Hungarian Minority Research Articles

Creating Enemies and Building Bridges: Representations of Hungary in the Ukrainian Media

Creating Enemies and Building Bridges: Representations of Hungary in the Ukrainian Media

Discrepancies between CLT Principles and the Romanian Language and Literature for Hungarian Minority Curriculum and Its Implementation

Abstract The study of the Romanian language and literature is a compulsory subject for students of Hungarian minority in Romania. However, the most effective language learning methods and paradigms take into account and exploit students’ language awareness and linguistic repertoire. Such a didactic approach builds on students’ language skills and teaches children to use their language resources through teaching situations embedded in everyday school life that focus on observing and comparing different languages. In recent years, there have been several attempts to bring about a paradigm shift in the teaching of the Romanian language and allow Hungarian students to learn Romanian as a foreign language. However, a significant shift can be observed between the levels and contents of the 4th-and 5th-grade textbooks, causing serious difficulties for 5th graders. Our study presents the initial stage of a textbook analysis. We examine the extent to which the available textbooks for the 5th grade follow the methodological changes in communicative and post-communicative language teaching and the extent to which they take advantage of the language opportunities provided by students’ linguistic repertoire.

Secondary analysis of qualitative data: Hungarian minority kindergarten pedagogues’ perspectives of the new curriculum framework in Serbia

Secondary analysis is employed to address new research questions by analysing previously collected data. This paper reports on the secondary analysis of qualitative data where the original research investigated the preschool education reform in Serbia from the perspective of Hungarian ethnic minority kindergarten pedagogues. The choice to apply a secondary analysis fulfilled the aims of (i) investigating traces of socialism in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision in Vojvodina, a northern region of Serbia; and (ii) exploring the complexity of Christmas celebrations in nurseries. In order to address the aims, a secondary analysis of 12 semi-structured transcripts was carried out. This analysis revealed important additional findings for the original study. In light of the education reforms in Serbia we found that, first, there are strong connections between the ‘socialist past’ ECEC practices and what these practices may look like in the future; and, second, the traditional celebration of religious holidays outside of church organizations, such as Christmas, may change in the nurseries. This paper also offers insight regarding the importance of secondary analysis which provides an opportunity to making use of existing resources.

Diet quality as assessed by Healthy Eating Index-2015 among Hungarian Roma living in settlements of Northeast Hungary

Inequalities in diet quality are increasingly reported, but such studies among Roma are scarce and challenging. Here we attempt to examine diet quality and adherence to food based dietary guidelines among Hungarian Roma (HR) ethnic minority living in segregated settlements while comparing a sample of Hungarian adults from the general population (HG). Data were obtained from a complex comparative health survey conducted in Northeast Hungary in 2018, including sociodemographic and physical examination data. Dietary data were collected using two non-consecutive 24-h dietary recalls. We assessed diet quality based on using a 13-component Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015, range 0–100). Differences in median intakes of food and nutrients and HEI-2015 scores were evaluated by Mann–Whitney test or Kruskal–Wallis test. Quantile regression was used to adjust HEI-2015 scores for socioeconomic factors including age, sex, educational status, and perceived financial status. This analysis included 393 and 415 subjects, aged between 18 to 70 years, of HR and HG populations, respectively. Results showed overall low median HEI-2015 scores for both HR and HG, with significantly lower total score among HR participants (41.6, interquartile range (IQR): 39.5–42.8) compared to HG (47.2, IQR: 45.7–51.1). Scores for individual components, such as intake of fruits, greens and beans, whole grains, seafood, and plant proteins were particularly suboptimal among both groups, but significantly lower among the HR population. Scores for refined grains, sodium, saturated fats and added sugar reflected high intakes of these components but did not differ between study groups. Our findings revealed an unfavorable diet quality among the HR compared to HG and a potentially increased risk for diet-related NCDs. Future health intervention programs are warranted to address dietary disparities of segregated minorities in Hungary while considering ethnic and cultural differences.

