Szittyakürt, 1977 (16. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1977-12-01 / 12. szám
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITION OF «ITTVAKÖftT VOL. III. No. 1. MARCH, 1977 Official publication of the Revolutionary Council of the OCTOBER 23 1956 HUNGÁRIA FREEDOM FIGHTER MOVEMENT THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUESTION at the PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE Thirty years ago on February 10, 1947 Hungary’s second death sentence the Paris peace treaty was signed in Paris, at the Salon de l’Horologe. This tragic event was documented by John C. Campbell a member of the American delegation and chief of Eastern European affairs at the State Department. His experience was published in a study titled “The European Territorial Settlement,” which appeared in the 1947 October issue of Foreign Affairs. Even though the study lacks the expected historical objectivity and presents many contradictions it deserves attention on some of the major points in reference to Transylvania. However in order to proceed with Campbell’s study some vital historical facts must be set forth. First of all, on October 1, 1944, Sasanov and Bratianu had already signed a secret agreement, which granted Transylvania and Bukovina to Romania if they were to enter the war on the side of Russia. Later the British did the same, thus the destiny of Transylvania was settled. In spite of this agreement, in the beginning the victorious nations did not even want to speak to the Romanians, remembering their terrible defeat in 1916 (WW I.). But finally, the hate campaigne of Benes and Masaryk and the British “gentleman like” behaviour left the door open to the course of events. Thus Romania received not only the historical Hungarian territory of Transylvania, but even a 60 km wide and 250 km long strip, of the Hungarian plane: the area of Szamos and Körös, Arad and the larger portion of Bánát, because the “New State” needed some vital railroad transportation lines. As a result of the clever Romanian propaganda this entire region became known world wide as Transylvania. In 1919 (after WW I.) at the Trianon peace conference the city of Arad and the surrounding Hungarian region at first was given to Hungary. The annexation to Romania was at last claimed to be for “economic reasons,” as indicated by the French text: “pour des raisons strictement economiques.” Harold Temperley in his 1928 publication “How the Hungarian Frontiers were drawn” wrote: “No one denied the severe violation of ethnic doctrine. In this case the Allies have declaired, that the economic necessity is more vital than the ethnic question.” This is how Transylvania and a strip of the Hungarian plane annexed to Romania became the “apple of Eris” between the two World Wars during the Pangerman and Panslav power struggle. Stalin, in 1940 prior to overruning Bessarabia had twice offered Transylvania to the Hungarian government, which regrettably did not accept this favorable opportunity. This is when Stalin started to give thought to the idea of independent Transylvania—obviously under Soviet guardianship. This plan was temporarly set aside, when Benes in December, 1943 circumvented the allied powers and offered him Kárpátalja (the Lower-Carpaths). The plan was completely abandoned after WW II., when in contrast with the easy Sovietization of Romania, the Hungarian people shamefully defeated the Communist party in the 1945 elections. The second Vienna decision (1940) is a vivid example how Hitler also used Transylvania as the “apple of Eris.” Furthermore the same approach was used by Khruschev to keep in line Kádár of Hungary and Ceausescu of Romania and today Breznev continues the same practice. With these thoughts in mind let us examine J. C. Campbell’s references on the Transylvanian question: “The Rumanian treaty, first of the Balkan treaties to be taken up by the Council, presented no such critical problems as Trieste. Rumania’s boundaries were settled before the negotiations began, though the frontier with Hungary was “subject to confirmation” . . . The only real territorial dispute in the Rumanian treaty concerned Transylvania. The Soviet came out flatly for the confirmation of Rumania’s title to the entire province. They had installed a docile regime in Bucarest and presented to it, with great fanfare, the northern part of Transylvania which had been ‘awarded’ to Hungary by Hitler and Mussolini in 1940, conquered by Soviet and Rumanian forces in the autumn of 1944, and placed under Soviet military government from then until March 1945. Soviet representatives inBudapest did not hesitate to talk of the possibility of doing something to meet Hungary’s desires but at London and Paris the Soviet delegation never changed