The Struggle for Ethnic Coexistence Within the National State:

The Post-Communist Experience of the Hungarian Minorities of

Romania and Slovakia

Christopher Palkovacs

2

I: Introduction

I.1: Democratization and Minority Politics in Post-Communist States:

Since the 1989 collapse of the Communist regimes of Eastern and Central Europe, the major threat to the peace and stability of the region has been the emergence, or rather, re-emergence of intrastate ethnic conflict. Tragically, such conflict lies at the heart of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia into civil war, as well as the continued instability and violence of the North Caucasus. While ethnic warfare has been the most publicized element of minority politics in the former-Communist world, thankfully, it is the exception and not the rule in the transitions of multi-ethnic Eastern and Central European states to market democracy. Of the 27 states that currently cover the area of the former

Communist countries of the former USSR and East and Central Europe, only five

(Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Armenia) have populations in which ethnic/national minority groups do not comprise 10% or more of the total state population.1 Ethnic warfare, from Yugoslavia to Rwanda, is known for its brutal

savagery, especially against civilians. Therefore, it is all the more reassuring that its

incidence in the former Communist world has been relatively rare.

Minority politics become a potentially destabilizing factor within a state when minorities claim rights that are politically sensitive for the states in which they reside to

1 Adapted from: United Nations Population Fund. The State of the World's Population. 1992. 3 grant.2 This sensitivity generally goes beyond normal political reluctance or resistance to

the demands of minorities. Minority demands, especially those concerned with the

devolution of power or the granting of autonomy to minority-inhabited regions, often

pose direct challenges to the national character of the states. Such demands are often

interpreted as affronts to the very sovereignty and national pride of the state and its

majority nationality. While democracy theoretically enshrines both majority rule and

minority rights, the national character of a modern state is often seen as a non-negotiable

issue. Because minorities are unlikely, without substantial demographic alterations, to

ever gain an electoral majority within a state, their status in a democracy must be

determined by negotiated compromise with the majority.3 Consequently, minorities often

make demands that the majority feels it can never grant. The resulting deadlock often

ends in both majority and minority abandoning a negotiated process in favor of a move to

force a solution on the other. When such a breakdown occurs, democracy, built on the

notion of negotiated compromise, is often discarded in favor of group cohesion, which, in

turn, reinforces the ethnic hostility on both sides.4

Hence, to those interested in monitoring the progress of a country towards

democracy, minority politics can serve as a coal miner's canary. If the issues surrounding

2 G. Bíró. "Minorities in International Relations." in The Globalization of Eastern Europe. K. Segbers, ed. 2000. p 296. 3 Ethnic warfare, specifically "ethnic cleansing" has been used as one such device of demographic manipulation. In this vein, it is a particularly hideous example of Clausewitz's definition of warfare as "politics by other means". 4 This phenomenon is described with particular reference to its manifestation in the post- Communist context, in G. Schöpflin. Nations, Identity, Power. 2000. pp 133-136. He writes: "The broad attitude towards minorities (in post-Communist states)… is that as contestants for power, they are hostile and antagonistic and, therefore, they should be excluded from all aspects of power for fear of disruption. There is a far-reaching fear…that thee true – hidden – goal of ethnic minorities is secession." 4 the status of national/ethnic minorities are not being responsibly addressed in peaceful political forums, one may consider the canary dead, and the country still unready for the compromises called for by the democratic process. On the other hand, if the principle of minority participation on all levels of government, from local to national, has been enshrined and accepted as a legitimate element of the post-Communist political system, the minority issue need no longer cloud the air of the nascent democratic process.

I.2: Introduction to the Magyar Minorities:

One of the largest ethnic minority groups in East Central Europe is the Magyars, or ethnic Hungarians. Of the nearly fifteen million ethnic Hungarians in the world

(including self-identifying ethnic Hungarians in areas of traditional Hungarian settlement in Europe as well as estimated figures for the ethnically-identifying Hungarian diaspora population), nearly five million live outside of the borders of modern-day Hungary.5

When one subtracts from this total the roughly one and a half million ethnic Hungarians

5 K. Kocsis. Hungarian Minorities in the Carpathian Basin. 1994. pp 13-14. Note: the demographic numbers regarding the various sizes of national minorities that appear throughout this paper are not beyond dispute. Indeed, much discrepancy exists in the literature as to the accurate numbers for each ethnic group. Since ethnicity is a subjective quality based on personal identification, ethnic census taking results in, at best, a rough estimate of the size and distribution of a particular minority. This problem is furthered by the fact that censuses are often manipulated for political purposes to either show or hide a particular chosen ethnic characteristic of the population. The numbers reported in the body of this paper are not intended to be taken as scientific measurements of demographic characteristics, nor can this author attest to the scientific standards employed in the collection of data for certain surveys, especially those done during times of political upheaval and/or pervasive intentional political deception. The purpose of including the figures in the text is to provide the reader with a general idea of the comparative size of the minorities to be discussed, and to provide an idea as to minority group size in proportion to the rest of the population in the areas in question. Hence, whenever possible, this author has attempted to consult several sources reporting the same demographic characteristic so as to arrive at a relatively reliable estimate. 5 living in North America, Australia, Western Europe, and Israel, one is left with approximately 3,600,000 ethnic Hungarians, or 24% of the all ethnic Hungarians, living as national minorities in East Central European states other than Hungary6. There are

populations of Hungarian minorities in all the states bordering Hungary7, but the largest

populations of Hungarian Minorities are resident in Slovakia (566,000 or 10.8% of the

total Slovak population) and Romania (1.6-2 million, or slightly over 7% of the total

Romanian population).8

The focus of this paper is a comparative discussion of these two substantial

minority groups, the Hungarians of Slovakia, and those of Romania, their relations with

their respective national majorities and governments, as well as their relations with

Hungarians in Hungary and the Hungarian government. It is a study of the development

and dynamics of ethnic politics in two countries in which the potential for wholesale

ethnic violence existed, but actual violence was averted. With all three states as NATO

members and strong candidates for European Union membership, it is all the more important to consider the degree to which ethnopolitical issues have formed to the consolidation of democracy in the region. By discussing the manner in which the large

Hungarian minorities were brought into the post-Communist political structure of

Slovakia and Romania, and by analyzing the current functioning of minority politics

within the larger political systems of these countries, it is possible to draw concrete

conclusions as to the role of national minorities during the process of state-transformation

6 K. Kocsis. Ibid. 7 Austria has some 50,000, Serbia has roughly 300,000, Croatia and Slovenia, about 100,000 together, and the Ukraine is home to a Magyar minority of roughly 200,000. (Adapted from K. Kocsis. Ibid. and A. Hollis. Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe. 1999. p. 493.) 8 A. Hollis. Ibid. 6 and democratization. In so doing, we may better identify and understand the conditions under which the potential for violent ethnic conflict can be minimized, and political solutions to ethnic grievances can be negotiated and achieved without direct military coercion external intervention and peacekeeping measures.

While aware of the ethnic Hungarian minority (of roughly 300,000) in the

Vojvodina of northern Serbia, the author has chosen largely to omit discussions of it due to the tumultuous and undemocratic postcommunist history of Serbia. Because this study is concerned with the development of peaceable minority politics within a democratizing society, Milosevic-era Serbia could not be rightly considered alongside Slovakia and

Romania in the historical discussion. Moreover, compared to the population at large, the number of Serbian citizens who self-identify as Hungarian is relatively insignificant.

While the recent Serbian commitment to democratization is promising, the March, 2003 assassination of reformist President Djindjic is evidence of the sad fact that the advent of a stable democratic regime within Serbia remains unachieved. As such, it is beyond the scope of this study to consider the postcommunist political reality and history of Serbia alongside those of Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, save to say that Serbia represents what is, in many ways, a worst case scenario of political degeneration due to rabid ethno- nationalism.

II: Historical Overview of the Magyar Minority in Slovakia and Romania

II.1: Pre-Communist era Historical Factors:

Unlike the Jews and Roma, who have been minorities in Eastern and Central

Europe for many hundreds of years, the large Hungarian minority populations of present- 7 day Europe resulted from the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire less than a century ago. As imperial partners with the Austrians in the Hapsburg Empire, and co- belligerents with the defeated Central Powers during the First World War, the Hungarians were subject to harsh terms by the Paris Peace settlement. The 1920 Treaty of Trianon presented the Hungarians with the most punishing terms of all of the defeated countries in respect to land and population lost to their state. The treaty granted two-thirds of

Hungary's territory, about a same proportion of its total population,9 and much of its

industrial base to the "successor states" of Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia,10 and

small portions to Poland and Hungary's former imperial partner, Austria.11

The terms of Trianon were supported most fervently by the Romanians, who had

fought with the Allies largely to gain the resource-rich and ethnically mixed territory of

Transylvania12 from the Hungarians in their effort to unite all Romanians into one state.13

The Serbs had also fought with the Allies to achieve a similar goal of the establishment of a Greater Serbia, including the historically Hungarian-dominated areas of Croatia and the

9 This figure refers to total population, regardless of ethnicity. 10 Known in 1920 as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. 11 G. Shöpflin. Ibid. p 378. 12 Before the First World War, Transylvania was an area of extremely diverse ethnic makeup. Although the largest groups inhabiting the region were Romanians and Magyars, a large minority of Jews, Saxon Germans, Roma, and Szeklers, lived in the area. Between the World Wars most Germans were expelled, while many Transylvanian Roma and Jews met the same fate as their counterparts throughout Europe in the concentration camps of the Nazis and their allies. The Szeklers are an ancient cultural group which have remarkably endured despite assimilationist policies from every ruling majority. Hungarian Nationalists point to the Hungarian-speaking Szeklers as a link to "the original Magyar culture" in their arguments supporting Hungarian ethnic continuity in the region. Adapted from: G. White. Nationalism and Territory. 2000. pp 95-98. 13 T. Gallagher. Romania After Ceausescu. 1995. pp 22-27. 8 multiethnic Vojvodina.14 The Czechs and Slovaks, who were stateless before the war,

likewise benefited from allied victory and Austro-Hungarian collapse. All of these

peoples were hostile to Hungary due to the legacy of Imperial Hungarian rule, which

included an unsuccessful and deeply resented policy of Magyarization throughout the

