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

of Croatia for a fleetingly short period. The Drava River has always been the
natural border between Hungary and Slavonia, an associate country under the
Hungarian Crown for 800 years. The exception was after the suppression of the
1848-49 Hungarian revolution and fight for freedom, when, as punishment, the
Habsburg emperor temporarily separated the Muraköz, and other areas, from
Hungary between 1850 and 1861. 160 The ancient Croats living here had,
centuries before, a strong local identity and called/call themselves Medjimurec
or Muraközi. On January 17, 1861, Emperor Franz Joseph ordered the reannexation
of Muraköz to Zala County, at the urging of the Croat and
Hungarian population. It was done on March 11. Hence, the emperor admitted
that the temporary Croat tenure had no legal basis. 161 Thus, from a historicallegal
perspective, the tearing away of the Muraköz from Zala County, through
the Croatian unilateral announcement of separation on October 29, 1918 (and
its becoming part of the South Slav Kingdom through the amalgamation of
Croatia), is but one of the many unjust decisions of the Trianon peace decree.
The current Muraköz region was formed in 1919 from the Csáktornya (72
villages) and Perlak (33) districts of Zala County and a tiny part (6,164 cad.
hectares) of the Nagykanizsa district. Thus, the historical size of the Muraköz
grew by a tiny amount to 785 km 2 . According to the 1910 census, the 105
villages in the region were populated by 93,283 people, of whom the
overwhelming majority were Croats and only 7,706 Hungarians (8.3%). The
Hungarians lived in more significant numbers in the seven villages of the
Csáktornya district, in the county seat of Csáktornya (2,433 Hungarians
(46.7%)). The size of the seven villages varied between 165 and 788 people and
their proportion of Hungarians also varied, between 21.1% and 45.4%. Of their
total population of 2,564, there were 744 Hungarians (29.1%). Only one village
in the Csáktornya district had a significant Hungarian majority (93.2%), Hétház
with a population of 59. From a Hungarian perspective, the second most
Hungarian populated place was the village of Légrád, at the confluence of the
Mura and Drava Rivers but part of the Nagykanizsa district, where a third of
the 2,896 population were Hungarians (940 persons, 32.5%). 162 With its
inclusion in the territorial transfer, the number of Hungarians in the Muraköz
rose to 8,646.
In historical literature, it became a widely accepted view by the 1980s that
the Paris Peace Conference awarded the Muraköz and the Vend region of Zala
and Vas counties to the Kingdom of Serbs-Croats-Slovenes as compensation
for two cities and their surrounding areas. It is an undeniable fact that the South
Slav country received the Muraköz in compensation for the zealously demanded
Banate city of Temesvár (Timişoara), which was, in the end, given to Romania.
160 A magyar béketárgyalások. II. köt. 1921. 63. old.
161 Botlik – Csorba – Dudás, op. cit., p. 65; Fára, József: Muraköz történetének rövid
foglalata [Short recap of the history of Muraköz]. In: Vasi Szemle, 1942, issues 3–4, pp.
101–119.
162 Pogány, op. cit., pp. 34–35.
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