The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/Hungary's Internal Policy

by Dr. P.

Hungary’s Internal Policy.^[1]

The Western democracies lay stress on the rights of the peoples and aspire to a new order in Europe, resting upon peace and reconciliation among the nations. Unhappily, there are grave obstacles to the realisation of this noble idea, and notably a misapprehension of certain cardinal facts which have determined in the past and must still determine in the future the relations between the European nations.

In their recent speeches Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson stated that the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary was not one of the war aims of the Entente. This statement implies that no radical change in the Dual Monarchy is necessary, and that some democratic reform would suffice to appease its oppressed peoples and thus lay the foundation of a durable peace. Recent events and tendencies in Austria-Hungary, however, reveal a very different prospect; and close observers cannot fail to see that the relations between the subject peoples and their masters have evoked such bitterness as to render a constitutional settlement altogether chimerical. The oppressed races have given repeated proof of their resolve to persist in the struggle for complete independence; and those of our readers who know something of the war of extermination and enslavement waged, in particular, by Hungary against her non-Magyar citizens, cannot fail to ask themselves whether a continuation of the struggle is likely to be conducive to future peace in Europe.

In his famous book on Mittel-Europa, Herr Naumann, whom no one could accuse of hostility to the Magyars, wrote as follows:—

“The Magyars are conscious that their State is based on an agglomeration of nationalities. They know that they are outnumbered, and form less than half the population, and that, under an equal and impartial law and a just distribution of electoral constituencies, they might be speedily driven from power by the union of the others. This situation imposes upon the Magyars, whose will to rule has created the State, the double duty of countering openly or secretly the equalising tendencies of democracy, and of increasing the numbers of the Magyar population.” (P. 89.)

In point of fact ,the Magyars have throughout this war striven, with feverish haste, to convert polyglot Hungary into a uniform State imbued with Magyar mentality. In this effort Magyar policy has shown two faces, one for home opinion and one for abroad. At home the policy of Magyarisation is pursued with open violence, while abroad lip service is paid to new ideas which serve as a convenient screen for ulterior ends. Thus since President Wilson’s democratic programme, and the march of the Russian Revolution, the Magyars have assured the whole world, through their official agencies and their agent in every coutry, that the heritage of the reactionary Count Tisza has descended to a democratic government which will act in the spirit of Western democracy. It is, however, only necessary to pass in review the various reforms introduced by Tisza’s successors, in order to realise how little prospect there is of racial reconciliation. No sooner had Count Apponyi reentered the Ministry of Education than he forbade the reopening of the Roumanian teachers’ training colleges—the Serbian schools were closed during the crisis of July 1914—on the ground “that during the occupation of Transylvania by the Roumanian troops the attitude of the Roumanian teachers was unpatriotic.” Apponyi himself, during a visit to Transylvania, explained his programme very clearly.

“I visited the frontier districts,” he said, “in order to get a personal impression of the measures needed for the cultural defence of the country. I had conversations with the high sheriffs, school inspectors and schoolmasters. As regards the training schools, I shall not modify my point of view. My aim is to strengthen everywhere the national Magyar State. I have begun by multiplying the State schools in order to place a barrier along the frontier and ensure the safety of the Magyar racial islets by linking them up with one another. This whole policy follows a definite plan which, if not completed by myself, will, I hope, be adopted by all my successors in office.” (Az Ujság, 12 December, 1917.)

He recently set up a special Cultural Committee, whose duties were defined by one of his subordinates in a recent interview—

