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Intolerance in Slovakia: The Anti-Hungarian "Slovak Citizenship Act"

The Case of Ilonka Aladarne Tamas

The Case of Ilonka Tamas. The latest outrage from Slovakia: 99-year old teacher loses citizenship.12/14/2011 - The Case of Ilonka Tamas. The latest outrage from Slovakia: 99-year-old teacher loses citizenship. AHF issues a follow up statement to the Helsinki Commission. Her case is particularly disconcerting. She was born in 1912 in Rimaszombat (Slovak name: Rimavska Sobota). Rimaszombat was then the seat of Gomor County and part of Hungary.

Tüntetés Rimaszombatban Ilonka néni mellett : Kedden koraeste mintegy háromszáz fős tömeg gyűlt össze Rimaszombat történelmi főterén az állampolgárságától megfosztott Tamás Ilonka nénit támogató szimpátiatüntetésen.
Tüntetés Rimaszombatban Ilonka néni mellett : Kedden koraeste mintegy háromszáz fős tömeg gyűlt össze Rimaszombat történelmi főterén az állampolgárságától megfosztott Tamás Ilonka nénit támogató szimpátiatüntetésen.

Thus, Mrs. Tamas was born a Hungarian citizen on Hungarian soil. She never relocated, but as a result of the Treaty of Trianon, she became first a citizen of Czechoslovakia and then, with the breakup of Czechoslovakia, a citizen of Slovakia. She is now a "person without registered address."

As a teacher, Ilonka Tamás brought up generations of children and for her pedagogical achievements she received the “Komenský” medal and the gold medal of the Slovak Republic. Despite her old age, she is still an active member of the community; she is running the Senior Citizens club and a member of the “Magyar Koalíció Pártja” (The Hungarian Coalition Party).

In a follow-up letter to the Helsinki Commission, AHF said, "these cases hardly evidence a tolerant society committed to respecting the human and minority rights of its minorities. We, therefore, respectfully urge the Helsinki Commission to address these cases and the other matters reflected in our prior submission. AHF's statement appears below:

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In a letter to Knut Vollebaek, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, the Federation again raises anti-Hungarian measures in Slovakia and Serbia and requests the High Commissioner's clarification of reports in the electronic media asserting that he had labeled Hungary's support for Slovakia's Hungarian minority "malicious and foolish."
[download] AHF's follow-up letter to the U.S. Helsinki Commission

December 14, 2011

Honorable Christopher H. Smith,
Chairman, U.S. Helsinki Commission

Honorable Benjamin L. Cardin
Co-Chairman, U.S. Helsinki Commission

Dear Mr. Chairman and Co-Chairman:

On December 1, 2011 we submitted a letter and a memorandum with respect to our concerns relating to Slovakia’s attitude and discriminatory practices toward its Hungarian minority, including that country’s punitive citizenship law and how it had been applied to deprive Oliver Boldoghy of his Slovak citizenship. 

Following our submission a case involving a 99-year-old woman came to our attention:

The Case of Mrs. Ilona Aladarne Tamas (in Slovak: Mrs. Helena Tamasova): The most recent anti-Hungarian incident involves the stripping Mrs. Tamas of her Slovak citizenship after she received Hungarian citizenship. Her case is particularly disconcerting. She was born in 1912 in Rimaszombat (Slovak name: Rimavska Sobota). Rimaszombat was then the seat of Gomor County and part of Hungary. Thus, Mrs. Tamas was born a Hungarian citizen. She never relocated, but as a result of the Treaty of Trianon, she became first a citizen of Czechoslovakia and then, with the breakup of Czechoslovakia, a citizen of Slovakia. As a 99-year-old ethnic Hungarian, she wanted to regain her Hungarian citizenship, while retaining her Slovak citizenship. Yet, seven months after she notified the authorities about having received her Hungarian citizenship, and her intent of retaining her Slovak citizenship, the Slovak authorities informed her that she lost her Slovak citizenship. With this, Mrs. Tamas became a “person without registered address.”

These cases hardly evidence tolerance and a commitment to respect human and minority rights. We, therefore, respectfully urge the Helsinki Commission to address these cases and the other matters described in our prior submission.

Sincerely,

Frank Koszorus, Jr.
National President
Public Member of the U.S. Delegation of the 1989 Conference
on Security and Cooperation in Europe on the Human Dimension

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Slovak Constitution: “no one must be deprived of the citizenship of the Slovak Republic against his will.”

