Külpolitika - A Magyar Külügyi Intézet folyóirata - 1995 (1. évfolyam)
1995 / 3-4. szám - ESEMÉNYNAPTÁR - Resumé
Résumé Péter Kende: The "Trianon Syndrome" in the Hungarian Toreign Politics By "Trianon Syndrome" the author means two things: first, that the awareness of the territorial losses, the national grief, that historic Hungary had suffered in 1920 when forced to sign the peace treaty of Trianon, is still alive among many Hungarians; second, that the Hungarians' neighbors, primarily the Romanians, Serbs, and Slovaks, still harbor the suspicion that Hungary entertains territorial claims against them. Their suspicion may be based on the "revisionist" refers here and below to the territorial clauses of the peace treaty of 1920). The author details this "syndrome" in the Hungarian way of thinking and in the influential political groups from 1920 to 1995. As a conclusion he states that from the point of view of the Hungarian minorities, the future does not seem very bright, either. Part of this population is unavoidably condemned to assimilation. Assimilation into the official language and the culture that goes along with it is a natural trend in industrial society and under conditions of urbanizations, which becomes all the more powerful vis-ä-vis a given minority ethnic group if they lived scattered; and, apart from southern Slovakia and the so-called Székely countries of Transylvania the Hungarian ethnic group is rather scattered. The reasons for this demographic situation cannot be discussed here, but it does determine the prospects. Theoretically, even the members of a scattered community may demand cultural autonomy — more or less in line with the models provided by the churches — but the practical realization of these demands assumes a generosity on the part of the state that does not exist in East Central Europe. Remain therefore those: regions (southern Slovakia, the land of the Székelys) where the compact distribution of the Hungarian population makes it possible to introduce cultural and even administrative autonomy. The question is, however, whether the Slovak and Romanian leadership strata are willing to even consider the creation of such Hungarian enclaves. We see no sign of this for the moment, on the contrary, the leaders of both countries — and not just the "nationalists" but even the liberal democrats, with one or two exceptions — label any attempt at 1995. ősz—tél 251
