The Sicules de Bucovine (Rumanian: Secui) are an ethnic minority magyarophone with a single history. They live today in the counties of Tolna and Baranya in Hungary and Voïvodine.

History

During second half of the XVIIIe century, important groups of Sicules emigrated in Bucovine, where they founded new villages and kept their single culture and their popular traditions until the XXe century. The cause of this emigration was the organization of the Frontier zone sicule by the Empire Austro-Hungarian of the Habsbourg, which threatened the old privileges and right of Sicules. Sicules protested against the forced conscriptions, but their gathering with Mádéfalva was dispersed by the Austrian army the January 7th 1764. In the famous massacre of Mádéfalva or Siculicidium, more than 400 Sicules found death. Approximately a thousand of Sicules emigrated in the close Bucovine, which was an area of the Moldavie, under Othoman domination.

When Bucovine passed under Austrian control in 1774, a new wave of migration started. In 1776 a hundred sicules families settles in this not very occupied territory. In 1784 and 1786, more than two hundred families arrive with the support of the Emperor Joseph and the Count András Hadik, the governor of Transylvania. The villages sicules of Bucovine named Istensegíts (" God helps us! "), Fogadjisten (" Accept the will of God! "), Józseffalva, Hadikfalva and Andrásfalva.

The number of Sicules tripled at the XIXe century and reached 9887 in 1880 and 16.000 at the end of the years 1930. Their living conditions became harder, because they had only small grounds, and much of them left temporarily or definitively their house. The government of Hungary reinstalled 4.000 of them in 1883 in the surroundings of the Low Danube, in the new villages of Hertelendyfalva, Sándoregyháza and Székelykeve. This part of the Banat was included in Yugoslavia in 1918. Other sicules families emigrated in Canada, Brazil or in other cities of Transylvania of the south.

In 1918, Bucovine became part of the Romania, and Sicules felt themselves as oppressed, being a Hungarian minority without training of their language. Many waited of the assistance and a solution with their financial problems on behalf of the " mother patrie". After Hungary occupied in 1941 the old Yugoslav territory of Bácska (Voïvodine), a Magyarisation forced started. The reinstalment of Sicules de Bucovine was a tool of this policy. All the community of 13.200 people left Romania, and, according to a treaty between the Hungarian and Rumanian states, they lost their Rumanian citizenship and all their possessions. In exchange, they accepted the houses and grounds confiscated with the Serbes in the south of Bácska.

It is after the true cavalcade started. The October 8th 1944, Hungary evacuated the territory and Sicules fled in Transdanubie. They lost their goods again and became emigrants stateless people. In 1945-46, Sicules were reinstalled, the majority in old German villages of the county of Tolna. Although there were tensions between them and the remainder of the German population, they formed strong and flourishing communities. Sicules de Tolna are proud today of their particular history and their rich person popular habits.

See too

• Sicules of Transylvania
• Bucovine