţia culturală Siret
• Template:Ro icon Comunitatile catolice din Moldova
• Course of Csángó-Hungarian languages
• Details about the Roman-Catholics from Moldavia, Romania
• Template:Ro icon Comunitatile catolice din Moldova