The View from Europe

"O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
A song of peace, for their land and for mine."

-Lloyd Stone

Ujszekely--or Secuieni, as it is called in Romanian--is near the beautifully preserved medieval city of Sighisoara, known in Hungarian as Segesvar and in German--the language of its original inhabitants-- as Schassburg. (It is, perhaps unjustly, most famous for being the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, on whom the character Dracula is modeled.) The three languages spoken there hold the key both to the fascinating history of Transylvania and to many of its contemporary challenges and dangers.

Germans once constituted a significant part of the cultural and linguistic landscape of Transylvania, though today, sadly, few are left. Known as "Saxons," they were brought to Transylvania in the 12th century as mercenaries to protect its borders. After living in Romania for over 700 years, most of those who didn’t leave following World War II were "ransomed" back to Germany under the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaucescu, when anyone who could get out of Romania did.

Hungarians in Romania, Slovakia, and the former Yugoslavia constitute the largest ethnic minority in Europe today. The story of how this came to be encompasses hundreds of years of often tragic European history, and culminates in the terrible conflicts of the twentieth century and their lasting impact on the lives of the people who live there.

This summer’s visit to Ujszekely was special not only because of the visit there at one time by so many of our young people, who visited the village for four days as part of a youth tour to Transylvania sponsored by the UU Partner Church Council, but also because we participated in the dual celebration of our Partner Church minister’s tenth year of ministry in the Unitarian Church of Ujszekely and the rededication of the church’s 200 year old pipe organ, which has been completely restored thanks to the organizational and fundraising efforts of our former music director, Barbara Owen.

Joining us for the big celebration was the Bishop of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church, Arpad Szabo, and other dignitaries. It was a privilege for me to bring greetings from our congregation at the service, to honor the accomplishments of my young colleague Zsolt Jakab and his wife Borika, and to recognize our friend Barbara for her vision in making the organ restoration a reality. A huge meal followed the morning church service (a pig had been slaughtered the day before), and the party continued well into the night as a large group of men from the church stood around a campfire in the church yard singing traditional Hungarian songs to the accompaniment of a Gypsy accordionist. It was an unforgettable day.

Our journey had begun over a week before with a brief stay in the beautiful city of Vienna, capital until the end of World War I of the Habsburg Empire, and still resplendent, in spite of World War II allied bombing which flattened much of the city. One can feel the weight of history in Vienna, and it is hard not to think of those dark, not so distant days as one walks about the city, or pays a visit to its wonderful old cathedral, Stephansdom, which was almost totally destroyed during the war.

Today Vienna is a vibrant modern city forever colored by its opulent and highly cultured past as the seat of one of Europe’s longest lived and largest and wealthiest empires. Remarkably, that empire’s legacy is still present in both positive and negative ways in Eastern Europe today. To see the many Muslim inhabitants of Vienna today is to be reminded, though there is no direct connection, that it was at Vienna that the Ottoman Empire attempted its furthest western reach. It is also to be reminded of the challenges being raised by the increasing numbers of Muslims living in much of Europe, as well as of the looming question of EU membership for the mostly Muslim nation of Turkey.

Perhaps the most memorable day of our visit in Vienna for me was the one we spent atop the beautiful Kahlenberg, with its wonderful views of the city and many of its famous vineyards far below. Here the battle took place which halted the Ottoman Empire’s westward progress.

From Vienna we traveled down the Danube by hydrofoil to Budapest, tied by history and culture, as well as by the great river, to the legacy of the Habsburgs. Along the way we passed the Slovakian city of Bratislava, known to Hungarians as Pozsony, once the capital of Hungary; as well as the city of Esztergom, ancient seat of Hungary’s earliest kings and today the site of its largest Catholic church, which towers spectacularly above the river.

Hungary, which until 1920 included the region of Transylvania, was always the poor cousin of Austria, with its strange language and mysterious people, but today one would be hard pressed to say which country’s capital city is more beautiful. After five trips to Budapest, I must admit that I have fallen in love, though one can never quite forget in these places that other legacy of anti-Semitism and its awful absences. In these parts of Europe, ghosts are everywhere.

A visit to Budapest is a must for one traveling to Transylvania and needing a crash course in Hungarian history. It is hard to believe that much of the city lay in ruins at the end of World War II, though shell marked buildings are still visible in parts of the old city of Buda. Other buildings, blackened by the burning of coal during the long communist occupation, including the spectacular riverside Parliament building, are still in the process of being cleaned up, but one can see measurable improvements in the city year by year. This summer an exhibit in the National Art Museum by the Hungarian impressionist artist Munkacsy was a highlight, as well as an evening of traditional Hungarian music and dance by the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble, and a leisurely outdoor lunch at the most famous of Budapest’s many great restaurants, Gundel’s.

After three memorable days in Budapest, made better by the company of good friends, it was on by train to Sighisoara, across the famous "puzsta," or Hungarian plain, and into the verdant green hills of Transylvania, a trip of about twelve hours duration. Fortunately I have made the trip before and recognized the station, for we arrived there in the pitch darkness, a power outage having occurred shortly before our arrival. We were met at the station in the dark by our ever faithful Transylvanian friends who had been waiting for us for several hours (!), and driven the eleven or so kilometers back to Ujszekely in a blinding rain storm.

Much of the talk in the village this summer had to do with the possible ascension of Romania into the European Union, which is supposed to take place in 2007. Among the poor farming folks of villages like Ujszekely, there is great anxiety about what this change, if it actually takes place, may mean. Romania is one of the poorest countries in Europe and has one of the most corrupt governments among the formerly communist Eastern European nations. Ultra-nationalist demagogues lurk just behind the scenes, ready to exploit any opportunity to gain power and influence at the expense of the country’s minority populations.

