Patterns of Prejudice, 2013

Vol. 47, Nos. 45, 379394, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2013.851061

Germans, Hungarians and the Zigeunerkapelle:

performing national enmity in late nineteenthcentury Transylvania

MARIAN ZLOAG
ABSTRACT For at least two and a half centuries, the Gypsy as musical performer has
been one of the principal stereotypes of the Roma, and a symbol of a backward
Eastern Europe in western narratives. The association between Hungarian culture and
Romani musical performance, when embraced, might be understood as a consequence
of the triumph of Romanticism in European cultures or, on the other hand, when
rejected, as a casualty of the dominant role that positivism came to play in ideological
and intellectual discourses. The national paradigm, which by definition acted in an
exclusive fashion, enforced boundaries between in-group audiences and foreign
listeners. In this study, Zloag attempts to go beyond the musicological literature and
trace the effects of the representation of the Hungarian-Roma cultural hybrid on
readers of the German-language press. He highlights the way narratives about Gypsy
performances came to be regarded as a call to rebellion among Hungarians who were
suspected of covertly using the Roma as a vehicle for the articulation of their own
nationalism. More specifically, he looks at how ethnic Germans in Transylvania
referred to this narrative association in highly essentialist terms in order to attack their
political opponents and, consequently, affirm their belonging both to an elitist national
Germanic canon and to the non-chauvinistic official policy of the Habsburgs.

KEYWORDS cultural nationalism, Gypsy music, Habsburg Empire, Hungarians, hybridity, musical battles, nation-building, nationalism, Roma, Transylvanian Germans

usic-making has been acknowledged as having a profound impact on

the human sense of social belonging. Elaborate as well as artless
productions illustrate musics power to create boundaries. In the case of
particular musical works, this separatist tendency is envisioned at the very
moment of conception. In other cases, musical compositions are assigned this
role after being subjected to a specific ideological reframing of their initial intent.
Music can most certainly bring people together regardless of their social and
cultural identities. On the other hand, it can also create a bond between one
particular group of people and, consequently, give rise to a sense of incompatibility with the groups and/or individuals left outside. As a result, the matter of
This paper was supported by the National Research CouncilCNCS, Project PN-IIID- PCE2011-3-0841.
2013 Taylor & Francis

380 Patterns of Prejudice

music or musickinga term coined to postulate music as an activity involving

both the performer and the listener1cannot be understood independently of
the factors that influence its coming into being as well as its staging.
The nineteenth century, an era of nation-building, is a particularly rich
moment in which to analyse music and its place in society. In his now canonical
work, Nineteenth-Century Music, the renowned musicologist Carl Dahlhaus
asserts that the study of music and nationalism, or of national music, essentially
examines not so much the particular musical traits but the political and sociopsychological function that music is thought to be fulfilling,2 thus conveying a
deeper and qualitatively superior insight into the political history of any
discourse producer. Historians agree that, during the nineteenth century, music
was the most public and socially active of the arts,3 which explains why its
performance could be regarded as a mighty weapon in fighting for a national
agenda. Be it folkor artmusic, its power to manipulate was widely
recognized, and its performance and dissemination proved effective in the
waging of cultural wars, often at the expense of other national styles.4
The undeniable quality of some composers and their compositions were
frequently used in a self-indulgent celebration of the superiority of a certain
national musical repertoire. In this respect, the German case serves as a welldocumented example.5 At its inception, this was purely an elite artistic
discourse that aroused the enthusiasm of aestheticians and musical critics.
Later journalists and cultural reviewers joined in and turned it into a widely
held, common assumption that became the basis for both cultural hierarchies
and stereotypical diatribes.
The superiority of the German canon was justified by appealing to
attributes such as seriousness, monumentality and universality.6 The
discourse around what German music wished to convey spread across the
1
2
3
4
5

Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Hanover, NH

and London: University Press of New England 1998).
Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. from the German by J. Bradford
Robinson (Berkeley: University of California Press 1989), 217.
See T. C. W. Blanning, The commercialization and sacralization of European culture in
the nineteenth century, in T. C. W. Blanning (ed.), The Oxford History of Modern Europe,
3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000), 12652 (142).
Matthew Gelbart, The Invention of Folk Music and Art Music: Emerging Categories from
Ossian to Wagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007), 237.
Gelbart, The Invention of Folk Music and Art Music, 229; Vanessa Agnew, Enlightenment Orpheus: The Power of Musician in Other Worlds (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press 2008), 53; Mary Sue Morrow, German Music Criticism in the Late
Eighteenth Century: Aesthetic Issues in Instrumental Music (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1997), 4850.
Gelbart, The Invention of Folk Music and Art Music, 238; Bernd Sponheuer,
Reconstructing ideal types of the German in music, in Celia Applegate and Pamela
Maxine Potter (eds), Music and German National Identity (Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press 2002), 3658 (42); Celia Applegate, How German is it?
Nationalism and the idea of serious music in the early nineteenth century, 19th
Century Music, vol. 21, no. 3, 1998, 27496 (277).

