| Republic of Hungary
Magyar Köztársaság
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| Motto: none Historically Latin: Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate ("With the help of God for Homeland and Freedom") or Regnum Mariae Patronae Hungariae ("Kingdom of Mary, the Patron of Hungary"[1] |
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| Anthem: Himnusz ("Isten, áldd meg a magyart") "Hymn" or "Anthem" ("God, bless the Hungarians") |
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 Location of Hungary (dark green)
– on the European continent (green & dark grey) |
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| Capital (and largest city) |
Budapest 47°26′N 19°15′E / 47.433°N 19.25°E |
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| Official language(s) | Hungarian; Hungarian Sign Language | |||||
| Ethnic groups | 95% Magyar, 2% Roma, 3% other minority groups | |||||
| Demonym | Hungarian | |||||
| Government | Parliamentary republic | |||||
| - | President | László Sólyom | ||||
| - | Prime Minister | Gordon Bajnai | ||||
| - | Speaker of the National Assembly | Béla Katona | ||||
| Foundation | ||||||
| - | Foundation of Hungary | 896 | ||||
| - | Recognized as Christian Kingdom - First king: Stephen I of Hungary | December 1000 | ||||
| - | Currently 3rd Republic | October 23, 1989 | ||||
| EU accession | May 1, 2004 | |||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 93,030 km2 (109th) 35,919 sq mi |
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| - | Water (%) | 0.74% | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | 2009 July estimate | 10,020,000[2] (83rd) | ||||
| - | 2001 census | 10,198,315 | ||||
| - | Density | 107.7/km2 (94th) 279.0/sq mi |
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| GDP (PPP) | 2009 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $186.054 billion[3] (51st (2008)) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $18,548[3] (44th (2009)) | ||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2009 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $124.241 billion.[3] (52nd (2008)) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $12,386[3] (46th (2009)) | ||||
| Gini (2008) | 24.96 (low) (3rd) | |||||
| HDI (2007) | ▲ 0.879 (high) (43rd) | |||||
| Currency | Forint (HUF) |
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| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | |||||
| - | Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||||
| Date formats | yyyy.mm.dd, yyyy.mm.dd (CE) |
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| Drives on the | right | |||||
| Internet TLD | .hu1 | |||||
| Calling code | 36 | |||||
| 1 | Also .eu as part of the European Union. | |||||
Hungary (·info) (Hungarian: Magyarország (
listen)), officially the Republic of Hungary (Magyar Köztársaság 
listen (·info)), is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin in Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of EU, NATO, OECD, V4 and is a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian, which is part of the Finno-Ugric family, thus one of the four official languages of the European Union that are not of Indo-European origin.[note 1]
Following a Celtic (after c. 450 BC) and a Roman (9 BC – c. 430) period, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late 9th century by the Hungarian ruler Árpád, whose great-grandson Stephen I of Hungary was crowned with a crown sent from Rome by the pope in 1000. The Kingdom of Hungary lasted for 946 years,[note 2] and at various points was regarded as one of the cultural centers of the Western world. The Battle of Mohács resulted in Ottoman occupation, followed by an integration into the Habsburg Monarchy, and later constituting half of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy. A great power until the end of World War I, Hungary lost over 70% of its territory, along with one third of its population of Hungarian ethnicity,[4] under the Treaty of Trianon,[5] the terms of which have been considered excessively harsh by many in Hungary.[6] The kingdom was succeeded by a Communist era (1947–1989) during which Hungary gained widespread international attention regarding the Revolution of 1956 and the seminal move of opening its border with Austria in 1989, thus accelerating the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. The present form of government is a parliamentary republic (since 1989). Today, Hungary is a high-income economy,[7] and a regional leader regarding certain markers.[8][9][10][11]
Hungary is ranked 20th globally (out of 194 countries) on International Living's Quality of Life index (2010)[12] and 6th in an environmental protection index by GW/CAN.[13] Until recently, it was also listed as one of the 15 most popular tourist destinations in the world.[14][15] The country is home to the largest thermal water cave system[16] and the second largest thermal lake in the world (Lake Hévíz), the largest lake in Central Europe (Lake Balaton), and the largest natural grasslands in Europe (Hortobágy).
History
Before 895 AD
From 9 BC to the end of the 4th century, Pannonia was part of the Roman Empire on a part of later Hungary's area. In the final stages of the expansion of the Roman empire, the Carpathian Basin fell for a while into the sphere of the Mediterranean, yet Greco-Roman civilization, its town centers, paved roads, and written sources were all part of the advances which the Migration of Peoples ended.
