Maracz: Hungarian Revival

Note to the English edition by
Michiel Klinkhamer

In the few months since its publication Hungarian Revival has provoked much lively discussion in the Netherlands. Apart from the controversy in the press that started in January 1996, when a review appeared in the NRC Handelsblad written by Peter Michielsen, the paper's East Europe editor, there was also a debate on 21st February 1996 at Amsterdam Unversity's Institute for Russian and East European Studies entitled: Hungarian Revival.- science or politics?'. I was one of the participants in the debate. The main objection raised by colleagues of Dr. L. Maracz, author of the book, and voiced by the assistant professor was that the point of view defended in the book is nationalistic. In the discussion that followed, it emerged that there was neither clarity nor consensus on the meaning of this concept. If one understands by nationalism, striving to unite all members of a nation within the borders of one state, then this book could rightly be called anti-nationalistic. It warns of the dangers that would arise if certain Central European states, such as Slovakia, Serbia and Rumania, inhabited by a diversity of nationalities, tried to impose the essentially Western European concept of creating a homogeneous nation state. Apart from that, the book also rejects the not really topical issue of Hungarian nationalism. The author believes that the solution to the problem of the Hungarian national communities must lie in respecting human rights and autonomy. Several variants of autonomy are discussed in the book. The solutions found to this question will, to a large degree, determine the European internal structure and character of the future. How we treat our national communities in Europe is, in fact, a structural matter. Hungarian Revival is a merciless chronicle and analysis of the persistent policy of compulsory assimilation imposed on Hungarian communities living in Hungary's neighboring countries. It is a plea for the preservation of the Hungarian nation as a spiritual and cultural entity. Peacefully objecting to

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what amounts to cultural genocide may not be called, under any pretext, nationalism.

The second point of criticism was that the book might be termed one-sided and thus, by implication, unscholarly and untrue. Indeed, matters are often viewed from the Hungarian perspective. The book complements other views already well represented in academic studies in the field (see bibliographical notes). It may be regarded as helping to balance the 'spectrum. Furthermore, access is given to much extremely valuable source material and scientific notions that were completely repressed during the communist era are given their rightful pIace once again. In that respect, the book might be regarded as compensating for lost time and as providing a programme for further research.

I found it necessary to voice the points of view mentioned above, which formed the essence of my argument during the debate in which I opposed former lecturers of mine. The theoretical argument employed during the debate that had proved its validity before the wall fell in Berlin is, to my way of thinking, no longer enlightening and constructive today, nor is it a useful instrument for describing and understanding the facts. The only scientific criterium for testing the essence Hungarian Revival which underlies the author's justified and undisguised indignation is, to determine whether the facts and arguments put forward by the author are correct or not. I, thus, invite the reader to apply this criterium within his own framework of interpretation.

Drs. M. Klinkhamer,

Amsterdam, Spring 1996

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Foreword by Laszlo Tokes

A modern approach to the Trianon question

The Hungarian nation is busy preparing to celebrate the fact that, in 1996, it will be 1100 years ago since Hungarians first settled in the Carpathian Basin. Where the millennium-centenary celebrations are concerned we cannot speak solely of Hungary, the country, because more than a quarter of the nation, that is to say, approximately three and a half million Hungarians, live outside the country's borders in Rumania, Slovakia, Serbia, the Ukraine and in other neighboring countries. Since the time of the Paris peace agreements, established after World War I by the prevailing powers, these Hungarians have been turned into marginalized minorities. In addition, more than two-thirds of the land area that used to belong to Hungary was given to surrounding 'national' states which were either created at the time of the agreements or assumed at that time the dimensions of a state.

The prime reason for marking the mille-centennial is not, however, to bewail the bygone days of the Hungarian nation's faded glory but rather, in the first place, to highlight the present problems of shrunken Lesser Hungary and the current state of affairs within the amputated parts of the nation where a struggle for survival is going on. In the context of a united Europe it also provides us with the opportunity to draw up a national strategy that is aimed, as much as possible, at the future and is introduced in the interests of perpetuating and reviving the nation distributed on both sides of the county's borders. This objective and this perspective is what justifies our investigation into Trianon at the sad tune of the 75th anniversary of the peace agreement.

The dividing up of Hungary, initiated in 1920 in the interests of great powers and various nations, was continued and consolidated by the new peace agreements that developed after the Second World War (1947). During the almost fifty-year-

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long period of Soviet-communist dictatorship, people in Hungary and the successor states were hardly even allowed to mention the subject of having lost land because of Trianon. Molestation, persecution or even imprisonment awaited anyone

who dared to broach this 'sensitive' subject whether from an historic angle or from any other point of view. Ultimately, it is thanks to the changes initiated in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 that we are able to raise the 'Trianon Question' at all. Thus, we at least regained one of the basic human rights, namely that of being able to (relatively) speak out freely and recall the past: the freedom to consider history.

