Slovakization
Encyclopedia
Slovakization or Slovakisation is a term used to describe a cultural change in which ethnically non-Slovak
people are made to become Slovak. The process can be named as 'accelerated assimilation'.
The term is used for example in relation to Hungarians, Ukrainians
, Rusyns
(Ruthenians), Poles
, Germans
and Jews. Slovakization can refer to the government policies in either Slovakia
or the former Czechoslovakia
in which people were made to become Slovak.
After the defeat of the remaining Hungarian armies in 1919 the Paris Peace Conference
that concluded the Treaty of Trianon
in 1920 set the southern border of Czechoslovakia due to strategic and economic reasons much further south than the Slovak-Hungarian language border. Consequently, fully Hungarian-populated areas were annexed to the newly created state.
When Czechoslovakia arose as a new country in this situation, previously prohibited Slovak schools were established, while some Hungarian schools in largely Hungarian regions remained Hungarian and some German schools in largely German regions remained German. The Hungarians, for example, had 31 kindergartens, 806 elementary schools, 46 secondary schools, 576 Hungarian libraries at schools in the 1930s and a Department of Hungarian literature
was created at the Charles University of Prague. The number of Hungarian elementary schools increased from 720 in 1923/1924 to the above number 806. The Hungarian University in Bratislava/Pozsony was immediately closed after formation of Czechoslovakia
According to the 1910 census conducted by the Central Statistical Office of Hungary, there were 884,309 people with Hungarian as a mother tongue, constituting 30.2% of the population, in what is now Slovakia compared to the 9.7% number recorded in the 2001 census, amounting to a 3 fold decrease in the percentage of Hungarians. The first Slovak census in 1919 in what is now Slovakia recorded 689,565 Hungarians constituting 23.59% of the population. According to the first Czechoslovak census in 1921 there were 650,597 Hungarians in Slovakia, constituting 21.68% of the population. The Czechoslovak census of 1930 recorded 571,952 Hungarians. All censuses from the period are disputed, and some give conflicting data for example in Kosice according to the Czechoslovak censuses 15-20% of the population was Hungarian. However during the parliamentary elections the Ethnic Hungarian parties got 35-45% of the total votes (excluding those Hungarians who voted for the Communists or the Social democrats). The whole matter is complicated by the fact that there was a high percentage of bilingual and similarly "Slovak-Hungarian" persons who could claim being both Slovak and Hungarian.
Slovak sources usually do not deny that many Hungarian teachers (replaced in Slovak schools by Slovak and Czech teachers), railwaymen (on strike against new Czechoslovak republic on February, 1919), postmen, policemen, soldiers and civil clerks (replaced by Czech and Slovak soldiers, policemen and clerks) were forced to leave or left for Hungary voluntarily, the numbers however are unclear but census do show a rapid decline in the number of people with Hungarian as a mother tongue. Some teachers and civil servants were expelled from Czechoslovakia while some left due to the harsh circumstances. There are many examples of Hungarians who were forced to leave their homes from this territory (two famous ones are the families of Béla Hamvas
, and of Albert Szent-Györgyi
). The high number of refugees (and even more from Romania
) necessitated entire new housing projects in Budapest
(Mária-Valéria telep, Pongrácz-telep), which gave shelter to refugees numbering at least in the ten-thousands.
In 1945, at the end of World War II
, Czechoslovakia was recreated and Czechoslovak politicians aimed to completely remove the German
and Hungarian minorities from the territory of Czechoslovakia via ethnic cleansing
.Ethnic cleansing is a term that has come to be used broadly to describe all forms of ethnically-motivated violence, ranging from murder, rape, and torture to the forcible removal of populations Both minorities were considered "war criminals" because representatives of those two minorities, such as Konrad Henlein
and János Esterházy
, and their two mother countries were instrumental in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia before World War II, via the Munich Agreement
and the Vienna Awards
. As Edvard Beneš
said:
During the last years of the war, Beneš, the leader of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile
, worked toward resolving the minority problem of Czechoslovakia. This meant that the German and Hungarian minorities of Czechoslovakia had to be transferred or assimilated, because they were the biggest obstacle standing in the way of forming postwar Czechoslovakia into a nation-state
. The idea that the Hungarian minority
in Slovakia must be destroyed dominated Czechoslovak national policy for an extended period. Meantime, Klement Gottwald
, leader of the Czechoslovakian communists
had set up a rival government in Moscow
. In April 1945 Gottwald and Beneš met in Kosice
and they created the new Czechoslovak government, the National Front
which was a coalition of the Soviet supported Czechoslovak communists and non-communists. The members of this new political unity agreed that the country should be formed into a nation state.
Soon, -under the supervision of the Central Committee of the All-Soviet Communist Party- the National Front announced the "Kosice Government Program" ("Kosicky vladny program"). After the proclamation of the program, the German and Hungarian population living in the reborn Czechoslovakia were subjected to various forms of persecution, including: expulsions, deportations, internments, peoples court procedures, citizenship revocations, property confiscation, condemnation to forced labour camps, and forced changes of nationality referred to as “reslovakization.” The Hungarian question is mainly dealt with in Chapters VIII; XI and XV out of the 16 chapters of the programme. Chapter VIII deprived the Hungarian and German inhabitants of their citizenship. Chapter XI declared the confiscation of Hungarian landed property while chapter XV ordered to close nationality schools. From chapters VIII and IX, adopted by the cabinet council on April 5, 1945: According to the constitution
promulgated on May 9, 1948 : The key parts of the nationality policy were written by the vip members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, like Klement Gottwald
, Bohumír Šmeral
, Jan Šverma
and Vaclav Kopecky. Gustáv Husák
said: Because the German and Hungarian minorities were pre-war Czechoslovak citizens, Beneš had to adopt decrees that deprived them of their citizenship. In 1945, President Edvard Beneš
revoked the citizenship of Germans and Hungarians by decree #33, except those with an active anti-fascist past (see Beneš Decrees
), and Czechoslovakia maintained that the peace agreement must include a provision stating that "Hungarians whose Czechoslovak citizenship will now be revoked will be recognized by Hungary as Hungarian citizens and will be settled on its territory, and Hungary will bear responsibility for these individuals from the moment they cross Hungary's border and will provide for them'.
plan depended on the decisions of the Great power
s. In 1943, before the end of the war, Beneš already had the necessary approval of the United States
, Great Britain
and the Soviet Union
to transfer the German and Hungarian population out of Czechoslovakia. But at the end of the war, when the American and British leaders saw the blueprint of Beneš's plan, they didn't support it. However, this solution fit into Stalin's Central Europe
an policy, and on March 21, 1945, Molotov
informed Beneš that the Soviet Union
will try to support him to achieve his goal. Zdeněk Fierlinger
informed the Czechoslovak government that "Stalin has an utterly positive standpoint on our demands in the matter of the transfer. He will allow us to carry out the transfer to Germany
and Hungary
, and, to a certain extent, also to Austria
" The Potsdam Agreement
approved the deportation of Germans from Czechoslovakia, but the removal of the complete Hungarian population proved to be more difficult, and finally failed. The post-war Czechoslovak
government attempted to apply the Potsdam Agreement on the Hungarian
population too, but the Western powers rejected this conception, and
they also refused putting the Czechoslovak demands into the peace treaty
with Hungary. The Hungarian government protested against the expel of the Hungarian population from Czechoslovakia and requested intervention from the Allies. When the Czechoslovak government realized that they had lost the support of the Western powers, who advised and supported negotiations with Hungary, they turned to an internal solution, and decided to eliminate the Hungarian minority by Slovakization and Slovak colonization.
Decree NO. #071/1945 ("Presidential edict concerning forced labor services of persons who had lost Czechoslovak citizenship; September 19, 1945") and #88/1945 ("Decree of the President on the General obligation to Work (abrogated by law No. 65/1965)") authorized the Czechoslovak administration to draft people into labour service for one year. Under the disguise of 'labor recruiting' the deportation of Hungarians from South Slovakia began to the recently vacated Czech borderlands
, and their properties were confiscated. The transit trains were marked with the signs 'voluntary agricultural workers'. In fact, the real goal was to altere the ethnic composition of South Slovakia. These 'labor recruitings' were named by Czech historian Karel Kaplan
as 'internal colonisations'. According to him: Between July and August 1946 under the slogan "Slovak agricultural labour assisting the Czech lands" more Hungarians were deported to Bohemia
. Eventually 40,000-45,000-50,000 Hungarians were deported to Czech territories recently cleared of Sudeten Germans
, and their properties were confiscated by the state. According to the Slovak National Archives
, 41666 Hungarians had been deported from southern Slovakia.
Hungarians who stayed in Slovakia became the targets of the extremly strong slovak assimilation efforts.
