History of Hungary
Encyclopedia
Hungary
is a country in central Europe
. Its history under this name dates to the early Middle Ages, when the Pannonian Basin
was colonized by the Magyars, a semi-nomadic people from what is now central-northern Russia
. For history of the area before this period, see Pannonian basin before Hungary.
The Roman Empire conquered territory west of the Danube between 35 and 9 BCE From 9 BC to the end of the 4th century AD Pannonia
, the western part of the basin was part of the Roman Empire
. In the final stages of the expansion of the Roman empire, for a short while the Carpathian Basin fell under Mediterranean influence 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
in 435 CE. Attila the Hun
was regarded in past centuries as an ancestral ruler of the Hungarians, but this is now considered to be erroneous. It is believed that the origin of the name "Hungary" does not come from the Central Asia
n Hun nomadic invaders, but rather originated from the 7th century, when Magyar tribes were part of a Bulgar
alliance called On-Ogour, which in Bulgar Turkic
meant "(the) Ten Arrows". After Hunnish rule faded, the Germanic Ostrogoths, Lombards
than Slavs 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 its neighboring empires. The Avar Khagnate was weakened by constant wars and outside pressure, and the Franks
under Charlemagne
managed to defeat the Avars, ending their 250-year rule. In the middle of the 9th century, the Slavic Balaton Principality
, also known as Lower Pannonia, was established by the Franks as a frontier march when they destroyed the Avar state in the western part of the Pannonian plain; however this vassal state was destroyed in 900 by Hungarian tribes.
Much of early Hungarian history is recorded in the following Hungarian chronicles, retelling the early legends and history of the Huns
, Magyars and the Kingdom of Hungary
:
Árpád
was the Magyar leader whom sources name as the single leader who unified the Magyar tribes via the Covenant of Blood , forging what was thereafter known as the Hungarian nation.
Árpád led the new nation to the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century. From 895 to 902 the whole area of the Carpathian Basin was conquered by the Hungarians. After that, an early Hungarian state (the Principality of Hungary
, founded in 895) was formed in this territory. The military power of the nation allowed the Hungarians to conduct successful fierce campaigns and raids as far as today's Spain
. A later defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld
in 955 signaled an end to raids on western territories (Byzantine raids continued until 970), and links between the tribes weakened. The ruling prince (fejedelem) Géza
of the Árpád dynasty
, who ruled only part of the united territory, the nominal overlord of all seven Magyar tribes, aimed to integrate Hungary into Christian
Western Europe, rebuilding the state according to the Western political and social model. He established a dynasty by naming his son Vajk (the later King Stephen I of Hungary) as his successor. This was contrary to the then-dominant 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 first-born son to be his successor. The 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 belief, but Stephen won a decisive victory over his uncle Koppány
, and had him executed.
Hungary was recognized as a Catholic Apostolic Kingdom under Saint Stephen I.
Stephen was the son of Géza
and thus a descendant of Árpád
.
Stephen was crowned by the Holy Crown of Hungary in December 1000 AD in the capital, Esztergom
. The Papacy confers on him the right to have the cross carried before him, with full administrative authority over bishoprics and churches. By 1006, Stephen had solidified his power, eliminating all rivals who either wanted to follow the old pagan traditions or wanted an alliance with the Eastern Christian Byzantine Empire
. Then he started sweeping reforms to convert Hungary into a western feudal state, complete with forced Christianization.
Stephen established a network of 10 episcopal and 2 archiepiscopal sees, and ordered the buildup of monasteries churches and cathedrals. In the earliest times Hungarian language
was written in a runic-like script
. The country switched to the Latin alphabet under Stephen.
103.jpg)
From 1000 to 1844, Latin was the official language of the country.
He followed the Frankish
administrative model: The whole of this land was divided into counties (megyék), each under a royal official called an ispán count —later főispán . This official represented the king’s authority, administered its population, and collected the taxes that formed the national revenue. Each ispán maintained an armed force of freemen at his fortified headquarters (castrum or vár).
What emerged was a strong kingdom that withstood attacks from German kings and Emperors, and 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. According to an alternative history based on the document Pacta Conventa
, which is most likely a forgery Hungary and Croatia created a personal union
. There is no undoubtedly genuine document of the personal union, and medieval sources mention the annexation into the Hungarian kingdom.
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 civilisation (This statement was affirmed later by Pope Pius II who wrote that to Emperor Friedrich III, "Hungary is the shield of Christianity and the defender of Western civilization").
Important members of the Árpád dynasty
:
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).
He 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. 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.
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.
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.
Important points of the Doctrine: The sovereignty belongs to the noble nation→(the Holy Crown). The members of the Holy Crown are the citizens of the Crown's lands. None can reach full power. The nation is sharing a portion of the political power with the ruler. Minority cannot rule over majority (against tyranny and oligarchy).
: after the defeat of the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohi
, Béla IV of Hungary
fled, and a large part of the population died in the ensuing destruction leading later to the invitation of settlers, largely from Germany. Historians estimate that up to half of Hungary's then population of 2,000,000 were victims of the Mongol invasion. In the plains between 50 and 80% of the settlements were destroyed. Only castles, strongly fortified cities and abbeys could withstand the assault.
During the Russian campaign, the Mongols drove some 40,000 Cumans
, a nomadic tribe of pagan Kipchaks, west of the Carpathian Mountains. There, the Cumans appealed to King Béla IV of Hungary for protection. The Iranian Jassic people
came to Hungary together with the Cumans after they were defeated by the Mongols. Cumans constituted perhaps up to 7-8% of the population of Hungary in the second half of the 13th century. Over the centuries they were fully assimilated into the Hungarian population, and their language disappeared, but they preserved their identity and their regional autonomy until 1876.
As a consequence, after the Mongols retreated, King Béla ordered the construction of hundreds of stone castles and fortifications, to defend against a possible second Mongol invasion. The Mongols returned to Hungary in 1286, but the new built stone-castle systems and new tactics (using a higher proportion of heavily armed knights) stopped them. The invading Mongol force was defeated near Pest by the royal army of Ladislaus IV of Hungary. As with later invasions, it was repelled handily, the Mongols losing much of their invading force.
These castles proved to be very important later in the long struggle with the Ottoman Empire
. However the cost of building them indebted the Hungarian King to the major feudal landlords again, so the royal power reclaimed by Béla IV after his father Andrew II significantly weakened it was once again dispersed amongst lesser nobility. The countries of the Balkan region and the territory of Russian states fell under Ottoman/Mongolian rule very rapidly, due to the lack of the network of stone/brick castles and fortresses in these countries.
(1301–1308), the first Angevin
king, Charles I of Hungary
(reigned 1308–1342) - a descendant of the Árpád dynasty in the female line - successfully restored royal power, and defeated oligarch rivals, the so called "little kings". His new fiscal, customs and monetary policies proved successful during his reign.
One of the primary sources of his power was the wealth derived from the gold mines of eastern and northern Hungary. Eventually production reached the remarkable figure of 3,000 lb. (1350 kg) 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. Charles also sealed an alliance with the Polish king Casimir. After Italy, Hungary was the first European country where the renaissance
appeared.
The second Hungarian king in the Angevin
line, Louis the Great (reigned 1342–1382) extended his rule as far as the Adriatic Sea
, and occupied the Kingdom of Naples
several times. In 1351, the golden bull
was completed with the law of entail. Which instated that the nobles hereditary lands could not be taken away and must remain in the family. He also became king of Poland (reigned 1370–1382). During his reign lived the epic hero of Hungarian literature and warfare, the king's Champion: Nicolas Toldi. Louis had become popular in Poland because of his campaign against the Tatars and pagan Lithuanians. Two successful wars (1357–1358, 1378–1381) against Venice annexed Dalmatia and Ragusa and more territories on the Adriatic Sea. Venice also had to raise the Angevin flag in St. Mark's Square on holy days.
Some Balkan states (Vallachia, Moldova, Serbia, Bosnia) became his vassals. Louis I established a university in Pécs
in 1367 (by papal accordance). The Ottoman Turks confronted the Balkan vassal states ever more often. In 1366 and 1377, Louis led successful campaigns against the Ottomans (Battle of Nicapoli in 1366). From the death of Casimir III of Poland
in 1370, he was also king of Poland. He retained his strong influence in the political life of Italian Peninsula for the rest of his life.
King Louis died without a male heir, and after years of anarchy the country was stabilized only when Sigismund
(reigned 1387–1437), a prince of the Luxembourg
line, succeeded to the throne by marrying the daughter of Louis the Great, Queen Mary
. 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 imprisoned for a short time. The restoration of the authority of the central administration took decades.
In 1404 Sigismund introduced the Placetum Regnum. According to this decree, Papal bulls and messages could not be pronounced in Hungary without the consent of the king. Sigismund summoned the Council of Constance
(1414–1418) to abolish the Avignon Papacy
and the Papal Schism
of the Catholic Church, which was resolved by the election of a new pope
. In 1433 he even became Holy Roman Emperor
. During his long reign the Royal castle of Buda became probably the largest Gothic palace of the late Middle Ages. After the death of Sigismund
, his son in law, Albert II of Germany
, was titled king of Hungary. Albert II, however, died in 1439. The first Hungarian Bible translation was completed in 1439. For a half year in 1437, there was an anti-feudal and anti-clerical peasant revolt in Transylvania which was strongly influenced by Hussite
ideas. (See: Budai Nagy Antal Revolt)
From a small noble family in Transylvania, John Hunyadi
grew to become one of the country's most powerful lords, thanks to his outstanding capabilities as a mercenary
commander.
In 1446, the parliament elected the great general John 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), the news of the victory arrived before the order, and the ringing of the church bells at noon was transformed into a commemoration of the victory. The Popes did not withdraw the order, and Catholic (and the older Protestant) churches still ring the noon bell in the Christian world to this day.
. 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, mounted the royal throne.
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. Although Matyas 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, common people considered Matthias a just ruler because he protected them from excessive demands and other abuses by the magnates. Like his father, Matthias desired to strengthen the Kingdom of Hungary to the point where it became the foremost regional power and overlord, strong enough to push back the Ottoman Empire; towards 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. Army of Hungary, almost all times destroyed the enemies when Matthias was the king.
His mercenary standing army called the Black Army of Hungary
was an unusually big army in its age, it accomplished a series of victories also 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
.
The magnates, who did not want another heavy-handed king, procured the accession of Vladislaus II
(King: 1490–1516), king of Bohemia (László 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. 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 declined as border guards and castle garrisons went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled. Hungary's international role was wasted, its political stability shaken, and social progress was deadlocked.
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
.
in the south of Hungary, Ottoman
forces conquered parts of the country, continuing their expansion until 1556. The Ottomans achieved their first decisive victory over the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohács
in 1526.
Subsequent decades were characterized by political chaos. A divided Hungarian nobility elected two kings simultaneously, János Szapolyai
(1526–1540, of Hungarian-German origin) and the Austrian Ferdinand of Habsburg (1527–1540). Armed conflicts between the new rival monarchs further weakened the country from the internal side. With the conquest of Buda
in 1541 by the Turks, Hungary was riven into three parts. The north-west (present-day Slovakia, western Transdanubia
and Burgenland
, western Croatia and parts of north-eastern present-day Hungary) remained under Habsburg
rule; although initially independent, later it became a part of Habsburg Monarchy under the informal name Royal Hungary
. The Habsburg Emperors would from then on be crowned also as Kings of Hungary. Turks were unable to conquer Northern and Western parts of Hungary.
The eastern part of the kingdom (Partium
and Transylvania
) became at first an independent principality, but gradually was brought under Turkish rule as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. The remaining central area (most of present-day Hungary), including the capital of Buda, became a province of the Ottoman Empire
. Much of the land was devastated by recurrent warfare. Most small Hungarian settlements disappeared. Rural people living in the now Ottoman provinces could survive only in larger settlements known as Khaz towns, which were owned and protected directly by the Sultan. The Turks were indifferent to the sect of Christianity practiced by their Hungarian subjects.
For this reason, a majority of Hungarians living under Ottoman rule became Protestant (largely Calvinist), as Habsburg counter-reformation efforts could not penetrate Ottoman lands. Largely throughout this time, Pozsony (Pressburg, today: Bratislava
) acted as the capital (1536–1784), coronation town (1563–1830) and seat of the Diet of Hungary (1536–1848). Nagyszombat (modern Trnava
) acted in turn as the religious center, starting from 1541.
In 1558 the Transylvania
n Diet
of Turda
declared free practice of both the Catholic
and Lutheran
religions, but prohibited Calvinism
. Ten years later, in 1568, the Diet extended this freedom, declaring that: "It is not allowed to anybody to intimidate anybody with captivity or expelling for his religion". Four religions were declared as accepted (recepta) religions, while Orthodox Christianity
was "tolerated" (though the building of stone Orthodox churches was forbidden). Hungary entered 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, including German, Croat, Dutch, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Czech, Italian, French, Burgundian, Danish and Swedish soldiers, along with other Europeans as volunteers, artilleryman, and officers, the Christian forces reconquered Buda. The second Battle of Mohács
was a crushing defeat for the Turks, in the next few years, all of the former Hungarian lands, except areas near Timişoara
(Temesvár), were taken from the Turks. At the end of the 17th century, Transylvania became part of Hungary again. In the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz
these territorial changes were officially recognised, and in 1718 the entire Kingdom of Hungary was removed from Ottoman rule.
Concurrently, between 1604 and 1711, there was a series of anti-Austrian, and anti-Habsburg uprisings which took place in the Habsburg state of Royal Hungary (more precisely, in present-day Slovakia and in present day western and central Hungary), as well as anti-Catholic uprisings, which were to be found across the Hungarian lands. Religious protesters demanded equal rights among Christian groups. The uprisings were usually organized from Transylvania.
There were a series of anti-Habsburg (i.e. anti-Austrian) and anti-Catholic (requiring equal rights and freedom for all Christian religions) 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 'II. Rákóczi Ferenc'
, 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 battles at Battle of Trencin
however there were also success actions, for example when Ádám Balogh
almost captured the Austrian Emperor with Kuruc troops. When Austrians defeated the uprising in 1711, Rákóczi was in Poland. He later fled to France, finally Turkey, and lived to the end of his life (1735) in nearby Rodosto. Ladislas Ignace de Bercheny
who was son of Miklós Bercsényi immigrated to France
and created the first French hussar regiment. Afterward, to make further armed resistance impossible, the Austrians blew up some castles (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). The 18th century also saw one of the most famous Hungarian hussars named Michael Kovats. He created the modern US cavalry in the American Revolutionary War
and is commemorated today with a statue in Charleston, North Carolina.
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 industrialization of the country. A remarkable upswing started as the nation concentrated its forces on modernization 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.
On 15 March 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 replaced his epileptic
uncle Ferdinand I
as Emperor. Franz Joseph refused all reforms and started to arm against Hungary. A year later, in april of 1849 the independent government of Hungary was established. The new independent government seceded from the Austrian Empire. The new government formed itself as a republic with under governor and president Lajos Kossuth
and the first Prime minister, Lajos Batthyány
. The House of Habsburg of the Austrian Empire was dethroned in Hungarian part of the Austrian Empire and the first Republic of Hungary was founded. The Habsburg Ruler and his advisers skilfully 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. Many members of the nationalities gained coveted the 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.
Initially, the Hungarian forces (Honvédség) defeated Austrian armies. In July 1849 Hungarian Parliament proclaimed and enacted foremost the ethnic and minority rights
in the world, but it was too late: 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 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 6 October, ordered the execution of 13 leaders
of the Hungarian army as well as Prime Minister Batthyány. Lajos Kossuth escaped into exile.
Following the war of 1848–1849, the whole country was in "passive resistance". Archduke Albrecht von Habsburg
was appointed governor of the Kingdom of Hungary
, and this time was remembered for Germanization pursued with the help of Czech officers.
_in_hungary,_census_1890.jpg)
Due to external and internal problems, reforms seemed inevitable to secure the integrity of the Habsburg Empire. Major 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
.
In 1868, Hungarian and Croatian assembly made the Croatian–Hungarian Agreement
by which Croatia
was recognised as autonomous
region of Holly crown.
Austria-Hungary
was geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire
(239,977 sq. m in 1905 ), and the third most populous (after Russia and the German Empire
).
The era witnessed an impressive economic development. The formerly backwards Hungarian economy became relatively modern and industrialized by the turn of the 20th century, although agriculture remained dominant. 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 advancement 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 strong points of the industry were the electricity and electro-technology, telecommunication, and the transport industry: (locomotive and tram construction ship construction) 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.
Due to various reasons like the policy of Magyarization
and the migration of millions, the census in 1910 (excluding Croatia), recorded the following distribution of population: Hungarian 54.5%, Romanian 16.1%, Slovak 10.7%, and German 10.4%. The largest religious denomination was the Roman Catholic (49.3%), followed by the Calvinist (14.3%), Greek Orthodox (12.8%) /Romanians Serbians Ruthenians), Greek Catholic (11.0%), Lutheran (7.1%), and Jewish (5.0%) religions. In 1910, 6.37% of the population were eligible to vote in elections due to census
.
and his cabinet tried to avoid the breaking out of a war in Europe, but his diplomatic attempts remained unsuccessful.
Austria–Hungary drafted 9 million (fighting forces: 7,8 million) soldiers in World War I (4 million from Kingdom of Hungary).
In First World War, Austria–Hungary was fighting on the side of Germany, Bulgaria and Turkey. The Central Powers
conquered Serbia and Romania proclaimed war. The Central Powers later conquered Southern Romania and the Romanian capital Bucharest. On November 1916 Emperor Franz Joseph died, the new monarch Charles IV sympathized by pacifists. With great difficulty, the Central Powers stopped and repelled the attacks of the Russian Empire. The Eastern front of the Allied (Entente
) Powers completely collapsed. Austria-Hungary withdrew from defeated countries. On the Italian front, the Austro-Hungarian army could not make more successful progress against Italy after January 1918. Despite great Eastern successes, Germany suffered complete defeat in the more determinant Western front. By 1918, the economic situation had deteriorated (strikes in factories were organized by leftist and pacifist movements), and uprisings in the army had become commonplace. In the capital cities (Vienna and Budapest), the Austrian and the Hungarian leftist liberal movements (the maverick parties) and their leader politicians supported and strengthened the separatism of ethnic minorities. Austria-Hungary signed general armistice in Padua
on 3 November 1918. In October 1918, the personal union with Austria was dissolved.
In 1918, as a political result of German defeat on the Western front in World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy collapsed. French Entente troops landed in Greece to rearm the defeated Romania Serbia, and the newly formed Czechoslovak state. Despite general armistice agreement, the Balkanian French army organized new campaigns against Hungary with the help of Czechoslovak, Romanian and Serbian governments.
Former Prime Minister István Tisza
was murdered in Budapest by a gang of soldiers during Aster Revolution of October 1918. On 31 October 1918 the success of the Aster Revolution
in Budapest brought the leftist liberal count Mihály Károlyi
to power as Prime Minister. Károlyi was a devotee of Entente
from the beginning of the war. On 13 November 1918 Charles I. surrendered his powers as King of Hungary
; however, he did not abdicate, a technicality that made a return to the throne possible.
The First Republic was proclaimed on 16 November 1918 with Károlyi being named as president. Károlyi tried to build Hungary as the " Eastern Switzerland " and persuade nonhungarian minorities - Slovaks, Romanians, Ruthenians to stay loyal to the country, offering them autonomy. Howewer these efforts came too late. By a notion of Woodrow Wilson
's pacifism, Károlyi ordered the full disarmament of Hungarian Army. Hungary remained without national defence in the darkest hour of its history.Surrounding countries started to arm. On 5 November 1918 Serbian Army with French involvement attacked Southern parts of the country, on 8 November Czechoslovak Army attacked Northern part of Hungary, on 2 December Romanian Army started to attack the eastern (Transylvanian) parts of Hungary. 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, giving more priority to ethnic claims ( Slovaks, Ruthenians, Romanians )than historical rights of the traditional Hungarian kingdom. French and Serbian forces occupied the southern parts of Hungary.
By February 1919 the government had lost all popular support, having failed on domestic and military fronts. On 21 March after the Entente military representative demanded more and more territorial concessions from Hungary ( Vix´s note ), Károlyi signed all concessions and resigned.
, allied itself with the Hungarian Social Democratic Party
came to power and proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic
. Social Democrat Sándor Garbai
was the official Head of government, but the Soviet Republic was de facto dominated by Béla Kun, who was in charge of foreign affairs.
The Communists – "The Reds" – came to power largely thanks to being the only group with an organized fighting force, and they 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 little voluntary army (53,000 men). Most soldiers of the Red Army were armed factory workers from Budapest. Initially, Kun's regime achieved some military successes: the Hungarian Red Army, under the lead of the genius strategist, Colonel Aurél Stromfeld, ousted Czechoslovak troops from the north and planned to march against the Romanian army in the east. 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. The support of the Communists proved to be short-lived in Budapest. The Communists had never been popular in country towns and countryside. In the aftermath of a coup attempt, the government took a series of actions called the Red Terror
, murdering several hundred people (mostly scientists and intellectuals). The Soviet Red Army was never able to aid the new Hungarian republic. Despite the great military successes against Czechoslovakian army, the Communist leaders gave back all recaptured lands. That attitude demoralized the voluntary army. The Hungarian Red Army was dissolved before it could successfully complete its campaigns. 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 6 August. Kun and his followers took along numerous art treasures and the gold stocks of the National Bank. 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 most members of Kun's government were Jewish, making it easy to blame the Jews for the government's mistakes).
– the "Whites". These, who had been organizing in Vienna
and established a counter-government in Szeged
, assumed power, led by István Bethlen
, a Transylvanian aristocrat, and Miklós Horthy
, the former commander in chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The conservatives determined the Károlyi government and Communists as capital treason. Starting in Western Hungary and spreading throughout the country, a White Terror
began by other half-regular and half-militarist detachments (as the police power crashed, there were no serious national regular forces and authorities), and 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 territorial losses of Hungary. The most notorious commander of the Whites was Pál Prónay
. The leaving Romanian army pillaged the country: livestock, machinery and agricultural products were carried to Romania in hundreds of freight cars. On 16 November with the consent of Romanian forces, Horthy's army marched into Budapest. His government gradually restored security, stopped terror, and set up authorities, but thousands of sympathizers of the Károlyi and Kun regimes were imprisoned. Radical political movements were suppressed. In March the parliament restored the Hungarian monarchy but postponed electing a king until civil disorder had subsided. Instead, Miklos Horthy was elected Regent
and was empowered, among other things, to appoint Hungary's Prime Minister, veto legislation, convene or dissolve the parliament, and command the armed forces.
Hungary's signing of the Treaty of Trianon
on 4 June 1920 ratified the country's borders being redrawn. The territorial provisions of the treaty required Hungary to surrender more than two-thirds of its pre-war lands. However, nearly one-third of the 10 million ethnic Hungarians found themselves outside the diminished homeland.
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.
Horthy appointed Count Pál Teleki
as Prime Minister in July 1920. His government issued a numerus clausus
law, limiting admission of "political insecure elements" (these were often Jews) to universities and, in order to quiet rural discontent, took initial steps towards fulfilling a promise of major land reform by dividing about 3,850 km2 from the largest estates into smallholdings. Teleki's government resigned, however, after, Charles IV, unsuccessfully attempted to retake Hungary's throne in March 1921. King Charles's return produced split parties between conservatives who favored a Habsburg restoration and nationalist right-wing radicals who supported election of a Hungarian king. Count István Bethlen, a non-affiliated right-wing member of the parliament, took advantage of this rift forming a new Party of Unity under his leadership. Horthy then appointed Bethlen Prime Minister. Charles IV died soon after he failed a second time to reclaim the throne in October 1921. (For more detail on Charles's attempts to retake the throne, see Charles IV of Hungary's conflict with Miklós Horthy.)
As Prime Minister, Bethlen dominated Hungarian politics between 1921 and 1931. He fashioned a political machine by amending the electoral law, providing jobs in the expanding bureaucracy to his supporters, and manipulating elections in rural areas. Bethlen restored order to the country by giving the radical counter-revolutionaries payoffs and government jobs in exchange for ceasing their campaign of terror against Jews and leftists. In 1921, he made a deal with the Social Democrats and trade unions (called the Bethlen-Peyer Pact), agreeing, among other things, to legalize their activities and free political prisoners in return for their pledge to refrain from spreading anti-Hungarian propaganda, calling political strikes, and organizing the peasantry. Bethlen brought Hungary into the League of Nations
in 1922 and out of international isolation by signing a treaty of friendship with Italy
in 1927. The revision of the Treaty of Trianon rose to the top of Hungary's political agenda and the strategy employed by Bethlen consisted of 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 towards the right. In 1932 Horthy appointed a new Prime Minister, Gyula Gömbös
, that changed the course of Hungarian policy towards closer cooperation with Germany and started an effort to magyarize the few remaining ethnic minorities in Hungary. Gömbös signed a trade agreement with Germany that drew Hungary's economy out of depression but made Hungary dependent on the German economy for both raw materials and markets.
Adolf Hitler
appealed to Hungarian desires for territorial revisionism, while extreme right wing organizations, like the Arrow Cross party, increasingly embraced extreme Nazi policies, including those relating to the suppression and victimization of Jews
. The government passed the First Jewish Law in 1938. The law established a quota system to limit Jewish involvement in the Hungarian economy.
Imrédy's attempts to improve Hungary's diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom
initially made him very unpopular with Germany
and Italy
. In light of Germany's Anschluss
of Austria in March, he realized that he could not afford to alienate Germany and Italy for long. In the autumn of 1938 his foreign policy became very much pro-German and pro-Italian. Intent on amassing a base of power in Hungarian right wing politics, Imrédy began to suppress political rivals, so the increasingly influential Arrow Cross Party was harassed, and eventually banned by Imrédy's administration. As Imrédy drifted further to the right, he proposed that the government be reorganized along totalitarian lines and drafted a harsher Second Jewish Law. Parliament, under the new government of Pál Teleki
, approved the Second Jewish Law in 1939, which greatly restricted Jewish involvement in the economy, culture and society and, significantly, defined Jews by race instead of religion. This definition significantly and negatively altered the status of those who had formerly converted from Judaism to Christianity.
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sought to enforce peacefully the claims of Hungarians on territories Hungary lost in 1920 with the signing of the Treaty of Trianon
, and the two Vienna Awards
returned parts of Czechoslovakia
and Transylvania
to Hungary.
On 20 November 1940 under pressure from Germany, Pál Teleki
affiliated Hungary with the Tripartite Pact
. In December 1940, he also signed an ephemeral "Treaty of Eternal Friendship" with Yugoslavia
. A few months later, after a Yugoslavian coup threatened the success of the planned German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa
), Hitler asked the Hungarians to support his invasion of Yugoslavia
. He promised to return some former Hungarian territories lost after World War I
in exchange for cooperation. Unable to prevent Hungary's participation in the war alongside Germany, Teleki committed suicide. The right-wing radical László Bárdossy
succeeded him as Prime Minister. Eventually Hungary annexed small parts of present day Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia.
After war broke out on the Eastern Front
many Hungarian officials argued for participation in the war so as not to encourage Hitler into favoring Romania in the event of border revisions in Transylvania. Hungary entered the war and on 1 July 1941 at the direction of the Germans, the Hungarian Karpat Group
advanced far into southern Russia. At the Battle of Uman
the Gyorshadtest
participated in the encirclement of the 6th Soviet Army and the 12th Soviet Army. Twenty Soviet divisions were captured or destroyed.
Worried about Hungary's increasing reliance on Germany, Admiral Horthy forced Bárdossy
to resign and replaced him with Miklós Kállay
, a veteran conservative of Bethlen's government. Kállay continued Bárdossy's policy of supporting Germany against the Red Army, while he also surreptitiously entered into negotiations with the Western Powers.
During the Battle of Stalingrad
, the Hungarian Second Army
suffered terrible losses. Shortly after the fall of Stalingrad in January 1943, the Hungarian Second Army effectively ceased to exist as a functioning military unit.
Secret negotiations with the British and Americans continued. Aware of Kállay's deceit and fearing that Hungary might conclude a separate peace, Hitler ordered Nazi troops to launch Operation Margarethe
and occupy Hungary in March 1944. Döme Sztójay
, an avid supporter of the Nazis, become the new Prime Minister with the aid of a Nazi military governor, Edmund Veesenmayer
.
The infamous SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann
went to Hungary to oversee the large-scale deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland. Between 15 May and 9 July 1944 the Hungarians deported 437,402 Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp
.
In August 1944 Horthy replaced Sztójay with the anti-Fascist General Géza Lakatos
. Under the Lakatos regime, the acting Interior Minister Béla Horváth ordered Hungarian gendarmes to prevent any Hungarian citizens from being deported.
In September 1944, Soviet forces crossed the Hungarian border. On 15 October 1944, Horthy announced that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. The Hungarian army ignored the armistice. The Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust
and, by kidnapping his son (Miklós Horthy, Jr.
), forced Horthy to abrogate the armistice, depose the Lakatos government, and name the leader of the Arrow Cross Party
, Ferenc Szálasi
, as Prime Minister. Szálasi became Prime Minister of a new fascist Government of National Unity and Horthy abdicated.
In cooperation with the Nazis, Szálasi restarted the deportations of Jews, particularly in Budapest. Thousands more Jews were killed by Hungarian Arrow Cross members. The retreating German army demolished the rail, road, and communications systems.
On 28 December 1944 a provisional government was formed in Hungary under acting Prime Minister Béla Miklós
. Miklós and Szálasi's rival governments each claimed legitimacy: the Germans and pro-German Hungarians loyal to Szálasi fought on, as the territory effectively controlled by the Arrow Cross regime shrunk gradually. The Red Army completed the encirclement of Budapest on 29 December 1944 and the Battle of Budapest
began and continued into February 1945. Most of what remained of the Hungarian First Army
was destroyed about 200 miles north of Budapest between 1 January and 16 February 1945. Budapest unconditionally surrendered to the Soviet Red Army on 13 February 1945.
On 20 January 1945, representatives of the Hungarian provisional government signed an armistice in Moscow. Szálasi's government had fled the country by the end of March. Officially, Soviet operations in Hungary ended on 4 April 1945 when the last German troops were expelled. On 7 May 1945 General Alfred Jodl
, the German Chief of Staff, signed the unconditional surrender of all German forces.
Hungary's World War II casualties
: Tamás Stark of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has provided the following assessment of losses from 1941–1945 in Hungary. Military losses were 300,000-310,000 including 110-120,000 killed in battle and 200,000 missing in action
and POW in the Soviet Union. Hungarian military losses include 110,000 men who were conscripted from the annexed territories of Greater Hungary in Slovakia
, Romania and Yugoslavia and the deaths of 20-25,000 Jews conscripted for Army labor units. Civilian losses of about 80,000 include 45,500 killed in the 1944–1945 military campaign and in air attacks, and the genocide of Romani people of 28,000 persons. Jewish Holocaust
victims totaled 600,000 (300,000 in the territories annexed in 1938,1939,1940 and 1941, 200,000 in the pre-1938 countryside and 100,000 in Budapest). See World War II casualties
.
lasted almost 2 months, from December 1944 to February 1945 (the longest successful siege of any city in the entire war, including Berlin) and the city suffered widespread destruction, including all the Danube bridges which were blown up by the Germans in an effort to slow the Soviet advance.
By signing the Peace Treaty of Paris
, Hungary again lost all the territories that it had gained between 1938 and 1941. Neither the Western Allies nor the Soviet Union supported any change in Hungary's pre-1938 borders, which was the primary motive behind the Hungarian involvement in the war. The Soviet Union itself annexed Sub-Carpathia (before 1938 the eastern edge of Czechoslovakia), which is today part of Ukraine.
The Treaty of Peace with Hungary signed on 10 February 1947 declared that: "The decisions of the Vienna Award of November 2, 1938, are declared null and void" and Hungarian boundaries were fixed along the former frontiers as they existed on 1 January 1938 except a minor loss of territory on the Czechoslovakian border. Many of the Communist leaders of 1919 returned from Moscow. The first major violation of civil rights was suffered by the ethnic German minority, half of which (240,000 people) were deported to Germany in 1946–1948, although the great majority of them did not support Germany and were not members of any pro-Nazi movement. There was a forced "exchange of population" between Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which involved about 70,000 Hungarians living in Slovakia and somewhat smaller numbers of ethnic Slovaks living in the territory of Hungary. Unlike the Germans, these people were allowed to carry some of their property with them.
The Soviets originally planned for a piecemeal introduction of the Communist regime in Hungary, therefore when they set up a provisional government in Debrecen on 21 December 1944, they were careful to include representatives of several moderate parties. Following the demands of the Western Allies for a democratic election, the Soviets authorized the only essentially free election in eastern Europe in November 1945 in Hungary. This was also the first election held in Hungary on the basis of universal franchise. People voted for party lists, not for individual candidates. At the elections the Independent Smallholders' Party, a center-right peasant party, won 57% of the vote. Despite the hopes of the Communists and the Soviets that the distribution of the aristocratic estates among the poor peasants would increase their popularity, the Hungarian Communist Party
received only 17% of the votes. The Soviet commander in Hungary, Marshal Voroshilov
, refused to allow the Smallholders' Party to form a government on their own. Under Voroshilov's pressure, the Smallholders organized a coalition government including the Communists, the Social Democrats and the National Peasant Party (a left-wing peasant party), in which the Communists held some of the key posts. On 1 February 1946 Hungary was declared a Republic, and the leader of the Smallholders, Zoltán Tildy
, became President handing over the office of Prime Minister to Ferenc Nagy
. Mátyás Rákosi
, leader of the Communist Party, became deputy Prime Minister.
Another leading Communist, László Rajk
became minister of the interior responsible for controlling law enforcement, and in this position established the security police (ÁVH). The Communists exercised constant pressure on the Smallholders both inside and outside the government, nationalizing industrial companies, banning religious civil organizations and occupying key positions in local public administration. In February 1947 the police began arresting leaders of the Smallholders Party, charging them with "conspiracy against the Republic". Several prominent figures decided to emigrate or were forced to escape abroad, including Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy
in May 1947. Later Mátyás Rákosi
boasted that he had dealt with his partners in the government, one by one, "cutting them off like slices of salami."
At the next parliamentary election in August 1947 the Communists committed widespread election fraud with absentee ballots (the so-called "blue slips"), but even so, they only managed to increase their share from 17% to 24% in Parliament. The Social Democrats (by this time a servile ally of the Communists) received 15% in contrast to their 17% in 1945. The Smallholders' Party lost much of its popularity and ended up with 15%, but their former voters turned towards three new center-right parties which seemed more determined to resist the Communist onslaught: their combined share of the total votes was 35%.
Faced with their second failure at the polls, the Communists changed tactics, and, under new orders from Moscow, decided to eschew democratic facades and speed up the Communist takeover. In June 1948 the Social Democratic Party was forced to "merge" with the Communist Party, creating the Hungarian Working People's Party, which was dominated by the Communists. Anti-Communist leaders of the Social Democrats, such as Károly Peyer
or Anna Kéthly
, were forced into exile or excluded from the party. Soon after, President Zoltán Tildy was also removed from his position, and replaced by a fully cooperative Social Democrat, Árpád Szakasits. Ultimately, all "democratic" parties were organized into a so-called People's Front in February 1949, thereby losing even the vestiges of their autonomy. The leader of the People's Front was Rákosi himself. Opposition parties were simply declared illegal and their leaders arrested or forced into exile.
On 18 August 1949 the parliament passed the new constitution of Hungary (1949/XX.) modeled after the 1936 constitution of the Soviet Union. The name of the country changed to the People's Republic of Hungary, "the country of the workers and peasants" where "every authority is held by the working people". Socialism was declared as the main goal of the nation. A new coat-of-arms was adopted with Communist symbols, such the red star, hammer and sickle.
and Mihály Farkas
. All three of them returned to Hungary from Moscow, where they spent long years and had close ties to high-ranking Soviet leaders there. Their main rivals in the party were the 'Hungarian' Communists who led the illegal party during the war in Hungary, and were considerably more popular within party ranks. Their most influential leader, László Rajk, who was minister of foreign affairs at the time, was arrested in May 1949. He was accused of rather surreal crimes, such as spying for Western imperialist powers and for Yugoslavia (which was also a Communist country but in very bad relations with the Soviet Union at the time). At his trial in September 1949 he made a forced confession to be an agent of Miklós Horthy
, Leon Trotsky
, Josip Broz Tito
and Western imperialism. He also admitted that he had taken part in a murder plot against Mátyás Rákosi and Ernő Gerő. Rajk was found guilty and executed. In the next three years, other leaders of the party deemed untrustworthy, like former Social Democrats or other Hungarian illegal Communists such as János Kádár
, were also arrested and imprisoned on trumped-up charges.
The showcase trial of Rajk is considered the beginning of the worst period of the Rákosi dictatorship. Mátyás Rákosi now attempted to impose totalitarian rule on Hungary. The centrally orchestrated personality cult focused on him and Joseph Stalin
soon reached unprecedented proportions. Rákosi's images and busts were everywhere, all public speakers were required to glorify his wisdom and leadership. In the meantime, the secret police, led through Gábor Péter
by Rákosi himself, mercilessly persecuted all 'class enemies' and 'enemies of the people'. An estimated 2,000 people were executed and over 100,000 were imprisoned. Some 44,000 ended up in forced-labor camps, where many died due to horrible work conditions, poor food and practically no medical care. Another 15,000 people, mostly former aristocrats, industrialists, military generals and other upper-class people were deported from the capital and other cities to countryside villages where they were forced to do hard agricultural labor. These policies were opposed by some members of the Hungarian Working People's Party and around 200,000 were expelled by Rákosi from the organization.
By 1950, the state controlled most of the economy, as all large and mid-sized industrial companies, plants, mines, banks of all kind as well as all companies of retail and foreign trade were nationalized without any compensation. Slavishly following Soviet economic policies, Rákosi declared that Hungary would become a "country of iron and steel", even though Hungary lacked iron ore completely. The forced development of heavy industry served military purposes; it was meant to be preparation for the impending World War III against Western imperialism. A disproportionate amount of the country's resources were spent on building whole industrial cities and plants from scratch, while much of the country was still in ruins since the war. Traditional strengths of Hungary, such as the agricultural and textile industries were neglected.
Large agricultural latifundia
were divided and distributed among poor peasants already in 1945. In agriculture, the government tried to force independent peasants to enter co-operatives in which they would become merely paid laborers, but many of them stubbornly resisted. The government retaliated with ever higher requirements of compulsory food quotas imposed on peasants' produce. Rich peasants, called 'kulaks' in Russians, were declared 'class enemies' and suffered all sorts of discrimination, including imprisonment and loss of property. With them, some of the most able farmers were removed from production. The declining agricultural output led to a constant scarcity of food, especially meat.
Rákosi rapidly expanded the education system in Hungary. This was an attempt to replace the educated class of the past by what Rákosi called a new "working intelligentsia". In addition to effects such as better education for the poor, more opportunities for working class children and increased literacy in general, this measure also included the dissemination of Communist ideology in schools and universities. Also, as part of an effort to separate the Church from the State
, practically all religious schools were taken into state ownership, and religious instruction was denounced as retrograde propaganda and was gradually eliminated from schools.
The Hungarian churches were systematically intimidated. Cardinal József Mindszenty, who had bravely opposed the German Nazis and the Hungarian Fascists during the Second World War, was arrested in December 1948 and accused of treason. After five weeks under arrest (which included torture), he confessed to the charges against him and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Protestant churches were also purged and their leaders were replaced by those willing to remain loyal to Rákosi's government.
The new Hungarian military hastily staged public, pre-arranged trials to purge "Nazi remnants and imperialist saboteurs". Several officers were sentenced to death and executed in 1951, including Lajos Toth, a 28 victory-scoring fighter ace
of World War II Royal Hungarian Air Force, who had voluntarily returned from US captivity to help revive Hungarian aviation. The victims were cleared posthumously following the fall of communism
.
Preparations for a show trial
started in Budapest in 1953 to prove that Raoul Wallenberg
had not been dragged off in 1945 to the Soviet Union but was the victim of cosmopolitan Zionists
. For the purposes of this show trial, three Jewish leaders as well as two would-be "eyewitnesses" were arrested and interrogated by torture. The show trial was initiated in Moscow, following Stalin's anti-Zionist campaign. After the death of Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria
, the preparations for the trial were stopped and the arrested persons were released.
Rákosi had great difficulties managing the economy and the people of Hungary saw living standards fall. Although his government became increasingly unpopular, he had a firm grip on power until Stalin died on 5 March 1953 when a confused power struggle began in Moscow. Some of the Soviet leaders perceived the unpopularity of the Hungarian regime and ordered Rákosi to give up his position as Prime Minister in favor of another former Communist-in-exile in Moscow, Imre Nagy
, who was Rákosi's chief opponent in the party. Rákosi, however, retained his position as general secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party and over the next three years the two men became involved in a bitter struggle for power.
As Hungary's new Prime Minister, Imre Nagy slightly relaxed state control over the economy and the mass media and encouraged public discussion on political and economic reform. In order to improve the general supply, he increase the production and distribution of consumer goods and reduced the tax and quota burdens of the peasants. Nagy also closed forced-labor camps, released most of the political prisoners - the Communists were allowed back into Party ranks -, and reined in the secret police, whose hated head, Gábor Péter
, was convicted and imprisoned in 1954. All these rather moderate reforms earned him widespread popularity in the country, especially among the peasantry and the left-wing intellectuals.
Following a turn in Moscow, where Malenkov, Nagy's primary patron lost the power struggle against Khrushchev, Mátyás Rákosi started a counterattack on Nagy. On March 9, 1955, the Central Committee of the Hungarian Working People's Party condemned Nagy for "rightist deviation". Hungarian newspapers joined the attacks and Nagy was accused of being responsible for the country's economic problems and on 18 April he was dismissed from his post by a unanimous vote of the National Assembly. Soon after, Nagy was even excluded from the Party and temporarily retired from politics. Rákosi once again became the unchallenged leader of Hungary.
Rákosi's second reign, however, did not last long. His power was undermined by a speech made by Nikita Khrushchev in February 1956, in which he denounced the policies of Joseph Stalin and his followers in eastern Europe, especially the attacks on Yugoslavia and the cult of personality. On 18 July 1956 visiting Soviet leaders removed Rákosi from all his positions and he boarded a plane bound for the Soviet Union, never to return to Hungary. But the Soviets made a major mistake by the appointment of his close friend and ally, Ernő Gerő, as his successor, who was equally unpopular and shared responsibility for most of Rákosi's crimes.
The fall of Rákosi was followed by a flurry of reform agitation both inside and outside the Party. László Rajk
and his fellow victims of the showcase trial of 1949 were cleared of all charges, and on 6 October 1956, the Party authorized a reburial, which was attended by tens of thousands of people and became a silent demonstration against the crimes of the regime. On 13 October it was announced that Imre Nagy had been reinstated as a member of the party.
for reform and greater political freedom. As the students attempted to broadcast these demands, police
made some arrests and tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas. When the students attempted to free those arrested, the police opened fire on the crowd, setting off a chain of events which led to the Hungarian Revolution.
That night, commissioned officers and soldiers joined the students on the streets of Budapest. Stalin's statue was brought down and the protesters chanted "Russians go home", "Away with Gerő" and "Long Live Nagy". The Central Committee of the Hungarian Working People's Party responded to these developments by requesting Soviet military intervention and deciding that Imre Nagy should become head of a new government. Soviet tanks entered Budapest at 2 a.m. on 24 October.
On 25 October Soviet tanks opened fire on protesters in Parliament Square. One journalist at the scene saw 12 dead bodies and estimated that 170 had been wounded. Shocked by these events the Central Committee of the Hungarian Working People's Party forced Ernő Gerő to resign from office and replaced him with János Kádár
.
Imre Nagy now went on Radio Kossuth and announced he had taken over the leadership of the Government as Chairman of the Council of Ministers." He also promised "the far-reaching democratization of Hungarian public life, the realization of a Hungarian road to socialism in accord with our own national characteristics, and the realization of our lofty national aim: the radical improvement of the workers' living conditions."
On 28 October Nagy and a group of his supporters, including János Kádár, Géza Losonczy, Antal Apró, Károly Kiss, Ferenc Münnich and Zoltán Szabó, managed to take control of the Hungarian Working People's Party. At the same time revolutionary workers' councils and local national committees were formed all over Hungary.
The change of leadership in the party was reflected in the articles of the government newspaper, Szabad Nép (i.e. Free People). On 29 October the newspaper welcomed the new government and openly criticized Soviet attempts to influence the political situation in Hungary. This view was supported by Radio Miskolc that called for the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country.
On 30 October Imre Nagy announced that he was freeing Cardinal József Mindszenty and other political prisoners. He also informed the people that his government intends to abolish the one-party state. This was followed by statements of Zoltán Tildy, Anna Kéthly and Ferenc Farkas concerning the restitution of the Smallholders Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Petőfi (former Peasants) Party.
Nagy's most controversial decision took place on 1 November when he announced that Hungary intended to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact as well as proclaiming Hungarian neutrality he asked the United Nations
to become involved in the country's dispute with the Soviet Union.
On 3 November Nagy announced details of his coalition government. It included Communists (János Kádár, Georg Lukács
, Géza Losonczy), three members of the Smallholders Party (Zoltán Tildy, Béla Kovács and István Szabó), three Social Democrats (Anna Kéthly, Gyula Keleman, Joseph Fischer), and two Petőfi Peasants (István Bibó and Ferenc Farkas). Pál Maléter
was appointed minister of defence.
Nikita Khrushchev
, the leader of the Soviet Union, became increasingly concerned about these developments and on 4 November 1956 he sent the Red Army
into Hungary. Soviet tanks immediately captured Hungary's airfields, highway junctions and bridges. Fighting took place all over the country but the Hungarian forces were quickly defeated.
During the Hungarian Uprising an estimated 20,000 people were killed, nearly all during the Soviet intervention. Imre Nagy was arrested and replaced by the Soviet loyalist, János Kádár. Nagy was imprisoned until being executed in 1958. Other government ministers or supporters who were either executed or died in captivity included Pál Maléter
, Géza Losonczy, Attila Szigethy and Miklós Gimes.
led an attack against revolutionaries. 21,600 mavericks (democrats, liberals, reformist Communists alike) were imprisoned, 13,000 interned, and 400 killed. But in the early 1960s, Kádár announced a new policy under the motto of "He who is not against us is with us." (this was a modification of Rákosi's statement 'He who is not with us is against us'). He declared a general amnesty, gradually curbed some of the excesses of the secret police, and introduced a relatively liberal cultural and economic course aimed at overcoming the post-1956 hostility towards him and his regime. In 1966, the Central Committee approved the "New Economic Mechanism," through which it sought to rebuild the economy, increase productivity, make Hungary more competitive in world markets, and create prosperity to ensure political stability. Over the next two decades of relative domestic quiet, Kádár's government responded alternately to pressures for minor political and economic reforms as well as to counter-pressures from reform opponents. By the early 1980s, it had achieved some lasting economic reforms and limited political liberalization and pursued a foreign policy which encouraged more trade with the West. Nevertheless, the New Economic Mechanism led to mounting foreign debt, incurred to shore up unprofitable industries.
Hungary's transition to a Western-style democracy was one of the smoothest among the former Soviet bloc. By late 1988, activists within the party and bureaucracy and Budapest-based intellectuals were increasing pressure for change. Some of these became reform socialists, while others began movements which were to develop into parties. Young liberals formed the Federation of Young Democrats (Fidesz); a core from the so-called Democratic Opposition formed the Alliance of Free Democrats
(SZDSZ), and the national opposition established the Hungarian Democratic Forum
(MDF). Civic activism intensified to a level not seen since the 1956 revolution.
In 1988, Kádár was replaced as General Secretary of the Communist Party, and reform Communist leader Imre Pozsgay
was admitted to the Politburo. In 1989, the Parliament adopted a "democracy package," which included trade-union pluralism; freedom of association, assembly, and the press; a new electoral law; and in October 1989 a radical revision of the constitution, among others. Since then, Hungary has tried to reform its economy and increase its connections with western Europe, hoping to become a member of the European Union
as soon as possible. A Central Committee plenum in February 1989 endorsed in principle the multiparty political system and the characterisation of the October 1956 revolution as a "popular uprising," in the words of Pozsgay, whose reform movement had been gathering strength as Communist Party membership declined dramatically. Kádár's major political rivals then cooperated to move the country gradually to democracy. The Soviet Union reduced its involvement by signing an agreement in April 1989 to withdraw Soviet forces by June 1991.
National unity culminated in June 1989 as the country reburied Imre Nagy, his associates, and, symbolically, all other victims of the 1956 revolution. A national round table
, comprising representatives of the new parties and some recreated old parties—such as the Smallholders and Social Democrats—the Communist Party, and different social groups, met in the late summer of 1989 to discuss major changes to the Hungarian constitution in preparation for free elections and the transition to a fully free and democratic political system.
In October 1989, the Communist Party convened its last congress and re-established itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP). In a historic session on 16–20 October 1989, the Parliament adopted legislation providing for multiparty parliamentary elections and a direct presidential election. The legislation transformed Hungary from a People's Republic into the Republic of Hungary, guaranteed human and civil rights, and created an institutional structure that ensures separation of powers among the judicial, executive, and legislative branches of government. On the day of the 1956 Revolution, 23 October, the Hungarian Republic was officially declared (by the provisional President of the Republic Mátyás Szűrös
), replacing the Hungarian People's Republic. The revised constitution also championed the "values of bourgeois democracy and democratic socialism" and gave equal status to public and private property.
The first free parliamentary election, held in May 1990, was effectively a plebiscite on communism. The revitalized and reformed Communists performed poorly despite having more than the usual advantages of an "incumbent" party. Populist, center-right, and liberal parties fared best, with the Hungarian Democratic Forum
(MDF) winning 43% of the vote and the Alliance of Free Democrats
(SZDSZ) capturing 24%. Under Prime Minister József Antall
, the MDF formed a center-right coalition government with the Independent Smallholders' Party
(FKGP) and the Christian Democratic People's Party
(KDNP) to command a 60% majority in the parliament. Parliamentary opposition parties included SZDSZ, the Hungarian Socialist Party
(MSZP), and the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fidesz).
Between March 12, 1990 and June 19, 1991 the Soviet troops ("Southern Army Group") left Hungary. The total number of Soviet military and civilian personnel stationed in Hungary was around 100,000, having at their disposal approximately 27,000 military equipment. The withdrawal was performed with 35,000 railway cars. The last units commanded by general Viktor Silov crossed the Hungarian-Ukrainian border at Záhony
-Chop
.
Péter Boross
succeeded as Prime Minister after Antall died in December 1993. The Antall/Boross coalition governments struggled to create a reasonably well-functioning parliamentary democracy in a market-economy, and to manage the related political, social and economic crises resulting from the collapse of the former Communist system. The massive decline in living standards led to a massive loss of political support.
In the May 1994 election
, the Socialists won a plurality of votes and 54% of the seats (with the new Prime Minister, Gyula Horn
) after a campaign focused largely on economic issues and the substantial decline in living standards since 1990. This signaled a wish to turn back to the relative security and stability of the socialist era, but voters rejected both right and left-wing extremist solutions - no such party gained seats in parliament. After its disappointing result in the election, leadership of the Fidesz party opted for an ideological shift from a liberal to a conservative party. This caused a severe split in the membership and many members left for the other liberal party, the SZDSZ, which formed a coalition with the socialists, leading to a more than two-thirds majority.
The coalition was influenced by the socialism of Prime Minister Gyula Horn, by the economic focus of its technocrats (who had been Western-educated in the 1970s and 1980s) and ex-cadre entrepreneur supporters, and by its liberal coalition partner the SZDSZ. Facing the threat of state bankruptcy, Horn initiated economic reforms and aggressive privatization of state enterprises to multinational companies in return for expectations of investment (in the form of reconstruction, expansion and modernization). The government adopted a fiscal austerity program, the Bokros plan
in 1995, which had dramatic consequences on social stability and quality of life. The government introduced post-secondary tuition fees, partially-privatized state services, but supported science both directly and indirectly, through the private sector. The government pursued a foreign policy of integration with Euro-Atlantic institutions and reconciliation with neighboring countries.
The Bokros plan and efforts at privatizations were unpopular with voters, as were rising crime rates, allegations of government corruption, and an attempt to re-start the unpopular program of building a dam in the Danube. This dissatisfaction among voters helped to propel center-right parties into power following national elections in May 1998
. Fidesz gained the plurality of parliamentary seats and forged a coalition with the Smallholders and the Democratic Forum.
The new government, headed by 35-year-old Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
, promised to stimulate faster growth, curb inflation, and lower taxes. It inherited an economy with positive economic indicators, including a growing export-surplus. The government abolished tuition fees and aimed to create good market conditions for small businesses and to encourage local production with domestic resources. In terms of foreign policy, the Orbán administration continued to pursue Euro-Atlantic integration as its first priority, but was a more vocal advocate of minority rights for ethnic Hungarians abroad than the previous government had been. As a result of a 1997 referendum, Hungary joined NATO in 1999. In 2002, the European Union
agreed to admit Hungary, along with 9 other countries, as members on 1 January 2004.
Fidesz was criticized by its adversaries for the party's presentation of history, particularly the 1989 system-change. While Fidesz had suggested that the Socialist party is the moral and legal successor to the hated state party of the Communist past
, the Socialists would assert that they had been those who had pushed for change from within, derided Fidesz members for crediting themselves as the sole creators and heirs of the system-change.
In the 2002 election
the MSZP/SZDSZ coalition won over Fidesz/MDF coalition in a fierce political fight, with record-high 73% voter turnout
. Péter Medgyessy
became the new prime minister.
Under the socialist-liberal government, the economic balance of the Hungarian economy started a downfall, while quality of life, infrastructure and technology boosted. On 12 April 2003, Hungarians voted to join the European Union
(EU), with 83% of the votes in favor. Since the EU had already accepted Hungary as a possible member, the four leading political parties (MSZP, Fidesz, SZDSZ and MDF) agreed to establish the required prerequisites and policies and to work together to prepare the country for the accession with the least possible harm to the economy and people while maximizing the positive effects on the country. On 1 May 2004 Hungary became a member of the EU.
In the elections of April 2006
, Hungary decided to re-elect its government for the first time since 1989, though with a new Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány
. The left-wing strengthened its position, with the coalition of the Social Democrats (MSZP) and the Liberals (SZDSZ) reaching 54 percent of the vote and gaining 210 seats as opposed to the previous 198. The parties of the former term (Fidesz, MDF, SZDSZ, MSZP) won parliamentary seats again. The new parliament assembled in late May 2006, and the new government was formed in June 2006.
The new government presented plans to reach balance and sustainable economic growth by removing subsidies to the growth of standard of living, which it had not included in its campaign. A leaked speech
was followed by mass protests against the Gyurcsány government between 17 September and 23 October 2006. It was the first sustained protest in Hungary since 1989. From 2007, when increased inflation caused by tax increases decreased the standard of living, a complete restructuring of the state-administration, energy sector, relation towards private economy, health sector and welfare supports took place. Members of affected professional unions describe the measures as lacking discussion and uncompromising. The country joined Schengen Area
at the end of 2007.
In 2008, the coalition broke up over the disagreement whether the insurance side of the health sector should be state owned and therefore decided in policies the by state or by private companies. This conflict was followed by a successful public referendum, initiated by Fidesz, calling for the elimination of university tuition fees, direct payments at visitations of doctors by insured patients, and daily fees at hospital by insured patients. This effectively stopped the restructuring of health care, while it remained completely publicly owned.
The 2008 financial crisis caused further budgetary constraints. After Gyurcsány's resignation, the Socialists put forward a "government of experts" under Gordon Bajnai
in March 2009, which would only make essential macroeconomic decisions.
In the first round of the 2010 spring general elections
, the center-right Fidesz received 2.704 million votes, i.e. the votes of 33.69% of the 8.026 million eligible voters or 52.73% of the 5.128 million actual voters for party lists, which resulted in more than two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. Fidesz took 263 seats, the Socialists 59, radical, far right
nationalist Jobbik 47, and the newly-founded Lehet Más a Politika (Politics can be Different) 16, with one seat taken by an independent. In the autumn municipal elections, Fidesz achieved a majority in most local and mayoral elections, winning significant victories over the liberal parties.
The years 2010 and 2011 saw the rapid transition of the country from democracy to authoritarian rule.
The FiDeSz government cancelled the previous checks and balances: restricted the role of the Constitutional Court, then enlarged it with its own appointees.
The constitution of 1989 granted absolute power to a party with more than 2/3 of the seats in Parliament, and FiDeSz used this deficiency to abolish the very Constitution and replace it with their own "Basic Law" after a mere three-week debate inside their party
In the new Basic Law they restricted numerous rights the previous constitution granted to the people; for instance they made it extremely difficult to demand referendum or actio popularis, or to appeal to the Constitutional Court. The Chief Prosecutor (appointed by FiDeSz for the longer of {9 years or 2/3 majority to replace him}) has the right to select the judges in cases of his choosing. Most appeals court judges will be forcibly retired in 2012, and FiDeSz will appoint their replacement. The body of judicial autonomy is abolished. They also changed the composition of the Electoral Committee, and the whole election process. FiDeSz also appointed a new Media Council for 9 years with formidable powers over the press, radio stations and television channels.
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
is a country in central Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Its history under this name dates to the early Middle Ages, when the Pannonian Basin
Pannonian Basin
The Pannonian Basin or Carpathian Basin is a large basin in East-Central Europe.The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense - meaning only the lowlands, the plain that remained when the Pliocene Pannonian Sea dried...
was colonized by the Magyars, a semi-nomadic people from what is now central-northern Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. For history of the area before this period, see Pannonian basin before Hungary.
Early history
Pannonia
Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
, the western part of the basin was part of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. In the final stages of the expansion of the Roman empire, for a short while the Carpathian Basin fell under Mediterranean influence 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
Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....
collapsed under the stress of the migration of Germanic tribes and Carpian pressure, the Migration Period
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...
continued bringing many invaders to Europe. Among the first to arrive were the Huns
Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
, who built up a powerful empire under Attila
Attila the Hun
Attila , more frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. During his reign he was one of the most feared...
in 435 CE. Attila the Hun
Attila the Hun
Attila , more frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. During his reign he was one of the most feared...
was regarded in past centuries as an ancestral ruler of the Hungarians, but this is now considered to be erroneous. It is believed that the origin of the name "Hungary" does not come from the Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
n Hun nomadic invaders, but rather originated from the 7th century, when Magyar tribes were part of a Bulgar
Bulgars
The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century.The Bulgars emerge after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the 5th century....
alliance called On-Ogour, which in Bulgar Turkic
Oghur languages
The Oghur or Bulgar , are a separate branch of the Turkic language family. It was historically spoken in Volga Bulgaria...
meant "(the) Ten Arrows". After Hunnish rule faded, the Germanic Ostrogoths, Lombards
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...
than Slavs 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
Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...
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 its neighboring empires. The Avar Khagnate was weakened by constant wars and outside pressure, and the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
under Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
managed to defeat the Avars, ending their 250-year rule. In the middle of the 9th century, the Slavic Balaton Principality
Balaton Principality
The Principality of Lower Pannonia was a Slavic principality located in the western part of the Pannonian plain, between the rivers Danube to its east The Principality of Lower Pannonia (also called Pannonia, Lower Pannonia, Pannonian Principality, Transdanubian Principality, Slavic Pannonian...
, also known as Lower Pannonia, was established by the Franks as a frontier march when they destroyed the Avar state in the western part of the Pannonian plain; however this vassal state was destroyed in 900 by Hungarian tribes.
Much of early Hungarian history is recorded in the following Hungarian chronicles, retelling the early legends and history of the Huns
Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
, Magyars and the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
:
- Anonymi Gesta HungarorumGesta HungarorumGesta Hungarorum is a record of early Hungarian history by an unknown author who describes himself as Anonymi Bele Regis Notarii , but is generally cited as Anonymus...
(AnonymousAnonymus (chronicler)Bele Regis Notarius , most often referred to as Anonymus was the notary and chronicler of a Hungarian King, probably Béla III. Little is known about him, but his latinized name began with P, as he referred to himself as "P...
"Deeds of the Hungarians") by Magister P. (around 1200) - Gesta Hunnorum et HungarorumGesta Hunnorum et HungarorumThe Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum , written mainly by Simon of Kéza around 1282-1285, is one of the sources of early Hungarian history...
or Gesta Hungarorum (II) ("Deeds of the Huns and Hungarians" or just "Deeds of the Hungarians") by Simon of KézaSimon of KézaSimon of Kéza was the most famous Hungarian chronicler in the 13th century. He was a priest in the royal court of king Ladislaus IV of Hungary....
(late 13th century) - Chronicon PictumChronicon PictumThe Chronicon Pictum Pictum, Chronica Picta or Chronica de Gestis Hungarorum) is a medieval illustrated chronicle from the Kingdom of Hungary from the fourteenth century...
("Illuminated Chronicle") (late 14th century) - Chronicle of the Hungarians by Johannes de ThuroczJohannes de ThuroczJohannes de Thurocz , was a Hungarian historian in the Kingdom of Hungary, and is the author of Chronicle of the Hungarians , the most extensive 15th century work on Hungary, and the first chronicle on Hungary written by a layman.-Life:Thurocz's parents came from Turóc county , Upper Hungary...
(1480s)
Middle Ages (895–1526)
Árpád
Árpád was the second Grand Prince of the Hungarians . Under his rule the Hungarian people settled in the Carpathian basin. The dynasty descending from him ruled the Hungarian tribes and later the Kingdom of Hungary until 1301...
was the Magyar leader whom sources name as the single leader who unified the Magyar tribes via the Covenant of Blood , forging what was thereafter known as the Hungarian nation.
Árpád led the new nation to the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century. From 895 to 902 the whole area of the Carpathian Basin was conquered by the Hungarians. After that, an early Hungarian state (the Principality of Hungary
Principality of Hungary
The Principality of Hungary, also Hungarian Principality or Duchy of Hungary , was the first documented Hungarian state, a tribal alliance in the Carpathian Basin, established 895 or 896, following the 9th-century Magyar invasion of Pannonia.The Magyars , a semi-nomadic group of people led by Árpád...
, founded in 895) was formed in this territory. The military power of the nation allowed the Hungarians to conduct successful fierce campaigns and raids as far as today's Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. A later defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld
Battle of Lechfeld
The Battle of Lechfeld , often seen as the defining event for holding off the incursions of the Hungarians into Western Europe, was a decisive victory by Otto I the Great, King of the Germans, over the Hungarian leaders, the harka Bulcsú and the chieftains Lél and Súr...
in 955 signaled an end to raids on western territories (Byzantine raids continued until 970), and links between the tribes weakened. The ruling prince (fejedelem) Géza
Géza of Hungary
Géza , Grand Prince of the Hungarians .Géza was the son of Taksony of Hungary, Grand Prince of the Hungarians and his Pecheneg or Bulgar wife. Géza's marriage with Sarolt, the daughter of Gyula of Transylvania, was arranged by his father.After his father's death , Géza followed him as Grand Prince...
of the Árpád dynasty
Árpád dynasty
The Árpáds or Arpads was the ruling dynasty of the federation of the Hungarian tribes and of the Kingdom of Hungary . The dynasty was named after Grand Prince Árpád who was the head of the tribal federation when the Magyars occupied the Carpathian Basin, circa 895...
, who ruled only part of the united territory, the nominal overlord of all seven Magyar tribes, aimed to integrate Hungary into Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
Western Europe, rebuilding the state according to the Western political and social model. He established a dynasty by naming his son Vajk (the later King Stephen I of Hungary) as his successor. This was contrary to the then-dominant tradition of the succession of the eldest surviving member of the ruling family. (See:agnatic seniority
Agnatic seniority
Agnatic seniority is a patrilineal principle of inheritance where the order of succession to the throne prefers the monarch's younger brother over the monarch's own sons. A monarch's children succeed only after the males of the elder generation have all been exhausted...
) By ancestral right prince Koppány
Koppány
Koppány was a Hungarian nobleman of the tenth century. Brother of the ruling prince of Hungary, Géza of the Árpád dynasty, Koppány ruled as Prince of Somogy in the region south of Lake Balaton...
, -as the oldest member of the dynasty- should have claimed the throne, but Géza
Géza
Géza can refer to any of the following:* Géza of Hungary, Grand Prince of the Magyars* Géza I of Hungary, King of Hungary* Géza II of Hungary, King of Hungary...
chose his first-born son to be his successor. The fight in the chief prince's family started after Géza
Géza
Géza can refer to any of the following:* Géza of Hungary, Grand Prince of the Magyars* Géza I of Hungary, King of Hungary* Géza II of Hungary, King of Hungary...
's death, in 997. Duke Koppány
Koppány
Koppány was a Hungarian nobleman of the tenth century. Brother of the ruling prince of Hungary, Géza of the Árpád dynasty, Koppány ruled as Prince of Somogy in the region south of Lake Balaton...
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 belief, but Stephen won a decisive victory over his uncle Koppány
Koppány
Koppány was a Hungarian nobleman of the tenth century. Brother of the ruling prince of Hungary, Géza of the Árpád dynasty, Koppány ruled as Prince of Somogy in the region south of Lake Balaton...
, and had him executed.
The Patrimonial Kingdom
Stephen was the son of Géza
Géza
Géza can refer to any of the following:* Géza of Hungary, Grand Prince of the Magyars* Géza I of Hungary, King of Hungary* Géza II of Hungary, King of Hungary...
and thus a descendant of Árpád
Árpád
Árpád was the second Grand Prince of the Hungarians . Under his rule the Hungarian people settled in the Carpathian basin. The dynasty descending from him ruled the Hungarian tribes and later the Kingdom of Hungary until 1301...
.
Stephen was crowned by the Holy Crown of Hungary in December 1000 AD in the capital, Esztergom
Esztergom
Esztergom , is a city in northern Hungary, 46 km north-west of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom county, on the right bank of the river Danube, which forms the border with Slovakia there....
. The Papacy confers on him the right to have the cross carried before him, with full administrative authority over bishoprics and churches. By 1006, Stephen had solidified his power, eliminating all rivals who either wanted to follow the old pagan traditions or wanted an alliance with the Eastern Christian Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
. Then he started sweeping reforms to convert Hungary into a western feudal state, complete with forced Christianization.
Stephen established a network of 10 episcopal and 2 archiepiscopal sees, and ordered the buildup of monasteries churches and cathedrals. In the earliest times Hungarian language
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
was written in a runic-like script
Old Hungarian script
The Old Hungarian script is an alphabetic writing system used by the Hungarians before the Middle Ages...
. The country switched to the Latin alphabet under Stephen.
He followed the Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
administrative model: The whole of this land was divided into counties (megyék), each under a royal official called an ispán count —later főispán . This official represented the king’s authority, administered its population, and collected the taxes that formed the national revenue. Each ispán maintained an armed force of freemen at his fortified headquarters (castrum or vár).
What emerged was a strong kingdom that withstood attacks from German kings and Emperors, and nomadic tribes following the Hungarians from the East, integrating some of the latter into the population (along with Germans invited to Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
and the northern part of the kingdom, especially after the Battle of Mohi
Battle of Mohi
The Battle of Mohi , or Battle of the Sajó River, was the main battle between the Mongol Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary during the Mongol invasion of Europe. It took place at Muhi, Southwest of the Sajó River. After the invasion, Hungary lay in ruins. Nearly half of the inhabited places had...
), and conquering Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
in 1091. According to an alternative history based on the document Pacta Conventa
Pacta conventa (Croatia)
Pacta conventa was an alleged agreement concluded between King Coloman of Hungary and the Croatian nobility. While some claim it was a voluntary union of the two crowns, leaving Croatia as a sovereign state, others argue that Hungary simply annexed Croatia outright and forced an agreement...
, which is most likely a forgery Hungary and Croatia created a personal union
Personal union
A personal union is the combination by which two or more different states have the same monarch while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct. It should not be confused with a federation which is internationally considered a single state...
. There is no undoubtedly genuine document of the personal union, and medieval sources mention the annexation into the Hungarian kingdom.
After the Great Schism (The East-West Schism
East-West Schism
The East–West Schism of 1054, sometimes known as the Great Schism, formally divided the State church of the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively...
/formally in 1054/, between Western Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
Christianity.) Hungary determined itself as the easternmost bastion of Western civilisation (This statement was affirmed later by Pope Pius II who wrote that to Emperor Friedrich III, "Hungary is the shield of Christianity and the defender of Western civilization").
Important members of the Árpád dynasty
Árpád dynasty
The Árpáds or Arpads was the ruling dynasty of the federation of the Hungarian tribes and of the Kingdom of Hungary . The dynasty was named after Grand Prince Árpád who was the head of the tribal federation when the Magyars occupied the Carpathian Basin, circa 895...
:
- ColomanColomanColoman, , , ; )* Coloman I. the Book-lover* Coloman of Galicia-Lodomeria * Saint Coloman of Stockerau * Colomán Trabado Pérez...
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)
He 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. 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.
- Andrew II of HungaryAndrew II of HungaryAndrew II the Jerosolimitan was King of Hungary and Croatia . He was the younger son of King Béla III of Hungary, who invested him with the government of the Principality of Halych...
(King: 1205–1235)
Andrew II of Hungary
Andrew II the Jerosolimitan was King of Hungary and Croatia . He was the younger son of King Béla III of Hungary, who invested him with the government of the Principality of Halych...
(ruled from 1205 to 1235) granted the Burzenland (in Transylvania) to the Teutonic Knights
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
. 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
Diploma Andreanum
The Diploma Andreanum, or Goldener Freibrief der Sachsen Siebenbürger , was issued by Andrew II of Hungary in 1224, granting provisional autonomy to colonial Germans residing in the Siebenbürgen region of the Kingdom of Hungary ....
which unified and ensured the special privileges of the Transylvanian Saxons
Transylvanian Saxons
The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century onwards.The colonization of Transylvania by Germans was begun by King Géza II of Hungary . For decades, the main task of the German settlers was to defend the southeastern border of the...
. It is considered the first Autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
law in the world.
He led the Fifth Crusade
Fifth Crusade
The Fifth Crusade was an attempt to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt....
to the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
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
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
in Continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
. It limited the king's power. The Golden Bull — the Hungarian equivalent of England’s Magna Carta
Magna Carta
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
— 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
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
, or Diet
Diet (assembly)
In politics, a diet is a formal deliberative assembly. The term is mainly used historically for the Imperial Diet, the general assembly of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, and for the legislative bodies of certain countries.-Etymology:...
. 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.
Important points of the Doctrine: The sovereignty belongs to the noble nation→(the Holy Crown). The members of the Holy Crown are the citizens of the Crown's lands. None can reach full power. The nation is sharing a portion of the political power with the ruler. Minority cannot rule over majority (against tyranny and oligarchy).
Mongol attacks
In 1241–1242, the kingdom received a major blow with the Mongol InvasionMongol invasion of Europe
The resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked medieval Rus' principalities and the powers of Poland and Hungary, was marked by the Mongol invasion of Rus starting in 21 December 1237...
: after the defeat of the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohi
Battle of Mohi
The Battle of Mohi , or Battle of the Sajó River, was the main battle between the Mongol Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary during the Mongol invasion of Europe. It took place at Muhi, Southwest of the Sajó River. After the invasion, Hungary lay in ruins. Nearly half of the inhabited places had...
, Béla IV of Hungary
Béla IV of Hungary
Béla IV , King of Hungary and of Croatia , duke of Styria 1254–58. One of the most famous kings of Hungary, he distinguished himself through his policy of strengthening of the royal power following the example of his grandfather Bela III, and by the rebuilding Hungary after the catastrophe of the...
fled, and a large part of the population died in the ensuing destruction leading later to the invitation of settlers, largely from Germany. Historians estimate that up to half of Hungary's then population of 2,000,000 were victims of the Mongol invasion. In the plains between 50 and 80% of the settlements were destroyed. Only castles, strongly fortified cities and abbeys could withstand the assault.
During the Russian campaign, the Mongols drove some 40,000 Cumans
Cumans
The Cumans were Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After Mongol invasion , they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria...
, a nomadic tribe of pagan Kipchaks, west of the Carpathian Mountains. There, the Cumans appealed to King Béla IV of Hungary for protection. The Iranian Jassic people
Jassic people
The Jassic people or Jász are an ethnic group of Hungarians who mostly live in the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county of the Republic of Hungary. They are of Ossetic origin and originally spoke the Jassic dialect of the Ossetic language...
came to Hungary together with the Cumans after they were defeated by the Mongols. Cumans constituted perhaps up to 7-8% of the population of Hungary in the second half of the 13th century. Over the centuries they were fully assimilated into the Hungarian population, and their language disappeared, but they preserved their identity and their regional autonomy until 1876.
As a consequence, after the Mongols retreated, King Béla ordered the construction of hundreds of stone castles and fortifications, to defend against a possible second Mongol invasion. The Mongols returned to Hungary in 1286, but the new built stone-castle systems and new tactics (using a higher proportion of heavily armed knights) stopped them. The invading Mongol force was defeated near Pest by the royal army of Ladislaus IV of Hungary. As with later invasions, it was repelled handily, the Mongols losing much of their invading force.
These castles proved to be very important later in the long struggle with the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. However the cost of building them indebted the Hungarian King to the major feudal landlords again, so the royal power reclaimed by Béla IV after his father Andrew II significantly weakened it was once again dispersed amongst lesser nobility. The countries of the Balkan region and the territory of Russian states fell under Ottoman/Mongolian rule very rapidly, due to the lack of the network of stone/brick castles and fortresses in these countries.
Age of elected Kings
After the destructive period of interregnumInterregnum
An interregnum is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order...
(1301–1308), the first Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...
king, Charles I of Hungary
Charles I of Hungary
Charles I , also known as Charles Robert , was the first King of Hungary and Croatia of the House of Anjou. He was also descended from the old Hungarian Árpád dynasty. His claim to the throne of Hungary was contested by several pretenders...
(reigned 1308–1342) - a descendant of the Árpád dynasty in the female line - successfully restored royal power, and defeated oligarch rivals, the so called "little kings". His new fiscal, customs and monetary policies proved successful during his reign.
One of the primary sources of his power was the wealth derived from the gold mines of eastern and northern Hungary. Eventually production reached the remarkable figure of 3,000 lb. (1350 kg) 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. Charles also sealed an alliance with the Polish king Casimir. After Italy, Hungary was the first European country where the renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
appeared.
The second Hungarian king in the Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...
line, Louis the Great (reigned 1342–1382) extended his rule as far as the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
, and occupied the Kingdom of Naples
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...
several times. In 1351, the golden bull
Golden Bull of 1222
The Golden Bull of 1222 was a golden bull, or edict, issued by King Andrew II of Hungary. The law established the rights of the Hungarian nobility, including the right to disobey the King when he acted contrary to law . The nobles and the church were freed from all taxes and could not be forced to...
was completed with the law of entail. Which instated that the nobles hereditary lands could not be taken away and must remain in the family. He also became king of Poland (reigned 1370–1382). During his reign lived the epic hero of Hungarian literature and warfare, the king's Champion: Nicolas Toldi. Louis had become popular in Poland because of his campaign against the Tatars and pagan Lithuanians. Two successful wars (1357–1358, 1378–1381) against Venice annexed Dalmatia and Ragusa and more territories on the Adriatic Sea. Venice also had to raise the Angevin flag in St. Mark's Square on holy days.
Some Balkan states (Vallachia, Moldova, Serbia, Bosnia) became his vassals. Louis I established a university in Pécs
Pécs
Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya county...
in 1367 (by papal accordance). The Ottoman Turks confronted the Balkan vassal states ever more often. In 1366 and 1377, Louis led successful campaigns against the Ottomans (Battle of Nicapoli in 1366). From the death of Casimir III of Poland
Casimir III of Poland
Casimir III the Great , last King of Poland from the Piast dynasty , was the son of King Władysław I the Elbow-high and Hedwig of Kalisz.-Biography:...
in 1370, he was also king of Poland. He retained his strong influence in the political life of Italian Peninsula for the rest of his life.
King Louis died without a male heir, and after years of anarchy the country was stabilized only when Sigismund
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...
(reigned 1387–1437), a prince of the Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
line, succeeded to the throne by marrying the daughter of Louis the Great, Queen Mary
Mary of Hungary
Mary of Anjou was queen regnant of Hungary from 1382 until her death in 1395.-Childhood:...
. 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 imprisoned for a short time. The restoration of the authority of the central administration took decades.
In 1404 Sigismund introduced the Placetum Regnum. According to this decree, Papal bulls and messages could not be pronounced in Hungary without the consent of the king. Sigismund summoned the Council of Constance
Council of Constance
The Council of Constance is the 15th ecumenical council recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, held from 1414 to 1418. The council ended the Three-Popes Controversy, by deposing or accepting the resignation of the remaining Papal claimants and electing Pope Martin V.The Council also condemned and...
(1414–1418) to abolish the Avignon Papacy
Avignon Papacy
The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven Popes resided in Avignon, in modern-day France. This arose from the conflict between the Papacy and the French crown....
and the Papal Schism
Western Schism
The Western Schism or Papal Schism was a split within the Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417. Two men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope. Driven by politics rather than any theological disagreement, the schism was ended by the Council of Constance . The simultaneous claims to the papal chair...
of the Catholic Church, which was resolved by the election of a new pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
. In 1433 he even became Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...
. During his long reign the Royal castle of Buda became probably the largest Gothic palace of the late Middle Ages. After the death of Sigismund
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...
, his son in law, Albert II of Germany
Albert II of Germany
Albert the Magnanimous KG was King of Hungary from 1438 until his death. He was also King of Bohemia, elected King of Germany as Albert II, duke of Luxembourg and, as Albert V, archduke of Austria from 1404.-Biography:Albert was born in Vienna as the son of Albert IV, Duke of Austria, and Johanna...
, was titled king of Hungary. Albert II, however, died in 1439. The first Hungarian Bible translation was completed in 1439. For a half year in 1437, there was an anti-feudal and anti-clerical peasant revolt in Transylvania which was strongly influenced by Hussite
Hussite
The Hussites were a Christian movement following the teachings of Czech reformer Jan Hus , who became one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation...
ideas. (See: Budai Nagy Antal Revolt)
From a small noble family in Transylvania, John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: Ioannes Corvinus or Ioannes de Hunyad, Romanian: Iancu (Ioan) de Hunedoara, Croatian: Janko Hunjadi, Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко / Sibinjanin Janko, Slovak: Ján Huňady) John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: ...
grew to become one of the country's most powerful lords, thanks to his outstanding capabilities as a mercenary
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
commander.
In 1446, the parliament elected the great general John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi
John Hunyadi John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: Ioannes Corvinus or Ioannes de Hunyad, Romanian: Iancu (Ioan) de Hunedoara, Croatian: Janko Hunjadi, Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко / Sibinjanin Janko, Slovak: Ján Huňady) John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: ...
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
Mehmed II
Mehmed II , was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from...
. 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), the news of the victory arrived before the order, and the ringing of the church bells at noon was transformed into a commemoration of the victory. The Popes did not withdraw the order, and Catholic (and the older Protestant) churches still ring the noon bell in the Christian world to this day.
Age of early absolutism
The last strong king was the Renaissance king Matthias Corvinus (king from 1458 to 1490). Matthias was the son of John HunyadiJohn Hunyadi
John Hunyadi John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: Ioannes Corvinus or Ioannes de Hunyad, Romanian: Iancu (Ioan) de Hunedoara, Croatian: Janko Hunjadi, Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко / Sibinjanin Janko, Slovak: Ján Huňady) John Hunyadi (Hungarian: Hunyadi János , Medieval Latin: ...
. András Hess
András Hess
András Hess set up a printing press in Buda in 1472.He printed the first book in Hungary on June 5, 1473 in his Buda press. Hess was probably of German origin. He dedicated the book, the Chronica Hungarorum or Buda Chronicle to the person who had invited him to Hungary.Today a square is named...
set up a printing press in Buda
Buda
For detailed information see: History of Buda CastleBuda is the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. The name Buda takes its name from the name of Bleda the Hun ruler, whose name is also Buda in Hungarian.Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's...
in 1472.
This was the first time in the medieval Hungarian kingdom that a member of the nobility, without dynastic ancestry and relationship, mounted the royal throne.
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. Although Matyas 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, common people considered Matthias a just ruler because he protected them from excessive demands and other abuses by the magnates. Like his father, Matthias desired to strengthen the Kingdom of Hungary to the point where it became the foremost regional power and overlord, strong enough to push back the Ottoman Empire; towards that end he deemed necessary the conquering of large parts of the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
. In 1479, under the leadership of general Pál Kinizsi
Pál Kinizsi
Pál Kinizsi was a Hungarian general, legendary commoner commander in the army of king Matthias Corvinus. He was Comes of Temes since 1484 and Captain General of the Lower Parts of the Kingdom of Hungary...
, the Hungarian army destroyed the Ottoman and Wallachian troops at the Battle of Breadfield. Army of Hungary, almost all times destroyed the enemies when Matthias was the king.
His mercenary standing army called the Black Army of Hungary
Black Army of Hungary
The Black Army , "Black Legion" or "Regiment"—possibly named after their black armor panoply, see below) is, in historiography, the common name given to the military forces serving under the reign of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary...
was an unusually big army in its age, it accomplished a series of victories also capturing parts of Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(1485) and parts of Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
. 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
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
.
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
Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary
Vladislaus II, also known as Ladislaus Jagiellon ; was King of Bohemia from 1471 and King of Hungary from 1490 until his death in 1516...
(King: 1490–1516), king of Bohemia (László 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. 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 declined as border guards and castle garrisons went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled. Hungary's international role was wasted, its political stability shaken, and social progress was deadlocked.
In 1514, the weakened old King Vladislaus II
Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary
Vladislaus II, also known as Ladislaus Jagiellon ; was King of Bohemia from 1471 and King of Hungary from 1490 until his death in 1516...
faced a major peasant rebellion led by György Dózsa
György Dózsa
György Dózsa was a Székely Hungarian man-at-arms from Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary who led a peasants' revolt against the kingdom's landed nobility...
, which was ruthlessly crushed by the nobles
Nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary
The origin of the nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary can be traced to the Magyar conquest of Pannonia in the 9th century, and it developed over the course of the Middle Ages...
, 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
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
) fell to the Turks, and in 1526, the Hungarian army was crushed at the Battle of Mohács
Battle of Mohács
The Battle of Mohács was fought on August 29, 1526 near Mohács, Hungary. In the battle, forces of the Kingdom of Hungary led by King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia were defeated by forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent....
. The young king Louis II
Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia
Louis II was King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia from 1516 to 1526.- Early life :Louis was the son of Ladislaus II Jagiellon and his third wife, Anne de Foix....
, and the leader of the Hungarian army, Pál Tomori
Pál Tomori
Pál Tomori was a Catholic monk and archbishop of Kalocsa, Hungary. He defeated an Ottoman army near Sremska Mitrovica in 1523....
died in the battle. The early appearance of protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
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
Buda
For detailed information see: History of Buda CastleBuda is the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. The name Buda takes its name from the name of Bleda the Hun ruler, whose name is also Buda in Hungarian.Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's...
, Kassa (Košice
Košice
Košice is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary...
), Pozsony (Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
), and Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
) and groups like the Jassic people
Jassic people
The Jassic people or Jász are an ethnic group of Hungarians who mostly live in the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county of the Republic of Hungary. They are of Ossetic origin and originally spoke the Jassic dialect of the Ossetic language...
or Transylvanian Saxons
Transylvanian Saxons
The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania from the 12th century onwards.The colonization of Transylvania by Germans was begun by King Géza II of Hungary . For decades, the main task of the German settlers was to defend the southeastern border of the...
.
Early modern age (1526–1700)
After some 150 years of warOttoman wars in Europe
The wars of the Ottoman Empire in Europe are also sometimes referred to as the Ottoman Wars or as Turkish Wars, particularly in older, European texts.- Rise :...
in the south of Hungary, Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
forces conquered parts of the country, continuing their expansion until 1556. The Ottomans achieved their first decisive victory over the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohács
Battle of Mohács
The Battle of Mohács was fought on August 29, 1526 near Mohács, Hungary. In the battle, forces of the Kingdom of Hungary led by King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia were defeated by forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent....
in 1526.
John Zápolya
John Zápolya was King of Hungary from 1526 to 1540. His rule was disputed by Archduke Ferdinand I, who also claimed the title King of Hungary between 1526 and 1540. He was the voivode of Transylvania before his coronation.- Biography :...
(1526–1540, of Hungarian-German origin) and the Austrian Ferdinand of Habsburg (1527–1540). Armed conflicts between the new rival monarchs further weakened the country from the internal side. With the conquest of Buda
Buda
For detailed information see: History of Buda CastleBuda is the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. The name Buda takes its name from the name of Bleda the Hun ruler, whose name is also Buda in Hungarian.Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's...
in 1541 by the Turks, Hungary was riven into three parts. The north-west (present-day Slovakia, western Transdanubia
Transdanubia
Transdanubia is a traditional region of Hungary.-Traditional interpretation:The borders of Transdanubia are the Danube river , the Drava and Mura rivers and the foothills of the Alps roughly along the border between Hungary and Austria .Transdanubia comprises the counties of Győr-Moson-Sopron,...
and Burgenland
Burgenland
Burgenland is the easternmost and least populous state or Land of Austria. It consists of two Statutarstädte and seven districts with in total 171 municipalities. It is 166 km long from north to south but much narrower from west to east...
, western Croatia and parts of north-eastern present-day Hungary) remained under Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
rule; although initially independent, later it became a part of Habsburg Monarchy under the informal name Royal Hungary
Royal Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary between 1538 and 1867 was part of the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, while outside the Holy Roman Empire.After Battle of Mohács, the country was ruled by two crowned kings . They divided the kingdom in 1538...
. The Habsburg Emperors would from then on be crowned also as Kings of Hungary. Turks were unable to conquer Northern and Western parts of Hungary.
The eastern part of the kingdom (Partium
Partium
Partium or Részek is the name given in Hungarian to the region located to the north and west of Transylvania.-Origin of the name:...
and Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
) became at first an independent principality, but gradually was brought under Turkish rule as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. The remaining central area (most of present-day Hungary), including the capital of Buda, became a province of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Much of the land was devastated by recurrent warfare. Most small Hungarian settlements disappeared. Rural people living in the now Ottoman provinces could survive only in larger settlements known as Khaz towns, which were owned and protected directly by the Sultan. The Turks were indifferent to the sect of Christianity practiced by their Hungarian subjects.
For this reason, a majority of Hungarians living under Ottoman rule became Protestant (largely Calvinist), as Habsburg counter-reformation efforts could not penetrate Ottoman lands. Largely throughout this time, Pozsony (Pressburg, today: Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
) acted as the capital (1536–1784), coronation town (1563–1830) and seat of the Diet of Hungary (1536–1848). Nagyszombat (modern Trnava
Trnava
Trnava is a city in western Slovakia, 47 km to the north-east of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river. It is the capital of a kraj and of an okres . It was the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishopric . The city has a historic center...
) acted in turn as the religious center, starting from 1541.
In 1558 the Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n Diet
Diet (assembly)
In politics, a diet is a formal deliberative assembly. The term is mainly used historically for the Imperial Diet, the general assembly of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, and for the legislative bodies of certain countries.-Etymology:...
of Turda
Turda
Turda is a city and Municipality in Cluj County, Romania, situated on the Arieş River.- Ancient times :The city was founded by Dacians under the name Patavissa or Potaissa...
declared free practice of both the Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
and Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
religions, but prohibited Calvinism
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
. Ten years later, in 1568, the Diet extended this freedom, declaring that: "It is not allowed to anybody to intimidate anybody with captivity or expelling for his religion". Four religions were declared as accepted (recepta) religions, while Orthodox Christianity
Orthodox Christianity
The term Orthodox Christianity may refer to:* the Eastern Orthodox Church and its various geographical subdivisions...
was "tolerated" (though the building of stone Orthodox churches was forbidden). Hungary entered the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
, 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
Holy League (1684)
Holy League of 1684 was initiated in by Pope Innocent XI, and composed of the Holy Roman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Venetian Republic. Tsardom of Russia joined the League in 1686. This alliance opposed the Ottoman Empire in the Great Turkish War and lasted until the Treaty...
army was twice as large, containing over 74,000 men, including German, Croat, Dutch, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Czech, Italian, French, Burgundian, Danish and Swedish soldiers, along with other Europeans as volunteers, artilleryman, and officers, the Christian forces reconquered Buda. The second Battle of Mohács
Battle of Mohács (1687)
The Second Battle of Mohács, also known as the Battle of 'Berg Harsány', was fought between the forces of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, commanded by the Grand-Vizier Sari Süleyman Paşa, and the forces of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, commanded by Charles of Lorraine...
was a crushing defeat for the Turks, in the next few years, all of the former Hungarian lands, except areas near Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
(Temesvár), were taken from the Turks. At the end of the 17th century, Transylvania became part of Hungary again. In the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz
Treaty of Karlowitz
The Treaty of Karlowitz was signed on 26 January 1699 in Sremski Karlovci , concluding the Austro-Ottoman War of 1683–1697 in which the Ottoman side had been defeated at the Battle of Zenta...
these territorial changes were officially recognised, and in 1718 the entire Kingdom of Hungary was removed from Ottoman rule.
Concurrently, between 1604 and 1711, there was a series of anti-Austrian, and anti-Habsburg uprisings which took place in the Habsburg state of Royal Hungary (more precisely, in present-day Slovakia and in present day western and central Hungary), as well as anti-Catholic uprisings, which were to be found across the Hungarian lands. Religious protesters demanded equal rights among Christian groups. The uprisings were usually organized from Transylvania.
Ethnic aftermath of 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 wars fundamentally changed the ethnic composition of Hungary. As a result of demographic losses including deportations and massacres, the number of ethnic Hungarians in existence at the end of the Turkish period was substantially diminished.Modern and contemporary age (1700–1919)
Francis II Rákóczi
Francis II Rákóczi Hungarian aristocrat, he was the leader of the Hungarian uprising against the Habsburgs in 1703-11 as the prince of the Estates Confederated for Liberty of the Kingdom of Hungary. He was also Prince of Transylvania, an Imperial Prince, and a member of the Order of the Golden...
, 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 battles at Battle of Trencin
Battle of Trencín
The Battle of Trencsén was a battle between the Hungarian Kuruc forces of Francis II Rákóczi and the Imperial Army of the Habsburgs. The battle caused great losses for the Kuruc army, forcing them to give up their plans of obtaining allies in the War of the Spanish Succession against the Habsburgs...
however there were also success actions, for example when Ádám Balogh
Ádám Balogh
Ádám Balogh de Bér was born in Vas county around 1665 and died in Buda in 1711. He came from the Hungarian nobility and was one of the most famous kuruc colonels of the Hungarian army during Rákóczi's War for Independence against the rule of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty.-Life:Balogh was born to a...
almost captured the Austrian Emperor with Kuruc troops. When Austrians defeated the uprising in 1711, Rákóczi was in Poland. He later fled to France, finally Turkey, and lived to the end of his life (1735) in nearby Rodosto. Ladislas Ignace de Bercheny
Ladislas Ignace de Bercheny
Ladislas Ignace de Bercheny was a Hungary-born soldier who became Marshal of France.-Life:...
who was son of Miklós Bercsényi immigrated to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and created the first French hussar regiment. Afterward, to make further armed resistance impossible, the Austrians blew up some castles (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). The 18th century also saw one of the most famous Hungarian hussars named Michael Kovats. He created the modern US cavalry in the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
and is commemorated today with a statue in Charleston, North Carolina.
The Period of Reforms (1825–1848)
In the 1820s, the Emperor was forced to convene the Hungarian Diet, and thus a Reform Period began. Nevertheless, its progress was slow, because the nobles insisted on retaining their privileges (no taxation, exclusive voting rights, etc.). Therefore the achievements were mostly of national character (e.g. introduction of Hungarian as one of the official languages of the country, instead of the former Latin).Count István Széchenyi
István Széchenyi
Széchenyi committed suicide by a shot to his head on April 8, 1860. All Hungary mourned his death. The Academy was in official mourning, along with the most prominent persons of the leading political and cultural associations...
, 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
Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva was a Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Regent-President of Hungary in 1849. He was widely honored during his lifetime, including in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe.-Family:Lajos...
emerged as leader of the lower gentry in the Parliament. Habsburg monarchs tried to preclude the industrialization of the country. A remarkable upswing started as the nation concentrated its forces on modernization even though the Habsburg monarchs obstructed all important liberal laws about the human
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
civil and political rights and economic reforms. Many reformers (like Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva was a Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Regent-President of Hungary in 1849. He was widely honored during his lifetime, including in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe.-Family:Lajos...
, Mihály Táncsics
Mihály Táncsics
Táncsics Mihály was a Hungarian writer, journalist and politician.Mihály Táncsics was born as a son of Croatian father and Slovak mother.- References :...
) were imprisoned by the authorities.
Revolution, and War of Independence
12 points of the Hungarian Revolutionaries of 1848
The 12 points were a list of demands written by the leaders of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.-History:On the morning of March 15, 1848, revolutionaries marched around the city of Pest, reading Sándor Petőfi's Nemzeti dal and the 12 points to the crowd...
. The Hungarian Diet took the opportunity presented by the revolution to enact a comprehensive legislative program of dozens of civil and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
reforms, referred to as the April laws
April laws
The April laws, also called March laws, were a collection of laws legislated by Lajos Kossuth with the aim of modernizing Kingdom of Hungary into a nation state. The imperative program included Hungarian control of its popular national guard, national budget and Hungarian foreign policy, as well as...
. Faced with revolution both at home and in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I
Ferdinand I of Austria
Ferdinand I was Emperor of Austria, President of the German Confederation, King of Hungary and Bohemia , as well as associated dominions from the death of his father, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, until his abdication after the Revolutions of 1848.He married Maria Anna of Savoy, the sixth child...
first had to accept Hungarian demands. After the Austrian revolution was suppressed, emperor Franz Joseph replaced his epileptic
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
uncle Ferdinand I
Ferdinand I of Austria
Ferdinand I was Emperor of Austria, President of the German Confederation, King of Hungary and Bohemia , as well as associated dominions from the death of his father, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, until his abdication after the Revolutions of 1848.He married Maria Anna of Savoy, the sixth child...
as Emperor. Franz Joseph refused all reforms and started to arm against Hungary. A year later, in april of 1849 the independent government of Hungary was established. The new independent government seceded from the Austrian Empire. The new government formed itself as a republic with under governor and president Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva was a Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Regent-President of Hungary in 1849. He was widely honored during his lifetime, including in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe.-Family:Lajos...
and the first Prime minister, Lajos Batthyány
Lajos Batthyány
Count Lajos Batthyány de Németújvár was the first Prime Minister of Hungary. He was born in Pressburg on 10 February 1807, and was executed by firing squad in Pest on 6 October 1849, the same day as the 13 Martyrs of Arad.-Career:His father was Count József Sándor Batthyány , his mother Borbála...
. The House of Habsburg of the Austrian Empire was dethroned in Hungarian part of the Austrian Empire and the first Republic of Hungary was founded. The Habsburg Ruler and his advisers skilfully 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. Many members of the nationalities gained coveted the highest positions within the Hungarian Army, like General János Damjanich
János Damjanich
János Damjanich was a Hungarian general of Serb origin. He is considered a national hero in Hungary.He never lost on the battlefield.-Life:...
, an ethnic Serb who became a Hungarian national hero through his command of the 3rd Hungarian Army Corps.
Initially, the Hungarian forces (Honvédség) defeated Austrian armies. In July 1849 Hungarian Parliament proclaimed and enacted foremost the ethnic and minority rights
Minority rights
The term Minority Rights embodies two separate concepts: first, normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or sexual minorities, and second, collective rights accorded to minority groups...
in the world, but it was too late: To counter the successes of the Hungarian revolutionary army, Franz Joseph asked for help from the "Gendarme of Europe," Czar Nicholas I
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
, whose Russian armies invaded Hungary. The huge army of the Russian Empire and the Austrian forces proved too powerful for the Hungarian army, and General Artúr Görgey
Artúr Görgey
----Artúr Görgey de Görgő et Toporcz was a Hungarian military leader.He was born at Toporz in Upper Hungary of a Hungarian noble family of originally Zipser German descent who immigrated to Upper Hungary during the reign of king Géza II . During the reformation they were converted to Protestantism...
surrendered in August 1849. Julius Freiherr von Haynau
Julius Jacob von Haynau
Julius Jacob von Haynau was an Austrian general.The illegitimate son of the landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, William I and Rebecca Richter, a Jewish woman, he entered the Austrian army as an infantry officer in 1801 and saw much service in the Napoleonic wars...
, the leader of the Austrian army, then became governor of Hungary for a few months and, on 6 October, ordered the execution of 13 leaders
The 13 Martyrs of Arad
The 13 Martyrs of Arad were the thirteen Hungarian rebel honvéd generals who were executed on October 6, 1849 in the city of Arad, Kingdom of Hungary , after the Hungarian Revolution was ended by troops of the Austrian Empire and Imperial Russia, who reestablished Habsburg rule over the area...
of the Hungarian army as well as Prime Minister Batthyány. Lajos Kossuth escaped into exile.
Following the war of 1848–1849, the whole country was in "passive resistance". Archduke Albrecht von Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
was appointed governor of the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
, and this time was remembered for Germanization pursued with the help of Czech officers.
Austria–Hungary (1867–1918)
Battle of Königgrätz
The Battle of Königgrätz , also known as the Battle of Sadowa, Sadová, or Hradec Králové, was the decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War, in which the Kingdom of Prussia defeated the Austrian Empire...
(1866), forced the Emperor to concede internal reforms. To appease Hungarian separatism, the Emperor made a deal with Hungary, negotiated by Ferenc Deák
Ferenc Deák
Ferenc Deák de Kehida , , was a Hungarian statesman and Minister of Justice. He was known as "The Wise Man of the Nation".-Early life and law career:...
, 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
Gyula Andrássy
Gyula Count Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka was a Hungarian statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary and subsequently as Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary...
. The old Hungarian Constitution was restored, and Franz Joseph was crowned as King of Hungary
King of Hungary
The King of Hungary was the head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 to 1918.The style of title "Apostolic King" was confirmed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758 and used afterwards by all the Kings of Hungary, so after this date the kings are referred to as "Apostolic King of...
.
In 1868, Hungarian and Croatian assembly made the Croatian–Hungarian Agreement
Croatian–Hungarian Agreement
Croatian–Hungarian Settlement was a pact signed in 1868, that governed Croatia's political status in the Hungarian-ruled part of Austria-Hungary...
by which Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
was recognised as autonomous
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
region of Holly crown.
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
was geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(239,977 sq. m in 1905 ), and the third most populous (after Russia and the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
).
Buda
For detailed information see: History of Buda CastleBuda is the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. The name Buda takes its name from the name of Bleda the Hun ruler, whose name is also Buda in Hungarian.Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's...
and Óbuda
Óbuda
Óbuda was a historical city in Hungary. United with Buda and Pest in 1873 it now forms part of District III-Óbuda-Békásmegyer of Budapest. The name means Old Buda in Hungarian...
(Ancient Buda) were officially merged with the third city, Pest, thus creating the new metropolis of Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. The dynamic Pest grew into the country's administrative, political, economic, trade and cultural hub.
Technological advancement 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 strong points of the industry were the electricity and electro-technology, telecommunication, and the transport industry: (locomotive and tram construction ship construction) The key symbols of industrialization were (at the time) the famous Ganz
Ganz
The Ganz electric works in Budapest is probably best known for the manufacture of tramcars, but was also a pioneer in the application of three-phase alternating current to electric railways. Ganz also made / makes: ships , bridge steel structures , high voltage equipment...
concern
Concern (business)
A concern is a German type of business group. It results from the merger of several legally independent companies an economic entity under unified management. These associated companies called "Group" companies....
, and Tungsram
Tungsram
Tungsram is a Hungarian manufacturer of light bulbs and vacuum tubes since 1896. General Electric, in 1990, acquired majority share in one of Hungary's largest, oldest, and internationally most prestigious firms, the light-source manufacturer Tungsram. Over the past six years GE has invested $600...
Works. Many of the state institutions and the modern administrative system of Hungary were established during this period.
Due to various reasons like the policy of Magyarization
Magyarization
Magyarization is a kind of assimilation or acculturation, a process by which non-Magyar elements came to adopt Magyar culture and language due to social pressure .Defiance or appeals to the Nationalities Law, met...
and the migration of millions, the census in 1910 (excluding Croatia), recorded the following distribution of population: Hungarian 54.5%, Romanian 16.1%, Slovak 10.7%, and German 10.4%. The largest religious denomination was the Roman Catholic (49.3%), followed by the Calvinist (14.3%), Greek Orthodox (12.8%) /Romanians Serbians Ruthenians), Greek Catholic (11.0%), Lutheran (7.1%), and Jewish (5.0%) religions. In 1910, 6.37% of the population were eligible to vote in elections due to census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
.
World War I
After the Assassination in Sarajevo the Hungarian Prime Minister, István TiszaIstván Tisza
Count István Tisza de Borosjenő et Szeged was a Hungarian politician, prime minister, and member of Hungarian Academy of Sciences....
and his cabinet tried to avoid the breaking out of a war in Europe, but his diplomatic attempts remained unsuccessful.
Austria–Hungary drafted 9 million (fighting forces: 7,8 million) soldiers in World War I (4 million from Kingdom of Hungary).
In First World War, Austria–Hungary was fighting on the side of Germany, Bulgaria and Turkey. The Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
conquered Serbia and Romania proclaimed war. The Central Powers later conquered Southern Romania and the Romanian capital Bucharest. On November 1916 Emperor Franz Joseph died, the new monarch Charles IV sympathized by pacifists. With great difficulty, the Central Powers stopped and repelled the attacks of the Russian Empire. The Eastern front of the Allied (Entente
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
) Powers completely collapsed. Austria-Hungary withdrew from defeated countries. On the Italian front, the Austro-Hungarian army could not make more successful progress against Italy after January 1918. Despite great Eastern successes, Germany suffered complete defeat in the more determinant Western front. By 1918, the economic situation had deteriorated (strikes in factories were organized by leftist and pacifist movements), and uprisings in the army had become commonplace. In the capital cities (Vienna and Budapest), the Austrian and the Hungarian leftist liberal movements (the maverick parties) and their leader politicians supported and strengthened the separatism of ethnic minorities. Austria-Hungary signed general armistice in Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
on 3 November 1918. In October 1918, the personal union with Austria was dissolved.
Between the two world wars (1918–1941)
Hungarian People's Republic
Hungarian People's RepublicHungarian Democratic Republic
The Hungarian People's Republic was an independent republic proclaimed after the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918...
In 1918, as a political result of German defeat on the Western front in World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy collapsed. French Entente troops landed in Greece to rearm the defeated Romania Serbia, and the newly formed Czechoslovak state. Despite general armistice agreement, the Balkanian French army organized new campaigns against Hungary with the help of Czechoslovak, Romanian and Serbian governments.
Former Prime Minister István Tisza
István Tisza
Count István Tisza de Borosjenő et Szeged was a Hungarian politician, prime minister, and member of Hungarian Academy of Sciences....
was murdered in Budapest by a gang of soldiers during Aster Revolution of October 1918. On 31 October 1918 the success of the Aster Revolution
Aster Revolution
The Aster Revolution or Chrysanthemum Revolution was a revolution in Hungary led by leftist liberal count Mihály Károlyi, who founded the Hungarian Democratic Republic....
in Budapest brought the leftist liberal count Mihály Károlyi
Mihály Károlyi
Count Mihály Ádám György Miklós Károlyi de Nagykároly was briefly Hungary's leader in 1918-19 during a short-lived democracy...
to power as Prime Minister. Károlyi was a devotee of Entente
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
from the beginning of the war. On 13 November 1918 Charles I. surrendered his powers as King of Hungary
King of Hungary
The King of Hungary was the head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 to 1918.The style of title "Apostolic King" was confirmed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758 and used afterwards by all the Kings of Hungary, so after this date the kings are referred to as "Apostolic King of...
; however, he did not abdicate, a technicality that made a return to the throne possible.
The First Republic was proclaimed on 16 November 1918 with Károlyi being named as president. Károlyi tried to build Hungary as the " Eastern Switzerland " and persuade nonhungarian minorities - Slovaks, Romanians, Ruthenians to stay loyal to the country, offering them autonomy. Howewer these efforts came too late. By a notion of Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
's pacifism, Károlyi ordered the full disarmament of Hungarian Army. Hungary remained without national defence in the darkest hour of its history.Surrounding countries started to arm. On 5 November 1918 Serbian Army with French involvement attacked Southern parts of the country, on 8 November Czechoslovak Army attacked Northern part of Hungary, on 2 December Romanian Army started to attack the eastern (Transylvanian) parts of Hungary. 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, giving more priority to ethnic claims ( Slovaks, Ruthenians, Romanians )than historical rights of the traditional Hungarian kingdom. French and Serbian forces occupied the southern parts of Hungary.
By February 1919 the government had lost all popular support, having failed on domestic and military fronts. On 21 March after the Entente military representative demanded more and more territorial concessions from Hungary ( Vix´s note ), Károlyi signed all concessions and resigned.
Hungarian Soviet Republic ("Republic of the Councils")
The Communist Party of Hungary, led by Béla KunBéla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
, allied itself with the Hungarian Social Democratic Party
Hungarian Social Democratic Party
The Hungarian Social Democratic Party is a political party in Hungary. Both the MSZDP and SZDP lay claim to the same heritage: the Social Democratic Party which was part of a governing coalition in Hungary between 1945 and 1948, and a short period in 1956, which itself was renamed from the...
came to power and proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic
Hungarian Soviet Republic
The Hungarian Soviet Republic or Soviet Republic of Hungary was a short-lived Communist state established in Hungary in the aftermath of World War I....
. Social Democrat Sándor Garbai
Sándor Garbai
Sándor Garbai was a Hungarian socialist politician. He came to power as prime minister in March 1919 in alliance with the Communists, and proclaimed a Soviet Republic...
was the official Head of government, but the Soviet Republic was de facto dominated by Béla Kun, who was in charge of foreign affairs.
The Communists – "The Reds" – came to power largely thanks to being the only group with an organized fighting force, and they promised that Hungary would defend its territory without conscription. (possibly with the help of the Soviet Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
).
Hence: the Red Army of Hungary was a little voluntary army (53,000 men). Most soldiers of the Red Army were armed factory workers from Budapest. Initially, Kun's regime achieved some military successes: the Hungarian Red Army, under the lead of the genius strategist, Colonel Aurél Stromfeld, ousted Czechoslovak troops from the north and planned to march against the Romanian army in the east. 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. The support of the Communists proved to be short-lived in Budapest. The Communists had never been popular in country towns and countryside. In the aftermath of a coup attempt, the government took a series of actions called the Red Terror
Red Terror (Hungary)
The Red Terror in Hungary was a series of atrocities aimed at crushing political rivals during the four-month regime of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. It was so named because of its similarity to the Red Terror in Soviet Russia in both purpose and effect...
, murdering several hundred people (mostly scientists and intellectuals). The Soviet Red Army was never able to aid the new Hungarian republic. Despite the great military successes against Czechoslovakian army, the Communist leaders gave back all recaptured lands. That attitude demoralized the voluntary army. The Hungarian Red Army was dissolved before it could successfully complete its campaigns. In the face of domestic backlash and an advancing Romanian force
Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919
The seeds of the Hungarian–Romanian war of 1919 were planted when the union of Transylvania with Romania was proclaimed, on December 1, 1918. In late March 1919, the Bolsheviks came to power in Hungary, at which point its army attempted to retake Transylvania, commencing the war. By its final...
, Béla Kun and most of his comrades fled to Austria, while Budapest was occupied on 6 August. Kun and his followers took along numerous art treasures and the gold stocks of the National Bank. 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 most members of Kun's government were Jewish, making it easy to blame the Jews for the government's mistakes).
Counterrevolution
The new fighting force in Hungary were the Conservative Royalists counter-revolutionariesCounterrevolutionary
A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part...
– the "Whites". These, who had been organizing in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and established a counter-government in Szeged
Szeged
' is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county town of Csongrád county. The University of Szeged is one of the most distinguished universities in Hungary....
, assumed power, led by István Bethlen
István Bethlen
Count István Bethlen de Bethlen was a Hungarian aristocrat and statesman and served as Prime Minister from 1921 to 1931....
, a Transylvanian aristocrat, and Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
, the former commander in chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The conservatives determined the Károlyi government and Communists as capital treason. Starting in Western Hungary and spreading throughout the country, a White Terror
White Terror (Hungary)
The White Terror in Hungary was a two-year period of repressive violence by counter-revolutionary soldiers, with the intent of crushing any vestige of Hungary’s brief Communist revolution. Many of its victims were Jewish.-Background:...
began by other half-regular and half-militarist detachments (as the police power crashed, there were no serious national regular forces and authorities), and 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 territorial losses of Hungary. The most notorious commander of the Whites was Pál Prónay
Pál Prónay
Pál Prónay de Tótpróna et Blatnicza was a Hungarian reactionary and paramilitary commander in the years following the First World War...
. The leaving Romanian army pillaged the country: livestock, machinery and agricultural products were carried to Romania in hundreds of freight cars. On 16 November with the consent of Romanian forces, Horthy's army marched into Budapest. His government gradually restored security, stopped terror, and set up authorities, but thousands of sympathizers of the Károlyi and Kun regimes were imprisoned. Radical political movements were suppressed. In March the parliament restored the Hungarian monarchy but postponed electing a king until civil disorder had subsided. Instead, Miklos Horthy was elected Regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
and was empowered, among other things, to appoint Hungary's Prime Minister, veto legislation, convene or dissolve the parliament, and command the armed forces.
Trianon Hungary and the Regency
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
on 4 June 1920 ratified the country's borders being redrawn. The territorial provisions of the treaty required Hungary to surrender more than two-thirds of its pre-war lands. However, nearly one-third of the 10 million ethnic Hungarians found themselves outside the diminished homeland.
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
Timber
Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...
and 16% iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
was retained. In addition, 61% of arable land
Arable land
In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...
, 74% of public road, 65% of canals, 62% of railroads, 64% of hard surface roads, 83% of pig iron
Pig iron
Pig iron is the intermediate product of smelting iron ore with a high-carbon fuel such as coke, usually with limestone as a flux. Charcoal and anthracite have also been used as fuel...
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.
Horthy appointed Count Pál Teleki
Pál Teleki
Pál Count Teleki de Szék was prime minister of Hungary from 19 July 1920 to 14 April 1921 and from 16 February 1939 to 3 April 1941. He was also a famous expert in geography, a university professor, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Chief Scout of the Hungarian Scout Association...
as Prime Minister in July 1920. His government issued a numerus clausus
Numerus clausus
Numerus clausus is one of many methods used to limit the number of students who may study at a university. In many cases, the goal of the numerus clausus is simply to limit the number of students to the maximum feasible in some particularly sought-after areas of studies.However, in some cases,...
law, limiting admission of "political insecure elements" (these were often Jews) to universities and, in order to quiet rural discontent, took initial steps towards fulfilling a promise of major land reform by dividing about 3,850 km2 from the largest estates into smallholdings. Teleki's government resigned, however, after, Charles IV, unsuccessfully attempted to retake Hungary's throne in March 1921. King Charles's return produced split parties between conservatives who favored a Habsburg restoration and nationalist right-wing radicals who supported election of a Hungarian king. Count István Bethlen, a non-affiliated right-wing member of the parliament, took advantage of this rift forming a new Party of Unity under his leadership. Horthy then appointed Bethlen Prime Minister. Charles IV died soon after he failed a second time to reclaim the throne in October 1921. (For more detail on Charles's attempts to retake the throne, see Charles IV of Hungary's conflict with Miklós Horthy.)
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
in 1922 and out of international isolation by signing a treaty of friendship with Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
in 1927. The revision of the Treaty of Trianon rose to the top of Hungary's political agenda and the strategy employed by Bethlen consisted of 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
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
induced a drop in the standard of living and the political mood of the country shifted further towards the right. In 1932 Horthy appointed a new Prime Minister, Gyula Gömbös
Gyula Gömbös
Gyula Gömbös de Jákfa was the conservative prime minister of Hungary from 1932 to 1936.-Background:Gömbös was born in the Tolna County village of Murga, Hungary, which had a mixed Hungarian and ethnic German population. His father was the village schoolmaster. The family belonged to the ...
, that changed the course of Hungarian policy towards closer cooperation with Germany and started an effort to magyarize the few remaining ethnic minorities in Hungary. Gömbös signed a trade agreement with Germany that drew Hungary's economy out of depression but made Hungary dependent on the German economy for both raw materials and markets.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
appealed to Hungarian desires for territorial revisionism, while extreme right wing organizations, like the Arrow Cross party, increasingly embraced extreme Nazi policies, including those relating to the suppression and victimization of Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
. The government passed the First Jewish Law in 1938. The law established a quota system to limit Jewish involvement in the Hungarian economy.
Imrédy's attempts to improve Hungary's diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
initially made him very unpopular with Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. In light of Germany's Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
of Austria in March, he realized that he could not afford to alienate Germany and Italy for long. In the autumn of 1938 his foreign policy became very much pro-German and pro-Italian. Intent on amassing a base of power in Hungarian right wing politics, Imrédy began to suppress political rivals, so the increasingly influential Arrow Cross Party was harassed, and eventually banned by Imrédy's administration. As Imrédy drifted further to the right, he proposed that the government be reorganized along totalitarian lines and drafted a harsher Second Jewish Law. Parliament, under the new government of Pál Teleki
Pál Teleki
Pál Count Teleki de Szék was prime minister of Hungary from 19 July 1920 to 14 April 1921 and from 16 February 1939 to 3 April 1941. He was also a famous expert in geography, a university professor, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Chief Scout of the Hungarian Scout Association...
, approved the Second Jewish Law in 1939, which greatly restricted Jewish involvement in the economy, culture and society and, significantly, defined Jews by race instead of religion. This definition significantly and negatively altered the status of those who had formerly converted from Judaism to Christianity.
World War II
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
, and the two Vienna Awards
Vienna Awards
The Vienna Awards are two arbitral awards by which arbiters of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sought to enforce peacefully the claims of Hungary on territory it had lost in 1920 when it signed the Treaty of Trianon...
returned parts of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
to Hungary.
On 20 November 1940 under pressure from Germany, Pál Teleki
Pál Teleki
Pál Count Teleki de Szék was prime minister of Hungary from 19 July 1920 to 14 April 1921 and from 16 February 1939 to 3 April 1941. He was also a famous expert in geography, a university professor, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Chief Scout of the Hungarian Scout Association...
affiliated Hungary with the Tripartite Pact
Tripartite Pact
The Tripartite Pact, also the Three-Power Pact, Axis Pact, Three-way Pact or Tripartite Treaty was a pact signed in Berlin, Germany on September 27, 1940, which established the Axis Powers of World War II...
. In December 1940, he also signed an ephemeral "Treaty of Eternal Friendship" with Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
. A few months later, after a Yugoslavian coup threatened the success of the planned German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
), Hitler asked the Hungarians to support his invasion of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
. He promised to return some former Hungarian territories lost after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in exchange for cooperation. Unable to prevent Hungary's participation in the war alongside Germany, Teleki committed suicide. The right-wing radical László Bárdossy
László Bárdossy
Dr. László Bárdossy de Bárdos was a Hungarian diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1941 to 1942.-Biography:...
succeeded him as Prime Minister. Eventually Hungary annexed small parts of present day Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia.
After war broke out on the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
many Hungarian officials argued for participation in the war so as not to encourage Hitler into favoring Romania in the event of border revisions in Transylvania. Hungary entered the war and on 1 July 1941 at the direction of the Germans, the Hungarian Karpat Group
Gyorshadtest
The Gyorshadtest was the most modern and best-equipped mechanized unit of the Royal Hungarian Army at the beginning of World War II. However, the "Rapid Corps" name was something of a misnomer as it was only "mechanized" compared to other Hungarian units...
advanced far into southern Russia. At the Battle of Uman
Battle of Uman
The Battle of Uman was the German and allied encirclement of the 6th and 12th The Battle of Uman (15 July–8 August 1941) was the German and allied encirclement of the 6th (General Lieutenant I.N. Muzyrchenko) and 12th The Battle of Uman (15 July–8 August 1941) was the German and allied...
the Gyorshadtest
Gyorshadtest
The Gyorshadtest was the most modern and best-equipped mechanized unit of the Royal Hungarian Army at the beginning of World War II. However, the "Rapid Corps" name was something of a misnomer as it was only "mechanized" compared to other Hungarian units...
participated in the encirclement of the 6th Soviet Army and the 12th Soviet Army. Twenty Soviet divisions were captured or destroyed.
Worried about Hungary's increasing reliance on Germany, Admiral Horthy forced Bárdossy
László Bárdossy
Dr. László Bárdossy de Bárdos was a Hungarian diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1941 to 1942.-Biography:...
to resign and replaced him with Miklós Kállay
Miklós Kállay
Dr. Miklós Kállay de Nagykálló was a Hungarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary during World War II, from 9 March 1942 to 19 March 1944....
, a veteran conservative of Bethlen's government. Kállay continued Bárdossy's policy of supporting Germany against the Red Army, while he also surreptitiously entered into negotiations with the Western Powers.
During the Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
, the Hungarian Second Army
Hungarian Second Army
The Hungarian Second Army was one of three field armies raised by the Kingdom of Hungary which saw action during World War II. All three armies were formed on March 1, 1940...
suffered terrible losses. Shortly after the fall of Stalingrad in January 1943, the Hungarian Second Army effectively ceased to exist as a functioning military unit.
Secret negotiations with the British and Americans continued. Aware of Kállay's deceit and fearing that Hungary might conclude a separate peace, Hitler ordered Nazi troops to launch Operation Margarethe
Operation Margarethe
During World War II, the Germans planned two discrete operations using the codename Margarethe.Operation Margarethe I was the occupation of Hungary by German forces on 19 March 1944. The Hungarian government was an ally of Nazi Germany, but had been discussing an armistice with the Allies...
and occupy Hungary in March 1944. Döme Sztójay
Döme Sztójay
Döme Sztójay born Demeter Sztojakovich was a Hungarian soldier and diplomat of Serb origin, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary during World War II.- Biography :...
, an avid supporter of the Nazis, become the new Prime Minister with the aid of a Nazi military governor, Edmund Veesenmayer
Edmund Veesenmayer
Edmund Veesenmayer was a German politician, officer and war criminal. He significantly contributed to The Holocaust in Hungary and Croatia...
.
The infamous SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
went to Hungary to oversee the large-scale deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland. Between 15 May and 9 July 1944 the Hungarians deported 437,402 Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
.
In August 1944 Horthy replaced Sztójay with the anti-Fascist General Géza Lakatos
Géza Lakatos
Knight Géza Lakatos de Csíkszentsimon was a general in Hungary during World War II who served briefly as Prime Minister of Hungary, under governor Miklós Horthy from August 29, 1944, until October 15,...
. Under the Lakatos regime, the acting Interior Minister Béla Horváth ordered Hungarian gendarmes to prevent any Hungarian citizens from being deported.
In September 1944, Soviet forces crossed the Hungarian border. On 15 October 1944, Horthy announced that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. The Hungarian army ignored the armistice. The Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust
Operation Panzerfaust
Operation Panzerfaust, known as Unternehmen Eisenfaust in Germany, was a military operation to keep the Kingdom of Hungary at Germany's side in the war, conducted in October 1944 by the German military...
and, by kidnapping his son (Miklós Horthy, Jr.
Miklós Horthy, Jr.
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya II was the younger son of Hungarian regent Admiral Miklós Horthy and, until the end of World War II, a politician.-Biography:...
), forced Horthy to abrogate the armistice, depose the Lakatos government, and name the leader of the Arrow Cross Party
Arrow Cross Party
The Arrow Cross Party was a national socialist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which led in Hungary a government known as the Government of National Unity from October 15, 1944 to 28 March 1945...
, Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi was the leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, the "Leader of the Nation" , being both Head of State and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary's "Government of National Unity" for the final three months of Hungary's participation in World War II...
, as Prime Minister. Szálasi became Prime Minister of a new fascist Government of National Unity and Horthy abdicated.
In cooperation with the Nazis, Szálasi restarted the deportations of Jews, particularly in Budapest. Thousands more Jews were killed by Hungarian Arrow Cross members. The retreating German army demolished the rail, road, and communications systems.
On 28 December 1944 a provisional government was formed in Hungary under acting Prime Minister Béla Miklós
Béla Miklós
Knight Béla Miklós de Dálnok was a Hungarian military officer and politician who served as acting Prime Minister of Hungary, at first in opposition, and then officially, from 1944 to 1945.-Early career:...
. Miklós and Szálasi's rival governments each claimed legitimacy: the Germans and pro-German Hungarians loyal to Szálasi fought on, as the territory effectively controlled by the Arrow Cross regime shrunk gradually. The Red Army completed the encirclement of Budapest on 29 December 1944 and the Battle of Budapest
Battle of Budapest
The Siege of Budapest centered on the Hungarian capital city of Budapest. It was fought towards the end of World War II in Europe, during the Soviet Budapest Offensive. The siege started when Budapest, defended by Hungarian and German troops, was first encircled on 29 December 1944 by the Red Army...
began and continued into February 1945. Most of what remained of the Hungarian First Army
Hungarian First Army
The Hungarian First Army was a Hungarian field army which saw action during World War II.-Commanders:* Lieutenant-General Vilmos Nagy - March 1, 1940 – February 1, 1941* Lieutenant-General István Schweitzer - February 1, 1941 – August 1, 1942...
was destroyed about 200 miles north of Budapest between 1 January and 16 February 1945. Budapest unconditionally surrendered to the Soviet Red Army on 13 February 1945.
On 20 January 1945, representatives of the Hungarian provisional government signed an armistice in Moscow. Szálasi's government had fled the country by the end of March. Officially, Soviet operations in Hungary ended on 4 April 1945 when the last German troops were expelled. On 7 May 1945 General Alfred Jodl
Alfred Jodl
Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl was a German military commander, attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel...
, the German Chief of Staff, signed the unconditional surrender of all German forces.
Hungary's World War II casualties
World War II casualties
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. Over 60 million people were killed, which was over 2.5% of the world population. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses.-Total dead:...
: Tamás Stark of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has provided the following assessment of losses from 1941–1945 in Hungary. Military losses were 300,000-310,000 including 110-120,000 killed in battle and 200,000 missing in action
Missing in action
Missing in action is a casualty Category assigned under the Status of Missing to armed services personnel who are reported missing during active service. They may have been killed, wounded, become a prisoner of war, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave can be positively...
and POW in the Soviet Union. Hungarian military losses include 110,000 men who were conscripted from the annexed territories of Greater Hungary in Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, Romania and Yugoslavia and the deaths of 20-25,000 Jews conscripted for Army labor units. Civilian losses of about 80,000 include 45,500 killed in the 1944–1945 military campaign and in air attacks, and the genocide of Romani people of 28,000 persons. Jewish Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
victims totaled 600,000 (300,000 in the territories annexed in 1938,1939,1940 and 1941, 200,000 in the pre-1938 countryside and 100,000 in Budapest). See World War II casualties
World War II casualties
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. Over 60 million people were killed, which was over 2.5% of the world population. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses.-Total dead:...
.
Transition to Communism (1944–1949)
The Soviet Army occupied Hungary from September 1944 until April 1945. The siege of BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
lasted almost 2 months, from December 1944 to February 1945 (the longest successful siege of any city in the entire war, including Berlin) and the city suffered widespread destruction, including all the Danube bridges which were blown up by the Germans in an effort to slow the Soviet advance.
By signing the Peace Treaty of Paris
Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...
, Hungary again lost all the territories that it had gained between 1938 and 1941. Neither the Western Allies nor the Soviet Union supported any change in Hungary's pre-1938 borders, which was the primary motive behind the Hungarian involvement in the war. The Soviet Union itself annexed Sub-Carpathia (before 1938 the eastern edge of Czechoslovakia), which is today part of Ukraine.
The Treaty of Peace with Hungary signed on 10 February 1947 declared that: "The decisions of the Vienna Award of November 2, 1938, are declared null and void" and Hungarian boundaries were fixed along the former frontiers as they existed on 1 January 1938 except a minor loss of territory on the Czechoslovakian border. Many of the Communist leaders of 1919 returned from Moscow. The first major violation of civil rights was suffered by the ethnic German minority, half of which (240,000 people) were deported to Germany in 1946–1948, although the great majority of them did not support Germany and were not members of any pro-Nazi movement. There was a forced "exchange of population" between Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which involved about 70,000 Hungarians living in Slovakia and somewhat smaller numbers of ethnic Slovaks living in the territory of Hungary. Unlike the Germans, these people were allowed to carry some of their property with them.
The Soviets originally planned for a piecemeal introduction of the Communist regime in Hungary, therefore when they set up a provisional government in Debrecen on 21 December 1944, they were careful to include representatives of several moderate parties. Following the demands of the Western Allies for a democratic election, the Soviets authorized the only essentially free election in eastern Europe in November 1945 in Hungary. This was also the first election held in Hungary on the basis of universal franchise. People voted for party lists, not for individual candidates. At the elections the Independent Smallholders' Party, a center-right peasant party, won 57% of the vote. Despite the hopes of the Communists and the Soviets that the distribution of the aristocratic estates among the poor peasants would increase their popularity, the Hungarian Communist Party
Hungarian Communist Party
The Communist Party of Hungary , renamed Hungarian Communist Party in 1945, was founded on November 24, 1918, and was in power in Hungary briefly from March to August 1919 under Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The communist government was overthrown by the Romanian Army and driven...
received only 17% of the votes. The Soviet commander in Hungary, Marshal Voroshilov
Kliment Voroshilov
Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov , popularly known as Klim Voroshilov was a Soviet military officer, politician, and statesman...
, refused to allow the Smallholders' Party to form a government on their own. Under Voroshilov's pressure, the Smallholders organized a coalition government including the Communists, the Social Democrats and the National Peasant Party (a left-wing peasant party), in which the Communists held some of the key posts. On 1 February 1946 Hungary was declared a Republic, and the leader of the Smallholders, Zoltán Tildy
Zoltán Tildy
Zoltán Tildy , was an influential leader of Hungary, who served as Prime Minister from 1945–1946 and President from 1946-1948 in the post-war period before the seizure of power by Soviet-backed communists....
, became President handing over the office of Prime Minister to Ferenc Nagy
Ferenc Nagy
Ferenc Nagy was a Hungarian politician of the Smallholders Party. He was a Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary from 29 November 1945 to 5 February 1946 and a member of the High National Council from 7 December 1945 to 2 February 1946.Later he served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 4...
. Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
, leader of the Communist Party, became deputy Prime Minister.
Another leading Communist, László Rajk
László Rajk
László Rajk was a Hungarian Communist; politician, former Minister of Interior and former Minister of Foreign Affairs...
became minister of the interior responsible for controlling law enforcement, and in this position established the security police (ÁVH). The Communists exercised constant pressure on the Smallholders both inside and outside the government, nationalizing industrial companies, banning religious civil organizations and occupying key positions in local public administration. In February 1947 the police began arresting leaders of the Smallholders Party, charging them with "conspiracy against the Republic". Several prominent figures decided to emigrate or were forced to escape abroad, including Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy
Ferenc Nagy
Ferenc Nagy was a Hungarian politician of the Smallholders Party. He was a Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary from 29 November 1945 to 5 February 1946 and a member of the High National Council from 7 December 1945 to 2 February 1946.Later he served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 4...
in May 1947. Later Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
boasted that he had dealt with his partners in the government, one by one, "cutting them off like slices of salami."
At the next parliamentary election in August 1947 the Communists committed widespread election fraud with absentee ballots (the so-called "blue slips"), but even so, they only managed to increase their share from 17% to 24% in Parliament. The Social Democrats (by this time a servile ally of the Communists) received 15% in contrast to their 17% in 1945. The Smallholders' Party lost much of its popularity and ended up with 15%, but their former voters turned towards three new center-right parties which seemed more determined to resist the Communist onslaught: their combined share of the total votes was 35%.
Faced with their second failure at the polls, the Communists changed tactics, and, under new orders from Moscow, decided to eschew democratic facades and speed up the Communist takeover. In June 1948 the Social Democratic Party was forced to "merge" with the Communist Party, creating the Hungarian Working People's Party, which was dominated by the Communists. Anti-Communist leaders of the Social Democrats, such as Károly Peyer
Károly Peyer
Károly Peyer was a Hungarian politician who served as Interior Minister for six days during the end of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He was later Minister of Works in the cabinets of István Friedrich and Károly Huszár...
or Anna Kéthly
Anna Kéthly
Anna Kéthly , was a Hungarian Social Democrat politician. She was one of nine children born into a poor family in Budapest, Hungary. At the age of fifteen she started working in a garment factory but soon found more appealing work in the editorial office of a women's magazine and this gave her...
, were forced into exile or excluded from the party. Soon after, President Zoltán Tildy was also removed from his position, and replaced by a fully cooperative Social Democrat, Árpád Szakasits. Ultimately, all "democratic" parties were organized into a so-called People's Front in February 1949, thereby losing even the vestiges of their autonomy. The leader of the People's Front was Rákosi himself. Opposition parties were simply declared illegal and their leaders arrested or forced into exile.
On 18 August 1949 the parliament passed the new constitution of Hungary (1949/XX.) modeled after the 1936 constitution of the Soviet Union. The name of the country changed to the People's Republic of Hungary, "the country of the workers and peasants" where "every authority is held by the working people". Socialism was declared as the main goal of the nation. A new coat-of-arms was adopted with Communist symbols, such the red star, hammer and sickle.
Stalinist era (1949–1956)
Mátyás Rákosi, who as a chief secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party was de facto the leader of Hungary, possessed practically unlimited power and demanded complete obedience from fellow members of the Party, including his two most trusted colleagues, Ernő GerőErno Gero
Ernő Gerő was a Hungarian Communist Party leader in the period after World War II and briefly in 1956 the most powerful man in Hungary as first secretary of its ruling communist party.-Life and career:...
and Mihály Farkas
Mihály Farkas
Mihály Farkas was a Hungarian Communist politician.From the 1930s he had been a Communist. He lived in Košice and Prague then. He fought in the Spanish Civil War; later he moved to the Soviet Union...
. All three of them returned to Hungary from Moscow, where they spent long years and had close ties to high-ranking Soviet leaders there. Their main rivals in the party were the 'Hungarian' Communists who led the illegal party during the war in Hungary, and were considerably more popular within party ranks. Their most influential leader, László Rajk, who was minister of foreign affairs at the time, was arrested in May 1949. He was accused of rather surreal crimes, such as spying for Western imperialist powers and for Yugoslavia (which was also a Communist country but in very bad relations with the Soviet Union at the time). At his trial in September 1949 he made a forced confession to be an agent of Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
, Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
and Western imperialism. He also admitted that he had taken part in a murder plot against Mátyás Rákosi and Ernő Gerő. Rajk was found guilty and executed. In the next three years, other leaders of the party deemed untrustworthy, like former Social Democrats or other Hungarian illegal Communists such as János Kádár
János Kádár
János Kádár was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his forced retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary makes Kádár the longest ruler of the People's Republic of Hungary...
, were also arrested and imprisoned on trumped-up charges.
The showcase trial of Rajk is considered the beginning of the worst period of the Rákosi dictatorship. Mátyás Rákosi now attempted to impose totalitarian rule on Hungary. The centrally orchestrated personality cult focused on him and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
soon reached unprecedented proportions. Rákosi's images and busts were everywhere, all public speakers were required to glorify his wisdom and leadership. In the meantime, the secret police, led through Gábor Péter
Gábor Péter
Gábor Péter was a Hungarian Communist politician, of Jewish origin. Between 1945 and 1952 he was the absolute leader of the State Protection Authority which responsible for many cruelty, brutality and political purges.During his early years he worked as a tailor...
by Rákosi himself, mercilessly persecuted all 'class enemies' and 'enemies of the people'. An estimated 2,000 people were executed and over 100,000 were imprisoned. Some 44,000 ended up in forced-labor camps, where many died due to horrible work conditions, poor food and practically no medical care. Another 15,000 people, mostly former aristocrats, industrialists, military generals and other upper-class people were deported from the capital and other cities to countryside villages where they were forced to do hard agricultural labor. These policies were opposed by some members of the Hungarian Working People's Party and around 200,000 were expelled by Rákosi from the organization.
By 1950, the state controlled most of the economy, as all large and mid-sized industrial companies, plants, mines, banks of all kind as well as all companies of retail and foreign trade were nationalized without any compensation. Slavishly following Soviet economic policies, Rákosi declared that Hungary would become a "country of iron and steel", even though Hungary lacked iron ore completely. The forced development of heavy industry served military purposes; it was meant to be preparation for the impending World War III against Western imperialism. A disproportionate amount of the country's resources were spent on building whole industrial cities and plants from scratch, while much of the country was still in ruins since the war. Traditional strengths of Hungary, such as the agricultural and textile industries were neglected.
Large agricultural latifundia
Latifundia
Latifundia are pieces of property covering very large land areas. The latifundia of Roman history were great landed estates, specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil, or wine...
were divided and distributed among poor peasants already in 1945. In agriculture, the government tried to force independent peasants to enter co-operatives in which they would become merely paid laborers, but many of them stubbornly resisted. The government retaliated with ever higher requirements of compulsory food quotas imposed on peasants' produce. Rich peasants, called 'kulaks' in Russians, were declared 'class enemies' and suffered all sorts of discrimination, including imprisonment and loss of property. With them, some of the most able farmers were removed from production. The declining agricultural output led to a constant scarcity of food, especially meat.
Rákosi rapidly expanded the education system in Hungary. This was an attempt to replace the educated class of the past by what Rákosi called a new "working intelligentsia". In addition to effects such as better education for the poor, more opportunities for working class children and increased literacy in general, this measure also included the dissemination of Communist ideology in schools and universities. Also, as part of an effort to separate the Church from the State
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
, practically all religious schools were taken into state ownership, and religious instruction was denounced as retrograde propaganda and was gradually eliminated from schools.
The Hungarian churches were systematically intimidated. Cardinal József Mindszenty, who had bravely opposed the German Nazis and the Hungarian Fascists during the Second World War, was arrested in December 1948 and accused of treason. After five weeks under arrest (which included torture), he confessed to the charges against him and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Protestant churches were also purged and their leaders were replaced by those willing to remain loyal to Rákosi's government.
The new Hungarian military hastily staged public, pre-arranged trials to purge "Nazi remnants and imperialist saboteurs". Several officers were sentenced to death and executed in 1951, including Lajos Toth, a 28 victory-scoring fighter ace
Fighter Ace
Fighter Ace was a massively multiplayer online computer game in which one flies World War II fighter and bomber planes in combat against other players and virtual pilots...
of World War II Royal Hungarian Air Force, who had voluntarily returned from US captivity to help revive Hungarian aviation. The victims were cleared posthumously following the fall of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
.
Preparations for a show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
started in Budapest in 1953 to prove that Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for his successful efforts to rescue thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary from the Holocaust, during the later stages of World War II...
had not been dragged off in 1945 to the Soviet Union but was the victim of cosmopolitan Zionists
Rootless cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan was a Soviet euphemism widely used during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1948–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot...
. For the purposes of this show trial, three Jewish leaders as well as two would-be "eyewitnesses" were arrested and interrogated by torture. The show trial was initiated in Moscow, following Stalin's anti-Zionist campaign. After the death of Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
, the preparations for the trial were stopped and the arrested persons were released.
Rákosi had great difficulties managing the economy and the people of Hungary saw living standards fall. Although his government became increasingly unpopular, he had a firm grip on power until Stalin died on 5 March 1953 when a confused power struggle began in Moscow. Some of the Soviet leaders perceived the unpopularity of the Hungarian regime and ordered Rákosi to give up his position as Prime Minister in favor of another former Communist-in-exile in Moscow, Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions...
, who was Rákosi's chief opponent in the party. Rákosi, however, retained his position as general secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party and over the next three years the two men became involved in a bitter struggle for power.
As Hungary's new Prime Minister, Imre Nagy slightly relaxed state control over the economy and the mass media and encouraged public discussion on political and economic reform. In order to improve the general supply, he increase the production and distribution of consumer goods and reduced the tax and quota burdens of the peasants. Nagy also closed forced-labor camps, released most of the political prisoners - the Communists were allowed back into Party ranks -, and reined in the secret police, whose hated head, Gábor Péter
Gábor Péter
Gábor Péter was a Hungarian Communist politician, of Jewish origin. Between 1945 and 1952 he was the absolute leader of the State Protection Authority which responsible for many cruelty, brutality and political purges.During his early years he worked as a tailor...
, was convicted and imprisoned in 1954. All these rather moderate reforms earned him widespread popularity in the country, especially among the peasantry and the left-wing intellectuals.
Following a turn in Moscow, where Malenkov, Nagy's primary patron lost the power struggle against Khrushchev, Mátyás Rákosi started a counterattack on Nagy. On March 9, 1955, the Central Committee of the Hungarian Working People's Party condemned Nagy for "rightist deviation". Hungarian newspapers joined the attacks and Nagy was accused of being responsible for the country's economic problems and on 18 April he was dismissed from his post by a unanimous vote of the National Assembly. Soon after, Nagy was even excluded from the Party and temporarily retired from politics. Rákosi once again became the unchallenged leader of Hungary.
Rákosi's second reign, however, did not last long. His power was undermined by a speech made by Nikita Khrushchev in February 1956, in which he denounced the policies of Joseph Stalin and his followers in eastern Europe, especially the attacks on Yugoslavia and the cult of personality. On 18 July 1956 visiting Soviet leaders removed Rákosi from all his positions and he boarded a plane bound for the Soviet Union, never to return to Hungary. But the Soviets made a major mistake by the appointment of his close friend and ally, Ernő Gerő, as his successor, who was equally unpopular and shared responsibility for most of Rákosi's crimes.
The fall of Rákosi was followed by a flurry of reform agitation both inside and outside the Party. László Rajk
László Rajk
László Rajk was a Hungarian Communist; politician, former Minister of Interior and former Minister of Foreign Affairs...
and his fellow victims of the showcase trial of 1949 were cleared of all charges, and on 6 October 1956, the Party authorized a reburial, which was attended by tens of thousands of people and became a silent demonstration against the crimes of the regime. On 13 October it was announced that Imre Nagy had been reinstated as a member of the party.
1956 Revolution
On 23 October 1956 a peaceful student demonstration in Budapest produced a list of 16 demandsDemands of Hungarian Revolutionaries of 1956
On October 23, 1956, a group of Hungarian students compiled a list of sixteen points containing key national policy demands. Following an anti-Soviet protest march through the Hungarian capital of Budapest, the students attempted to enter the city's main broadcasting station to read their demands...
for reform and greater political freedom. As the students attempted to broadcast these demands, police
State Protection Authority
The State Protection Authority was the secret police force of Hungary from 1945 until 1956. It was conceived of as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's secret police forces, but attained an indigenous reputation for brutality during a series of purges beginning in 1948, intensifying in 1949...
made some arrests and tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas. When the students attempted to free those arrested, the police opened fire on the crowd, setting off a chain of events which led to the Hungarian Revolution.
That night, commissioned officers and soldiers joined the students on the streets of Budapest. Stalin's statue was brought down and the protesters chanted "Russians go home", "Away with Gerő" and "Long Live Nagy". The Central Committee of the Hungarian Working People's Party responded to these developments by requesting Soviet military intervention and deciding that Imre Nagy should become head of a new government. Soviet tanks entered Budapest at 2 a.m. on 24 October.
On 25 October Soviet tanks opened fire on protesters in Parliament Square. One journalist at the scene saw 12 dead bodies and estimated that 170 had been wounded. Shocked by these events the Central Committee of the Hungarian Working People's Party forced Ernő Gerő to resign from office and replaced him with János Kádár
János Kádár
János Kádár was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his forced retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary makes Kádár the longest ruler of the People's Republic of Hungary...
.
Imre Nagy now went on Radio Kossuth and announced he had taken over the leadership of the Government as Chairman of the Council of Ministers." He also promised "the far-reaching democratization of Hungarian public life, the realization of a Hungarian road to socialism in accord with our own national characteristics, and the realization of our lofty national aim: the radical improvement of the workers' living conditions."
On 28 October Nagy and a group of his supporters, including János Kádár, Géza Losonczy, Antal Apró, Károly Kiss, Ferenc Münnich and Zoltán Szabó, managed to take control of the Hungarian Working People's Party. At the same time revolutionary workers' councils and local national committees were formed all over Hungary.
The change of leadership in the party was reflected in the articles of the government newspaper, Szabad Nép (i.e. Free People). On 29 October the newspaper welcomed the new government and openly criticized Soviet attempts to influence the political situation in Hungary. This view was supported by Radio Miskolc that called for the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country.
On 30 October Imre Nagy announced that he was freeing Cardinal József Mindszenty and other political prisoners. He also informed the people that his government intends to abolish the one-party state. This was followed by statements of Zoltán Tildy, Anna Kéthly and Ferenc Farkas concerning the restitution of the Smallholders Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Petőfi (former Peasants) Party.
Nagy's most controversial decision took place on 1 November when he announced that Hungary intended to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact as well as proclaiming Hungarian neutrality he asked the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
to become involved in the country's dispute with the Soviet Union.
On 3 November Nagy announced details of his coalition government. It included Communists (János Kádár, Georg Lukács
Georg Lukács
György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism. He contributed the concept of reification to Marxist philosophy and theory and expanded Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. Lukács' was also an influential literary...
, Géza Losonczy), three members of the Smallholders Party (Zoltán Tildy, Béla Kovács and István Szabó), three Social Democrats (Anna Kéthly, Gyula Keleman, Joseph Fischer), and two Petőfi Peasants (István Bibó and Ferenc Farkas). Pál Maléter
Pál Maléter
Pál Maléter was born to Hungarian parents in Eperjes, a city in the northern part of Historical Hungary, today part of Slovakia. He was the military leader of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution....
was appointed minister of defence.
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
, the leader of the Soviet Union, became increasingly concerned about these developments and on 4 November 1956 he sent the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
into Hungary. Soviet tanks immediately captured Hungary's airfields, highway junctions and bridges. Fighting took place all over the country but the Hungarian forces were quickly defeated.
During the Hungarian Uprising an estimated 20,000 people were killed, nearly all during the Soviet intervention. Imre Nagy was arrested and replaced by the Soviet loyalist, János Kádár. Nagy was imprisoned until being executed in 1958. Other government ministers or supporters who were either executed or died in captivity included Pál Maléter
Pál Maléter
Pál Maléter was born to Hungarian parents in Eperjes, a city in the northern part of Historical Hungary, today part of Slovakia. He was the military leader of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution....
, Géza Losonczy, Attila Szigethy and Miklós Gimes.
Post Revolution (or Kádár) era 1956–1989
Once he was in power, János KádárJános Kádár
János Kádár was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his forced retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary makes Kádár the longest ruler of the People's Republic of Hungary...
led an attack against revolutionaries. 21,600 mavericks (democrats, liberals, reformist Communists alike) were imprisoned, 13,000 interned, and 400 killed. But in the early 1960s, Kádár announced a new policy under the motto of "He who is not against us is with us." (this was a modification of Rákosi's statement 'He who is not with us is against us'). He declared a general amnesty, gradually curbed some of the excesses of the secret police, and introduced a relatively liberal cultural and economic course aimed at overcoming the post-1956 hostility towards him and his regime. In 1966, the Central Committee approved the "New Economic Mechanism," through which it sought to rebuild the economy, increase productivity, make Hungary more competitive in world markets, and create prosperity to ensure political stability. Over the next two decades of relative domestic quiet, Kádár's government responded alternately to pressures for minor political and economic reforms as well as to counter-pressures from reform opponents. By the early 1980s, it had achieved some lasting economic reforms and limited political liberalization and pursued a foreign policy which encouraged more trade with the West. Nevertheless, the New Economic Mechanism led to mounting foreign debt, incurred to shore up unprofitable industries.
Hungary's transition to a Western-style democracy was one of the smoothest among the former Soviet bloc. By late 1988, activists within the party and bureaucracy and Budapest-based intellectuals were increasing pressure for change. Some of these became reform socialists, while others began movements which were to develop into parties. Young liberals formed the Federation of Young Democrats (Fidesz); a core from the so-called Democratic Opposition formed the Alliance of Free Democrats
Alliance of Free Democrats
The Alliance of Free Democrats – Hungarian Liberal Party is a liberal party in Hungary, led since July 2010 by Viktor Szabadai . The SZDSZ is a member of the ELDR and of Liberal International...
(SZDSZ), and the national opposition established the Hungarian Democratic Forum
Hungarian Democratic Forum
The Hungarian Democratic Forum , abbreviated to MDF, was a centre-right political party in Hungary. It had a liberal conservative and Christian democratic ideology...
(MDF). Civic activism intensified to a level not seen since the 1956 revolution.
In 1988, Kádár was replaced as General Secretary of the Communist Party, and reform Communist leader Imre Pozsgay
Imre Pozsgay
Imre Pozsgay is a Hungarian, ex-Communist, politician who played a key role in Hungary's transition to democracy after 1988. He is currently an advisor to prime minister Viktor Orbán....
was admitted to the Politburo. In 1989, the Parliament adopted a "democracy package," which included trade-union pluralism; freedom of association, assembly, and the press; a new electoral law; and in October 1989 a radical revision of the constitution, among others. Since then, Hungary has tried to reform its economy and increase its connections with western Europe, hoping to become a member of the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
as soon as possible. A Central Committee plenum in February 1989 endorsed in principle the multiparty political system and the characterisation of the October 1956 revolution as a "popular uprising," in the words of Pozsgay, whose reform movement had been gathering strength as Communist Party membership declined dramatically. Kádár's major political rivals then cooperated to move the country gradually to democracy. The Soviet Union reduced its involvement by signing an agreement in April 1989 to withdraw Soviet forces by June 1991.
National unity culminated in June 1989 as the country reburied Imre Nagy, his associates, and, symbolically, all other victims of the 1956 revolution. A national round table
Hungarian Round Table Talks
The Hungarian Round Table Talks were a series of formalized, orderly and highly legalistic discussions held in Budapest, Hungary in the summer and autumn of 1989, inspired by the Polish model, that ended in the creation of a multi-party constitutional democracy and saw the Communist Party lose...
, comprising representatives of the new parties and some recreated old parties—such as the Smallholders and Social Democrats—the Communist Party, and different social groups, met in the late summer of 1989 to discuss major changes to the Hungarian constitution in preparation for free elections and the transition to a fully free and democratic political system.
In October 1989, the Communist Party convened its last congress and re-established itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP). In a historic session on 16–20 October 1989, the Parliament adopted legislation providing for multiparty parliamentary elections and a direct presidential election. The legislation transformed Hungary from a People's Republic into the Republic of Hungary, guaranteed human and civil rights, and created an institutional structure that ensures separation of powers among the judicial, executive, and legislative branches of government. On the day of the 1956 Revolution, 23 October, the Hungarian Republic was officially declared (by the provisional President of the Republic Mátyás Szűrös
Mátyás Szurös
Mátyás Szűrös is a Hungarian politician. He served as provisional President of the Republic from October 18, 1989–May 2, 1990. His presidency occurred during Hungary's transition from communist to democratic government...
), replacing the Hungarian People's Republic. The revised constitution also championed the "values of bourgeois democracy and democratic socialism" and gave equal status to public and private property.
Third Republic (1989-present)
Hungarian Democratic Forum
The Hungarian Democratic Forum , abbreviated to MDF, was a centre-right political party in Hungary. It had a liberal conservative and Christian democratic ideology...
(MDF) winning 43% of the vote and the Alliance of Free Democrats
Alliance of Free Democrats
The Alliance of Free Democrats – Hungarian Liberal Party is a liberal party in Hungary, led since July 2010 by Viktor Szabadai . The SZDSZ is a member of the ELDR and of Liberal International...
(SZDSZ) capturing 24%. Under Prime Minister József Antall
József Antall
József Antall was the first democratically-elected Prime Minister of Hungary after the fall of Communism , teacher, librarian, historian and political figure...
, the MDF formed a center-right coalition government with the Independent Smallholders' Party
Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party
The Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party is a political party in Hungary...
(FKGP) and the Christian Democratic People's Party
Christian Democratic People's Party (Hungary)
The Christian Democratic People's Party is a political party in Hungary.- History :The party was founded in 1944 by Hungarian Catholic statesmen, intellectuals, and ecclesiastical such as Bishop Vilmos Apor, Béla Kovrig , László Varga and General József Pálffy, among others...
(KDNP) to command a 60% majority in the parliament. Parliamentary opposition parties included SZDSZ, the Hungarian Socialist Party
Hungarian Socialist Party
The Hungarian Socialist Party describes itself as a social democratic party in Hungary. It is the partial successor of the communist Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party , which ruled Hungary between 1956 and 1989. The decision to declare the party a successor of the MSZMP was controversial, and...
(MSZP), and the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fidesz).
Between March 12, 1990 and June 19, 1991 the Soviet troops ("Southern Army Group") left Hungary. The total number of Soviet military and civilian personnel stationed in Hungary was around 100,000, having at their disposal approximately 27,000 military equipment. The withdrawal was performed with 35,000 railway cars. The last units commanded by general Viktor Silov crossed the Hungarian-Ukrainian border at Záhony
Záhony
Záhony is a town in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary.It covers an area of and has a population of 4675 people . It is near the Ukraine border and was part of Ung county before Trianon Treaty. Road and railway border crossings into Ukraine are...
-Chop
Chop, Ukraine
Chop is a city located in the Zakarpattia Oblast of western Ukraine, near the borders of Slovakia and Hungary. It is separated from the Hungarian town of Záhony by the river Tisza, and the city itself is designated as a separate raion within the oblast.-Demography:According to the Ukrainian...
.
Péter Boross
Péter Boross
Péter Boross was the second Prime Minister of Hungary from December 1993 to July 1994. He came to power with the death of the previous PM, József Antall, and held office until his coalition was defeated in elections and he made way for his successor, Gyula Horn of the socialist party...
succeeded as Prime Minister after Antall died in December 1993. The Antall/Boross coalition governments struggled to create a reasonably well-functioning parliamentary democracy in a market-economy, and to manage the related political, social and economic crises resulting from the collapse of the former Communist system. The massive decline in living standards led to a massive loss of political support.
In the May 1994 election
Hungarian parliamentary election, 1994
The 1994 Hungarian general election was held in two round in May 1994. It saw the return to power of the Hungarian Socialist Party, the former Communist party, under the leadership of Gyula Horn, who became Prime Minister. The Socialist achieved a remarkable revival, winning an overall majority of...
, the Socialists won a plurality of votes and 54% of the seats (with the new Prime Minister, Gyula Horn
Gyula Horn
Gyula Horn is a Hungarian politician and the third Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary, from 1994–1998....
) after a campaign focused largely on economic issues and the substantial decline in living standards since 1990. This signaled a wish to turn back to the relative security and stability of the socialist era, but voters rejected both right and left-wing extremist solutions - no such party gained seats in parliament. After its disappointing result in the election, leadership of the Fidesz party opted for an ideological shift from a liberal to a conservative party. This caused a severe split in the membership and many members left for the other liberal party, the SZDSZ, which formed a coalition with the socialists, leading to a more than two-thirds majority.
The coalition was influenced by the socialism of Prime Minister Gyula Horn, by the economic focus of its technocrats (who had been Western-educated in the 1970s and 1980s) and ex-cadre entrepreneur supporters, and by its liberal coalition partner the SZDSZ. Facing the threat of state bankruptcy, Horn initiated economic reforms and aggressive privatization of state enterprises to multinational companies in return for expectations of investment (in the form of reconstruction, expansion and modernization). The government adopted a fiscal austerity program, the Bokros plan
Lajos Bokros
Lajos András Bokros is a Hungarian economist and Member of the European Parliament for Hungary.Bokros was born in Budapest. He graduated from and holds a Ph.D. from the Budapest University of Economics....
in 1995, which had dramatic consequences on social stability and quality of life. The government introduced post-secondary tuition fees, partially-privatized state services, but supported science both directly and indirectly, through the private sector. The government pursued a foreign policy of integration with Euro-Atlantic institutions and reconciliation with neighboring countries.
The Bokros plan and efforts at privatizations were unpopular with voters, as were rising crime rates, allegations of government corruption, and an attempt to re-start the unpopular program of building a dam in the Danube. This dissatisfaction among voters helped to propel center-right parties into power following national elections in May 1998
Hungarian parliamentary election, 1998
The results of the Hungarian parliamentary election of 1998 are as follows:The election was a significant defeat for the governing Socialist Party and their coalition allies , the Alliance of Free Democrats and a narrow surprise victory for Viktor Orbán's right-wing Fidesz.The successful...
. Fidesz gained the plurality of parliamentary seats and forged a coalition with the Smallholders and the Democratic Forum.
The new government, headed by 35-year-old Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
Viktor Orbán
Viktor Orbán is a Hungarian populist and conservative politician and current Prime Minister of Hungary...
, promised to stimulate faster growth, curb inflation, and lower taxes. It inherited an economy with positive economic indicators, including a growing export-surplus. The government abolished tuition fees and aimed to create good market conditions for small businesses and to encourage local production with domestic resources. In terms of foreign policy, the Orbán administration continued to pursue Euro-Atlantic integration as its first priority, but was a more vocal advocate of minority rights for ethnic Hungarians abroad than the previous government had been. As a result of a 1997 referendum, Hungary joined NATO in 1999. In 2002, the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
agreed to admit Hungary, along with 9 other countries, as members on 1 January 2004.
Fidesz was criticized by its adversaries for the party's presentation of history, particularly the 1989 system-change. While Fidesz had suggested that the Socialist party is the moral and legal successor to the hated state party of the Communist past
Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party
The Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party was the ruling Marxist–Leninist party of Hungary between 1956 and 1989. It was organised from elements of the Hungarian Working People's Party during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution...
, the Socialists would assert that they had been those who had pushed for change from within, derided Fidesz members for crediting themselves as the sole creators and heirs of the system-change.
In the 2002 election
Hungarian parliamentary election, 2002
The results of the Hungarian parliamentary election of 2002 are as follows:-External links:* ,...
the MSZP/SZDSZ coalition won over Fidesz/MDF coalition in a fierce political fight, with record-high 73% voter turnout
Voter turnout
Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...
. Péter Medgyessy
Péter Medgyessy
Péter Medgyessy is a Hungarian politician and was the fifth Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary from May 27, 2002 until September 29, 2004...
became the new prime minister.
Under the socialist-liberal government, the economic balance of the Hungarian economy started a downfall, while quality of life, infrastructure and technology boosted. On 12 April 2003, Hungarians voted to join the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
(EU), with 83% of the votes in favor. Since the EU had already accepted Hungary as a possible member, the four leading political parties (MSZP, Fidesz, SZDSZ and MDF) agreed to establish the required prerequisites and policies and to work together to prepare the country for the accession with the least possible harm to the economy and people while maximizing the positive effects on the country. On 1 May 2004 Hungary became a member of the EU.
Hungarian parliamentary election, 2006
The schedule of the 2006 Hungarian parliamentary elections, as announced by president László Sólyom was as follows:* first round on April 9, 2006* second round on April 23, 2006...
, Hungary decided to re-elect its government for the first time since 1989, though with a new Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány
Ferenc Gyurcsány
Ferenc Gyurcsány is a Hungarian politician. He was the sixth Prime Minister of Hungary from 2004 to 2009.He was nominated to take that position on 25 August 2004 by the Hungarian Socialist Party , after Péter Medgyessy resigned due to a conflict with the Socialist Party's coalition partner...
. The left-wing strengthened its position, with the coalition of the Social Democrats (MSZP) and the Liberals (SZDSZ) reaching 54 percent of the vote and gaining 210 seats as opposed to the previous 198. The parties of the former term (Fidesz, MDF, SZDSZ, MSZP) won parliamentary seats again. The new parliament assembled in late May 2006, and the new government was formed in June 2006.
The new government presented plans to reach balance and sustainable economic growth by removing subsidies to the growth of standard of living, which it had not included in its campaign. A leaked speech
Ferenc Gyurcsány's speech in Balatonoszöd in May 2006
Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány gave a speech in Balatonőszöd in May 2006 to MSZP members of the National Assembly of Hungary. This meeting was supposed to be confidential but the Prime Minister's speech was taped and Magyar Rádió began broadcasting it late afternoon on Sunday September...
was followed by mass protests against the Gyurcsány government between 17 September and 23 October 2006. It was the first sustained protest in Hungary since 1989. From 2007, when increased inflation caused by tax increases decreased the standard of living, a complete restructuring of the state-administration, energy sector, relation towards private economy, health sector and welfare supports took place. Members of affected professional unions describe the measures as lacking discussion and uncompromising. The country joined Schengen Area
Schengen Area
The Schengen Area comprises the territories of twenty-five European countries that have implemented the Schengen Agreement signed in the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, in 1985...
at the end of 2007.
In 2008, the coalition broke up over the disagreement whether the insurance side of the health sector should be state owned and therefore decided in policies the by state or by private companies. This conflict was followed by a successful public referendum, initiated by Fidesz, calling for the elimination of university tuition fees, direct payments at visitations of doctors by insured patients, and daily fees at hospital by insured patients. This effectively stopped the restructuring of health care, while it remained completely publicly owned.
The 2008 financial crisis caused further budgetary constraints. After Gyurcsány's resignation, the Socialists put forward a "government of experts" under Gordon Bajnai
Gordon Bajnai
György Gordon Bajnai was the seventh Prime Minister of Hungary from 2009 to 2010. In March 2009, following Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány's announced resignation, Bajnai was nominated by the ruling MSZP party to become Hungary's next prime minister...
in March 2009, which would only make essential macroeconomic decisions.
In the first round of the 2010 spring general elections
Hungarian parliamentary election, 2010
A parliamentary election was held in Hungary on 11 and 25 April 2010 to choose MPs for the National Assembly. They were the sixth free elections since the end of communist era. The 386 members of parliament were elected in a combined system of party lists and electoral constituencies...
, the center-right Fidesz received 2.704 million votes, i.e. the votes of 33.69% of the 8.026 million eligible voters or 52.73% of the 5.128 million actual voters for party lists, which resulted in more than two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. Fidesz took 263 seats, the Socialists 59, radical, far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
nationalist Jobbik 47, and the newly-founded Lehet Más a Politika (Politics can be Different) 16, with one seat taken by an independent. In the autumn municipal elections, Fidesz achieved a majority in most local and mayoral elections, winning significant victories over the liberal parties.
The years 2010 and 2011 saw the rapid transition of the country from democracy to authoritarian rule.
The FiDeSz government cancelled the previous checks and balances: restricted the role of the Constitutional Court, then enlarged it with its own appointees.
The constitution of 1989 granted absolute power to a party with more than 2/3 of the seats in Parliament, and FiDeSz used this deficiency to abolish the very Constitution and replace it with their own "Basic Law" after a mere three-week debate inside their party
In the new Basic Law they restricted numerous rights the previous constitution granted to the people; for instance they made it extremely difficult to demand referendum or actio popularis, or to appeal to the Constitutional Court. The Chief Prosecutor (appointed by FiDeSz for the longer of {9 years or 2/3 majority to replace him}) has the right to select the judges in cases of his choosing. Most appeals court judges will be forcibly retired in 2012, and FiDeSz will appoint their replacement. The body of judicial autonomy is abolished. They also changed the composition of the Electoral Committee, and the whole election process. FiDeSz also appointed a new Media Council for 9 years with formidable powers over the press, radio stations and television channels.
See also
- Aftermath of World War IAftermath of World War IThe fighting in World War I ended in western Europe when the Armistice took effect at 11:00 am GMT on November 11, 1918, and in eastern Europe by the early 1920s. During and in the aftermath of the war the political, cultural, and social order was drastically changed in Europe, Asia and Africa,...
- Collectivisation in HungaryCollectivisation in HungaryIn the Hungarian People's Republic, agricultural collectivization was attempted a number of times in the late 1940s, until it was finally successful in the early 1960s...
- Demographics of HungaryDemographics of HungaryThis article is about the demographic features of the population of Hungary, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.-Historical:...
- Heads of state of HungaryHeads of state of Hungary-Hungarian Revolution of 1848:Parties-Hungarian Democratic Republic :Parties-Hungarian Soviet Republic :Parties-Romanian Occupation :Parties-Kingdom of Hungary :...
- History of AustriaHistory of AustriaThe history of Austria covers the history of the current country of Austria and predecessor states, from the Iron Age, through to a sovereign state, annexation by the German Third Reich, partition after the Second World War and later developments until the present day...
- History of CroatiaHistory of CroatiaCroatia first appeared as a duchy in the 7th century and then as a kingdom in the 10th century. From the 12th century it remained a distinct state with its ruler and parliament, but it obeyed the kings and emperors of various neighboring powers, primarily Hungary and Austria. The period from the...
- History of GermanyHistory of GermanyThe concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul , which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the...
- History of the Czech Republic
- History of CzechoslovakiaHistory of CzechoslovakiaWith the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of World War I, the independent country of Czechoslovakia was formed, encouraged by, among others, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson...
- History of EuropeHistory of EuropeHistory of Europe describes the history of humans inhabiting the European continent since it was first populated in prehistoric times to present, with the first human settlement between 45,000 and 25,000 BC.-Overview:...
- History of the European UnionHistory of the European UnionThe European Union is a geo-political entity covering a large portion of the European continent. It is founded upon numerous treaties and has undergone expansions that have taken it from 7 member states to 27, a majority of states in Europe....
- History of PolandHistory of PolandThe History of Poland is rooted in the arrival of the Slavs, who gave rise to permanent settlement and historic development on Polish lands. During the Piast dynasty Christianity was adopted in 966 and medieval monarchy established...
- History of the Jews in HungaryHistory of the Jews in HungaryHungarian Jews have existed since at least the 11th century. After struggling against discrimination throughout the Middle Ages, by the early 20th century the community grew to be 5% of Hungary's population , and were prominent in science, the arts and business...
- History of Romania
- History of RussiaHistory of RussiaThe history of Russia begins with that of the Eastern Slavs and the Finno-Ugric peoples. The state of Garðaríki , which was centered in Novgorod and included the entire areas inhabited by Ilmen Slavs, Veps and Votes, was established by the Varangian chieftain Rurik in 862...
- History of SerbiaHistory of SerbiaThe history of Serbia, as a country, begins with the Slavic settlements in the Balkans, established in the 6th century in territories governed by the Byzantine Empire. Through centuries, the Serbian realm evolved into a Kingdom , then an Empire , before the Ottomans annexed it in 1540...
- History of SlovakiaHistory of SlovakiaThis article discusses the history of the territory of Slovakia.- Palaeolithic :Radiocarbon dating puts the oldest surviving archaeological artifacts from Slovakia - found near Nové Mesto nad Váhom - at 270,000 BCE, in the Early Paleolithic era...
- History of SloveniaHistory of SloveniaThe history of Slovenia chronicles the period of the Slovene territory from the 5th Century BC to the present times. In the Early Bronze Age, Proto-Illyrian tribes settled an area stretching from present-day Albania to the city of Trieste. The Holy Roman Empire controlled the land for nearly 1,000...
- History of the Székely peopleHistory of the Székely peopleThe history of the Székely people, a Transylvanian subgroup of the Hungarians, spans nine centuries, although many historians consider that the formation of the Székely people had taken place before the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895-896.-Myths:...
- History of TurkeyHistory of TurkeyThe history of the Turks begins with the migration of Oghuz Turks into Anatolia in the context of the larger Turkic expansion, forming the Seljuq Empire in the 11th century. After the Seljuq victory over forces of the Byzantine Empire in 1071 at the Battle of Manzikert, the process was accelerated...
- History of the Ukraine
- History of Yugoslavia
- Hungarian artHungarian artHungarian art stems from the period of the conquest of the Carpathian basin by the people of Árpád in the 9th century. Prince Árpád also organized earlier people settled in the area.-Horsemen in the Carpathian basin:...
- Hungarian Socialist Workers' PartyHungarian Socialist Workers' PartyThe Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party was the ruling Marxist–Leninist party of Hungary between 1956 and 1989. It was organised from elements of the Hungarian Working People's Party during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution...
- Hungarian Working People's Party
- List of Hungarian rulers
- List of Presidents of Hungary
- List of Prime Ministers of Hungary
- Music history of HungaryMusic history of HungaryLittle is known about Hungarian music prior to the 11th century, when the first Kings of Hungary were Christianized and Gregorian chant was introduced. During this period a bishop from Venice wrote the first surviving remark about Hungarian folk song when he commented on the peculiar singing style...
- Pannonian basin before Hungary
- Politics of HungaryPolitics of HungaryPolitics of Hungary takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic. The Prime Minister is the head of government of a pluriform multi-party system, while the President is the head of state and holds a largely ceremonial position.Executive power is exercised by the...
- Principality of Transylvania (1571–1711)
- Timeline of liberal and radical parties in Hungary
External links
- Short history of Hungary in Hungarian
- History of Hungary: Primary Documents
- Hungarian Maps and Shields
- Hungarian History
- Borders in the region between 1000–1995
Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica (1–5)
- Emese saga : Hungarian prehistory from the beginnings to King St. Stephen (1038)
- The Vazul-line : Kings of the Árpád dynasty after St. Stephen (1038–1301)
- Knight kings : The Anjou- and Sigismund age in Hungary (1301–1437)
- Pannonian Renaissance : The Hunyadis and the Jagello age (1437–1526)
- Cross and crescent : The Turkish age in Hungary (1526–1699)
- (The English translations of volumes 6 to 9 are in preparation.)