’I can just greet the practice that in one of the most authoritative Hungarian dailies this appropriate information was published. It is well-known that the right name of our city is Cluj-Napoca’, said yesterday to Magyar Nemzet Gheorghe Funar, former mayor of Kolozsvár referring to the fact that yesterday the report from Kolozsvár appeared as ’by our correspondent in Cluj-Napoca’.
The senator of Greater Romania Party led by Corneliu Vadim Tudor said it was not correct when the Hungarian press used ’the pre-Trianon names of Transylvanian localities’. According to Gheorghe Funar in all civilized countries placenames are used in the ortography of the given country and the Transylvanian media should also stick to this democratic principle.
During his mandate as mayor Mr Funar never recognized Kolozsvár, the Hungarian version of Cluj-Napoca. Mircea Prodan, spokesman of the Romanian Embassy would not comment the case saying it was the problem of the newspaper while Zsolt Németh (Fidesz), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Parliament said it was the sign of the return of the rhetoric of the Kádár-regime and it was part of a process to insult national and religious views.
Zoltán Tibori Szabó, correspondent in Kolozsvár said he had used the usual placename but somebody in the editorial office made the ominous change. Zsolt Szilágyi, a Transylvanian politician, chairman of the committee of Hungarian Civic Union said this was shocking and if it was deliberate it was a gesture reminding one of the spirit of the Ceausescu era.
Translated by Péter Szentmihályi Szabó
Ukrajna
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