Magyarization

Magyarization ( , also ''Hungarization'', ''Hungarianization''; hu, magyarosítás), after "Magyar"—the Hungarian autonym—was an assimilation or acculturation process by which non-Hungarian nationals living in Austro-Hungarian Transleithania adopted the Hungarian national identity and language in the period between the Compromise of 1867 and Austria-Hungary's dissolution in 1918. Magyarization occurred both voluntarily and as a result of social pressure, and was mandated in certain respects by specific government policies.

Before the World War I, only three European countries declared ethnic minority rights, and enacted minority-protecting laws: the first was Hungary (1849 and 1868), the second was Austria (1867), and the third was Belgium (1898). In contrast, the legal systems of other pre-WW1 era European countries did not allow the use of European minority languages in primary schools, in cultural institutions, in offices of public administration and at the legal courts.

By the emphasizing of minority rights, the civil and political rights based on individualism, the preventing the formation of politically autonomous territories for ethnic minorities was a desired policy for the Hungarian politicians.
However the minority leaders of Romanians, Serbs and Slovaks had been seeking for full territorial autonomy instead of minority rights, which the Hungarian politicians saw as the first step towards the full disintegration of Kingdom of Hungary since their experiences during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.

Magyarization was ideologically based on the classical liberal concepts of individualism (civil liberties of the person) and liberal/civic nationalism in general, which encouraged ethnic minorities' cultural and linguistic assimilation, and on the post-revolutionary standardization of the French language in particular. Although the 1868 Hungarian Nationalities Law guaranteed legal equality to all citizens, including in language use, in this period practically only Hungarian was used in administrative, judicial, and higher educational contexts.

By 1900, Transleithanian state administration, businesses, and high society were exclusively magyarophone, and by 1910, 96% of civil servants, 91.2% of all public employees, 96.8% of judges and public prosecutors, 91.5% of secondary school teachers and 89% of medical doctors had learned Hungarian as their first language. Urban and industrial centers' Magyarization proceeded at a particularly quick rate; nearly all middle-class Jews and Germans and many middle-class Slovaks and Ruthenes spoke Hungarian. Overall, between 1880 and 1910, the percentage of the total population that spoke Hungarian as its first language rose from 46.6% to 54.5%. Most Magyarization occurred in central Hungary and among the educated middle classes. It hardly touched rural, peasant, and peripheral populations; among these groups, linguistic frontiers did not shift significantly between 1800 and 1900.

While those who resisted Magyarization faced political and cultural handicaps, these were comparatively more lenient than the more formalized legal discrimination (prejudicial court proceedings, overtaxation, biased application of social and economic legislation, etc.) faced by ethnic minorities in countries neighboring the Empire.

Use of the term

Magyarization usually refers specifically to the policies that were enforced in Austro-Hungarian Transleithania in the 19th century and early 20th century, especially after the Compromise of 1867 and even more so after Count Menyhért Lónyay's premiership, which began in 1871.Bideleux and Jeffries, 1998, p. 363.

When referring to personal and geographic names, Magyarization refers to the replacement of a non-Hungarian name with a Hungarian one.

Magyarization was perceived by other Transleithanian ethnic groups, such as the Romanians, Slovaks, Ruthenians (Rusyns), Croats, Serbs, and others, as aggression or active discrimination, especially in areas where they formed the majority of the population.

Medieval antecedents

Although Latin was the official language of state administration, legislation, and schooling from 1000 to 1784, smaller ethnic groups assimilated into a common Hungarian culture throughout medieval Hungarian history. Even at the time of the Hungarian conquest, the Hungarian tribal alliance was made up of tribes from different ethnic backgrounds. The Kabars, for example, were of Turkic origin, as were later groups, such as the Pechenegs and Cumans, who settled in Hungary between the 9th and 13th centuries. Still-extant Turkic toponyms, such as '' Kunság'' (Cumania), reflect this history. The subjugated local population in the Carpathian Basin, mainly in the lowlands, also took on the Hungarian language and customs during the high medieval period.

