Re: Minority groups in Hungary

On 22 Jun 2004 John Cowan <cowan@CC...> wrote:

> I suppose I'm a bit surprised because in countries of immigration it
> seems to be more typical to keep the ethnic identity even after losing
> the language.
  I think we must consider the "double identity". If you may mark
just one ethnic group on the census sheet, you must decide that you
are belong to group X or Y. Therefore people with double identity
must rank their identity.

  The other consideration is that in this area of the world
"nationality" means two different things: both the political and
the ethnical nation. Usually these two definitions are contaminated
and it is hard to distinguish between them for an average
individual.

  My family members who identify themselves as Hungarians do feel
their Slovak traditions, use the language, eat the traditional
dishes, sing the traditional folk songs, etc. But when these
questions reach the "political" level, e.g. the problems between
the actual Hungarian and Slovak state, they are on the Hungarian
side. It seems to be an actualization of the ancient principle
"cuius regio eius religio", i.e. "cuius regio eius natio".

  If you are interested in the status of the Hungarian ethnic
groups in more detail, I uploaded a report from 1997 on the
minorities of my present abode Szeged to the address
<http://160.114.96.21/minority>.

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