Tschangos

A Tschango couple from Moldova in traditional costume

The word Tschangos (also: Tschangonen , Hungarian : csángó or csángók , Romanian : ceangăi ) is a collective term for:

The Roman Catholic population of the Moldova region whose mother tongue is Romanian or Hungarian .
The Hungarian-speaking groups in south-east Transylvania , who differ from the Szeklers primarily in their dialect and traditions.

It is the present participle of an almost extinct Hungarian verb csángál , meaning 'to wander , to separate'.

The Hungarian ethnic group that separated from the Szekler group and settled in the Ghimeș Valley along the Trotuș River is known as the Gyimeser Tschangos . The Hungarians who live southeast of Kronstadt in the Seven Villages are known as the Seven Villages of Tschangos .

The word Tschango is of a very derogatory nature in Transylvania and was never used there as a self-term, but always used by the Szeklern as a foreign name for this ethnic group. This term does not have a negative meaning in Moldova.

The Tschangos are primarily understood to be the Moldovan Tschangos. These are also described in this article.

The origin of the Moldovan Tschango-Hungarians

Tschangos ("Tchangei") in Moldova (1861)

Science has been researching the origin of the Tschangos since the 18th century. Although folklore, linguistics, historiography and even archeology have forged theories in this regard, no real results have yet been achieved in answering fundamental questions.

What is certain is that the Hungarian-speaking population of the Vltava consists of two parts: those who settled in the Trotuș and Tzlău valley, the "Szeklerungarn", and the group that is located northeast, on the middle course of the Szeret river, on the lower reaches of the Moldova and Beszterce rivers, the "Tschangoungarn".

Their customs and dialects differ, which is why it is believed that the origins of the two groups are different. Gunda believes, taking into account the results of ancient studies, that “the Hungarians living in the vicinity of Bacau and Roman are the descendants of those Hungarians who remained outside the Carpathian Mountains when the land was conquered. They have been living in the Moldova region without interruption since the conquest. ”This view corresponds to the romantic, transfigured direction of Hungarian folklore and is very unlikely.

Lajos Benkő is not convinced of Gunda's arguments; he takes a different point of view, relying on linguistics . He uses the self-designation "Tschango" to help, which is derived from the Hungarian verb csáng , which means 'to roam around'. That is why he believes that this ethnic group moved away from their original place of residence, relocated. He is also convinced that the geographical names in the Tschango area are of Hungarian origin, but from the lack of the oldest Hungarian name types, the names of the conquering tribes, names that end in - i , he concludes that the Tschangos end at the earliest in the 13th century had settled in today's area.

dialect

The dialect of the Tschangos shows certain parallels to the dialect of the Transylvanian Heath (in the area east of Cluj-Napoca / Transylvania). Therefore, it can also be assumed that the Tschangos broke away from the Hungarian-speaking groups that settled there, continues Benkő.

Csángós as a border guard

Géza Ferenczi believes that the Csángós were border guards of the Hungarian Gyepű system , who guarded the border castles and the border strip after the end of the Hungarian occupation of Transylvania towards the end of the 11th century, but due to the immigration of the Szeklers further and further east, into the Carpathians and beyond were pushed.

According to legend, the Tschango came to Moldova with Attila , but they could also be the Magyarized indigenous population. According to Hungarian mythology, the Szeklers and with them the Tschangos settled on the eastern edge of the Carpathian Basin as follows:

“With the troops dwindling, Csaba withdrew to return with his Asian relatives and to recapture the lost country. He takes Attila's holy sword with him to wash it clean in the waves of the sea that laps the eastern steppes so that it regains its magic power. At the outermost border of Transylvania, he leaves the Szeklers to watch and that they help him when he returns. When saying goodbye, the migrants sacrifice to fire, water, air and earth and afterwards they swear that if danger threatens they will return from the end of the world to provide help. The troops of Csaba had scarcely reached the foot of the snow-covered Carpathians when the peoples rose against the handful of Szeklers. Then the earth was frightened, the tops of the trees began to tremble and so gave news of the danger that threatened the brothers of the marching hosts. Some of the troops turned back and crushed the surprised enemies to dust. A year passed and the inhabitants of the valleys envied the Szekler for their peace and again threatened them with their armies. The brook flowed screaming into the river, the river into the sea, and this again brought the news to the departing host. The aid did not come too late and the Szeklers were rescued. After three years the Szeklers were surrounded by new peoples and a life-and-death struggle broke out between them. The wind no longer reached the migrants in Greece. But uniting with the storms of the steppe, he found the hosts far to the southeast. Csaba's people returned for the third time and helped his brothers to victory. Many years passed after that. From seeds, nut trees grew into old trunks, the sons aged and their grandchildren became brave men carrying weapons. Their diligence conjured up small settlements out of the jungle, the long stay made the sentry a sweet home. There was no one who dared to threaten the land of the Szeklers, which was under their own strong hand and that of an unknown army. But finally the old hatred of the neighbors broke out against the Szeklers, who were unique in their language and in their custom. Countless peoples rose to exterminate the Szekler. And they began to press their rocky home from all sides. The Szekler fought gloriously, but slowly he grew tired in the face of the overwhelming forces. The help is far, maybe it was forgotten. The brothers, from whom they separated at the time, had long dreamed in the bosom of the earth. But the star of the Szekler does not slumber. Remembering the victims, remembering the oath, he brings the news of the threat with waving flags into the heavenly halls. Downstairs the final battle is imminent, a handful of Szeklers face the overwhelming enemy, the beating of horses and the roar of weapons can be heard and radiant troops gather in the sky. The glorious slaughterbrothers who rushed to aid three times now come a fourth time. As mute ghosts, they ride in long rows across the star-studded sky to hurry to the aid of their brothers and descend where the blue vault of sky hugs the snow-capped peaks of the Szekler Mountains. There are no mortals who can stand before immortals. Fear takes possession of the sea of enemies, and they diverge without looking back. "

Dispute over the origin of the Tschangos

Romanian historiography has also tried since Romanticism to prove that the Romanian people descended directly from the Romans , this is called the Dako-Roman continuity theory. All foreign speakers living on Romanian territory, whose origin cannot be determined with absolute certainty, are, according to some nationalist scholars, Magyarized or Slavic proto-Romanians. This argument is certainly also applied to the Moldovan Tschangos, for example when they advocate mother tongue teaching.

Romanian linguists try to prove that the Tschangos belong to the group of the original Romanians as follows:

“The Tschangos use the word lér to denote their brother-in-law . This comes from the Latin levir , which is why Romanian linguists refer to it as the Romanian original word , and so the conclusion to a Magyarized Romanian indigenous population is not far away. The little word lér occurs not only in older Hungarian literature, but also in Hungarian dialects to this day ... "

DNA analysis suggests that there is no close relationship between Szeklers and Tschangos.

Usage of the Tschangos

Around 60,000 Moldovan Tschangos still speak the Hungarian language, while estimates suggest that the Tschango language is the mother tongue of more than 32,650 people. Since around 250,000 Roman Catholics live in the Moldova region, and it can be assumed that the majority of them are descended from the Tschango, Hungarian played a much more important role 100 years ago than it does today.

The language of the Tschangos has retained its ancient traits and is in the state in which Hungarian was when the Tschangos separated from the Szeklern. Since then they have lived in linguistic isolation, as their villages are relatively far away from the closed Hungarian language area, the Szeklern. The essential difference between Common Hungarian, which is also spoken by the Transylvanian Hungarians with less dialectic coloring, and Tschango-Hungarian was artificially enlarged in the first half of the last century, as some great poets and writers renewed Hungarian at that time. Most of the innovations were slowly adopted into everyday language and spread from the city to the countryside with increasing mobility, which led to the fact that today Hungarian speakers who do not come from the rural milieu hardly have any dialectic coloring in their language.

The Tschango-language area did not go along with these innovations not only because of its island existence, but also because of the lack of local spiritual leaders and mother-tongue schooling.

The roughly 60,000 Hungarian speakers in Moldova are therefore in a similar situation to the Burgenland Hungarians, who in their language structure and grammar - except for the additional voice assimilations introduced by the renewal of the language - have a good command of Hungarian, but have a strong influence on the vocabulary of their surroundings are. Just as the Burgenland Hungarians borrowed words from German for conversation and new inventions, abstract facts that are not related to everyday life and the rural milieu, while dialect speakers use high-level idioms , the Tschangos borrowed these words from Romanian. The number of Romanian words used by the Tschangos varies from village to village and also depends on the number of words in a settlement of the Hungarian mighty.

Today in Moldova one can no longer speak of the fact that Romanian influence would be limited to one or the other area of Tschango life. Today, the whole range of the Chango language is permeated by Romanian, as has been established over the past thirty years in the course of the not always easy surveys of an "Atlas of the Chango-Hungarian Dialect".