The Slovak Citizenship Act, specifically targets Hungarians and was amended to combat Hungary granting citizenship freely to Slovaks, was adopted last year shortly after Hungary announced its plans to grant citizenship to ethnic Hungarians abroad. The law in force in Slovakia clearly states that anyone accepting the citizenship of another country will be stripped of their Slovak citizenship.

<< Back to all Slovak News

The Case of Oliver Boldoghy

Slovakia strips citizenship to ethnic Hungarian minorties who assert their right to dual citizenship, an international norm, and in violation of their own Constitution.12/02/2011 - Slovakia strips citizenship to ethnic Hungarian minorties who assert their right to dual citizenship, an international norm, and in violation of their own Constitution. AHF submits a statement to US Congress and the Helsinki Commission and states, "Intolerance and discrimination targeting any group based on ethnicity, nationality or religion is not acceptable... The most recent anti-Hungarian incident involves Slovakia stripping Oliver Boldoghy, an actor and businessman, of of his Slovak citizenship after becoming a dual citizen.

"You can't give in to tyranny, if I bow before the anti-democratic rules of the Slovakian government, if I accept the rules of the game, then tomorrow the entire Hungarian community will be bullied" - said Olivér Boldoghy to Magyar Hirlap. [read more]

More Coverage of the Slovak Citizenship Issue

karpatalja.ma2/27/2014 - Memorandum felvidéki magyaroktól a szlovák kormánynak. Szlovák kormányhoz fordultak állampolgárságuktól megfosztott felvidéki magyarok. [tovabb]

American-Hungarian Federation turns to US Congress over widening Slovak citizenship row.12/5/2011 - American-Hungarian Federation turns to US Congress over widening Slovak citizenship row. The American-Hungarian Federation has turned to the US Congress Helsinki Commission with an appeal for it to take action in the case of a Slovak of Hungarian origin who has been stripped of his citizenship on the ground that he took up Hungarian citizenship, the alliance’s chairman told MTI. [read more]

Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic to the case of Olivér Boldoghy. While complying with general principles and norms of international law concerning citizenship, every state has a sovereign right to set its own legal regulation of citizenship. The current situation and the Oliver Boldoghy-case result from non-standard Hungarian citizenship regulation granting the Hungarian citizenship on the basis of ethnicity without any real ties of the person to the state. [read more]

The citizenship of an ethnic Hungarian resident of the Slovak town of Komarno causes a political row between Hungary and Slovakia over Hungary's dual citizenship law.11/28/2011 - The citizenship of an ethnic Hungarian resident of the Slovak town of Komarno causes a political row between Hungary and Slovakia over Hungary's dual citizenship law. "Many people have taken up the Hungarian citizenship but they did not notify the Slovak interior ministry about it. The reason why myself with several others have openly admitted this is to take a conscious civilian action. We would like to create a precedent. We began a signature collection on the day of the Slovak constitution on September 1st and referring to the constitution we would like to achieve that this Fico law, this anti-dual citizenship law should is annulled," Boldoghy said. [read more]

Ethnic Hungarian should appeal citizenship case in European courts, says Deputy PM11/30/2011 - Ethnic Hungarian should appeal citizenship case in European courts, says Deputy PM. The Slovak constitution declares that no one can be deprived of their Slovak citizenship against their will, Semjen said, adding that this is the legal argument that should be followed in Boldoghy’s defence. The Slovak authorities had acted against universal human rights and the ethos of the European Union, Semjen said, adding that Hungary offers its full support to Boldoghy’s case. [read more]

Slovak Language Law Related Articles

Under the Slovak Language Law, the use of the minority language in official communication would be punishable in towns and villages where the ethnic community makes up less than 20 percent of the total population. The amendment requires that all documentation of minority schools should be duplicated in the state language. The law stipulates that the names of streets and buildings anywhere in Slovakia must be stated in the Slovak language [despite 1100-year-old tradition] and it also introduces sanctions of up to €5,000 ($7,000) on those who break rules promoting the use of Slovak in public and for municipalities and public offices for not using the Slovak language "properly."