MARIAN ZLOAG

381

European continent. The outstanding talent of the Germans in music(king)

was their strategy for promoting a prestigious national image. This propaganda campaign proved so influential that, at the end of the nineteenth and
beginning of the twentieth centuries, music was regarded as the most
German of the arts.7 This belief became dogma, and exercised hegemony
throughout other nations in the region. More precisely, it was shared by many
among the peoples living in Eastern Europe. But this presumed superiority
was not universally embraced. In an atmosphere dominated by the processes
of nation-building or national emancipation, the hegemony of German art
music did generate a more or less explicit abhorrence in some quarters.
Consequently, in the long term, some national culturessuch as the
Hungarian onecontested the German canon.

The Hungarian national project and Gypsy performance

A significant prejudice concerning the Hungarians in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries was that their music was Gypsy music. This notion
gained theoretical expression and ideological strength after the publication of
Franz Liszts Des Bohmiens et de leur musique en Hongrie.8 Instead of idealizing
the marginalized Roma,9 as Liszt intended when he fashioned the Gypsy
virtuoso, the relationship between Hungarian and Romani cultures was
understood by many Hungarians to be the unpleasant, if not stigmatizing,
result of western narratives about the East. Later on, many voices within the
Hungarian cultural establishment attempted to explain the superficiality and
the inaccuracy of Liszts argument. Such an anxious reply to the western
narrative demonstrates discomfort with the positioning of the two cultures,
and the perception of their association as a stigma. Nonetheless, some music
theoreticians had to admit that certain Romani professional orchestras were
indeed deeply involved with the urban popular airs and dances of
contemporary Magyar.10 More recently, Ern Kllai even suggested that
performances by Roma played a major role in the service of Hungarian
nationalism during and after the revolution of 18489.11 In order to maintain
their traditional position on the popular musical stage, Roma involved in
7

See Pamela M. Potter, Most German of the Arts: Musicology and Society from the Weimar
Republic to the End of Hitlers Reich (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University
Press 1998).
8 Franz Liszt, Des Bohmiens et de leur musique en Hongrie (Paris: Libraire Nouvelle 1859).
9 The term Roma refers here to Roma, Sinti, Kale and related groups in Europe,
including persons who have been identified by non-Roma and even by Roma as
Gypsies.
10 Endre Spur, Supplementary notes on Liszts and Brahms so-called Gypsy music,
Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, Series 3, vol. 31, no. 3/4, 1952, 12938 (133).
11 Ern Kllai, Gypsy musicians, in Andrs Kovts (ed.), Roma Migration, trans. from the
Hungarian by Dezs Bnki and kos Farkas (Budapest: Centre for Migration and
Refugee Studies 2002), 7597 (80).

382 Patterns of Prejudice

performing music found it useful to conform to the attitudes of audiences that

were animated by the spirit of independence from Austria.12 This strategy
was accentuated in the tense political atmosphere of the second half of the
nineteenth century, particularly after 1849 (the imperial crushing of the
Hungarian revolution) and 1867 (the Ausgleich, or the Compromise, reached
between the Hungarians and Habsburgs, that re-established the sovereignty
of Hungary and founded the Dual Monarchy).13
Music historians and sociologists have shown that, at that time,
preferences for and, therefore, distaste for particular genres or repertoires
were considered appropriate in order to delineate specific cultural identities.14 Music constructed boundaries that became more freighted with
meanings that revealed its political significance.15 Robert Nemes has
convincingly demonstrated how musical life came to be nationalized in
nineteenth-century Hungarian culture. After a brief period of cosmopolitanism, nationalized elites denounced waltzes and other salon music as
foreign cultural imports, and returned to songs and performances in the
national language and of presumed national origins.16 Consequently, waltzes
were suspected of replicating the politics of the Habsburg metropole,17 and
therefore had to be replaced with local csrds and verbunkos that encouraged
the cultivation of the so-called magyar nta or popular song. 18 The political
dimensions of this shift, namely, the criticism of the Viennese authorities, are
obvious.
Traditionally, Hungarian elites cultivated a type of patronage in relation to
Romani musical bands.19 Presumably, this is what caused western cultural
studies discourses to insist on the association between Hungarian cultural
nationalism and Gypsy music-making. The tension between the national
aspirations of the Hungarians and those of the other nations of the empire,
12 Endre Spur, Language and status of the Gypsy orchestras of Hungary, Journal of the
Gypsy Lore Society, Series 3, vol. 17, no. 3, 1938, 4658 (50).
13 For a general overview of political events during this time in the eastern part of the
Habsburg empire, see Ivan T. Berend, History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the
Long Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press 2003); R. J. W. Evans,
Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs: Essays on Central Europe, c. 16831867 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press 2006); and Robert Bideleux and Ian Jeffries, A History of Eastern
Europe Crisis and Change, 2nd edn (London and New York: Routledge 2007).
14 See William Weber, The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from
Haydn to Brahms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008).
15 Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 17891848 (New York: Vintage Books 1996), 276.
16 Robert Nemes, The politics of the dance floor: culture and civil society in nineteenthcentury Hungary, Slavic Review, vol. 60, no. 4, 2001, 80223.
17 Philip V. Bohlman, Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe, 2nd edn
(London and New York: Routledge 2011), 74.
18 Jean Sinor, Hungarian contributions to music, Hungarian Studies, vol. 12, nos 12,
1997, 12533 (130).
19 Endre Spur, Reminiscences of Gypsy musicians in Hungary, Journal of the Gypsy Lore
Society, Series 3, vol. 41, no. 1/2, 1962, 1030 (17).