Among the first to arrive were the Huns, who built up a powerful empire under Attila the Hun. Attila was regarded as an ancestral ruler of the Hungarians, however, this claim is rejected today by most scholars. After Hunnish rule faded away, the Germanic Ostrogoths and then the Lombards came to Pannonia, and the Gepids had a presence in the eastern part of the Carpathian Basin for about 100 years. In the 560s the Avars founded the Avar Khaganate,[17] a state which maintained supremacy in the region for more than two centuries and had the military power to launch attacks against all its neighbours. The Avar Khaganate was weakened by constant wars and outside pressure and finally the Avars' 250 year rule ended when the Khaganate was conquered by the Franks under Charlemagne in the West and the Bulgarians under Krum in the East. Neither of these two nor others were able to create a lasting state in the region, and in the late 9th century the land was inhabited only by a sparse population of Slavs.[18]
It was King Arnulf I of Bavaria who invited the Hungarians to occupy Svatopluk's lands east of the Danube.[19] In 894, while Simeon I of Bulgaria attacked the Byzantine Empire, Svatopluk challenged Arnulf by invading Pannonia.[19] Both Arnulf and Leo VI the Wise sought help from the Hungarians who were well placed to attack the Bulgarians and the Moravians from the rear.[19] Arnulf maintained the alliance with the Hungarians until his death in 899.[19]
The freshly unified Magyars (Hungarians)[20] led by Árpád settled in the Carpathian Basin starting in 895.[18][21] According to linguists they are thought to have originated in an ancient Finno-Ugric population that originally inhabited the forested area between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains,[22] although the genetic relation of Hungarians to Finno-Ugric peoples is excluded. The force lead by Árpád contained seven Magyar, one Kabar, and other smaller tribes.[18]
Medieval Hungary (895–1526)
Hungary is one of the oldest countries in Europe, settled in 896, before France and Germany became separate entities, and before the unification of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Árpád was the Magyar leader whom sources name as the single leader who unified the Magyar tribes via the "Covenant of Blood" (Hungarian: vérszerződés) forged one nation, thereafter known as the Hungarian nation[23] and led the new nation to the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century.[23] After an early seminomad Hungarian state, the Principality of Hungary was formed in this territory, the nation's military power allowed the Hungarians to conduct successful fierce campaigns and raids from Constantinople as far as today's Spain.[24] A later defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955 signaled an end to most campaigns on foreign territories. The ruling prince (Hungarian: fejedelem) Géza of the Árpád dynasty, who was the ruler of only some of the united territory, but the nominal overlord of all seven Magyar tribes, intended to integrate Hungary into Christian Western Europe.[25] and the first Roman Catholic bishopric was established under his reign. Géza chose his first-born son (Vajk the later King Stephen I of Hungary) to be 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 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, tribal independence and pagan belief. Stephen won a decisive victory over his uncle Koppány in a large scale battle at Veszprém, and had him executed, thus firming Christian fate and ensuring the survival and prosperity of Hungary.
The Patrimonial Kingdom
Hungary was recognized as a Catholic Apostolic Kingdom under Saint Stephen I, the son of Géza[26] and thus a descendant of Árpád.
Applying to Pope Sylvester II, Stephen received the insignia of royalty (including the Holy Crown of Hungary, currently kept in the Hungarian Parliament) from the papacy. He was crowned in December 1000, in the capital, Esztergom. The papacy conferred on him the right to have the cross carried before him, with full administrative authority over bishoprics and churches. By 1006, Stephen had consolidated 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, it has been asserted that the Christianisation was forced.[27] Stephen established a network of 10 episcopal and 2 archiepiscopal sees, and ordered the building of monasteries, churches and cathedrals. The country switched to using the Latin language and alphabet under Stephen, and until as late as 1844, Latin remained the official language of Hungary. Previously Hungarian had been written with the Old Hungarian script, a runic script. Stephen followed the Frankish administrative model: The country was divided into counties (Hungarian: megye), each under a royal official called an ispán or count (Latin: comes) — later főispán (lord lieutenant or prefect) (Latin: supremus comes). This official represented the king’s authority, administered its population, and collected the taxes that formed the national revenue. Each ispán maintained at his fortified headquarters (castrum or vár) an armed force of freemen.
