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Despite economic underdevelopment, Transylvania, particularly the Szeklerland, has played a prominent role in setting Hungarian cultural policy since 1867, when the Austro-Hungarian Compromise was signed. Transylvania has been home to myriad educational and religious institutions that have helped preserve Hungarian culture.  

During the Interwar Period, in the wake of the Treaty of Trianon, revisionary efforts left their mark most strongly on cultural policy. As Ministers of Culture, both Kuno Klebelsberg and his successor Bálint Hómán introduced educational reforms that served Hungary’s revisionist endeavors. The relocation of the Hungarian university located in Kolozsvár, first to Budapest, and then to Szeged in 1921, was taken as an act of cultural preservation. The Hungarian state also took clandestine steps to support Hungarian cultural life in Transylvania. 

After 1945, and particularly after 1948, Hungarian policymakers strictly considered the Hungarian minority in Transylvania as a Romanian domestic issue. This referred to cultural issues as well. In the early 1980’s, following Ion Lăncrănjan’s libelous essays on Hungarianness, the tide turned. Hungarians were once again allowed to discuss the plight of the two million strong ethnic Hungarian minority in Transylvania. Following the System Changeover, moreover, the Hungarian state openly provided support to preserve Hungarian identity in Transylvania, mainly by operating and expanding a cultural institutional system there.