Hungarian-administered lands of the empire. The most objectionable element of the

Magyarization push was the privileged status of the Hungarian language over the other

national languages in education, business, and government in the Hungarian portion of

the empire. These emergent states were backed in their aims by the great powers, specifically France, who desired to build bulwarks against the rising tide of both

Bolshevism in Russia as well as the potential resurgence of the former Central Powers by

forming new, pro-French, states in Eastern Europe.15 Although espousing the goal in

name to justify the new borders, the settlement largely disregarded in practice the

principle of national self-determination. In fact there were very few instances in which

the changes in borders brought about by the Paris Peace even attempted to coincide with

the ethnic character of the populations affected.16 Moreover, the 1919 proclamation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic under the Communist Béla Kun did not help Hungary's case for national self-determination in the eyes of the Western Allies,17 and, after a

Western-sponsored invasion to ouster Kun, Hungary was forced to capitulate to the

Trianon settlement.

14 G. White. Ibid. pp 195-199. 15 T. Gallagher. Ibid. 16 While the partition of Silesia between Germany and Poland was carried out with some attention paid to the ethnic makeup of the resident populations, measures such as census- taking and referenda were rarely used the drawing of the Trianon settlement. 17 G. Schöpflin. Ibid. p 379. 9

The interwar years were an inauspicious period for the Magyar populations who had been placed outside of the borders of the reconstituted Hungarian state. Their former privileged status and comparative wealth made them, along with Jews, easy targets for

Populist and Fascist politicians eager to seize upon the prejudices of a relatively uneducated and rural population.18 Perhaps the gravest long-term effect of this political climate was the emphasis that Bucharest put on the establishment of a centralized unitary state rather than a more accommodating federal structure recognizing the historical autonomy and ethnic diversity of the newly acquired regions of Transylvania and

Bessarabia.19 The Czechoslovak government, realizing that it was, by definition, a

multiethnic state, granted greater freedoms to the Hungarian Minority. However,

perceived Czech dominance over their Slovak national partners led to an increase in

Slovak animosity towards the Magyars, alongside Jews, as undeserving beneficiaries of

Prague's lenient minority policy20.

For its part, the government of the Hungarian state constantly agitated against the

Trianon settlement.21 This nationalistic policy only made matters worse for Hungarians

in neighboring countries. By continuous antagonism towards the states in which these

minorities lived, Hungary elicited only resentment from its neighbors. The brunt of this

18 Statistics regarding literacy, employment, industry, and other development indicators for the areas of present-day Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, from the period 1901-1938 can be found in A. Hollis. Ibid. pp 12-14. 19 For a discussion regarding interwar politics in Romania, see T. Gallagher. Ibid. pp 28- 32. 20 For an elaboration on the interwar Czechoslovak minority policy, see J. Ishiyama. Ethnopolitics in the New Europe. 1998. pp 51-54., and V. Bacova. "Political Development in Slovakia Understood by the Hungarian Minority's Political Parties after the emergence of Slovakia." in J. Mucha. Dominant Culture as a Foreign Culture. 1999. pp 79-81. 21 An official prayer said by Hungarian schoolchildren during this period concluded with "may God defend the Fatherland and destroy the Treaty of Trianon." 10 resentment was, in turn, borne by the very minority populations in whose name the

Hungarian government was agitating. After the ouster of Kun, the authoritarian Admiral

Horthy, supported by factions of the prewar ancien régime, gained power and pursued a foreign policy dominated by revisionism and irredentism, demanding the return of all territory lost in the Trianon settlement.22 These territorial aspirations eventually led

Horthy to side fatefully with Mussolini and then with the Nazis during the Second World

War.

Ironically, the Slovak obsession with greater autonomy, Hungarian irredentist

aspirations, and Romanian ethno-nationalism were all skillfully manipulated by the Axis

to turn all three states into allies of the Third Reich. The defeat of these nations and the

Axis at the hands of the Red Army in 1945 meant that the territorial gains made by

Hungary through the Vienna concessions before and during the war were negated, and

Hungary reduced again to its 1920 borders. The Slovaks lost Ruthenia to the USSR and was forced back into unequal partnership with the Czechs. The Romanians lost

Bessarabia to the Soviets.23 Hence, the decision to join the Axis ensured that the

nationalist territorial aspirations forwarded by all three nations during the interwar period

would be categorically denied and not open to discussion for the next forty-five years of

22 G. Schöpflin. Ibid. p 379. 23 As part of the 1938 German partition of Czechoslovakia, an independent, but thoroughly pro-Nazi puppet state of Slovakia was declared. As part of this same partition, Hungary was given Ruthenia. Later, Transylvania was divided between Romania and Hungary, thus fulfilling much of Hungary's revisionist program. Romania lost Bessarabia (now Moldova) to the USSR due to its participation in the Nazi war effort. However, it managed to regain all of Transylvania due to its decision in late 1944 to abandon the Axis and submit to postwar Communization. Since Hungary neither formally renounced its alliance with Germany nor willingly submitted to Communist takeover, it suffered the most wartime destruction during the war, as well as a harsh settlement imposed afterwards. Adapted from: A. Hollis. Ibid. p 16, and G. Schöpflin. Ibid. p 385. 11

Soviet domination. Furthermore, with the exception of Soviet annexation of Bessarabia and Ruthenia, the 1919 borders were restored almost completely, remaining unchanged until the present.

II.2: The Magyar Minority under Communism:

Compared to the periods of intense politicization of the Magyar minority that immediately proceeded and followed it, the Communist period (1945-1989) is, in many ways, a protracted lull in the story of minority politics, both in the Carpathian Basin and throughout East and Central Europe. This overall calm can be attributed almost entirely to the dominance, both political and military, of the Soviet Union over the region. The

Soviet policy of enforced bloc solidarity and near total lack of tolerance for the rise of independent nationalism within its sphere was felt perhaps the most harshly in Hungary, when Soviet tanks violently crushed Imre Nagy's 1956 uprising, and again in

Czechoslovakia in 1968, when a Soviet-led invasion quashed the nascent "Prague Spring" reform movement. This movement, led by the Slovak, Alexander Dubcek, included in its

Action Programme a "call for a new Czechoslovak constitution"24 that, through its spirit of "socialism with a human face," would open debate on hitherto taboo subjects such as government corruption, economic reform, and, invariably, the question of the status of national minorities. When a Warsaw Pact invasion halted reform in its tracks, enforcing

24 The Action Programme of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Excerpted from: R. Sakwa. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union. 1999. p 368. 12 the 'Brezhnev Doctrine' of conditional sovereignty of the Eastern bloc states25, the

question of the status of the Magyar minority in Czechoslovakia was understood by both

Hungary and Czechoslovakia to be closed to debate.

While both Czechoslovakia and Hungary saw reform movements crushed by

Soviet military power, Romania, from the onset of Communism to its fall, saw no

significant attempts at internal reform of the system.26 Paradoxically, this utter lack of

serious internal opposition to the Stalinist system imposed by Romanian dictator

Gheorghiu-Dej, and deepened by his successor, Nicolae Ceausescu, gave the Romanian

government the freest hand of all the Eastern Bloc in the conduct of its internal and

foreign policies. Rather than placing Romania in a position to reform internally, this

comparative independence from Moscow actually intensified the orthodoxy of the

Romanian Communist Party to the Stalinist tradition and its subservience to Ceausescu.27

Ceausescu used this enhanced power to break with the Warsaw Pact notion of international Communist solidarity in favor of playing on traditional elements of radical

Romanian nationalism to garner political support for his regime.28 This policy produced

a dual result that strengthened Ceausescu both internally and externally. Ceausescu's

demonstrative independence from Soviet foreign policy decisions (such as the Warsaw

Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia) made him appear to be a reformist-Marxist ruler to the

25 See "Sovereignty and the International Duties of Socialist Countries." Pravda. September 25, 1968. Excerpted in R. Sakwa. Ibid. pp 370-371. 26 A. Hollis. Ibid. p 90. 27 T. Gallagher. Ibid. pp 54-58. 28 Both Gallagher and Hollis (Ibid.) give detailed accounts of pre-Communist Romanian political culture and society; as well as descriptions of the makeup and mentality of the Romanian Communist elites, that go a long way towards an explanation of the reason that Ceausescu, of all the Eastern bloc dictators of the Communist period, was able to maintain the Stalinist system, virtually without serious opposition, until the revolutions of the late 1980's. 13 outside world, which, in turn, lessened the scrutiny with which many viewed internal policies that were repressive, even by Soviet standards.29

Through the pursuit of National Communism along increasingly fascist lines in

Romania from the 1960's onward, Ceausescu reopened the question of the Magyar

minorities by cultivating and mobilizing anti-Hungarian sentiment in order to capitalize

on its political resonance with many Romanians.30 Policies such as the revocation of the

Soviet-imposed Hungarian Autonomous Region and the closure of Hungarian

educational facilities in Transylvania, coupled with the resettlement of many ethnic

Romanians from various corners of the country into Transylvanian towns and cities were

aimed at shattering the centuries-old culture of ethnic cohabitation in the region.31 In its

place, Ceausescu installed an increasingly ethnic Romanian peasant population installed

from the Regat.32 This new undereducated population was faced with the challenge of coping with both the transition from rural agrarian to urban industrial life, and the added confusion of being confronted for the first time by a truly multiethnic society.

