One of the great questions facing any people who are an ethnic minority in their own society is whether they should try to preserve their sense of ethnicity, their sense of apartness, or if they should attempt to merge their own sense of ethnicity into a greater sense of nationality. This paper examines the status of Hungarians in Slovenia, how they have maintained their sense of self amid a larger population that is not always sympathetic to the ethnic identity of its subpopulations.
In order to understand the position in which Hungarians in Slovenia Hungary find themselves, it may be useful to understand more broadly the history of Slovenia itself. It is important to note that a very large measure of ethnic identity comes from understanding how one is different from oneÆs neighbors. People not only define themselves as like their families and other members of their own communities, but define themselves in opposition to the members of other ethnic groups, other religions, other linguistic groups. By maintaining traditional costumes, festivals, languages, religious practices and other aspects of traditional culture, people define themselves as being a part of an easily identifiable group and at the same time are able to define others who do not share these traits as not belonging to their group.
One of the most important aspects of the experience of Hungarians in Slovenia to consider is the general demographic make-up of Slovenia. Ethnic enclaves are more likely to stand out in relatively ethnically homogeneous societies, and the members of ethnic minority groups in general face a greater pressure to assimilate the more homogeneous the society is.
More than 90 percent of SloveniaÆs people are ethnically Slovene. German speakers, who formed the elite during the Habsburg era, vanished entirely after World War II. The 1954 agreement over Trieste has left a few thousand Italian speakers in Istria, and Prekmurje has a small Hung...