What emerged was a strong kingdom[28] 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 13th century Battle of Mohi), and conquering Croatia in 1091.[29][30][31]
After the Great Schism (The East-West Schism /formally in 1054/, between Western Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.) Hungary determined itself as the Easternmost bastion of Western civilization. The Orthodox powers regarded Hungary as the main obstacle in their desire to introduce Orthodoxy into the Western World. However every such Eastern effort has been halted at the gates of Hungary.[32]
Important members of the Árpád dynasty
- King Coloman (Kálmán), the "Book-lover" (1095–1116)
One of Coloman's most famous laws was half a millennium ahead of its time: De strigis vero quae non sunt, nulla amplius quaestio fiat (As for witches, they really do not exist; no further investigations or trials are to be held).
- Béla III (1172–1192)
Béla III was the most powerful and wealthiest member of the dynasty: Béla disposed of the equivalent of 23 tonnes of pure silver per year. This exceeded the income of the French king (estimated at 17 tonnes) and was double the receipts of the English Crown.[33] He forced back the Byzantine domain in the Balkan region.
- Andrew II of Hungary (1205–1235)
In 1224, Andrew issued the Diploma Andreanum which unified and secured the special privileges of the Transylvanian Saxons. It is considered the first Autonomy law in the world.[34]
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 lesser nobles of the old and new classes of royal servants (servientes regis) against both the crown and the magnates, and to defend the rights of the whole nation against the crown by restricting certain powers of the crown 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 crown. The most important legal ideology and legislative guideline 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 in the kingdom. The nation shares political power with the ruler. "Politically minority opinions cannot rule over majority". (Which meant: The Doctrine was opposed to tyranny and oligarchy).
The Mongol attacks, consequences and reaction
In 1241–1242, the kingdom received a major blow with the Mongol (Tatar) Invasion: after the defeat of the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohi,[35] Béla IV of Hungary fled, and a large part of the population died[36] 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.[37] 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.[38] There, the Cumans appealed to King Béla IV of Hungary for protection.[39] 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.[40] 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.[41]
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. The countries of 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
Árpád's direct descendants in the male line ruled the country until 1301. During the reigns of the Árpád dynasty, the Kingdom of Hungary reached its greatest extent, yet royal power was weakened as the major landlords (the Barons) greatly increased their influence. The most powerful landlords started to use royal prerogatives (coinage, customs, their own independent diplomacy, declaration of wars against foreign monarchs). After the destructive period of interregnum (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.[42][43] Charles also sealed an alliance with the Polish king Casimir. After Italy, Hungary was the first European country where the renaissance appeared.[44]
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. During his reign lived the most famous epic hero of Hungarian literature and warfare, the king's Champion: Nicolas Toldi. Louis had become popular in Poland 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. The first Hungarian Bible translation was completed in 1439. For a half year in 1437, there was an antifeudal and anticlerical 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 didn't withdraw the order, and Catholic (and the older Protestant) churches still ring the noon bell in the Christian world to this day.[45]
Age of early absolutism
The last strong king was the Renaissance king Matthias Corvinus (king 1458–1490). Matthias was the son of John Hunyadi. András Hess set up a printing press in Buda in 1472, which was very unique at that time in Europe. This was the first time in the history of the 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.[46] Although Matthias regularly convened the Diet and expanded the lesser nobles' powers in the counties, he exercised absolute rule over Hungary by means of a huge secular bureaucracy. He set out to build a great empire, expanding southward and northwest, while he also implemented internal reforms. The serfs and common people considered him a just ruler because he protected them from excessive demands from and other abuses by the magnates.[47] 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 Ottomans; to that end he deemed it necessary to conquer much of the Holy Roman Empire.[citation needed] In 1479, under the leadership of Pál Kinizsi, the Hungarian army destroyed the Ottoman and Wallachian troops at the Battle of Breadfield. Abroad he defeated the Polish and German imperial armies of Frederick at Breslau (Wrocław). Hungarian power was confirmed by the Treaty of Olomouc (1479). His mercenary standing army, the Black Army of Hungary was an unusually large army for its time, and it conquered 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 Bibles and religious material. His renaissance library is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[48]
Decline of Hungary (1490-1526)
By the early 16th century, the Ottoman Empire had become the second most populous state in the world; this enabled the creation of the largest armies of the era.