Ceausescu's propagandists quickly manipulated this confusion into support for chauvinist anti-Hungarian nationalist sentiment. From these new settlers to Transylvania,

Ceausescu was able to cultivate a loyal political base in the otherwise hostile region and thus strengthen his power base in the potentially problematic region.33 While the

29 A. Hollis. Ibid. pp 81-83. 30 T. Gallagher. Ibid. p 54. 31 For a more thorough discussion of Ceausescu's policies vis à vis the Magyar minority and the reasons behind them see T. Gallagher. Ibid. pp 57-64, and M. Rady. "Nationalism and Nationality in Romania." in P. Latawski, ed. Contemporary Nationalism in East Central Europe. 1995. pp 127-142. 32 The Regat refers to pre-World War I Romania and includes the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. (G. Schöpflin. Ibid. p 420.) 33 G. Schöpflin. Ibid. pp 410-412. 14 minority policy of Communist Romania was similar to those of Czechoslovakia and

Hungary in so far as it sought to silence the issue of minority grievances, it differed in the respect that it did so through active coercion and intensive demographic manipulation.

This legacy of Communist-sanctioned ethnic antagonism would prove to have very real consequences concerning both Romania's eventual transition towards democracy and ethnic reconciliation, and the 1989 revolution that would serve as the catalyst for the demise of Ceausescu and the birth of the new Romanian state.

III: The Magyar Minorities and the Establishment of the Post-Communist Order

III.1: The Magyar Minority and Regime Collapse in Romania:

Very few issues have as much resonance with the Romanian public as those surrounding the status of ethnic minorities, specifically the Hungarian minority, within the country. Bearing this in mind, it is no surprise that the catalyst for the events that eventually led to the sudden and dramatic overthrow and execution of Nicolae Ceausescu was the plight of a dissident Hungarian Reformed Church minister, László Tökés, in the

Transylvanian city of Timosara34. Tökés's calls for inter-ethnic solidarity and his

criticism of the regime's abuses of power were especially offensive to Ceausescu because

they came from the pulpit, and, therefore were capable of bearing greater authority in the

hearts and minds of the Romanian populace.35 After the Reformed Church failed in

34 Timosara is known as Temesvár in Hungarian. A very thorough description of the events sparked at Timosara, and the ensuing Revolution is found in A. Hollis. Ibid. 193- 204. 35 Unlike in other Communist states, the Communist regime in Romania did not seek to discredit or discourage religion amongst the peoples, as such a policy would have proven extremely detrimental to its status with the extremely traditionalist Christian Orthodox majority. Rather, Ceausescu chose to use the Orthodox Church as a pulpit to add 15 convincing Tökés to curtail his criticisms, the Hungarian Reformed Bishop of Oradea,36

László Papp reassigned Tökés to a remote village. The ensuing protests in Timosara

including large numbers of ethnic Romanians and Serbs, as well as Hungarians, swelled

to 5,000 by December 16, 1989. On December 17, Ceausescu's security forces opened

fired on the protesters in Timosara, as well those gathering outside of Romanian

Communist Party headquarters in Bucharest, killing well over 1000 people of all

ethnicities.37 This action was an outrage that united anger from all ethnic groups within

Romania, and, by December 22, Ceausescu was forced to flee from Bucharest, only to be

soon apprehended and executed by the members of the putsch that had since seized

control of the country. 38 Attesting to its true democratic spirit, 1989 Revolution saw

perhaps one of the most widespread manifestations of spontaneous interethnic

cooperation in modern Romanian history.

religious import to governmental wishes. In so doing, he was simply continuing the Church's long tradition of subservience and endorsement of whatever despotism happened to be in power, be it the traditional monarchy or Ceausescu's "communists." As the Orthodox political hierarchy is entirely nationally arranged and contained, the regime was able to establish near total control over the majority Church. While the Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist churches of the minority Hungarians and Germans had more substantial ties outside of the country, Ceausescu was able to establish a great measure of control of these institutions by co-opting bishops and other high officials into his government. Hence, Tökés's criticism of the regime was made all the more threatening because it demonstrated failures in its ethnic policies, but also its inability to control the religious institutions on which it relied for legitimacy in the eyes of the populace. For a more thorough discussion of the role of religion in the Communist legacy of Romania, consult A. Hollis. Ibid. pp 479-482. 36 Oradea is known as Nagyvárad in Hungarian. 37 T. Gallagher. Ibid. p 73. 38 The coup members who filled the power void created by the overthrow of Ceausescu formed an ad hoc government known as the National Salvation Front (NSF). While the membership of the NSF included some former dissidents and prominent intellectuals, the bulk of the organization was dominated by the more liberal elements of the Romanian Communist Party. R. Weiner. "Democritization in Romania" in L. Stan, ed. Romania in Transition. 1997. p 7. 16

In their first statement on the minority situation just ten days after the execution of

Ceausescu, the provisional government, the National Salvation Front (FSN), "guaranteed individual and collective rights and freedoms for ethnic minorities," denouncing "the sad inheritance left behind by the dictatorship" which included "hate-mongering based on the chauvinistic policy of forced assimilation, as well as…attempts to defame neighboring

Hungary and the Hungarians of Romania."39 Hungary was quick to reward this new

spirit of ethnic cooperation and became the first state to officially recognize the new

government on December 23, 1989.

Unfortunately, the spirit of interethnic cooperation that catalyzed the overthrow of

Ceausescu did not long outlast the revolution itself. Romanians in Transylvania chafed at

attempts to reopen Hungarian-language secondary schools and universities. Amid the

growing perception, fueled by the media, that the Hungarians were gaining too much

power in Transylvania, radical nationalist organizations formed to mobilize the latent

ethnic animosities of ethnic Romanians in the region. This agitation culminated on

March 15 in the city of Tirgu Mures,40 when the radical Romanian group, Vatra

Românesca, organized a violent mob to attack ethnic Hungarians at a celebration

commemorating the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. By this time, the provisional FSN

government had declared itself a political party, and, rather than risk a backlash at the

polls in the upcoming May elections, chose to portray the Hungarians, specifically

Hungarians from Hungary, as the instigators of the Tirgu Mures violence.41 Meanwhile,

39 M. Shafir. "The Political Party as National Holding Company: The Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania." in J. Stein, ed. The Politics of National Minority Participation in Post-Communist Europe. 2000. p 102. 40 Tirgu Mures is called Marosvásárhely in Hungarian. 41 For a full description of the events at Tirgu Mures, see T. Gallagher. Ibid. pp 84-96. 17 the other major minority of Transylvania, roughly 100,000 Saxon Germans or nearly half of the German population, sensing the state of ethnic agitation in the country, emigrated from Romania to Germany.42 Surprisingly, a similar exodus of ethnic Hungarians to

Hungary did not occur. This fact is primarily due to the Hungarian government's long-

standing apprehensions towards accepting Hungarians from the "near abroad," a

phenomenon to be further explored in this essay.

In response to both the violence at Tirgu Mures, and its coverage at the hands of

the FSN-dominated media, the Hungarians of Romania were polarized into nearly

unanimous ethnic solidarity in the face of what they perceived as a renewed Romanian

attack on their rights. By the first democratic election in May 1990, the Democratic

Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ), an umbrella organization of ethnic

Hungarian political and cultural groups that had since quit the FSN, ran as the united

Hungarian party and carried nearly 100% of the ethnic Hungarian vote.43 In little more

than a year after a multiethnic coalition had toppled Nicolae Ceausescu's tyrannical

regime, the Romanian political system was again divided along ethnic lines.

III. 2: The Disintegration of Czechoslovakia and its effect on the Magyar Minority:

The disintegration of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia truly began in 1968

when the Warsaw Pact invasion wholly discredited the Communist Party in the eyes of

42 Germany has had an extremely open policy of accepting ethnic German immigrants from areas of historic German settlement in Eastern Europe and Russia. The Romanian Saxons were likewise able to resettle fairly easily in Germany. T. Gallagher. Ibid. p 89. 43 The RMDSZ's 7.2% showing in the Senate race and Assembly race match almost exactly with the 1992 Romanian census figures that reported the Magyar minority as 7.1% of the total population. These numbers, reproduced in the 1992, 1994, and 1996 elections, suggest the near total ethnic electoral cohesion of the Magyar population. M. Shafir. Ibid. p 101. 18 the Czechoslovak people, especially those educated elites who had historically supported it.44 In 1989, membership of the Party dropped by 130,000, and hitherto 'satellite parties'

such as the Socialist Party and the Czech Popular Party declared their independence from

the CCP.45 The final end of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia came after the brutal

suppression of student demonstrations during November of 1989 precipitated a general

strike during which the country was paralyzed. The ensuing round-table talks between

the government and the prominent dissidents held none of the drama and pageantry of

Ceausescu's trial and execution, but they did form the basis for a peaceful transfer of both

executive and legislative power from the CCP to a coalition government by December

10, 1989.46 The Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia, being a much smaller proportion of the total population, did not play as decisive a role as its counterpart in Romania the

transition from Communist rule. Consequently, while one must mention the transition

itself as significant to the shaping of majority-minority relations in Slovakia (and the

former Czechoslovakia), we may omit much of the historical details therein as

superfluous to the present discussion.

