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ORIGINS OF THE HUNGARIAN QUESTION © Copyright HUNMAGYAR.ORG CONTENTS
The following study examines the historical background of the Hungarian Question in greater detail, focusing on the determining factors: the role of major powers, ethnic conflicts and propaganda, factors which have led to the First World War and the peace treaties following the war.
1. Major power role in the Hungarian Question The problem of the Hungarian minorities - the Hungarian Question - was created by the Treaty of Trianon of June 4, 1920, just as numerous other minority problems were created by the post-WWI settlements imposed by the victorious powers: France, Great Britain, and their allies. One of the critical factors contributing to the plight of the ethnic minorities was that the implementation of the minority rights protection clauses of the Peace Treaties was inadequately guaranteed by the Western Allies. As a result of the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary lost 72% of its territory and 64% of its population (1), and one third of the ethnic Hungarian population was forced under foreign rule (2). The conditions thus imposed upon Hungary after WWI were by far harsher in both relative and absolute terms than those imposed upon any other state (3). The Hungarian Question was to a considerable extent generated and conditioned by the interference of major foreign powers and of their rivalries (4). At first, the Ottoman Empire's advance into the Balkans, starting in the 14th c., caused large-scale population movements as a result of which the Croats, Serbs, and Rumanians (known as Wallachians at the time) shifted Northward into Hungarian territory. The ethnic antagonism started under Habsburg rule during the 18th c. The latter pursued a policy of foreign colonization in Hungary in order to apply the divide and rule principle. As a result, frictions increased between the Hungarians and the foreign ethnic groups, whose numbers were rapidly growing due to immigration. Tensions reached a critical level during the 1848-49 Hungarian War of Independence. Most of the foreign ethnic groups sided with the Habsburgs against the Hungarians, thus generating antagonism between them. Following the Habsburgs, France (during the interwar period), Germany (during WWII), and the Soviet Union (after WWII) have successively pursued hegemonic policies in the Danubian Basin, applying the divide and rule principle by promoting and exploiting conflicts among the ethnic groups of the region. Such foreign intervention and domination in the Danubian region prevented peaceful cooperation among the various ethnic groups and rendered the latter politically dependent upon the major powers. The Hungarian Question was therefore essentially determined by major power interests (5). Major powers, such as Russia, seized the opportunities presented by the emergence of new nationalistic small states such as Serbia and Rumania, and exploited the latter's territorial ambitions in order to serve their own hegemonistic objectives (6). As a result, the Entente Powers (France, Great Britain and Russia) recognized and supported territorial claims by Balkan states against Austria-Hungary even before WWI (7). Serbia and Rumania also realized that the territories they sought could only be obtained through the intervention of major powers. Thus, the Balkan states were not merely the pawns of the major powers, but they also exploited the latter's imperialistic rivalries:
The terms of the Treaty of Trianon were largely determined by diplomatic events leading up to and during the war, as well as by military events following it. During the war itself, through secret agreements, Hungarian territories were promised by the Entente Powers to their Balkan allies. On August 17, 1916, the secret Treaty of Bucharest was signed between the Entente and Rumania (9). The treaty promised the Hungarian territories East of the Tisza river to Rumania, which, in exchange, could not conclude a separate peace treaty with the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary), as this would invalidate the Bucharest Treaty (10). Consequently, the Rumanians turned against their former ally, Austria-Hungary, and on August 27 proceeded to invade Transylvania, declaring war upon the Dual Monarchy only after the attack had begun (11). The Rumanians based their declaration of war on the claim that Hungary was oppressing its Rumanian minority (12). Nevertheless, the Central Powers mounted a successful counter-offensive as a result of which Rumania was forced to sign the Peace Treaty of Bucharest on May 7, 1918, thereby invalidating the 1916 Bucharest Treaty with the Entente (13). It was also during the war that the Allies decided to recognize the as yet non-existent states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. On November 3, 1918, Austria-Hungary concluded an Armistice at Padua with Italy which had received the mandate and authorization to act on behalf of the Allied and Associated Powers (14). On that day, there were no Allied forces on Hungarian territory (15). The Armistice designated the existent frontiers of Austria-Hungary as the demarcation lines for the Balkan and Eastern fronts. This Armistice was thus valid for all Austro-Hungarian fronts and officially put an end to all hostilities between Austria-Hungary and the Allied and Associated Powers (16). However, on November 4, 1918, the Supreme War Council of the Allies unilaterally cancelled the Padua Armistice without the knowledge and consent