Romanian Liberals Block the Introduction of Hungarian Street Names

Baia Mare (Nagybánya) in Romania

The municipal decision on new Hungarian street names in Baia Mare (Nagybánya, Romania) is paused after Liberal Party councilors and residents of the streets to be renamed opposed it, Deputy Mayor Zsolt István Pap told the news portal Krónika Online.

As Hungary Today reported earlier, the Nagybánya assembly adopted a council decision in October to name a street in the seat of Maramureș county after the Hungarian writer Mór Jókai and the reformist actor Márton Lendvay. The resolution also said that, in addition to the two prominent Hungarian figures, a street would be named after the Romanian-born mine owner and politician Elek Pokol (Alexiu Pokol) and the German-born expressionist painter Walter Friedrich in the town famous for its gold mining and art colony. Another street would bear the name of the martyred Greek Catholic bishop Alexandru Rusu and a square would be named after the former Orthodox Archbishop of Satu Mare and Maramureș, Justinian.

The renaming process stalled last year after councilors from the National Liberal Party (PNL) began to protest against Hungarian street names, according to Zsolt István Pap.

They started saying that Mór Jókai was anti-Romanian at the time of the 1848 revolution, and nonsense like that – all of which infuriated some of the locals who live in the streets concerned.

It is very interesting that they only came to protest from the two streets we want to name after Hungarian personalities,” the deputy mayor told the news portal. He added that residents also voiced their displeasure at the next meeting of the local assembly. They asked that the council’s decision should not enter into force for the time being, but be postponed. The decision should have come into force on January 1.

“We voted for another decision back in December to calm things down a bit. The new decision states that the old one is postponed for one year, which means that it would not take effect until December 2025. Thus, it is not revoked, it is just sort of suspended,” pointed out the deputy mayor. He added that the RMDSZ should “take advantage” of this time to resolve the issue politically. He emphasized that

the street name dispute is also a good example of the need for the Hungarian community in Nagybánya to fight for their rights.

In Nagybánya, a town of 108,000 inhabitants, 8,713 people declared themselves to be of Hungarian nationality in the last Romanian census.

Lajos Dávid, the head of the Teleki Hungarian House in the town, told Krónika in detail about the connection between the two Hungarian personalities in Nagybánya, stressing that the memory of Márton Lendvay (1807-1858) and Mór Jókai (1823-1904) is vivid in the memory of the local Hungarian community. Márton Lendvay was born in Nagybánya and began his acting studies there. He eventually became a prominent actor in the first company of the National Theater, which opened in 1837. When he died young, at the age of 51, a crowd of twenty-five thousand attended his last funeral in Budapest, explained Lajos Dávid. Lendvay was elected honorary citizen in 1844, the last time he visited Nagybánya. In May 1881, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the wall of his birthplace in the main square, followed by another initiative: a statue was erected in his honor.

Renowned Hungarian writer Mór Jókai came to Nagybánya in 1876 at the invitation of Count Sándor Teleki.

The visit left a deep impression not only on the inhabitants of the town but also on Jókai’s life’s work, who recorded his experiences in several of his writings.

There is a hill at the end of the City Park, which is still known as “Jókai Hill” to the Hungarian community of the town.

Moreover, as Lajos Dávid explained, Jókai’s and Lendvay’s lives intertwined in a particular way. When Mór Jókai met Róza Laborfalvi and later married the actress, Laborfalvi already had a 12-year-old daughter born out of wedlock. The father of the little girl, Róza Benke, was none other than Márton Lendvay.

Via Krónika Online, Featured photo via Wikipedia