44 It is important to note again here the profound difference between Czechoslovak political culture and that in Romania. Prior to Stalinization, the Czechoslovak Communist Party was a party of primarily urban intellectuals, modeled more along the Communist Parties of Western Europe than that of the USSR. It also enjoyed much wider public support form the people, achieving substantial electoral support in the period of brief political freedom immediately following the Second World War. The Romanian Communist Party, on the other hand, was never popular within the country and, prior to 1945, virtually non-existent. 45 A. Hollis. Ibid. pp 171-172. 46 Ironically, Communist President Gustav Husak swore "Prague Spring" leader Alexander Dubcek in as Chairman of the National Assembly before resigning the Presidency to dissident playwright, Vaclav Havel. Indeed, this symbolic act was Havel's condition for accepting the Czechoslovak presidency. 19

The inability of the Czech opposition group, the Civic Forum, and its Slovak counterpart, Public Against Violence, to form a united front in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of Communist power deepened the cultural and political rift that would, by 1993, dissolve the Czechoslovak Federation47. While the process leading to the

establishment of separate Czech and Slovak Republics would be one determined by

Czech and Slovak political elites with little consultation of the people in general, the

"Velvet Divorce" of 1993 would have long-standing consequences for the ethnic

Hungarians of the former Czechoslovakia who would find themselves almost entirely

citizens of the new Slovak state, a state whose creation the Magyar population nearly

unanimously opposed.48

IV. Post-Communist Constitutional Status of Hungarian Minorities

IV.1: The Post-Communist Constitutions:

A common characteristic of most post-communist states has been the political

importance placed on the rapid establishment of a new constitutional order. The theory

guiding this principle was the idea that in order for rule of law to be established, one had first to design the structures from which good laws could be written, enforced, and interpreted.49 In essence, well-designed institutions laid out in a democratic constitution would provide less well-designed (or well-intentioned) politicians and citizens with

47 J. Morison. "Nationalism in Czechoslovakia." in P. Latawski, ed. Ibid. pp 79-80. 48 Among the concerns of the ethnic Hungarian political actors were the populist rhetoric of chief Slovak independence advocate Vladimir Meciar, concerns over minority status in constitutional and other drafted legal framework, and a fear of the loss of cultural autonomy. V. Bacova. Ibid. pp 83-93. All of these issues will be dealt with in subsequent sections of this discussion. 49 K. von Beyeme. "Institutional Engineering and Transition to Democracy." in J. Zielonka, ed. Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe. Vol. 1. 2001. pp 3-7. 20 reward for operating within the system (in other words, "democratically"), and consequences discouraging the kind of legal arbitrariness that became the rule during the communist period. Post-communist constitutions may be classified in the following three general categories: resurrected and revised constitutions from the pre-communist past, entirely new documents drafted and ratified after the regime change, or heavily amended and revised constitutions carried over from the communist period.50 Additionally, most

constitutions of the formerly communist states of East and Central Europe show an

intense concern with formally denouncing and prohibiting many of the abuses of the

communist past,51 while espousing democracy modeled along Western European lines. 52

Despite the democratic ideals enshrined by nearly every former communist country's constitution, close comparative reading of the documents, alongside consideration of the interests of their framers, yields much differentiation from state to state. While the wording of a constitutional document is not absolute proof of a country's commitment to or progress towards democratization, a country's constitution is, indeed, its charter and statement of political values. It offers an example of how a population, or at least a constitutional assembly, sees itself and its state. Although some of the lofty goals espoused in the Constitutions of Eastern Europe amount to little more than vague

50 The continued use of communist-era constitutions did not pose as much a problem as might be anticipated because constitutions in the communist period had very little actual legal content, and no real legal force. Therefore, they could be amended to enshrine any number of liberalizing measures rendering them democratic models nearly instantly, and without the political controversy surrounding the adoption of a whole new draft. A good example of a government that chose this path is Hungary, whose amended 1945 constitution, while declared temporary, is generally accepted as an acceptable charter for democratic rule. 51 Most commonly mentioned are measured abolishing the death penalty and torture, declaring free speech, protecting property, etc. 52 The French and German constitutional models were most heavily emulated, although aspects from many other states' systems were adopted. K. von Beyme. Ibid. pp 12-15. 21 and unenforceable rhetoric, such as the "right to a sound environment" proclaimed in

Article 44 of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic, many of the measures, whether they have any real legal import or not, are important in identifying the core of a state's identity, as they set a norm to which the government can be held. Constitutional measures declaring the national, linguistic, territorial, or religious character of a state, as well as declarations concerning the status of resident minority groups, are of particular note here. Even if such measures carry with them limited legal force, the manner in which identity statements of an ethnic or national character appear in the constitutional document of a state offer a base statement of what the majority is sees as fundamental and not open to compromise with resident ethnic or religious minorities.

IV.2: Ethnicity and the Constitution of Romania:

The Constitution of Romania was adopted by national referendum on December

8, 1991, less than two years after the overthrow of the Ceausescu regime. The speed with which this document was both drafted and adopted can be attributed to the actions of the provisional National Salvation Front (FSN) government surrounding the May 1990 elections. While the FSN government's original mandate was to rule only until the May elections could put into place a democratically elected government, the FSN's decision in

February 1990, to run as a political party in the May elections (see section III. 1) put it in the unique position of being both the organizers of, and candidates in, the first "free elections" of post-communist Romania.53 Since the FSN's position as provisional

government put it in control over the large, and mostly intact media resources of the

53 R. Weber. "Constitutionalism as a Vehicle for Democratic Consolidation in Romania." in J. Zielonka, ed. Ibid. pp 218-220. 22

Ceausescu regime,54 the other parties were placed at an enormous disadvantage. The

FSN won over 70% of the parliamentary seats in both houses, and its candidate, Ion

Illiescu (see section III.1) became president of Romania55.

Furthermore, Decree-Law No. 92, issued by the FSN before the elections,

stipulated that the Constitutional Assembly be comprised of a joint session of both

parliamentary chambers. Because of its May 1990 electoral landslide, the FSN controlled a two-thirds majority of both houses, and therefore, the Constitutional Assembly. Hence, under the provisions of Decree Law No. 92, a decree issued unilaterally by the provisional FSN government, the newly "elected" FSN government had the power to draft and pass a constitution unilaterally providing that it be completed and approved before the next election in 1992,56 a task that, as was stated before, was accomplished

with time to spare.

Given the somewhat dubious circumstances surrounding the FSN's monopoly

over the framing of the constitutional draft, the document that was eventually passed espouses some surprisingly democratic values, including all of the standard civil liberties

of Western democracies such as freedom of conscience (Art. 29) and expression (Art.

30). Additionally, the constitution enshrined several elements of institutional design such

as clear term limits for the President (Art. 81), and a proportional representation system

54 A. Hollis. Ibid. p 470. 55 The only opposition party that was able to achieve substantial electoral support was the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR) –see section III.1– whose remarkable ability to consistently deliver the Hungarian vote in an almost entirely united bloc, makes them a very powerful player in modern Romanian parliamentary politics. 56 R. Weber. Ibid. p 218. 23 for deputies in the legislature (Art. 59),57 that are oriented to facilitate the democratic transfer of power.

On the issue of minority rights, however, the constitution displays the opaque motives and questionable commitment to ethnic reconciliation espoused by its FSN

drafters. Article 6, which proclaims "the right of persons belonging to national minorities

the right to the preservation, development, and expression of their ethnic, cultural,

linguistic, and religious identity," theoretically establishes the individual rights of

minorities. However, the provision neglects to address the central minority demand to

state-funded cultural or educational institutions, an omission that would lead to some of

the fiercest ethno-political debates in post-communist Romania.

The very first provision of Article 1 of the constitution contains a strong ethnic

definition of the state, proclaiming Romania as a "sovereign, independent, unitary, and

indivisible Nation-state." To this measure, Article 3 adds "the territory of Romania is

inalienable," and "no foreign populations may be displaced or colonized on the territory

of the Romanian State." This measure was passed partly in response to fears that ethnic

Hungarians returning from foreign exile would seek to either purchase land in

Transylvania for the purposes of resettlement and demographic manipulation or file

claims of restitution for property expropriated earlier in the century.58

57 The proportional representation (PR) system espoused by the Constitution is vital to the political power that the Hungarian UDMR party holds in the legislature. If the system was of the majoritarian model such as that in use in the United States, the UDMR would only have representation in the Harghita and Covasana counties where Hungarians form a majority. Fortunately for the UDMR, moves made by Romanian nationalist parties to amend the Constitution in the interests of creating such a system have not been successful. 58 Gallagher. Ibid. 89. Note: the applicability of Article 3 in claims for property restitutionhas, in practice, proved very weak. In Nagy v. Romania (2002), a claim by an 24

As a whole, the wording of the Romanian Constitution itself espouses perhaps the greatest of Romanian national myths: that Romania is essentially an ethnically homogenous state. Given the past century of tumultuous ethnic relations in Romania, it is easy to sympathize with the drafters of the constitution in their desire to move beyond ethnic politics in the new democratic Romania. However, ignoring a problem is rarely an acceptable solution. While the Romanian Constitution does not represent a barrier against ethnic reconciliation, per se, its refusal to acknowledge specifically the fact of substantial ethnic heterogeneity within the state makes it an uninspiring charter for a new era of interethnic relations in Romania.

