Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority

Hungarian feudalism and capitalism, helped into existence after 1919 by the policies of the Little and Big Ententes, was one of the most oppressive and also one of the most short-sighted anti-social associations of bloodsuckers in Europe. Instinctively, they followed their own class interests when they got on the bandwagon of chauvinism. They simply joined the same club where the bourgeois men of power of Hungary's neighbors had already been accepted as members.

It took a while to discover that the "justice" of the upper classes is not the justice of the people, not the justice of the masses. Once it was discovered it took yet another while to make it into common knowledge, not just in Hungary, but everywhere. So that the masses, the "man in the street," and also the intellectuals wherever they live, should become aware of how long, and to what ends, they have been manipulated, brainwashed. Perhaps we still have not been fully awakened on both sides of national borders to reality. That is exactly why Dr. Janics's book, paying no regard to established prestige and power, is more than just another historical monograph.

The contagious disease of falsehood, which the authoritarian regimes by means of their total power rendered world-wide in mankind's mind, has still not been brought under control-not within our own borders either. The chemical formula of demagoguery is still with us: mix enough truth into a pack of lies so that those who thirst for justice should swallow it as a refreshing beverage. However, just because sycophants of some mad tyrant, bent on oppressing the people-in our time, mainly those of Hitler's-injected some of the people's real problems into their dirty tricks, should those problems now be taken for non existing? Should not, rather, all care be taken that those problems will never be used again for ignominious ends?

The First World War was set off and prolonged to its well-known bitter end by the combustible problems of nationality which could never be contained by paper documents called treaties. A Serbian student shot the Habsburg heir who frivolously flouted South Slav national feelings. Hitler and company unleashed the Second World War by demagogically inciting the problems of nationalities, rendering any sensible discussion of these problems well-nigh impossible for decades to come.

I believe that those of us who have fought this demagoguery from the very beginning have the right to spell out the truth: it is not the worthy principle that becomes unworthy when it passes through unworthy mouths. Thus the just cause of nationality, too, has been abused in the dishonest chess games of politics.

In Hungary after the Second World War, the false belief has been forcibly spread that no pure soul may raise ever again national problems, no matter how just they are, although in the meantime these problems have grown two-fold bigger. Thus, on the one hand, we had to clear the real issues once and for all of the filth of the past and while, on the other, we had to approach their solution with a sense of responsibility so that everything we do should serve, in all its details, and for all times to come, true peace and lasting reconciliation.

Dr. Janics's book is profoundly concerned with providing a suitable basis for such a two-fold endeavor concerning the past and the future. Hence, it would be desirable that it be read first of all by those "who wield power." The book is objective. As such it deserves a wide audience and objective discussion. It should not be overlooked that the book deals with an area of Europe from which the devastating fires of both World Wars were ignited. If we want fire regulations, we should first think of preventative measures.

The long suffering people of the Danube Valley still expect of their writers and poets the kind of public role most poets of the preceding century have willingly taken upon themselves; the last one in the West to do this was Victor Hugo. Among the Czechoslovak poets of this type, in addition to the Czech Nezval, in whom I have taken the greatest interest, is the Slovak Ján Ponican. I had translated some of Ponican's early work; among them his first great poem in which he announces to the world his creed in the poet's mission:

I came to conquer the world to watch
That no more disgrace may touch it again
For it has been violated for too long -
The ancient birthright of our forebears!

It is precisely this birthright that has been violated in our case. The Hungarian case, too! This is the shocking realization with which the reader, enlightened by Dr. Janics's reliable and verifiable facts, puts down this book. The official census in Slovakia today knows only of about half of the once close to one million people of Hungarian mother tongue. Their situation in some respects is even worse than that of the Hungarians in Rumania. Geographically, they do not form a compact whole; they have no city that might serve as a cultural center of their land. Knowledge and defense of their mother tongue is disintegrating.

Just while these lines were written, I once again became involved in this touchy matter of Hungarian minorities, which is a matter of conscience with me. I had to answer (for a non-Hungarian audience) questions regarding the fate of millions of Hungarians suffering grave discrimination on account of their Hungarian mother tongue. It so happened that among the points of the questionnaire was the good-neighborly relations between Slovaks and Hungarians. Point by point, in a rather lengthy interview, my answers in essence were as follows: 1) The issue is not how to further "improve" good relations but, rather, how to prevent or at least how to slow down, their further deterioration. 2) What should be done for such "improvement' and by whom? Obviously, only those who are in positions of power to act can do something about the situation. 3) Speaking of past experiences? For many decades, we had no part in anything that was happening across the border; except, a little perhaps, intellectually. 4) As for literary activity? It should be twofold: to acquaint with our situation the outside world, and to educate our own people for setting an example by our virtues as Europeans and thus to radiate hope. 5) How to encourage our friends on the other side of the borders? By telling them that, whichever of us should be "up" or "down," we both should do better in the future as far as our radiations go. 6) Finally, we should bury the ugly past.