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This vast programme, cynically presented as a model of modern education, will completely destroy the already feeble instruction of the non-Magyar peoples in their mother-tongue. The school question has always been one of the most burning in Hungarian internal policy, the non-Magyars seeing in their schools the last hope of preserving their race. While preparing the total suppression of non-Magyar education in Hungary, Count Apponyi seeks to promote Magyarisation by other means. As Minister of Public Instruction he is the supreme authority in certain ecclesiastical questions. Knowing that the nationalities of Hungary, excluded from all share in politics, rely upon their religious institutions as a last stronghold of national tradition, the Magyars have set themselves to gain control of the Churches and to Magyarise the faithful from the pulpit through the medium of Magyar priests. The first attempt in this direction was directed against the Greek Catholic or Uniate Church, to which a large number of Roumanians and Ukrainians belong; their Orthodox ancestors having yielded to the pressure of Leopold I and Maria Theresa and recognized the Pope as head of their Church, while preserving the old Slavonic liturgy. The Magyars, in order to obtain control over the Ukrainian and Roumanian clergy, hit upon the idea of creating a Magyar Greek Catholic bishopric, which would compete with the Ruthene and Roumanian bishoprics, and, seconded by the authority of the State, would gradually Magyarise their flocks. In 1912 such a bishopric was created at Hajdudorog, with Magyar as its official language. This step evoked lively protests among the Roumanians, who saw in it a grave menace to their national existence. Subsequent events have amply justified their anxiety.

The following summary of the situation is from Count Karolyi’s organ, Magyarország, of 26 August:—

“After the retreat of the hostile armies, when regular work was resumed in the villages with Wallach-speaking^[2] inhabitants, thousands of the latter, inspired by patriotic sentiments, and belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, begged to be admitted to the Greek Catholic Church. They no longer wish to be under the jurisdiction of Wallach priests and bishops, but, as loyal Hungarian subjects, seek to belong to the Greek Catholic See of Hajdudorog. These Wallach villages have no priests, for some of them proved disloyal to the Magyar State and withdrew with the enemy, while the stern hand of Magyar justice fell upon the other traitors. Thus all the villages of Wallach language and Orthodox religion whose priests be came traitors have remained without spiritual leaders. It is both characteristic and encouraging for us that the members of these ecclesiastical communities, though speaking Wallach, did not apply for their new priests to the Wallach bishops, but to the Transylvanias Vicars of the Magyar bishopric of Hajdudorog. The transference of many thousands of Orthodox Wallachs to the Magyar Church is on such a scale that the Vicar and his priests can no longer cope with the situation."”

A wide extension of the crude proselytism which this passage reveals is demanded by the reactionary press, which is in close touch with the present Government. Magyar Orthodox bishoprics are to be created even where the number of persons of Magyar nationality and Orthodox faith does not amount to 5,000. Backed by all forces of the State, they hope gradually to permeate the Churches with their own priests, who would preach the Word of God in Magyar, and thus Magyarise the Serbs, Ukrainians, and Roumanians, whose religion preserves the national tradition.

Among these “national reforms” is also included agrarian reform. Baron Ghillány, Minister of Agriculture in the Tisza Cabinet, foreshadowed a land reform in which the sale and transfer of property would be regulated according to national principles. His successor, Mr. Mezössy, tried to carry out this idea in a spirit worthy of the Magyar State. On 1 November, 1917, he issued a decree which he had already explained in Parliament on 23 October:—

“This decree will strengthen the Magyar land policy. During the first half of the war it was recognized with regret that, in the most fertile districts of south Hungary, the land was in the hands of a population which is by no means reliable. The soil of these threatened districts must be n the hands of those who deserve confidence. With this in view any transfer of land will be made subject to the consent of the authorities. Not only this but leases also will depend on the authorities. The length of a lease cannot exceed ten years. I can assure evryone that I shall employ this right exclusively and solely in the service of Magyar national land policy.”

This decree is an open avowal that the Magyars are about to carry out forcible expropriation, and this is admitted in the Budapest press. When the Czechs protested in the Parliament of Vienna against Mezössy’s decree, the Pesti Hirlap, in an editorial of 28 November, defined the Magyar attitude as follows:—

“This decree, which the Czechs attack, merely constitutes a partial experiment in a systematic Magyar land policy. It only deals with a small part of the land. The Magyar State has the right to decide what elements shall possess the soil. It has the right to assure its territory against suspect elements. Hence the Mezössy decree is both wise and necessary. The intervention of the Czechs only serves to remind us that this decree must be extended to the whole territory of Hungary.

