Autonomies in Hungary and Europe A COMPARATIVE STUDY By Józsa Hévizi The Regional and Ecclesiastic Autonomy of the Minorities and Nationality Groups CORVINUS SOCIETY 2004 Second Enlarged Edition Title of the First Edition: Regional and Ecclesiastical Autonomy in Historic Hungary Reviewed by: Dr. Ildikó Lipcsey Dr. Lajos Arday Translated By Thomas J. DeKornfeld Thanks to my mother for help, and to Szabolcs Magyarody, whose initiative was written this work. English Text Reviewed and Edited By Helen D. Hiltabidle Wrapper: Perhács Lászlóné Back, maps: dr. Ottófi Rudolf Art by Marta Buda PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES ISBNxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Library of Congress Catalog Card Number xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Table of Contents Foreword 5 The Justification of Autonomy 7 Regional Autonomy in the Kingdom of Hungary (1000-1920) 11 The Székelys (and Csángós) 12 The Csángó-Hungarians living in Moldavia 16 The Pechenegs 17 The Cumans and Jazygians 18 The Transylvanian Saxons 22 The Szepesség (Zips) Saxons 25 The Croats 26 Ecclesiastic Autonomy 32 The Romanians 38 The Serbs 42 The Slovaks 50 The Ruthenians 57 The Greeks 63 The Armenians 65 The Germans and Swabians 67 European Minority Policies and Practices in the Past 68 France 69 Bretagne 70 Alsace 71 Corsica 72 Spain 74 Belgium 77 Switzerland 79 Italy 81 South Tyrol 81 Sweden 83 Norway 84 Finland 85 Russia 88 Jews 88 Baltic Nations 88 Byelorussians and Ukrainians 89 Smaller nationalities 89 Crimean Tartars 90 Hungarians and Ruthenians in the Kárpátalja 97 Poland 99 Post-Trianon Hungary 103 The Czech Republic and Slovakia 114 3 The Kárpátalja Hungarians and Ruthenians in Czechoslovakia 119 Romania 126 Yugoslavia and Serbia 140 Civil Rights Battle for Territorial Autonomy in Great Britain 150 Ireland 151 Northern Ireland (Six Counties of Ulster) 156 Scotland 160 Wales 164 Autonomy and the Politics of National Security 169 Methods of Assimilation and their Sociological Consequences 169 The Conditions Required for the Self-Preservation of an Ethnic Group and for its Internal Development 172 How Autonomies Were Achieved in the 19th century 173 The Europe of Autonomous Minorities - the Pre-requisite for a Peaceful Europe 175 Legislative Act XLIV/1868 - “On Equal Rights For the Nationalities” 180 Bibliography 184 4 Foreword It gave me great pleasure that the work entitled “The Regional and Ecclesiastic Autonomy in Historic Hungary” was published and was granted the status of a textbook. This is a reference manual not only in the field of textbook literature but it is just as much a ref- erence manual for us who labor in the regions wrested from the historic Hungary, trying to reestablish our mutilated ecclesiastic and national autonomy in a contemporary guise. I render thanks to God and to the author for the unexpected ideological, historical and theoretical help, coming from an unexpected source and at an unexpected time. It will contribute greatly to the better and “more fundamental” buttressing of our endeavors and of our ideas of autonomy. February 29, 1996 LÁSZLÓ TÕKÉS Episcopal Office of the Királyhágómellék Reformed Synod 5 The Justification of Autonomy According to Aristotle, in a democracy “supreme power belongs to the people” which in theory means that the power is exerted by the entire people and not just by one of its subgroups or segments. In spite of this, the democracies of the classic era did not grant citizenship to foreigners (the metoikos in Greece) and the status of the ethnic minorities did not change appreciably through the centuries. According to the eminent 20th century Protestant thinker and teacher, Sándor Karácsony, “World history is the history of a single endeavor, the attempts of individuals to become independent from other individuals. The only thing that happened political- ly throughout history was that every period endeavored to curtail the overly developed autonomy of one man while furthering the diminished or yet undeveloped autonomy of another man.” He was of the opinion that in the process of maturing of individuals the same principle was manifested as in the social and political development of nations, namely a striving for autonomy. Although the national states evolved only in the 19th century, nations and ethnic groups have struggled from the beginning of history for their administrative, economic and cultural (religious and linguistic) autonomy essential for the preservation of their identity. Ever since the union with Wales, Scotland and Ireland was established, England endeavored to abolish the administrative independence of these regions and to achieve linguistic assimilation. Religious matters were also part of this endeavor and only the Scottish Presbyterians maintained some independence. The Act of Union between England and Wales, promulgated in 1536, banned the use of the Welsh language in legal matters. In 1616, James I issued an edict banning the use of Gaelic in Scotland. The Education Act of 1870 banned the use of Welsh in the schools. After the annex- ation of