The problem of the confessional recruitment of the students at the Faculties of the Humanities and Science of the Transylvanian University

Abstract

'Located in Transylvania, one of the most multi-denominational regions of Europe, the University of Kolozsvár/ Cluj/ Klausenburg had 4000 students graduating from its Humanities and Science faculties in the period under examination. The ratios regarding the religious background of these graduates are: one third Roman Catholic; one third Calvinist, one eighth Lutheran, and the rest were affiliated with the small Unitarian Protestant and Jewish denominations of the region. Members of Eastern churches (Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox) were also present in small numbers. The principal means of estimating the under- or over-representation of religious denominations in the student body was analysing the religious composition of graduates from Transylvania only (almost 60% of graduates). Concerning the mainly Hungarian denominations, Unitarians were four times over-represented among graduates, Calvinists 2.7 times, and Catholics 1.8 times. In national surveys, Calvinists and Roman Catholics tended to be under-represented, but it seems this was counter-balanced in Transylvania by the urban nature of the ethnic Hungarian population. Lutherans were over-represented by a factor of 1.7. Most members of this group were Transylvanian Saxons living in German-speaking towns. An over-representation of Jewish students, which applied to both Budapest University and the country as a whole (on account of the sheer number of students attending Budapest University), could not be observed here. Indeed, Jewish graduates were under-represented by a factor of 0.9. The representation indices for the Greek Catholic population (0.16) and the Greek Orthodox population (0.07) effectively demonstrate that Romanians had little chance of graduating from the faculties examined. The analysis of temporal changes in the denominational composition of the student body reveals that Catholics - both Roman and Greek - reduced their participation over time, perhaps turning away from Transylvania in favour of Budapest. As a result, Kolozsvár University became increasingly Calvinist. Transylvanian Jews underwent the most rapid process of modernisation, progressing from almost total exclusion to over-representation. The reason for Jewish under-representation - as shown by the initial survey - was that Transylvanian Jews lagged behind Hungary's urban Neolog Jewish communities. Similar over- an under-representation data demonstrate the differencia specifica of the Faculty of Humanities vs. the Faculty of Science, the differences regarding the social background of non-Transylvanian students, the success at the doctoral level, the recruitment of the elite, etc.' (author's abstract)|