Hungarian Studies Review Vol. 4., 1977
No. 2. Fall - Part III - Other Reviews: - ANDREW LUDANYI: Quo Vadis Transylvania?
REVIEW ARTICLE Quo Vadis Transylvania? Andrew Ludanyi The Hungarian Nationality in Romania. By Institute of Political Sciences and of Studying [sic] the National Question. Bucharest: Meridiane Publishing House, 1976. 53 pp. Transylvania: The Hungarian Minority in Rumania. By Julia Nanay. Problems Behind the Iron Curtain Series No. 10; Astor, Florida: Danubian Press, Inc., 1976. 85 pp. Scholars are hesitant to review books, pamphlets and other works which deal with problems on a non-scholarly level. This is a serious mistake. It leaves unevaluated the writings not only of unorthodox new talent, but also the writings of charlatans, propagandists and pseudoscholars. Yet, because the former are unrecognized and because the latter are unchallenged, society is shortchanged. Thus, unscrupulous and questionable sources may become respectable enough to be quoted for the documentation of misleading or erroneous assumptions and myths and illusions are perpetuated which should have been weeded out long ago. The perpetuation of such distortions of reality continues to plague the understanding of the historical role and the political relations of the peoples in East Central Europe as well. Two recent additions to such popular illusion-building have been the pamphlet published by the Rumanian Institute of Political Sciences entitled The Hungarian Nationality in Romania and the booklet compiled by J ulia Nanay for the Danubian Press of Astor, Florida, entitled Transylvania: The Hungarian Minority in Rumania. Both of these works were written in an emotion-filled atmosphere, seeking to justify the Rumanian and Hungarian positions respectively, relative to the treatment of Transylvania's inhabitants by the government of presentday Rumania.1 Both as works of propaganda and as sources of informa-