Fresh Voices from the Periphery

By Emőke J.E. Szathmáry and Daniel Crack

Fresh Voices from the Periphery is evidence that history matters - not only the study of the past - but also by shedding light on how events of the past have impacted lives in the present. This unique book is a collection of thought-provoking essays writt

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kinetics Design - kdbooks.ca
• Release date: Dec 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781988360683

Emőke J.E. Szathmáry

Emőke J.E. Szathmáry is a biological anthropologist whose career combined research, teaching, administration, and community service. She served 12 years as President and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Manitoba. Earlier she was Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at McMaster University, and before that, Dean of Social Science at Western University. She Is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a Member of the Order of Canada, and the Order of Manitoba.Dr. Szathmáry's focus on the genetics of the indigenous peoples of North America included research on the causes of type-2 diabetes, the genetic relationships within and between North American and Siberian peoples, and the microevolution of subarctic populations. Her field research involved Ottawa, Ojibwa and Tlicho peoples in Ontario and the Northwest Territories. She has published over 90 scientific articles and reviews, and co-edited four books. As well she served terms as Editor-in-Chief of the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology (1987-91), and the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (1995-2001).

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Copyright © 2021 Rakoczi Foundation — www.studentswithoutboundaries.org

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, except for brief quotations in books, reviews, or articles, without permission, in writing, from the editor.

Published in 2021 by Kinetics Design, KDbooks.ca

ISBN 978-1-988360-67-6 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-988360-68-3 (ebook)

Editors: Susan M. Papp, Ph.D, with Katalin Kálmán Hajdók and Zoltán Csadi

Project Manager: Eloise Lewis, www.lifetales.ca

Design concept and illustrations: Gábor Édes, www.gaboredes.com

Cover and interior design, typesetting, online publishing and printing: Daniel Crack, Kinetics Design, KDbooks.ca, linkedin.com/in/kdbooks/Printed in Canada

Contents

Preface

Dr. Susan M. Papp

Introduction

Dr. Emőke J.E. Szathmáry, CM, OM, Ph.D, FRSC

Historical Background: What Happened in 1920?

Dr. Ádám Suslik

PART ONE Outcasts

Where Did You Learn to Speak Hungarian So Well?

Tibor Bálint

Past and Present in the Foothills of the Carpathians

Tibor Gyöngyössy

The Value of Our Traditions

Virág Júlia Iszlai

Torn Away from a Transcarpathian Perspective

Júlia Kovács

National Identity Is Boundless

Vivien Marti

Our Life

Hanna Peresztegi

A Nation of Survivors

Tamás R. Benedek

This Is My Home

Norbert Bence

The Role of Faith

Réka Baricz

Transcarpathia: The Centre of My Heart

Genovéva Svingola

PART TWO Searching for a Way on the Periphery

Historical Musings

Johanna Baróthi

Thoughts on Happiness from the South

Natália Gulyás Oldal

It Seemed to Be Only a Signature, Yet It Sealed Fates

Teodóra Gyurkó

How Much Longer?

Evelin Kitti Hidi

The One Hundred Years of Solitude of Trianon

Dr. Ilona Kotolácsi Mikóczy

Hungarians Without Borders

Attila Norbert Ferenc

On an Undertaking

Dr. Zsuzsanna Napsugár Tóth

Let Us Never Forget to Remember!

Máté Marton

On the Margins of Trianon

Arnold Mészáros

Let Us Be an Example of Unity

Izabella Nagy

Thoughts on a Collective European Future

Nóémi Tatár Jakab

What Is the Key to Our Survival?

Klaudia Varga

PART THREE We Are the Future!

Trianon 100 — Past, Present, Future

Réka Antal

The Winds of Change after the Storm of Trianon

Orsolya Bálint

The Road to Acceptance

Ágnes Fekete

My Trianon

Ágota Regina Hidi

The Key to Our Survival

Éva Andrea Kántor

Questions on the Eternal Existence of a Nation

Réka Kelemen

With Unbroken Faith

Árpád Konnát

A Contemporary Nation that Is Surrounded by Itself

Erika Ködöböcz

How to Proceed Despite the Common Past

Emőke László

I Smile at the World Because of Who I Am!

Krisztina Magosi

Nurturing Our Roots

Kinga Noémi Mezey

An Identity Encoded in the Spirit

Emilia Peleskei

Homework for a Lifetime

Enikő Sőreg

Heaven and Earth, Saint and Sinner, or Our Twentieth Century, Our Trianon

Dr. Erzsébet Fanni Tóth

PART FOUR Canadian Voices

Using the Past to Build a Stronger Future

András Z. Diósady

Adapting to Change

Karoline Farkas

The Bittersweet Joys of Teen Miscommunication

Dr. Katherine Magyarody

The Importance of Resilience

Mária Horváth

Being Empowered

Mónika Borbély

Finding Identity

Tamás Gáspár

Acknowledgements

Dr. Susan M. Papp

Preface

Dr. Susan M. Papp

THIS book is evidence that history matters. History is not only the study of the past — it is also the examination of how events of the past have impacted lives in the present. You are holding in your hands a collection of thought-provoking essays written by young people whose families have lived as minorities in various countries in east-central Europe for four generations. They became minorities not because their families migrated to different parts of Europe, but because the borders were changed over their heads. Today, these Hungarian minorities live in Transylvania in Romania, southern Slovakia, Transcarpathia in Ukraine, and Vojvodina in Serbia.

