In connection with the 2021 census, reading the results, I thought about what is the compelling argument that spurs people to the decision to, even if they change their nationality, give up their mother tongue, slowly assimilate into the majority nation. - writes Lőrincz Sarolta Aranka/Felvidék .ma page. We will look at this.

Everything has its price, including loyalty and forced adaptation.

In such cases, some people usually consider what is worth leaving and what to keep, for the sake of well-being, advancement at work, family and children. Of course, each person thinks differently about the scale of values. What is at the bottom of their value scale, it is easier for them to abandon and renounce.

If the mother tongue and the national self-consciousness are not values, then they can easily integrate into the majority nation, giving up the strong sense of Hungarianness of their predecessors and changing their thinking, letting the mother tongue and the sense of identity go to the wind. In this way, many Hungarians from the highlands will be more Slovak than even the toughest Slovaks.

After Trianon, during the first Czechoslovak Republic in the Highlands, the national self-consciousness of the Hungarians living here was still very strong. All of this was reinforced by education, where the folk schools maintained by the churches remained, but the remaining Hungarian press also talked about it step by step.

A number of Hungarian newspapers were published at that time, courtesy of true Hungarian people, mostly at the regional level, which were about the preservation and strengthening of Hungarians who were forced into the Republic of Masaryk.

The Hungarian Calendar XVIII. the 1937 publication of his year, which was published by the United National Christian Socialist and Hungarian National Party in Komárom, breaks down the identity-strengthening reflection for the Hungarians into months for a whole year.

Some of the wise thoughts are selected as examples:

February:

"The nation was given to you by nature and created by history just as the family is. The nation is God's idea." (Bishop Ottokár Prohászka of Székesfehérvár)

March:

"The word Hungarian is given a new meaning, and this meaning will not be political, but an indicator of spiritual and moral values. Being Hungarian will mean being different, having a mission. A Hungarian is one who suffers more, works more and prays more deeply." (Reformed Bishop László Ravasz)

April:

"Maintaining a nation and leading it to a better destiny is only possible with agreement, work and sacrifices."

August:

"Away with all small-minded, premature concerns, because there is no danger of falling here yet. We have to live and rest and we will live and rest, let only national love and harmony warm our blood." (István Széchenyi)

October:

"The individual can only do well if the larger whole, the nation, is powerful."

November:

"In the life of nations, no class has a separate fate, but the whole nation has one fate."

December:

"A nation becomes powerful if it has an ideal that can evoke the same thoughts and, consequently, the same actions in all citizens."

In the end, the unknown, wise thoughts probably come from Count János Esterházy, national president of the United National Christian Socialist and Hungarian National Party, a member of the National Assembly, who gives advice in his article published at the beginning of the calendar entitled "How to turn the Hungarian calendar".

"The nation in which the mystical concept of the nation weakens disappears from history so quickly that it does not have time to run through all the stages of its decline." - writes G. Le Bon.

For the Hungarians in the highlands, survival is at stake! At the time, G. Masaryk said the following to the Czech people: "A person of character does not become German under any circumstances. Preservation of your language is not only a question of nationality, but also a moral one."

How right he is, we Hungarians from the highlands only have to say one word differently, instead of "Germanized" it is "Slovakized" and we are already there!

Source and featured image: Lőrincz Sarolta Aranka/Felvidék.ma