Talk:Babeș-Bolyai University/Archive 1

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November 2006 controversy

Recently an unregistered user added the following text at the end of the History section:

It has however been the sight of recent controversy as two Hungarian Professors were recently fired for hanging up ordinance signs such as "No Smoking" in Hungarian next to the Romanian versions. The two Professors were in fact implementing a decision of the Academic Senate which had been reached a year before but never acted upon. The decision to fire the Professors has met with much controversy amongst the universities academic community.

I have removed it from the article as it was inaccurate and very POV, and I don't think it is something that needs to be added in the article. It was a disciplinary action decided by the whole Senate (including the majority of its Hungarian members). If the author of the text insists to have something about those events into the article, then I definitely don't think it should be in the History section. And of course, it should be written in a NPOV way. But I repeat, I really don't think that it is something that worths mentioning in a Wikipedia article. Because if we start to do that, then we will have to add something in here every time someone is fired. Alexrap 14:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I will put it in a language you can understand.
PROTEST
În data de 26. noiembrie 2006, Senatul UBB a decis excluderea pe motive disciplinare a două cadre universitare, Péter Hantz şi D. Lehel Kovács. Din scrisoarea a prorectorilor Levente Salat şi László Nagy, rezultă că excluderea s-a efectuat în mod neregulamentar din mai multe puncte de vedere.
Nu putem să fim de acord în totalitate cu obiectivele asumate de către CIB. Totodată protestăm împotriva excluderii din universitate pe motivul exprimării opiniei, chiar dacă aceasta depăşeste forma declaraţiilor şi - respectând regulile democraţiei - se obiectivează in acţiuni.
Multilingvismul este cadrul natural al educaţiei şi cercetării universitare moderne, astfel este inexplicabil de ce conducerea actuală a universităţii tergiversează instalarea inscripţiilor în limba maghiară.
Suntem convinşi că exprimarea liberă a opiniilor şi dreptul la critică este condiţia de bază a funcţionării universităţii, de aceea ne rezervăm dreptul de a ne exprima punctele de vedere în mod nuanţat fără a deveni subiectul unor jocuri care doresc să ne scindeze pe criterii etnice.
Haven't you learned with the EU and the end of the communism you can't just keep discriminating the Hungarian minority as you please? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.182.70.182 (talk) 09:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC).
This being the English Wikipedia, it helps more if your edits are in English. Also, please sign your posts. Now a few points about the controversy. There are two separate things that are worth explaining in here and I'll try to do that now:
1) About the bi-lingual signs in the BBU buildings. Well, it is common sense that the institution itself is the one responsable for posting those signs and you cannot have individuals posting those signs wherever and whenever they wish to do so. Also, it is at least funny to see that exactly the ones who are asking for an ethnical division of the university (against its multicultural status) try to make us believe that some "No smoking" signs in Hungarian would improve the same multicultural attribute they are fighting against. The university is an example of multiculturalism in Europe and several independent reviewers have attested this status. And it is not for the "No smoking" signs, but for the large number of Hungarian specialisations and the fact that the Hungarian sections of every faculty decide for themselves. Also, it is common knowledge within the students of the BBU (both Hungarians and Romanians) that the Hungarian students are positively discriminated every year in the admission exams by getting access to free education with significantly lower marks than their Romanian colleagues.
2) Why were the two lecturers fired? They were fired for repeated actions and statements against the institution where they were working. I don't know any place in this world where an employee repeatedly asking in the media for the destruction of the institution, would not be fired by his/her employer.
However, as I already said, personally I don't think that the incident is worth mentioning in this article. But if you insist to put it, then try to write it in a Wikipedia NPOV manner and find an appropriate section for it ("History" certainly is not an appropriate one). And again, please sign your contributions. Alexrap 12:43, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

This page is deeply biased, because firstly, lots of sources are from the management of the university, which is accused of not respecting the rights of the hungarian minority on the university. Therefore there views cannot be taken as facts but as opinions of one side. Secondly, I added the views of Imre Kertész on this issue, but someone has removed them. He is a Jewish Hungarian author, Holocaust concentration camp survivor, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002. Thus, I think it should be quite obvious, that his views on this issue is unarguably considerable, and cannot be ignored! And thirdly, the source is not available for this statement at all: "The exclusion was not an ethnic based disciplinary action, because all German, Jewish members and the majority of the Hungarian and Romanian members voted for the exclusion.[4]" So I readded the views of Imre Kertész on this issue, and hopefully, this time they won't be deleted! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.0.164.59 (talk) 07:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Another point is, why this page is deeply biased, that only the two lecturers's actions are called "controversial", while the decision of the Senate of the University, which was even more controversial, is not.

