Carpathian geopolitics of Hungary: the collapse of the Ukrainian statehood gives a rare chance
Hungarian claims to Ukraine gave a new foreign policy dimension to the Ukrainian crisis. A similar course of events was predicted by experts in advance. 10 May 2014, the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in his inaugural speech before the new composition of the Hungarian parliament, literally said: “We put our economic relations at the center of foreign policy. We continue the policy of openness to the East, we increase our economic presence, we increase our economic weight in the Carpathian Hungary, our neighboring states, and the European Union are interested in this. Strengthening regional economic ties does not conflict with the mainstream of national policies. Since the Second World War, the heroic question remains unresolved. We consider the Hungarian question to be a European question. Hungarian Carpathian basin is granted dual citizenship, collective rights are relied on and autonomy is assumed. This is our position that we will present in our national policy (applause). living in Ukraine 200-thousandth Hungarian community, which should receive dual citizenship, should receive all collective rights, should receive the possibility of self-government. These are our clear expectations from the new Ukraine, which is being formed and which feels our support in the process of building a democratic society. "(1)The mentioned fragment from the speech of the Hungarian prime minister caused a big resonance both in Ukraine and in the countries surrounding Hungary, as it related to the Ukrainian crisis and was consonant with the Russian demand for the federalization of this country. The speech of Orban caused a heated discussion in Ukrainian politics and comments in the international media. Practically all the leading Russian publications paid attention to the speech of the Hungarian Prime Minister, seeing in it the consonance of the Russian-supported Ukraine’s federalization requirements, which in practice means giving autonomy to its individual regions.
The statements of Orban became the reason for the aggravation of diplomatic relations between Kiev and Budapest. The Hungarian Ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Bayer, was summoned to explain to the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine. Official Kiev said that Ukraine was disappointed with the statements of the Prime Minister of Hungary, and talks about the “autonomy” of national minorities played into the hands of Russian propaganda. Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi responded that the statement by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban does not contain any new elements in the diplomatic relations of Ukraine and Hungary over the past 25 years. 13 May 2014, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry was forced to dissociate itself from provocative statements about the territorial integrity of Ukraine, voiced by the leaders of the Hungarian party Jobbik. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry was additionally forced to clarify that Orban was misunderstood due to an inaccurate translation. And, in part, the Hungarians were right, because in the Ukrainian media the concept of “Kárpát-medence” - “The Carpathian Basin” in Orban’s speech was incorrectly translated as the “Carpathian Region”, which is understood specifically as the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine. Transcarpathia, which got its name from the point of view of the east, is called by the Hungarians in their geographical vocabulary "Carpathians" (Kárpátalja). Meanwhile, the “Carpathian Basin” in Hungary means the Hungarian Plain - the vast territory of the “Great Hungary”, the Hungarian Kingdom, framed from the north, east, and partly from the west by the mountains of the Carpathians. That is, in his speech 10 in May, Orban spoke about the Carpathian region in the broad sense of the word and in general about the principles of the Hungarian national policy in all countries surrounding modern Hungary, in whose territories ethnic Hungarians live, cut off by the Trianon peace treaty in 1920 from Budapest. The speech of Orban 10 in May thus equally affected Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Slovakia, as well as Ukraine, of course. By the way, the speech of Orban was “correctly” understood in the countries neighboring Hungary. Romanian President Traian Basescu immediately responded to it. In the Romanian edition of Adevarul under the heading "We are following Russia, but we are carefully looking at Hungary", an article was published stating that Orban, with his statements about the autonomy of the Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, destabilizes not only Ukraine, but also the whole region and indirectly threatens Romania. The Croatian edition of the Jutarnji List 12 on May 2014 of the year on the front page claimed that the Hungarian Prime Minister Orban was encroaching on the Croatian regions - Baranya and Medzhimye.
