Our paper follows on the observation made by Ferenc Pataki who stated that national identity is
a collective identity shaped by both political/citizenship-related and cultural elements. While
these two elements are usually similar, the national identity of people from ethnic minorities
differ along these two identities. Our analysis discusess the changes that happened during the
hundred years since the Treaty of Trianion to these two elements of the national identity of the
following three generations of Hungarians in Vojvodina: between the two World Wars, those
who grew up during the communism and those who became adults after 1990. We conclude that
the first generation retained their cultural-historical national identiy formed before Wold War I
but they did not develop Hungarian or South Slavic national idenities. To replace the South
Slavic identity they developed a regional identity to Vojvodina. The second generation, who were
born and raised after 1945, developed Yugoslavian political/citizenship-related national identy
through socialisation in a new political system and a regional identity to Vojvodina, which meant
an alienation from Hungary. As a result of their shattered cultural-historical national identity,
they started to assimilate, some of them lost their Hungarian cultural-historical identity and
acquired a Serbian or Yugoslavian national identity instead. The national identity of the third
generation who grew up after 1990 will be discussed in a second paper.