Minority Securitization and Kin-state Politics

A recent state-of-the-field article (Waterbury Reference Waterbury2020) argued that while we already know quite a lot about the drivers and consequences of kin-state politics in the cultural and political fields, their impact on regional security and stability has much less been researched. Thus, “careful work needs to be done to more precisely establish the conditions under which kin-state politics constitute a security threat” that brings together “a more ground level perspective of how kin-state policies are perceived, utilized, and/or instrumentalized by their intended subjects with a critical understanding of how the “game” of kin-state politics is played within the home state and the kin-state” (ibid., 800). Relatedly, kin-state politics is a two-edged sword that depending on the circumstances can either alleviate or amplify conflict, although the latter is more rare (ibid., 804–805).

By investigating exactly these issues in the Ukrainian-Hungarian context, this study is a response to the above call. Yet as we deal with a case where tensions prevail over open conflict, more attention is paid to perceptions and the construction of a security threat. The latter process has famously been dubbed “securitization” by Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde (Reference Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde1998, 25), who describe it as state actors transforming subjects from regular political issues into matters of security, thus enabling extraordinary means to be used in the name of security. Their approach aims to understand “who securitizes (securitizing actor), on what issues (threats), for whom (referent object), why, with what results, and not least, under what conditions” (ibid., 32). Issues that become securitized do not necessarily represent such that are essential to the objective survival of a state, but rather refer to topics that some actors were successful in constructing into an existential problem (Arcudi Reference Arcudi2006). As some misconceptions surround the Hungarian community in Ukraine, we would also like to bring in the growing literature on minority salience to the study of minority securitization and kin-state politics.

Minority Salience and Group Homogeneity

The literature on minority salience has shown that the size of minorities is often overestimated by the given majority and sometimes even by the minorities themselves (Kardosh et al. Reference Kardosh, Sklar, Goldstein, Pertzov and Hassin2022). A type of innumeracy, this phenomenon has been observed in relation to all kinds of small subgroups – ranging from millionaires through sexual minorities to religious communities (Orth Reference Orth2022) – although the focus is often on ethnic groups. In addition to the overestimation of minorities and the concomitant underestimation of the given majority, a study found that “[p]erceptions of group size are … unrelated to recent changes in [actual] group size” (Kunovich Reference Kunovich2017, 479). Different explanations have been provided for minority salience. Kunovich (ibid.) concluded that “[r]ace and perceived discrimination play important roles in shaping perceptions of group size.” Similarly, but more broadly, Gallagher (Reference Gallagher2003, 381) found that “the media, residential segregation, racial stereotypes, and perception of group threat each contribute to whites’ underestimation of the size of the white population and the inflation of group size among racial minorities.”

Whatever the reasons behind it, minority salience can have considerable consequences. A number of studies have shown that those overestimating the size of minorities often have a more hostile attitude toward them (Hooghe and de Vroome Reference Hooghe and de Vroome2015; Strabac Reference Strabac2011; Herda Reference Herda2013). Similarly, “[t]he extent to which minority populations are perceived as a kind of threat is also related to perceived proportions, though the direction of causality cannot be determined” (Nadeau, Niemi, and Levine Reference Nadeau, Niemi and Levine1993, 332). Relatedly, innumeracy has been shown to lead to decreased support for diversity-promoting policies (Kardosh et al. Reference Kardosh, Sklar, Goldstein, Pertzov and Hassin2022) among majorities and minorities.

Studies on minority salience have hitherto been less specific on the conditions and periods under which innumeracy prevails. It is therefore useful to link minority salience with studies on the group homogeneity effect. These have shown that in terms of collective aspirations, the in-group (or own-group) is often conceived as more heterogenous than the out-group by members of both group types (Shilo et al. Reference Shilo, Weinsdörfer, Rakoczy and Diesendruck2019). However, this is less the case with minorities, which are typically perceived as more homogenous than the majority – again, by members of both group types (Castano and Yzerbyt Reference Castano and Yzerbyt1998). For minorities in particular, perceptions of in-group homogeneity have been attributed to feelings of being threatened, for which one strategy is to conceive of their group as a closely-knit one (ibid., 222). Further, in-group homogeneity is particularly salient in times of major changes affecting the group, such as political transitions or getting new recruits (Brown and Wootton-Millward Reference Brown and Wootton-Millward1993). In our context, the war in Ukraine (2014–) can be seen as such a major political transformation or even shock. Moreover, the salience and perceived homogeneity of certain ethnic minorities can also be affected by kin-state politics, as we will see.

Fieldwork in the Borderland

To learn more about the emergence of the “Hungarian question” in Ukraine (Shtogrin Reference Shtogrin2018), we undertook fieldwork on both sides of the Ukraine-Hungary border in November 2021 that mostly consisted of conducting deep interviews with altogether 23 local and regional elites in the spheres of public administration, politics, academia, civil society, and business. Moreover, secondary sources were consulted. Our semi-structured interviews typically lasted 60–90 minutes, covering a wide array of aspects affecting the borderland but generally aimed at eliciting attitudes on intergroup relations. The interviewees on the Ukraine side consisted of eight ethnic Hungarians and six Ukrainians (one of whom also identified with the Ruthenian culture). It should be mentioned that none of the Ukrainians worked at a Hungary-supported organization. On the Hungary side, which until 2021 hosted few ethnic Ukrainians, our respondents were eight Hungarians and a representative of the Ukrainian community in Hungary. Unfortunately, only five of our informants were female, which somewhat reflects the gender relations prevalent in the region (at least our female respondents also held high positions). We would of course have liked a more even ethnic and gender balance among our interviewees, but a few persons we approached were reluctant to speak to us. On the brighter side, we had a good mix of age groups: while never asking our informants about their age, we estimate that they were in the range of late twenties up to early seventies (with the majority being middle-aged). Moreover, everyone we spoke with had agreed to the interviews being recorded. The conversations with Hungarians took place in Hungarian, while most of the Ukrainians were interviewed in their native language and two of them in English. Four cities served as our main loci for the interviews (Figure 1): on the Ukraine side, the regional administrative center Uzhhorod, with a one-digit percentage of ethnic Hungarian presence, and the border-town of Berehove that had an almost even balance of Ukrainians and Hungarians in 2021. On the Hungary side, our two main sites were comparable in size with those on the Ukraine side, but beyond the county seat Nyíregyháza and the city of Kisvárda two interviews were conducted in small border-towns.

