William Penn Life, 1989 (24. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1989-12-01 / 12. szám
December 1989, William Penn Life, Page 3 Hungarian human rights Part Two: Hungarians in Czechoslovakia PROPORTION OF HUNGARIAN POPULATION IN SOUTHERN SLOVAKIA A - Hydroelectric Power Plant at Bös/Gabcikovo B - Dam and Power Plant at Nagymaros State Boundaries mmm TOWNSHIPS 1 - Pozsony-vidék 8 - Nagykürtös Boundary Between 2 - Dunaszerdahely 9 - Losonc Moravia & Slovakia ““ 3 - Galánta 10 - Rimaszombat District Boundaries ------4 - Komárom 5 - Érsekújvár 11 - Rozsnyó 12 - Kassa-vidék Township Boundaries ••• 6 - Nyitra 13 - Töketerebes 7 - Léva • Proportion Hungarian By Andrew Ludanyi The Hungarians of Czechoslovakia are settled primarily in the eastern half of the country, the part that now constitutes Slovakia. They settled in this region in 896 A.D. when Arpad first led his seven tribes into the Carpathian Basin. At this time the region became part of the Kingdom of Hungary and for more than a thousand years remained an important part of the realm, inhabited in the west and north by Slovaks and in the south and east primarily by Hungarians. Ethnologists, anthropologists and archeologists agree that ever since then the Hungarian and Slovak regions of the Felvidék (Uplands) have remained relatively stable. Only at the present time is this historical linkage between the settlements undermined by aggressive policies of Slovakization and the construction of a hydroelectric power plant that threatens the most densely populated Magyar regions. At the present time, Slovakia has 560,000 Hungarians, according to the official census results of Czechoslovakia. The actual size of the Hungarian community is probably closer to 700,000 inhabitants. How did these Hungarians get into Czechoslovakia? Not via emigration. They were there before Czechoslovakia existed. Czechoslovakia was created after World War I (1918) to fill part of the void when the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy collapsed. Thus, the Felvidék of Hungary became the Slovak half of Czechoslovakia. In this way not just the territory of the Felvidék became part of a new state, but the Hungarians living in the southern and eastern portions of the region also came under Czechoslovak jurisdiction. No plebiscite was held to determine what the peoples of this region wanted. They were simply disposed of by the major powers, whose main concern was to weaken German power and to contain Communism within the newly (1917) established Soviet political system. Because of short-sightedness, they thought this could be achieved in East-Central Europe through a policy of divide and rule, rather than a policy of negotiations, accommodations and compromise. It is not our purpose to analyze the mistakes of the past. Rather, in the present context we simply want to discuss the consequences of these policies for the Hungarians who were separated from the Hungarian state in 1918-1920 and then again in 1945-1947. In other words, what does it mean to be Hungarian in present-day Czechoslovakia? As a number of studies have already demonstrated, since the creation of Czechoslovakia, the overall percentage of the Hungarian population has been constantly declining relative to the majority of Slovak population. While in 1910 the Hungarians were still 30.6 percent of the population, by 1980 they had been reduced to 11.2 percent of the total population. In these same years the Slovaks increased their majority from 57.6 to 86.6 percent. All other lesser minority groups have been almost completely eliminated. At the same time, even though many Slovaks have been colonized into the traditionally Hungarian parts of the region, they have not been able to obliterate its Hungarian roots and character. In these border regions the Hungarians still generally constitute over 50 percent of the population. This brings us to the most dramatic attempt to denationalize the Hungarian inhabited parts of Slovakia. Since 1977 a very ambitious hydroelectric power complex has been in the planning stages for the Danube. In recent years construction has begun on the project. Only now has it become evident that the most dramatic (and tragic) side-effect of this project, called the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros project, is to destroy the Csallóköz for the Hungarians as their most densely inhabited part of Slovakia. Approximately 40 Hungarian settlements will have to be uprooted to make way for the dam and the immense water storage basin. The inhabitants of these villages will then be dispersed and their places taken by the families of Slovaks who will be running the power plant. While the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros project is the most visible direct attack on Hungarian settlements, much more pernicious have been the policies instituted in the cultural and educational realm. Under the pretext of wanting to raise the educational standards of the minority (after 40 years of purposeful neglect), Hungarians are being deprived of education in their own language. Thus, during the past 20 years the total number of their schools has been reduced by more than 200. If we look at Czechoslovak school data we see that while in 1950-51 there were 609 Hungarianlanguage schools, by 1970-71 their number had decreased to 490, and by 1977-78 to 376. At the present time (1989) we know that they number less than 290. At the same time the Hungarian school age population did not decline significantly to warrant such drastic reductions. Of course, numbers do not tell the whole story. The content of courses, the amount of bilingualism in classroom activities and examinations, and the relative access to minority institutions must also be considered. A very telling statistic is that the percentage of Hungarian students who can attend classes in their own language is constantly declining. Thus, by the 1977-78 academic year, of Hungarian students, 21 percent in the grade schools, 33 percent in technical schools, 75 percent in vocational schools and 92 percent in higher education could receive their instruction only in Slovak. In addition to all this, teacher education in minority languages has been drastically curtailed. Finally, the mood is one of constant harassment and persecution. This mood of intolerance extends from the classroom, to the playground, and to summer camp activities of the young, and to the work place, the market place and public discourse for adults. It is all-pervasive and poisons the atmosphere in every conceivable corner of majority-minority relations. In history books the Hungarians are treated in a negative way, either as less civilized or as brutal, aggressive and oppressive. Invariably this negative stereotyping carries over into interaction on the playground and in later life. Discriminatory behavior is the inevitable result. Thus, being Hungarian is programmed to be a shameful status. So to avoid this label the weaker members of the minority frequently deny themselves (their nationality) to the census taker, change their names to sound Slovak, and/or refuse to speak their own language in public places. In this way they can avoid the scorn and abuse of the majority. Those who do not buckle under the pressure are subject to official harassment, or even imprisonment. The most recent case has been the fate of human rights activist Miklós Duray. Without being convicted for any violation of law, he has nevertheless been imprisoned twice because he has demanded that Hungarians be given the education rights supposedly guaranteed in the constitution to all citizens of Czechoslovakia. In the face of this kind of systematic persecution and oppression, only the human rights activists of the Western democracies can make a difference. Learn more about the fate of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia and inform the editors of the William Perm Life if you are willing to write letters to your Congressman, or if you would like to participate in a workshop for the protection of human rights. NEXT MONTH Part Three Andrew Ludanyi is a professor of Political Science at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio, specializing in the study of international politics, particularly Eastern European politics,
