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Dr Agnieszka Barszczewska
Panel 2 The Csangos
Abstract
This paper discusses the influence of the Roman-Catholic Church on the development of the Moldavian Csángós’ collective identity in Greater Romania (1920-1939). It sets out to analyze the influence the Church was able to exert both as an institution and through its individual representatives, namely priests working in Moldavia. Scrutinising one of the most powerful moral authorities in the Csángó society, this paper also examines the Vatican’s attitude towards the Csángó problem within the broader context of international relations.
The main questions discussed are the legal situation of the Catholic Church in Greater Romania, the signing of the concordat with the Holy See and the consequences it had for the Csángós, as well as the activity of Roman-Catholic priests in Moldavia and its influence on Csángó society.
The empirical basis for the paper presented here are documents collected in the Archive of the Congregation for the Propagation of Faith (Archivio della Congregazione per l’Evangelizzazione dei Popoli o de Propaganda Fide), the Vatican Secret Archive (Archivio Segreto Vaticano), and the Archive of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches (Archivio della Congregazione per le Chiese Orientali).
Author Biography
Agnieszka Barszczewska is a researcher specializing in the fields of Hungarian Studies, Romanian Studies, Modern and Recent European History, History of the Catholic Church in East-Central Europe, Collective Identity Development and Minority Issues.
In 2004 she graduated from Warsaw University, Faculty of Modern Languages, Chair of Hungarian Studies with a degree (M.A.) in Cultural Studies/Hungarian Studies. A modified version of her M.A. thesis was first published in Hungarian (in Sic Itur Ad Astra, 2004/4, Budapest) as a prizewinning essay in an open competition regarding minority problems.
Since October 2004, Agnieszka Barszczewska is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (thesis title: Ethnic Identity Persistence in the 19th and 20th Century East-Central Europe: the Moldavian Csángós and the Carpatho-Rusyns).
In academic year 2004/2005 she was awarded an International Visegrad Fund research scholarship (archival research in Budapest), and for the following two years (2006-2008) she was a holder of a Gerda Henkel Foundation (Gerda Henkel Stiftung) Ph.D. scholarship, and conducted research at the Südost-Institut in Munich and in numerous archives in the Vatican City.
Related Publications
- The Moldavian Csángó Identity (1860–1916): Social and Political Factors. (in print; to be issued by Kriza János Néprajzi Társaság in Cluj/Kolozsvár).
- “Language and Religion as Community-Building Factors in the Moldavian Csángó Society in the Second Half of the 19th Century.” Ungarn-Jahrbuch 29 (2008): forthcoming.
- “A moldvai csángók identitáskérdése (1860–1916): politikai tényezők.” Erdélyi Társadalom. Szociológiai szakfolyóirat. (2008): pp.9-28.