The Hungarian magnates, who did not want another heavy-handed king, procured the accession of Vladislaus II (reigned 1490–1516), king of Bohemia because of his notorious weakness: he was known as King Dobže, or Dobzse in Hungarian orthography (king "okay") from his habit of accepting without question every petition and document laid before him.[46] Under his reign the central power began to experience severe financial difficulties, mostly because of the enlargement of feudal lands at his expense. The magnates also dismantled the national administration systems and bureaucracy throughout the country. The country's defenses sagged as border guards and castle garrisons went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled.[49] Hungary's international role declined, 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 pre-eminence. In 1521, the strongest Hungarian fortress in the South, Nándorfehérvár (modern Belgrade) fell to the Turks. The strongest nobles were so busy oppressing the peasants and quarrelling with gentry class in the parliament, that they failed to heed the agonized calls of king Louis II against the Turks. The early appearance of protestantism further worsened internal relations in the anarchical country. In 1526, the Hungarian army was crushed at the Battle of Mohács by the Ottomans. The childless young king Louis II, and the leader of the Hungarian army, Pál Tomori died on the battlefield.
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 such as the Jassic people and the Transylvanian Saxons.
Ottoman wars 1526–1699
After some 150 years of wars with the Hungarians and other states, the Ottomans conquered parts of Hungary, and continued their expansion until 1556. The Ottomans gained a decisive victory over the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohács in 1526. The next decades were characterised by political chaos; the divided Hungarian nobility elected two kings simultaneously, 'Szapolyai János' (1526–1540) and Ferdinand Habsburg (1527–1540), whose feud for the throne further weakened the kingdom. With the conquest of Buda in 1541 by the Turks, Hungary was divided into three parts. Even with a decisive 1552 victory over the Ottomans at the Siege of Eger, which raised the hopes of the Hungarians, the country remained divided until the end of the 17th century. The north-western part (see map) termed as Royal Hungary was annexed by the Habsburgs who ruled as Kings of Hungary. The eastern part of the kingdom (Partium and Transylvania), in turn, became independent as the Principality of Transylvania, under Ottoman (and later Habsburg) suzerainty. The remaining central area (mostly present-day Hungary), including the capital of Buda was known as the Pashalik of Buda. A large part of the area became devastated by permanent warfare. Most smaller settlements disappeared.
Pozsony (today Bratislava) became the new capital (1536–1784), coronation town (1563–1830) and seat of the Diet (1536–1848) of Hungary. Nagyszombat (today Trnava) in turn, became the religious center in 1541. After the middle of the 16th century and the beginning of the Counter Reformation of Habsburgs, the strife between the Protestant Hungarians and the Catholic Habsburgs became increasingly violent.[50] The Turks were indifferent to the Christian religion of their subjects and the Habsburg counter-reformation measures could not reach this area. As a result, the majority of the population of the area became Protestant (Calvinist)[citation needed].
In 1558 the Transylvanian 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.
There were a series of other successful and unsuccessful anti-Habsburg /i.e. anti-Austrian/ (requiring equal rights and freedom for all Christian religions) uprisings between 1604 and 1711, the uprisings were usually organized from Transylvania.
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 a 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; with this force, the Christian forces reconquered Buda. The second Battle of Mohács (1687) and Battle of Zenta (1697) were crushing defeats for the Turks, in the next few years, all of the former Hungarian lands, except areas near Temesvár (Timişoara), were taken from the Turks. In the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz these territorial changes were officially recognized, and in 1718 the entire Kingdom of Hungary was removed from Ottoman rule. The constrained Habsburg Counter-Reformation efforts in the seventeenth century reconverted the majority of the kingdom to Catholicism. The Hungarian aristocracy successfully preserved its former positions in the political and economic sphere.
Ethnic aftermath of Ottoman wars
As a consequence of the prolonged 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.[51]
The Hungarian people (the vast majority of Hungarian lowborn people hated[citation needed] the Habsburg monarchs) were considered rebellious by Habsburg Monarchs. After the "liberation" of Hungary from the Turks, The Austrian — Habsburg government settled large groups of Serbs and other Slavs in the south, allowed mass Vlach (Romanian) immigration into Transylvania and settled Germans in various areas, but not a single Hungarian person was allowed to settle or re-settle in the south of the Great Plain.[52]
History of Hungary 1700–1919
Between 1703 and 1711 there was a large-scale uprising led by Francis II Rákóczi, who after the dethronement of the Habsburgs in 1707 at the Diet of Ónód, took power provisionally as the "Ruling Prince" of Hungary for the wartime period, but refused the Hungarian Crown and the title "King". After 8 years of war with the Habsburg Empire the Hungarian Kuruc army lost the last main battle at Battle of Trencin (Trencsény) (1711); however, they also had successful 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 the son of Miklós Bercsényi immigrated to France and created the first French hussar regiment. Afterwards, to make further armed resistance impossible, the Austrians blew up Hungarian 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. In this century lived one of the most famous Hungarian Hussars named Michael de Kovats who created the US cavalry in the American Revolutionary War. He has a statue now in Charleston.