The Hungarian Minority in Ukraine

According to the latest census in Ukraine that took place in 2001, the number of ethnic Hungarians was 156,600, implying a humble 0.3% share of the country’s entire population (SSCU 2003a). At the same time, almost all these citizens (151,500) lived in Transcarpathia, where their proportion reached 12.1% among the region’s 1,254,600 residents (SSCU 2003b). By 2021, one of our informants – an official representative of the community – estimated the size of this group to have shrunk by 25–30% (R1). Considering that Transcarpathia’s population was officially rated at 1,250,129 that year (SSSU 2021, 21), the decrease implies that around 110,000 ethnic Hungarians lived in the Oblast in 2021. By March 2023, this minority was estimated to have declined by a further 20–30%, which is of course related to the ongoing war and concomitant increased emigration primarily to Hungary (Shenouda Reference Shenouda2023). This means that no more than about 80,000 ethnic Hungarians must have lived in the region in March 2023 – an estimation backed up by another leading representative of the community (cited in The Economist 2023) who rated its size in the range of 75,–85,000 in the same month. It may be worth noting though that some of the recent arrivals in Hungary are known to return to their homes in Transcarpathia on a more or less regular basis (UNHCR 2022, 20).

At the same time, the numerical decrease of the Hungarian minority has been coupled with its increased spatial concentration within Ukraine and Transcarpathia, where the community is now largely reduced to the area immediately bordering Hungary (Figure 2). According to an academic we talked to, “96% of all Hungarians in Ukraine nowadays live in that border-zone” (R2). Ukraine underwent administrative-territorial reforms in 2020 through which microregions were merged and reshaped, but a number of settlements in Transcarpathia still have an ethnic Hungarian majority. Indeed, the already-mentioned large influx of IDPs to the region has further decreased the share of ethnic Hungarians; thus, even if exact numbers are unknown at the moment, their proportion cannot be higher than a single-digit number among Transcarpathia’s entire population and 0.2% of Ukraine’s.

Figure 2. Map of the changes in the number of ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia, 2001–2017.

Source: Tátrai et al. (Reference Tátrai, Molnár, Kovály and Erőss2018, 119).

Real and perceived numerical presence can be two different things. Fedinec (Reference Fedinec2022, 38) notes that “the Hungarian minority is far more ‘visible’ in Ukraine than one might assume from their share in the country’s population”, but does not elaborate this point in more detail. Yet indeed, as one of our ethnic Hungarian informants told us: Ukrainians “always believe there is a lot more of us than there actually is, owing to the level of organization ascribed to us” (R3). The high level of organization is manifest in the presence of numerous Hungarian-linked institutions in Ukraine. For instance, while none of the country’s other minorities sustain any political party with an explicit ethnic profile, the Hungarians have been represented by two such organizations (KMKSZ and UMDSZ) ever since Ukraine’s independence. Although one of the parties has recently been stronger than the other (see below), the fact that both still operate is a sign that the Hungarian minority may not be as homogenous as many might think. In any case, the overestimation of the minority’s size is confirmed by a quantitative survey gathering 2,412 Ukrainian and Hungarian responses in Transcarpathia at two different points in time (Ferenc and Rákóczi Reference Ferenc, Rákóczi, Ferenc and Kovály2020). It showed that the Ukrainian respondents thought the region would host an 18% share of ethnic Hungarians in 2016 and 22% in 2019 (ibid. 2020, 65). The Hungarian respondents were even more out of touch with reality as they rated their in-group’s share at 23% in 2016 and at 30% in 2019. These figures should be compared to those presented above, according to which ethnic Hungarians composed about nine per cent of Transcarpathia’s population in the late 2010s. Moreover, the increases in the estimated size of the minority in just three years is indicative of its growing salience in and outside the region, the reasons for which the remainder of this article will analyze.

Hungary’s Dual Citizenship Law

Although to very different degrees, one development affecting Hungary’s relations with its neighbors has been that since 2010 the former has made it much easier for its ethnic kin abroad to obtain Hungarian citizenship. This simplified naturalization procedure mostly concerns ethnic Hungarians in Hungary’s neighboring countries, where their total number reaches around two million. Several neighbors have had difficulties objecting to the dual citizenship law as they follow more or less the same practice, but Slovakia (which hosts a much larger ethnic Hungarian minority than Ukraine) reacted by strongly limiting dual citizenship for its citizens (Hettyey Reference Hettyey2023). Ukrainian regulations and practices on this have been less clear, with the country neither allowing but nor explicitly banning dual citizenship (DCR n.d.; Pushkaruk Reference Pushkaruk2018). As one of our Ukrainian interview partners put it: “we have no law that allows it, but neither one that criminalizes it” (R5). Several conversations during our fieldtrip confirmed that Ukraine has many dual citizens, and not just among its Hungarian and Russian speakers. According to some, the legislation is deliberately kept vague also because many high-level elites (including MPs) hold another citizenship beyond Ukrainian.