, but this action evoked the protest of the United States
and Hungary, and for the latter one, it was a warning. Hungary proposed the re-annexation of the solidly Hungarian areas (achieved in 1938 via the First Vienna Award
, but on February 10, 1947, the Treaty of Paris
declared it null and void), however, Czechoslovakia rejected this offer. After this, Czechoslovakia pressed for a bilateral population exchange, to remove Hungarians, and gain Slovak population, to change the ethnic makeup of the country. This plan was initially rejected by Hungary. However, one of the unconcealed purpose of the deportation of the Hungarians to the Czech lands was, to force Hungary to sign the bilateral population exchange compact with Czechoslovakia. Soon, Hungary realized, that the Allies are not interested in the fate of the Hungarian minority, and they won't halt the deportations (the peace treaty signed on 1947 did not include any provision concerning the protection of minorities). Under such a circumstances, Hungary finally signed the bilateral agreement with Czechoslovakia in Budapest
, on February 27, 1946. The Hungarian government considered the birth of the contract as a big fiasco. The signatories were Vladimír Clementis
, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia and János Gyöngyösi
, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary. The Czechoslovak government planned the removal of 250000 Hungarian people from South Slovakia to Hungary, but only 44,129,-45,475 -generally well-to-do businessmen, tradesmen, farmers and intellectuals- had been transferred under the bilateral exchange, while 71787 or 73200The exact number depending on the source used Slovaks from Hungary were resettled in South Slovakia. Slovaks leaving Hungary moved voluntarily, but Hungarians leaving Czechoslovakia were forcibly deported and their properties were taken away. 30,000 Hungarians - who arrived to the country in 1938, thus they were not Czechoslovak citizens before- left the territories that were re-annexed by Hungary in 1938 (see Vienna Awards
) and then re-attached to Czechoslovakia after World War II. This was due to dropping out of the pension, social, and health-care system. In all, 89660 Hungarians arrived to Hungary from Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1949. Do to the dissatisfication with their new properties, soon half of the Slovaks who joined the relocation program moved back to Hungary.
, social, and healthcare system. 400,000 (sources differ) stateless Hungarians applied for, and eventually 344,609 Hungarians received a re-Slovakization certificate by the Central Committee for Reslovakization, and thereby Czechoslovak citizenship. Therefore the number of Hungarians in Slovakia dropped to 350000. According to Russian archives, 20000 Hungarians declared themselves as Slovak at the beginning of the year 1949, and eventually 360000 Hungarians changed their nationality to Slovak, according to Slovak historians. The fear was so big among the Hungarian population, that only 350000-367000 claimed himselfs Hungarian in the 1950 census, and only after ten years -when the reslovakization program was revoked- began to rose and reached 518000.
The main problem with the reslovakization procedure was, that the "reslovakized" Hungarians did not take the forcible change of nationality seriously, because it is impossible to force someone to forget his culture and language suddenly. A Slovak journalist wrote the following about the "reslovaklized" city of Nové Zámky
:
Most re-Slovakized Hungarians gradually readopted their Hungarian nationality. As a result, the re-Slovakization commission ceased operations in December 1948.
Despite their promises to settle the issue of the Hungarians in Slovakia, in 1948 Czech and Slovak ruling circles still maintained the hope that they could deport the Hungarians from Slovakia. According to a 1948 poll conducted among the Slovak population 55% were for resettlement (deportation) of the Hungarians, 24% said "don't know", 21% were against. Under slogans for the struggle with class enemies, the process of dispersing dense Hungarian settlements continued in 1948 and 1949. By October 1949 preparations were made to deport 600 Hungarian families.
Finally, at 25. July 1949, Czechoslovak and Hungarian delegation signed the Štrb protocol which ended the law disputes between Hungarian and Czechoslovak property and legal question and compensation of deported Hungarians.
and Hungary joined the European Union in 2004
, Hungarian politician Viktor Orbán
demanded the repeal of the Beneš decrees
, but the European Parliament
asserted that "the decrees did not constitute an insurmountable obstacle to accession." Slovak politician Monika Beňová-Flašiková accused the Hungarian politicians for pushing revanchist policies which could destabilize Europe. Later on the Hungarian members of the Slovak parliament
requested for compensation and for a symbolic apology to the victims of the expulsions. As an answer, the Slovak government adopted a resolution in September 2007 which declared that the Beneš decrees are inalterable.
The first Hungarian-language university in Slovakia was opened at the beginning of the 21st - the Selye János University.
According to The Minorities at Risk Project:
However, some Slovak sources they claim that:
reinforced national identities and demolished the ideology of 'the socialist unity of nations'. The break-up of Czechoslovakia
was a process of national redefinition and assertion in Slovakia.
Under the premiership of Mečiar prone to populism
, exclusivist Slovak nationalism
,
and the use of extralegal measures, independent Slovakia slipped toward
authoritarianism
. Mečiar turned the Hungarian minority into a scapegoat for Slovakia's bad economic situation. Numerous articles and books containing anti-Hungarian propaganda
appeared, and the Hungarians were accused for the destruction of the 'first Slovak state
', and for the ‘one-millennium-long oppression’ of Slovak nation.
During the redrawing of the administrative boundaries of Slovakia, Hungarian politicians suggested two models; the so-called 'Komárno proposals'. The first proposal was a full ethnic autonomy of the southern Slovak districts with Hungarian majority, while the second suggestion was to create three counties in southern Slovakia to bring together the main centers of Hungarian population. Although a territorial unit of this name existed
before 1918, the borders proposed by SMK were significantly different. The proposed region would have encompassed a very long slice of southern Slovakia, with the explicit aim to create an administrative unit with ethnic-Hungarian majority. Hungarian minority politicians and intellectuals thought that such kind of administrative unit is essential for the long-term survival of the Hungarian minority. Both proposals were rejected by the Slovak government in favour of an eight county model of north-south (and not east-west) governance, which has been seen to weaken the electoral power of Hungarians. According to Miklós Duray, a politician of the Party of the Hungarian Coalition
:"Administrative jurisdictions of Slovakia were geographically modified in a clear case of gerrymandering
. The administrative system governed by laws created in 1991,Law pertaining to Local Administration. Collection of Laws of 1990, number 472. Law pertaining to the territorial and administrative jurisdictions. Collection of Laws of 1990, number 517. included 17 primary jurisdictions and 2 secondary jurisdictions, with a majority Hungarian population. The 1996 lawLaw pertaining to the territorial and administrative reorganization of the Slovak Republic. Collection of Laws of 1996, number 221. eliminated this system of administration. In the reorganized system only 2 primary administrative jurisdictions have a Hungarian majority population (Dunajská Streda
and Komárno
). Furthermore, 8 secondary administrative jurisdictions were created, 5 with Hungarian populations in the 10 to 30 per cent range. In 1998, these jurisdictions will have regional self governing communities, where the diminished proportion of Hungarians makes certain they will play a subordinate role in self government." After the regions became autonomous in 2002, SMK was able to take power in the Nitra Region
and it became part of the ruling coalition in several other regions.
Before the Slovak independence two main issues appeared regarding language: the right to use non-Slovakized versions of women's names and the use of bilingual street signs. Non Slovaks were forced to Slovakize female personal names in official documents by attaching the Slovak feminine suffix '-ová'. Members of ethnic minorities were restricted in their choise of given names, as registry offices accepted only names from a limited list only. After ten years wrangling, the second Dzurinda cabinet eased these restrictions.
The use of the Hungarian language
The Slovak Constitution from 1992 asserts that the ‘state language’ on the territory of the Slovak Republic
is Slovak
. At the same time this constitution entails explicit provisions for minorities, including language right. These provisions were reinforced in 2001. International treaties like the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
(ratified by Slovakia in 1995) or the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
(ratified by Slovakia in 2001) and the 1995 Treaty on Good Neighbourly Relations and Friendly Cooperations between Slovakia and Hungary protect the language rights of minorities. Article 34. of the 1992 constitution asserts that "citizens of ethnic minorities have the right to be educated in their language, the right to use it in dealings with authorities, and the right to participate in the solution of affairs concerning national minorities and ethnic groups". These provisions afford a high standard of protection, but still, these legislative instruments do not warrant the implementation of the postulated rights. In most cases the disfrancishement evolves when there is insufficient political will to legislate the provisions as law
s. This happened between 1992 and 1998 (i.e. under Mečiar's government).