MARIAN ZLOAG

383

particularly the Germans, encouraged the latter to resort to an essentializing

discourse. Accordingly, the Hungarian nationalism manifested through
music played by the Roma was inscribed with a set of savage features.
Gradually, such performances came to be seen as dangerous demonstrations, and identified as a major risk to imperial order. From the second half
of the nineteenth century, Romani musical bands performing at social events
were monitored. The loyalist local authorities shared the fear that, when
serving at banquets or gatherings of Hungarians, Roma would musick the
sound of revolt. It was not only their distinct interpretative style,20 but also
their repertoires that came to be seen as problematic in aesthetic and
political terms. The authorities and other non-Hungarians, particularly the
Germans, claimed that these performances threatened the fragile social
peace of the multi-ethnic monarchy. The fact that some Romani bands
became eager to broaden their repertoire with Hungarian patriotic and even
chauvinistic music was recognized by Endre Spur, who claimed that, in
order to satisfy their audiences, performers would even learn Hungarian
lyrics capable of inducing a volcano of Magyar pride.21 However, it
matters less whether the music was vocal or simply instrumental. The fact
that non-Hungarians recognized the political implications of the songs was
enough to denounce a performance immediately as nationalistic and
contentious.
A sensitivity to repertoires imbued with political-nationalist messages was
also current in the Transylvanian context. For now, I will only note that,
among the concerts in Transylvania given by Franz Liszt, the one in
Hermannstadt (today Sibiu)a town then dominated by Saxons but also
populated by Hungarians, Romanians and other nationalitiesthe repertoire
included the Rkczi March (the unofficial Hungarian anthem) and
Schuberts Erlknig. When the time came for an encore, Liszt chose the
Rkczi March, which was met with protests and whistles from a section of
the ethnically mixed audience.22 This politicized consciousness was not
restricted to an elite public that had developed the taste for concerts. As the
empirical part of my study will demonstrate, such sensitivities were shared
by other social groups.
Furthermore, it was not only high musical culture, or what has been called
classical music, performed and consumed primarily by supporters of the
national project, that was suspected of conveying a national(ist), antiestablishment or chauvinist message. Cultural attitudes were largely spread
20 Catherine Mayes, Reconsidering an early exoticism: Viennese adaptations of Hungarian-Gypsy music around 1800, Eighteenth-Century Music, vol. 6, no. 2, 2009, 16181
(164 ff.).
21 Spur, Reminiscences of Gypsy musicians in Hungary, 22.
22 Franz Metz, Musik und Politik entlang der Donau: Die Musikgeschichten einer bunten
europischen Region, in Bruno B. Reuer (ed.), Musik im Umbruch: Kulturelle Identitt
und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Sdosteuropa (Munich: Sdostdeutsches Kulturwerk
1999), 32540 (329).

384 Patterns of Prejudice

and reinforced by means of popular music,23 which will remain the focus of
my analysis. Official high-art music productions bearing the national imprint
could be too encrypted, and require too much specialist training and too large
a cultural vocabulary, to be understood as such. The nationalist agenda of
music could be better served when arias were popularized and played in
public spaces. Their meaning could then be accessible after having gone
through a stage of official consecration and eventual de-codification.
Unofficial anthems and popular music could also be more blunt and targeted
in their statements than official ones. The stereotypical construction of
Hungarians as puppet-masters, who used the politically apathetic Roma
minstrel to perform Hungarian national music and concomitantly express a
spirit of revolt, was widespread in press narratives. Such reporting
demonstrates the impact of music in delineating group boundaries and
defining performers as deviant or even as enemies.

The politics of the Transylvanian German cultural narrative

The debate on the social function of music in the Transylvanian context is
relevant because it shows the reception of the cultural and national discourses
at the imperial metropole and at its peripheries, and the way they were
articulated by the Saxons and other Germans living in the province. In order
to show loyalty to the establishment without abandoning their specific
grievances, they denounced competing cultures and assumed a position of
superiority in relation to other nations, most notably Hungary.
It would be useful to refer briefly to the political context that served as a
backdrop, and without which the narratives of Otherness would not make
much sense: namely, Transylvanias progressive loss of a privileged position
within the reformist policies of the House of Habsburg. When, eventually, the
nationalities of Transylvania were confronted with the Hungarian intention of
making the province a part of Hungary, they found themselves facing a total
loss of autonomy. This Hungarian agenda was an extension of the politics of
Magyarization that became more or less state policy after 1848, achieving its
full expression after 1867. How was this seen by Saxons and other ethnic
Germans in Transylvania? It was met, unsurprisingly, with strong opposition
that only grew stronger after the dissolution of municipal autonomy in
1876.24
The disappointment of the Transylvanian Saxons with the Habsburgs,
towards whom they were initially sympathetic because of a common German
origin, resulted from the centralist policy of the empire that made the Saxon
23 Lydia Goehr, Political music and the politics of music, Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism, vol. 52, no. 1 (special issue on The Philosophy of Music), 1994, 99112 (109).
24 Rudolf Grf and Thomas Ngler, Naionalitile i dualismul: Cazul sailor, in IoanAurel Pop, Thomas Ngler and Magyari Andrs (eds), Istoria Transilvaniei, vol. 3 (ClujNapoca: Centrul de Studii Transilvane 2008), 44952 (451).

