Liszka József (szerk.): Az Etnológiai Központ Évkönyve 2000-2001 - Acta Ethnologica Danubiana 2-3. (Dunaszerdahely-Komárom, 2001)

1. Tanulmányok - Paládi-Kovács Attila: Természeti tájak és nyelvhatárok a régi Felső-Magyarországon

World War One, while proclaiming the ethnic principle, in some cases the language-boundaries were taken into account and in others they were neglected. The Polish-Czechoslovak border, for example, was drawn on the basis of the ethnic principle, giving to Poland the parts of the old Árva and Szepes counties inhabited by Poles. At the time of the Treaty of Versailles the question of the Slovak-Ruthenian language-boundary was not considered since the territory of historical Hungary with a Ruthenian majority went to Czechoslovakia. It was only after World War Two that the latter became part of the Soviet Union and later, after its disintegration, of Ukraine.

In 1920 the big powers showed little interest in the Slovak-Hungarian language-boundary or in the fate of the enclaves of Carpathian Germans. The Vienna Award of 1938 changed the border between Slovensko which became independent at that time, and Hungary. The ethnic principle and the language-boundary were cited when making this decision too. It is well known that the Paris Peace Treaty following World War Two restored the earlier border drawn in 1920 between Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

There is a large body of literature on the question of the Hungarian-Slovak languageboundary based on historical, statistical and demographic data. The majority of authors have found that there was barely any change in the Hungarian-Slovak language-boundary in the old Nógrád and Gömör counties over a period of 200 years (i.e. from the mid-18th to the mid- 20th centuries). There appears to be a significant relationship between the natural, geographical and the ethnic, language-boundaries in the eastern part of the region. The languageboundary coincides with the bundles of elevation, climatic and geobotanical (i.e. grapes, wheat, maize) boundary lines mentioned above. According to the geographer L. Kádár, the Hungarian-Slovak language-boundary “practically follows the hillsides along the elevation lines (700-800 m above sea level) crossing the valleys that run down from the mountains. Hungarians live in the lower part of the valleys and in the upper part Slovaks whose only road leads down beside the stream” (Kádár 1943, 77) The Hungarian-Slovak border drawn in 1938 followed the language boundary in Nógrád and Gömör. However, that border cut off the Slovak villages there from the outside world and was very disadvantageous for them as regards both transport and economics.

The historical constancy of the next section of the language-boundary is very instructive. It must be noted here right from the start that along the Rozsnyó - Jászó (Jasov) - Kassa section the Hungarian language area marched on a considerable ethnic German population. The smaller basin of Szepes (Zips, Spis) Saxons arose in the 13th—14th centuries in the south-west part of the old Szepes county, in the upper valley of the Gölnic (Hnilec) and Bódva Rivers. It comprised mining towns such as Szomolnok (Smolník), Gölnicbánya (Gelnica) and Svedlér (Švedlár). Germans once lived in a number of towns in the mining region of Upper Hungary, such as Rozsnyó and Dobsina (Dobšiná) in Gömör county, Jászó and Nagyida (Veľká Ida) in Abaúj and Igló (Spišská Nová Ves) in the Hemád valley. Stósz (Štós), renowned for its iron forges, and Mecenzéf and Lower Mecenzéf (Medzev) belonged here. In the early 20th century the Saxon ethnic groups in the south of Szepes and in the neighbouring counties still preserved their German identity and grundier dialects.

The Hungarian-German language boundary which existed for 500-600 years was roughly 60 km long. The population flowing into the towns of Jászó (Jasov) and Rozsnyó from the Hungarian-speaking area grew to a majority by the early Modem Age and assimilated the

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