Panel III-4: Concept of Region and Demarcation Process in Central and Eastern Europe after World War I, 5th East Asian Conference on Slavic Eurasian Studies 2013, August 9, 3:30-5:15

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Is Trianon Still Alive?

Border Issues between Slovakia and Hungary after WWI

Hiroshi FUKUDA (Kyoto University)

hfukuda@cias.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Introduction

One could argue that the national self-determination principle was an unintended

byproduct of World War I. The Allies did not want to dissolve the Habsburg Monarchy or to

universalize the principle of self-determination in the world. However, the war situation

changed the Allies’ mind in 1918. “Small” nations between Germany and Russia therefore

succeeded in attaining independence, even when the majority of the nations did not intend to

break away from the Habsburg Empire until the last phase of the war and they were ill-prepared

for their own independence.

In this paper, I would like to focus on the border demarcation process between the

Slovak part of the newly established Czechoslovakia (hereafter Slovakia) and Hungary just

after WWI, and its reflection in the present day. The Trianon Treaty of 1920, by which the

border between the two countries was finally fixed, was one of the most crucial topics in both

Slovak and Hungarian historiography. For Slovaks, it was the beginning of Czechoslovakia

and the new starting point of their national history. By contrast, it was a national “tragedy” for

Hungarians (Magyars), since they had lost two-thirds of their own “historical” territory and

two-fifths of their population because of the treaty. It seems to us that Hungarians are still

suffering from Trianon “trauma.”

For example, I found it surprising that Roman Holec, a Slovak historian, had strongly

criticized the Hungarian historiography about the Trianon Treaty in 2011.1 Though I knew of

the seriousness of the history issue between the two countries, it was unexpected that even

Holec, a moderate historian, became somewhat emotional when it came to Hungary. And a

book entitled Insight into Slovak-Magyar Relations was published in 2009 with the support of

the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the government itself. The aim of the book was to give a

Slovak and an “objective” view to the Hungarian community. According to the editor of this

book, a large part of the Hungarian views are “absurdly anachronistic in present-day Europe,”

and are “a constant source of tension in Slovak-Magyar relations.”2

I am not in a position to make a judgment on whose view is correct. In this paper, I

1 Roman Holec, “Trianon Rituals or Considerations of Some Features of Hungarian Historiography,” Historický časopis 59, supplement (2011), pp. 25-48. 2 Ján Doruľa, ed., Insight into Slovak-Magyar Relations (Bratislava: Slovak Committee of Slavists in cooperation with the Institute of Slavonic Studies of Ján Stanislav of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, 2006), p. 6. http://slavu.sav.sk/publikacie/slov-mad-anglicka_verzia.pdf

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would like to review the “point zero”3 in both Slovak and Hungarian history, that is, the

demarcation process just after WWI, mainly from contemporary Slovak historiography.

1. Improvisational Demarcation Process during 1918-1920

The idea of an independent Czechoslovak state itself was relatively new and not

shared among the majority of Czech and Slovak leaders until the last phase of the war. T. G.

Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, was at the forefront of the idea; however, even

his plan did not take concrete shape until at least 1915 (see Figure 1).4 It is worth mentioning

that a corridor between “Bohemia and Slovakia” and the territories of the “Lusatian-Czech”

population were included in Masaryk’s sketch. Though he emigrated to the Allied countries

and began an independence campaign after the outbreak of war, needless to say, nobody could

predict the victory of the Allies and the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy at the early

stage of war. In a sense, it was Masaryk’s strategy to insist on the maximum, that is,

independence, in order to extract as many concessions as possible from the monarchy after the

war.