Linguistic Diversity in East-Central European Minority Literature: The Post-Imperial Borderlands of Petar Milošević

Abstract Most recent studies on multilingual writing deal with literature by first- or second-generation immigrants. This article responds to debates about multilingual literature by examining the asymmetrical, historically-rooted multilingualism of minority groups in East-Central Europe. It does so by exploring linguistic diversity and its effects in the novels of the bilingual Serbian-Hungarian author Petar Milošević, novels that put the Serbian minority in Hungary centre stage. It is argued that Milošević’s prose fiction not only invites the reader to rethink the nature of script, standard language and cultural identity as historically contingent and multiply entangled, but also effectively refashions the cultural memory of the Serbian minority in Hungary. The novels’ broader relevance lies in their foregrounding of the minority’s cultural and linguistic doubleness, both in relation to the nation-state in which they live and to the external homeland. As such, they also potentially illuminate the position of other linguistic minorities in former Habsburg borderlands.

Deutschsprachige Regionalpresse im Ausland. Fallstudie am Beispiel der „Batschkaer Spuren“

Abstract This paper analyzes the specific linguistic situation of print media in German language abroad based on the example of the “Batschkaer Spuren”, a regional newspaper of the German minority in Hungary. The goal is a linguistic assessment of the current manifestations of the used media language regarding its typological structures and fundamental characteristics. Additionally, journalistic possibilities and types of procedures, specifically with regards to regionalisms (informed by local dialects), multilingualism, and inter- as well as transculturality are discussed. The study identified a spectrum of minority-specific patterns und types of linguistic composition with highly variable characteristics of German. The analyzed linguistic practices of the newspaper show a type of dynamic multiliteracy that in itself causes an emergence of new patterns. The majority of findings can be attributed to multilingual or language-contact induced phenomena on different levels: from word to text/discourse (the text routines are occasionally influenced by the contact language Hungarian). The other central aspect of the analyzed text world lies in the regionalisms that are influenced by local dialects. The complete picture is determined by heterogeneity and inconsistency and presents itself as a mixture of linguistic and stylistic forms. Especially noteworthy is the established conflict between orality and scribality i.e., between a “language of proximity” and a “language of distance”. Hence, the analyzed newspaper articles present a large quantity of forms and structures of every-day written language that metaphorically can be termed “Parlando texts”.

Attitudes and relations between the Slovak majority and the Hungarian minority in Slovakia

The article concerns relations between Slovaks and the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. The aim of this study is to determine current Slovak attitudes towards the Slovak Hungarians and to analyse differences in attitudes held by Slovaks in regular direct contact with the Hungarian minority and those with almost no contact. Another aim is to map current attitudes among the Hungarian minority towards the Slovak majority, and to find out how Slovak attitudes are perceived by the minority. The data collection methods were a survey (N = 107) and focus group interviews (N = 36). The results show that Slovaks in regular contact with Slovak Hungarians have significantly more positive general feelings, are less socially distant, and feel less anxious about the Hungarian minority than Slovaks with almost no contact. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of trust and behavioural intention. Group interviews with Slovaks and Slovak Hungarians showed that the biggest obstacle in relations between Slovaks and the Hungarian minority is first language use and the language barrier.

“We were that small, special group in that large school with »normal« classes” Education in a Minority Language in the Context of Hungarians From Zagreb

Abstract The latest research conducted in the Hungarian community of the City of Zagreb has shown that the Hungarian language is slowly losing its communication functions in informal domains (family, friends, the sphere of intimacy) and is withdrawing before Croatian, i.e., that language shift is in progress. As one of the key factors affecting language shift, school is mentioned as support in families in intergenerational language transmission and language preservation in the community. Croatia has ensured an institutional framework for education in minority languages to its minorities through a series of regulatory acts. However, exercising this right is often followed by numerous difficulties. In case of the Hungarian minority, this is due to geographical dispersity. Nevertheless, during the 1990s, a Hungarian group in kindergarten, a bilingual class and nurturing language for primary- and secondary-school pupils were launched in Zagreb. In order to obtain a clearer image of how various class models in a minority language actually function and which problems their participants are faced with, we conducted a preliminary research among younger members of the community who attended classes in Hungarian at least at one point during their education. We completed the results with information obtained through informal conversations with preschool and school teachers as well as through immediate observations of the community.

