Tensions Without Solutions: Romanian-Hungarian Relations, 1987-89

Béla Révész

Abstract

Up to the middle of the 1980, Hungary gave refugees to the world; but from 1987, the country itself has also been admitting refugees. Between 1988 and 1995, more than 130,000 refugees were registered in the country. The number of those who arrived in Hungary and looked for the support of private persons, not registering themselves at the authorities can be much more. Among the reasons arising in the Hungarian-Romanian relationship, the first place was occupied by violent urbanization, the organized destruction of villages in Romania that began in 1987. Furthermore, the practice of Ceausescu’s dictatorship violating human rights also played a serious role, paired with the discrimination against Hungarian, German and Jewish minorities. The increasing number of social and economic problems is also one of the important factors of migration motives. The immigration of Romanian citizens demanded measures of border control, administrational control, state security and public safety from the part of the Hungarian law enforcement bodies, while the negotiations between the “allied parties” was also needed as much as diplomatic and international political solutions. During the examination of the complex problems of the migration process, the present research intends to turn the attention towards three characteristic motions, based on the contemporary documents: the secret service and political means of the realization of the Romanian urbanization program, the “events” occurring along Hungarian-Romanian borders, and the differences between the techniques of treating refugee affairs.

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