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In our study, we analyse the changes in the marriage and divorce movement of the Hungarian population in Slovakia between 2001 and 2020 against the background of the marriage and divorce movement in Slovakia as a whole. We use registered and adjusted data for our analysis. The analysis of these adjusted data reveals trends in the marriage and divorce movements of the Hungarian population in Slovakia that differ significantly from the registered data. The marriage rates of the Hungarian population living within the Slovak state framework were less favourable (lower) than the national rates during the period under review, while the divorce rates were more favourable (lower). The Hungarian marriage and divorce rates were lower than the national rates. The mixed marriage rate among Hungarians is higher than the national rate, as is the mixed divorce rate. At the same time, the differences are significantly smaller on the basis of adjusted data than on the basis of registered data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do we travel? What does traveling give us? How does it affect our work and career as journalists? What does it mean to be internationally connected as a journalist? What do international Hungarian connections mean? This paper attempts to discuss these questions among others, from a perspective of a young, aspiring journalist, who had just stepped into the realm of international cooperation in media. Through my experiences and the lessons I’ve learned, the paper also sheds light on the benefits of seizing the opportunity that Erasmus programmes give to university students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines how the illegal Hungarian advocacy organisations in Slovakia perceived the Czechoslovak-Hungarian population exchange after World War II. In their memoranda to political and church leaders in Hungary, they unanimously rejected the principle of collective guilt, as well as unilateral resettlement or forced population exchange, and considered the only just solution to the minority question to be the granting of civil rights or the holding of a referendum and the annexation of the Hungarian-inhabited areas to Hungary. The signing of the population exchange agreement, and especially its content, was perceived as a huge insult, and was seen as a serious mistake, even a sin, on the part of Hungarian diplomacy. They expected the Hungarian government to protect the Hungarian minority. However, since Hungary's options--as a losing country--were rather limited, it was not in a position, apart from a few exceptional cases, to assert its will and the interests of the Hungarian minority against the victorious Czechoslovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the period of the First Czechoslovak Republic, Slovakia was an ethnically mixed territory, the scene of the meeting of Czechoslovak, Slovak, and Hungarian nationbuilding, among other things. From this point of view, the use of different national symbols, including national anthems, was a sensitive and much debated issue. This study attempts to outline the conflicts that the issue of national anthems had provoked between the state and its citizens, based on the archival records of county courts in Slovakia. The main focus of the paper is on the conflicts between the Czechoslovak state and the Hungarian population in Slovakia over the Hungarian national anthem. Based primarily on the county courts of the period and news reports in the contemporary press, the paper describes the court cases over the anthem and their outcomes. In doing so, it shows that the First Czechoslovak Republic, which was considered a liberal democracy, did not have a liberal attitude towards the use of symbols of national minorities at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Scrinia Slavonica is the property of Scrinia Slavonica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Scrinia Slavonica is the property of Scrinia Slavonica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The focus of the present paper is to investigate the narrative identity of Hungarian teachers in Slovakia and to identify their identity factors. The first section of the study introduces the demographic and pedagogical characteristics of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. Following that, we explore the concept of narrative identity and the possibilities for its research, with a strong emphasis on the Grounded Theory methodology, on which this research is based. Next, we present the specific characteristics and focal points of our research, as well as the group of interviewees, consisting of teachers from various regions of southern Slovakia. Finally, we will analyze in detail the common findings from the in-depth interviews, which we will categorize according to the Grounded Theory methodology and interpret based on the concepts (key terms) within those categories. The four categories we identified are “dynastic patternsˮ, “professional foundationˮ, “critical horizonsˮ, and “national identity and cultureˮ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the autumn of 1944, Hungarians in Kárpátalja fell victim to the ferocious atrocities. Tens of thousands of civilians were taken hostage and deported by Soviet authorities to Russian labor camps. Mentioning the victims of “malenky robot” was forbidden, as it was adverse to the interests of the ruling communist elite in Hungary. It was only 45 years later, in 1989, that the process of unearthing the truth began. The Szolyva Memorial Park was established in the 1990s. In this study, we analyze an ideal type: the reconstruction of the collective memory of now minority Hungarians in Kárpátalja is a unique story, yet it can be interpreted on a universal level, that of mankind. From Szolyva’s story, it becomes abundantly clear that preserving collective memory is crucial in any community, especially for minority ethnic groups. Since Vico’s axiom states that a common higher truth reflects what is basically human, the fate of Hungarian communities in Kárpátalja represents themselves on a universal level. Freeing the ways to reconstruct the community’s collective memory had an impact on the process of regaining long-lost freedoms. While older generations finally regained the right to grieve, mourn, and remember their own past, younger generations had the chance to integrate the once-forbidden past into the pillars of their future, hence helping the re-emergence of Hungarian identity and reshaping the framework of the community’s existence from 1990 onwards.

