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Adjudicating Loyalty: Identity Politics and Civil Administration in the Hungarian-Slovak Borderlands, 1938–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2015

LESLIE M. WATERS
LESLIE M. WATERS*
Affiliation:
Randolph-Macon College, 114 College Avenue, Ashland, VA 23005; [email protected]
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Abstract

This article discusses loyalty trials conducted in the Hungarian-Slovak borderland region known as Felvidék after it was reannexed to Hungary by the First Vienna Award in 1938. All civil servants who had worked for the Czechoslovak state had to appear before local loyalty commissions to prove their loyalty to the Hungarian state. The commissions' task was complicated by two competing conceptions of loyalty – one investigating civic loyalty, the other national loyalty – and the politicisation and ethnicisation of peoples' daily practices for the previous two decades under Czechoslovak rule.

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Articles
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Contemporary European History , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , August 2015 , pp. 351 - 374
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 ‘Felvidék’ is the Hungarian-language term that was used for the territory Hungary reannexed in 1938. In this essay, when state ownership is not a factor in the sentence, I use the term ‘Hungarian-Slovak borderland’. When referring to the area's status under Czechoslovak sovereignty, I use ‘Southern Slovakia’, and when referring to its status under Hungarian sovereignty, I use ‘reannexed Felvidék’. The origin and significance of these terms is discussed below. When referring to cities or villages, I give the Hungarian name followed by the Slovak name in brackets to reflect the fact that these areas were under Hungarian control in the period I am discussing. Individual's names are listed as they are in the trial documents, which use Hungarian spelling, followed by the Slovak equivalent in brackets where appropriate.

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11 Klein-Pejšová, ‘Abandon Your Role as Exponents of the Magyars’, 344.

12 Recent works on reannexed Northern Transylvania include Holly Case, Between States; Ablonczy, Balázs, A visszatért Erdély, 1940–1944 (Budapest: Jaffa Kiadó, 2011)Google Scholar.

13 László Szarka, ‘The Origins of the Hungarian-Slovak National Opposition in Upper Hungary’, in Szarka, László, ed., A Multiethnic Region and Nation-State in East-Central Europe: Studies in the History of Upper Hungary and Slovakia from the 1600s to the Present (Boulder, Colo.: Social Science Monographs, 2011), 163–79.Google Scholar

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15 Szarka, ‘The Origins of National Opposition’, 170.

16 Seton-Watson, R.W., Racial Problems in Hungary (London: Archibald Constable, 1908), 211.Google Scholar

17 Mannová, ‘Southern Slovakia as Imagined Territory’, 186.

18 Ibid., 188.

19 Simon, Attila, ‘The Colonization of Southern Slovakia as a Means of Constructing a Czechoslovak Nation-State’, in Szarka, László, ed., A Multiethnic Region and Nation-State in East-Central Europe: Studies in the History of Upper Hungary and Slovakia from the 1600s to the Present (Boulder, Colo.: Social Science Monographs, 2011), 226–52.Google Scholar

20 Quoted in Daniel Unowsky, ‘Staging Habsburg Patriotism: Dynastic Loyalty and the 1898 Jubilee’, in Judson, Pieter and Rozenblit, Marsha, eds., Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe (New York: Berghahn, 2004), 149.Google Scholar

21 The institution that perhaps best embodied imperial patriotism was the army officer corps, whose members swore a personal oath of loyalty to Franz Joseph and who, by most accounts, embraced a supranational Habsburg identity over adherence to any of the empire's myriad divisive nationalist projects. See Deák, István, Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848–1918 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

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23 Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War, 150.

24 Egry, Gábor, ‘Navigating the Straits. Changing Borders, Changing Rules and Practices of Ethnicity and Loyalty in Romania after 1918’, Hungarian Historical Review, 2, 3 (2013), 468.Google Scholar

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26 Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, 31.

27 Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires, 202.

28 Mócsy, István, The Uprooted: Hungarian Refugees and their Impact on Hungary's Domestic Politics, 1918–1921 (New York: Social Science Monographs, 1983), 12.Google Scholar Mócsy gives the estimate of 147,000 people who migrated from Czechoslovakia to Hungary, which includes both the 106,841 refugees who registered with the National Refugee Office as well as another 43,000 unrecorded refugees. Not all of these individuals were civil servants.

29 Simon, The Hungarians of Slovakia in 1938, 25. These statistics come from a survey conducted in preparation for the 1938 Czechoslovak Nationality Statute.

30 Tóth, Andrej, ‘Political Parties of Hungarian Minority in Interwar Czechoslovakia, 1918–1938’, Öt kontinens: Az Új- és Jelenkori Egyetemes Történelmi Tanszék közleményei (2010), 173.Google Scholar

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32 Leff, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia, 72.

33 Tilkovszky, Loránt, Revízió és nemzetiségpolitika Magyarországon, 1938–1941 (Budapest: Akadémiai kiadó, 1967), 56.Google Scholar For more on the post-First World War crisis in the Hungarian civil service, see Mócsy, The Effects of World War I: The Uprooted.