The second figure is a propagational map (Figure 2) presented by a Czechoslovak

exile group in Paris in 1917. According to this map, the borders of Czech lands and the

northern border of Slovakia were clearly delineated; however, the southern and eastern borders

of Slovakia were still an open question. Slovakia was historically the northern part of Hungary

and did not form an administrative unit in itself. Therefore, the Czech-Slovak delegation

decided to emphasize the “natural rights” of the Slovak people to a demarcation line between

Slovakia and Hungary, while they insisted on the historical continuity of the Czech borders at

the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

But who was living on the borderland between Slovakia and Hungary? The “natural

rights” of whom? According to a census of 1910, which constituted the last statistics of the

Hungarian part in the Habsburg Monarchy, Hungarian-speaking people comprised the majority

on the periphery of the Danube. On the other hand, Slovaks insisted that the census was taken

under severe pressure of assimilation and did not reflect the exact situation. In their view, quite

a lot of Hungarian-speaking people must have been the product of coercive magyarization and

were counted as Slovaks. The validity of this census is still controversial in the twenty-first

century.5 In addition to this, Czech and Slovak leaders regarded the Danube as indispensable

3 Miroslav Michela, “Collective Memory and Political Change: the Hungarians and the Slovaks in the Former Half of the 20th Century,” International Issues & Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs 15:3-4 (2006), p. 18. 4 Marián Hronský, Trianon: vznik hraníc Slovenska a problémy jeho bezpečnosti (1918-1920) (Bratislava: VEDA, 2012), p. 97; D. Perman, The Shaping of the Czechoslovak State: Diplomatic History of the Boundaries of Czechoslovakia, 1914-1920 (E. J. Brill, 1962), the end of the book. 5 Ladislav Deák, “On the Reliability of the Hungarian Nationality Statistics from 1910,” Insight into

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for both geographic and strategic reasons. As observed above, there were no a priori fixed

borders between the two countries. Having territorial talks in Paris, the Czech-Slovak

delegation prepared multiple plans for negotiation.6

Another problem was that Slovakia was de facto under the rule of Hungary even after

the war. In such a confused situation, Milan Hodža, a leader of the Agrarian Party, was sent to

Budapest as an emissary, the “plenipotentiary minister and ambassador,” from the newly

formed Czechoslovak government, in order to secure the withdrawal of the Hungarian army.

However, Hodža and other leaders like Edvard Beneš, who attended the Paris Peace

Conference as representatives of the new Czechoslovakia, were at cross purposes.7 Beneš

thought that demarcation should be discussed at the Peace Conference and not through bilateral

negotiations. Despite this, Hodža negotiated single-handedly with Hungary and came to a

temporary arrangement. Hodža did not know Beneš’s intentions, while Beneš failed to

acknowledge Hodža’s efforts in Budapest.

However, Hodža understood well that his talks with Hungary did not have an official

character. His own mission was only to gain time. He arrived at Budapest on 24th November

1918 and signed an agreement on a temporary demarcation line (the so-called Hodža-Bartha

line; see Figure 3) on 6th December, which made the retreat of the Hungarian army possible. It

was of decisive importance for the Czech-Slovak side, since they had to await the arrival of

their own army units from Italy until the end of the year. However, the Hodža-Bartha line,

which was demarcated along “ethnographic” borders, was severely condemned and regarded

as his political loss by his rivals.8

The next question was the capital city of Slovakia, Bratislava itself. This historically

trilingual city had multiple names, that is, Pozsony (Hungarian), Pressburg (German), and

Prešporok (Slovak; please note that it was not “Bratislava”). Bratislava was not an equivocal

center for the Slovak national movement, but rather a German or Hungarian city.9 Located on

the borderland on the Danube and burdened with geopolitical importance, Bratislava had the

possibility of becoming a “neutralized” city named Wilson’s City. Also, the Hodža-Bartha line

