Hungarian and Slovak national narratives with a focus on the shared boundary
Péter Balogh, Teodor Gyelník
Hungarian and Slovak national narratives with a focus
on the shared boundary
Péter Balogh, Teodor gyelník
Abstract
The use of national narratives plays a major role in putting into
perspective and interpreting a group’s collective identity and
self-perception. Hence, it profoundly inluences and afects the
relationship towards the ‘Other’ that is usually situated in a
strictly separated position. Studying the national narratives of
the two East Central European countries, Hungary and Slovakia,
contributes to a better understanding of their relationship. Apart
from historical narratives, this includes their interpretations of
collective identities, and of borders and dividing lines between
them. Our study is based on a content analysis of intellectual
exchanges, as well as popular and pseudo-scientiic narratives
and beliefs. Our comparative analysis reveals the similarities and
diferences between national logics and identity-interpretation.
We ind that, on the bi-national level at least, the prevailing
national narratives are often mutually exclusive and remain the
source of tensions. While the latter were quickly overshadowed
by the rise of a common enemy, the (Muslim) migrants last year,
this is most likely a temporary development. Further, on the local
level there are many examples of more inclusive narratives as
well as signs of peaceful co-existence. Therefore, local narratives
should inform and contribute to modify national narratives,
which can in turn facilitate improved bilateral relations as well as
successful cross-border interactions.
Keywords:
national
narratives,
boundaries, Slovakia, Hungary
collective
identities,
Introduction
East Central Europe is a region broken down into several small countries
by physical and mental boundaries. Yet the culture, history, memories, and
future fate of the region’s countries are deeply connected to each other in
an era of globalisation and global harmonisation processes. That means
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Central Europe represents a divided geopolitical space on the one hand, but,
on the other hand, it can be claimed that it constitutes a unique common
meta-space. Under current and ever-changing geopolitical conigurations,
it is important to look deeper into individual countries of the region and to
contrast their national narratives and collective identities, uncovering the
diferences, but at the same time seeing their unique common features as
well. Consequently, in this chapter we compare prevalent national narratives
in Hungary and Slovakia. The role of boundaries, physical and mental, can
also be tracked in these narratives. While all societies are tied by a shared
set of norms or at least some sort of a consciousness, what is speciic for
the post-socialist space is that
old structures of political and economic organization
were largely destroyed, and some of the most important
ideological foundations of social cohesion were rejected. In
all the regions afected, this served to initiate a diicult and
painful quest for what might be called new “metanarratives”
of nationhood—that is new visions of national solidarity
and identiication that are meaningful and efective in the
conditions of the 21st century. (Bassin 2012: 553)
The aim of this analysis is thus to critically assess Hungarian and Slovak
national narratives. We do this by relecting on their historical development,
their shapes and formation, to gain a clearer picture and insight into
the contemporary collective identity and mentality of these two Central
European states. We particularly concentrate on narratives dealing with
the “other” nation in general, and the shared boundary in particular. We
feel that we are illing a vacuum as earlier studies on the two countries’
national narratives have tended to focus on the political right (Akçalı &
Korkut 2012, Pytlas 2013), or on historical narratives in school textbooks
(Findor 2002, Dancs 2014). The analysis is based on secondary sources. We
chose to focus on intellectual debates, scholarly literature, media content,
as well as public attitude surveys, with the aim to ind out what kind of
narratives are afecting public discourses. The main question is to what
extent Slovak and Hungarian national narratives can contribute to a lack of
mutual understanding towards each other’s countries and nations?
This introduction is followed by a section each on Hungarian and Slovak
national narratives. While divided into two sections, both take into
consideration references to the other nation. Subsequently, we present a
comparative analysis, and round up with a short summary of the conclusions.
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Hungarian and Slovak national narratives with a focus on the shared boundary
Péter Balogh, Teodor Gyelník
1. Hungarian national narratives with a
focus on Slovak relations
Hungarian national historiography usually begins with the arrival of Magyar
tribes in the Carpathian Basin, commemorated to have taken place in 896
AD. What is sometimes ignored is that several tribes had lived in that area
prior to this event, largely of Turkic, Slavic, and other descent (it is less
controversial that today’s western Hungary used to be a Roman province,
Pannonia, but this only existed between the 1st and 4th centuries). The
Moravian Empire at its largest extent – i.e. in the 9th century – included
areas covering today’s northern Hungary. Although a short-lived empire
(833-906), its factual existence today serves as a reference point in Slovak
historiography as the irst instance of a Slovak state in this region (Findor
2002). Its most inluential ruler, Svätopluk I, today has a statue on a highly
visible spot in front of Bratislava Castle, which was reconstructed and
reinforced by (Saint) Stephen I of Hungary in the 11th century and functioning
as one of the main defense fortresses (Hung.: végvárak) along the northwestern borderlands of the medieval kingdom (Engel 2001). According
to the dominant Hungarian historiography, then, the territory of today’s
Slovakia was part of Hungary from the 10th century up until the First World
War, following which Czechoslovakia was irst established as an independent
state. At a recent low-point of Slovak-Hungarian relations around 2009 (see
below), the relatively young age of the Slovak state was ridiculed especially
by some young people in Hungary (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: A T-shirt worn by a young Hungarian person that reads “I am
older than Slovakia”.
