Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Annex
Most Frequent Stereotypes Concerning Slovak-Hungarian Relations... sus of 1920 they made up 6.9% and 1.8% of Hungary’s total population, respectively. In the case of Slovaks, that represented 142,000 persons. Other national minorities included Croats, Romanians and Serbians, none of whom individually made up more than 0.5% of the total population. The Jews were not considered an ethnic but a religious community. By the first post-war population census of 1949, the number of ethnic Slovaks in Hungary (i.e. persons who considered Slovak to be their mother tongue) dropped to 75,000. The decline to about one half in less than three decades may be attributed to three basic factors: minority policy of Horthy’s Hungary, wartime losses and especially repatriation of population in 1946— 1947 that was proposed (and enforced) by the Czechoslovak Government. As we have said, over 73,000 ethnic Slovaks left Hungary for Slovakia. Although some of them may have left out of expediency - in search of greener pastures - there is little doubt that most of them were nationally conscious Slovaks. Their departure dealt the Slovak community in Hungary a serious blow from which it has never fully recovered. The Slovak enclave’s undermined compactness played into the hands of the Hungarian government, which used the objective situation to adopt negative measures (e.g. abolishing Slovak minority schools). During the subsequent era of industrialization and collectivization, a large number of ethnic Slovaks moved into larger towns where their mingling with the majority Hungarian environment was unavoidable. The share of ethnic Slovaks declined under 50% in traditional settlements and under 20% in most other municipalities, which is the critical limit for irreversible assimilation unless government fails or refuses to adopt massive active measures aimed at reversing the assimilation process. True, the Hungarian government did not introduce such fundamental measures until after the fall of communism. In 1993 Hungarian parliament passed Minority Act that granted national minorities the right to elect minority self-govemance organs on the local, regional and national level, guaranteed disbursement of relatively generous state budget subsidies, introduced the post of minority ombudsman, and established the Office for National minorities that reports directly to the prime minister’s office, etc. Adoption of this law contributed to slowing down the trend of irreversible assimilation. The total number of Hungarian citizens who claim Slovak origin increased from 10,459 in 1990 to 17,693 in 2001. On the other hand, the most recent population census also revealed a negative trend as the total number of persons declaring Slovak as their mother tongue slightly declined from 12,745 in 1990 to 11,817 in 2001. For the first time in history, the number of ethnic Slovaks claiming Slovak origin in post-Trianon 293