To improve the validity of our comparative endeavors in ethno-politics, this piece re-examines the relationship between conceptual definitions, categories of classification used in large-N datasets, and thick description found through case studies. It does this through the lens of claims to autonomy by ethnic minorities, and in particular through a detailed comparative case study of what autonomy means as a programmatic goal for ethnic minority Hungarian elites in Romania and Slovakia. Three unexpected findings emerge which make the case for qualitative research to better inform the categories and variables used in large-N datasets (1) there is a weak relationship between the conceptual definitions of autonomy and the way it is coded in relevant datasets like the Minorities at Risk (MAR) dataset; (2) empirically, the Hungarian comparative case studies show that elites do not think of autonomy in the same way as the conceptual literature nor do their understandings of autonomy easily fit into the coding categories of datasets; (3) there is inconsistency across Hungarian minority elites in their own definitions of autonomy as well as the lack of distinctions between autonomy and other institutional arrangements. This raises issues of equivalence and ambiguity and I conclude with suggestions for better measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest research conducted in the Hungarian community of the City of Zagreb has shown that the Hungarian language is slowly losing its communication functions in informal domains (family, friends, the sphere of intimacy) and is withdrawing before Croatian, i.e., that language shift is in progress. As one of the key factors affecting language shift, school is mentioned as support in families in intergenerational language transmission and language preservation in the community. Croatia has ensured an institutional framework for education in minority languages to its minorities through a series of regulatory acts. However, exercising this right is often followed by numerous difficulties. In case of the Hungarian minority, this is due to geographical dispersity. Nevertheless, during the 1990s, a Hungarian group in kindergarten, a bilingual class and nurturing language for primary- and secondary-school pupils were launched in Zagreb. In order to obtain a clearer image of how various class models in a minority language actually function and which problems their participants are faced with, we conducted a preliminary research among younger members of the community who attended classes in Hungarian at least at one point during their education. We completed the results with information obtained through informal conversations with preschool and school teachers as well as through immediate observations of the community.

Secondary analysis is employed to address new research questions by analysing previously collected data. This paper reports on the secondary analysis of qualitative data where the original research investigated the preschool education reform in Serbia from the perspective of Hungarian ethnic minority kindergarten pedagogues. The choice to apply a secondary analysis fulfilled the aims of (i) investigating traces of socialism in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision in Vojvodina, a northern region of Serbia; and (ii) exploring the complexity of Christmas celebrations in nurseries. In order to address the aims, a secondary analysis of 12 semi-structured transcripts was carried out. This analysis revealed important additional findings for the original study. In light of the education reforms in Serbia we found that, first, there are strong connections between the ‘socialist past’ ECEC practices and what these practices may look like in the future; and, second, the traditional celebration of religious holidays outside of church organizations, such as Christmas, may change in the nurseries. This paper also offers insight regarding the importance of secondary analysis which provides an opportunity to making use of existing resources.

As a result of the first free and democratic elections in Hungary, in May 1990, József Antall formed a government, whose foreign policy goal was the restoration of the sovereignty of Hungary and the support and representation of the Euro-Atlantic integration and of the Hungarians across the border. In the Hungarian–Czechoslovak bilateral relations, the new Hungarian government’s aim was to expand the political relations in both federal and republican levels. It was Hungary’s interest that serious legacies, such as the issue of the Bős– Nagymaros Dam system, should not hold back the general advance, wherefore a solution appropriate for both parties had to be found. Hungary considered Czechoslovakia as an outstanding economic partner. The Antall government took steps so that the fate and future of the Slovakian Hungarians would be ensured in accordance with the European development standards. One of the key issues in this was the consistent Czechoslovak condemnation of the principle of collective guilt, the Beneš decrees. During the dialogues, certain elements of the common historical past returned several times.