MARIAN ZLOAG

385

position weaker in relation to other nationalities. The Saxon aversion to the

natio Austriaca project, as proposed by Joseph II at the end of the eighteenth
century, is in fact considered to be a source of the nationalism that dominated
the nineteenth century.25 By the 1830s, cultural nationalism was rife. The elites
of all the ethnic groups in Transylvania were preoccupied with the national
values of their own communities, and rarely displayed a serious interest in
supranational Transylvanian common goals.26 The year 1849 was crucial for
the Saxons because they then openly declared their affinity with the agenda of
the national assembly in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, which included the
ideal of a Grossdeutschland.27 The lack of support from the House of Habsburg
strengthened their leaning towards Berlin. This shift in affinities was
grounded in longstanding relations with the academic world (as most of
the elites attended German universities) and with German associations.28
Connections with the German world as well as significant media attention
increased the spread of national ideas at all levels of society.29 As their
position grew more insecure, the Saxons of Transylvania sought to assert their
dominance in the cultural and economic spheres.30 When the Magyarization
campaign accelerated after 1867, they found themselves in the vulnerable
position of a national minority that was to be assimilated by the unitary and
indivisible Hungarian nation.31 Accordingly, they cultivated more intensely
their identification with the Mutterland, which, after the 1871 unification of
German lands as the German Reich, was even more attractive because of the
prestige it could bring to its sons everywhere.32 This identification did not
result in revolt or fierce contestation but rather encouraged the expression of a
dual loyalty: on the one hand, to the idea of Germanness (Deutschtum)
understood in ethnic terms, referring to a common origin, language and
culture, and, on the other, to the imperial authorities, which had to be
respected, while reserving the right to respond critically to some political
measures.33
Despite the acceptance by historians that Saxon culture was influenced by
both Oriental and Occidental elements in different degrees, recognizable in
both literary and musical texts,34 the Saxons historical discourse posits that
their principal function was in mediating the values of the West in the eastern
part of the continent. For instance, the music historian Karl Teutsch has
25 Konrad Gndisch, Siebenbrgen und die Siebenbrger Sachsen (Munich: Langen-Mller
1998), 124.
26 Harald Roth, Kleine Geschichte Siebenbrgens (Cologne: Bhlau Verlag 1996), 96.
27 Ibid., 94; Gndisch, Siebenbrgen und die Siebenbrger Sachsen, 135.
28 Grf and Ngler, Naionalitile i dualismul, 452.
29 Roth, Kleine Geschichte Siebenbrgens, 97.
30 Ibid., 100.
31 Ibid., 107. Unless otherwise stated, translations are by the author.
32 Ibid., 109.
33 Gndisch, Siebenbrgen und die Siebenbrger Sachsen, 134.
34 Ibid., 267.

386 Patterns of Prejudice

outlined the key role of the Transylvanian German musical associations as an

importer of western cultural values.35 Furthermore, Konrad Gndisch has
stated that these associations functioned to encourage national
cohesiveness.36
Those who read the evolution of German Transylvanian music as an
element of the history of that community argue that music functioned as a
means of expressing its affiliation to the pan-German cultural project.
Therefore, it is no surprise to see its adherence to the principles of the
Musikwissenschaft that posited the universality of German music.37 This
position simultaneously involved an affirmation of superiority over music
produced by Others. When it came to Gypsy musical performance, some
Saxon sources acknowledged that the Roma had a very particular talent
while, at the same time, being disdainful of any German who played nach
alter Musikzigeunerart, that is, without serious study of the field.38 The rhetoric
embraced by German critics portrayed music as serious and laborious work,39
not a Leichtsinnigkeit (a bit of frivolity).40 Such characterizations of Gypsy
music are not intelligible unless read against the German ideal of musicmaking as an intellectual labor of the listener and composer in a joint project
of edification.41 The consumers of silly productions associated with the
primitive senses were not seen as praiseworthy. On the contrary, like other
contemporaries, the Saxons thought Romani performances revealed the
temperament of the people in whose country they live, and this appears as
well in their music as in their dance.42 Such an essentialist and subtly
stigmatizing notion, which hinted at something beyond the heterogeneity of
Romani culture, was exploited by the Germans and Saxons in a nationalist
and exclusivist manner. They conflated the topic of music with the political
rivalries of everyday life, which made possible the representation of Romani
performances in the service of the Hungarians as primitive and rebellious.
Gypsy musical performances were at least occasionally suspected of being a
potential declaration of war by Hungarian culture against the ethnic
Germans.
35 Karl Teutsch, Siebenbrgen in der europischen Musikgeschichte, in Horst Khnel
(ed.), Siebenbrgen, eine europische Kulturlandschaft: Acht Vortrge (Munich: Haus des
Deutschen Ostens 1986), 10348 (134).
36 Gndisch, Siebenbrgen und die Siebenbrger Sachsen, 154.
37 Applegate, How German is it?, 277.
38 Egon Hajek, Die Musik, ihre Gestalter und Verknder in Siebenbrgen einst und jetzt
(Kronstadt: Klingsor-Verlag 1927), 43.
39 Karen Painter, Mozart at work: biography and a musical aesthetic for the emerging
German bourgeoisie, Musical Quarterly, vol. 86, no. 1, 2002, 186235 (194).
40 Ibid., 207.
41 Ibid., 194.
42 J. Srmai, Remarks on the csardas dance, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, vol. 3,
no. 2, October 1891, 1067 (107).

