Oliver Brázda

 

At the end of 2023, an otherwise unremarkable piece of legislation was approved by the Ukrainian parliament, which amended Ukrainian legal statutes affecting minority rights, media, and education [1]. On December 8, these amendments came into effect, almost coinciding with an EU summit held only a few days later, from December 14-15 [1]. These laws were the last-minute concessions that, a few days later, allowed the Hungarian Prime Minister to tactfully abstain from voting against the commencement of the first round of talks on Ukrainian accession to the EU. In their content, they protected the rights of the Hungarian minority in the border region of Ukrainian Transcarpathia, Hungarian language media, and Education [2]. This incident underscores the continuing relevance of ethnic politics in Central and Eastern European diplomacy, and in particular the treaty that most shaped them.

The much-bemoaned Treaty of Trianon is perhaps the greatest historical memory in the 21st century Hungarian Zeitgeist. In the early 20th-century Hungary was far larger than it is today, and within its borders was much of the nations we today known as Slovakia, Croatia, and Romania, as well as small pieces of today’s Austria, Serbia, and Ukraine. Given a long history of hostility between the government in Budapest and the various non-Hungarian ethnic groups on the periphery, following the First World War, the victorious powers decided to grant each of these groups self-determination in giving them all their own states [3]. The results of this were immediately twofold. First, a substantial Hungarian minority continued to exist in the Hungarian near-abroad, separated by political boundaries. Second, the bordering states began to develop their own national identities[3].

Today, nobody seriously believes that Trianon will be undone. Neither will it be substantially altered, for that matter. But, these ideas continue to live on as phantasms in the popular political imagination. Maps of pre-Trianon Hungary are not an uncommon sight; the notion that the Hungarian state exists in a state of prolonged national injustice lives on strongly. This kind of idealism has been the basis for much of the country’s right-wing nationalist movements, especially among the highly electorally successful Jobbik party and the smaller but equally vocal Mi Hazank movement [4]. The memory of Trianon has been instrumentalized in the service of a historical narrative of betrayal and humiliation, which has served as a useful political mythology for 21st-century nationalism [5]. At least part of the Hungarian skepticism of European institutions can be credibly seen as stemming from this Trianon Syndrome, a deep distrust of Western European powers and their designs on Hungary [4].

Hungarian politics beyond the fringes still lives in the shadow of Trianon. The Hungarian government has spent public funds on commissioning a Trianon Museum as well as constructing a Trianon monument [6]. In 2010, June 4th was declared “National Unity Day” in commemoration of the signing of Trianon [7]. Long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orban has made manifold references to the event and its legacy and has given many of his most famous speeches in a large annual Hungarian gathering in Tusnádfürdő/Băile Tușnad, Transylvania (this dual naming scheme is common in historically Hungarian communities in Romania and Slovakia) [8]. All of this is furtherance of a trans-border unity of the Hungarian nation by which the Hungarian Government seeks to establish itself as leader for Hungarians both inside and outside its borders [9]. The other function of these displays is political competition with the far-right parties for a shared electoral base and political mobilization[10]. And this view is not new, as the Hungarian constitution since 1989 has included a provision to state that the government bears some “sense of responsibility” for Hungarians living outside its borders [9]. While the memory of Trianon on the right has lived on as elucidated above, the Hungarian left has historically used the treaty as an indictment of the international capitalist powers, especially under the previous communist regime [11]. It would be a sorely difficult task to find a prominent figure in public life who defends the Treaty wholesale.

If Trianon continues as a leitmotif in Hungarian public life all the more is it the defining issue of politics among ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania. Mountainous and still largely agrarian, the border region of Transylvania was passed from Hungarian to Romanian sovereignty at Trianon, comprising about 40% of Romanian territory [12]. More than the territory, the source of tension has been the million or so ethnic Hungarians who still live in Transylvania, in what is now Romanian jurisdiction. 81% of Transylvanian Hungarians still believe, according to the results of a 2013 poll, that Hungary was wronged by the Treaty of Trianon [11]. Meanwhile, about 58% said that the mention of Trianon evoked in them some sort of negative reaction, spanning the emotional spectrum from separation to death [11]. This emotional space has been captured well by the Hungarian Government, with these Hungarians overwhelmingly supporting the ruling Fidesz party in Budapest [13].

Across the Carpathians, in Bucharest, the treaty has been received entirely differently. The commemoration of the date of Trianon has recently been established as a national holiday, celebrated on June 4th, coinciding with Hungarian Unity Day. This commemoration was promulgated by then-President Klaus Iohannis, and did cause a minor diplomatic stir, provoking a negative reaction from the Hungarians in Transylvania [14]. Nonetheless, Romania’s reception of Trianon has been muted compared to Hungary, with it being viewed as only a piece of the journey to national unification. For this reason, the mythos of Trianon never developed as it did in Hungary [20]. The center of the historical memory of the early 20th century is, more than anything, the unification of the Romanian nation.