In the fifth monitoring cycle, the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities surprisingly for the first time addressed issues related to the so-called Benes Deacrees, which severely affected the German and Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia in the period immediately after the Second World War. In light of the Advisory Committee's 2022 Opinion, which invited the Slovak authorities to enter into a dialogue with representatives of the affected national minorities on the possible negative effects of the postwar regulations, this article addresses the substance of the dispute between Slovakia and its Hungarian minority and presents relevant legal aspects in light of current Slovak administrative and judicial practice. The authors make suggestions on how the recommended dialogue could be used to solve the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undoubtedly, each of us understands and communicates best in our mother tongue. Despite the cultural differences, both the person or group of people coming from a conflict zone, an insecure region or one with a low standard of living, recently established in the host state, as well as the members of an indigenous minority community are subject to the rigors and norms that govern society in that state. "Nemo censetur ignorare legem", without exceptions or derogations based on race, ethnicity or language. As a requirement of the principle of legal certainty, the accessibility of the law in the doctrine is treated under a double aspect: the first aspect aims at bringing to public knowledge, as a conditioning of legal effects, and the second aspect refers to notions such as reception and understanding. All these aspects, however, start from the premise of knowing the language, which can be problematic for both categories of people, and this reality exists regardless of the volitional, conjunctural or historical character of the situation in which the individual finds himself. Regarding the accessibility of legislation in languages other than the official state language, the European landscape is a varied one. In addition to the official language or languages, many states provide basic legislative information or even entire bodies of legal text in English as an intermediate solution. Romania, however, offers to the largest minority in Romania a dedicated, Hungarian edition of the Official Gazette of Romania, a solution much more appropriate to the context. Such a tool not only facilitates compliance with society's demands, but also gives the individual the chance to have a proactive attitude in the sense of exercising rights and accessing opportunities on equal terms with the majority population, even without an exhaustive knowledge of the state language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secondary analysis is employed to address new research questions by analysing previously collected data. This paper reports on the secondary analysis of qualitative data where the original research investigated the preschool education reform in Serbia from the perspective of Hungarian ethnic minority kindergarten pedagogues. The choice to apply a secondary analysis fulfilled the aims of (i) investigating traces of socialism in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision in Vojvodina, a northern region of Serbia; and (ii) exploring the complexity of Christmas celebrations in nurseries. In order to address the aims, a secondary analysis of 12 semi-structured transcripts was carried out. This analysis revealed important additional findings for the original study. In light of the education reforms in Serbia we found that, first, there are strong connections between the 'socialist past' ECEC practices and what these practices may look like in the future; and, second, the traditional celebration of religious holidays outside of church organizations, such as Christmas, may change in the nurseries. This paper also offers insight regarding the importance of secondary analysis which provides an opportunity to making use of existing resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the changes that took place after World War I in the life of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Alba Iulia led by Bishop Gusztáv Károly Mailáth. This was the only new diocese in Romania to retain all the historical territory it had previously held in the AustroHungarian Monarchy, whereas all others that have suffered significant territorial losses. The Roman Catholic Church in Transylvania was largely ethnically Hungarian. The diocese was thus faced with the challenge of integrating in the Romanian ecclesiastical-administrative structures, while preserving its religious and ethnic characteristics. We are witnessing here the beginning of a “diplomatic game” between the Romanian Government, the Holy See and Bishop Mailáth. The issue at stake for the Roman Catholic Church in Transylvania was the preservation of confessional and ethnic identity in a new political framework. The integration culminated with the signing of the Concordat between Romania and the Holy See in 1927, but the road to the completion of this document is marked by many interesting developments, which provide an insight in the challenges of preserving confessional and ethnic identity while accommodating to new political circumstances and redefining the mission of a Catholic Church belonging to an ethnic minority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the assertion of language rights through legal mobilization by the Hungarian minority in Romania, thus examining this emergent kind of mobilization aimed at the claiming of rights, often rights recognized by law, but not enforced in practice. This incongruity between rights on paper and their execution provokes interethnic rivalry for the visibility of language and culture, in which the exclusive ownership of sovereignty is marked by the dominance of national language in physical spaces coined as 'linguistic territoriality' (Csergő, 2007), fostering parallel, monolingual public spheres. Applying Rancière's theory to the case of the Hungarian minority in Romania, it is argued that civil society activists' legal mobilization initiatives are a manifestation of 'politics' in the Rancièreian sense as they challenge the distribution of public spaces along ethnic lines through pushing forward their integrative vision of the same spaces—thus 'seeking the litigious distribution of places and roles' (Rancière, 2003, p. 201). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article concerns relations between Slovaks and the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. The aim of this study is to determine current Slovak attitudes towards the Slovak Hungarians and to analyse differences in attitudes held by Slovaks in regular direct contact with the Hungarian minority and those with almost no contact. Another aim is to map current attitudes among the Hungarian minority towards the Slovak majority, and to find out how Slovak attitudes are perceived by the minority. The data collection methods were a survey (N = 107) and focus group interviews (N = 36). The results show that Slovaks in regular contact with Slovak Hungarians have significantly more positive general feelings, are less socially distant, and feel less anxious about the Hungarian minority than Slovaks with almost no contact. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of trust and behavioural intention. Group interviews with Slovaks and Slovak Hungarians showed that the biggest obstacle in relations between Slovaks and the Hungarian minority is first language use and the language barrier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning is a social activity which aims at creating better places for communities. Participatory and communicative planning is gaining ground also in Romania, and there is plenty of research on the theory, practice, and ideology of planning regarding the involvement of the public, but there is a need to understand if there are language barriers here which might represent a bottleneck for linguistic minorities. The paper discusses this latter issue in the case of Romania’s design, town planning, and strategic planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of our study is to briefly summarise the course of the negotiations in Komárno and the First Vienna Award, and to give an insight into how the Hungarian and Slovak press of the time commented on the events. The Hungarian press blamed the Slovak party for the breakdown of the negotiations, saying that the Czechoslovak party was trying to stall for time and that it had not offered Hungary a number of territories with a predominantly Hungarian-speaking population. The Slovak papers, on the contrary, blamed the Hungarian party for the breakdown of the negotiations because of its excessive territorial claims. The Hungarian newspapers reported the outcome of the First Vienna Award with great joy and enthusiasm, while the Slovak press, of course, was negative. Although the First Vienna Award resulted in an ethnically much more equitable borderline between Hungary and Slovakia than it was before, the “Hungarian times” did not last long in the life of the Hungarian minority in southern Slovakia. After the Second World War, the First Vienna Award was annulled, as was the Munich Agreement. The Paris Peace Treaty, signed by Hungary on 10 February 1947, reaffirmed Hungary’s Trianon borders, which once again put the Hungarians in Slovakia in a disadvantaged and minority position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the ethical view on the possibilities of coexistence of Slovaks, Hungarians and Roma people in Slovakia. The history of coexistence of the three ethnic groups in Slovakia is briefly discussed. The paper is based on Kant´s concept of culture associated with the idea of morality. It also considers the viability of the concept of multiculturalism. It considers it nonfunctional. Here it relies on the arguments posed by Dupkala, namely the division of cultures into value commensurable and incommensurable. The paper attempts to characterize relations between Slovaks and Hungarians and relations between Slovaks and Roma. It concludes that the interpersonal relations between the Hungarians and the Slovaks are conflict-free and that conflicts in the past were of a highly political nature. On the contrary, the relationship between Roma and Slovaks differentiates according to whether it is an adaptable part of the Roma or not. In the latter case, the root of the problem is value incommensurability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, the paper presents in detail the work and activities of the Hungarian-language elementary school that operated in Novska at the end of the Austro-Hungarian period. The school was founded by the Hungarian State Railways in 1913 and was one of the few schools of its type that operated in Western Slavonia, in contrast to a number of schools with Hungarian as the teaching language that operated in Eastern Slavonia at the time. The main sources used for the work are preserved in heritage institutions in Hungary and were compiled by the then Hungarian administration, written in the Hungarian language and, together with the relevant Hungarian literature, compared with the Croatian perspective of the above presented issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Istraživanja: Journal of Historical Researches is the property of Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

After World War II the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia was not only deprived of its citizenship but also its franchise. For this reason, in parliamentary elections of 1946 and 1948, the Hungarian population was not allowed to take part. The first parliamentary elections in which Hungarians could finally vote, and Hungarian representatives could be elected to the parliaments of Prague and Bratislava, were the elections in 1954. While out of 368 representatives of the Czechoslovak Parliament in Prague 9 were Hungarians, this rate in the Slovak Parliament in Bratislava is 13, out of 104 representatives. The study features both their election and activities. From then on, until the democratic turn in 1989, the Hungarian minority was constantly provided seats in both parliaments. However, the Hungarian MPs were not elected by the Hungarian community but were chosen and brought to parliament by the communist party. Their charge was to demonstrate the "proper" nationality policy of the communist party. Opportunities to stand for the Hungarian minority's interests were almost none. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the few Romanian communists that had a different ethnic background than the majority of the Romanian Communist Party, Janoş Fazekaş rose steadily through the ranks, being favoured in part by its Hungarian ethnicity. Unlike other high-ranking members of the RCP (Vasile Luca or Alexandru Moghioroş), Fazekaş has not denied his ethnicity and kept a strong and active link with his native area, as he considered that being a Hungarian is part of his political identity, while constantly trying to improve the economic and cultural state of the Szekler-populated regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses how members of the Italian and Hungarian minorities in Slovenia view multiculturalism and its manifestations such as ethnic heterogamy, transcultural identities, ethnic in/tolerance and ethnic prejudices. The minority status (and bordering position) are in this regard perceived as a platform for attitudes to multiculturalism and a key explanatory factor. The article highlights the presence of the transcultural nature of the minorities and their positive attitudes to multiculturalism, yet also emphasises that the related ethnic sentiment is highly variable, relational and situational. Although one would expect the minorities to more strongly defend the positive effects of multiculturalism, this is not the case. The reason is the confrontation of two ideologies, nationalism and transculturalism, the former interfering in the otherwise transculturally oriented minorities.