Slovak nacionalist demands for a language law detaining the use of Hungarian
in public institutions already appeared in 1990. Finally, the Meciar government pushed through legislation restricting the use of minority languages in public institutions. In 1995, the Slovak Parliament
passed Act No 270 on the State Language of Slovakia, which came into power on 1 January 1996. This act revoked the more tolerant Act No 428 passed in 1990. The 1995 act emphasized the significance of the Slovak language for Slovak nationalism and statehood, by consolidating the exclusivist monolingualism. The new act considerably limited the use of minority languages, that is, of Hungarian, which had featured on bilingual signposts with placenames in predominantly Hungarian areas, and in bilingual school certificates issued to students in Hungarian minority schools. According to Duray: "An official language lawLanguage Law of the Slovak Republic. Collection of Laws of 1996, number 270. was promulgated providing the legal framework for the official use of the Slovak language not only in official communications but also in everyday commerce, in the administration of religious bodies, and even in the realm of what is normally considered private interaction, for example, communications between patient and physician." In 1999, the Dzurinda government
passed Act No 184 on the Use of the Languages of the Minority Communities, which reintroduced the institution of bilingual school certificates and provided that in communes with more than 20 percent of inhabitants belonging to a given minority, the minority language can be used in administration, and signposts with placenames can be bilingual. Furthermore, Article 10, prohibiting doing business and drafting contracts in any other language
but Slovak, was abolished from the Act. However the act limits itself to only official contacts with the state and thus fails to overcome the 1996 act ensuring the use of Slovak in culture, schools and media. Language rights in education have also been a sphere of antagonism between the Slovak state and the Hungarian minority. Bilingual education in priamary and secondary schools is currently permitted. However, the array of subjects that should be taught in each language remained a higly contested issue. Government proposals prior to the 1998 elections (i.e. under Mečiar's government) even suggested that certain subjects should be taught only by teachers of 'Slovak origin' to ensure that the Slovak population living in areas with significant Hungarian populations should be able to assimilate themselves into mainstream Slovak life. According to Duray: 2On March 12, 1997 (i.e. under Mečiar's government), the Undersecretary of Education sent a circular to the heads of the school districts making known the following regulations: In Hungarian schools the Slovak language should be taught exclusively by native speakers. The same exclusion criteria applies to non-Slovak schools in the teaching of geography and history. (The Undersecretary modified the language of this regulation later by changing the term "exclusively" for "mainly".) In communities where the Hungarian community exceeds 40% of the total population the teachers of Slovak schools receive supplementary pay. In all communities which include a Hungarians population and where there is no school or there is no Slovak school, wherever possible a Slovak school should be opened, but not a Hungarian one."The circular issued by Undersecretary Ondrej Nemcok cites governmental decrees of the Slovak Republic, numbers 459/95, 768/95 and 845/95. At the end of the 1998 school year a large number of Hungarian pupils handed back their school report that were issued only in Slovak.
In 2003, there were 295 Hungarian elementary school
s and 75 secondary school
s in Slovakia. In most of them Hungarian was used as the medium of instruction
, excluding 35 elementary schools and 18 secondary schools, which were bilingual.
After the parliamentary elections in 2006, the nationalist party
of Ján Slota
became member of the ruling coalition led by Robert Fico
. In August a few incidents motivated by ethnic hatred
caused diplomatic tensions between the countries. Mainstream Hungarian and Slovak media blamed Slota's anti-Hungarian statements from the early summer for worsening ethnic relations. (Further informations: 2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs
, and Hedvig Malina
).
On 27 September 2007 the Beneš decrees were reconfirmed by the Slovak parliament which legitimized the Hungarians and Germans calumination and deportation from Czechoslovakia after World War II
.
In 2008, the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in Slovakia
were reorganized. 8 dioceses were introduced in place of the previous 6. Until the reform the area of Žitný ostrov
(Hungarian: Csallóköz), the Matúšova zem (Mátyusföld) and Poiplie (Ipolymente) - where a big portion of the Hungarians of Slovakia resides - belonged to the Archdiocese of Bratislava-Trnava. Now it belongs to four different dioceses. This triggered the protest of Hungarian catholic worshippers and priests. However, the reform was introduced by the Vatican
, not by the Slovak Republic.
Also in 2008, Ján Mikolaj
(SNS), minister of education propagated changes in the Hungarian schools of Slovakia. According to a new education law plan, the Hungarian language which was educated as mother tongue until now will be considered a foreign language - and therefore taught in less number of lessons. The only textbooks allowed to be used in Hungarian schools will be those translated from Slovak books and approved by Slovak administration.
In October 2008 Hungarian parents and teachers sent back Hungarian textbooks to the Minister of Education. The books contained geographical names only in Slovak violating the basic rules of the Hungarian language
and the minorities' right of usage of their native language.
In November 2008 Prime Minister Robert Fico has again promised, this time at a cabinet meeting in Komárno (Révkomárom), southern Slovakia, that an ongoing problem with textbooks for ethnic Hungarian schools in Slovakia will be resolved. Though as of November 2008 Ján Slota still insists on the grammatically incorrect version (Slovak language names in Hungarian sentences) and having the correct Hungarian name only afterwards.
.
The Slovak authorities denied the registration of a Hungarian traditional folk art association, because they used the Hungarian word Kárpát-medence (Carpathian Basin
). According to Dušan Čaplovič
the word and the association is against the sovereignty of Slovakia, furthermore the word is fascist, it is familiar with the German Lebensraum
, and Hungarians use it in this ideology.
On September 1, 2009 more than ten thousand Hungarians held demonstrations to protest against the so-called language law
that limits the use of minority languages in Slovakia. The law calls for fines of up to £4,380 for anyone "misusing the Slovak language.
declared the "wise historism" concept, the history books are getting rewritten in a faster pace than before, and in an increased "spirit of national pride", which Krekovič, Mannová and Krekovičová claim are mainly nothing else, but history falsifications. Such new inventions are the interpretation of Great Moravia as a (proto)-Slovak state, or the term "proto-Slovak" itself, along with the "refreshing" of many "old traditions", that in fact did not exist or were not Slovak before. The concept received criticism in Slovakia pointing out that the term proto-Slovak cannot be found in any serious publication, simply because it lacks any scientific basis. Miroslav Kusý
Slovak political scientist explained that by adopting such scientificly questionable rhetoric Fico aims to "strengthen national consciousness by falsification of history".
is complex and volatile. A long-term cultural and everyday cohabition of Rusyns
, Slovaks and Hungarians, under the prepodence of the non-Rusyn element led to the linguistic Slovakization of Rusyns, while in some parts (in cities and ethnic islands in the south) they were Magyarized. Still, in both cases they preserved their religion (Greek Catholicism). Until the 1920s, the Slovak-speaking Greek-Catholics composed a transitional group that was connected with the Rusyns through religion and traditions, with Slovak as their language. Their number was gradually increasing with the transition of the parts of Rusyn population to the Slovak language. Slovakization of the Rusyn population increased in the times of the Czechoslovakian authorities (since 1920). The Greek Catholics and Orthodox started to perceive themselves as Slovaks. It is difficult to estimate the distribution of the Orthodox
and the Greek Catholics by the language as well as to determine the number of Rusyns because both the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian censuses provided the incorrect number of Rusyns, but it contains roughly 50-100 000 people. According to censuses the decrease of the number of Rusyns was influenced not only by Slovakization but also by emigration of a significant number of Rusyns from Prešov, mainly to the Czech lands.
The Slovak pressure on Rusyns in Slovakia increased after 1919 when Czechoslovakia incorporated Transcarpathia
to the west of the Uzh River
. The Slovakization of Rusyns (and Ukrainians) was a part of the program of the Slovak People's Party
, whose leader refused to cooperate with the Rusyn politicians of Transcarpathia but cooperated with Hungarian-speaking A. Brody. Therefore, the Rusyn politicians opened the links with the Czech political parties which were supportive of neutrality towards the Rusyn question. The cultural Slovak-Rusyn relations at the time were minimal.
(from the Entsyklopediia Ukrainoznavstva)
Slovaks
The Slovaks, Slovak people, or Slovakians are a West Slavic people that primarily inhabit Slovakia and speak the Slovak language, which is closely related to the Czech language.Most Slovaks today live within the borders of the independent Slovakia...
people are made to become Slovak. The process can be named as 'accelerated assimilation'.
The term is used for example in relation to Hungarians, Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Rusyns
Rusyns
Carpatho-Rusyns are a primarily diasporic ethnic group who speak an Eastern Slavic language, or Ukrainian dialect, known as Rusyn. Carpatho-Rusyns descend from a minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt the use of the ethnonym "Ukrainian" in the early twentieth century...
(Ruthenians), Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
, Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
and Jews. Slovakization can refer to the government policies in either Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
or the former Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in which people were made to become Slovak.
After WWI
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...
that concluded the Treaty of Trianon
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
in 1920 set the southern border of Czechoslovakia due to strategic and economic reasons much further south than the Slovak-Hungarian language border. Consequently, fully Hungarian-populated areas were annexed to the newly created state.
When Czechoslovakia arose as a new country in this situation, previously prohibited Slovak schools were established, while some Hungarian schools in largely Hungarian regions remained Hungarian and some German schools in largely German regions remained German. The Hungarians, for example, had 31 kindergartens, 806 elementary schools, 46 secondary schools, 576 Hungarian libraries at schools in the 1930s and a Department of Hungarian literature
Hungarian literature
Hungarian literature is literature written in the Hungarian language, predominantly by Hungarians.There is a limited amount of Old Hungarian literature dating to between the late 12th and the early 16th centuries...
was created at the Charles University of Prague. The number of Hungarian elementary schools increased from 720 in 1923/1924 to the above number 806. The Hungarian University in Bratislava/Pozsony was immediately closed after formation of Czechoslovakia
According to the 1910 census conducted by the Central Statistical Office of Hungary, there were 884,309 people with Hungarian as a mother tongue, constituting 30.2% of the population, in what is now Slovakia compared to the 9.7% number recorded in the 2001 census, amounting to a 3 fold decrease in the percentage of Hungarians. The first Slovak census in 1919 in what is now Slovakia recorded 689,565 Hungarians constituting 23.59% of the population. According to the first Czechoslovak census in 1921 there were 650,597 Hungarians in Slovakia, constituting 21.68% of the population. The Czechoslovak census of 1930 recorded 571,952 Hungarians. All censuses from the period are disputed, and some give conflicting data for example in Kosice according to the Czechoslovak censuses 15-20% of the population was Hungarian. However during the parliamentary elections the Ethnic Hungarian parties got 35-45% of the total votes (excluding those Hungarians who voted for the Communists or the Social democrats). The whole matter is complicated by the fact that there was a high percentage of bilingual and similarly "Slovak-Hungarian" persons who could claim being both Slovak and Hungarian.
Slovak sources usually do not deny that many Hungarian teachers (replaced in Slovak schools by Slovak and Czech teachers), railwaymen (on strike against new Czechoslovak republic on February, 1919), postmen, policemen, soldiers and civil clerks (replaced by Czech and Slovak soldiers, policemen and clerks) were forced to leave or left for Hungary voluntarily, the numbers however are unclear but census do show a rapid decline in the number of people with Hungarian as a mother tongue. Some teachers and civil servants were expelled from Czechoslovakia while some left due to the harsh circumstances. There are many examples of Hungarians who were forced to leave their homes from this territory (two famous ones are the families of Béla Hamvas
Béla Hamvas
Béla Hamvas was a Hungarian writer, philosopher, and social critic. He was the first thinker to introduce the Traditionalist School of René Guénon to Hungary.-Biography:...
, and of Albert Szent-Györgyi
Albert Szent-Györgyi
Albert Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápolt was a Hungarian physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937. He is credited with discovering vitamin C and the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle...
). The high number of refugees (and even more from Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
) necessitated entire new housing projects in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
(Mária-Valéria telep, Pongrácz-telep), which gave shelter to refugees numbering at least in the ten-thousands.
Preparations for a post-war Czechoslovak state without Hungarians
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Czechoslovakia was recreated and Czechoslovak politicians aimed to completely remove the German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
and Hungarian minorities from the territory of Czechoslovakia via ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
.Ethnic cleansing is a term that has come to be used broadly to describe all forms of ethnically-motivated violence, ranging from murder, rape, and torture to the forcible removal of populations Both minorities were considered "war criminals" because representatives of those two minorities, such as Konrad Henlein
Konrad Henlein
Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a leading pro-Nazi ethnic German politician in Czechoslovakia and leader of Sudeten German separatists...
and János Esterházy
János Esterházy
Count János Esterházy a member of the House of Esterházy was the most prominent ethnic Hungarian politician in former Czechoslovakia...
, and their two mother countries were instrumental in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia before World War II, via the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
and the Vienna Awards
Vienna Awards
The Vienna Awards are two arbitral awards by which arbiters of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sought to enforce peacefully the claims of Hungary on territory it had lost in 1920 when it signed the Treaty of Trianon...
. As Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
said:
During the last years of the war, Beneš, the leader of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile
Czechoslovak government-in-exile
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile was an informal title conferred upon the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee, initially by British diplomatic recognition. The name came to be used by other World War II Allies as they subsequently recognized it...
, worked toward resolving the minority problem of Czechoslovakia. This meant that the German and Hungarian minorities of Czechoslovakia had to be transferred or assimilated, because they were the biggest obstacle standing in the way of forming postwar Czechoslovakia into a nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
. The idea that the Hungarian minority
Hungarians in Slovakia
Hungarians in Slovakia are the largest ethnic minority of the country, numbering 520,528 people or 9.7% of population . They are concentrated mostly in the southern part of the country, near the border with Hungary...
in Slovakia must be destroyed dominated Czechoslovak national policy for an extended period. Meantime, Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician, longtime leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia.-Early life:...
, leader of the Czechoslovakian communists
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....
had set up a rival government in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. In April 1945 Gottwald and Beneš met in Kosice
Košice
Košice is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary...
and they created the new Czechoslovak government, the National Front
National Front (Czechoslovakia)
The National Front was the coalition of parties which headed the re-established Czechoslovakian government from 1945 to 1948. During the Communist era in Czechoslovakia it was the vehicle for control of all political and social activity by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
which was a coalition of the Soviet supported Czechoslovak communists and non-communists. The members of this new political unity agreed that the country should be formed into a nation state.
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
promulgated on May 9, 1948 : The key parts of the nationality policy were written by the vip members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, like Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician, longtime leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia.-Early life:...
, Bohumír Šmeral
Bohumír Šmeral
Bohumír Šmeral was a Czech politician, leader of the social democracy and one of founders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.-Early life:...
, Jan Šverma
Jan Šverma
Jan Šverma was a Czechoslovak political activist, considered a national hero during the communist regime....
and Vaclav Kopecky. Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák was a Slovak politician, president of Czechoslovakia and a long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia and of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
said: Because the German and Hungarian minorities were pre-war Czechoslovak citizens, Beneš had to adopt decrees that deprived them of their citizenship. In 1945, President Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
revoked the citizenship of Germans and Hungarians by decree #33, except those with an active anti-fascist past (see Beneš Decrees
Beneš decrees
Decrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...
), and Czechoslovakia maintained that the peace agreement must include a provision stating that "Hungarians whose Czechoslovak citizenship will now be revoked will be recognized by Hungary as Hungarian citizens and will be settled on its territory, and Hungary will bear responsibility for these individuals from the moment they cross Hungary's border and will provide for them'.
The forced deportation of the Hungarians
The resettlement of about 700,000 Hungarians was envisaged at Kosice and subsequently reaffirmed by the National Front. However, the succes of the Czechoslovak deportationDeportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
plan depended on the decisions of the Great power
Great power
A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...
s. In 1943, before the end of the war, Beneš already had the necessary approval of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to transfer the German and Hungarian population out of Czechoslovakia. But at the end of the war, when the American and British leaders saw the blueprint of Beneš's plan, they didn't support it. However, this solution fit into Stalin's Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
an policy, and on March 21, 1945, Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
informed Beneš that the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
will try to support him to achieve his goal. Zdeněk Fierlinger
Zdenek Fierlinger
Zdeněk Fierlinger was Czech politician. He served as the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1944 to 1946, first in the London-based exiled government and later in liberated Czechoslovakia...
informed the Czechoslovak government that "Stalin has an utterly positive standpoint on our demands in the matter of the transfer. He will allow us to carry out the transfer to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, and, to a certain extent, also to Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
" The Potsdam Agreement
Potsdam Agreement
The Potsdam Agreement was the Allied plan of tripartite military occupation and reconstruction of Germany—referring to the German Reich with its pre-war 1937 borders including the former eastern territories—and the entire European Theatre of War territory...
approved the deportation of Germans from Czechoslovakia, but the removal of the complete Hungarian population proved to be more difficult, and finally failed. The post-war Czechoslovak
National Front (Czechoslovakia)
The National Front was the coalition of parties which headed the re-established Czechoslovakian government from 1945 to 1948. During the Communist era in Czechoslovakia it was the vehicle for control of all political and social activity by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
government attempted to apply the Potsdam Agreement on the Hungarian
population too, but the Western powers rejected this conception, and
they also refused putting the Czechoslovak demands into the peace treaty
Peace treaty
A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, that formally ends a state of war between the parties...
with Hungary. The Hungarian government protested against the expel of the Hungarian population from Czechoslovakia and requested intervention from the Allies. When the Czechoslovak government realized that they had lost the support of the Western powers, who advised and supported negotiations with Hungary, they turned to an internal solution, and decided to eliminate the Hungarian minority by Slovakization and Slovak colonization.
Decree NO. #071/1945 ("Presidential edict concerning forced labor services of persons who had lost Czechoslovak citizenship; September 19, 1945") and #88/1945 ("Decree of the President on the General obligation to Work (abrogated by law No. 65/1965)") authorized the Czechoslovak administration to draft people into labour service for one year. Under the disguise of 'labor recruiting' the deportation of Hungarians from South Slovakia began to the recently vacated Czech borderlands
Expulsion of Germans after World War II
The later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
, and their properties were confiscated. The transit trains were marked with the signs 'voluntary agricultural workers'. In fact, the real goal was to altere the ethnic composition of South Slovakia. These 'labor recruitings' were named by Czech historian Karel Kaplan
Karel Kaplan
Karel Kaplan is a Czech historian, who specialized in the World War II and post World War II periods in Czechoslovakia. Kaplan is regarded as one of the most noted historians of Czech communism from 1945 to 1968...
as 'internal colonisations'. According to him: Between July and August 1946 under the slogan "Slovak agricultural labour assisting the Czech lands" more Hungarians were deported to Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
. Eventually 40,000-45,000-50,000 Hungarians were deported to Czech territories recently cleared of Sudeten Germans
Sudeten Germans
- Importance of Sudeten Germans :Czechoslovakia was inhabited by over 3 million ethnic Germans, comprising about 23 percent of the population of the republic and about 29.5% of Bohemia and Moravia....
