With snow lending a deceptive calm to the forested landscape of Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region, the war between Russia and Ukraine feels distant, but for recruitment posters and conscription patrols combing mountain roads.
Yet the war is casting a large shadow here, shaped through the lens of a conflict much closer to home: the one between Kyiv and Budapest over Zakarpattia’s Hungarian minority.
Zakarpattia, or Transcarpathia, is home to tens of thousands of ethnic Hungarians, and their well-being is a central talking point in the nationalist rhetoric of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is widely viewed as sympathetic to Moscow and critical of Ukraine. Mr. Orbán frequently alleges that Ukraine’s Hungarian minority, many of whom can vote in Hungary, endures systematic discrimination and disproportionate conscription.
Why We Wrote This
With Hungary preparing for parliamentary elections, Ukraine’s westernmost region of Zakarpattia has become a campaign hot button. It sits at the center of long-running tensions between Kyiv and Budapest over language and cultural rights.
In the run-up to Hungary’s parliamentary election, scheduled for April 12, these narratives have been amplified across pro-Hungarian government media and social platforms without much evidence to support them. Adding to the tension are mutual accusations of espionage between Ukraine and Hungary.
For members of the Hungarian minority living in Ukraine, the situation is unfortunate and uncomfortable.
“It’s all big politics – this conflict between Kyiv and Budapest,” says Sándor Szabó, sitting in the Uzhhorod offices of the Carpathian True Word, a bilingual Hungarian-Ukrainian newspaper, navigating two languages and contradictory worldviews. “Politics has really distorted the question of the Hungarian minority here. There is going to be an election, and the Hungarian government uses the issue of war in Ukraine in their communication.”
On the ground, Mr. Szabó says, the reality is far more nuanced and less hostile.
“I think of myself as a Transcarpathian,” he says. “I’m not thinking in terms of states. For me, it’s about regional belonging.”
Zakarpattia and identity
Historically, Transcarpathia has been a region where frontiers have shifted repeatedly. Today, it borders four European Union countries: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Poland. It belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union before becoming part of Ukraine in 1991.
“It has a multilayered set of cultural, religious, social, political and economic borders,” says Pavlo Leno, a historian and associate professor at Uzhhorod National University.
Karen Norris/Staff
The region is home to a patchwork of ethnic communities, including Hungarians, Slovaks, Romanians, Czechs, and Russians. Yet it is only the Hungarians, the largest minority in the region, who are regular talking points, exacerbated by Russia’s war and Hungary’s elections.
Mr. Orbán frames his government’s engagement in and funding for Zakarpattia as a matter of minority protection. The government of Ukraine, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sees the subject through the lens of national cohesion and puts emphasis on upholding Ukrainian as the official language. Hungarian media focuses on cultural and educational rights, while Ukrainian outlets tend to raise questions about the community’s patriotism.
But identity is rarely straightforward in Zakarpattia.
Like Mr. Szabó, members of the Hungarian community who have remained in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 typically identify first as Transcarpathians, or as Transcarpathian Hungarians, pointing to the mixed composition of their families and communities. And they participate in the war accordingly, Mr. Szabó says.
An estimated 400 Transcarpathian Hungarians are currently serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At least 80 have died in combat, according to Mr. Szabó. “Hungarians are fighting at the same level as Ukrainians,” he says. “This is their country.”
And he says that Hungarians in Hungary are supportive as well. “They provide humanitarian help. Last year, 25,000 Ukrainian children visited camps in Hungary. Hungary also offers rehabilitation programs for Ukrainian veterans. You would not find anything about that in Hungarian or Ukrainian media.”
Hungarian history
The lingering echoes of history might help explain why many members of the Hungarian minority have joined the fight against Russia, says Dr. Leno. Older generations recall how Hungarian men were deported to Soviet labor camps.
“There is not even one local Hungarian family that did not suffer from Soviet repression,” says Dr. Leno. “Even if men came back, they had lost their health. It was a completely traumatized community.”
“They didn’t dare talk about it,” he adds. “Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was not a well-known fact. But people who grew up in that period carried a huge hatred towards the Soviet Union and Stalin.”
Dominique Soguel
But there are also villages of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine that have been reluctant to take down Soviet era symbols. Residents hold on to views shaped by the Hungarian language information sphere.
“It is common for them not to have a critical attitude towards [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” he explains. “I often hear from older generations, ‘Oh, we didn’t need to pester the beast. We didn’t need to escalate.’ They blame the government in Kyiv.”
Linguistic decisions
Language is central to the Kyiv-Budapest dispute. A 2017 education law made Ukrainian the main language of instruction in state schools. Minority languages such as Hungarian can be used, but the law demands progressively increasing quotas of Ukrainian.
“Most people know Hungarian, Ukrainian, Russian,” says Natalia Livnytska, a resident of Berehove, near the Ukrainian border with Hungary, noting that the local Transcarpathian dialect reflects all these languages. She works at the local department of culture, or on the “jolly side” of things, organizing events for school-age children.
“We never had any finger-pointing over what language is spoken,” she adds. “Only after the start of the war, we started to hear narratives of ‘Why do you speak Russian and not Ukrainian?’ In most shops, you can speak Hungarian or Ukrainian.”
Her grandfather is Russian, and her grandmother is Ukrainian. She herself speaks Hungarian at home and sends her daughter to a Hungarian-language kindergarten that is financed by Hungary. She prefers it because it offers Ukrainian, Hungarian, and English.
“My decision was influenced because of the higher quality of the kindergarten,” she says.
Budapest has funded a wide range of initiatives across Zakarpattia. Locals credit Mr. Orbán with supporting cultural organizations and churches, financing the renovation of schools and kindergartens, and backing media outlets and local football clubs. Several establishments said to receive funding from Hungary declined interviews.
Since 2010, Hungary has made it easier for ethnic Hungarians abroad to obtain citizenship – and to vote. For many, the appeal of citizenship is practical. “Ninety percent of the population here has a Hungarian passport to make life easier,” Ms. Livnytska says, noting that it opens access to the EU.
As a resident of Ukraine, she does not feel it necessary to vote in Hungary.
Ira, on the other hand, describes herself as a voter for Fidesz, Hungary’s ruling party. She sells traditional Hungarian sausages in the central market of Berehove. She is eligible to vote in both Hungary and Ukraine, but chooses not to do so in the latter.
For her, questions of language and identity boil down to livelihood rather than belonging. Before 2022, she did not speak a word of Ukrainian. Now, she must.
“I am learning now because most of the customers coming to the market are Ukrainians displaced from other parts of Ukraine,” says Ira, who declined to share her last name. “I need to be able to serve them in Ukrainian.”
Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting for this article.