Hungary, 96 years after the Treaty of Trianon

The treaty by which two-thirds of Hungary’s territory was taken away and millions of Hungarians were separated from the motherland was signed on the 4^th June, 1920, in the Grand Trianon palace of Versailles. This is what we commemorate on every 4^th June, as the treaty forced on Hungary almost 100 years ago still determines Hungary’s global opportunities.

The 4^th June means something entirely different for Hungarians than for any other nation, because, since the founding of the Hungarian Kingdom on the 25^th December in 1000, the Carpathian Basin was home to the whole Hungarian population. The Kingdom lived through dozens of wars, through stormy centuries (as our anthem also speaks – tr.) until the Treaty, while being more or less undivided.

Our country got involved in WWI as part of the Astro-Hungarian monarchy, and finally lost, so got into the hands of the winners thereafter. Well, there was no benevolence at the table when they showed the Treaty to the Hungarian delegation; they wanted to make an example of Hungary.

They took the two-thirds of the Hungarian lands. Romania, for example, received a larger part (102.813 km2) than the whole Hungarian country was left with (92.952 km2).

The “rights of the minorities” were the reference points that made France, Great Britain, the USA and other winning countries decide to cut Hungary into pieces. The only ethnic map not given any attention to, while drawing the final borders, was the ethnic map of the Hungarians. Many, still arguing for the Treaty, try to explain this still unprecedented Treaty through the ethnic map. Meanwhile, many in Hungary, and also outside of Hungary think that the Treaty was dictated. While it is obviously true that there were parts in the separated territory where the minorities were in majority, people rarely discover how the final borders were not drawn according to this map. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarians, living homogeneous groups, were torn from their country by the winners of WWI, and the countries receiving the parts could do with the Hungarians whatever they wanted to.

It was much more important to finish off the industry of Hungary than any map of ethnicity, so they made sure that the big centers of transportation, like Oradea (Nagyvárad), Satu Mare(Szatmárnémeti), Subotica (Szabadka), Berehove (Beregszász), or Uzhhorod (Ungvár) get to the other side of the border. The demographic data on the dramatic changes going on in the population of the cities are frightening. Bratislava (Pozsony), for example, never was a Slovakian city before; it was the traditional Hungarian crowning city for centuries, instead. According to the demographical data of the year 1910 the population consisted of 42% Germans, 41% Hungarians (83% all together), while Slovakians were present by only 15% in the city. After only one decade 50% of the population was Czechoslovakian, and only 15% Hungarian. Today Hungarians of only 3,4% live in the crowning city of the formal Hungarian kingdom. Another example would be Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), where Hungarians were present by a percentage of 82%, which became 16% in 2011. These trends are quite characteristic of the torn cities.