The Fate of Western Hungary 1918-1921 - Corvinus Library ...

force – 7 battalions, 8 mounted companies and 5 artillery pieces – that the local
population could not even consider resistance. 157 In spite of that, three months
later, on November 29, half a company of Hungarian border guards crossed the
demarcation line from the village of Rédics and attacked the Serb soldiers in
Lendvahosszúfalu and Alsólendva. In the hopeless engagement against superior
forces, five Hungarians were killed. In retribution, the Serb occupiers selected
40 hostages from the local population, who they tortured terribly.
In drawing up the final Hungarian-South Slav frontier on August 25, 1919,
the Paris Peace Conference (of course) did not take note, here either, of the
language border. As a result, three Hungarian-populated villages of the
Szentgotthárd district (Domonkosfa, Kapornak, Őrihódos) and five from the
Muraszombat district (Cserefa, Kisfalu, Kisszerdahely, Pártosfalva, Rátkalak)
were annexed to the South Slav state. These eight villages were joined by 20
purely, or mostly, Hungarian-populated villages of Zala County in the
Alsólendva district, which were similarly transferred. Finally, a totally
Hungarian-populated village (Pince) of the Letenye district of Zala County was
also ordered to the South Slav state. According to the data of the 1910 census,
the population of these 29 villages was 18,330 people, of which 16,552 (90.3%)
were Hungarians. These 29 Hungarian-populated villages represented a surface
area of approx. 750 km 2 , running about 60 kms. from North to South and 10-15
kms. wide. A further six villages had Hungarian populations between 25% and
50%, and others with smaller minorities.
When the peace decree of Trianon awarded the Lendva region and Hetés
area to the South Slav country, the entire Vend Region had a population,
according to the 1910 census, of 90,359 people, of which 20,889 (23.1%) were
Hungarians. 158 The center of the annexed – and majority Hungarian-populated –
Lendva region remained Alsólendva, a centuries-old market town. Its
population in 1910 was 2,729, of which 2,375 (87.0%) were Hungarians, 283
(10.4%) were Slovenes and 51 Croats. The proportion of Hungarians in
Lendvavásárhely was 99.2%, in Kebeleszentmárton 95.3% and in Bántornya
78.3% but even in the most populous Muraszombat, an island of Hungarians, it
was 47.5%. 159 A large part of the small region between the Lendva River and
Kebele Creek, with its 11 Hungarian villages, was also ordered to be handed
over to the Muravidék/Prekmurje. The villages torn from the mother country
were: Alsólendva, Bánuta, Lendvahídvég, Radamos, Zsitkóc, Göntérháza and
Kámaháza, while Hungary retained Bödeháza, Gáborjánháza, Szíjártóháza és
Zalaszombatfa.
The neighboring region, the 750 km 2 triangle bound by the Drava and Mura
Rivers, has been a part of Hungary since the day of the Árpád-era, and only part
157 Fogarassy, 1960, op. cit., p. 253.
158 Pogány, Béla: A magyarság települési viszonyai a megszállt Délvidéken [The
relationships of the Hungarian settlements in the occupied Southern Hungary].
Budapest, 1941, pp. 34–35.
159 Magyarország Közigazgatási Atlasza 1914, op. cit., pp. 91, 94, 121, 130, 137.
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