Contemporary Hungary has been defined by a defensive national identity that has its origins in the controversial national history seen as an unfinished and constant struggle for freedom against oppressive foreign powers. Fidesz, the party that leads Hungary today, politically legitimizes itself by using historical memory. According to the Fidesz nationalist-populist discourse, Hungary lost its sovereignty in 1944 following the German occupation and regained it in 2010, when the second Orban government drafted the new Constitution (adopted in 2011) and restored historical continuity. Budapest links the Treaty of Trianon to the principle of responsibility of the Hungarian government towards Hungarians in neighboring countries, especially those in Transylvania. This paper discusses the results of an empirical study intended to determine whether the continuous pressure exerted by Hungary on the Hungarian population in Transylvania, in regards to Trianon, has had any effect upon the Hungarian public opinion in this area of romania. The results clearly show that the Statute Law and the propaganda of the Budapest governments have succeeded in creating, at least in the counties of Harghita and Covasna, communities that resonate with Budapest's projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes electoral volatility in the 2020 Slovak elections at the level of individual voters using exit poll surveys. The availability of exit polls from the previous elections of 2012 and 2016 allows us to put the 2020 election in context and analyze the patterns (and deviances from them) observed across the three elections. Furthermore, the paper summarizes the aggregate volatility since 1992, demonstrating a high level of net volatility with peaks of over 30 percent. As for the individual level, the analysis concentrates on three important issues in volatility research: (1) vote losses of government parties and the incumbent effect; (2) the role of new parties in mobilization of previous non-voters and first-time voters; (3) since Slovakia is a country with a significant Hungarian minority, special attention is given to vote switching by Hungarian voters and more general patterns of ethnic voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper initially presents the Serbian legislative framework relevant to the use of minority languages. The ethnolinguistic vitality of the Hungarian-speaking population in Serbia is then analysed, particularly in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. The paper then focuses upon the sociolinguistic survey of Hungarian language use in Belgrade. The emphasis is placed upon the survey responses related to the awareness of language rights among the Hungarian speakers.

The subject of the paper is to analyze the impact of the language barrier faced by Hungarian minority female professors and students in the higher education sys­tem of Serbia. The aim of this paper is to propose measures which might allow Hungarian minority students to overcome the language barrier more easily and to raise awareness for the need of more Hungarian women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The analysis is based on twenty four semi-structured interviews conducted with minority Hungarian female professors and students, who are working or studying at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Interviews were conducted with a pre-composed questionnaire between the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. Interviewees were chosen with a snowball sampling method. Results of analysis show that the majority of Hungarian women face a language barrier at the start of their studies, mostly because of their limited knowledge of the majority’s language. These barriers were more pronounced in Hungarian female students than with professor. This phenomenon can be attributed to the time in which they grew up, or to a different social environment of the twentieth century, when bilingualism was completely natural, from which, less segregation of the nations resulted and a better knowledge of the Serbian language. The professors particularly point out that being bilingual is a great advantage and that their knowledge of several languages was a key advantage in their academic careers. With the analysis of the interviews it was determined that the language barrier was mostly pronounced for students of social sciences and humanities (SSH), where language is the primary tool of communication. The language barrier was less important for the students studying in STEM sciences, where students and professors interact through formulas and written exams.

In this article Pompila Burcică traces the work and legal conditions in which Hungarian theatre professionals – company directors and actors – operated as a national minority of middle-class status in Greater Romania after 1918. Their attempts at representing Hungarian culture in the public space, as revealed in their business correspondence with the Romanian state, placed theatre professionals not at the vanguard of a collective action on behalf of a minority and its cultural life, but at the forefront of civic engagement and individual private initiative that led to economic recovery and development, thus illustrating the array of civic choices and economic opportunities for minorities holding Romanian citizenship in a nation state. The article focuses on two issues: the work environment for minorities that helped them adjust professionally and negotiate and exert a civic identity in the new nation state; and the degree to which a cultural field such as theatre was actually treated as an economic entrerprise, free of political interference. These civic and economic concerns accounted for the success of these theatre entrepreneurs, operating their businesses under the control of a paternalistic state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political system of First Czechoslovak Republic was characterized by the large number of political parties organized on ideological, religious and ethnic grounds. Besides Czechs and Slovaks, which constituted a majority of the population, Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenians and members of other ethnic minorities lived in Czechoslovakia. The multi-ethnic composition of Czechoslovakia resulted in the creation of a number of political parties which represented the ethnic minorities. In Slovakia one of the opposition political parties representing the Hungarian community was the Land Christian Socialist Party (Orságos Kerestényszocialista Párt). Though the Land Christian Socialist Party (LCHSP) endeavored to represent as well as Hungarians also a segment of Slovaks, Jews and Ruthenias who were magyarized by the pre-War Hungarian regime, this aim had only marginal success, and the LCHSP was primarily a political party representing Hungarians. In regard to the Czechoslovak Republic, during its existence it assumed a strictly oppositional attitude. The main aim of the political strategy of LCHSP was to constitute an alliance of "historic" inhabitants of Slovakia; that is Slovaks, Hungarians, Germans, Ruthenians and others who would be united in their resistance against the Czechs, who were perceived as occupants of Slovakia to the detriment of all others ethnic communities. This aim, however, was not successful, not only in regard to non-Hungarian communities living in Slovakia but also in regard to the Hungarian community as a whole. Besides the left-oriented Hungarians who joined the Communist Party, political opposition was not the exclusive domain of LCHSP. A large segment of Hungarians were adherents to the influential Hungarian opposition party, the Hungarian National Party (Magyar Nemzety Párt), which pursued a relatively moderate approach to the Czechoslovak political establishment, and therefore differed and competed with the LCHSP. Relations between both parties were frequently tense and conflicting, and only in 1936, when they succumbed to the pressure of Hungary, were the Land Christian Socialist Party and Land Christian Socialist Party united. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the status of the Hungarian population in Slovakia at the end of the 1940s during the period of the Communist regime. After the deportation of the German population from Czechoslovakia during 1946 - 1947, the most numerous ethnic community not only in Slovakia but in the whole of the Republic was the Hungarian minority. The paper focuses on the fact that after reslovakisation measures adopted after the Second World War, which was the exchange of population between Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the members of the Hungarian community who stayed in the Czechoslovak Republic had no Czechoslovak citizenship, and were living on territory of the Republic as stateless people. Their property was confiscated, they could not be educated in their mother language, there was no media in the Hungarian language, and the Hungarian minority were not allowed social or cultural associations. However, subsequent changes in the political development on the European Continent with the establishment of the Soviet Eastern block and due to pressure exhorted by the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party and the Communist Party of Hungary, saw the ruling Communist Party of Czechoslovakia having to agree to fundamental changes in regard to the status of Hungarian minority members. But the process of the emancipation of the Hungarian minority was slow and only reluctantly implemented. The paper analyses positive changes which took place during the latter part of 1948 when classes with Hungarian teaching language were opened in Slovak schools and then independent Hungarian schools were established. In 1949 a cultural association named Csemadok was established and Hungarian periodicals and journals began to be published. The paper looks at the issue of the activities of the Hungarian Commission organized under the auspices of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, which, however, was only active for a short period of time. The paper also points to the fact that after February 1948, the members of the Hungarian minority were awarded basic minority rights, but these were limited by the nature of the totalitarian Czechoslovak regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The development of cultural life and the effort to increase the education of Hungarian minority in Slovakia were negatively determined mostly by critical Slovak - Hungarian state relations as well as gradual liquidation of plural democracy and proper relation to minorities within political life after Vienna arbitration. Occasional increasing tendencies of cultural activities have something to do with short time thawing of relations between Slovakia and Hungary. From this study we can see that cultural-social activities of Hungarian minority, Radio broadcasts, cinematography, theatrical performances, sport, libraries and periodic press included, succumbed to repressive pressure power-repressive machinery of totalitarian Slovak Populist Party treatment which precluded the work in this field despite developed tradition. It was a reciprocal principle of owning between Slovak and Hungarian diplomacy. The results of this study are based on the research of archive funds of certain political and security offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 20th century, the two world wars reshaped the map of Central Europe as well as the status of Central Europe’s diverse societies. In my article, I focus on the Hungarian and German minorities in Slovakia and the representation of their problematic historical past in contemporary Slovak museums. More specifically, I zoom in on the exhibition Exchanged Homes displayed in Bratislava, which aims to commemorate the fate of Hungarians, Germans, and Slovaks, all of whom were affected by the population transfers after World War II. Based on the concept of memorial museums theorized by Paul Williams, I aim to show how the different exhibitions engage with the traumatic past of forceful resettlement. By offering multifaceted memories of a troubled past, these exhibitions avoid categorizing “victims” and “perpetrators” along national or ethnic lines. My paper thus analyzes the concepts and components of the exhibitions—the context of the postwar events, oral history interviews, and objects of everyday use that should bring the visitor closer to the experience of the people who were forced to leave. I argue that exhibitions of this sort have the ability to challenge the dominant historical narrative focusing on a national “Slovak” history and help the process of reconciliation between the Slovak majority society, and the Hungarian and German minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Code-switching is considered to be a salient feature of multilingual speech and it is said to be the feature that best illustrates the difference between monolingual and multilingual speech production and reflects students' competences in two or more languages (Safont Jorda 2005:36). The present paper aims to give a comparative analysis of code-switching patterns occurring within Romanian and English language classroom interaction within Hungarian minority schools. These two languages have a different status in the Romanian educational system -- Romanian is the state language, learned after the mother tongue, while English is a foreign language, introduced as a third language in schools -- thus different teaching methods, paradigms, principles and tools of assessment are to be used in the case of teaching these languages. The research focuses on the different teaching paradigms found in official documents related to teaching Romanian and English languages; on general classroom language use -- the presence and proportion of different languages; and on the functions, pedagogical purposes of the observed code-switching instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses language planning strategies affecting Hungarian minority settlement names in Romania after the change of the political regime. First it enumerates international and Romanian status planning decisions referring to settlement names. Although these decisions broaden the scope of the official language functions of a portion of the relevant names, they still deny the status of “official names” to the name forms concerned. The paper also presents the corpus planning activities affecting Hungarian minority settlement names in Romania. Topics such as achievements in lexicography; questions of codification determined by status planning decisions; initiatives to standardize Moldovan place names; results of the codification programme focusing on Hungarian minority settlement names in regions outside Hungary, are discussed in detail. Hungarian minority settlement names in Romania, despite the latest achievements in language planning, do not entirely meet the requirements of forming a standard name stock; therefore, in order to receive European and international acknowledgement, their further development is an urgent need.

