SCOTUS VIATOR Racial Problems in Hungary

RACIAL PROBLEMS

HUNGARY

SCOTUS VIATOR

Appendice 2

It is an undoubted historic fact that the kingdom of Hungary was not founded by Saint Stephen upon any one special nationality, but rather upon the Christian faith and upon the laws borrowed from pre-Christian peoples.

So far as the written records of this kingdom show us, history knows nothing of a special privileged position of the Magyar people.

Even the conquerors under Arpád were not Magyars alone, but came in company with Cumanes and Russians, who all spread themselves throughout the country.

At the real foundation of the kingdom under Stephen, the predominant — our native history says, the exclusive — influence was exercised by foreigners, Italians, Germans and Slavs. King Stephen expressly declares himself for the equal rights of all the languages in use in the country. The various divisions of the country as well as the highest dignities of the kingdom have preserved even to the present day their Slav names.

After the country had been completely Christianized, the various races inhabiting it lived in brotherly concord, without any trace of a privileged position for the Magyars. Indeed, the Germans and Slavs from time to time gained the upper hand to such an extent that the Magyars felt it necessary to seek the protection of the Diet against this. Even on such occasions the Diet always proclaimed the most complete equality, without the slightest privilege for the Magyars. This did not, however, prevent the Magyars from being either completely or at least partially excluded from the magistracy of several municipalities, in accordance with the Royal privileges granted to the latter. Above all was this the case in the city of Buda (Ofen).

The Latin language, which was employed for over eight hundred years in the legislature, administration and judicature, was specially qualified to arrest the jealousy of the various nationalities.

This was, moreover, recognized by the municipalities[1] of the country, and was specially cited in defence of the Latin language against the Germanizing efforts of the Emperor Joseph II of glorious memory. But it was just the very efforts of the Emperor Joseph which awakened the national movements in Hungary : among the Slovaks, it is true, only in the field of literature : among the Magyars politically as well.

Naturally the non-Magyar inhabitants of the country have no objection to raise against the efforts of the Magyars to develop their language on their own territory. Indeed, they are even ready to recognize cheerfully the privileged position of the Magyar language in the higher administrative spheres of the state, within limits prescribed by Your Majesty ; they wish, however, free play for their own languages in church, school, communal and municipal administration, as well as in direct communication with the organs of the public administration, in so far as is necessary for the assertion of their rights as men and as citizens.

The Magyars, however, will not take into consideration these just and inalienable claims, but employ every means of violence in order to cut off the Slovak people from every path to culture and thus to let it languish in a state of moral and national unconsciousness, as a prey to future Magyarization.

No wonder that the county committees and magistrates who have been active since October 20 of last year up to the present day have by excesses of all kinds ruthlessly terrorized the unsuspecting Slovak people. The same is true of the Diet which assembled in the course of this year. It has none the less caused a painful impression upon Your Majesty's devoted servant, the petitioner, that even the Royal Palatinal Council has committed a similar injustice. Despite the clear wording of the Royal Rescript of October 20, 1860, addressed to the Chancellor of Hungary and providing for the protection of the various nationalities, the Royal Hungarian Palatinal Council, by its decree of October 20, 1861 (No. 61,917), none the less threatens all Slovak and German Catholic elementary schools with the introduction of the Magyar language. Considering the circumstance that the diocese of Neusohl which is entrusted to Your Majesty's most devoted petitioner contains thirteen parishes with pure German, ninety-three with pure Slovak, four with Slovak-German, and not a single one with Magyar population, the result of this threatened measure of the Royal Palatinal Council would be to reduce to zero the progress of the elementary schools within this diocese — which has in any case been slight, owing to the circumstances of the past eleven months — without the intended Magyarization of the people being thereby attained.

Although the Royal Hungarian Chancellory by two separate decrees of October 5, 1861 (No. 13,583) solemnly enjoined the Royal Hungarian Palatinal Council to satisfy so far as possible the claims of the various non-Magyar nationalities of the country, when provisionally reorganizing the Catholic gymnasiums ; none the less the decree of October 21, 1861, issued to the governing bodies of the gymnasiums had the exact opposite effect, and indeed so far as the gymnasium of Neusohl is concerned, stood in direct conflict with the opinions expressed (in compliance with official instructions), both by the diocesan court and the governing body of that gymnasium. As a result this gymnasium — as also those others where similar linguistic conditions prevail — has become involved in such incredible confusion, that alike the expenditure of the parents and the time of the pupils — time which can never be made good — are robbed of all their fruits.

The regrettable partiality of the provisional organization of the gymnasiums is clearly shown, among other things, by the fact that though capable and well qualified men who have been employed for years as teachers but are free from ultra-Magyar tendencies, cannot be dispensed with altogether, they are placed in the lowest category in the matter of salary; while persons of doubtful and entirely untestedjcapacity, if only they appear reliable in respect of such tendencies, are provided with the highest salaries.

Since, moreover, the county officials show practically no consideration towards the non-Magyar population, and in open violation of the already mentioned Rescript of H.M. sent on October 20, 1860, to the Royal Hungarian Chancellor, orders and instructions are sent to non-Magyar communes drawn up in Magyar only and hence wholly incomprehensible to the people ; and since, moreover, protection against such excesses is to be found neither with the counties nor with the Hungarian Palatinal Council; it is thus clear that the county authorities, which are influenced by extremists and enemies of the harmless non-Magyar people, and also the Royal Hungarian Palatinal Council, unscrupulously violate the most sacred rights of the non-Magyar peoples — among whom the Slovaks alone far exceed two million souls — although these peoples have ever shown inviolable loyalty to their king and although their rights have been asserted by solemn pronouncements of the sovereign. It is further clear that the intention unhappily prevails, of condemning these non-Magyar inhabitants of the country to perpetual ignorance and brutalization by depriving them of every suitable instrument of culture, and thus to tread under foot their feelings of human dignity, in defiance not only of the whole course of our country's history in the days preceding the present terrorism, but also in defiance of that boastful ostentation with which the late Diet in Pest sought to acquire abroad an undeserved reputation of liberalism by employing the hollow phrase of "Equality."

Since then Your Majesty's most devoted petitioner — in virtue of the Divine appointment to the Episcopal dignity, as expressed through the most gracious act of Your I.R.A. Majesty — feels bound to regard himself as the natural advocate of the spiritual possessions of those committed to his charge : he therefore ventures — resting upon the inalienable rights of his diocesans, and upon the services which they have rendered to the country alike in peace and before the enemy, calling to mind the country's history previous to the last twenty-five years, relying upon the sanctity of Your Most Gracious Majesty's word — to take refuge at the foot of Your Most Gracious Majesty's throne in the most unbounded confidence, most humbly begging Your I.R.A. to deign to order, that in the sense of Your Majesty's Rescript of July 21, 1861, to the Hungarian Diet, the rights of nationality of the loyal -non-Magyar people, both in regard to the development of their language and nationality and to their administrative conditions, be laid down and clearly formulated, and no less effectually and permanently assured.

For the rest recommending himself most earnestly to Your Most Gracious Majesty's favour — in deepest reverence, Your Imperial Royal Apostolic- Majesty's most loyal subject and submissive chaplain,

(Translated from Petitionen der Serben und Slowaken vom Jahre 1861. Vienna, 1862.)

[1] Here used in the legal sense, to include town councils and county assemblies.