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Slovakization (or Slovakisation; Hungarian: elszlovákosítás or szlovákosítás, Rusyn: Словакізація) is a term used to describe a cultural change in which ethnically non-Slovak people are made to become Slovak. In terms of historical context Slovakization can refer to the government policies in either Slovakia or the former Czechoslovakia in imposing a nation-state .

The term is used for example in relation to Hungarians, Rusyns (Ruthenians)., or Poles.

About 10% of the population of Slovakia is Hungarian speaking, and there is a sizable Rusyn minority as well.

Hungarians

After WWI

In the aftermath of World War I, Czechoslovakia was established. This new country was mainly a union of Czechs and Slovaks, but the territory included a sizable German and Hungarian population as well. Paris Peace Conference set the southern border of the new state due to strategic and economic reasons much further south than the Slovak-Hungarian language border. Consequently, fully Hungarian-populated areas were annexed to the newly created state.

Since slovakization is often "rationalized" as a response to magyarization, a few words about the latter are in order: magyarization was intense in the second half of the nineteenth century. According to UNESCO sources: during this time slovaks were viewed as a minority instead of a nation and as such they suffered disadvantages in education and in politics. Slovaks were allowed limited representation in the Hungarian parliament, but had no right to autonomy. The use of the Slovak language was allowed in the churches and in elementary or intermediary schools, but not in secondary schools or above, nor in interaction with political institutions. For more details see magyarization.

While magyarization was a form of discrimination, rationalizing slovakization as a response to magyarization is highly questionable. Magyarization was a nineteenth century issue, whereas slovakization is happening in the twentieth. A UNESCO report on the issue concludes as: "The crucial question is whether or not Slovak policy-makers recognize that the Hungarian governments' language policies toward minorities existed at the end of the nineteenth and in the early part of the twentieth century, while Slovak language policies toward its minorities are in force at the end of the twentieth. Moral principles have changed over the last century."

According to the 1910 census conducted in the Kingdom of Hungary, there were 30,2 % (884,309) Magyars (ethnic Hungarians) in what is now Slovakia. The results of the 1910 census however are disputed by all demographers of Slovakia, Serbia and Romania, although is usually not disputed in present-day Hungary itself (, and see e.g. also Treaty of Trianon, Magyarisation). According to the last undisputed Hungarian official census there were only 22.1% (540 492) Hungarians in the same territory in 1880. The, equally disputed, Czechoslovak census of 1921 yielded 650 597 Hungarians and the first modern census of 1930 571 952 Hungarians. The whole matter is complicated by the fact that there was a high percentage of bilingual and similarly "Slovak-Hungarian" persons who could claim being both Slovak and Hungarian.

Hungarian authors use to interprete the difference between the disputed 1910 census and the 1930 census as follows: There was a great decrease between 1910 and 1930 by 106,000 people, many fleed to Hungary after World War I (partly because they were required to sign an oath of allegiance). The authorities refused to grant Czechoslovak citizenship to a disproportionate number of Hungarians; later, ‘Jewish’ was also introduced as a separate nationality, which led to a further decrease in the number of Hungarians.. Slovak sources usually do not deny that many Hungarian teachers and civil clerks left for Hungary, the numbers however are unclear and they basically left because they have lost their previous jobs. These teachers and civil servants are classified as being „expelled“ from Czechoslovakia by some Hungarian sources. An example of such a person was the Hungarian philosopher/writer Bela Hamvas left Prešov after refusing to take the loyalty oath). The high number of refugees (and even more from Romania) necessiated entire new housing projects in Budapest (Mária-Valéria telep, Pongrácz-telep), which gave shelter to refugees numbering at least in the ten-thousands.

WWII and post- WWII

In 1938 Czechoslovakia ceased to exist. Slovakia became independent, while the mainly Hungarian-populated southern parts of Slovakia were annexed by Hungary under the First Vienna Award after pressure from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Some 100 000 Slovaks and Czechs were expelled from southern Slovakia at the beginning of WWII and Slovaks in this area faced some attrocities (see First Vienna Award for details). Czechia, on the other hand, was completely occupied by Nazi Germany and subject to Nazi persecution (see Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia).

At the end of WWII, in 1945, Czechoslovakia was recreated and some politicians aimed to completely remove the “war criminal” German and Hungarian minorities from the territory of Czechoslovkia. They were considered "war criminals" because representatives of those two minorities, such as Konrad Henlein or János Eszterházy and their two mother countries were instrumental in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia before WWII. In line with the above Czechoslovak view, in the decree #33, in 1945, President E. Beneš revoked the citizenship of Germans and Hungarians, except those with an active anti-fascist past (for more details see www.cla.sk/projects/TheBeneš Decrees and Beneš Decrees).

