Folia historica 26

I. Tanulmányok - Pallos Lajos: Területvédő propaganda Magyarországon 1918-1920 II. rész

PROPAGANDA OF TERRITORY DEFENSE IN HUNGARY 1918-1920 PART 2 Summary After the defeat of the country in the First World War, a propaganda started to evolve in Hungary which was about to convince the winner powers not to tear the territory of the country into pieces according to the demands of the neighbouring countries. After in the first part of the paper the organising of the propaganda is being discussed (including the work of the government and the participating societies), the second part presents the argument systems of the propaganda. Most of the elements of the argument system of the propaganda pointed towards the preservation of the territorial integrity of Hungary. The historical argument included partly the fact that the Hungarian nation in the one which has been living for a thousand years in the Carpathian Basin, the only one with the ability to found a state. On the other hand the historical argument epmhasised that Hungary formed the dam that stopped the expansion of the Turks. The cultural argumentation alluded to the leading role of the Hungarian culture and civilisation in this area of Europe. The ethnical argumentation claimed that the Hungarians should live in the centrum of the Carpathian Basin, but towards the edges at the territories dwelled by the nationalities the population is so mixed that it is clear that there is no chance for just settlement. This was an answer to the principal announced by the American president Wilson regarding the right to self-determination of the nationalities which was finally applied in the treaty (nominally), fully at the expense of the Hungarian nationality. The geographical argument allude to the specific geographic state of the country: the biggest part of it is embraced by the Carpathians, which includes the uniformity of the hydrography, and the fact that the different regions complete each other in a harmonic way. The economic argument claims that the parts of the country with different capabilities are dependent on each other in the terms of raw material, food production, industry and labor market. At last the political argumentation emphasises that the desintegration of Hungary would cause irredentist efforts of the Hungarian people thus destabilizing the peace of the territory. Four Alsace instead of one.

.. The paper shows through the postcards printed for international use how the argument system of the propaganda looked like on artistic graphic depictions. The propaganda of territory defense remained inefficient partly due to the lack of time partly to the revenge-thirsty behaviour of the winners. In the Trianon Treaty by the violation of Wilson's principle of nationalities the homogeneus territory dwelled by Hungarians did not remain Hungarian, the dominant parts of the edges were torn with almost two millions of Hungarian inhabitants. Afterwards, the argument system of the propaganda was used by the Hungarian revisionist propaganda, which was not fighting against the imperialist peace without any reason, but the agreement between Hungary and the successor states did not succeed. 75