Page - 340 - in Österreich-Ungarns imperiale Herausforderungen - Nationalismen und Rivalitäten im Habsburgerreich um 1900

© 2020, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847110606 – ISBN E-Lib: 9783737010603 threenationalities living inBras‚ov. 23 Itwasespeciallypainful for theHungarian politicians,whohadtofaceadirereality:mostHungarians inthecitybelonged to the lowersocial strata,andthosewhohadbetter socialpositonsweremainly state officials. The dreamofmillennialHungary encountered significant diffi- culties here,where an educated, prosperous, non-Hungarian elite successfully pursued its ownnational goals, and even the localRomanianswere in abetter positionthantheHungarians.24HoweverstrongtheHungariannationstatewas or wished to be, it had to face serious difficulties in these peripheral regions. Threemodelsofdifferentiated rule Maramures‚ andself-colonization The threemodels emergingoutof thevarious contextsof center-periphery re- lations were the conscious self-colonization carried out by the elite in Mar- amures‚, a full-fledged regionalist attempt inTransylvania that also tried toad- dresstheascendancyoftheRomaniannationalmovement,andminoritypolitics and nation-building realized by the local group of the dominant (or titular) Hungarians inBras‚ov. In this subchapter Iwill outline themost important fea- tures of these models, how they reconfigured local society, how they settled relationswiththegovernment(thecenter),howtheywererelatedtothepolitical strugglewithnationalmovementsandtheirnationalism,and, finally,how they shapedGreaterRomania, emerging fromtheruinsofdualistHungary. Maramures‚ had a peculiar social landscape that determined politics and administration in the region.The tight kinshipbonds connected anotherwise diversenobility thatnurturedaregional identity, too.Thesebondstranscended ethnicboundaries,whichwasotherwisenotinsignificant,butdespitethe–often bellicose – rhetoric ofMaramures‚ politicians in the county congregation, the nobility offered solidarity to all itsmembers irrespective of ethnicity, spoken language, or religion. Solidarity, in this case, usually meant employment and advancement in the administration or in the judiciary, and participation and cooperation in theassociational lifeof the county.Thosewhowerepartof this elite of noble origin also received symbolic recognition in various forms, in- cluding laudatoryobituaries.25 23 B#lintVarga-Kuna,TheMonumentalNation.MagyarNationalismandSymbolicPolitics in Fin-de-siHcle Hungary, NewYork/Oxford 2016; Harald Roth, Kronstadt in Siebenbürgen. EinekleineStadtgeschichte,Köln2010. 24 Varga-Kuna,TheMonumentalNation(seenote23). 25 Cieger,Prdekek8s strat8gi#k(seenote20),p. 92–94. GáborEgry340