Yet the granting of Hungarian passports to Ukrainian citizens has come to be framed as a national security threat in Ukraine. There, a video went viral in 2018 showing Hungary’s consul in Berehove urging newly granted citizens to conceal the fact of their new attainment, soon resulting in his expulsion (UNIAN 2018). Ukraine’s then-foreign minister Klimkin said that “[w]e are not at war with the Hungarians in the same way as we are with the Russian Federation” but “understand this situation as a threat to our national security, and we will be very tough” (ibid.). The passportization has also led the chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Affairs (cited in Pushkaruk Reference Pushkaruk2018) as well as some Ukrainian analysts (Ryabinin Reference Ryabinin2018, 81) to fear a “Donbasization” scenario unfolding in Transcarpathia. Also, after visiting the region partly inhabited by ethnic Hungarians, Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy stated at a press conference that “I want them to be Ukrainians. I want them to remember that they are a Hungarian minority … But they should be Ukrainians. So that they would not want to accept those [Hungarian] passports” (cited in Iegoshyna Reference Iegoshyna2021).

Adding to the insecurities is the fact that in recent years, Hungarian authorities have not been publicizing the exact number of newly naturalized citizens. Some commentators (Gál Reference Gál2022) attribute this to the electoral system introduced by the now longstanding government coalition (FIDESZ–KDNP) that since 2014 entitles non-resident Hungarian citizens to participate in Hungary’s general elections. This has meant hundreds of thousands of new voters, the vast majority of whom are living in the neighboring states and overwhelmingly supporting the government – 96% in 2018, for instance (ibid.). Despite the recent lack of exact data on new Hungarian citizens, on the tenth anniversary of the dual citizenship law the Secretary of State for National Policy claimed that in ten years, over 1.1 million persons had obtained Hungarian citizenship (About Hungary 2020). Similarly, in March 2023 the Deputy State Secretary for National Policy spoke about 1,150,000 new citizens (Hungary Today 2023). Based on data presented below, those figures are unlikely to be exaggerations. They also need to be considered in light of the fact that Hungary itself has less than ten million residents.

In practical terms at least, the adoption of a Hungarian passport was throughout the past decade always going to be most attractive to citizens of especially Ukraine but also Serbia, for three reasons. Firstly, among Hungary’s seven neighbors those two have been the only ones to remain outside the European Union (EU). Secondly, Ukraine as well as Serbia have been considerably worse off economically than Hungary, which cannot be said about the latter’s other neighbors. Thirdly, the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea and easternmost Ukraine, although geographically distant from the Hungarian-inhabited parts of the country, may have further triggered ethnic Hungarians and others to strengthen their ties westward. These aspects are reflected in the statistics on naturalizations by Hungary, where the number of (former) citizens of Ukraine stands out when taking into account the small size of the Hungarian minority there. The latest public and official data in this regard are provided in a detailed report of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office titled “New Hungarian citizens” (KSH 2017). Accordingly, Hungary naturalized altogether 843,000 individuals between 1993–2015, among whom 708,000 during 2011–2015 (ibid., 3) which represents the peak period. The vast majority of them are native Hungarian speakers mostly living in the neighboring countries.

During 2011–2015 alone 94,431 (former) Ukrainian citizens obtained Hungarian citizenship, among whom only 6,092 lived in Hungary at the time (KSH 2017, 32). The remaining 88,339 persons were living abroad – in the vast majority of the cases most probably (still) in Ukraine. Within the five-year period each year recorded an increase, although the growth from 2013 to 2014 (when Russia invaded parts of Ukraine) and then to 2015 was not drastic. Since 89% of all naturalized (former) Ukrainian citizens spoke Hungarian as their mother tongue (ibid., 10), it is safe to presume that the lion’s share of those remaining in Ukraine lived in Transcarpathia, where – as seen above – the vast majority of the country’s ethnic Hungarians is concentrated. Based on the figures presented in the previous section, the Hungarian community there must have counted about 120,000 members around 2015 (the latest year for which we have official data on naturalizations). This means that up to three fourths of all ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine may have obtained a Hungarian passport by the end of 2015 – a higher proportion than in any other country outside Hungary. And the vast majority of these dual citizens live in a 30-kilometre-wide zone along the border to Hungary.

At the same time, not only ethnic Hungarians have adopted Hungarian citizenship in Ukraine. In fact, the criteria are loose enough so that persons with vague ties to the Hungarian nation fit them. This includes not just relatives (such as spouses or children) of a Hungarian citizen, but also individuals being able to present any official document of an ancestor who used to be Hungarian citizen. There is also a requirement to be able to speak a basic level of Hungarian. During the fieldwork in Transcarpathia we came across several language schools teaching Hungarian, attracting people looking for a job in Hungary or applying for Hungarian citizenship. Successful applicants need to have at least some skills in the language so they can take the Oath of Allegiance to Hungary (that is, not to the Hungarian nation). The latter is understandably controversial in Ukraine, where some described not just that practice but the granting of Hungarian citizenship in general as a “systematic violation of Ukrainian law” (Pushkaruk Reference Pushkaruk2018). At the same time, as referred to above, Ukrainian legislation does not enforce a ban on dual citizenship. As a Ukrainian political scientist suggested, “Hungary issues its passports to citizens of Ukraine despite the prohibition of dual citizenship and uses gaps in Ukrainian legislation” (Ryabinin Reference Ryabinin2018, 81). In any case, those are gaps that many different people in Transcarpathia have apparently taken advantage of. In the description of an ethnic Hungarian academic:

As neither Ukraine nor – since 2016 – Hungary publicize the number of naturalizations or dual citizens in Ukraine, the figure has recently been subject to speculation and manipulation also in Russia. The topic of Russian influence in Transcarpathia is one that will be returned to, but regarding citizenship the following is of interest. About ten weeks into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an article was circulating in Russian media (Lenta.ru 2022; Smirnova Reference Smirnova2022) in which a Moscow-based political scientist speculated about a scenario of Hungary taking over Transcarpathia on the grounds of coming to protect its 300,000 citizens in the region. In reality, Hungary has not made any territorial claim on any state since 1946, nor has it shown any signs of planning to do that more recently. When it comes to the number of its citizens in Transcarpathia, the just-cited figure is very likely a deliberate overestimation. Even if every single ethnic Hungarian there held a Hungarian passport (which obviously cannot be the case), the entire community cannot – as described above – count more than a hundred thousand members. Moreover, even if that passport is also attractive to non-Hungarians in Transcarpathia, it is unlikely that over 200,000 of them have obtained it – especially people remaining in the region. As a Ukrainian interviewee explained, “I know people who got the [Hungarian] passport, but none of them is living in Hungary but in Great Britain and so on” (R5). Relatedly, Transcarpathian labor as well as students have been actively and – rather unfortunately for Transcarpathia – successfully recruited by the Visegrád countries over the past decade (Tátrai, Erőss, and Kovály Reference Tátrai, Erőss and Kovály2017).

In sum, to many Transcarpathians the Hungarian passport has been and surely remains a springboard to Central and Western Europe. At the same time, its granting has been framed as a national security threat in Ukraine. Beyond passportization, similar fears have been fed by Hungary’s additional engagements in Transcarpathia.

Hungary’s Kin-state Aid to Transcarpathia

Again, to varying degrees, but another trend affecting Hungary’s relations with its neighbors is the former’s provision of financial aid to various actors beyond its borders. This is targeted at ethnic Hungarian diaspora across the world, but the lion’s share is devoted to communities in regions adjacent to Hungary. The declared goal of this is to let those communities thrive in their native regions (DNH 2015), thereby avoiding their members relocating to Hungary. The latter was a common phenomenon during the 1990s, when life in Hungary was overall better than in most of its neighboring countries – particularly for ethnic Hungarians who were subjected to discrimination in Slovakia and Romania, although much less in Ukraine. Since the mid-2000s, however, immigration to Hungary by diaspora Hungarians has generally diminished in parallel with its neighbors democratizing and catching up with (and in some cases surpassing) living standards in Hungary. Accordingly, the share of ethnic Hungarians in most of the neighboring countries has only modestly decreased over the past two decades. The two exceptions here are Ukraine and Serbia (Bárdi Reference Bárdi and Kovách2020, 346), but – as seen above – Ukraine’s Hungarian minority represents a tiny fraction of all ethnic Hungarians in the neighboring countries of Hungary.

Despite Hungary’s waning attractiveness and weakened relative economic position in the region, since 2010 the national-conservative government has turned kin-state support into one of its ideological cornerstones and key priorities (Lesińska and Héjj Reference Lesińska and Héjj2021; Waterbury Reference Waterbury2017). While kin states across the world increasingly rely on their diaspora to promote cultural and business ties with the respective host states, two things stand out in the Hungarian case. One is the concomitant narrative element, as the provision of kin-state support has been coupled with a discourse of “reuniting the nation” across the borders (Pogonyi Reference Pogonyi2017). This project is indeed envisioned not through some interwar-style territorial revisionism but along respecting the current borders (Bán Reference Bán2015), yet it is understandable if the discourse raises eyebrows among Hungary’s neighbors. The other component standing out is that a large part of the financial investments consists of public money. The exact sum of the total aid is difficult to measure as it is distributed through different programs, but one of them – the Bethlen Gábor Fund – stands out. According to a piece of investigative journalism (Iegoshyna Reference Iegoshyna2021), from that fund alone the equivalent of 1.1 bn Euros was allocated during 2011–2019. With special-purpose funds included, the total support amounted to 1.35 bn Euros (ibid.) – which largely corresponds to the calculations of Csizmadia (Reference Csizmadia2020, 61). The latter also show that during 2010–2018, the absolute expenditure increased sevenfold while its share in the total budget spending grew fivefold. Although the latter only equaled about half percent of the total budget in 2018 (ibid.), additional sums may have been spent on transborder Hungarians from various grants or party budgets (which are not really transparent). The two regions proportionally receiving the most aid have been Vojvodina (northern Serbia) and Transcarpathia as these constitute the poorest regions adjacent to Hungary (Bárdi Reference Bárdi and Kovách2020, 351).

