Misconceptions about Hungarians in Slovakia
Nagy Mészáros Krisztina
What are the most common misconceptions about Hungarians in Slovakia and what is the truth behind them? How did the minority living here become an enemy in the last century?
For many years after the regime change, Slovak politicians suggested to the majority society that the existence of the Hungarian community living in their homeland threatened the security of the majority nation and the sovereignty of the state. Our existence thus implies fear, which was further reinforced by political power and authority, making Hungarians in Slovakia easily become the arch-enemy. The only source of hatred is that Hungarians in Slovakia do not know the state language properly and do not want to learn it.
Unfortunately, Slovak textbooks do not mention the suffering of Hungarians from Upper Hungary (the current territory of Slovakia) after World War II. Generations that have grown up since then know nothing about the deprivation of rights, persecution, and robbery of Hungarians.
After the establishment of independent Slovakia, a significant part of the Slovak population, especially the youth, was mentally “programmed” with prejudices, anti-Hungarian, and anti-Roma attitudes. Unfortunately, to such an extent that it equals discrimination and hatred. No one is born with hatred towards another nation or person for their origin, nationality, or religion. Prejudices arise from beliefs acquired in childhood, so young people become unconscious subjects in the process, in which new generations through generations…
Most Slovaks still believe that Hungarians living here are a foreign body in the country, an invasive force, or a remnant of a thousand-year oppression.
The myth of the oppression of Slovaks by Hungarians spread at the end of the 19th century, but in reality, it was only a short-term suffering of Slovaks, and not all of them. Among the supporters of interwar Czechoslovakia, the idea quickly joined that the first (Czecho)Slovak state, Great Moravia, disappeared a thousand years ago and that the two sister nations, Czechs and Slovaks, separated a thousand years ago.
The myth of a thousand-year oppression was thus maintained even in later periods: the creation of the first Czechoslovak Republic was interpreted as the end of oppression. The myth thus helped to justify and legitimize the creation of the state.
There are many claims that Kossuth and Petőfi were Slovaks. Even some families of Hungarian national heroes spoke Slovak. If we consider only the origin of a person, i.e., the language spoken by their ancestors and the linguistic environment in which they lived, then the mentioned claim may be true or partially true. Both parents of Sándor Petőfi (originally Petrovics) – István Petrovics and Mária Hrúz – spoke Slovak, coming from simple Slovak families in Upper Hungary.
Lajos Kossuth, born into an Upper Hungarian noble family, had Slovak (Turčiansky) ancestors only on his father’s side, his mother came from a German family in Eperjes.
It is clear that there are many more misconceptions, which we will address below.
https://napunk.dennikn.sk/hu/3091227/kossuth-es-petofi-szlovak-volt-magyar-szlovak-tortenelmi-mitoszok-6/?_ga=2.79908823.1781591195.1667727774-2101794963.1659948656&ref=inchttps://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magyarelleness%C3%A9ghttps://felvidek.ma/2008/09/a-magyar-nemzet-szlovakiai-kozossegenek-helyzete/