Онлайн-словник плюрицентричної угорської мови

A pluricentric language is a language that is used in at least two countries where it has the official status of a state, commonwealth or regional language with at least partially its own (codified) norms that usually contribute to the personal identity of speakers. Pluricentric languages have one dominant variant and (one or) several non-dominant varieties. As a result of the political fragmentation of the Hungarian language area that developed after the First World War, and then, confirmed by the peace treaties after the Second World War, the Hungarian language is one of the pluricentric languages in Europe. The article examines the results of close linguistic contacts in non-dominant varieties of the modern Hungarian language used outside Hungary. The consequences of language contacts are highlighted on the basis of lexical borrowings, which are fixed in a specific online dictionary. The dictionary consists of borrowed words of foreign origin used by autochthonous Hungarian minorities living in the Carpathian Basin outside Hungary. In addition to words and phrases that are used exclusively in the speech and writing of Hungarians in countries neighboring Hungary, words that are also used in Hungary, but with a different meaning, were also collected in the database. As of the end of September 2022, the dictionary database contained 5,034 dictionary entries (words). Since this online loanword list contains direct borrowings from many languages of the Carpathian Basin that are in contact with Hungarian (mostly from the official or state languages of Hungary's neighboring countries, including Slovak, Ukrainian, Romanian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and German), the database is a rich source for the study of contacts between Hungarian and Indo-European languages. Based on the material of the online dictionary, it was found that among the lexical borrowings of the Hungarian language –as a result of centuries-old contacts between Hungarian and various Slavic languages –borrowings of Slavic origin constitute the largest layer of vocabulary of foreign origin in the Hungarian language. The result of the project is a dictionary database that provides an opportunity for a comparative analysis of the vocabulary of non-dominant variants of the pluricentric Hungarian language.

Сучасні міждисциплінарні студії угорсько-українського пограниччя

This article is based on a review and analysis of research on various aspects of Ukrainian-Hungarian contacts, especially included in the collective monograph of the Ivan Krypiakevych Academic Institute of Ukrainian Studies, who carries them out within one of the areas of its activity, namely – determining the identity of Ukrainians through their ties with other countries, cultures, national communities. The subject of analysis in the book Hungarian-Ukrainian Borderland: Ethno-Political, Linguistic and Religious Criteria of Self-Identification of the Population (2020) is formed with a number of current both historical and contemporary problems and issues in this field with a fairly wide range of topics – historical, political, linguistic, ethnographic, socio-cultural, religious, educational and etc., mostly in connection with Transcarpathia, where a large Hungarian minority lives. The project has involved specialists from all over Ukraine and partly from Hungary, of course, from the Institute itself, other institutions in Lviv, as well as Ivano-Frankivsk, Budapest, Kyiv, Uzhhorod, Berehove and others. The book consists of an introduction and four major parts: “Hungarian-Ukrainian Border: Formation, Features, Transformations”, “Hungarian-Ukrainian Borderland in Historical Retrospective Review”, “Self-Identification of the Population of the Hungarian-Ukrainian Frontier” and “Modern Political, Cultural and Educational Problems of the Borderland”. The studies, submitted in each of the chapters are valuable for the latest interpretation of the problems, filling the existing information gaps, use of the latest methods of analysis, outlining new tasks and directions in the mentioned topics, etc. For her part, the authoress adds other results on these issues, her own thoughts and suggestions, believing that the revival of Ukrainian-Hungarian studies in Ukraine and Hungary is a positive trend in scientific as well as political senses.

ADAPTATION OF SERBIAN AND SLOVENIAN LOANWORDS IN THE SPEECH OF HUNGARIANS LIVING IN VOJVODINA AND PREKMURJE

The paper discusses models of adaptation of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs and particles borrowed from Serbian and Slovenian languages in the Hungarian language, and used by representatives of the Hungarian minority community in Vojvodina (Serbia) and Prekmurje (Slovenia). The following cases are analyzed: when Slavic lexical items are used with Hungarians morphemes, when Slavic items are used without these morphemes, as well as examples when loanwords from Serbian and Slovenian languages are used with Slavic morphemes. Adaptation occurs in accordance with the regularities of the Hungarian language. Special attention is paid to non-standard cases of adaptation: incomplete forms and constructions, contaminated forms. The data for analysis was collected by the author during his own field researches.

A Collapsed Bridge: Most-Híd’s Social Embeddedness and Campaign Messages during the 2020 Parliamentary Election in Slovakia

ABSTRACT The Hungarian minority is an important element of Slovakia’s political landscape. For a decade, it was represented in the parliament by Most-Híd, an integrationist civic party that mobilized its electorate across ethnic boundaries and held a special niche in Slovakia’s politics. Based on Most-Híd’s 2020 campaign messages, this article identifies drivers of the integrationist party’s electoral failure stemming from its having to address the needs of its composite interethnic electorate equally and its oversize leadership factor. It provides evidence of the increased vulnerability of integrationist political groups, addressing deficits in Most-Híd’s social embeddedness that led to the party’s collapse.

