Hungary and Slovakia are two neighboring countries in Central Europe. There are two major periods of official foreign relations between them in contemporary history. The first period included relations between the Kingdom of Hungary and the first Slovak Republic in 1939–1945. The second period started in 1993, when the countries again established diplomatic relations, the year when Slovakia became independent of Czechoslovakia. Hungary has an embassy in Bratislava and a general consulate in Košice, and in Nitra, and Slovakia has an embassy in Budapest and a general consulate in Békéscsaba.
After the first break-up of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Hungary was the first state which officially recognized the independent Slovakia. Subsequently, Hungary and Slovakia established embassies in Bratislava and Budapest and kept diplomatic relations during World War Two. Despite a formal alliance inside the Berlin pact (1940) and a common war against the Allies, Slovak-Hungarian political relations maintained on the brink of war due to the frontier dispute and the oppression of Slovak minority in Hungary and Hungarians in Slovakia. The restoration of Czechoslovakia and the liquidation of the Slovak puppet state in 1945 led to the end of the first period of Hungary-Slovakia's relations.
Nowadays, both countries are full members of the Council of Europe, the European Union, NATO and of the Visegrád Group. They share of common borders. There are approximately 520,000 persons of Hungarian descent living in Slovakia (about 9.7% of its population) and around 39,266 persons of Slovak descent living in Hungary (about 0.38% of its population).According to 2001 Hungarian census There have been frequent minor diplomatic conflicts between the two countries, which have also collaborated on several issues.
Country comparison HungaryHungary ()SlovakiaSlovak Republic () Flag & Coat of arms Population 9,772,756 5,450,421 Area 93,028 km2 (35,919 sq mi) 49,035 km2 (18,933 sq mi) Population Density 105.1/km2 (272.2/sq mi) 111/km2 (287.5/sq mi) Government Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic Capital – 1,759,407 (2,524,697 Metro) – 475,503 Largest City Current leader President Tamás Sulyok Prime Minister Péter Magyar President Peter Pellegrini Prime Minister Robert Fico Official language Hungarian (de facto and de jure) Slovak (de facto and de jure)
Economy A mutual trade plays an important role in the economy of both countries. In 2015, Slovakia was the 3rd most important export territory of Hungary. Hungary was among the top ten most important countries for Slovakia (export: the 6th place, import: the 8th place).Ekononická informácia o teritóriu: Maďarsko. Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic. 2016, p. 13–20. Hungarian companies belong to the largest investors in Slovakia. In 2012, the total amount of Hungarian investments in Slovakia reached 2,096,2 mld. EUR. + Export and import from Slovakia to Hungary Thousand (EUR) 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Export 3,209,472 3,991,787 4,523,400 4,019,900 3,954,800 3,786,500 Import 2,049,302 2,194,750 2,143,000 2,633,700 2,816,700 3,165,500 Total 5,258,774 6,186,537 6,666,400 6,653,600 6,771,500 6,951,000
History
Slavs arrived to the Western Carpathians in the 6th century. In the early 9th century most of the Western Carpathians belonged to Great Moravia. By 896, Hungarian Tribes established Hungary with the entire Carpathian Mountain range as its borders Hungary. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 03, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/276730/Hungary and included the Pannonian Basin, including the western portions of Great Moravia.
The Czech National Revival in the neighboring Austrian lands significantly affected Slovak national sentiment, and use of Slovak which was being encroached upon by nationally sanctioned dominance of Hungarian. Following World War I, areas designated by the Allied states (predominantly France, in defiance of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points) which called for plebiscites, Northern Hungary was ceded to the newly established Czechoslovakia, according to the Treaty of Trianon (1920). The arrangement left a sizable Hungarian population residing on the territory of Slovakia and a much smaller Slovak minority in Hungary. The Hungarian Soviet Republic subsequently attempted to retake Hungarian portions of Czechoslovakia, but was defeated by a Czechoslovak-Romanian coalition.
Hungarians in Czechoslovakia in 1920-1938 After the break-up of Austria-Hungary, the newly proclaimed Czechoslovakia quickly established diplomatic contacts with Hungary in November 1918. However, due to their parallel aspirations to control Upper Hungary, bilateral relations worsened. Both parties promised to grant the proposed Slovakia special rights, but in May - August 1919, a military conflict erupted between them. Eventually, the war led to the occupation of Upper-Hungary and Carpathian Ruthenia by Czechoslovak troops. Diplomatic relations between Hungary and Czechoslovakia were re-established following the signature of the Treaty of Trianon of 4 June 1920, which set the new borders between the two countries by ceding much of Upper-Hungary to the new Czechoslovak state. Nevertheless, Hungary still hoped that some of its lost territories, particularly the southern strip inhabited by the Magyars, might be returned by diplomatic dialogue or a military attack. Immediately after its foundation, strong anti-Hungarian sentiment manifested in Czechoslovakia and many historical monuments representing the Austro-Hungarian Empire were destroyed. The Elisabeth Science University was disbanded after Hungarian professors refused to take an oath of allegiance, and was replaced by Comenius University to fulfill demands for qualified experts in Slovakia. Comenius University remained the only university in inter-war Slovakia.
Hungarians (and other minorities, e.g., Germans and Rusyns) were thus not present in the constituent assembly and had no influence on the new Czechoslovak constitution. It nevertheless guaranteed minority rights and the use of minority languages in the educational system and local representation. The Hungarian minority in Slovakia had a complete education network, except for canceled colleges. The Czechoslovak Ministry of Education derived its policy from international agreements signed after the end of World War I. In the area inhabited by the Hungarian minority, Czechoslovakia preserved untouched the network of Hungarian municipal or denominational schools. However, these older schools inherited from Austria-Hungary were frequently crowded, under-funded, and less attractive than new, well-equipped Slovak schools built by the state. In the school year 1920–21, the Hungarian minority had 721 elementary schools, which only decreased by one in the next 3 years. Hungarians had also 18 higher "burgher" schools, 4 grammar schools, and 1 teacher institute. In the school year 1926–27, there were 27 denominational schools which can also be classified as minority schools, as none of them taught in Slovak. Hungarian representatives criticized the reduced number of secondary schools.
Due to gerrymandering, the Hungarians had a diminished level of representation in the National Assembly and their influence on the politics of Czechoslovakia remained limited. The same factors also limited the Slovak intelligentsia's political power. On the other hand, Hungarians founded numerous parties including pro-Czechoslovak parties, parties with agrarian, social-democratic, Christian-socialist and other orientations, were active as sections of statewide Czechoslovak parties, had opportunities to participate in government, and in the 1920s Hungarian members of parliament participated in the adoption of several important laws with statewide impact.
Slovak-Hungarian inter-state relations during WWII (1939–1945) During the World War II era, Hungary regained Hungarian-populated areas of Slovakia under the First Vienna Award of 1938. These territories were returned to Czechoslovakia when Hungary was defeated at the conclusion of World War II by the Treaty of Paris (with the exception of Carpathian Ruthenia, which was annexed by the Soviet Union).
On March 14, 1939, Slovakia declared independence and Hungary was the first country to recognize it de facto and de jure. At the same time, Budapest, relying on the postulate of the actual breakup of Czechoslovakia, started the occupation of Carpathian Ruthenia, which also declared its independence. Following this military action, pointing to the controversial nature of the Slovak-Carpathian border, Hungarian troops began to engage in Eastern Slovakia. The "small war" between 23 March – 4 April 1939 heightened tensions between Budapest and Bratislava. As a result of the conflict, the Tiso government agreed to cede about 1,000 km2 in Eastern Slovakia to Hungary.
Slovakia started to seek protection from Hungarian revisionism through Germany, which promised to guarantee its sovereignty and territorial integrity by signing the Berlin treaty on March 23, 1939. Moreover, Bratislava cherished plans to change the 1938 borders and hoped for the return of a 3,600 km2-area (including Košice) with a population of 350,000 people (of around 200,000 Slovaks and 100,000 Magyars).Lipták, Lubomir. Maďarsko v politike Slovenského štátu v rokoch 1939–1943. In: Historický časopis. Č.1, ročník XV, 1967. S. 1–33
In September 1939, Slovakia participated in the German offensive against Poland and benefited from the reattachment of the territories transferred to Poland in 1938. Otherwise, Budapest showed sympathy for Warsaw and refused the passage of Slovak troops towards Poland via Hungarian railroads. Also, around 100,000 Polish refugees (among them 45,000 belonging to the Polish military) found haven in Hungary. Many of them were settled in the former Southern Slovakia, probably in order to reinforce Hungarian order in the frontier regions with Slovakia.Gniazdowski, Mateusz. Lengyel háborús menekültek az els első bécsi döntés után Magyarországhoz csatolt szlovákiai területeken. In: Fórum Társadalomtudományi Szemle 2004, no 1, p. 35–50. http://epa.oszk.hu/00000/00033/00016/pdf/szemle_2004_1_gniazdowski.pdf
Also, in the first two years the Second World War, Slovakia and Hungary tried to improve their relations with the USSR and to use the Soviet-German conflictive rapprochement (in 1939–1941) in their revisionist interests. While Slovaks hoped to cooperate with the Kremlin on the basis of the Soviet claims to Subcarpathian Ruthenia, Hungarians scheduled a parallel action with the Soviet Red Army against Romania for the return of Transylvania to Hungary and of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. On the other side, Moscow hesitated to choose between the rapprochement with Slovakia (and Romania) or Hungary until the summer of 1940. Afterwards, when the pro-Russian Slovak leader Ferdinand Durcansky was removed from the post of Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs in June 1940, the Soviets tried to play the "Hungarian card" and supported Budapest's claims against Bucharest on Transylvania in August 1940. Thus, Hungary was able to motivate Germany to make pressure on Romania to cede Northern Transylvania to Hungary. Following months, Moscow showed other Hungarophile signs: signed a trade treaty with Hungary on 3 September 1940; did not protest against Hungary's accession to the Tripartite Pact in November 1940; in autumn 1941 solemnly sent back to Budapest the Hungarian flags that were captured during the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 by the Imperial Russian Army. Nevertheless, the Kremlin was unable to overcome Berlin's influence in Hungary, which played the role of protector against Slovak revisionism and promised new territorial concessions in Yugoslavia in autumn 1941.