According to one source (Iegoshyna Reference Iegoshyna2021), Transcarpathia alone received the equivalent of 115m Euros during 2011–2020 that corresponds to 1.5 times the annual budget of the region. According to another source, “by 2020 Hungary had provided more than €250m ($264) in aid to support local Hungarians, and Transcarpathia as a whole” (The Economist 2023). At the same time, there is a strong concentration of allocations in the second half of the 2010s. In the case of Transcarpathia, namely, Hungary’s support schemes were launched in 2014 and peaked in 2017, when its total annual aid (€65.86m) equaled 30.8% of the amount that the Ukrainian state allocated to its westernmost Oblast (Bárdi Reference Bárdi and Kovách2020, 353). In 2017, over two fifths of Hungary’s aid was spent on infrastructure development as well as property purchases, nearly two fifths on economic development schemes, and one fifth on Hungarian cultural and community-development programs. Overall, the money was invested in the construction and maintenance of public and semi-public infrastructure and services, as well as extra payments on top of the low Ukrainian public salaries. For instance, 30 kindergartens were built and 130 were renovated (ibid.). Three new Hungarian cultural houses were built and are maintained. Extra salaries were paid to 20,–25,000 Transcarpathians, including pedagogues, healthcare employees, and church representatives. During 2016–2018, Hungary contributed to the Transcarpathian branch of the Ukrainian state healthcare system with approximately 4.5m Euros (ibid.). However, the largest program specifically targeting the region was the Egán Ede Economic Development Program which primarily supported agriculture and rural tourism: during 2016–2019, around 40m Euros were paid out to 4,500 applicants, generating 3,500 new enterprises (ibid., 354–355) as SMEs were the main focus.

A key question here is what impacts all this Hungarian economic aid has had on interethnic relations in Transcarpathia and beyond. Part of the answer to that question is provided by getting a better picture of who the beneficiaries have been. This is a sensitive issue as on the one hand, it may to some extent be understandable if any kin state providing aid privileges its own diaspora. On the other hand, Hungary’s largest support schemes nominally target certain territories (Vojvodina Economic Development Program, Transcarpathia Program, etc.) rather than any specific ethnic community. In the case of the Vojvodina program, a correlation has already been identified between the allocation of aid investments and the location of ethnic Hungarian-dominated districts within the region (Juhász Reference Juhász2020, 19; Juhász and Pleschinger Reference Juhász and Pleschinger2021, 19).

For Transcarpathia, the correlation between resource allocation and ethnicity is slightly more difficult to establish, partly due to the scatteredness of data which may in part result from the region having been the target of several different programs. Sass and Berghauer (Reference Sass, Berghauer and Berghauer2020, 578) have mapped the spatial distribution of successful grant applications for the above-mentioned Egán Ede Program – although only for tourism development and the year 2016 – and it shows a concentration in the Hungarian-inhabited parts of Transcarpathia. Additionally, Kolozsvári-Kovály (Reference Kolozsvári-Kovály2022) conducted interviews in 2020 where some Ukrainian entrepreneurs lamented the ethnic bias in the granting of applications in the same program. As Kovály (Reference Kovály2021, 145) explains, “[t]he program does not explicitly exclude ethnic Ukrainians, but applications must be prepared in Hungarian”. In addition, applicants must prove an at least intermediate proficiency in that language (EEKGK n.d.).

Our interviews and observations confirm that members of the ethnic Hungarian community have taken most advantage of Hungary’s support schemes, but also that they have not been the sole direct and indirect beneficiaries. We were informed that “Ukraine taxes all Hungarian aid 18% plus 1.5% military contribution” (R1). It was a recurring point in the interviews that non-Hungarians also benefit from Hungary’s support. On the one hand, a growing number of them work in public or semi-public institutions (such as kindergartens and schools) where the Hungarian language partly or fully prevails and where extra salaries are paid. A growing number of non-Hungarians reportedly even send their children to such institutions, partly because they are better funded and partly so that they learn Hungarian and can then live or work in Hungary or elsewhere in the EU (also by obtaining a Hungarian passport). During our visit to the Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education in Berehove (fully funded by Hungary), we were briefly introduced to two Ukrainian lecturers and were told that there are more (R6). In addition, the College hosts a growing number of Ukrainian students and is thus becoming more bilingual not just in its student body but also in its languages of instruction. In 2021, the small College had 26 students from parts of Ukraine other than Transcarpathia (R2), thus lacking any skills in Hungarian at the time of applying. At the same time, Hungary’s aid investments into Transcarpathia’s infrastructure also serve locals who are not establishing any relation with any sort of Hungarian institution.

Nevertheless, the fact that Hungary’s aid has been unequally distributed spatially and socially has led to certain tensions at different levels. Much of the Egán Ede subsidies for tourism development was allocated to Berehove and its surroundings (Sass and Berghauer Reference Sass, Berghauer and Berghauer2020, 578). Berehove itself received the equivalent of about 3.5m Euros for infrastructure development alone, including canalization and the cleaning of the Vérke River (R7). Berehove is a poor town even by Ukrainian standards, with the above-mentioned College constituting its single largest taxpayer (R7; Iegoshyna Reference Iegoshyna2021). Unlike other major cities in Transcarpathia, Berehove still lacks a bypass. Hungary had offered a loan to build one, but “given local conditions only if a subcontractor from Hungary was commissioned, to which the Ukrainian party has not agreed” (R2). Regarding Hungary’s aid more generally, an ethnic Hungarian respondent said that “it triggers envy among the majority population, which to some extent is understandable, yet this support should serve the prosperity of [ethnic] Hungarian communities” (R7). The person also told us about a local event at which the mayor vehemently complained about the repeated rejection of a Ukrainian entrepreneur’s application for such subsidies. Relatedly, the informant pointed out the lack of reflection in critical voices over Ukrainians also benefitting from Hungary’s aid at least indirectly, for instance when “Pista [a common Hungarian name] gets a tractor and ploughs their land” (R7).