So, in his speech, the Hungarian Prime Minister spoke about the general principles of the Hungarian national policy in the Carpathian Basin - dual citizenship, the collective rights of the Hungarian national minority and autonomy, which is understood in Hungary very widely - from cultural to territorial. And it was only in this general “correct” context that the Hungarian prime minister also presented specific “wishes” to Ukraine. At the same time, in the speech of the Hungarian Prime Minister 10 in May with reference to Ukraine, for the sake of justice, it was spoken not about “autonomy”, but about a certain “self-government” of Hungarians in Transcarpathia. From the point of view of the Hungarians themselves, a paragraph from Orban’s speech on the Hungarian national policy in the Carpathian Basin is routine. Without mentioning the national policy, the inaugural speech of the Hungarian prime minister is simply unimaginable in Hungary. All the principles of this national policy, stated in Orban’s speech, were defined as early as the fall of 2010, at the beginning of his second premiership. Then they began to pretend. They are well known to all who are interested in this issue. Therefore, outwardly, it looks as though the Hungarian Prime Minister 10 of May 2014, was not specifically engaged in a provocation against the crisis of Ukraine. He only demonstrated to the Hungarian Parliament and the Hungarians of the Carpathian Basin, which in the new Hungarian constitution 2011 of the year are defined as a single nation, that the national policy of Fidesz, the Hungarian government and personally Prime Minister Orban remains consistent and unchanged. But only.
Kiev’s disproportionate reaction to Orban’s speech looks as if the “conciliar Ukraine” is really bursting at the seams, and this is realized, first of all, in Kiev itself. But after all, back in 2011, the official Budapest urged official Kiev to create in the Transcarpathian territory for local Hungarians for the next parliamentary elections a single Pritisnia constituency with the center in Beregsas (Beregovo). Its creation would be the fulfillment of the Hungarian wish for the autonomy of Transcarpathian Hungarians. The designated district could send a deputy - an ethnic Hungarian - a citizen of Ukraine to the Verkhovna Rada of that country. This is a fair, from our point of view, requirement, was completely ignored by the then President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and the ruling Party of Regions. Where is that Yanukovych and the Party of Regions now ... Meanwhile, the demand for Hungarian autonomy is now raised again by the Hungarian side, but in the worst political situation for Kiev.
16 May 2014 of the year in the Friday evening program on the Hungarian channel M1 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reaffirmed his previous statement from 10 May in the walls of the Hungarian parliament. This was an explanation. You thought that Orban was not correctly translated, and the speech in his speech was not about autonomy for Transcarpathian Hungarians? No, this time Orban did not leave room for any ambiguity suggested by an inaccurate translation from Hungarian. Orban again spoke out for the autonomy of the "Carpathian Hungarians", i.e. the Hungarians living in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine: "We are interested in a stable and democratic Ukraine ... Nevertheless, neither stable nor democratic can be Ukraine if it is not will provide the minorities living there, the national communities, including the Hungarian community, what they deserve. This means dual citizenship, collective or public rights and autonomy. " Thus, in the direct sense of the above, Orban spoke in favor of "dual citizenship, collective rights and autonomy" not only for the Hungarians, but also for any other national communities living in Ukraine. Orban continued in this television interview: "They [the Hungarians] need to know, as well as the Ukrainians, that the Hungarian state is with all its weight behind the demand for the autonomy of the Carpathian Hungarians." True, the Carpathian Hungarians themselves, according to Orban, will have to choose the appropriate form of autonomy for them. The most significant thing in this speech is the statement of Hungary’s state support for the “demands of autonomy for the Carpathians of Hungary”. At the same time, formally, autonomy is required not by Budapest, but by the Hungarians of Transcarpathia themselves. The Hungarian state only stands behind them, "supporting with all its weight." Therefore, according to the logic of Orban’s speeches, other interested states (read: Russia) have the right to support the autonomy requirements of the communities close to them ethnically in Ukraine with all their weight.
The statements of Orban to Ukraine and the Carpathian Basin caused a certain tension in the region of Central Europe. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the patron of the “Ukrainian revolution,” was forced to correct Orban’s “incorrect” speeches. 15 May 2014 on the Globsec forum in Bratislava, the Hungarian prime minister said that the Hungarians in Ukraine themselves will determine their future in the forms they need. Like a strict teacher, the Pole Tusk briefly commented on Orban’s non-interference in Ukrainian affairs: “This is already better.”