Source: Polír (2009)
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Yet the Hungarian historical national myths of the ‘1000-year-old state’ as
well as of the ‘1000-year-old borders’ must be questioned. In reality, prior to
World War One Hungary was an independent state from its establishment
(commemorated to have taken place in 1000 AD) up to 15411. That year, Buda
Castle was occupied by the Ottomans who came to rule it for 145 years.
The territory of today’s Slovakia – then called Felvidék (Upper Hungary) –
instead came under Habsburg rule. The Habsburgs eventually took over
Buda Castle in 1686 and basically controlled Hungary up until World War
One. To be fair, Hungary had regained a certain independence from Vienna
already in 1867, with the so-called Reconciliation that year transforming the
Habsburg Empire into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. To be more speciic,
the historical medieval borders of Hungary (themselves subject to change)
were reinstalled to form an autonomous part of the monarchy. Hungary
could thus establish its own ministries in all areas except foreign afairs,
defense and inances related to the latter two. This era is widely seen in
Hungary as a ‘golden age’ of the country, with important socio-economic
developments indeed having taken place. At the same time, this was also
a period of Magyarisation (Marzik 1990); a policy of assimilation of the
country’s ethno-linguistic minorities, especially through education. Indeed,
the Eötvös-reforms (named after then-Minister of Religion and Education)
in the 1870s also aimed at “Magyarising” ethno-cultural minorities, including
the Slovaks (who by the mid-19th century had, to some extent, developed
a national identity) all the way north to Žilina/Zsolna, where very few
Hungarian speakers ever lived. Enforced Magyarisation can thus be seen to
have contributed to the alienation of ethnic minorities in Hungary, by World
War One turning them against the perceived interests of ethnic Hungarians
and consequently aiming to rip out as much of former Hungarian territory
as possible during the Treaty of Versailles negotiations. Yet even more
than ethnic tensions, the fact that Hungary was a constituent nation of
the Empire meant it ended up on the losers’ side in WWI, leading to its
“punishment” i.e. huge territorial losses (approximately 70% of its former
territory was transferred to neighboring states, including Czechoslovakia).
Source: Hírek.sk (2016)
The ‘Trianon syndrome’ or ‘Trianon trauma’ (Gerner 2007) as it is called has
not fully been processed by many Hungarians ever since (Balogh 2015: 195,
see also Figure 2). Instead, irredentism was a key element of national policy
1 Interestingly enough, despite this long (though temporally distant) „occupation“ Hungary today maintains very good relations with Turkey (Balogh 2015), which is just one example
of a complicated shared history not necessarily predestining poor bilateral relations.
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Hungarian and Slovak national narratives with a focus on the shared boundary
Péter Balogh, Teodor Gyelník
in interwar Hungary, leading its regime Figure 2: A balloon release just north
to ally with Germany in World War Two, of the Slovak-Hungarian border (at
“rewarded” by a partial (approximately Nová Bašta), depicting the Hungarian
Crown and designed to signal the
50%) return of the so-called lost territories belonging together of Hungarians in
according to the Vienna Awards of 1938
the Carpathian Basin.
and 1940, respectively. The First Vienna
Award concerned the south-eastern
parts of then Czechoslovakia (today
southern Slovakia and the westernmost
region of Ukraine), and was coupled with
a (limited) population exchange. The fact
that Slovakia during World War II itself
sided with Nazi Germany did not help
Hungary at the Treaty of Yalta in 1945.
Hungary had to return all its recently
regained territories to the neighbouring
states, including to the re-established
Czechoslovakia. This event was followed
by a large-scale population exchange:
approximately 76,600 Hungarians were
expelled from Czechoslovakia to Hungary,
replaced by around 60,250 Slovaks from
Hungary (cf. Vadkerty 1999, Szabó A.
Source: Hírek.sk (2016)
1991). Still, hundreds of thousands of
ethnic Hungarians remained in Czechoslovakia, largely objected to policies
of assimilation, stripped of minority rights, and, in some cases, forced
to move to the western borderlands, replacing recently expelled ethnic
Germans there (von Arburg 2009). These events as well as minority rights
were as good as taboo during the ‘socialist’ period in both countries.
With the gradual but steady weakening of the planned economies and of
Marxist-Leninist ideology in the 1980s, ethno-national identities started to reemerge as a crucial element of collective identiication in East Central Europe.
