Moldavian Csángós

extract, Tamás Hofer (Budapest)

The Csángó Hungarians live outside the Carpathian Basin, east of the Carpathian Mountains, in the valleys and watershed areas of the Bistriµa (Beszterce) and Siret (Szeret) rivers, in approximately fifty scattered villages according to the estimates of the Encyclopedia of Hungarian Ethnography. The region where they live has never been a part of Hungary (or Transylvania). The name “Csángós” also suggests that they had been separated from their people and had settled in a foreign land. The original meaning of the word Csángó is namely a person or group of people who had drifted away and become separated from their community. The migration of Hungarian groups into Moldavia began in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The region served as a refuge for those who did not wish to be subject to the power of the Hungarian king. In the fifteenth century, southern Hungarian heretics, followers of John Huss from Prague, took shelter there. The first Hungarian translation of the Bible, the so-called Hussite Bible (only fragments of which have survived), was made in Moldavia, in the town of Târgu TrotuŘ (Tatros). In his early-eighteenth-century description of Moldavia, Dimitrie Cantemir, Prince of Moldavia, proudly mentioned that there were sixteen peoples and languages to be found there, among them also Hungarians, some of whom were servants of the princely court and others plowmen. Between 1703 and 1711 the War of Independence led by Ferenc Rákóczi II sent political refugees fleeing into Moldavia. During the reign of Maria Theresa another wave of migration began to drift towards Moldavia, when the previously free Székely peasants were organized into border guard units under strict military control. The various groups of people who settled in Moldavia in different time periods brought along and preserved different traditions, and thus medieval linguistic features and archaic elements of folk music, popular belief, and folk religious practices have survived in this region. The way of life of the Moldavian Hungarians, however, was also influenced by the culture of neighboring peoples, especially that of the Romanians. The Csángós are Catholics, which distinguishes them from other Moldavians even to this day. This is true even for those among them who have lost the Hungarian language.
The Csángós never had a chance to develop their own intellectual class. There have long been no Hungarian schools in Moldavia, and Hungarian-speaking Catholic priests have not been sent to minister to them. As far as the preservation of their Hungarian ethnic identity is concerned, the Csángós are in a very difficult situation. On the other hand, because of their isolation from the changes in Hungary, they have preserved numerous archaic traditions, and therefore by the twentieth century Moldavia had become an incredibly rich and unique storehouse of folkloric traditions that had been lost elsewhere. Moldavian Hungarians are “more traditional”, and they have remained more archaic in their clothing, folk songs, and customs than the neighboring Romanians, who took part in the “common Romanian” development.
Some scattered bits of information about the language and folklore of the Moldavian Hungarians reached Hungary in the nineteenth century. Linguistic and ethnographical research began in Moldavia in the early twentieth century, but its intensity lagged behind the research carried out among Hungarians and Romanians. In the 1940s and 1950s the Moldavian ballads which Zoltán Kallós had just started to collect around that time were still practically unknown. In 1962 I accompanied Kallós to Lespezi (Lészped), where I took the photos published below.
At that time everyone in Lespezi, with a few exceptions, was still wearing traditional, home-woven and sewn clothing both on weekdays and on Sundays. My hostess in Lespezi was an excellent singer, and she told me that as a little girl (she was at that time in her forties) she had known several long ballads. The other girls her age appreciated these ballads so much that when they were grazing the cows together they promised to lead her cow home if she would sing for them. Everyday life in those days was also interwoven with a fear of curses and witches.

Tamás Hofer (1929–), ethnographer, director general (retired) of the Hungarian Museum of Ethnography in Budapest. Main fields of research: settlement history; folk art; history of “national culture” and “national symbols”; national ethnographical studies. Major publications: Proper Peasants. New York. 1969 (with Edit Fél); Bäuerliche Denkweise in Wirtschaft und Haushalt. Eine ethnographische Untersuchung über das ungarische Dorf Átány. Göttingen. 1972; Geräte der Átányer Bauern. Budapest and Copenhagen. 1974; “Changes in the Style of Folk Art and Various Branches of Folklore in Hungary during the 19th Century.” Acta Ethnographica XXIX. 1980. 149–165; “Agro-Town Regions of Peripheral Europe: The Case of the Great Hungarian Plain.” Ethnologia Europaea XXIII. 57–77; “The Construction of the ‘Folk Cultural Heritage’ in Hungary and Rival Versions of National Identity.” Ethnologia Europaea XXI/2. 1991; (ed.) Népi kultúra és nemzettudat. Tanulmánygyűjtemény [Folk culture and national consciousness. Essay collection]. A magyarságkutatás könyvtára VII. Budapest. 1991; “Patron-Client Relations in Peasant Society.” In Social Networks. The Third Finnish-Hungarian Symposium on Ethnology in Konnevesi II. Helsinki. 1992, 31–40; “East and West in the Self-Image of the Hungarians.” In Teppo Korhonen (ed.) Encountering Ethnicities. Ethnological Aspects on Ethnicity, Identity and Migration. Studia Fennica Ethnologica 3. 215–238; (ed.) Hungarians between East and West. Three Essays on National Myths and Symbols. Budapest. 1994.

1. The Moldavian low, round table recalls an ancient European tradition. Briefly, its design goes back to an early form of table: a large round bowl had at some point been put on legs, and gradually over time, as the legs were lengthened, the bowl was lifted higher and higher off the ground.

2. A great part of a family’s wealth, as well as an indicator of a woman’s diligence, were the stacks of linen and woolen textiles folded in bolts and piled up to the ceiling on the box-seat. Long-shawls (hosszúkendô) and small, embroidered fancy handkerchiefs (servet) hung on the walls served not only as decorations: they were traditional gifts at wedding feasts, funerals, and other solemn or festive occasions.

3. In men’s clothing a special hood, independent of any coat or cloak, which used to be worn throughout medieval Europe, was preserved, together with a short, sleeveless fur coat with buttons on the side (called mellesbunda), once popular from Transylvania all the way to China.

4. Ballads: In the 1950s Zoltán Kallós was still able to collect folk music in a Moldavian village from a woman who knew 26 ballads with 406 stanzas. In 1962 ballads still did not constitute a fixed and unchanging body of knowledge in Lespezi. Both their lyrics and melodies could change, be expanded, or contaminated. Ballad singing was a means of reflecting upon one’s personal life, troubles, and sorrows. Changes of fortune, and the adversities and losses one experienced could thereb