, and their properties were confiscated by the state. According to the Slovak National Archives
Slovak National Archives
The Slovak National Archives were created in 1928. They are under the authority of the Minister of the Interior. They are located in Bratislava, Slovakia.Interesting facts...
, 41666 Hungarians had been deported from southern Slovakia.
Hungarians who stayed in Slovakia became the targets of the extremly strong slovak assimilation efforts.
| District Districts of Slovakia An okres is an administrative unit in Slovakia. It is inferior to a Region and superior to a municipality.-Characteristics:Several districts form a "Region"... |
Number of Hungarians (1930)(1) | Deported Hungarian families | Deported Hungarian persons | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Šamorín (now part of DSD Dunajská Streda District Dunajská Streda District is a district in the Trnava Region of western Slovakia.... ) |
27030 | 767 | 3951 | |
| 2 | Dunajská Streda District Dunajská Streda District Dunajská Streda District is a district in the Trnava Region of western Slovakia.... |
39070 | 698 | 3551 | |
| 3 | Komárno Komárno District Komárno District is a district inthe Nitra Region of western Slovakia.Until 1918, the district was mostly part of the Hungarian county of Komárom.... |
53154 | 1483 | 6694 | |
| 4 | Galanta Galanta District Galanta District is adistrict inthe Trnava Region of western Slovakia.Until 1918, the district was mostly part of theHungarian countyof Pozsony , apart from a smallarea in the east, which formed part ofNyitra county.... |
41474 | 874 | 3972 | |
| 5 | Šaľa Šala District Šaľa District is a district in the Nitra Region of western Slovakia.Until 1918, the district formed mostly part of the Hungarian county of Nitra, apart from a small area in the west around Diakovce, Tešedíkovo and Žihárec which formed part of the county of Pressburg.- Municipalities... |
28431 | 694 | 2931 | |
| 6 | Nové Zámky Nové Zámky District Nové Zámky District is a district inthe Nitra Region of western Slovakia.Until 1918, the area of the district was split between several Hungarian counties: the largest area in the north formed part of Nitra; an area in the south between Dvory nad Žitavou and Strekovformed part of Komárno; an area... |
19625 | 313 | 1391 | |
| 7 | Hurbanovo (now part of Komárno District Komárno District Komárno District is a district inthe Nitra Region of western Slovakia.Until 1918, the district was mostly part of the Hungarian county of Komárom.... ) |
36940 | 966 | 3960 | |
| 8 | Štúrovo (now part of Nové Zámky District Nové Zámky District Nové Zámky District is a district inthe Nitra Region of western Slovakia.Until 1918, the area of the district was split between several Hungarian counties: the largest area in the north formed part of Nitra; an area in the south between Dvory nad Žitavou and Strekovformed part of Komárno; an area... ) |
39483 | 1008 | 3956 | |
| 9 | Želiezovce (now part of Levice District Levice District Levice District is a district inthe Nitra Region of western Slovakia. It is the largest of Slovakia's 79 districts.The west of the district was in the Hungarian county of Tekov until 1918, while the east of the district was in Hont County: Farná in the south was in the county of Esztergom .-... ) |
24164 | 864 | 3282 | |
| 10 | Levice Levice District Levice District is a district inthe Nitra Region of western Slovakia. It is the largest of Slovakia's 79 districts.The west of the district was in the Hungarian county of Tekov until 1918, while the east of the district was in Hont County: Farná in the south was in the county of Esztergom .-... |
12190 | 198 | 675 | |
| 11 | Veľký Krtíš Velký Krtíš District Veľký Krtíš District is a district inthe Banská Bystrica Region of central Slovakia. Until 1918, the district was split between the Hungarian counties of Hont and Nógrád.-Municipalities:*Balog nad Ipľom*Bátorová*Brusník... |
11023 | 97 | 437 | |
| 12 | Jesenské, Rimavská Sobota District Jesenské Jesenské is a village and municipality in the Rimavská Sobota District of the Banská Bystrica Region of southern Slovakia.-History:The first mention is from 1274. In 1424 the village is noticed as property of the Feledys. It belonged to the Gemer and then to hájnačske castle county... |
25 195 | 547 | 2156 | |
| 13 | Rožňava Rožnava District Rožňava District is a district in the Košice Region of eastern Slovakia.Until 1918, the district was mostly part of the Hungarian county of Gömör és Kishont, apart from the area in the south-east around the municipalities of Silická Jablonica, Hrušov, Jablonov nad Turňou and Hrhov which formed... |
14767 | 100 | 380 | |
| 14 | Spiš Spišská Nová Ves District Spišská Nová Ves District is a district in the Košice Region of eastern Slovakia.Until 1918, the district was mostly part of the Hungarian county of Spiš, apart from a small area around the... |
16737 | 83 | 390 | |
| 15 | Kráľovský Chlmec (now part of Trebišov District Trebišov District Trebišov District is a district inthe Košice Region of eastern Slovakia.Until 1918, the district was mostly part of the Hungarian county of Zemplín, apart from a small area... ) |
24514 | 116 | 590 | |
| 16 | together | 448 481 | 9610 | 41 666 | |
(1) In 1930, according to the Czechoslovak census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common... |
|||||
Hungarian-Slovak population exchanges
The Czechoslovak leadership pressed for a complete cleansing of the country and the deportation of all Hungarians; however, the Allies prevented a unilateral expulsion, and instead they advised to solve the minorities' problem on via negotiation. As a result, the Czechoslovak government resettled more than 40,000 Hungarians to the Czech borderlandsCzech lands
Czech lands is an auxiliary term used mainly to describe the combination of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia. Today, those three historic provinces compose the Czech Republic. The Czech lands had been settled by the Celts , then later by various Germanic tribes until the beginning of 7th...
, but this action evoked the protest of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Hungary, and for the latter one, it was a warning. Hungary proposed the re-annexation of the solidly Hungarian areas (achieved in 1938 via the First Vienna Award
First Vienna Award
The First Vienna Award was the result of the First Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace on November 2, 1938. The Arbitration and Award were direct consequences of the Munich Agreement...
, but on February 10, 1947, the Treaty of Paris
Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...
declared it null and void), however, Czechoslovakia rejected this offer. After this, Czechoslovakia pressed for a bilateral population exchange, to remove Hungarians, and gain Slovak population, to change the ethnic makeup of the country. This plan was initially rejected by Hungary. However, one of the unconcealed purpose of the deportation of the Hungarians to the Czech lands was, to force Hungary to sign the bilateral population exchange compact with Czechoslovakia. Soon, Hungary realized, that the Allies are not interested in the fate of the Hungarian minority, and they won't halt the deportations (the peace treaty signed on 1947 did not include any provision concerning the protection of minorities). Under such a circumstances, Hungary finally signed the bilateral agreement with Czechoslovakia in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, on February 27, 1946. The Hungarian government considered the birth of the contract as a big fiasco. The signatories were Vladimír Clementis
Vladimír Clementis
Vladimír "Vlado" Clementis was a Slovak minister, politician, lawyer, publicist, literary critic, author and a prominent member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. He married Lída Pátková, a daughter of a branch director of Czech Hypothec Bank in Bratislava, in March 1933. He became a Communist...
, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia and János Gyöngyösi
János Gyöngyösi
János Gyöngyösi was a Hungarian politician, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1944 and 1947. He fought in the First World War. After the war he worked as a journalist and finished his studies in the Budapest University...
, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary. The Czechoslovak government planned the removal of 250000 Hungarian people from South Slovakia to Hungary, but only 44,129,-45,475 -generally well-to-do businessmen, tradesmen, farmers and intellectuals- had been transferred under the bilateral exchange, while 71787 or 73200The exact number depending on the source used Slovaks from Hungary were resettled in South Slovakia. Slovaks leaving Hungary moved voluntarily, but Hungarians leaving Czechoslovakia were forcibly deported and their properties were taken away. 30,000 Hungarians - who arrived to the country in 1938, thus they were not Czechoslovak citizens before- left the territories that were re-annexed by Hungary in 1938 (see Vienna Awards
Vienna Awards
The Vienna Awards are two arbitral awards by which arbiters of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sought to enforce peacefully the claims of Hungary on territory it had lost in 1920 when it signed the Treaty of Trianon...