Until 1920, their regions and communities were part of Hungary. Following the end of the First World War, the victorious nations broke up empires and mapped out new successor states. Through the Treaty of Trianon, one of the treaties drafted at that time, the victorious nations sought to create new nation-states, but they created multi-ethnic states with large minority populations. Hungarian minorities were part of this dictated peace.

The essays contained in this volume were submitted through an online competition held by the Rákoczi Foundation of Canada in May 2020. The title of the call for essays was simply: What does Trianon mean to you today? The response was overwhelming. Within a brief span of thirty days, there were almost one hundred essays and five short films submitted from students and young professionals who have lived for most or all of their developmental years as minorities in the above-mentioned countries. Some respondents are university students, while others have completed their degrees and are working professionals. Some still live in the countries where they were born, others have left in search of educational and career opportunities in the European Union.¹

1* This paper, Historical Reflections: Collective Memory through the Lens of Minority Communities, was presented at a conference organized by the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School for Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto by Dr. Papp on October 15, 2020.

Since 1994, the Rákoczi Foundation of Canada has sponsored a program called Students Without Boundaries for students living in minority status in east-central Europe. The program was founded as borders were re-opening following the collapse of communism. These minorities were the forgotten minorities of Europe. The topic of Hungarian minorities fell into a category of historical memory that, following the Second World War, both in the east and west, European nations willingly submerged into the freezer of history, meaning that talking about it was forbidden. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and other significant geopolitical changes that have unfolded in Europe since 1989, a much-debated revival of memory has occurred.

Until the early 1990s, these young people living in minority status rarely had the opportunity to travel outside their towns and villages, let alone outside their country of birth. The motivation behind the founding of the program was that the organizers believed they could make a difference in bringing Canadian ideals of multiculturalism and tolerance to a region of east-central Europe so frequently divided by ethnic divisions and misinformation. Students Without Boundaries became an educational exchange program as more and more Canadian students also took part and learned about the everyday lives of these minorities.

Since 1994, more than 3,500 students from Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Canada, and the United States have taken part in this international student educational exchange program. The targeted age group — fourteen through eighteen — is seen as the most sensitive period in the formation of one’s identity and self-esteem. Culturally specific ways of gender identity are among the first that most people encounter, along with ethnic identity. Identity negotiation is a dynamic process. Culturally specific assumptions, contained within a diverse range of interrelated practices (such as language, religion, and sexuality, among others), mean that a person’s identity is multi-dimensional.

This is especially true for young people living in minority status, as they face the challenges of being accepted in both the minority community as well as in the majority community. It is a feature of belonging to a minority group to try to understand others, as well as oneself, who one is, and where one belongs. A healthy self-identity is important to lead a stable, well-balanced life, and Students Without Boundaries assists students in finding their places in the world. There is no need to explain ethnic identity to participants; this is already an integral part of their lives. There is a need, however, to encourage them to be able to accept this part of their identity and at the same time, to also be open to understanding other cultures. Students Without Boundaries provides a framework for self-exploration within the context of their own reality.

Because the program widens the horizons of these young people, the majority of the participants are later propelled into careers they would otherwise not even have considered. They learn about scholarships, bursaries, and other educational exchange programs, such as the Erasmus program for university students within the European Union. The Canadian voices/writers demonstrate that they have gained a deeper understanding of minority rights/human rights through their participation in the Students Without Boundaries program. Through taking part, they obtained valuable insights on what it means to live in minority status in east-central Europe.

As a historian and filmmaker, I’ve always been interested in the frequently discussed sociological term trans-generational transmission of trauma, the passing down of traumatic events from one generation to another. I dealt with this topic extensively in my first independently directed film, Debris of War, about the ordeals faced by Bosnian refugees who had to flee for their lives in the former war-torn Yugoslavia.

The call for essays by the Rákóczi Foundation elicited a strong response from these young people because of the foundation’s outstanding work in the region through the Students Without Boundaries program. The idea to publish these essays was prompted by the inspiring writings submitted by the authors. Through the first twenty-six years of the program’s existence, hundreds of donors — both individual and corporate from Canada, the United States, Israel, the European Union and other countries around the world — have generously provided financial resources to sustain the program. To list them all would take up many pages in this volume. However, Andrew Heinemann and family deserve special thanks for their outstanding support. Many of these donors experienced the feeling of being outcast at some point in their development. As benefactors, they wanted to ensure that young people living in the regions would not go through similar experiences as they had endured during their own developmental years.

Many donated not just financially, but substantially in other ways as well. Yitzhak Livnat (Sándor Weisz, a.k.a. Suti), a Holocaust survivor, born in Nagyszöllős (today: Vinogradjiv, Ukraine), was, along with his family, deported to Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1944. Each year, for over twenty years, he travelled to Budapest to meet the student participants to provide his first-hand account of what happened to him when he was fifteen years old.

