Ice Hockey and National Tensions in Romania

Part 2. Varia
By Julien Danero Iglesias, Pompiliu Nicolae Constantin
English

In late 2011, a double scandal hit the world of Romanian ice hockey: in a match against Hungary, the players of the Romanian national team sang the Hungarian anthem while they remained silent for the Romanian anthem. A few weeks later, a player of the under-16 team was pushed by his teammates because he asked them to speak Romanian instead of Hungarian in the locker room on national day. In this context, the paper proposes a study of the reaction of the Romanian press to the scandal and concentrates on the inclusion and exclusion of the Hungarian minority in the discourse of the country’s Romanian majority. Following a methodology inspired by the critical discourse analysis as proposed by Ruth Wodak, the article focuses on the integrating power of sports and on shared patriotism in a divided society such as present-day Romania.

Keywords

  • nationalism
  • discourse
  • media
  • hockey
  • Romania
Go to the article on Cairn-int.info