The Slovaks, a branch of the Slavic family, numbering between 2,000,000
and 3,000,000 people, and kinsmen of the Bohemians, inhabit the
northwestern provinces of Hungary. There is not uniform agreement
among Slovak scholars with reference to the ethnic affinity of this
people with the Bohemians. Are the Slovaks a direct offshoot of the
Bohemians or a separate branch of the Slavic family? Ethnologists find
convincing arguments for and against both theories. Bohemians, as may
be surmised, take the ground that they and the Slovaks are one--one in
language and one in racial traditions--and that nothing divides them
except political boundaries,--the Slovaks being subject to the rule of
Hungary, Bohemians owing allegiance to Austria. Samo Czambel, a learned
Slovak, published a book recently on the grammatical peculiarities of
his mother tongue in which, contrary to the almost universal opinion
of philologists that Slovak is but an older form of Bohemian, he
contends that the old grouping of Slovak jointly with Bohemian is
wrong; and that the language should be treated as an independent Slavic
idiom, precisely in the same way as Polish, Russian, etc. But, though
grammarians may disagree about this or that Slovak or Bohemian root
or termination of a verb; though they may fancy they see a difference
where probably none exists, the people themselves have no quarrels
to pick, no disputes to adjust. On the contrary, they have always
been good neighbors[20] and loyal friends. As for real differences of
speech, these are so slight that a Slovak will understand a Bohemian
as readily as an Englishman from Yorkshire will his cousin, the
Yankee. One is reminded of the closeness of the two languages when
one recalls that Slovaks of the Protestant faith read at their church
services from the Bohemian Bible. Recently a meeting of representative
Bohemians and Slovaks[21] in New York passed a resolution, in which
occurs this significant passage: “Nothing now separates us, except that
we owe political allegiance to two different states, one to Austria,
the other to Hungary. Remove that barrier, and it will be seen that
the Bohemians and Slovaks are one in language, one in blood, one in
national faith, indissoluble and indivisible.”
According to the census of 1910, a census, by the way, notoriously
unreliable, Slovaks number 1,967,970. If an enumeration were taken free
of intrigue and coercion, the actual number of Slovaks, it is asserted,
would be nearer 2,500,000; and, were we to include as Slovaks the
opportunists who everywhere go with the ruling element, and further,
were we to add those who are compelled, for various reasons, to conceal
their nationality, the actual number would not be far from 3,000,000.
Outside of Slovakland Slovaks are scattered throughout Hungary except
in Transylvania. There are few districts in Hungary in which they do
not live. The various settlements in the interior of the country are
in part ramifications of Slovakland proper, which formerly extended
further south into Hungary than at present and in part colonies, the
origin of which dates back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
When did the Slovaks come to Hungary? Probably the question could
best be answered by saying that they had always lived there. Certain
pseudo-historians wish to make it appear that the Slovaks are
descendants of immigrants from Bohemia who fled to Hungary to escape
religious and political persecution. The truth is, however, that their
ancestors occupied the Carpathian highlands from the dawn of history.
The Slovaks of Hungary are not immigrants, and no authoritative
historian has successfully disputed their claim to priority as one of
the earliest inhabitants of the Kingdom of St. Stephen.
Down to the middle of the last century no one of the languages spoken
by the different racial elements in Hungary acquired predominance.
For the purposes of every-day life each race was free to use its
mother tongue. During the mediæval period Latin was the medium
of communication among the cultured classes. Latin was gradually
superseded by the German language and the Slovaks, though grieved at
the wanton suppression of their vernacular, did not feel that their
national existence had been threatened by the innovation. But when, in
1867, Austria concluded with Hungary the Act of Settlement, whereby
the dual system of government was introduced, and the Magyars secured
for themselves ascendency over all the other races in the kingdom,
the danger became acute, and has been growing steadily since, until
now the Slovaks are menaced by denationalization. True, the Law of
Nationalities was promulgated soon after the Act of Settlement,
ostensibly for the protection of non-Magyars; but this law, in the
words of Plutarch, “is like a spider web and would catch the weak
and the poor; but may easily be broken by the mighty rich.” Bitter
experience has shown that under the Law of Nationalities, the very
acts which the law was designed to prevent or regulate, have been
perpetrated with impunity, either by omission or commission.
Students of Slovak nationality have been expelled by school authorities
from seminaries and secondary schools for Pan-Slavic propaganda.
Pan-Slavism in the case of these unfortunate youths consists in the
reading, recitation, or circulation of literature in one of the Slavic
tongues.