At the same time, the planned hydroelectric power plant at Gabčikovo and
Nagymaros on the Danube was a turning point in bilateral relations. Initiated
by the communist regimes of the two states in the 1980s, this mega-project
became strongly contested in wide circles of Hungarian society, leading
to Hungary’s withdrawal from it in the early 1990s. The Czechoslovak –
and from 1993 on the Slovak – state nevertheless went on to complete
the Gabčikovo plant (its equivalent at Nagymaros had been planned to
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be built on exclusively Hungarian territory). But the post-socialist period
also saw a rise of identity awareness among ethnic minorities in Slovakia
as well as Hungary, although the latter has been hosting much smaller
such communities, including Slovaks. This was suspiciously seen particularly
during the rule of the newly independent Slovakia’s irst government led by
Vladimír Mečiar (Carpenter 1997). Yet a change of government in Slovakia
as well as both countries’ eforts to adopt European Union (EU) norms of
minority rights etc. led them to become more generous on these issues,
leading to a normalisation of relations in the irst half of the 2000s.
Later, with a growing disillusionment of EU membership and the rise of neonationalist and populist politicians both in Slovakia and Hungary, bilateral
relations started to worsen again. The year 2009 alone saw the banning
of then-President of Hungary László Sólyom from Slovakia for his planned
partaking in unveiling a Hungarian statue in Komárno (BBC News 2009),
and the amendment of the Slovak language law (Pytlas 2013) that basically
criminalises the use of Hungarian in oicial contexts in the Slovak Republic
(The Economist 2009). In Hungary, one of the irst decisions of the new
centre-right government entering into power in 2010 was to introduce the
opportunity of dual citizenship for ethnic Hungarians beyond the country’s
borders (Pytlas 2013), without any consultation with Slovak or any other
foreign authorities. This led Slovakia to start stripping its citizens of their
Slovak passports should they hold any other passports. While the Slovak
measures mostly served political rhetoric than actual practice (cf. Turunen
2015), a small number of cases of stripped Slovak citizenship were indeed
reported on not least by Hungarian media in Slovakia (ujszo.com 2011) and
Hungary (Világgazdaság 2011, Origo 2012).
At the same time, it must be considered that local relations have, over the
past few decades, rarely been as bad in the (ethnically mixed) borderlands
as have bilateral relations in general (Hamberger 2008: 58). This is related
to the hybrid identity of large segments of the population there, especially
on the Slovakian side. As an example, Tünde Puskás (2009) showed in her
dissertation how local identities in southern Slovakia are vacillating between
‘us’ and ‘them’, with relatively few examples of clearly distinguishable
dividing lines and mental boundaries.
Curiously and controversially, Hungarian-Slovak relations at large have
recently been improving mostly due to external conditions. The year
2015 saw the largest number of refugees and migrants arriving to Europe
since World War II, with the majority passing – or later rather just trying
to pass – via Hungary and, although to a much lesser extent, Slovakia.
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Péter Balogh, Teodor Gyelník
Both countries’ governments and citizens shared overwhelmingly negative
attitudes towards this development, seeing more risks and challenges than
opportunities and a responsibility to help these people (the clear majority
of whom would not stay in either of these countries anyway). Thus, the
governments have been closely cooperating (together with Poland and the
Czech Republic) in lobbying Brussels to stem the lows of people as well as
in rejecting the quota system it proposed (Zalan 2016). Consequently, the
Visegrad cooperation (consisting of the four countries mentioned above),
long sufering of an identity crisis, was quickly reinvigorated to, for instance,
join forces aimed at a common protection of Hungary’s southern borders.
This practically meant that Slovak (and Czech) policemen have patrolled
these borders together with their Hungarian colleagues (Reuters 2015),
something nearly unimaginable up until very recently. Last but not least,
the countries of East Central Europe are cooperating in rejecting new gas
pipelines that connect Russia with Western Europe by circumventing the
former (Rettman 2016).
2. Slovak national narratives with a focus
on Hungarian relations
To understand Slovak approaches and interpretations of borders and
borderlands, one needs a certain insight into the history of the Slovak
nation and statehood, thus giving a picture about the Slovakian psyche
and about the formation of Slovak collective identities.
Between the 9th and 10th centuries, the territory of contemporary Slovakia
was an integral part of the Great Moravian Empire, which is explicitly
referred to in the Preamble of the Slovak Constitution. The current territory
was incorporated into the structure of the Hungarian Kingdom, later into
the Habsburg Empire, becoming part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as
of 1867. It is important to highlight that Slovak elites did not take an open
anti-Hungarian nationalistic position until the 20th century: the idea that
Slovakia could be separated from Hungary was indeed present in political
debates, but was outside the mainstream until 1914 (Kováč 2013, 2015).