The language of education of the Tschangos is Romanian, which they also use when they are not in a family environment. There are hardly any monolinguals who only speak Hungarian if they have not already completely disappeared. The Romanian monolingualism is spreading more and more, in the still Hungarian-speaking villages a kind of mixed language, half-lingualism is to be found more and more often, which means that many of the Tschangos neither speak Hungarian nor Romanian in all its subtleties. Many are also no longer able to determine which expressions and formulations they use are of Hungarian or Romanian origin. The next step is complete Romanization.

Religion and Ethnic Identity

If one assumes the most likely origin theory of the Tschangos, namely that they emigrated from the Carpathian Basin sometime in or after the 13th century , it is clear that they did not take with them any sense of identity. The events that led to the formation of a Hungarian sense of identity, beginning with the battle of Belgrade against the Turks in 1456 up to the revolution against Austrian supremacy in 1848 , were of no concern to this group.

The Moldovan Hungarians never had their own secular intelligentsia who had been brought up in a Hungarian way and thus grew up in a Hungarian consciousness, no nobility, not even artisans. With the exception of a very short period of time, there was no mother tongue school.

Therefore, ethnic awareness could only be promoted by the spiritual guidance - who was not up to the task. In contrast to those around them, the Moldovan Hungarians were of the Catholic faith. This went so far that almost only endogamous marriages were concluded. Insistence on the Catholic faith is described in a diary entry of Mihály Bay , a Catholic priest who traveled through the Principality of Moldova , from 1706 :

"The people in Csöbörcs are so strong in their faith that they are more willing, even though an Orthodox pastor lives in the village, to bury their children unbaptized than to have them baptized by the Wallachian pastor."

The Moldovan Tschangos thus define themselves as an ethnic group exclusively through their religious affiliation; this fact has not yet received any attention in interethnic research. Even the Tschangos around Roman, although they are linguistically completely assimilated, sometimes, when asked about their ethnic affiliation, do not refer to themselves as Romanians, but as Catholics. This is the extreme form of the Chango identity consciousness, they do not know which ethnicity they belong to, only which they do not belong to.

The Tschangos who live around Bacau are more aware of their ethnicity. In numerous letters to the Pope they ask for Hungarian-speaking priests, like the population of Lespezi (Lészpéd) in 1960:

"[...] we do not ask for gold, diamonds or precious stones ... because you cannot give them to us. We are only asking for one small thing that you could give us very easily, at no cost ... limba maternă maghiară în biserică ... our Hungarian mother tongue in the church. "

Another factor that prevented a sense of identity from developing was the propaganda of the Romanian authorities and the Catholic authorities in Moldova that had been present for more than 100 years and that tried to make it clear to the Changos that they were not Hungarians, and that the idiom they speak is not Hungarian, but a distant variety.

Maintaining identity by the cantors

In addition to the pastor, only the cantor , who is called deák in most Moldovan-Hungarian villages , represented a certain ethnic spirit. The duties of the cantors in Moldova were much more extensive than those of the rest of the Hungarian settlement area.

The Moldova region was a mission area from the beginning of the 17th to the end of the 19th century, to which the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples was never able to send enough priests. This shortage of priests was only slightly alleviated by the establishment of a Catholic diocese of Iași in 1884 and the opening of a seminary two years later. The shortage of priests was still acute in the first half of the 20th century.

Each pastor had more than a dozen branch churches to look after, so the deák played an important role in caring for the spiritual life of the believers. The deák was almost always born and raised in the supervised village, so he had the necessary local knowledge and was familiar with the local religious traditions. He called the villagers to pray the rosary on Sundays, started the Hungarian hymns corresponding to the church year, gave the children religious instruction in Hungarian, carried out funerals and led various pilgrimages.

In addition to the Italian, Bosnian, Croatian and later Romanian priests who did not or did not want to speak Hungarian, the deák spoke to the population, which was therefore closely linked to him.

The end of the institution of the "deák" began between the two world wars as a result of an intensified nationalist Romanian state and church policy. The pastors trained in the Iași seminary “dismissed” the deáks working in the villages of the Moldovan Hungarians if they were not prepared to audition, pray and teach the children exclusively in Romanian.

The second Vienna arbitration award in 1940 radically worsened the situation of the Tschangos. In retaliation for the persecution of the Romanians in Hungary ( Northern Transylvania ), the Hungarian language and Hungarian songs were banned in the church by decree. Centuries-old tradition could only be continued in a family circle for a few years. After the war the situation improved somewhat. Today both the language of masses and the administrative language of the Catholic Diocese of Iași - which consists of many parishes that are still mostly Hungarian-speaking - are exclusively Romanian. The deáks , insofar as they were still alive or were able to train successors, continued their work in the family circle.