its position of full support for Rumania. The fact that Rumania’s Communist-dominated Government needed a popular national issue such as this to win support, while a failure to get any satisfaction on Transylvania would weaken the majority Smallholders Party in Hungary, was reason enough for the Soviet attitude. Should the political situation in the two countries change at some later date, that attitude might be changed accordingly. The Russians, like Hitler, were in position to use the Transylvania question as a means of keeping both Hungary and Rumania in line. MARCH 15, 1848... APRIL 4, 1945... AND RUSSIAN IMPERIALISM In a most recently published outstanding book E. W. Stroup writes: “The morning of Wednesday, March 15, 1848, dawned a pleasant spring day over the adjacent cities of Pest and Buda some 130 English miles down the Danube from the Dietal city of Pozsony. The extraordinary events of this day were to transform a simple political petition to oppositional members of the Diet into a national manifestation. ” (1) And now the foreign oppressors of present day Hungary are shaking once again . . . They fear freedom and justice!. . . because imperialism flows in their veins. They live by a double edge sword which ironically cuts both ways . . . The imperialist tyrants have no friends and lovers, only competitors for the grab in the ocean of slavery. They are ready to sacrifice the other “partner” on the altar of lie and deceit. As the winter is most assuredly followed by spring, the spring of Renewal, Revival, and Ressurrection! And so the cold, vise-like grip of Russian imperialist tyranny and the selfish foreign occupation of the Carpath-Basin that began in the winter of 1944-45 will melt away on a glorious spring day in modern Hungarian history. This is how Alexander Petőfi, the great Hungarian poet and revolutionary genius, warned the tryants of his world and Hungary in February, 1848 .... 1. Stroup, Edsel Walter. Hungary in Early 1848: The constitutional struggle against absolutism in contemporary eyes, Hungarian CuUural Foundation, Buffalo. N.Y. — Atlanta, Georgia. 1977. pp. 103. WINTER’S DEATH The winter whose slave you were now sees his own defeat, and tears pour from his battered eyes. Always ice, he now melts and dies like a coward, No wonder — cowardice is the brother of tyranny. and by March 15, 1848 the Magyar people, fired by the deepest desire of national freedom and the promise that only Spring can deliver, sang the National Song .... NATIONAL SONG Talpra Magyar, your country calls! the time for now or never falls! Are we to live as slaves or free? Choose one! this is our destiny! By the God of all the Magyars, we swear, we swear never again the chains to bear! Pest March 13, 1848 (Petőfi) Translated by A. N. Nyerges MÉN—APÓ Study of the Transylvania problem in Washington during the war led to the conclusion that it was insoluble so long as extreme nationalism guided the conduct of governments and national minorities in the Danube area. No boundary change would help matters much, since the largest Hungarian bloc, some 450.000 Széklers, lived in the eastern corner of Transylvania far from the Hungarian border. A territorial change might divide the respective minorities more evently between Hungary and Rumania. That had already been tried under Hitler’s Vienna Award, which had returned almost one million Magyars to Hungary but had transferred an even greater number of Rumanians along with them; it had proved anything but a fair and stable solution. A large-scale compulsory exchange of populations might create an ethnic line where none existed before, but it might also create more problems than it solved. The United States was not prepared to advocate a drastic solution of this sort, nor did it see much practical value in the idea of an independent Transylvania. Without pretending to advocate a fundamental solution of the Transylvanian problem, the United States took the position that comparatively modest changes in the prewar boundary, returning to Hungary some solidly Magyar-populated cities and districts, might provide a basis for better relations between the two countries. At London in September 1945 Mr. Byrnes suggested that this possibility be studied. Neither the Soviets nor the British showed any enthusiasm. The latter felt that a change in the frontier would only exasperated Rumania without really satisfying Hungary and would harm rather than benefit Britain’s position in eastern Europe. The United States had then to decide whether to press for revision or to let the matter drop. Since the population statistic indicated that a line drawn with the purpose of transferring a maximum of Magyars and a minimum of Rumanians to Hungary, without regard to geographic and economic con-