The citizenship and all rights were legally restored for Hungarians three years later, in 1948. The following happened in the meantime (1945-1948):

Some 30 000 Hungarians left southern Slovakia (previously occupied by Hungary under the Vienna Award) immediately at the end of WWII
While the Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia, the allies prevented an unilateral expulsion of Hungarians, but agreed to a bilateral population exchange between Czechoslovakia and Hungary (which was rejected by Hungary initially). This population exchange proceeded by an agreement, whereby 55 487/74 407/89 660 Hungarians from Slovakia were exchanged for 71 787/73 200 Slovaks from Hungary (including 6 000 voluntary moves; the slash separates numbers according to various sources e.g. , , ). Slovaks leaving Hungary were volunteers but Hungarians leaving Czechoslovakia were mainly forced.
The result of the expulsion of Germans from Czechia was a desperate need of work force, especially farmers, in the part of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. As a result, the Czechoslovak government resettled more than 100 000 Slovaks and c. 44 129 Hungarians from Slovakia to the Sudentenland between 1945 and 1947. The above 44 129 Hungarians were resettled voluntarily first (2 489 persons, they received houses, good pays and citizenship), later on, from November 19, 1946 to September 30, 1946, they were resettled by force (41 666 persons, under the same conditions as the voluntary group). However, these Hungarians started to turn back to Slovakia (18 536 have returned by late 1948), which caused conflicts, since their original houses were inhabited by others already,so that the government decided to transport all the Hungarians back to Slovakia in an organized way. 24 565 Hungarians were brought back to Slovakia in early 1949 and the remaining 1 028 Hungarians preferred to stay in Czechia.
Those Hungarians in Slovakia that could provide documentary evidence that they either have been registered as Slovak in 1930 and/or could prove otherwise that they have Slovak or Slavic ancestors, were given the possibility to have their nationality officially changed to Slovak. This operation received the official name Reslovakization. Since persons of Hungarian nationality were deprived of many rights at that time (see above), as much as some 400 000 (sources differ) persons applied and 344 609 persons received a reslovakization certificate and thereby Czechoslovak citizenship (in other words 344 609 Hungarians were able to prove that they have Slovak ancestors or have been Slovaks previously). The Reslovakization Commission ceased as at December 1948. When Czechoslovak citizenship was restored for Hungarians in 1948, the "reslovakized" persons gradually readopted Hungarian nationality.

After 1948

Statistics

In the 1950s census the number of Hungarians in Slovakia decreased by 240 000 (or 160 000 if we subtract the post-WWII population exchange) in comparison to 1930 and in the 1961 census it increased again by 164 244 (to 518 776). The low number in the 1950 census is due to the above mentioned reslovakization, the higher number in the 1961 census is due to the fact that the reslovakization was cancelled. The difference between the 1930 and the 1961 census is c. 50 000 Hungarians, which implies that after subtracting the 80 000 Hungarians exhanged within the population exchange after WWII, the number of Hungarians increased by c. 30 000 between 1930 and 1961 in Slovakia.

The further development of the number of Hungarians in Slovakia was as follows: the number of Hungarians in Slovakia increased from 518 782 in 1961 to 567 296 in 1991, while the number of Hungarians in Hungary itself decreased (see Demographics of Hungary). The number of Hungarians in Slovakia decreased after decades between 1991 and 2001, but this was due to the introduction of new categories in the last censi (Roma, Moravians etc.; many previous Hungarians are Roma now) and also to the negative demographic development of the Hungarian nationality (which became visible in Hungary itself decades earlier). As a proof for the latter: cf. the natality and mortality numbers of Slovaks and Hungarians in Slovakia (per 1000 persons; natality is the first, mortality the second number):

Slovaks: 1980-1984: 18.8 / 9.9, 1985-1989: 16.5 / 10.0, 1990-1994: 14.6 / 10.0
Magyars: 1980-1984: 15.6 / 11.0, 1985-1989: 14.0 / 10.7, 1990-1994: 12.1 / 10.9

Institutions

Czechoslovakia (being a Communist country at that time) financed the following purely Hungarian institutions for the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia as of early 1989: 386 kindergardens, 131 elementary schools, 98 secondary schools, 2 theatres, 1 special Hungarian language publishing house (6 publishing houses also publishing Hungarian literature) and 24 newspapers and journals. The only Hungarian-language university outside Hungary was opened at the beginning of the 21th century in Slovakia - the J. Selye University.

For the small Slovak minority living in Hungary (some 80 000 persons after WWII and 17 000 persons in 2001 according to Hungarian sources) the institutions of Slovaks in Hungary as of early 1989 were as follows: 0 kindergardens, 0 elementary schools , 0 secondary schools, 0 theatres, 0 special Slovak language publishing house (0 publishing houses also publishing Hungarian literature) and 1 newspapers or journal. (source: Hitel 2/1989, reprinted in ). The situation was different between 1948 and 1958 (when there were: 19 kindergardens, 6 elementary schools, 2 secondary schools, and 1 newspaper for the Slovaks in Hungary . In 1961, the Slovak-language schools in Hungary were transformed to bilingual schools, but that was reversed after 1989, and several new cultural institution were established.

According to The Minorities at Risk Project:

During the communist regime, Slovak nationalism was largely kept in check by the strongly centralist Prague regime. The 1968 switch to a federal arrangement gave greater scope to Slovak nationalism, however. New policies of assimilation included progressive Slovakization of education, elimination of Hungarian place-names from signs, bans on using Hungarian in administrative dealings and in institutions and workplaces, and pressure to Slovakize Hungarian names. Nonetheless, the most significant exclusionary factor in Hungarians’ social situation under the communist regime was most likely their own refusal to integrate into the Czechoslovak system and to learn the language. Without a fluency in the official language, their economic and political opportunities were severely limited.

However, Slovak sources assert that this is not true, they claim that:

the federalisation was only notional (see e.g. Slovak Socialist Republic)
no change to the minority laws occurred with respect to the year 1968
during this time the number of Hungarian language schools and Hungarian-speaking people increased in Slovakia. (see above)
the signs have always been bilingual and an attempt to change this in the 1990s lead to protests
the names did not have to be Slovakized, it was only required that they have the Indoeuropean word order (first name first, second name next) to prevent confusion