The diverging interpretations of Trianon in Budapest and Bucharest have coloured the experience of bilateral diplomacy in the post-Soviet period, with the prime nexus of divergence centered in the territory of Transylvania. Budapest has firmly maintained the promotion of Hungarian identity within Romanian borders, offering voting rights and dual citizenship to ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania and promoting, with major cultural and academic gatherings, the continued linguistic and cultural heritage of Hungarian Romanians [16]. At its worst, in 1990, immediately following the soviet period, interethnic violence resulted in several deaths in the city of Târgu Mureș [10]. This sub-state violence though, is almost entirely absent today, with some notable exceptions [17]. However, Budapest maintains a commitment to material and political support for the Hungarian diaspora, which is often viewed disfavorably by Romania. Between 2017 and 2018, for instance, Budapest invested upwards of 300 million into Hungarian companies in Romania, primarily media and education in the Hungarian language [16]. The Pro Economica foundation, founded by the Hungarian government in 2019, has also served to pour hundreds of millions of euros into small-scale agricultural projects among Hungarians in Transylvania [10].

In the last few decades, relations have seen a marked increase, with 91% of Romanians having a positive or very positive view toward Hungary [10]. Hungarians in Romania are generally viewed favourably by Romanians as well. Nevertheless, the persistence of Trianon is evident. Romania has been reluctant to grant greater autonomy to Transylvania, with one such attempt creating a domestic political crisis in Romania in 2020 with politicians in favour of such a resolution being accused of wanting to cede Transylvania back to Hungary [16]. There continues to be a marked sensitivity to this issue as the political messaging from the Hungarian political and cultural establishment has often been viewed as a threat to Romanian sovereignty over Transylvania in Bucharest [16]. In some ways, though, the existence of the diaspora has pushed Hungarian and Romanian bilateral relations closer together. This is especially true in economic relations where the presence of cross-border coethnics has helped increase international trade and cooperation [7][16].

A similar case can be found in the history of bilateral diplomacy between Slovakia and Hungary in recent memory. Slovakia has, similarly to Romania, long-protested the involvement of Budapest in the Hungarian ethnics in Slovakia. One hinge issue lying in the wake of Trianon was citizenship. Unlike Bucharest, which responded favorably to the 2010 move of the Hungarian government to grant citizenship to ethnic Hungarians in Romania, the same attempt in Slovakia was met with instant rebuke. Granting Hungarian citizenship to ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia was felt in Bratislava as an effort to undermine the national identity of Slovakia [18]. In comparison to Romania, Slovakia is both more ethnically Hungarian and a younger state, thus making the feeling of national sovereignty weaker. In addition, the efforts to expand citizenship coincided with an election in Slovakia wherein the then-incumbent Robert Fico sought to capture some of the nationalist Slovak National Party [18]. This led to Slovakia stripping the citizenship of any citizen who voluntarily accepts a foreign citizenship, a move that has begotten several judicial challenges [19]. Again, then, divergences in the meaning of Trianon manifest in ethnic politics that then shape bilateral diplomatic relationships.

As regards the future of bilateral and multilateral relations in Central and Eastern Europe, the memory of Trianon will likely live on in another form. Younger generations have an ever-diminishing historical memory of Trianon and its immediate aftermath. What was once first-hand experience became the tales of parents, then grandparents, and now only a family legend. Polling data reveals this to be the case as 51% of Hungarians, a slim majority, now believe that Trianon is no longer relevant [10]. Nonetheless, the pressing shadow of Trianon will continue to exert influence on both attempts at bilateral and multilateral diplomacy into the future, on the grand scale as in the case of the EU vote on Ukrainian ascension and on the small scale as with bilateral ethnic politics. Consciousness of the permanence of Trianon is vital to navigate the diplomatic and domestic complexities of the ethnic politics that have arisen a century after Trianon.

The future, naturally, is in the hands of the present, and how the memory of Trianon will be defined in Central and Eastern Europe will be defined is up to present generations. A model for cooperation can already be seen in the working of the Visegrad Group, and similar bilateral and multilateral cooperation between states. The European Regional Development Fund has already invested heavily into cross-border economic cooperation between Hungary and Romania through the “Interreg VI-A Romania-Hungary Programme”, which has served to build infrastructure for transport and travel between the border regions of the two states [20]. Otherwise, in bilateral cooperation, Hungary offered a formal apology to Serbia in 2013 for its involvement in historical attacks on Serbian civilians, resulting in Belgrade repealing a law blaming Hungary for its involvement in these war crimes. The subsequent Serbo-Hungarian relationship has been marked by a high degree of bilateral cooperation and mutual understanding, with Hungary being one of the premier advocates for Serbian ascension to the EU [21]. When the monuments to Trianon are taken not as the basis for future grievance but as monuments to commemorate the past, they can serve to channel national resentment from political revision to historical commemoration [22]. Thus, a cooperative past forward would not ignore the past but moves forward through it.

 

Bibliography

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