Slovak-Magyar Relations, pp. 7-17. 6 M. Hronský, Trianon, pp. 122-127. 7 M. Hronský, “The Budapest Talks of Milan Hodža and the First Demarcation Line between Slovakia and Hungary,” in M. Pekník, ed., Milan Hodža: Statesman and Politician (Bratislava: VEDA, 2007), 3rd edition, pp. 182-183; H. Fukuda, “Central Europe between Empires: Milan Hodža and His Strategy for ‘Small’ Nations,” in T. Uyama, ed., Empire and After: Essays in Comparative Imperial and Decolonization Studies (Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, 2012), p. 42. http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/rp/publications/no09/contents.html 8 See a controversy between Hodža and his rival, Šrobár’. V. Šrobár, Osvobodené Slovensko; M. Hodža, Slovenský rozchod s Maďarmi roku 1918 (Bratislava, 1929). 9 Eleonóra Babejová, Fin-de-Siècle Pressburg: Conflict & Cultural Coexistence in Bratislava 1897-1914 (Columbia University Press, 2003).

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did not regard it as a Slovak area. The Slovak National Council, representative of the Slovak

nation, was located in Martin, while the Ministry with Full Power to Administer Slovakia with

the support of Prague was established in Žilina on 12th December 1918. The Czechoslovak

government in Prague thought that a local administrative center was urgently needed, but that

Žilina was not enough. The Ministry with Full Power headed by Vavro Šrobár then decided to

move to Bratislava, which was the second-largest city in “historical” Hungary, on 4th February

1919.10 One could argue that Czechoslovakia succeeded in creating a fait accompli before the

Paris Peace Conference by establishing the Slovak capital in Bratislava.

On the other hand, the Eastern Slovak National Council, a counter-organization to the

Slovak National Council, was founded in Prešov. Its leader, Viktor Dvortsák (Dvorčák,

Dvorcsák), edited a Šariš dialect periodical and proclaimed the Slovjak nation.11 Also, a group

of Germans in the Spiš region declared the Spiš Republic on 9th December 1918, where all

nationalities should be guaranteed equality under the slogan: “Switzerland under the Tatra

Mountains.” 12 Since these movements were skeptical or adversarial concerning the

Czechoslovak government, the Hungarian Károlyi government supported such small

movements with the aim of keeping the “historical” Hungary. However, the Czechoslovak

army began to occupy Slovakia in stages at the end of 1918, and such “minority” activities

then disappeared.

2. Trianon in the Twenty-first Century

Frozen discussions about Trianon under the socialist regime began to attract lots of

attention again after 1989. József Antall, the first democratically elected prime minister of

Hungary after the fall of the old regime, proclaimed that he would have liked to be the premier

of fifteen million Hungarians in May 1990.13 This statement was quite surprising especially

for neighboring countries, since the population of Hungary itself was only about ten million

and there were about five million ethnic Hungarians living in the neighboring countries. His

words clearly connoted the memory of Trianon. Though the official foreign policy of Hungary

had never escalated to a revision of the Trianon Treaty itself or a revival of the “Great”

Hungary, Hungarian politicians consistently showed increasing interest in “kin” Hungarians

10 Peter Bugge, “The Making of a Slovak City: The Czechoslovak Renaming of Pressburg/ Pozsony/ Prešporok, 1918-19,” Austrian History Yearbook 35 (2007), pp. 218-219. 11 Miroslav Michela, “Plans for Slovak Autonomy in the Policy of Hungary, 1918-1920,” Historický časopis 58, supplement (2010), pp. 56f.; Peter Švorc, “Prouhorské integračné snahy na území Slovenska na konci roku 1918,” Historický časopis 47:1 (1999), pp. 44-54. 12 Mária Ďurkovská, “Formovanie nemeckej politickej scény na Slovensku v rokoch 1918-1920 s dôrazom na spišský region,” Človek a spoločnosť 12:2 (2009), pp. 3-4. http://www.saske.sk/cas/ 13 Rudolf Chmel, “Syndrome of Trianon in Hungarian Foreign Policy and Act on Hungarian Living in Neighboring Countries,” Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs (Spring, 2002), p. 95.

