Magyarization

Distribution of nationalities within the Kingdom of Hungary (without Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia) according to the Hungarian census in 1910.
  Hungarian
  German
  Slovak
  Ruthenians
  Romanian
  Serbian
  Regions with fewer than 20 persons/sq km

Magyarization (UK: /ˌmædʒəraɪˈzeɪʃən/ US: /ˌmɑːdʒərɪ-/, also Hungarianization; Hungarian: magyarosítás [ˈmɒɟɒroʃiːtaːʃ]), 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.[1]

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 at the legal courts.[2]

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)[3] and civic nationalism, which encouraged ethnic minorities' cultural and linguistic assimilation, similar to the post-revolutionary "standardization" of the French language in France.[4]

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.[3] 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,[5] viewed such autonomy as the dismemberment of Kingdom of Hungary.[6][7][failed verification]

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.[8]

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.[9] 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.[8] 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%.[8] Most Magyarization occurred in central Hungary and among the educated middle classes, largely the result of urbanization and industrialization.[10] It hardly touched rural, peasant, and peripheral populations; among these groups, linguistic frontiers did not shift significantly between 1800 and 1900.[8]

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."[11]


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.[12]

  1. ^ Lyon, Philip W. (2008). After Empire: Ethnic Germans and Minority Nationalism in Interwar Yugoslavia (Dissertation). College Park, Maryland: Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland. p. 60. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
  2. ^ Józsa Hévizi (2004): Autonomies in Hungary and Europe, A COMPARATIVE STUDY, The Regional and Ecclesiastic Autonomy of the Minorities and Nationality Groups
  3. ^ a b Oskar Krejčí (2005). Geopolitics of the Central European Region: The View from Prague and Bratislava. ÚPV SAV Slovak Academy of Science Institute of Political Science of SAS Published at lulu. p. 281. ISBN 9788022408523.
  4. ^ Stefan Berger and Alexei Miller (2015). Nationalizing Empires. Central European University Press. p. 409. ISBN 9789633860168.
  5. ^ Pál, Judit (2 January 2022). ""In the Grasp of the Pan-Slavic Octopus"*: Hungarian Nation Building in the Shadow of Pan-Slavism Until the 1848 Revolution". Nationalism and Ethnic Politics. 28 (1): 40–52. doi:10.1080/13537113.2021.2004764. ISSN 1353-7113.
  6. ^ Archibald Cary Coolidge; Hamilton Fish Armstrong (1937). Foreign Affairs. Vol. 15. Council on Foreign Relations. p. 462. ISBN 978-1-84468-586-8.
  7. ^ Géza Jeszenszky: Managing Ethnic Conflicts: the Unlearned Lessons of History (at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh on May 31, 2003).
  8. ^ a b c d "Hungary – Social and economic developments". Britannica.com. 2008. Retrieved 20 May 2008.
  9. ^ Lendvai, Paul: The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat. Princeton University Press, 2004. p. 301.
  10. ^ "Hungary – Social and economic developments". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Retrieved 20 May 2008.
  11. ^ 1910. ÉVI NÉPSZÁMLÁLÁS 1. A népesség főbb adatai községek és népesebb puszták, telepek szerint (1912) | Könyvtár | Hungaricana (in Hungarian). Hungarian Central Statistical Office. 1912. p. 22.
  12. ^ Joseph Rothschild (1974). East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars. University of Washington Press. p. 194. ISBN 9780295803647.