Abstract
In sharp contrast to the absence of economic discrimination, the Magyars exerted a rather stubborn pressure for assimilation in the field of education. It was of course in this area that the most sensitive and manifold problems arose. In considering Hungarian nationalities policies and their effect on schooling, first a brief account will be given of Hungary’s national minorities legislation and governmental regulations in the years between 1868 and 1944. The crux of the matter, namely how these laws and decrees were put into effect, will be discussed immediately following this part.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
In the last year before World War I, in 1913, the Greek Orthodox Church operated 1,436 schools in Hungary. Annabring (op. cit., p. 3) points out very correctly the controversial character of Hungary’s nationalities policies by noting what large amounts of subsidies were granted to these churches by the Hungarian government. The central administration of the Rumanian Orthodox Church alone enjoyed a yearly allocation of 100,000 Kronen; the 2,300 Orthodox priests another annual 1,200,000 Kronen. And all this took place in a time when the vulnerability arising from the mostly peripheral placement of the nationalities in Hungary became, with the dissolution of the European part of the Ottoman Empire, more and more imminent. On the ruins of European Turkey new national states emerged now as Hungary’s neighbors, becoming increasingly interested (and vice versa) in the lot of their brethren who lived beyond their boundaries in Hungary.
Cf., including data, Annabring, op. cit., pp. 33–39.
According to a Hungarian opinion: “The nationality policy of the .... Hungarian governments since 1867 in general was no more prejudicial to the nationalities than the nationality policies of most European states at the time.” Flachbarth, op. cit., p. 80. The concept of tu quoque was, indeed, usually ignored by the critics of the policy in question.
By the treaties following the First World War the following states were obliged to grant special ethnic privileges to their nationalities: Poland (Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919); Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 1919); Rumania (Treaty of Paris, December 9, 1919); Greece (Treaty of Sevres, August 10, 1920); Austria (Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 1919); Bulgaria (Treaty of Neuilly, November 27, 1919); Hungary (Treaty of Trianon, June 4, 1920); Turkey (Treaty of Lausanne, July 23, 1923). Also Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Esthonia, Albania, and Iraq were under the same obligation by declarations made before the Assembly of the League of Nations. In this connection it is interesting to note that the treaties following the Second World War contained no such provisions, though the international regulations of the day strongly manifested the protection of religious groups (chiefly Jewish) and other social minorities. The reason for this omission must lie in the arrangements of the Potsdam Treaty of 1945, which, in the case of the millions of German refugees and expellees, completely overlooked the protection of ethnic minorities. The makers of that treaty, the victorious Big Three, the United States, the United Kingdom and the U.S.S.R., evidently did not want to be bound by an international accord for the protection of ethnic minorities.
In this connection the reader is reminded about the experiment of Bleyer in August, 1919, with a new Nationalities Law 44.044/1919 M.E. which took place almost a year before the Trianon Treaty was signed (see Chapter V).
The total number of schools with German instruction was 463 in 1928. Of these, 49 (10.6 percent) were of type A; 98 (21.2 percent) type B; and 316 (68.2 percent) type C. Source: Magy. Kir. Vallás és Közoktatásügyi Minisztérium, Budapest, 1929.
Decrees 11,000 M.E. and 760 V.K.M.
Germany and Italy, acting as joint mediators, forced Czechoslovakia to return to Hungary a southern strip of Slovakia, the population of which was overwhelmingly Hungarian, and a little later the so-called Carpatho-Ruthenia, which up to 1918 also was an integral part of Hungary.
Order 133,200. IX. VKM.
Rumania in 1940 yielded about one-third of Transylvania (i.e., the part that had a predominantly Hungarian population) back to Hungary.
Order 24,024. VKM.
Order 56,600. V.a.E. VKM.
Order 204,053. VI. 6. VKM.
As against the considerably smaller proportion of the majority people in the Successor States. For example, the percentage of the Czechs and the Slovaks altogether in Czechoslovakia in 1930 was 66.2 percent; the percentage of the Rumanians in Rumania in 1930 was 71.9 percent; the percentage of the Serbs, the Croats, and the Slovenes altogether in Yugoslavia in 1931 was 79.8 percent. Data from Elemér Radisics, A Dunatáj (Budapest: 1946), I, p. 322.
