Author(s): Gyöngyi HERDEÁN

Title: Nemzedékek traumája Köröstárkányban

Source: A. Somogyi (ed.): 15th International Conference of J. Selye University. Theological Section. Conference Proceedings

ISBN: 978-80-8122-495-9

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36007/4959.2024.09

Publisher: J. Selye University, Komárno, Slovakia

PY, pages: 2024, 9-30

Published on-line: 2024

Language: hu

Abstract: The twentieth century saw a great many events around the world characterised by human violence. Historical traumas have emerged that continue to shape individual and communal memory, a controversial subject where several ethnicities and several religions live side by side. The multicultural and multi-ethnic region of Central-Eastern Europe, the emergence of modern national and denominational identities, and conflicts that have spilled over into violence have particularly strained Hungarian-Romanian coexistence. Many of the events of this conflictual coexistence in the twentieth century were often tabooed and therefore remain unconscious in the community memory. After the Trianon Peace Dictate, the institutional systems of the Hungarian communities in Transylvania faced a new task, as they had to face the challenges of suddenly being a minority. Within the framework of the new Romanian state, the Hungarian churches, including the Reformed Church, were faced with an unprecedented challenge, namely to take on the task of helping Hungarian communities to survive. It provided the foundations for the survival of the Hungarian national community, and as a result, people became even more closely attached to the Church. It is therefore understandable that the conflicts and traumas of the Hungarian- Romanian coexistence, which affected the Hungarian community, were also traumas for the church community.
These are the facts that led me to start my research on the individual and communal traumas of the 20th century and their memory – with special reference to the area of Köröstárkány in present-day Romania.
On Good Friday, 19 April 1919, Romanian military and paramilitary troops attacked the village of Köröstárkány, inhabited by Hungarian Reformed Christians in the Belényesi Basin, where, during the three days of massacres, 91 Hungarian Reformed Christians were killed and looted and pillaged house to house.
In my study, I try to present the historical dimensions of the event, the theoretical branches of memory culture, and the different mechanisms of trauma processing that strengthened the church and family communities in the settlement on a transgenerational level.

Keywords: Köröstárkány massacre, reparation, Hungarian minority in Transylvania, Reformed Church, taboo, individual memory, collective memory

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