TERRITORIAL CLAIMS OF HUNGARY

Transcarpathia is a region that has been a part of numerous territorial transfers and occupations in the 20th century, and comprises of large ethnic populations of Hungarians, Rusyns, Romanians and other minorities. Historically an integral part of the Kingdom of Hungary, Transcarpathia was annexed by Czechoslovakia in 1920 as a result of the post-WWI Treaty of Trianon which denied the principles of self-determination or a plebiscite for Hungarian minorities. The region was awarded to Hungary in 1939; and was then ultimately transferred to what was then Soviet Ukraine in 1945. Notwithstanding the regions tangled history, the ethnic composition of Transcarpathia has withstood decades of attempts at forced assimilation and discriminatory practices by governments in Prague, Moscow and Kiev; but has largely retained its 150-160,000 strong Hungarian minority in pocket communities along the Ukraine-Hungary border [13].

The Hungarian government placed considerable diplomatic and public pressure on Ukraine to protect its minority populations. According to the new Hungarian Constitution “Hungary shall bear responsibility for the fate of Hungarians living beyond its borders, and shall facilitate the survival and development of their communities; it shall support their efforts to preserve their Hungarian identity, the assertion of their individual and collective rights, the establishment of their community self-governments, and their prosperity in their native lands, and shall promote their cooperation with each other and with Hungary” [14].

In a speech on March 4, 2014 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – whose government has made a cornerstone of its policy the protection of Hungarian minorities – criticized a decision of the new government of Ukraine to repeal the 2012 law "On the principles of the state language policy" which granted the minority language the status of a regional language approving its use in courts, schools and other government institutions in areas of Ukraine where the percentage of representatives of national minorities exceeds 10% of the total population of a defined administrative district. Passage of the repeal bill was met with regret by Hungary who considers it as a tool to suppress minority groups in Ukraine. Viktor Orban expressed Hungary’s objection to the abolition of the Ukrainian language law as illegitimate and unacceptable. Subsequent policy remarks by Orban advocating autonomy as an option for Hungarian minorities aggravated Ukrainian officials who had been already hesitant towards Hungary’s liberal citizenship policy towards Hungarian minorities in neighboring states.

Currently the radical nationalist Jobbik party has demanded that full territorial autonomy be granted to the Hungarian and Ruthenian minorities in Transcarpathia It is a reminder that the West, having failed to stop Russia’s “territorial” adjustments in Georgia in 2008 or in Ukraine in 2014, has opened the door not only to Vladimir Putin but to other leaders around the world who may decide that the era of fixed borders is over and that they have everything to gain by seeking to expand their own.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 760