Site designed and created by Razvan Paraianu.

© Created in January 2001, Last revised: January 3, 2004

GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL NOTE

RECENT events are gradually dispelling the widespread fallacy that Hungary is a national state in the sense in which France and Italy are national states. Nothing could really be farther from the facts, for Hungary is the most polyglot state in all Europe. Its racial divisions may be best shown by the following table, compiled at the census of 1900[1]: —

Thus a total population of slightly over nineteen millions is composed of seven important nationalities — the Magyars, Germans, Slovaks, Roumanians, Ruthenes, Croats and Serbs — each possessing its own distinct culture and historic traditions, and with the exception of the Croats and Serbs,[2] each speaking a different language. In addition to these, there are 851,378 Jews,[3] and a number of minor races, whose numbers amount to 394,000, or only 2 per cent, of the population. The latter include 82,000 gipsies:[4] the 20,000 Italians of Fiume, who, despite their privileged position, are steadily losing ground to the Croats and even to the Magyars: a few Poles near the Galícian frontier, who are being assimilated by the surrounding Slovak and Ruthene population: a small colony of semi-Magyarized Armenians in Szamos­Ujvár in Transylvania; a few Bulgarian colonies in the Banat, amounting to 15,000 souls in all; and about 70,000 Wends or Slovenes on the Western frontier, who are yielding to Croatian influences. These ethnical fragments need not detain the reader, for they have little or no influence upon the Racial Question as a whole.

The kingdom of Hungary owes its independence above all else to its geographical situation, and geography explains the present grouping of the Hungarian races. Unlike its mediaeval rival, the kingdom of Bohemia — which even with Moravia only embraces 28,643 square miles[5] — Hungary is equal in area to several of the more important European states; and this circumstance has, at more than one critical moment in her history, saved her from partition or annexation. The territory of the Crown of St. Stephen, as Hungary with Croatia-Slavonia is sometimes officially called, covers an area of 125,430 square miles, and is thus slightly larger than the United Kingdom (121,391), Austria (115,903), Italy (110,550), almost as large as Prussia (134,463) and more than twice the size of her southern neighbours, Roumania (50,720), Servia (18,630), and Bulgaria (38,080).

The centre of the country is a vast plain, intersected by the Danube and its great tributaries the Theiss (Tisza) and the Maros. The Mag­yars, when they first entered the country under Árpád at the close of the ninth century, occupied this territory, so ideally suited to a race of nomadic horsemen. At first they contented themselves with exact­ing tribute from the scanty population of the mountainous districts which, indeed, they never attempted to colonize themselves. It was only by slow degrees that Magyar influence extended into the peri­phery of Hungary; and even to-day the Magyars occupy very much the same tract of country as that of which their ancestors originally took possession.

The northern, eastern, and even part of the southern frontier are formed by the gigantic rampart of the Carpathians, which fall naturally into three divisions: —

(1) To the west the Little Carpathians, an outlying spur of this great range, extend as far south as Pressburg on the Danube; and the precipitous heights of the Tátra mountains decline gradually south­wards and die away near Eger and Miskolcz into the great central plain. From the mouth of the March at Dévény (Theben) as far as Lubló (Lublau) on the river Poprád, no real break occurs in the moun­tain chain; and thus the Slovaks, whom the inroad of the Magyars restricted to this territory, and whose racial boundaries are virtually the same to-day, were during the Middle Ages effectually shut off from intercourse with their neighbours in the Galician plains, and even with the Czechs of nearer Moravia.[6] The break in the mountains caused by the river Poprád was a vulnerable point in the armour of Hungary; and it was to check the Polish influences which entered through this break that kings of the House of Árpád settled German colonists in what became known as the Zips free towns. Thirteen of these towns were pawned by Sigismund to Poland in the year 1414 — an unscrupu­lous act to which reasons of geography prompted him.

