The Fine Print – South of the Border in Slovakia (The Lost Lands #33)

One of the more daunting aspects of modern life are the reams of documents that I am asked to sign by doctor’s offices, realtors, and insurance companies that contain a mind-numbing amount of information. These documents are supposed to inform me of my rights and responsibilities. That is only partly true. Most of them are an attempt to ensure I do not sue the providers of specific services. In common parlance this is known as “legalese.” From an early age, Americans are warned to “read the fine print.” I know very few people who have the time, nor the inclination to do so. It is implied that I am given the documents for my own good.

One thing I am sure of is that the opposite is true. The documents are so detailed and thoroughly unreadable that no one other than an attorney could possibly make sense of them. The information is rendered in such detailed legalese that it is utterly meaningless. That is why so few people read the fine print. I was never one to read the fine print either, but when it comes to works of history, I make an exception. I find that the footnotes and endnotes in history books are full of gems for those who take the time to read them. The same can be said for another type of document full of fine print, treaties. While filled with articles and clauses that make for turgid reading, treaties have enlightening details that often get overlooked. One of the most tantalizing pertains to the lost lands beyond Hungary’s borders and informs the next three stops on my itinerary.

Ceding Authority - A Detail of History

Look long enough and you just might stumble upon a greater truth. That is the case with the 35-page long Peace Treaty With Hungary negotiated and signed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1946-47. Under Article 1.4(c) the following, “Hungary shall cede to Czechoslovakia the villages of Horvathjarfalu, Oroszvar, and Dunacsun.” This is a remarkable detail because those three villages were the only ones that Hungary lost in the treaty. The total land area was just 62 square kilometers. That is 3,750 times less than the 232,466 square kilometers lost due to the Treaty of Trianon. An area equivalent to the size of Romania including Transylvania. By comparison, losing three villages to Czechoslovakia was next to nothing. I find these footnotes from history so magnetically that they will be my next destination after Paris.

Traveling back to the lost lands requires retracing my path to Paris in reverse. Fortunately, I plan to purchase a round-trip ticket for the journey between Vienna and Paris. This will take me full circle. Traveling from the Luxembourg Palace to three villages on the southern fringes of Slovakia is going to extremes, but that is quite fitting. The Treaty of Trianon went to extreme lengths in shrinking the borders of Hungary. This left many places that had once been in the heart of Hungary on the fringes of their new countries. That is what happened to Horvathjarfalu, Oroszvar, and Dunacsun in the 1947 Peace Treaty With Hungary negotiated in Paris. Before the ink was dry on the treaty, the villages had become Jarovce, Rusovce, and Cunovo in Czechoslovakia. These assumed identities would also turn out to be lasting ones. The only thing that has changed since 1947 is that the villages are now in Slovakia.

Border Battles - Barbarians At The Gate

Seven years ago, I was traveling with a friend to Carnuntum in Austria. It is one of the best Roman sites found anywhere along the Danube. Carnuntum was on Rome’s northern frontier. Today, it is only a few minutes by car from the borders of Hungary and Slovakia. My friend had never been to Eastern Europe, so I wanted to show him every possible aspect of the region’s history. Ancient Roman civilization is not popularly identified with Eastern Europe though the empire was spread across Hungary, Romania, and the Balkans. On the way to Carnuntum, we searched for other potential Roman sites.

The Danube was often the border between Rome and the Barbarians, as such it was heavily fortified and the scene of countless battles as the Romans were constantly having to defend their frontiers. Less than half an hour from Carnuntum we discovered Gerulata, a former Roman military camp along the Danube that had been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gerulata is in Slovakia, only a few kilometers from the Hungarian border. I found this odd because we were south of the Danube. I had always equated the Hungary-Slovakia border between Bratislava and Esztergom as the Danube. The dividing line between the two nations for nearly all that distance is at the Danube’s midpoint. Slovakia to the north, Hungary to the south.

There are only a couple of Slovakian exceptions south of the Danube. One of which is Petrzalka, the largest borough of Bratislava that is mainly known for its residential high rise apartment blocks from the communist period. The others are the three villages mentioned in the 1947 Treaty. I did not realize that Gerulata was part of them until doing research for my itinerary. Gerulata is in the village of Rusovce and The Hungarian name for Rusovce is Oroszvar, Thus, I had unwittingly visited one of the three villages that was transferred from Hungary to Czechoslovakia. Back then, I knew nothing about the 1946-47 Paris Peace Conference or the Peace Treaty With Hungary that resulted from it.?

Sublime Serendipity – A Fault Line

That visit to Gerulata did have me wondering why this small sliver of Slovakia was located south of the Danube. I probably thought it had something to do with the ethnic makeup of the village during the early 20th century. Perhaps Rusovce had been majority Slovak back then and the treatymakers decided it should no longer be in Hungary. I would have guessed this was due to the Treaty of Trianon like everything else that contributed to Hungary’s current borders. Now I have come to understand that Gerulata was a sublime form of serendipity. I was standing on a fault line for the lost lands. One that deserves further exploration.