Instead, Slovak ideas and endeavours supported the development of the
Kingdom of Hungary as a multi-lingual and multi-ethnic state rather than
an independent one (Hudek 2011, Maxwell 2005). Yet the eruption of World
War I led to the disintegration of empires in Europe, including the AustroHungarian, Ottoman, and the Tsarist empires, and these changes paved the
way to the birth of new nation-states. It was a period of victory of nations,
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national independence, Wilsonian principles over ‘the age of empires’; the
European continent became disintegrated and fragmented, where the
winners dictated the post-world war order (Gerbet 2004).
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a direct object of these changes and it
was divided into several smaller states; thus, Czechoslovakia was born in
1918 on the ‘ashes of empire’. It was a common state of the Czech and the
Slovak nation under the political, ideological, and spiritual leadership of
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. While the Czech and the Slovak nations jointly
formed the new titular nation, the Czechoslovak idea was marginal among
Slovaks and Slovak society never accepted it on a wide scale; thus, it was a
rather pragmatic political concept with the aim of achieving certain goals
for the Slovak and Czech nations (Hudek 2011). As Milan Nič (2010) wrote,
the Slovaks became a state-creating nation together with the Czechs in
a very controversial formulation of the “Czechoslovak nation”. The irst
decades of the irst, interwar Czechoslovakia experienced development
and liberal democratic orientation with strong agrarian and centrist parties.
Nevertheless, the irst relatively peaceful decades were followed by massive
changes, traumas, and (geo)political earthquakes (Kováč 1998).
The Czechoslovak entity has undergone several changes both in terms
of borders, territory and sovereignty. The irst Czechoslovakia was
disintegrated by Fall Grün (‘Case Green’) and by the Munich Agreement,
where the Czech and Moravian territories came under German rule, while
parts of the Slovakian territory came under Hungarian and Polish rule by
the First Vienna Award. These changes led to a second Czechoslovakia that
lasted 169 days between 1938 and 1939. However, the German invasion of
Bohemia and Moravia also led to the birth of the irst Slovak state, a client
state of Germany under the controversial leadership of Jozef Tiso during
the Second World War. However, at the end of the war the borders were
altered again, and the third Czechoslovakia was established, once again
for a united Czechoslovak nation. Subsequently, the biggest political issue
in the common state was the question of Slovak autonomy and a federal
reformation of Czechoslovakia, achieved only in 1968. Finally, on January
1st, 1993 the third Czechoslovakia peacefully divided itself into two separate
and sovereign political entities, namely the Czech Republic and the Slovak
Republic. As a result, since the establishment of the irst Czechoslovak state
structure Slovakia has experienced dramatic developments, from a political
and from a cultural point of view as well. Hence, six constitutional models,
three political systems and, within them, several regimes succeeded one
another on its territory (Slovensko: krajina s potenciálom 2011: 14).
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Slovak national and collective identities were not just inluenced by pure
border changes, but also by the country’s location at the crossroads of
the Eastern and Western civilisations. Therefore, Slovak national identity
was heavily afected by the borderland shifts of these civilizations, and by
the inclusion and membership of Slovakia either in the Western, or in the
Eastern frameworks of civilization. There is an international and Slovak
consensus that the Slovakian territory has always been part of Western
civilisation. An example of the former is Samuel Huntington (2006: 258),
who identiies Central Europe, including Slovakia, within the Western
frameworks. Domestic commentators include for instance Gonda and
others (2003), Káčer (2016), Káčer and Stanke (Týždeň 2016), and Bátora
(2014), who all stress the Slovakian membership in Western civilisation.
And yet there is a lack of consensus about the exact determination of
Slovakia’s presence in the Western civilisational framework. For instance,
Gonda and others (2003) point out that this was disrupted in 1945; while
Rastislav Káčer, Ambassador of the Slovak Republic in Hungary, claims that
Slovakia was part of the Western frameworks only until 1948. That means
that in the middle of the 20th century Slovakia became part of the Eastern
framework of civilisation with a western cultural mentality. Consequently,
the combination of an eastern and western membership led to that
Slovakia and its collective identity is characterised by ‘hybridity’. Hence,
Slovakia is torn between diferent forms of identity and understandings;
such as between civic and ethnic understanding of nation, and between
pluralist and monolithic conceptions (Gonda et al. 2003: 16). This ‘mixture’
and hybridity was explicitly expressed by Jozef Bátora (2010: 174) when he
wrote: “we know that the Slovak Republic is a state, but we do not know
what kind of state it is”.
To understand Slovak collective identities and psyche there is a need
to underline that the Slovak nation constituted a ‘minority’ within the
constitutional structures in which it was included, except during the First
Slovak State (1939–1945) and since 1993 (Kusý 2002). Slovaks were a minority
in the Habsburg Empire and in the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire too, where they increasingly fought for federal establishment and
the equality of nations (Kováč 2015). Slovaks also constituted a minority
within the irst, second, and third Czechoslovakia, where they fought for
either autonomy or the establishment of a federal Czechoslovakia (cf.