34 Simon, The Hungarians of Slovakia, 227.

35 Tilkovszky, Revízió és nemzetiségpolitika, 56–7.

36 Minisztertanácsi jegzyőkönyvek (Protocols of the Council of Ministers), 20 Jan. 1939, K27 (Miniszterelnökség) 63R/86, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, Országos Levéltára (MNL OL) Budapest, Hungary. Jaross was appointed as a cabinet minister representing Felvidék when the territory was reannexed in November 1938.

37 Historian Ladislav Deák estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 Czechs and Slovaks left reannexed Felvidék either forcibly or voluntarily in 1938. Deák, Ladislav, The Slovaks in Hungarian Politics in the Years 1918–1938 (Bratislava: Kubko Goral, 1997), 92.Google Scholar

38 Felvidéki területek közigazgatási ügyei, I. rész. 1938–1939, MNL OL K28 (Miniszterelnökség kisebbségi osztály) 26/66. For more on competition for government positions in Felvidék, see Tilkovszky, Revízió és nemzetiségpolitika, 56–63.

39 Letter from József Miklós to the office of the deputy sheriff of Abaúj-Torna County, 19 Dec. 1939, AT-19 V227, Štátny archív v Košiciach, Košice, Slovakia.

40 Minisztertanácsi jegzyőkönyvek, 20 Jan. 1939, MNL OL, K27 67R/86.

41 Law IV/1939, known colloquially as the Second Jewish Law, was promulgated on 5 May 1939. In addition to barring Jews from working in the civil service, it was also the first law to define Jews racially, similar to Germany's Nuremberg Laws. On debates surrounding the legislation, see Hanebrink, Paul, In Defense of Christian Hungary: Religion, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, 1890–1944 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006), 168–9.Google Scholar

42 Klein-Pejsova, ‘Abandon Your Role as Exponents of the Magyars’, 351.

43 Az Újság, 21 May 1938. Quoted in Simon, The Hungarians of Slovakia, 130.

44 A bécsi döntés alapján visszacsatolt terület anyanyelvi adatai az 1938. évi népösszeirás alapján, 11 Apr. 1939, Felvidéki vonatkozású statisztikai kimutatások, 1939–1940, MNL OL, K28 215/428. These numbers exclude the cities of Ungvár and Munkács, which were counted separately as belonging to Ruthenia.

45 Deák, The Slovaks in Hungarian Politics, 83. A report produced by the Research Department of the British Foreign Office from 1944 noted, ‘when the Czechoslovak and Hungarian census show, as they do, big differences in the estimated ethnic composition of the inter-frontier zone, this is due in part to the existence of [a] nationally ambiguous element, in part to their different methods of computation (the Czechoslovak by “nationality”, the Hungarian by “mother-tongue” . . .), partly to real differences in the ethnic composition of the area at different periods’. The Hungarian-Slovak Frontier, 13 Apr. 1944, 404/30, 213, Public Records Office Foreign Office (PRO FO) London, England.

46 Elena Mannová, ‘Sie wollen keine Loyalität lernen!’, 46.

47 In most of the loyalty cases I examined, the individuals were labeled Hungarian or Slovak. A small number were labeled German, including one example in which a person was listed as ‘German, but considers himself Hungarian’. In the cities of Ungvár and Munkács, which were reannexed in 1938 but considered part of Ruthenia rather than Felvidék, there were a handful of loyalty certificates in which the person was listed as Rusyn.

48 József Andrsik (Jozef Andršik), a rail worker from Komját (Komjatice), was denied a loyalty certificate because he was from a mixed family (Hungarian father, Slovak mother) and chose to declare himself Slovak rather than Hungarian. File 1940-L-15465, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL, K28 28/68. István Molnár was denied because, despite having a traditionally Hungarian surname, he spoke Hungarian poorly and identified as Slovak. File 1940-L-15465, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL, K28 28/68.

49 Haslinger, Peter and von Puttkamer, Joachim, ‘Staatsmacht, Minderheit, Loyalität – konzeptionelle Grundlagen am Beispiel Ostmittel- und Südosteuropas in der Zwischenkriegszeit’, in Haslinger, Peter and von Puttkamer, Joachim, eds., Staat, Loyalität und Minderheiten in Ostmittel und Südosteuropa, 1918–1941 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 2007), 4.Google Scholar

50 Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy and United Hungarian Party leader János Esterházy, for example, made conciliatory speeches during the reoccupation of Kassa (Košice), ensuring that Hungarians and Slovaks would have equality under the law and work together within the new state. Ferenc Felkai, ‘Rozsnyó, Kassa’, in Felvidékünk-Honvédségünk: Trianontól-Kassáig: történelmi eseménysorozat képekkel (Budapest: A Vitézi Rend Zrínyi Csoport, 1939), 166.

51 See, for example, trial of Anna Égető, file 258/1939, Nagysurány, MNL OL K568 (Felvidéki Igazoló Bizottságok).

52 See, for example, File 1940-L-15465, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL, K28 28/68. Gyula Vankó was denied a certificate because he was a member of a Czechoslovak trade union and Pál Petrás was denied because he was a member of a Slovak railroad worker association.

53 File 1940-L-15465, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL, K28 28/68. Listed under ‘reasons for denial’ for Pál Petrás and István Novoszád was the fact that both had received two-hold parcels of land. On the land reform, see Attila Simon, Telepesek és telepes falvak Dél-Szlovákiában a két világháború között (Somorja: Fórum Kisebbségkutató Intézet, 2008) and Simon, ‘The Colonization of Southern Slovakia’, 226–52.

54 Simon, ‘The Colonization of Southern Slovakia’, 232–40.

55 File 1940-L-15465, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL, K28 28/68.

56 For a comparable example of ordinary people ‘standing in for the state’, see Holly Case, ‘A City Between States: The Transylvanian City of Cluj-Napoca-Kolozsvár-Klausenburg in the Spring of 1942’, PhD thesis, Stanford University, 2004, 140.

57 Macartney, C.A., Hungary and Her Successors: The Treaty of Trianon and its Consequences, 1919–1937 (London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 87–8.Google Scholar

58 Trial of Károly Rozsival, file 231/1939, Nagysurány, MNL OL, K568.

59 Zahra, Kindnapped Souls, 2–3.

60 Trial of Ferenc Piffkó, file 334/1939, Galánta, MNL OL K568.

61 Rychlík, Jan, ‘The Situation of the Hungarian Minority in Czechoslovakia 1918–1938’, in Eiler, Ferenc and Hájková, Dagmar, eds., Czech and Hungarian Minority Policy in Central Europe, 1918–1938, (Prague: Masarykuv ústav a Archiv AV ČR, 2010), 36.Google Scholar

62 Szombatfalvy, György, ‘A népoktatás a felvidéken’, Néptanítók lapja és népművelési tájékoztató, 22 (10 May 1938), 900.Google Scholar

63 For more on educational battles in Felvidék, see Waters, Leslie M., ‘Learning and Unlearning Nationality: Hungarian National Education in Reannexed Felvidék, 1938–1944’, Hungarian Historical Review, 2, 3 (2013), 538–68.Google Scholar

64 For example, railworker Ferenc Perni was denied a loyalty certificate for sending his children to a Slovak language school. File 1940-L-15465, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL K28 28/68.

65 Trial of Ferenc Piffkó, file 334/1939, Galánta, MNL OL K568.

66 For a discussion of similar tactics by Jewish Communist Party members who blamed their wives and mothers for ritually circumcising their sons in order to escape punishment by the party, see Bemporad, Elissa, Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2013), 137–8.Google Scholar

67 Trial of Ferenc Piffkó, file 334/1939, Galánta, MNL OL K568.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid.

71 Sheila Fitzpatrick, ‘Signals from Below: Soviet Letters of Denunciation of the 1930s’, in Fitzpatrick, Sheila and Gellately, Robert, eds., Accusatory Practices: Denunciation in Modern European History, 1789–1989 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 117.Google Scholar

72 On the purge trials in Alsace-Lorraine see Boswell, Laird, ‘From Liberation to Purge Trials in the “Mythic Provinces”: Recasting French Identities in Alsace and Lorraine, 1918–1920’, French Historical Studies, 23, 1 (2000), 129–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Zahra, Tara, ‘The “Minority Problem” and National Classification in the French and Czech Borderlands’, Contemporary European History, 17, 2 (2008), 137–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the Sudetenland, see Cornwall, Mark, The Devil's Wall: The Nationalist Youth Mission of Heinz Rutha (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 255–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 Trial of Gyula Subik, 144/1939, Hidaskürt, MNL OL K568.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 Letter from Mrs. János Csalthó to Prime Minister Pál Teleki, 12 Dec. 1939, file 17169, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL K28 28/68.

80 Letter from the Trade and Transportation Ministry to the Prime Minister's Office, 19 Apr. 1940, file 17169, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei MNL OL K28 28/68.

81 Letter from Mrs. János Csalthó to Prime Minister Pál Teleki, 12 Dec. 1939, file 17169, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL K28 28/68.

82 Letter from the Magyardiószeg scouting troop to Prime Minister Pál Teleki, 28 Jan. 1940, file 15644, 16, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL K28 28/68.

83 Letter from István Bárdos to the Prime Minister's Office, 8 Feb. 1940, file 15644, 23, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL K28 28/68.

84 Prime Minister's Office report on the loyalty certificate appeal of János Kozma, 14 Mar. 1940, file 15644, 67, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL K28 28/68.

85 Prime Minister's Office report on complaints pertaining to loyalty trials in Felvidék, 24 May 1940, file 17702, Magyarországon élő szlovákok és volt csehszlovákiai lakosok nemzethűségi igazolásának ügyei, MNL OL K28 28/68.

86 See, for example, trial of István Bartos, file 327/1939, Galánta, MNL OL K568. Bartos's membership in the United Hungarian Party is listed as a reason for certification.

87 Felvidék Loyalty Council-approved civil servants would, however, have to contend with officials from Trianon Hungary who arrived to partake in the occupational spoils of territorial expansion.