Unfortunately, and Dr. Janics's book is a confirmation of it, the ugly past is still very much with us. In many towns of Slovakia, once creative nests radiating Hungarian culture, the Hungarian language itself is banned. Even conversation of the simple folk in the mother tongue is driven underground. The episode of the grandmother and grandson recorded above is a small lyric sample of the Situation. But the lyric is only one of several interests of this poet's lyre. I have attacked on my lyre the symptoms of tyranny. And to me, no form of tyranny is more devastating-and more laughable at the same time - than the petty tyranny of mini-tyrants, of those despicable underlings, showing off their bravery in safe shelters. This is what tyranny breeds; instead of mutual understanding - so very timely! - instead of cleaning of wounds and cleansing of brains - so badly needed!

Throughout history, so many proposed remedies have failed to cure our poisonous and burning problems that every well-intentioned new proposal which appeals to reason is instantly silenced. Thus we yield only more ground to stupid skepticism - and even to tragedy.

Yet, quite a few solutions supported by reason and a sense of justice have in fact succeeded-but they get no publicity.

For instance: there are almost as many Germans in Denmark as there are Danes in Germany, and anybody on either side of the frontier, after graduating from high school or university, can be trained or licensed in either of the two countries. Or, another example: at the University of Zürich, German literature is taught primarily and Swiss literature only as a supplement; in Geneva, on the other hand, French language and literature are taught primarily and its Swiss offshoot only as a second language and humane literature can indeed become bridges between peoples, even -if as nations they might occasionally be swept by conflict against each other, as it happened several times to the French and the Germans in the course of their history.

There are other little known projects among several European countries under way. For instance, the mutual supervision of their textbooks, their joint production, that is, with the aim to mutually correct errors in a polite manner. There are projects, already in the process of realization, to accept each others' diplomas on a footing of equality; to guarantee the training of minority intellectuals at an appropriate level and in convenient locations; to open the way for a true confluence of intellectual life.

It is encouraging to know that there are places in the world where bridgeheads ate being built in such a comforting direction. As the peoples of the globe are becoming economically increasingly interdependent, so grows stronger their urge to preserve, even to enhance their linguistic and ethnic characteristics. Even the world's tiniest minorities are striving today for the greatest possible independence-as further proof that liberty of the people is truly one and indivisible for all, and must spread uniformly, both upwards and downwards.

This peaceful road to collective consciousness and individual spiritual liberation is called in Western Europe "cantonization," in recognition of the Swiss model of cantonal self-government. In countries which follow the Leninist ideas, it is called "national autonomy." Not only national units counting millions of people, but even ethnic groups numbering barely ten thousand have demanded and were granted complete ethnic independence, and the logical follow-up thereof: spiritual liberation and self-government. Furthermore, the frontiers that have caused so much suffering are crumbling. (How outdated they are!) Or, they are crumbling at least in theory, until the great prophecy of both the utopian and scientific socialists, the withering away of the states, if fulfilled. There is ample literature on these subjects, especially with reference to its ramifications in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Among the serious problems that are bound to arise, one in particular ought to be mentioned here: what happens when a clear-cult line dividing ethnic groups cannot be drawn? 'When the mother tongues of the groups are spread out like pieces of a mosaic (en puzzle, as the French experts would say it) on both sides of any conceivable line of division? The specialists do have recommendations on how to solve the problems: let us balance the size of ethnic groups on both sides of the national border-like on two arms of a scale-and thus guarantee their decent treatment on either side. And let the indicator of the scale be visible to the eyes of mankind! For to let mankind watch what we are doing is a further guarantee of humane treatment. Mankind after all is the same as humanity! This book provides us with real food for thought on how to make our metaphor, the arms of a scale, work properly. The author's belief in peace through reconciliation is so strong that he occasionally may appear aggressive in the pursuit of his objectives. But we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, and doubly so because of our socialist-humanist convictions, if we dismissed the objectives of his book as hopeless, or, perhaps, as premature.

If ideas are no instant success, it does not follow that they have no, influence; therefore, we shouldn't discount them, least of all when circumstances are unfavorable to them. The whole idea of public affairs (the res publica) is a two-wheel affair like the Roman chariot: one wheel is political life, the other is intellectual life. They do not run along the same course. Who could grasp the nature of the world's political confusion as thoroughly as to be able to predict its shape for as little as six months ahead? By contract, every moment of the world of the intellect is stable. It is not changeable like the endless combinations of mathematics.

The measure of the intellect is ethics. And for the writer, no matter what his faith or ideology, there is only one ethical norm-that of the substance of the written word. If there is no lasting element in the written word, if the words do not have wings to fly in search for lasting influence - if scripta non volent! - they do not deserve the paper on which they are written.

Two models of how to deal with national minorities stand out in the more recent past. One is Lenin's, the other is Benes's. The first model enacts not only complete equality of rights for the minority but prescribes courtesies and favors reserved, so to speak, for the treatment of a younger world sibling. The formula is spelled Out in Lenin's writings. Benes's model and its consequences are discussed in this book. It is a formula for the liquidation by whatever means of the national minorities, their extermination, that is. It has been accepted as an official government program, and included even among the philosophical principles of international peace-making after the Second World War.

It seems as if the very course of contemporary history had taken a turn against the existence of national minorities. Industrialization centralizes, it inflates or even creates cities which, in turn, become centers of assimilation, favoring the language of the state, the language of the bureaucracy. [it requires little planning on the part of forces bent on national oppression to disperse the homogeneous national minority areas by deliberate placement of factories and by purposeful relocation of populations.

Yet this is not the "peaceful assimilation" recent apostles of "necessity" like to speak of. There are historical precedents of such planned alienation, forcible population movements. When "necessity" no longer exists, the violation of the people's rights remains-like a disease which continues to spread its deadly poison after the source of contagion disappears. Thus, if we follow the ethical logic of moral protest. it would be criminal to accept something as "necessary" simply because it was the product of history. Did our ancestors accept the plague?

Wasn't there struggles against burning of witches and heretics, against the crazy accusations of ritual murder? Isn't there a world-wide front -against the crimes of apartheid? "Historical necessity" is no excuse for the surrender of a people's human rights! It's treason no matter what the motivation. It's treason, not only against the fatherland and nation but -the future as well. Such a traitor is a Coriolanus of humanity.

The unexpected fury and world-wide spread of twentieth century nationalism is almost like the plague of the Middle Ages. It ravages the human mind. It is a political epidemy. To let it rage Out of control is. to put it mildly, an omission-no matter whether the threat is just to our neighborhood across the street or to continents. Communities, of course, are sensitive to outside interference, in particular in political matters. Even -the thought of interference in their affairs disturbs them. They jealously guard their ideological boundaries, believing in permanency and immutability on this earth.

The intellectual world, however, the world of ideas, that is, knows no boundaries-the higher the sky, the larger the horizon. The intellectual creates a community of its own which transcends the nation. The dimensions are boundless, and so-called boundary violations unknown. What is commonly known as interference becomes "aid and assistance," to use a favorite phrase of our century. In the world of the intellect, the person who defends himself necessarily defends his fellow man as well. Spiritual culture and technological civilization alike have already discovered, and made it ambitiously known to mankind, that the home of humanity is the planet earth (and tomorrow perhaps the constellations of the universe). What is but a part of the whole must become more perfect in order to fit peacefully into the future whole. In this process, the national languages, even the "minority" languages, are parts of the whole waiting for peaceful signals-also in the realm of political cooperation in order to be fitted into the future whole.

Dr. Janics's book sheds a ray of light in the direction of the above described historical process. Namely, that the whole world is ever more becoming a res publica, a global matter of public affairs. It's message is this: just as peace is one and indivisible, so is truth, which is the sole conceivable basis of true peace. And truth has but one opponent: the front of falsehood.

People of good intentions and of good eyes -perceptive people, that is - may become better world citizens after reading this book. Yet some readers may also raise their eyebrows, smile incredulously, or even condescendingly, and wonder: who are these two little people, the Slovaks and Hungarians of Czechoslovakia, bad neighbors as they seem to be, quarreling with each other? Let me explain. My own way. The poet's way.

The greatest Hungarian poet, Sándor Petõfi, was born bearing a Slovak name, Petroviè. And the greatest Slovak poet, Hviezdoslav, was born with a Hungarian name, Pál Országh. The name of Kossuth, the world's best known Hungarian in modern times, reveals Czech origins. And the world renowned figure of the Czech spiritual rebirth, Komensky (or Comenius), when signing his last writings, recorded with a shaking hand the name of his Hungarian ancestors: Szeges. Is my explanation clear? Alas, in our time, not even the genius of immortals has been able to bring light into the darkened nationalist minds!

