When the Border Crosses You

Abstract

The article discusses the Transylvanian case of border crossings, the historical changes experienced by the communities living on this territory between 1918, the end of World War I, and 1944. The study starts with a short theoretical introduction to border studies and to the concept of border crossing, discussing aspects such as the issue of state and societal borders, power relations and sovereignty, and the negotiation of new identities within new state borders (understood both geographically and ideologically). The article analyses several fragments of texts that were published in one of the most important Hungarian newspapers in Transylvania, focusing on the concept of the border, on language rights, and minority rights as well as on some aspects of the linguistic landscape with special regard to the visibility or erasure of minority communities. The article concludes that the discussed instance of border crossing is particular in its nature as it shows similarities with the typical cases of border crossing; however, the staticity of the community itself and the movement of the border creates new possibilities for discussion.

Keywords

• border studies
• border crossing
• negotiating identities
• minority and majority communities
• discourses of power