Knock-knock: when they want to chase you home from your home

Economic regression, social dissatisfaction, closed borders, Hungarian-Hungarian differences characterize the recent period in Transcarpathia. As a bonus, the previous week was “colored” by counter-terrorism trainings, bomb alarms, and threatening letters.

We are used to the fact that most of the time we are the biggest threat in the eyes of a country with a population of 40+ million, but the bomb alarm series, the open threat to our physical integrity are somewhat different from previous anti-Hungarian scenarios.

Unsolicited greeting letters

The writers of the letters, who called themselves Ukrainian patriots and referred to us as Hungarian dogs, but chose to hide their names and faces, threatened the local Hungarians with collective retaliation. Attacks, corporal punishment are on the horizon if we do not leave the Ukrainian land because Ukraine does not need us.

Even if they don’t need the Transcarpathian Hungarians, subsidies and large-scale investments from the motherland may not be so bad for the county. It is possible that the threat came from beyond the Veretskyi pass, and they are not aware that not only Hungarians benefit from the newly built kindergartens, schools, renovated family medicine and specialist clinics. Perhaps they do not even know that the county, regardless of nationality, received millions of hryvnias worth of health protection equipment from the Hungarian state, or that the county’s kindergartens received a health package from Hungarian crowdfunding, because in many cases the state did not provide them with resources for a restart after the lockdown.

The “patriots”, wrapped in anonymity and babbling about the Hungarian enclave and anti-Ukrainian initiatives, do not respect their own bodies of power, as they attribute the creation of the new Berehove district to their corruption. (Perhaps they are not even aware that the district with the newly attached territories has lost its former Hungarian majority…)

And whom are they threatening?

The Hungarian theater troupe, which made it to the finals of the all-Ukrainian competition festival; a charity foundation that organizes summer camps for many Transcarpathian children and provides free language learning opportunities for both young and old; a non-governmental organization that tries to build a bridge between the minorities living in the area and the majority residents through traditional festivals. Yes, build. Not destroy. And not trying to get separated.

As long as our goals are peaceful coexistence, the common development and prosperity of the area, they can call us Hungarian dogs if it pleases them, they may accuse us (perhaps based on their own behavior?) of buying power and initiating separatist aspirations. Our conscience is clear. We do not have to raise eyes on our backs, as they suggest. We are able to look in the mirror. They can send us to our homeland or our historic homeland, if they will. Thank you very much, this is our home. We’ve been home for a thousand years now.

P.S.: Today (2020.08.23.) is the holiday of the Ukrainian flag. On the website of the Embassy of Ukraine in Hungary, I read that „The largest Ukrainian flag in the history of Hungary and the Ukrainian community living here has been unveiled on the Gellért Hill.” Were they disturbed by anyone in their initiative? Can they expect on accusations and threats? Hardly… I look at the unfurled blue-yellow flag and think about how the Ukrainian side would react to a similar Hungarian initiative in the heart of Kyiv…

Marianna Pallagi

Kárpátalja.ma