This book, I hope, will be published in the so-called world languages. I would recommend it above all to the attention of Czech and Slovak readers. But also to the attention of all people of the world with a long history of setbacks in the struggle that with some measure of hope. I am still moved by the memory of the moment recalled earlier, when a Czech poet, Vitezslav Nezval, stepped up next to me on the podium in Prague, to embrace me and me to embrace him. I have never met the Slovak poet Ján Ponican, whose poem as I mentioned, I translated into Hungarian. But I did experience still handshake with a poet-neighbor that warmed up into an embrace. The scene was my house of the shores of Lake Balaton. It happened between me and the greatest Rumanian poet of that time, the elderly Tudor Arghezi, following my reading of two of his most beautiful poems in my translation to him. So after all, the intellect, reason, humane manners, do have a way to prevail over political emotions and everyday passions, haven't they?

This book raises doubts but also hopes-exactly because it honestly acknowledges the reasons for doubt.

What fate the future holds for the minorities is unclear. Nevertheless, one or two harsh lessons can clearly be drawn from past experiences: if a country cannot treat its "minorities" the same way it treats its "minorities", it is not worthy of keeping such minorities under its rule. In such cases of trouble, civilized mankind (itself seasoned by troubles) in its own interest must defend the minorities in order to forestall the easy recurrence of barbarism. For barbarism is mankind's plague whose symptoms nowhere appear more terrifyingly than in the treatment of the weaker, of the defenseless - of the minorities.

In his conclusions, looking at the situation from his side of the fence, the Czechoslovak side, that is, Dr. Janics is no preacher of facile optimism regarding Czechoslovak-Hungarian relations; his last sentences speak of no change in Czechoslovakia.

On the other hand the Situation did change considerably over here, in Hungary, for the better-though for a while in a rather upsetting manner. By an astonishing political metathesis, shortly after the Second World War, the official point of view in Hungary became critical of the nationalism of the oppressed Hungarians rather than of the nationalism of their oppressors. Callous to those suffering national oppression, this curious official Hungarian point of view provoked only predictable reckless reactions of "sympathy with the oppressed" on the part of those nationalist types who in their Fascist zeal are capable of condoning even genocide against their foes. But our resurrected intellectual life has by now definitely evicted these ugly postwar phenomena from our society.

The most frightening fast rise of ethnic groups to national independence is one of the great surprises of our century. But so is, too, the astonishing fury of nationalism, reaching its most frightening climax in Fascism. Not to distinguish between the two is sheer ignorance, confusing causes and effects. The two phenomena (striving for independence on the one hand, and Fascism on the other) are in fact as different as fire and water. One sharply excludes the other, they are enemies of each other. Yet, surprisingly, intellectuals, of all people, had a hard time understanding the distinction between the two. In this respect, Hungary is a case in point. For years, it had been public policy to defend the thesis that oppression of people's drive for freedom may serve progress towards freedom. An uproar of national proportions finally stopped this risky nonsense. The view of those blind to the sufferings of the oppressed was ejected from Hungarian intellectual life. I have played some part in this process.

When it sounded almost like a stigma, I had been spoken of as the last national poet. Why? Because consistently-and true to a tradition-I have stressed the human rights of all people. Thus did I, rightly, I guess, come to the realization that, perhaps, I may very well be my country's first international lyricist after all. Of the kind, that is, who believes that one's own nation, too, is entitled to rights, no matter whence the winds blow and no matter who are the nations sitting in judgment over us. I am bound to this tradition, both classical and modern, of our literature, whose neon lights to the world are the names of Petõfi and Ady.

Our resurrected intellectual life today is rooted in the world of our peasants and workers-our "two-handed' laborers" as our Hungarian phrase would call them. The feet of our reborn life are planted in the world of reality. Yet its stand, and its ability to withstand trials, does not depend on itself alone. Its strength may give cause for worry to the extent that strength in every historical situation is measured by the force of the "challenge." Hungarian intellectual life-the national consciousness, that is, of the people laboring with their hands and minds is fated to be tied to the intellectual lives of its neighbors, to the "impacts" originating from there.

Dr. Janics's book, "The Homeless Years," does not give rise to instant hopes. He is reporting a catastrophe one wishes no one should be stricken by, not even those who caused it, and exploited it. Yet the author lifts his eyes towards the future. His book extends a hand. For a hard hand shake, a manly one. It proposes friendship by its very honesty.

This book is the fruit of enormous labor. For our own Hungarian intellectual life, Kálmán Janics has produced a pioneering work. May similar situation reports spring up from all lands under oppression whose mother tongue is Hungarian! To inform the world-and to arouse its conscience.

Janics: Czechoslovak Policy and the Hungarian Minority