Magyarization

Magyarization (also Magyarisation, Hungarization, Hungarisation, Hungarianization, Hungarianisation) was an assimilation or acculturation process by which non-Hungarian nationals came to adopt the Hungarian (also called "Magyar") culture and language, either voluntarily or due to social pressure, often in the form of a coercive policy.

In the era of national awakening, the Hungarian intellectuals transposed the concepts of the so-called "Political Nation" and Nation State from the Western European countries (especially the principles of the similarly highly multiethnic 18th century France), which were included the idea of linguistic and cultural assimilation of minorities.

The Hungarian Nationalities Law (1868) guaranteed that all citizens of the Kingdom of Hungary (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), whatever their nationality, constituted politically "a single nation, the indivisible, unitary Hungarian nation", and there could be no differentiation between them except in respect of the official usage of the current languages and then only insofar as necessitated by practical considerations. In spite of the law, the use of minority languages was banished almost entirely from administration and even justice. Defiance of, or appeals to, the Nationalities Law met with derision or abuse. The Hungarian language was overrepresented in the primary schools and almost all secondary education was in Hungarian.