Anti-Hungarian sentiment (Hungarian: magyarellenesség or magyargyűlölet) refers to the view of the Hungarian people or of the Hungarian nation with suspicion, resentment, or hostility. Anti-Hungarian sentiment affects mainly the local Hungarian minorities in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia, but it occurred and occurs in different countries also.

History

Anti-Hungarian sentiment has historicaly been present in most of the Carpathian basin for 1,100 years, as it was ruled by the Hungarians in parts of this time period.

Serbia

In the 1848-49 revolution Serbs fought against the Hungarians. Both Serb and Hungarian rebels brutally killed members of the other ethnic group. Many of them were civilians, including women, children and elderly people.

After World War II there were killings of Hungarians organized by the Yugoslav Partisan Movement as a revenge for genocide that Hungarian fascists committed against Serb and Jewish civilians during the war. The victims of the partisans were mostly innocent civilians too.

Current events

Romania

In 2006, news appeared in the televisions about an anti-hungarian romanian game Romanians in space (Romani in Spatiu). The story line is based on the extermination of the hungarians.<ref>[7]</ref>

Slovakia

The Beneš decrees concerned the expropriation of wartime "traitors" and collaborators accused of treason but also all ethnic Germans and Hungarians. They also ordered the removal of citizenship for people of German and Hungarian ethnic origin who were treated collectively as collaborators with the former Nazi regime. Similar legal acts existed in neighboring countries because of the expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe anticipated by the Potsdam Agreement between the USSR, the USA and the UK. Although Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia (as well as from other countries, such as Hungary, Poland, Romania, and a large part of Germany itself), Slovak politicians (most notably Vladimir Clementis) vetoed the expulsion of ethnic Hungarians. The decrees were applied only partially in the case of Hungarians and they were finally revoked in 1948.

Serbia

Attacks against ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina caused by Serbian nationalists was a certain problem in 2004 and 2005 and rarely even nowadays. Although, the smaller number of attacks occurred before 2004 too, the attacks from 2004/2005 were to some extent triggered by the event in Temerin from 26 June 2004, when five young Hungarian men from this town attacked and tortured Zoran Petrović, an ethnic Serb from Novi Sad, and almost killed him.<ref>[8]</ref>

In some cities and towns in Serbia anti-Hungarian graffiti can be found (such as Smrt Mađarima (Death for Hungarians), Mađari idi u Mađarskoj! (Hungarians, go to Hungary!), etc.).<ref>[9]</ref> In some cases, the Hungarians themselves wrote these graffiti in grammatically incorrect Serbian to show that "there is anti-Hungarian sentiment among Serbs" (For example, it was proved that one anti-Hungarian graffiti in Telep, a quarter of Novi Sad, was written by an ethnic Hungarian).

There were attacks against the Vojvodina Hungarian politicians. József Kasza has been attacked about 30 times, although these attacks are largely connected to mafia that he was accused to had business with. The latest one is in 2005 when someone exploded a hand grenade outside of house of his neighbour (Although, his neighbour was the target, the Kasza claimed that he in fact was the real target which police investigators denied). Kasza and other Hungarian community leaders have received death threats in the past. In a March 2004, in a letter from the "Serbian Diaspora Summary Revolutionary Court", allegedly headquartered in Chicago, Kasza was warned: "You have been sentenced to death for your attempt to separate Vojvodina from Serbia". The same threat was sent to Serb politician Nenad Čanak, one of the leaders of the autonomous movement in Vojvodina.

HHRF (the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation) has documented 132 anti-minority incidents in Vojvodina since January 2003, consisting of harassment and physical violence against non-Serbs, the intimidation of ethnic Hungarian and (ethnic Serb) pro-autonomy advocates, the desecration of cemeteries (which is mainly act of Satanists, <ref>[10]</ref> <ref>[11]</ref> and the Serb cemeteries in cities across Serbia were also target of such attacks <ref>[12]</ref>), anti-Hungarian, anti-Croatian and anti-Semitic graffiti, and the vandalism of historic symbols. <ref>http://www.hhrf.org/hhrf/en/hhrf.alert.august.30.2005.pdf</ref>

References

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See also

1944-1945 Killings in Bačka

Hungarian minority in Romania

Ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureş

Slovakization

Romanianization