Čaplovič et al. 2000). Subsequently, following the change of regime in 1989,
Slovak nationalists widely started to emotionally describe the Hungarian
rule as a 1000-year-long oppression of the Slovak nation (Halás 2015: 63).
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Thus, a separate and independent Slovakia has tended to be an exclusionist
and closed society; irst under the Slovak state during the Second World
War when the Hungarians, together with the Czechs, were identiied as the
‘negative others’ and as traditional enemies (Hudek 2011), and later during
the independent Slovak Republic since 1993 (Chmel 2010).
The independent Slovak Republic and the majority status of the Slovak
nation are still not linked with a post-ethnic – perhaps a post-modern
– identity. As Rudolf Chmel (2010) writes, the Slovak nation has a huge
problem in the domain of self-identiication, and as the strategy of the
Slovakian public diplomacy (2011: 7) reads, Slovakia and the nation lack selfconidence and self-irony. The Czech nation has a clearer identity reference
to historical statehood and own kings that generates a substantial basis for
forming a clear collective identity, while the Slovak nation misses signiicant
references to real statehood and it links itself to the Great Moravian tradition,
which was not an explicitly Slovak state (Chmel 2010: 26). Moreover, Slovak
national identity has few girders to build on, such as heroes, martyrs, or
saints, who can generate a wave of pride, self-respect and self-satisfaction
(ibid: 61). It thus has a limited cultural memory as a cultivation power
(Gonda et al. 2003: 18). What is more, Bátora (2014) highlights an important
feature in the Slovak political identity and thinking, which has brought a
substantial perplexity into Slovak society. To be speciic, Slovakia has eagerly
been emphasising its links with the Great Moravian Empire (Findor 2002).
Great Moravia, which was partly situated on the territory of contemporary
Slovakia, was an integral part of the universal (Western) Christian world
and not of the Eastern civilisational frame, since Byzantium was a leading
center of the Christian civilisation, and Great Moravia was respected and
acknowledged even by the Pope himself. Resurrection of the heritage of
Great Moravia and the tradition of Cyril and Method powerfully appeared
during the 19th century by the philosophers/writers around Ľudovít Štúr.
Their interpretation of Great Moravia was linked to Russia; although Russia
was not part of the Western world but rather an Asian ‘Other’ (Neumann
1995) eagerly ighting for recognition (Ringmar 2002). According to Bátora
(2014), Štúr and other nation-builders of the Slovak nation promoted an
ahistorical approach, and they ‘lost in translation imperii’, thus constructing
Slovakia at the intersection of the East and the West, instead of positioning
Slovakia as an integral part of the Western civilisation.
Controversies around collective identity in Slovakia, generated by the
lack of self-identiication, were further intensiied after the recognition of
independence. That means Slovak collective identity sufered a crisis after
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1992; namely, the independent Slovak Republic ‘habilitated’ on the basics
of nation, authoritarianism, and privatisation. In other words, state property
was ‘tunnelled out’2 in such a massive scale that there was almost a need to
once again establish it. Furthermore, the automotive plants of Kia, Hyundai,
and Volkswagen cannot generate a pride and self-respect of the nation
(Chmel 2010: 47). Hence, there is a need for more and deeper connections
of identity and achievements of Slovakia. The new republic inaugurated
itself with an inability to digest the past, with an unwillingness to integrate
all its citizens, thus Slovakia was reborn with a strong tradition of a closed
society and a ceaseless tradition of fear (ibid: 132). Miroslav Kusý (2002: 129)
adds that even the national anthem relects the elements of the Slovakian
closed society since it addresses only ethnic Slovaks while other citizens are
left out, unlike in other national anthems like the Czech and the German that
attempt to address every citizen of the state. The Constitution relects an
ethnic nation instead of a civic one, emphasising long oppression, thus it is
still kept within the traditional defensive attitude of eternal struggle against
the others (Hudek 2011). Consequently, Michal Vašečka (2015) highlights
that the inclusivity of the Slovak Republic should be achieved through
several steps, and one step should be a reformulation of the national
anthem into a less primordial orientation and with more value-basis. Apart
from economic privatisation, Bátora (2004) underlines that for Slovakia the
years between 1993 and 1998 meant a massive identity ambivalence with
collective cognitive dissonance, as the Mečiar-government was unable to
achieve recognition from the EU and NATO (Carpenter 1997).
Thus, the Slovak Republic was constructed on ethnic Slovak elements, where
the approach towards the minorities, especially towards the Hungarians can
be described as ‘what are they doing here?’. Consequently, the Hungarian
minority is perceived as a strange element and Slovak identity is constructed
against the Hungarian (internal) ‘Other’, driven by a fear of Hungarian
revisionism and irredentism (Kusý 2002: 43, 180). As a result, Slovak national
identity is stuck within the antagonist approach and interpretation of Self
and Other. Halás (2015: 62–64) provides a relevant point on the Slovak
antagonist identity, in his analysis of the Slovak reaction to the piece of
art sculpture during the Czech Presidency of the EU Council. Entropa,
performed by Czech artist David Černý, tried to deconstruct existing
2 The process of privatisation often occurred through the establishment of subsidiary or sister companies and transferring of property to these, coupled with the bankruptcy of the original company. This became known as ‚tunnelling’, in Slovak language:
‚tunelovanie’ (Leška 2011: 17).
