After World War I . As a result, Hungary lost over two-thirds of its territory, about two-thirds of its inhabitants under the treaty and 3.3 million out of 10 million ethnic Hungarians. (Based on the 1910 census.) The process of slovakization was present in the
Kingdom of Hungary presumably ever since the appearance of the Slovak nation itself, but up until the foundation of Czechoslovakia the process was entirely voluntary. This early form of slovakization can be observed in detail in noble families' personal correspondence. Another example of pre-World War I Slovakization is the assimilation of the Habans, a
Hutterite group settled in the
Nagylévárd (today's Veľké Leváre) area in the 16th century, into the Slovak majority. The accelerated, forced nature of slovakization began with the defeat of the remaining Hungarian armies in 1919, which laid foundations to the creation of Czechoslovakia, a state in which the Slovaks had gained a
de facto political power for the first time in the nation's history. The
Paris Peace Conference concluded by the
Treaty of Trianon in 1920 set the southern border of Czechoslovakia for strategic and economic reasons much further south than the Slovak-Hungarian language border. Consequently, fully Hungarian-populated areas were annexed to the newly created state. The ethnic border has been sliding downward since the second part of the 19th century, with the beginning of the
Slovak nationalist aspirations, and many almost exclusively Hungarian settlements, such as
Pusztafödémes (now: Pusté Úľany) became completely Slovakised by the end of the 1910s. Czechoslovakia provided a large education network for the Hungarian minority. Hungarians, for example, had 31 kindergartens, 806 elementary schools, 46 secondary schools, 576 Hungarian libraries at schools in the 1930s and a Department of
Hungarian literature was created at the
Charles University of Prague. The number of Hungarian elementary schools increased from 720 in 1923/1924 to the above number 806. The Hungarian University in Bratislava/Pozsony was immediately closed after formation of Czechoslovakia According to the 1910 census conducted by the Central Statistical Office of Hungary, there were 884,309 people with Hungarian as a mother tongue, constituting 30.2% of the population, in what is now Slovakia compared to the 9.7% number recorded in the 2001 census, amounting to a 3-fold decrease in the percentage of Hungarians. The first Slovak census in 1919 in what is now Slovakia recorded 689,565 Hungarians constituting 23.59% of the population. According to the first Czechoslovak census in 1921 there were 650,597 Hungarians in Slovakia, constituting 21.68% of the population. The Czechoslovak census of 1930 recorded 571,952 Hungarians. All censuses from the period are disputed, and some give conflicting data for example in Kosice according to the Czechoslovak censuses 15–20% of the population was Hungarian. However, during the parliamentary elections the Ethnic Hungarian parties got 35–45% of the total votes (excluding those Hungarians who voted for the Communists or the Social democrats). The whole matter is complicated by the fact that there was a high percentage of bilingual and similarly "Slovak-Hungarian" persons who could claim being both Slovak and Hungarian. Slovak sources usually do not deny that many Hungarian teachers (replaced in Slovak schools by Slovak and Czech teachers), railwaymen (on strike against new Czechoslovak republic in February 1919), postmen, policemen, soldiers and civil clerks (replaced by Czech and Slovak soldiers, policemen and clerks) were forced to leave or left for Hungary voluntarily, the numbers however are unclear but census do show a rapid decline in the number of people with Hungarian as a mother tongue. Some teachers and civil servants were expelled from Czechoslovakia while some left due to the harsh circumstances. There are many examples of Hungarians who were forced to leave their homes from this territory (two famous ones are the families of
Béla Hamvas, and of
Albert Szent-Györgyi). The high number of refugees (and even more from
Romania) necessitated entire new housing projects in
Budapest (Mária-Valéria telep, Pongrácz-telep), which gave shelter to refugees numbering at least in the ten-thousands. Demographic change was also significant. Since the Middle Ages, Pusztaföldes, for example, had been almost exclusively Hungarian, but the Slovak expansion slowly replaced the aging population and out-numbering them.