(2) From Poprád to Máramaros Sziget the Carpathians are narrower and less impenetrable; and it is this district — comprising the counties of Zemplén, Ung, Bereg, and parts of Máramaros, Ugocsa and Sáros — which is inhabited by the 427,000 Ruthenes of Hungary. This race is probably descended from refugees who left Lithuania under their prince Theodore Koriatowicz, and accepted the invitation of Louis the Great to act as guardians of the eastern frontier (circa 1340). (3) To the south of Máramaros Sziget the Carpathians again expand, and form a compact mountainous district covering an area of well­nigh 70,000 square kilometers. This district, famous in history as the principality of Transylvania, is a distinct geographical unit. Its mountainous formation prevented the Magyars from ever colonizing it, while the numerous valleys debouching on the Hungarian plain (formed by the river Szamos, Maros and the three branches of the Körös) ex­posed it to their marauding incursions and enabled them to reduce the country to submission and to join hands with the Székels. These latter were a kindred Mongol tribe, which had migrated westwards some centuries earlier,[7] and had occupied the district watered by the Alt and the upper reaches of the Maros, and bordering upon modern Moldavia, In the course of time the Magyars found themselves in their turn exposed to inroads from the mountain fastnesses of Transyl­vania, and being averse to abandon the plains for the mountains, invited German settlers as guardians of the frontier. From the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries there was a continuous stream of Saxon and Flemish immigrants into Transylvania — especially under Andrew II, who granted to them the famous "Free Charter" (Goldene Freibrief) of 1224, and under Béla IV, whose task it was to repair the ravages wrought by the terrible Mongol invasion of 1241. The nine sees (Stühle)[8] and two districts[9] which made up the Saxon territory — the Fundus Regius, or Königsboden, as it was called — remained intact until the law of 1876 abolished Saxon autonomy, in direct defi­ance of the terms of the act of union between Hungary and Transyl­vania.[10] Strategic reasons had dictated their original choice of terri­tory; and their three chief historic centres, Hermannstadt, Kronstadt and Bistritz, command the three most accessible passes across the Carpathians towards the south and east — those, namely, of Rothen­turm, Predeal and Borgo.

When after the battle of Mohács (1526) Central Hungary fell into the power of the Turks, Transylvania was saved from a like fate by its'mountainous formation. After a precarious existence of 165 years under native Magyar princes, who recognized the suzerainty of the Sultan, and on more than one occasion fought for the Crescent against the Cross, Transylvania fell once more under the sceptre of the House of Habsburg (1691); and it was not till 1867 that the principality closed its separate existence.

The numbers of the Saxons have long remained stationary — a fact which is due to the spread of the "two-children system" amongst them, and in recent years to the emigration of their young men to Germany. At the census of 1890 they amounted to 223,678, and even these small figures include several thousand Germans from other parts of the monarchy who have settled in the Saxon counties.

The Szekels form a compact mass of 458,307, stretching from near Kronstadt on the south as far as Maros-Vásárhely and Gyergó St. Miklós on the north. There are also several Magyar colonies in the counties of Kolozs, Szolnok-Doboka, and Torda, amounting in all to 281,898.

The remainder of the Transylvanian population is Roumanian. Their origin has formed the subject of an acrid controversy, which has passed from the academic sphere to the realm of politics, and which racial prejudices will prevent from ever reaching a satisfactory conclusion. The Roumanians themselves claim descent from the Roman colonists of Dacia, and consequently regard themselves as the original owners of the soil. The Magyars, on the other hand, argue that the barbarian invasions annihilated the Roman element in Tran­sylvania, and treat the present Roumanian population of the country as descendants of Wallach immigrants in the thirteenth century. It is true that no historical evidence of their presence before that date can be adduced; but in all probability the truth lies half-way between the rival theories. A remnant of the old Daco-Roman population may have escaped to the mountains, and thus would form a nucleus for the nomadic herdsmen and shepherds who immigrated from Wal­lachia during the later Middle Ages. It is hardly credible that the Roumanian language should have preserved so many Latin influences, if its area during the Dark Ages had been confined to the great plain of Wallachia; and the contrast between the Roumanians and the Bulgarians, who renounced their Tartar origin and adopted a Slav idiom, would suggest that the former had enjoyed the comparative safety and seclusion of a mountain home. This, however, is mere conjecture, whose value is academic rather than political. The essen­tial fact to remember is that with the exception of the Saxon and Mag­yar enclaves to which we have already alluded, the entire south­eastern portion of Hungary is inhabited by Roumanians, who in 1900 amounted to 2,784,726, and who are at present increasing more rapidly and emigrating in proportionately smaller numbers than any other Hungarian race.