R. Chris Davis. Hungarian Religion, Romanian Blood: A Minority’s Struggle for National Belonging, 1920–1945.

R. Chris Davis. <i>Hungarian Religion, Romanian Blood: A Minority’s Struggle for National Belonging, 1920–1945</i>.

International legal determination of the national minorities’ status in the Central and Eastern European countries within the Versailles system

Peculiarities of the international legal status determination of the national minorities within the Versailles system have been studied using the example of a number of Central and Eastern European countries. The governments of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary were asked, based on the norms of international law, to develop appropriate provisions for the protection of the rights of national minorities in order to prevent new conflicts and threats to peace.&#x0D; The system of treaties, declarations and agreements, which were supposed to ensure the observance of the rights of national minorities and whose guarantor was the League of Nations, has been analyzed. In practice, this was embodied in giving minorities the right to submit petitions to the Council or Assembly of the League of Nations, as well as in the activities of the Permanent Chamber of International Justice. The right to submit petitions was used at different times by representatives of the Ruthenian minority in Czechoslovakia, the Russian minority in Eastern Galicia, the Jewish minority in Hungary, the German minority in Poland, etc.&#x0D; The weaknesses of this system have been identified, which prevented the creation of effective international mechanisms for the protection of the rights of national minorities in the specified regions of Europe. In particular, it has been emphasized that the majority of treaties, conventions, treatises, etc. were openly sabotaged by the countries that were supposed to fulfill them. The governments of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe considered the proposed system unequal, because its conditions did not apply to a number of other multinational states that had similar problems. Conflict situations surrounding the problem of national minorities continued to arise. They were caused by various factors: from divided loyalties and irredentist movements to manifestations of governmental and social discrimination.

The Autonomy Movement of Hungarians in Romania

Abstract While the issue of the Szekler autonomy has attracted considerable tabloid interest in the past two decades, it is rarely addressed in more systematic, scholarly accounts available for a wider international audience. The political project of achieving some form of autonomy has been on the agenda of several political actors speaking in the name of Romania’s sizeable Hungarian minority after 1989 and constitutes the object of heated debate between those actors and authorities of the Romanian state. In 2020 this debate recorded a peak which will seemingly require a new approach on behalf of protagonists, if the project is meant to be kept alive. This paper aims to fill some of the above-mentioned scholarly gap by providing an account of the parliamentary reception of the draft autonomy conceptions submitted by ethnic Hungarian politicians to Romania’s parliament in the three decades that passed since the regime change. Based on a content analysis of documents produced during the legislative process, we identify the most important arguments, as well as a number of procedural tricks deployed by Romanian politicians and political parties against the autonomy initiatives. We also emphasize the differences between the reception and trajectories of the bills, which is clearly related to the authorship and political backing of the various autonomy drafts. This comparative analysis also allows the formulation of a number of conclusions concerning the prospects of the Hungarian autonomy movement.

Rethinking Autonomy: Traveling between Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches

AbstractTo improve the validity of our comparative endeavors in ethno-politics, this piece re-examines the relationship between conceptual definitions, categories of classification used in large-N datasets, and thick description found through case studies. It does this through the lens of claims to autonomy by ethnic minorities, and in particular through a detailed comparative case study of what autonomy means as a programmatic goal for ethnic minority Hungarian elites in Romania and Slovakia. Three unexpected findings emerge which make the case for qualitative research to better inform the categories and variables used in large-N datasets (1) there is a weak relationship between the conceptual definitions of autonomy and the way it is coded in relevant datasets like the Minorities at Risk (MAR) dataset; (2) empirically, the Hungarian comparative case studies show that elites do not think of autonomy in the same way as the conceptual literature nor do their understandings of autonomy easily fit into the coding categories of datasets; (3) there is inconsistency across Hungarian minority elites in their own definitions of autonomy as well as the lack of distinctions between autonomy and other institutional arrangements. This raises issues of equivalence and ambiguity and I conclude with suggestions for better measurement.