It should be mentioned though that not all Ukrainians have issues with Hungary’s aid to Transcarpathia. For instance, a local academic assessed the Egán Ede Program thus:

At the same time, other Ukrainian informants had more mixed views on the program. A high-level representative of Transcarpathia, while thankful for the aid, stressed that “it would have been much better if Hungarian large firms came here, creating jobs and paying taxes” rather than “handing out the money here and there” (R8). Yet another respondent, although overall positive to the program, pointed to a certain political bias in the distribution of grants:

Among the two parties mentioned above KMKSZ has clearly been the stronger force over the past decade, holding three seats in the Zakarpattia Oblast Council prior to 2015 but eight (out of 64) since then. UMDSZ had four seats until 2015 but has ever since only been represented on the microregional and municipal levels. One reason behind the success of KMKSZ is its close relation with Hungary’s now longstanding government coalition – leading a Verkhovna Rada member to frame the party as “a direct threat to the national security of Ukraine that must be banned” (Zakarpattia Online 2023). A KMKSZ high-level representative described the party dynamics thus:

Some other ethnic Hungarian informants – even outside the narrowly defined political realm – were similarly open about their support for Hungary’s governing coalition. As an NGO head put it, “one identifies with the Hungarian government here” (R10). Several other respondents stressed the importance of Hungary’s support, which beyond the already-mentioned fields benefits a wide array of organizations ranging from a football academy in Mukachevo to the Hungarian theater in Berehove (R3). When asked about foreign resources – such as from the EU – more generally, a local academic assessed that “the more visible results are realized thanks to agreements with the Hungarian government as well as Hungarian municipalities” (R2). It is of course true that EU funds have been more limited to non-member Ukraine, although a few projects have been realized from such grants. But the broader point being made is that in Transcarpathia, Hungary is running a wide network of institutions through its extensive aid that sometimes intersects with Ukrainian structures, but more often operates in parallel to them. A crucial effect of this was well-captured in our interview with an academic on the Hungary side of the border who has long been visiting Transcarpathia:

To help Ukraine more generally, and to boost its image as a destination country among Ukrainian jobseekers, Hungary has undertaken a number of symbolical investments which however several scholars (Bárdi Reference Bárdi and Kovách2020, 353; Tátrai, Erőss, and Kovály Reference Tátrai, Erőss and Kovály2017, 212) interpret as gesture politics. In the years 2015–2018, over 3,000 Ukrainian children – partly war orphans – spent holidays in Hungary. During 2016–2018, around 13,000 Ukrainians participated in Hungarian language courses supported by Hungary. A Ukrainian department was set up at the University of Nyíregyháza, and the erection of a statue of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko was supported in Berehove (ibid.). More importantly, though also more naturally, Hungary has since February 2022 taken care of over a million Ukrainian refugees arriving to, or more often just passing through, its territory. But as is well known, the country’s overall position toward Ukraine has since 2017 been ambiguous. In order to shed light on some of the reasons behind the worsening of bilateral ties, the next subsection will analyze a set of laws that Hungarians have been most concerned about.

Ukraine’s Language and Education Laws

Since 2017, one of the most hotly contested issues in Ukrainian-Hungarian ties has been related to Ukraine’s language policies as well as Hungarian reactions thereto. The country’s 2017 education law (VRU 2017) made Ukrainian the mandatory language of study in state schools from fifth grade on. Accordingly, at secondary level students can only learn their native languages as a separate subject. In addition, two or more subjects can be taught in any of the languages of the EU, which include minority languages such as Hungarian, Polish and Romanian but not Russian, Belorussian and Yiddish.

On the one hand, the law has been criticized by a number of international organizations concerned with minority rights (Kulyk Reference Kulyk2019). For instance, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed a resolution stating that the law constituted “a major impediment to the teaching of national minorities” (PACE 2017). However, Ukraine went further and in 2019 passed a specific language law (VRU 2019) obliging the use of Ukrainian in many public and even some private spheres. In a report on this, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that “the legal framework does not provide sufficient guarantees for the protection and use of minority languages,” and found it “concerning that the legislator continues to distinguish between minorities speaking an official language of the EU and other national minorities” (OHCHR 2019, 20). In another report, the Venice Commission (2019, 29) concluded that the language law “fails to strike a fair balance between the legitimate aim of strengthening and promoting the Ukrainian language and sufficiently safeguarding minorities’ linguistic rights.” Back in 2019, Ukraine’s President said his country had implemented six out of the seven Venice Commission recommendations on the education law (Zubkova Reference Zubkova2019). However, a Human Rights Watch analyst noted that a more recent amendment to the law – which entered into force in mid-January 2022 – is putting further pressure on minority languages, this time on print media (Denber Reference Denber2022).

On the other hand, these laws also immediately became a source of tension between Ukraine and several of its neighbors and even beyond (Sasse Reference Sasse2017; Kulyk Reference Kulyk2019). The four countries that expressed most criticism – Russia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland – are the ones whose ethnic kin had the highest number of schools in which the respective minority language was the primary one in 2017 (Wesolowsky Reference Wesolowsky2017). According to Sasse (Reference Sasse2017), while Russia’s criticism was no surprise Ukraine did not anticipate the harsh statements from other states, with both Romania and Hungary pointing out that Ukraine’s education law could hinder the country’s EU integration (Kulyk Reference Kulyk2019, 1040).

