Pilgrims of the “Fatherland”: Emblems and Religious Rituals in the Construction of an Inter-Patriotic Space between Hungary and Transylvania

摘要

The paper deals with the emblems and rituals that help creating the symbolic space of a “home” or “fatherland” which transcends the borders of nation-states and generate cultural intimacy between people living in different countries and under different political regimes. After a glance at some symbolic condensations of Hungarian-ness, with special regard to the territorial marking and the dead, it focuses on the recent transformations of an annual pilgrimage in Transylvania into ritual staging of Hungarian “homeland” across borders and regardless of religious affiliations. Remaining for centuries the religious feast of the local Szekel population, a minority Magyar-speaking Catholic group, after 1989 the pilgrimage of Csiksomlyo/umuleu, in today's Romania, developed into a powerful manifestation of Hungarian patriotism. Set in a multi-linguistic and multi-religious area, this pilgrimage provides a sophisticated ritual framework and the symbolic tools to negotiate the various groups' belonging to, and their hierarchic ordering in, the cultural construct of “the fatherland”.