Hungarians in Moldavia

extract, Vilmos Tánczos (Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

1. The Term “Csángó”
Csángó is the official designation as well as the popular name for Hungarians living in Moldavia. Ethnic Hungarians living in the GhimeŘ (Gyimes) Pass and in SĄcele (Hétfalu) near BraŘov (Brassó) are also called Csángós, and the term is sometimes used even for those Székelys who, having migrated eastwards to Bukovina in the late eighteenth century, were later resettled in the Carpathian Basin. The etymology of the name of this ethnic group reveals an interesting detail in the history of the Csángós: according to a widespread, yet never fully verified hypothesis, the word Csángó derives from the verb “csang”/”csáng” (i.e. to wander, stroll, ramble, rove, etc.) and thus the name of this ethnic group clearly refers to the migratory, colonising character of the Csángós (Benkô 1990: 6; Gunda 1988: 12–13; Szabó T. 1981: 520).
The Moldavian Hungarians themselves do not constitute a homogeneous group, either historically or linguistic–ethnographically. The majority of researchers disagree with the use of the term Csángó as a general designation for them, preferring to differentiate between the earlier Moldavian Hungarians who were settled there in the Middle Ages, and the fleeing Székelys who arrived in the seventeenth–nineteenth centuries (most of whom arrived at the end of the eighteenth century). Some researchers speak about Moldavian Hungarians and Moldavian Székelys (Lükô 1936; Mikecs 1941), while others use the terms Csángó Hungarians and Székely Hungarians to distinguish between the two groups (Benkô 1990). The use of the name Csángó in its broadest sense is quite common, however, even among historians, linguists, and ethnographers. Due to the processes of assimilation and acculturation, differences between the traditional folk culture, language, historical consciousness, etc., of the two groups are disappearing to such an extent that the Székely population whose ancestors never considered themselves Csángós now seem to accept this designation. Today, both groups use the term to describe someone who belongs to neither side, someone who is no longer either Romanian or Hungarian, while at the same time it has come to have the pejorative connotations of imperfection and degeneracy.

Ferenc Szabó and his family (Galbeni/Trunk, 1929). Photo: Pál Péter Domokos (Hungarian Museum of Ethnography, F 6880).