No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
The uneven course of Hungary's domestic politics and its relations with its socialist neighbors, which have large Magyar populations, has deeply affected the evolution of its minorities' policies since 1948. Initially, the minorities question seemed to be an insignificant issue, since 1949 census figures showed that only 128,758 people out of a total population of 9,204 799 chose something other than Hungarian as their primary language.
1. Siegel, Jacob S., The Population of Hungary (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1958), p. 154. This does not take into account the 133,862 Hungarians who chose Judaism as their religious choice but does include the 21,387 Gypsies who picked Romany as their principle language.Google Scholar
2. “Dealing with Hungary's Minorities,” East Europe, vol. 18, no. 1 (January 1969), p. 31; Siegel, p. 38, 72. In fact, at Stalin's instigation, Hungarian officials, in the shadow of his occupation forces, had been pressured since the end of the war, despite opposition by non-communist Hungarian officials, to do everything posible to destroy the ethnic fabric of the country. Between 1946–47, Hungary expelled 228,604 ethnic Germans, while another 31,396 fled the country and, in 1946–48, forced 73,273 Slovaks to leave in an exchange agreement with Czechoslovakia. Thomas Spira, “Worlds Apart: The Swabian Expulsion from Hungary after World War II,” Nationalities Papers, vol. XIII, no. 2 (Fall 1985), p. 197; Robert R. King, Minorities under Communism: Nationalities as a Source of Tension among Balkan Communist States (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 52–53; “Dealing with Hungary's Minorities,” p. 31, however, says that only 170,000 Germans left Hungary during this period, while Siegel, pp. 3, 34, says that 260,000 ethnic Germans left Hungary at this time. He says on p. 38 that, from January-November 1946, Hungary sent 168,064 Germans to the American zone in Germany, and in July 1947, shipped 60,000 Germans to the Soviet zone. The remaining 31,396 Germans fled Germany during this period.Google Scholar
3. Constitution of the Hungarian People's Republic (Budapest, 1959), p. 31; Linda Dégh, “Ethnology in Hungary,” East European Quarterly, vol. IV, no. 3 (September 1970), p. 297; Ivan Volgyes, “Legitimacy and Modernization: Nationality and Nationalism in Hungary and Transylvania,” in George Klein and Milan J. Reban, eds., The Politics of Ethnicity in Eastern Europe (Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 135. In his 1913 work, “Marxism and the Problem of Nationalities,” or Marxism and the National Question, Stalin criticized the concept of “cultural autonomy.” He felt that though a minority group could have its own schools and languages, it would contradict the “spirit of proletarian internationalism” to allow them any more distinct cultural privileges than this. Steven Revay, “Hungarian Minorities under Communist Rule,” The Hungarian Quarterly, vol. I, no. 4 (October 1961), p. 42; Bertram D. Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1964), p. 400; Siegel, pp. 58–59; “Minorities in Eastern Europe—II,” in East Europe, vol 8, no. 4 (April 1959), pp. 9–10; Lászlo Kósa, “Thirty Years of Ethnographic Research among the National Minority Groups Living in Hungary (1945–1974),” Acta Ethnographica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, vol. 24, nos. 3–4 (1975), p. 232.Google Scholar
4. Vago, Raphael, “Nationality Policies in Contemporary Hungary,” Hungarian Studies Review, vol. XI, no. 1 (Spring 1984), pp. 47–48.Google Scholar
5. Kovrig, Bennett, Communism in Hungary: From Kun to Kádár (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1979), pp. 267–273, 275; Siegel, pp. 71–72, 78, 178, 182, 185.Google Scholar
6. Auty, Phyllis, “The Post-War Period,” in A Short History of Yugoslavia (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 260–261; Vago, p. 48. There are also reports that the government allowed a few Southern Slavs to return to their old villages in western Hungary, though this policy was not widespread; viz “Minorities in Eastern Europe,” Eastern Europe, vol. 8, no. 3 (March 1959), pp. 9–10; King, p. 77.Google Scholar
