Endre Tóth:
The first bilateral discussion between Czechoslovakia and Hungary (1921) - Mariánské Lázně (1st part)

Although Karel's spring restoration attempt and the connected feverish diplomatic activity of the Czechoslovak minister of foreign affairs Edvard Beneš had an unfavorable impact on the Czechoslovak-Hungarian relations, the urgent necessity of final solution of the accumulated problems of mainly technical or more precisely practical character contributed to a relatively quick reestablishment of a healthy communication between both parties in interest of resumption of negotiations of the commissions created in Bruck and in interest of implementation of another bilateral meeting on ministerial level. An evidence of bilateral determination to continue the negotiations initiated in March was another series of informal or preparatory dialogues, or more precisely a gradual initiation in technical commissions since the beginning of June and soon an agreement at another ministerial meeting held on 23 and 24 of June 1921, already in Czechoslovakia, in the city of Mariánské Lázně. Those who took part at this second bilateral meeting were again the head of diplomacy Edvard Beneš from the Czechoslovak side, and the new minister of foreign affairs earl Miklós Bánfy and the ex-prime minister earl Pál Teleki from the Hungarian side. In comparison with the informative political dialogues in Bruck, the second bilateral negotiations of ministers had a little more concrete character which was given by the initiation of the sessions of the commissions and by the necessity of discussing the controversial questions emerged in them. Holding of the second Czechoslovak-Hungarian bilateral meeting on ministerial level confirmed definitely the possibility of normalizing relations between both countries, even if not directly on the political field, but at least on the economical one. Thus the Czechoslovak-Hungarian negotiations initiated in the first half of the year 1921 laid the foundations for coming to an agreement about a commercial-political base necessary for both economies, the concrete form of which, nevertheless, claimed further protracted negotiations, or more precisely several years more.

Árpád Popély:
Internal settlement process after the Second World War in south Slovakia

The study examines the so-called internal settlement that can be considered to be the colonisation's continuation between the two world wars and to the authorities of the renewed Czechoslovakia in 1945 parallel with the population exchange, deportation of the Hungarian population to the Czech part and the re-slovakisation had important role in the slovakisation of territories lived by Hungarians.

The author describes in detail the plans on the resettlement of Hungarian minority worked out by the Slovak National Council and the two Slovak parties in it. According to that plan one part of the Hungarian population is to be resettled on a one-side basis, and the other part is to be resettled to Hungary within the population exchange and then the Hungarian population remaining in Slovakia is to be resettled on the entire territory of the country.

The main focus of the study is the introduction of differing final data on internal settlement by regions.

According to a report dated on 9th October, 1948 within the internal settlement 23,027 Slovak settlers (5,011 families) arrived to the 281 villages of the 25 districts lived by Hungarians in South Slovakia, in total, who received 44,822 hectare of land and 1,881 houses from the confiscated properties of Hungarians and Germans. According to the statements of districts and villages within the framework of internal settlements the authorities responsible for settlement transferred people not only to the regions and villages that were during the population exchange managed exceptionally (the population exchange concerned exclusively the territories lived only by Hungarians), but many times also to territories that were of mixed population and/or to territories that were already colonised between the two world wars, of which goal was to strengthen the Slovaks living there.

Since internal settler was considered to be that person whose original place of living was outside the settlement area comprising the 25 districts, received land and settled in one of the villages of the settlement area, the 47,376 local Slovaks (12,274 families), who received 26,785 hectare of land and 706 houses in the 252 villages of the 25 districts from the confiscated property of Hungarians (and Germans), were not considered to be internal settlers, even if during the land assignment they changed their place of living inside the area.

Revealing the total number of Slovaks settled in south Slovakia is practically impossible, because the archive materials contain only data on population that was settled in organised way, that is within population exchange, re-emigration, and internal settlement and data on farming population who were assigned land. There were no statements made on the Slovak intelligentsia that settled in large numbers, officials, and traders, of which number could be some ten thousand and that was of great impact mainly on the changes of ethnic composition.

László Öllős:
Human and nationality rights

The study explains why morality philosophers of enlightenment - who are considered to be the founders of the human rights' value system and dealt also with the issue of nationalism - did not categorise national minority rights to human rights and how another non-human right oriented approach - utilitarian theory of nationalism - became prevailing in the liberal country.

