„There are several interpretation of the Trianon treaty in Hungarian society and these often complement rather than exclude one another”, said Csaba Zahorán, a historian and member of the Trianon 100 Research Team of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. We also talked about how the memory politics related to the peace treaty has changed over the past hundred years?
How many interpretations of the Trianon treaty do we find in Hungarian society?
There are a large number of narratives that coexist in different segments of the society. There are competing interpretations even among historians. Political parties also have their narratives. Indeed, they have made advantage of the fact that Trianon ceased to be a taboo topic after the systemic change in 1989. When a political force defines its relation to Trianon it also clarifies its preferences in other areas as well.
Isn’t it a problem if there are so many interpretations around about a historical trauma?
The diversity of the interpretations is a natural phenomenon even if there are ideologies that feel discomfort when they face this diversity and the fact that it is possible to have multiple narratives about an issue. Yet, we have to stress that a national community needs a consensual common denominator about the most important historic events or traumas.
Is there such a consensus?
There is. However, before going into this, it is important to dwell on why are there multiple imageries in Hungarian society about Trianon. The first cleavage is between those that live in Hungary and those that live in neighbouring countries. This is quite straightforward. Those that live in neighbouring countries have felt the consequences of being a minority over generations to this date. There are some advantages of being part of a minority, such as learning another language and getting to know another culture, but the disadvantages that Hungarians living in the partitioned areas have had to face there have been heavier. There have been many forms of discrimination in the successor states and they often felt second rate citizens and they had reasons for it.
In Hungary, the interpretation of what Trianon is has undergone several changes and this was specific to each social group and era. It is not very surprising that a Hungarian Jew or someone of German origins perceived the post-Trianon years differently, particularly in the light of the subsequent deportations. The impact of the treaty was specific for members of different social groups such as a bourgeois, a merchant, a factory worker or an agricultural labourer. Those that had family members left on different sides of the border experienced the change in a more traumatic way. Hungarian elites – on both sides of the borders – were the most anxious of all: many of them lost some part of their property, their prestige and influence declined and their political capabilities were reduced.
Does it mean that different interpretations are the consequences of various identities?
In the first period, in the aftermath of signing the treaty this was the most important factor. Initially, everyone considered the way their own life or their family were impacted. At the same time, the Hungarian state consciously initiated and shaped the construction of a modern national identity. It has continued, uninterrupted and, initially, it looked effective. Its essence was the notion that the map that is present in people’s mind should include the entire territory of the Carpathian Basin regardless of the new borders. Those that went to school were educated in that atmosphere from a very young age. Regardless of the fall of the 19th-century Hungarian Kingdom, outstanding cultural artefacts and the deeds of heroes populated the map of Greater Hungary that was presented unchanged in classrooms. However, with the passage of time, this state propaganda proved less effective. New generations were born into the new situation and parts of Hungarian society on different sides of the borders, started to grow apart even as the Hungarian political elite and the intellectual strata tried to halt this process in the interwar period.
What were the instruments they relied on?
First, official Hungarian politics made the demand for territorial revision a central element of politics. However, this was allowed to surface only from the late 1920s.
We have to note that this was a rather lengthy process. It was not only the political elites but also intellectuals for whom it was impossible to give up on Hungarian culture across the borders. The loss for the national community was so enormous that it was impossible to put up with it. More than 3 million Hungarians were in other countries that was a sizeable proportion of the whole population. It was not only about the loss of peripheries but also of major cultural centres such as Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca), Nagyvárad (Oradea), Nagyenyed (Aiud), Szabadka (Subotica), Kassa (Kosice), Selmecbánya (Banka Stiavnica), Pozsony (Bratislava) with their universities, theatres, important collections and culturally important [in some cases ethnically heterogeneous) regions such as Szepesség (Slovak: Spiš; German: Zips), Székelyföld (Szeklerland), and Bánság (Banat) were also lost. At that time, everyone felt that survival and amputation cannot coincide and the only cure is complete reparation, that is, revision of borders.
The Main Square in Cluj-Napoca with the Church of St. Michael (Source: fortepan)
Did contemporaries view Trianon as if it was an accident?
It was certainly the case in the interwar period. In a way we can understand the attitude of elites: from being leaders of a middle power they were reduced to head a small state that was surrendered by enemies and lost its access to sea and most of its natural resources and large cities. Moreover, they felt it was an unjust situation. The interpretation according to which it was Southern Slavic and Romanian irredentism and the imperialist ambitions of the Czechs that took away regions of 19th century [referred to as “historic”] Hungary had much traction. Moreover, it was a widely shared opinion that Slovaks are unhappy with the Czech rule, Croatians despised Serbian domination and Romanians in Transylvania were not satisfied with Romanians from the Old Kingdom ruling over them. There were elements of truth in this as there were indeed internal conflicts within the successor sate, but it was an illusion to believe that former nationalities wanted to return to Hungary. It was essential for the political elite in Hungary to keep the issue of loss on the agenda. They kept the narrative of loss alive and conditioned all sections of society so that revisionism would have a large base. This seemed to have worked for two decades, and this revisionism with a mass support lent some legitimacy to the Hungarian political elite.
Was there any group or political actor that opposed revision?
There was no relevant group that opposed it. The Left did not question the necessity of reviewing the borders even if they primarily advocated for adjusting the borders to actual ethnic patterns. Or, they believed that a global revolution would solve the question of nationalities within an internationalist framework. We shall also not forget that the Soviet Republic of Hungary engaged with the armed forces of successor states militarily. The Left repeatedly suggested that small states in Central Europe should have a common stand on many issues and that they should cooperate with each other.
Was this a mere illusion?
It was usually marginalized political actors that voiced the argument and none of them managed to mount serious support for this idea.
What is it that made the situation change after 1945?
Fundamentally, there were two motives: first, Hungary was defeated again, second, it became part of the zone that the Soviet Union dominated. The Paris Treaty of 1947 confirmed the borders sanctioned in the Trianon Treaty and sidelined revisionism of the Horthy-era. In the 1930s, it seemed that borders could really change and Great Powers also considered the issue, not to mention the temporary territorial gains that Hungary realized with the support of Hitler’s Germany. The new defeat crushed this dream definitively and the idea of revision occurred only among right wing émigrés, thus, lacked any base. István Bibó [an outstanding political philosopher and public figure of the 20th century in Hungary] said that revisionist ideas must be discarded as far as borders were concerned, however, Hungary shall not give up on the Hungarians living in neighbouring countries as Hungary is responsible for these people.
It looks like as if the communists did not hear this message
Communist takeover meant that Hungary accepted the borders and ideological setup that the Soviet Union dictated based on it own interests. Changing the borders that were set out in the Trianon Treaty was not among these, therefore, another great power sanctioned the partition of the [so-called] thousand-year-old Greater Hungary.
Did Trianon become a taboo?
More or less, it did. While for 25 years nearly everything was about Trianon in Hungarian public discourse, from the later 1940s until the late 1980s there was hardly any word on it. As a consequence, the Trianon-discourse took a completely new form. The word “homeland” was narrowed down to mean Hungary and those Hungarians that lived in neighbouring state were no longer part of the conscious of those that lived in Hungary. It did not only mean quasi disregarding millions of Hungarians but also giving up the national consciousness for which Greater Hungary was the framework. This is how Kassa became Kosice and Nagyvárad became Oradea [in parlance and in timetables etc.], and Hungarians in Romania became “Romanians”. For example, there were tour guidebooks that had titles such as “From Sibiu to Tîrgu Mureș”. Maps of Austria-Hungary disappeared from classrooms and generations grew up with the map of “Lesser Hungary”. Crossing the borders also became much more difficult. As if we had tried to consider the sensitivities of neighbouring states in an excessive and insensitive way. This was the misinterpretation of the directive that socialist states shall not interfere with internal affairs of each other. Unlike the Horthy-era, this time there was an anti-nationalist indoctrination. As a consequence of this, the narrative that became fixed in the conscious of Hungarians on a mass level was that Trianon was a just punishment for oppressing the nationalities and for taking the side of imperialists in World War I.
Was there a difference between the way the Rákosi regime and the Kádár regime interpreted Trianon?
The revolution of 1956 made Kádár very cautious, he was frightened when he saw that the nationalist emotions were very much alive. He tried to make Trianon into a complete taboo and portray it in a way that looked intertwined with Hungarian nationalism. Subsequently, the party elite and the vast majority of the section of the intelligentsia that had links to the regime ignored the problems of nationalities. Hungary did not respond officially to nationalist steps of the Romanian government. This was the case in 1959 when the Bolyai University, where the language of teaching used to be Hungarian, was transformed into Babeș–Bolyai University [where Hungarian language was losing ground] or when the Maros Hungarian Autonomous Territory was dissolved in 1968. Until the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, Hungarian historians also evaded the question of national minorities. Eventually, when a three-volume history of Transylvania was published in 1986, it created an uproar in Romania. This also shows how sensitive the topic was.
Wasn’t there any alternative interpretation during socialism?
An alternative picture could mostly take shape in families that had members across the border. This category included many people; we talk of hundreds of thousands. Besides them, there was a narrow intellectual and artist elite that tried to preserve the knowledge that that there used to be a „historic” [Greater] Hungary. For example, the dance hall movement, as a subculture, created a kind of cult for Transylvania. In the 1980s, partly due to the weakening of the Kádár-regime, partly because of cultural ties becoming stronger, bad news from the neighbouring countries reached the Hungarian public at a mass scale. In the summer of 1988, tens of thousands participated in the protest demonstration that opposed the destruction of villages in Romania.
Mass demonstration in Budapest against the destruction of villages in Romania in 1989 (Source: fortepan)
Did state monopoly over the interpretation of Trianon end with the systemic change?
Yes, it ended relatively soon and as freedom of speech and opinion became the norm, the Trianon treaty and its consequences were open for interpretation. People had a strong desire to raise the Trianon-problem that had been silenced for decades. The narrative of loss resurfaced quickly. By the mid-2000s, a kind of consensus emerged out of the cacophony among historians. Most university departments and research institutes started to share the interpretation required several decades to take shape since the 1970s. This consensual opinion disposed of the narrative of loss that ruled the interwar period and also got rid of the internationalist view that lasted throughout the state socialist period. In other words, it managed to get rid off all ideological determinations that had been forced upon the narrative from above.
Since society is not made of historians we may return to the question whether there is a basic national consensus about Trianon?
As I have mentioned, there might be one. For example, none of the interpretations question that the document signed on 4 June 1920 was contrary to the principles of self-determination that were supposed to underlie all treaties signed in Versailles. The principle of ethnicity was put behind strategic, communication and economic interests of neighbouring state, to the detriment of Hungary, in nearly each section of the borderline. It is fine that that Czechs and Slovaks gained their own state, however it is not well that this took place with the violation of the principle of ethnicity. The nation states created were much larger than they would have been if the ethnic principles had been applied. Thus, the treaty did not resolve the issue of nationalities, instead it transposed these tensions beyond the borders of Hungary. Thus, it recreated it – although with Hungarians in the position of minority – in Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Southern Slavic state.
What historians should do with conspiracy theories?
I believe that it is among the tasks of professional historians to fight against conspiracy theories in their own way. This is of course a battle on unequal terms. If, say, a dentist with some interest in history sits down in front of his computer and creates a spectacular conspiracy theory to explain all Trianon related questions in half an hour, but it will take a lot longer for a historian to falsify each element of the theory that appeared out of the blue. Yet, historians must do so from time to time because they have responsibility for maintaining the collective conscious of society and for eradicating toxic myths. Politics and ideology cannot serve as the basis for historians’ activities: they have to restrict themselves to using the tools of their profession. One of the extremist views in Trianon is that the borders set out in 1920 were the outcome of Free Masons’ alleged shady activities. One of the features of Trianon narratives is that they pick one element leading to partition and make this one element look like an absolute root cause. For example, these overstress or invent the ill disposition of the great powers towards Hungary, a supposed large scale Jewish conspiracy or an omnipresent anti-Hungarian sentiment. Theories that make a singular culprit out of certain political actors of political forces are similarly popular. That is how István Tisza, Mihály Károlyi, Oszkár Jászi or Béla Kun become scapegoats.
What if certain political parties explain Trianon in an extremist manner? Shall historians intervene in that case?
As a principle, they need not. Parties and politicians shall not be prevented from following any Trianon-narrative. It is not the task of a historian to debate over questions of memory politics with a politician. All she can do is to write and speak publically even more and make an attempt to express the professional view in a way that is easy to understand. We have to keep in mind that various interpretations of the Trianon treaty do not necessarily exclude each other. If we take these narratives together we will be probably closer to reality than with individual interpretations.
However, there are some cases when historians do need to raise their voice. One such case is when someone creates an image of the Trianon issue that might harm Hungarian society. Demanding territorial revision in 2020 is such a damaging example. The problem is not only that revision of borders is a completely unrealistic idea, but that publicizing this harms Hungarians living outside Hungary. I think it similarly harmful to say that Trianon is no more than history and Hungary has nothing to do with those that live beyond the borders. I believe that be it out of national or cultural solidarity or concerns for human rights violations, we cannot be indifferent. There is one more case when a historian needs to raise their voice: if a political force wants to make its Trianon-narrative exclusive. This is exactly what we saw between 1920 and 1945 and during the time of the party state. Both caused much damage to national consciousness.
If it is obvious that the peace treaty goes against the principle of self-determination, what successor states to defend its legitimacy?
There are a number of things they could do to achieve that. Yet, first we should see how our neighbours relate to Trianon, more precisely to the end of World War I. For them, the partition of Austria-Hungary and of ”historic” Hungary meant the beginning of a new era. For the Slovaks, 1918 is the origin of independent statehood and national development even if only in a limited form, within the framework of Czechoslovakia. For Romanians and Southern Slavs, it is about the realization of national unity. In Romanian public opinion, the two decades beginning with 1918-1919 are the era of Greater Romania. In classrooms and textbooks this period is discussed in much the same vein as the period of Austria-Hungary in Hungary. Czechs and Slovaks remember the first republic as a kind of golden age, and it was the collapse of Hungary, and Trianon, that made it possible. We also have to consider that in neighbouring countries ethnic majorities experienced Trianon as an act that provided historical justice and the mainstream idea is still that. In their consciousness, the fact that they reached their national goals and, leaving behind a minority position, they became the majority often veils the fact that millions of Hungarian lived in the lands they annexed. To put it simply, for them the treaty could not be faulty or unjust. This logic determined the attitude of neighbouring states to Trianon: there are those that feel that the decision still has to be justified, be it the decision to separate from Hungary or the designation of new borders. The debate about the right way to interpret census data is a good example of this. Slovak historians regularly give voice to their doubts about the census data of 1910. In their opinion, this statistical dataset does not only show the result of actual assimilation but also reflects conscious statistical distortion.
Csaba Zahorán (Source: 24.hu/Marjai János)
Are these numbers really dubious?
Methodological questions should of course be raised since asking for mother tongue is not the same as classifying nationality. At the same time, censuses conducted in the successor states did not conform the assumptions that there would be large miscalculation revealed, therefore, in many cases falsified the territorial claims that Romanian and Czechoslovak delegations made on the bases of national self-determination. Even the ethnic maps that successor states prepared do not cover the borders sanctioned in Trianon. It is especially true of Southern Slovakia, in the Banat, in the zone of Partium [the counties that were attached to the Duchy of Transylvania in the 16th century) and in Szeklerland. Moreover, there is a war over figures between Hungarian historians and the researchers of neighbouring countries. Many people had uncertain or multiple identities after 1920. For example, many people drifted towards Hungarian identity among the Slovak speaking population during the era of Austria-Hungary, many of whom were successfully “Re-Slovakized” in Czechoslovak times. In Romania, it was a conscious policy to separate German-speaking “Schwabians” of Szatmár (Satu Mare) County from Hungarians and the state also actively attempted to dissimilate Jews that had Hungarian identity and were Hungarian speaking. It was part of this policy to identify these groups as Germans and Jews, respectively, thus decreasing the ratio of Hungarians in statistics. [This latter policy applied for Czechoslovakia, too.] As a result, the officially calculated number of Hungarians dropped in major cities such as Kassa (Kosice) and Nagyvárad (Oradea). We need to add that those that left their homes and went to Hungary after 1919 mostly came from the middle class. Consequently, the outflow affected the ethnic composition of towns of present day Slovakia, such as Pozsony (Bratislava), Losonc, Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky) and Nyitra (Nitra) to such an extent that ratios were reversed.
So, if I understand correctly, successor states tried to legitimize the new borders after these had been sanctioned
The new international boundaries partly needed to be legitimized, but there was also a need to stabilize the situation. The successor states began to settle non-Hungarian population to key urban centres, even though this process did not take place on the scale as after World War II. Settlement was easier in multiethnic and multicultural towns such as Pozsony (Bratislava) and it was surprisingly speedy in Kassa despite the latter being an ancient Hungarian bastion in the imagination of Hungarians. In general, in cities that were beyond the linguistic border, such as Nyitra (Nitra), Eperjes (Prešov), Déva (Deva) and Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) the changing the ethnic proportions took only few months or years. In cities that were in or close to areas where Hungarians were the majority this process completed only after World War 2. In Romania the pace of change was a bit slower as the majority of Romanians lived in rural areas. In the 1930s, there was a lively debate in Romanian public about the reasons of the persistence of Hungarian language and Hungarian cultural institutions in Kolozsvár (Cluj). After 1945, there was a drastic change in all successor states in this regard: “Romanianization” and “Slovakization” gained momentum.
Is there a chance that interpretations of Trianon that prevail in the neighbouring countries will be embedded into the way Hungarian society interprets the Trianon problem?
It will take a long time until we get there, but it is important to emphasize that if this does not happen the Hungarian interpretation will be incomplete. This is not about replacing notions, it is about making our views more nuanced and reflected. This process should, of course, be mutual.
This interview was published on 24.hu in Hungarian language. Translated by Róbert Balogh.
Cover photo: Mass demonstration in Budapest against the Treaty of Trianon, 1920 (Source: fortepan)