De-Magyarization Under the
Austro-Hungarian Empire there was strong anti-Hungarian sentiment among certain sections of the Czech and Slovak population and this persisted to some extent in Czechoslovakia once it was formed. It seemed to hit the city of
Pressburg (soon to be renamed Bratislava) most intensely. One of the first measures brought by
Samuel Zoch, the newly appointed
župan of the city was the forced disbandment of the only Hungarian university in Czechoslovakia (
Elisabeth Science University), and the intimidation of its professors by the police in 1919, immediately after the formation of the new country. Most of the professors and former students then left Pressburg for
Budapest (with the university later
being re-established in Pécs). Zoch had previously stated "...but the question of minorities will be fully solved only after our public perception of morality will condemn ethnic oppression just as much as the oppression of religion". also adopted a new constitution. The constitution guaranteed equal rights for all citizens regardless of gender, nationality or religion. In comparison with the previous state in the
Kingdom of Hungary it also extended political rights to individuals of Hungarian nationality, by introducing
universal suffrage, removing voting criteria based on wealth and education (typical for previous Hungarian elections) and granted full
women's suffrage (including for Hungarian women). Later on, all minorities gained the right to use their languages in municipalities where they constituted at least 20% of the population even in communication with government offices and courts. According to
Béla Angyal, due to
gerrymandering and disproportionate distribution of population between
Bohemia and
Slovakia the Hungarians had little representation in the National Assembly and thus their influence on the politics of Czechoslovakia remained limited. The same considerations limited the Slovak
intelligentsia's political power as well. was engaged by the Czechoslovak government with the objective of eliminating the Hungarian ethnicity. As Anton Granatier, officer of the Resettlement Bureau said:
„We want to be the national state of Slovaks and Czechs, and we will be. This monumental programme includes re−slovakization, already under way in whole Slovakia! Within the scope of this action everyone who feels to be Slovak by origin will have the chance to declare it freely whether they want to become Slovaks with all its consequences or want to share the fate of those without citizenship.“ In the spring and summer of 1945, a series of decrees stripped Hungarians of property, from all civil rights and from their citizenship. Hungary itself gave the Slovaks equal rights and demanded the same solution to the issue from Czechoslovakia. Since Hungarians in Slovakia were deprived of many rights, and were the target of discrimination, they were pressured into having their ethnicity officially changed to Slovak, otherwise they dropped out of the
pension,
social, and
healthcare system. 400,000 (sources differ) stateless Hungarians applied for, and eventually 344,609 The fear was so big among the Hungarian population, that only 350,000–367,000 claimed themselves Hungarian in the 1950 census, and only after ten years -when the reslovakization program was revoked- began to rose and reached 518,000. The official results of re-slovakization action were summarized in the final report of the Re-slovakization Commission. The commission received 197,916 application forms related to 449,914 people. 83,739 applicants declared Slovak nationality also before 1930 and they were not considered to be re-slovakizants. From the remaining 366,175 candidates, the commission accepted 284,814 and refused 81,361 candidates for various reasons. An important issue with the slovakization procedure was, that the "reslovakized" Hungarians did not take the forcible change of ethnicity seriously, because it is impossible to force someone to forget his culture and language suddenly. A Slovak journalist wrote the following about the "reslovakized" city of
Nové Zámky ():
After October 1948 With the disappearance of
Edvard Beneš from the political scene, the Czechoslovak government issued decree No. 76/1948 on April 13, 1948, allowing those Hungarians still living in Czechoslovakia, to reinstate Czechoslovak citizenship. Under slogans for the struggle with class enemies, the process of dispersing dense Hungarian settlements continued in 1948 and 1949.
The current Slovak-Hungarian political standpoint on the expulsions In 2002 before
Slovakia and Hungary
joined the European Union in 2004, Hungarian politician
Viktor Orbán demanded the repeal of the
Beneš decrees, but the
European Parliament asserted that "the decrees did not constitute an insurmountable obstacle to accession." Slovak politician Monika Beňová-Flašiková accused the Hungarian politicians for pushing "revanchist" policies which could destabilize Europe. but not by the Slovak state, who have passed a law expecting others states to let
Slovaks living abroad to retain their Slovak citizenship.