MARIAN ZLOAG

387

In a context in which patriotic responsibility was the cornerstone of the

Musikverein (musical association) in Hermannstadt and every other Saxon
town,43 any argument could be deployed to fight proponents of the Others
national agenda. Musicking was shaped by the rhetoric of Othering, and its
principal weapons, within the discourses of the German Transylvanians, were
the cultural values derived from the credo of supreme canonic German art
music. Harald Roths observation that the discursive overstating of the
superiority of German culture was a defence against the excesses of
Magyarization helps us better to understand the robust German denigration
of Roma musical performances in the service of the Hungarians.44
In order to go beyond the evidence of musicological histories written in the
twentieth century, I will look at the German press published in Transylvania
during the second half of the nineteenth century. These records, including
news reports, travelogues or ethnographic accounts, show how the German
discourse was a tool designed both to demonstrate and to make public the
enmity of ethnic foes, as well as to damage the image of Hungarians. The
narratives usually overstate the osmosis between the Romani and Hungarian
cultures in an attempt to export a negative image of Romagenerally
described as problematic, undisciplined or primitiveinto a culture that was
directly contesting the hegemony of German values.

Narratives at work
Even prior to the publication of Liszts book about Gypsy music, many
Transylvanians agreed that Romani minstrels had an innate musical virtuosity. Furthermore, in the provincial political and cultural context, the subcategory of Transylvanian Roma music-makers came to be regarded as an
instrument of Hungarian culture. This dual artistic and ethnocultural
association was reiterated by the ethnologist Johann Heinrich Schwicker,
who wrote the following in an influential treatise about the Roma in
Transylvania and Hungary:
In [Western] Europe Gypsies appear to be the musicians in Turkey, Romania
and above all in Hungary, so that at present Hungary cannot be imagined
without Gypsy music. So much so that any shallow French tourist might be
tempted to perpetuate the general lack of taste by calling Hungary the land of
the Gypsies. Indeed, it is usual to associate Hungary with the music of the
Gypsies, hence any musician there is called a Gypsy and, in everyday usage,
to call or bring in the Gypsy always means to bring in a musical band.45
43 Carl Gllner (ed.), Geschichte der Deutschen auf dem Gebiete Rumniens, vol. 1 (Bucharest:
Kriterion Verlag 1979), 352.
44 Roth, Kleine Geschichte Siebenbrgens, 110.
45 Johann Heinrich Schwicker, Die Zigeuner in Ungarn und Siebenbrgen (Vienna and
Teschen: K. Prochaska 1883), 159.

388 Patterns of Prejudice

Such a statement is illustrative of the way western narratives elaborated

the situation in Eastern Europe, particularly in Hungary. Without rejecting
it as superficial or prejudiced, Schwicker added some nuance. In contrast
to Liszt, who stated that the Roma provided the Hungarians with their
music, Schwicker suggested that the Gypsy may possibly be the most
precise performer of Hungarian dance music and of their popular songs,46
while, in reality, the Hungarian loves Gypsy music but despises and
ridicules the Gypsy.47 Remarks of this kind may not directly disparage the
quality of the musical performance, but they nevertheless reveal the
hypocritical attitude of the Hungarians, who were obviously aware of
the stigmatizing effects of an association with a generally vilified ethnic
group.
Traditionally, Zigeunerkapellen (Romani musical bands) put themselves at
the service of every ethnic community in Transylvania, especially when
Tafelmusik (music played at banquets) or dance music was required.48 Still,
exclusivist and ethnically determined references became preferred topoi in
the German-language press, with the aim of discrediting Hungarian culture.
Reflecting on an article published in Klaussenburg (now Cluj-Napoca) in a
Hungarian-language journal, the editor of the Siebenbrgisch-deutsches Tageblatt acidly replied to his Hungarian colleague by characterizing the music of
the Roma as being katzenjammerlichen Stimmung (in a whining tone).49
This response was occasioned by the Hungarian authors implication that the
intellectual and material level of the listeners, referring to the German
audience in Hermannstadt, corresponded to the music they enjoyed. The
German journalist responded by ridiculing the attempt of the Hungarian
journalist to treat the welcome reception of a Zigeunerkapelle as the victory of
an avant garde of Hungarian culture. What almost certainly motivated the
triumphant reaction of the Hungarian journalist was his defensiveness about
sharing the stigma of the hybridization of Romani and Hungarian cultures, as
propagated by the hegemonic western narrative and often reiterated by the
Saxons themselves. The German reply was meant to reconfirm the narrative
aimed at denigrating Hungarian culture, which had lately been expressing a
growing and oppressive nationalism. This debate reveals to what extent
musical tastes could become a battleground in the cultural wars between
nations.
Generally speaking, the nationalist connotations of musical performance
were acknowledged by both cultures. Field anthropologist Heinrich von

46
47
48
49

Ibid., 160.
Ibid., 156.
Mayes, Reconsidering an early exoticism, 164.
Der Kolozsvri Kzlny und die Zigeunermusik, Siebenbrgisch-deutsches Tageblatt,
no. 3808, 24 June 1886, 629.

