EASTERN EUROPE : Ethnic Tension Poses Threat to Hungarians

While most of Eastern Europe is keeping a wary eye on events in Russia, the greatest danger to this nation’s security emanates from what used to be its own territory.

In the current atmosphere of rabid nationalism and Western tolerance of forced border changes in the Balkans, suspicions have soared in the countries surrounding Hungary that it may seek the kind of ethnic reunion being brutally accomplished by the Serbs.

Hungarians dismiss the accusations of nationalists in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia that the huge Hungarian minorities there want to annex the land where they live to the mother state they were separated from by the 1920 Treaty of Trianon.

But assertions from Budapest to the contrary are proving pitifully ineffective in easing their neighbors’ fears.

Romanian nationalists in the Transylvanian region, where 2 million Hungarians live, have lashed out at alleged separatist sentiments by removing street signs, stifling the media and shackling education in the Hungarian language.

In the volatile remnants of Yugoslavia, accusations by Serbian radicals that the nearly 400,000 Hungarians in Vojvodina province want secession have heightened resentment. Many observers fear that has primed the territory for “ethnic cleansing.”

The Hungarian minority in Slovakia is now the most volatile source of ethnic tension because of a seemingly innocuous meeting this weekend of rural officials from the predominantly Hungarian border zone.

Mayors and city council members from the Slovak side of the border are gathering in Komarno to discuss a redistricting proposal that would dilute the Hungarian community’s political clout by redrawing county lines so that no single administrative region had a Hungarian majority.

The congress has sparked virtual hysteria in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, with some officials warning that the weekend talks could result in a “blood bath.”

Relations between the majority Slovaks and nearly 600,000 Hungarians have deteriorated in the year since Slovakia declared independence from the Czech Republic and nationalist politicians gained the upper hand.

“There is a perceived desire for revenge by redrawing of the borders that existed before World War I. This is a joke. There is no such desire. But it is a very forceful propaganda means,” says Miklos Kontra, a linguistics professor at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. “The problem is, once this accusation is made, everything that happens serves as proof that it is true.”

The self-fulfilling prophecy explains the tempest over the Komarno gathering Saturday by rural officials who are mostly Hungarians and are likely to oppose a redistricting that would muffle their voice in public affairs.

Suspicions that Hungary wants its empire back have been rife since March, 1990, when late Prime Minister Jozsef Antall declared his aim of working for the interests of all 15 million Hungarians. The population of today’s Hungary is 10 million. In 1992, the government created a special Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad to monitor conditions for those living outside Hungary as a consequence of Trianon.

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A representative of the office planned to attend the Komarno gathering as an observer, confirmed Deputy Director Istvan Zalatnay. That has only intensified claims by Slovak nationalists that Budapest is stirring trouble.

Despite the volatile lead-up to the Komarno meeting, Zalatnay says Hungary is more confident that its relations with Slovakia can be smoothed over than it is over the prospects for avoiding a clash with Serbs. “In Serbia, the danger of a mass migration is imminent,” Zalatnay says.

Williams was recently on assignment in Budapest.