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The Eurasian Politician - Issue 3 (February 2001)
By: Marco Pribilla, 5th Feb. 2001
Translation by Anssi Kullberg (Click here for the Finnish version)
In the recent years the world’s attention in observing the situation in former Yugoslavia has been understandably paid mainly on Kosova and the situation of the Albanian minority. At the same time, however, it seems to have been forgotten that Kosova is only one of the two regions of Serbia, which were deprived from their former autonomous status by Slobodan Miloševic’s regime in 1988. The other one is Vojvodina, by its Hungarian name Vajdaság, situated in the northern part of the country, and inhabited by a significant Hungarian minority.
The region presently known as Vojvodina has been part of the southern area of Hungarian settlement since the arrival of Hungarians in 896, that is, for more than thousand years. During the Turkish wars, the ethnic composition of Southern Hungary started to change. Serbs, who were fleeing from the way of Turks, started to move to the area from south in 1300s. When Southern and Central Hungary became occupied by the Turks in 1500s and 1600s, Hungarian population decreased dramatically as a result of fighting and persecution, and instead, more Serbs and Wallachians (Romanians) moved to the area.
When Hungary was liberated from the Turkish power in 1686, the immigration of Serbs and Wallachs continued, because the original homelands of these peoples remained under the Turkish Empire, and the regime in Vienna favoured the Serbs as "border guards" against Turkey. Also Germans were settled to this so-called military border (‘Militärgrenze’). Hungarians could no longer influence the local affairs, and they were even prohibited from moving there. Only in late 1700s the situation was normalised by abolition of the military border, and peaceful multicultural economic and political development could emerge. The city of Újvidék (in Serbian Novi Sad, in German Neusatz), which was by now mainly inhabited by Serbs and Germans, became the centre of the region.
Peaceful development of Vojvodina was broken during the Hungarian liberation struggle in 1848-49, when the Serbs were the only nation of the region to fight against the Hungarian government on the Austrian emperor’s side. A heavily armed Serbian voluntary grouping of more than 2’000 men was terrorising villages and towns inhabited by Hungarians, Germans and Romanians, burning Hungarian parish registers and other official documents, and committing banditry and murder in numerous places. The Serb troops were demanding linguistic autonomy, official status as a nation and annexation of the region to Croatia-Slavonia. Kossuth’s government was ready to agree with the two first demands, but not the third one. The Hungarian and German troops mobilised to fight the Serbs could, however, not resist the advancing Serbian army, and so the whole area that later became Vojvodina remained several months in Serbian control, until the end of the war and the overthrow of Hungarian liberation struggle. After this the Austrians took over control.
The era of double monarchy up until the World War I (1867-1914) brought again prosperity and strong development for Vojvodina. The area had became a granary of the monarchy and belonged to the wealthiest parts of Hungary, having modern network of transportation and city system. The proportion of Hungarians of the population was slowly growing due to both natural increase and to the gradual Hungarianisation of Germans and Jews. The tendency of Hungarianisation did not, however, touch the Orthodox Serbs, whose proportion was slowly growing, too, due to higher birth rate than that of the Hungarians. Apart from other parts of Hungary, the middle class of countryside in Hungary consisted of non-Hungarians. Besides the small class of great landowners, the Hungarians were also dominant among tiny farmers, landless field workers and servants.
In the World War I, thousands of Hungary’s Serbs volunteered in the Entente troops. In November 1918, the Serbian troops occupied all Southern Hungary stretching as far as Temesvár (Timisoara) and Pécs. By the Trianon Treaty in 1920, Hungary had to cede 21’000 km2 land and 1,5 million inhabitants to Serbia. About one third-part of the population of the area annexed to Serbia were Hungarians, another third-part were Southern Slavs (Serbs, Croats etc.) and the rest were Germans, Slovaks, Romanians and Ruthenes. In later Vojvodina, the combined share of Hungarians and Germans was still more than half of the population in 1920s.
Under the Yugoslav regime, powerful Slavification started in Vojvodina. About 100’000 immigrants from other parts of Serbia were resettled in the area, and non-Slavs were discriminated for example in the land reform and in jobs. The bad living conditions made thousands of Hungarians, especially members of intelligentsia, to emigrate. The remaining half million Hungarian population was deprived of Hungarian-speaking teachers, doctors, priests and experts. Hungarian teaching was strictly limited, and the activity of a Hungarian party was only temporarily allowed.
When Yugoslavia disintegrated in the chaos of the World War II, in 1941, part of Vojvodina was re-annexed to Hungary. The organised partisan activity of the Yugoslavs led to "cleansing" policies in revenge by the Hungarian side, resulting more than 3’000 victims. More than two third-parts of these were Serbs. The wartime Hungarian governance improved the living conditions of the Hungarians of Vojvodina, especially in education, although the Serbo-Croatian language remained an obligatory subject in all schools. The Hungarians were, however, disappointed at the fact that a new, more just, land reform was not made.