Hungarian lessons have been offered in the Tschango villages since the 2005/2006 school year.

Auto daffs

The deáks relied on various songbooks in their work, which was not just language maintenance . The best known is the Cantionale Catholicum , which had four editions between 1800 and 1806 and was owned by numerous deáks until the 1950s . Later these books were confiscated by the respective pastor , in Lujzikalagor even a public car dairy is said to have taken place, during which all Hungarian-language books that were found in the attic of the local church and in the parsonage were burned.

About the situation of the Csangó minority

In most of the Csangós villages, even where the ancients still speak the Hungarian dialect, the grave inscriptions are Romanian. The names of those who died at the beginning of the 20th century were also Romanized a long time ago. So was z. B. from János Gál Gal Ianos, from Mária Kovácsi Covaci Maria.

In Szabófalva / Sabaoni only a few speak Hungarian anymore. Some regret it. And the main reason for this forgetting is borne by the Catholic Church. The fact that one does not even speak Hungarian in front of the house is a consequence of the ban imposed by the pastors. The Church has been fighting against the use of Tschango-Hungarian for the last century. Even today, medieval phrases like “Ungureasca-i limbã dracului!” (Hungarian is the language of the devil!) Can still be heard through and through.

Antal Csicsó, vice chairman of the Union of Moldovan Tschango-Hungarians, which has its headquarters in Bacău, reports on the attempts of the Romanian authorities:

" In the Diocese of Moldova, which is directed from [Iași], 252,000 Catholics are registered. Of these, 200-220,000 are of Hungarian descent, but the four Tschango dialects are only spoken by 62,000 people. About half of them profess to be Hungarians, who wants to keep her language. "

" There was a Catholic diocese in Moldova as early as 1227, " continues Csicsó.

Since the 2005/2006 school year, Hungarian lessons have been offered in the Hungarian-speaking Tschango villages.

The Catholic Church and the use of language

From the 16th to 17th centuries, Polish, but mainly Italian and Bosnian priests were active in Moldova, and the Franciscans sometimes came over from Transylvania. The latter spoke Hungarian, the others found it very difficult to come into contact with the locals. All of them held their masses in Latin. Of course, the Italians found it much easier to learn Romanian than Hungarian, and they preferred to speak Romanian with their community, most of which spoke little Romanian. At confession they gave absolution "in general" to those who did not understand it.

In Iași , around 1810, some circulars were written on the usage of the language. The very first one forbade the use of "non-Moldovan" languages, including Hungarian. This first circular was then renewed every 10 to 15 years. Any expression in Hungarian was forbidden.

" It is very interesting that in the" more controversial "Tschango villages the use of Hungarian in church was allowed for about 25 years. [...] Hungarian songs were allowed to be sung during mass. Today however - as I have heard - the use of the Hungarian word within the church garden is strictly forbidden, the pastors even go so far as to forbid people to speak Hungarian at home. "

The attitude of the bishop of Hungarian origin

In vain one asked the Catholic bishop of Iasi, Petru Gherghel, who is also of Chango-Hungarian descent, to allow the Hungarian liturgy. And not just once. He was asked in 1991 , 1996 , February and May 1998 . With one exception, the bishop did not respond to these requests. One time his answer was a definite "no".

"The servant of the Catholic Church in Iași - like every one of his predecessors for two centuries - strives for the Tschangos to be absorbed as quickly as possible in the great Romanian sea"

- Csicsó

“I've thought a lot about how to change this situation. Our language, the most important part of our culture, has been banned for at least 200 years. Actually all other Hungarian expressions as well. That is why I am of the opinion that the bishop from Jászvásár has lost his moral right to be our spiritual guide, our guide in general. He turned against us. "

“Some of the Tschangos would like to belong to the Archdiocese of Alba Iulia. There have been innumerable attempts in this direction, but this is not possible due to current church laws. […] Only the smallest part of our work is of a cultural nature. […] Unfortunately we don't have enough money. [...] "

Individual evidence

↑ Siarl Ferdinand, the situation of the Csango dialect of Moldavia in Romania , Hungarian Cultural Studies, 2016 [1]
^ Migration Rates and Genetic Structure of two Hungarian Ethnic Groups in Transylvania, Romania. doi : 10.1111 / j.1469-1809.2007.00371.x