) and then re-attached to Czechoslovakia after World War II. This was due to dropping out of the pension, social, and health-care system. In all, 89660 Hungarians arrived to Hungary from Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1949. Do to the dissatisfication with their new properties, soon half of the Slovaks who joined the relocation program moved back to Hungary.
| Appointed for the bilateral Czechoslovak-Hungarian population transfer | Number of persons | |
|---|---|---|
| Under article V. of the contract | 105047 (27718 families) | |
| Under article VIII. of the contract | 65200 (23552 families) | |
| De facto transferred | Number of persons | |
| Under article V. of the contract | 45475 | |
| As war criminals, article VIII. of the contract | 2905 | |
| "R" transport (regimists) | 1034 | |
| Before the contract came into effect | 11837 | |
| From the liberation until the inauguration of the Czechoslovak administration | 10196 | |
| After the contract came into effect, but beyond from it | 11057 | |
| After the contract came into effect | 1083 | |
| from Rusovce Rusovce Rusovce castle")) is a borough in southern Bratislava on the right bank of the Danube river, close to the Hungarian border.- History :In the 1st century, there was a Roman settlement named Gerulata in today's Rusovce area. The first preserved written reference to the settlement is from 1208. It... |
73 | |
| Voluntarily | 6000 | |
| together | 89660 | |
"re-Slovakization"
In 1946, another method -the process of "Reslovakization", (or re-Slovakization) the forced acceptance of Slovak nationality- was engaged by the Czechoslovak government with the objective of eliminating the Hungarian nationality. The Slovak Commissioner of the Interior on June 17, 1946 (decree No.20,000/1946) initiated the "Reslovakization" program. This process based upon the Czechoslovak assumption that in fact there never had been any Hungarians in South Slovakia, only "Hungarianized Slovaks" who lost their Slovak national identy through the centuries of Hungarian rule. As Anton Granatier, officer of the Resettlement Bureau said: „We want to be the national state of Slovaks and Czechs, and we will be. This monumental programme includes re−slovakization, already under way in whole Slovakia! Within the scope of this action everyone who feels to be Slovak by origin will have the chance to declare it freely whether they want to become Slovaks with all its consequences or want to share the fate of those without citizenship.“ In the spring and summer of 1945, a series of decrees stripped Hungarians of property, from all civil rights and from their citizenship. Hungary itself gave the Slovaks equal rights and demanded the same solution to the issue from Czechoslovakia. Since Hungarians in Slovakia were deprived of many rights, and were the target of discrimination, they were pressured into having their nationality officially changed to Slovak, otherwise they dropped out of the pensionPension system
-Pension systems in various countries:*ANSES *Superannuation in Australia*Social Security *Canada Pension Plan*Chile pension system*Indian pension system*KiwiSaver *Social security *UK Pension Provision...
, social, and healthcare system. 400,000 (sources differ) stateless Hungarians applied for, and eventually 344,609 Hungarians received a re-Slovakization certificate by the Central Committee for Reslovakization, and thereby Czechoslovak citizenship. Therefore the number of Hungarians in Slovakia dropped to 350000. According to Russian archives, 20000 Hungarians declared themselves as Slovak at the beginning of the year 1949, and eventually 360000 Hungarians changed their nationality to Slovak, according to Slovak historians. The fear was so big among the Hungarian population, that only 350000-367000 claimed himselfs Hungarian in the 1950 census, and only after ten years -when the reslovakization program was revoked- began to rose and reached 518000.
The main problem with the reslovakization procedure was, that the "reslovakized" Hungarians did not take the forcible change of nationality seriously, because it is impossible to force someone to forget his culture and language suddenly. A Slovak journalist wrote the following about the "reslovaklized" city of Nové Zámky
Nové Zámky
Nové Zámky is a town in southwestern Slovakia.-Geography:The town is located on the Danubian Lowland, on the Nitra River, at an altitude of 119 metres. It is located around 100 km from Bratislava and around 25 km from the Hungarian border. It is a road and railway hub of southern...
:
After October, 1948
With the disappearance of Eduard Benes from the political scene, the Czechoslovak government issued decree No. 76/1948 on April 13, 1948, allowing those Hungarians still living in Czechoslovakia, to reinstate Czechoslovak citizenship. A year later, Hungarians were allowed to send their children to Hungarian schools, which had been reopened for the first time since 1945, although Hungarians remaining in Slovakia were subjected to extremely heavy pressure to assimilate, and complaints reached the Soviets about forced enrollment of Hungarian children in Slovak schools.Most re-Slovakized Hungarians gradually readopted their Hungarian nationality. As a result, the re-Slovakization commission ceased operations in December 1948.
Despite their promises to settle the issue of the Hungarians in Slovakia, in 1948 Czech and Slovak ruling circles still maintained the hope that they could deport the Hungarians from Slovakia. According to a 1948 poll conducted among the Slovak population 55% were for resettlement (deportation) of the Hungarians, 24% said "don't know", 21% were against. Under slogans for the struggle with class enemies, the process of dispersing dense Hungarian settlements continued in 1948 and 1949. By October 1949 preparations were made to deport 600 Hungarian families.
Finally, at 25. July 1949, Czechoslovak and Hungarian delegation signed the Štrb protocol which ended the law disputes between Hungarian and Czechoslovak property and legal question and compensation of deported Hungarians.
The current Slovak-Hungarian political standpoint of the expulsions
In 2002 before SlovakiaSlovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
and Hungary joined the European Union in 2004
2004 enlargement of the European Union
The 2004 enlargement of the European Union was the largest single expansion of the European Union , both in terms of territory, number of states and population, however not in terms of gross domestic product...
, Hungarian politician Viktor Orbán
Viktor Orbán
Viktor Orbán is a Hungarian populist and conservative politician and current Prime Minister of Hungary...
demanded the repeal of the Beneš decrees
Beneš decrees
Decrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...
, but the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
asserted that "the decrees did not constitute an insurmountable obstacle to accession." Slovak politician Monika Beňová-Flašiková accused the Hungarian politicians for pushing revanchist policies which could destabilize Europe. Later on the Hungarian members of the Slovak parliament
Politics of Slovakia
Politics of Slovakia takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, with a multi-party system. Legislative power is vested in the parliament and it can be exerced in some cases also by the government or directly by citizens. Executive power is exercised by the...
requested for compensation and for a symbolic apology to the victims of the expulsions. As an answer, the Slovak government adopted a resolution in September 2007 which declared that the Beneš decrees are inalterable.
During Communism
Czechoslovakia (being a Communist country at that time) financed the following purely Hungarian institutions for the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia as of early 1989: 386 kindergartens, 131 elementary schools, 98 secondary schools, 2 theatres, 1 special Hungarian language publishing house (6 publishing houses also publishing Hungarian literature) and 24 newspapers and journals.The first Hungarian-language university in Slovakia was opened at the beginning of the 21st - the Selye János University.
According to The Minorities at Risk Project:
However, some Slovak sources they claim that:
- the federalisation was only notional (see e.g. Slovak Socialist RepublicSlovak Socialist RepublicFrom 1969 to 1990, the Slovak Socialist Republic was the official name of that part of Czechoslovakia that is Slovakia today. The name was used from 1 January 1969 until March 1990....
) - no change to the minority laws occurred with respect to the year 1968
- during this time the number of Hungarian language schools and Hungarian-speaking people increased in Slovakia
Since the independence of Slovakia
Under Communism, the Hungarian minority issue was confined invariably to the position of Slovaks within the Czechoslovak state, and therefore it was ignored in any systematic way. But the fall of CommunismRevolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
reinforced national identities and demolished the ideology of 'the socialist unity of nations'. The break-up of Czechoslovakia
Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
The dissolution of Czechoslovakia, which took effect on 1 January 1993, was an event that saw the self-determined separation of the federal state of Czechoslovakia. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, entities which had arisen in 1969 within the framework of Czechoslovak federalisation, became...
was a process of national redefinition and assertion in Slovakia.
Under the premiership of Mečiar prone to populism
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
, exclusivist Slovak nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
,
and the use of extralegal measures, independent Slovakia slipped toward
authoritarianism
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
. Mečiar turned the Hungarian minority into a scapegoat for Slovakia's bad economic situation. Numerous articles and books containing anti-Hungarian propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
appeared, and the Hungarians were accused for the destruction of the 'first Slovak state
Great Moravia
Great Moravia was a Slavic state that existed in Central Europe and lasted for nearly seventy years in the 9th century whose creators were the ancestors of the Czechs and Slovaks. It was a vassal state of the Germanic Frankish kingdom and paid an annual tribute to it. There is some controversy as...
', and for the ‘one-millennium-long oppression’ of Slovak nation.
Komárom county
Komárom county was a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary in present-day southern Slovakia and north-western Hungary on both sides of the...
before 1918, the borders proposed by SMK were significantly different. The proposed region would have encompassed a very long slice of southern Slovakia, with the explicit aim to create an administrative unit with ethnic-Hungarian majority. Hungarian minority politicians and intellectuals thought that such kind of administrative unit is essential for the long-term survival of the Hungarian minority. Both proposals were rejected by the Slovak government in favour of an eight county model of north-south (and not east-west) governance, which has been seen to weaken the electoral power of Hungarians. According to Miklós Duray, a politician of the Party of the Hungarian Coalition
Party of the Hungarian Coalition
The Party of the Hungarian Coalition, officially registered under the compound name Strana maďarskej koalície – Magyar Koalíció Pártja, is a political party in Slovakia, for the ethnic Hungarian minority...