The rich plain of the Bácska, lying between the Danube and the Theiss (Tisza), and the Banat of Temesvár, lying between the Theiss, the Maros, the western hills of Transylvania and the Servian reaches of the Danube, form a racial mosaic of the most complicated pattern. The ejection of the Turks from Hungary at the beginning of the eigh­teenth century, and the creation by Prince Eugene of a special territory known as the " Military Frontiers " found the southern plains well-nigh depopulated, and once more colonists had to be introduced. In 1690 the Serb Patriarch of Ipek with 2-300,000 Serb refugees settled upon Hungarian soil, and received from Leopold I a diploma assuring them special privileges. Under his successors Charles HI (VI as Em­peror) and Maria Theresa, German settlers from Alsace and Swabia were also introduced; and to-day their descendants are in many re­spects the most prosperous portion of the Hungarian rural population, offering a striking contrast to the surrounding Magyar and Roumanian peasantry. The Serbs, who amount to 434,641, are almost entirely confined to the counties of Bács, Torontál and Temes. The Swabians, to the number of 541,112, inhabit the same three counties and that of Krassó-Szörény.

Finally there remains the kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, which owes its autonomous situation within the territory of St. Stephen in large measure to geographical reasons. Croatia[11] falls naturally into two portions: first, the triangular territory between the Drave and the Save, extending from Friedau in Styria and Rann in Carniola as far as the frontier town of Sémiin (Zimony) which looks across the water to Belgrad; and second, the high limestone walls which connect the mountain system of the Balkans with the Karst above Trieste (and so with the Styrian Alps), and which sink abruptly down to the Adriatic at Fiume. The Magyar's sole access to the sea lies through Croatia, and the difficulties of the railway line connecting Zagreb (Agram) with:Fiume increase the strategic importance of the Croatian position.

In Croatia the racial question is far less complicated than in Hungary proper. Out of a population of 2,400,766, the Croats amount to 1,482,353 (or 61.6 per cent.), and the Serbs to 607,381 (or 25.4 per cent.). Their language is identical, the sole difference being that the Croats employ the Roman, the Serbs the Cyrilline alphabet. Thus the distinction between Croat and Serb is not one of language, and only partially one of race. Religion plays the foremost part in their rivalry, for while the Croats are Roman Catholic and draw their in­spiration from Rome and the west, the Serbs are Orthodox and are still under the influence of Byzantine culture. For the forty years which followed the Ausgleich, the Magyars were able to hold Croatia tinder control, by playing off the rival races against each other. But Croats and Serbs have at length learnt the lesson of bitter experience; and the Serbo-Croat Coalition, which commands a strong majority in the Diet of Zagreb, has for over eighteen months resisted every effort of the Magyars to sow fresh discord between the reconciled kinsmen.

The Serbo-Croat race makes up 87 per cent, of the population of Croatia; 5.6 per cent, are Germans (including Jews), and only 3.8 per cent., or 90,180 are Magyars — a large proportion of these belonging to the official classes. Obviously, then, the Magyarization of Croatia is out of the question; and the only hope for the Magyars is to arrive at a durable understanding with a race whose command of the Hun­garian seaboard makes their friendship of paramount importance to the government of Budapest.

The following statistical survey of racial distribution in Hungary may be of assistance to the reader.

(a) the magyars

The Magyars are in an overwhelming majority in 22 counties (19 in Hungary proper, and the 3 Székel counties of Transylvania): —

In 14 other counties on the linguistic frontier, the Magyars form minorities varying from 18 to 54 per cent, of the population: —

We thus find that — with the exception of the Székel districts — • the vast majority of the Magyar population inhabits the central Danub­ian plain, and in that area forms a compact mass, broken only by small German and Slovak racial islets in the counties of Veszprém, Komárom and Pest, and in the town of Békéscsaba. In the seven northernmost Slovak counties[12] (with a total population of 972,146) there are 44,383 Magyars (4.5 per cent.); in the thirteen counties where the Roumanian element is strongest[13] (with a total population of 2,943,914), there are 422,286 Magyars (14.3 p.c.). In many cases the Magyar minorities are contiguous to the main Magyar popula­tion, so that it would be easy to base any scheme of county redis­tribution upon ethnical boundaries without sacrificing these minorities. But in the case of at least a dozen counties it would be necessary to invent special guarantees for their separate racial existence.