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national stereotypes by making an irony of the individual EU Member States
through their stereotypes. In this piece of art Slovakia was sculptured as a
Hungarian sausage. To fully grasp the meaning and the Slovak reaction,
there is a need for a brief etymologic explanation of the issue. The Czech
name of the Hungarian sausage is ‘uherák’, which is very close to the
word ‘Uhorsko’, the name of the pre-World War I Hungarian Kingdom
and later the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, in which the Slovakian territory
was incorporated. It should be noted that the Slovak language makes a
diference between ‘Uhorsko’ (pre-1918 Hungary) and ‘Maďarsko’ (post-1918
Hungary). Hence, the sculpturing of Slovakia as ‘uherák’ associates Slovakia
with pre-1918 Hungary. Consequently, there was a strong reaction from
then-Slovak Foreign Minister Ján Kubiš as well as several other politicians to
this performance, referring to this portrayal of Slovakia as unacceptable. As
Halás (2015: 63) pointed out: “Instead of saying: ‘Good point! Show them
we are not like that!’ they said ‘Yes, precisely! We are just like that!’”
Despite the challenges described above, it can be claimed that Slovakia has
achieved to reintegrate itself within the Western framework of civilisation
over the past years. That means Slovakia looks like the West and is regarded
as part of the West (Káčer 2016, Týždeň 2016). Furthermore, Slovakia has
gained the image of a successful “reformer” on the international economic
and inancial scene in the new millennium (Slovensko: krajina s potenciálom
2011: 14), conirmed by the European Commission’s regular evaluation
of Slovakia that can be perceived as a form of a ‘recognition game’
(Bátora 2004). What is more, Slovakia was a co-leader, together with The
Netherlands, in the Tunisian transition, transmitting and sharing its successful
transitional experiences. Incumbent Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák was
once the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (Zalan 2016),
later appointed as Head of the EU European External Action Service (EEAS)
department for relations with the Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership and
Russia. He is now an oicial candidate for the next UN secretary general
(ibid). Slovakia has also successfully been organising the global security
conference ‘Globsec’, visited by the highest security and political leaders
of the world. Likewise, it regularly organises the Tatra Summit with the
ambiguous goal to shape the future of Europe; as well as the Château Béla
Central European Strategic Forum. A Slovak diplomat held the position of
Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission
in Afghanistan, and now holds the position of Special Representative for
Iraq. Simply, Slovakia has achieved substantial progress; as Michal Vašečka
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(2015) wrote, Slovakia is more modern from a structural point of view than
from a cultural point of view.
Still, Slovakian understandings and interpretations of borders is a diicult
issue. The huge euphoric mood that resonated at the beginning of the
millennium, namely the entrance into the European Union; the establishment
of a common (economic and possible political) community where the
Central European space is an integrated part of Europe; furthermore,
the introduction of the Schengen system that has signiicantly erased the
borders, thus the inter-state borders can be crossed easily, without any
problem and diiculty. Integration into the EU also meant that nationalistic
and xenophobic tendencies should be avoided from the political realm of
Central Europe. Consequently, the status, rights and protection of minorities
are assured and guaranteed by Brussels, by the Member States, as well as
by the institutional and normative structure of the EU. In other words, the
euphoric mood explicitly vibrated from the long-awaited European peace;
thus, it was a silhouette that the so-called Kantian ‘perpetual peace’ was on
the close horizon in the imagination of Central Europeans. Nevertheless,
the reality after a decade of integration and membership of the Central
European countries in the EU seems to be signiicantly diferent than
originally envisaged. Extreme political parties are on the rise not only in
the western and northern parts of Europe, but have received signiicant
support on both sides of the Danube River, and the long awaited political
and historical reconciliation between Slovakia and Hungary has not yet
been realised (Kollai 2008, Daniška 2012).
3. A comparative analysis of Hungarian and
Slovak meta-narratives
Diicult issues between Slovakia and Hungary are still present. According
to an article of the Slovak conservative weekly newspaper Týždeň, Slovak
politicians often draw a picture that the southern neighbour does nothing
else but tries to disturb the Slovaks, their independence and the Slovak
nation and nationhood; thus, issues regarding Hungary and Hungarians are
very vivid within the Slovak political realm and thinking (Kollai 2008). At the
same time, issues of Slovakia and of Slovaks are mostly on the periphery of
Hungarian public attention. As an example, most Hungarians do not even
know who the Prime Minister of Slovakia is (ibid). This of course does not
exclude that Slovakia can occasionally receive strong attention in Hungary.