IV.3: The Slovak Constitution and the Development of the Minority Debate in Slovakia:

The adoption of the Slovak Constitution, like the creation of the independent state of Slovakia, was born out of the same inferiority complex vis à vis the Czechs that had haunted the Slovak national consciousness since the establishment of the Czechoslovak state. The bid for an independent Slovakia came, not from the majority of the Slovak people, but from Slovak political elites59. Many Slovak politicians, led by populist

Vladimir Meciar, were unwilling to reconcile their economic policies with the Czech model of rapid liberalization due to the greater reliance of the Slovak economy on large

ethnic Hungarian on an apartment siezed in 1967, the European Court of Justice did not even regard the measure as relevant to the case. 59 Public support in Slovakia for secession from the Czechoslovak Federation never reached 15%. Most Slovak people favored a federal structure granting them more autonomy from Prague. I. Gabal. "Czechoslovakia: the break-up and its Consequences." in W. Kostecki, ed. Transformations of Post-Communist States. 2000. p113. 25

Communist-era industry and infrastructure.60 Consequently, these elites, and their Czech

counterparts who had long been frustrated by the need to compromise with Slovak

politicians, saw independence as an increasingly attractive political solution. Even prior

to dissolution, the Slovak parliament had pre-empted their Czech counterparts by the

rapid adoption of a constitution for Slovakia. Hence, on January 1, 1993, without

referendum or consultation of the people on either the constitution, or the secession itself,

an independent Slovakia was proclaimed, courtesy of the politicians who now governed

it.

Unlike Romania, who had experienced a long period of statehood, albeit under

varying degrees of foreign influence, Slovakia's only period of national "independence"

prior to 1993 came during the Second World War in the form of a puppet regime set up in

order to facilitate Nazi annexation of the Czech portions of Czechoslovakia. Slovak

nationalism, driven by the continued fear of the assimilation of the Slovak culture into

either that of the Czechs or the Magyars,61 was finally given a guarantee of the preservation of Slovak identity through the creation of a sovereign state in 1993.62 This

60 The Communist era had radically transformed Slovakia's economy from one of traditional agricultural production to an economy built on heavy industry, specifically the manufacture of steel and military equipment. In this way, the Communist economic legacy in Slovakia is much the same as that in Transylvania in so far as they both were pre-industrial agrarian areas that faced policies of forced industrialization accompanied by forced urbanization and its accompanying traumatic demographic reorganization. 61 Before the period of political and cultural domination by the Czechs, the Slovaks experienced perhaps the harshest policies of "Magyarization" of any of the non- Hungarian minorities living in the Hungarian Kingdom during the period of Austro- Hungarian rule. This assimilation was so successful in Slovakia that, at the outbreak of the First World War, "the nationally and politically conscious Slovaks were on the verge of extinction." J. Ishiyama. Ibid. 55. 62 For the importance of this independence to the Slovak national consciousness see the Preamble to the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. 26 important achievement was enshrined and never to be compromised by the Slovak

Constitution.

In terms of the right to preserve and use their own languages (Article 34),

Slovakia's constitution grants greater autonomy to national minorities than does that of

Romania. However, the ideal of national ethnic homogeneity is equally pronounced.

The preamble to the constitution begins "We the Slovak nation," at once equating the character of the state with the national Slovak identity. Like the "nation state" proclamation of the Romanian Constitution (see Sec. IV.2), the invocation of the Slovak nation as the constituent element of the state sets the parameters for the manner in which ethnic minority issues will be approached. To the population in general, and specifically to the members of the population who are ethnically Slovak, the preamble emphasizes the rights of the nation over those of the individual.63 Furthermore, the wording of the

preamble also places an indirect pressure on those who are not ethnically part of the

"Slovak Nation" somehow to become so if they are to prosper within the state. While

Article 33 states "minority membership is not to be to anyone's detriment," the invocation

of national, rather than civic, identity in the preamble is indicative of the unclear vision

that the Constitution's framers had as to the meaning of civic citizenship. This tension

between the ethnic and the civic definitions of citizenship seen in the Slovak Constitution

lies at the heart of the debate over the rights of the Magyar minority in Slovakia today.

63 D. Malová. "Slovakia: From the Ambiguous Constitution to the Dominance of Informal Rules." in J. Zielonka, ed. Ibid. p 356. 27

V. Extreme Nationalist Political Parties and Ethnic Minorities

V.1: National Populism in the Post-Communist Context:

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the post-Communist period has been the rapid re-emergence of extreme nationalism and its accompanying chauvinism as a powerful force in nearly every country of Eastern and Central Europe.64 In many ways,

present-day nationalist extremism can be linked both to long-repressed political trends at

work prior to the imposition of Communism, as well as elements of Communist-era

political culture carried over into the present era. By combining right-wing

ethnocentrism with Communist-inspired pathological mistrust of market-oriented

economic reform, post-Communist political entrepreneurs employ an ideology that

transcends the traditional left-right spectrum by corresponding to both the social and

economic fears and prejudices of an electorate not yet accustomed to the uncertainties of

a free society. This ideology is best referred to as "national-populism" and, is succinctly

described by Vladimir Tismaneanu, as a "discourse that integrates nationalism in a

structure of expectations and demands for protection from the drastic changes imposed by

political and economic modernization."65 In reconciling the most symbolically powerful elements of both right and left, national populism has emerged in Eastern Europe as the leading ideological alternative to Western-style liberal democracy. National populism's appeal lies in its ability to manipulate the total range of political myths from right to left.

64 While the debate over whether nationalism is, in and of itself, an anti-democratic force is far from over, this author chooses, in the present section, to focus on the "illiberal" or extremist expressions of nationalist sentiment. The purpose here is not to create a false dichotomy by which all nationalists are anti-democratic, but to describe how some of the more extreme nationalist movements work to the detriment of interethnic democratic cohabitation. 65 V. Tismaneanu. Fantasies of Salvation. 1998. p 73. 28

Therefore, it promises to rectify both damages to a people's national pride and economic security through the identification of a culpable other. 66 Since the nation itself is unified and sacred, foreigners, especially the insidious internal foreigners, in the present case, the

Hungarians, like the Jews and Roma, are dragged out again and again as the villains responsible for whatever ills may befall the nation as a whole.

V.2: Radical Nationalist Parties in Romania, the PUNR and the PRM:

The principle instigators, and not incidentally, benefactors of interethnic animosity in Romania are the many national-populist political organizations and parties that have emerged to play a significant role in Romanian politics since the end of the

Ceausescu regime. In Romania, radical nationalist sentiment has organized itself into two major autonomous political movements and parties centered in either a particular

locality, or a particular demographic. Although, many of these groups do not have the

membership to greatly influence national electoral outcomes alone, their regional strength

makes the control of certain localized nationalist groups and leaders over many

municipalities nearly absolute.67 Their demographic specialization minimizes direct

competition with each other over the populist-leaning electorate. This demographic

66 In his comprehensive discussion of twentieth century political myths, Mythes et Mythologies Politiques (1986), Raoul Girardet identifies four fundamental myths that lie at the center of modern political mythology. These are: a history of conspiracy (la conspiration) against a people/class, etc.; a Messiah (le Sauveur) complex of a people– both the need of the people to be saved, and the messianic role thee people must play for the world; a lost golden age (l'Age d'or) that a people may look to for moral inspiration; and the idea of a singular, unified will (une volonté une et régulière) existing as the expression of a people's political aspirations and values. 67 Gheorghe Funar, the leader of the Romanian Party of National Unity (PUNR) exerted such local control in the Transylvanian city of Cluj. 29 selectivity in turn enables each party to further specialize its message to suit its potential electorate and therefore garner more votes.68

The country's two largest extreme nationalist parties–the Party of Romanian

National Unity (PUNR) and the Greater Romania Party (PRM)– who ruled as part of a

coalition led by the Party for Social Democracy in Romania (formerly the FSN–see

sections III.1 and IV.2) from 1992 to 1996, demonstrate this principle of regional

specialization. While both the PUNR and the PRM are xenophobic, anti-Semetic, and

openly anti-Hungarian, the PRM is most active in the Regat, or Old Kingdom consisting

of the historical provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia, while the PUNR garners nearly all

of its support from Romanian nationalists in Transylvania69. The PRM is headed by

Corneliu Vadim Tudor, formerly known as the "court poet" to Ceausescu, and is strongly

linked to the nationalist-Stalinist ideals espoused by Ceausescu. Its views reach a large

audience through the publication România Mare, and it thrives primarily on its

leadership's keen use of propaganda to romanticize Romania's authoritarian past. Tudor

and the PRM earned a surprising second place finish in the first round of the 2000 general

elections. As with Jean-Marie Le Pen's shocking success in France during the 2002

election, Tudor's second place finish was sufficient to raise significant alarm in the

international community. This alarm soon turned to a crisis in economic confidence in

Romania, and under considerable external financial pressure, a broad coalition rallied

around the Social Democrats' (PDSR) Ion Illiescu, including many leftists and

intellectuals hitherto openly hostile to Illiescu and the ex-communist riddled PDSR.70

68 A. Hollis. Ibid. p 286. 69 A. Hollis. Ibid. pp 281-283. 70 E. Lhomel. "Double langage du pouvoir roumain." Le Monde-Diplomatique. 3/01. 30

Their slogan, "pour faire rampart à la dictature,"71 matched in many ways the sentiment

rallied around Jaques Chirac in the 2002 French elections, and delivered the same result

of an impressive victory for the more moderate candidate.

The PUNR, contrastingly, was active in heavily Hungarian areas of Transylvania,

and takes a stance of more direct confrontation with the target Hungarian minority.

Gaining the majority of its support from Romanians settled in Transylvania during the

Ceausescu years, the PUNR exploits both ethnic animosity and economic uncertainty by

presenting the Hungarians as the beneficiaries of the industrial privatization and the

dismantling of the Communist state bureaucracy that threatens many Romanian jobs.

The party has been linked to the neo-fascist movement Vatra Românesca,72 and has,

since its expulsion from government coalition in 1996, declined in popularity due to

internal leadership struggles, much of its core electorate now identifying with Tudor and

the PRM.

