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Article Excerpt
Transylvania, the rugged region that marks the southernmost extension of the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe, evokes images of Count Dracula and other elements of Western mythology. However, for both the Hungarian and Romanian peoples, Transylvania symbolizes the birthplace of their respective nations. Transylvania is, and for thousands of years has been, an ethnically mixed region. As such, it was highly contested between the Hungarians and Romanians at the end of World War I, and it remains a thorn in Hungarian-Romanian relations to this day.
Only in the period immediately after World War I did the study of borders in political geography include analysis of the process of proposal and negotiation that precedes the creation of a new border, rather than focusing on a new boundary and its functions (Kolossov 2005, 611). Through the use of primary resources, especially maps contained in reports given to President Woodrow Wilson, along with the writings of scholars who worked for him, such as American Geographical Society (AGS) Director Isaiah Bowman, I investigate the process of redrawing Transylvania's borders. By parsing the American proposal for reallocating Transylvania, along with other proposals for the region presented at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, (1) it is possible to analyze the difficulties faced by the peacemakers at Paris in creating an equitable peace based on Wilson's principles in as ethically heterogeneous an area as Transylvania and reinforces the difficulties we continue to face in trying to implement the concept of national self-determination.
EARLY THEORIES OF NATIONS, STATES, AND BOUNDARIES
The rise of concepts such as "self-determination" and "nation-state" in the late nineteenth century opened a new chapter in how we view political divisions throughout the world. On the eve of World War I, most of the world was divided into multiethnic empires. Europe itself consisted primarily of large multiethnic states, with much of its territory split between the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires. However, emerging new concepts were challenging the validity of empires and championing the liberating influence of the nation-state.
Geographical scholars, among others, were already attempting to define the concept of a nation-state by the time the so-called Great War broke out. The promise of self-determination espoused by President Wilson made it necessary to group people into national units in order to properly uphold their collective rights. Under his doctrine of self-determination, Wilson made it clear that all nations should have a say in the creation of their laws. Rather than defining all subjects of a given state together, which proved especially problematic when considering large multiethnic empires, experts defined peoples on the basis of their perceived membership in a national group. Albert Perry Brigham, writing in the Geographical Review, defined nationality as a "unity of ideal, derived chiefly from hereditary experience or from geographical environment" (1919, 212). He wrote that such groups wished to live and act together, as well as to share a government. He also noted that nations were not clearly defined racially, unlike many researchers of earlier periods who based national identity partly on racial characteristics. Brigham's definition of nationality is inherently qualitative; due to this problem, use of such a definition would not be possible in "scientifically" determining what nation any given group of people belonged to, as there would be no data from which to draw upon.
Leon Dominian, a member of the American Inquiry--the team of American experts who compiled the American peace proposals for the Paris Peace Conference under the aegis of the AGS--wrote that nationality is an artificial product derived from race and shared history (1917, 4). To him, nationality has three fundamental elements: population, history, and geography. Along with many other experts of the time, he chose language as the best indicator of national identity, stating that "to separate the idea of language from nationality is rarely possible" (p. 1). This marked a shift from earlier periods, as the cultural distinction of language became paramount over earlier foci on physical and military boundaries among peoples (Minghi 1963, 413). Language is easily measurable through census data, so it is a convenient way to define nationality.
The concept of the nation-state--that nations are best represented by their own state--was also beginning to take hold in the early twentieth century, replacing the imperial-state model. Brigham believed it was the better criterion for determining which state a people should live in (1919, 202). However, he did not go so far as to propose that every nation should have its own state, merely that the peoples of a nation should be in the same state. At the outbreak of World War I, Romanians lived in three states--Romania, Austria-Hungary, and Russia--making them a good example of a divided nation. Rectifying this problem became a component of the American plan for peace in Europe.
For the first time, nationality--defined by language--was presented as the most legitimate basis for a state during this period. The doctrine of self-determination had become part and parcel with the concept of nationalism (Knight 1982). Previously, European dynasties had relied on other factors to maintain their legitimacy, and their failure to adapt led to their downfall (Anderson 1991). Stability, defense, power, and divine right had held the state together in earlier periods of European history. However, the rise of nationalism challenged the imperial order to its core. With the creation of the League of Nations and the end of the age of dynasticism, the end of World War I marked the maturing of the nation-state concept as the new norm (Anderson 1991).
The nation-state concept, which prescribes that each nation should occupy its own state, defines such an entity as a state in which the membership of a distinctive nation closely matches the boundaries of a particular state (Agnew 1998). However, few states actually meet that specific definition. Political interference has caused the Earth to be divided in ways that do not map onto a cultural perspective. A handful of states are culturally homogeneous and may be accurately described as a nation state, but states that contain members of many nations remain the norm, despite the rise of the nation-state ideal. Nevertheless, the nation-state ideal continues to influence modern national identities.
In the lead-up to the Paris Peace Conference many scholars promoted language as the best way to determine which nation a populace belonged to. Language affiliates closely to territory, for the language someone speaks often reflects where he or she comes from. Benedict Anderson concluded that national print languages laid the base for national consciousness and the imagining of the nation as a group (1991). However, he went on to point out that, although most modern nations do have a national print language, many nations share a language, and in many other nations only a fraction of the population speaks the national language.
Throughout the twentieth century the ideas of nation and state developed where political boundaries had long played a role in how humankind administered space. Douglas Johnson noted that "boundary disputes have ever been potent causes of war" (1917, 208). When analyzing borders, it is important to consider both the features used in the delineation of boundaries and the role a...
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