­ June 4, 2009

The punitive treaty of Trianon, which tore Hungary asunder in violation of the vaunted principle of self-determination, is often thought of as a tragic historical event that has little or no relevance today.  For some, Trianon is an emotionally laden event, while for others it is at best, an uncomfortable reminder of a past injustice that needs to be “gotten over.”  Since the consequences of Trianon are still with us, however, it cannot be ignored.
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Preface to Gregory L. Nehler’s A Hungarian Community in Limbo


When I was Associate Instructor of Hungarian at Indiana University, Bloomington between 1978 and 1981, I began a research project on the bilingualism of Hungarians in South Bend, IN. I tape-recorded scores of interviews in Hungarian and my friend, Greg Nehler, an IU student at the time, conducted scores in English. This project resulted in several published articles and one book that I wrote (Fejezetek a South Bend-i magyar nyelvhasználatból, Budapest, 1990). What follows below is an unpublished paper by Greg Nehler, the typescript of a talk prepared for the Hungarian Cultural Association of Chicago in May 1981. This typescript deserves more visibility than it has in my project files, therefore I have asked Professor Louis Éltető of Portland, OR, the man responsible for infusing Nehler with great eagerness to learn Hungarian language and culture, to publish it on this homepage. I am publishing this with Nehler’s permission.

Over the last three decades Nehler’s talk has gathered ­some historical importance in as much as it is a record of a Hungarian community that has since all but vanished. One of the many signs of vanishing is that St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, built in 1909 and also mentioned by Nehler, was demolished in 2004.


Budapest, 8 May 2009                    Miklós Kontra
                               
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The sudden death of an ideology and an empire

Entering 1989 the Soviet Union and its informal but very real empire was already facing serious economic difficulties and a lack of confidence about attaining the ambitious aims of its official philosophy, called Marxism-Leninism: the creation of a new socio-political order based on communal property and abundance. However, no politician or analyst foresaw that by the end of the year all the communist one-party states of Central and South-eastern Europe would renounce dictatorship and switch to political pluralism. In 1990 they all held free elections won by parties opposed to the communists, discarded even the vestiges of Soviet-type Socialism, and started restoring capitalism, i.e. the market economy, while proclaiming their aim to return to the basic values of the West and the institutions built upon them. On 1 July 1991 the Warsaw Pact, the political-military organization of the Soviet Empire was dissolved by common consent, approved by Gorbachev, the President of the Soviet Union. On 25 December the Soviet Union itself was officially dissolved and its member states became internationally recognized sovereign, independent countries, all professing a commitment to political pluralism and the market economy. Never in human history did an empire disappear so suddenly and without bloodshed, and no profound political, economic and social changes took place in such a short period over such a large territory.

The causes of the collapse of the communist system are complex, they can be listed under the following headings: inherent or systemic, fundamental or substantive, incidental and immediate.

In a subchapter “The army in the Ukraine” Erich Kern, German officer writes  about the Hungarian army’s participation in 1941 as follows:

“In recollecting the bravery of the Magyar soldiers, the Germans could form opinion based on the military event that took place in early August of 1941 south of Uman, in the district of Pervomaysk. A German eyewitness wrote about it in his recollections of the war:

Liberty, democracy, human rights are like health. Servitude, oppression, discrimination are like sickness. Totalitarian tyranny is death. A revolution that overthrows tyranny and achieves liberty is a resurrection. During the last week of October and the first few days of November, 1956, most of us in Hungary felt as if we were risen from the dead.

It is incomprehensible why the Czech and Slovak Republics refuse to renounce
the notorious Benes Decrees of 1945. These measures stripped ethnic Hungarians of their citizenship and civil rights, sent thousands of them to concentration
camps,confiscated their property, denied them their churches, and resulted
in the expulsion of approximately 12% of Hungarians from their ancestral
homeland under inhuman conditions. Even Janos Esterhazy did not escape
persecution and imprisonment. As the leader of the Hungarian Party in Tiso's
Fascist Slovakia, he was the only member of parliament to vote against the
deportation of Jews in 1942. It is time for these two EU aspirants to
shed the shameful legacy of the Decrees - a legacy that still affects the
Hungarian community of Slovakia.

Speech by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright on the Occasion of the Accession of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

at the Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Missouri March 12, 1999

This speech sets essential guidelines for NATO mission and operations that may be important guides for certain aspects of USA-Hungary relations in the future. Preserved for Hungarian-American organizations by Bika Juli, Editor of 'Nyugati Magyarság' and Unicum News, March 1999

Escapees testify - Deposition #6

"... in October of 1944 when the Hungarian and German troops gave up Szenttamás, the Russian troops and Tito guerrillas arrived to town. At that time the town's population was 18,000, today it is only 15,000..."

Escapees testify - Deposition #5.

"...I know at the very least 1,500 Hungarians were executed in Csurog, no difference between women and men. I also should mention that those children whose parents were slaughtered were taken to camps..."

Escapees testify - Deposition #4

Excerpts from the book "Berkes and the Monk" (pp. 156-165) by Ferenc Fiala published as "Berkes és a szerzetes" in Munich (München), Germany, 1979

Translation to English by Laszlo G. Fulop