László Szarka,ed.,A Multiethnic Region and Nation-State in East-Central Europe: Studies in the History of Upper Hungary and Slovakia from the 1600s to the Present

Reviewed by: Antal Szántay, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

This collection of essays focuses on the history of a specific region in Central Europe. Geographically this region is defined by the northern parts of the Carpathian Mountains. Politically it was the integral northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary for a millennium, referred to as Lower and Upper Hungary (Alsó- és Felső-Magyarország, Hungaria Inferior et Superior, Nieder- und Ober-Ungarn) or more often as Highlands or Upper Country (Felvidék). After World War I, by the Peace Treaty of Trianon in 1920 the region was incorporated into the newly established Czechoslovakia, and became the core territory of Slovakia between 1939 and 1945 and after 1992. Nonetheless, this was a multi-ethnic region in which Hungarians, Slovaks, Germans, Ruthenians, Poles and Gypsies lived together. From the sixteenth century onwards this region faced further political and cultural diversity. The Ottomans invaded and partly occupied it, and it was divided and re-divided by the ever-changing borders between Habsburg Hungary, independent Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire. Beside the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches, there were also Lutherans, Calvinists and other Protestants, Greek Catholics and Jews (Orthodox, Ashkenazi and Hasidic). The region was also characterized by great social and economic diversity, with subsistence alpine farming in the higher mountains, rich mining and minting in several towns, and trade and public administration in the cities. It had the highest percentage of nobility and a large urban population. Pozsony (Posonium, Preßburg, present-day Bratislava) was the capital of Hungary from the mid-sixteenth century till the late eighteenth century, and Hungary’s sole university was seated in Nagyszombat (Tyrnavia, Tyrnau, Trnava) from 1635 until 1777 when it was moved to Buda and then to Pest.

The editor of this volume, László Szarka, is a well-known expert in these fields, who in his youth was one of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia. His introduction gives an overview of the ‘Cultural and Historical Representations’ (9–21) of this region in the mediaeval and early modern times.

The collection of essays is divided into four thematic sections, with an Appendix giving a selected bibliography (453–84) and a list of the most important archival sources (499–501). Section I (23–115) contains four essays dedicated to the early modern period with an overview of the main cultural institutions (A. Szabó), and some specific issues of the history of nobility: on the everyday life of aristocratic women (T. Lengyel), on the Grand Tours of the Pálffy family (A. Funderák), and on a unique group of lesser nobles granted their privileges under the Archbishop of Esztergom, the so-called predialists of Vajka (A. Kocsis). Section II (117–94) deals with the most important issues of cultural formation, multi-ethnicity and nationalism up to the First World War. The competitive co-existence of Germans, Hungarians and Slovaks in the College of Eperjes (Eperiessinum, Preschau, Prešov), established by the Lutheran Church in 1666, was reflected in this micro-community in the formation of national identities over the centuries (P. Kónya). A broader picture is given of educational institutions, and especially on the teaching of philosophy (A. Mészáros). Co-existence gave way to national separatism during the nineteenth century. The age of the Austro-Hungarian compromise of 1867 was introduced with the formulation of the National Memorandum of Slovakia in Túrócszentmárton (Martin) on 7 June 1861, to which the new Hungarian government responded with a quite liberal Minorities Act in 1868, Over subsequent decades this liberalism gave way to stronger government policies aimed at assimilation (L. Szarka). Just before the First World War, however, prime minister István Tisza tried to take a softer course towards minorities, in an attempt to counter growing separatism and conserve the integrity of the Hungarian state (L. Vörös). Sections III (195–294) and IV (295–450) contain 10 essays on twentieth-century issues. After the war, the status of this region changed radically; it was incorporated into Czechoslovakia, newly established at the Paris Peace Conference. Hungarians and Germans native to this region faced a future as national minorities, as well as the anti-Hungary politics of the Little Entente negotiated by T. G. Masaryk and E. Beneš. Following the Munich Agreement and the First Vienna Award, Bohemia and Moravia came under Nazi German occupation in 1939, and the first Slovak state, led by Hitler’s puppet J. Tiso, was established. Hungary regained the Hungarian-speaking southern and eastern areas. At the end of the Second World War, Czechoslovakia was restored, and gained some more territory from Hungary, but lost its eastern Ruthenian territories to the Soviet Union. Hungarians as well as Germans were expatriated en masse up to 1948. Meanwhile, both Czechoslovakia and Hungary came under communist rule. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Czechoslovakia soon split into two independent states, both of which, together with Hungary, joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. This, unfortunately, did not end the historical, cultural and ethnic tensions. The essays in these comprehensive sections focus on changing demographical and ethnological features (A. Simon, J. Liszka, K. Vadkerty, L. Gyurgyik), on some particular political issues (T. Veres, B. Vajda, Á. Popély), and on minority policy topics (M. Michela, I. Gaučik, Zs. Árendás).

Altogether, the book contains important contributions to the history of Upper Hungary before the First World War and Slovakia afterwards, and it certainly will be a reliable reference work for understanding the tensions and discussions around this region of Central Europe.