Slovak president responds to Magyar's open letter, says referring to Slovakia 
as Felvidék is an insult

Slovak President Peter Pellegrini responded to Péter Magyar's letter from last week regarding the Beneš Decrees in a video, according to Parameter.sk. In the video, the president refers to Péter Magyar as the potential future Hungarian prime minister and says that he finds it offensive that Magyar referred to Slovakia as Felvidék (literally: Uplands or Highlands. Felvidék was historically the name of the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, which is now mostly present-day Slovakia. Also known as: Upper Hungary).

Late last year, the Slovak parliament passed a law which stipulates that those who publicly question the Beneš Decrees, which collectively stigmatize Hungarians and Germans, can be punished with up to six months in prison. Péter Magyar wrote an open letter to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico on the matter, pointing out that the law violates human rights, causes fear, divides, and puts further strain on Hungarian-Slovak relations. Magyar asked Fico to withdraw the amendment to the law.

It was to this that Slovakian President Peter Pellegrini has now responded to in a video posted on Facebook. According to a translation by Parameter.sk, this is what he said in the video:

“As President of the Slovak Republic, I will say openly that I find it insulting that the future, potential Prime Minister of Hungary wrote a letter – not to me, but to the head of government – in which he refers to Slovakia as Felvidék. I don't think this helps to calm things down, because we are still Slovakia. The Slovak Republic, not Upper Hungary. This letter also shows how much they respect us.”

Parameter.sk points out that Péter Magyar's letter does not actually mention the word Felvidék, he only writes about 'Hungarians from Felvidék' (which is how the Hungarian minority in Slovakia is commonly referred to in Hungary – TN). The relevant sentence in the letter reads: 'There should be no provocative laws passed which undermine the foundations of the rule of law and democracy and which Hungarians from Felvidék perceive as an open threat'.

László Gubík, president of the Hungarian Alliance, which represents Hungarians in Slovakia, responded to Pellegrini's video on Facebook. In his post, he writes: “Felvidék is an area that has referred to the northern counties of a large, common Central European state and their population (including Peter Pellegrini's ancestors). Thus, in this form, it is not at all offensive to use the term Felvidék in colloquial language to refer to the territory of present-day Slovakia, and the paranoia triggered by this regional concept is completely unjustified. It would be good to have a calm discussion about this before some clever person decides that this is also grounds for six months in prison.”

In addition to writing the open letter, Péter Magyar also announced at the end of December that if Tisza were to come to power, the Slovak ambassador would be expelled in a situation like this. "If Slovakia does not comply with EU law, if it keeps in force legislation that collectively punishes the Hungarian community in Felvidék, if it uses this legislation to take away the land of Hungarians or threaten them with prison, then the Slovak ambassador has no business being in Hungary!" wrote the president of the Tisza Party.

Although Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had already held talks with the Slovak government about the new legislation in mid-December, the Hungarian government has remained silent on the subject since then. Even RMDSZ, (the party representing the Hungarian minority in Romania) has spoken out against the new legislation. A demonstration was held in front of the Slovak embassy in Budapest in early January, which was also attended by Péter Magyar. A petition signed by public figures and activists is calling on the Slovak government to repeal the amendment.

As we reported earlier, the new law imposes a six-month prison sentence on anyone who questions the Beneš Decrees. The decrees were adopted in the aftermath of World War II, and under them the Czechoslovak state applied the principle of collective guilt to the Hungarian and German inhabitants of its territory, in many cases depriving them of their property, possessions and homes.

The decrees, which were given statutory force, remain an unshakeable foundation of the Czech and Slovak state system to this day, despite the fact that they would not stand up to scrutiny under modern human rights standards. The issue of the Beneš Decrees came to the forefront of Slovak politics recently, after the popular opposition party, Progressive Slovakia, called attention to the issue, demanding that the government resolve the issue of land confiscations that have taken place in recent years.