Right to Homeliness: The Dissolution of the Existential Paradox of Minorities

Abstract

In my study, I explore the logical self-contradictions stemming from the legal category of the national minority and argue that the minority rights that create this category are unsuitable for resolving the fundamental existential paradox of minority status. Similarly to Sándor Makkai, I see the minority paradox in the lack of homeliness of the physical home. In my view, homeliness as a measure of social defaultness is a function of the consensus prevailing in society and thus is related to the legal order of the state hosting the minority. To resolve this existential paradox of ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania, I find it necessary to recognize the right to homeliness, which entails stepping out from the paradigm of minority rights.