:"Administrative jurisdictions of Slovakia were geographically modified in a clear case of gerrymandering
Gerrymandering
In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected districts...
. The administrative system governed by laws created in 1991,Law pertaining to Local Administration. Collection of Laws of 1990, number 472. Law pertaining to the territorial and administrative jurisdictions. Collection of Laws of 1990, number 517. included 17 primary jurisdictions and 2 secondary jurisdictions, with a majority Hungarian population. The 1996 lawLaw pertaining to the territorial and administrative reorganization of the Slovak Republic. Collection of Laws of 1996, number 221. eliminated this system of administration. In the reorganized system only 2 primary administrative jurisdictions have a Hungarian majority population (Dunajská Streda
Dunajská Streda District
Dunajská Streda District is a district in the Trnava Region of western Slovakia....
and Komárno
Komárno District
Komárno District is a district inthe Nitra Region of western Slovakia.Until 1918, the district was mostly part of the Hungarian county of Komárom....
). Furthermore, 8 secondary administrative jurisdictions were created, 5 with Hungarian populations in the 10 to 30 per cent range. In 1998, these jurisdictions will have regional self governing communities, where the diminished proportion of Hungarians makes certain they will play a subordinate role in self government." After the regions became autonomous in 2002, SMK was able to take power in the Nitra Region
Nitra Region
The Nitra Region is one of the administrative regions of Slovakia.-Geography:This region with a long history is situated in the southwest of Slovakia, mostly in the eastern part of the Danubian Lowland. It is divided into two sub-units: the Danubian Flat in the south-west, with eastern part of the...
and it became part of the ruling coalition in several other regions.
Before the Slovak independence two main issues appeared regarding language: the right to use non-Slovakized versions of women's names and the use of bilingual street signs. Non Slovaks were forced to Slovakize female personal names in official documents by attaching the Slovak feminine suffix '-ová'. Members of ethnic minorities were restricted in their choise of given names, as registry offices accepted only names from a limited list only. After ten years wrangling, the second Dzurinda cabinet eased these restrictions.
The use of the Hungarian language
The Slovak Constitution from 1992 asserts that the ‘state language’ on the territory of the Slovak Republic
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
is Slovak
Slovak language
Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
. At the same time this constitution entails explicit provisions for minorities, including language right. These provisions were reinforced in 2001. International treaties like the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities was signed on February 1995 by 22 member States of the Council of Europe ....
(ratified by Slovakia in 1995) or the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe...
(ratified by Slovakia in 2001) and the 1995 Treaty on Good Neighbourly Relations and Friendly Cooperations between Slovakia and Hungary protect the language rights of minorities. Article 34. of the 1992 constitution asserts that "citizens of ethnic minorities have the right to be educated in their language, the right to use it in dealings with authorities, and the right to participate in the solution of affairs concerning national minorities and ethnic groups". These provisions afford a high standard of protection, but still, these legislative instruments do not warrant the implementation of the postulated rights. In most cases the disfrancishement evolves when there is insufficient political will to legislate the provisions as law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
s. This happened between 1992 and 1998 (i.e. under Mečiar's government).
Slovak nacionalist demands for a language law detaining the use of Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
in public institutions already appeared in 1990. Finally, the Meciar government pushed through legislation restricting the use of minority languages in public institutions. In 1995, the Slovak Parliament
National Council of the Slovak Republic
The National Council of the Slovak Republic , abbreviated to NR SR, is the national parliament of Slovakia. It is unicameral, and consists of 150 MPs, who are elected by universal suffrage under proportional representation every four years....
passed Act No 270 on the State Language of Slovakia, which came into power on 1 January 1996. This act revoked the more tolerant Act No 428 passed in 1990. The 1995 act emphasized the significance of the Slovak language for Slovak nationalism and statehood, by consolidating the exclusivist monolingualism. The new act considerably limited the use of minority languages, that is, of Hungarian, which had featured on bilingual signposts with placenames in predominantly Hungarian areas, and in bilingual school certificates issued to students in Hungarian minority schools. According to Duray: "An official language lawLanguage Law of the Slovak Republic. Collection of Laws of 1996, number 270. was promulgated providing the legal framework for the official use of the Slovak language not only in official communications but also in everyday commerce, in the administration of religious bodies, and even in the realm of what is normally considered private interaction, for example, communications between patient and physician." In 1999, the Dzurinda government
Mikuláš Dzurinda
Mikuláš Dzurinda is a Slovak politician who was Prime Minister of Slovakia from 30 October 1998 to 4 July 2006. He was a founder and leader of the Slovak Democratic Coalition and the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union...
passed Act No 184 on the Use of the Languages of the Minority Communities, which reintroduced the institution of bilingual school certificates and provided that in communes with more than 20 percent of inhabitants belonging to a given minority, the minority language can be used in administration, and signposts with placenames can be bilingual. Furthermore, Article 10, prohibiting doing business and drafting contracts in any other language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
but Slovak, was abolished from the Act. However the act limits itself to only official contacts with the state and thus fails to overcome the 1996 act ensuring the use of Slovak in culture, schools and media. Language rights in education have also been a sphere of antagonism between the Slovak state and the Hungarian minority. Bilingual education in priamary and secondary schools is currently permitted. However, the array of subjects that should be taught in each language remained a higly contested issue. Government proposals prior to the 1998 elections (i.e. under Mečiar's government) even suggested that certain subjects should be taught only by teachers of 'Slovak origin' to ensure that the Slovak population living in areas with significant Hungarian populations should be able to assimilate themselves into mainstream Slovak life. According to Duray: 2On March 12, 1997 (i.e. under Mečiar's government), the Undersecretary of Education sent a circular to the heads of the school districts making known the following regulations: In Hungarian schools the Slovak language should be taught exclusively by native speakers. The same exclusion criteria applies to non-Slovak schools in the teaching of geography and history. (The Undersecretary modified the language of this regulation later by changing the term "exclusively" for "mainly".) In communities where the Hungarian community exceeds 40% of the total population the teachers of Slovak schools receive supplementary pay. In all communities which include a Hungarians population and where there is no school or there is no Slovak school, wherever possible a Slovak school should be opened, but not a Hungarian one."The circular issued by Undersecretary Ondrej Nemcok cites governmental decrees of the Slovak Republic, numbers 459/95, 768/95 and 845/95. At the end of the 1998 school year a large number of Hungarian pupils handed back their school report that were issued only in Slovak.
In 2003, there were 295 Hungarian elementary school
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
s and 75 secondary school
Secondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...
s in Slovakia. In most of them Hungarian was used as the medium of instruction
Medium of instruction
Medium of instruction is a language used in teaching. It may or may not be the official language of the country or territory. Where the first language of students is different from the official language, it may be used as the medium of instruction for part or all of schooling. Bilingual or...
, excluding 35 elementary schools and 18 secondary schools, which were bilingual.
After the parliamentary elections in 2006, the nationalist party
SNS
-Commerce:* SNS Bank, a Dutch bank.* Steak n Shake, a U.S. restaurant chain* Street News Service, a news agency for street newspapers-Computing:* Amazon Simple Notification Service , a multiprotocol "push" messaging web service...
of Ján Slota
Ján Slota
Ján Slota is the co-founder and President of the Slovak National Party, an extremist nationalist party. Slota as the leader of SNS entered into a coalition with Robert Fico's Smer in 2006...
became member of the ruling coalition led by Robert Fico
Robert Fico
Robert Fico served as the Prime Minister of Slovakia from July 4, 2006 to July 8, 2010.He is the leader of the left-wing party Direction – Social Democracy . The party won the parliamentary elections in 2006, receiving approximately 30 percent of the cast votes...
. In August a few incidents motivated by ethnic hatred
Ethnic hatred
Ethnic hatred, inter-ethnic hatred, racial hatred, or ethnic tension refers to feelings and acts of prejudice and hostility towards an ethnic group in various degrees. See list of anti-ethnic and anti-national terms for specific cases....
caused diplomatic tensions between the countries. Mainstream Hungarian and Slovak media blamed Slota's anti-Hungarian statements from the early summer for worsening ethnic relations. (Further informations: 2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs
2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs
The Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs of 2006 were a series of ethnic and diplomatic affairs between Slovakia and Hungary. Although the rights of the Hungarians living in Slovakia are protected by international law, a chain of incidents happened in the summer of 2006...
, and Hedvig Malina
Hedvig Malina
Hedvig Malina is an ethnic Hungarian student from Horné Mýto , Slovakia, who was physically assaulted allegedly in a hate crime incident. Her case represents a highly controversial and debated issue of Hungarian-Slovak relations.-Claim of violence:...
