Newsgroups: bit.listserv.slovak-l
Date:         Thu, 12 Nov 1992 02:49:48 EST
From:         Joe Pannon <76317.2023@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject:      Powers of Assimilation

Lubosh Hanuska writes:

 >... difference in mentality - Hungarians are sticking much harder to their
 >national feelings, and they only very rarely assimilate into a different
 >nation, whilst the Slovaks are quite easy to get assimilated by a more
 >aggresive environment.

This is interesting, because I myself have just read a Hungarian article
about the same issue which comes to the opposite conclusion.  This article
quotes (in Hungarian) a Viennese ethnographer professor, by the name of
Bertrand Auerbach, stating the following (in my English translation):

  "In Central Europe the assimilative power of Slovaks is the greatest.
  There is no end to the number of more developed German, Hungarian,
  Czech-Husite communities which the Slovaks in short time completely
  Slavicised and assimilated."

I have also read another study at one time which compared the ethnic make-up
of several towns over the centuries along the Slovak-Hungarian ethnic border.
The study found, that among those towns that initially had mixed ethnic
populations, more became completely Slovak than those which became completely
Hungarian.  If it was the other way around, there could hardly be any Slovaks
left by now, considering the alleged 1,000 years of Hungarian oppression.
Instead, what we see is that formerly overwhelmingly Hungarian (or German)
cities are now populated mostly by Slovaks.  Even Bratislava had only about
20 % Slovaks in 1914.  There is now probably less than that percentage of
Hungarians left there.  The wearers of pure Hungarian names in Slovakia,
probably more often than not, consider themselves Slovaks, not Hungarians.

When comparing the power of assimilation between Slovaks and Hungarians, one
has to be also careful not to compare apples and oranges.  For instance, one
often hears Slovak politicians complaining that Hungary does not practice
what it preaches when it comes to Slovaks within Hungary.  What these
politicians fail to point out is that most of Hungary's ethnic Slovak
communities are not in contiguous areas with Slovakia (near the border), but
well inside the country, in isolated pockets, such as in Bekescsaba.  They
are also not indigenous there, but immigrant settlers from the 18th century
repopulating areas devastated by the Turkish occupation.  So, just as
immigrants to America who are effectively cut off from their native culture,
these isolated Slovaks of Hungary were more easily assimilated than the ones
along the ethnic border.  One can observe the same difference in assimilation
between Mexican-Americans near the Mexican border and other immigrants to the
US.

Lubosh, you also wrote the following:

 >after the WWII their respective numbers were
 >comparable, but the number of Hungarians on the Slovak side has increased
 >significantly to over 400,000, whilst the number of Slovaks on the
 >Hungarian side is decimated to some 50,000 or less.

If you haven't used such inflammatory word as "decimated" I would give you
the benefit of doubt that you posted your message in good faith.  As it is,
I can't, because the word is suggestive of some kind of genocide.  Because of
my own partial Slovak linage, I know that the reduction is the result of
natural assimilation accelerated by modern communications and the population
exchange of 1947.

I am also sure, that even before WW II the numbers were not comparable,
because the Trianon borders left far more Hungarians inside Slovakia than
Slovaks in Hungary.  The only advantage of those borders was that as a
result, Hungary became almost completely homogenous (ethnically speaking),
while the successor states became thoroughly heterogenous.  The only ethnic
minority of any consequence now in Hungary is the rapidly growing gypsy
population.

Regards,
Joe Pannon