And again, the page keeps the fact quit, that dozens of renowned academicians, including Nobel Prize Laureates Eli Wiesel and George Andrew Olah have urged the re-establishment of a state-funded Hungarian Bolyai University. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 22yossarian22 (talk • contribs) 12:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The following statement is both very misleading and unsourced: "Péter Hantz and Lehel Kovács, both lecturers at the Babeş-Bolyai University started a series of controversial actions in October 2005, when the two lecturers organized a demonstration in front of the university's main building to campaign for the splitting of the University and re-establishment of an Hungarian university based on ethnic grounds.".

It is especially false, because the two lecturers, contrary to the statement above, wouldn't like to create a university based on ethnic grounds, but a university where the hungarian minority and everyone, whose mother tounge is Hungarian can learn in their native language. So the statement in this form suggests that the two lecturers campaigned for the establishment of a racist university. Therefore I recommend to delete this part "based on ethnic grounds" from the article. If no reasonable point will be mentioned as to why should it remain, and it will not be removed for more, then I myself will remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 22yossarian22 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Misinformation and Falsehoods Propagated on the Babes-Bolyai University Website

I think this page should also mention some of the statements of the following article, in order to become more balanced and unbiased: "Misinformation and Falsehoods Propagated on the Babes-Bolyai University Website" (source: http://www.hhrf.org/newsletter/02/ the relevant article can be found at the bottom of the page). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.0.164.59 (talk) 08:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Different perspective

Thanks for the update on the wikipedia etiquette, I am working on a profile and want to become part of the community. Also, if this talk page is the incorrect place to carry out this debate please fill me in. I am neither Hungarian nor Romanian, but have had the fortune of living in both countries. I enjoyed Romania immensely, but I have to admit that I and countless foreigners have had the experience that the worst place to learn about Romanian history is Romania itself. I come from Arizona, on land that surely once belonged to Native Americans. The Americans committed genocide against the Native Americans, you can only find them in Arizona in pockets now. However, growing up in Arizona on land that once belonged to Native Americans seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me. I imagine that is how most Romanians must feel, that growing up in houses and land expropriated from Hungarians and Germans is the most natural thing in the world. I am by no means using the word genocide to describe what happened in Transylvania, I just wanted to say that taking over someone else's property and calling it your own is the easiest thing in the world. How else can you describe how Oradea, Timisoara and Cluj have all gone from being 80-90% Hungarian to having less than 20% in Cluj and Timisoara. Furthermore, if in Arizona a Mexican Professor hung a sign up in Spanish there might be some debate but he would not be fired. I, and I think most EU citizens and informed Americans, view the recent firings in Cluj as a symbol of how little civil society and openness towards the past exists in Romanian society. John Lazio —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.182.70.37 (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

I am sorry to say but you are very disinformed about the historic Transylvanian population. As a Transylvanian Romanian, I feel quite offended by your statements. I will try to offer you some facts that will hopefully give you a true image of the issue.
1) Romanians have always been a large majority in Transylvania and this FACT was attested by all the Censuses. We all know how Censuses were organised in the past by the authorities (who were trying to artificially increase the numbers they liked). However, even these censuses (conducted by the Hungarian authorities) showed that in Transylvania, during the Hungarian occupation (e.g. in 1869) Romanians were 60% of the total population and Hungarians only 25%. After almost 150 years, the corresponding percentages changed to 74.7% and 19.6%, respectively. This means that in almost 150 years (most of them of Romanian rule in Transylvania), the percentage of Hungarians remained more or less the same. I really cannot understand how you can compare their situation with that of the Native Americans.
2) Yes, many Transylvanian cities used to be largely Hungarian or German (Timişoara never had more than 40% Hungarians though), but you should ask yourself why was that the case, in a region where Romanians were a large absolute majority. The answer is that the Romanians were not allowed by the authorities to settle into the cities. They had no social rights, although the cities were built with their work also.
3) After the integration of Transylvania in Romania, it is true that the percentage of the different ethnic groups in the cities changed significantly. But this was just a result of the natural process of urbanisation. The cities grew, and like everywhere else in the world, they grew with people from the surrounding rural areas (that were largely Romanian). In this way the ethnic composition of the cities became more or less like the ethnic composition of the Transylvanian counties. Could you tell me what is wrong with that?
4) The expropriated land and houses that you mentioned were a result of the end of modern feudalism maintained in Transylvania for too long by the Hungarian authorities. Who should make use of the land and houses if not the population that built them and had not been allowed to enjoy them before? Do you suggest that the Romanian authorities after 1920 should have kept the feudal society in Transylvania?
I am quite amazed how someone that shows an interest into a problem (like you seem to show into the Transylvanian problem) is so much disinformed and can make judgements and statements like you just did. Also, the history of a place can never be understood better than in that particular place. You just have to try to get all the relevant information (nothing less, nothing more).
And no, the lecturers were not fired just for posting the signs. They were fired for repeated actions and statements in the media against the institution where they were working. This would have happened anywhere in the world. Alexrap 21:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
What you are writing can be very offensive for any Hungarian since Kolozsvár used to be a Hungarian town and Erdély used to be a Hungarian province before Romanian occupation. For most of history, Hungarians were the majority population in Kolozsvár and in Erdély (Romanians are only recorded sporadically in the 13. century), after the Turkish occupation, there was a massive Romanian immigration from Moldva and Wallachia which changed the ethnic composition of Transylvania, just as during the Ceausescu regime, Hungarian cities in Transylvania received many Romanian residents (colonists) settled from Moldva or Oltenia/Muntenia in order to suppress their original character. Nevertheless, if someone walks around Kolozsvár, he can still see that most of the original buildings and cultural edifices come from Hungarian rule whereas Romanians were not able to add anything except what they confiscated (like the old Hungarian national theatre) or some awful-looking residential blocks. If I were a Romanian, I would be much more modest when addressing problems related to old Hungarian cultural centres where I am just an intruder and a colonist. Árpád 07:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
You seem very misinformed, my friend with an conqueror's name. You should probably read more about your ancestor. During his time, the Magyars defeated Gelu the Romanian. Also, have you heard of The Turda Decree? It was a law that effectively made owning estate by Romanians impossible. And here's another thing your beloved "nobles" set up: Unio Trium Nationum, a pact that didn't recognize the existance of a Romanian ethnicity in Transylvania, in spite of the fact that the majority of the population (serfs) were Romanian. So get your nose out of your propaganda pamphlets and read some history. Dixit. --Palamnaeus (talk) 00:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


