Xenodiskurz o Maďaroch, Rómoch a maďarských Rómoch na Slovensku. Xenodiscourse on Hungarians, Roma and Hungarian-Roma in Slovakia (original) (raw)

Perception of Inter-Ethnic Relations of Slovaks, Hungarians and Roma 2004 – 2017

The aim of the contribution is to analyse interethnic relations between Slovaks, Hungarians and Roma people in 2004-2017 based on empirical research data focused on the theoretical, methodological and practical issues of ethnicity and ethnic relations. The issue of interethnic relations, or to be more precise the relations between the majority and minorities in the central Europe area, represents not only a past concern but also currently one of the priorities for the countries of central and Eastern Europe. The character of contemporary interethnic relationships is becoming more and more a subject of scientific research whose results are being translated into practice. These results contribute to solutions to possible inter-ethnic conflicts that arise from the interaction of different cultures in today's society. After November 1989, the social significance of interethnic relations has been marked by ethno-identification processes in the Slovak republic. The primary interest of individual minority representatives is to improve their position and secure the enactment of their rights. At the centre of societal interest in Slovakia are apart from economic and social issues also minority issues. Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918 as a state of Czechs and Slovaks with many minorities. Today, the Slovak Republic, one of the successor states of Czechoslovakia, is one of the most ethnically heterogeneous countries in central Europe. During the last century, the national composition in Czechoslovakia significantly changed through the influence of World War II and population transfers or migrations. After the fall of the communist regime in November 1989, the legislative framework for the protection of the rights of national minorities gradually changed. Slovakia entered the European Union in 2004, and before that it had to meet the Copenhagen criterion in the area of protection of rights and national minorities. One of the main issues in the near future is the ability to accept the heterogeneity of Slovak society as a normal standard. Roma and Hungarian minorities are an indicator of the problem in Slovakia, today. The problems and status of minorities are a long-term priority of the Slovak political agenda. Today, Slovakia ranks among European countries with relatively advanced legislation for the protection of national minorities. Through its approach to minorities it meets the criteria of international organizations for a modern European and liberal democracy. Data was collected in the second half of 2004 and 2017 in all regions of Slovakia. In 2004, a total of 480 respondents were surveyed for the needs of our study. The subjects of the survey were Slovaks (160) and the two most numerous minorities living in Slovakia: the Hungarians (160) and the Roma (160). The selection criteria for the research sample were: nationality indicator, t. j. public declaration of belonging to the minority; gender, age and education. In 2017 the total quota sample in our research consists of 487 adult respondents: 162 Slovaks, 165 Hungarians and 160 Roma. Several conclusions follow from the presented results of intra-ethnic and interethnic relations. The evaluation of intra-ethnic relations has produced mixed results. While in 2004 Hungarians were more positive about the relations inside their ethnic community, in 2017 it was Slovaks. The Roma assessments didn't change over these two rounds. However, all intra-ethnic

The Roma Discourse in the Czech Republic

Since the Velvet revolution in 1989, Czech society has become vulnerable to all sorts of challenges of modern democracy and it has been clearly proved that besides corruption, Czech people struggle equally with racist and xenophobic reactions towards the Roma minority. In summary, the Roma has been forced to change their lifestyle from nomadic and seminomadic into the sedentary way of living during the Communist era in Czechoslovakia, though the rise of the capitalism in the 1990s and subsequent split with Slovakia resulted in even worse social and economic conditions for the Roma minority living in the Czech Republic. Thus a relationship between the Roma and white Czech citizens has been problematic since the 1990s after the fall of communist regime. Having established the brief overview and history of the Roma people's struggle, it is possible to race down roots of real- life obstacles that prevent the Roma to integrate themselves. However, it is complicated to understand the initial motivation to reproduce mostly negative texts and speeches full of stereotypical labels such as non-conformal, noisy, law-abiding, poor and dirty community, which is unable to live among white Czech citizens. Systematic creation of a homogenous and mostly negative image of the Roma is the primary tool to maintain cognitive control of Czech population. Following sections analyse critical discourse focused on the Roma topic from various angles including micro-analyses based on an evaluation of questionnaires and macro- analysis of the broader context in fields of socio-cultural space, access, power, media and politics.