of the Austro-Hungarian authorities, claiming that one of the contracting parties to the Armistice, Austria-Hungary, had "ceased" to exist. However, this argument was questionable since the Hungarian government had also accepted the terms of the Padua Armistice (17). Because at that time Germany was still at war, the presence of German troops in Hungary prompted the Allies to invade (18). These circumstances proved favourable for the territorial claims of the Czechs, Serbians, and Rumanians. On November 13, 1918, the Allies imposed the Belgrade Military Convention on Hungary in order to occupy certain Southern and Eastern parts of that country (19). This was meant only as a temporary measure which was not supposed to change the Hungarian administration in the occupied regions (20). However, the Czechs, Serbians, and Rumanians violated the Belgrade Convention by occupying more territory than they were authorized to and by replacing the local Hungarian administration by their own (21). Thus, large parts of Hungary's territory came under foreign occupation, and those territories were subsequently annexed by the successor states - Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania. Having fought on Germany's side, Hungary was considered and treated as a defeated enemy power by the Allies (22). Consequently, the successor states were given preferential treatment regarding their claims against Hungary. The foreign invasion of Hungary precipitated the economic and political collapse of that country which had also demobilized its army following the Armistice, thereby facilitating the advance of enemy troops into Hungarian territory. As a result of the ensuing chaotic conditions, a coup installed the communist regime of Béla Kun, a turn of events which prompted further Allied intervention in Hungary, resulting in the occupation of Budapest by Rumanian troops (23), and causing losses estimated at 6.5 billion Swiss Francs (24). The other major concern of the Allies, besides Germany, was the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the resulting threat of the spread of communism:
Hungary was thus in a particularly unfavourable set of circumstances where its interests were subordinated to the intervening interests of major powers and their Balkan allies, especially those of France which was taking an increasingly hegemonic role in East Central Europe. It was under such circumstances that the Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats and Rumanians took over large parts of Hungary's territory as war booty, along with millions of Hungarians who were in effect prisonners of war and treated as enemies.(Back)
2. Anti-Hungarian propaganda and biasThere is conclusive evidence that plans for the annexation of Hungarian territories were envisaged well before the outbreak of the First World War by the states which benefited from the partition of Hungary (26). The expansionist aims of the Czechs, Serbia, and Rumania were manifested by the promotion of separatist movements among Hungary's foreign ethnic minorities (27) and by a highly publicized propaganda campaign in the West, with the collaboration of certain influential personalities such as R. W. Seton-Watson (28), in order to popularize their cause and to gain acceptance and support for their territorial claims against Austria-Hungary:
Thus, the propaganda campaign before and during the war had a definite impact upon the political restructuring of the Danubian region (30):
As a result of this propaganda campaign, Hungary's image became highly distorted in the West where decisions about Hungary's existence were being made in an extremely biased context, without any consideration for the facts:
The widespread anti-Hungarian propaganda was essentially a means of justifying the anti-Hungarian policies dictated or promoted by major power interests. Although Germans, Czechs, Slovaks and Rumanians, among others, have considerably contributed to the propagation of misconceptions about the Hungarians since the 19th c., this is not a relatively recent phenomenon. The traditional ancestors of the Hungarians were defamatorily portrayed in Ancient and Medieval sources (33). These early manifestations of anti-Hungarian literature were the products of the ignorance and fear with which the Hungarians were confronted as they came into contact with various other peoples through the ages (34). As a result, certain disputable and distorted views concerning the Hungarians have found general acceptance in the West:
One of the most persistent and harmful images held of the Hungarians is that they are an alien and anomalous presence in Europe, differing ethno-linguistically from the surrounding Indo-Europeans (36). The Hungarians are often portrayed as "Asiatic barbarian intruders" who caused great harm to Europe. The legitimacy of their presence in Europe is therefore questioned, and they are considered to be a culturally inferior race:
The Rumanians have also adopted such anti-Hungarian theories, with the view that the Hungarians are "despoilers of ancient Romanian soil of many millenia" (38), and that the Hungarians have no right to be in Europe and should be sent back to Siberia, from where they are supposed to have originated (39). Similarly unfavourable views concerning the Hungarians are also present in Western publications, as the following sample indicates:
(In this context, it should be noted that the Rumanians, who have also sided with the Germans during WWII, were not labelled as a "Fascist" nation deserving punishment as were the Hungarians.)
