Magyarization ( , also Hungarianization; ), after "Magyar"—the Hungarian autonym—was an assimilation or acculturation process by which non-Hungarian nationals living in the Kingdom of Hungary, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, adopted the Hungarian national identity and language in the period between the Compromise of 1867 and Austria-Hungary's dissolution in 1918. Magyarization occurred both voluntarily and as a result of social pressure, and was mandated in certain respects by specific government policies.
Before World War I, only three European countries declared ethnic minority rights, and enacted minority-protecting laws: the first was Hungary (1849 and 1868), the second was Austria (1867), and the third was Belgium (1898). In contrast, the legal systems of other pre-WW1 era European countries did not allow the use of European minority languages in primary schools, in cultural institutions, in offices of public administration and in the courts.Józsa Hévizi (2004): Autonomies in Hungary and Europe, A COMPARATIVE STUDY, The Regional and Ecclesiastic Autonomy of the Minorities and Nationality Groups
Hungarian nation-building in the 19th century was explicitly modeled after contemporary Western examples, viewing the ongoing linguistic integration enforced by the governments of Britain and France as the prime models for state stability. While proponents justified Magyarization by citing these successful Western precedents, they argued that Hungary's progress was less effective because it was hindered by legal protections for minority rights and the autonomy of minority churches — the Hungarian institutional barriers — that were absent in Britain and France, where the lack of similar constraints allowed for more rapid and comprehensive unification.
Magyarization was ideologically based on the classical liberal concepts of individualism (civil liberties of the person/citizens of the country rather than of nationalities/ethnic groups as communities) and civic nationalism, which encouraged ethnic minorities' cultural and linguistic assimilation.
By emphasizing minority rights and civil and political rights of the citizen/person based on individualism, Hungarian politicians sought to prevent establishment of politically autonomous territories for ethnic minorities. However, the leaders of the Romanian, Serb and Slovak minorities aspired to full territorial autonomy instead of linguistic and cultural minority rights. Hungarian politicians, influenced by their experience during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, when many minorities supported the Habsburgs in opposition to Hungarian independence, and afraid of pan-slavic Russian Tzarist interventionism, viewed such autonomy as the dismemberment of Kingdom of Hungary.Géza Jeszenszky: Managing Ethnic Conflicts: the Unlearned Lessons of History (at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh on May 31, 2003).
Although the 1868 Hungarian Nationalities Law guaranteed legal equality to all citizens, including in language use, in this period practically only Hungarian was used in administrative, judicial, and higher educational contexts.
By 1900, Transleithanian state administration, businesses, and high society spoke Hungarian almost exclusively, and by 1910, 96% of civil servants, 91% of all public employees, 97% of judges and public prosecutors, 91% of secondary school teachers and 89% of medical doctors had learned Hungarian as their first language.Lendvai, Paul: The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat. Princeton University Press, 2004. p. 301. Urban and industrial centers' Magyarization proceeded at a particularly quick rate; nearly all middle-class Jews and Germans and many middle-class Slovaks and Ruthenes spoke Hungarian. Overall, between 1880 and 1910, the percentage of the total population that spoke Hungarian as its first language rose from 46.6% to 54.5%. Most Magyarization occurred in central Hungary and among the educated middle classes, largely the result of urbanization and industrialization. It hardly touched rural, peasant, and peripheral populations; among these groups, linguistic frontiers did not shift significantly between 1800 and 1900.
Despite the often-touted 'Magyarization efforts', the 1910 census revealed that approximately 87% of the minorities in the Kingdom of Hungary (8,895,925 citizens) could not speak Hungarian at all."
While those nationalities who opposed Magyarization faced political and cultural challenges, these were less severe than the civic and fiscal mistreatment of minorities in some of Hungary’s neighboring countries during the interwar period. After the Treaty of Trianon, this mistreatment included prejudicial court proceedings, overtaxation, and biased application of social and economic legislation in those countries.
Use of the term Magyarization usually refers specifically to the policies that were enforced in Austro-Hungarian Transleithania in the 19th century and early 20th century, especially after the Compromise of 1867 and especially after Count Menyhért Lónyay's premiership beginning in 1871.Bideleux and Jeffries, 1998, p. 363.
When referring to personal and geographic names, Magyarization refers to the replacement of a non-Hungarian name with a Hungarian one.
Magyarization was perceived by ethnic groups such as Romanians, Slovaks, Ruthenians (Rusyns), Croats, and Serbs as cultural aggression or active discrimination, especially in areas where national minorities formed the majority of the local population.
Medieval antecedents Although Latin was the official language of state administration, legislation, and schooling from 1000 to 1784, smaller ethnic groups assimilated into a common Hungarian culture throughout medieval Hungarian history. Even at the time of the Hungarian conquest, the Hungarian tribal alliance was made up of tribes from different ethnic backgrounds. The Kabars,Paul Lendvai, The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2003, p. 14 for example, were of Turkic origin, as were later groups, such as the Pechenegs and Cumans, who settled in Hungary between the 9th and 13th centuries. Still-extant Turkic toponyms, such as Kunság (Cumania), reflect this history. The subjugated local population in the Carpathian Basin, mainly in the lowlands, also took on the Hungarian language and customs during the high medieval period.