V.3: Vladimir Meciar and the Movement for Democratic Slovakia (HDZS)

The HDZS came into political importance after the 1992 Czechoslovak

elections as the most powerful Slovak party and vigorous advocate of Slovak political

independence73. Following independence, the HDZS held onto its near total control over

the unicameral Slovak parliament through a coalition with the nationalist Slovak National

Party and the neo-Communist Association of Slovak Workers. As Prime Minister,

p 18. 71 E. Lhomel. Ibid. Trans: "To build a rampart against dictatorship." 72 A. Hollis. Ibid. p 283. Valtra Românesca has been linked with inciting the ethnic violence that precipitated in Tirgu Mures in March of 1990. T. Gallagher. Ibid. p 86. 73 D. Malová. Ibid. p 351. 31

Meciar found himself controlling near total executive and legislative power. Already a weak figure because of constitutional constraints, the Slovak President, Michal Kovác, was further cowed into irrelevance by Meciar's relentless campaign to have him removed from office.74 Meciar and the HDZS were finally ousted from government in the 1998

elections by a coalition led by the pro-Western Slovak Democratic Coalition that

included the Hungarian Coalition Party. Meciar's prestige and popularity within the country has declined as evidenced by his loss in the 2002 general election, though he had

expressed desires to return to national political prominence, in a near total volte face, with

a new, pro-European Union platform.75 To the Magyar minority of Slovakia, Meciar's

danger is not perceived to be his pathological hatred of Hungarians, but a demonstrated

willingness and ability to capitalize on nearly any issue that he believes will be politically stirring to the Slovak electorate. In the words of Slovak journalist Marian Lesko, "Il ment comme il respire. Il trouvera toujours des militants pour le prier d'exercer à nouveau le pouvoir."76 Clearly, Meciar is a model populist opportunist.

Like that of Romania, the early post-Communist period in Slovakia can be

characterized as a period of political success for national-populism. However, unlike in

Romania, where nationalist political parties organize by region and cooperated on the

national level, populist politics in Slovakia are organized chiefly around one man,

Vladimir Meciar, and his political party, the Movement for Democratic Slovakia

(HDZS). Meciar and his party have never been supported by the Hungarian coalition in

74 Meciar's moves against Kovác in 1995 and 1996 went beyond normal legal procedures to even include blackmail and personal harassment of Kovác by the secret services. I. Gabal. Ibid. p 121. 75 K. Bartak. "Slovaquie, image brouillé." Le Monde-Diplomatique. 4/00. p 12. 76 M. Lesko in K. Bartak. Ibid. Trans: "He lies like he breathes. He will always find militants to ask him to, once again, take power." 32

Parliament due to the HDZS's history of economic mismanagement, the HDZS's own rocky relations with Budapest, and its support of laws curtailing education in, as well as official use of, minority languages.77 Fortunately for the Magyar minority, Meciar's

chosen scapegoats have, until his miraculous pro-EU epiphany, most often been Western

powers. Nonetheless, poor relations with the Hungarian government, coupled with stern

personal criticism from Hungarian political parties in Slovakia has caused Meciar to lash

out and label certain Hungarian politicians as "nationalistic" and "heedless to Slovak

political needs."78 With Meciar's defeat in 2002, the head has been cut off of national

populism in Slovakia, at least for now.

VI: Political Parties of the Magyar Minority

VI.1: The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ):

The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ),79 an umbrella

group of Magyar political interest groups and parties, was founded on the day of

Ceausescu's execution, Christmas Day, 1989. Like the FSN, the RMDSZ included many

prominent former Communist personalities in its original membership such as ex- politburo member Geza Domokos.80 Sharing a core elite who had worked together under

Communism, the FSN and the RMDSZ were able to cooperate early on. However, the

failure of the FSN to condemn the ethnic violence at Tirgu Mures (section III.1) soon

strained the relations between the two organizations. The RMDSZ is not a single united

77 Taken from the website of the Hungarian Coalition Party of Slovakia (Magyar Koalició Partija). http://www.mkp.sk. August, 2002. 78 J. Ishiyama. Ibid. p 64. 79 RDMSZ is the Magyar acronym for the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania. It is often referred to by its Romanian initials, UDMR. 80 M. Shafir. Ibid. p 102. 33 party, but a coalition of diverse Hungarian parties ranging from the leftist Social

Democratic Platform to the nationalist Transylvanian Hungarian Initiative. The RMDSZ also includes cultural, environmental, artistic, and linguistic societies that serve the

Hungarian population of Transylvania. However, the largest constituent political faction of the RMDSZ is the Hungarian Christian Democratic Party of Romania, whose center- right economic agenda of rapid market liberalization and privatization have been adopted by the coalition as a whole, including a grudging endorsement from the leftist Social

Democratic Platform.81 Outside of the RMDSZ, the Socialist Magyar Party and the

Hungarian Free Democratic Party, are generally viewed as lapdog parties of Ion Illiescu's

FSN offshoot Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PSDR). Shunned by most

Hungarians due to the PSDR's 1992-1996 coalition with the rabidly anti-Magyar PUNR and PRM parties, the Socialist Magyar Party and the Hungarian Free Democratic Party's continual electoral failures are indicative of the extent to which electoral success within the Hungarian community relies on identification with the RMDSZ over perceived subservience to the parties of the ethnic majority.82

The RMDSZ has a history of widespread support of the Hungarian community in

Transylvania. This cohesion, coupled with its rapid organization immediately after the

Revolution, earned it the status of Romania's second largest political party in the 1990

elections. The RMDSZ was principle player in the opposition coalition in parliament

until 1995, when government accusations of irredentist designs forced the RMDSZ out of

a coalition with the moderate Democratic Convention of Romania (CDR). The

81 Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) website: http://www.hhrf.org/rmdsz/index.htm. August 2002. 82 M. Shafir. Ibid. p 103. 34 subsequent drop in RMDSZ precipitated a period during which the more radical factions of the RMDSZ agitated for a harder stance on Magyar territorial autonomy and against ethnic discrimination. The years of nationalist coalition government culminated in a much hated education law that further restricted Magyar educational institutions, and included the government's continued refusal to reopen the historical Hungarian Bolyai

University in Cluj that had been closed by the Communists in the 1970’s. These events pushed the RMDSZ further towards radicalization and away from cooperation with other

Romanian parties. While much of the tension that fomented during the years of PDSR government has been diffused in the years since the PDSR and its nationalist coalition partners were ousted from power in 1996, the RMDSZ continues to stand as the manifestation of the parallel political culture of the Hungarians of Romania. With a consistent 95% of the Hungarian vote83, the RMDSZ is an indication of the continued

political distance felt between the Hungarians of Romania and the Romanian majority.

VI.2: The Hungarian Coalition Party (MKP) of Slovakia:

After the overthrow of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, two major Hungarian

parties emerged to represent the country's Magyar minority, the Hungarian Christian

Democratic Movement and the Hungarian Civic Party. In addition to these two

specifically Hungarian groups, a third party, Coexistence, was established to represent

Hungarians, as well as the smaller Polish and German minorities of Czechoslovakia under a center-left platform.84 At the onset of post-Communist rule, the Hungarian

83 RMDSZ website. Ibid. 84 J. Ishiyama. Ibid. p 51. 35 parties, especially the Hungarian Civic Party, were closely linked with the major anti-

Communist party in Slovakia, Public Against Violence.

After Slovak independence, however, the fact that all Hungarian parties opposed the breakup of Czechoslovakia, and all Hungarian deputies in the Slovak parliament voted against the 1992 Constitutional draft (section IV.3), did not endear the Hungarians' cause to Vladimir Meciar's ruling Movement for Democratic Slovakia (HDZS).85 By the time of Slovak independence, internal politics in the Hungarian community had aligned

Coexistence (who, by then, only really represented the Hungarian minority) with the

Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement as the two most consistently Hungarian-issue oriented parties, while the Hungarian Civic Party attempted, unsuccessfully, to maintain its links with the ruling ethnic Slovak coalition.86 These internal divisions coupled with

Meciar's electoral landslide victory and subsequent control over the parliament in 1993

effectively crippled the Hungarian parties in the Slovak Parliament, and led to general

governmental neglect of, and in some cases, hostility to Hungarian cultural, linguistic,

and educational demands. With the exception of a period of thaw with the government

and cooperation amongst each other during the brief tenure of Democratic Union Prime

Minister Josef Moravcik, the Hungarian parties of Slovakia remain largely disunited and

marginalized until the end of the Meciar era in 1998.

Ironically it was Vladimir Meciar himself who, in 1998, succeeded in doing what

his opponents had failed at for five years by enacting the changes that would remove him

from office. Because of a new electoral law that raised the minimum electoral proportion

that a party required to receive parliamentary representation to 5%, Meciar surmised that

85 V. Bacova. Ibid. p 83. 86 J. Ishiyama. Ibid. p 57. 36 he had broken the remainder of the power of the Hungarian parties by effectively eliminating them, and several other small opposition groups, from parliamentary representation. However, the effect of this provision proved to be just the opposite. The three formerly cantankerous Hungarian parties, pushed by the new election law, quickly reconciled their differences and formed the united Hungarian Coalition Party (MKP) that was able to capture nearly all of the Hungarian vote and 11.8% of the Parliament87.

Furthermore, five other opposition parties coalesced into the Democratic Coalition.

While Meciar's HDZS won a plurality of the parliamentary seats, the unwillingness of

any party, save the rightist Slovak National Party, to enter parliamentary coalition with it

gave the opposition Democratic Coalition, with its allies in the Party of the Democratic

Left, Party of Civic Understanding, and Hungarian Coalition, the parliamentary majority

and the right to form a government.88 As previously stated, Meciar and his party have not

since been returned to power, victims of both their weak and vacillating platform and of

their own attempts at electioneering.