The study raises the supposition that John Lock's exception principle defined in relation with freedom of religion could influence also national minority judgement. The author examines the contradiction between nationalism - defined by Immanuel Kant - and the universal moral order and its consequence that Kant does not solve the contradiction. Later the author explains the reasons of J.S.Mill's influence and the internal contradictions of his approach, and then the insufficiency of Lord Acton's critique's and Henry Sigdwick's correctional examination.

István Gaucsík:
Economy and credit organisation - Hungarian banking situation in Slovakia (1918-1923) (II. part)

The study tries to answer those questions that arose in relation to the integration of Hungarian nationality banks from the point of view of the development of the Czechoslovak credit bank system between 1918 and 1923. The author begins with economic changes that happened during the power changes in 1918.

Disorganisation in public law and politics in Austro-Hungarian Monarchy influenced the territory's economic relations, too. It resulted the economic nationalism of successor states and autarky of economic policy. From the nationality states from economic point of view Czechoslovakia was the most developed. It had a more stable position. It preserved the most important development results in economy of the Czech-Moravian-Silezian territories before the First World War.

Czechoslovakia inherited significant economic capacity (approx. 70 per cent). Only 8.5 per cent of industrial capacity remained in Slovakia. The impacts of the new state borders (losing the old markets, arrangements of new markets, cancellation of state orders) were serious for the eastern parts of the country. Those regions of Slovakia and Sub-Carpathia that were lived by Hungarians found themselves in peripheral position from economic point of view. The Hungarian economists of that time in Slovakia (László Hantos, Lajos Jócsik, Ödön Tarján) dealt with the economic under-development, industrial and agricultural crisis of these territories. They analysed the phenomena through (the hardly separable) "nationality economy" fiction with grief.

The rest of the book deals with the problems of unifying credit system structures. The bank system of Czech territories, that was more professional and had a more developed division of labour, had a dominant position within the forming credit organisation. The Upper-Hungarian region had a less differentiated and lower-level bank institution division of labour. In the period of the so-called provisional economy (1918-1920) the Czechoslovak financial governance achieved its independence from traditional economic centres (Vienna, Budapest) with strict laws and regulations.

The study from the wide-range financial arrangements focuses on examining general economic policy (independent customs area, money separation, bank of issue), banking issues (issue of institutional autonomy, transformation of saving banks to banks, concession system). Later, the study deals with the processes of nationalisation and nostrification, compares the Czech and Slovak examples. The operation of those smaller branch offices that were moved to Czechoslovak territory was ceased. From the most important, the branch of the Hungarian Credit Bank in Bratislava, was formed the Slovak General Credit Bank in 1921.

The Czech capital was successful, the Slovak capital (in spite of its allowances) could not step out from its regional framework, and lost its Hungarian position. For the Hungarian nationality banks the nationalisation of the branch offices and nostrification of their capital eased their situation.

Within the integrated credit organisation the Hungarian banks in spite of their large number represented a very slight capital power. Most of them were small-bank types that were ceased or fused after a time. The professionals of that time thought that fusion are one of the important conditions of the recovery of nationality banks.

Between 1918 and 1923 in Slovakia and Sub-Carpathia (with smaller structural modifications) the Hungarian nationality banks were integrated to the Czechoslovak financial system.

Aranka Kocsis:
The only child of a family in Martos (Birth restriction in a village in the lowlands in the 19th - 20th C)

The methods based on religious registries analyses worked out by West European researchers in the 1950's enable to calculate such indicators that enable to analyse demographic behaviours of the pre-statistical periods. The reason why many researchers studied registries was mainly to uncover the reasons of birth restriction. Therefore there are many examinations of Hungarian religious registries, on the basis of which we know that even at the end of the 18th century in certain villages of Hungary, there were birth restrictions, that means that in Europe it happened for the first time, together with France, in Hungary.
In the reformed church of the Lowland village of Martos the registry was introduced in 1731. The registrations from the 18th century are rather taciturn, but registries from the 19th century are more precise and sufficient for a so-called family-reconstruction examination.

The author during her work writes mainly about the work of Rudolf Andorka, demographer, who analysed the reformed registries in Atany, its calculating methods and aspects.