MARIAN ZLOAG

389

Wlislocki, who extensively wrote about Romani culture, acknowledged that

the Roma mediated the nationalist message in the service of Hungarian
culture, and claimed that this osmosis had a long history.50 A more nuanced
idea was suggested by his collaborator and supporter Anton Herrmann who,
in a 1892 article, railed against Liszts narrative, insisting that Gypsies do not
play for themselves, but as a means of earning a livelihood,51 that their
musical lives were profoundly different from those found in normative
cultures.
Writing in a Saxon periodical from Kronstadt (today Braov), Alexander
Czeke recognized the connections between Hungarian and Gypsy music,
noting the elegiac and patriotic tone of the musical performances. In his
opinion,
the fundamental feature of Hungarian music is an elegiac one. From the
beloved homeland, my rose (Rozsam), my bud (bimbm), my dove (galambom),
my love, to the most glorious patriotic song Hazdnak rendletnlenl lgy
hve, o magyar! [Be steadfast in support of your country, O Hungarian!],
everywhere dolour, everywhere the pounding violent yearning.52

The attribution of this Romani mindset to the Hungarians as primary

consumers of Gypsy musical performance also betrays the Saxon elites
Orientalist gaze.53 The political power of such remarks, articulated in
essentialist terms, provides evidence of a Herderian conceptualization of
the nation. From such a point to the concealment of potentially violent
passions was only one step taken without remorse in press narratives.
A good example of such a press narrative can be found again in the
columns of the principal German-language paper, Siebenbrgisch-deutsches
Tageblatt, which reported in June 1877 that, in Bistritz (today Bistria), two
Hungarian clerks were enjoying their time on the terrace of a local restaurant,
where they chatted, drank mash and listened to national Gypsy music. A
German named Mller showed up: The innocent German thought that if, in a
constitutional state, it was possible to pay for a performance by international
Gypsies, it should be possible to pay to hear a German piece of music.54
Mllers choice of An der schnen blauen Donau (The Blue Danube)
50 Heinrich von Wlislocki, Vom wandernden Zigeunervolke: Bilder aus dem Leben der
Siebenbrger Zigeuner: Geschichtliches, Ethnologisches, Sprache und Poesie (Hamburg:
Verlagsanstalt und druckerei Actien-Gesellschaft 1890), 217.
51 Anton Herrmann, Gypsy music, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, vol. 3, no. 3, January
1892, 1512 (151).
52 Alexander Czeke, ber ungarische Musik und Zigeuner, Bltter fr Geist, Gemth und
Vaterlandeskunde, vol. 16, no. 47, 27 November 1858, 1789 (179).
53 David Malvinni, The Gypsy Caravan: From the Real Roma to Imaginary Gypsies in Western
Music and Film (London and New York: Routledge 2004), 46; Nicholas Saul, Gypsies and
Orientalism in German Literature and Anthropology of the Long Nineteenth Century
(London: Legenda 2007), 7, 14 ff.
54 Grothaten, Siebenbrgisch-deutsches Tageblatt, no. 1056, 16 June 1877, 557.

390 Patterns of Prejudice

insulted the members of what the reporter called the uniquely legitimate
nation, as they had lost their privileged relationship to the Gypsies. A
violent fight ensued and the German was stabbed. Despite an anxious
attempt to sweep things under the carpet, these inhuman brutalities came to
light.55 The idea of the German repertoire as universalist can be easily
discerned in the reporters preference for the German character in the story.56
The report not only indicates the silliness with which Hungarian national
music was associated, but also conveyed to readers the veiled chauvinistic
attitude of a rival ethnic group towards the German minority. The journalists
identification with the cultural values of the innocent victim shows how
musical performances by Roma were seen as the perfect medium for enacting
enmity between national cultures.
Confirmation of the stereotyped osmosis between Hungarian culture and
Roma musical performances in the service of a Hungarian nationalist agenda
can also be found in the travelogues of foreigners published in the Saxon
press. A western travellers observations were regarded as supplementary
proof that performances by Roma could potentially arouse a spirit of revolt.
One traveller reported that, at an inn, he had the chance to enjoy a Romani
band that played unofficial Hungarian anthems with passion in order to
familiarize the foreigner with the national soul.57 He was informed by his
escort that the melancholic, cadenced and spirited tunes were the Klapka
March, the vocal ljen and a storming Rkczi March. The performances
were met with applause, and coins were thrown at the musicians as reward.
Despite the manipulative power of these elegiac renditions, they were soon
recognized as carrying hidden revanchist ideas. In spite of the travellers
desire to enrich his journey with authentic cultural productions, he could not
ignore the fact that the music he innocently requested the Romani band to
play was met with animosity by the Romanians present at the same inn, who
asked for a different repertoire. The reporter described the melancholy
Hungarian lament, and noted that the Romani minstrels performance
indeed displayed wild passions that were [for the traveller] entirely
insignificant,58 from a political point of view. A repertoire that could be so
casually exoticized by the traveller was read differently by the ethnic groups
in Transylvania. Nationalist music played by the Roma could stir the masses
as they recognized in some melodies a signal for rebellion. Such reported
occurrences offer insights into how unofficial anthems could prove to be more
effective in supporting a nationalist agenda.59 On the other hand, the
narrative also suggests the delicate situation of the Romani performer, caught
55 Ibid.
56 Benjamin Curtis, Music Makes the Nation: Nationalist Composers and Nation Building in
Nineteenth-century Europe (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press 2008), 9.
57 Zigeunersympathie: Eine Reiseerinnerung aus Ungarn, Siebenbrger Quartalschrift,
no. 4, 16 February 1860, 1234.
58 Ibid., 124.
59 Bohlman, Focus, 111 ff.