Here again, we were most interested in how these laws affected different people in the borderland, especially on the Ukraine side. On the Hungary side, one of our interviewees – a highly-positioned county representative – turned out to have been part of the Hungarian lobby supporting Ukraine in becoming a visa waiver to the EU, a status it gained in 2017. This is what the person recalled from that time:

Unsurprisingly, most if not all ethnic Hungarians on the Ukraine side had a negative view of Ukraine’s education and language laws. As a community representative pointed out, “nothing good can be expected from this” (R1). A local academic noted that “the [Ukrainian] constitution guarantees our rights, and so the language law and the constitution are in many points contradictory” (R2). And, as a church representative reported:

At the same time, at least a few Hungarian informants had a somewhat more mixed view on this, as did an NGO head:

Among our Ukrainians interviewees, several have admitted flaws with the laws. According to a regional analyst, “there are fears around and issues with both their basic principles and their implementation… Hence, Kyiv as well as Budapest would need to grasp that this community should develop by the way of free choice rather than by chauvinistically enforcing something on it” (R14). Moreover, according to a local academic:

Our impressions and work by others (Ferenc and Rákóczi Reference Ferenc, Rákóczi, Ferenc and Kovály2020, 69–74; Chastand Reference Chastand2022) confirm that there are issues with the Ukrainian language skills among the ethnic Hungarian community. This is of course problematic and needs to be addressed, but ideally in ways that do not create tensions between Ukraine and its neighbors as well as international human rights organizations. Yet despite being critical about certain aspects of the given laws, our Ukrainian interviewees tended to be more concerned with how rather than if something along those lines should be implemented. “The law hasn’t been properly implemented” (R5); “these laws just need to be precisely and correctly implemented” (R14); and “there is no problem if we erase politics from this topic, and on the professional level it’s easy to manage” (R9) were the recurring attitudes. One respondent pointed out that in Ukraine’s “admission tests to colleges and universities (ZNO), Transcarpathia consecutively performed worst during 2017–2021” (R14). This is of course difficult when already in 2009, 43% of all Transcarpathian Hungarian students were enrolled in Hungary, with their proportional number also being highest in 2018 (Bárdi Reference Bárdi and Kovách2020, 360).

Finally, another aspect of Ukraine’s language policy was mentioned by a regional analyst:

In sum, this subsection testifies to language being a particularly sensitive and contested issue in Ukraine, a nationalizing state (Brubaker Reference Brubaker2011; Kulyk Reference Kulyk2019) undergoing similar processes of homogenization as many others in Eastern Europe were or still are. In addition, of course, external threat or invasion worldwide “leads governing elites to have stronger incentives to pursue nation-building strategies to generate national cohesion, often leading to the cultivation of a common national language through mass schooling” (Darden and Mylonas Reference Darden and Mylonas2016, 1446). In the case of Ukraine, however, such efforts clash with (non-aggressor) Hungary’s kin-state politics, in which some would like to discover parallels with Russia’s as we will see next.

Transcarpathia in Light of Russia’s War against Ukraine

Last but certainly not least, Ukrainian-Hungarian ties have been affected by Ukraine’s worries about Transcarpathia in light of Russia’s ongoing war against the country. Since Ukraine’s independence no foreign troops have set foot in the Oblast, but – as already referred to above – there is clear evidence that Russian actors have been stirring tensions within Transcarpathia by trying to pit different ethno-linguistic groups against each other in order to destabilize the wider region. Moreover, the rather friendly Hungarian-Russian governmental ties of recent years have made Ukraine nervous, which is understandable to a certain degree. In light of the processes so far described, around 2017 a separatist discourse emerged in Ukraine claiming that Transcarpathian Hungarians are trying to secede from the country and potentially join Hungary (Euromaidan Press 2017; Ryabinin Reference Ryabinin2018; Shtogrin Reference Shtogrin2018). In addition, not only the Hungarians but also the Romanians (Ryabinin Reference Ryabinin2020) and the Ruthenians (Zan Reference Zan2017) have been accused of secessionist intentions. As one of our Ukrainian interviewees explained:

While Ukraine’s anxieties about its minority-inhabited regions are understandable given the circumstances, it is also true that neither any of its minor ethno-linguistic groups nor their kin states have since WWII shown any sign of trying to change the country’s borders. But it is of course the impacts of the separatist narrative that are of primary interest. Above-mentioned KMKSZ documented “182 cases of Ukrainian anti-Hungarian actions” between 2014 and 2018 (Pallagi Reference Pallagi2018). Although a clear majority of the reported incidents indeed involved Ukrainian perpetrators, labelling these actions as “Ukrainian” is not a fully accurate way to describe them. Accordingly, in the next paragraph we will analyze in more detail two related incidents that occurred in 2018 and coincided with the peak of the separatist discourse.