The Hungarian minority in independent Slovakia

University of Amsterdam, 2020

In the Slovak Republic’s tumultuous 1990’s it is easy to lose sight of more vulnerable groups in society. The Hungarian minority of the newly established republic viewed the Velvet Split with suspicion, mainly regarding their own position in a newly formed Slovak led society. This thesis addresses the position of the Hungarian minority in an independent Slovakia and attempts to demonstrate how the discrimination of Hungarians was used to stimulate the building of a Slovak national identity. The focus will be on the contrast between two laws of Vladimír Mečiar’s third and last government (1994-1998) and their amended versions of the first Mikuláš Dzurinda cabinet (1998-2002). These two cabinet terms were formative in the newly independent Slovak Republic, as it was for the first time sovereignly in charge of its own minority politics. The premise of this thesis is that the last Mečiar cabinet was discriminatory in such a way that the revisions of the Dzurinda cabinet were inefficient to provide full long-term minority protection. The first law that will be discussed focuses on the use of a state language and its suppression of minority languages; the analysis of the second law demonstrates the ineffective redrawing of regional borders to unfairly impact minorities.

Slovak Roma beyond Anthropological Escapism and Exotic Otherness. Concept of "Whiteness" and the Structures of Everyday Life

Slovenský Národopis, 2018

This paper discusses the etic construction of Slovak Roma as a homogenous group essentialised as a marginal, disconnected, uneducated and asocial "other". The authors acknowledge the severe situation of exclusion suffered by many Roma in Slovakia but argue that diverse social positionalities also exist which are often ignored. Grounded in field research and ethnographic knowledge, the present paper deconstructs Roma homogeneity and tries to provide inside optics to different Roma conceptions. In doing so, the Roma agency is located in different fields, which opens new questions for research. Social situations which avoid the cliché of marginality make it possible to explore the existent interrelations between the overrepresentation of supposed Roma homogeneity and otherness and the muted existence of their counterpart – dominating non-Roma. Using methodological approaches close to whiteness studies, the authors attempt to go beyond approaches focusing on Roma as the exotic...

Journal: Journal of Linguistic Anthropology - book review - Critical Thinking in Slovakia after Socialism. Jonathan L. Larson.

This book investigates the nature of critical thinking not only through linguistic and sociocultural discourse; rather, the author expands the scope of the argument to include anthropological, political, and sociological perspectives of how one assesses critical thinking and communication. This produces a more nuanced analysis of how fluid language is for differing interlocutors across ethnic communities. Larson provides a good historical overview of the Slovak context including colonialization by various regimes (feudal, totalitarian, socialist), process of protest during Prague Spring (1968), the Velvet Revolution (1989), and the final reconstruction phase (1989–93). The author’s knowledge of the Slovak language and culture provides the reader with a clearer understanding of how language is socioculturally embedded into the thinking process of a culture. More importantly, he is able to highlight ethnic differences between the Slovak and Czech Soviet experience due to variations in pragmatic linguistic interpretations of particular words. The author leads the reader, not just assess language as a static structural component, but a feature of the overall context within a performance act of social discourse. Moreover, there is a strong use of ethnographic stories and meta-narratives relevant to both the context and the argument. The weaving of the ethnography, linguistic, and sociopolitical facets create an interesting and layered argument throughout the book.

Constructing and Destructing the Ethnic: Discourses of Ethnicity among Hungarian Youth in Vojvodina

Changing Youth Values in Southeast Europe: Beyond Ethnicity, edited by Tamara Trošt & Danilo Mandić, 2017

The chapter presents a case study of young Hungarian people in a predominantly Hungarian village in Serbia. It looks at the discursive means by which they construct their ethnic selves. It identifies the main themes related to youth and everyday ethnic identification, and the linguistic strategies by which these are realized. After outlining constructive and perpetuative discursive strategies, the focus is on transformative and destructive ones. By embedding the linguistic data into the social context, these young people's values, norms and attitudes, and those of other ethnic groups are interpreted; and a theoretically-driven case study of an invisible population is explored.