LANGUAGE PREFERENCES IN EDUCATION AMONG STUDENTS OF HUNGARIAN-LANGUAGES SCHOOLS OF TRANSCARPATHIAN REGION (BY THE FOCUS GROUPS RESULTS)

The article is devoted to a topical issue – namely language preferences in education among students of Hungarian-language schools in Transcarpathia (according to the results of focus groups). The article focuses on the situation in education around the Hungarian national minority. Which compactly lives in some part of the Transcarpathian region and Ukrainian. Ukrainian is not a native language for the majority of this population. According to the analysis of external evaluation results in significant failure of students and reduces their chances of further education in Ukraine. The results of the project of the Ukrainian Association of Educational Researchers "At educational crossroads: dialogue with national minorities in Chernivtsi and Zakarpattia regions" are presented, including the results of 6 focus groups with teachers, students and parents of children from Hungarian-language schools. It is noted that the possible introduction of a language article is directly related to economic factors and the situation in Ukraine. The study of the Ukrainian language in schools related to providing young people with career opportunities that are no worse than those that young people receive in their “Great Matherland "or other countries bordering Ukraine. Attention is focused on the need to take into account that the main obstacles in the study of the Ukrainian language are: - insufficient provision of schools with specialists and the threat of outflow of experienced teachers from schools who may leave teaching; practical absence of the environment of Ukrainian-language communication and Ukrainian-language information space in places of compact residence of national minorities in Ukraine.

Mentoring Students of Disadvantaged Background in Hungary — “Let’s Teach for Hungary!” as an Equitable Intervention in the Public School System

The introductory study aims to give an insight into the Hungarian educational system and a mentor program aiming to facilitate development in social mobility in the country. In the Hungarian context of education, the concept of equality and equity is a current phenomenon that influences students of underprivileged families. In Hungary, among students living in the countryside, the intersectionality of disadvantages is observed. Several regions of the country have features of unemployment and low education. Thus, students from underprivileged families face a deficit of capital when entering and proceeding into the educational system. The situation is further complicated for the largest Hungarian minority, the Roma community, who face ethnic biases and misbeliefs, thus creating the cumulation of disadvantages. For students to overcome their difficulties, equitable interventions are needed. International and Hungarian literature stress the importance of developing positive psychological capital for students to become resilient. Peer-mentoring is observed as a tool to help facilitate individual changes. The study focuses on the framework of a Hungarian national peer-mentoring program called "Let's Teach for Hungary!" which aims to help primary school students (aged 11-15) with the help of university students. The theoretical analysis introduces the program and its goals. With the help of previous research conducted on the mentoring program, the study synthesizes the positive outcomes of the intervention. The research highlights the importance of equitable changes in public education and reveals the Hungarian status quo and its alternative solutions. The study creates a basis for continuing research that can open international discussion on best practices on the topic.

Hungarian Language Teaching in Asymmetric Language Context: A Case of Constrained Teacher Agency

ABSTRACT There is a sizable Hungarian minority living in Romania, who have the right to learn in their mother-tongue. While most Hungarians are enrolled in Hungarian medium education, there is a small number of families who opt for mainstream Romanian monolingual schools. According to the Law, the latter group can choose to learn Hungarian in an optional manner, but there is no usable curriculum for this kind of education. Given the absence of top-down regulation, without centralized pressure on choosing how to teach, teachers could become real classroom decision-makers; nevertheless, they fail to do so. More exactly, as they emphasize solely the symbolic values of the minority language, they unintendedly reinforce the asymmetry between the majority Romanian and minority Hungarian languages, implicitly legitimizing the dominant languages ideology promoted by the more powerful institutional actors and the policy environment itself.

Language Use and Identity in Minority Hungarian and Hungarian-Romanian Deaf Families.

This paper discusses language use and identity patterns in families set up by deaf partners living in Romania, where at least one of the spouses belongs to the ethnic Hungarian minority. Language use and transmission of identity to children in ethnically homogenous (Hungarian) or heterogeneous (Hungarian-Romanian) families of deaf are explored. The research is based on a survey conducted among members of the ethnic Hungarian Deaf community (including ethnic Romanian spouses), life-path interviews with selected deaf persons and interviews with special school educators. The research results denote that in the case of deaf people living in ethnically homogeneous marriages who graduated from Hungarian language special school the transmission of Hungarian identity, Hungarian sign language/oral language knowledge-combined with the components of Deaf culture-tends to be a natural and usually undisturbed process. However, if one of the spouses is Romanian, the language of communication within the family will probably be the Romanian sign language/oral language. On the other hand, in the families where ethnic minority and ethnic majority family members are present, with typical and atypical hearing, complex, multifaceted linguistic communication models might prevail, favoring specific multicultural modes of intrafamilial identity development and transmission.