Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Annex
Most Frequent Stereotypes Concerning Slovak-Hungarian Relations... minority policies. Following the inevitable acceptance of the Treaty of Trianon, which it viewed unjust, the regime did not show any interest in development of ‘residual’ ethnic communities on Flungary’s territory. Slovak primary schools in language enclaves around Békéscsaba, Budapest and elsewhere were not abolished but most of them were transformed into schools of type ‘C’, i.e. Hungarian schools where Slovak language was taught as a subject. Hungary had approximately 50 such schools in the 1930s. Secondary schools for minorities were not required by the peace agreements and government showed no interest in maintaining them. This model was generally applied to all national minorities that made up only some 4% of Hungary’s total population in the post-Trianon period. The only exception was ethnic Germans whose number exceeded 500,000, or about 5% of the total population. Mostly in hopes of Germany’s support for Hungary’s ambitions regarding border revision, government education policy with respect to ethnic Germans gradually grew more accommodating in the 1930s, which showed through establishing more schools of type ‘B’ (i.e. fully bilingual educational establishments), including secondary schools. The situation partially changed following the First Vienna Award by which Hungary acquired territories with sizeable shares of non-Hungarian population. The Slovak community inhabiting Czechoslovakia’s territory annexed by Hungary in 1938 was served by 118 primary schools - including 73 where Slovak was the language of instruction, 38 bilingual schools and seven schools where Slovak language was taught as a subject. Also, these Slovaks could attend seven junior secondary schools, two secondary grammar schools and two secondary vocational schools. 2. The event that perceptibly affected Hungary’s Slovak community after World War II was repatriation of population between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Czechoslovak authorities assumed that the number of Slovaks living in Hungary and the number of Hungarians living in Czechoslovakia was roughly similar - some 500,000 persons. But although members of the special repatriation commission were free to advertise the measure among ethnic Slovak residents of Hungarian villages for several months in 1946, only some 73,000 ethnic Slovaks from Hungary eventually reported for transfer. Yet, their departure significantly undermined the Slovak enclave’s compactness in Hungary’s Lowlands. In the words of a'ready quoted Anna Divičanová: “The partial repatriation was inevitably followed by irreversible disintegration and loosening of relatively closed ethnic communities with almost 200 years of traditions, i.e. the very factor that allowed ethnic Slovaks in Hungary preserve their language, habits and culture.” While the Slovak community in Hungary never fully recovered from the (voluntary) 291