MTI - Álláspontjának Tisztázására Szólította Fel az EBESZ Kisebbségügyi Főbiztosát az Amerikai Magyar Szövetség"Álláspontjának Tisztázására Szólította Fel az EBESZ Kisebbségügyi Főbiztosát az Amerikai Magyar Szövetség" - MTI 2011. szeptember 30., péntek 1:14
[ magyarul MTI cikk magyarul]
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Slovakia criminalises the use of HungarianHovorte po slovensky!* Slovakia criminalises the use of Hungarian: The Economist, Jul 30, 2009

LANGUAGE laws may protect minority rights or infringe them. Slovakia’s new law, which comes into force on September 1st, is under fire for its harshness. It imposes fines of up to €5,000 ($7,000) on those who break rules promoting the use of Slovak in public. [read more]

<< Go to AHF's Coverage of the Slovak Language Law


Why So Many Hungarians Across the Border?

One thousand years of nation building successfully delineated groups based on culture, religion, geography, and other attributes to create the countries with which we are so familiar. While some Western European nations would continue power struggles and princely battles and civil wars, Hungary, founded in 896, was a peaceful multi-ethnic state for a 1000 years and her borders were virtually unchanged. Until 1920...

The Treaty of Trianon in 1920... in the aftermath of WWI, was extremely harsh on Hungary and unjustifiably one-sided. The resulting "treaty" lost Hungary an unprecedented 2/3 of her territory, and 1/2 of her total population or 1/3 of her Hungarian-speaking population. Add to this the loss of up to 90% of vast natural resources, industry, railways, and other infrastructure.

In the newly created Slovakia, the tragedy of 1920 that befell the historic Hungarian communities was only the beginning. The Benes Decrees sent millions of people, who had lived in the region for many centuries, off in sealed wagons, away from their homes, their families - not to mention the odd ones who died on the trip. Tens of thousands of these were Hungarian. More recently, the Slovak Language Law makes the use of the minority language in official communication punishable in towns and villages where the ethnic community makes up less than 20 percent of the total population. The amendment requires that all documentation of minority schools should be duplicated in the state language. The law stipulates that the names of streets and buildings anywhere in Slovakia must be stated in the Slovak language [despite 1100-year-old tradition] and it also introduces sanctions of 100 to 5000 euros for municipalities and public offices for not using the Slovak language "properly."

The following graphic shows ethnic distribution in Slovakia and population decline from 1910 - 1991:

Ethnic Map of Slovakia - 1910 vs 1991 showing population decline

Hungarians in Slovakia an the Benes Decrees

Ethnic Distribution in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1910 (Hungarians shown in red)

Ethnic Distribution in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1910 (Hungarians shown in red)
[download extra large image 4962x3509]
[download large image 1000x707]

Hungarian populations declined significantly after forced removals such as the Benes Decrees and other pograms, the effects of WWI, and Trianon in 1920. With continued pressure and discriminative policies such as the 2009 Slovak Language Law, this trend continued over the past 90 years.

Hungarian populations declined significantly after forced removals such as the Benes Decrees and other pograms, the effects of WWI, and Trianon in 1920. With continued pressure and discriminative policies sucha s the 2009 Slovak Language Law, this trend continued over the past 90 years.

  • In Upper Hungary (awarded to Slovakia, Czechoslovakia): 1,687,977 Slovaks and 1,233,454 others (mostly Hungarians - 886,044, Germans, Ruthenians and Roma) [according to the 1921 census, however, there were 1,941,942 Slovaks and 1,058,928 others]
  • In Carpathian Ruthenia (awarded to Czechoslovakia): 330,010 Ruthenians and 275,932 others (mostly Hungarians, Germans, Romanians, and Slovaks)
  • In Transylvania (awarded to Romania): 2,831,222 Romanians (53.8%) and 2,431,273 others (mostly Hungarians - 1,662,948 (31.6%) and Germans - 563,087 (10.7%)). The 1919 and 1920 Transylvanian censuses indicate a greater percentage of Romanians (57.1%/57.3%) and a smaller Hungarian minority (26.5%/25.5%)
  • In Vojvodina 510,754 Serbs and 1,002,229 others (mostly Hungarians 425,672 and Germans 324,017)
  • In Vojvodina and Croatia-Slavonia combined (awarded to Yugoslavia): 2,756,000 Croats and Serbs and 1,366,000 others (mostly Hungarians and Germans)
  • In Burgenland (awarded to Austria): 217,072 Germans and 69,858 others (mainly Croatian and Hungarian)

Links

Related Articles

By Any Other Name: Hungary, Apartheid, and the Benes Decrees
by Christopher Szabó, diacritica.com
April 3, 2002

These decrees sent millions of people, who had lived in the region for many centuries, off in sealed wagons, away from their homes, their families - not to mention the odd ones who died on the trip.

