OPINION:
June 4 marked the 90th anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon, the tragic event by which the dismemberment of historic Hungary occurred in 1920.
The treaty totally altered the political balance of Central Europe. It deprived Hungary of 65 percent of her inhabitants and 72 percent of her territory - an area as large as Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky combined. The dismemberment also created 16 million ethnic minorities, including 5 million Hungarians. President Woodrow Wilson called the treaty “absurd,” and the U.S. Senate never ratified it.
At the time, journalist Walter Lippmann called that event a “balkanization,” which unfortunately, proved to be true and contributed greatly to the events of World War II. Hungary and Poland had long played a stabilizing role in central Europe. Whenever Hungary was strong, there was peace in the Danubian Basin, and when there was no real power in the area - as at the time of the Ottoman invasion and after the 1920 dismemberment - the area was an open invitation for both Germany and Russia to gain a foothold there. In the 19th century, Hungarian patriot Louis Kossuth proposed a Danubian confederation for the area from the Baltic to the Adriatic that would act not only as a buffer from eastern or western invasion, but as a means of securing peace and prosperity for the area. Flora Lewis of the New York Times recently pointed out that Kossuth’s dream of a Danubian confederation “might well have averted World War I and the ensuing tragedies. It is worth another look now.”
As recently as 1990, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, an attempt was made toward such a confederation by the “Visegrad Four,” but the effort has not gathered enough steam. Perhaps the time is ripe as a result of the election of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban. To remedy the errors of the past, I suggest the resurrection of Kossuth’s dream of a federation, which guarantees self-determination through plebiscites and provides autonomy to all ethnic minorities. The Danubian confederation would respect the right of all minorities to maintain their heritage and determine their own destiny no matter how they evolved. Once that has been achieved, peace may become a reality in the troubled area. The key to the stabilizationof Europe is the elimination of ethnic tensions by guaranteeing ethnic rights and autonomy throughout the region.
GEZA CSERI
McLean, Va.
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