Similarly, some historians claim that ancestors of the Szeklers (Transylvanian Hungarians) were Avars or Turkic Bulgars who began using the Hungarian language in the Middle Ages. Others argue the Szeklers descended from a Hungarian-speaking " Late Avar" population or from ethnic Hungarians who, after receiving unique settlement privileges, developed a distinct regional identity.

As a reward for their military achievements, the Hungarian crown granted titles of nobility to some Romanian knezes. Many of these nobles houses, such as the Drágffy (Drăgoștești, Kendeffy (Cândești), Majláth (Mailat) or Jósika families, assimilated into the Hungarian nobility by taking on the Hungarian language and converting to Catholicism.

Modern background

Although the Kingdom of Hungary had become an integral part of the House of Habsburg's Austrian Empire following the liberation of Buda in 1686, Latin remained the administrative language until 1784, and then again between 1790 and 1844. Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, influenced by Enlightened absolutist ideals, pushed for the replacement of Latin by German as the empire's official language during his reign (1780–1790). Many lesser Hungarian nobles perceived Joseph's language reform as German cultural hegemony, and they reacted by insisting on their right to use Hungarian. This sparked a national awakening of Hungarian language and culture but resulted in political tensions between the Hungarian-speaking lesser houses and the germanophone and francophone magnates, fewer than half of whom were ethnic Magyars.

Magyarization as a social policy began in earnest in the 1830s, when Hungarian started replacing Latin and German in educational contexts. Although this phase of Magyarization lacked religious and ethnic elements—language use was the only issue, as it would be, just a few decades later, during tsarist RussificationThe Finno-Ugric republics and the Russian state, by Rein Taagepera 1999. p. 84.–it nonetheless caused tensions within the Hungarian ruling class. The radical liberal revolutionary Lajos Kossuth advocated for rapid Magyarization, pleading in the early 1840s in the newspaper '' Pesti Hírlap'', "Let us hurry, let us hurry to Magyarize the Croats, the Romanians, and the Saxons, for otherwise we shall perish." Kossuth stressed that Hungarian had to be the exclusive language in public life, writing in 1842 that "in one country it is impossible to speak in a hundred different languages. There must be one language, and in Hungary, this must be Hungarian."

Moderate nationalists who supported a compromise with Austria, on the other hand, were less enthusiastic. Zsigmond Kemény, for example, agitated for a Magyar-led multinational state and disapproved of Kossuth's assimilatory ambitions. István Széchenyi was also who more conciliatory toward ethnic minorities and criticized Kossuth for "pitting one nationality against another", and while Széchenyi promoted Magyarization on the basis of the alleged "moral and intellectual supremacy" of Hungarian culture, he argued that Hungary had to first become worthy of emulation if Magyarization was to succeed. Kossuth's radical program gained more popular support than Széchenyi's. The nationalists thus initially supported the policy "One country – one language – one nation" during the Kossuth-led Revolution of 1848. Some minority nationalists, such as the Slovak nationalist author and activist Janko Kráľ, were imprisoned or even sentenced to death in this period.''Encyklopédia spisovateľov Slovenska''. Bratislava: Obzor, 1984.

As the Revolution progressed, the Austrians gained the upper hand. This led the nationalist provisional government to attempt negotiations with Hungary's ethnic minorities, who comprised up to 40% of its armed forces. On 28 July 1849, the revolutionary parliament enacted minority rights legislation, one of the first in Europe. This was insufficient to turn the war's tide, however. The nationalist army under Artúr Görgey's command surrendered in August 1849 after the Habsburgs gained the support of Nicholas I's Russia.

The Hungarian national awakening had the lasting effect of triggering similar national revivals among the Slovak, Romanian, Serbian, and Croatian minorities in Hungary and Transylvania, who felt threatened by both German and Hungarian cultural hegemony. These revivals would blossom into nationalist movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and contribute to Austria-Hungary's collapse in 1918.