7. Kovács, Imre, ed., Facts About Hungary (New York: Hungarian Committee, 1958), pp. 240–142, says, citing the Hospodárska Geografie Československa (1953), that there were 592,400 Magyars in Czechoslovakia and 506,000 in Yugoslavia. Another source, King, pp. 263, 267, says that there were 572,568 Hungarians in Czechoslovakia in 1970 and 1,619,592 in Rumania in 1966; Revay, pp. 42–45; King pp. 79–87.Google Scholar
8. Vago, p. 48; “The Hungarian Press,” East Europe, vol. 6, no. 8 (August 1957), p. 15; “Minorities in Eastern Europe—II,” p. 9.Google Scholar
9. Kosa, p. 233; “National Minorities in the Hungarian People's Republic,” Hungary 1971 (Budapest: Zrinyi Printing House, 1971), Miklós Gárdos, ed., pp. 135–136; each organization became an “allied” part of the Patriotic People's Front, once described as an “eyewash” institution “of parliamentary life” in Hungary, and the heads of these groups sat on the Council of the PPF, Vago, p. 48; Paul Ignotus, Hungary (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972), p. 273; Kovrig, pp. 335–336.Google Scholar
10. Kosa, p. 233, no. 4; “National Minorities in the Hungarian People's Republic,” pp. 134–135. According to 1960 census figures, there were 53,894 individuals who declared a nationality other than Hungarian, while 134,839 chose a language other than Hungarian as their native language. In the latter category, this number jumped to 137,839 (50,765 Germans; 30,690 Slovaks; 15,787 Rumanians; and 37,597 Southern Slavs), using 1963 figures, Volgyes, p. 140; these figures jumped to 155,861 (35,594 Germans, 34,049 Croats, 21,176 Southern Slavs, and 12,624 Rumanians) in the 1970 census, though the liberal estimates of 1963 have remained steady; Lászlo Tripolszky, “Promoting Ethnic Culture,” The New Hungarian Quarterly, vol. XXI, no. 77 (Spring 1980), p. 133; “Festival of the National Minorities,” Hungarian Review, no. 12 (1977), p. 3; Lászlo Kövágó, ed., In mehreren Sprachen—mit gemeinsamen Willen: Nationalitäten in der ungarischen Volksrepublik (Budapest: A Kulturális Miniszterium Nemzetiségi Osztálya megbízásábol kiadja a Nepművelési Propoganda Iroda [The Propoganda Bureau for Popular Culture on Behalf of the Nationalities Department of the Ministry for Culture], 1977), pp. 16–18, estimates that there are 200,000 Germans, 110,000 Slovaks, 25,000 Rumanians, and 100,000 Southern Slavs in Hungary. Another official article, written during this period, gives a slightly different set of figures: Germans, 200,000–220,000; Slovaks, 100,000–110,000; Rumanians, 20,000–25,000; and Southern Slavs, 80,000–100,000, “National Minorities,” Hungarian Review, no. 11 (1978), p. 23. While figures for the number of Jews in Hungary have remained stable, estimates as to the number of Gypsies have risen substantially during this period, and Hungary now has an estimated Gypsy population of 340,000–400,000, Ferenc Herczeg, “National Minorities in Hungary,” The New Hungarian Quarterly, vol. XIX, no. 71 (Autumn 1978); William O. McCagg, Jr., “The Nationality Question in Eastern Europe since 1964,” in George W. Simmonds, ed., Nationalism in the USSR ∧ Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev and Kosygin (Detroit, Michigan: The University of Detroit Press, 1977), p. 48; “Minorities in Eastern Europe,” pp. 11–12; Mihály Majdu, “Gypsies, 1980,” Hungarian Digest, no. 6 (1980), p. 30; László Siklós, “The Gypsies,” The New Hungarian Quarterly, vol. XI, no. 40 (1970), p. 151.Google Scholar
11. Recent studies indicate that in 1978 there were sixteen minority representatives in Parliament, including two Germans, two Southern Slavs, one Rumanian, and one Slovak, as well as 2,340 holding seats on local councils. Seventy Council Presidents belonged to minority groups, Herczeg, p. 94; “National Minorities,” p. 24; “Dealing with Hungary's Minorities,” pp. 31–32; “The Hungarian Press,” p. 17.Google Scholar
12. “National Minorities,” pp. 24–25; Article 49 of the 1949 Constitution made all citizens “equal before the law” with “equal rights,” outlawed discrimination on the basis of religion or nationality, and guaranteed its minorities “the possibility of education in their native tongue” and the development of “their national culture.” Article 61 of the revised 1972 Constitution followed the same tone, though in more precise terms. It guaranteed “equal rights to all nationalities living within its territory, the use of and education in their native language, and the preservation and promotion of their own culture,” Constitution of the Hungarian People's Republic, p. 31; William B. Simons, ed., The Constitutions of the Communist World (Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands: Sijthoff ∧ Noordhoff, 1980), p. 210; Herczeg, p. 94; “National Minorities in the Hungarian People's Republic,” p. 133.Google Scholar
