Fraternity-Testvériség, 1952 (30. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1952-04-01 / 4. szám
14 TESTVÉRISÉG Your Red is Showing, Professor — An open letter to Professor Allan Nevins of Columbia University — by Arch Dean Emeritus ENDRE SEBESTYÉN (Second instalment) (11) Contemplating the storms and stresses of the history of fifteenth century Bohemia, Czeh historian Count von Liitzow records: “As a proof of the intense hatred of the Bohemians that then prevailed in France, Palacky notices that the name ‘Bohemians’ was about this time given to the gypsies, the most despised tribe known in Western Europe. M. Svatek has more recently attempt to explain the application of this singular denomination to the gypsies by the fact that many of them arrived in Western Europe with safe conducts signed by King Sigismund. Sigismund always retained the title of King of Bohemia, even during the time he was excluded from the government of the country. The arguments of M. Svatek (Cultur-Historische Bilder aus Böhmen) do not seem to me to contradict Palacky’s conjecture.” 13) Applying the name of “the most despised tribe known in Western Europe” to the Czehs, does not refer to their adeptness in the handling of musical instruments. It simply means that little Ivan is the kid brother of Big Ivan. The more cultured one, we are often reminded, and, therefore, the more accomplished in the gentle art of double talk and downright lying. If it has taken considerable time for western minds to acclimatize themselves to the inventive genius of the Muscovite in the field of calling black white and white black, to those living in closer proximity to the land of the Czehs, the perverse obliquity of the Russian jargon came as a familiar pattern. Big Ivan spoke the language of little Ivan. No sooner had Russia commissioned “golden Prague” to act as her western propaganda center, than a veritable swarm of Czeh agents sprung into action in France, England and in America. Among the Czehs, the most accomplished propagandists of the world, propaganda is everybody’s job, a joint undertaking of the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. Their target was Hungary, a nation doomed to extinction in the secret council of Slavdom. The writer can not enter into a detailed treatment of the devious ways of Czeh propaganda. Time will come when unmasking it will become a public necessity by virtue of its subversive character, and destructive anti-American tendency. Fortunately, signs of such an eventuality are not lacking, as it will be shown in due course of time. Number one item of the Czeh propaganda schedule has ever been a blank indictment of the Magyar’s treatment of their nationality groups. It has been harped on in all moods and tenses to such an extent that there is hardly a living man today who has remained immune from its poisonous effect. Propaganda of' this sort spreads easily as no one takes the trouble of verifying it, and if persistently dinned into people’s ears, it soon passes for factual evidence. By virtue of cleverly manipulated Czeh propaganda, Magyars soon found themselves depicted as the veritable personification of a ruthless monster devouring innocent Slovaks, Rumanians and Serbians. What are the facts? The Slovaks of northern Hungary have lived with their Magyar “oppressor” for a period of more than a thousand years, and they are still Slovaks. Both in the 1848-49 war for freedom, and in World War I, they fought valiantly side by side with their Magyar copatriots. Racial discrimination of any sort was unknown in Hungary, as her citizens shared equally in all the rights of their common citizenship. The Rumanians of Transylvania are of more recent origin, as the oldest traces of Rumanian habitation in that land do not go farther back than the XIII century. Driven by want and the oppressive rule of their native overlords, they found a haven in their new home, where they have been able to preserve inact their national, religious and cultural identity. The Serbians of southern Hungary fled to the land of the Magyars seeking refuge from their Turkish oppressors. In a single year, 1690, no less than 36.000 Serbian families crossed the Magyar frontier, led by Arsen Cernojevic, the patriarch of Ipek, and they were granted at once ecclesiastical autonomv of the fullest extent. 13 14) It is a noteworthy fact that Serbian national literature owes its survival and preservation to writers who, almost without an exception, were born on Magyar soil. A list of their names includes Branko Radicsevics, Zmaj Jová- novics, Gyura Jaksics, Láza Kosztics, Milenko Grcsics, Mileta Jaksics, Alexa Sántics, Jovan Ducsics, Milan Rákics, Milos Crnyánszky, Todor Manojlovics and Velyko Petrovics. Objective students of history paint a picture radically different from the one presented by Czeh propagandists, as regards Hungary’s treatment of her nationality groups. Professor E. W. Lyde of London University, writing in the London “Times” (1926) observes: “The great number of nationalities living in prewar Hungary, may be attributed to Magyar hospitality, which encouraged rather than discouraged immigration of strangers. The nationalities had been in full enjoyment of a perfect citizensip.” 13) Count F. von Liitzow, Bohemia, pp. 161, 162. 14) Dominic Kosáry, A History of Hungary, p. 215.
