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The Černová tragedy or Černová massacre (Template:Lang-sk, Template:Lang-hu) was a bloody massacre in Černová (now part of Ružomberok) on 27 October 1907.

Outline of the events

In Černová, inhabitants decided to build a catholic church from their own finances and from the initiative of Andrej Hlinka, their own native priest and they wanted him to sanctify a church. However, he was suspended by the Spiš bishop Párvy at that time due to the "Anti-Hungarian sedition". Instead, Párvy appointed the priest Martin Pazúrik from Lisková, and he came to sanctify the church on 27th October in a coach with underofficer Pereszlényi and some gendarmes. The main road was already filled with angry crowd and coaches couldn't move further, so the commander of gendarmes, Ján Ladiczky, gave order to shoot. The gendarmes fired four times, what resulted in killing 15 people, seriously injuring 12 and lightly injuring 60. In addition, 40 people were imprisoned or financially penalized.

Hlinka was in Czechia on a lecture tour at the time of tragedy, where he was welcomed as a martyr and hero after the tragedy, where he said more anti-Hungarian statements, for what he was sentenced for 27 months.

The tragedy sparked huge protests in the European press and it turned world's attention to the attitude to the minorities in Hungary. Important protesting European personalities included the Norwegian Nobel Prize holder Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, the Oxford historian Robert William Seton-Watson, the speaker of the Austrian parliament etc.

Under an order of pope Pius X, Hungarian authorities were forced to rehabilitate Hlinka in 1909 and in 1910 he was finally allowed to consecrate the church in his native village.

Details

Prelude

Father Hlinka had, partly out of his own means but chiefly by public subscription, arranged for the erection of a church in his birthplace, Černová. At that time, Černová was a Slovak village of 1,300 inhabitants, situated within the parish of Ružomberok (today Černová is a part of Ružomberok). To the cost of erection, which reached the figure of 80,000 crowns (60 000 guldens), no one belonging to the official world contributed a single farthing ; everything was done by the unaided efforts of the parishioners, and their friends. Under these circumstances, they naturally regarded themselves as entitled to some say in the matter of the consecration.

At the time of the massacre, Father Hlinka was suspended from his priests office due to charges with "instigation against the Magyar nationality” (from which he was acquitted in March 2009 by the pope himself), and was preparing for his stay in prison, which then started on November 30 1907. At the very time of the massacre, he was in Czechia on a lecture tour.

In September 1907, as the church was approaching completion, a petition in favor of its consecration was handed in to the bishop; this document, which was only signed by four of the villagers, was drafted by Father Hlinka himself. The great majority of the people of Černová, however, were indignant at this petition, and only willing to consent to the ceremony on condition that Hlinka was allowed to be present. This was the general sentiment expressed at a meeting which was held in the village on October 6, and which was attended by Dean Pazúrik and Father Fischer, the unpopular substitute of Hlinka since his suspension. Father Pazúrik helped the villagers to prepare a fresh petition to the bishop, and promised to use his influence in its support. To the original petition Bishop Párvy replied by fixing October 20 as the day of the consecration and entrusting Canon Kurimsky with the ceremony ; to the second petition and to a third which insisted more strongly than ever that before the ceremony took place Hlinka must either be rehabilitated or finally condemned, the bishop returned no answer whatever.

Deputations and messages were equally without effect. Father Pazúrik did indeed obtain a postponement of the date, but merely in order to announce from all the pulpits of the neighborhood that the ceremony would definitely take place on Sunday, October 27. Alarmed at this, the villagers sent a fresh deputation to Pazúrik and Fischer. They were met with evasive answers from the two priests, but it transpired at the subsequent trial that Pazúrik ordered the painter to be finished with his work inside the church by the following Sunday. On Saturday, the 26th, Bačkor the village mayor visited Pazúrik and advised him to abandon all idea of the consecration, owing to the excitement which prevailed in Černová. According to Bačkor's own story, the priest replied, " Whether it ends well or ill, the consecration must take place." The villagers had already telegraphed to the canon who was to officiate, that they would not permit the ceremony, and as a result Canon Kurimsky actually gave up his journey to Černová. But the clergy of Ružomberok, under the influence of the civil authorities, decided not to let the matter drop, and doubtless by way of pouring oil upon the troubled waters, sent gendarmes on the previous day to Černová. As a last resort, the villagers had removed and hidden the various church utensils and vestments required for the ceremony ; but the gendarmes recovered these by force and set a watch upon the church. On Sunday morning early the villagers sent a further deputation to the Ružomberok clergy, begging Fathers Pazúrik and Fischer to renounce their intention, since the greatest excitement prevailed in the village. Mr. Andaházy, the chief szólgabiró, who had received a report from the gendarmes in the village, also strongly advised the priests to desist, since he could not answer for the consequences. Only when they stubbornly ignored his repeated warnings, did he give them an escort of gendarmes and instruct Mr. Pereszlényi the under-szólgabiró to accompany them to Černová. The latter, unlike some of those who accompanied him, was a genuine Magyar by birth, and is specially suited to his official position amid a Slovak population, by reason of the fact that he is ignorant of the Slovak language !

The massacre

In two carriages the false apostles of Magyar culture set forth upon their self-imposed errand, escorted by Pereszlényi and his eight gendarmes. At the entrance of the village of Černová, in the long narrow street, a crowd of several hundred Slovak peasants had assembled. A solid phalanx blocked the way, the cortege was greeted with cries of "Turn back," "We don't want you," and a spokesman came forward from the crowd and begged the szolgabiró to desist from the attempt to consecrate the church. The szolgabiró ordered his coachman to force a passage through the crowd, and when the latter attempted to obey, a number of young fellows seized the horses' heads and tried to turn the carriage back in the direction from which it came. At this moment stones must have been thrown from the back of the crowd ; for when all was over, it was discovered that, though no one else in the party had been hurt, one of the gendarmes had received a slight injury in the face. Fortunately this could speedily be remedied by the application of some English sticking-plaster, and he was then doubtless free to assist his comrades to remove the dead and dying. For without any preliminary warning to the crowd to disperse, the gendarmes began to fire upon the peasants. Some accounts assert that Pereszlényi himself brandishing his stick, gave the order "quick fire"; but he has publicly denied this in the press. The commander of the gendarmerie appears to have ordered one of his men to fire on any one whom he saw lifting stones, and hence the first victim was a woman, shot through the breast at a distance of two paces. The other gendarmes followed suit, though none had actually heard the command to fire.

Who ever gave to order to fire, without even resorting to the bayonet, far less to the buttends of their rifles, the gendarmes fired indiscriminately into the crowd, packed together as it was in the narrow roadway, and some are said to have reloaded and discharged again. Nine persons were killed on the spot, including two women; three more succumbed to their wounds in the course of the day; twelve more were seriously wounded, and three of their number have subsequently died. Among the. slain was a woman far advanced with child, who in her dying agony gave birth to an infant. Another was a girl of sixteen, who tried to seize a gendarme's rifle and was shot down in the attempt. The number of persons slightly wounded is said to have exceeded sixty.

For a time all was in confusion. The panic-stricken peasants scattered in all directions, the clergy fled in just horror at the bloodshed caused by their own insistence. The szólgabiró, instead of sending for doctors in all haste, turned back to Ružomberok to summon the military and to make preparations for a judicial inquiry (!). A young peasant had the presence of mind to run for a doctor ; and thus Dr. Šrobár, the leader of the Ružomberok Slovaks, was the first to appear upon the scene. This so incensed the szólgabiró, who soon afterwards returned to Černová with a clerk to draw up a report, that he at once had the youth who had fetched Dr. Šrobár arrested and put into prison. So great was the terror among the villagers, that when Dr. Polgár, the official surgeon, arrived, hardly any of the wounded would trust themselves to his care. An even clearer idea of the depth of feeling among the peasantry may be obtained from the fact that the relatives of the victims refused the assistance of the Magyar clergy and buried their dead without the rites of the Church ; that all the wounded with one exception refused to receive a Magyar priest : and that the eighteen persons who were arrested for their share in the incident declined to attend the Magyar prison chaplain's Mass.

Reaction of the Hungarian Diet (Parliament)

Such an incident naturally could not be ignored by the Hungarian Parliament, and two interpellations were brought before the Lower House in the course of the week. Despite the conflicting reports which were circulating in the Press, the Speaker, Mr. Justh, did not regard the matter as urgent, and the discussion was not open till Wednesday, October 30th.

Mr. Hodža, the Slovak leader, in addressing his interpellation to the Minister of the Interior, was repeatedly interrupted by loud and hostile cries. The Deputy-Speaker rebuked him for speaking at such length, and actually insinuated that he was treating the incident in a cynical manner. When Mr. Hodža protested against this charge, he was at once called to order, and when he apologized for the length of his explanation, a deputy cried out that he was simply talking to waste the House's time. When at length, roused by other frivolous and insulting interruptions, he went on to inquire, "who then were the murderers?" he was greeted by a storm of abuse and shouts of "You are the murderers." Mr. Rákovszky was obliged to suspend the sitting for five minutes, and even after proceedings were resumed a second suspension was almost rendered necessary.

But if the attitude of the House in general was sufficiently reprehensible, the reply of Count Andrássy was even more extraordinary. He began by expressing his surprise that Mr. Hodža had dared to interpellate in this particular matter. He then stated that according to information received, all idea of consecrating the church had been abandoned, and that the clergy had come with the very object of calming the people and of announcing that the consecration would not take place. It is unfortunate that Count Andrássy made no attempt to explain why the clergy charged with such a message (which they must have known would be received with the greatest delight by the people), took an escort of gendarmes with them, to say nothing of an unpopular official who could not speak the language of the villagers, and why on finding a large crowd blocking their progress, they did not at once make known their errand. Incredible as it may seem, the explanation was regarded as satisfactory by the House, which gave new and signal proof of its racial intolerance by its attitude to the whole affair. But it sets too great a demand on the credulity of external observers, and his speech will go far to confirm the impression, already widespread in Hungary, that Count Andrássy's utterances on the racial question do more harm to his own cause than all the mistakes of the Coalition Government or the unlovely Jingoism of its satellites in Parliament.After this promising beginning Count Andrássy went on to assert that the standpoint of the villagers, in not allowing anyone save Hlinka to consecrate the church, was in itself an offence against all order in State and in Church — an assertion which was greeted with stormy applause from the House. When, he added, the crowd threw stones, and caught hold of the rifles of the gendarmes, their captain gave the order to fire ; and this being so, he, the Minister of the Interior, took full responsibility for their action, and saw not the slightest reason for suspending the officials concerned from office. In conclusion, Count Andrássy quoted from an article published some months before in Mr. Hodža's paper, Slovenský týždenník, entitled "We can wait no longer." This article referred to the victory of the well-known Roumanian priest Father Lucaciu at a recent bye-election, despite the swarms of gendarmes and troops employed by the authorities, and contained the following passage : "The Roumanians are not afraid of a little blood ; and the result was that this nation has won. But we Slovaks are but a timid people. We 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 realize the terrible truth of these words.

Mr. Günther, the Minister of Justice, rode the same high horse as his colleague, actually boasted of the withdrawal of the postal delivery from certain foreign newspapers, and appeased the outraged feelings of the House by the assurance that eight Press actions were pending against Mr. Hodža's journal alone, to say nothing of other Slovak newspapers. Thus an incident which could never have occurred in most Western countries, or whose occurrence would have caused the fall of the Government, was merely treated as a pretext for renewed abuse and persecution of the wicked "Panslavs."

Reaction of the Hungarian press

The attitude of the Magyar Press corresponded to that of the parliamentary Jingoes; and even the Pester Lloyd, which treated the matter with conspicuous moderation, wrote as follows: "We shall say no more of the Hlinkas and the Hodžas. These are small fry, who live upon blind nationalism, just as those amongst us who rise to honours and riches through frenzied Chauvinism. People of that sort one seizes by the collar if they break the law, and basta." The writer takes himself more seriously when he goes -on to argue that prosecutions are no policy, and that the general policy of the Government towards the nationalities must be changed. "But," he adds, "we want to be the masters in our own house." Here is the crux of the whole Hungarian question. Soft phrases about the policy of Deák, comradeship, "the moral suasion of culture and law," are mere waste of breath, so long as this odious phrase is upheld. If the Magyars are the masters, the other races must be servants, and while this relationship subsists it is absurd to talk of equality.

Impacts on the Hlinka case

The unhappy incident of Čsernová was used by Father Hlinka's enemies to blacken his reputation still further, and at the same time to touch a weak spot in his armour by making his sister the scapegoat of the subsequent trial. The story was spread abroad that Father Hlinka wished at all costs to prevent the consecration of the church, incited the people of Černová to resistance, and then decamped to Moravia, in order to be out of harm's way. The true facts are very different. More than three months before the massacre Father Hlinka had made arrangements with Czech friends to give a series of lectures upon the Slovaks the following autumn in a number of Bohemian and Moravian towns. The first lecture was to have been held at Göding on October 13 but a week before Hlinka sent the following telegram to the professor who had been entrusted with the arrangements : "Impossible owing to dedication of church in Černová and possible visit of Bishop : — Andreas." Hlinka's idea that the Bishop was coming proved to be based on a misunderstanding ; and as the dedication did not take place on the 13th, and as there seemed no prospect of any fresh arrangement, Hlinka yielded to the pressure of his friends, and left Rózsahegy on October 17 for Moravia. During the next few days he lectured at Olomouc, Kroměříž and other places, and was in Hodonín when a telegram arrived announcing the massacre. In his horror and excitement at the news, he wished to hurry back to Ružomberok, but his friends, knowing that this would merely have led to his arrest, restrained him with difficulty and eventually induced him to continue his course of lectures as announced. Yet at this very time certain Magyar newspapers were spreading the story that Father Hlinka, disguised in woman's clothing, had agitated among the peasantry for days before the massacre and fled out of danger at the critical moment.

Immediate reactions outside the Kingdom of Hungary

Father Hlinka was probably well advised in continuing his lectures, for they contributed materially to the storm of indignation which the incident of Černová aroused in Bohemia, and indeed in most parts of the Austrian Empire. Father Sillinger, a Moravian member of the Reichsrath, brought forward an interpellation on the subject, which led to a heated demonstration against Magyar policy. The speeches of Professor Redlich for the German Liberals and Professor Masaryk for the Czechs accurately reflected the opinion of most Austrians ; and Dr. Weisskirchner, the President of the House and one of the leaders of the Christian Socialist party, formally expressed the sympathy of the House towards the relatives of the victims. This attitude was keenly resented by the Hungarian Parliament as an unwarranted interference in the private affairs of an independent state, and mutual recriminations between the two countries were the result. In this connexion it is impossible to bestow full approval upon either Parliament. On the one hand, Hungary was fully entitled to treat as an insult the cries of Austrian hotheads for active intervention. On the other hand, no true believer in the Dual System (i.e. Austria-Hungary) could concede the theory of absolute non-interference between two States which are interdependent, not independent, of each other. Had the Černová incident occurred upon the Serbian or Romanian frontier, it might easily have led to complications with Belgrad or Bucarest, such as must have involved not merely Hungary but Austria as well. The idea that Austria must blindly and unquestioningly follow Hungary, or Hungary Austria, in dealing with some internal affair which influences opinion in both countries, and their relations to neighboring states, was altogether intolerable and would speedily prove fatal to the partnership.

The Černová trial

Eighteen villagers were at once arrested for complicity in what was officially described as "the revolt of Černová" ; and a number of gendarmes were quartered in the village for months afterwards. The gendarmes who had fired the volley were brought before a court martial but acquitted of all blame. But this was not deemed sufficient by the local authorities, who were determined that all the responsibility should be thrown upon Hlinka and his supporters. On March 2,1908, therefore, no fewer than fifty-nine persons were brought to trial before the court of Ružomberok on a charge of "violence against the authorities and against private individuals." As usual the presiding judge was Mr. Géza Chudovszky, Father Hlinka's leading opponent in the district ; and the fact that the latter's sister was the principal defendant merely serves to emphasize his unfitness to conduct this new trial. In such circumstances a severe sentence was to be expected ; but the cruel truth surpassed all expectations. Mrs. Fulla, née Hlinka — a woman of fifty-seven — was condemned to three years' imprisonment, while twentytwo men and sixteen women (including one who had lost her husband in the massacre, who was herself severely wounded in the breast, who had seven children, and against whom nothing was proved save that she was present in the crowd) were sentenced to terms varying from eighteen to six months' imprisonment. Thus a total of thirty-six years and six months' imprisonment was imposed on these unhappy peasants for acting as every self-respecting man or woman would have acted in their position.

It was, of course, established beyond all doubt that the villagers had agitated previously against the ceremony; indeed Father Pazúrik actually received a threatening letter, warning him that he would be beaten if he attempted to consecrate the church. It was further proved that the crowd resisted and threatened the authorities on their arrival, and one gendarme swore that he heard cries of "Kill the Jews," which might have referred to the Hebrew origin of Father Fischer. But so far from blaming them for their resistance, I fail to see what else they could have done without sinking to the level of mere beasts of burden.

The fifty-nine defendants were selected in an entirely arbitrary manner. Those peasants who came forward as witnesses at the preliminary inquiry in order to establish their alibi, found themselves brought to trial for the same offence as those arrested at the time; and this wholesale indictment entirely denuded the defense of witnesses, since all those who could give first-hand evidence concerning the incident were either killed or in the dock. In such circumstances, the principal witnesses were the gendarmes, the szólgabiró and the two priests, all of whom were naturally hostile to the defendants.