Under the communist regime, the evidence related to education in Hungarian mother tongue was under restricted access, except for two statistical yearbooks in which only limited data was available. At present, 28 years after the fall of the Romanian communist regime, public access to archived records is considerably easier. However, for the period 1948-1989, a statistical report on education in the Hungarian language hasn't been done so far. Given the lack of descriptive data, our inquiry has sought to portray a history of Hungarian mother tongue school education in Romania in the communist era as it has been revealed following our enterprise of collecting, selecting, sorting and analyzing data from relevant statistical yearbooks, statistical reports on education and the other published or unpublished statistical records. After the reconstruction of a satisfactory set of documents containing data on the number of schools, number of enrolled pupils and number of teaching staff, our research was focused on a trend analysis. Finally, contrasting these findings with the legislative and political context, we tried to provide some answers on how and why the communist regime had limited the mother tongue education opportunities of the Hungarian population in Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language planning and control have played a prominent role in attempts of nation building in contemporary Romania, a nation-state formed in the early 20th century by binding together provinces that were previously part of multi-national empires. As a long-lasting process, language control stretches throughout many historical periods. In communist and postcommunist era, it has largely interfered with the political logic of both socialist internationalism and post-socialist democratic citizenry. More recently, under the impact of the European Union's expansion to the East and Romania's integration to it, language control has switched from severe limiting minority languages to a fair acceptance of reasonable compromises with the official dominance of Romanian as national official language. Although Romania acknowledges several minority languages, the article focuses on the usage of Hungarian language, the most important minority language in Romania. The aim of the article is double. On one hand, it analyses political negotiations over the status and corpus of the Hungarian language, by assessing the importance of language policies in the broader context of the processes of historical reconciliation and neighbourhood policies between Romania and Hungary. On the other hand, it deals with the political cooperation between Romanian and Hungarian political parties in Romania during the democratic postcommunist transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is devoted to the status of the Hungarian minority's teachers in Slovakia after the establishment of the Czechoslovakian Republic (CSR) at the end of 1918. The CSR was a state including several ethnic minorities. Hungarians were the most numerous ethnic minority in the Slovak parts. After the foundation of the CSR, the economic, political, social and ideological situation in the country changed radically. Some of the changes affected inhabitants of Slovakia only indirectly, others interfered with their way of life to a significant degree. One of the areas which underwent a substantial change was education in all types of schools. Practically all aspects of life for inhabitants of Slovakia differed from Czechs; this was a result of their cultural and historic development within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This to a great extent was true in the sphere of education. Whereas the Czech language as a teaching medium was already being used actively in schools before 1918 in the Czech lands and Moravia, in Slovakia, with the exception of some elementary schools run by the Church where education was carried out in the Slovak language, the Hungarian language was exclusively used in all schools. After 1918 education in Slovakia underwent a profound change. In regions with a Slovak majority and also in ethnically mixed areas, schools were "Slovakized"; that is, the Slovak language as a teaching medium was gradually implemented. This measure inevitably impacted negatively on the Hungarian teachers. To operate as a teacher in the CSR required the teachers to adapt to the new situation. It was not only a requirement to be proficient in the Slovak language, but also radically change their ideological attitude. Instead of Hungarian patriotism, which was a necessary condition for being accepted as a teacher in Hungary, teachers, regardless of their nationality, were required to exhibit a positive attitude to the Czechoslovak Republic. Suddenly, Hungarian patriotism was classified by the Czechoslovak state authorities as a hostile ideology and was punished by loss of job. Hungarian pedagogues, who constituted a significant part of the Hungarian intelligentsia, were deeply traumatized by this change. As a professional community whose living was based on the Hungarian language, their very professional existence was threatened. The new school administration, represented by the Ministry of Schools and National Enlightenment in Prague and by the Department of Schools in Bratislava, were fully aware of the ideological influence of teachers upon forming the attitudes of their pupils and students; and in that sense their relationship towards the CSR. Therefore, a hostile attitude to the Republic was not tolerated. The Minister Plenipotentiary for Slovakia repeatedly declared that the forming of the political and civic attitude of the young generation was in the hands of teachers and consequently also the future of the country, and therefore the process of hiring pedagogues had to be paid great attention to. According to the Law no. 64/1918 Zb. z. a n. adopted on December 10th 1918, teachers of state schools of the Hungarian Kingdom, as with other government employees, were retained in their positions on condition of performing a "promise of loyalty" to the Czechoslovak Republic. The