13. Kovacs, Martin L. and Crowe, David, “National Minorities in Hungary, 1919–1980,” in Horak, Stephan M., ed., Eastern European National Minorities, 1919–1980: A Handbook (Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 1985), p. 171; “National Minorities,” p. 23; Jánós Kádár: Selected Speeches and Interviews (Oxford, England: Pergamom Press, 1985), pp. 434–435; “National Minorities,” Hungarian Review no 12 (1977), p. 2.Google Scholar
14. “National Minorities,” pp. 23–24; “Festival of the National Minorities,” pp. 2–3; “Minorities in Eastern Europe,” p. 14; Hadju, pp. 32–33; Siklós, p. 10. The government felt, from the outset, that prejudice against Gypsies would be one of its greatest problems as it tried to deal with this group. Consequently, as early as 1959, it publicly struck out against anti-Gypsy sentiment in the press and elsewhere, “Discrimination,” East Europe, vol. 8, no. 12 (December 1959), p. 11; “No Gypsies Served,” East Europe, vol. 11, no. 9 (September 1962), p. 38; East Europe, vol. 12, no. 7 (July 1963), pp. 45–46. One Hungarian who returned for a visit a decade after the 1956 revolt observed, in reference to this prejudice, that “I somehow feel that I would intensely dislike being a Gypsy in present-day Hungary,” in “Hungary Revisited “ East Europe, vol. 15, no. 10 (October 1966), p. 6. Yet, despite these efforts, anti-Gypsy prejudice remained, even in official publications. In 1970, for example, one Hungarian author likened the Gypsies to American Blacks, in that they “do not work, even when there is the opportunity, they do not go to school, they do not adopt the customs and culture of their environment, and at the same time their numbers are increasing rapidly, and they are beginning to demand their rights.” This and “their antisocial attitudes” contribute to their own disintegration and increase the hostility of the rest of the population. Fortunately, this attitude has changed. A ten article series in the weekly intellectual magazine Magyarország (Hungary) in 1980 dealt much more humanely with Gypsy problems and official efforts to help them improve their conditions, Hadju, pp. 30–31; Siklós, p. 162; “The Hungarian Press ” p. 17.Google Scholar
15. “The State and the Church,” Hungary 1977: A Yearbook, Gárdos, Miklós, Editor-in-Chief (Budapest: Franklin Printing House, 1977), p. 200; György Aczél, “The Socialist State and the Churches in Hungary,” The New Hungarian Quarterly, vol. XVIII, no. 66 (Summer 1977), pp. 53–54. For information on the government's initial efforts against religious education, see “Hungary,” in George N. Shuster's Religion behind the Iron Curtain (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1954), pp. 174–176. In July 1951, the government insisted that all religious leaders take this oath. It again demanded this pledge in March 1957, and on April 6, 1959, gave churchmen two months to give it. The country's Jewish leaders reaffirmed their pledge to the state several weeks later; East Europe, vol. 8, no 6 (June 1959), pp. 45–46. For the most part, though, the Hungarian government has dealt with its Jewish population as a special case, since “it had no relevance to relations with neighboring countries, nor could the regime's Jewish policy have any effect on the Hungarians living elsewhere,” Vago, p. 45; Tibor Pethó, “State and Church in Hungary,” Hungarian Digest, no. 2 (1980), p. 9; Imre Miklós, “Relations between State and Church in Hungary,” Hungarian Review, no. 7 (1977), pp. 5–7. In 1976, the government gave the country's various religious groups a subsidy of 70,000,000 forints, which did not include money spent to maintain and restore some of Hungary's important religious structures, “Church Life in Hungary,” Hungarian Review, no. 6 (1977), p. 23.Google Scholar
