HISTORY AND THE PROBLEMS OF LANGUAGE

A variety of matters signalled by the 6^th June, bits of history worth remembering and the upheavals caused by the recognition of languages.

On the 6^th June 1683 the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum.

One of the shortest lived republics, the Republic of Prekmurje ended on the 6^th June 1919 after 9 days.

During World War I in Prekmurje, the leaders of the Slovene minority were mostly Catholic priests and Lutheran ministers. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary, together with secular leaders (but with diverging political views), the Catholic Prekmurje clerics sided with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. However, the Lutheran Slovenes still supported Hungarian rule. The Catholic party wished to proclaim an independent state, whereas the Lutheran Slovenes and Hungarians of Prekmurje supported remaining under Hungarian authority.

The (mutinous) Croatian Army annexed Prekmurje in 1918, but the 83rd Hungarian Infantry Regiment recaptured it. Soon, the Truce of Belgrade in 1918 gave Mura and Raba Country to Hungary, but the Serbs had second thoughts and sought to extend their area of control northwards to create a Yugoslav-Czechoslovak border.

On March 21, 1919, the Hungarian communists and Social Democrats created the Hungarian Soviet Republic, which was anti-religious, internationalist, and pro-Soviet. The communists wanted to expropriate the ecclesiastical assets, starting with all the lordships. The Lutherans and the Catholics resisted this. In order to be rid of the communists, the Catholic Party decided to create an autonomous republic. The Hungarian and Slovenian socialists wanted to establish a Soviet system in Prekmurje, but there was little support and few people gave aid to the Soviet Republic. In Međimurje  the Serbian and Croatian military aligned themselves against Prekmurje.

Tkálecz and his wife.

The Dobray Hotel in 1919: Tkálecz
declared his short-lived state
from the hotel balcony

In Lendava, the anti-communist military campaign started off well, but soon fell apart. In Murska Sobota the socialist Vilmos Tkálecz, a former schoolmaster and soldier in the first World War, was involved in illegal trade, which the communist statutes forbade. Tkálecz was not a leftist, Yugoslav, or pro-Hungarian. On May 29, Tkálecz and some followers declared independence from Hungary. Tkálecz invoked the Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson, which granted autonomy rights for national minorities. The new state recognized Austria in order to receive some weapons, together with those from Hungarian military units. However, Tkálecz frustrated the Catholics; the people of Prekmurje did not support the republic.

The Prekmurje Republic sought to expand its boundaries and received minute pieces of land: In Murska Sobota, the republic received the territory of the districts of Murska Sobota, Lendava, Szentgotthárd, and some villages in the Őrség area, and already possessed the northern, central, and south-western Mura march districts. The principal settlements of the republic were Murska Sobota, Szentgotthárd, Lendava, Beltinci, and Dobrovnik.  On 6^th June 1919, the Hungarian Red Army marched into Prekmurje and dismantled the republic. Tkálecz fled to Austria. A communist militia made up of 50 peasants killed the anti-communists. In addition, a five million crown indemnity was laid upon the people and a harsh Red Terror ensued.

On August 1, 1919, the Hungarian Soviet Republic was overthrown by Romanian forces, and soon the Serbian Army marched into Prekmurje. In 1920, Tkálecz was living in Hungary in the village of Nagykarácsony in (Fejér County) as a schoolmaster. The 1920 Treaty of Trianon established the present Hungarian borders. 

On the 6^th June 1944 during World War II the Battle of Normandy begins. D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.

On the 6^th June 2004, Tamil is established as a Classical Language by the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, in a joint sitting of the two houses of the Indian Parliament.

And on the 6^th June 2012, the Guardian newspaper reported that clashes between riot police and protesters erupted in Kiev on the 5th June as Ukraine’s parliament gave initial approval to a law that would make Russian an official language and threatens to split the country along geographical and cultural lines.