In Midgley, R., ed., Europe, Caxton Publishing Co. Ltd, Amsterdam, 1973, p. 18, the Asiatic origin of the Hungarians is emphasized, and despite the fact that the Hungarian minorities constitute the largest ethnic minority group in Europe outside the former Soviet Union, the relatively detailed ethno-linguistic maps on that page fail to indicate the Hungarian minorities in the states surrounding Hungary, although such other minorities as the Bretons, the Basques, the Romansch, and the Lapps are shown. In this book, maps also indicate Germany's lost Eastern territories (Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia) with the German name of the towns and cities located there, however, Hungary's lost territories, towns and cities aren't even mentioned. In François, D., et al., L'époque contemporaine, Bordas, Paris, 1971, p. 111, (this is another school textbook) an ethnographic map of Austria-Hungary showing the Transylvanian Hungarians is accompanied by the following statement: "Les Hongrois forment un bloc compact (l'enclave des paysans de Transylvanie ne compte guère)." In other words, even if the presence of the Hungarians in Transylvania is acknowledged, the Hungarian minority is dismissed as being of no importance. The amount of material containing such biased and inaccurate information about the Hungarians could fill libraries. The propagation and the teaching of this type of information is highly detrimental to the survival of the Hungarian minorities. This anti-Hungarian propaganda and bias provide states such as Slovakia, Rumania and Serbia with justification to pursue discriminatory policies. The arguments used in order to justify the Treaty of Trianon were that Hungary was responsible for WWI and that the millenial existence of the Hungarian state represented in itself an "injustice" (40).(Back)
3. Responsibility for WWIIn the Dual Monarchy (Austria-Hungary), decisions relating to diplomatic and military matters were taken in Vienna (41). In July 1914, the Hungarian government was firmly opposed to the aggressive Habsburg policy towards Serbia (42). However, the Hungarian objections were overruled by the Austrians, and Hungary was forced to accept the decisions taken by the Habsburg government. The accusation that Hungary was responsible for the war is therefore unfounded:
The responsibility for WWI lies, in varying degrees, with the Habsburgs, Russia, Germany, France, as well as Serbia and Rumania, all of which pursued expansionist or revanchist policies. Unlike the Balkan states, Hungary had no territorial ambitions. Territorial and hegemonic expansionism were among the main causes of the war.(Back)
4. Historical rights and claimsThe other accusation made against Hungary, that of the "injustice" of that state's millenial existence, referred to the alleged thousand years of Hungarian (Magyar) oppression of the ethnic minorities. The implication of this accusation was that the Carpathian Basin was already occupied by non-Hungarian populations before the arrival of the Magyars, in 895 AD, who then supposedly subjugated the previously settled inhabitants of the region. These claims of the successor states represented the principal justifications of their territorial acquisitions from Hungary. These accusations raise the Nationalities Question of pre-war Hungary, referring to the problems between the Hungarian and non-Hungarian ethnic groups living in Hungary. This problem is still present under the form of the Hungarian minorities in the states surrounding Hungary. Hungary's neighbours claimed that they had inhabited the Carpathian Basin before the Hungarians, and that therefore they had the historical right of possession of its territories (44). The Rumanians, for their part, based their historical claims on the so-called Daco-Roman continuity theory. This highly controversial theory is still the subject of extremely divided opinions (45). While the Hungarians maintain that the theory of Daco-Roman continuity is not substantiated by any conclusive evidence (46),
In fact, the historical claims of the successor states appear to be questionable:
With respect to the question of historical rights for territorial possession based on priority of settlement, it is interesting to note that some of the most recent researches into the ancient history of Europe have arrived to the conclusion that before the appearance of the Indo-European peoples in Europe, non-Indo-European peoples had already laid the foundations of European civilization (49). These conclusions are supported by archeological finds, such as that made in Transylvania in 1961 which indicates that the earliest civilized settlements in the Carpathian Basin were of Mesopotamian Sumerian origin (50). During the 19th c., British, French, and German researchers discovered the most ancient civilization, that of the Sumerians, in Mesopotamia, and deciphered their language, coming to the conclusion that the Sumerians were neither Semitic, nor Indo-European: the Sumerians belonged to the Turanian ethno-linguistic group which includes Hungarian, Turkish and Finnish (51). Comparative linguistic analysis has shown that the language closest to Sumerian is Hungarian (52). The evidence therefore suggests that the ancestors of the present-day Hungarians had established themselves in the Carpathian Basin as early as the Neolithic period, well before the arrival of the Magyars in 895 AD, who represented the last major link in the Scythian-Hun-Avar-Magyar continuity of Turanian peoples which amalgamated with their ethno-linguistic relatives of Near Eastern origin previously settled in the Danubian region. It should also be mentioned, in connection with the Daco-Roman theory, that according to Roman sources, the Dacians, who inhabited today's Transylvania, belonged to the family of Scythian peoples, which also included the Huns, Avars, and Magyars (53).(Back)
5. Hungary under foreign rule: the roots of ethnic conflictDuring the centuries of warfare and foreign occupation, starting with the Ottoman invasion and division of Hungary (16th c.), a considerable shift in the ethnic distribution of the population of the Carpathian Basin took place. While the Hungarian population suffered comparatively greater losses, other ethnic groups from the Balkans and Eastern Europe sought refuge or were settled by foreign rulers in the depopulated areas of Hungary (54), thus considerably reducing the proportion of Hungarians in Hungary, while the non-Hungarian population grew more rapidly due to immigration and due to the fact that the areas they inhabited were less exposed to devastation than those inhabited by Hungarians (55). Transylvania was also affected by these trends as an increasing influx of Rumanians took place, starting in the 13th c., as a result of the Mongol and Turkish invasions of Eastern Europe and the Balkans (56). The various nationalities of the Carpathian Basin coexisted peacefully until the Habsburgs introduced their policy of inciting the various ethnic groups settled in Hungary against the Hungarians:
The Habsburgs pursued a policy of divide and rule in Hungary since their take-over of that country (58), starting with the partition of Hungary between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans in the 16th c. This policy consisted essentially in settling large numbers of foreigners in Hungary, in order to economically exploit and politically divide Hungary to the Austrian Habsburgs's advantage:
In order to incite the foreign ethnic minorities against the Hungarians when the latter repeatedly revolted against Austrian rule, the Habsburgs fostered the development of the national self-consciousness of the non-Hungarian ethnic groups and directed them against the Hungarians (60). In this context, the theory of Daco-Roman continuity was therefore a useful means of mobilizing the Rumanians against the Hungarians:
The objective of this struggle was to re-establish the Rumanian nation "in the position of pre-eminence" (63) which it was believed to have occupied in ancient times. As a result, during the 18th and 19th c. Hungarian uprisings against the Habsburgs, Rumanians settled in Hungary slaughtered entire Hungarian villages, thereby contributing to the depopulation of Hungarian-inhabited areas and increasing the Rumanian population's proportion in Transylvania and other parts of Hungary (64). Due to the ethnic minorities' siding with the Habsburgs against the Hungarians (65), the relations between the Hungarians and the other ethnic groups deteriorated considerably during the course of the 19th c. These ethnic conflicts had serious repercussions on the origins and aftermath of the First World War.(Back)
