Upper Hungary Magyar Educational Society

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2016}}

{{Use British English|date=April 2016}}

File:Flag of the Upper Hungary Magyar Educational Association.jpg

The Upper Hungary Magyar Educational Society ({{langx|hu|Felvidéki/Felsőmagyarországi Magyar Közművelődési Egyesület}}, FEMKE, also FMKE; {{langx|sk|Hornouhorský maďarský vzdelávací spolok}}) was a non-governmental organization in Upper Hungary, founded on 20 November 1883,{{cite book|last1=Škvarna|first1=Dušan|last2=Bartl|first2=Július|display-authors=etal|translator=David P. Daniel|title=Slovak History: Chronology & Lexicon|year=2002|publisher=Bolchazy-Carducci|page=110}}{{cite book|last=Judson|first=Pieter M.|title=The Habsburg Empire: A New History|year=2016|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=305}} that conducted Magyarisation initiatives among the region's predominantly ethnic Slovak population.{{cite journal|last=Tomiš|first=Karol|title=A magyar irodalom fordítások útján való fogadtatása a szlovák irodalmi kultúrában (1860–1918)|journal=Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények|volume=1/2|year=1999|pages=41–77|language=hu|url=http://epa.oszk.hu/00000/00001/00008/tomis.htm}} By sponsoring cultural activities, education for children, and the establishment of libraries and courses in the Hungarian language, the Society aimed to assimilate Slovaks into the country's Hungarian population while spreading the general use of Hungarian, then the official state language.Škvarna et al. 2002, pp. 110–1. It was based in Nyitra, now the city of Nitra in western Slovakia, and was supported by the prominent Hungarian nationalist Béla Grünwald{{cite encyclopedia|title=Upper Hungarian Educational Association|last=Kirschbaum|first=Stanislav J.|encyclopedia=The A to Z of Slovakia|year=2010|publisher=The Scarecrow Press|pages=300–1}} and the Bishop of Nitra, Imre Bende.{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://mek.oszk.hu/09500/09536/html/0014/23.html|title=Nyitra vármegye társadalma|last=Lőrinczy|first=György|editor-last=Sziklay|editor-first=János|editor-last2=Borovszky|editor-first2=Samu|encyclopedia=Magyarország vármegyéi és városai|year=1896|language=hu}} The organisation met some success: between 1900 and 1910, the proportion of self-identified Slovaks in Nyitra County dropped by over 6 percent, thanks in part to its efforts,{{cite book|last=Mace Ward|first=James|title=Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia|year=2013|publisher=Cornell University Press|page=16}} and by 1910, it was estimated that 21 percent of the Slovak population in the country as a whole had learned Hungarian.{{cite book|last=Maxwell|first=Alexander|title=Choosing Slovakia: Slavic Hungary, the Czechoslovak Language and Accidental Nationalism|year=2009|publisher=I.B. Tauris|page=151}} The Society came to operate 227 libraries across Upper Hungary. Its establishment was followed by the setting up of a similar society in Transylvania.{{cite book|last=Köpeczi|first=Béla|title=History of Transylvania: From 1830 to 1919|year=2002|publisher= Columbia University Press|page=654}} FEMKE was ultimately dissolved in 1919 after the breakup of the Kingdom of Hungary.