About 60’000 Hungarians of Vojvodina were killed in the WW II. Besides, after the war 20’000 Hungarians – among whom there were lots of priests and authorities – were executed without trial, falsely accused of collaboration with the fascists. Hungarians and Germans were also gathered to forced labour camps, where mortality was high due to the severe conditions, diseases and malnutrition. The purpose of this genocide was to revenge to the Hungarians, frighten them, and to eliminate their leaders.
At the same time there was also another genocide going on in Yugoslavia. It targeted the about 600’000 Germans of Yugoslavia. About one quarter million of the Germans were killed on the front or in the post-war Yugoslav revenge attrocities and in concentration camps. Most of those who survived, about 330’000 people, fled to West Germany. The fate of the Germans also strongly depressed the position and attitudes of Vojvodina’s Hungarians. It was part of the tragedy that nothing could be spoken about the post-war horrors in Yugoslavia for many decades.
In 1943 Yugoslavia decided to grant Vojvodina an autonomous status within the state of Serbia. After the war, 385’000 hectares of land in Vojvodina and Slavonia were redistributed to about 40’000 households. Only one tenth-part of the land was given to Hungarian families. Constant immigration from the poor southern parts of Serbia to wealthy Vojvodina has made the proportion of Hungarians in the province drop from the post-war one third-part into the present less than a sixth-part. Besides, Hungarians have throughout the period slowly emigrated to Hungary, although no actual forced displacement of population has taken part, like in the case of Yugoslavia’s Germans.
In 1950s, the autonomous institutions of Hungarians were abolished, when foreign political benefits no longer demanded Yugoslavia to continue its former liberal minority policy. By limiting the activity of Hungarian schools and by supporting bilingual cultural associations Belgrade aimed at increased assimilation of Hungarian youth into Serbs, especially in areas of mixed population. At the same time, however, Vojvodina’s Hungarians managed to create a network of cultural and information institutions which was unique in the scale of contemporary Eastern Central Europe. In result, the best Hungarian newspapers and magazines as well as radio programmes of the world in 1960s and 1970s were published in Yugoslavia.
The new constitution of the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia from 1974 confirmed the model of autonomy that had developed both in Kosova and in Vojvodina since 1950s due to decentralisation. Both these autonomous regions, Kosova and Vojvodina, were the next one and half decades in very similar position with the actual states of Yugoslavia [Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Montenegro]. The Serb government in Vojvodina aspired to increase local economic interests on one hand, but on the other hand it struggled against the demands of democracy by the intellectuals and the ethnic minorities (Hungarians and Croats). Serbian regime prevented formation of national-inspired "vertical" organisations, discouraged connections to the motherland, and tried to oppress religious activity. Also an elite that was mentally alien to the area was born in Vojvodina, when lots of students from other parts of Yugoslavia came to study in Vojvodina’s colleges and remained there after graduation, thereby undermining the options of locals, especially those representing ethnic minorities, to gain scholarship or job.
In mid-1980s, Greater-Serbian ideas started to gain strength in Serbia. For Serbian nationalists, the autonomy of Kosova and Vojvodina was a pain in their ass. The ambitions to abolish the autonomy of Kosova and Vojvodina got their champion when Slobodan Miloševic became president of Serbia. In October 1988, the Serb-dominated regime of Yugoslavia arranged a "spontaneous" mass demonstration against autonomy in Novi Sad (Újvidék). People were transported by special trains and buses from the southern edges of the country to demonstrate in Vojvodina. The demonstrators were awarded for their services with bread, beverage and yoghurt, for which reason the case is also known as the "yoghurt revolution". Due to the demonstration, the "autonomist" Serb government of the province had to quit and in the next year the struggle for Greater Serbia led, instead of democratisation, to the abolition of autonomy in both Kosova and Vojvodina.
According to the census of 1991, 345’000 (3,9 %) of the population of 10’000’000 people in Serbia, are Hungarians. Only 4’000 of these Hungarians live outside Vojvodina. Of the 2 million people’s population of the province, the Hungarians constitute 16,9 %. Hungarian settlement is concentrated to the vicinity of the Hungarian border, where the Hungarians usually constitute absolute or proportional majority. However, there are Hungarians in almost every village, town and city of Vojvodina. Yet their statistical proportion of the population has constantly decreased due to low birth-rate, aggressive Serbianisation, emigration of Hungarians, immigration of Serbs, and even due to statistical tricks.