There are many in the European Union who believe that Romania is not ready for EU membership, that it has not yet met the economic and political and human rights preconditions for membership, and there is much evidence to support this view. On the other hand, Romania, because of it close proximity to the Middle East, is also seen to have great strategic importance--particularly, but not only, for the United States, which is already talking about placing some of its troops from recently closed bases in Germany and other parts of Europe there. For better or worse, this may be its in.

There is no question that Romania is poor. Most houses still lack indoor plumbing and central heating, even though satellite dishes are sprouting from many of the rooftops. And most people make so little money that there is a tremendous brain and labor drain occurring as young Romanians seek greener pastures abroad. Millions of young Hungarians from Romania have already left for Hungary, a recent inductee of the EU with a far more vibrant economy than Romania’s.

For the people of Ujszekely, whose livelihoods include small farms with one or two cows and pigs, a small flock of chickens, and a few sheep and goats, all for personal consumption, the specter of EU-style agribusiness means lots of uncertainty about the survival of their way of life, indeed, about their very survival. Zsolt, our Partner Church minister, actually makes more money from selling his milk than he does from his ministerial salary, though both amounts are pathetic by our standards: a total of only a few thousands of dollars a year. But even Zsolt recognizes that under the EU and its agricultural standards, the market for his milk and that of his neighbors will probably dry up. What will happen to them then? No one knows.

Meanwhile, we lament the passing of a way of life which we find picturesque and charming, though those living it probably do not. One of the most bittersweet aspects of visiting in Transylvania today is to see and experience a place which has one foot planted in the distant past and the other standing on the cusp of modernity. No longer having what our friends have, and knowing more about modernity than they do, we tend to feel nostalgic for what they will lose. Of special concern to them and us, what is lost may include their over-400 year old Unitarian faith, as young people and others leave the villages for the cities and the jobs they promise.

I want to close with a few other impressions from this summer’s journey back to Transylvania. One, which I have already alluded to, is the minority issue. Europe in many parts remains deeply divided. In Romania, there are not only a couple of million ethnic Hungarians, but also an unknown number of Roma or Gypsies: the largest population of Gypsies remaining in Europe lives in Romania.

Romanian cultural hegemony in formerly Hungarian regions of Romania is as real and as contentious as its roots are historically tangled. History and the truth are often distorted by both sides.

Throughout western Europe, the problems raised by the influx of large numbers of Turks and others of the Muslim faith who have been brought to Europe to provide cheap labor are growing along with their populations. Some statistics point to a day in the not too distant future when people of Turkish descent will outnumber native Germans in Germany, so opposite are their birth rates. As the war in Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s and bombings in London as recently as this past summer should warn us, the unresolved issues around race, religion, and ethnicity, not to mention poverty, remain a potential source of discord and violence not only in Eastern Europe, but in Western European countries as well.

In spite of the unpopularity in Europe of the War in Iraq and of the current administration in particular, I have found Europeans to be friendly and welcoming. I think most of them still like Americans and American culture and don’t blame us personally for what they see as the misguided policies of our government. Many people I spoke with this summer still see the United States as the land of plenty and promise, though Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and their aftermath may shake some of our aura of invincibility and boundless affluence. One young waiter from Bulgaria whom we met in Vienna told us that the US dollar is still preferred over the Euro as the currency of choice among young workers like himself. There is a sense that, successful as the introduction of the Euro has been, the dollar is still a safer bet in the long run. (Personally, however, I hope for the continued success of the European Union and its currency as a healthy counterbalance to American military supremacy and economic dominance. In spite of those who think we can go it alone, I believe that our future lies in continued good relations and alliance with our relatives in Europe.)

A couple of things we might learn from the Europeans: one is that small is beautiful. I have come to prefer the culture of scale in Europe to that of the States, and certainly Europeans seem to be doing a much better job of preserving open land than we are.

The other is just an observation: there is a noticeable lightness of being about people who do not have to carry the burden of empire, or at least of superpowerdom. While admittedly some European economies are struggling and unemployment is somewhat higher there than here, many Europeans have a very good quality of life. They work less hours, take more vacations, and are encumbered by less "stuff" than we are. They are not burdened by the necessity, real or only imagined, of having to "save the world for democracy." They’ve already made the painful adjustment to higher oil prices, and have changed their lifestyle accordingly. They know better than we do the terrible cost of war. I think we can learn something from them.

Our time in Transylvania culminated with our attendance at the "World Gathering of Unitarians" in the city of Szekelyudvarhely, sometimes called "the most Hungarian city in Europe" even though it is in Romania--see what I mean about complicated? This rather grandiosely titled event is a kind of one day General Assembly at which upwards of a thousand Transylvanian Unitarians from all over the country, and a few interlopers like ourselves from Great Britain and the United States, gather in a natural outdoor amphitheater to celebrate their almost-450 year history. It is a strangely moving event, with mounted horsemen and folkdancers in traditional Hungarian costume and the clergy processing in their clerical garb. But it is slightly troubling as well, with its overtly political and nationalistic overtones. It is just one more example of the paradoxes and complexities of life that many people in Europe still labor under.

This year I was asked by the Bishop, whom I had seen in Ujszekely only the week before, to bring greetings on behalf of the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Unitarian Universalist Partner Church Council, of which I am now Vice President. I was honored to stand together with many of my Transylvanian colleagues and friends and to celebrate our shared liberal faith, but I looked forward in my remarks to a time when I hoped we might become not just national, but global citizens, a time when we would transcend nationalism and recognize our shared humanity and all that joins, rather than divides, us on this small, spinning planet.

Perhaps one day we will all come recognize the truth contained in the words of our closing hymn:

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on clover-leaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock