HUNGARY

officially Republic of Hungary, Hungarian Magyarorszg, or Magyar Kztrsasg landlocked country in central Europe. Hungary extends for about 195 miles (315 km) from north to south and about 325 miles (525 km) from east to west. It is bordered by Slovakia in the north, Ukraine in the northeast, Romania in the east, Yugoslavia and Croatia in the south, Slovenia, in the southwest, and Austria in the west. The capital is Budapest. Area 35,919 square miles (93,030 square km). Pop. (1996 est.) 10,201,000. officially Republic of Hungary, Hungarian Magyarorszg, or Magyar Kztrsasg country in central Europe. It has an area of 35,919 square miles (93,030 square kilometres). The nation has ethnic and linguistic roots that reach far back into the past. Its boundaries, however, have changed repeatedly over the centuries as events in Europe precipitated the reduction, expansion, and partition of Hungarian territory. Modern Hungary shares a border on the north with Slovakia, on the northeast with Ukraine, on the east with Romania, on the south with Yugoslavia (the Vojvodina region of Serbia) and Croatia, on the southwest with Slovenia, and on the west with Austria. Budapest, the capital city, which dominates much of national life, is situated on both banks of the Danube (Hungarian: Duna) River a few miles downstream from the Danube Bend. Additional reading Geography Overviews of the history, geography, and people and of the social, economic, and cultural life of the country are provided by Stephen R. Burant (ed.), Hungary: A Country Study, 2nd ed. (1990); and Stephen Borsody (ed.), The Hungarians: A Divided Nation (1988). Mrton Pcsi and Bla Srfalvi, The Geography of Hungary (1964; originally published in Hungarian, 1960), gives a detailed picture of the physical and economic geography. Mrton Pcsi, Geomorphological Regions of Hungary, trans. from Hungarian (1970), is a brief description of individual regions. Economic studies include Ivan T. Berend (T. Ivn Berend) and Gyrgy Rnki, The Hungarian Economy in the Twentieth Century (1985); and Tivadar Bernt (ed.), An Economic Geography of Hungary, 2nd enlarged ed. (1989; originally published in Hungarian, 1969). Lrnt Czigny, The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature from the Earliest Times to the Present (1984), provides critical studies. Hungary's cinematic achievements are detailed in Graham Petrie, History Must Answer to Man: The Contemporary Hungarian Cinema (1978). History There are three major histories in Hungarian: Sndor Szilgyi (ed.), A Magyar nemzet trtnete, 10 vol. (189598); Blint Hman and Gyula Szekf, Magyar trtnet, 7th ed., 5 vol. (194143); and Zsigmond Pl Pach (ed.), Magyarorszg trtnete tz ktetben (1976 ). Major sections dealing with Hungary appear in Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie, 18481918 (1973 ). Ladislas Makkai (lszl Makkai), Histoire de Transylvanie (1946), is also useful. General histories in English include Domokos G. Kosry, A History of Hungary (1941, reissued 1971); Denis Sinor, History of Hungary (1959, reprinted 1976); C.A. Macartney, Hungary, a Short History (1962); Paul Ignotus, Hungary (1972); Ivan T. Berend (T. Ivn Berend) and Gyrgy Rnky, Hungary: A Century of Economic Development (1974); Robert A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire, 15261918 (1974); Peter F. Sugar, Pter Hank, and Tibor Frank (eds.), A History of Hungary (1990); Stephen Sisa, The Spirit of Hungary: A Panorama of Hungarian History and Culture, 3rd ed. (1995); and Jrg K. Hoensch, A History of Modern Hungary, 18671986, 2nd ed. (1996; originally published in German, 1984).Early and medieval history is covered in C.A. Macartney, The Magyars in the Ninth Century (1930, reprinted 1968); Jen Szcs, The Three Historical Regions of Europe: An Outline, Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 29(24):131184 (1983); Zsigmond Pl Pach, Hungary and the European Economy in Early Modern Times (1994); and Jnos M. Bak and Bla K. Kirly (eds.), From Hunyadi to Rkczi: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary (1982).The 18th and 19th centuries are discussed in the following: Henry Marczali, Hungary in the Eighteenth Century (1910, reprinted 1971; originally published in Hungarian, 1882); Denis Silagi, Ungarn und der geheime Mitarbeiterkreis Kaiser Leopolds II. (1961); Domokos G. Kosry, Culture and Society in Eighteenth Century Hungary (1987); C.A. Macartney, The Hapsburg Empire, 17901918 (1968); Pter Hank, Ungarn in der Donaumonarchie: Probleme der brgerlichen Umgestaltung einer Vielvlkerstaates (1984); George Barany, Stephen Szchenyi and the Awakening of Hungarian Nationalism, 17911841 (1968); Gyrgy Spira, A Hungarian Count in the Revolution of 1848, trans. from Hungarian (1974); Paul Bdy, Joseph Etvs and the Modernization of Hungary, 18401870: A Study of Ideas of Individuality and Social Pluralism in Modern Politics, 2nd rev. ed. (1985); Bla K. Kirly, Ferenc Dek (1975); Istvn Dek, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 18481849 (1979); Gabor Vermes, Istvn Tisza: The Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist (1985); R.W. Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary (1908, reprinted 1972); and John Lukacs, Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture (1988).Studies of World War I and the Treaty of Trianon include Michael Krolyi, Fighting the World: The Struggle for Peace, trans. from Hungarian (1923); Oscar Jszi (oszcar Jszi), The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (1929, reissued 1961); Rudolf L. Tks, Bla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic: The Origins and Role of the Communist Party of Hungary in the Revolutions of 19181919 (1967); Tibor Hajdu, The Hungarian Soviet Republic (1979; originally published in Hungarian, 1969); Francis Dek, Hungary at the Paris Peace Conference: The Diplomatic History of the Treaty of Trianon (1942, reissued 1972); and C.A. Macartney, Hungary and Her Successors: The Treaty of Trianon and Its Consequences, 19191937 (1937, reprinted 1968).Events of the years 192045 are detailed in Ignc Romsics, Istvn Bethlen: A Great Conservative Statesman of Hungary, 18741946, trans. from Hungarian (1995); C.A. Macartney, A History of Hungary, 19291945, 2 vol. (195657; also published as October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 19291945, 2nd ed., 2 vol., 1961); Thomas Sakmyster, Hungary, the Great Powers, and the Danubian Crisis, 19361939 (1980), and Hungary's Admiral on Horseback: Mikls Horthy, 19181944 (1994); Mario D. Fenyo, Hitler, Horthy, and Hungary: German-Hungarian Relations, 19411944 (1972); Gyula Juhsz, Hungarian Foreign Policy, 19191945 (1979); Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, rev. and enlarged ed., 2 vol. (1994); and Andrew C. Janos, The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 18251945 (1982).Hungary under communism is described in Ernst C. Helmreich (ed.), Hungary (1957, reissued 1973); Mikls Molnr, A Short History of the Hungarian Communist Party (1978); Bla Szsz, Volunteers for the Gallows: Anatomy of a Show Trial, trans. from Hungarian (1971), an autobiographical account of imprisonment and torture; and Bennett Kovrig, Communism in Hungary: From Kun to Kdr (1979).The period from the revolution of 1956 to the present is addressed in Ferenc A. Vli, Rift and Revolt in Hungary: Nationalism Versus Communism (1961); Paul E. Zinner, Revolution in Hungary (1962, reissued 1972); Charles Gati, Hungary and the Soviet Bloc (1986); William F. Robinson, The Pattern of Reform in Hungary: A Political, Economic, and Cultural Analysis (1973); Ivan T. Berend (T. Ivn Berend), The Hungarian Economic Reforms, 19531988 (1990; originally published in Hungarian, 1988), and Central and Eastern Europe, 19441993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery (1996), with major sections concerning Hungary; and Peter A. Toma and Ivan Volgyes, Politics in Hungary (1977). Further references may be found in Elemer Bako, Guide to Hungarian Studies, 2 vol. (1973); Steven Bela Vardy, Modern Hungarian Historiography (1976); and Gza Kilnyi and Vanda Lamm (eds.), Democratic Changes in Hungary, trans. from Hungarian (1990). Carlile Aylmer Macartney George Barany Ivan T. Berend Administration and social conditions Government The modern political system in Hungary was essentially autocratic throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. After World War II the Soviet-style system was introduced, with a leading role for the Communist Party, to which the legislative and executive branches of the government and the legal system were subordinated. Other political parties were abolished. In 1948 the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party merged to form the Hungarian Workers Party (MDP), which was reorganized as the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party (MSzMP) after 1956. Constitutional framework In 1989 dramatic political reforms accompanied the economic transformation taking place. After giving up its institutionalized leading role, the MSzMP abolished itself and formed the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSzP). In October 1989 a radical revision of the 1949 constitution, which included some 100 changes, introduced a multiparty parliamentary system