THE PERSECUTION OF THE SLOVAKS.•
rTo THR EDITOR OF THE "SPROTATOR."] SIE,—Connt EsterhLzy's letter in your last number on the subject of the Slovaks is so entirely misleading that I am grateful for your kind permission to reply. In the first place, though he is right in saying that no children were killed in the massacre of Csernova, the rest of his statement is crowded with errors. Father Hlinka, the suspended priest of Rozsabegy, was suspended before, not after, a diocesan inquiry. He was first suspended for supporting the Slovak candidate at last year's elections (though the Piarist Fathers who canvassed on the Magyar side have been left untouched); then, when the Nuncio intervened, he was re-suspended for "simony." The nature of the charge has been kept secret for eighteen months, and is still unproved ; that it was a trumped-up charge is shown by the fact that no action was taken for two years. It is untrue that "he agitated against his Church " ; this did not even form part of the indictment. The section of the Criminal Code under which be was condemned to two years' imprisonment and a fine of fifteen hundred crowns was that which forbids "incitement of one nationality, class, or con- fession to hatred against another." The offence was committed on election platforms, and the maximum penalty was imposed by a Judge who had for the previous two years been his leading opponent in the district ! Count Esterhizy then misrepresents the words used by the Slovensky Tyzdennik, which ran as
follows The Roumanians are not afraid of a little blood.
We Slovaks have never indulged in violence, and so our position is a worse one than that of the Roumanians." Only those who know of the veritable pitched battles by which alone the Roumanians have sometimes managed even to reach the poll can realise how terribly true these words are. As a single instance, in Sziligy-Cseh some years ago the troops fired on the crowd, killing thirty and severely wounding 'seventy-two. •
(2) Count Esterlmizy does not attempt to deny the fact that the Slovaks have remained for thirty years without a single gymnasium or secondary school of any kind; nor are his facts about the 'dissolution of previous schools correct. The Catholic gymnasium at Znio was twice inspected by a Government inspector, the Bishop, and a Secretary of, State, and no signs of so-called "Pan-Slavism " were found in it; it was only dissolved because its governing body refused to
hand it over to the State unless the rights of the Slovak language were safeguarded. The two Protestant schools were definitely charged with " Pan-Slavism "; but the facts were never published, and no one was ever brought to trial. The prime mover in the whole affair was II61a G-riinwald, who in a famous book preached the extermination of the Slovaks, and who once declared in Parliament that the Magyars had no choice between "dominance and slavery." Of course, even if Pan-Slavism was proved up to the hilt, this affords no excuse for closing the schools, but solely for purging them of bad practices.
(3) What Count Esterlsizy calls the "latest official statistics" are not by any means the latest. In 1904-5 there were only 3,248 elementary schools where the language of instruction was non-Magyar,—not 7,202, as he would have you believe. This works out at under 11 per cent., while the non-Magyars form 48-6 per cent. of the population of Hungary (without Croatia). The convenience of using old statistics becomes apparent when we learn that in 1888 the Slovak language was used in 1,389 schools, in 1896 in only 602, in 1900-1 (the year he quotes) in 500, while by 1904-5 they had been further reduced to 326. In the same four years the German schools have been reduced from 389 to 272, and the Ruthene from 76 to 45.
(4) The child-hunts are not imaginary. All the children removed were brought up as strange to their native language and customs as the Sultan's Janissaries, who form the nearest analogy.
(5) Count Esterinizy says it is "false" that Slovak libraries have been "burnt or confiscated." In thus using Touchstone's last alternative he sadly tempts me to dispense with "the retort courteous." For the library, museum, and buildings of the Matica Slovenska were confiscated in 1875. The former, after lying for twenty years in a caretaker's attics, were at length presented to the Magyar Szovetseg, which handed them over to the Nyitra gymnasium ; while the buildings are occupied by the local post-office and other Government offices.