VI.3: Some Conclusions Regarding the Hungarian Coalitions' Effect on

Democratization:

While brought about rather serendipitously, the face of Magyar political

representation in Slovakia has come to resemble that of Romania. In both states, Magyar

interests have been most successfully advocated through the formation of an ethnically

based united coalition capable of carrying the Hungarian vote as a single bloc. In both

87 Hungarian Coalition Party (Magyar Koalició Partija) website: www.mkp.sk/index.pht. August 2002. 88 D. Malová. Ibid. pp 354-355. 37 states, these broad ethnic coalitions, through cooperation with long-standing opposition groups in parliament, have recently achieved important positions in governmental coalitions. Though the Magyar minority still is reluctant to vote outside of their ethnic bloc in either Romania or Slovakia, the multi-tiered electoral system allows the ethnic coalition to serve as a political broker between the members of the minority and the larger national political system. Unfortunately, the use of this coalition within a coalition format furthers the Hungarians' isolation from direct interaction with the larger political system of the country in which they reside. Such has been the case with the constant need for smaller factions within the RMDSZ, such as the Movement for Social

Democracy, to compromise their economic platforms or forego cooperation with parties of the ethnic majority in order to preserve coalition party unity. Even so, the concessions that the broad MKP and the RMDSZ coalitions are able to extract from ethnic majority- dominated governments far surpass those achievable by independent Hungarian parties or by Hungarians operating within multi-ethnic parties, as was seen in the years of frustrated opposition to the Meciar government illustrate.

Although the emergence of a system that is reliant on the nearly absolute ethnic electoral solidarity of the minority is perhaps contrary to the ideal of true interethnic democracy, the coalitions that have emerged in Romania and Slovakia do provide the

Magyar minority of these countries parliamentary representation that is at least equal to their proportion of the total population.89 However, while such a system is adequate in

terms of its ability in the promotion of collective ethnic minority rights, its commitment

89 The proportion of the Magyar parties' seats in the parliaments of both Slovakia and Romania have consistently been close to the proportion of the populace who identifies as ethnic Hungarian. 38 to or capacity for the promotion or preservation of the individual rights of citizens, be they members of the minorities in question or otherwise, remains unproven.

VII: The Magyar Minority and International Relations

VII.1: Minority Protection, a Centerpiece of Post-Communist Hungarian Foreign Policy:

Often the most important factor in the treatment of ethnic minorities living outside of their kin-state90 is the foreign policy stance the kin-state takes toward the country or

countries in which the ethnic minority resides. This point is illustrated, tragically, by a

consideration of the fact that Slobodon Milosevic justified his actions in the brutal

genocidal wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia as attempts to secure the

rights of the substantial Serbian minorities that found themselves in the successor states

of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and most recently, in the ethnic-Albanian dominated

Serbian province of Kosovo.91 Examples of breakdowns in interethnic relations having

disastrous interstate consequences are seen outside of the post-Communist context in the

Ethiopia-Eritrea war and in the Rwanda-Burundi genocide.92 Therefore, the actions taken

by the Government of Hungary, both in the form of bilateral moves between Hungary

and its neighbors and in the context of Hungarian involvement in multilateral

organizations, are of particular importance in a discussion of the political status of the

Magyar minorities.

90 George Schöpflin defines "kin-states" as "states with sizeable numbers of co-ethnics just across the border, living as citizens of another state." Under this definition, some examples of kin-states include Hungary, Serbia, and Russia. G. Schöpflin. Ibid. p 370. 91 For a detailed description of the excruciating complexity and tragic outcome of ethnic politics in the former Yugoslavia see M. Glenny. The Fall of Yugoslavia. 3rd Ed. 1996. 92 G. Bíró. Ibid. 39

Increasing its influence over the fate of Hungarians outside of Hungary has been a principle Hungarian foreign policy aim since the Trianon partition of 1920. During the years of Communist rule, the Soviet Union gave Hungary, at best a reluctant partner in

Communism, little leeway to disturb Warsaw Pact solidarity with its claims for more rights over the Magyar minorities. Therefore, in 1989 when Hungary's Communist leadership was overthrown, and the threat of Soviet censure disappeared, great potential existed for Hungary to readopt the aggressive irredentism that characterized its foreign policy prior to and during the Second World War (section II.1). In contention with the

Slovak and Romanian constitutional provisions regarding national unity, territorial integrity, etc. (sections IV.2 and IV.3), Hungary asserts in its Constitution, "The Republic of Hungary bears a sense of responsibility for the fate of Hungarians living outside its borders and shall promote and foster their relations with Hungary" (Art. 6, Section 3).

While this constitutional clause asserts no direct rights that the Hungarian Government claims over ethnic Hungarian citizens of other states, its inclusion in the constitutional order has provided nationalists in neighboring countries with ammunition for perpetuating negative stereotypes of Hungarians as "flamboyant nationalists bent on revanchism."93

When, in 1990, Hungarian Prime Minister Joszef Antall, declared himself the

leader, 'in spirit,' of all 15 million Hungarians throughout the world, he did little to allay

fears that a resurgent Hungarian foreign policy meant certain confrontation over the

minorities issue.94 However, Antall's government was succeeded in 1994 by Socialist

93 M. Skak. From Empire to Anarchy: Postcommunist Foreign Policy and International Relations. 1996. p 227. 94 M. Skak. Ibid. p 229. 40

Gyula Horn, whose rhetoric concerning the issue of Hungarians abroad was expressly less confrontational than that of Antall. Subsequent Prime ministers Viktor Orban and

Peter Megyessy, both advocates of greater European integration, have since maintained the tone of cooperation and compromise set by Horn.

From Horn to the present, the Hungarian government's stance on the minority question has taken a very interesting and unanticipated turn. Rather than continuing a nationalist policy of chastisement and confrontation with Hungary's neighbors over the minority issue, the Hungarian government has chosen a much more post-modern,

Europeanist approach. As opposed to agitating against what it perceives as unjust frontiers separating Hungarian populations from the Hungarian state, the Hungarian government has tactically chosen to advocate the fading of these frontiers into irrelevance. In order to do this, Hungary has become one of Romania and Slovakia's most fervent advocates in the EU and NATO accession talks.95 With Slovakia and

Romania, with Hungary, now members of the Euro-Atlantic alliance, and integration of

all three states in the EU scheduled to occur by 2007, the significance of the hated

Trianon border is now on its way toward becoming as permeable and politically

innocuous as the boundary that separates Germany from France.

VII.2: An Outward-Looking Internal Policy – Ethnic Minorities in Hungary:

Concurrent to its cosmopolitan Europeanist outlook abroad, the ethnic policy

pursued by Hungary since 1989 seeks to protect the rights of ethnic Hungarians abroad

by demonstrating the Hungarian government's willingness to protect the rights of ethnic

95 I. Csergo and James Goldeiger. "Virtual Nationalism." Foreign Policy. July-Aug. 2001. pp 76-77. 41 minorities living within Hungary. The basis of Hungary's policy to its own minorities, including relatively small and dispersed populations of Slovaks, Romanians, Roma,

Serbs, and Germans, in addition to a large urban Chinese community, is laid out in

Article 68 of the Hungarian Constitution. Most noteworthy of the constitutional provisions providing for the rights of ethnic minorities within Hungary is "the right to form local and national bodies for self-government" enumerated in Article 68, Section 4.

Because both constitutional and other legal measures have specifically denied the right of ethnic minorities to regional self-government in Romania,96 Slovakia,97 as well as

in Serbia,98 this measure expressly grants minorities in Hungary a right continually

denied to the Hungarian minority in neighboring states. As many of the ethnic minorities

in Hungary are Slovaks, Romanians, and Serbs,99 the liberal minority policy of Hungary

is often used as a bargaining chip by which the Hungarian government can make a case for the granting of greater rights to the ethnic Hungarian citizens of neighboring states, as it has done in diplomatic tiffs with both Romania and Slovakia. The relative autonomy granted by the Hungarian government to its minorities has been seen as a political tool by which Hungary can make its neighbors' minority policies look bad. The root of this criticism lies in the fact that, in comparison with its neighbors, Hungary is nearly ethnically homogenous with a total ethnic minority population of over 500,000 or

96 Article 1, Section 1; Article 4, Section 2; Article 6, Section 2 of the Constitution of Romania, also in M. Shafir. Ibid. p 120. 97 Article 34, Section 3, also in J. Ishiyama. Ibid. pp 75-76. 98 Via the abolition of the Hungarian autonomous region of the Vojvodina in 1988 and Serb President Milosevic's subsequent policy of restriction of ethnic Hungarian political and organizational rights. M. Morokvasic. "The Relationship Between the Majority and the Minority in a Composed Region: the Case of the Vojvodina." in A. Klinke, ed. Ethnic Conflicts and Civil Society: Proposals for a New Era in Eastern Europe. 1998. p157. 99 G. Schöpflin. Ibid. p 371. 42 roughly 5% of the total population.100 Hence, it is argued that Hungary can easily afford

a very permissive minority policy without the political backlash that such a policy would

cause in a more ethnically divided society, such as that of Slovakia or Romania.101

VII.3: National Populism in Hungary: the Magyar Justice and Life Party (MIEP):

Although it has never received anywhere near the electoral success that the

national-populist parties of Romania and Slovakia have mustered102, the Hungarian

Justice and Life Party of István Csurka must be included in the discussion of nationalist

parties that have capitalized on the Hungarian minority issue to the detriment of inter-

ethnic rapprochement. Csurka's party first appeared in 1992 as a fanatical neo-fascist

offshoot of the rightist Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), itself a rightist deviant

from the center-right FIDESZ Party. Csurka's political rants, filled with rhetorical venom

toward Jews, Roma, and other assorted foreigners, are rarely taken seriously except by a

small proportion of disaffected youth and ageing reactionary elements of rural society.103

Csurka's prospects for electoral success are not taken as seriously as were his

attempts to stop the regularization of Hungaro-Romanian relations in the early 1990's.