In his presentation in Smolenice, at the 50th anniversary of the establishment
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of the Institute for Sociology at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Vladimír
Krivý (2015: 3) claimed that the grouping aversion of Slovaks and Hungarians
are not so diferent in its basics, but the aversion towards the ‘other’ is
signiicantly stronger among Slovaks than among Hungarians. This is in
line with Rudolf Chmel’s (2010) and Dušan Kováč’s (2015) idea about the
closed character of Slovak society. Subsequently, this internal aversion and
closure of Slovak society is made particularly clear by using the slogan ‘na
Slovensku po slovensky’ (see Figure 3), which can be translated as ‘speak
Slovak in Slovakia’. This motto originally targeted Czechs during the irst
Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938), when Czech bureaucrats also prevailed
within Slovak administrative structures. The Slovak language was perceived
to be profoundly overshadowed and pushed to the periphery by the Czech.
Later, the slogan was reoriented toward the ethnic Hungarian minority and
the Hungarian language, and has successfully preserved its strong aversive
resonance up until today.
Figure 3: A partly damaged sticker propagating “in Slovakia, use Slovak”. A local resident,
on whose apartment house’s entrance the sticker was put, commented: “I wanted to
remove it entirely, but kept it to remind me where I live whenever I get ’home’.”
Source: Szabad Újság (2011)
The resolution of mental border issues and reconciliation of history is very
hard because interpretations of history are in a ceaseless change. Slovakia
has experienced approximately six or seven changes of interpretation of its
history during the century of its existence (Chmel 2010: 43, Michela 2011).
This is the central point of an article published by Martin Hanus and Jozef
Majchrák in Týždeň (2013). Their article makes a brilliant exploration of ‚our
and their history’, speciically the diferent interpretations of history. The
highest Slovak political representation introduced the term ‚old Slovaks’ at
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Hungarian and Slovak national narratives with a focus on the shared boundary
Péter Balogh, Teodor Gyelník
the 15th anniversary of the Slovak Republic, supported by many historians,
thus triggering an early mythic entity of the contemporary Slovak nation.
The introduction of this term has triggered considerable controversy even
among Slovak historians, with several of them – such as Dušan Kováč (2016)
– deeply disagreeing with it.
Yet the most diicult topics between Hungary and Slovakia appear in their
historiography of the 19th and 20th centuries. To be speciic, the political
revolution in 1848 is an event described in diferent ways on the two sides
of the Danube: the mainstream Hungarian interpretation is that it was a
revolution that represented all entities of the Kingdom and the Slovaks
were ighting in the revolution army of Lajos Kossuth, while the Slovakian
approach underlines the Slovak national movement as a movement
around Ľudovít Štúr and his group of ‘Štúrovci’. Slovak interpretations omit
the fact that Slovaks were ighting along other segments of society, and
emphasise that the army around Kossuth was a Hungarian army (maďarská
armáda), rather than a multi-ethnic army (uhorská armáda). Yet the most
diicult historical events concerning Hungary and Slovakia are the Treaty of
Versailles (1920) and the First Vienna Award (1938). The dominant historical
narratives interpret these events from substantially diferent points of view,
which leaves space for further disagreement. The latter is understood by
the Slovak side as a violent behaviour of Hitler and its allies (despite that
Slovakia was one itself ), and the regained territory is described as occupied
territories. At the same time, the Hungarian side presents the decision that
relected the ethnic composition of the territories. Slovak approaches see
the post-World War development as a historic moment of independence
that was preceded by cruel nationalistic policies of Hungarian elites and
which is described as the ‚Treaty of Trianon’, while the Hungarian approach
emphasises the injustice of a decision where a substantial part of the
Hungarian population suddenly found itself within a foreign state system
described as ‚Trianon dictate’ (Hanus & Majchrák 2013). Moreover, Krivý
(2015: 3) notes that the events after the Second World War led to diferent
interpretations, namely what was (is) a historic trauma for the Hungarians
is either an unknown thing for Slovaks, or it is highlighted as a moment ‚to
which there is no need to return any more’. Hence, a ‚collective empathy’ is
signiicantly weak within Slovakia.
Apart from various interpretations of history, an important element of
interstate relations is the feeling of insecurity and threat. That means there
is a threat among Slovaks of Hungarian revisionism (Kusý 2002: 43) and
a repetition of the Vienna Award still powerfully resonates (Surján 2013).
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Miroslav Bahna (2014) from the Institute of Sociology of the Slovak Academy
of Sciences wrote that 40% of respondents expressed that Hungary was the
threat number one for the Slovak Republic in 1996. This feeling of threat
and danger from Hungary has been substantially altered during the last
few years, and in 2014 only 5% of respondents expressed the same view,
thus it was a substantial decrease of seeing Hungary and Hungarians as
prime threat to Slovakian statehood.