(6) Count Esterhazy states the number of Slovak news- papers in Hungary. He omits to add that there is hardly any one on their entire staff who has not been in prison for some political offence ; that eight actions are at present pending against the Sloveneky Tyzdennik alone ; that the post- debit has been withdrawn by Government from more than one Bohemian or Slovak American newspaper; and that between June, 1906, and June, 1907, two hundred and forty-five Slovaks have been condemned to a total of nineteen years four months' imprisonment and fines of over eleven thousand crowns. When he calls the seven Slovak Deputies " Pan-Slays " he begs the whole question, for in Hungary all Slays who remain true to their language and nationality are branded with this nickname by the Pan- Magyars. When he talks of "other Slovak Members of Hungarian sympathies," he is only presuming on the ignorance of our public, for though there are many other Deputies of Slovak origin—including Mr. Francis Kossuth himself—there are none who would describe themselves as Slovak rather than Magyar, and few who are able or willing to address their con- stituents in Slovak.
I need not discuss Count Esterhazy's digression on the policy of the Coalition, for it has nothing to do with the question at issue. Nor do I believe that his attack on Mr. BjOrnson will lessen the general admiration for the poet's advocacy of the Slovak cause. For even if Mr. Bjornson, like all true poets, has listened rather to his heart than to his head, the above facts show him to be infinitely nearer to the truth than Count Esterluizy, whose misleading state- ments could only deceive persons unacquainted with the subject. I therefore close by summarising in the briefest possible form the chief wrongs of the Slovaks, most of which are equally felt by the other non-Magyar races of Hungary:— (1) The Slovak language has been banished from all secondary schools, colleges, and seminaries, and is being steadily expelled even from the primary schools. (2) The Slovak language has no rights in Courts of Justice, in clear defiance of the law guaranteeing the "equal rights of the nationalities."
(3) Slovak literature is virtually proscribed, for the simple reason that its authors are men of national feeling, and that those who lose that feeling cease to write Slovak.
(4) The Slovak Press is brutally persecuted. (5) There is no right of assembly and association. (6) Clergy, both Catholic and Lutheran, are suspended or transferred for political sym- pathies; Magyar services are forced upon Slovak congrega- tions. (7) The narrow franchise for Parliament, and the semi-mediaeval franchise for the County Assemblies, coupled with gross electoral corruption and bad administration, make it extremely difficult for Slovaks to enter Parliament. Electoral freedom of speech and action is not respected, Deputies are browbeaten and insulted, or sent to prison for political offences. In short, as one of the present Hungarian Cabinet said in Parliament last summer, "in Hungary the Magyar is the master." All others must go to the wall.
On Tuesday at a political dinner Mr. de Sze'll (the only Hungarian Premier of recent times who tried to apply tact and humanity to the nationalities question) publicly con- gratulated Count Esterinizy on his letter. The distinguished statesman is mistaken in assuming that Hungary's critics in the British Press are inspired by hostility to the Magyars, whose many splendid qualities they respect and admire. Their criticisms are really directed against the narrow clique which rules Hungary in the name of Liberal and democratic principles, and whose power is based upon racial dominance and repression of the proletariat. They believe as firmly as any Chauvinist in the political unity of Hungary, and are resolutely opposed to Pan-Slavism in the true sense, and to the party of "Great Austria," which aims at reducing Hungary to vassalage. On the other band, they follow with eager sympathy the efforts of the non-Magyars to preserve their national languages and customs, and the struggle of the working classes to shake off the mediaeval yoke which still hampers their progress. In this struggle "Towards the New Hungary" of which a recent writer dreams lies the hope of racial reconciliation, upon which the future of Hungary depends. In the words of Lord Acton, "a State which is incompetent to satisfy different races condemns itself."—
[We cannot continue this correspondence, which has already occupied far too much of our space. Though we are not responsible for our correspondent's facts or conclusions, and sometimes differ from the latter, we must in justice to him repudiate the utterly groundless suggestion that he is prejudiced by hatred of Hungary. The very reverse is the case. His sympathy with Hungary is as real as his know- ledge of the details of the difficult and complicated problems with which he deals.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