The Period of Reforms (1825–1848)
During the Napoleonic Wars and afterwards, the Hungarian Diet had not convened for decades.[citation needed] In the 1820s, the Emperor was forced to convene the Diet, and thus a Reform Period (Hungarian: reformkor) 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, one of the most prominent statesmen of the country recognized the urgent need of modernization and his 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. Lajos Kossuth - famous journalist at the time - emerged as leader of the lower gentry in the Parliament. Habsburg monarchs tried to preclude[citation needed] the industrialisation of the country. A remarkable upswing started as the nation concentrated its forces on modernisation even though the Habsburg monarchs obstructed all important liberal laws about the human civil and political rights and economic reforms. Many reformers (like Lajos Kossuth, Mihály Táncsics) were imprisoned by the authorities.
Revolution and War of Independence
On March 15, 1848, mass demonstrations in Pest and Buda enabled Hungarian reformists to push through a list of 12 demands. Faced with revolution both at home and in Vienna, Austria first had to accept Hungarian demands. Later, under governor and president Lajos Kossuth and the first Prime Minister, Lajos Batthyány, the House of Habsburg was dethroned and the form of government was changed to create the first Republic of Hungary. After the Austrian revolution was suppressed, emperor Franz Joseph replaced his epileptic uncle Ferdinand I as Emperor. The Habsburg Ruler and his advisors skillfully manipulated the Croatian, Serbian and Romanian peasantry, led by priests and officers firmly loyal to the Habsburgs, and induced them to rebel against the Hungarian government. The Hungarians were supported by the vast majority of the Slovak, German and Rusyn nationalities and by all the Jews of the kingdom, as well as by a large number of Polish, Austrian and Italian volunteers.[53] In July 1849 the Hungarian Parliament proclaimed and enacted the first laws of ethnic and minority rights in the world. 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. 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 Jacob von Haynau, the leader of the Austrian army, then became governor of Hungary for a few months, ordered the execution of the 13 Martyrs of Arad, leaders of the Hungarian army, as well as Prime Minister Batthyány in October 1849. Lajos Kossuth escaped into exile. Following the war of 1848 – 1849, the whole country was in "passive resistance". Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen was appointed governor of the Kingdom of Hungary, and this time was remembered for Germanization pursued with the help of Czech officers.[citation needed]
Austria–Hungary (1867–1918)
Because of external and internal problems, reforms seemed inevitable to secure the integrity of the Habsburg Empire. Major military defeats of Austria, 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 capital cities, with a common monarch and common external and military policies. Economically, the empire was a customs union. The first prime minister of Hungary after the Compromise was Count Gyula Andrássy. The old Hungarian Constitution was restored, and Franz Joseph was crowned as King of Hungary.
Austria-Hungary was geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire (239,977 sq. m in 1905 [54]), and the third most populous (after Russia and the German Empire).
The era witnessed an impressive economic development. The formerly backward Hungarian economy became relatively modern and industrialized by the turn of the century, although agriculture remained dominant until 1890. In 1873, the old capital Buda and Óbuda(Ancient Buda) were officially merged with the third city, Pest, thus creating the new metropolis of Budapest. The dynamic Pest grew into the country's administrative, political, economic, trade and cultural hub. Technological change accelerated industrialization and urbanization. The GNP per capita grew roughly 1.45% per year from 1870 to 1913. That level of growth compared very favorably to that of other European nations such as Britain (1.00%), France (1.06%), and Germany (1.51%). Many of the state institutions and the modern administrative system of Hungary were established during this period.
Because of various reasons including migration of millions[citation needed], 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 through census.[55]
World War I
After the Assassination in Sarajevo the Hungarian prime minister, István Tisza and his cabinet (sole in Europe) tried to avoid the breaking out and escalating 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 the Kingdom of Hungary). In World War I Austria–Hungary was fighting on the side of Germany, Bulgaria and Turkey. The Central Powers conquered Serbia. Romania proclaimed war. The Central Powers conquered Southern Romania and the Romanian capital Bucharest. On November 1916 Emperor Franz Joseph died, the new monarch Charles IV sympathized with the 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. The Austro-Hungarian Empire then withdrew from all 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.
