Attila Simon: The national statute of 1938 and the Hungarian minority

Following Chamberlain’s visit to Berchtesgaden on the 15th of September, the question of revision of state borders was brought to the forefront, resulting in the Munich Pact and later in the Vienna Convention. The failure of ethnic reconciliation in Czechoslovakia, however, does not necessarily imply the failure of the content of the ethnic directive, as the more strictly interpreted statute and the related language law, the last version of the administrative division proposal, as well as president Beneš’s even more ambitious, so-called “Fourth Plan” would have been far more righteous and in line with the ethnic minorities justified demands regarding the complex handling of the ethnic question. It would have been a qualitative change, a minority policy based on reckoning with the Czechoslovak nation state ambitions and it would have paved the way for a new, richer experience for the Hungarian ethnic community in Slovakia. However, we must not overrate these plans, as they have never been submitted to the parliament, they only reached the stage of a governmental proposal. The real challenge for these proposed laws would not have been the debate in the parliament, but their implementation in real life. During the preparation of the statute, the feedback which has reached the government and has been given press coverage revealed that a significant portion of the public opinion has opposed giving up the mechanisms of the nation state.
During the end of the period between the two world wars, the United Hungarian Party (EMP) has regarded these plans as an opportunity, which could have settled the situation of Hungarians in Slovakia in a reassuring way. In line with this, the EMP was in favour of discussions until the last moments, but it was also obvious that it would only agree with a solution which was not to strengthen the legitimacy of the nation state’s borders at the time. Therefore, a few days before the Munich conference, when Prague was sending offers, according to which the Czechoslovak government was ready to make all those concessions for the Hungarian minority which it has granted before to the Germans, the Hungarian party was not open to them anymore. The events taking place in the beginning and middle of September 1938 have made it clear that the possibility of border revision is closer than anyone thought before. From there on, the politics of the EMP were focused on autonomous efforts, referendum and border revision, instead of seeking a solution within the state of Czechoslovakia. One thing, though, remained the same within the party and the ethnic community as well: they did not wish to use any violent force to pursue their goal, instead they stood by the parlamentarian instruments.