Élyen a Magyar – long live the Magyars! Hungarian Magyarization policy

Despite the mixed ethnic composition of the country – Hungary had not only Magyars but also a large number of Slovaks, Ruthenians, Romanians, Germans, Serbs and Croats – Budapest decreed that all citizens of the Kingdom were equal members of the Hungary nation regardless of the language group they belonged to. The other ethnic groups were treated merely as linguistic minorities with limited national rights. They were required officially to acknowledge political Magyardom.

Magyar nationalism was antagonistic to the demands of other nationalities and had strong chauvinistic undertones. The authorities reacted with bureaucratic devices and also the brutal repression of nationalist agitation among the ethnic minorities and repeatedly banned minority organizations. Under the leadership of the Hungarian Minister President Kálmán Tisza the Magyarization policy was perfected in the years 1875 to 1890 and the national emancipation of smaller language groups systematically repressed.

The dominant Magyar elite was further consolidated by the election law. The most important aim was to neutralize non-Magyars by linking the right to vote with the payment of taxes, thereby denying the economically disadvantaged their democratic voice. The gerrymandering of constituency boundaries so that minorities rarely predominated was also clearly to the detriment of other nationalities.

The highpoint of the Magyarization policy came under the government of Minister President Dezső Bánffy between 1895 and 1899, when place names and surnames were Magyarized and repressive education laws became part of the official government programme.

The Magyarizing nationalism developed in Hungary more than elsewhere as a way of bridging different political ideologies. In critical situations the impression was created of a small Magyar island surrounded by a mass of Slav peoples. There was a diffuse fear in nationalist circles of the demise of Magyardom, which could be averted only by the ‘resistance’ of the combined force of a ‘national community’ (Volksgemeinschaft). At the ‘millennial celebrations’ in 1896 commemorating the legendary Magyar land conquest in the early Middle Ages the mythical roots were confirmed in an ecstasy of nationalist feeling.

Translation: Nick Somers