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living abroad. Even in 2006, Géza Jeszenszky, a former foreign minister of Hungary (1990-94),

stated that autonomy for kin minorities outside Hungary “would lay the Trianon Peace to

rest.”14

A kind of culmination of such Hungarian efforts was the Act on Hungarians Living in

Neighboring Countries (hereafter the Status Law), which was passed by parliament on 19th

June 2001. According to the preamble of the Status Law, its aim is to provide “benefits and

assistance” to “persons of Hungarian nationality living outside the Hungarian borders” (Figure

4).15 The law itself did not intend to undermine the sovereignty of surrounding countries.

However, because of provocative words and actions by the then governing party Fidesz, a

powerful nationalistic party in Hungary, the law caused a diplomatic dispute not only among

the countries concerned, but also at the EU level. Also in Slovakia, one of the neighboring

countries, then Slovak prime minister Mikuláš Dzurinda took an unyielding stance against

Hungary and the Status Law, which made constructive dialogue impossible.16 In a sense, both

Slovakia and Hungary are still suffering from the Trianon trauma.

Another source of the problem was the presence of the SNS (Slovak National Party),

an ultra-nationalist party, in the ruling coalition in Slovakia during 2006-10. For example, Ján

Slota, the leader of the SNS, stated in an interview to a Czech newspaper in 2006 that he

envied Czech people who had driven out Germans after WWII. According to him, Slovaks

should have done the same thing against Hungarians at that time.17 However, it is necessary to

mention that a joint project named “Common Past, Common Future” started in 2007 by the

two governments.18 In this project, the two governments also supported the Joint Commission

of Slovak and Hungarian Historians in creating a common history schoolbook, though such

efforts have not led directly to success until now due to such different perceptions of history.

Milan S. Ďurica, one of the most famous nationalistic historians in Slovakia, plainly

indicated his historical perception in the preface of his book:

14 Géza Jeszenszky, “The Aftelife of the Treaty of Trianon,” Hungarian Quarterly 184 (2006), p. 111. 15 Ministry of Foreign Affairs Budapest, Fact Sheets on Hungary 1/2002, p. 6. http://www.mfa.gov.hu/NR/rdonlyres/A08A8619-B08C-450F-A70B-0949A5467BAB/0/Statusz_EN.pdf 16 Miroslav Kusý, “The Status Law in the Hungarian-Slovakian Context,” in Z. Kántor, B. Majtényi, O. Ieda, B. Vizi, I. Halász, eds., The Hungarian Status Law: Nation Building and/ or Minority Protection (Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, 2004), pp. 303-309; Osamu Ieda, “Post-communist Nation Building and the Status Law Syndrome in Hungary,” in The Hungarian Status Law, pp. 3-57. http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no4_ses/contents.html 17 “Vyhnání Němců vám závidím,” Lidové noviny (22 July 2006). http://www.lidovky.cz/vyhnani-nemcu-vam-zavidim-091-/zpravy-domov.aspx?c=A060722_105415_ln_rozhovory_hlm 18 Tomáš Strážay, “Dve dekády slovensko-maďarských vzťahov: hľadanie nového začiatku,” Zahraničná politika 4/ 2012-2013. http://www.zahranicnapolitika.sk/index.php?id=4&id=1558; Judit Hamberger, Content and Quality of the Slovak-Hungarian Relations (Budapest: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2010), pp. 32-35. http://www.fesbp.hu/common/pdf/20101125Hambergerstudie.pdf

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The Slovak nation . . . had already realized her own statehood, before all of her other

Slavic neighbors or Finno-Ugric robber-tribes, from which the Hungarian nation

emerged at the beginning of second millennium AD. The Slovak nation had lost her

own statehood through the centuries because of such Asiatic [Hungarian] aggressors’

attacks and Germanic Drang nach Osten. However, the Slovak nation had already

become such a developed ethnic community by the end of the ninth century that

foreign dominance by blood-related Slavic Poles, Czechs, and even quite alien

Hungarians could not lead to assimilation all Slovaks or deletion of their own

national identity from the record of history.19

Needless to say, such an offensive explanation of national history inevitably collides

with other national histories. As concerns Hungarian history, it is important to emphasize St.

