• Home
  • Site map
  • Site design
• About us
  • Liz & Nick
  • Booklets
  • Dance teaching
• SE Europe
  • History
• Romania
  • Traditional Costume
  • Traditional Music
  • Traditional Dance
  • Ethnographic regions
  • Romanian History
  • Photo library
• Bulgaria
  • Traditional Costume
  • Traditional Music
  • Traditional Dance
  • Bulgarian History
• Links
  • Romania links
  • Bulgaria links
  • East Europe links

Please note: I understand that this challenges some common beliefs in identity of the Csango which have become politically associated with nationality.

 

Csango and "Nationality"

These pages discuss the peoples of Catholic religion living in Moldavia who are all or partially referred to as csango. Our interest is in the peasant culture and our initial introduction to the Csango was through the folk dance movement, but this is tainted with nationalistic ideals. There are polarised nationalistic views which aim to prove either that the Csango are "Hungarian" or "Romanian". The real situation is a more complex study of identities (from an anthological view) and historical possibilities. 

• for the Romanian view see for example: Martinas, D., The origins of the changos, Iasi 1999
• for the Hungarian view see for example: Halász, P., 'A moldvai csángók magyarság tuatáról', Nemzetiség-Identitás, ed Z. Újváry, Békéscsaba-Debrecen, 1991

The limited genetic research to date shows the csango (and Szekely) to have a substantial genetic pool close to Iranian, but are not close to the Uralic groups of the Magyar, possibly supporting the view that they have origins in Alans or Huns.  The research does not compare to an admix of Romanian as would be expected, but only to the Hungarian admix of Slav-German-Hungarian.

Csango and identity

The common feature of all csango is that they have ancestry in Transylvania. The term Csango in its widest use includes Hungarian speakers that moved from Transylvania to Bucovina in the 18th century, the Hungarian speaking peoples in the villages of the Gyimes pass, and a number of villages near to Braşov in Transylvania. The term first appeared in documents in the late 18th century. There are many suggested derivations of csango. Two examples are given below:

• from the Hungarian word Csáng to wander, stroll etc thus referring to the migratory character of the Csango.
• meaning "people who are separated" from csángani meaning to hybridize and was applied by the Szekely to the Romanians who changed to Catholic religion and became known as csángók.

An 'identity' is governed by how a group choses to identify themselves and how they are separated by their neighbours, this may have no correlation with criteria such as nationality, genetic ancestry, culture, religion, or language. An ethnographical definition for the Csango based on anthropological identity could be defined as:

• Roman Catholic observance
• Csango-Hungarian or Csango-Romanian fist language
• Geographic location within either of two small zones of Moldavia

For a non nationalistic discussion see Kapalo, J., The Moldavian Csango: 'National Minority' or 'Local Ethnie'?.(REF)

The Hungarian ethnographers generally define the Csango by the use of Hungarian dialects which leads to a northern group (near Roman), a southern group (near Bacău) and a Szekely group. The later Szekely group having moved from Transylvania only in the late 18th century and 19th century, whereas the former have history from medieval times. It is also common to define Catholics of Moldavia as Csango which includes greater numbers of people with different histories.

The Romanian language is fast replacing Hungarian, and those moving away from the geographic location assimilate into the Romanian towns. This speed of this assimilation is likely to increase in the future as rural depopulation is an inevitable consequence of modernisation in Romania.

Who are the Csango?

All these groups of peoples are generalised under the single term of csango, but to understand one must separate them by their various origins, histories and circumstances, and separate the religious and nationalistic politics that overwhelm many of the common beliefs. The following table summarises the Catholics of Moldavia which amounted to 240,000 people in the 1992 censes.

Circumstances	Religion	Ancestry	Language	Culture	Where now	Numbers 1992
Catholics from medieval times of Cumania	Catholic	Cuman, Hungarian, Romanian	Romanised	Romanised		low
People who moved from Transylvania to Moldavia in the middle ages	Catholic	Hungarian	dialect Hungarian, but being replaced by Romanian	Romanised	Sabaoani and neighbouring villages (north of Roman) and Valea Seaca and neighbouring villages (south of Bacau)	34,000 Catholics in these villages (17,700 dialect Hungarian speakers), others suggest fewer
Szekely who fled from the 1764 massacre	Catholic	Szekely	Szelely dialect of Hungarian & Moldavian Romanian	Still some Szekely	Moldavia - in particular Trotus and Tazlau valleys, and south of Bacau	~25,000
Szekely who moved to Bucovina in 1775 when it became part of the Austrian Empire	Catholic	Szekely	Szelely dialect of Hungarian	Szekely	now relocated to Deva (Transylvania) and Hungary	~1000 in 1940
Peoples from the Szekely region of Transylvania who moved to Moldavia from the 18th century	Catholic	Szekely	Szekely dialect of Hungarian	Szekely	Moldavia - in particular Trotus and Tazlau valleys, and Siret valley south of Bacau and north of Roman	70,000 Catholics (45,000 Szekely  Hungarian speakers), proportion Hungarian vs Romanian debatable
	Catholic	Szekely	Romanised	Romanised
	Catholic	Romanian	Transylvanian Romanian / Szekely  Hungarian	Romanian
	Catholic	Romanian	Transylvanian Romanian / Szekely  Hungarian	Romanian, but 'Magyarised'
	Greek Orthodox	Romanian	Transylvanian Romanian / Szekely  Hungarian	Romanian		<2000
Former Hapsburg region of Bukovina	Catholic	Polish, German, Ukrainian				9,500
other Catholics outside villages with Hungarian speakers.	Catholic	can be debated!	Romanian	Romanian		~127,000