This newly won freedom can only be relative because historic recollections and reflections are intricately intermingled with politics. What first has to be clearly established is the fact that it is not the disadvantaged Hungarian side that made the theme of Trianon politically topical in a negative way, but rater the small-nation great-nationalism of the states that divided up the Hungarian territory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy amongst themselves. We may in fact unreservedly assert that unlike the period of Hungarian revisionism that characterized the climate during the inter-war years, Hungary has completely abandoned the idea of wanting to win back its amputated regions. There is no single Hungarian political party either inside or outside of Hungary that now includes revision in its political programme as a serious option.

Nevertheless, Budapest and Hungarian minorities in surrounding countries are continually being accused of having revisionist intentions, notably by Rumanian and Slovakian nationalists and by the fake democratic Rumanian and Slovakian authorities. They furthermore accuse the Hungarians of wanting to win back the Rumanian Transylvania and the Slovakian Upper Lands.

The anti-Hungary propaganda smear campaign that fits neatly into the general process of communist reconstruction aims at achieving political prestige by stimulating nationalism

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and cultivating animosity towards minorities. Such smear campaigns also provide cheap electioneering material whilst at the same time masking the actually catastrophic economic and internal political relations.

What can remembering Trianon signify for the Hungarian nation? Above all else, does the country definitely and completely wants to claim its right to commemorate which is after all an essential aspect of its rights. To Hungarians, Trianon signifies a defeat as heavy and as catastrophic as that suffered for instance in 1526 at Mohacs against the Turkish State. We should surely view it as unnatural that, due to relatively minor political considerations and fears, a nation should be prevented from commemorating and grieving about its own fateful historic defeats and disintegration. It is surely schizophrenic that Rumania has introduced a national holiday to commemorate the symbolic day when Transylvania was lost while Hungary, by contrast, burdened with a loser's twisted feelings of guilt is even expected to conceal the names of her own war victims. Trianon must be given its rightful place in the chronology of tragic events in our turbulent history.

Apart from the symbolic significance and the natural human need to commemorate and to feel ennobling reverence we should particularly emphasize the consequences of Trianon. lt. is now commonly recognized that the bad imperialistic peace agreements which smothered the conflagration of the First World War bore the seeds of potential danger and partly led to the Second World War. Similar implications, though different in form and degree, are still relevant today. Events since 1989 would seem to prove that postwar peace agreements of the sort referred to above have offered no permanent and stable solution (in our region at least) for relations between neighboring peoples and nationalities. Security and stability are also under threat in this area of Europe, to mention just for a change some other place than the war zones of Southern and Eastern Europe. Trianon remains unchangeably topical.

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The detrimental effects of Trianon are still being felt in the Carpathian Basin today. The repercussions are felt especially by the Hungarians who have been artificially separated from each other and by Hungarian national communities that have fallen prey to strange nationalistic oppressors. For Hungarian minorities in Rumania, Slovakia and Serbia the effects of Trianon are accumulating like some kind of a haunting and unfinished past and assimilation, expulsion, decrease in population, loss of territory, constant repression and destruction are becoming the order of the day. Hence the reason that we have to keep on talking about Trianon until the catastrophic consequences of it for our people and our region finally come to an end. Other than adopting an unrealistic revisionistic political approach, the only way that we can at present see of escaping from the structural crisis situation created by the unjust and for the Hungarian nation, disastrous Trianon Peace Treaty, is by offering autonomy to the Hungarian national communities. To be more exact, we have in mind a system of different autonomous forms which will guarantee the Hungarians living in the amputated areas in diaspora, or together in large numbers or even, in some places, as absolute majorities that they will be able to preserve their identity and survive the dominance of the nationalistic systems of the majority groups that are forcing them to assimilate and waste away.

In the last 75 years our expansionistic oppressors have not allowed us to 'forget' Trianon. We hope - and to that end we fight a peaceful struggle - that instead of receiving peace edicts that lead to war we will at last be able to arrive at lawful, democratic and just solutions that are based on concensus and will bring true peace and safety to our whole region within the 'broad' perimeters of a united Europe that has been hoped for so long.

24th of August 1995

Bishop Laszlo Tokes

Honorary Chairman of the RMDSZ

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Maracz: Hungarian Revival