MARIAN ZLOAG

391

between conflicting national agendas and their preferred musical repertoires.

Furthermore, the episode exposes entangled cultural paradigms, the Orientalization of the Romani minstrel being simultaneously accompanied by
suspicions of his playing the tune of Magyar national pride.
Many other musical works were seen as incorporating or reiterating
messages that were subversive to the central authorities and hostile to other
ethnic groups, particularly the Germans. In the nineteenth century, music
became a discipline in the nationally oriented school curricula, and
unsurprisingly certain patriotic songs were learned by heart from early
childhood.60 Gradually, the crowds that gathered at different festivities or
celebrations came to share a repertoire of their own. Individuals with
different cultural and educational backgrounds became familiar with the
same tunes and the meanings they conveyed, and then used them to identify
Others as competitors or declared enemies.
In 1891 the public performances of Zigeunerkapellen from Bistritz were
decoded in the same manner in the German press. It was reported that Franz
Daday, the royal Vice-Procurator, ordered the Roma to stop singing the
official Austro-Hungarian anthem Gott erhalte. Instead, he told them: Play
another melody [Hogy ms ntt hzzanak], actually meaning, go diddle the
German, or in his own words mgis hunczfut a nemet.61 Other officers
present at the general headquarters understood the message behind his
request, and thought Dadays attitude highly disrespectful. A fight followed
and Daday was injured. After his recovery, disciplinary measures were taken
against him. The officer who initiated the fight, which could have cost Daday
his life, was prosecuted but exonerated of any guilt.62 In this particular
context, the Roma were regarded simply as performers of various repertoires,
and their readiness to play unofficial and insensitive anthems was left out of
the discussion. The narrative concentrated instead on the Hungarians offence
and only indirectly on the adaptability of the Roma to a market regulated by
the preferences of their ethnically heterogeneous clientele.63
After a series of similar events involving Zigeunerkapellen in other cities in
the eastern part of Austria-Hungary, recounted in the Siebenbrgisch-deutsches
Tageblatt,64 musical performances by Roma were banned as a precaution
60 Csnom Palk, Do not trust the German and Rkczi-nta (Rkczi Song) were
learned by heart by all Hungarian schoolchildren. See Johann Weidlein, Imaginea
germanului n literatura maghiar (Cluj-Napoca: Fundaia cultural romn 2002), 137.
61 Unteranwalt und Offiziere, Siebenbrgisch-deutsches Tageblatt, no. 5331, 23 June
1891, 609.
62 Ibid.
63 Note the ambiguity of the concept of market in the case of the discourses about Gypsy
music: on the one hand, it is the result of social forces and, on the other, it is the site
where the construction of the Gypsy becomes a valuable cultural phenomenon in
European cultures. See Malvinni, The Gypsy Caravan, 18, 40, 168, 180.
64 See Ungarische Musik im Agram verboten!, Siebenbrgisch-deutsches Tageblatt, no.
1679, 1 July 1879, 631; Keine ungarische Musik, Siebenbrgisch-deutsches Tageblatt, no.
2113, 29 November 1880, 1051.

392 Patterns of Prejudice

against riots. Germans were increasingly convinced that Gypsy music

nourished Hungarian nationalism. Such a conviction was also shared by the
Saxons who dominated some of the most important towns in Transylvania.
Press reports informed readers that interdictions were also thought legitimate
in circumstances in which acts of abominable brutality occurred.65 Some
voices in the German press analysed specific events through an ideological
prism, reaching the conclusion that the performances of Roma were pathetic
and encouraged emotional outbursts. In one narrative, the gendarme Nagy
embodied a typical Hungarian: arrogant and easily inflamed by the tunes of
the Romani musicians. At his bidding, parties frequently continued all night
long, disturbing other citizens. A peaceful Saxon asked the Roma to leave the
guest house where these parties took place, and the gendarme replied by
bullying the Saxon and using harsh language. The reporter commented that, in
order to preserve social peace between the nationalities, Romani bands had to
be banned by the police authorities from playing and earning money in aleand guest houses and made to be responsible for the effects of their
performances as a deterrent against similar occurrences!66 The anonymous
writer advocated that corrective police measures be enforced against the
musicians as well as the agent who organized events at which a specific
repertoire in favour of one ethnic party was played.
In 1898 the same newspaper reported an event in Tekendorf (today Teaca),
an ethnically mixed village near the Saxon town of Bistritz.67 A celebration of
the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I brought together the towns local
intelligentsia and civil servants as well as a Streitkommando (military strike
unit) that by chance happened to be there. The music was provided by a local
band that was presumably dominated by Germans since a majority of the
population in the locality were Saxons. Borokai Gyula, an ethnic Magyar who
was appointed lieutenant with the imperial gendarmerie, attended the
banquet. He expected to hear Gypsy music but the participants turned
down his request, as it was not to the taste of the organizers. In the spirit of
civic loyalty assumed by the Saxons, they selected a repertoire of hymns that
paid tribute to the unity of the peoples of Transylvania. Thus the inclusive
Siebenbrgen Land des Segens (Transylvania, Land of Blessings) was played
so as to overshadow the performances of the Romani musicians who had
been brought by the Hungarian lieutenant. As the gathering was multi-ethnic,
Hungarian official anthems were also performed in order to reinforce the
message of unity. Therefore, among the repertoire was the aforementioned
song, regarded as the anthem of the Saxons,68 along with Isten, ldd meg a
65 Eine Tat abscheuliches Brutalitt, Siebenbrgisch-deutsches Tageblatt, no. 4593, 16
January 1889, 55.
66 Ibid.
67 Zur Verhaftung in Tekendorf, Siebenbrgische-deutsches Tageblatt, no. 7509, 30 August
1898, 905.
68 Bohlman, Focus, 182; Hajek, Die Musik, ihre Gestalter und Verknder in Siebenbrgen einst
und jetzt, 42.

