CORRESPONDENCE.
A MONSTER TRIAL IN HUNGARY.
[TO TER EDITOR OP THY " SPECTATOR." j SIE,—Your readers will doubtless remember the regrettable massacre which occurred at Csernova, in North Hungary, on October 27th, when a forcible attempt was made by two un- popular priests to consecrate a new church in direct defiance of the wishes of the inhabitants, and when the Slovak villagers, daring to meet force by force, were brutally shot down by the gendarmes escorting the priests. Fifteen persons, including three women, were killed on the spot or succumbed to their injuries, and many others were wounded. The gendarmes were put on trial and promptly acquitted of all blame; while the Ministers of the Interior and of Justice used unmeasured language against the wicked villagers, and the House howled down the Slovak leader. Eighteen villagers were at once arrested, and after four months' delay, on March 2nd, 1908, fifty-eight persons were brought to trial for "violence against the authorities," and the gendarmes figured prominently among the witnesses for the Crown. Indeed, so -wholesale an indictment denuded the defence of almost all its witnesses, since those in a position to give evidence (apart from the priests and gendarmes) were either killed or in the dock. The presiding Judge, Mr. Chudovsky, though himself of Slovak origin, has for years past taken a leading part in the repression of Slovak national feeling,—first as Public Prosecutor in Nyitra, and since 1904 as Judge of the Sedrial Court in Rozsahegy. In the last three years he has sentenced two hundred and seventy-six Slovaks to a total of fifty-one years and nine months' imprisonment (exclusive of heavy fines and costs) for purely political offences. In November, 1906, he presided over the trial of his personal enemy, Father Hlinka, the town-priest of Rezsahegy, and sentenced him to the maximum penalty of two years; Dr. Srobar, the Slovak Parliamentary candidate, to one year ; and another priest and nine others to two years and ten months, for "instigation against the Magyar nationality" incurred in electoral speeches and canvassing ! The Csernova massacre was a direct out- come of the Minia trial, for to Hlinka was due the erection of the new church in his native village, and the opposition of the villagers was inspired by their wish that he should be present at its consecration. The fact that Father Hlinka's sister was the principal defendant serves to emphasise Mr. Chudovsky's unfitness to preside over this new trial. In such circumstances a severe sentence was to be expected, but the cruel truth surpassed all expectations. Mrs. Fulls. (nee Hlinka, and act, twenty) was condemned to three years' im- prisonment; while twenty-two men and sixteen women (including one who was severely wounded at the massacre) were sentenced to terms varying from eighteen to six months' imprisonment. Thus a total of over thirty-six years' imprison- ment was imposed on these unhappy peasants, for acting as every self-respecting man or woman would have acted in their position.
Let me add a few brief details concerning this astounding trial. (1) It was of course proved that the villagers had agitated previously against the ceremony, and that they resisted and threatened the authorities when they appeared on the scene. So far from blaming them, I fail to see what else they could have done, without sinking to the level of mere beasts of burden. (2) The Judge would not allow the report of the inquest on the bodies to be read in Court, because the position of the wounds proved that the gendarmes showed no mercy, and even fired on peasants who had turned their backs in flight. (3) It was proved that no one was injured by the stones which the villagers threw, so that the danger of the priests and gendarmes cannot have been very great. (4) All the gendarmes denied the statement of the villagers that the coachman of the szolgabiro (the local executive official) used his whip against the excited crowd ; but the Judge would not let the coachman himself be called as witness! (5) Father Pazurik maintained that he and his colleague, when they went to Csernova, had no intention of consecrating the church without the consent of the villagers, and merely wished to read to them a letter of Hlinka, which approved of the ceremony. The improbability of this story may be gathered from the facts that the dedication had been announced for that day from all the pulpits of the neighbourhood, that a deputation from Csernova had in vain urged Pazurik to desist, that the szolgabir6 invited a friend whom he met on the road to come with them "to the consecration." (6) Mr. Andabizy, the chief szolgabiro, gave evidence that on the morning of the massacre be urged the priests not to go to Csernova, since he could not answer for the consequences ; only when they stubbornly insisted did be give them an escort
• of gendarmes. But this man, who alone of all the authorities showed signs of humanity and tact, has since the massacre
been removed from office, and Mr. Pereszlenyi, the szolgabir6 who accompanied the priests and gave the signal to fire, and who cannot speak Slovak, has been promoted to his place ! (7) This same Pereszlenyi acted as reporter for the Hungarian Telegraphic Bureau, and thus was responsible for the reports of the trial in the Hungarian and foreign Press. I have said enough, and need not touch on the manner in which witnesses were browbeaten, contradicted, threatened, even fined by the Presiding Judge, or his reasons for treating collective offences as more serious than individual offences.
Thirty-six years' imprisonment for the survivors of a massacre ! I submit, Sir, that a State which upheld so barbarous a sentence upon forty helpless and ignorant peasants would forfeit its right to be described as civilised, and I confidently believe that the Court of Second Instance will reduce these monstrous sentences by at least a twentieth, or failing this, that the venerable Emperor-King on the occasion of hie impending jubilee will exercise his right of pardon in favour of the victims of political tyranny with which the Hungarian prisons are being filled.—I am, Sir, &c.,
SCOTUS VIATOR.
P.S.—An anti-Magyar paper in Vienna writes in a similar connexion :—" The English, when such cruelties occur in Turkey, make them the subject of questions in the House." I entirely disapprove of the tone of the journal in question, but I would recommend that one remark to the attention of our Balkan Committee and other friends of oppressed nationalities.
[It is with deep regret that we publish this letter, for we are friends as well as admirers of the Magyars, and most anxious that they should come well out of that crisis in their fate upon which, if we are to trust present appearances, they seem about to enter. But they will not come well out of it unless they can make up their minds to be both just and generous to the South Slays, and to do to others as they would be done by. The Slays deserve to have, and will have, a great future in Europe, and those who oppress them and resist their just and reasonable claims to recognition will suffer. Sooner or later these millions of men with distinctive racial characteristics will discover means of asserting themselves, and of obtaining freedom from the domination of those who now refuse them equal rights. That is a fact which it is madness for the Magyars to ignore.—En. Spectator.]
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