In February 2018, the headquarter of KMKSZ was attacked twice: the building was first set on fire, with a bomb exploding in it three weeks later. Regarding the first attack, the SBU “quickly came to the conclusion that the arsonists were Polish” (Panyi, Moroz, and Szczygieł Reference Panyi, Moroz and Szczygieł2018). It is true that the perpetrators turned out to be three Poles connected to the far-right pro-Russian organization Falanga and were quickly detained by Polish authorities. And yet, upon condemning the incident the head of KMKSZ “solely blamed Ukrainians for the anti-Hungarian attacks” and made “no mention of the Polish perpetrators, neither their alleged pro-Kremlin ties” (ibid.). Yet one of the accused Poles testified in a Polish court that the arson was ordered by Manuel Ochsenreiter, at that time a Bundestag employee of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party with links to pro-Russia separatists (Knight Reference Knight2019). Polish authorities stated that “the attack was to be attributed to Ukrainian neo-Nazis in order to sour relations between Ukraine and Hungary” (ibid.). Interestingly, while being prosecuted in Berlin Ochsenreiter spent most of his time in Moscow, where he reportedly died of a heart attack in 2021 (Rebrina Reference Rebrina2021). When it comes to the second attack on the KMKSZ headquarter, the perpetrators were “two Ukrainians, led by a Ukrainian citizen with a passport from Transnistria” (Panyi, Moroz, and Szczygieł Reference Panyi, Moroz and Szczygieł2018). The SBU classified the incident as a terrorist act and two Ukrainians were arrested, but the third one with a Transnistrian passport managed to escape (ibid.). Based on the above, it is clear that at least some Russian ties were involved in the two incidents.

At the same time, (pro-)Russian forces have obviously not been the only actors affecting interethnic relations in Transcarpathia. In 2018, the chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Affairs urged that “we need to put an end to the subversion being spread by Hungarian and Russian emissaries. The foreign provocateurs should be sent home, and their local assistants brought to justice,” and that “Ukraine must strengthen its security presence in Zakarpattia, including through re-garrisoning Berehove and other cities with military units and deploying units of the National Guard there” (cited in Pushkaruk Reference Pushkaruk2018). Thus, in March 2018 Ukraine’s government announced a plan to restore a military base and permanently station 800 troops in Berehove, located just ten kilometers from the border to Hungary (Urcosta Reference Urcosta2018). The latter’s foreign minister reacted that Ukraine’s explanation for why it needs to base soldiers there – that is, to protect the country’s security and defend its territorial integrity – is particularly disturbing, as it implies that the Ukrainian government considers the Hungarian community a threat to Kyiv, and that is outrageous (ibid.). The plans for the base were then temporarily abandoned, but in May 2020 officials re-announced them including the permanent stationing of Ukrainian troops there (Mukachevo.net 2020). In 2021, an ethnic Hungarian interviewee who also worked at Berehove’s city council described the situation thus:

Concerning Ukrainian allegations of secessionism in Transcarpathia more generally, the same respondent shared with us the following experiences:

At the same time, the informant showed an understanding for Ukrainian anxieties due to the ongoing war, but implicitly pointed to that these were exaggerated regarding Transcarpathia:

Despite the lack of separatists identified, the allegations of the SBU against local Hungarian organizations are serious, such as the one that their resources “were used to finance actions committed to forcibly changing the state borders of Ukraine” (Iegoshyna Reference Iegoshyna2021). Accordingly, criminal proceedings have been opened under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, namely “treason” and “funding actions committed to forcibly changing or overthrowing the constitutional order or seizing state power in Ukraine” (ibid.). The SBU has been “conducting further investigations”, although it remains unclear what they have found. As the head of the Zakarpattia Regional Council admitted, this investigation is “an element of prevention” (cited in Iegoshyna Reference Iegoshyna2021). But not all Ukrainians approve of this method of scaring the Hungarian minority. For instance, according to a journalist, “Kyiv at some point became disappointed in Hungary’s willingness to seek a compromise and began to act improperly. Because it is improper to involve the security service” (ibid.), which can indeed be seen as an extraordinary measure (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde Reference Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde1998, 24).

Still, as we saw above, not only Ukrainian actors have been involved in anti-Hungarian campaigns. Yet there were clear differences between our informants in Transcarpathia in the extent to which they saw external forces such as Russia behind the stirring of ethnic tensions in their region. For instance, a local Ukrainian political analyst assessed the situation thus:

According to another Ukrainian respondent, local ethnic tensions “exist only in media – in some Russian media. And I read that those news are spreading into Hungarian media” (R5). But when asked whether any negative portrayal of ethnic Hungarians appeared in Ukrainian media, the answer was:

When it comes to our ethnic Hungarian informants, their assessment of the extent to which Russia could be involved in inciting local ethnic tensions was rather different. This was particularly evident in the following answer:

The other Hungarian interviewees were less certain about fully denying Russian interference in Transcarpathia, but were not aware of its evidence and tended to downplay it, as the following two quotes testify.

In fact, it was a recurring theme in the interviews that external forces are inciting tensions within Transcarpathia, but – as we saw above – our Ukrainian and ethnic Hungarian elites did have different understandings of where these originate from. At the same time, most if not all our informants felt that the deterioration of bilateral ties had created less tensions within the region than between the two countries at large. This is backed up by the above-cited survey on non-elites, in which the respondents assessed local Hungarian-Ukrainian relations much more positively than on the national level (Ferenc and Rákóczi Reference Ferenc, Rákóczi, Ferenc and Kovály2020, 68). According to a high-level representative of Transcarpathia, this is because “we have come to understand that if we don’t coexist here peacefully, we will surely end up in trouble” (R8). Nevertheless, the survey respondents also deemed interethnic relations to have worsened between 2016 and 2019 (Ferenc and Rákóczi Reference Ferenc, Rákóczi, Ferenc and Kovály2020, 68). On the nation-wide level, Ukrainian people’s lack of trust in Hungary is evident. Recently surveyed on the likelihood of their western neighbors claiming Ukrainian territory on the grounds of protecting their ethnic kin, 41.4% feared Hungary could do this as opposed to the 8–16% attributed to Poland, Romania, and Slovakia (cited in László Reference László2023). Accordingly, the Hungarian question has successfully been securitized.