Magyar News, 2000. szeptember-2001. augusztus (11. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2000-09-01 / 1. szám

out of the Books

This article you may find in the book “THE STORY OF HUNGARIAN” written by Dr. Géza Balázs

Hungary (on the basis of the 1990 census): Population 10,381,959 of whom on the basis of native language 10,222,529 were Hungarian, 48,072 Gypsy, 35,511 German. 17,577 Croatiaa 12,745 Slovakian, 2,953 Serb. 2,627 Slovenian and 22,079 other.

Romania (on the basis of the 1992 census): Hungarian and Székely nationals 1,620,199. They considered the Hungarians, the Székelys and the Csángós as separate nationalities, although they are all Hungarians, and did not publish native language data which have always showed more Hungarians in all previous Romanian censuses than suggested by the nationality data.

Slovakia (on the basis of the 1991 census in the Slovakian part of Czecho-slovakia): 566,741 persons listed themselves as Hungarian nationals (20,143 in the Czech part). The Hungarian nationals constituted 11% of the population of Slovakia.

In evaluating these numbers some additional factors must be taken into consideration. The number of births is decreasing in Hungary and thus the population is slowly decreasing. During recent years, this decrease was compensated for by Hungarians moving back from the neighboring countries, but this decreased the number of Hungarians beyond the borders. Since the various countries use different statistical methods, there is no concordance in the measurements and the final numbers must be viewed critically. It may also be observed that due to political and historic influences, in certain countries there may be a spectacular “growth” or “decrease” in the number of a given nationality. There are some very peculiar communities which consider themselves Hungarian and having a Hungarian identity. There is a village both in Switzerland and in France where the inhabitants claim to be of Hun-Hungarian descent. Several Caucasian people (Chechen and Uigur) maintain a kinship with Hungary. In Egypt, on the Sudan border, there is a 7,000 member community which is called Magyarab (Hung-Arab). They maintain their Hungarian identity and their Christian heritage. In Turkey there are four villages identified as Hungariaa In Israel (Galilee) there are two Arab villages near the city of Nahrija (one is called Magar) where the mliabitants have largely Hungarian given names. It is the assumption that they are descendants of the crusaders of King Endre II, who had settled here. The inhabitants of these villages bear little physical resemblance to the residents of the neighboring Arab villages.

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Taking into account all these factors, one usually talks about 15 million Hungarians of whom one third lives beyond the borders of Hungary.

The Hungarian language is the official language of Hungary, but Hungarian as a means of communication can be used in many other countries as well. The Hungarian nationals, living in other countries, can use Hungarian in different ways and to a different degree. There are countries where there is instruction in Hungarian from grade school to the university, and there are many places where we can see Hungarian inscriptions, newspapers, books, radio and television programs.

The First Hungarian World Congress was organized in 1929. The Hungarian World Federatioa encompassing all Hungarians, was formed in 1938, in commemoration of the 900th anniversary of the death of St. Stephen. Since 1992, the short-wave programs of Radio Kossuth, and (the mostly cultural) programs of Duna Television can be heard and seen, in Hungariaa in all of Europe and much of the Middle East. Since 1996 programs of the Hungarian Radio can also be heard through the Internet. At the present time, Hungarian language and literature (including history and ethnography) is taught in about 100 universities in approximately 25 countries.

Considering its geographic spread, Hungarian belongs among the more modest languages. Until the Turkish occupation (16th c.), the Carpathian Basin was largely inhabited by Hungarians. After this time their number shrunk to about 40%. A solid (connected, closed) Hungarian population lives in the entire area of present Hungary and on the other side of the borders in the north, northeast and south. In this overall area approximately 12-12.5 million Hungarians hve as a block. The dissemination of the Hungarian language within Hungary is complete and homogenous. The other connected, compact block is the Székelyföld (in the middle of Romania, the southeastern part of Transylvania) where approximately

900,000 Hungarians live. In the Székelyföld, in County Hargita the ratio of Hungarians is 85% and in County Kovaszna it is 75%. Even in County Maros the percentage of Hungarians is as high as 41%.

The remaining groups of Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin live in smaller or larger scattered linguistic islands. Such a linguistic island is the Transylvanian Kalotaszeg (with forty settlements including Kalotaszentkirály, Körösfö and Alsóör), and there are other smaller Transylvanian settlements. They appear also in the Mezöség, in the Austrian Burgenland around Felsőőr (Felsőőr, Örsziget, Alsóör), and in the Hungarian islands in Croatia and Slavonia which survived even the Turkish occupation, but of which three villages near Eszék were totally destroyed during the recent Yugoslavian civil war

Outside of the Carpathian Basin, there is a Csángó linguistic island in Moldavia (Romania). The Moldavian Hungarians live between the eastern Carpathians and the Pruth river and settled here in the 13th century from the Maros district of Transylvania. According to other historians, they have been there since the original migration. They have been bilingual for a very long time and a large percentage have become assimilated Romanians (Romanian politicians occasionally refer to them as “Magyarized Romanians”). Their origin is strongly supported by the fact that they are Roman Catholics. At the end of the 1940s - at the time of Petru Groza's Prime Ministership the Moldavian Csángó had a Hungarian Teacher's College, 100 schools, and 13 kindergartens. Today the Csángó have not even a single one of these. They are not allowed to hear Hungarian even in church and they do not appear in the census. Anybody, however, who knows Hungarian and is familiar with old Hungarian usage, when listening to the Csángó, fancies that he is listening to Hungarian spoken 500 years ago. According to the best estimate, their number can be put at 40-60 thousand.

The most eventful history is that of the Bukovina Székelys. A small Hungarian linguistic island was established here in 1777 by a few thousand Székelys who were trying to escape the arbitrary oppression of the Habsburg border guards. At the end of the last century most of them were resettled in Transylvania and along the lower reaches of the Danube. In 1941, tire Hungarian government moved them to the Bácska, to tire south of present Hungary'. Many of them fell victim there to the Serb massacres at the end of 1944. Approximately 13,000 escaped and after the end of World War II, settled again in Hungary, mostly in Counties Tolna, Baranya, Bács and Pest. The largest groups are in Kakasd, Hidas and Érd where they preserve their ancient traditions, stories and customs to this day.

Approximately 600,000 Hungarians live in the United States, mostly in New York City, Cleveland, Los