Data from Alajos Kovács, op. cit., pp. 20–49.
See footnote, p. 48.
Count Paul Teleki held the office of minister of education from May, 1938, to February, 1939, and that of prime minister (for the second time) from February, 1939, until his tragic death on April 3, 1941. He committed suicide in despair and protest over the German assault on Yugoslavia which negated his policy toward that country and ruined his plans for a Hungary which could stay out of World War II.
The author relies on his personal experience gained while he was associated with the Hungarian Ministry of Education from 1935 to 1944.
Éva Windisch, A magyarországi németség a Horthy korszakban (manuscript) (Budapest: Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, 1950), p. 75.
Young Mozart gave his first concert in Hungary in 1762 in Pozsony (Germ. Pressburg, Slov. Bratislava) and afterward remained in contact with Magyar aristocratic families. F. J. Haydn was for thirty years the music director of the private theater of the princes Esterházy in Eszterháza, Hungary. Beethoven gave a celebrated concert in 1800 in the German theater of Buda, spent a creative summer in Martonvásár and used to teach music to many young ladies of the Magyar aristocracy. The first play with which the German theater in Pest opened its doors in 1812 was Beethoven’s opera, König Stephan, Ungarns Wohltäter (King Stephen, benefactor of Hungary), composed to the text of Kotzebue. Cf. Ferenc Helle, A magyar-német müvelödési kapcsolatok torténete (Budapest: 1942), pp. 66–95.
Cf. Ferenc Helle, A magyar-német müvelödési kapcsolatok torténete (Budapest: 1942), p. 69.
Most of these families who were truly generous benefactors of the flourishing German theaters would, on the other hand, spend virtually nothing to support the struggling Magyar theaters of the period. The princes Grassalkovich maintained their own private theater in Pozsony, the Esterházys in Esterháza, Kismarton and Tata, the counts Batthyányi, Károlyi and Ráday on their domains; all these playhouses were German, none Magyar. Ferenc Helle, A magyar-német müvelödési kapcsolatok torténete (Budapest: 1942). pp. 65, 66, 67.
Of the 46 newspapers in XVIIIth century Hungary 24 were published in German, 16 in Magyar and 6 in Latin. The first (1731) German newspaper in Hungary was the Ofnerischer Mercurius (Mercury of Buda(pest)) preceding almost half a century the first (1780) Magyar newspaper, the Magyar Hirmondó (Magyar Herald) in Pozsony. Hungary’s very first (1675) newspaper, the Ephemerides Latinae appeared in Latin in Nagyszombat. Ferenc Helle, A magyar-német müvelödési kapcsolatok torténete (Budapest: 1942), pp. 56, 58, 88 ff.
Characteristically, it was silenced during the Nazi era on the ground of being “Jewish and anti-German.”
The following is only a sample of the long list of persons of German origin who made lasting contributions to the culture of pre-1945 Hungary: the literary scribe Ferenc Toldy (Franz Schedel), the composer Ferenc Erkel, the painters Mihály Munkácsy, József Ripl-Rónai, Lajos Deák-Ebner, the architects Miklós Ybl, Ödön Lechner, Ignác Alpár, the historian Bálint Hóman, the philosopher Gyula Komis and the novelist Ferenc Herczeg. None of them ever professed himself a German or Volksdeutsche; for them it was quite natural to think of themselves as Hungarians and in this respect they felt no different from any member of the Magyar nation.
An excellent short guide to the contributions of the Germans (assimilated or not) to Hungarian cultural values is Eugen Thurner, Handbuch der Kulturgeschichte (Lieferung 17/18 and 25/26, Konstanz: 1963).
Two other thorough studies on the subject are Béla Pukánszky, Német polgárság magyar földön (Budapest: 1940) and Ferenc Helle, op. cit.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1967 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Paikert, G.C. (1967). Hungarian Policies on Minorities Education, 1868–1944 Patterns in Culture. In: The Danube Swabians. Studies in Social Life, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9717-5_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9717-5_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-011-9719-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-9717-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive