What has Greenland to do with Transylvania?
some thoughts
At a first look, there aren’t any obvious connections between the country Greenland and the region Transylvania. The one is covered with ice but has been green some time ago while the other one is covered with forests though it means beyond the woods and was once covered with ice, but this was a very long time ago.
A poll of the PEW Research Centre in 2019 in NATO countries included the question, if there are parts of neighbouring countries that actually belong to them and not to the neighbour. The NATO median was a striking 35% of people who are of the opinion that actually parts of neighbouring countries belong to them.
In the U.S. modest 19% were of this opinion; in Hungary 67%. Two out of three Hungarians are of the opinion that parts of neighbouring countries actually belong to Hungary. Honestly, after living more than 20 years in Hungary, I was surprised that the percentage is so low. I expected it higher, since I hardly met anybody in Hungary who wouldn’t say Transylvania – Erdély in Hungarian – belongs to us and it was taken away from us illegally by the mean great powers and the mean neighbours and my Hungarian comrades in these countries are suffering. While the public emphasis in Hungary is very much on Transylvania which is now part of Romania, the idea of Greater Hungary includes also Kárpátalja (Transcarpathia in English, Закарпатська область, Sakarpatska in Ukrainian) which belongs now to Ukraine, Felvidék or Upper Hungary, which today is Slovakia and probably Vajdasag (Vojvodina) which now belongs to Serbia. About the small territory which is now part of Austria, the irredentists don’t care. And of the former Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia which was also somehow part of Hungary, only the access to the Mediterranean Sea is of importance to them. But access to the sea the family and friends of Orban already gained with buying property and yachts.
The PEW Research Centre poll was conducted exactly the same year – in 2019, when Trump for the first time talked about that the U.S. should buy Greenland. Before Trump other U.S. Presidents like Eisenhower in 1960, Truman in 1946 or Roosevelt in 1910 already wanted to buy the island.
I am aware that Greenland or Kalaallit Nunaat never belonged to Hungary and that most Hungarians would not think about annexing this island. Family and friends of Prime Minister Orban might probably wonder about buying it, since they are accustomed to it that they can buy everybody and everything. But this might be too far-fetched for them and who knows if they would find Greenland on a map, since usually they only use maps with Greater Hungary on it and Greenland was never a part of Greater Hungary.
The Orbanists follow a different path when it comes to parts of neighbouring countries they actually consider part of Hungary. On the one hand they distribute the Hungarian citizenship like clowns distribute candies during carnival. At least a million people in neighbouring countries received Hungarian citizenship from the Orbanists. One of your grandparents must have lived on a territory which once belonged to Hungary and you can get Hungarian citizenship. With Hungarian citizenship you are eligible to vote in Hungary, meaning Orban ensured a couple of hundred thousands of votes during each election. And there are special rules for these people during elections. They don’t have to go the Hungarian consulate or embassy to cast their ballot, they can do it e.g., in the premises of a (pro-Orban) political party.
Parents in neighbouring countries receive money from the Hungarian government, if they send their children to Hungarian language schools. So children in Romania or Ukraine grow up in a Hungarian speaking surrounding, learn in Hungarian language schools and wonder that they have problems finding a job when they are adults because they don’t speak the language of the majority population.
The Hungarian Government supports football teams, builds stadiums or creates football academies in the neighbouring countries Serbia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and Ukraine (not in Austria yet). On the one hand it is a tool for the Orbanists to make even more money – there is a lot of construction involved, on the other hand it should create relations to Hungary and demonstrate that Hungarian government cares about territories which once belonged to Hungary.
The Orbanists are experienced in buying parts of a country or individual persons. In Hungary family and friends of Orban bought a lot of agricultural land or property in tourist regions, but yet they didn’t buy the whole country. Trump could buy or occupy a country. Putin did occupy parts of several countries. Yet, Orban did neither occupy parts of a country nor a whole country.
Thus, I still didn’t find a direct connection between Greenland and Transylvania. However, Greenland could be the trigger for Transylvania as Crimea could have been the trigger for Greenland and Transylvania could turn into the trigger for Transcarpathia. I will not refer to the Republika Srpska, the entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina controlled by extremists close to Putin and Orban which could be a trigger or be triggered too.
I see my Central European friends and the experts shaking their heads with a “knowing better smile”. These scenarios could and will never develop and nothing is going to trigger. It is not even worth for contemplating about that Hungary will one day occupy or buy parts of neighbouring countries.
We live in a world which euphemistically is called disruptive (finally I could use the fancy term). Realistically the structure or system of the old order seems to collapse and we don’t know what will follow and which developments will be triggered by other events. But one could think about what happens if Ukraine loses against Ruzzia.
Nobody knows what Trump will do. Probably offering him and his family that they could make a lot of money with the reconstruction of Ukraine, could bring him to the point, supporting Ukraine, but I guess this won’t happen. However, everybody knows that Ukraine at the end can’t rely on the European Union.
Thus, what will happen to Transcarpathia, if Ruzzia occupies even larger parts of Ukraine and a puppet government is installed in Kyiv? Can Hungary buy or occupy Transcarpathia?
The right question might therefore be: what has Greenland or Kalaallit Nunaat to do with Kárpátalja or Transcarpathia?