Thanks to the Board of Directors of the Rákoczi Foundation for their support in bringing this volume to completion. Special thanks to Professor Emőke Szathmáry, President Emeritus of the University of Manitoba, for her deeply insightful introduction. Thanks also to Professor Levente Diósady, Robert Austin, Director of the Hungarian Studies Program at the University of Toronto, and Professor András Ludányi for their valued advice and support. The work of Zoltán Csadi and Katalin Kálmán Hajdók, in reading, assessing and copy editing, was outstanding. Thanks also goes to Ildikó Csermely, Balázs Csibi, Andrew Diósady, Tibor Lukács, Dr. Éva Tömöry, and Zsuzsanna Tóthfalusy. Peter Csermely and Mária Máté completed excellent work in translating the essays.

Last but not least, a debt of gratitude is owed to William Béla Aykler and his wife, Zsuzsa, founders of the Students Without Boundaries program, whose persistence and dedication grew the program to what it is today.

In 2008, Students Without Boundaries was awarded the first Charlemagne Youth Prize by the European Parliament for promoting tolerance and integration and creating a long-term network of support for these minorities. This volume is part of the ongoing effort to bring the views of these young people to the forefront, to let their voices be heard. They write about the challenges of living on the periphery of the countries in which they live, about the many aspects of still waiting to belong, after one hundred years, and for educational and career opportunities.

Their fresh voices and views are important in bridging the gap of misunderstandings, and in healing the wounds. These writings are critical for historians, sociologists, ethnologists, and those concerned about the fate of these regions to gain a deeper understanding of how this generation of young people, representing the fourth generation in their families who have lived in minority status in these countries, perceive the Treaty of Trianon that changed the lives of their families and their communities so dramatically one hundred years ago. Their voices offer distinctive perspectives and demonstrate that historical events, and the issue of minorities cannot be paved over or placed into the freezer of history. The politics of discrimination and treatment of these minorities as second-class citizens simply cannot be allowed to continue. Their voices must be heard.

Susan M. Papp, Ph.D.

Susan M. Papp has had a distinguished career as an award-winning broadcaster and filmmaker. One of her documentaries received the prestigious Michener Award for Public Service. Dr. Papp is the author of several books and many scholarly articles, including a history of the Munk-Munkácsi family in the volume How it Happened: Documenting the Tragedy of Hungarian Jewry. One of her books, Outcasts: A Love Story, is based on a true story that took place during the Holocaust. Originally written in English, Outcasts has been translated into three languages and made into a documentary film. Susan Papp earned her Ph.D. in Modern European History from the University of Toronto. Her dissertation, The Politics of Exclusion and Retribution in the Hungarian Film Industry, 1929–1947, is presently being prepared for publication. She is President of the Rákóczi Foundation of Canada.

Introduction

Dr. Emőke J.E. Szathmáry, CM, OM, Ph.D, FRSC

President Emeritus, University of Manitoba

IN my Grade 11 history class, some sixty years ago, Fr. Mazerolle’s black cassock was often fringed with puffs of chalk dust, as he beat a staccato rhythm on the board, punctuating each carefully uttered word: Every war has causes, and every peace treaty has consequences — political, economic, social! The history of armed conflicts is formally taught in schools and universities, past battles are analyzed through formal lenses in books and scholarly journals, and old newspapers carry stories revealing the truth of what occurred in our times. Except that, the victors and the vanquished of a war tend to have different understandings of the facts, and those differences can generate debates about the veracity of claimed causes, as well as the justice and fairness of the consequences.

This book is grounded in an event that occurred a hundred years ago, but its essays focus not on the still-ongoing debates and judgments of historians, politicians, and journalists. Its focus is on the consequences of the Treaty of Trianon as experienced and expressed by young people, a few still in their teens, and most others in the early stages of their adult lives. Thirty-eight of the essays in this book, comprising its Fresh Voices from the Periphery, were written by the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Hungarians who, on the morning of June 5, 1920, woke up in a designated country other than Hungary, where they had gone to bed. Another six essays, the Canadian Voices, were written by descendants of those who woke on Hungarian soil on that day but chose to leave it in the aftermaths of the wars or revolutions of the twentieth century. All had taken part at one time or another in the Students Without Boundaries program of the Rákóczi Foundation, which, through its scholarships, promotes Canadian values such as multiculturalism and the virtue of tolerance in pluralistic societies. Their stories put a human face on the persistence of identity and national consciousness, their narratives breathe life into the meaning of being together and apart. Reflection on their struggles to belong inevitably raises questions about possibilities for reconciliation between majority and minority members of the societies in which they are embedded.

The pivotal event that forms the background to the commentaries in this book is the Treaty of Trianon, which was signed on June 4, 1920, and formally ended the First World War between the Allied and Associated Powers and the Kingdom of Hungary. Many Canadians are aware of treaties between North American Indigenous peoples and invading Europeans, among them the Great Peace of Montreal, signed in 1701 between representatives of New France and those of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, as well as the Treaties of Peace and Neutrality that were negotiated between several North American