Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
in Central Europe
Printed in 2016
Historical
Before the 10th century, a series of mass human
migration took place in Europe. The Carpathian
Basin in Central Europe was conquered by Hungarians in 896 and ruled by the Kingdom of Hungary up to the mid 1500's. Subsequent foreign
occupancy caused severe loss of population, especially in the southern and eastern periphery,
which was later compensated by large waves of
immigration from the neighboring territories.
Following Hungarys defeat in WW1 and the
subsequent disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Hungary lost two-thirds of
her territory, and 31% of Hungarians (3.1 million
people) were left outside the country.
Austrians in South Tyrol (~300.000) This region is granted a high level of self-government
such as a wide range of exclusive legislative
and executive powers. German and Italian are
both official languages, and Austria has the status of protective power. Some forms of higher
education in German is granted in South Tyrol,
and, furthermore, upon a bilateral agreement,
also in Austria.
tion in Albanian language is provided on all levels, including university levels. Albanian-speaking regions in the west of the country have
community autonomy.
Gagauz in the Republic of Moldova (~150.000)
Gagauzia is a "national-territorial autonomous
unit" with three official languages: Romanian, Gagauz, and Russian. Access to education,
along with a state-financed university in Gagauzian language, are also granted.
Inappropriate teaching of Romanian language Despite the fact that even the National
Board Against Discrimination called for teaching Romanian language to Hungarian pupils as
a foreign language, this is not implemented in
the V-XII classes (in which pupils are aged 10-18).
Hungarian children are taught Romanian as if it
was their mother tongue, so they do not learn
the type of Romanian vocabulary that would
enable them to learn proper everyday Romanian. Therefore, their chances of getting into
Romanian universities and finding good jobs is
seriously jeopardizad.
Note that in the city of Cmpia Turzii/Aranyosgyres, the city flag is mounted on a large number of pylons, while nobody is bothered by this
issue.
Neglecting the use of minority languages
According to the Romanian Law of 215/2001 on
public administration, in administrative-territorial units where the percentage of a minority
group is above 20%, their language should be
used in relation with public authorities. However, out of the 323 municipalities where the
percentage of Hungarians is above the 20%
threshold, only 36.5% of the letters requesting
public information in Hungarian language were
responded to, and 3.4% of the mayors offices
local council decisions were uploaded on their
respective webpages in both Romanian and
Hungarian.
UKRAINE TRANSCARPATHIA
Hungarians in Transcarpathia
people, representing 12% of the population in
Transcarphathia. The Hungarian community in
Transcarpathia is mostly concentrated in the
lowlands along the Hungarian border, where
they form a majority.
In Ukraine, the legal status of the minorities are
defined by the Constitution of Ukraine (1996),
Ukraines Declaration of Nationality Rights
(1991), the Law of Ukraine about National Minorities (1992), The Law of Ukraine about Principles of the state language policy (2012), the
Law of Ukraine On Education (1991), as well as
a great number of lower-order decrees. However Ukraine cannot be considered as being a
state with the rule of law: some of these laws
are contradictory, or are simply ignored.
Ukrainian laws do not grant the rights to national minorities to parliamentary representation. Moreover, the electoral districts are often
re-shaped according to momentary needs of
corrupted politicians, and in such circumstances districts with Hungarian majority groups are
neglected. It is tragi-comical that the Ukrainian
Constitution (Article 4) recognizes only single
citizenship, but most of the representatives in
the Ukrainian Parliament have dual citizenship.
Despite this fact, people possessing Hungarian
passports are often harassed.
As a good practice we mention that the bilingual municipality name plates mounted by
the Hungarian Cultural Association of Trancarpathia and other organizations have not been
removed by the authorities. There is a growing
interest from the part of Ukrainian, Rusyn, and
Russian-speaking people in Transcarpathia to
learn the Hungarian language.
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Harassment due to dual citizenship Several Hungarians were selectively harassed after
taking up Hungarian citizenship, although dual
citizenship is quite common in Ukraine, even
among politicians. The most striking case was
that of Lszl Lengyel, head of the Education
Board of the county of Beregovo/Beregszsz,
who was fired in May 2016 after a Ukrainian official noticed his Hungarian passport.
SERBIA VOJVODINA
The Hungarian community living in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (northwestern part
of Serbia) counts, based on the extrapolation
form the 2011 census, about 210.000 persons, representing 12% of the population in the province.
They form a majority group in the middle-northern part of Vojvodina. In 1948, the percentage of
Hungarians was about 26%, while they counted
428,000 persons, so the decrease was about 50%.
(2006) remained part of the country, but its autonomy is rather formal.
The University of Novi Sad/jvidk has a Hungarian faculty to train teachers for the lower section of primary schools, and there is a
Technical College with Hungarian education in
Subotica/Szabadka. There is no state-financed
Hungarian university in Serbia, and Hungarian
students are severely under-represented in
higher education: in Vojvodina they represent
only 6.6% of the students. A series of problems
are present in public education as well.
Serbian language and the Cyrillic script are officially in use in all the 45 municipalities, while
the Hungarian language is officially used in 31
municipalities in Vojvodina.
al hostile against the Hungarian minority. Minority languages are not official. The use of the
Hungarian language in administration is occasional and restricted, even in the regions with
a Hungarian majority. Inscriptions in minority
languages are usually missing, since there is no
binding law requiring them. The State Language
Law of Slovakia severely hinders the use of minority languages and punishes any infraction,
often leading to absurd situations. As a reprisal
against the decision of the Hungarian government to grant citizenship for Hungarians living
abroad, Slovakia decided to withdraw Slovakian citizenship from those acquiring a foreign
one: this is even in conflict with the Slovak Constitution, which sets forth that no one can be
deprived of it. Therefore, Hungarians in Slovakia have to keep in secret their second citizenship.
SLOVAKIA
The Hungarian minority in Slovakia is the largest one in the country, comprising 458,000 persons and representing 8.5% of the population.
They form the majority of the population in
the southern part of present-day Slovakia. The
most significant region populated by Hungarians is the Danube Lowland (itn ostrov, Csallokoz), with a territory of 3000 km2 and a population of about 210,000, out of which more than
75% are Hungarians.
The number of Hungarians living within the territory of present-day Slovakia has dramatically decreased, both in absolute and in relative terms.
Before WW1 they counted more than 880,000,
almost double of the present-day population.
This was mostly the consequence of the Bene
decrees, which, in 1945, imposed, collective guilt
on the Hungarian and German minority, and that
of the subsequent and disproportionate population exchange between Slovakia and Hungary.
Assimilation efforts orchestrated by the Czechoslovakian, and later (after the disintegration of
Czechoslovakia) by the Slovak government also
confined national minorities.
The Bene Decrees: collective guilt confirmed in the European Union Some of the
shameful decrees, imposing collective guilt,
are still valid, although not operative: by the
Law 1487/2007 the Slovak Parliament reinforced their validity. Despite the fact that they
have not been applied since 1948, the property
confiscated by these decrees has never been
restituted. Karel Schwarzenberg, candidate for
the Presidency of the Czech Republic declared
that What we committed in 1945 would today
be considered a grave violation of human rights
and the Czechoslovak government, along with
president Bene, would have found themselves
in The Hague. Slovakia seems to be one of the
very few civilized countries in the world where
collective guilt is declared by the state.
A series of basic minority rights are still missing, and the governmental attitude is in gener13
The case of Hedvig MALINA In 2006, Hedvig Malina, a student at that time, was attacked
and batteredt by unknown perpetrator(s) because she was speaking in Hungarian during
a phone call in the street. She immediately
turned to the police and to doctors. The evi-
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