WHAT THE BENES DECREES SAY

One may be forgiven for suspecting, by the casual way the Benes Decrees are often disparaged by commentators, that many of those who write about the Decrees have never taken the trouble to [read them].

Living as I have for over 20 years in South Africa, I know this language well. It is the language of Apartheid.

There is no moral difference, to my mind, in withdrawing civil rights, confiscating private property and deporting people, whether they be Black South Africans sent to some "Homeland/Bantustan," or Armenians, or deported Chechens, or Germans and Hungarians.

The Hungarians who lived in what is now Slovakia and Trans-Carpathian Ukraine (which was given to Stalin by a grateful Benes in 1945) were more than one million strong in 1910. By 1930, thanks to the above-mentioned "administrative" cleansing, their numbers had been reduced to 585,434. After Hungary reclaimed its lands in 1939, people began moving back to their homes. In 1941-45, there were about 761,000 in what is today Slovakia alone. [read more]


Allied Omertá:
Shattering the Code of Silence About the Benes Decrees

by Christopher Szabó, diacritica.com
April 3, 2002

The "Benes Decrees" began in the mind of Czech statesman Edvard Benes sometime in 1940. He made some quite clear statements about his plans by 1941. The plans? To kill and/or expel all people of German or Hungarian ethnicity/language from a reunited Czechoslovakia, which had fallen apart at the start of the war. This is the sort of thing you would expect from a Himmler or a Beria, not a guy who is lionised in Western history books, and generally books about Central Europe, as the only true "democrat" in the region. But Czechoslovakia was never a complete democracy. Just as interwar Hungary, or Poland, or Yugoslavia, were not. Not quite. In Czechoslovakia, designed as a "national homeland" for Slavs, the Slavic Rusyns had to have two votes to equal one Czech vote! Democracy? [read more]


THE PRESIDENTIAL DECREES OF EDWARD BENES
1945-1948
Courtesy of the Corvinus Online Library

The first Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938) was recreated in 1945 at the end of World War II and existed until the end of 1992. In both cases, Czechoslovakia utterly failed to form a governmental structure that secured freedom, prosperity, peace, and equal rights for all citizens of the state.

In 1918, the newly founded Czechoslovak Republic was entirely carved out of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy by a unilateral decision of the victorious entente powers. The dictated peace treaties of Versailles, Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Trianon were not an outcome of a true peace conference at which the defeated would also have been given the opportunity to enunciate the limits of acceptable conditions for peace. Such a peace conference was never assembled.

The Versailles peace treaty with Germany was condemned by non-interested parties. In fact, the US Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, had declared that "the Versailles treaty menaces the existence of civilization," and two popes had stigmatized the instrument. Benedict XV condemned it for "the lack of an elevated sense of justice, the absence of dignity, morality or Christian nobility," and Pius XI, in his 1922 encyclical "Ubi arcam Dei," deplored an artificial peace set down on paper "which instead of arousing noble sentiments increases and legitimizes the spirit of vengeance and rancour."

The peace treaty of Trianon (1920) with Hungary resulted in the dismemberment of the thousand- year- old Hungarian Kingdom, as a result of an unbelievably inimical attitude of the allied representatives toward the Magyars. The consequence to Hungary was a loss of 71.5% of its territory and 63.6% of its population. The extreme tragedy of Hungary can be illustrated by comparing the smaller losses in 1871 of France to Germany, in which France gave up 2.6% of its territory and 4.1% of its population to Germany. The Trianon treaty forced three and a half million Magyars to live, without their consent, in Czechoslovakia, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenians and Rumania, with the stroke of a pen. The right of self-determination of nations, solemnly promised in the 14 points of US President Woodrow Wilson, was apparently forgotten. [more]

Corvinus.com - Czech and Slovak Affairs Page
Also see the Hungarian Forum in Australia


The Hungarian Problem
Or, the Hungarians are the Problem
Christopher Szabó, diacritica.com
Autumn, 1998

Newly Elected Prime Minister Viktor Orban said it well: "The borders of the Hungarian nation and the Hungarian State do not coincide." This is true, as witness the fact that fully one-third of all Hungarians are minorities in neighbouring countries, most just on the far side of the border.

This is, naturally, a problem for Hungarians. It is also a problem for all the states who got Hungarian lands. Many in neighbouring countries, and politicians in many more, have said in the past, and no doubt will say in the future: "Why don't they just go home?!!" But they are home!

How Hungary Shrank, stranding millions across artificial bordersThey are home in the sense that they, as communities, haven't moved anywhere. They just woke up one morning to be told: "You are now a Czechoslovak, you are a Romanian, you are a Yugoslav." This first happened in 1918-20, when Hungary was partitioned by the infamous Trianon Treaty, which was not a treaty at all, but a diktat enforced by occupying Entente Armies. In the late 1930's, Hungary got some portions of its territories back, but after losing yet another war, the borders were tightened even more in 1947.

The key weakness of these treaties was that neither ever asked - or cared - what the local population wanted. Did they want to join a new state (e.g., Czechoslovakia) did they want to stay with Hungary, or did they want independence or autonomy or what?

The fact that these questions have never even been asked, let alone answered, in a supposedly democratic age, remains the central problem of the Hungarian minorities in the countries immediately surrounding Hungary. [more] [back to all AHF news]


A Case Study on Trianon
The Corvinus Library

How Hungary Shrank, stranding millions across artificial borders..."the American government accepts, against its better judgment, the decision not to announce a plebiscite in the matter of the final drafting of frontiers. He believes that in many respects the frontiers do not correspond to the ethnic requisite, nor to economic necessity, and that significant modifications would be in order, particularly in the Ruthenian area." Later on Wallace submitted for the consideration of the Great Powers proposals with regard to a restoration of the economic unity of the Danubian states. The American initiative, however, came too late ... The only thing left was the Millerand cover letter, which did not oblige anyone to do anything!

The Hungarian peace delegation signed the peace treaty consisting of 14 points at the so-called Great Trianon palace, near Paris, on June 4, 1920. Hungary's fate was determined for an unforeseeable future by the second part of the treaty which defined the new borders. According to this section Hungary's area (without Croatia) would be reduced from 282,000 km2 to 93,000 km2, whereas its population decreased from 18 million to 7.6 million. This meant that Hungary lost two thirds of its territory, whereas Germany lost but 10 percent and Bulgaria but 8 percent to the benefit of their victorious neighbors.

As regards population, Hungary lost more than 60 percent of its inhabitants as opposed to the 10 percent lost by Germany. In the lands taken away from Hungary there lived approximately 10 million persons. Persons of Hungarian nationality constituted 3,424,000 in the areas taken away from Hungary. Of these 1,084,000 were attached to Czechoslovakia, 1,705,000 to Romania, 564,000 to Yugoslavia, and 65,000 to Austria. Thus 33.5 percent of all Hungarians came under foreign rule, i.e., every third Hungarian. For the sake of comparison. while the treaties of Versailles and Neuilly placed only one German or one Bulgarian out of every twenty under foreign rule, the Trianon treaty placed seven out of twenty Hungarians in the same position.

Furthermore about one half of the Hungarian minority attached to the neighboring states was ethnically directly next to the main body of Hungarians on the other side of the borders. Had the peace treaties signed in the Paris suburbs really tried to bring about, however incidentally, nation-states, then it would have had to leave at least 11/4 to 2 million more Hungarians inside Hungary. In contrast the 42 million inhabitants of the successor states there were about 16 million minorities, as a consequence of which Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia became multinational states much like the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy had been. What is more, according to the census of 1910 the percentage of Hungarians in Hungary had reached 54.4 percent, whereas in the nations that came about as a result of the peace treaties, in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the leading Czech and Serbian elements constituted but a minority as compared to the other ethnic groups.

The Treaty of Trianon was a great blow to Hungary in economic terms as well. Hungary was deprived of 62.2 percent of its railroad network, 73.8 percent of its public roads, 64.6 percent of its canals, 88 percent of its forests, 83 percent of its iron ore mines and of all its salt mines.

At the Peace Conference the Entente powers, in order to satisfy the imperialist greed of their allies in central Europe, cut across roads, canals, railroad lines, split cities and villages in two, deprived mines of their entrances, etc.

There was but one modification of the frontier: thanks to Italian intercession and the stand taken by patriotic forces in Western Hungary, a plebiscite was obtained in Sopron and its environs. At the plebiscite of December 4, 1921, 65 percent of the population opted for Hungary.
[go to Corvinus Trianon Index]
[more from above excerpt]
[The Hungary Page - Trianon]

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