The Transylvanian Question

Abstract

While Magyar nationalists ardently sought to reclaim all the territories and populations torn from “historic” Hungary by Trianon, no loss was more galling or more fervently disputed than Transylvania’s. (See Map 44.) Their attempts to gain international redress on this issue began at Versailles in the negotiations leading up to the treaty. They were actively continued through the Minorities Question Section of the League of Nations’ Secretariat and through the national and international print media. The Magyar nationalists’ unwillingness to let their Transylvanian cause subside from international notice forced the Romanian nationalists to respond in kind. Although from 1919 until 1940 both the Magyars and the Romanians poured mountains of statistical data relating to demographic, economic, and political issues into supporting their respective arguments, the heart of both sides’ cases justifying their conflicting claims on Transylvania was historical. The incessant public dispute between them soon became known as the “Transylvanian Question.” It lasted as an open diplomatic and media sore until 1940, when Hitler attempted to force a compromise solution on the two sides; thereafter, the end of World War II and the subsequent submergence of both contending parties beneath the tide of communism hid the conflict below the surface of Soviet-imposed international socialist brotherhood.