Furthermore, several articles highlighted that one of the principal problems
in reconciliation and normalisation between Slovakia and Hungary is
Hungarian pride. To be speciic, Milan Zemko (2011) underlined the pride of
‚great Hungary’, and Miroslav Lajčák (2009) emphasised that there is a need
to end the rhetoric that Hungary must teach Slovakia.
Border issues between Hungary and Slovakia are ambivalent. Most likely, the
most important diplomatic incident of the past few years related to crossing
the border has been the refusal of entry of the President of Hungary, László
Sólyom, at the Komárno-Komárom border that occurred in 2009 (BBC
News 2009). The issue was that a historical monument was planned to be
inaugurated in Komárno with the participation of the former (at that time
incumbent) Hungarian President Sólyom. A diplomatic communication took
place between the two diplomatic sides and foreign ministries, but inally,
the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Afairs released a diplomatic note, which
informed the Hungarian President that his arrival is not welcome in the
Slovak Republic and that Slovakia cannot guarantee his security. Moreover,
the Slovak Prime Minister explicitly expressed at a news conference that the
Slovak oicers will inform the Hungarian President at the border that his
arrival and visit is undesirable in the Slovak Republic, and if the President
crosses the borders despite the expressed opinions of the highest political
authorities, it will be interpreted as a rough provocation from Hungary.
Consequently, the Hungarian President respected the Slovakian authorities
and their decision, and did not cross the Slovak-Hungarian border.
Finally, it is important to analyse contemporary interpretations and
understandings of borders during the migration low across Europe.
Contemporary debates of borders have shifted from the strict interpretation
of Slovakia and Hungary and take a more holistic European approach,
where ‘the other’ is seen and interpreted as an important ally in the issue of
illegal migration lows. The absolute priority of the two countries is to assure
an eicient management of the refugee lows in the EU. To achieve this,
maintaining the Schengen system and EU external borders are perceived
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Hungarian and Slovak national narratives with a focus on the shared boundary
Péter Balogh, Teodor Gyelník
as substantial preconditions. The Dublin agreement and other instruments
for asylum are regarded as the key here.
As the refugee low was unfolding in Europe, the dismantling of Schengen
and establishment of mini-Schengen(s) is not interpreted as an appropriate
political approach that is able to solve the crisis. As seen above, the refugee
crisis has triggered a profound cooperation in East Central Europe, with
the leaders of the Visegrad group explicitly rejecting the idea of a miniSchengen that was proposed by Dutch leaders. Consequently, the Visegrad
states, including Slovakia, underlined that cooperation and concentration
of individual strengths are the only solution to protect external borders of
the EU. What is more, as already mentioned, Slovakia sent police forces
to Hungary with the aim to help protect the southern borders of Hungary
(Kováčová 2015). But there are also signs of disagreement related to the
refugee crisis, pushing down the issue on the European agenda (Zalan
2016), with Hungary carrying on with its hard line against migratory quotas
as well as the EU more generally (Kegl 2016).
4. Conclusions
Relations between Slovakia and Hungary are burdened by historical
deeds from both sides. Relatedly, border relations have recently oscillated
on a pendulum between harsh incidents on the one hand, such as the
diplomatic tension when the Hungarian President was denied crossing into
Slovakia, and signs of intense cooperation on the other hand, for instance
when Slovak police forces join Hungarian ones with the aim to protect
Hungarian and EU borders. This oscillation between intensive cooperation
and disagreement mirrors the complex set of relations of two neighbouring
East Central European countries. Nevertheless, their occasional cooperation
points to the fact that the only viable path for such small East Central
European nations is to closely cooperate, something which becomes
particularly valuable in times of general EU crises.
We further tried to show that neighbourly and border relations are also
afected by the many national narratives that linger on and even today
have a strong impact on collective memories and identities, such as quite a
few still important anxieties, fears and phobias in both countries. Hungary
has still not processed its ‘Trianon trauma’ and been able to develop
relations with its ethnic kin beyond its borders that involve negotiating with
its neighbouring countries. Slovakia, on the other hand, is hampered by
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its – by no means unique – complex of being a relatively young state.
More importantly, it has so far failed to develop an understanding of its
nationhood that ethnic minorities equally feel part of.
Bilateral relations are also somewhat asymmetric in the sense that Slovakia
is generally more concerned with Hungary than vice-versa. However, as
was demonstrated, mainstream national narratives in Slovakia have more
recently become subjects of heavy arguments, at least among the country’s
intellectuals. Additionally, relations and attitudes among local borderlanders,
on both sides of the border, have for long been more reconciliatory than
have bilateral relations on national levels in general. Rather than a focus
on external Others, such as migrants as well as larger European powers,
it is hopefully these elements that will serve as a basis for future friendly
neighbourly relations.
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