June 4, 2000

Bad treaty that won't go away

Few Americans know it ever happened, yet thousands of them are having to risk their lives right this minute in consequence of it.

Here the story begins: After long periods of Austrian occupation, Hungary achieved limited independence in 1867, embodied in the so-called dual monarchy, Austria-Hungary. (There never was an Austro-Hungarian Empire.)

Thus, despite little interest or stake in World War I, Hungary found itself involved, and on the losing side. France declared itself the winner,and sole arbiter of a new Europe. President Woodrow Wilson watched his 14 Points, a source of hope for lasting peace, brushed off the table by

French fury.

For reasons yet to be explained, Hungary was singled out for punitive treatment, unique in the annals of modern history. After a thousand years as a nation-state, and looking like a perfect geographic entity on the map, the country was dismembered and carved up as if on a butcher's board. Two-thirds of Hungary's territory and 60 percent of its population were simply detached, making it a torso of insufficient resources, creating international borders of village streets. Overnight, parents, grandparents or cousins needed passports if they wanted to visit. Millions woke up as subjects of new, hostile governments that literally did not exist the night before.

The proceeds of Trianon appeared on the map as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Greater Romania. A final quirk: Even Austria got a chunk of Western Hungary. Can anyone figure that one?

Now it is certainly true that, for example, Slovaks had lived in the northern counties of Hungary for a thousand years, and their only path to social advancement was to become Hungarianized. Also, Hungary missed a great opportunity during its own revolution of 1848 to respond to the aspirations of ethnic minorities. But the answer surely was not to place millions of Hungarians under Slovak, Serbian, Romanian rule - the latter through the wholesale gift of Transylvania to Romania.

Distributing the material and human resources of Hungary was presumably the only way to endow the new entities with a measure of economic viability. Northern Hungary was rich in minerals, Southern Hungary was famous for its wheat fields - and in the East, Transylvania simply had everything, including enormous historic importance to Hungary.

Historic importance also attaches to what is now known as Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. Under its original name, Pozsony (Pressburg for the German-speaking), it had been the coronation town of Hungarian kings for 900 years, seat of the first Hungarian Parliament, and the cultural center where child prodigies like Mozart and Liszt performed within days of being heard in Vienna.

Of Hungary's four greatest composers, all born in Hungary of course, only Zoltan Kodaly's birthplace remains. On today's maps, it appears as if Franz Liszt had been born in Austria, Erno Dohnanyi in Slovakia, and Bela Bartok in Romania. On Bartok's 100th birthday, the Hungarian delegation, wishing to lay a wreath, was turned back at the Romanian border.

The 19th century was a hotbed of nationalistic aspirations. But knowing how to be a country takes more than a flag and a few leaders. Among other things, cities must be built, an infrastructure produced and operated.

At the time of Trianon, Slovaks had zero years of experience of it. Romanians had 61 years of running two provinces combined into a political entity. Serbs and Croats had made various attempts between periods of Turkish, Austrian and Hungarian rule.

In the region, Hungary alone could look back upon 1,024 years of genuine nationhood.

Thus, the towns, the great centers in Slovakia, in Transylvania, in Vojvodina were not built by Slovaks, Romanians or Serbs. The distinguished teaching institutions, the book publishers, indeed all carriers of "culture," passed to their control through the Treaty of Trianon along with the territories. The new owners could have chosen to learn and benefit by them, as once Romans did from the Greeks. They could have looked upon the people, the cities, the institutions as precious capital, gifts of history, assets to nurture and multiply.

They could have invited, encouraged the participation and loyalty of their new subjects. Instead, their policy became to usurp what they could and do away with the rest.

Initially, promises of plebiscites were made to enable entire communities to choose sides. They never happened. What has happened is a horror story of systematic destruction of cultures, involving millions of Hungarians - still the largest oppressed minorities in Europe.

If at least the outcome had been a success story for everyone else, one might propose that sacrificing Hungary, an alien among European nations for a thousand years, was worth the happiness of others. But, as always, history teaches us that destruction can never provide foundations for construction. We learn this when we compare the "Great French Revolution" with the American Revolution; we learn it again when we look to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the first opportunity and, of course, the tragedy that Yugoslavia has been, day in day out.

There is nothing to show for the untold suffering of millions of Hungarians.

Indeed, many believe that a wiser disposition of World War I might have forestalled the tragedies of World War II. Certainly, many of Hungary's leaders between the wars had a distaste for Adolf Hitler's reign, but the national pain about Trianon was a button Hitler was always able to push. And make no mistake: what socialists denounce as "irredentism" has been shared by most, and found its lasting artistic expression in Zoltan Kodaly's oratorio "Psalmus Hungaricus."

Unlike its neighbors, Hungary has not hired public relations firms in Washington. There has neither been a Hungarian lobby nor a Hungarian vote to court in America. Hungarians have been coming here simply to avail themselves of the opportunities of this great land and ask for nothing else. But something is not right about the manner in which the plight and cultural destruction of the Hungarian millions in Slovakia, Romania and Serbia has been ignored. An inspired initiative for the Danube region is long overdue.

Then, perhaps, Americans who now have to keep the peace in the Balkans, will come home for good.

Balint Vazsonyi is director of the Center for the American Founding and

author of "America's 30 Years War: Who Is Winning?"