6. The ethnic minority situation in HungaryIn Hungary, certain non-Hungarians advanced the claim, mostly under foreign influence (66), that the Hungarians have been oppressing the ethnic minorities which have supposedly inhabited the Carpathian Basin before the Hungarians who subjugated them. These claims have been widely propagated since the latter part of the 19th c., essentially in order to justify the territorial partition of Hungary. However, the evidence seems to contradict these politically motivated historical claims:
As a matter of fact, it was in Transylvania that religious freedom was legalized for the first time in Europe, in the 16th c. (68). Furthermore the Hungarian state not only allowed the various ethnic groups settled in Hungary to preserve their language and culture, but actually contributed to their cultural and economic development:
Rumanian historians have interpreted the peasant rebellions against the Hungarian feudal regime as Rumanian national uprisings against Hungarian tyranny. This is a misinterpretation since the Hungarian nobility was not exclusively of Hungarian origin (70) and ethnic Hungarians constituted the bulk of the exploited peasantry. It was therefore a case of feudal socio-economic conflict and not a manifestation of conscious ethno-linguistic discrimination (71). The Rumanians and other nationalities have also claimed that they have been the victims of a systematic campaign of forced Magyarization, or Hungarianization. In relation to this claim, it should be noted that the so-called "Magyar Chauvinism" for which Hungary was criticized was a manifestation characterizing a small and unrepresentative minority of the Hungarian population, namely the upper and middle classes which, to a considerable extent, were composed of elements of non-Hungarian origin (72). This important fact seems to have been overlooked by Hungary's critics, such as R.W. Seton-Watson (Racial Problems in Hungary), who made the mistake of accusing the Hungarian nation as a whole for the policies of the reactionary oligarchy in power at the time. Hungary's ruling classes exploited nationalism for similar political reasons as later Rumanian, Slovak and Serbian governments exploited nationalism. It is also a fact that
The evidence seems to suggest that Hungarianization occurred essentially as a natural and gradual assimilation of the immigrants into the more developed Hungarian society:
The late 19th century policy of Magyarization was a nation-building measure designed for the same purpose as the cultural policies which led to the formation of nations such as the French and the Americans through the assimilation of minorities and immigrants (75). However, the French, the Americans, and other powerful nations were not criticized as were the Hungarians for pursuing such policies (76). The aim of the policy of Magyarization was the preservation of an endangered nation (77), the continued existence of which was placed in doubt due to its numerical inferiority relative to the surrounding ethnic groups (78). The integrity of the Hungarian state was also threatened:
Therefore, through the policy of Magyarization, the Hungarian nation sought the re-establishment of its ethnic homogeneity and of its political sovereignty over the Hungarian kingdom which it had lost due to centuries of foreign rule and colonization. The policy of Magyarization was seen by the founders of the Hungarian State as essential for the survival of an independent Hungarian national state, an objective which was perfectly in line with the then dominant international concept of the nation-state. However, in the case of Hungary's ethnic minorities, the peaceful and voluntary process of assimilation and Hungary's national consolidation was interrupted by the emergence of modern nationalism and by foreign intervention which provoked and exploited conflicts between the Hungarians and the non-Hungarians, leading to the territorial disintegration of Hungary, as a result of which, approximately 5 million Hungarians are forced to live outside of Hungary's present borders (80).(Back)
7. The consequences of TrianonThe Allied powers claimed as a reason for the partition of Hungary the alleged inability of that state to solve its nationality problem - this task was entrusted to the successor states (81). Thus,
However, instead of solving the ethnic minority problem of Hungary, the Treaty of Trianon perpetuated it through the creation of new or enlarged multinational states which contained large Hungarian minorities:
In many respects, the nationality problem in the Danubian Basin deteriorated as a result of the Treaty of Trianon :
Thus, the Treaty of Trianon represented a considerable setback not only in terms of minority rights, but it also had grave political and economic repercussions on the region: the treaty had a highly detrimental effect on the economic development and political stability of East-Central Europe, greatly contributing to the economic and political crises which led to WWII.(Back)
8. The Treaty of Trianon has no legal or moral validityHungarian sovereignty and territorial integrity were violated after that state had concluded a legal agreement for the termination of the war. In this respect, it is interesting to note that on January 24, 1919, the Supreme Allied Council declared that its members were
The Treaty of Trianon was not negotiated but merely imposed upon Hungary by force:
The new borders of Hungary were determined on the basis of claims and information presented by the parties interested in the territorial dismemberment of Hungary. Hungary's objections and demands for plebiscites were not taken into consideration at the Peace Conference (87). In this manner, all ethnic, historical, geographical, strategic, and economic considerations were applied discriminatorily in favor of the successor states and to the detriment of Hungary in the determination of the new frontiers (88). Hungary was forced to sign the Treaty of Trianon, but with the understanding that the possibility of future revision was open (the so-called Millerand letter) and that the acquisition of Hungarian territories by the successor states was conditional upon the latter's compliance with the treaties for the protection of national minorities (89). However, neither of these guarantees were respected by the Allies and the successor states (90). All this was accomplished under the claim of serving justice and of realizing the ideals proclaimed by the Allies (President W. Wilson's 14 Points for the self-determination of the nationalities of Central and Eastern Europe). However, the terms and the methods of implementation of the Treaty of Trianon were in contradiction with the principles in the name of which the Allies claimed to have fought:
As a result, 3.5 million Hungarians were placed against their will in a minority status in the successor states (92). With only one exception where the outcome proved favourable to Hungary (the Sopron plebiscite), the populations of the transferred territories were not consulted as to which state they wished to belong to:
Therefore, under these circumstances, the Treaty of Trianon and the 1947 Treaty of Paris which reinstated it must be declared legally null and void, and a fundamental revision of their terms is in order.(Back)
9. Hungarian policy after TrianonBetween the two world wars, Hungarian foreign policy was based on the rejection of the validity of the Treaty of Trianon (94). Hungary protested against the loss of its territories, questioning its neighbours' claims of historical right for the possession of the annexed territories and criticizing the treatment of the Hungarian minorities by the neighbouring states (95). The objective of Hungarian foreign policy was the revision of the Treaty of Trianon and the recovery of the lost territories (96). During WWII, this policy was only partially and temporarily successful. However, as a result of the Soviet invasion at the end of WWII, this revisionist policy was abandoned as the imposition of Soviet-style communism in Hungary was accompanied by a policy aiming to replace Hungarian national consciousness with "socialist patriotism" and "proletarian internationalism":
In effect, this meant unconditional loyalty to Moscow, Sovietization, and the falsification of Hungarian history. For this purpose, the Hungarian communist regime also found it useful to perpetuate a theory which the Habsburgs had imposed after the defeat of the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848-49. Then, the Habsburgs took over the Hungarian academic institutions and introduced the so-called Finno-Ugrian theory about the origins of the Hungarians:
The Finno-Ugrian theory attempted to portray the Hungarians as a culturally and racially inferior ethnic group which is alien to Europe. This theory was therefore useful for those regimes which sought to justify the subjugation of the Hungarians and which had territorial claims against them. In contrast, prior to the introduction of the Finno-Ugrian theory, the Hungarians' own traditional account of their origins and history was that their ancestors were Atilla's Huns. This knowledge was passed on orally from one generation to the next as all the ancient written records of the Hungarians had been destroyed during the forced Christianization of Hungary, a process which was highly detrimental to the original cultural identity of the Hungarians. The Finno-Ugrian theory, which denies the Hun-Magyar ethnic relationship, was therefore designed to weaken the Hungarians' national consciousness and thus to facilitate their domination by external forces. The Hungarian communist regime prohibited any research orientation which did not follow the officially imposed Finno-Ugrian theory and numerous Hungarian researchers were forced into exile or to publish abroad. The dissenting researchers have come to the conclusion that the official version of Hungary's history has been fundamentally falsified in order to serve foreign interests. As a result, there is an ongoing controversy on the origins and history of the Hungarians, a controversy whose scientific resolution is hampered by the currently dominant political and ideological tendencies. Thus, the communist regime officially renounced all the former Hungarian territorial claims (104), and the issue of the Hungarians living in the neighbouring states was passed under silence (105):
As a result, the Hungarian communist regime withdrew from any active role in the Hungarian Question. Under this regime, Hungary's official position was one of non-involvement in the question of the Hungarian minorities' situation in the neighbouring states (107). This policy of non-intervention was determined by political and ideological considerations:
The seemingly conciliatory Hungarian policy non-intervention in the Hungarian Question and the generous treatment of ethnic minorities in Hungary - had the effect of giving the impression to the neighbouring regimes that their anti-Hungarian policies could be enforced without fear of any retaliatory measure from Hungary. The appeasement policy of the Hungarian communist regime towards its neighbours has therefore failed to solve the problem of the Hungarian minorities, and may have actually contributed to it:
The communist regimes of Eastern Europe were illegitimate dictatorships which were imposed by force against the people's will and these regimes have committed serious human rights violations, atrocities, and numerous other crimes. However, due to major power politics, the official fall of communism in the former Soviet Bloc in 1989 was not followed by trials for crimes against humanity as was the case with the Nazis after WWII. As a result, former communists and their collaborators, many of them criminals, are still holding powerful and influential positions in Hungary, just as in several other former communist states. Thus, no significant policy change has taken place with respect to the Hungarian Question. Although Hungary has signed treaties concerning the rights of the Hungarian minorities with some of its neighbours, the latter continue to systematically violate those rights with impunity and with no effective official Hungarian response. Thus, the situation of the Hungarian ethnic communities in the states surrounding Hungary continues to deteriorate. (Back)
10. ConclusionThe problem of the Hungarian minorities is therefore the result of the hegemonic ambitions and rivalries of the major powers, and of the territorial expansionism of Hungary's neighbours. The ethnic conflicts in Historical Hungary have been engineered and manipulated by major powers through colonization and the policy of divide and rule. Hungary's neighbours actively fostered and supported ethnic separatist movements in that country, resorting to terrorism and instigating a war of conquest in order to break up and annex large parts of Hungary, all under the cover of an anti-Hungarian propaganda campaign designed to justify the violent territorial dismantling of the Hungarian State, in violation of the basic principles of international law: the cessation of hostilities after the conclusion of an armistice, the peaceful resolution of conflicts, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, and the peoples' right of self-determination. The French President at that time, Georges Clemenceau cynically but fittingly stated that the peace treaties following WWI were just another means of continuing the war - a war which had been planned by the major powers, a war in which Hungary was an unwilling participant and a victim. The undeclared war started against Hungary after the legal conclusion of WWI continues today on the political, economic, diplomatic and cultural fronts: this is an ethnocidal war of assimilation and ethnic cleansing being waged by Hungary's neighbours in order to eliminate the Hungarian ethnic minorities and to prevent Hungary from protecting these minorities' rights and its national interests.(Back)
