Claim:
The völkisch movement did not address human rights issues
Rebuttal:
In the 1980s, representatives of the völkisch opposition (also) called on the Romanian and Czechoslovak party and state leadership to respect human rights. In doing so, they abandoned the pre-war irredentist arguments and stood up for all Transylvanians, regardless of their nationality, during the period of the destruction of villages.
In detail:
In his 1977 essay, Response to Herder and Ady, Gyula Illyés spoke out against the legal restrictions imposed on Hungarians living in neighbouring countries. As István Papp, a researcher of the völkisch movement, wrote, “Gyula Illyés’s moral credibility was ensured by the fact that he did not speak as a representative of Hungarian ’grievance nationalism’, but as a representative of the völkisch tradition that sought to overcome centuries of hatred on the basis of cooperation between the peoples of Central Europe.” [1] In 1983, Sándor Csoóri wrote the foreword to Miklós Duray’s book Kutyaszorítóban (In a Tight Spot), which also echoes the call for human rights. Csoóri used disarming logic to show that the one-party system, the destruction of the churches, and the annihilation of small-scale industry and retail trade had harmed ethnic citizens twice over. Illyés and Csoóri’s criticism was framed within the context of human rights. Neither of them raised irredentist or revisionist arguments, nor did they question the legitimacy of Romania or Czechoslovakia’s existence or the legitimacy of the authorities there.
Two basic conditions must be taken into account if we are to realistically assess Illyés and Csoóri’s stance: one relating to international law and the other to international social psychology. In the spirit of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act (which was also signed by the socialist countries, committing themselves to respect human rights), their logic and argumentation were unassailable! At that time – after 1968 – the world was experiencing a renaissance of national self-determination! The national movements of the Scots, Corsicans and Bretons revived in the 1970s after decades of silence, the press kept the Northern Irish and Basque questions on the agenda, and in Latin America, indigenismo (the indigenous cultural movement) made its presence felt. Not to mention the American civil rights movements! The Hungarian opposition emerged against the colorful backdrop of the ethnic and regional renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s. (Historians have yet to determine the extent to which the Hungarian opposition was inspired by the above examples and, perhaps more realistically, whether the “Hungarian question” had any influence on the above ethnic and regional movements through the press).
The response from official Romanian circles was harsh rejection, accusations of “irredentism,” “fascism,” and “chauvinism,” even though neither Illyés nor Csoóri struck a chauvinistic tone. Csoóri writes: “We know from experience that even those who belong to the majority can be crushed by gentler or harsher dictatorships, their dreams and thoughts can be ruined, their souls can be muddied, but hope always comes more easily to them than to individuals belonging to minorities.” [2] It is easy to see that this is not a chauvinistic argument. What he writes about collective punishment in a deeply condemnatory manner can still be felt by all minorities today, even if they live in a democracy: “if a minority individual commits some kind of offense, sin, or political blunder, they can be treated as a collective sinner without further ado.” [3] This is a generalization by the majority, which can also arise in relation to the Roma or refugees.
However, the most important part of Csoóri’s text is his criticism of the internationalism represented by the Soviet Union and the socialist world order, which conceals practices that deprive minorities of their rights (although Csoóri is obviously referring primarily to Hungarians, he uses the term “minority” in a general sense in this section). Criticism of the violations of the rights of Hungarians living in neighbouring countries also made it possible to criticize the socialist system in Hungary. After all, everyone could see that the Hungarian government and the ruling party were powerless in the face of their Czechoslovak and Romanian “sister parties.” The inability to defend national minority rights was the most vulnerable point in the Kádár regime’s foreign policy.
From the late 1960s, the Hungarian government was aware of the deteriorating situation of the Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia and Romania. Several attempts were made to improve the situation of Hungarians on the basis of “socialist brotherhood.” One notable example is the joint statement issued at the 1977 meeting between Kádár and Ceaușescu in Debrecen and Oradea, which included a reference to the “bridging role” of the Hungarian minority in Romania, at Kádár’s suggestion. However, the fact is that these seemed like modest concessions to the popular-national opposition, given the restrictions imposed on the Hungarian community, and, moreover, the Romanian side was unwilling to comply with the provisions of the declaration. It took eleven years for another high-level meeting to take place (the 1988 meeting between Károly Grósz and Ceaușescu), but by that time, official Hungarian-Romanian relations had deteriorated too much for Hungarian diplomacy to achieve any tangible results. In February 1989, at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission, Gyula Horn, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, representing the Hungarian government, criticized Romanian nationality policy. By this time, Hungarian-Romanian relations had expanded to include a third party, with the mobilization of the Hungarian opposition.
The Romanian “settlement systematization plan” announced in 1988, commonly known as the “village destruction” plan, mobilized the Hungarian opposition. The plan envisaged the relocation of the village population to industrial centers by the year 2000. Romanian, Hungarian, and other ethnic villages and cultures were all threatened. The ’Transylvania demonstration’ in Budapest on 27 June 1988, was directed against the Ceaușescu regime and the destruction of villages, not against Romania. Some of the demonstrators celebrated Romanian-Hungarian friendship, and some of the signs read: “We don’t want Transylvania back, we want life for the people of Transylvania!” They were talking about the people of Transylvania, not Hungarians or Székelys! The speakers warned against stirring up irredentist sentiments: “Anyone who tries to shout irredentist slogans here today is an enemy of the Hungarian people.” A shared destiny once again brought the two peoples closer together, as it had at several previous turning points in history. István Csurka’s statement, read out by actor István Bubik, emphasized that the demonstration was not directed against Romania’s territorial integrity: “Our goal is not to redraw the map; we have learned from history.”[4] There was complete agreement between the populist-nationalist and democratic opposition on the issues of interethnic peace and the shared destiny of Hungarians and Romanians.
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