Mečiar Government Under Communism, the Hungarian minority issue was confined invariably to the position of Slovaks within the Czechoslovak state, and therefore it was ignored in any systematic way. But the
fall of Communism reinforced national identities and demolished the ideology of 'the socialist unity of nations'. Mečiar turned the Hungarian minority into a scapegoat for Slovakia's bad economic situation. The first proposal was a full ethnic autonomy of the southern Slovak districts with Hungarian majority, while the second suggestion was to create three counties in southern Slovakia to bring together the main centers of Hungarian population. According to
Miklós Duray, a politician of the
Party of the Hungarian Coalition: "Administrative jurisdictions of Slovakia were geographically modified in a clear case of
gerrymandering. included 17 primary jurisdictions and 2 secondary jurisdictions, with a majority Hungarian population. eliminated this system of administration. Non Slovaks were forced to Slovakize female personal names in official documents by attaching the Slovak feminine suffix '-ová'. Members of ethnic minorities were restricted in their choice of given names, as registry offices accepted only names from a limited list only.
The use of the Hungarian language The Slovak Constitution from 1992 asserts that the ‘
state language’ on the territory of the
Slovak Republic is
Slovak. At the same time this constitution entails explicit provisions for
minorities, including language right. These provisions were reinforced in 2001. Finally, the Meciar government pushed through legislation restricting the use of
minority languages in public institutions. This act revoked the more tolerant Act No 428 passed in 1990. was promulgated providing the legal framework for the official use of the Slovak language not only in official communications but also in everyday commerce, in the administration of religious bodies, and even in the realm of what is normally considered private interaction, for example, communications between patient and physician."
In 1999, the Dzurinda government passed Act No 184 on the Use of the Languages of the Minority Communities'', Language rights in education have also been a sphere of antagonism between the Slovak state and the Hungarian minority. Bilingual education in primary and secondary schools is currently permitted. At the end of the 1998 school year a large number of Hungarian pupils handed back their school report that were issued only in Slovak. After the parliamentary elections in 2006, the nationalist
Slovak National Party (SNS) of
Ján Slota became a member of the ruling coalition led by
Robert Fico. In August a few incidents motivated by
ethnic hatred caused diplomatic tensions between the countries. Mainstream Hungarian and Slovak media blamed Slota's anti-Hungarian statements from the early summer for worsening ethnic relations. (Further informations:
2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs, and
Hedvig Malina). On 27 September 2007 the Beneš decrees were reconfirmed by the Slovak parliament which legitimized the
Hungarians and Germans calumniation and deportation from Czechoslovakia after
World War II. , according to whom the Hungarian population of Slovakia "is a
tumour in the body of the Slovak nation." In 2008,
Ján Mikolaj (SNS), minister of education propagated changes in the Hungarian schools of Slovakia. According to a new education law plan, the Hungarian language which was educated as mother tongue until now will be considered a foreign language – and taught in a smaller proportion of lessons. The only textbooks allowed to be used in Hungarian schools will be those translated from Slovak books and approved by Slovak administration. In October 2008 Hungarian parents and teachers sent back Hungarian textbooks to the Minister of Education. The books contained geographical names only in Slovak violating the basic rules of the
Hungarian language and the minorities' right of usage of their native language. Though as of November 2008 Ján Slota still insists on the grammatically incorrect version (Slovak language names in Hungarian sentences) and having the correct Hungarian name only afterwards. The Slovak authorities denied the registration of a Hungarian traditional folk art association, because they used the Hungarian word
Kárpát-medence (
Carpathian Basin). According to
Dušan Čaplovič the word and the association is against the sovereignty of Slovakia, furthermore the word is fascist, it is familiar with the German
Lebensraum, and Hungarians use it in this ideology. On September 1, 2009 more than ten thousand Hungarians held demonstrations to protest against the
language law that limits the use of minority languages in Slovakia, in both countries. The law calls for fines of up to £4,380 for anyone "misusing the Slovak language. using the colors of the
flag of Hungary. The top text reads "''So that tomorrow we wouldn't be surprised''". The particular anti-Hungarian edge of the Slovak public discourse reached its top in the 2010 parliamentary elections, when numerous parties have been campaigning with latent to openly anti-Hungarian slogans. The presently governing
Smer has rented billboards that have warned that "They have given power to SMK! They will do it again!",{{cite web ==Rusyns==