In Central and Eastern Europe, the idea of the nation, on the part of the majority population, came to have a particularly strong ethnic connotation in the 20th century.
In response, self-conscious
minorities in these states often expressed their desire to belong to their own ethno-cultural
nation, often one residing in a neighbouring kin state.
At the
least, they demanded state recognition of their separate nationality and the
cultural and political collective rights that come with it.
This has
been particularly true of Hungarian communities, especially in the case of the
more numerous Hungarian populations in Romania and Slovakia.
Following
the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the First World War,
Hungary lost a very large amount of its pre-war territory.
Almost
one-third of the Hungarian-speaking population, some five million people,
became minorities in Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
For these
Hungarians, the emotional tables were suddenly turned: their former identity,
that of belonging to a majority ruling nation, was replaced with a minority
status, and they found themselves in a politically subordinate position.
The
integration of these Hungarians in successor states proved difficult, and
between the two world wars, these minorities focused on preserving their
Hungarian identity.
After 1945, Communist regimes
enacted assimilation policies, particularly in Romania and Czechoslovakia.
These affected matters of religion, economy, culture (especially language), and
political and legal rights.
The
disintegration of Communist regimes allowed for greater political freedom.
Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia split apart, and the minority
policies in the new countries of Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine became more
tolerant.
Several
linguistic and cultural rights were incorporated in new constitutions adopted
at the beginning of the 1990s.
This
would affect Hungarians in the Transylvania region of Romania, southern
Slovakia, the autonomous province of Vojvodina in northern Serbia, and
Transcarpathia in western Ukraine.
Hungarians form the largest ethnic
minority in Romania, consisting of 1.22 million people and making up a little
more than six per cent of the total population. Most live in Transylvania, in
areas that were, before the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, parts of Hungary, and where
they constitute a very large minority.
They are also are the largest ethnic
minority in Slovakia, with some 700,000 people – almost 9.5 per cent of the
overall population – declaring Hungarian as their mother tongue.
The 254,000 Hungarians in Serbia
comprise just 3.5 per cent of the total population, but 13 per cent in the
Vojvodina.
Much smaller numbers are
concentrated in the far western border regions of Ukraine. All of these
geographic regions are very close to, or border, Hungary itself.
With the
democratization of Eastern European countries, parties that appealed to ethnic
identity became more frequent players in electoral politics. Often referred to
as flanking or outbidding parties, they often adopted
radical strategies to maximize support among voters of an ethnic group.
But
ethnic Hungarian parties in Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine have
cooperated, rather than competed, with each other during elections, to maximize
their political power.
Meanwhile,
after its own regime change in 1989, non-Communist Hungary assumed a so-called
national policy, and stated that it would improve the situation of the
Hungarians living outside its borders.
Nationalists
consider them part of a pan-Hungarian nation. Budapest has encouraged many
Hungarians to apply for Hungarian citizenship even while living outside the
country, and in 2010 introduced preferential
naturalisation together with voting rights as a new political-legal tool.
The
reaction from the surrounding states has varied though clearly there has been
some consternation. But Romania and Slovakia, as EU members, must show
restraint in their treatment of their Hungarian minorities.
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