Reading books is not harmful. It is, in fact, recommended. That's all I have to say. Alexrap 13:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest wikipedia administrators to take out the last paragraphs about the dispute between RO and HU. It is simply not relevant. Like this also the talks will stop, because I can ensure you that they are 'never ending stories'.. Hungarians will never recognise that they conquered Transylvania and not only, try to impose their language all over and transform Romanians into Hungarians...It's a miracle how the Romanian could keep their language in such conditions, but it is indisputable that the territory, conquered by the romans(Sarmisegetusa-the capital of Dacia is in Transylvania by the way), was invaded by the huns, which are the ancestors of our days Hungarians...Romanians have never been 'migratory' people. As Herodot is n telling in his history, Dacs have been a sort of Traccs and they were living there when the romans conquered Dacia and named it Dacia Phoenix. So how to judge if the territory is Romanian or Hungarian now, after 2000 years passed of the retirement of the roman army under the Danube because of the huge mass of migratory people(huns are coming from ASIA, by the way). The Transylvanian teritory is ours or hungarians? Is the Polish territory German or not? (as it is situated inside the borders of the ancient Prusian Empire? )... Stop the war between the two nations and accept the situation as it is.You cannot do else. Be happy , you Hungarians that you have the possibility to study form the first class of school until the PhD in your language(a right that no minority in Europe has), and Romanians, try to understand the frustration of a little 'nation' who combined with Austrians and funded an Empire and which, after 1000 years lost all the conquered territories becoming again just a 'little nation' with a 'little territory'.This was because the 'national' states which formed after the 1st World War after the fall of the big Empoires.Ths'eternal debate' of 'who's the Transylvania teritorry'(by the way, building houses on another persons land do not give you the right to acceed to his land, but it is just the opposite, unfortunately, just read a bit of civil law) will always stay like this, as long as the 'European mentality' of all citizens speaking a 'common' language and living in peace with their neighbours will not enter in the blood of both, RO and HU. Let's be just friends, forget the past and renounce to these 'vindictive' articles.It is the best thing to do!- a Romanian who has a lot of half/half friends in Cluj Napoca , which prove that we can live very well together!

/files/statistica.pdf Kutez (talk) 08:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Piarists?

I've asked this also at Talk:Cluj-Napoca#"Piarists"? Perhaps Pietists?: This is not an English word. I presume that piarist is a Romanian word that someone has tried to give an English-style plural. Is it equivalent to "Pietist"? - Jmabel | Talk 23:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it refers to the Piarists, as members of the Piarist Catholic order. Alexrap (talk) 15:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't know them at all. Thanks. We should link that (we hadn't. I will). - Jmabel | Talk 16:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

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Foundation date

Dear IP,

you present almost the same argumentation, I don't wish to repeat mine. I'll notify two Wikipojects to join in this discussion, seek consensus here first, Thank You.(KIENGIR (talk) 19:33, 30 July 2019 (UTC))

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