Romanians say Hungary wants Transylvania back

source: Polgáriszemle - Trianon

In the opinion of almost two-thirds of Romanians, Hungary wants to take Transylvania back for itself.

The statement is not new or shocking information. The issue of Transylvania, being part of “Great Hungary” until the end of the First World War, is still causing daily turbulences more than 100 years after the incident. Many Hungarians, whose ancestors became foreign citizens on the other side of the border, would like to recuperate the territory. A portion of the descendants of these ancestors, who are now Romanian citizens, would prefer to belong to Hungary and be reunited with their roots. On the other hand, Romanians are comfortable with the current situation and do not like at all the idea of Hungary trying to regain the territory that was once part of the country.

From time to time, public surveys or studies conducted by a private entity are published to show the opinion of the general public. A month ago, INSCOP Research, a private research company, published its findings related to the standpoint of Romanians they asked. That time, almost half of Romanian citizens asked by the company answered that Hungary was seeking to break Transylvania away from their country.

The new survey conducted by the Laboratory Analysing Warfare Information and Strategic Communication (LARICS), operating under the Romanian Academy, states that nowadays, even more people,

almost two-thirds of Romanians think that recuperating Transylvania is still one of the biggest objectives of Hungary.

As Fötér writes, the representative survey asking the opinion of 1,000 people via a phone call between April 12 and 13 clearly shows that 66.2% of people asked agree with the statement that Hungary is working towards its goal to separate Transylvania from Romania.

Many Romanians not only think that Hungary wants to acquire territory for itself but they go further with their accusations.

63.6% of them think that Hungary actually interferes in Romanian internal affairs in an unmaintainable way.

However, the survey does not specify what this statement means exactly.

The news site also mentions the interesting fact that further percentages show. According to the answers, we can say that Romanians fear Hungary more than Russia or China. When asked an almost identical question of whether these two superpowers try to meddle with Romanian internal politics, only a little over 45% of the people said yes to Russia and even fewer of them, 21.9%, said the same about China.

It is very interesting, though, that despite the negative view on the whole of the country and thus on the Hungarian government, 47.5% of them still have a very positive opinion of PM Viktor Orbán, seeing him as a politician committed to peace.