Magyarization during Dualism

The term Magyarization is used in regards to the national policies put into use by the government of the Kingdom of Hungary, which was part of the Habsburg Empire. The beginning of this process dates to the late 18th century and was intensified after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which increased the power of the Hungarian government within the newly formed Austria-Hungary. some of them had little desire to be declared a national minority like in other cultures. However, Jews in Hungary appreciated the emancipation in Hungary at a time when anti-semitic laws were still applied in Russia and Romania. Large minorities were concentrated in various regions of the kingdom, where they formed significant majorities. In Transylvania proper (1867 borders), the 1910 census finds 55.08% Romanian-speakers, 34.2% Hungarian-speakers, and 8.71% German-speakers.
In the north of the Kingdom, Slovaks and Ruthenians formed an ethnic majority also, in the southern regions the majority were South Slavic Croats, Serbs and Slovenes and in the western regions the majority were Germans.
The process of Magyarization did not succeed in imposing the Hungarian language as the most used language in all territories in the Kingdom of Hungary. In fact the profoundly multinational character of historic Transylvania was reflected in the fact that during the fifty years of the dual monarchy, the spread of Hungarian as the second language remained limited. In 1880, 5.7% of the non-Hungarian population, or 109,190 people, claimed to have a knowledge of the Hungarian language; the proportion rose to 11% (183,508) in 1900, and to 15.2% (266,863) in 1910. These figures reveal the reality of a bygone era, one in which millions of people could conduct their lives without speaking the state's official language. The policies of Magyarization aimed to have a Hungarian language surname as a requirement for access to basic government services such as local administration, education, and justice. Between 1850 and 1910 the ethnic Hungarian population increased by 106.7%, while the increase of other ethnic groups was far slower: Serbians and Croatians 38.2%, Romanians 31.4% and Slovaks 10.7%.

The Magyarization of Budapest was rapid John Lukacs. ''Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture'' (1994) p.102 and it implied not only the assimilation of the old inhabitants, but also the Magyarization of the immigrants. In the capital of Hungary, in 1850 56% of the residents were Germans and only 33% Hungarians, but in 1910 almost 90% declared themselves Magyars. This evolution had beneficial influence on Hungarian culture and literature.

According to census data, the Hungarian population of Transylvania increased from 24.9% in 1869 to 31.6% in 1910. In the same time, the percentage of Romanian population decreased from 59.0% to 53.8% and the percentage of German population decreased from 11.9% to 10.7%. Changes were more significant in cities with predominantly German and Romanian population. For example, the percentage of Hungarian population increased in Braşov from 13.4% in 1850 to 43.43% in 1910, meanwhile the Romanian population decreased from 40% to 28.71% and the German population from 40.8% to 26.41%.

State policy

The first Hungarian government after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the 1867–1871 liberal government led by Count Gyula Andrássy and sustained by Ferenc Deák and his followers, passed the 1868 Nationality Act, that declared "all citizens of Hungary form, politically, one nation, the indivisible unitary Hungarian nation (''nemzet''), of which every citizen of the country, whatever his personal nationality (''nemzetiség''), is a member equal in rights." The Education Act, passed the same year, shared this view as the Magyars simply being ''primus inter pares'' ("first among equals"). At this time ethnic minorities ''de jure'' had a great deal of cultural and linguistic autonomy, including in education, religion, and local government.

However, after education minister Baron József Eötvös died in 1871, and in Andrássy became imperial foreign minister, Deák withdrew from active politics and Menyhért Lónyay was appointed prime minister of Hungary. He became steadily more allied with the Magyar gentry, and the notion of a Hungarian political nation increasingly became one of a Magyar nation. " y political or social movement which challenged the hegemonic position of the Magyar ruling classes was liable to be repressed or charged with 'treason'..., 'libel' or 'incitement of national hatred'. This was to be the fate of various Slovak, South Slav Serb.html"_;"title="Serbs.html"_;"title=".g._Serbs">Serb">Serbs.html"_;"title=".g._ Serb_Romanians.html"__"title="Serbs">Serb.html"_;"title="Serbs.html"_;"title=".g._Serbs">Serb">Serbs.html"_;"title=".g._Serbs">Serb_Romanians">Romanian_
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