Wales, Scotland and Ireland to England only scattered remnants of autonomy remained. Following the Anglo-Welsh Union of 1536, Wales became entirely integrated into England but its autonomous cultural heritage was maintained to this day. The Union of Scotland and England (1707) did not lead to complete assimilation since Scotland’s reli- gious autonomy was left intact. Thus the continuation of the Scottish Kirk was assured and the Scottish legal and legislative practices were also preserved. At the time of the religious wars in France in the 16th century, the victory of the Catholics over the Huguenots was accompanied by the central government doing away with the regional parliaments and with the regional separatism represented by them. Francis I (1515-1547) made French the official state language in 1539 and this process was completed when the French Revolution banned the use of Breton, Basque, German, Italian and Flemish. The great philosophers and politicians of the French Revolution believed that enact- ing human and civic rights and promulgating individual rights would lead to democracy. Today we can see that such a law can come to life only by a compromise that attempts to balance complicated group interests and the mechanisms to integrate such divergent 7 interests. Unfortunately, political life demonstrates that those in power tend to represent the interests of some group, e.g.- the economic lobbies. If we raise the question whether interest groups on all sides, employer, worker (union) and government are listened to, we must admit that traditionally only the inter- ests of the groups organized on an economic or social basis are considered worthy of consideration, while the ethnic issues or an approach on ethnic bases cannot be inte- grated into the system. It may be a solution if ethnic considerations were the basis on which regional or territorial autono- my would be established. This has recently been shown to be correct in a number of Western-European countries. When, as a result of the 1789 French Revolution, everybody became a citizen and the inequalities in the judicial system, in taxation and in other areas all disappeared, the elim- ination of privileges of the nobility and clergy was accompanied by the disappearance of the manifestations of regional interests. In lieu of a society consisting of groups with widely varying privileges, a society was established where all individuals had the same privileges and the same obligations. By terminating a naturally evolved regional organi- zation, possibly indicating ethnic divisions, a consistently modern administrative system was established. It was in this way that the modern bourgeois state eliminated the inequalities between individuals, while at the same time it also eliminated the possibility of a collective protection of the interests of regional ethnic minority groups. In Hungary, the Habsburg government allowed the establishment of an ecclesiastic auton- omy that, in turn, could establish a certain framework for cultural and economic self-rule. Thus, the modern state has replaced caste privileges with individual rights but failed to recognize that individual rights could be exercised only inadequately when the ethnic minorities could not protect themselves and their particular interests vis-à-vis the nation- al majority. The citizen had become a taxpayer but in exchange for his taxes he does not enjoy those rights that are enjoyed by those belonging to the majority ethnic group holding the power. The majority enjoyed collective rights not available to those belonging to the minority. The interests of the members of the minority group coincided with those of the majority only to a limited extent and, so far as use of the mother tongue, education and preservation of their national identity were concerned, minorities functioned as a sepa- rate community of interest. The concept of nation and nationality has not been clearly defined in the technical lit- erature even today. These concepts are fundamentally a function of the perspective and treatment with which minorities and their problems have been handled in various coun- tries or are being handled today. The minorities’ historic origin may differ and they may be the descendants of the original inhabitants, settlers or later immigrants. We consider those communities as descendants of the original inhabitants who are linked to their region by their historic past, but who differ from the majority of the population by their ethnic or religious traditions and by their way of life. Two subsets may be identified: one consists of individuals who are ethnically and linguistically identical with the majority population of a neighboring country (separated from this majority by some arbitrary deci- sion following a war). The other consists of minority groups who have no homeland. The term ethnicity means the totality of the characteristics or attributes of a certain people or group of peoples. In practice a number of groups are called ethnic, and the term may refer to a linguistic-cultural nation, a national community or a racial minority.