The Csángó

The Csango people are a group of ethnic Hungarians living in Romania.  While the origin of their name is debated, a popular theory is that it is derived from a word meaning "wanderer" or "one who became lost due to mischief."  Their reputation amongst Hungarians does suggest that they had a streak of rebelliousness.  One of the charges levied against the Csango people by outsiders was that they did not "respect the sanctity of marriage", for example.  (Another explanation is that "chango-ing" is an onomatopoeia for making noise to frighten away enemies from the Hungarian border, and thus they were a group placed on the borders of the kingdom of Hungary proper.)

The Csangos origins go back in history.  By the middle of the 15th century Christian missionaries were already sending Hungarian editions of the New Testament into Moldavia.  By the mid-1500's the Csangos were accepted as a recognized and established ethnic group in the region.  During the course of the centuries they faced differing levels of acceptance and persecution.  At times the rulers of the land ordered them to change their religion and took away their government; in other eras, they were given more freedoms.  Because of their religion, they maintained a separation from the largely Greek Orthodox Romanian people around them. In time, certain ethnic Romanians converted to Roman Catholicism and thus took up some of the Csango culture, but most of them never affiliated themselves with the minority in other ways - most importantly, the language.

Most Csango speak a dialect based on Old Hungarian, even though most of them today mostly speak Romanian.  The dialect is difficult to understand for many speakers of modern Hungarian because of their unique pronunciation of consonants and vowels alike that do not have counterparts in traditional Hungarian.  They also have a significantly different vocabulary with unique words and sayings.  The Hungarian language underwent major changes during the Age of Enlightenment, but the Csango dialect, due to the isolation of its speakers, did not.  Rather, it was influenced by the language of the Romanian people they lived amongst.

The Csango were largely unschooled and illiterate, but possessed a rich folk culture of stories, dances, songs, and customs.  Many of these customs were intertwined with their Roman Catholic religion, and their children grew up learning Hungarian as their native language, regardless of what the official language of the countryside was at the time.  Csango music has many characteristics of Hungarian music, and the lyrics are in a Hungarian dialect as well.  However, the Csango remained stuck in time in a way.  Due to their isolation and lack of a nobility or intelligentsia, they never went through the various philosophical changes that Europe as a whole (including Hungary proper) underwent as the centuries advanced.

Traditionally the Csango territory encompasses around fifteen towns and their surrounding villages in western Moldovia.  It is estimated that there are about 60,000 to 70,000 people who speak the distinct Csango dialect, but it is hard to pin the number of members of the Csango community down more accurately because there are different definitions of who is Csango and who is not, based on factors such as ethnicity, religion, and language.  What is known is that in the 1850's, almost 40,000 individuals registered as Csango in the census.  By 1900, the number dropped to about 25,000.  In 1992, the number was down to slightly over 3,000, and in 2002, less than 1,500 people identified themselves as Csango on an official Romanian census.  [Other sources suggest that roughly 4,300 people declared themselves Romanian Hungarians and not even 800 declared themselves Csango in that year.]  However, the answer is not that clear.  Some people might identify as primarily Romanian due to fear of governmental retribution.  To complicate matters further, other sources have counted all Roman Catholics in the general region as belonging to the Csango group, and that number comes in at almost 120,000.  However, most of this latter group consider themselves to be fully Romanian, and reject the Csango label.

The Council of Europe released statements regarding their concern over the treatment of the Csango minority by the Romanian people, and expressed that their unique culture is an asset to the landscape of European heritage.  The Csango people have stated that they do not want to make political demands but rather wish to be recognized as a distinct culture and be allowed to educate their children in their native language.  When parents petitioned the government in the 1990's to allow Hungarian lessons in the area's public schools, they were ignored or met with refusals, and in 2001 the Romanian government banned Hungarian lessons even in private houses, and tried to intimidate mothers from teaching their children Hungarian.  When the Council of Europe protested, the government defended itself by saying that they wanted to prevent nationalistic ambitions from the local populace, who ought to consider themselves Romanian.  When the European Commission appointed teachers to the area schools to teach Hungarian, many students did not show up and the teachers were banned from many towns, with the villagers showing hostility to them.



Religion has also been a big issue, with the Csangos wanting to go to church services in their native language.  Between the world wars, the Romanian government attempted to force the Csangos to assimilate and give up their Hungarian loyalties.  The Romanian Catholic Church in the area was afraid that if it didn't cooperate with the local authorities, they would be banned from the area, and all the people would be forced to convert to Greek Orthodox.  As a result, the Roman Catholic Church stopped providing education or religious services in Hungarian.  The Vatican has since expressed its support in reintroducing services in Hungarian to the Csangos.  When the Romanian government refused, the Vatican sent missionaries to the area to convert the Romanian populace into Roman Catholics in hopes of increasing the Csango minority's numbers.  (The missionaries, like the teachers, did not tend to be well-received by the locals.) 

In 2006, Romania rejected communism and since then, the government has started trying to more objectively analyze the situation of the ethnic groups within its borders to see in what ways they might have been persecuted or oppressed, and also to analyze the effects of the historical involvement of the Roman Catholic church. 

The Csango anthem:

Csángo Hungarian, Csángó Hungarian,

What have you become, Csángó Hungarian.

You are a bird fallen from a tree branch

Abandoned and forgotten.

   

O God, what will become of us?

Our children and we will be lost!

That which was kept by our fathers,

Our beautiful language is being killed.

   

You settled down on a plain,

Which you called a country.

But you have neither country nor home,

Only God takes care of you.

   

We have heard that Hungary still stands,

Lord, we ask your blessing upon it as well

Let them take pity upon us

And not give us up for lost.

We're oppressed by a foreign tongue

Italian priests stand upon your neck

You're unable to sing or make your confessions,

Unable to pray in your mother tongue.

   

Because we are Hungarians as well,

Split from Asia in our past.

O God, guide our fate,

Don’t let the Csángó Hungarian be lost