The judge conducted the trial with extreme severity and partiality, repeatedly browbeating and contradicting the witnesses, One witness, Francis Holota, he interrupted with the words, "That is a lie, I will not let you say more of that," When one of the defendants, in cross-examination, asked that Father Fischer should be heard in support of a certain statement, Chudovszky exclaimed, "Kindly don't offer me advice. We shall soon see whether there is any truth in your tittle-tattle." One witness, Stephen Fiath, in his excitement cried, "It was a murder, just a regular murder" ; whereupon the judge fined him zoo crowns, with the alternative of five days' arrest. When a female witness, Ludmilla Druppa, asserted that Mrs. Fulla incited the crowd to throw stones at the gendarmes (a fact which the great majority of witnesses denied), and when Mrs. Fulla indignantly interrupted and called the witness a liar, the judge promptly imposed on her a fine of 100 crowns. On the other hand, he treated witnesses for the prosecution with marked leniency, refused to press home facts which seemed to favor the accused, and more than once prohibited counsel for the defense from questioning and cross-examining. A good deal turned on the question whether Pereszlényi's coachman used his whip against the crowd, as this might be regarded as a provocation. The villagers maintained that he did, while the gendarmes to a man denied it. Yet Mr. Chudovszky refused to permit the coachman himself to be put on oath (!). In the same way he would not allow the official report of the coroner to be read in court, though one of the gendarmes maintained that a peasant had seized hold of his bayonet and no trace of such a wound was to be found on any of the survivors. It had been established at the inquest that all the wounds were in vital parts, and their position proved the gendarmes to have fired upon the unfortunate peasants in their flight; and it was to prevent the publication of these awkward facts that Mr. Chudovszky disallowed the reading of the report.

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. Indeed, only one person out of the entire fifty-nine admitted having thrown a stone ; only against the first seven was any direct share in the resistance proved ; the remainder were merely present in the crowd and raised cries and shouts of protest. Judgment was therefore based upon an anachronous provision of the Hungarian criminal code, by which collective offences are punishable more severely than individual offences. The judge doubtless had in his mind a famous pronouncement of the Supreme Court that mere passive presence in a crowd guilty of excesses constitutes a committal of the same offence.

Father Pazúrik maintained that he and his colleague, when they went to Čerrnová, 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 fact that the dedication had been announced for that day from all the pulpits of the neighborhood, that a deputation from Černová had in vain urged Pazúrik to desist, and that the szólgabiró invited a friend whom he met on the road to come with them "to the consecration." The priests appear to have brought with them all that was requisite for the service, but this they explained at the trial by their intention to telephone for the Bishop's permission to proceed with the ceremony, in the event of the villagers expressing their approval. Considering that they only arrived in Čsernová at 10.15, that the nearest telephone was well over a mile distant, and that some delay would have been almost inevitable in establishing connexion with Spišské Podhradie (seventy miles away), it is difficult to see how they could have hoped in any circumstances to begin the ceremony before midday, after which hour high mass may not be celebrated. In short, their story can scarcely be taken seriously ; either they had already obtained the Bishop's permission, or else they went prepared to conduct the ceremony by force. The fact that Canon Kurimszky, who was originally deputed to officiate, never came at all, suggests that the former alternative is the true one.

Mr. Andaházy, the chief szólgabiró of the district, gave evidence that on the morning of the massacre he had received reports from the gendarmes in Černová warning him of the excitement in the village, that he called upon Fathers Pazúrik and Fischer and repeatedly urged them to abandon the project. When they still persisted, he instructed Mr. Pereszlényi to accompany them, but to withdraw all the gendarmes immediately if they should meet with any resistance. Both the priests and Pereszlényi, in the course of their evidence, asserted that they had merely met each other accidentally on the road to Černová, but the latter, when confronted with his chief, admitted that he might possibly have received instructions to go with them, though he had no recollection of receiving them. It is highly characteristic that Mr. Andaházy, who alone of all the authorities showed signs of tact and humanity, has since the massacre been removed from office, and Pereszlényi promoted to his place.

Interestingly, this same Pereszlényi acted as reporter for the Hungarian Telegraphic Bureau, and thus was responsible for the reports of the trial in the Hungarian Press. As Mr. Chudovszky would not allow a single representive of Slovak or Czech newspapers entrance to the court, the outside world was mainly dependent for its information concerning the trial upon one of the chief witnesses for the prosecution, who had taken a prominent part in the actual massacre, and whose reputation depended upon the conviction of the prisoners.

External links

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• History of Slovakia
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