Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
For more than a century, Hungarian foreign policy has suffered from a self-destructively irrational affliction that no election, revolution, regime change or European integration has completely cured: the mental inability to distinguish remembrance of a national tragedy in 1920 from the perpetual conduct of foreign policy through the lens of that self-inflicted national tragedy. The Treaty of Trianon of June 4, 1920, was devastating to the newly independent Hungary. Geographically, Hungary was dismembered. Millions of ethnic Hungarians found themselves outside the borders of the Hungarian state. Economic networks were severed, communities divided, and a victorious postwar settlement frequently drew borders that did not neatly follow ethnic realities. Clearly, Trianon was a national catastrophe. Yet, a national catastrophe becomes an incurable national pathology when over five generations of Hungarians are taught not merely to remember it, but conduct foreign policy through it. And that remains Hungary’s century-old mistake. More importantly, Peter Magyar, despite having broken with important elements of Viktor Orban’s ruinous foreign policy, now risks perpetuating part of it through Hungary’s continuing obstruction of Ukraine’s European future.
After 1920 and under Governor Miklos Horthy until 1945, territorial revision became the organizing principle of Hungarian foreign policy. The slogan “Nem, nem, soha! – “No, no, never!” – was more than mere rhetoric. Trianon became a highly emotional framework through which Hungary interpreted Europe. Maps of “Greater Hungary” became political symbols. Children were raised in the atmosphere of national mutilation. Political legitimacy became intertwined with promises that history would somehow be reversed. Historically, this enduring national resentment produced disastrous geopolitical consequences. Between the two World Wars, Hungary searched for great powers willing to revise the post-World War I settlement. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were willing to alter it. The result was predictable. Hungarian revisionism progressively tied the country’s strategic fortunes to Mussolini and Hitler. After 1945, revisionism led to another national catastrophe.
After 1989, NATO membership and European integration became the greatest geopolitical achievements in modern Hungarian history. In particular, membership in the European Union offered Hungary something territorial revision never could. It made borders less important. An ethnic Hungarian living in Slovakia, Romania or eventually other parts of an integrated Europe did not need Budapest to annex his hometown in order to travel, work, study, trade or maintain cultural connections with Hungary. The European Union provided the civilized answer to Trianon by not changing borders, but diminishing their importance. Yet, the psychology of Trianon survived in Hungary. It survived in self-serving political symbolism. It survived the obsessive invocation of Hungarians beyond the borders. It survived in the temptation to treat neighboring countries not simply as sovereign states, but as territories containing Hungarian historical claims, memories, and grievances. And under Viktor Orban’s Gangsterocracy, this outdated historical memory again became an instrument of a tyrannical statecraft. This highly incompetent and unprofessional little tyrant did not openly demand territorial revision. Yet, his politics repeatedly cultivated the emotional geography of “Greater Hungary.” His equally incompetent and unprofessional government institutionalized cros-border Hungarian chauvinism, distributed citizenship beyond Hungary’s borders, and frequently presented Budapest as the political protector of Hungarian communities living in neighboring states. Clearly, minority protection is legitimate. National solidarity is also legitimate. Yet, when historical grievance begins determining strategic policy toward neighboring states, legitimate concern becomes something much more dangerous.
Ukraine exposed this danger. Legitimate minority diplomacy rapidly became something else under Viktor Orban; a justification for obstructing Ukraine’s Western integration in accordance with the Kremlin’s wishes. This distinction is fundamental. Hungary under Viktor Orban had every right to tell Kyiv to respect the rights of ethnic Hungarians and communities. However, it had no justification for transforming bilateral disputes into repeated obstacles to the strategic security of an entire European nation facing Russian aggression. This treacherous foreign policy represented the return of the old Hungarian error in modern clothing: allowing historical grievance to overwhelm geopolitical reality. Viktor Orban’s Gangsterocracy’s principal strategic problem should have been Russian imperialism and not Ukrainian language legislation. Yet, the Vladimir Putin-controlled Viktor Orban declared that Kyiv deserved more negative diplomatic energy than the fact that the former was attempting to destroy a neighboring European state militarily. Most importantly, this fake champion of absolute Hungarian sovereignty totally forgot that there were Russian troops under various flags in 1849 and in 1956 who crushed Hungarian attempts at liberation. This gross inversion of priorities are the most grotesque ironies of Hungarian history.