Furthermore, it is possible, but not probable, that economic downturn or failed integration into Europe could spark a populist reaction that could be exploited and quickly translated by MIEP and the increasingly nationalistic Independent Smallholders Party (FKGP) into electoral success. Promisingly, the appeals to national-populism made by then Prime

100 Ibid. 101 K. von Beyme. Ibid. p 13. 102 MIEP was unable to muster the 5% support needed to get any seats in Parliament in the 2002 general election. The Economist "Orban loses, but only just." 4/27/02. 103 A. Hollis. Ibid. 288. 43

Minister Viktor Orban of FIDESZ in the 2002 election campaign were unable to produce an electoral victory over the Socialist Party candidate, Peter Medgyessy. Whether

FIDESZ's shift toward the rhetoric of populism is permanent or just a campaign strategy, however, remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that with promised EU accession in 2004, Hungary must be more wary than ever of nationalist opportunism seeking to profit from potential stumbling blocks on the road to integration into cosmopolitan Europe.

VII.3: The Minorities Issue in the Context of Greater European Integration

Because of Hungary's quick accession into powerful multilateral Western

European institutions,104 Budapest has been able to use its vote in these institutions as

diplomatic leverage in bilateral negotiations with Bucharest and Bratislava. Such

leverage was put to use over both Romania and Slovakia when, in 1993, both countries'

entry into the Council of Europe, a diplomatic first step into greater European integration,

came to a vote. Already a member of the Council, Hungary had the power to veto both

Slovakia's and Romania's membership bid in protest over the treatment of ethnic

Hungarians in those countries. The Hungarian government eventually determined that it

was neither in its own best interest, nor in the best interest of the Hungarians of Slovakia

and Romania, to exercise this veto, and consequently abstained from the vote.105

104 Hungary concluded a trade agreement with the European Community in 1988, it became the first post-Communist country to enter the Council of Europe in 1990, it futhered its ties with the EC in 1991 and 1993 by concluding Agreements of Association, it became a full member of NATO during the first wave of the alliance's eastward expansion, and, it currently is listed in the 'first tier' of countries to be granted membership through EU expansion. 105 M. Skak. Ibid. p 237. 44

Nevertheless, the protest that accompanied the threatened veto put considerable diplomatic pressure, both from Budapest and Western Europe, on Romania and Slovakia to temper, at least in diplomatic forums, their stances on minority rights. In the abovementioned diplomatic episode, Hungary used its comparatively favorable reputation in the West to apply multilateral scrutiny on the ethnic minority policies of its neighbors. This tactic is emblematic of a pro-integrationist Hungarian policy goal to make its concerns the concerns of a greater Europe. However, the success of such a policy relies almost entirely on the value that Hungary's neighbors, in this case, Romania and Slovakia, place on their political and economic integration with Western Europe. As has previously been mentioned, the tactic of leveraging Western scrutiny against

Hungary's neighbors has been largely abandoned for the opposing strategy of Hungarian advocacy for Romanian and Slovak accession into Western European institutions as the best way to ensure the rights of the ethnic minorities.

With the ouster of Meciar from power in Slovakia and the disintegration of the rightist coalition in Romania, coupled with the 2002 election of European integrationist

Peter Medgyessy as Prime Minister of Hungary, the climate for regional cooperation between Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania has vastly improved from the stormy relations of the early 1990's. The bilateral treaties signed between Hungary and Slovakia in 1995, and between Hungary and Romania a year later, have served as the foundation for this spirit of greater cross-border cooperation and trust. These treaties put to rest finally the lingering border disputes from the early 20th Century, placing the current borders beyond dispute. They also formally espouse, on an international level, the recognition by all 45 three states of the need to work together towards minority rights, thus putting to rest many of the aforementioned Constitutional ambiguities that have caused much concern.

As previously noted, the commitment of all parties to integration into the

European Union (in 2004 for Hungary and Slovakia and 2007 for Romania) is also poised to render certain sore points that remain between Hungary and its neighbors irrelevant.

One such issue is the Hungarian Status Law passed by the Hungarian Parliament granting ethnic Hungarian citizens of neighboring states the right to work in Hungary. The Status

Law, that drew stern criticism from both the Slovak and Romanian government, has since been amended by the Hungarian Parliament, with Romanian consultation, to include all

Romanian citizens in its provisions, and may soon be annulled altogether by the process of legal standardization that is proceeding Hungarian accession into the EU.106

Furthermore, the program has been almost entirely gutted of funding by Medgyessy's

Socialist Party government. For its own part, Romania's own proposed laws according

visa privileges to Romania's "Moldovan brothers" may likewise be scrapped under the

pressure of EU accession.107 Clearly, the imperative to comply legally with the acquis

communitaire has left many nationalist legislative initiatives impossible to pass. As the

process of European integration draws all three countries together under European

economic and legal norms, the potential for conflict over the rights of the Hungarian

minorities posing a serious threat to the political stability of the Carpathian Basin will

presumably decrease. In short, it appears as if the shared desire for increased

106 T. Nicholson "EC Delegation Head: Status Law 'Not Helpful'." The Slovak Spectator. 4//8/02. http://www.slovakspectator.sk. 107 E. Lhomel. Ibid. 46 participation in the European system has made the costs of continued conflict too high for

Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia.

VIII. Conclusions

The paradox presented by the post-Communist experience of the ethnic

Hungarian minorities of Slovakia and Romania is that of increased integration and further isolation. Through separate, but interrelated processes, they have been both further integrated into the greater European population while furthering their isolation from the national majorities of the states in which they reside. Past attempts at coercive assimilation, undertaken by Communists and nationalists alike, have not only failed in integrating the Magyar minorities into the majority nation, but actually fueled the ethnic identification and cohesion of the Hungarians. Facilitated by an increasingly free

Hungarian language media, the ethnically conscious minority has retreated more and more into its own identity and into its own communities.108 The increased group

cohesion has, in turn, revolutionized the political power of the Hungarian minorities

within the emergent political party systems of both Slovakia and Romania, making a once

marginalized group a key player in every national election. However, once involved in

the policy programs of the states in which they reside, members of ethnic Hungarian

minorities, like their ethnic counterparts in Hungary, have proven to be some of the most

enthusiastic advocates of European integration in East-Central Europe.109 This is not

surprising given the EU's sensitivity to minority concerns in Western Europe. It appears

108 C. Dumitriu-Seuleanu. "The Media: Social Constructions in Inter-Ethnic Communication in Romania." in A. Klinke, ed. Ibid. p 184. 109 G. Csepeli. Grappling With National Identity. 2000. pp 31 and 63. 47 that, at present, the Magyar minority trusts Brussels, more than Bucharest, Bratislava, or even Budapest, in the preservation of their rights. It is conceivable that with the

Carpathian Basin incorporated into the European Union, the existence of Hungarians outside of Hungary will raise little more political concern than the presence of Austrians in the Italian South Tyrol.

The apparent paradox presented by the political strategy of the Hungarian minorities of Slovakia and Romania is that, although the basis for both groups' political power within the states in which they reside relies almost entirely on the cohesion of their ethnic group, their external policy calls for measures thoroughly rejected by nearly every national-populist movement in Europe such as European integration and rapid market liberalization.110 As such, the Hungarian minority parties are similar to the majorities’

national populist movements insofar as they employ the politics of ethnic identity to build

their electoral strength, even though their political platforms espouse ethnic cooperation

and integration. One may explain this phenomenon in very realpolotik terms, pointing to

the fact that the Hungarian minorities, not having sovereignty to preserve in the first

place, find it beneficial that the sovereignty, and therefore capacity for repression of the

national states in which they live, be reduced. However, were this concept of zero-sum

nationalism the driving factor in the political aims of the Magyar minorities, one would

expect the post-Communist scenario in the Carpathian Basin to resemble that of

Yugoslavia, with Hungarians outside of Hungary's border clamoring for the annexation

and incorporation of their territories into Hungary, much as was the case during the

interwar period.

110 MKP (http://mkp.sk/index.pht) and RMDSZ (http://hhrf.org/rmdsz/index.htm) websites. 48

Many factors, such as the refusal of the Hungarian government to grossly overstep its bounds regarding the minority issue and the eventual commitment of

Hungary Romania and Slovakia to the goal of greater European cooperation, have come together to facilitate the establishment of peaceable interethnic relations in the Carpathian

Basin. The most fundamental of these, however, is the ability, and the willingness, of the

Magyar minority to participate in the emergent political systems of the countries in which they live. By its participation in the political systems of post-Communist Romania and

Slovakia, the legitimate rule of these countries over the Magyar minority is being established. For their own part, the governments and people of Slovakia and Romania have come to accept, however warily, the vital role of the Hungarian minorities in the development of democratic institutions. As they progress towards European integration, the peoples of the Carpathian Basin are beginning to see beyond the rhetoric of conflict and coexistence to a vision of cooperation and partnership. In so doing, the seeds for a form of citizenship beyond mere ethnic identification have been sown.

49

Figure 1: Map of Hungarian Minorities in Central Europe*

*Source: Hungarian Government Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad: http://www.htmh.hu/

50

Figure 2: Map of Hungarian Minorities in Romania*

Figure 3: Hungarian Minorities in Slovakia*

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