Fraternity-Testvériség, 1952 (30. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1952-05-01 / 5. szám
14 TESTVÉRISÉG Your Red is Showing, Proiessor — An open letter to Professor Allan Nevins of Colu mbia University — by Arch Dean Emeritus ENDRE SEBESTYÉN (Final Istalment) In abandoning his Fourteen Points declaration, President Wilson accepted the Pittsburgh Pact as a manifesto based on the principle of self-determination of peoples. As soon as conditions permitted it, a plebiscite should have been held among the peoples of northern Hungary to decide in the matter of their future political orientation. Even more so if the Czehs, as we are ever told, were firm believers in democratic processes. No such plebiscite was ever held for the obvious reason that its negative outcome for the Czehs was a foregone conclusion. Northern Hungary was occupied as soon as an armistic was declared, as was occupied almost the whole of Hungary, and the spoilers took their spoils. Two booklets, published by the Slovak Council of Geneva, in 1937 and 1938 successively, tell the whole Czehoslovak story from beginning to end. 27) A selection is given here of the material contained in one of these: “A general vote of the Slovak people was never taken. Consequently, the Slovaks have been merged with the Czehs, not only against their interest, but also without their consent and even much against their will. The Czeh politicians knew perfectly well that the Slovaks never wished to break away from Hungary. During the world war they gave proof of their loyalty to the Hungarian state, for which the Slovak soldier fought bravely to the bitter end... Nor was the consent of the Magyars, Germans, Ruthenes and Poles living in the Carpathian basin obtained. In defiance of Wilson’s principles, these peoples were driven from one country to another like so many flocks of sheep ... At the time of the Paris Peace Conference, the Hungarian nation pleaded for a plebistic to be taken in the territories, preparing to break away from Hungary, and the Hungarian delegate, Count Albert Apponyi, announced in behalf of the nation that he would acquiesce in the result, be it what might. If the Czehs are so thoroughly convinced that they have liberated and made happy the non-Czeh peoples of the Republic, why do they not take the opportunity of holding a plebiscite, which would legalize their dominion over the present territories? Are they perhaps afraid that those peoples would vote for the “tyrant” Hungary instead of the “deliverers”, the Czehs?” 28) The Slovaks never ceased to condemn their forced annexation to Bohemia, as the two booklets just mentioned attest. When the Iron Curtain was rung down in Czehoslovakia, and their voice was silenced, their co-patriots, having organized a “Slovak Loyalty Movement” in free Austria, took over the task of liberating the Slovak people from the yoke of their Czeh masters. A memorandum issued by this “Slovak Loyalty Movement” reads in part as follows: “The main interest of the Czeh people, as in the past so in the present, has always been robbery. They never kept their pledged word, and do not keep it with us now. They placed Czeh officials to head the offices, because they held that the Slovaks were not reliable. The leading Czeh officials taught Czeh Sokolism, Pan- Slavism and godlessness. In the mean time they stripped the ancient Slovak people from their properties. They wanted to stamp out of our God-fearing, religious-minded people the fear of God, and spread instead the religion of the Czeh brethren which, in reality, is but atheism. They taught that there was no God, as nature was all... They employed different means of turning our Slovak people into Czehs, assimilating them with the Czeh-Moravians, and forcing them under the yoke of Pan-Slavism.” 28) The memorandum then calls on all loyal Slovaks to unite, shake off the fetters forged on them by the Czehs, and work for their reunion with historic Hungary. It says: “We Slovaks have lived for a thousand years in brotherly communion and peaceful relations with the Magyars. We have preserved throughout a thousand years our Slovak mother tongue. No one has forced us to desert our cultural backgrounds. Our cultural and national wealth was steadily rising, our people showed a healthy moral development, and the highest state and church offices were all open to our children. Who would not remember the illustrations John Csernoch and Justinian (Szapucsek) Serédi, children of modest Slovak parents, who became primates of Hungary? Ottokar Prohaszka, a man who is likely to be elevated to the state of a blessed person, was likewise a Slovak. Magyar history records with gratitude and high esteem the names of many of our Slovak ancestors among the outstanding personages of the land. In the state of St. Stephen our people could pursue freely any profession, could engage in trade and commerce wherever it wanted. No one hindered him in the pursuit of his happiness... The Carpathian basin is a God-created geographical and ethnological unit, and Slovakland is an integral part of this unit. By disrupting our unity with Hungary, a natural development reaching back to a thousand years was disrupted, and the Slovak people suffered the most by it.” 30) In his memorandum, submitted to the British Foreign Office, Masaryk stated that: “The Slovaks are Czehs in spite of the fact that they use their dialect as a literary language. The Slovaks are longing for independence and accept our programme of their union with Bohemia.” 31) 27 28 29 30 31 27) 1. The Slovak Council, Should Great Britain go to War for Czehoslovakia? Geneva, 1937. 2. The Slovak Council, Shall Millions Die for this "Czehoslovakia?", Geneva, 1938. 60 plus 61 pages respectively. 28) The Slovak Council, Shall Millions Die for "This Czehoslovakia"? pp. 38, 39, 40. 29) Memorandum of the "Slovak Loyalty Movement", Günzburg, Austria, 1952, p. 1. 30) Memorandum of the "Slovak Loyalty Movement", p. 2. 31) Diplomatic History of the Treaty of Trianon, p. 64.