(b) the germans

The Germans, unlike the other Hungarian races, are scattered in racial islets throughout the country. Their settlements may be di­vided into four groups: —

Their chief strength lies in the towns, where the temptation to adopt the Magyar language and customs was strongest; their scattered condition made organized resistance difficult, if not impossible, and they have in point of fact contributed more than any other race to swell the ranks of the Magyars. It is a remarkable fact that their superior culture rendered them an easier prey to Magyarization. Only the Saxons, fortified by their national Church autonomy and an ad­mirable system of education, have gallantly resisted all onslaughts upon their nationality.

In addition to the above, there are a number of small German minori­ties in other counties — minorities so small and so scattered as to defy every system of county distribution on a racial basis. Only a system of national "catasters" such as that adopted in Moravia could create an effective guarantee for their nationality.

(c) the roumanians

The Roumanians form a crushing majority of the population in ten counties: —

In eight other counties they form from 30 to 60 per cent, of the population, and in two more, substantial minorities.

There are also small Roumanian minorities in the three Székel counties, Csík (15,878), Háromszék (19,396), and Udvarhely (2,882).

It will thus be seen that the Roumanians, though they form a ma­jority of the population in a tract of country measuring over 75,000 square kilometers, live in less compact masses than the Slovaks of the seven northern counties. The eighteen counties inhabited by the Roumanians contain 1,259,342 Magyars; but if we deduct those coun­ties through which the Magyar-Roumanian ethnical frontier passes (namely, the counties of Máramaros, Szatmár, Szilágy, Bihar, Arad, Temes; and Kis-Küküllö and Maros-Torda in Transylvania), the numbers of the Magyar minority on Roumanian territory fall to 297,015 (or a minority of i to 9). This minority is strongest in the counties of Kolozs (26.8 per cent.), Szolnok-Doboka (19.9 per cent.) and Torda-Aranyos (25.4 per cent.). In six counties the Magyar element sinks to trifling proportions — in Szeben to 4.2 per cent., in Krassó-Szörény to 4-8 per cent., in Fogaras to 5.3 per cent., in Besztercze-Naszód to 7 per cent., in Hunyad to 10.6 per cent., in Nagy-Küküllö to 11.6 per cent. Here, as indeed throughout the Roumanian counties, the scanty numbers of the Magyars make Magyarization a hopeless task, and only their control of the administration and the franchise enables them to persevere in their futile policy of aggression.

(d) the slovaks

The Slovaks form an overwhelming majority of the population in seven counties: —

In this territory, which covers an area of 22,380 square kilometers there are thus 997,183 Slovaks, side by side with 114,310 Magyars and 71,497 Germans. Of these latter races, hoxvever, the majority live upon the racial frontier, and thus the redistribution of the coun­ties on a racial basis would leave a million Slovaks faced by a minority of 72,993 Magyars and Germans (7 per cent.).

In five other counties the Slovaks form over one-third of the popu­lation: —

In these counties there are no fewer than 347,421 Magyars and 60,932 Germans; but as all these counties are situated upon the lin­guistic frontier, redistribution would in their case also bring about a separation of the two races, and merely leave small German minorities in the counties of Szepes and Bars.

There are also substantial Slovak minorities in the counties of Zem­plén (106,064, or 32.4 per cent.), Ung (42,582, or 28.1 per cent.), Nógrád (64,083, or 26.9 per cent.), and Abauj-Torna (35,809, or 22.9 per cent.). On the west, the Slovaks extend into Moravia, from the neighbourhood of Hodonin (Göding) almost as far as Kremsier, and in recent years this tiny territory has become a focus of Slovak national life, where the forces repressed in Hungary by the reactionary policy of the Mag­yars are able to expand freely. On the east the Slovaks are bounded by the Ruthenes; but the racial frontier has during the past genera­tion moved slowly but steadily eastwards, at the expense of the latter race, which allows itself to be assimilated more easily than either the Slovaks or the Roumanians.

In addition to the main Slovak districts there are various racial islets in the neighbourhood of Budapest, Komárom (Komorn) and Gödöllő, and in the rich plains of the Banat and the Bácska, near Nagy Becskerek and Neusatz (Újvidék). The county of Pest contains 33,299 Slovaks, in addition to 24,726 in the capital itself: the county of Békés, 64,343 (or 23.2 per cent.); Bács, 28,317; Csanád, 17,239; and Torontál, 14,761. Despite their isolation, these little colonies are strongly Slovak in feeling, and being more prosperous and inde­pendent than their northern kinsmen, have succeeded in returning a Slovak member of Parliament (in Kölpény, county of Bács-Bodrog).

