The traitorous national periphery: the legacy of identity politics of imperial Hungary in a new eastern metropolis of Czechoslovakia – Košice/Kassa

Abstract

ABSTRACT The city of Košice/Kassa played (and continues to play) a role in the Hungarian national narrative as one of the most prominent places of memory. Nevertheless, over the course of the First World War, Czech and Slovak political elites assumed the Slovak origin of the majority of local inhabitants. Although the Czechoslovak censuses in 1921 and 1930 already accounted for 60% of local inhabitants identifying as ‘Czechoslovaks’, the ethnic praxis of indigenous autochthonous Slovak speakers continuously featured signs of imperial-era assimilationist identity politics. The main objective of this paper is to situate the local Slovak community within phantom geographies of post-First World War East-Central Europe and to explain the centre-periphery position of Košice/Kassa in the national politics of the Hungarian and Czechoslovak political and intellectual elites. It will also answer the key question of whether Trianon transformed the national landscape of the city as was originally assumed and desired by Czechoslovak authorities. The author concludes that the indifferent attitudes of a majority of local autochthonous Slovak speakers towards the attempts at (Czecho)Slovak nationalization reflects a centuries-long transmitted linguistic-cultural heterogeneity of the local urban milieu, the closeness of the Hungarian border, and a preference for Budapest over Prague and Bratislava. Thus, when speaking about the centre-periphery position of Košice/Kassa, its central position in Hungarian politics and culture made it advantageous for Hungarian national elites to nationalize the ethnic identities of locals and to legitimize claims for a territorial tenure of the city. Pro-Hungarian behavioural patterns and electoral results favouring pro-Hungarian political parties subverted the legitimacy of the Czechoslovak seizure of Košice/Kassa, which was conveniently misused by Hungarian political elites as an argument contributing to the territorial revision of Trianon in 1938.