- Béla Makkai
Chopping Hungary Up by the 1920 Peace Dictate of Trianon

The regime that emerged with the peace treaties concluded after World War I chopped up the Kingdom of Hungary and rewarded its neighbours, helping them to establish themselves on the basis of the principle of national self-determination, by giving them two-thirds of Hungary’s areas and one-third of its Hungarian-speaking population. During the settlement that followed World War II, the great powers repeatedly forced this shocking decision upon Hungarians drifted to the losing side. This essay sums up the causes and events of this difficult-to-survive historical traumatism and its adverse impacts on the Central European region, in retrospect after more than a century.