Journalists are prosecuted or jailed for alleged seditious articles
against the Hungarian State; newspapers are mulcted in ruinous fines,
in many cases tantamount to their suppression. In countries enjoying
the blessing of freedom of speech and press, _de facto_ and not only
_de jure_, the articles which Hungarian prosecuting attorneys construe
as seditious, would be regarded as an honest and fearless criticism of
the acts of government. There are few Slovak journalists who have not
served terms in jail or whose newspapers have not been fined.
To plead one’s case in the courts in the Slovak language,
notwithstanding the express provisions of the Law of Nationalities
permitting this procedure, would be prejudicial to the litigant’s case
in the lower courts and impossible in the higher courts.
A patriotic Slovak may not hold a government position of any trust or
importance. One aspiring to an office in any way connected with the
government, directly or indirectly, must of necessity renounce his
nationality--or, in the alternative, conceal his true inward feelings,
both before his superiors and before his friends.
Apparently with the object of making the world believe that Slovakland
has always been Magyar, the Hungarian Government is abolishing the
ancient Slavic nomenclature of villages and towns, replacing it with
Magyar names, and this crusade is undertaken in districts where from
times immemorial no other speech had been heard but Slovak.[22]
A visiting Hungarian statesman boasted before an American audience
in New York City that the laws of Hungary were as broad and liberal
as those in the United States. If such were the case, why are not
Slovaks permitted to establish schools and organize themselves into
societies as freely as in the United States? In the early seventies
of the last century the government closed all the Slovak secondary
schools (gymnasia) on the pretext that they fostered among the pupils
and professors Pan-Slavic propaganda. Since that time, and despite the
plain language of the Law of Nationalities, assuring to every race
education in its native tongue, Slovaks have been unable to obtain
from the authorities consent to the reopening of even one higher
school. Think of a nation of two millions and a half, living in the
heart of Europe, not having one higher school for the education of its
youth! In 1875 the government confiscated the funds of an educational
institution, and with the money undertook to publish at Budapest “a
patriotic Hungarian journal.” At the University of Budapest, the Slovak
idiom is studiously ignored by the instructors, though the Slovaks
are heavy taxpayers, and even a biased census concedes 10 per cent.
Slovak population in the country. Slovak elementary schools are fast
disappearing; those that still remain in Slovakland are either mixed,
that is Slovak-Magyar, or pure Magyar. Under the provision of the
Apponyi Law, Magyar is the only recognized language of instruction in
elementary schools in Hungary which are attended by twenty or more
Magyar children. Since the normal schools are all Magyar, it is
obvious that the future teachers of Slovak children will have no means,
except by private study, to learn the language of their little charges.
Neither Vienna nor Budapest will listen to their appeal for justice.
The Lord is too high and the Emperor-King too far away to hear and
see the Slovaks. The Rumuns in Transylvania may hope for succor from
their motherland, Rumania; Italians in the unredeemed provinces may
look forward to the time when Italy will liberate them from Austrian
misrule; even the Serbs in Southern Hungary find new courage in
resisting oppression by reason of their nearness to their brothers in
the Serbian Kingdom. Whence shall Slovaks look for sympathy and help?
Their nearest kinsmen, the Bohemians, who, of all the nations, best
understand them, are themselves held down by an alien oppressor and
unable to give them other than moral aid.
“In comparison with the Government of Magyarland the Government of
Austria is a model of tolerance.”[23]
This is the opinion of an Englishman who knows conditions in Hungary
well. Exterminate the race, suppress its language, obliterate every
evidence of its existence: that is now and has been for decades the
policy of the Hungarian Government toward the Slovaks.
Some time ago the American Slovaks formulated a demand for autonomy
in a memorandum which they sent to influential friends and to those
whom they hope to win as friends. The memorandum “voices the sentiment
and national aspirations, not only of Slovaks living in the United
States, but also interprets the mind and the will of their brothers,
inhabiting, since times immemorial, the ancestral homelands of the
race.” That the American Slovaks took the initiative in issuing the
memorandum is not hard to understand. “The Slovaks at home are not
permitted to approach their king with grievances, the last deputation
to him having been denied admittance. Slovaks, therefore, are made to
feel that they have no king, only a government--a government, however,
that knows no mercy, that feels no remorse, that offers no hope, that
fears no punishment. If Slovaks are resolved to speak at all, if they
wish the world at large to know the measure of their wrongs, under
existing conditions, they can only appeal through the medium of their
compatriots in the United States.”
Of the Magyars as a nation the Slovaks do not complain. It is the
Hungarian Government which they accuse of oppression.
When the time approaches to re-draw the map of Austria-Hungary, the
Slovaks will ask to be freed from the Hungarian yoke. And if they
cannot have a government of their own, their second choice is to
co-operate with the Bohemians toward the establishment of a confederacy
that shall include the autonomous states of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia,
and Slovakland. Thus to the present ethnical unity of Slovaks and
Bohemians another bond would be added, that of political unity.