According to her results in Martos during the 19th century to the end of the 1880's, the number of births and deaths was high, changes were in the 1880's, when the number of deaths decreased significantly.

During the century is infant mortality high, less than half of born people lived up to its tenth year of age. From the epidemic diseases, the cholera in 1831 and 1855 was the strongest. According to the marriage customs Martos follows the Eastern Europe example of John Hajnal-type, marriage in early age, the average age of women marrying for the first time in the 19th century decreased from 19 to 17 years of age.

The raw and precise indicators of the so-called marriage fertility indicate that from the first decades of the century birth restriction was present in Martos, but it was not general, it is supposed to be in the case of half of the families.

The ethnographical collections evidence the results of the historical demographic analyses.

Those ethnographers, whose interest on the village's archaic culture has been from the 30's of the 20th century, from Edit Fél's researchers, almost continuous, consider Martos to be a village of "the only one" (the only child of a family) of its kind. Edit Fél, who is the employee of the Ethnographical Museum in Budapest, according to her research in 1930, experienced, that in that period birth restriction was a general fashion and had a compulsory character in the village. Her observations are also supported by the religious registry records of that time. According to the collections of Edit Fél, the method of birth restriction - abortion - used in 1930, began in the first decades of the 19th century in the village.

The work deals also with finding the relationships and reasons that influenced the birth restriction practising in Martos, that became compulsory in the 30's of the 20th century.

István Lanstyák:
The new edition of the Hungarian explanatory concise dictionary and the vocabulary of Slovak variants of the Hungarian language

The new edition of the Hungarian explanatory concise dictionary that is to appear in a short time will in contrary with the editions published previously contain Slovak, Transylvanian, and Sub-Carpathian Hungarian words. In this work the author - who was asked by the Language Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, compiled a register of Hungarian words used in Slovakia - deals with the principles used during the process of selecting Hungarian words used in Slovakia and even introduces a few word samples from this word-material. On the basis of the word samples the author presents the main word types. Almost all the Hungarian words used in Slovakia that the dictionary comprises are loanwords of Slovak origin, although there are some "own products", too. The loanwords comprise both proper loanwords and loanshifts, as well. The elements of the standard variety of Hungarian in Slovakia are loanshifts almost without exception; its two main types are the calques and the semantic loans. The dictionary will contain a large number of non-standard elements, mainly such elements that are also used by people who live in the area with the majority of Hungarians and educated speakers in informal speaking situations.

We can find here proper loanwords and loanforms. Since now practically in the dictionary it is impossible to refer to the words - used by speakers who are less educated, or speakers who live on a territory with the majority of Slovak speakers - without stigmatization, the author renounced to include such loanwords in the dictionary. The author in the new edition of the dictionary comes out in support of getting rid of scientific, from the human rights' point of view problematic prescriptive and linguicist view.

Károly Presinszky:
Contact Phenomena in Hungarian Language Usage in Veľký Cetín/Nagycétény

The natural consequence of social and political changes of the 20th century was that the Hungarian nationality people that found themselves in minority position got into regular contact with the official language of the given country. The so-called contact changes were created from the impacts of the majority language on minority language. The Hungarian nationality people in Slovakia speak the contact varieties of the language that is characterised by certain Slovak language elements, slovakism. More specifically, literature mentions contact phenomena of Slovak origin present in the Slovak variations of the Hungarian language, if there are no similarities in the one-language varieties of the Hungarian language with the elements, structures of the Slovak language. Observations and research showed that the Hungarian nationality people in Slovakia use the Slovak Hungarian form even in such cases, when they know the variation used in Hungary.

Veľký Cetín community is situated on the south-east of the town of Nitra, on the Slovak-Hungarian language border. At the last population census 83.3 percent of the population confessed to Hungarian nationality. In Veľký Cetín the Hungarian language is predominant, although in the neighbouring villages mainly Slovak is spoken. In Nitra the official matters can be managed only in Slovak language. The members of the community during the everyday interaction use both languages in a smaller or larger extent. The author provided the survey on the basis of objective linguistic data in form of questionnaires. The first part of the questionnaire measured the sociological indicators (the answer giver's gender, family background, address, education, language of attended educational institutions), the second part served for collecting objective linguistic data. The answer givers (60 persons) were chosen according to layered sampling.