The Yugoslav civil war, which broke out in 1992, has radically influenced also Vojvodina’s population structure, although the actual military operations did not target the province, except NATO’s air bombings. Due to the chaotic state of the country, no exact information is available concerning Vojvodina’s present population proportions. According to various estimations, about 40’000-100’000 Hungarians have left the region because of economic and political uncertaintly. During the Bosnian and Kosovar wars, especially young well-educated Hungarian males often preferred to emigrate in fear of being sent to the front. This fear was partly well founded, as the Yugoslav army drafted Hungarians to the service in disproportionally large amounts, compared with the size of population. Another factor that has influenced the population structure of Vojvodina is the immigration of about quarter million "Serb refugees" from Croatia and Bosnia. They have been settled mainly in the areas with Hungarian majority in order to destroy the ethnic unity of these areas.
The fears of the Hungarians have been increased by the rising popularity of Vojislav Šešelj’s ultra-nationalist Serb Party SRS during the last five years. The party has collected lots of votes also in Vojvodina, and wherever it has reached the power, the Serb refugees have been given land, often for free, from exactly the Hungarian-inhabited areas. The refugees have also committed even armed provocations against the Hungarian and Croatian original inhabitants. The Hungarians and Croatians have also been continuously reminded that the Serbs will not avoid use of violent means in order to expel them permanently.
Anti-Hungarian attacks and provocations have continued and they have even been increased after last autumn’s democratic election in Yugoslavia. The Belgrade newspapers have recently been alarming of "Hungarian peril", and numerous wall-paintings demand Hungarians to leave the country. In mid-January, József Kasza, mayor of Szabadka (Subotica) and the chairman of the most eminent Hungarian party, VMSZ, received an e-mail threat upon his life from an organisation identifying itself as "Serbian liberation movement". In addition, the letter threatened to "expel all Hungarians from the city and slaughter all Croats into a pile".
Meanwhile, the SRS party has spread among people a baseless rumour that the Hungarians of Vojvodina would attempt to create a "Pannonian Republic" to the area and to annex it to Hungary later. In fact, the only party that has suggested the annexation of Yugoslavia’s Hungarian areas into Hungary has been the extreme right-wing "Truth and Life" party (MIÉP) during the Kosova War in spring 1999. Even then, no significant power in Hungary, Vojvodina or elsewhere has supported the idea.
Also representatives of the present government parties of Yugoslavia have given anti-Hungarian statements, despite the fact that the VMSZ supported Vojislav Koštunica during his presidential campaign. Despite all this trouble, the situation of the Hungarians seems lighter now, as at least in its official statements the leadership of Yugoslavia and Serbia has showed gratefulness at the VMSZ’s role in the recent democratic development of the country. Good relations to Hungary and to Hungarians lie in the Serbian interests also for the reason that Hungary now constitutes the most potential channel for Yugoslavia toward the European Union. To show willingness of co-operation, the new prime minister of Serbia, Zoran Djindjic, appointed Kasza to one of his vice premiers in January. Kasza’s responsibility covers economy, foreign trade, agriculture and autonomy issues.
The question of arranging the official status of Vojvodina has not yet popped out after the autumn elections. Most parties in Vojvodina support large autonomy, but no proper law initiative on the issue has not yet entered even the provincial parliament’s process. VMSZ naturally supports autonomy, yet it finds arranging the rights of minorities the matter of primary importance at the moment. According to Kasza the first things to be guaranteed are the preservation of minority mother language, culture and national identity, which presuppose adequate network of schooling, media and education institutions.
Kasza has had successful bilateral negotiations with both Djindjic and Koštunica, concerning the position of Hungarians. Both Serbian leaders assure they support prompt arrangement of the minority issues so that the representatives of minority groups could live as equal and satisfied citizens and give their contribution to the construction of a new, democratic, Yugoslavia. Koštunica has promised to maintain in all European standards when creating a new minority legislation for the country, as despite all the secessions, Yugoslavia is still a multiethnic state and according to the new president, it should stay so. In the near future the parliament expects first change in the language law, and then sooner or later also a new law on minority rights. This law would also give the long-awaited wide autonomy to Vojvodina’s Hungarians.
However, not all are satisfied with the autonomy plans even within the president’s own party, the DSS. Gordana Vukovic, a member of the federal parliament and a professor of Serbian language in the University of Novi Sad, branded the VMSZ’s demand of official confirmation for the use of minority languages as separatism. According to Vukovic, even bilingual street signs and such things should not be returned to use, as she considers such practise "disgusting". In contrast she demands that all – even foreign – names should be written in the Russian way with Cyrillic alphabets. As another example, Miroljub Ljesnjak, vice chairman of the DSS, protested by demonstratively leaving the first session of the fresh Vojvodina parliament, when a Hungarian representative gave his speech in his own mother language. Besides, the nationalist DSS has accused some other Serbian parties in Vojvodina of being "anti-Serbian". ++++