Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)

2. Towns in Felvidék (Upper Hungary) before 1918

Towns in Felvidék (Upper Hungary) before 1918

This was the first document to lay down the Slovak demands and give the word Felvidék a meaning from a Slovak point of view. Henceforth we will use the word Felvidék with this meaning. This is all the more necessary because Slovak historiography and Slovak public opinion cast back the area of present-day Slovakia to the past and speak about Slovakia with regard to historical times, which is historically unacceptable. Before the Peace Treaty of 1920, there were no signs of present-day Slovakia in Hungarian history, but there were regions which were populated to different extents by various ethnicities. Therefore, in the case of the Slovak people, it is worth using their own first area definition laid down in the 1861 document, together with the name Felvidék, which is also accepted by the Hungarian people. This document is considered very important by Slovak researchers, too (Zetenák 2002).

The list included the ’purest’ Slav counties, such as Trencsén, Árva, Turóc, Zólyom, Liptó, Szepes and Sáros Counties, as well as the counties where the areas populated by Hungarian and Slovak people could be distinguished clearly. These were Pozsony, Nyitra, Bars, Hont, Nógrád, Gömör, Toma, Abaúj and Zemplén Counties. The latter were regarded as suitable for dividing the two ethnicities with an internal administrative boundary, either by organizing them into new counties by ethnicity, or by attaching them to the neighbouring Slav counties. However, the devisers of this plan also admit that, even in the purest Slav counties, the Hungarian and the Slav ethnicities are mingled to an extent that it is impossible for the Slav nation to have a particular Upper Hungarian Slav region (hornouhorské slovenské okolie) accepted (Szöveggyűjtemény 2003, pp. 423-430).

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