(1) Homonnay, O. J., Justice for Hungary 1920-1970, Hungarian Turul Society, West Hill, Ont., 1970, p. 11. (2) Borsody, S., ed., The Hungarians: A Divided Nation, Yale Center for International and Area Studies, New Haven, 1988, p. xvii. (3) MaCartney, C. A., Hungary and her Successors, Oxford U. P., London, 1937, p. 1. (4) Fischer-Galati, S., "The Great Powers and the Fate of Transylvania Between the Two World Wars", in Cadzow, J. F., et al, eds., Transylvania: The Roots of Ethnic Conflict, Kent State U. P., Kent, Ohio, 1983, p. 180. (5) Ibid., pp. 180, 181. (6) Calder, K. J., Britain and the Origin of the New Europe 1914-1918, Cambridge U. P., London, 1976, pp. 1-2. (7) Pastor, P., "The Transylvanian Question in War and Revolution", in Cadzow, op. cit., p. 164. Horvath, in Apponyi, A., et al, Justice for Hungary, Longmans Green & Co. Ltd., London, 1928, p. 39. (8) Calder, op. cit., pp. 2-3. (9) Pastor, in Cadzow, op. cit., p. 166. (10) Horvath, in Apponyi, op. cit., p. 94. (11) Pastor, in Cadzow, op. cit., p. 166. (12) Szasz, Z., The Hungarian Minority in Roumanian Transylvania, The Richards Press, London, 1927, p. 20. (13) Pastor, in Cadzow, op. cit., p. 167. (14) Horvath, in Apponyi, op. cit., p. 88. (15) Ibid., p. 80. (16) Ibid., p. 82. (17) Ibid., pp. 82-83. (18) Pastor, in Cadzow, op. cit., p. 169. (19) Ibid., p. 169. (20) Deak, F., Hungary at the Paris Peace Conference, Columbia U. P., New York, 1942, p. 11. (21) Horvath, in Apponyi, op. cit., p. 89. (22) Albrecht-Carrié, R., A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna, Harper & Row, New York, 1973, p. 370. (23) MaCartney, C. A., Hungary and her Successors, Oxford U. P., London, 1937, p. 39. (24) Horvath, in Apponyi, op. cit., p. 96. (25) Borsody, S., "State- and Nation-Building in Central Europe: The Origins of the Hungarian Problem", in Borsody, op. cit., p. 26. (26) Horvath, E., Transylvania and the History of the Rumanians: A Reply to Professor R. W. Seton-Watson, Sarkany Printing Co., Budapest, 1935, p. 75. (27) Taylor, A. J. P., The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918, Oxford U. P., London, 1980, p. 190. Horvath, E., op. cit., pp. 74-75. Horvath, E., "The Diplomatic History of the Treaty of Trianon", in Apponyi, op. cit., pp. 44-46. MaCartney, C. A., Hungary - A Short History, Edinburgh University Press, 1962, pp. 201-202. (28) Hanak, H., Great Britain and Austria-Hungary During the First World War, Oxford U. P., London, 1962, p. 128. Calder, K. J., Britain and the Origins of the New Europe 1914-1918, Cambridge U. P., London, 1976, pp. 8-10. (29) Vigh, K., "The Causes and Consequences of Trianon: A Re-examination", in Kiraly, B. K., et al, eds., Essays on World War I: Total War and Peacemaking - A Case Study on Trianon, Brooklyn College Press, New York, 1982, p. 64. (30) Hunyadi, I., "L'image de la Hongrie en Europe occidentale à l'issue de la 1ère Guerre mondiale", in Ayçoberry, P., et al, eds., Les conséquences des Traités de Paix de 1919-1920 en Europe centrale et sud-orientale, Association des Publications près les Universités de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 1987, p. 175. MaCartney, C. A., Hungary, Ernest Benn Ltd., London, 1934, p. 6. (31) Borsody, S., "Hungary's Road to Trianon: Peacemaking and Propaganda", in Kiraly, op. cit., p. 27. (32) Borsody, op. cit., pp. 26-27. (33) Endrey, A., The Origin of Hungarians, The Hawthorn Press, Melbourne, 1975, pp. 1, 5, 9. (34) Sinor, D., History of Hungary, Praeger, New York, 1966, p. 21. (35) Ibid., p. 9. (36) Herder, J. G., Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man, Bergman Publishers, New York, 1966, p. 484. (37) Borsody, S., "State- and Nation-Building in Central Europe: The Origins of the Hungarian Problem", in Borsody, op. cit., pp. 3, 15, 25, 27. (38) Ibid., p. 27. 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