Peter Magyar was supposed to end this political idiocy of Hungary. His supermajority in the Parliament offered Hungary an extraordinary opportunity to escape this historical trap. And to his credit, Peter Magyar has already made an important break. His government has explicitly condemned Russian military aggression and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. This represents a profound correction of Viktor Orban”s morally and strategically bankrupt Russia policy. Yet, Peter Magyar has stopped halfway. Hungary continues opposing accelerated Ukrainian accession to the European Union. It continues opposing weapons deliveries. And, therefore, Budapest continues exercising, or threatening to exercise, the power of obstruction over a neighboring country’s European future. This is the point where Peter Magyar should ask himself an uncomfortable question: Does he want to replace Viktor Orban’s foreign policy, or merely administer a more respectable version of it? Again, Hungary cannot simultaneously proclaim Ukraine’s territorial integrity, identify Russian aggression as a threat, claim to have returned to the European mainstream, and then continue treating Ukraine’s integration into Europe principally as an opportunity for Hungarian leverage. This is not strategic consistency. This is the ghost of Trianon wearing a European suit.
Equally importantly, Peter Magyar and his government must understand that a veto is not a foreign policy. Under Viktor Orban, Hungary developed an unhealthy affection for the veto. While Hungary absolutely lacks sufficient political weight to influence European foreign policy, Budapest discovered that unanimity rules allowed it to obstruct European policy instead. The veto consequently became the diplomatic weapon of the weak masquerading as the instrument of the strong. Yet, to tell Peter Magyar the obvious, obstruction is not leadership. A country can make itself noticed by repeatedly blocking twenty-six other states. Yet, it cannot make itself respected. The difference is fundamental. The Peter Magyar government’s strategic objective should be maximizing its influence inside a strong European coalition, but not maximizing the price Europe must pay to obtain Hungarian consent. The first strategy creates allies. The second strategy creates resentment. Viktor Orban spent almost two decades confusing the two. Peter Magyar should not repeat his predecessor’s idiocy.
As far as Ukraine is concerned, its membership is not charity, but a geostrategic necessity for Europe and the rest of the world. Therefore, Hungary should be Ukraine’s strictest European mentor rather than its habitual veto-holder. For Hungary, a successful and prosperous European Ukraine is overwhelmingly in its national interest. Consider the alternative. Would Hungary be better off with a failed Ukrainian state dominated by Russia? Would Hungarian minorities in Transcarpathia ultimately be better off inside a geopolitical gray zone permanently vulnerable to Russian coercion? Would Hungary be safer with the European security system extending eastward, or with Russian power moving westward. The answers should be obvious.
In closing, Hungary does not need “Greater Hungary.” The deepest lesson of the last century is remarkably simple. What Hungary needs is a stable and prosperous Europe, and within it, an equally prosperous Central Europe. This is the true answer to the Trianonphobia. Peter Magyar has a second historic opportunity. He can terminate an intellectual habit that distorted Hungarian foreign policy since 1920. He must tell Hungarians something their politicians have too rarely possessed the courage to say: Trianon was a tragedy. Yet, Trianon is the past. It is over for good. Hungary’s future does not lie in recovering the geography of Saint Stephen’s Kingdom. It lies in helping construct a Europe, in which the borders of Saint Stephen’s Kingdom finally cease to matter. Approving a sovereign, democratic , and European Ukraine is not a concession Hungary makes to Kyiv and Brussels. It is an investment Hungary makes in its own present and future security.