MARIAN ZLOAG

393

magyart (God, Bless the Hungarians) and Kk nefelejcs (Blue Forget-MeNots). The musical conflict between the factions continued, and Borokai even
ordered the local band to leave the stage to make room for the Romani
performers. When his order was met with the same refusal, he abused the
participants, accused them of singing hostile national songs and arrested
them. Again, in recounting the episode, the Siebenbrgisch-deutsches Tageblatt
tried to convey to its readers that musicking was far from innocent, and that
political disagreements could be provoked by musical performances. In the
German journalists view, the episode documented once again the more or
less voluntarily subordination of the Roma to the Hungarian political agenda.
Articles in the press show how the clash between nations could be
reiterated by conflicting musical canons, repertoires and performances, and
ultimately by essentialized national tastes. That musicking was a weapon of
war was no secret to the Transylvanian people. Since, as we have seen,
tensions could be deliberately generated during official celebrations of the
imperial authorities, such events might be understood as open declarations of
war. At the end of the nineteenth century, in the era of widespread press
reporting, even the most remote corner of Austria-Hungary could be
monitored. Word spread fast and such narratives could quickly alarm various
authorities, be they local, provincial or imperial.

Entanglements of cultural discourses and musicking in late

nineteenth-century Transylvania
In his most recent book, Marcello Sorce Keller posited the notion that music
takes sides.69 This notion was intuitively understood by the ethnicities of
Transylvania in the nineteenth century. Even when music was performed
outside official institutionswhich programmatically stimulated national
sentimentsit was far from innocent.
Without question, the narratives in the Transylvanian German-language
press were deeply concerned with musicking as a political act. Some of the
between-the-lines judgements betray an adherence to the western canon as far
as musical taste was concerned. While music may have only played a
subsidiary role, it was, as I have suggested, not at all insignificant in the
disparagement of Romani musical performers as domestic and familiar
Orientals.70 Central to the narratives was the idea that the Saxons found in the
association between Hungarians and Romani musical performances a
symbolic weapon to counter a nationalist/chauvinistic Hungarian agenda.
Altogether, the Germans denounced such performances as the hybrid
69 Marcello Sorce Keller, What Makes Music European: Looking beyond Sound (Lanham, MD:
Scarecrow Press 2012), 134.
70 Marian Zloag, Professing domestic Orientalism: representing the Gypsy as Musikant
in the Transylvanian Saxons writings of the long 19th century, Studia Universitatis
Babe-Bolyai, Historia, vol. 57, no. 2, 2012, 128.

394 Patterns of Prejudice

outcome of primitive Easterners. Apart from this Orientalist gaze, the

recognition of a politically chauvinist agenda triggered a heightened aversion
to the music of the Other. In the German view, hybridization between the
Hungarian and Romani culture was a confirmation of actual enmity, and an
occasion to restate symbolically their belonging to a hegemonic western
culture. As demonstrated, Germans opposed their adversaries by exploiting
the attribute of civility, which they linked to a conformist repertoire that
expressed loyalty to the state.
The two discourses on music, namely, that of civility/canonicity and that of
Orientalism, could become entangled. Both underscore the idea of Otherness
and even rivalry. Indeed, the Orientalist gaze was a subsidiary discursive tool
that Germans used to disparage their political adversaries by placing them
into a reconfigured symbolical geography of the East,71 although, as a matter
of fact, most of the narratives referred to in this paper set the animosities in
rather mundane contexts. The hybrid cultural relations between the Hungarians and Romani musical bandsprimarily a construct of the West,
occasionally employed by the Saxonsmight have been shared only by
elites. Conversely, narratives hinting at a precise repertoire settled the matter
in ways that were relevant for members of various social or ethnocultural
groups sensitive to, or even involved in, the social order or nation-building in
the easternmost province of Austria-Hungary. According to both of these
social structuring principles, it was legitimate to vilify the musicking of the
Other.
Marian Zloag has published studies on the cultural representations of
Otherness in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Transylvania. In 2011 he
completed a doctoral dissertation on the image of the Gypsy in Transylvanian Saxon culture. Recently, he has been working on the role of music in
society, and the relation between music and nationalism in Transylvania in
the long nineteenth century. Email: zaloagam@yahoo.com

71 See Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London and New York: Penguin 2003); and Larry
Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 1994).

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