In spring 1938, Count János Esterházy, the chairman of the United Hungarian Party (UHP) in Czechoslovakia, secretly reported to Budapest that “for us Hungarians a paramount task is to have the [First Czechoslovak R]epublic destroyed by others if possible” (114). Characteristically, Attila Simon introduces this evidence with a claim that the party “considered the only long-term solution [to their situation] to be the peaceful revision of borders.” This tension between subversion and civic responsibility is at the heart of this translation of Simon's Egy rövid esztendő krónikája (A Chronicle of a Short Year; Somorja, 2010), his study of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia during the republic's crisis year of 1938. Simon, of János Selye University, seeks to explain the Hungarians' hostility to Prague without tarring them with the brush of totalitarianism or treason. Although this translation is sometimes clumsy (especially in its handling of nomenclature) and abridges the original manuscript, scholars of Central Europe who lack Hungarian will welcome Simon's well-researched, nuanced narrative of this neglected topic. Simon's portrait of Czechoslovak Hungarians as peaceful, law-abiding, and often appreciative of democracy is stimulating and insightful, even if it fails to persuade fully.

Simon builds a strong case for the systemic marginalization of Hungarians in interwar Slovakia. They were the only group in Czechoslovakia to see their numbers working in agriculture increase between the wars. Czechoslovakia was determined to de-Magyarize administration, education, and public space in Slovakia. Fears of Hungarian irredentism inspired Czechoslovak authorities to treat the minority as suspect. Prague's nation-state ideology stymied Hungarian aspirations for decentralization. Simon, however, readily acknowledges the benefits of the First Republic to Hungarians, who flowered culturally while forging bonds to democracy. These Hungarians thus became their own community, distinct from conationals across the border. In rightly insisting that the practice of Czechoslovak minority policy be differentiated from its claims, Simon follows a trend of demystifying interwar Czechoslovakia as a model democracy.

Even though Simon's subject is the Hungarian community, his focus is its parties. The background chapter on the interwar experience is rich in demographic analysis, but readers gain little sense of Hungarian culture or society. The analysis of parties, their factions, and maneuvers, in contrast, is excellent. Simon also excels with the context of the crisis of Czechoslovakia, especially in relation to the Sudeten Germans and international hostility to the republic. His discussion of the 1938 local elections and Prague's belated attempts to win over the minorities is especially interesting. His analysis of the October 1938 talks between Czechoslovakia and Hungary on revising the border is less satisfying, as he implausibly claims that Nazi Germany already steered the policy of the newly installed Slovak autonomous government. His account of early October border assaults by renegade Hungarian army units, in contrast, captures vividly and amusingly the chaotic, irredentist fervor of the times. The troops advanced, it seems, accompanied by a Gypsy band; among the casualties was a smashed double bass.

Simon's defense of the Hungarians against charges of treason is the most challenging theme of the book. His targets here are nationalist Slovak historians who, for example, portray the minority as saboteurs and terrorists—part of ongoing polemics over the 1945–1946 Beneš Decrees, which punished Hungarians with deportations. Simon finds instead that few of his subjects embraced armed revolt and illegal subversion, even if most Hungarians were happy when Hungary reclaimed southern Slovakia (and them) in the November 1938 First Vienna Award. In short, members of the minority were “act[ing] within the norms of democracy” (302) and “good citizens” (305, quotes in original), at least up until fall 1938. The UHP, despite some “anti-democratic and totalitarian manifestations” (303) inside it, meanwhile remained “committ[ed] to parliamentary means” (228). Simon thus draws “a sharp distinction” (xvii) between Slovakia's Hungarians and the Sudeten Germans. As he points out, one could reject the republic or its government without rejecting “democratic ideals” (71), while widespread voting for a party that was a “puppet of Budapest” (106) and that took indirect orders even from Nazi Germany was not necessarily voting to destroy Czechoslovakia. The argument is inventive and carefully constructed, but it struck me also as apologetic, especially when Simon, in his conclusion, exculpates “the majority” of Slovakia's Hungarians of complicity in subsequent developments, claiming that they “did not shape the events of the period 1938–1945, but were victims of it” (301). It is a pity that the book thus ends mirroring the polemics that it strove to transcend.