Between the two world wars (1918–1941)
The first Republic of Hungary
In 1918, as a political result of German defeat on the Western front in World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy collapsed. French troops landed in Greece to rearm the defeated Romania, Serbia and the newly formed Czech state. Despite the general armistice agreement, the Balkanian French army organized new campaigns against Hungary with the help of Czech, Romanian, and Serbian governments.
On October 31, 1918, the success of the Aster Revolution in Budapest brought the left liberal count Mihály Károlyi to power as Prime-Minister. Roving soldiers assassinated István Tisza.[56] Károlyi was a devotee of Entente from the beginning of the World War. By a notion of Woodrow Wilson's pacifism, Károlyi ordered the full disarmament of Hungarian Army. Hungary remained without national defense in the darkest hour of its history. On 5 November 1918 Serbian Army with French involvement attacked Southern parts of the country, on 8 November Czech Army invaded Northern part of Hungary (present-day Slovakia), on 12 November Romanian Army started to attack the Eastern (Transylvanian) parts of Hungary. The First Republic was proclaimed on 16 November 1918 with Károlyi being named as president. The Károlyi government pronounced illegal all armed associations and proposals which wanted to defend the integrity of the country. The Károlyi government also dissolved the gendarme and police, the lack of police force caused big problems in the country. By February 1919 the government had lost all popular support, having failed on domestic and military fronts. On March 21, after the Entente military representative demanded more and more territorial concessions from Hungary, Károlyi resigned. Károlyi (with a new Czechoslovakian passport and Czechoslovak diplomatic help) moved to Paris.
The Hungarian Soviet Republic
The Communist Party of Hungary, led by Béla Kun, came to power and proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Communists also promised equality and social justice. 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. 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 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. 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 intellectuals), which alienated much of the population. In the face of domestic backlash and an advancing Romanian force, Béla Kun and most of his comrades fled to Austria, while Budapest was occupied on August 6. Kun and his followers illegally took along numerous art treasures and the gold stocks of the National Bank.[57] 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 had not kept its promise to offer military assistance) and the Jews (since most members of Kun's government were Jewish).
The restored Kingdom of Hungary
The new fighting force in Hungary were the Conservative Royalists counter-revolutionaries – 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 rear-admiral Miklós Horthy, the former commander in chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. 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 Communists and other leftists were tortured and executed without trial. The leaving Romanian army pillaged the country: livestock, machinery and agricultural products were carried to Romania in hundreds of freight cars.[58][59] The estimated property damage of their activity was so much that the international peace conference in 1919 did not require Hungary to pay war redemption to Romania.[citation needed] On November 16, with the consent of Romanian forces, Horthy's army marched into Budapest. His government gradually restored security police and gendarmee, stopped terror, and set up authorities, but thousands of supporters of the leftist-liberal Károlyi and communist Kun regimes were imprisoned (for "High treason" and "anti-Hungarian actions"). But radical rightist political movements were suppressed too. 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 June 4, 1920, ratified the country's dismemberment. The territorial provisions of the treaty, which ensured continued discord between Hungary and its neighbors, 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. The country's ethnic composition was left almost homogeneous, Hungarians constituting about 90% of the population, Germans made up about 6%, and Slovaks, Croats, Romanians, Jews and Gypsies accounted for the remainder.[citation needed]
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 67% of credit and banking institutions of the former Kingdom of Hungary lay within the territory of Hungary's neighbors.[62][63][64]
Because most of the country's pre-war industry was concentrated near Budapest, Hungary retained about 51% of its industrial population, 56% of its industry. 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 toward 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 counterrevolutionaries 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 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 by strengthening the economy and building relations with stronger nations. Revision of the treaty had such a broad backing in Hungary that Bethlen used it, at least in part, to deflect criticism of his economic, social, and political policies. The Great Depression induced a drop in the standard of living and the political mood of the country shifted further toward the right. In 1932 Horthy appointed a new prime-minister, Gyula Gömbös, that changed the course of Hungarian policy towards closer cooperation with Germany. 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 Nazi policies, including those related to Jews. The government passed the First Jewish Law in 1938. The law established a quote system to limit Jewish involvement in the Hungarian economy.
Pm. Imrédy's (a Jewish descendant) 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 with 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.[65] 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. The 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 altered the status of those who had formerly converted from Judaism to Christianity.
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