).
On 27 September 2007 the Beneš decrees were reconfirmed by the Slovak parliament which legitimized the Hungarians and Germans calumination and deportation from Czechoslovakia after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Roman Catholicism in Slovakia
The Roman Catholic Church in Slovakia or Latin Church in Slovakia is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and curia in Rome....
were reorganized. 8 dioceses were introduced in place of the previous 6. Until the reform the area of Žitný ostrov
Žitný ostrov
Žitný ostrov, also called Veľký Žitný ostrov to differentiate it from Malý Žitný ostrov , is a river island in southwestern Slovakia, extending from Bratislava to Komárno. It lies between the Danube and its tributary Little Danube and is a major part of the Danubian Flat...
(Hungarian: Csallóköz), the Matúšova zem (Mátyusföld) and Poiplie (Ipolymente) - where a big portion of the Hungarians of Slovakia resides - belonged to the Archdiocese of Bratislava-Trnava. Now it belongs to four different dioceses. This triggered the protest of Hungarian catholic worshippers and priests. However, the reform was introduced by the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
, not by the Slovak Republic.
Also in 2008, Ján Mikolaj
Ján Mikolaj
Ján Mikolaj is a Slovak politician, who is a member of Slovak National Party and the current Slovak Education Minister. Formerly he was a member of Mečiar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. After the demission of Igor Štefanov Mikolaj was also Minister for Construction and Regional...
(SNS), minister of education propagated changes in the Hungarian schools of Slovakia. According to a new education law plan, the Hungarian language which was educated as mother tongue until now will be considered a foreign language - and therefore taught in less number of lessons. The only textbooks allowed to be used in Hungarian schools will be those translated from Slovak books and approved by Slovak administration.
In October 2008 Hungarian parents and teachers sent back Hungarian textbooks to the Minister of Education. The books contained geographical names only in Slovak violating the basic rules of the Hungarian language
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
and the minorities' right of usage of their native language.
In November 2008 Prime Minister Robert Fico has again promised, this time at a cabinet meeting in Komárno (Révkomárom), southern Slovakia, that an ongoing problem with textbooks for ethnic Hungarian schools in Slovakia will be resolved. Though as of November 2008 Ján Slota still insists on the grammatically incorrect version (Slovak language names in Hungarian sentences) and having the correct Hungarian name only afterwards.
.
The Slovak authorities denied the registration of a Hungarian traditional folk art association, because they used the Hungarian word Kárpát-medence (Carpathian Basin
Pannonian Basin
The Pannonian Basin or Carpathian Basin is a large basin in East-Central Europe.The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense - meaning only the lowlands, the plain that remained when the Pliocene Pannonian Sea dried...
). According to Dušan Čaplovič
Dušan Čaplovič
PhD. Dušan Čaplovič, DrSc. is a Slovak politician, formerly a historian and archaeologist. He is the Deputy Prime Minister for Knowledge Society, European Affairs, Human Rights and Minorities...
the word and the association is against the sovereignty of Slovakia, furthermore the word is fascist, it is familiar with the German Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
, and Hungarians use it in this ideology.
On September 1, 2009 more than ten thousand Hungarians held demonstrations to protest against the so-called language law
Language law of Slovakia
The state language law of Slovakia fixes the status and regulates the use of the Slovak language. It took force in 1995 and underwent a major amendment in 2009....
that limits the use of minority languages in Slovakia. The law calls for fines of up to £4,380 for anyone "misusing the Slovak language.
2011 Census
In January 2011, a Hungarian sociologist László Gyurgyík expected that, by the May 2011 census, the number of Hungarian nationality citizens in Slovakia will be between 460,000 and 490,000."Wise historism"
Since deputy prime minister Robert FicoRobert Fico
Robert Fico served as the Prime Minister of Slovakia from July 4, 2006 to July 8, 2010.He is the leader of the left-wing party Direction – Social Democracy . The party won the parliamentary elections in 2006, receiving approximately 30 percent of the cast votes...
declared the "wise historism" concept, the history books are getting rewritten in a faster pace than before, and in an increased "spirit of national pride", which Krekovič, Mannová and Krekovičová claim are mainly nothing else, but history falsifications. Such new inventions are the interpretation of Great Moravia as a (proto)-Slovak state, or the term "proto-Slovak" itself, along with the "refreshing" of many "old traditions", that in fact did not exist or were not Slovak before. The concept received criticism in Slovakia pointing out that the term proto-Slovak cannot be found in any serious publication, simply because it lacks any scientific basis. Miroslav Kusý
Miroslav Kusý
Miroslav Kusý is a Slovak political scientist and politician. Described as a "dissident" of Czechoslovakia's communist regime, he was given an eight month suspended sentence in November 1989 for an anti-government protest...
Slovak political scientist explained that by adopting such scientificly questionable rhetoric Fico aims to "strengthen national consciousness by falsification of history".
Rusyns
The ethnic relationship of Prešov RegionPrešov Region
The Prešov Region is one of the eight Slovak administrative regions. It consists of 13 districts.-Geography:It is located in north-eastern Slovakia and has an area of 8,975 km². The region has diverse types of landscapes occurring in Slovakia, but mostly highlands and hilly lands dominate the...
is complex and volatile. A long-term cultural and everyday cohabition of Rusyns
Rusyns
Carpatho-Rusyns are a primarily diasporic ethnic group who speak an Eastern Slavic language, or Ukrainian dialect, known as Rusyn. Carpatho-Rusyns descend from a minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt the use of the ethnonym "Ukrainian" in the early twentieth century...
, Slovaks and Hungarians, under the prepodence of the non-Rusyn element led to the linguistic Slovakization of Rusyns, while in some parts (in cities and ethnic islands in the south) they were Magyarized. Still, in both cases they preserved their religion (Greek Catholicism). Until the 1920s, the Slovak-speaking Greek-Catholics composed a transitional group that was connected with the Rusyns through religion and traditions, with Slovak as their language. Their number was gradually increasing with the transition of the parts of Rusyn population to the Slovak language. Slovakization of the Rusyn population increased in the times of the Czechoslovakian authorities (since 1920). The Greek Catholics and Orthodox started to perceive themselves as Slovaks. It is difficult to estimate the distribution of the Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
and the Greek Catholics by the language as well as to determine the number of Rusyns because both the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian censuses provided the incorrect number of Rusyns, but it contains roughly 50-100 000 people. According to censuses the decrease of the number of Rusyns was influenced not only by Slovakization but also by emigration of a significant number of Rusyns from Prešov, mainly to the Czech lands.
The Slovak pressure on Rusyns in Slovakia increased after 1919 when Czechoslovakia incorporated Transcarpathia
Carpathian Ruthenia
Carpathian Ruthenia is a region in Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast , with smaller parts in easternmost Slovakia , Poland's Lemkovyna and Romanian Maramureş.It is...
to the west of the Uzh River
Uzh River
The Uzh is a river in Ukraine and Slovakia. Its name comes from the ancient west slavic dialect word už, meaning "Snake", ....
. The Slovakization of Rusyns (and Ukrainians) was a part of the program of the Slovak People's Party
Slovak People's Party
The Slovak People's Party was a Slovak right-wing party and was described as a fascist and...
, whose leader refused to cooperate with the Rusyn politicians of Transcarpathia but cooperated with Hungarian-speaking A. Brody. Therefore, the Rusyn politicians opened the links with the Czech political parties which were supportive of neutrality towards the Rusyn question. The cultural Slovak-Rusyn relations at the time were minimal.
(from the Entsyklopediia Ukrainoznavstva)
See also
- MagyarizationMagyarizationMagyarization is a kind of assimilation or acculturation, a process by which non-Magyar elements came to adopt Magyar culture and language due to social pressure .Defiance or appeals to the Nationalities Law, met...
- Hungarian minority in Slovakia
- 2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairsThe Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs of 2006 were a series of ethnic and diplomatic affairs between Slovakia and Hungary. Although the rights of the Hungarians living in Slovakia are protected by international law, a chain of incidents happened in the summer of 2006...
- Hedvig MalinaHedvig MalinaHedvig Malina is an ethnic Hungarian student from Horné Mýto , Slovakia, who was physically assaulted allegedly in a hate crime incident. Her case represents a highly controversial and debated issue of Hungarian-Slovak relations.-Claim of violence:...
- Ethnic tensions in CzechoslovakiaEthnic tensions in CzechoslovakiaThis article describes ethnic tensions in Czechoslovakia from 1918 until 1992.- Background :Czechoslovakia was founded as a country in the aftermath of World War I with its borders set out in the Treaty of Trianon and Treaty of Versailles, though the new borders were de facto established about a...
Sources and general references
- Eleonore C. M. Breuning, Dr. Jill Lewis, Gareth Pritchard; Power and the people: a social history of Central European politics, 1945–56; Manchester University Press, 2005; ISBN 0719070694, 9780719070693