100 years later, the living memory of the Trianon Treaty in Hungary

Text by: Anissa El Jabri Follow

It was a political decision of the victors of the First World War: on June 4, 1920 in Versailles the Treaty of Trianon acted the dismemberment of the Empire of Austria-Hungary. A century later, the feeling of loss and nostalgia for a "great Hungary" still permeates society and is fueled in political speeches.

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Like a century ago. This June 4, Budapest will freeze for a minute at 4.30 p.m., the same time as in 1920 when the treaty was announced. Buses, subways and trams of the Danubian city will be stopped, and the mayor also asked residents to stop all activity for 60 seconds. Ecologist Gergely Karácsony took over the capital from Viktor Orban's Fidesz last October, and many in opposition in Hungary take a very critical look at the way the Prime Minister maintains this memory. Friday, May 29, his socialist predecessor Ferenc Gyurcsany launched this call on social networks: “ We must stop glorifying mourning and mourning loss, there is no question of forgetting Trianon but this theme must stop being at the center of Hungarian politics  .

The Hungarian weekly HVG also pleads in its early June issue for the country to move forward a century later: "  We cannot be driven by an injury from the past,  " says the cover. Arguments partly taken up by the mayor of Budapest: "  To avoid turning our pain into hatred and our confrontation with the past into renouncement of the future, it is necessary to commune together for at least a minute  ", he justified. . But Gergely Karácsony also believed that "  100 years ago, a manifestly unfair decision was made  ". Obviously the mayor of Budapest also wishes to occupy this memorial land plowed by Viktor Orban.

Immediately qualified as a “diktat” after its signature and contested for decades afterwards, put under a bell during the Communist period, the Treaty of Trianon first reappeared in public space in the post-1989 period, under the form of a map, that of "Greater Hungary" before 1918, when the country had not yet been amputated by its two thirds of territory and 3 million Magyarophone inhabitants for the benefit of its neighbors (the Austria, Italy, Romania, and the newly created States, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the future Yugoslavia, territories where the Hungarians are essentially a minority). After the fall of the Wall, we started in Hungary to review this map drawn on the back of the leather jackets of extreme right bikers. It is now found without great difficulty in souvenir shops, sometimes available in patterns of t-shirts, postcards or stickers.

A "grand and tragic" commemoration

Because the political promotion of this painful memory is far from being a symbol for the extreme right alone today. Since his return to the head of government ten years ago, Viktor Orban has taken up this theme and reactivated the feeling of injustice in the face of the great powers. Because of the pandemic, the commemorations will not have the scale hoped for by its leaders, but for this anniversary prepared for several years, the government of Viktor Orban wanted a commemoration "  grand and tragic  ".

The fact remains that political discourse ("  opinion has been heated over the past two years  ", says Catherine Horel, director of research at the CNRS and historian specialist in central Europe) has had an impact on opinion. According to a survey by the Publicus institute published in the Hungarian daily Nepszava and translated and detailed by The Courier of Central Europe in March, as the commemorations approached, sensitivity to the subject increased: in February, 83 % of Hungarians surveyed either "  completely agreed  " or "  somewhat agreed  " with the idea that Trianon is the greatest tragedy in Hungarian history. This is 10 points more than in summer 2018. Same increase for the statement " the Trianon Treaty should never have been accepted ", from 45% in 2018 to 54% last March. A perennial national wound which coexists however with the idea that this question is exploited for political purposes among 58% of Hungarians. This last response covers above all a very strong political polarization: the assertion is approved by 80 to 90% of the sympathizers of the opposition parties of left or centrist, when a majority of the sympathizers of the Fidesz in power think the opposite.

Trianon, Vikor Orban takes every opportunity to talk about it. Friday May 30, when launching a manual on football and science, the Prime Minister passionate about football made this parallel: "  Football is not a game, it is life itself (. .). Everyone is responsible for their own destiny, and that destiny is not decided by drawing all kinds of lines on a card on a negotiation table. (…) I don't think it is a coincidence that Hungarian football experienced its first great golden age precisely after Trianon, when sport was a consolation for us and when we showed the world what we could do ( …) Football offers a good opportunity to defeat the occupying country team on the field, if no other means of defeating them is available  ”.

Defender of a threatened nation

Caring for wounded pride therefore involves flattering and maintaining the flame. Since 2010, June 4 has been crowned "National Cohesion Day". The same year, the 2 million Magyarophones from neighboring countries were granted Hungarian nationality and the right to vote. This possibility of holding a Hungarian passport, more than one in two took advantage of it.

Posing as protector of Hungarians wherever they live, Viktor Orban also poses as defender of a threatened nation. The fear of disappearance is already strong in a central Europe with an aging demography and the departure of its young people for the West. A very sensitive cord that Viktor Orban was particularly able to vibrate in resonance with the memory of Trianon in his country during the crisis of 2015 and to refuse the following years the quotas of refugees by country established by the EU. "  The situation ," he said in a speech in March 2018, " is that they want to take our country from us. Not a stroke of the pen, like a hundred years ago in Trianon. What we want now is for us to give it to others, to strangers who don't respect our culture, our laws, our way of life.  "

An extensive political use of what researcher Catherine Horel describes as a "  real trauma  " anchored in the memory of Hungarians. A global historical reading also which most often passes by profits and losses the weaknesses and the difficulties of the empire of Austria-Hungary before its dismemberment… and yet today in Hungary, for this centenary, historians gathered within the “Trianon 100” research group - a research project selected by the government - worked to renew the work over this period. Far from official commemorations, political speeches and diplomacy, they have cleared new ground such as social history. A passionate story for the general public.

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