19 May 2014, an article appeared in the Romanian liberal publication Adevarul under the heading "Hungary also wants to tear Ukraine apart." Romanians accused Orban of following the Kremlin’s doctrine and supporting the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy, pushing irredentist movements to the forefront. Orban’s statements against Ukraine were a response to Zhirinovsky’s scandalous messages? They ask in Bucharest. In Romania, it is known that on the eve of the scandalous speech in the 8 parliament in May of 2014 in Berlin, Orban, at a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said that in the case of Ukraine, Europe is facing a long and difficult problem, and not in advance zya know when and how Ukraine will become a stable and successful state.
So, Orban doubts the viability of Ukraine at a time when his critics on the right - jobbiki talk about the artificial nature of this formation. "Crimea - Russian, Carpathian - Hungarian" - this slogan from the lips of the leaders of the right-wing nationalist party Jobbik has already sounded in Hungary. If we ignore the political situation and the official position of the leading Hungarian parties and their leaders, then it is necessary to clarify: Hungarian public opinion firmly believes historical injustice, the rejection as a result of the Trianon from Hungary of the Transcarpathian region - "Carpathian" and other national-state belonging to this historical Hungarian region. In this regard, indeed, one can speak of a certain analogy with the attitude to historical injustice in the case of Crimea of Russian public opinion. Hungarian historians have long disputed the allegation of the presence of "Eastern Slavs" (a purely scientific category, we note) in Transcarpathia at the time of the conquest of the homeland by the Hungarians at the turn of the 1945th and 100th centuries. Hungarian historians argue that Ruthenians - Orthodox by religion, began to move to the territory of Transcarpathia, when it had already become an integral part of the Hungarian kingdom. Leaving aside how futile and biased these discussions are about which people in Transcarpathia are “indigenous” and which are “migrants”, however, we note that Hungarian public opinion is not at all interested in the various percentages of the national composition of the population presented to it, received as a result of the next census. We have heard who the Ukrainians are in Hungary, but they don’t know who they are. As for the Hungarian specialists of ethnologists, they are well aware that the Ukrainian identity of Transcarpathia is an absolutely new phenomenon, which is the fruit of Soviet cultural work and migration during the Ukrainian SSR. Ethnic identity is not the result of blood, but of culture, and therefore can be changed quite quickly, by historical standards,. What is important here is that in 100, at the time of accession to the USSR, Transcarpathia did not have a 2% Hungarian ethnic identity, but outwardly XNUMX% Hungarian cultural identity. (XNUMX)
Over the years 1000 Transcarpathia was an integral part of the Hungarian kingdom. From the sixteenth century over the course of a couple of centuries, it was the outskirts of the Hungarian Transylvanian principality. It should immediately be noted that bright national-cultural motifs prevail in the public consciousness of Hungary in relation to Transylvania. Transylvania is a special area of the Hungarian national spirit. In the national, relatively speaking, "mythology", Transylvania is the main center for the formation of the modern Hungarian nation, which has broken with the Austrian Habsburgs. From this point of view, Transcarpathia is not only the place where Munchace (Mukachevo) spent the childhood of one of the main characters of the national liberation movement of Hungary - Prince Ferenc Rakoczy (1676-1735), but it is also the Carpathian Veretsky mountain pass, through which , according to legend, a nomadic horde of Hungarians passed to conquer the Motherland. This is the border, the limit beyond which Asians have become Europeans.
Rejection as a result of Trianon in 1920, Transcarpathia, as already mentioned, is perceived in modern Hungary as an absolute blatant historical injustice. However, feeling the feelings, but in relation to the event itself, at the beginning, there were also quite rational economic motives. As a result of the rejection of this region in the 1920-s and 1930-s of Hungary, while it was not reconstructed, she felt the acute need for a timber forest, which was given by the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. For a long time, the forest industry has been the main branch of the peripheral economy for Hungary.
