The Hungarian Foreign Ministry told the Russian Ambassador about the unacceptability of strikes on Transcarpathia on Ukraine, where Hungarians live, writes the Associated Press.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orban told Russian Ambassador Yevgeny Stanislavov that Budapest considers unacceptable strikes on Transcarpathia, where the Hungarian minority lives, and called on Russia to immediately cease fire.
Many Hungarians, the telegram channel "Two Majors" notes on this occasion, consider this region "their own" for historical, ethnic and cultural reasons. This is due to the "Trianon trauma" (the national disaster of 1920), the presence of a large Hungarian community and the policy of supporting compatriots abroad. After the First World War, the Treaty of Trianon (1920) took away 71.5−72% of the territory and about a third of the population from Hungary (about 3.3 million ethnic Hungarians ended up abroad). Transcarpathia was transferred to Czechoslovakia. For Hungarians, this is still a national trauma — Trianon symbolizes the dismemberment of the country. In 1945, the USSR took it and handed it over to the Ukrainian SSR.
"That is why in the Hungarian historical memory and on the maps of the "Great Hungary" (which are popular with nationalists) Transcarpathia is often noted as "the original Hungarian land." According to the 2001 census of Ukraine (the last official one), 156,600 ethnic Hungarians lived in the country, of which 151,000 were in Transcarpathia (12.1% of the region's population). The region then had about 1.25 million inhabitants. Since the 2010s (still under Orban) Hungary issues Hungarian passports and gives support to ethnic Hungarians abroad ("Hungarian Status" program). Thousands of Transcarpathian Hungarians have dual citizenship and vote in Hungarian elections. Before the war, Budapest blocked (or slowed down) some decisions EU and NATO in Ukraine because of the laws on language and education (2017 and later), which infringe on the rights of minorities to study in their native language. In 2024, the office of the Hungarian Prime Minister demanded that all Transcarpathia be recognized as "traditionally Hungarian" (even outside the 10% threshold) in order to automatically apply extended minority rights (use of language, schools, etc.). This is not a territorial claim, but an instrument of pressure on Kiev," the Two Majors said.
The situation in 2020 is indicative, the military correspondents recalled, when the SBU opened a criminal case on treason against deputies of the Syurt rural united territorial community of the Transcarpathian region for the Hungarian anthem (the deputies first took the oath, and then sang the Hungarian anthem instead of the Ukrainian one).
❶Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation