Hungary

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Dictionary: Hun·ga·ry (hŭng'gə-rē)

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Hungary

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A country of central Europe. The area was successively under Roman, Hunnish, Gothic, and Slavic rule before being conquered by Magyars in the late ninth century. Saint Stephen converted them to Christianity and subsequently established the first Hungarian state c. 997. Ruled by the Ottoman Turks after 1526, it later passed to Hapsburg control, under which it became part of Austria-Hungary in 1867. In 1918 it achieved independence again. A Communist regime was established in 1949 and was replaced in 1989 by a democratic republic. Budapest is the capital and the largest city. Population: 9,960,000.

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5min Related Video: Hungary

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Investment Dictionary: HUF

In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Hungarian Forint.

Investopedia Says:
The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion.

Holocaust: Hungary

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Country in central Europe. After Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, the Hungarian government became interested in making an alliance with Nazi Germany. The Hungarians felt that such an alliance would be good for them in that the two governments had similar authoritarian ideologies, and because the Germans could help them regain land they had lost in World War I. Over the next five years Hungary moved ever closer to Germany. The Munich Conference of September 1938 allowed Germany to annex the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia. In November Germany carved a piece off of Czechoslovakia---a part that had formerly belonged to Hungary---and handed it back to Hungary to cement relations between the two nations. In August 1940 Germany also gave Hungary possession of northern Transylvania. In October 1940 Hungary joined Germany, Italy, and Japan in the Axis alliance. Hungary was awarded even more land in March 1941 when, despite its alliance with the Yugoslav government, Hungary joined its new ally, Germany, in invading and splitting up Yugoslavia. By that time, with all its new territories, the Jewish population in Greater Hungary had reached 725,007, not including about 100,000 Jews who had converted to Christianity but were racially considered to be Jews.

Hungary began issuing Anti-Jewish Legislation soon after the Anschluss---the annexing of Austria by Germany in March 1938. Hungary passed a law whereby Jewish participation in the economy and the professions was cut by 80 percent. In May 1939 the Hungarian government further limited the Jews in the economic realm and distinguished Jews as a "racial," rather than religious group. In 1939 Hungary created a new type of labor service draft, which Jewish men of military age were forced to join (see also Hungarian Labor Service System). Later, many Jewish men would die within its framework. In 1941 the Hungarian government passed a racial law, similar to the Nuremberg Laws, which officially defined who was to be considered Jewish.

Despite the hardships caused by these anti-Jewish laws, most of the Jews of Hungary lived in relative safety for much of the war. However, one group of Hungarian Jews was subject to tragedy in the summer of 1941: some 18,000 Jews randomly designated by the Hungarian authorities as "Jewish foreign nationals" were kicked out of their homes and deported to Kamenets-Podolski in the Ukraine, where most were murdered in cold blood. Another 1,000 Jews in the section of Hungary newly-acquired from Yugoslavia were murdered in early 1942 by Hungarian soldiers and police in their "pursuit of Partisans."

At the same time as they were passing anti-Jewish laws, the Hungarian authorities were getting more and more entrenched in their alliance with Germany. In June 1941 Hungary decided to join Germany in its war against the Soviet Union. Finally, in December 1941, Hungary joined the axis in declaring war against the United States, completely cutting itself off from any relationship with the West. But after Germany's defeat at Stalingrad and other battles in which Hungary lost tens of thousands of its soldiers, the Regent of Hungary, Miklos Horthy, began trying to back out of the alliance with Germany.

This move was not acceptable to Hitler, and in March 1944 German troops invaded Hungary in order to keep the country loyal by force. Hitler immediately set up a new government that he thought would be faithful, with Dome Sztojay, Hungary's former ambassador to Germany, as prime minister. Accompanying the occupation forces was a Sonderkommando unit headed by Adolf Eichmann, whose job was to begin implementing the "final solution" within Hungary. Anti-Jewish decrees were passed at lightning speed. judenraete were set up throughout Hungary with a central Judenrat called the Zsido Tanacs established in budapest under Samu stern. The Germans isolated the Jews from the outside world by restricting their movement and confiscating their telephones and radios. The Jews were forced to don the Jewish badge for easy identification (see also badge, jewish). Jewish property and businesses were seized, and from mid to late April the Jews of Hungary were forced into ghettos. These ghettos were short-lived. After two to six weeks the Jews of each ghetto were put on trains and deported. Between May 15 and July 9, about 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported, mainly to auschwitz, where half were gassed on arrival. In early July Horthy halted the deportations, still intent on cutting Hungary's ties with Germany. By that time, all of Hungary was "Jew-free," except for the capital, Budapest. During spring of 1944 Israel kasztner, Joel brand, and other members of the relief and rescue committee of budapest began negotiating with the ss to save lives. Many Jews (perhaps up to 8,000) fled from Hungary, most to romania, many with the help of Zionist youth movement members.

From July to October, the Jews of Budapest lived in relative safety. However, on October 15 Horthy announced publicly that he was done with Hungary's alliance with Germany, and was going to make peace with the Allies. The Germans blocked this move, and then simply toppled Horthy's government, giving power to Ferenc szalasi and his fascist, violently antisemitic arrow cross party.

The Arrow Cross immediately introduced a reign of terror in Budapest. Nearly 80,000 Jews were killed in Budapest itself, shot on the banks of the Danube River and then thrown in. Thousands of others were forced on death marches to the Austrian border. In December, during the Soviet siege of the city, 70,000 Jews were forced into a ghetto, thousands dying of cold, disease, and starvation.

Tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest were saved during the Arrow Cross reign by members of the Relief and Rescue Committee and other Jewish activists, especially Zionist youth movement members, who forged identity documents and provided them with food. These Jews worked together with foreign diplomats such as the Swedish Raoul wallenberg, the Swiss Carl lutz, and others who provided many Jews with international protection.

Hungary was liberated by the Soviet army by April 1945. Up to 568,000 Hungarian Jews had perished during the holocaust.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Hungary

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Country, central Europe. Area: 35,919 sq mi (93,030 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 10,078,000. Capital: Budapest. The people are an amalgam of Magyars and various Slavic, Turkish, and Germanic peoples. Language: Hungarian (Magyar; official). Religion: Christianity (mostly Roman Catholic; also Protestant). Currency: forint. The Great Alfold (Great Hungarian Plain), with fertile agriculture land, occupies nearly half of the country. Hungary's two most important rivers are the Danube and the Tisza. Lake Balaton, in the Transdanubian highlands, is the largest lake in central Europe. Forests cover nearly one-fifth of the land. Hungary is one of the more prosperous countries of eastern Europe and a major world producer of bauxite. A conversion from a socialist to a free-market economy was begun in the late 1980s. Hungary is a multiparty republic with one legislative house; the chief of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. The western part of the country was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 14 BC. The Magyars, a nomadic people, settled in the Great Alfold in the late 9th century. Stephen I, crowned in 1000, Christianized the country and organized it into a strong and independent state. Invasions by the Mongols in the 13th century and by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century devastated the country, and by 1568 the territory of modern Hungary was divided into three parts: Royal Hungary had fallen to the Habsburgs; Transylvania had gained autonomy in 1566 under the Ottoman Turks; and the central plain remained under Ottoman control until the late 17th century, when the Austrian Habsburgs took over. Hungary declared its independence from Austria in 1849, and in 1867 the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was established. Its defeat in World War I (1914 – 18) resulted in the dismemberment of Hungary, leaving it only those areas in which Magyars predominated. In an attempt to regain some of this lost territory, Hungary cooperated with the Germans against the Soviet Union during World War II (1939 – 45). After the war a pro-Soviet provisional government was established, and in 1949 the Hungarian People's Republic was formed. Opposition to this Stalinist regime broke out in 1956 but was suppressed (see Hungarian Revolution). Nevertheless, from 1956 to 1988 communist Hungary grew to become the most tolerant of the Soviet-bloc nations of Europe. It gained its independence in 1989 and soon attracted the largest amount of direct foreign investment in eastern and central Europe. It joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

For more information on Hungary, visit Britannica.com.

Photography Encyclopedia: Hungary

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The news of Daguerre's invention was announced in Hungary as early as 2 February 1839, in the publication Hasznosm Mulatságok (Useful Inventions), and a translation of Daguerre's manual appeared in the spring of 1840. That year, the Hungarian mathematician Josef Petzval designed an anastigmatic lens with sixteen times greater luminosity than Daguerre's, dramatically shortening exposures, and his design was commercially exploited by Voigtländer. In June 1841 the painter Jacopo Marastoni opened the first photographic studio in Pest. At the 1855 Paris Universal Exhibition Antal Simonyi won an award for an ‘instant’ photography process.

The period until 1900 saw the rise of commercial portraiture and the application of photography to landscape (Balázs Orbán, Károly Divald), ethnography (József Plohn), and astronomy (Jenö Gothard, Miklós Konkoly Thege). After 1890 pictorialist ‘art photography’ established itself with the formation of the Circle of Friends of Photography (1894), the Budapest Photo Club (1899) and the National Association of Hungarian Amateur Photographers (1905), whose journal A fény (The Light) was edited by Mano Mai, the court photographer. Notable portraitists in the pre-1914 period included two women, Olga Máté and Ilka Réva, and József Pécsi (1889-1956), who founded and headed (1913-20) the photography department at Budapest School of Industrial Drawing. In 1930 Pécsi published a seminal book on advertising, Photo und Publizität.

Hungarian newspapers were being increasingly illustrated with photographs from the mid-1890s onwards. The Budapest-based János Müllner started freelance press reportage in 1904, covering female labour and other social issues in the capital. Reportage by Müllner and other photojournalists continued through the First World War and its turbulent aftermath, including, in the summer of 1919, the short-lived Socialist Republic headed by the Communist Béla Kun. During the subsequent period of reaction under Admiral Miklos Horthy, many photographers left Hungary, moving to Germany and France, then to Britain and the USA. They included Kertész, Moholy-Nagy, Brassaï (Gyula Halasz), Robert Capa (Endre Erno Friedman), Cornell Capa, Martin Munkácsi, Nicholas Muray, and György Kepes. Other influential émigrés were Stefan Lorant and Andor Kraszna-Krausz, and the later inventor of holography, Dennis Gabor.

The pictorialists who stayed behind developed a ‘Hungarian’ style, including Pécsi, Rudolf Balogh, Károly Escher (1890-1966), Ernó Vadas, and Zajky Zoltán. Balogh, regarded as the father of Hungarian photojournalism, was an artist-photographer and journalist on the progressive Est newspaper. He recruited Escher, who photographed political events, the arts, and social conditions for 30 years. Documentary photographers also stayed, including the press photographers Klára Langer and Kata Sugár (1910-43), and the left-wing photographers centred on Munka (Work) magazine, whose 1932 exhibition Our Life was closed by the police. Also notable were the teacher Iván Hevesy, his pupil/partner Kata Kálmán, whose Tiborc Album was an outstanding study of Hungarian village life, and Angelo (Pál Funk; 1894-1974), a successful society portraitist.

The post-1945 communist regime permitted little innovative or challenging work. The Association of Hungarian Photographers (AHP), formed in 1956, remained the leading photography organization, publishing Photo Art magazine. Street fighting in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution was documented by photographers, particularly Tibor Szentpétery, József Vas, Károly Kiss, Dezsõ Széki, and Bojár Sándor. Ata Kandó (b. 1913) photographed refugees fleeing across the Austrian border, but although published in the West, she was unacknowledged in Hungary. In the 1960s and 1970s photographers took fine-art or traditional directions to avoid problems with the authorities and Mari Mahr, originally a photojournalist, left for England. Others, such as Demeter Balla (b. 1931), Peter Korniss (b. 1937; a World Press Photo winner and judge), Imre Benko (Eugene Smith Award winner), and György Tóth (b. 1950) produced more challenging conceptual and documentary work into the 1980s.

The liberal atmosphere of the 1990s encouraged all types of photography and new initiatives to preserve historical material. In 1990 the Budapest Photographers' Cooperative and the AHP created the Hungarian Photographic Foundation, to establish a Museum of Hungarian Photography (HMP) in Kecskemét. Started with 75, 000 items collected by the AHP since 1958, the collection has since expanded threefold. In 1998 the Foundation established the Hungarian House of Photography at the restored Mai Manó House, Budapest, for contemporary and historical events. The HMP has also organized many shows of local, historical, and émigré photographers, particularly the 1998 exhibition Photographers Made in Hungary: Some Went Away/Some Stayed Behind, which toured thirteen countries.

— Robert Ashby

Bibliography

Ford, C., The Hungarian Connection (1987).
Kincses, K., Photographers Made in Hungary: Some Went Away/Some Stayed Behind (2000).
Biro, A., Photographies hongroises: des romantismes aux avant-gardes (2001).
Hungarian Photography Yesterday/Today/Tomorrow (CD-ROM, 2002)

Dictionary of Dance: Hungary

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Ballet was first performed in Hungary in the mid-18th century at the court of Prince Esterházy but the popularity it gained after visits by Noverre's Vienna dancers in 1772 and by Viganò in the 1790s was eclipsed during the early 19th century by pantomimes, Harlequinades, etc. During this period, however, Hungarian folk dance societies toured Europe with much success. In 1837 the National Theatre was opened in Pest, presenting its first ballet production, La Fille mal gardée (chor. János Kolosánszky, mus. Ferenc Kaczér), in 1839. In 1846 Cerrito and Saint-Léon danced Ondine, Giselle was staged in 1847, and Grahn and Taglioni were among the ballerinas who danced there during the 1850s. The first and greatest Hungarian prima ballerina of the 19th century was Emilia Aranyváry (active 1852-9), but otherwise local ballet activity was mediocre, the resident company being headed by the lacklustre choreographer Frigyes Campilli who mounted versions of romantic ballets (incl. Esmeralda, 1856) between 1846 and 1886.

In 1884 the State Opera House was opened in Budapest with its own ballet company attached. This became the national ballet ensemble (see below) and as such dominated dance activity in Hungary. During the 20th century, though, other companies emerged. In 1946 the first professional provincial company was established in Szegad, performing a repertory largely borrowed from Budapest. During the 1950s it was directed by Zoltán Imre who choreographed much of the repertory and after Imre left Hungary it closed down. In 1986 it re-opened under the direction of impresario R. Bokor, who commissioned works from various guests (including Imre) and also staged older works such as Jooss's The Green Table. Imre returned as director in 1991 but left two years later due to financial constraints.

In 1960 Imre Eck founded the Ballet Sopianae at the National Theatre at Pécs, creating a repertory of youth-oriented political ballets. His was one of the first attempts at a modern style of choreography in Hungary, created largely without access to Western ideas. One of the company's young dancers, Sándor Tóth, emerged as a choreographic talent in What is under your hat? (mus. Jószef Kinczes, 1964), among others, and took over direction of the company in 1968 with Eck as artistic director. Their experimental approach was very popular and the company toured widely in Hungary as well as in Europe and America. It is now known as the Pécs Ballet and since 1992 has been directed by István Herczog.

The Györ Ballet, founded in 1979, is Hungary's only classical company to be financially independent of a theatre, though it performs extensively at the Kisafuldy. It was founded by Iván Markó, and its repertoire was dominated by his own full-length narrative works. Since Markó's departure it stages a diverse repertory of Hungarian and foreign work.

Though financial problems have hindered the development of a large independent modern dance scene there has been sufficient activity to justify the Hungarian Contemporary Dance Festival (founded in 1992). Among the best-known modern groups to emerge is Artus, which was founded by Gábor Goda in 1985 and which performs mixed-media works fusing poetry, dance and acrobatics, TranzDanz, founded by Péter Gerzson-Kovács in 1991, which combines jazz, folk dance, and text, and the Sarbo Company, founded in 1990, which is strongly influenced by de Keersmaeker and the Bozsik company led by Yvette Bozsik whose works, such as The Miraculous Mandarin (1995), draw on folk dance and the styles of Wigman and Bausch.

The Hungarian State Folk Ensemble was founded in 1949 under the direction of Miklós Rábai, as a combined choir, orchestra, and dance troupe. Originally it presented elaborate Soviet-style stagings of folk music and dance numbers, but from the 1980s, under the direction of Sándor Tímár, it began to present more authentic and more intimate stagings of folk material, drawing on older traditions. It has toured world-wide.

Columbia Encyclopedia: Hungary

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Hungary, Hung. Magyarország, officially Republic of Hungary, republic (2005 est. pop. 10,007,000), 35,919 sq mi (93,030 sq km), central Europe. Hungary borders on Slovakia in the north, on Ukraine in the northeast, on Romania in the east, on Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia in the south, and on Austria in the west. The Danube River forms the Slovak-Hungarian border from a point near Bratislava to another near Esztergom, then turns sharply south and bisects the country. Budapest is Hungary's capital and its largest city.

Land and People

To the east of the Danube, the Great Hungarian Plain (Hung. Alföld) extends beyond the Hungarian boundaries to the Carpathians and the Transylvanian Alps. The Dráva and Tisza rivers are also important waterways. To the west of the Danube is the Little Alföld and the Transdanubian region, which are separated by the Bakony and Vértes mts. The Mátra Mts. in the north reach a height of 3,330 ft (1,015 m) at Kékes, the highest peak in Hungary. Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Hungary and in central Europe, is a leading resort area. Hungary has cold winters and hot summers; springs and autumns are short.

Situated on a plain near the geographic center of Europe, Hungary has been the meeting place and battleground of many peoples, and its heterogeneous population was often the cause of social upheaval before 1919. However, as a result of the separation of non-Hungarian territories after World War I, the great slaughter of the Jews in World War II, and the exchange after the war of Slavic and Romanian minorities for their Magyar counterparts, Hungary is today essentially homogeneous. The Magyars constitute more than 90% of the population. There are small minorities of Gypsies, Germans, Serbs, and other groups. Hungarian is spoken by most people. Over half of the people are Roman Catholic, but there is a large Calvinist minority. Hungary still has the largest Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe (100,000–120,000).

Economy

Hungary has long been an agricultural country, but since World War II it has become heavily industrialized. Through the 1980s, industry was largely nationally owned and two thirds of agricultural output came from collective and state farms. Hungary's economy underwent difficult readjustment in the 1990s, as it moved from producing goods chiefly for export to the USSR to developing a market-based economy and finding new trading partners. By the end of 1995, almost all retail trade had been privatized and less than half of all economic output originated from state-owned enterprises. Economic reforms also brought high unemployment and rising inflation, but today Hungary's economy is one of the most prosperous in Eastern Europe.

About half of Hungary's land is arable. With highly diversified crop and livestock production, the country is self-sufficient in food. Wheat, corn, sunflower seeds, potatoes, sugar beets, and grapes are the major crops. Pigs, cattle, sheep, and poultry are raised.

Hungary has been an important producer of bauxite, and deposits of coal, copper, natural gas, oil, and uranium have been exploited as well. Mining was curtailed in the 1990s as the country moved to a market economy and found it was not cost-effective to exploit the country's minerals at world prices. There has also been a decline in gas and oil production due to the exhaustion of reserves. However, mining and metallurgy are still important, as is food processing and the manufacture of construction materials, textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, steel, and motor vehicles. About one third of Hungarian industry is located in or near Budapest. Other industrial centers are Győr, Miskolc, Pécs, Debrecen, Szeged, and Dunapentele. The tourism industry is also an important source of foreign capital. Machinery, equipment, and food products are the most important exports; machinery and equipment, manufactured goods, fuels, and electricity are imported. Germany is the country's largest trading partner by far, followed by Austria, Italy, and France.

Government

Hungary is governed under the constitution of 1949 as amended. The president, who is the head of state, is elected by the legislature for a five-year term and is eligible for a second term. The government is headed by the prime minister, who is nominated by the president and elected by the legislature. The unicameral legislature, the National Assembly, has 386 members who are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. Administratively the country is divided into 19 counties, 22 urban counties, and the capital district.

History

Growth of a State

The Roman provinces of Pannonia and Dacia, conquered under Tiberius and Trajan (1st cent. A.D.), embraced part of what was to become Hungary. The Huns and later the Ostrogoths and the Avars settled there for brief periods. In the late 9th cent. the Magyars, a Finno-Ugric people from beyond the Urals, conquered all or most of Hungary and Transylvania. The semilegendary leader, Arpad, founded their first dynasty. The Magyars apparently merged with the earlier settlers, but they also continued to press westward until defeated by King (later Holy Roman Emperor) Otto I, at the Lechfeld (955).

Halted in its expansion, the Hungarian state began to solidify. Its first king, St. Stephen (reigned 1001–38), completed the Christianization of the Magyars and built the authority of his crown—which has remained the symbol of national existence—on the strength of the Roman Catholic Church. Under Bela III (reigned 1172–1196), Hungary came into close contact with Western European, particularly French, culture. Through the favor of succeeding kings, a few very powerful nobles—the magnates—won ever-widening privileges at the expense of the lesser nobles, the peasants, and the towns. In 1222 the lesser nobles forced the extravagant Andrew II to grant the Golden Bull (the “Magna Carta of Hungary”), which limited the king's power to alienate his authority to the magnates and established the beginnings of a parliament.

Under Andrew's son, Bela IV, the kingdom barely escaped annihilation: Mongol invaders, defeating Bela at Muhi (1241), occupied the country for a year, and Ottocar II of Bohemia also defeated Bela, who was further threatened by his own rebellious son Stephen V. Under Stephen's son, Ladislaus IV, Hungary fell into anarchy, and when the royal line of Arpad died out (1301) with Andrew III, the magnates seized the opportunity to increase their authority.

In 1308, Charles Robert of Anjou was elected king of Hungary as Charles I, the first of the Angevin line. His autocratic rule checked the magnates somewhat and furthered the growth of the towns. Under his son, Louis I (Louis the Great), Hungary reached its greatest territorial extension, with power extending into Dalmatia, the Balkans, and Poland.

Foreign Domination

After the death of Louis I, a series of foreign rulers succeeded: Sigismund (later Holy Roman Emperor), son-in-law of Louis; Albert II of Austria, son-in-law of Sigismund; and Ladislaus III of Poland (Uladislaus I of Hungary). During their reigns the Turks began to advance through the Balkans, defeating the Hungarians and their allies at Kosovo Field (1389), Nikopol (1396), and Varna (1444). John Hunyadi, acting after 1444 as regent for Albert II's son, Ladislaus V, gave Hungary a brief respite through his victory at Belgrade (1456).

The reign of Hunyadi's son, Matthias Corvinus, elected king in 1458, was a glorious period in Hungarian history. Matthias maintained a splendid court at Buda, kept the magnates subject to royal authority, and improved the central administration. But under his successors Uladislaus II and Louis II, the nobles regained their power. Transylvania became virtually independent under the Zapolya family. The peasants, rising in revolt, were crushed (1514) by John Zapolya. Louis II was defeated and killed by the Turks under Sulayman the Magnificent in the battle of Mohács in 1526. The date is commonly taken to mark the beginning of Ottoman domination over Hungary. Ferdinand of Austria (later Emperor Ferdinand I), as brother-in-law of Louis II, claimed the Hungarian throne and was elected king by a faction of nobles, while another faction chose Zapolya as John I.

In the long wars that followed, Hungary was split into three parts: the western section, where Ferdinand and his successor, Rudolf II, maintained a precarious rule, challenged by such Hungarian leaders as Stephen Bocskay and Gabriel Bethlen; the central plains, which were completely under Turkish domination; and Transylvania, ruled by noble families (see Báthory and Rákóczy).

The Protestant Reformation, supported by the nobles and well-established in Transylvania, nearly succeeded throughout Hungary. Cardinal Pázmány was a leader of the Counter Reformation in Hungary. In 1557 religious freedom was proclaimed by the diet of Transylvania, and the principle of toleration was generally maintained throughout the following centuries.

Hungarian opposition to Austrian domination included such extreme efforts as the assistance Thököly gave to the Turks during the siege of Vienna (1683). Emperor Leopold I, however, through his able generals Prince Eugene of Savoy and Duke Charles V of Lorraine, soon regained his lost ground. Budapest was liberated from the Turks in 1686. In 1687, Hungarian nobles recognized the Hapsburg claim to the Hungarian throne. By the Peace of Kalowitz (1699), Turkey ceded to Austria most of Hungary proper and Transylvania. Transylvania continued to fight the Hapsburgs, but in 1711, with the defeat of Francis II Rákóczy (see under Rákóczy, family), Austrian control was definitely established. In 1718 the Austrians took the Banat from Turkey.

Hungary and Austria

The Austrians brought in Germans and Slavs to settle the newly freed territory, destroying Hungary's ethnic homogeneity. Hapsburg rule was uneasy. The Hungarians were loyal to Maria Theresa in her wars, but many of the unpopular centralizing reforms of Joseph II, who had wanted to make German the sole language of administration and to abolish the Hungarian counties, had to be withdrawn.

In the second quarter of the 19th cent. a movement that combined Hungarian nationalism with constitutional liberalism gained strength. Among its leaders were Count Szechenyi, Louis Kossuth, Baron Eötvös, Sándor Petőfi, and Francis Deak. Inspired by the French Revolution of 1848, the Hungarian diet passed the March Laws (1848), which established a liberal constitutional monarchy for Hungary under the Hapsburgs. But the reforms did not deal with the national minorities problem. Several minority groups revolted, and, after Francis Joseph replaced Ferdinand VII as emperor, the Austrians waged war against Hungary (Dec., 1848).

In Apr., 1849, Kossuth declared Hungary an independent republic. Russian troops came to the aid of the emperor, and the republic collapsed. The Hungarian surrender at Vilagos (Aug., 1849) was followed by ruthless reprisals. But after its defeat in the Austro-Prussian War (1866), Austria was obliged to compromise with Magyar national aspirations. The Ausgleich of 1867 (largely the work of Francis Deak) set up the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, in which Austria and Hungary were nearly equal partners. Emperor Francis Joseph was crowned (1867) king of Hungary, which at that time also included Transylvania, Slovakia, Ruthenia, Croatia and Slovenia, and the Banat. The minorities problem persisted, the Serbs, Croats, and Romanians being particularly restive under Hungarian rule.

During this period industrialization began in Hungary, while the condition of the peasantry deteriorated to the profit of landowners. By a law of 1874 only about 6% of the population could vote. Until World War I, when republican and socialist agitation began to threaten the established order, Hungary was one of the most aristocratic countries in Europe. As the military position of Austria-Hungary in World War I deteriorated, the situation in Hungary grew more unstable. Hungarian nationalists wanted independence and withdrawal from the war; the political left was inspired by the 1917 revolutions in Russia; and the minorities were receptive to the Allies' promises of self-determination.

In Oct., 1918, Emperor Charles I (King of Hungary as Charles IV) appointed Count Michael Károlyi premier. Károlyi advocated independence and peace and was prepared to negotiate with the minorities. His cabinet included socialists and radicals. In November the emperor abdicated, and the Dual Monarchy collapsed.

Independence

Károlyi proclaimed Hungary an independent republic. However, the minorities would not deal with him, and the Allies forced upon him very unfavorable armistice terms. The government resigned, and the Communists under Béla Kun seized power (Mar., 1919). The subsequent Red terror was followed by a Romanian invasion and the defeat (July, 1919) of Kun's forces. After the Romanians withdrew, Admiral Horthy de Nagybanya established a government and in 1920 was made regent, since there was no king. Reactionaries, known as White terrorists, conducted a brutal campaign of terror against the Communists and anyone associated with Károlyi or Kun.

The Treaty of Trianon (see Trianon, Treaty of), signed in 1920, reduced the size and population of Hungary by about two thirds, depriving Hungary of valuable natural resources and removing virtually all non-Magyar areas, although Budapest retained a large German-speaking population. The next twenty-five years saw continual attempts by the Magyar government to recover the lost territories. Early endeavors were frustrated by the Little Entente and France, and Hungary turned to a friendship with Fascist Italy and, ultimately, to an alliance (1941) with Nazi Germany. The authoritarian domestic policies of the premiers Stephen Bethlen and Julius Gombos and their successors safeguarded the power of the upper classes, ignored the demand for meaningful land reform, and encouraged anti-Semitism.

Between 1938 and 1944, Hungary regained, with the aid of Germany and Italy, territories from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania. It declared war on the USSR (June, 1941) and on the United States (Dec., 1941). When the Hungarian government took steps to withdraw from the war and protect its Jewish population, German troops occupied the country (Mar., 1944). The Germans were driven out by Soviet forces (Oct., 1944–Apr., 1945). The Soviet campaign caused much devastation.

National elections were held in 1945 (in which the Communist party received less than one fifth of the vote), and a republican constitution was adopted in 1946. The peace treaty signed at Paris in 1947 restored the bulk of the Trianon boundaries and required Hungary to pay $300 million in reparations to the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. A new coalition regime instituted long-needed land reforms.

Communist Rule

Early in 1948 the Communist party, through its control of the ministry of the interior, arrested leading politicians, forced the resignation of Premier Ferenc Nagy, and gained full control of the state. Hungary was proclaimed a People's Republic in 1949, after parliamentary elections in which there was only a single slate of candidates. Radical purges in the national Communist party made it thoroughly subservient to that of the USSR. Industry was nationalized and land was collectivized. The trial of Cardinal Mindszenty aroused protest throughout the Western world.

By 1953 continuous purges of Communist leaders, constant economic difficulties, and peasant resentment of collectivization had led to profound crisis in Hungary. Premier Mátyás Rákosi, the Stalinist in control since 1948, was removed in July, 1953, and Imre Nagy became premier. He slowed down collectivization and emphasized production of consumer goods, but he was removed in 1955, and the emphasis on farm collectivization was restored. In 1955, Hungary joined the Warsaw Treaty Organization and was admitted to the United Nations.

On Oct. 23, 1956, a popular anti-Communist revolution, centered in Budapest, broke out in Hungary. A new coalition government under Imre Nagy declared Hungary neutral, withdrew it from the Warsaw Treaty, and appealed to the United Nations for aid. However, János Kádár, one of Nagy's ministers, formed a counter-government and asked the USSR for military support. Some 500,000 Soviet troops were sent to Hungary, and in severe and brutal fighting they suppressed the revolution. Nagy and some of his ministers were abducted and were later executed, and thousands of other Hungarians, many of them teenagers, were imprisoned or executed. In addition, about 190,000 refugees fled the country. Kádár became premier and sought to win popular support for Communist rule and to improve Hungary's relations with Yugoslavia and other countries. He carried out a drastic purge (1962) of former Stalinists (including Mátyás Rákosi), accusing them of the harsh policies responsible for the 1956 revolt. Collectivization, which had been stopped after 1956, was again resumed in 1958–59.

Kádár's regime gained a degree of popularity as it brought increasing liberalization to Hungarian political, cultural, and economic life. Economic reforms introduced in 1968 brought a measure of decentralization to the economy and allowed for supply and demand factors; Hungary achieved substantial improvements in its standard of living. Hungary aided the USSR in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The departure (1971) of Cardinal Mindszenty from Budapest after 15 years of asylum in the U.S. legation and his removal (1974) from the position of primate of Hungary improved relations with the Catholic church. Due to Soviet criticism, many of the economic reforms were subverted during the mid-1970s only to be reinstituted at the end of the decade.

During the 1980s, Hungary began to increasingly turn to the West for trade and assistance in the modernization of its economic system. The economy continued to decline and the high foreign debt became unpayable. Premier Károly Grósz gave up the premiership in 1988, and in 1989 the Communist party congress voted to dissolve itself. That same year Hungary opened its borders with Austria, allowing thousands of East Germans to cross to the West.

A Democratic Hungary

By 1990, a multiparty political system with free elections had been established; legislation was passed granting new political and economic reforms such as a free press, freedom of assembly, and the right to own a private business. The new premier, József Antall, a member of the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum who was elected in 1990, vowed to continue the drive toward a free-market economy. The Soviet military presence in Hungary ended in the summer of 1991 with the departure of the final Soviet troops. Meanwhile, the government embarked on the privatization of Hungary's state enterprises.

Antall died in 1993 and was succeeded as prime minister by Péter Boross. Parliamentary elections in 1994 returned the Socialists (former Communists) to power. They formed a coalition government with the liberal Free Democrats, and Socialist leader Gyula Horn became prime minister. Árpád Göncz was elected president of Hungary in 1990 and reelected in 1995.

In 1998, Viktor Orbán of the conservative Hungarian Civic party became prime minister as head of a coalition government. Hungary became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999. Ference Mádl succeeded Göncz as president in Aug., 2000. A 2001 law giving ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries (but not worldwide) social and economic rights in Hungary was criticized by Romania and Slovakia as an unacceptable extraterritorial exercise of power. The following year, negotiations with Romania extended the rights to all Romanian citizens, and in 2003 the benefits under the law were reduced. The 2002 elections brought the Socialists and the allies, the Free Democrats, back into power; former finance minister Péter Medgyessy became prime minister.

In August, 2004, Medgyssey fired several cabinet members, angering the Free Democrats and leading the Socialists to replace him. The following month Ferenc Gyurcsány, the sports minister, became prime minister. Hungary became a member of the European Union earlier in the year. A Dec., 2004, referendum on granting citizenship to ethnic Hungarians in other countries passed, but it was not legally binding because less than 25% of the Hungarian electorate voted for it. László Sólyom was elected president of Hungary in June, 2005. In Apr., 2006, Gyurcsány's Socialist-led coalition won a majority of seats in the parliamentary elections, marking the first time a government had won a second consecutive term in office since the establishment of free elections in 1990.

In September, however, the prime minister suffered a setback when a recording of a May, 2006, Socialist party meeting was leaked and he was heard criticizing the government's past performance and saying that the party had lied to win the 2006 election. The tape sparked opposition demonstrations and riots, which were encouraged by the opposition Civic party, and led to calls for the government to resign. Gyurcsány apologized for not having campaigned honestly, and the coalition was trounced in local elections in early October, but he retained the support of his parliamentary coalition and the government remained in power. In Apr., 2008, the Alliance of Free Democrats left the governing coalition, and the Socialists formed a minority government. The 2008 global financial crisis led to a sharp drop in the value of the Hungarian currency in October, forcing Hungary to seek a 20 billion euro rescue package.

Bibliography

See P. Teleki, The Evolution of Hungary (1923); D. G. Kosary, A History of Hungary (1941, repr. 1971); C. A. McCartney, A History of Hungary, 1929–1945 (1957, repr. 1962); F. A. Vali, Rift and Revolt in Hungary (1961); N. M. Nagy-Talavera, The Green Shirts and Others (1970); H. G. Heinrich, Hungary (1986); C. M. Hann, ed., Market Economy and Civil Society in Hungary (1990); P. F. Sugar, A History of Hungary (1991); C. Gati, Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt (2006); V. Sebestyen, Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution (2006). See also bibliography under Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

Psychoanalysis: Hungary

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Hungary, a country that was primarily agricultural until the mid-nineteenth century, entered the modern era in 1867 with the creation of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. At the start of the twentieth century, in Budapest, which had become a center of cultural life, a group of radical intellectuals demanded the democratization of a country that had remained semi-feudal. Unable to compete in the political sphere, they created institutions like the Free School of Social Science, reviews like Huszadik Szàzad (Twentieth Century) and Nyugat (Occident), to achieve their goal by means of education. For psychoanalysis the Hungarian intelligentsia was fertile terrain, for it held that the liberation of the individual and the liberation of society went hand in hand.

Psychoanalysis was introduced to Hungary by Sándor Ferenczi, who was its leading exponent. A young neurologist, Ferenczi encountered Freudian theory through Carl Gustav Jung's word association test and through the literature of analysis. After his first visit to Freud in February 1908, he quickly became an integral part of the Vienna group and assumed the responsibility of bringing psychoanalysis to Hungary. His efforts were well received in literary and artistic circles, as shown in the writings of Géza Csáth, Dezsö Kosztolànyi, Mihály Babits, and Frigyes Karinthy, while most physicians remained reticent.

The Hungarian Psychoanalytic Association was founded by Ferenczi in 1913. In addition to Ferenczi, its members included the psychiatrist István Hollós, the physician Lajos Lévy, the medical student Sándor Radó, and the journalist and writer Hugó Ignotus (Hugó Veigelsberg), the editor-in-chief of Nyugat.

During World War I, Ferenczi, who had been mobilized, cared for soldiers who had suffered trauma during combat. The psychoanalytic treatment of war neuroses drew the attention of Hungarian officials, with the result that the Fifth Congress of Psychoanalysis, organized in Budapest on September 28 and 29, 1918, was held at the Academy of Sciences in the presence of government representatives. During the congress, Antal (Anton) von Freund, who ran a large beer hall, but also had a PhD in philosophy, a patient and friend of Freud, provided funding for the creation of a psychoanalytic clinic and publishing house. Ferenczi was elected president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, but the political upheavals that shook the country, especially Hungary's independence from Austria, the democratic revolution, the Bolshevik revolution in Budapest in 1919 and its brutal repression, forced him to yield the presidency to the Briton, Ernest Jones.

During the democratic government of Mihály Károlyi, students and progressives demanded that psychoanalysis be officially recognized. Their demand reached the Commune and Ferenczi was appointed professor of psychoanalysis at the university, the first in the world. When the right-wing government of Miklós Horthy came to power, the position was eliminated and, in 1920, Ferenczi was excluded from the Hungarian medical association.

The 1920s turned out to be a phase of expansion for psychoanalysis in Hungary. At the end of the war, Géza Róheim, Imre Hermann, Zsigmond Pfeifer, and other leading figures joined the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Association. Cut off from playing a role in Hungarian public life, psychoanalysts consulted, taught, and published. Róheim developed the notion of psychoanalytic anthropology, Hermann worked on the psychology of creativity, Pfeifer on children's games. This was also the period of the first wave of emigration. Sándor Radó and Jenö Hárnik moved to Berlin and participated in the creation of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training. During the twenties, József Eisler, Sándor Feldmann, Erzsébet Révész, Béla Felszeghy, Vilma Kovács, and Alice and Mihály Bálint joined the association.

Efforts were made to organize the teaching of psychoanalysis. Seminars on theory were established in 1919, and in 1925 a training method specific to Hungary was developed by Ferenczi and Vilma Kovács.

In 1925, István Hollós was fired from his position as head physician at the psychiatric hospital of Lipótmezö because of his Jewish background. Two years later he published My Farewell from the Yellow House, in which he investigated psychosis from a new and innovative point of view.

In 1928, Géza Róheim traveled to central Australia, Normanby Island, and America. During his research, financed by Marie Bonaparte, he combined anthropological research with psychoanalytic theory.

In 1930, a psychoanalytic clinic for children was created under the direction of Margit Dubowitz. That same year Lilian Rotter and Fanny Hann joined the association. In 1931, in spite of several administrative problems, a polyclinic was opened at 12 Mészáros Street, with Ferenczi as director. The building and funding were provided by Vilma Kovács and her family; analysts from the association provided free consultations.

Ferenczi's students prepared Psychoanalytic Studies for his sixtieth birthday, but the book wasn't published until after his death in 1933. István Hollós then became president of the association and Mihály Bálint director of the polyclinic.

In 1935 and 1937 two meetings, known as the Four Nations, were organized by the psychoanalytic associations of Vienna, Prague, Italy, and Hungary, the first in Vienna, the second in Budapest, and devoted to the problems of psychoanalytic training. At the second meeting, Vilma Kovács detailed the characteristics of the Hungarian method and Anna Freud read a paper by Helene Deutsch criticizing the method.

Hungarian analysts also began a program to develop public awareness of psychoanalysis. Kata Lévy organized seminars with teachers, Alice Bálint with mothers, and Mihály Bálint held discussion groups with general practitioners. In 1933, Lilly Hajdu, a psychiatrist, joined the association.

During the late thirties, threatened by the rise of anti-Semitism and fascism, a number of analysts decided to emigrate. Among them were the Bálints, Géza Róheim, Sándor Feldmann, and Edit Gyömröi. The association continued to function under police surveillance and under the direction of its non-Jewish members, Endre Almássy and Tibor Rajka. In 1944, when German troops invaded Hungary and put Hungarian Nazis in power, several analysts, including Zsigmond Pfeifer, Géza Dukes, László Révész, Miklós Gimes, and József Eisler, became victims of persecution. Imre Hermann and István Hollós barely escaped with their lives.

After 1945, psychoanalysts in Hungary resumed their activities. They participated in the creation of a mental health institute and worked in dispensaries. But the Stalinist government, which came to power in 1948, forced the association to dissolve. From then on psychoanalysis survived in a semi-clandestine fashion, primarily through the help of Imre Hermann, who trained the new generation of analysts: György Vikár, Livia Nemes, Agnes Binét, Teréz Virág. The dark years after 1956 were marked by the suicide of Lilly Hajdu, whose husband was murdered by the Nazis and whose son, a friend of Imre Nagy, had been executed along with the prime minister. During the sixties, the Kádar government became more tolerant of psychoanalysis. István Székács, a member of the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Association since 1939, also began to train psychoanalysts, although not initially a member of Hermann's group.

During the seventies, Hungarian analysts still did not have an officially recognized association, but some public manifestations of recognition took place. In 1969, for example, Imre Hermann was decorated on his eightieth birthday and, in 1974, a commemorative celebration was organized for the Ferenczi centenary. In 1987 an international congress of psychoanalysis was held in Budapest.

After democracy was restored in 1989, the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Association was reconstituted and affiliated itself with the International Psychoanalytic Association. A new generation of analysts was able to practice, teach, and publish openly.

The Ferenczi Society, a broad-based group of people interested in psychoanalysis, began to publish the review Thalassa. While the first generation of analysts trained by Imre Hermann was affected primarily by his ideas, contemporary psychoanalysts were reevaluating the ideas of Ferenczi, which they were forced to read in foreign editions since his complete works had not yet been published in Hungarian because of a lack of funding. They also served as an inspiration for Otto Kernberg.

Hungarian psychoanalysts of the 1930s developed a number of specific ideas that justify referring to them collectively as the Budapest School. These include the importance of trauma in the etiology of mental pathology, the attention given to object relations, consideration of dyadic relations and regression, and insistence on the importance of experience in therapy. Hungarian training methods differed from other methods in that the candidate's first control analysis was undertaken by his own analyst to further an understanding of the counter-transference and better understand his own transference to the analyst.

Ferenczi's students demonstrated considerable creativity. Imre Hermann developed the theory of clinging, Géza Róheim the ontogenetic theory of culture, and Mihály Bálint the theory of primal love (and several others after his emigration). Lilian Rotter developed a body of original work on female sexuality and Alice Bálint on the mother-child relationship. István Hollós and Lilly Hajdu examined psychoses from a psychoanalytic point of view.

Bibliography

Bálint, Michael. (1968). The basic fault: Therapeutic aspects of regression. London: Tavistock Publications.

Brabant-Gerö,Éva. (1993). Ferenczi et L'école hongroise de psychanalyse. Paris: L'Harmattan.

Ferenczi, Sandor. (1955). Selected Papers of Sandor Ferenczi. (Vol. 3, Michael Bálint, Ed.). New York: Basic Books.

Haynal, André. (1988). The technique at issue: Controversies in psychoanalysis from Freud and Ferenczi to Michael Bálint. (Elizabeth Holder, Trans.). London: Karnac. (Original work published 1986)

Hermann, Imre. (1972). L'instinct filial. (G. Kassai, Trans.). Paris: Denoël.

Hungarian Psychoanalytic Association. (1933).Lélekelemzési Tanulmànyok (Psychoanalytic Studies). Budapest: Somló.

—ÉVA BRABANT-GERÖ

History 1450-1789: Hungary

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Hungary's history from 1450 through 1790 can be divided into three periods. The century from 1450 was the last phase of the independent Hungarian Kingdom, whose major political concern was the Ottoman advance. Hungary lost her long struggle at the battle of Mohács in 1526 and was divided into three parts by the mid-sixteenth century. The second period (1541–1699) is often labeled as the era of the tripartite division of the country. Royal Hungary in the west was under Habsburg rule and Ottoman Hungary in the middle was ruled, at least partly, from Constantinople (Istanbul), whereas the Principality of Transylvania in the east, although an Ottoman satellite state, had considerable autonomy, especially in its domestic affairs. While hostilities and rivalries often divided the Hungarian political elite, with regard to socioeconomic, religious, cultural, and even political developments, the three parts were connected on many levels. The next era can be described as the integration of Hungary into the Habsburg Monarchy that reconquered the country from the Ottomans by the end of the 17th century. This period witnessed a new political compromise between Vienna and the Hungarian estates, as well as visible economic and demographic growth and cultural flourishing.

In the mid-fifteenth century, the Kingdom of Hungary was a regional power in Central Europe. It had an estimated territory of 300,000 square kilometers, a population of 3.1–3.5 million, and annual revenues of 500,000 gold florins under King Matthias (Mátyás) Corvinus of the Hunyadi family (1458–1490). Protected by the natural boundaries of the Carpathian Mountains in the north and in the east, Hungary was bordered by Poland in the north, Bohemia in the northwest, and Habsburg Austria in the west. In the south, the Danube and Sava Rivers—and the southern border defense system built along those rivers—separated the country from the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman threat fostered military reforms and centralization in Hungary. Relying on the towns and the lesser nobility, a reformed tax system, a secular bureaucracy, and a mercenary army of thirty thousand strong, King Matthias curtailed the influence of the aristocracy. Although the king strengthened and reorganized the country's southern defenses, vast resources were spent on his wars against Austria and Bohemia in pursuit of a Danubian monarchy, as well as on the king's lavish court and patronage of the arts and sciences.

During the rules of King Matthias's Jagiello successors (1490–1526), the power-hungry nobility strengthened its position vis-à-vis both the crown and the rest of the society. An influential compilation of Hungarian customary law, called the Tripartitum (1514), codified the rights and privileges of the nobility, including the right to resist the king. The book perceived the nobility, whose members supposedly enjoyed equal rights (una et aedem nobilitas), as "the mystical body" of the "holy crown" that is, the sole representatives of the "political nation." Following the rebellion of 1514, the nobility subjected the peasants to "eternal servitude." Although the Tripartitum was never promulgated and the decrees of the Diet of 1514 were often suspended, they provided the nobility with a legal framework until 1848 and were largely responsible for Hungary's unhealthy social structure.

The annihilation of the Hungarian army at the battle of Mohács (1526) not only meant the end of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary but also marked the beginning of Habsburg-Ottoman military confrontation in Central Europe. Following the Ottomans' withdrawal from Hungary in 1526, competing factions of the nobility elected two kings, János Szapolyai (John Zapolya, 1526–1540), the royal Hungarian governor (or vajda) of Transylvania, and Ferdinand of Habsburg (1526–1564). With Ottoman military assistance, Szapolyai controlled the eastern parts of the country, while Ferdinand ruled the northern and western parts of Hungary. When the death of Szapolyai (1540) upset the military equilibrium between the Habsburgs and Ottomans, Sultan Suleiman I annexed central Hungary to his empire (1541). Hungary's strategically less significant eastern territories were left in the hands of Szapolyai's widow and were soon to become the Principality of Transylvania, an Ottoman vassal state. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Habsburgs, who remained on the Hungarian throne until 1918, had to content themselves with northern and western Hungary, known as Royal Hungary.

Although the Ottomans launched multiple campaigns against Hungary and the Habsburgs (1529, 1532, 1541, 1543, 1551–1552, 1566, 1663–1564) and the two empires waged two exhausting wars in Hungary (1593–1606 and 1683–1699), the buffer-zone-turned-country saved Habsburg central Europe from Ottoman conquest. Successive peace treaties (1547, 1568, 1606, and 1664) maintained the tripartite division of the country, which ended only in 1699, when, in the treaty of Karlowitz, the Ottomans ceded most of Hungary and Transylvania to the Habsburgs. The country's unity was only partially restored, however, for Vienna administered Transylvania as a separate imperial territory until 1848.

The price of being the "bastion of Christendom" was the dismemberment of the country and constant warfare along the Muslim-Christian divide with severe economic and social consequences. However, the endurance of Hungarian society and its economy proved to be much stronger than expected. Despite continuous skirmishes and protracted wars, famine, and epidemics, Hungary's population had increased from 3.1 million in the 1490s to 4 million by the early 1680s. In spite of double taxation (Hungarian and Ottoman), many towns in the Great Plain (Alföld) under Ottoman rule profited from the Hungaro-Ottoman condominium and succeeded in strengthening their privileges and self-government. The sixteenth century was the golden age of manorial agriculture and cattle trade. From the 1570s, Hungary exported some eighty thousand to one hundred thousand head of cattle annually to Vienna and to the German and Italian cities through an elaborate chain of cattle keepers and merchants. While defending the border was a major burden on the society, many profited from feeding and supplying imperial armies and Ottoman and Hungarian garrisons.

The tripartite division of the country and the limits of Habsburg authority also fostered the spread of Protestant Reformation. In Transylvania, Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Unitarianism were declared accepted denominations (recepta religio) in 1568. In the 1580s, half of Hungary's population was Calvinist, another quarter followed the Augsburg Confession, and the remaining 25 percent belonged to the Unitarian, Catholic, and Orthodox churches.

Angered by Vienna's lukewarm Turkish policy and aggressive Counter-Reformation, Protestant Magyar nobles rebelled repeatedly against the Catholic Habsburgs in the seventeenth century. They were aided by the princes of Transylvania, which, under the able rule of Gábor Bethlen (1613–1629) and György Rákóczi I (1630–1648) flourished economically and culturally. Allied with the Protestant states in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the princes launched several campaigns against the Habsburgs and extended the principality's territories at the expense of Royal Hungary. When the Habsburgs conceded further Hungarian territories to the Ottomans in the treaty of Vasvár in 1664 in spite of the former's victory at St. Gotthard, even the loyal Catholic magnates of Royal Hungary were outraged and many joined the anti-Austrian "magnate conspiracy" of 1670–1671. The severe punishment of the members of the plot and Emperor Leopold's "confessional absolutism" triggered new waves of anti-Habsburg rebellions, of which the most serious was the revolt of Imre Thököly's kurucs (a group of Hungarian "national crusaders" or insurgents) in 1681–1683. Thököly's war led to the creation of yet another pro-Ottoman vassal state in Upper Hungary at a critical moment when the Ottomans' failed siege of Vienna (1683) set off an international counteroffensive, which, by the end of the century, had reconquered most of Hungary from the Ottomans.

After 1699, the Habsburgs treated Hungary as a conquered and subjugated province, thus provoking another revolt of the Magyars. The peace treaty of Szatmár (1711), which ended Ferenc Rákóczi's defeated War of Independence (1703–1711), was a wise compromise for both parties. It altered initial Habsburg designs regarding Hungary's incorporation into the monarchy, leaving the county-level administration and jurisdiction in the hands of the Hungarian nobility, which also retained many of its former privileges including tax exemption. On the other hand, Charles VI (Charles III as king of Hungary, 1711–1740) restored Habsburg rule over Hungary, whose Estates recognized his daughter's succession (the Pragmatic Sanction) in the Diet of 1722/23, making Hungary a hereditary Habsburg kingdom.

Within two generations, the population of the country (including Croatia and Transylvania) had doubled, reaching nine million by the late 1780s. This was partly due to voluntary immigration and state-organized settlement policy through which hundreds of thousands of Romanians, Croatians, Slovaks, and Germans arrived in Hungary. This significantly changed the ethnic composition of the country, where the Hungarians lost their absolute majority and comprised less than 40 percent of the inhabitants in the end of the century.

Led by ideas reflecting the Enlightenment and by absolutistic and physiocratic principles, Maria Theresa (ruled 1740–1780) and Joseph II (ruled 1780–1790) initiated important administrative, economic, legal, and cultural reforms, issued as royal patents and carried out by royal commissioners to avoid their blocking by the Estates in the Diet. Many of these reforms were beneficial for Hungary. The Urbarial Patent of 1767 regulated the size of peasant holdings and obligations in order to eliminate inequalities and overtaxation, whereas the Ratio educationis of 1777 reformed the educational system. Joseph II's Edict of Tolerance (1781) permitted the "free practice" of religion for all denominations, enabling their members to become guild masters, earn university diplomas in Hungary, and serve in state offices. However, Maria Theresa's discriminatory tariff regulations (1754), which separated Hungary from the rest of the monarchy and its traditional German and Italian markets, negatively affected Hungary, reinforcing the country's agrarian supplier status and hindering the development of domestic industries. Joseph II's decision to replace Latin with German as the official language of administration was perceived as "Germanization" and, along with his patents that abolished Hungary's old administrative structure, infuriated the Estates. By the end of Joseph II's rule, the country, which was feeling overwhelmed by the severe burden of a new Turkish war (1787–1790), was again on the brink of an insurrection. Facing possible armed rebellion in Hungary, growing Prussian pressure, a changing international order because of the French Revolution, and military defeat in his Turkish war, Joseph II decided to appease his Magyar nobility. In January 1790, the emperor revoked all his reforms, except for his Edict of Toleration and his decrees that benefited the peasantry and parishes.

After the compromise in 1711, loyal Hungarian magnates and the Catholic hierarchy were among the richest people in the monarchy. They were also instrumental in the cultural life of the country. The palaces built by the Esterházy, Károlyi, Pálffy, and Festetics families at Fertõd, Erdõd, Királyfalva, and Keszthely respectively are, along with magnificent churches, the best examples of Hungarian baroque. Many of the magnates were not only patrons of the arts and of literature, but were themselves active writers spreading the ideas of Enlightenment, the most radical of which were discussed in the twenty-some lodges of the Freemasons. While the eighteenth century saw spectacular population growth, solid, though uneven, economic development, and cultural revival, it also witnessed the preservation of the country's medieval and anachronistic "constitution" and social structure. All this, along with the radically changed ethnic composition of Hungary, would considerably complicate the country's history in the nineteenth century.

Bibliography

Balázs, Éva H. Hungary and the Habsburgs, 1765–1800. Budapest, 1997.

Ingrao, Charles. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815. Cambridge, 1994.

Köpeczi, Béla, ed. History of Transylvania. Budapest, 1994.

Lendvai, Paul. The Hungarians. Princeton, 2003.

Sugar, Peter F., et al., eds. A History of Hungary. Bloomington, Ind., 1994.

—GÁBOR ÁGOSTON

Geography: Hungary

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Republic in central Europe, bordered by the former Czechoslovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and south, Yugoslavia and Croatia to the south, and Slovenia and Austria to the west. Its capital and largest city is Budapest.

Hungary is a former Eastern Bloc country.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire, in which Austria and Hungary were equal partners, was established in 1867 and collapsed in World War I.
Soviet troops invaded Hungary in 1956 to put down a revolution against the communist government.
Hungary held multiparty free elections in October 1990, ending forty-two years of communist rule. In 1999, it joined NATO.

Dialing Code: Hungary

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The international dialing code for Hungary is: 36

Maps: Hungary

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Local Time: Hungary

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Local Time: Jul 18, 9:19 AM

Currency: Hungary

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Hungarian Forint

Statistics: Hungary

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Introduction

Background:

Hungary was part of the polyglot Austro-Hungarian Empire, which collapsed during World War I. The country fell under Communist rule following World War II. In 1956, a revolt and an announced withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact were met with a massive military intervention by Moscow. Under the leadership of Janos KADAR in 1968, Hungary began liberalizing its economy, introducing so-called "Goulash Communism." Hungary held its first multiparty elections in 1990 and initiated a free market economy. It joined NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004.

Geography

Location:	Central Europe, northwest of Romania
Geographic coordinates:	47 00 N, 20 00 E
Map references:	Europe
Area:	total: 93,030 sq km land: 92,340 sq km water: 690 sq km
Area - comparative:	slightly smaller than Indiana
Land boundaries:	total: 2,171 km border countries: Austria 366 km, Croatia 329 km, Romania 443 km, Serbia 151 km, Slovakia 677 km, Slovenia 102 km, Ukraine 103 km
Coastline:	0 km (landlocked)
Maritime claims:	none (landlocked)
Climate:	temperate; cold, cloudy, humid winters; warm summers
Terrain:	mostly flat to rolling plains; hills and low mountains on the Slovakian border
Elevation extremes:	lowest point: Tisza River 78 m highest point: Kekes 1,014 m
Natural resources:	bauxite, coal, natural gas, fertile soils, arable land
Land use:	arable land: 49.58% permanent crops: 2.06% other: 48.36% (2005)
Irrigated land:	2,300 sq km (2003)
Environment - current issues:	the upgrading of Hungary's standards in waste management, energy efficiency, and air, soil, and water pollution to meet EU requirements will require large investments
Environment - international agreements:	party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Sulfur 85, Air Pollution-Sulfur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note:	landlocked; strategic location astride main land routes between Western Europe and Balkan Peninsula as well as between Ukraine and Mediterranean basin; the north-south flowing Duna (Danube) and Tisza Rivers divide the country into three large regions

People

Population:	9,956,108 (July 2007 est.)
Age structure:	0-14 years: 15.3% (male 785,643/female 741,907) 15-64 years: 69.3% (male 3,399,926/female 3,498,403) 65 years and over: 15.4% (male 554,356/female 975,873) (2007 est.)
Median age:	total: 38.9 years male: 36.5 years female: 41.5 years (2007 est.)
Population growth rate:	-0.253% (2007 est.)
Birth rate:	9.66 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Death rate:	13.05 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Net migration rate:	0.86 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Sex ratio:	at birth: 1.06 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.059 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 0.972 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.568 male(s)/female total population: 0.909 male(s)/female (2007 est.)
Infant mortality rate:	total: 8.21 deaths/1,000 live births male: 8.91 deaths/1,000 live births female: 7.46 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:	total population: 72.92 years male: 68.73 years female: 77.38 years (2007 est.)
Total fertility rate:	1.33 children born/woman (2007 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:	0.1% (2001 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:	2,800 (2001 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths:	less than 100 (2001 est.)
Nationality:	noun: Hungarian(s) adjective: Hungarian
Ethnic groups:	Hungarian 92.3%, Roma 1.9%, other or unknown 5.8% (2001 census)
Religions:	Roman Catholic 51.9%, Calvinist 15.9%, Lutheran 3%, Greek Catholic 2.6%, other Christian 1%, other or unspecified 11.1%, unaffiliated 14.5% (2001 census)
Languages:	Hungarian 93.6%, other or unspecified 6.4% (2001 census)
Literacy:	definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 99.4% male: 99.5% female: 99.3% (2003 est.)

Government

Country name:	conventional long form: Republic of Hungary conventional short form: Hungary local long form: Magyar Koztarsasag local short form: Magyarorszag
Government type:	parliamentary democracy
Capital:	name: Budapest geographic coordinates: 47 30 N, 19 05 E time difference: UTC+1 (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) daylight saving time: +1hr, begins last Sunday in March; ends last Sunday in October
Administrative divisions:	19 counties (megyek, singular - megye), 23 urban counties (singular - megyei varos), and 1 capital city (fovaros) counties: Bacs-Kiskun, Baranya, Bekes, Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen, Csongrad, Fejer, Gyor-Moson-Sopron, Hajdu-Bihar, Heves, Jasz-Nagykun-Szolnok, Komarom-Esztergom, Nograd, Pest, Somogy, Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg, Tolna, Vas, Veszprem, Zala urban counties: Bekescsaba, Debrecen, Dunaujvaros, Eger, Erd, Gyor, Hodmezovasarhely, Kaposvar, Kecskemet, Miskolc, Nagykanizsa, Nyiregyhaza, Pecs, Salgotarjan, Sopron, Szeged, Szekesfehervar, Szekszard, Szolnok, Szombathely, Tatabanya, Veszprem, Zalaegerszeg capital city: Budapest
Independence:	1001 (unification by King STEPHEN I)
National holiday:	Saint Stephen's Day, 20 August
Constitution:	18 August 1949, effective 20 August 1949; revised 19 April 1972; 18 October 1989 revision ensured legal rights for individuals and constitutional checks on the authority of the prime minister and also established the principle of parliamentary oversight; 1997 amendment streamlined the judicial system
Legal system:	based German-Austrian legal system; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations
Suffrage:	18 years of age; universal
Executive branch:	chief of state: Laszlo SOLYOM (since 5 August 2005) head of government: Prime Minister Ferenc GYURCSANY (since 29 September 2004) cabinet: Council of Ministers prime minister elected by the National Assembly on the recommendation of the president; other ministers proposed by the prime minister and appointed and relieved of their duties by the president elections: president elected by the National Assembly for a five-year term (eligible for a second term); election last held 6-7 June 2005 (next to be held by June 2010); prime minister elected by the National Assembly on the recommendation of the president; election last held 29 September 2004 election results: Laszlo SOLYOM elected president by a simple majority in the third round of voting, 185 to 182; Ferenc GYURCSANY elected prime minister; result of legislative vote - 197 to 12 note: to be elected, the president must win two-thirds of legislative vote in the first two rounds or a simple majority in the third round
Legislative branch:	unicameral National Assembly or Orszaggyules (386 seats; members are elected by popular vote under a system of proportional and direct representation to serve four-year terms) elections: last held 9 and 23 April 2006 (next to be held in April 2010) election results: percent of vote by party (5% or more of the vote required for parliamentary representation in the first round) - MSzP 43.2%, Fidesz-KDNP 42%, SzDSz 6.5%, MDF 5%, other 3.3%; seats by party - MSzP 190, Fidesz 141, KDNP 23, SzDSz 20, MDF 11, independent 1
Judicial branch:	Constitutional Court (judges are elected by the National Assembly for nine-year terms)
Political parties and leaders:	Alliance of Free Democrats or SzDSz [Janos KOKA]; Christian Democratic People's Party or KDNP [Zsolt SEMJEN]; Hungarian Civic Alliance or Fidesz [Viktor ORBAN, chairman]; Hungarian Democratic Forum or MDF [Ibolya DAVID]; Hungarian Socialist Party or MSzP [Ferenc GYURCSANY]
Political pressure groups and leaders:	NA
International organization participation:	ACCT (observer), Australia Group, BIS, CE, CEI, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, EIB, ESA (cooperating state), EU, FAO, G- 9, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICCt, ICRM, IDA, IEA, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, IMSO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO, ITSO, ITU, ITUC, MIGA, MINURSO, NAM (guest), NATO, NEA, NSG, OAS (observer), OECD, OIF (observer), OPCW, OSCE, PCA, SECI, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNFICYP, UNHCR, UNIDO, UNOMIG, UNWTO, UPU, WCL, WCO, WEU (associate), WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO, ZC
Diplomatic representation in the US:	chief of mission: Ambassador Ferenc SOMOGYI chancery: 3910 Shoemaker Street NW, Washington, DC 20008 telephone: [1] (202) 362-6730 FAX: [1] (202) 966-8135 consulate(s) general: Los Angeles, New York
Diplomatic representation from the US:	chief of mission: Ambassador April H. FOLEY embassy: Szabadsag ter 12, H-1054 Budapest mailing address: pouch: American Embassy Budapest, 5270 Budapest Place, US Department of State, Washington, DC 20521-5270 telephone: [36] (1) 475-4400 FAX: [36] (1) 475-4764
Flag description:	three equal horizontal bands of red (top), white, and green

Economy

Economy - overview:	Hungary has made the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy, with a per capita income nearly two-thirds that of the EU-25 average. Hungary continues to demonstrate strong economic growth and acceded to the EU in May 2004. The private sector accounts for over 80% of GDP. Foreign ownership of and investment in Hungarian firms are widespread, with cumulative foreign direct investment totaling more than $60 billion since 1989. Hungary issues investment-grade sovereign debt. International observers, however, have expressed concerns over Hungary's fiscal and current account deficits. Inflation has declined from 14% in 1998 to 3.7% in 2006. Unemployment has persisted above 6%. Hungary's labor force participation rate of 57% is one of the lowest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Germany is by far Hungary's largest economic partner. Policy challenges include cutting the public sector deficit to 3% of GDP by 2008, from about 6.5% in 2006, and tackling a persistent trade deficit. The current government has announced and begun to implement an austerity program designed to address these issues, leading to eventual adoption of the euro.
GDP (purchasing power parity):	$175 billion (2006 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate):	$113.2 billion (2006 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:	3.9% (2006 est.)
GDP - composition by sector:	agriculture: 3.4% industry: 31.5% services: 65.1% (2006 est.)
Labor force:	4.21 million (2006 est.)
Labor force - by occupation:	agriculture: 5.5% industry: 33.3% services: 61.2% (2003)
Unemployment rate:	7.4% (2006 est.)
Population below poverty line:	8.6% (1993 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share:	lowest 10%: 4% highest 10%: 22.2% (2002)
Distribution of family income - Gini index:	26.9 (2002)
Inflation rate (consumer prices):	4.1% (2006 est.)
Investment (gross fixed):	21.8% of GDP (2006 est.)
Budget:	revenues: $50.51 billion expenditures: $60.71 billion (2006 est.)
Public debt:	64.9% of GDP (2006 est.)
Agriculture - products:	wheat, corn, sunflower seed, potatoes, sugar beets; pigs, cattle, poultry, dairy products
Industries:	mining, metallurgy, construction materials, processed foods, textiles, chemicals (especially pharmaceuticals), motor vehicles
Industrial production growth rate:	9.5% (2006 est.)
Electricity - production:	33.69 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity - consumption:	35.98 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity - exports:	9.41 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity - imports:	15.64 billion kWh (2005)
Oil - production:	47,530 bbl/day (2004 est.)
Oil - consumption:	132,000 bbl/day (2004 est.)
Oil - exports:	58,380 bbl/day (2004)
Oil - imports:	150,000 bbl/day (2004)
Oil - proved reserves:	102.5 million bbl (1 January 2006)
Current account balance:	$-6.211 billion (2006 est.)
Exports:	$73.51 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Exports - commodities:	machinery and equipment 61.1%, other manufactures 28.7%, food products 6.5%, raw materials 2%, fuels and electricity 1.6% (2003)
Exports - partners:	Germany 29.5%, Italy 5.6%, France 5%, Austria 5%, UK 4.5%, Romania 4.2%, Poland 4.1% (2006)
Imports:	$74.02 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
Imports - commodities:	machinery and equipment 51.6%, other manufactures 35.7%, fuels and electricity 7.7%, food products 3.1%, raw materials 2.0% (2003)
Imports - partners:	Germany 27.1%, Russia 8.2%, China 6.9%, Austria 6.2%, France 4.7%, Italy 4.6%, Netherlands 4.3%, Poland 4.3% (2006)
Reserves of foreign exchange and gold:	$21.59 billion (2006 est.)
Debt - external:	$82.02 billion (2006 est.)
Economic aid - recipient:	$302.6 million in available EU structural adjustment and cohesion funds (2004)
Currency (code):	forint (HUF)
Exchange rates:	forints per US dollar - 210.39 (2006), 199.58 (2005), 202.75 (2004), 224.31 (2003), 257.89 (2002)
Fiscal year:	calendar year

Transportation

Airports:	46 (2007)
Airports - with paved runways:	total: 20 over 3,047 m: 2 2,438 to 3,047 m: 8 1,524 to 2,437 m: 4 914 to 1,523 m: 4 under 914 m: 2 (2007)
Airports - with unpaved runways:	total: 26 2,438 to 3,047 m: 2 1,524 to 2,437 m: 3 914 to 1,523 m: 11 under 914 m: 10 (2007)
Heliports:	5 (2007)
Pipelines:	gas 4,397 km; oil 990 km; refined products 335 km (2006)
Railways:	total: 8,057 km broad gauge: 36 km 1.524-m gauge standard gauge: 7,802 km 1.435-m gauge (2,628 km electrified) narrow gauge: 219 km 0.760-m gauge (2006)
Roadways:	total: 159,568 km paved: 70,050 km (30,874 km of interurban roads including 626 km of expressways) unpaved: 89,518 km (2005)
Waterways:	1,622 km (most on Danube River) (2007)
Ports and terminals:	Budapest, Dunaujvaros, Gyor-Gonyu, Csepel, Baja, Mohacs (2003)

Military

Military branches:	Ground Forces, Hungarian Air Force (Magyar Legiero, ML) (2006)
Military service age and obligation:	18 years of age for voluntary military service; conscription abolished in June 2004; 6-month service obligation, with reserve obligation to age 50 (2006)
Manpower available for military service:	males age 18-49: 2,303,116 females age 18-49: 2,265,463 (2005 est.)
Manpower fit for military service:	males age 18-49: 1,780,513 females age 18-49: 1,864,580 (2005 est.)
Manpower reaching military service age annually:	males age 18-49: 63,847 females age 18-49: 61,037 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP:	1.75% (2005 est.)

Transnational Issues

Disputes - international:	bilateral government, legal, technical and economic working group negotiations continue in 2006 with Slovakia over Hungary's failure to complete its portion of the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric dam project along the Danube; as a member state that forms part of the EU's external border, Hungary must implement the strict Schengen border rules
Illicit drugs:	transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin and cannabis and for South American cocaine destined for Western Europe; limited producer of precursor chemicals, particularly for amphetamine and methamphetamine; efforts to counter money laundering, related to organized crime and drug trafficking, are improving, but remain vulnerable; significant consumer of ecstasy

Local Cuisine: Hungary

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Sunday Dinner Menu

Hard-boiled eggs and cold vegetable appetizer
Chicken vegetable soup
Paprika chicken with dumplings
Cucumber salad
Strudel
Coffee

Recipes

Pörkölt (National Hungarian Stew)
Gulyás (Hungarian Goulash)
Paprika Chicken
Stuffed Green Peppers
Pork Cutlets with Potatoes
Hungarian Butter Cookies
Almond Kisses
Hungarian Cold Plate
Small Dumplings
Noodle Pudding
Summer Cucumber Soup

Geographic Setting and Environment

Hungary is a landlocked country in the middle of Europe. It is a little smaller than Indiana, and is a land with fertile soil. Hungarian farmers grow enough wheat, corn, rye, potatoes, and some fruits, to feed its population. Even though many Hungarian farmers raise livestock, the quality of the animals they raise (and the meat they produce) is below the standard of Hungary's neighbors, mostly because there is not enough quality animal food available.

One of the largest challenges facing Hungary is the preservation of its environment. Hungary has huge problems with air and water pollution, but the government does not have enough money or technology to minimize pollution from factories.

Hungary's principal rivers are the Danube and Tisza, and the largest lake is Balaton. All three provide good fishing areas for Hungary's sport and commercial fishers.

History and Food

The first people to live in present-day Hungary were nomads called the Magyars, who arrived in around A.D. 800. Hungary's national dish, a meat stew called goulash, can be traced to the Magyars' eating habits. They traveled with dried cubes of meat cooked with onions, and water could be added to make a stew.

The reign of King Matthias (1458–90) was a high point in Hungarian history, for both culture and food. Through his Italian wife, Queen Beatrice, King Matthias brought Italian cooking to Hungary. During this period, cooking was raised to a fine art.

When the Turks invaded Hungary in the sixteenth century, they brought their cooking customs with them. These included the use of the spice paprika and a thin, flaky pastry called filo (or phyllo) dough. They also taught the Hungarians how to cook stuffed peppers and eggplants. The Turks introduced coffee to Hungary.

Austria's Hapsburg monarchy gained control over Hungary from the seventeenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. Under Austrian rule, German and Austrian cooking styles influenced Hungarian eating habits. During this period, Hungary became famous for its cakes and pastries.

Foods of the Hungarians

The best-known ingredient in Hungarian food is the red-powdered spice called paprika. It is used to flavor many dishes. Other staples of Hungarian cooking include onions, cabbage, potatoes, noodles, and caraway seeds. Both cream and sour cream are used heavily in Hungarian food. Dumplings (dough wrapped around different kinds of fillings) are very popular as are cabbages or green peppers stuffed with meat and rice. Another favorite is the pancake called a palacsinta. It is often rolled or wrapped around different kinds of fillings.

Hungarians eat a lot of meat, mostly pork or beef. Many meat dishes are dipped in bread and then baked or fried. Hungarians also prepare many different kinds of sausages. The Hungarian national dish is meat stew. People outside Hungary call it "goulash," but the Hungarians have several different names for it, including pörkölt and tokány. The dish they call goulash, or gulyás, is actually a soup made with meat and paprika. Paprika is also a key ingredient in another national dish; a fish soup called halaszle.

The Hungarians are known throughout the world for their elegant pastries and cakes. The flaky pastry dough called filo or phyllo was brought to Hungary by the Turks in the seventeenth century. Instead of the honey and nuts used in Turkish pastry, the Hungarians filled phyllo dough with their own ingredients to make a dessert known as strudel. Strudel fillings include apples, cherries, and poppy seeds. Hungary is known for its wines, especially the sweet wines of the Tokay region.

See Pörkölt (National Hungarian Stew) recipe.

See Gulyás (Hungarian Goulash) recipe.

See Paprika Chicken recipe.

See Stuffed Green Peppers recipe.

See Pork Cutlets with Potatoes recipe.

Food for Religious and Holiday Celebrations

Christmas and New Year's are often celebrated with a roasted stuffed turkey or roasted pig. The turkey is usually stuffed with chestnut dressing. Eating roast pig on New Year's Day is supposed to bring good luck. On New Year's Eve, a spicy punch called Krambambuli is served. It is made from chopped fruit, candied orange peel, walnuts, sugar, rum, and brandy, to which even more ingredients are added.

See Hungarian Butter Cookies recipe.

See Almond Kisses recipe.

Mealtime Customs

Most people who live in the country eat a big breakfast. It may consist of eggs, ham or sausage, cheese, green peppers and tomatoes, and rolls and butter. Adults drink tea or coffee; children drink milk or cocoa. In the city, some people eat a lighter breakfast consisting of a beverage and rolls with honey or jam.

Lunch, eaten between noon and 2:30 P.M., is the main meal of the day. Soup, vegetables, and dessert usually accompany a main meat dish. A light supper is eaten in the evening, between 5:30 and 8:00 P.M. Usually this is a one-course meal, consisting of soup, a vegetable dish, or a "Hungarian cold plate." This is a plate of cold meats, cheeses, vegetables, and hard-boiled eggs. It can be eaten for supper, as a snack, or even for breakfast. Hungarians eat salad as a side dish with the main part of the meal, not before or after. Most Hungarian meals end with something sweet, such as sweet noodles, pancakes, dumplings, or a dessert like strudel or cake. In addition to cold meat, popular snacks include dumplings, noodle dishes, and baked goods such as lángos, or fried dough.

Before each meal, Hungarians wish their friends or relatives a good appetite, saying Jó étvágyat kivánok (YO ATE-vah-dyat KEE-vah-nok). At the end of a meal, they express thanks to their host or hostess, saying Köszönöm (KOH-soh-nohm). The host responds, Váljék kedves egészségére (VAH-lyake KEHD-vesh EH-gase-shay-reh). This means "I wish you good health." Music is commonly played in Hungarian restaurants.

See Hungarian Cold Plate recipe.

See Small Dumplings recipe.

See Noodle Pudding recipe.

See Summer Cucumber Soup recipe.

Politics, Economics, and Nutrition

Almost all Hungarians receive adequate nutrition. There is little scarcity of food, and, except for occasional years when there is not enough rainfall, Hungarian farms produce enough food to feed the people.

Further Study

Books

Albyn, Carole Lisa, and Lois Webb. The Multicultural Cookbook for Students. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1993.

Biro, Charlotte Slovak. Flavors of Hungary. San Ramon, Calif.: Ortho Information Services, 1989.

Chamberlain, Lesley. The Food and Cooking of Eastern Europe. New York: Penguin, 1989.

Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Derecskey, Susan. The Hungarian Cookbook. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.

Halvorsen, Francine. Eating Around the World in Your Neighborhood. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

Hargittai, Magdolna. Cooking the Hungarian Way. Minneapolis: Lerner, 1986.

Segal, Ulrike, and Heinz Vestner. Insight Guides: Hungary. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995.

Webb, Lois Sinaiko. Holidays of the World Cookbook for Students. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1995.

Web Sites

Epicurious. [Online] Available http://epicurious.com (accessed February 7, 2001).

SOAR (online recipe archive). [Online] Available http://soar.Berkeley.edu (accessed February 7, 2001).

Wine Lover's Companion: Hungary

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Hungary produces a wide variety of wines from an equally wide assortment of grapes-some familiar, others a specialty of this eastern European country. Some of the more well-known varieties are cabernet sauvignon, gewürztraminer, Médoc Noir (merlot), Szürkebarát (pinot gris), pinot noir and sylvaner. However, the most popular varieties in Hungary are the red kadarka and the white Olasz Riesling (welschriesling). Other white grapes include Ezerjo, furmint, hárslevelü, kéknyelü and leányka. The popular red Kékfrankos is the same as the blaufränkisch grown in Austria, although not related to gamay, as some believe. Hungary has two famous wines-tokay, a highly regarded dessert wine, and egri bikavér, the red "bull's blood" wine. Hungary's growing regions include the Great Plain in the south central part of the country, which produces over half the total production (most of it very ordinary); the Lake Balaton area in the western part of the country, which includes the higher-quality-wine districts of Mount Badacsony (see badacsonyi), Balaton, Balatonfüred-Csopak, Mór, and Somoló; Eger and Tokay, northeast of Budapest, where Egri Bikavér and Tokay are made; and Sopron in the northwestern corner. The labels of Hungarian wines include the name of the producing areas to which an i is added, making it a possessive form, as in Soproni Kékfrankos-a wine made in the Sopron area from the Kékfrankos variety-or Badacsonyi Szürkebarát-from the Mount Badacsony area and made with Szürkebarát grapes.

National Anthem: National Anthem of: Hungary

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A magyar nép zivataros századaiból

Isten, áldd meg a magyart
Jó kedvvel, bõséggel,
Nyújts feléje védõ kart,
Ha küzd ellenséggel;
Bal sors akit régen tép,
Hozz rá víg esztendõt,
Megbünhödte már e nép
A multat s jövendõt!

Õseinket felhozád
Kárpát szent bércére,
Általad nyert szép hazát
Bendegúznak vére.
S merre zúgnak habjai
Tiszának, Dunának,
Árpád hõs magzatjai
Felvirágozának.

Értünk Kunság mezein
Ért kalászt lengettél,
Tokaj szõlõvesszein
Nektárt csepegtettél.
Zászlónk gyakran plántálád
Vad török sáncára,
S nyögte Mátyás bús hadát
Bécsnek büszke vára.

Hajh, de bûneink miatt
Gyúlt harag kebledben,
S elsújtád villámidat
Dörgõ fellegedben,
Most rabló mongol nyilát
Zúgattad felettünk,
Majd töröktõl rabigát
Vállainkra vettünk.

Hányszor zengett ajkain
Ozman vad népének
Vert hadunk csonthalmain
Gyõzedelmi ének!
Hányszor támadt tenfiad,
Szép hazám, kebledre,
S lettél magzatod miatt
Magzatod hamvvedre!

Bújt az üldözött s felé
Kard nyúl barlangjában,
Szerte nézett, s nem lelé
Honját a hazában.
Bércre hág, és völgybe száll,
Bú s kétség mellette,
Vérözön lábainál,
S lángtenger felette.

Vár állott, most kõhalom;
Kedv s öröm röpkedtek,
Halálhörgés, siralom
Zajlik már helyettek.
S ah, szabadság nem virúl
A holtnak vérébõl,
Kínzó rabság könnye hull
Árvánk hõ szemébõl!

Szánd meg, isten, a magyart,
Kit vészek hányának,
Nyújts feléje védõ kart
Tengerén kínjának.
Bal sors akit régen tép,
Hozz rá víg esztendõt,
Megbünhödte már e nép
A multat s jövendõt!

Hungarian Anthem in English:

O, my God, the Magyar bless
With Thy plenty and good cheer!
With Thine aid his just cause press,
Where his foes to fight appear.
Fate, who for so long did'st frown,
Bring him happy times and ways;
Atoning sorrow hath weighed down
Sins of past and future days.

By Thy help our fathers gained
Kárpát's proud and sacred height;
Here by Thee a home obtained
Heirs of Bendegúz, the knight.
Where'er Danube's waters flow
And the streams of Tisza swell
Árpád's children, Thou dost know,
Flourished and did prosper well.

For us let the golden grain
Grow upon the fields of Kún,
And let Nectar's silver rain
Ripen grapes of Tokay soon.
Thou our flags hast planted o'er
Forts where once wild Turks held sway;
Proud Vienna suffered sore
From King Mátyás' dark array.

But, alas! for our misdeed,
Anger rose within Thy breast,
And Thy lightnings Thou did'st speed
From Thy thundering sky with zest.
Now the Mongol arrow flew
Over our devoted heads;
Or the Turkish yoke we knew,
Which a free-born nation dreads.

O, how often has the voice
Sounded of wild Osman's hordes,
When in songs they did rejoice
O'er our heroes' captured swords!
Yea, how often rose Thy sons,
My fair land, upon Thy sod,
And Thou gavest to these sons,
Tombs within the breast they trod!

Though in caves pursued he lie,
Even then he fears attacks.
Coming forth the land to spy,
Even a home he finds he lacks.
Mountain, vale - go where he would,
Grief and sorrow all the same -
Underneath a sea of blood,
While above a sea of flame.

'Neath the fort, a ruin now,
Joy and pleasure erst were found,
Only groans and sighs, I trow,
In its limits now abound.
But no freedom's flowers return
From the spilt blood of the dead,
And the tears of slavery burn,
Which the eyes of orphans shed.

Pity, God, the Magyar, then,
Long by waves of danger tossed;
Help him by Thy strong hand when
He on grief's sea may be lost.
Fate, who for so long did'st frown,
Bring him happy times and ways;
Atoning sorrow hath weighed down
All the sins of all his days.

Wikipedia: Hungary

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This article is about the European country. For other uses, see Hungary (disambiguation).

Republic of Hungary

Magyar Köztársaság


Flag	Coat of arms

Motto: none
Historically Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate (Latin, With the help of God for Homeland and Freedom) or Regnum Mariae Patronae Hungariae (Latin, Kingdom of Mary, the Patron of Hungary)

Anthem: Himnusz "Hymn" or "Anthem" ("God, bless the Hungarians") and Szózat

Location of Hungary (dark green)

– on the European continent (light green & dark grey)
– in the European Union (light green) — [Legend]

Capital
(and largest city)

Budapest
47°26′N 19°15′E / 47.433°N 19.25°E

Official languages Hungarian (Magyar)

Ethnic groups 95% Magyar, 2% Roma, 3% other minority groups

Demonym

Hungarian

Government

Parliamentary republic

- President László Sólyom

- Prime minister Gordon Bajnai

Foundation

- Foundation of Hungary 895

- Recognized as Kingdom - First king: Stephen I of Hungary December 1000

- Currently 3rd Republic October 23, 1989

EU accession May 1, 2004

Area

- Total 93,030 km² (109th)
35,919 sq mi

- Water (%) 0.74%

Population

- 2008 December estimate 10,031,000^[1] (79th)

- 2001 census 10,198,315

- Density 108/km² (95th)
282/sq mi

GDP (PPP) 2008 estimate

- Total $196.074 billion^[2]

- Per capita $19,499^[2]

GDP (nominal) 2008 estimate

- Total $156.284 billion^[2]

- Per capita $15,542^[2]

Gini (2008) 24.96 (low) (3rd)

HDI (2008) ▲ 0.877 (high) (38th)

Currency Forint (HUF)

Time zone CET (UTC+1)

- Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)

Date formats yyyy.mm.dd,
yyyy.mm.dd (CE)

Drives on the right

Internet TLD .hu¹

Calling code 36

¹ Also .eu as part of the European Union.

Hungary ( /ˈhʌŋɡəri/ (help·info); Hungarian: Magyarország, pronounced [ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Hungary (Magyar Köztársaság listen (help·info) "Hungarian Republic"), is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian.

Following a Celtic (after c. 450 BC) and a Roman (9 BC – c. 5th century) period, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late Ninth Century by the Magyar chieftain Árpád, whose great grandson Stephen I ascended to the throne with a crown sent from Rome in 1000. The Kingdom of Hungary existed with interruptions for 946 years, and was at times regarded as one of the cultural centers of the Western world (particularly during Stephen I, Béla III, Louis I, Matthias I, and Lajos Kossuth's regency). A significant power until its defeat in World War I, Hungary lost over two-thirds of its territory (along with 3.3 million ethnic Hungarians)^[3] in the Treaty of Trianon in 1920,^[4] the terms of which have been considered humiliating by Hungarians.^[5]^[6] Following a short alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II, the kingdom was occupied by the Soviet Union which imposed a Communist government from 1947 to 1989. During this era, Hungary gained widespread international recognition by mounting the Revolution of 1956 and the seminal move of opening its border with Austria in 1989, thus accelerating the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. The present form of government is parliamentary republic (since 1989). Today, Hungary is a high-income economy,^[7] and a regional leader regarding certain markers.^[8]^[9]

In the past decade, Hungary was listed as the 10th most economically dynamic area^[10] and one of the 15 most popular tourist destinations in the world,^[11]^[12] with a capital regarded as "one of the most beautiful urban landscapes in the world".^[13]^[14] The country is home to the second largest thermal lake in the world (Lake Hévíz), the largest lake in Central Europe (Lake Balaton), and the largest natural grassland in Europe (Hortobágy).

1 History
2 Science
3 Politics
4 Regions, counties, and subregions
5 Economy
6 Geography
- 6.1 Landscape
- 6.2 Climate
7 Military
8 Demographics
- 8.1 Religion in Hungary
  - 8.1.1 Religious history
  - 8.1.2 Jews in Hungary
9 Culture
10 Sport
11 See also
12 Footnotes
13 References
14 External links

History

Main article: History of Hungary

The land before AD 895

Main articles: Pannonian basin before Hungary, Hungarian prehistory, and Pannonia

The arrival of the Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, 895.

From 9 BC. to the end of the 4th century Pannonia was a part of the Roman Empire. In the final stages of the expansion of the Roman empire, for a short while the Carpathian Basin fell into the sphere of the Mediterranean, Greco-Roman civilization - town centers, paved roads, and written sources were all part of the advances to which the Migration of Peoples put an end.

After the Western Roman Empire collapsed under the stress of the migration of Germanic tribes and Carpian pressure, the Migration Period continued bringing many invaders to Europe. Among the first to arrive were the Huns, who built up a powerful empire under Attila. Attila the Hun was erroneously regarded as an ancestral ruler of the Hungarians, an opinion rejected today by the majority of scholars. It is believed that the origin of the name "Hungary" does not come from the Central Asian nomadic invaders called the Huns, but rather originated from 7th century, when Magyar tribes were part of a Bulgar alliance called On-Ogour, which in Bulgar Turkic meant "(the) Ten Arrows".^[15] After Hunnish rule faded, the Germanic Ostrogoths then the Lombards came to Pannonia, and the Gepids had a presence in the eastern part of the Carpathian Basin for about 100 years. In the 560s the Avars founded the Avar Khaganate, a state which maintained supremacy in the region for more than two centuries and had the military power to launch attacks against all its neighbours. The Avar Khaganate was weakened by constant wars and outside pressure. The Avars' 250 year rule ended when the Khaganate was conquered by the Franks under Charlemagne in the West and the Bulgarians under Krum in the East. Neither of these two nor others were able to create a lasting state in the region until the freshly unified Hungarians led by Árpád settled in the Carpathian Basin starting in 895.^[16]

Medieval Hungary

Main article: Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages

Hungarian raids in the 10th century. Most European nations were praying for mercy: "Sagittis hungarorum libera nos Domine" - "Lord save us from the arrows of Hungarians"

Hungary is one of the oldest countries in Europe, settled in 896, before France and Germany became separate entities, and before the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Medieval Hungary, the third largest of any country in Europe, controlled more territory than medieval France. Árpád was the Magyar leader who, unifying the Magyar tribes via the Covenant of Blood (Hungarian: Vérszerződés), forged one nation, thereafter known as the Hungarian nation^[17] and led the new nation to the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century.^[17] After the Carpathian Basin was secured from the Bulgarians and Moravians, the threat from the western Christian nations still persisted. In order to prevent a united force from being mounted against them, the Hungarians quickly engaged in preemptive warfare, that lead them as far as the Iberian Peninsula. The Hungarian tactics of warfare, which relied heavily on light horsemen with mastery of the reflex bow, was something not seen since the days of Attila, and had just as devastating an effect. Finally, in 955, at the Battle of Lechfeld, the Hungarians suffered a significant defeat at the hands of a united German force, a part of which was equipped as then revolutionary heavy knight. Taking the events into carefull consideration, the ruling prince (fejedelem) Géza of the Árpád dynasty, the ruler of only some of the united territory, but the nominal overlord of all seven Magyar tribes, determined to integrate Hungary into Christian Western Europe, rebuilding the state according to the Western political and social model.^[18] He named his son Vajk, later King Stephen I of Hungary, as his successor. This was contrary to the Magyar tradition of the succession of the eldest surviving member of the ruling family. (See:agnatic seniority) By ancestral right prince Koppány, -as the oldest member of the dynasty- should have claimed the throne, but Géza chose his eldest son as his successor. A fight in the chief prince's family started after Géza's death in 997. Duke Koppány took up arms, and many people in Transdanubia joined him. The rebels represented the old faith and order, ancient human rights, tribal independence and pagan unbelief, but Stephen won a decisive victory over his uncle Koppány, and had him executed.

Hungary in the 11th century

The Holy Crown, The key symbol of Hungary

A miniature of the king Saint Stephen I from the Chronicon Pictum.

Romanesque church of Pécs

Gothic Church of Our Lady in Buda

Reliquary, Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary (c.1040–1095)

King Béla's III tomb

Golden Bull of 1222.

The Patrimonial Kingdom

In the year 1000, by the authority of the Pope, Hungary was established as a Catholic Apostolic Kingdom under Saint Stephen I of Hungary. Applying to Pope Sylvester II, Stephen received insignia of royalty (including the still existent Holy Crown of Hungary). He was crowned in December, 1000 AD in the capital, Esztergom. The papacy conferred on him the right to have the cross carried before him, with full administrative authority over bishoprics and churches. The son of Géza,^[19] he was a descendant of Árpád, founder of Hungary. By 1006, Stephen had solidified his power, eliminating all rivals who either wanted to follow pagan traditions or wanted an alliance with the Eastern Christian Byzantine Empire. He instituted sweeping reforms to convert Hungary into a western feudal state, complete with forced Christianisation.^[20] Stephen established a network of 10 episcopal and 2 archiepiscopal sees,and ordered the buildup of monasteries, churches, and cathedrals. Formerly, the Hungarian language was written in a runic-like script. The country switched to the Latin alphabet under Stephen. From 1000 to 1844, Latin was the official language of the country. He followed the Frankish administrative model: The whole of the land was divided into counties (megyék), each under a royal official called an ispán count (Latin: comes)—later főispán (Latin: supremus comes). This official represented the king’s authority, administered its population, and collected the taxes that formed the national revenue. Each ispán maintained at his fortified headquarters (castrum or vár) an armed force of freemen.

What emerged was a strong state^[21] that withstood attacks from German kings and Emperors, as well as nomadic tribes following the Hungarians from the East, integrating some of the latter into the population (along with Germans invited to Transylvania and the northern part of the kingdom, especially after the Battle of Mohi) and conquering Croatia in 1091.^[22]

After the Great Schism (The East-West Schism /formally in 1054/, between Western Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.) Hungary determined itself as the Easternmost bastion of Western civilization.

Important members of the Árpád dynasty

Saint Ladislaus I (c. 1040 – 29 July 1095), King of Hungary (1077-1095). Before his ascension to the throne, he was the main advisor of his brother, Géza I of Hungary, who was fighting against their cousin, King Solomon of Hungary. When his brother died, his followers proclaimed Ladislaus king according to the Hungarian tradition that gave precedence to the eldest member of the royal family over the deceased king's sons. He also expanded his rule over Croatia. After his canonisation, Ladislaus became the model of the chivalrous king in Hungary.

King Coloman the "Book-lover" (King: 1095-1116):

One of his most famous laws was half a millennium ahead of its time: De strigis vero quae non sunt, nulla amplius quaestio fiat (As for the matter of witches, no such things exist, therefore no further investigations or trials are to be held).

Béla III (King: 1172-1192):

was the most powerful and wealthiest member of the dynasty, Béla disposed of annual equivalent of 23,000 kg of pure silver. It exceeded those of the French king (estimated at some 17,000 kilograms) and was double the receipts of the English Crown. ^[23] He rolled back the Byzantine potency in Balkan region. In 1195, Bela III had expanded the Hungarian Kingdom southward and westward to Bosnia and Dalmatia, helping to break up the Byzantine Empire, and extending suzerainty over Serbia. ^[24]

Andrew II of Hungary (King: 1205-1235) :

In 1211 Andrew II of Hungary (ruled from 1205 to 1235) granted the Burzenland (in Transylvania) to the Teutonic Knights. In 1225, Andrew II expelled the Teutonic Knights from Transylvania, hence Teutonic Order had to transfer to the Baltic sea. In 1224, Andrew issued the Diploma Andreanum which unified and ensured the special privileges of the Transylvanian Saxons. It is considered the first Autonomy law in the world.^[25]

He led the Fifth Crusade to the Holy Land in 1217. He set up the largest royal army in the history of Crusades (20,000 knights and 12,000 castle-garrisons). The Golden Bull of 1222 was the first constitution in Continental Europe. It limited the king's power. The Golden Bull — the Hungarian equivalent of England’s Magna Carta — to which every Hungarian king thereafter had to swear, had a twofold purpose: to reaffirm the rights of the smaller nobles of the old and new classes of royal servants (servientes regis) against both the crown and the magnates and to defend those of the whole nation against the crown by restricting the powers of the latter in certain fields and legalizing refusal to obey its unlawful/unconstitutional commands (the ius resistendi). The lesser nobles also began to present Andrew with grievances, a practice that evolved into the institution of the parliament, or Diet. Hungary became the first country where the parliament had supremacy over the kingship. The most important legal ideology was the Doctrine of the Holy Crown.

Mongol attacks

In 1241–1242, the kingdom suffered a Mongol Invasion: After the defeat of the Hungarian army in the Battle of Mohi,^[26] Béla IV of Hungary fled. Historians estimate that up to half of Hungary's population of two million was killed.^[27]^[28]. The dramatic loss of population led to inviting settlers, largely from Germany, to locate in devastationed regions, the "'Tatárjárás."

During the Russian campaign, the Mongols drove some 200,000 Cumans, a nomadic tribe of pagan Kipchaks, west of the Carpathian Mountains. There, the Cumans appealed to King Béla IV of Hungary for protection.^[29] The Iranian Jassic people came to the Hungary together with the Cumans after they were defeated by the Mongols. During the centuries they were assimilated by the Hungarian population, their language disappeared, but they preserved their identity and their regional autonomy until 1876.^[30]

Only strongly fortified cities and abbeys could withstand the assault. As a consequence, after the Mongols retreated, King Béla IV. ordered the construction of hundreds of stone castles and fortifications to defend against a possible second Mongol invasion. Mongols returned to Hungary in 1286, but the newly built systems of castles and new tactics using a higher ratio of heavy knights stopped them. The invading Mongol force was defeated near Pest by the royal army of Ladislaus IV of Hungary. Castles proved to be very important later in the long struggle with the Ottoman Empire from the late 14th century onwards, but their cost indebted the King to the major feudal landlords, weakening the royal power reclaimed by Béla IV after his father Andrew II had diminished it by acceding to the Golden Bull of 1222.

King Charles' last battle against the oligarchy at Rozgony (1312)

King Louis the Great (1342-1382)

Sigismund, Non contemporary portrait by Albrecht Dürer.

The Hungarian Cannon, named after the engineer Orban from Hungary who cast the gun for the Ottoman besiegers of Constantinople. It was the biggest canon until the end of the 19th century. (British Royal Armouries collection.) These types of enormous Ottoman cannons appeared in Siege of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) too (1456)

John Hunyadi - One of the greatest generals and a later regent of Hungary

Age of elected Kings

Árpád's direct descendants in the male line ruled the country until 1301. During the reign of the Árpád dynasty, the Kingdom of Hungary reached its greatest extent, yet royal power was weakened as the nobility greatly increased its influence. The most powerful nobility usurped royal prerogatives: coinage, customs, own diplomacy and declaration of war against foreign monarchs. After the destructive period of interregnum (1301–1308), the first Angevin king, Charles I of Hungary (King: 1308–1342) -a descendant of the Árpád dynasty on the female line- successfully restored the royal power, defeating oligarch rivals, the so called "little kings". His new fiscal, customs and monetary policies proved successful. One of the primary sources of his power was the wealth derived from the gold mines of east and northern Hungary. Eventually production reached the remarkable figure of 3,000 lb. of gold annually - one third of the total production of the world as then known, and five times as much as that of any other European state.^[31]^[32] Charles also sealed an alliance with the Polish king Casimir III. In 1335 he called together the kings of Bohemia and Poland, and at the so-called "Visegrád summit" he established the first Central European alliance by initiating political and trade co-operation. Hungary was the first non-Italian country, where the renaissance appeared in Europe.^[33]

The second Hungarian king in the Angevin line, Louis I the Great (King: 1342–1382) extended his rule over territories adjacent to the Adriatic Sea, and occupied the Kingdom of Naples several times. Under his reign lived the most famous epic hero of Hungarian literature and warfare, the king's Champion: Nicolas Toldi. Louis had become popular in Poland due to his campaign against the Tatars and pagan Lithuanians. Two successful wars (1357–1358, 1378–1381) against Venice resulted in the annexation of Dalmatia, Ragusa and other territories on the coast of the Adriatic. Venice was required to raise the Angevin flag on St. Mark's Square on holy days. Louis I established a university in Pécs in 1367 (by papal accordance). The Ottoman Turks confronted the country ever more often. In 1366 and 1377, Louis led successful campaigns against the Ottomans, engaging the Turks for the first time at Nicapoli in 1366. Serbia, Walachia, Moldavia, and Bulgaria were made vassal states. From 1370, the death of uncle Casimir III of Poland, he was also king of Poland. Until his death, the political life of the Italian Peninsula remained within his sphere of influence.

King Louis died without a male successor, and the country was stabilized only after years of anarchy when Sigismund I (king: 1387–1437), a prince of the House of Luxembourg, succeeded to the throne by marrying Louis's daughter, Queen Mary of Hungary. It was not for entirely selfless reasons that one of the leagues of barons helped him to power: Sigismund had to pay for the support of the lords by transferring a sizeable part of the royal properties. (For some years, the baron's council governed the country in the name of the Holy Crown, the king was impirsoned for a short time ) The restoration of the authority of the central administration took decades of work. In 1404 Sigismund introduced the Placetum Regium. According to this decree, Papal bulls and messages could not be pronounced in Hungary without the consent of the king. Sigismund congregated Council of Constance (1414–1418) to abolish the Avignon Papacy and the Papal Schism of Catholic church, which was solved by the election of a new pope. In 1433 he was elected Holy Roman Emperor. During his long reign the Royal castle of Buda became probably the largest Gothic palace of the late Middle Ages. The first Hungarian Bible translation was completed in 1439, but the Hungarian Bible was illegal in its age.

From a small noble family in Transylvania, János Hunyadi grew to become one of the country's most powerful lords thanks to his outstanding capabilities as a commander. In 1446, the parliament elected the great general János Hunyadi governor (1446–1453), then regent (1453–1456). He was a successful crusader against the Ottoman Turks, one of his greatest victories being the Siege of Belgrade in 1456. Hunyadi defended the city against the onslaught of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. During the siege, Pope Callixtus III ordered the bells of every European church to be rung every day at noon, as a call for believers to pray for the defenders of the city. However, in many countries (like England and Spanish kingdoms), news of the victory arrived before the order, and the ringing of the church bells at noon were transformed into a commemoration of the victory. The Popes didn't withdraw the order, and Catholic (and the older Protestant) churches still ring the noon bell in the Christian world to this day.

Matthias Corvinus, the Renaissance king

Western conquests of Matthias Corvinus

Age of early absolutism

The last strong king was the Renaissance king Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490). Matthias was the son of John Hunyadi. During his reign András Hess set up a printing press in Buda in 1472. This was the first time in the medieval Hungarian kingdom that a member of the nobility, without dynastic ancestry and relationship, was elected. Matthias Corvinus was a true Renaissance prince, a successful military leader and administrator, an outstanding linguist, a learned astrologer, and an enlightened patron of the arts and learning.^[34] Although Matthias regularly convened the Diet and expanded the lesser nobles' powers in the counties, he exercised absolute rule over Hungary by means of huge secular bureaucracy. Matthias set out to build a great empire, expanding southward and northwest, while he also implemented internal reforms. The serfs, and other common people considered Matthias a just ruler because he protected them from excessive demands and other abuses by the magnates.^[35] Like his father, Matthias desired to strengthen the Kingdom of Hungary to the point where it became the foremost regional power, strong enough to push back the Ottoman Empire; toward that end he deemed necessary the conquering of large parts of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1479, under the leadership of general Pál Kinizsi, the Hungarian army destroyed the Ottoman and Wallachian troops at the Battle of Breadfield. The army of Hungary was extremely effective during the reign of Matthias. His mercenary standing army called the Black Army of Hungary (Hungarian: Fekete Sereg) was an unusually big army for its age, accomplishing a series of victories including capturing parts of Austria, Vienna (1485) and parts of Bohemia. The king died without a legal successor. His library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was Europe's greatest collection of historical chronicles, philosophic and scientific works in the 15th century, and second only in size to the Vatican Library which mainly contained religious material. His renaissance library is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.^[36]

Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia, the young king, who died at the Battle of Mohács.

Decline (1490–1526)

By the early 16th century, the Ottoman Empire became the second most populous state in the world, which opened the door to creation of the largest armies of the era.

The magnates, who did not want another heavy-handed king, procured the accession of Vladislaus II (King: 1490-1516), king of Bohemia (Ulászló II in Hungarian), precisely because of his notorious weakness: he was known as King Dobže, or Dobzse (meaning “Good” or, loosely, “OK”), from his habit of accepting with that word every paper laid before him^[34]. Under his reign the central power began to experience severe financial difficulties, largely due to the enlargement of feudal lands at his expense. The magnates also dismantled administration and institute systems of the country. The country's defenses sagged as border guards and castle garrisons went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled.^[37]

In 1514, the weakened old King Vladislaus II faced a major peasant rebellion led by György Dózsa, which was ruthlessly crushed by the nobles, led by János Szapolyai. The resulting degradation of order paved the way for Ottoman preeminence. In 1521, the strongest Hungarian fortress in the South, Nándorfehérvár (modern Belgrade) fell to the Turks, and in 1526, the Hungarian army was crushed at the Battle of Mohács. The young king Louis II, and the leader of the Hungarian army, Pál Tomori died in the battle. The early appearance of protestantism further worsened internal relations in the anarchical country.

Through the centuries Hungary kept its old constitution, which granted special freedoms or rights to the nobility, the free royal towns such as Buda, Kassa (Košice), Pozsony (Bratislava), and Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca) and groups like the Jassic people or Transylvanian Saxons.

Ottoman Wars

Main article: Ottoman Hungary

Hungary around 1550

Siege of Eger

After some 150 years of wars with the Hungarians and other states, the Ottomans conquered parts of Hungary, and continued their expansion until 1556. The Ottomans gained a decisive victory over the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohács in 1526. The next decades were characterised by political chaos; the divided Hungarian nobility elected two kings simultaneously, János Szapolyai (1526–1540) and Ferdinand Habsburg (1527–1540), whose feud for the throne further weakened the kingdom. With the conquest of Buda in 1541 by the Turks, Hungary was divided into three parts.

The north-western part (see map) termed as Royal Hungary was annexed by the Habsburgs who ruled as Kings of Hungary. Pozsony (Bratislava) became the new capital (1536–1784), coronation town (1563–1830) and seat of the Diet (1536–1848) of Habsburg Hungary. Nagyszombat (Trnava) in turn became the religious center in 1541. Turks were unable to counquer Northern and Western parts of Hungary. The eastern part of the country (Partium and Transylvania), in turn, became independent as the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom (became the Principality of Transylvaniain 1571), under Ottoman suzerainty. The remaining central area, including the capital of Buda was known as the Ottoman Hungary. A large part of the area became devastated by permanent warfare. The Turks were indifferent to the Christian religion of their subjects and the Habsburg counter-reformation measures could not reach this area.

Even with a decisive 1552 victory over the Ottomans at the Siege of Eger, which raised the hopes of the Hungarians, the country remained divided until the end of the 17th century. The heroes live more in a famous poet, what was wrote by Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos called: Summáját írom Eger várának, I am writing history of Eger's castle".

In 1558 the Diet of Torda declared free practice of both the Catholic and Lutheran religions, but prohibited Calvinism. Ten years later, in 1568, the Diet extended this freedom, declaring four denominations as accepted (recepta) churches.

During the Thirty Years' War, Royal (Habsburg) Hungary joined the Catholic side, until Transylvania joined the Protestant side.

In 1686, two years after the unsuccessful siege of Buda, a renewed European campaign was started to enter the Hungarian capital. This time, the Holy League's army was twice as large, containing over 74,000 men, and Christian forces reconquered Buda, and in the next few years, all of the Hungarian lands, except areas near Timişoara (Temesvár), were taken from the Turks. In the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz these territorial changes were officially recognized, and in 1718 all of Hungary was removed from Ottoman rule.

Ethnic consequences of the Ottoman wars

As a consequence of the constant warfare between Hungarians and Ottoman Turks, population growth was stunted and the network of medieval settlements with their urbanized bourgeois inhabitants perished. The 150 years of Turkish rule fundamentally changed the ethnic composition of Hungary. As a result of demographic losses including deportations and masscares, the number of ethnic Hungarians in existence at the end of the Turkish period was substantially diminished. ^[38]

History of Hungary 1700–1919

Main article: History of Hungary 1700-1919

Baroque Palace of the Esterházy family in Fertőd

Ferenc Rákóczi

BME, The oldest University of Technology in the World, founded in 1782

Széchenyi Chain Bridge in Buda and Pest, suspension bridge (1839–1849)

There were a series of anti-Habsburg and anti-Catholic (removal of historical Roman Catholic hierarchy and priesthood) uprisings between 1604 and 1711, which – with the exception of the last one – took place in Royal Hungary. The uprisings were usually organized from Transylvania. The last one was an uprising led by Francis II Rákóczi, who after the dethronement of the Habsburgs in 1707 at the Diet of Ónód took power as the "Ruling Prince" of Hungary. The Hungarian Kuruc army lost the main clash at the Battle of Trencsén; however, there were also successful actions, for example when Ádám Balogh almost captured the Austrian Emperor with Kuruc troops. When the Austrians defeated the uprising in 1711, Rákóczi was in Poland. He later fled to France and finally Turkey, and lived to the end of his life (1735) in nearby Rodosto. Ladislas Ignace de Bercheny, the son of Miklós Bercsényi, immigrated to France and created the first French hussar regiment. Afterwards, to make further armed resistance impossible, the Austrians blew up a lot of castles and fortress (most of the castles on the border between the now-reclaimed territories occupied earlier by the Ottomans and Royal Hungary), and allowed peasants to use the stones from most of the others as building material (the végvárs among them).

Period of Reforms (1825-1848)

Statue of Lajos Kossuth in the United States Capitol

Artist Mihály Zichy's rendition of poet Sándor Petőfi reciting the Nemzeti dal to a crowd on March 15, 1848

During the Napoleonic Wars and afterwards, the Hungarian Diet had not convened for decades. In the 1820s, the Emperor was forced to convene the Diet, and thus a Reform Period began. Nevertheless, progress was slow, because the nobles who had the most seats insisted on retaining their privileges such as exemption from taxation. The main achievements were mostly of national character (e.g. introduction of Hungarian as the official language of the country).

Count István Széchenyi,the most prominent statesmen of the country recognized the urgent need of modernization and their message got through. The Hungarian Parliament was reconvened in 1825 to handle financial needs. A liberal party emerged in the Diet. The party focused on providing for the peasantry in mostly symbolic ways because of their ability to understand the needs of the laborers. Lajos Kossuth emerged as leader of the lower gentry in the Parliament. Habsburg monarchs tried to preclude the industrialisation of the country. A remarkable upswing started as the nation concentrated its forces on modernisation even though the Habsburg monarchs obstructed all important liberal laws about the human civil and political rights and economic reforms. Many reformers (like Lajos Kossuth, Mihály Táncsics ) were imprisoned by the authorities.

Map of the counties in the Kingdom of Hungary 19th century

Revolution and war of independence (1848-1849)

Main article: Hungarian Revolution of 1848

See: April laws

On March 15, 1848, mass demonstrations in Pest and Buda enabled Hungarian reformists to push through a list of 12 demands. The Hungarian Diet took the opportunity presented by the revolution to enact a comprehensive legislative program of dozens of civil and human rights reforms, referred to as the April laws. Faced with revolution both at home and in Vienna, Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I first had to accept Hungarian demands. After the Austrian revolution was suppressed,emperor Franz Joseph(ruling: 1849-1916) replaced his epileptic uncle Ferdinand I as Emperor. Franz Joseph refused all reforms and started to arm against Hungary. Later, under governor and president Lajos Kossuth and the first Prime minister, Lajos Batthyány, the House of Habsburg was dethroned and the form of government was changed to create the first Republic of Hungary. The Habsburg Ruler and his advisors skillfully manipulated the Croatian, Serbian and Romanian peasantry, led by priests and officers firmly loyal to the Habsburgs, and induced them to rebel against the Hungarian government. The Hungarians were supported by the vast majority of the Slovak, German and Rusyn nationalities and by all the Jews of the kingdom, as well as by a large number of Polish, Austrian and Italian volunteers.^[39] Many members of the nationalities gained coveted highest positions within the Hungarian Army, like General János Damjanich, an ethnic Serb who became a Hungarian national hero through his command of the 3rd Hungarian Army Corps. In July 1849, Hungarian Parliament proclaimed and enacted foremost the ethnic and minority rights in the world.

Initially, the Hungarian forces (Honvédség) defeated Austrian armies. To counter the successes of the Hungarian revolutionary army, Franz Joseph asked for help from the "Gendarme of Europe," Czar Nicholas I, whose Russian armies invaded Hungary. The huge army of the Russian Empire and the remaining Austrian forces proved too powerful for the Hungarian army, and General Artúr Görgey surrendered in August 1849. Julius Freiherr von Haynau, the leader of the Austrian army, then became governor of Hungary for a few months and on October 6, ordered the execution of 13 leaders of the Hungarian army as well as Prime Minister Batthyány. Lajos Kossuth escaped into exile.

Cutaway Drawing of Millennium Underground in Budapest (1894-1896) which was the first underground in Continental Europe

Following the war of 1848–1849, the whole country was in "passive resistance". Archduke Albrecht von Habsburg was appointed military governor of Hungary, and this time was remembered for Germanization and oppression pursued with the help of Czech officers.

A Csonka automobile from 1904 (produced in Hungary). Between 1900 and 1918, there were ten automotive factories in Hungary.

Austria-Hungary (1867–1918)

Due to external and internal problems, reforms seemed inevitable to secure the integrity of the Habsburg Empire. Major Austrian military defeats, like the Battle of Königgrätz (1866), forced the Emperor to concede internal reforms. To appease Hungarian separatism, the Emperor made a deal with Hungary, negotiated by Ferenc Deák, called the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, by which the dual Monarchy of Austria–Hungary came into existence. The two realms were governed separately by two parliaments from two capitals, with a common monarch and common external and military policies. Economically, the empire was a customs union. The first prime minister of Hungary after the Compromise was Count Gyula Andrássy. The old Hungarian Constitution was restored, and Franz Joseph was crowned as King of Hungary.

Austria-Hungary was geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire (239,977 sq. m in 1905 ^[40]), and the third most populous (after Russia and the German Empire).

The era witnessed an impressive economic development. The formerly backward Hungarian economy became relatively modern and industrialized by the turn of the century, although agriculture remained dominant until the 1890s. In 1873, the old capital Buda and Óbuda(Ancient Buda) were officially merged with the third city, Pest, thus creating the new metropolis of Budapest. The dynamic Pest grew into the country's administrative, political, economic, trade and cultural hub. Technological change accelerated industrialization and urbanization. The GNP per capita grew roughly 1.45% per year from 1870 to 1913. That level of growth compared very favorably to that of other European nations such as Britain (1.00%), France (1.06%), and Germany (1.51%). The key symbols of industrialization were (at the time) the famous Ganz concern, and Tungsram works. Many of the state institutions and the modern administrative system of Hungary were established during this period.

World War I

Main article: Hungary in World War I

Hungarian built dreadnought class battleship SMS Szent Istvan

Austria–Hungary drafted 9 million (fighting forces: 7,8 million) soldiers in World War I (4 million from Kingdom of Hungary). The prime minister, István Tisza tried to avoid the breaking out and escalating of a war in Europe, but his diplomatic attempts remained unsuccessful. In the conflict Austria–Hungary was fighting on the side of Germany, Bulgaria and Turkey. The Central Powers conquered Serbia; then, with great difficulty, they were able to stop and repel the attacks of the Russian Empire. Romania proclaimed war. The Central Powers conquered Southern Romania and the Romanian capital Bucharest. On the Italian front, the Austro-Hungarian army could not make significant progress against Italy after January 1918. In places of Austria and Hungary where, Austrians and Hungarians were the majority (like Vienna and Budapest), the leftist liberal movements and politicians strengthened and supported the separatism of ethnic minorities. By that period, the economic situation had deteriorated (strikes in factories were organized by leftist and pacifist movements), and uprisings in the army had become commonplace. French Entente troops landed in Greece. In October 1918, the personal union with Austria was dissolved.

Between the two world wars (1918-1941)

Main article: Hungary between the two world wars

On October 31, 1918, smoldering unrest burst into revolution in Budapest, and roving soldiers assassinated István Tisza.^[41] Due to pressure King Charles IV of Hungary appointed the leftist liberal Mihály Károlyi, a pro-Entente liberal to the post of prime minister.^[41] After suing for a separate peace, the new government dissolved the parliament, pronounced Hungary an independent republic with Károlyi as provisional president, and proclaimed universal suffrage and freedom of the press and assembly.^[41] The government launched preparations for land reform and promised elections, but neither goal was carried out.^[41] On November 13, 1918, Charles IV surrendered his powers as King of Hungary; however, he did not abdicate, a technicality that made a return to the throne possible.^[41]

In 1918, by a notion of Wilson's pacifism, Károlyi ordered the full disarmament of Hungarian Army. Hungary remained without national defense in the darkest hour of its history. Surrounding countries started to arm. The First Republic was proclaimed in November 16, 1918, with Károlyi being named as president. The Károlyi government pronounced illegal all armed associations and proposals which wanted to defend the integrity of the country.

The Károlyi government's measures failed to stem popular discontent, especially when the Entente powers began distributing slices of Hungary's traditional territory to Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.^[41] French and Serbian forces occupied the southern parts of Hungary. The new government hoped for maintaining Hungary's territorial integrity on abandoning Austria and Germany and securing a separate peace.^[41] The Entente, however, chose to consider Hungary a partner in the defeated Dual Monarchy and demanded surrender of more land.^[41] On March 19, 1919, the French head of the Entente mission in Budapest handed Károlyi a note delineating final postwar boundaries, which were unacceptable to all Hungarians.^[41] Károlyi resigned and turned power over to a coalition of Social Democrats and communists, who promised that Soviet Russia would help Hungary restore its original borders.^[41] Despite the majority held by Social Democrats the communists under Béla Kun seized control.^[41]

On March 1919 the Communist Party from Hungary, led by Béla Kun, came to power and proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Hungarian Red Army ousted Czech troops from the north and planned to march against the Romanian army in the east. Communists promised that Hungary would defend its territory without conscription(possibly with the help of the Soviet Red Army). Hence: the Red Army of Hungary was a very little voluntary army (53,000 men). In terms of domestic policy, the Communist government nationalized industrial and commercial enterprises, socialized housing, transport, banking, medicine, cultural institutions, and all landholdings of more than 400,000 square metres. In the aftermath of a coup attempt, the government took a series of actions called the Red Terror, murdering several hundred people (mostly intellectuals, scholars) , which alienated much of the population. In the face of domestic backlash and an advancing Romanian force, Béla Kun and most of his comrades fled to Austria, while Budapest was occupied on August 6. Kun and his followers took along numerous art treasures and the gold stocks of the National Bank.^[42] All these events, and in particular the final military defeat, led to a deep feeling of dislike among the general population against the Soviet Union (which did not offer military assistance) and the Jews (since the majority of Kun's government were Jewish, making it easy to blame the Jews for the government's mistakes).

The Conservative Royalists counter-revolutionaries – the "Whites", assumed power, led by István Bethlen, a Transylvanian aristocrat, and Miklós Horthy, the former commander in chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Starting in Western Hungary and spreading throughout the country: many arrant communists and other leftists were tortured and executed without trial. Radical Whites launched pogroms against the Jews, displayed as the cause of all the difficulties of Hungary. The leaving Romanian army pillaged the country: livestock, machinery and agricultural products were carried to Romania in hundreds of freight cars.^[43]^[44]

Treaty of Trianon

The Treaty of Trianon: Hungary lost 72% of its land and lost its sea ports in Croatia, 3,425,000 Magyars found themselves separated from their motherland. The country lost 8 of its 10 biggest Hungarian cities ^[45]^[46]

Hungary's signing of the Treaty of Trianon on June 4, 1920, ratified the country's dismemberment. The territorial provisions of the treaty required Hungary to surrender more than two-thirds (72%) of its pre-war lands. Nearly one-third of the 10 million ethnic Hungarians found themselves outside the diminished homeland. The treaty even denied the affected populations the right to choose under whose sovereignty they would live. Only the little city of Sopron in western Hungary was allowed a plebiscite to decide its future, and it opted by a large margin to remain in Hungary.

New international borders separated Hungary's industrial base from its sources of raw materials and its former markets for agricultural and industrial products. Hungary lost 84% of its timber resources, 43% of its arable land, and 83% of its iron ore. Furthermore, post-Trianon Hungary possessed 90% of the engineering and printing industry of the Kingdom, while only 11% of timber and 16% iron was retained. In addition, 61% of arable land, 74% of public road, 65% of canals, 62% of railroads, 64% of hard surface roads, 83% of pig iron output, 55% of industrial plants, 100% of gold, silver, copper, mercury and salt mines, and most of all, 67% of credit and banking institutions of the former Kingdom of Hungary lay within the territory of Hungary's neighbors.^[47]^[48]^[49]

István Bethlen, appointed prime minister by Horthy, restored order to the country by giving the radical counterrevolutionaries payoffs and government jobs in exchange for ceasing their campaign of terror against Jews and leftist extremists.^{[citation needed]}

The revision of the Treaty of Trianon rose to the top of Hungary's political agenda and the strategy employed by Bethlen consisted by strengthening the economy and building relations with stronger nations. Revision of the treaty had such a broad backing in Hungary that Bethlen used it, at least in part, to deflect criticism of his economic, social, and political policies.

The Great Depression induced a drop in the standard of living and the political mood of the country shifted further toward the right. The government passed the First Jewish Law in 1938, establishing a quota system to limit Jewish involvement in the Hungarian economy.

As Hungary drifted further to the right, Prime Minister Béla Imrédy proposed that the government be reorganized along totalitarian lines and drafted a harsher Second Jewish Law, which greatly restricted Jewish involvement in the economy, culture, and society and, significantly, defined Jews by race instead of religion. This definition altered the status of those who had formerly converted from Judaism to Christianity.

Hungary in World War II (1941–1945)

Main article: Hungary during the Second World War

A Turan I tank of the Hungarian 2nd Armoured Division in action near Debrecen, 1944.

Map of Hungary in 1941

After being awarded by the Germans and Italians part of southern Czechoslovakia and Subcarpathia in the First Vienna Award of 1938, and then northern Transylvania in the Second Vienna Award of 1940, in 1941 Hungary participated in their first military maneuvers on the side of the Axis. Thus, Hungarian army was part of the invasion of Yugoslavia gaining some more territory and joining the Axis powers in the process (showing his disagreement, prime minister Pál Teleki committed suicide). On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union under Operation Barbarossa. Hungary joined the German effort and declared war on the Soviet Union on June 26, and entered World War II on the side of the Axis. In late 1941, the Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front experienced success at the Battle of Uman. By 1943, after the Hungarian Second Army suffered extremely heavy losses at the river Don, the Hungarian government sought to negotiate a surrender with the Allies. On March 19, 1944, as a result of this duplicity, German troops occupied Hungary in what was known as Operation Margarethe. On October 15, 1944, Horthy made a token effort to disengage Hungary from the war. This time the Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust and Horthy was replaced by a puppet government under the pro-German Prime Minister Ferenc Szálasi. Szálasi and the Arrow Cross Party remained loyal to the Germans until the end of the war. In late 1944, Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front again experienced success at the Battle of Debrecen. But this was followed immediately by the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Battle of Budapest. During the German occupation in May-June 1944, nearly 440,000 Jews were deported mostly to Auschwitz.^[50] The war left Hungary devastated destroying over 60% of the economy and causing huge loss of life. On February 13, 1945, the Hungarian capital city surrendered unconditionally. On May 8, 1945, World War II in Europe officially ended.

Communist era (1947–1989)

Main article: People's Republic of Hungary

Main article: Hungarian Revolution of 1956

Communist Statue Park

Vandalised fallen head of a statue of Joseph Stalin during the revolution

Following the fall of Nazi Germany, Soviet troops occupied all of the country and through their influence Hungary gradually became a communist satellite state of the Soviet Union. Many of the communist leaders of 1919 returned from Moscow. After 1948, Communist leader Mátyás Rákosi established Stalinist rule in the country complete with forced collectivization and planned economy. Mátyás Rákosi now attempted to impose authoritarian rule on Hungary. An estimated 2,000 people were executed and over 100,000 were imprisoned. Hungary experienced one of the harshest dictatorships in Europe. Approximately 350,000 officials and intellectuals were purged from 1948 to 1956 ^[51]

Rákosi had difficulty managing the economy and the people of Hungary saw living standards fall. His government became increasingly unpopular, and when Joseph Stalin died in 1953, Mátyás Rákosi was replaced as prime minister by Imre Nagy. However, he retained his position as general secretary of the Hungarian Workers Party and over the next three years the two men became involved in a bitter struggle for power.

Time's "Man of the Year" for 1956 was the Hungarian Freedom Fighter.^[52]

As Hungary's new leader, Imre Nagy removed state control of the mass media and encouraged public discussion on political and economic reform. This included a promise to increase the production and distribution of consumer goods. Nagy also released anti-communists from prison and talked about holding free elections and withdrawing Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. Nagy was removed by Soviets. Rákosi did manage to secure the appointment of his puppet and close friend, Ernő Gerő, as his successor.

The rule of the Rákosi government was nearly unbearable for Hungary's war-torn citizens. This led to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Hungary's temporary withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The multi-party system was restored. Heavy street fights started against the Soviet Army and the fearful communist secret police (State Protection Authority) in Budapest. The Soviets retaliated massively with military force, sending in over 150,000 troops and 2,500 tanks.^[53] During the Hungarian Uprising an estimated 20,000 people were killed, nearly all during the Soviet intervention. Nearly a quarter of a million people left the country during the brief time that the borders were open in 1956.

Kádár era (1956–1988)

János Kádár (who was the appointed leader by the Soviets) reorganized the communist party as the puppet of the Soviets. Once he was in power, Kádár led an attack against revolutionaries. 21,600 mavericks (democrats, liberals, reformist communists alike) were imprisoned, 13,000 interned, and 400 killed. Imre Nagy, the legal Prime Minister of the country was condemned to death. From the 1960s through the late 1980s, Hungary was often satirically referred to as "the happiest barrack" within the Eastern bloc. As a result of the relatively high standard of living, and more relaxed travel restrictions than that of other Eastern Bloc countries, Hungary was generally considered one of the better countries in which to live in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. (See also Goulash Communism for a discussion of the Hungarian variety of socialism.) This was under the autocratic rule of its controversial communist leader, János Kádár. It was the so called Kádár era (1956–1988). The last Soviet soldier left the country in 1991 thus ending Soviet military presence in Hungary. With the Soviet Union gone the transition to a market economy began.

The Third Hungarian Republic (1989–present)

Science

Rubik's cube

As of 2007, 13 native Hungarians had received a Nobel prize, more than Japan, China, India, Australia or Spain.^[54]. A further eight scientists of Hungarian origin on both sides but born abroad had received the prize.

Hungary is famous for its excellent mathematics education which has trained numerous outstanding scientists. Famous Hungarian mathematicians include János (John) Bolyai (Bolyai János), designer of modern geometry ( non-Euclidean (or "absolute") geometry ) in 1831. Paul Erdős (Erdős Pál), famed for publishing in over forty languages and whose Erdős numbers are still tracked; ;^[55] and John von Neumann (Neumann János),Quantum Theory, a pioneer of digital computing. Many Hungarian Jewish scientists, including Erdős, von Neumann, Leo Szilard (Szilárd Leó), Edward Teller (Teller Ede), and Eugene Wigner (Wigner Jenő), fled rising anti-Semitism in Europe and made their most famous contributions in the United States. Charles Simonyi (Hungarian: Simonyi Károly) is a Hungarian-American computer software executive who, as head of Microsoft's application software group, oversaw the creation of Microsoft's flagship office applications. Simonyi has been a space tourist twice.

Albert Szent-Györgyi, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937

Charles Simonyi.

Hungarian inventions include the noiseless match (János Irinyi), Rubik's cube (Ernő Rubik), the first electric motor(1827) and first electrical generator (Ányos Jedlik), Ottó Bláthy, Miksa Déri and Károly Zipernowsky invented the transformer in 1885^[56].^[56] Ottó Bláthy invented the Turbogenerator and Wattmeter, Telephone exchange (Tivadar Puskás), Ford Model T and production line (therefore he is the inventor of industrial mass production) (József Galamb), Tungsten filament lamp (Sándor Just), krypton electric bulb (Imre Bródy), Electronic Television and camrera-tube and the transmitting and receiving system (1926) and Plasma TV (1936) (Kálmán Tihanyi), radar astronomy and Electroluminescent light (LED) technology Zoltán Bay, mathematical tools to study fluid flow and mathematical background of subsonic and supersonic flight and inventor of swept-back wings "father of Supersonic Flight" (Theodore Kármán), early ramjet propulsion (Albert Fonó), Turboprop jet-engine by (György Jendrassik). Several other inventions were made by Hungarians who fled the country prior to World War II, including the nuclear chain reaction and nuclear reactor as well as the first Particle accelerator (all by Leo Szilard), holography (Dennis Gabor), the ballpoint pen (László Bíró), the hydrogen bomb (Edward Teller (Teller Ede), and the BASIC programming language (John Kemeny, with Thomas E. Kurtz).^[55]

Politics

Hungarian Parliament in Budapest

Main article: Politics of Hungary

The President of the Republic, elected by the Parliament every five years, has a largely ceremonial role, for example choosing the dates of elections, and ratifying laws. The Prime Minister is elected by Parliament and can only be removed by a constructive vote of no confidence. Executive power - government functions and the highest-level control of public administration - is exercised by the government, in which the Prime Minister plays a dominant role. The prime minister selects Cabinet ministers and has the exclusive right to dismiss them. Each Cabinet nominee appears before one or more parliamentary committees in open hearings and must be formally approved by the President.

A unicameral, 386-member National Assembly (the Országgyűlés) is the highest organ of state authority and initiates and approves legislation sponsored by the Prime Minister. National Parliamentary elections are held every four years; the next are due to be held in 2010.

Act XXXIV of 1989 on parliamentary election applies a mixed system of electorates:

176 seats are to be won in individual constituencies 152 seats on twenty regional (county, capital) lists, and 58 seats from a national list.

The Hungarian election system calls for two votes: voters cast one vote on a candidate of the individual constituency and may choose from the regional party lists by the other vote. In individual constituencies the recommendation of at least 750 voters in required for candidacy. A political party may set up a regional list if it has candidates in one-quarter of the individual constituencies but in at least two constituency. At least seven regional lists are required for a national list. 5 percent of the total valid votes cast nationwide on the party lists is required for a party to get into the National Assembly.

An 11-member Constitutional Court has power to challenge legislation on grounds of unconstitutionality.

Regions, counties, and subregions

Counties of Hungary

Main articles: Counties of Hungary, Regions of Hungary, and Subregions of Hungary

See also List of historic counties of Hungary

Administratively, Hungary is divided into 19 counties. In addition, the capital city (főváros), Budapest, is independent of any county government. The counties and the capital are the 20 NUTS third-level units of Hungary.

The counties are further subdivided into 173 subregions (kistérségek), and Budapest is its own subregion. Since 1996, the counties and City of Budapest have been grouped into 7 regions for statistical and development purposes. These seven regions constitute NUTS' second-level units of Hungary.

There are also 23 towns with county rights (singular megyei jogú város), sometimes known as "urban counties" in English (although there is no such term in Hungarian). The local authorities of these towns have extended powers, but these towns belong to the territory of the respective county instead of being independent territorial units.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Hungary

Hungarian National Bank

Hungary held its first multi-party elections in 1990, following four decades of Communist rule, and has succeeded in transforming its centrally planned economy into a market economy. Both foreign ownership of and foreign investment in Hungarian firms are widespread. The governing coalition, comprising the Hungarian Socialist Party and the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats, prevailed in the April 2006 general election. Hungary needs to reduce government spending and further reform its economy in order to meet the 2012–2013 target date for accession to the euro zone.

Hungary has continued to demonstrate economic growth as one of the newest member countries of the European Union (since 2004). The private sector accounts for over 80% of GDP. Hungary gets nearly one third of all foreign direct investment flowing into Central Europe, with cumulative foreign direct investment totaling more than US$185 billion since 1989. It enjoys strong trade, fiscal, monetary, investment, business, and labor freedoms. The top income tax rate is fairly high, but corporate taxes are low. Inflation is low, it was on the rise in the past few years, but it is now starting to regulate. Investment in Hungary is easy, although it is subject to government licensing in security-sensitive areas. Foreign capital enjoys virtually the same protections and privileges as domestic capital. The rule of law is strong, a professional judiciary protects property rights, and the level of corruption is low.

Audi TT sports car manufactured by Audi in Győr.

Total government spending is high. Many state-owned enterprises have not been privatized. Business licensing is a problem, as regulations are not applied consistently.^[57] According to the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, Hungary's economy was 67.2 percent "free" in 2008,^[57] which makes it the world's 43rd-freest economy. Its overall score is 1 percent lower than last year, partially reflecting new methodological detail. Hungary is ranked 25th out of 41 countries in the European region, and its overall score is slightly lower than the regional average.^[57] Economic reform measures such as health care reform, tax reform, and local government financing are being addressed by the present government.

According to Eurostat data, Hungarian PPS GDP per capita stood at 63 per cent of the EU average in 2008.^[58]

Geography

Main article: Geography of Hungary

Topographic map of Hungary

Landscape

Lake Balaton

A temple in the puszta (Great Hungarian Plain).

Slightly more than one half of Hungary's landscape consists of flat to rolling plains of the Pannonian Basin: the most important plain regions include the Little Hungarian Plain in the west, and the Great Hungarian Plain in the southeast. The highest elevation above sea level on the latter is only 183 metres.

Transdanubia is a primarily hilly region with a terrain varied by low mountains. These include the very eastern stretch of the Alps, Alpokalja, in the west of the country, the Transdanubian Medium Mountains, in the central region of Transdanubia, and the Mecsek Mountains and Villány Mountains in the south. The highest point of the area is the Írott-kő in the Alps, at 882 metres.

The highest mountains of the country are located in the Carpathians: these lie in the northern parts, in a wide band along the Slovakian border (highest point: the Kékes at 1,014 m (3327 ft)).

Hungary is divided in two by its main waterway, the Danube (Duna); other large rivers include the Tisza and Dráva, while Transdanubia contains Lake Balaton, a major body of water. The largest thermal lake in the world, Lake Hévíz (Hévíz Spa), is located in Hungary. The second largest lake in the Pannonian Basin is the artificial Lake Tisza (Tisza-tó).

Phytogeographically, Hungary belongs to the Central European province of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the territory of Hungary belongs to the ecoregion of Pannonian mixed forests.

Climate

Hungary has a Continental climate,^[59] with hot summers with low overall humidity levels but frequent rainshowers and frigid to cold snowy winters. Average annual temperature is 9.7 °C (49.5 °F). Temperature extremes are about 42 °C (110 °F) in the summer and −29 °C (−20 °F) in the winter. Average temperature in the summer is 27 to 35 °C (81 to 95 °F), and in the winter it is 0 to −15 °C (32 to 5 °F). The average yearly rainfall is approximately 600 millimeters (24 in). A small, southern region of the country near Pécs enjoys a reputation for a Mediterranean climate, but in reality it is only slightly warmer than the rest of the country and still receives snow during the winter.

Military

Main article: Military of Hungary

Hungarian Ground Forces welcome the President of the United States. Mounted hussars can be seen along the top.

The Military of Hungary, or "Hungarian Armed Forces" currently has two branches, the "Hungarian Ground Force" and the "Hungarian Air Force." The Hungarian Ground Force (or Army) is known as the "Corps of Homeland Defenders" (Honvédség). This term was originally used to refer to the revolutionary army established by Lajos Kossuth and the National Defence Committee of the Revolutionary Hungarian Diet in September 1848 during the Hungarian Revolution.The term Honvédség is the name of the military of Hungary since 1848 referring to its purpose (véd in Honvéd) of defending the country. The Hungarian Army is called Magyar Honvédség. The rank equal to a Private is a Honvéd. The Hungarian Air Force is the air force branch of the Hungarian Army.

Hungary is a contributor of military troops to Eufor

Black Army of Hungary: The Black Army (Black Legion or Host) - named after their black armor panoply - is in historigraphy the common name given to the excellent quality of diverse and polyglot military forces serving under the reign of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. It is recognized as the first standing continental European fighting force not under conscription and with regular pay since the Roman Empire. Hungary's Black Army traditionally encompasses the years from 1458 to 1490.

Hussar: A type of irregular light horsemen was already well established by the 15th century in medieval Hungary. Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry created in Hungary^[60] in the 15th century and used throughout Europe and even in America since the 18th century. Some modern military units retain the title 'hussar' for reasons of tradition.

Demographics

Main articles: Demographics of Hungary, Roma minority of Hungary, Germans of Hungary, and Jews of Hungary

Ethnic composition of Hungary (census 2001)

Hungarian			94.4%
Roma			2.02%
German			1.18%
Slovak			0.38%
Other			2.02%

For 95% of the population, the mother language is Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language distantly related to Finnish and Estonian. The largest minority groups are are the Roma (2.1% to 10%) and the Germans (1.2%). Other groups include: Slovaks (0.4%), Croats and Bunjevcis (0.2%), Romanians (0.1%), Ukrainians (0.1%), and Serbs (0.1%).^[61] Roma make up as much as 10% of the population in Hungary (unofficial estimation).^[62] For historical reasons (see Treaty of Trianon), significant Hungarian minority populations can be found in the surrounding countries, most of them in Romania (in Transylvania), Slovakia, Serbia (in Vojvodina). Sizable minorities live also in Ukraine (in Transcarpathia), Croatia (mainly Slavonia) and Austria (in Burgenland). Slovenia is also host to a number of ethnic Hungarians, and Hungarian language has an official status in parts of the Prekmurje region. The largest wave of German-speaking immigrants into Hungary occurred after the Treaty of Karlowitz. Between 1700 and 1750, German-speaking settlers immigrated to the regions of Pannonia, Banat, and Bačka, which had been depopulated by the Ottoman wars. Prior to World War II, approximately 1.5 million Danube Swabians lived in Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia.^[63] In 2001, 62,105 people declared to be German in Hungary.^[64]

Religion in Hungary

Religions in Hungary

Religious affiliation in Hungary (2001)^[65]
Denominations	Population	% of total
Christianity	7,584,115	74.4
Catholicism	5,558,901	54.5
Roman Catholics	5,289,521	51.9
Greek Catholics	268,935	2.6
Protestantism	1,985,576	19.5
Calvinists	1,622,796	15.9
Lutherans	304,705	3.0
Baptists	17,705	0.2
Unitarians	6,541	0.1
Other Protestants	33,829	0.3
Orthodox Christianity	15,298	0.1
Other Christians	24,340	0.2
Judaism	12,871	0.1
Other religions	13,567	0.1
Total religions	7,610,553	74.6
No religion	1,483,369	14.5
Did not wish to answer	1,034,767	10.1
Unknown	69,566	0.7
total	10,198,315	100.00

Religious history

Basilica and the Dark gate in Esztergom

Matthias Church in Budapest

The majority of Hungarian people became Christian in the 10th century. Hungary's first king, Saint Stephen I^[66] embraced Roman Catholicism, although his mother, Sarolt, was baptized in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Hungary remained predominantly Catholic until the 16th century, when the Reformation took place and, as a result, first Lutheranism, then soon afterwards Calvinism tried to make inroads against the notably resistant Catholic faithful. In the second half of the 16th century, however, Jesuits led a successful campaign of counterreformation among the Hungarians. The Jesuits founded educational institutions, including Péter Pázmány, the oldest university that still exists in Hungary. Jesuits organized missions to promote popular piety. By the 17th century, Hungary had once again become predominantly Catholic. Some of the eastern parts of the country, however, especially around Debrecen ("the Calvinist Rome"), still have significant Protestant communities. Eastern Orthodox Church in Hungary has been the religion mainly of some national minorities in the country, notably, Romanians, Rusyns and Ukrainians, Serbs.

Hungary has been the home of a sizable Armenian community as well. They belong to the Armenian Catholic Church which is in communion with the Catholic Church. According to the same pattern, a significant number of Greek Orthodox in the Eastern Orthodox Church became re-united with Rome as the (Hungarian Greek Catholic Church).

Jews in Hungary

Main article: History of the Jews in Hungary

Hungary has historically been home to a significant Jewish community, especially since the 19th century when many Jews, persecuted in Russia, found refuge in the Kingdom of Hungary. The largest synagogue in Europe is located in Budapest. The census of January 1941 found that 6.2% of the population, i.e. 846,000 people, were considered Jewish according to the racial laws of that time. From this number, 725,000 were Jewish by religion.^[67] Some Jews from Hungary were able to escape the Holocaust with the help of Swedish Diplomat Raul Wallenberg. Many others fell victim to the deportations to Germany's concentration camps or were executed by the Arrow Cross. Many Hungarian Jews living in Southern Transylvania fell victim to Romanian fascists.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Hungary

Architecture

Music

Main article: Music of Hungary

Hungarian State Opera House

Ferenc Liszt

The music of Hungary consists mainly of traditional Hungarian folk music and music by prominent composers such as Liszt, Dohnányi, Bartók, Kodály, and Rózsa. Hungarian traditional music tends to have a strong dactylic rhythm, as the language is invariably stressed on the first syllable of each word. Hungary also has a number of internationally renowned composers of contemporary classical music, György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Péter Eötvös and Zoltán Jeney among them.

[[File:Bartók Béla 1927.jpg|thumb|right|160px|Béla Bartók, Hungary has made many contributions to the fields of folk, popular and classical music. Hungarian folk music is a prominent part of the national identity and continues to play a major part in Hungarian music. Hungarian folk music has been influential in neighboring areas such as Romania, Slovakia, southern Poland and especially in southern Slovakia and the Romanian region of Transylvania, both home to significant numbers of Hungarians.

Broughton claims that Hungary's "infectious sound has been surprisingly influential on neighbouring countries (thanks perhaps to the common Austro-Hungarian history) and it's not uncommon to hear Hungarian-sounding tunes in Romania, Slovakia and southern Poland".</ref>^[68] It is also strong in the Szabolcs-Szatmár area and in the southwest part of Transdanubia, near the border with Croatia. The Busójárás carnival in Mohács is a major Hungarian folk music event, formerly featuring the long-established and well-regarded Bogyiszló orchestra.^[69]

Hungarian classical music has long been an "experiment, made from Hungarian antedecents and on Hungarian soil, to create a conscious musical culture [using the] musical world of the folk song".^[70] Although the Hungarian upper class has long had cultural and political connections with the rest of Europe, leading to an influx of European musical ideas, the rural peasants maintained their own traditions such that by the end of the 19th century Hungarian composers could draw on rural peasant music to (re)create a Hungarian classical style.^[71] For example, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, two of Hungary's most famous composers, are known for using folk themes in their music. Bartók collected folk songs from across Eastern Europe, including Romania and Slovakia, whilst Kodály was more interested in creating a distinctively Hungarian musical style.

During the era of Communist rule in Hungary (1944–1989) a Song Committee scoured and censored popular music for traces of subversion and ideological impurity. Since then, however, the Hungarian music industry has begun to recover, producing successful performers in the fields of jazz such as trumpeter Rudolf Tomsits, pianist-composer Károly Binder and, in a modernized form of Hungarian folk, Ferenc Sebő and Márta Sebestyén. The three giants of Hungarian rock, Illés, Metró and Omega, remain very popular, especially Omega, which has followings in Germany and beyond as well as in Hungary. Older veteran underground bands such as Beatrice from the 1980s also remain popular.

Literature

Main article: Hungarian literature

The oldest survivng Hungarian (and Finno-Ugric) poem, Old Hungarian Laments of Mary

In the earliest times Hungarian language was written in a runic-like script (although it was not used for literature purposes in the modern interpretation). The country switched to the Latin alphabet after being Christianized under the reign of Stephen I of Hungary (1000–1038). There are no existing documents from the pre-11th century era.
The oldest written record in Hungarian is a fragment in the founding document of the Abbey of Tihany (1055) which contains several Hungarian terms, among them the words feheruuaru rea meneh hodu utu rea, "up the military road to Fehérvár" The rest of the document was written in Latin.
The oldest complete text is the Funeral Sermon and Prayer (Halotti beszéd és könyörgés) (1192–1195), a translation of a Latin sermon.
The oldest poem is the Old Hungarian Laments of Mary (Ómagyar Mária-siralom), also a (not very strict) translation from Latin, from the 13th century. It is also the oldest surviving Finno-Ugric poem.
Among the first chronicles about Hungarian history were Gesta Hungarorum ("Deeds of the Hungarians") by the unknown author usually called Anonymus, and Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum ("Deeds of the Huns and the Hungarians") by Simon Kézai. Both are in Latin. These chronicles mix history with legends, so historically they are not always authentic. Another chronicle is the Képes krónika (Illustrated Chronicle), which was written for Louis the Great.

Renaissance literature flourished under the reign of King Matthias (1458–1490). Janus Pannonius, although wrote in Latin, counts as one of the most important persons in Hungarian literature, being the only significant Hungarian Humanist poet of the period. The first printing house was also founded during Matthias' reign, by András Hess, in Buda. The first book printed in Hungary was the Chronica Hungarorum. Matthias Corvinus's library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was among Europe's greatest collections of secular historical chronicles and philosophic and scientific works in the fifteenth century. In 1489, Bartolomeo della Fonte of Florence wrote that Lorenzo de Medici founded his own Greek-Latin library encouraged by the example of the Hungarian king. Corvinus's library is part of UNESCO World Heritage. Other important figures of Hungarian Renaissance: Bálint Balassi (poet) , Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos (poet).

The most important poets of the period was Bálint Balassi (1554–1594) and Miklós Zrínyi (1620–1664). Balassi's poetry shows Mediaeval influences, his poems can be divided into three sections: love poems, war poems and religious poems. Zrínyi's most significant work, the epic Szigeti veszedelem ("Peril of Sziget", written in 1648/49) is written in a fashion similar to the Iliad, and recounts the heroic Battle of Szigetvár, where his great-grandfather died while defending the castle of Szigetvár. Among the religious literary works the most important is the Bible translation by Gáspár Károli (The second Hungarian translation in the history), the Protestant pastor of Gönc, in 1590. The translation is called the Bible of Vizsoly, after the town where it was first published. (See Hungarian Bible translations for more details.)

The Hungarian enlightenment was delayed about fifty years compared to the Western European enlightenment. The new thoughts arrived to Hungary across Vienna. The first enlightened writers were Maria Theresia's bodyguards (György Bessenyei, János Batsányi and so on). The greatest poets of the time were Mihály Csokonai Vitéz and Dániel Berzsenyi. The greatest figure of the language reform was Ferenc Kazinczy. The Hungarian language became feasible for scientific explanations from this time, and furthermore many new words were coined for describing new inventions.

Hungarian literature has recently gained some renown outside the borders of Hungary (mostly through translations into German, French and English). Some modern Hungarian authors have become increasingly popular in Germany and Italy especially Sándor Márai, Péter Esterházy, Péter Nádas and Imre Kertész. The latter is a contemporary Jewish writer who survived the Holocaust and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002. The older classics of Hungarian literature and Hungarian poetry have remained almost totally unknown outside Hungary. János Arany, a famous nineteenth century Hungarian poet is still much loved in Hungary (especially his collection of Ballads), among several other "true classics" like Sándor Petőfi, the poet of the Revolution of 1848, Endre Ady, Mihály Babits, Dezső Kosztolányi, Attila József and János Pilinszky. Other well-known Hungarian authors are Ferenc Móra, Géza Gárdonyi, Zsigmond Móricz, Gyula Illyés, Albert Wass, Magda Szabó and Ladislas Farago.

Cuisine

Main article: Cuisine of Hungary

A nicely prepared Hortobágyi palacsinta served in Sopron

A slice from a Dobos Cake

The Hungarian cuisine is a prominent feature of the Hungarian culture, just as much like the art of hospitality. Traditional dishes such as the world famous Goulash (gulyás stew or gulyásleves soup). Dishes are often flavoured with paprika (ground red peppers), a Hungarian innovation.^[72] Thick, heavy Hungarian sour cream called tejföl is often used to soften the dishes flavour. The famous Hungarian hot river fish soup called Fisherman's soup or halászlé is usually a rich mixture of several kinds of poached fish.

Other dishes are Chicken Paprikash, Foie gras made of goose liver, pörkölt stew, vadas, (game stew with vegetable gravy and dumplings), trout with almonds and salty and sweet dumplings, like túrós csusza, (dumplings with fresh quark cheese and thick sour cream). Desserts include the iconic Dobos Cake, Strudels (rétes), filled with apple, cherry, poppy seed or cheese, Gundel pancake, plum dumplings (szilvás gombóc), somlói dumplings, dessert soups like chilled Sour cherry soup and sweet chestnut puree, gesztenyepüré (cooked chestnuts mashed with sugar and rum and split into crumbs, topped with whipped cream). Perec and kifli are widly popular pastries.

The csárda is the most distinctive type of Hungarian inn, an old-style tavern offering traditional cuisine and beverages. Borozó usually denotes a cozy old-fashioned wine tavern, pince is a beer or wine cellar and a söröző is a pub offering draught beer and sometimes meals. The bisztró is an inexpensive restaurant often with self-service. The büfé is the cheapest place, although one may have to eat standing at a counter. Pastries, cakes and coffee are served at the confectionery called cukrászda, while an eszpresszó is a cafeteria.

Drinks

Main articles: Hungarian wine and Hungarian beer

A cold bottle of Unicum

Tokaji, "Wine of Kings, King of Wines" ("Vinum Regum, Rex Vinorum")—Louis XIV of France.

Pálinka: is a fruit brandy, distilled from basically any sort of fruits. It is a spirit native to Hungary and comes in a variety of flavours including apricot (barack), cherry (cseresznye), apple (alma), pear (körte), strawberry (eper), etc.

Beer: Beer goes well with many traditional Hungarian dishes. The five main Hungarian breweries are: Borsodi, Soproni, Arany Ászok, Kõbányai, and Dreher.

Wine: As Hugh Johnson says in The History of Wine, the territory of Hungary is ideal for wine-making. Since the fall of communism there is a renaissance of Hungarian wine-making. The choice of good wine is widening from year to year. The country can be divided to six wine regions: North-Transdanubia, Lake Balaton, South-Pannónia, Duna-region or Alföld, Upper-Hungary and Tokaj-Hegyalja. Hungarian wine regions offer a great variety of style: the main products of the country are elegant and full-bodied dry whites with good acidity, although complex sweet whites (Tokaj), elegant (Eger) and full-bodied robust reds (Villány and Szekszárd). The main varieties are: Olaszrizling, Hárslevelű, Furmint, Pinot gris or Szürkebarát, Chardonnay (whites), Kékfrankos (or Blaufrankisch in German), Kadarka, Portugieser, Zweigelt, Cabernet sauvignon, Cabernet franc and Merlot. The most famous wines from Hungary are Tokaji Aszú and Egri Bikavér.

Tokaji: Tokaji, meaning "of Tokaj", or "from Tokaj" in Hungarian, is used to label wines from the wine region of Tokaj-Hegyalja in Hungary. Tokaji wine has received accolades from numerous great writers and composers including Beethoven, Liszt, Schubert and Goethe; Joseph Haydn's favorite wine was a Tokaji. Louis XV and Frederick the Great tried to outdo one another in the excellence of the vintages they stocked when they treated guests like Voltaire to some Tokaji. Napoleon III, the last Emperor of the French, ordered 30–40 barrels of Tokaji for the Court every year. Gustav III, King of Sweden, never had any other wine to drink. In Russia, customers included Peter the Great and Empress Elizabeth of Russia.

Zwack Unicum: For over 150 years, a blend of 40 Hungarian herbs has been used to create the liqueur Unicum. Unicum is a bitter, dark-coloured liqueur that can be drunk as an apéritif or after a meal, thus helping the digestion. The recipe is held secret by the Zwack family.

Spa Culture

Rudas Bath is a thermal and medicinal bath that was first built in 1550.

Hungary is a land of thermal water. A passion for spa culture and Hungarian history have been connected from the very beginning. It has been shown that Hungarian spa culture is multicultural. The basis of this claim is architecture: Hungarian spas feature Roman, Greek, Turkish, and northern country architectural elements.^{[citation needed]} Due to an advantageous geographical location thermal water can be found with good quality and in great quantities on over 80% of Hungary's territory.

The Romans heralded the first age of spa in Hungary, the remains of their bath complexes are still to be seen in Óbuda, to this day. The spa culture was revived during the Turkish Invasion who used the thermal springs of Buda for the construction of a number of bathhouses, some of which are still functioning (Király Baths, Rudas Baths). In the 19th century the advancement in deep drilling and medical science provided the springboard for a further leap in bathing culture. Grand spas such as Gellért Baths, Lukács Baths, Margaret Island, and Széchenyi Medicinal Bath are a reflection of this resurgence in popularity. Approximately 1,500 thermal springs can be found in Hungary. About half of these are used for bathing.

The spa culture has a nearly 2,000 year history in Budapest. Budapest has the richest supply of thermal water among the capitals of the world. The amount of thermal water used in Budapest is roughly equal to two million bath tubs per day.^{[citation needed]} There are approximately 450 public baths in Hungary. Nowadays the trend shows that bath operators are modernizing their facilities and expanding the services offered. A total of 50 of the 160 public baths are qualified as spas throughout the country. Services are offered for healing purposes. These spas provide every type of balneal and physical therapy. Throughout history bathing and spa tourism has always played an important role in Hungary.^{[citation needed]}

The thermal lake of Hévíz

Lake Hévíz

The thermal lake of Hévíz is the largest biologically active, natural thermal lake of the world.^{[citation needed]} The oldest and most well-known bath of Hungary, in accordance with records from the Roman era, has a history of 2000 years. The Hévíz treatment, in its present sense, also dates back more than 200 years. The 4.4 ha lake is fed by its spring rushing up at a depth of 38 m, containing sulphur, radium and minerals. Due to the high water output of the spring, the water of the lake is completely changed within 48 hours. The water of the Hévíz Lake is equally rich in dissolved substances and gases, combining the favourable effects of naturally carbonated medicinal waters and those containing sulphur, calcium, magnesium, hydrogen-carbonate, as well as those with a slightly radioactive content. The medicinal mud, which covers the bed of the lake in a thick layer, deserves special attention. The Hévíz mud, which is unique of its kind, contains both organic and inorganic substances and the radium-salts and reduced sulphuric solutions in it represent special medicinal factors. The medicinal water and mud originating from the then several thousand year-old Pannonian Sea, together with the complex physiotherapeutic treatments, are suitable for treating all kinds of rheumatic and locomotory diseases.^{[citation needed]} The temperature of the water is 23-25 C in winter and 33-36 C in summer.

Folk Art

Folk Dance

Romanesque Church in village Ócsa.

Ugrós (Jumping dances): Old style dances dating back to the Middle Ages. Solo or couple dances accompanied by old style music, shepherd and other solo man's dances from Transylvania, and marching dances along with remnants of medieval weapon dances belong in this group.

Karikázó: a circle dance performed by women only accompanied by singing of folksongs.

Csárdás: New style dances developed in the 18-19th centuries is the Hungarian name for the national dances, with Hungarian embroidered costumes and energetic music. From the men's intricate bootslapping dances to the ancient women's circle dances, Csárdás demonstrates the infectious exuberance of the Hungarian folk dancing still celebrated in the villages.

Verbunkos: a solo man's dance evolved from the recruiting performances of the Austro-Hungarian army.

The Legényes: is a men's solo dance done by the ethnic Hungarian people living in the Kalotaszeg region of Transylvania. Although usually danced by young men, it can be also danced by older men. The dance is performed freestyle usually by one dancer at a time in front of the band. Women participate in the dance by standing in lines to the side and sing/shout verses while the men dance. Each lad does a number of points (dance phrases) typically four to eight without repetition. Each point consists of four parts, each lasting four counts. The first part is usually the same for everyone (there are only a few variations).

Embroidery

Woman's folk Costume

It was in the beginning of the eighteenth century that the present style of Hungarian folk art took shape, incorporating both Renaissance and Baroque elements, depending on the area, as well as Persian Sassanide influences. Flowers and leaves, sometimes a bird or a spiral ornament, are the principal decorative themes. The most frequent ornament is a flower with a centerpiece resembling the eye of a peacock's feather. Nearly all the manifestations of folk art practiced elsewhere in Europe also flourished among the Magyar peasantry at one time or another, their ceramics and textile being the most highly developed of all. The finest achievements in their textile arts are the embroideries which vary from region to region. Those of Kalotaszeg in Transylvania are charming products of Oriental design, sewn chiefly in a single color - red, blue, or black. Soft in line, the embroideries are applied on altar cloths, pillow cases and sheets. In Hungary proper Sárköz in Transdanubia and the Matyóföld in the Great Hungarian Plain produce the finest embroideries. In the Sárköz region the women's caps show black and white designs as delicate as lace and give evidence of the people's wonderfully subtle artistic feeling. The embroidery motifs applied to women's wear have also been transposed to tablecloths and runners suitable for modern use as wall decorations.

Black pottery

These vessels, made of black clay, reflect more than three hundred years of traditional Transdanubian folk patterns and shapes. No two are precisely alike, since all work is done by hand, including both the shaping and the decorating. The imprints are made by the thumb or a finger of the ceramist who makes the piece.

Herend Porcelain

Main article: Herend Porcelain

Founded in 1826, Herend Porcelain is one of the world's largest ceramic factories, specializing in luxury hand painted and gilded porcelain. In the mid-19th century it was purveyor to the Habsburg Dynasty and aristocratic customers throughout Europe. Many of its classic patterns are still in production. After the fall of communism in Hungary the factory was privatised and is now 75% owned by its management and workers, exporting to over 60 countries of the world.^[73]

Hungarian domestic animals

There are special Hungarian species of domestic animals which are seen as national symbols in Hungary. The long-horn Hungarian Grey Cattle is traditionally kept in the open full year. The Hungarian Vizsla, the Puli, the Komondor, the Kuvasz, the Pumi, the Hungarian Greyhound, the Transylvanian Bloodhound and the Mudi are all considered breeds originating in Hungary. Hungarian thoroughbred horses are a mid-19th century mixture of the best Arab and English race horse characteristics. The Mangalica, a breed of pigs, are characterised by their long curly hair and relatively fatty meat which makes them ideal for making sausages and salami.

Hungary

Contents

History

The land before AD 895

Medieval Hungary

The Patrimonial Kingdom

Important members of the Árpád dynasty

Mongol attacks

Age of elected Kings

Age of early absolutism

Decline (1490–1526)

Ottoman Wars

History of Hungary 1700–1919

Revolution and war of independence (1848-1849)

Austria-Hungary (1867–1918)

World War I

Between the two world wars (1918-1941)

Treaty of Trianon

Hungary in World War II (1941–1945)

Communist era (1947–1989)

The Third Hungarian Republic (1989–present)

Science

Politics

Regions, counties, and subregions

Economy

Geography

Landscape

Climate

Military

Demographics

Religion in Hungary

Religious history

Jews in Hungary

Culture

Architecture

Music

Literature

Cuisine

Drinks

Spa Culture

The thermal lake of Hévíz

Folk Art

Folk Dance

Embroidery

Black pottery

Herend Porcelain

Hungarian domestic animals

Sport

See also