“The life of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia is the most important measuring device for Hungarian-Ukraine relations.”
A quote from Hungarian Defense Minister Csaba Hende, referring to the new Ukrainian government's move to reign in minority language rights in that country. There is a small Hungarian minority in the Transcarpathia region beside north eastern Hungary in the Ukraine. The minority language law protected the use of minority languages in the Ukraine such as Russian and Hungarian.
With a new government in the country, Hungarians are afraid that the Hungarian minority will not fair well under it. The Hungarian minority in the region was cut off from the mother country (Hungary) by the Treaty of Trianon (1920). They found themselves cut off from Hungary with the stroke of a pen at Trianon. The land that they live on today in the Ukraine was Hungarian for over 1,000 years.