There is another very significant point that should be remembered, but which is not customary to talk about, as a significant motive of the Hungarian policy - the local “small” geopolitics of the Carpathian Basin. The fact is that throughout the 1000 anniversary, the eastern border of the Hungarian kingdom passed along the Carpathian ridge. This is not just historical, but the natural border of Hungary, which, without substantial efforts from the Hungarian side, ensured its security. In 1920, the border was slightly moved west. In March, the Hungarians restored it to 1939, so that in 1945, it would again be relegated to Trianon, but, it is true, with the condition that direct control of Transcarpathian region turned out to be a civilization alien to Hungary, which was then in the form of the USSR. In geopolitical terms, Transcarpathia became the Russian foothold — tete de pont, from which the USSR projected military power in the deepest direction of Europe — into Northern Italy and Southern Germany. The "Monument" of this Soviet "Tet-de-Pona" remained the branches of the railway tracks to the horizon in the Chop region (Transcarpathia) and three dozen railways that Hungary does not need at the station of Szolnok (Hungary), defined by the General Staff as a rear base of the possible Southern Front. Here it is necessary to understand that the lightning-fast operation "Whirlwind" of 1 in November 1956 of the year to restore USSR control over Hungary could not have taken place, if the military bridgehead did not exist in the form of the Carpathians in the form of Transcarpathia. He provided full Soviet control over the line of communications through the Carpathians. “Initially, we had 2 divisions in Hungary,” said Defense Minister Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov, 5 March 1957, at a meeting of the command personnel of the Soviet troops in Germany. One of them covered the Austrian border, another was deployed in Budapest and there it was dispersed ... There was a need for the withdrawal of divisions from Budapest. We withdrew this division. Then we secretly threw 12 divisions into Hungary. " That is, it was about the rapid transfer and concentration of huge masses of troops and military equipment in Hungary in the sum of two days in 10. Such a brilliant military operation, we repeat, would be impossible without complete control over the railway and highway roads going through the passes in the Carpathians, and the availability of transshipment bases when entering the Hungarian plain in Transcarpathia. In the winter of 1914-1915, from December to March, the Russian Imperial Army took several months of stubborn and bloody battles in an attempt to overcome the Carpathian mountain range. As a result, access to the Hungarian plain did not work. In total, in the Carpathian operation, Russian troops lost about 1 million, Austrians, Hungarians and Germans - 800 thousand people. In 1944, the successful overcoming of the Carpathians became possible only because the Romanians opened up the front, and the main blow to Hungary went through Transylvania bypassing the Carpathian mountain ranges.
Today, Hungary links its security with NATO. However, such an approach, coupled with allied relations within the Visegrad Group, does not remove the problem of “small” Hungarian Carpathian geopolitics. From the point of view of the Hungarian national security, it would have been more reliably secured in the east if the natural border of Hungary along the Carpathian ridge was restored, and the potentially "threatening Hungary" bridgehead of the "forces of the East" in the form of Transcarpathia would have been eliminated. The current large-scale crisis in Ukraine, with the collapse of Ukrainian statehood, provides a rare chance (maybe there will not be another one) to solve this major problem of “small” Hungarian geopolitics. From the point of view of a serious policy of Budapest, Hungary does not need a small Pritsiska autonomous Hungarian district, but - in control of the entire Transcarpathian region. Otherwise, the emerging political turbulence in Ukraine risks turning the region into a source of all kinds of misfortunes that threaten the national security of Hungary. The prospect of restoring control of the new Russian empire over the Transcarpathian should generally be from the category of Budapest nightmares. Now Orban is talking about autonomy for the Hungarians of Transcarpathia, but he is thinking about autonomy for the whole region under the Hungarian guarantees. However, the real test for a statesman for Orban should be the solution to the problem of establishing direct Hungarian control over the province. Budapest will be able to achieve this, or not - depends on the courage and determination to act Hungarian neohortistov. Otherwise, it may try to implement a completely different forces in Hungary. The decisive prerequisite for solving the big task of the “small” Hungarian geopolitics should be the further destabilization of Ukraine.
Information