“The state must have an unlimited right of expropriation in order to be able to parcel out and colonise the land. It must carry out a healthy distribution of land to the Magyar race, which alone is a support of the State. To the south it is the Serbs who hold the best land; in Transylvania it is the Roumanians. That is why the Mezössy decree is only a beginning. We demand that this policy should be continued on a large scale. The attacks from Vienna cannot shake the Hungarian Government, which must finally convince itself that it is useless to stop half-way. As long as the government remains in power it must employ that power to make the Magyars masters of Magyar land.”

Parallel with this decree, the Magyars are preparing a regular plan of colonisation on a large scale, according to which the non-Magyar populations are to be removed en masse and replaced by Magyars. They propose to draw a continuous Magyar cordon right round Hungary, in the hope of thus destroying the geographical continuity between the non-Magyar races and their kinsmen beyond the Hungarian frontiers. On this subject the deputy Haller, a member of the People’s Party (one of the groups supporting the present government), said in Parliament, on 22 February, 1917:—

“There must be colonisation on a grand scale in the districts inhabited by the nationalities, for it is inadmissable that the party of the State should have no say in questions of property in these frontier districts. Where the nationalities live we must create new, modern marches, and the representatives pf these Magyar marches must be not only small, but medium holders of land.”

Finally, a crown has been set upon Magyar policy by the Franchise Bill recently introduced in the Hungarian Parliament. Long before its details were made public the Magyars boasted loudly of their “universal suffrage.” To-day we see that this universal suffrage actually reduces the relative representation of the non-Magyar peoples in Parliament. The new Bill assures to the Magyars 62.6 per cent., to the Germans 12.5 per cent., and to the other nationalities together only 24.9 per cent, of the total electorate; while a skillful project of electoral “geometry” is in preparation. The best indication of the new Bill’s tendency is the excuse by which the Suffrage Minister, Mr. Vázsonyi—leader of the “democratic” party—defended himself against the attacks of the jingoes (Neue Freie Presse, 16 September):—

“I can demonstrate that, even in the event of the vote being granted to all literates above the age of twenty-four, there would only be four out of the sixty-four constituencies of Transylvania where the Roumanian element would have a majority. In these four there are two where the majority is so insignificant as to make it impossible to speak of its Roumanian character. Surely it is grotesque to hear the opponents of electoral reform describing these four Roumanian mandates as a danger to Magyardom. Is Magyardom so feeble? My reform will prove the contrary. The basis of the franchise reform of the former Premier, Mr. Lukács, was to increase the number of constituencies by twenty-two—all pure Magyar free towns—as a counterpoise to dangers from the nationalities. I propose to augment still further the number of seats among the towns where the Magyar element predominates.”

To this statement it must be added that in eight out of the fifteen counties of Transylvania the Roumanians are in an overwhelming majority. The total Roumanian population of Transylvania—according to Magyar statistics which favour the Magyar element—is 55 per cent, as against 34.3 Magyar and 8.7 per cent. German. Thus Magyar democracy proposes to allow to the 1,472,021 Roumanians of Transylvania a total of four seats, of which two are doubtful.

I have contented myself with a brief summary of the principal “reforms” contemplated by the Hungarian government. Our survey proves that the Magyars, feeling themselves free of immediate military danger, are trying to settle the racial question without regard for right or liberty. The only goal which they see is that of completely Magyarising Hungary and rendering it loyal to the idea of the Magyar State. But their victims are very numerous, and it is certain that they will not submit to being deprived of their national traditions and individuality. Persecution has already bred a desperate hatred which foreshadows new dangers for the future peace. To leave the oppressed peoples of Hungary in the clutches of their present masters would merely be to sow the seeds of fresh conflicts in the Dual Monarchy. Their situation is aggravated by the knowledge that while Western Europe and America are talking of the liberty of nations and their right to live as free members in the human commonwealth, they are deaf to the groans and sufferings of the non-Magyars. Have not, then, the Serbs, Croats, Roumanians, Ukrainians and Slovaks of Hungary the right to share in the free Society of Nations? Must they perforce submit to the brutal suppression of their mother-tongue, to the destruction of their national consciousness, to proselytism and expropriation, to exclusion from all political rights and from any influence upon the destiny of their native land?Dr. P.

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1. Reprinted from the New Europe, London, February 28, 1918.
2. “Wallach” is the common Magyar term for “Roumanian.”