Similarly, some historians claim that ancestors of the Szeklers (Transylvanian Hungarians) were Avars or Turkic Bulgars who began using the Hungarian language in the Middle Ages.Dennis P. Hupchick. Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, 1995. p.55. Others argue the Szeklers descended from a Hungarian-speaking "Late Avar" population or from ethnic Hungarians who, after receiving unique settlement privileges, developed a distinct regional identity.
As a reward for their military achievements, the Hungarian crown granted titles of nobility to some Romanian knezes. Many of these nobles houses, such as the Drágffy (Drag, Drăgoștești), Kendeffy (Cândea, Cândești), Majláth (Mailat) or Jósika families, assimilated into the Hungarian nobility by taking on the Hungarian language and converting to Catholicism.(Romanian) László Makkai . Colonizarea Transilvaniei (p.75)Răzvan Theodorescu. E o enormitate a afirma că ne-am născut ortodocşi (article in Historia magazine)
Modern background Although the Kingdom of Hungary had become an integral part of the House of Habsburg's Austrian Empire following the liberation of Buda in 1686, Latin remained the administrative language until 1784, and then again between 1790 and 1844. Emperor Joseph II influenced by Enlightenment absolutism, pushed for the replacement of Latin by German as the empire's official language during his reign (1780–1790). Many lesser Hungarian nobles perceived Joseph's language reform as German cultural hegemony, and they insisted on their right to use Hungarian. This sparked a national awakening of Hungarian language and culture which increased the political tensions between the Hungarian-speaking lesser houses and the germanophone and francophone magnates, fewer than half of whom were ethnic Magyars.
Magyarization as a social policy began in earnest in the 1830s, when Hungarian started replacing Latin and German in educational contexts. Although this phase of Magyarization lacked religious and ethnic elements—language use was the only issue, as it would be, just a few decades later, during tsarist RussificationThe Finno-Ugric republics and the Russian state, by Rein Taagepera 1999. p. 84.—it nonetheless caused tensions within the Hungarian ruling class. The liberal revolutionary Lajos Kossuth advocated rapid Magyarization, pleading in the early 1840s in the newspaper Pesti Hírlap, "Let us hurry, let us hurry to Magyarize the Croats, the Romanians, and the Saxons, for otherwise we shall perish." Kossuth stressed that Hungarian had to be the exclusive language in public life, writing in 1842 that "in one country it is impossible to speak in a hundred different languages. There must be one language, and in Hungary, this must be Hungarian."
However, moderate nationalists, who supported a compromise with Austria, were less enthusiastic. Zsigmond Kemény, for example, agitated for a Magyar-led multinational state and disapproved of Kossuth's assimilatory ambitions. István Széchenyi was also who more conciliatory toward ethnic minorities and criticized Kossuth for "pitting one nationality against another". While Széchenyi promoted Magyarization on the basis of the alleged "moral and intellectual supremacy" of Hungarian culture, he argued that Hungary had to first become worthy of emulation if Magyarization was to succeed. Kossuth's radical program gained more popular support than Széchenyi's. The nationalists thus initially supported the policy "One country – one language – one nation" during the Kossuth-led Revolution of 1848. Some minority nationalists, such as the Slovak nationalist author and activist Janko Kráľ, were imprisoned .Encyklopédia spisovateľov Slovenska. Bratislava: Obzor, 1984.
As the 1848 Revolution progressed, the Austrians gained the upper hand with the help of the Russian Imperial Army. This led the Hungarian revolutionary government to attempt negotiations with Hungary's ethnic minorities, who comprised up to 40% of its armed forces. (The Hungarian revolutionary army was a volunteer army) On 28 July 1849, the revolutionary parliament enacted minority rights legislation, one of the first in Europe.Katus, László: A modern Magyarország születése. Magyarország története 1711–1848. Pécsi Történettudományért Kulturális Egyesület, 2010. p. 268. This was insufficient to turn the tide, and the Hungarian revolutionary volunteer army under Artúr Görgey surrendered in August 1849 after the Habsburgs gained the support of Nicholas I's Russia.
The Hungarian national awakening had the lasting effect of triggering similar national revivals among the Slovak, Romanian, Serbian, and Croatian minorities in Hungary and Transylvania, who felt threatened by both German and Hungarian cultural hegemony. These revivals would blossom into nationalist movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and contribute to Austria-Hungary's collapse in 1918.
Magyarization during Dualism TimeTotal population of the Kingdom of Hungary without CroatiaPercentage rate of Hungarians900c. 800,00055–71%1222c. 2,000,00070–80%13702,500,00060–70% (including Croatia)1490c. 3,500,00080%1699c. 3,500,00050–55%17113,000,00053%17908,525,48037.7%182811,495,53640–45%184612,033,39940–45%185011,600,00041.4%188013,749,60346%190016,838,25551.4%191018,264,53354.5% (including c. 5% Jews)