 | Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania: Encyclopedia II - Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania - History
Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania - History
UDMR was founded during the Romanian Revolution of 1989, on December 25, 1989, by Domokos Geza, a Moscow-educated communist politician of Romanian origin. UDMR defined itself as one of the political groups that fought against Nicolae Ceauşescu.
The context in which UDMR was created was very complex. After WWI, Hungary has started a revanchist campaign to recover the territories it lost after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Among these territories was Transylvania, which became part of Romania after that war. This revanchist campaign took a new turn in 1968, when Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu took a pro-Western attitude and condemned the USSR's invasion of Czechoslovakia, which put an end to the Prague Spring. In that moment Moscow decided to support Hungary's interests against Romania's in order to attack Ceauşescu's regime. This resulted in a wave of anti-Romanian agitation and propaganda that the Budapest government conducted on Romanian territory, especially by using the network of Hungarian Protestant churches.
Until 1996, the UDMR played an isolated role in the Romanian political life. In 1996 the party governed in a coalition with the Convenţia Democrată Română (CDR) - a wide alliance that succeeded in winning the elections that year - and obtained some positions in the government of Victor Ciorbea.
Four years later, the formerly-in-opposition Social Democratic Party of Romania (PSD) won the 2000 elections. Although UDMR did not join the new government as a coalition partner, it did sign a series of annual contracts with the PSD in which the PSD pledged to implement certain legal rights for the Hungarian minority community in return for UDMR's support in parliament.
In the 2004 elections, the UDMR made an alliance to back Adrian Năstase of the Social Democratic Party, who was the favourite to win the presidential elections, but the surprise victory of Traian Băsescu rocked the Romanian political spectrum. After negotiations, the UDMR, together with the Romanian Humanist Party (now the Conservative Party), defected from the PSD alliance and pledged to form a coalition with the Justice and Truth Alliance. The UDMR obtained positions in the government.
In all of the alliances it has been member to, the UDMR has requested various educational and economic rights for ethnic Hungarians. Almost all of the requests of UDMR can be found among the elements promoted by Budapest with Soviet backing in the 1970s and 1980s. However, they are also in line with typical European Union expectations for the treatment of ethnic minorities.
Other related archives1989, 1996, 2004 elections, Adrian Năstase, As of 2004, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Budapest, Béla Markó, Conservative Party, Convenţia Democrată Română, Czechoslovakia, December 25, European, Hungarian, Justice and Truth Alliance, László Tőkés, Moscow, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Political parties, Prague Spring, Protestant, Romania, Romanian, Romanian Revolution of 1989, Romanian language, Social Democratic Party of Romania, Traian Băsescu, Transylvania, USSR, Victor Ciorbea, Viktor Orbán, bishop, chauvinism, communist, ethnic Hungarians, ethnic nationalism, ethnically, high schools, left, nationalist, political spectrum, prime minister, revanchist, right
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