teachers and professors were informed that if they were fluent in the Slovak language and performed the required Loyalty Promise to the CSR, they would be allowed to continue to teach. It was classified by the state authorities as a proof of allegiance to the Republic. The requirement of the Loyalty Promise to the CSR was, however, judged by many Hungarian teachers as illegal because the territory of Slovakia was according to international law still a part of Hungary. They were not willing to accept the existing situation and the inclusion of Slovakia into the CSR was considered as temporary; with the hope that the geopolitical situation would reverse back to a status quo ante. As a result many Hungarian teachers remained passive or refused outright to perform the Loyalty Promise to the CSR. The leading exponents of the Ministry of Schools and National Enlightenment in Prague and the Department of Schools in Bratislava were convinced that the functioning of Slovak schools would be possible only in the ideological framework of Czechoslovak patriotism and this could not be realized with the Hungarian teachers. Hungarian pedagogues were judged by government authorities as a priori untrustworthy. This resulted in mass dismissals of Hungarian pedagogues from schools in Slovakia, especially during the first months after the establishment of the CSR. According to records made by the Department of Schools and National Enlightenment in Bratislava, which was authorized to carry out the dismissals, in April 1919, 1,100 Hungarian teachers were dismissed. As well as this, before March 1919 approximately 300 teachers had already been dismissed with no warning. The total numbers of Hungarian teachers dismissed during the period from the end of 1918 till September 21st 1921 reached 2, 397 persons. 129 (5.38 %) teachers were subsequently re-hired. The reasons for the dismissal of Hungarian pedagogues according to the Czechoslovak authorities were: the absence of knowledge of the Slovak language, a reluctance to perform the promise of loyalty and a hostile attitude towards the Czechoslovak Republic. Many Hungarian teachers did not wait to be dismissed and left their posts at schools "voluntarily". At the beginning of the 1920s, at all schools levels pedagogues were teaching who, regardless of their ethnic extraction, had received or were receiving their education in Hungarian educational institutions. Some of them were able to communicate in Slovak language, but few were proficient in Slovak to such an extent as to be able teach in this language. In that regard Hungarian teachers were at a great disadvantage. At the time of the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic there was a huge lack of teachers able to teach in the Slovak language. The authorities tried to solve the then situation through inviting Czech pedagogues to Slovakia. However, the arrival of Czech teachers was not always welcomed by the Slovak population and largely, and more especially, the Hungarian minority. The Czech teachers were perceived as intruders who had come to Slovakia to rob Hungarian teachers of their jobs, whereas Hungarian teachers were deemed by state authorities as essentially foreigners from the previous empire. Those pedagogues who were members of Hungarian opposition political parties were especially viewed suspiciously by the authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a cue from an intelligence file produced by the Romanian political police on Transylvanian Hungarian intellectual Imre Mikó (Cluj, 1911–1977), the article analyzes the various patterns of accomodation with the political system, which represents a key to the understanding of how social legitimacy was built and maintained by the communist regimes of Eastern Europe. The framework in which this story takes place is especially interesting due to the Romanian context. On the one hand, the analysis of an unconventional collaboration established during the 1970s between the security organs of a national communist system and a prominent conservative intellectual stimulates us to rethink the state-society relationship in Ceaușescu's Romania in more dynamic terms. Among the multiple reasons that led Mikó to accept the role of informer, one finds the communitarian ideology of “serving the people", but also his belief that cooperation with the state security on relevant issues to the Transylvanian Hungarian community did not represent a betrayal of national ideals but the only way to achieve certain political goals, such as informing the Western public opinion on the worsening condition of the Hungarian minority. The case of Mikó can be compared with other files unveiled in Romania during the last years, and shows that often uncritically accepted definition of “collaboration" require serious conceptual reshaping. During the last decades of the communist regimes, significant parts of the formerly persecuted elite came to work together with the state security organs. They did not “talk to the system" with the purpose of spying on fellow citizens, but seeked to push forward their own cause with the infrastructural support of the state security, in a context where non-party members had been denied any access to the political sphere, and they regarded personal contact with a high-raking state security officer as a counterbalance of their marginality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Gyu la Szép is the director of the Hungarian Opera of Cluj and one of the people with the deepest knowledge on the topic of Hungarian musical life in Romania. His account of the opera production of the Hungarian minority of Romania first presents the prestigious past of this genre in Transylvania, which obliges the artists working today to do their best. Then he also discusses in detail the problems of the present. The opera director considers it especially important that the best contemporary opera works are present in their repertoire. Szép looks forward to the future of the institution, seen as an era marked by a growing number of quality performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]