| Abstrakt: |
The paper analyses the status of the Hungarian population in Slovakia at the end of the 1940s during the period of the Communist regime. After the deportation of the German population from Czechoslovakia during 1946 - 1947, the most numerous ethnic community not only in Slovakia but in the whole of the Republic was the Hungarian minority. The paper focuses on the fact that after reslovakisation measures adopted after the Second World War, which was the exchange of population between Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the members of the Hungarian community who stayed in the Czechoslovak Republic had no Czechoslovak citizenship, and were living on territory of the Republic as stateless people. Their property was confiscated, they could not be educated in their mother language, there was no media in the Hungarian language, and the Hungarian minority were not allowed social or cultural associations. However, subsequent changes in the political development on the European Continent with the establishment of the Soviet Eastern block and due to pressure exhorted by the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party and the Communist Party of Hungary, saw the ruling Communist Party of Czechoslovakia having to agree to fundamental changes in regard to the status of Hungarian minority members. But the process of the emancipation of the Hungarian minority was slow and only reluctantly implemented. The paper analyses positive changes which took place during the latter part of 1948 when classes with Hungarian teaching language were opened in Slovak schools and then independent Hungarian schools were established. In 1949 a cultural association named Csemadok was established and Hungarian periodicals and journals began to be published. The paper looks at the issue of the activities of the Hungarian Commission organized under the auspices of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, which, however, was only active for a short period of time. The paper also points to the fact that after February 1948, the members of the Hungarian minority were awarded basic minority rights, but these were limited by the nature of the totalitarian Czechoslovak regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
