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APPENDIX XVIII

PROTEST OF THE NON-MAGYAR COMMITTEE (JANUARY, 1898.)[1]

The situation in Hungary, created by the exploitation of the powers of the state in favour of a single race, has produced such a degree of discontent and bitterness among the millions of Slavs and Roumanians, that the Executive Committee of the Congress of Nationalities of the year 1895, holds it to be its duty towards fatherland and throne, to draw the attention of influential circles to conditions which are incompatible with the well-being of the State, and to enter a protest against the daily increasing policy of violence.

In our Monarchy's critical situation, many are disposed to regard Hungary's position as consolidated. This is a great error. If in the other half of the Monarchy, the rivalry between Slavs and Germans has come to a head, the executive in that country is at least endeavouring to compose differences and to heal strife. In Hungary there is a latent struggle between a race which is in a minority but holds the executive in its hands, and races which form the majority, but are at the mercy of an arbitrary executive, which brutally represses even the slightest movements of the nationalities within the limits of the Constitution ; so that but few signs of their discontent and bitterness can reach the surface — a situation which is far worse than that of Austria, where the con­test does show itself on the surface. In Hungary the executive makes not the slightest effort to smooth down differences, but on the contrary creates ever fresh conflicts with the nationalities, as is shown by the recent Bill for the Magyarization of Place Names.

Many years have indeed passed, since Hungary believed itself to have acquired a liberal constitution, guaranteeing its independence as a state. Thirty years ago the nationalities of Hungary, especially the Roumanians, Slovaks and Serbs, greeted joyfully the new con­stitutional era ; for promises were made by the leading Hungarian statesmen that the nationalities would obtain all possible con­cessions which the unity of the Hungarian State would permit. But the first great disappointment was the Law of Nationalities of the year 1868, which was based on quite other principles than the Draft proposed by the Roumanian and Serb members of Parliament; for this Draft, while respecting the unity of the State, took into account the ethnical conditions and historic develop­ment of Hungary and would thus have rendered the ethnical and cultural progress of the nationalities possible. But even the few concessions made by the Law of 1868 were to remain . . . a dead letter. There is not a single paragraph of this Law which has not been violated by the executive and its other authorities, a fact which the Roumanians and Serbs proved beyond all doubt, so long as they could still effect an entrance into the Hungarian Parliament. But the truths to which these deputies gave utterance gradually became inconvenient for the ruling race. The Hun­garian Parliament aimed at representing a national state, and this being incompatible with the election of nationalist deputies, the executive took the necessary violent steps. The three million Slovaks of North Hungary failed to effect the entrance of even a single member into Parliament, and the few, deputies of the Serbs and Roumanians were excluded by means of violence to the elec­tors; so that at present nearly ten million non-Magyars are without a single representative. Foreign opinion was not deceived by the fact that men of Slovak, Serb and Roumanian birth sit for the non-Magyar constituencies. These are well-known renegades, who identify themselves with the ruling race, and assist in the policy of violence towards the nationalities. Such unnatural con­ditions are aggravated by the fact that it is the non-Magyar con­stituencies from which the Government is recruited, while the genuine Magyar constituencies for the most part return Opposition candidates. These conditions have no parallel in Europe, and the Hungarian parliamentary system is a veritable caricature . . . for there is no example in the parliamentary life of Europe of the majority of the population, counting almost ten millions, being shut out from representation.

But if the nationalities are shut out from political life, alike in Parliament and in the county assemblies, and even in the communes, one might at least have thought that no hindrances would be placed in the way of their cultural development. Thirty years ago the leading statesmen of Hungary gave the clearest pledges that the nationalities would be allowed their national education, from the elementary school to the University, and that the State would contribute from state funds towards this. Meanwhile not only was this promise not observed (despite the Law of Nation­alities) but the State restricts and destroys even those schools and other cultural institutions which the nationalities have created out of their own means. The Slovak gymnasia, and the Slovak "Matica" were forcibly destroyed, and their funds confiscated. The denominational schools in the former "Military Frontier," which were a stronghold of the nationalities, were converted into communal schools.

The still existing denominational schools of the Roumanians and Serbs are seriously hampered by the arbitrary measures of the Government inspectors of schools, and their fate depends upon how far they submit to Magyarizing tendencies. In one town of South Hungary the Serbs were prohibited from buying with their own money a site for their new denominational gymna­sium. The position of the other non-Magyar churches is no better. In North Hungary the Lutheran presbyteries were arbitrarily dissolved, and the wardens deprived of office, and a canonical crime was invented against the Lutheran Slovaks.[2] The Rouma­nian and Serb hierarchy is completely under the influence of the Government . . . and the conflict between the Serb hierarchy, the submissive tool of the Hungarian Government, and the Serb national Church Congress, cannot be bridged over.

This inroad upon Church autonomy partly took place through the so-called Church Laws. The enactment of these laws was not a necessity for Hungary, and was prompted by quite other reasons than those [which caused similar legislation] in the West of Europe. In Hungary, as in all Eastern Europe, religion is more or less linked with nationality. Thus the inroad of the State upon the powers of a denomination is at the same time an inroad upon a nationality. But for this very reason the Church Laws were introduced, in order that the nationalities might be weakened.

It will hardly be possible to deceive the outside world regarding events in Hungary. It will be in vain to argue that the nationalist movement in Hungary is the work of individual agitators. This is the usual argument employed to mask every arbitrary rule. The leaders of the Roumanians, Serbs and Slovaks, far from fanning discontent, endeavour to check the ever-increasing bitterness and discontent among their countrymen. The sad memories of the dreadful civil war of 1848-9 make it the duty of every true friend of the people to refrain from all agitation. Unhappily the leading factors in the country have made of the question of the nationalities a question of force (eine Machtfrage), and thus neglected the interests of the Monarchy as a whole. It is clear as daylight, that so long as the executive in Hungary aims at the national extinction of the Roumanians, Serbs and Slovaks, friendly relations with Roumania and Servia are impossible.

We may be spared the reproach of following centrifugal ten­dencies. Our loyalty and devotion to throne and fatherland can hardly be doubted. In a contented Hungary there can be no centrifugal tendencies, just as there can be none in free Switzerland.

In full loyalty to throne and fatherland we must enter a solemn protest against the violence done to the majority of the peoples of Hungary. We protest against the tendency of the executive to create a homogeneous national State in defiance of Hungary's history and ethnical conditions, and of the law which recognizes the individual nationalities. Especially do we protest against the most recent acts of the Hungarian Government and Parliament, against the Bill for the Magyarization of Place Names which has been adopted by Parliament; against the limitation of assemblage and the illegal prohibition of our legally convoked meetings.

And since we are prohibited from meeting together, and raising our voices as constitutional citizens of our fatherland against the violence done to our kinsmen, we therefore appeal to the Crown and claim its protection, and that the Royal sanction may be withheld from the Law for the Magyarization of Place Names in Hungary.

the executive committee of the nationalist

congress of 1895.

(Signed by Dr. Julius Coroianu for the Roumanians.

Dr. Emil Gavrila for the Serbs.

Dr. Paul Mudrorh

Dr. John Vanovič         }for the Slovaks.

Miloš Stefanovič