(e) the ruthenes

The counties inhabited by the Ruthenes are long and narrow strips of territory, stretching from the frontier into the great plain. The county boundaries thus run more or less at right angles to the racial boundaries; and as a result the Ruthenes do not form a majority in any county. In four they form from 36 to 46 per cent, of the popu­lation, and in three others there are considerable Ruthene minorities —

There is also a small Ruthene colony of 9,759 souls in the county of Bács; but this is likely in the course of time to be absorbed by its Slav or Magyar neighbours. Despite the heavy drain of emigration to America, the Ruthenes have continued to increase slightly during the past thirty years; their numbers in 1880 were 353,229; in 1890, 379,786; in 1900, 423,159.

(f) the serbs The Serbs form a strong minority in three counties: —

Torontál......183,771......31.2

Bács-Bodrog......114,685......19.0

Temes......85,000......21.4

They possess a larger middle class than either the Slovaks or the Rou­manians, yet they appear to be more susceptible to Magyarizing in­fluences. They are physically inferior to all the other races of Hun­gary, and are not to be compared with their kinsmen in Slavonia. Between the years 1890 and 1900 their numbers have decreased from 495,133 to 434.641.

(g) the croats

The Croats in Hungary proper amount to 188,552, or only 1.1 per cent, of the total population — a decrease of 5,860 since the census of 1890. Their settlements lie for the most part along the frontier of Styria and Croatia, in the counties of Zala (84,356), Vas (17,847) and Sopron (30,342). These include the so-called "Shokazen," who formed a separate rubric in Fényes' Statistics in 1846. They were simply Catholic Serbs, with whom religion was stronger than nationality, and who therefore now allow themselves to be classed as Croats.

If we turn from the rural to the town population, we find that the latter forms the real strength of the Magyar nationality. In 1880 63.82 per cent, of the inhabitants of the towns acknowledged Magyar as their mother tongue: in 1890, 67.79 per cent.; in 1900, 74.8 per cent.; while a considerably higher proportion was able to speak that language. A good idea of racial distribution in the towns may be obtained from the following table, compiled for the twenty-five towns which possess municipal self-government: —

It will thus be seen that in these twenty-five municipalities 74.8 per cent, of the population is Magyar (this of course includes a large pro­portion of the Jewish population of Hungary), 12.7 per cent. German, 4.0 per cent. Serb, 3.1 per cent. Slovak, and only 0.9 per cent. Rou­manian, Budapest itself still contains 14 per cent, of Germans, but they have yielded to the intimidation of the Chauvinist majority, and though the stranger hears German spoken on all sides in the Hungarian capital, all signs and notices are in Magyar only; and the 100,000 Germans of the city have meekly submitted to the disappearance of the German theatre in Buda. Pressburg has insisted upon retaining its German character, and has been punished by the refusal of Parlia­ment to sanction an electric railway connecting it with Vienna. But the last few years have been marked by a gradual reawakening of national feeling among the Germans of Hungary, as is shown by the action of the Oedenburg Town Council in the spring of 1908, and by recent movements in Temesvár and the Bácska. The other non­Magyar races are still absolutely powerless in the municipalities, and even in the boroughs the existing local government franchise makes it difficult for the majority of the inhabitants to enforce their wishes. But the economic progress made by the Roumanians and Slovaks in the last decade is steadily creating a non-Magyar middle class in the smaller towns; and before many years have passed a number of the latter are bound to fall into their hands.

A brief note regarding the spread of the Magyar language may form a fitting conclusion. Of the 8,132,740 non-Magyars of Hungary proper, 1,365,764, or 16.8 per cent., and of the 2,310,586 non-Magyars of Croatia 47,421 or 2.1 per cent., are credited with a knowledge of the Magyar language. Thus in Hungary proper 6,766,976, or 31.8 per cent., and in the country as a whole (including Croatia) 9,030,141 or 41.1 per cent, are still ignorant of the Magyar language. The difficulties of extending its knowledge will be realized from the following table, which gives the number of persons wholly unable to speak it in the nineteen chief non-Magyar counties and their percentage to the total population of those counties.