16. Some form of minority education has been supported by all Hungarian governments since the end of World War II, though there were no German schools until 1952. The post-1948 and post-1956 efforts, of course, have centered around the political value of these programs. Brahm, Randolph L., Education in the Hungarian People's Republic (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970), pp. 84–85; Kovacs and Crowe, pp. 168–169; “Minorities in Eastern Europe—II,” p. 9. In addition, Law No. II of 1961 stipulated that it could open minority classes if requested by 15 families, though there are cases where the government has created them for fewer students. Mária Jakab and Ferenc Stark, “Education for Ethnic Minorities,” The New Hungarian Quarterly, vol. XVIII, no. 68 (Winter 1977), p. 124. The 1960 census showed that 70.9 percent of the Slovaks, 77 percent of the Germans, 87 percent of the Rumanians, 82 percent of the Serbians, and 89.6 percent of the Croatians and other Southern Slavic groups lived in the countryside, “Dealing with Hungary's Minorities,” p. 31. On the other hand, there has been a dramatic shift on the part of the general Hungarian population away from agricultural occupations. Márton Pécsi and Béla Sárfalvi, The Geography of Hungary (Budapest: Kossuth Printing House, 1964), pp. 166–167; Herczeg, p. 91; the only exception to this are the country's 6,000 Slovenes, who make up the majority of the population in seven villages in Vas County, and the Gypsies, Kovacs and Crowe, p. 162; only one county in Hungary, Szolnok County, has no minority population, Tripolszky, p. 133. There are also some instances where several minority groups live together in one area, Kosa, pp. 232–233. In 1966, the government gave broad coverage to Kádár's visit to the New Furrow Collective near Mohacs, which was made up of Hungarians, Germans, and Southern Slavs. He applauded their cooperative efforts as a sign that the government had resolved the country's minorities' problem, East Europe, vol. 15, no 7 (July 1966), pp. 47–48. This area of Hungary is an ethnically rich part of the country. “Folklore in the Communist State,” News from Behind the Iron Curtain, vol. 5, no. 3 (March 1956), pp. 29–30; younger members of these groups often spoke Magyar better than their native language, which they often interspersed with Hungarian terms, “National Minorities in the Hungarian People's Republic,” p. 136; this applies not only to the minorities in the Hungarian countryside, but to most of the peasant class. A 1963 survey published five years later clearly underlines this point: Hungarian Central Statistical Office, Social Stratification in Hungary [a survey of 15,000 households carried out in 1963] (Budapest, 1967), pp. 17–19.Google Scholar
17. Jakab, and Stark, , p. 124; Ernö Buti, Public Education in the Hungarian People's Republic (Budapest: Ministry of Public Education, 1967), p. 179; Kovacs and Crowe, pp. 168–169; Rudolf Joó, “National Minorities,” Hungarian Digest, no. 6 (1980), pp. 67–68; Eugen Voss, Die Religionsfreiheit in Osteuropa (G2W-Verlag Zollikon, 1984), p.242; Braham, pp. 85–86; “Church Life in Hungary,” p. 23; “The State and the Church,” p. 206; Siklós, pp. 161–162; Hadju, pp. 30–31.Google Scholar
18. German figures dropped from 50,765 to 45,594, Rumanian statistics from 15,787 to 12,624, Southern Slav by 3,548, and Slovak by 9,514, Kövágó, Nemzetiségek a mai magyarországon, pp. 20, 181–183.Google Scholar
19. One problem, according to Kovacs and Crowe, p. 171, was the spirit of “automatism,” which permeated official thought for twenty years after the communists took power. This policy stated that Hungary's nationality problems would be automatically erased as the country successfully moved towards socialism.Google Scholar
20. Kovacs, and Crowe, , p. 169; Jakab and Stark, pp. 124–125; “National Minorities,”, p. 24.Google Scholar
21. Kövágó, , Nemzetiségek a mai Magyarorzágon, pp. 181–183, 184. During the same period, though, the number of minority schools declined slightly (23 in 1968–69 to 20 in 1979–80), while the number of students in these schools rose (1,991 in 1968–69 to 2,058 in 1979–80); Kovacs and Crowe, p. 169. In addition, the number of minority gymnasia rose from only 5 in 1959 to 8 in 1960–61, but dropped to 7 by 1968. The number of gymnasia rose again to 8 in 1973–74, but stabilized at 7 in 1979–80. Gymnasia student enrollment has also fluctuated, from 683 in 1960–61 to 717 in 1968–69, and to 703 in 1979–80, Braham, p. 85; Kövágó, In mehreren Sprachen, p. 105.Google Scholar
