Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

more intensive part in forming the national identity of Slovaks than
it had done in the more distant past. But at the same time, it was
also in a position to effect a more sensitive and more differentiated
perception of the Slovaks’ relationship to their neighbour, since the
nature of the attitude that members of one nation have to their
neighbours – as well as to any more remote nation – is a part of
their national identity. It determines, for example, whether or not
these attitudes form or deform a tendency towards xenophobia, towards
a feeling of dominance or, in contrast, towards an inferiority
complex, or whether an open, accommodating attitude towards a
neighbour is formed – partly also thanks to mediated historical
experience.
The main impact of Slovak relations with their Magyar neighbours
on Slovak national identity has been through the historical experiences
of the last two centuries – that is, the time when both nations
were forming into modern European societies. Also, for the reasons
mentioned above, older historical periods have to a significant extent
been ousted from Slovak awareness of history – when in fact
it is precisely in these older historical epochs that much more proof
of non-confrontational co-existence between the Slovak and
Magyar nations can be found. It cannot be denied that historical
experiences with the Magyars in the last two centuries have been
interpreted very critically on the Slovak side, both in inter-war and
post-war Czechoslovakia and in the new independent state; only
rarely has there been greater empathy towards the Magyar understanding
of shared history. To this day, this critical view of Slovakia’s
southern neighbours is one of the elements of our national identity.
First and foremost, there is the perception of the fate of Slovaks in
Hungary from the start of the reform era in Magyar society, in the
first half of the 19 th century, up to the demise of the old Hungary in
1918, first with what can be described as illegal Magyarization and
subsequently – especially after the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise,
which handed all internal political power to the Magyar
political elite – with legalised, escalating Magyarization. Whatever
success it may or may not have achieved, this deliberate assimilation
of non-Magyars in the old Hungary was systematically organised
and instigated by the state and was to an overwhelming extent
also accepted by Magyar society. At that time it represented a persistent
threat to Slovak national identity and to the very existence of
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