A remarkable work of scholarship and of fieldwork, Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town should be read by every social scientist interested in nationalism, or ethnicity, or community life, or Eastern Europe. It does a terrific job of showing how large-scale social changes and projects of identity play out in a local context. Along the way it raises important questions for both social theory and public affairs. It should shape discussion for years to come. -- Craig Calhoun, Social Science Research Council For over a decade, Rogers Brubaker has been calling into question the entire edifice underpinning the study of ethnicity by challenging the idea that ethnicity is about real groups founded on 'Ethnic identities.' This superb book on Hungarians and Romanians in a Transylvanian town amply demonstrates the fruitfulness of his conception. Not only will this be the definitive statement on contemporary ethno-national relations in this very complex region in Europe: it will become a classic for the analysis of such relations in many other parts of the world. -- Katherine Verdery, Graduate Center, City University of New York Here in this uncommonly sensitive study, Rogers Brubaker employs perspectives and analytical idioms rarely coupled in the study of ethnicity and nationhood as applied to a distinct geographical area. We are taken to Cluj, a city in western Romania scarcely known to the West but one whose profile fairly shimmers on the page with tensions accruing from a combined and culturally rich Hungarian-Romanian past. The author probes the symbolic and ritualistic aspects of daily life in the surrounding area, leading to groundbreaking views on ethnicity. -- Istvan Deak, Columbia University This wonderful book will be welcomed by students and scholars of ethnicity, because there are so few, if any, other studies that look closely at how decisions about one's ethnicity and nationality are actually made. The first half provides an excellent review of Cluj's and Transylvania's history, and the detailed examination of life in Cluj that makes up the second half represents a unique contribution to our understanding of how ethnicity really functions in a contested space. -- Daniel Chirot, University of Washington, author of "Modern Tyrants" A fine book that will be widely read and influential. Not only does it serve as an empirical companion piece to the more theoretical essays in Rogers Brubaker's Ethnicity without Groups, it also breaks new methodological ground while presenting a clear and subtle analysis of complex, little researched, but important social patterns associated with that trademark of modern times, the 'nation' or ethnic group. -- Jeremy King, Mount Holyoke College, author of "Budweisers into Czechs and Germans"
List of Illustrations xi Preface, by Rogers Brubaker xiii Acknowledgments xix A Note on Names, Transcriptions, and Citations xxi List of Abbreviations xxiii Introduction 1 Part One: Nationalist Politics, Past and Present 23 Chapter 1: The National Question in East Central Europe 27 Empire and Nation 30 Historical and Ethnocultural Claims in the Habsburg Lands 34 Ethnic Intermixing and National Conflict 37 Nationalist Claims and Counterclaims 39 The National Question Recast 43 World War II and After 50 Chapter 2: Transylvania as an Ethnic Borderland 56 The Three Nationes 57 1848: The Emergence of Modern Nationalism 60 Dualist Hungary as a Nationalizing State 63 Nationalization Reversed 68 War and Regime Change 76 The Return to the "Nation" 82 Chapter 3: From Kolozsvar to Cluj-Napoca 89 Kolozsvar in Nationalizing Hungary 91 From Kolozsvar to Cluj 97 Once Again in Hungary 101 The Transition to Communist Rule 105 The Romanianization of Cluj 109 Chapter 4: Cluj after Ceausescu 119 The Re-emergence of Ethnopolitical Contention 122 The Struggle over Separate Schools in Cluj and Targu-Mures 127 Gheorghe Funar and the Nationalization of Public Space 136 Reproducing Ethnicity: A Hungarian University in Cluj? 146 Counting and Categorizing 151 Conclusion 160 Part Two: Everyday Ethnicity 167 Chapter 5: Portraits 173 Mari and Family 173 Emilia 176 Karcsi and Agi 178 Ana 182 Zsolt and Kati 184 Claudiu and Lucian 188 Chapter 6: Preoccupations 191 Getting By 191 Everyday Coping Strategies 197 Getting Ahead 201 Accounting for Success 205 Conclusion 206 Chapter 7: Categories 207 Asymmetries 211 Cues 217 Doing Things with Categories 224 Ethnic and Regional Categories 231 Conclusion 237 Chapter 8: Languages 239 Interaction with Strangers 243 Private Talk in Public Places 246 Language Choice in Mixed Company 251 Language Mixing in Intraethnic Settings 259 Conclusion 262 Chapter 9: Institutions 265 Schools 269 Churches 277 Workplaces 283 Associations 287 Media 290 Conclusion 295 Chapter 10: Mixings 301 Disagreement and Conflict 303 Avoidance 307 Joking and Teasing 309 Choices 311 Conclusion 314 Chapter 11: Migrations 316 "Aici nu se mai poate" 316 Stigmatized Citizenship 321 The Ambivalent Homeland 326 Chapter 12: Politics 333 Funar 339 DAHR 343 Autonomy 346 Status Law 350 Conclusion 357 Epilogue 365 Appendix A: An Example of the Interactional Emergence of Nationalism 375 Appendix B: A Note on Data 380 Bibliography 387 Index 429
Rogers Brubaker is professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Margit Feischmidt is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Pecs, Hungary and a senior researcher at the Institute for the Study of Ethnic and National Minorities in Budapest. Jon Fox is lecturer in sociology at the University of Bristol. Liana Grancea is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
By drilling deep into the mundane conversations, cares, and relationships among citizens of Cluj-Napoca...[the authors] set out to examine precisely how ethnicity matters...[An] important and conceptually innovative book. -- Robert Levgold Foreign Affairs Provides a reality check for those who continue to operate under the myths of the past, while offering valuable insights into the mundane inner workings of everyday ethnicity in the old borderlands of the Russian, Turkish, and Austro-Hungarian empires...The most important contribution of the book is its ability to demystify nationhood in East Central Europe. -- Robert A. Saunders Transitions This fascinating, richly detailed, and highly informative study of Cluj in the mixed Hungarian-Romanian Transylvanian part of Romania is based on fieldwork conducted between 1995 and 2001...This is a must read for anyone interested in ethnic or national identity in eastern Europe or, indeed, in any area contested by groups using ethnic or nationalist symbols to announce their presence and promote their interests. -- D. Ashley Choice This substantial volume, with its vivid portrayal of the shifting dimensions of ethnicity in Romanian-Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca... is a welcome addition both to theory challenging romantic, essentialist identity models as well as to our knowledge of the inner workings of central European life... Given its strong arguments and impressive array of data about the resourceful, performative, everyday qualities of ethnicity, this book deserves a wide readership. -- David A. Kideckel Slavic Review
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