22. Kövágó, , Nemzetiségek a mai Magyarországon, pp. 181–183; “National Minorities in the Hungarian People's Republic,” pp. 135–146; “National Minorities—Theory and Practice,” pp. 108–109.Google Scholar
23. Kovacs, and Crowe, , p. 170. In 1968–69 there were 181 German teachers for 9,714 students, or a ratio of 1 to 53.67. Eleven years later, this ratio remained the same, with 467 German teachers for 24,969 pupils (1 to 53.47). The Slovak student/teacher ratio also remained stable, with 166 teachers for 5,988 students (1 to 36.07) in 1968–69 to 279 instructors for 9,939 children (1 to 35.62) in 1979–80. The Rumanian ratios dropped for 53 teachers to 1,271 students(l to 23.98) to 98 instructors for l,342pupils (1 to 13.69) during the same period, while the Southern Slavs' percentages fell slightly from 122 teachers for 4,198 students (1 to 34.4) to 186 instructors for 5,610 pupils (1 to 30.16), Kövágó, Nemzetiségek a mai Magyarországon, pp. 181–183.Google Scholar
24. Duschinsky, Eugene, “Hungary,” in Meter, Peter, et al., eds., The Jews in the Soviet Satellites (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1953), p. 399; Braham, pp. 85–86; Hajdu, pp. 30–31; Siklós, pp. 157–160.Google Scholar
25. Tripolszky, , pp. 132–134, 136. In 1980, Hungarian radio stations produced about 11 hours of minority radio programs a week; Joó, p. 68.Google Scholar
26. There are now six German specialty libraries, four Slovak, four Southern Slav, and one Rumanian repository in this network, Janós Korompay, “Libraries for Nationalities,” Hungarian Digest, vol. 6 (1982), pp. 10–11. In 1974, there were 160 local libraries with 37,000 German books, 60 with 30,000 Serbo-Croatian volumes, 97 libraries with 31,000 Slovakian books, 14 with 12,000 Rumanian volumes, and 7,000 Slovenian books in 9 libraries. By 1982, the German, Serbo-Croatian, and Slovakian holdings had risen by a thousand volumes, the Slovenian by 500, while the Rumanian holdings remained the same, Kövágó, In mehreren Sprachen, p. 39; Tripolszky, p. 135; Kovacs and Crowe, p. 170; Korompay, p. 11.Google Scholar
27. Each newspaper is produced by its minority association. The Democratic Association of Hungarian Germans publishes Neue Zeitung, the Slovaks Ludové Noviny, the Southern Slavs Narodne Novine, the Rumanians Foaia Nostra, and the Jews a monthly, Uj Elet, “National Minorities,” p. 23; Elias Schulman, “The Jews in Eastern Europe,” East Europe, vol. 11, no. 4 (April 1962), p. 19; Kövágó, In mehreren Sprachen, p. 106; Tripolszky, p. 135; Kovacs and Crowe, p. 171. Hungarian Jews published three books in 12,800 copies during this period, “Church Life in Hungary,” Hungarian Review, vol. 6 (1977), p. 23.Google Scholar
28. The number of folk singing groups rose from 38 to 139, the number of orchestras from 59 to 106, dance troupes from 63 to 145, and the number of drama groups from 22 to 40, Kövágó, Menzetiségek a mai Magyarországon, pp. 186–187; Tripolszky, pp. 134–135; Herczeg, p. 95; in order to preserve the works of these groups, the government has encouraged the collection and depositing of copies of as much of their material as possible in the archives of the Institute of Folk Culture and Education and in the Scientific Institute for Music of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1974, the government published some of this material in the volume Colourful Traditions, an edited staging manual of folk dances, Kosa, “Thirty Years of Ethnographic Research…,” pp. 234–235.Google Scholar
29. Kovacs and Crowe, pp. 170–171. In addition, there are six smaller museums with German and Southern Slav collections, and ten with Slovak items; Kosa, pp. 235–236,238–239; Tripolszky, p. 135; Korompay, “Research on Ethnic Grounds,” pp. 55–56, 58; “Ethnographical Museum of the National Minorities in Hungary,” Hungarian Review, no. 12 (1977), p. 5; Joshua Rothenberg, “The Fate of Judaism in the Communist World,” in Bohdan R. Bociurkiw, John W. Strong, and Jean K. Laux, eds., Religion and Atheism in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), p. 224; Degh, p. 304.Google Scholar
30. Herczeg, , p. 93; “National Minorities—Theory and Practice,” p. 107.Google Scholar
31. “Dealing with Hungary's Minorities,” p. 32; Herczeg, p. 94.Google Scholar