Approximately one month ago, on the 6th May in Kolozsvár we remembered for the first time the 50th anniversary of the Foundation of the Bolyai University. I used the word "foundation" because this is the commonly used expression today despite the message of the lecture held by Edgár Balogh, the first speaker of our commemorative festivity who emphasised the fact that the famous document of May 1945 was properly speaking not the document of foundation but that of the admission of continuity and its sanctification. The significance of this statement is given primarily by its fidelity to the truths of historical facts. The opponents of the eventual restitution of the Bolyai university used to claim and do so still that the Hungarian University of Kolozsvár was a "gift of the communists". This assertion is however false in not less than two aspects. First of all because it was not a gift: the document of May 1945 was an admission of the existence of a Hungarian university in Kolozsvár and the admission as well of the existence of teachers, the Transylvanian intelligentsia who wanted that university to survive and continue its activities. Moreover, the admission took place under the conditions of a historical turning-point. The second reason for the falsity of the above assertion is that does not bear the signatures of the communist leaders. It is true that by the appointment to the office of prime minister of Petru Groza the first step had been taken pointing to the establishment of communist power in Romania but this was only the first occurrence of a hard transition period leading to the total control of power. Consequently we have to evaluate the issue of the foundation charter of the Bolyai University as a progressive gesture of the transition period of the Romanian political establishment turning away from the rightist dictatorship but not yet fully absorbed by the leftist regime. This gesture was of a great importance for Hungarians living in Romania.

It is evident that this gesture can be explained by the historical moment in Romania which was a consequence of the changes brought by the turn-about of the 23rd August 1944 and also by the special status of Transylvania and its dubious future at that time. In this context the subsistence of the university and the assurance of its continuity became such an important fact effecting the flow of events that makes us recognise the merits of those who could have had hardly any presages of the tragic outcome of their plans and undertaking distorted by communism. Finally, the decision under consideration must have been influenced by the manifest striving of the Romanian political leadership to settle and rebuild bilateral relationships with Hungary on a new basis. It can be inferred that not only credulous dreamers and careerists were engaged in the issue, at least for a while but responsible politicians as well.

Thus the argument of historical truth makes us declare that the official document warranting the existence of the Bolyai University was born under peculiar historical circumstances determined by intentions, facts and interests. The world-wide tectonic motions of political transformation led to the situation that something which had been neglected by earlier regimes, finally became a reality. There was a Hungarian and a Romanian University at the same time in Kolozsvár. The year 1945 in itself is not susceptible to idealisation due to its ambiguity as it was bearing in itself the transcending of the past and the possibility of a sad future. But that age was ambiguous in another respects as well. It made possible the appearance of reason, truth and impartiality. That which was inconceivable by the political concepts of either the Hungarian authorities before Trianon or the Romanian ones after Trianon had at that time been realized by history: Kolozsvár disposed of both a Hungarian and a Romanian university and both of them wished and were able to fulfil the functions stemming from their very names, that is to be universities of science and culture.

I believe it would be equally superfluous to idealise the Bolyai University functioning from 1945 to 1959. Just as other fellow institutions in the region it suffered from the communist educational reform, from ideological terror and its consequences resulting in an intellectual narrowing down and from having been infected by instigators of falsity and bluffing. In spite of these sad developments it remained a University which means that it could not be deprived of the values of universality and it was continuously producing the antidotes of those infections as well. It had shown also by the examples of its best representatives the ways of preserving loyalty and engagement as well as the ways of renewed gathering up of partisans for a science which for some time had been forced to debase itself to the level of being an "ancilla ideologiae". Despite all the failures and defeats the University had honestly fulfilled its function and its achievement is significant from the historical point of view as well. Its emanation is a source of inspiration and strength which have been active till our days for the Hungarian literature, culture and science in Transylvania which had to struggle for survival mostly on their own amidst the calamities of the 20th century.

1959, the year which saw the liquidation of the university (according to the official declaration that it was a fusion of the two universities) was a tragic moment in the recent history of Hungarians in Transylvania. Tyranny had even earlier frequently afflicted famous and meritful intellectuals and public personages by unlawful calumny and incarceration ; this time, however, the destruction of the most important cultural institution of Hungarians in Romania was their purpose. Historical perspective has made it quite clear that this brutal and malignantly executed turning -point was in perfect harmony with a strategy aiming at the destruction of the whole of the institutional system of culture in the vernacular by way of an unbroken sequence of prohibitions, restrictions, reorganising and restructuring. Thus the minority could be deprived of its intelligentsia and forced to submit to intellectual stagnation and consequently to become assimilated as soon as possible. It is a bitter irony of history that the national-communism relying on the omnipotence of time in this respect, was finally consumed by time itself.

Following great historical convulsions all activities of restoration are directed, purposeful and selective. After December of 1989 the Romanian society seemed to return to the state of historical ambiguity and openness familiar from the year 1945. Soon thereafter, however, the forces of search for self-identity were pushing the society radically towards the ideal of a new Europe and on the other hand backwards to the traditions known from the period between the two world wars. Within that great and controversial process of restructuring which remains till the present undecided as to its outcome there was definitely a favourable occasion for a positive decision concerning the Bolyai University during the first months of 1990. Therefore, all the measures taken at that time and all the strivings aiming at the restitution of the institution were necessary and justified. We do believe likewise that a favourable time for the birth of that decision will come as soon as the frequently quoted European norms find their way to the Romanian public thinking in a way that the requirements of the minority concerning culture and education will be judged according to objective and impartial criteria. Unfortunately, from March 1990 on, the strictly educational issues have been absorbed by overpoliticized dead-ends in a way that sober argumentation and professional discussions have been pushed into the background by political will which has been many times executed under the influence of prejudices, spasms and clichés. Although under such circumstances the issue of the Bolyai University is primarily subject to political decision and hence requires political representation, our Association holds that its justification is based above all on the civil and professional principal of equality, on the legitimate striving of a minority numbering almost two millions of members to assure its intellectual survival and self-assertion on the level of its past and traditions according to the European norms.

Our youth wants to learn and it would be highly desirable for them to do so at home, in Transylvania in their vernacular and according to sophisticated requirements. The conditions for that show a considerable improvement concerning the last five years and we have to construct further that attractive edifice and have to follow the small but secure steps even if the more distant objectives are not subject to change. I ask you thus, the representatives of science and universities from Hungary to share with us that responsibility and realise with us on the occasion of this anniversary when we remember the Bolyai University (either from the point of view of the past or turning to the future) that we are speaking about a claim to be embraced by the spiritual universality which is in a higher sense the justification and vocation of the existence of every community.