Europe, Headlines

SLOVAKIA: Hungarians See Hardships Ahead

Zoltán Dujisin

PRAGUE, Jun 8 2008 (IPS) - The sizeable Hungarian minority in Slovakia believes that plans to change education laws cast doubts on the Slovak state’s commitment to multiculturalism.

Presently 10 percent of the five million in Slovakia are people who identify themselves as Hungarian, and who mostly inhabit southern areas neighbouring Hungary.

The numbers of this ageing community have been decreasing continuously over the years.

Slovakia was born out of the Czechoslovak split of 1993. The new state pursued nationalist policies which worsened the situation of the Hungarian minority.

In 1998 the Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) became a junior governing force and managed to reverse the situation.

But the 2006 parliamentary elections were won by the social-democratic Smer, which formed a majority with the help of the extreme-right and anti-Hungarian Slovak National Party (SNS), leaving the SMK in opposition.

Recently SNS leader Jan Slota claimed there are no Hungarians in Slovakia, only “Slovaks whose mother tongue is Hungarian.”

Smer distanced itself from the statement, but it blames Hungary for the cooling relations, accusing it of internationalising domestic issues and exaggerating tensions, while pointing to shortcomings in the treatment of Hungary’s 20,000 Slovaks.

Budapest was enraged by the SNS inclusion in the cabinet, and claims that the Hungarian minority’s situation has deteriorated as a result.

Smer had to bear an 18-month suspension of membership from the Party of European Socialists (PES) due to its alliance with the nationalist right.

PES vice-president Hannes Swoboda called for better protection of minorities, and criticised in particular the planned abolition of Hungarian geographical names from school textbooks and the media.

Kalman Petocz, director of the Forum Minority Research Institute in Slovakia, says that while all minority rights conventions are signed, Slovak parties disagree on what steps to take to preserve, let alone develop Hungarian identity in Slovakia.

“The core of the problem is independent from what colour is the government in Slovakia. The overwhelming majority of the Slovak political and intellectual elite consider Slovakia as a nation-state which tolerates the existence of the Hungarian minority on its territory,” he told IPS.

State officials claim the conditions of Hungarians are “above standard” and have promised to “maintain the status quo.”

Education Minister Jan Mikolaj, an SNS politician, has drafted a bill according to which Hungarian schools must have an equal number of lessons in Hungarian and Slovak.

Hungarian organisations are threatening civil disobedience if the bill is enforced in September as expected. One step could be to ask parents not to send their children to school.

Mikolaj has also scratched a project previously agreed by Hungary and Slovakia to write a common history textbook.

About 30,000 ethnic Hungarian Slovak citizens receive education in Hungarian, but one-fifth of all Hungarian youths go to Slovak language schools, mostly due to a lack of Hungarian language schools in certain majority Hungarian-populated areas.

As their education progresses, less students get education in Hungarian language. Many pursue higher education in Hungary, the Czech Republic or other European countries.

Slovakia is also home to the only Hungarian language university outside Hungary, the Selye University in Komarno, south-western Slovakia.

Slovak language skills among Hungarians are occasionally poor, which some see as a result of the state’s opposition to Slovak being taught as a foreign language in schools.

Mikolaj wants to change this, and one of his first steps was to dismiss the ministry’s experts on ethnic minority education.

Another resolution passed by the government envisions that state servants, teachers and journalists need to pass a Slovak language test and attend schooling on its correct usage in order to be able to work.

Petocz implies that the Hungarian community’s wish to integrate into a multicultural Slovak state is hampered by political, rather than cultural divergences. “There are no significant differences in terms of religion, lifestyle or civilisational habits between these two communities,” he told IPS.

Several Slovak commentators have put part of the blame for the worsening of inter-ethnic relations on the SMK’s alleged radicalisation. But problems between Slovaks and Hungarians have deep historical roots which politicians recurrently exploit.

Czechoslovakia emerged from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following World War I, with the new state including a substantial Hungarian population. For Slovaks this signified liberation from repressive Hungarian policies of forcible linguistic assimilation, but for Hungarians it meant severing links with their motherland.

Due to the post-war reconfiguration of borders, some three million Hungarians currently live beyond Hungary’s borders, with the largest communities inhabiting Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.

Recent international events have also stirred up ever-present fears of Hungarian irredentism among Slovaks: the recent self-declared independence of Kosovo, recognised by much of Europe, is opposed in Slovakia for fears it could establish a precedent.

The abolition of borders ensuing from the Schengen enlargement in late 2007 also prompted media speculation that the southern region of Slovakia would gradually drift towards Hungary.

Hungarian organisations insist they do not wish to join Hungary, but most see autonomy as essential to their culture’s survival.

Pro-autonomy groups registering with the Interior Ministry have been disbanded several times, with the ministry considering their goals as possibly disrupting territorial integrity.

Regions in Slovakia have been autonomous since 2002 but authorities have refused to draw administrative borders along ethnic lines.