ACTA HISTORICA - A MTA TÖRTÉNETTUDOMÁNYI FOLYÓIRATA TOM. 9 (1963)

9. kötet / 1-2. sz. - ETUDES - Z. HORVÁTH: The Rise of Nationalism and of the Nationality Problem in Hungary in the Last Decades of Dualism

Z. Horváth of independence, were unanimous in thinking that the Nationality Law could not be enforced without seriously hurting Magyar national interests and did not conceal the fact that the Law had never actually been enforced. On the other hand, the ethnic groups regarded the Law as an act of injustice and a sign of oppression. In order to make it clearly understood that never would they accept — not even as a starting point for further negotiations — the basic idea of the Law: the existence of a unified Hungarian national state they even went so far as to boycott the Hungarian Parliament. The nationalities (likely planning to establish their own national unity) demanded a federated Hungary with autonomy for the ethnic minorities and equal acceptance of all languages. The power of the Magyar ruling classes and the idea that the Hungarian population constituted an overwhelming majority was just as fictitious as the unified Magyar national state. They simply refused to take notice of the fact that nothing of this sort really existed. It is possible to write and speak about non-existent things. But it is almost impossible to soundly govern a state durably on a non-existent basis without heading for utter catastrophe. The principal question here was not whether national minorities were or were not oppressed in Hungary; there is even some truth in the assertion that they have hardly been more exploited than the overwhelming majority of the Magyars. No chief magistrate of any Hungarian administrative district has ever shown more human sympathy to the Magyar speaking agricultural labourers in Békés County or a policeman toanyunemployedMagyardemonstrat­ing in the streets of Budapest than they did to poor Roumanians, Serbs or Slovaks. The essential point was that by that time the Serb, Roumanian, Slovak and other national minorities wanted more than an amelioration of their position in Hungary. They did not want to live in Hungary any more. Even the most radical Hungarian policy went no further than assuring the nationalities extensive rights within Hungary, within the bounds of St. Ste­phen's realm; thus inevitably condemning them to the fate of minorities. Even the most moderate claims of the nationalities aspired to no less than territorial autonomy. Neither "equal rights", nor "cultural supremacy," nor the fact that the standard of living was still somewhat higher here than in the smaller states of their co-nationals on the other side of the border could divert them from these claims. Between the two standpoints not even temporary rapprochement was possible. Magyar public opinion, infected by the racial arrogance of the ruling classes, was unable to forget that the nationalities had not supported but turned against the fight for independence in 1848/49. On the other hand, the nation­alities could not forget that in 1848 the victorious Magyar lesser nobility refused to even consider the endowing of the national minorities with equal rights (only in the last moment when it was too late did the nobility pass the

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