The large-scale presence of the 20 examined linguistic phenomena indicates that the contact phenomena play in the life of data givers in Veľký Cetín an important role. Although, the data in some cases re-valued the hypothesis that was defined at the beginning of the survey. The connectivity of certain data giving generations and proportion of using slovakism did not always prove the expected supposition. The examined contact phenomena showed up in most cases in the language usage of old data-givers after the language usage of the young generation. Varieties of not expected sound substitution varieties were present mainly in the answers of the older generation.

János Bauko:
Forms of greeting and addressing at the Eötvös Street Elementary School in Komárno.

The author in his study examines the system of forms of greeting and addressing at the Eötvös Street Elementary School in Komárno. The collection was by form of questionnaires. One hundred pupils of the 5th to 8th classes took part in the survey. The author processed the achieved data even statistically. According to the survey the most often used form of greeting is "szia" /1/, then "helo" /2/, "jó napot" /3/, "csókolom" /4/, "cső" /5/, "szevasz" /6/, "dicsértessék" /7/, and "csá" /8/. Saying "maga" /9/ is less used. From addressing, pupils most frequently like to use and pet- or nicknames, then given names and family names. The most frequently used suffixes of nicknames are -i, -ika, -ka. The pupils' parents use the most variations. The fatic elements referring to verbal communication form a very rich system.

1. Translator's remark: meaning "hi"
   
2. Translator's remark: meaning "hello"
   
3. Translator's remark: meaning "good day"
   
4. Translator's remark: no equivalent in English, literal translation being"I kiss you", polite greeting to older people
   
5. Translator's remark: no equivalent in English, perhaps originating from the Italian "ciao", used between friends
   
6. Translator's remark: variant of "hi"
   
7. Translator's remark: meaning "praised be (Our Lord)"
   
8. Translator's remark: variant of "ciao"
   
9. Translator's remark: "maga" used in more polite speaking, showing respect mainly to older people

Erika Németh:
Examination of Terminological Vocabulary of Cartwright and Smithery in Horné Saliby(Interdependence of the Two Folk Crafts in Everyday Life and its Reflection in the Examination of Synonyms)

The main objective of this study is on the one hand to demonstrate the professional interdependence of the two very old crafts (cart-maker and smith) that have an old history in Horné Saliby, and on the other hand to show on the basis of the language material - in the examination of synonyms of the terminological vocabulary - the reflection of this interdependence. The two types of craftsmanship have in Horné Saliby a very old and common history, since the cart-maker and smith formed a joint craft, because what the cart-maker prepared from wood, the smith had to forge it to be durable. The cart could be then finished in close co-operation with the smith.

The most striking reflection of the interdependence of the two crafts can be observed by examining the synonyms of the terminological vocabulary. In the terminological vocabulary of the two crafts the author found 152 synonyms and this number would have been much higher if the author had collected data in the territory of the whole Mátyusföld.

Since the cart-makers and smiths often worked in one workshop, closely co-operating, they worked on the preparation of the cart, it is not surprising that they both learned the names of the several parts of the cart. This is the reason why 36 percent of synonyms were used by both craftsmen.

Person committed to long-term history research
Interview of Ilona L. Juhász with László Kósa

László Kósa, academician, leader of the Department of Cultural History at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, chairman of the Hungarian Ethnographical Society, is one of the Hungarian ethnographers who almost from the beginning of his scientific activities pays attention to the Hungarians who live outside the borders of Hungary. He regularly visited, toured most part of the Slovak territories lived by Hungarians and he was that person who in 1968 worked out the long-term programme of the ethnographical research of Hungarians living in Slovakia. Apart from his scientific activities, there are numbers of works from folk-poetry, scientific historical and social-ethnographical works to agricultural ethnography that relate with his name.

The publication of the Hungarian areas' folk-poetry anthology in Slovakia in 1979 was one of the important events of Hungarian ethnography in Slovakia. On the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, he gave more interviews of which we can get an overall picture on László Kósa's rare diligence, and large-scale professional activities. During the interview of Ilona L. Juhász with László Kósa, the Hungarian aspects of his activities were the main issues.