Stephen (István) I, the first King of Hungary, and his control over the Carpathian Basin. The

more Hungarian nationalists insist on her “historical” territory and homogeneity, the less room

for other nationalities like Slovaks will be left. In an interview with Mr. Ďurica, he answered

me as follows:

If each nation acquires her own history, conflicts among nations will be resolved. If

each nation can keep her own identity, it is guaranteed that her own history will be

learnt, that one can be proud of it, and that disputes or conflicts will not be escalate,

though their histories might cause some tensions. However, if each national history

is denied, or each nation loses her confidence, that nation will be nervous and tend to

stir up fights over little things. Look at the Yugoslav Wars. Even Yugoslavism could

not melt each nation’s identity. To the contrary, it caused bloody battles. Both we

and you are justly proud of our and your history. That’s important.20

It was quite astonishing to me that Japanese nationalists also apply the same logic as

Slovak nationalists to justify their own historical views. In Eastern Asia, there is also severe

historical dispute especially over WWII between Japan and her neighboring countries.

According to Japanese nationalists, the Japanese should not incline to a “masochistic view” of

19 Milan S. Ďurica, Slovenská republika 1939-1945: vznik a trvanie prvého slovenského štátu 20. storočia (Bratislava: LÚČ, 1999), pp. 7-8. For dispute between nationalistic and “liberal” historians in Slovakia, see Susumu Nagayo, “The Paradox of Slovak Historiography: the Case of the Slovak State, 1939-1945,” in T. Hayashi, ed., The Construction and Deconstruction of National Histories in Slavic Eurasia (Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, 2003), pp. 103-115. http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/sympo/02summer/2002summer-contents.html 20 An interview with Mr. Milan S. Ďurica (19th July 2007, Bratislava).

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history. Every nation including Japan must be proud of her own glorious past, which would

lead us to a true, peaceful coexistence in Eastern Asia.

Preliminary Conclusion

National history is a source of never-ending disputes. It is said that the relationship

between Slovakia and Hungary is one of the worst bilateral ties in the EU, and dispute over

history is at the root of the problem. Marián Hronský, a leading historian of the Treaty of

Trianon, wrote in his last book that the Trianon Treaty is still a Gordian Knot for the

Slovak-Hungarian relationship.21 In this regard, the Trianon Treaty is still alive and historians

have to tackle many politicized arguments as well as the wave of irredentism or revisionism

from the Hungarian side.

It seems impossible to resolve such historical disputes; however, it is necessary to

ease tensions between the two sides. Creating a common history schoolbook is one kind of

good strategy. According to Dušan Kováč, one the most recognized historians and consistently

engaged in the project, the perception gap itself is not the problem.22 It is important to disclose

the different interpretations and explanations of the two countries’ historians, as in the case of

the project between Germany and France, or between Germany and Poland.

21 M. Hronský, Trianon, pp. 13-14. 22 J. Hamberger, Content and Quality of the Slovak-Hungarian Relations, p. 33.

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Figure 1: Masaryk’s sketch of the future Czechoslovak State 1915 in Perman, The Shaping of

the Czechoslovak State, at the end of the book; Hronský, Trianon, p. 97.

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Figure 2: A propagational map presented by a Czechoslovak exile group in Paris in 1917 in

Hronský, Trianon, p. 97.

Figure 3: The Hodža-Bartha line in Vavro Šrobár, Osvobodené Slovensko: pamäti z rokov

1918-1920 (Praha, 1928), at the end of the book.

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Figure 4: Hungarians in Central and East Europe, and the number of Hungarians in Slovakia in

Fact Sheets on Hungary 1/2002, pp. 3, 5.