William Penn Life, 1989 (24. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1989-11-01 / 11. szám
November 1989, William Penn Life, Page 3 Hungarian human rights Part One: Hungarians here, there and everywhere HUNGARY BEFORE AND AFTER WORLD WAR I BRNO BRÜNN WIEN EBEFORE WORLD WAR I AFTER WORLD WAR I SCALE 100 KM HUNGARIAN MINORITIES IN THE SUCCESSOR STATES CZECHOSLOVAKIA KASSA |KASCHAU UNGVÁR IKOSICEM^ftyZHOROD POZSONY PRESSBURG, BRATISLAVA *i AUSTRIA MUNKÁCS MUKACEVO HUNGARIAN MINORITIES IN THE SUCCESSOR STATES SCALE 100 KM By Andrew Ludanyi The William Penn Association, in conjuction with the Hungarian Communion of Friends and the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation, this summer organized a workshop to discuss ways of protecting the human rights of Hungarians. Such discussion has become necessary since the rights of Hungarians have been violated in many parts of Eastern Europe, particularly in Rumania and Czechoslovakia. The workshop was held June 2 and 3, 1989, at the William Penn Home in Wellsburg, W.Va. Although this was our first attempt to organize such a workshop, by almost all measures we can declare that it was successful in achieving its objectives. Only in one sense were we less than satisfied: we did not draw enough young participants from the ranks of William Penn members. Because we plan to repeat the workshop in June 1990, we would like to make sure that the next time around more of our young people will become involved. To this end, we are going to publish a series of informative articles in the William Penn Life about Hungarian settlements in all parts of the world. We will begin with this month’s installment describing the distribution and dispersion of Hungarians worldwide. In future installments, we will focus on those Hungarians who are in danger of losing their ethnic identity because of the oppression and forced assimilation policies of the governments under whose jurisdiction they find themselves. We will explore the conditions of Hungarian life in Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Soviet controlled Karpataija (Podkarpatska Rus), Yugoslavia (particularly the Vojvodina), and Austria (particularly in Burgenland). Depending on the interests of our readers we may continue this series by looking at additional settlements. For example, we might devote installments to the Hungarians of Venezuela or Brazil, Canada or Australia, or even Pittsburgh, New Brunswick, or Toledo. We will begin with an overview. First of all most Hungarians are settled in the Carpathian Basin in East-Central Europe. They are located in all those regions which were traditionally a part of the crownlands of St. Stephen. This includes not just the plains (Hungarian Puszta) and the hills of Transdanubia which constitute the heartland of present-day Hungary, but all those territories which were part of the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. These regions included what is present-day Slovakia, Transylvania (including the Banat and the Maramaros and Bihar regions), the Vojvodina in present-day Yugoslavia, and most of Croatia and parts of Slovenia. When these territories were detached from Hungary, they were annexed by the newly created or newly enlarged states of Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia. In this process not only territory changed hands, but millions of Hungarians were forced to live under the rule of governments that did not speak their language nor respect their culture. In fact, in many instances these governments were hostile to the Hungarians and looked at them as former overlords who were now to be treated as a conquered people. Since 1918 we can say that there are basically three kinds of Hungarian settlements outside the borders of present-day Hungary. The largest ones are the settlements that had been lopped off Hungary between 1918 and 1920. However, there are also two other kinds — those formed by Hungarians who emigrated voluntarily for economic reasons, and those formed by Hungarians who emigrated because they were the victims of political persecution or major political upheavals. Most of the Hungarian communities in the West, including those in the United States, were formed by the latter type of emigrants. Based on the above categories, we can presently break down the settlements of Hungarians in the following way (all figures are rounded off): EASTERN EUROPE Hungary.........................10,000,000 Romania...........................2,400,000 Czechoslovakia...................700,000 Yugoslavia...........................500,000 USSR (Carpatho-Ruthenia) ... 200,000 Total ...........................13,800,000 WESTERN EUROPE Austria...................................70,000 West Germany.....................50,000 France..................................30,000 Italy........................................5,000 Sweden................................15,000 Switzerland.........................15,000 United Kingdom................25,000 Other..................................20,000 Total ..............................240,000 NORTH AMERICA Canada..............................150,000 United States................1,700,000 Mexico..................................5,000 Total ......................... 1,855,000 SOUTH AMERICA Argentina............................30,000 Brazil....................................35,000 Venezuela............................25,000 Other..................................10,000 Total ...............................100,000 AUSTRALIA.................... 50,000 NEW ZEALAND.................5,000 ISRAEL...............................130,000 OTHER.................................10,000 GRAND TOTAL .... 16,190,000 Some of the above figures are rough estimates, but, overall, these figures are based on census reports and studies on the Hungarian populations of the various countries mentioned. In the next few installments, we will focus on the largest settlements. Not surprisingly, these are located near present-day Hungary, and most are within the Carpathian Basin as we have already pointed out. If we look at a map of East-Central Europe, based on ethnic settlement, two facts become apparent. First, ethnic settlements do not correspond to a country’s borders. Second, the Hungarians, as a people, have the largest number living outside their national homeland. (See maps above.) This in itself created the potential for many problems in an age of extreme nationalism, let alone the problems created by the addition of Communist totalitarianism. This mixture is producing the oppression that threatens the cultural survival of the Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and elsewhere. We will examine their conditions of existence in future articles. NEXT MONTH Hungarians in Czechoslovakia Andrew Ludanyi is a professor of Political Science at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio, specializing in the study of international politics, particularly Eastern European politics. He has written numerous articles on Hungarians living in Rumania, Yugoslavia and other nations which have appeared in scholarly and general interest publications. In 1983, he co-edited a book entitled, Transylvania: The Roots of Ethnic Conflict.