of representative democracy, with free elections. The legislative and executive branches of the government were separated, and an independent judicial system was created. The revision established a Constitutional Court, elected by the parliament, which reviews the constitutionality of legislation and may annul laws. It also provides for an ombudsman for the protection of constitutional civil rights and ombudsman's groups for the protection of national and ethnic minority rights. Supreme legislative power is granted to the 386-member unicameral National Assembly, which elects the president of the republic, the Council of Ministers, the president of the Supreme Court, and the chief prosecutor. The main organ of state administration is the Council of Ministers, which is headed by the prime minister. The president, who may serve two five-year terms, is commander in chief of the armed forces but otherwise has limited authority. The right of the people to propose referendums is guaranteed. Parliamentary elections based on universal suffrage for citizens aged 18 years and over are held every four years. Under the mixed system of direct and proportional representation, candidates may be elected as part of national and regional party lists or in an individual constituency. In the latter case candidates must gain an absolute majority in the first round of the elections, or runoff elections must be held. Candidates on territorial lists cannot be elected if their party fails to receive at least 4 percent of the national aggregate of votes for the territorial lists. Cultural life The cultural milieu of Hungary is a result of the diverse mix of genuine Hungarian peasant culture and the cosmopolitan culture of an influential German and Jewish urban population. Both the coffeehouse (as meeting place for intellectuals) and Gypsy music also have had an impact. Cultural life traditionally has been highly political since national culture became the sine qua non of belated nation building from the early 19th century. Theatre, opera, and literature in particular played crucial roles in developing national consciousness. Poets and writers, especially in crisis situations, became national heroes and prophets. Governments also attempted to influence cultural life through subsidy and regulation. During the state socialist era culture was strictly controlled; party interference was influenced by ideological principles, and mass culture was promoted. Daily life Genuine traditional culture survived for a long period in an untouched countryside characterized by rootedness. Peasant dress, food, and entertainment, including folk songs and folk dancesthe rituals of weddings and Easter and Christmas holidayscontinued until the mid-20th century. The drastic (and in the countryside brutal) modernization of the second half of the 20th century nearly destroyed these customs. They were preserved, however, as folk art and tourist entertainment. Everyday life changed dramatically, as did the family structure. Families became smaller, and ties with extended families diminished. The culture also became less traditional. Clothing styles began to follow the international pattern, and traditional peasant dress was replaced by blue jeans. Folk songs are still occasionally heard, but in daily life they have been replaced by modern rock and pop music. Urban culture, especially in the capital city, is highly cosmopolitan and encompasses the tradition of coffeehouse culture. Watching television is a popular pastime, with Hungarians viewing an average of two to three hours of TV per day. Hungary's most traditional cultural element is its cuisine. Hungarian food is very rich, and red meat is frequently used as an ingredient. Goulash (gulys), bean soup with smoked meat, and beef stew are national dishes. The most distinctive element of Hungarian cuisine is paprika, a spice made from the pods of chili peppers (Capsicum annuum). Paprika is not native to Hungaryhaving been imported either from Spain, India by way of the Turks, or the Americasbut it is a fixture on most dining tables in Hungary and an important export. Among Hungary's spicy dishes are halszle, a fish soup, and lecs, made with hot paprika, tomato, and sausage. Homemade spirits, including various fruit brandies (plinka), are popular. Before World War II, Hungary was a wine-drinking country, but beer has become increasingly prevalent. Although Hungarians were not quick to accept them, foreign cuisines appeared in Budapest from the 1990s, a sign of the growing influence of the outside world. Hungary, flag of horizontally striped red-white-green national flag. Its width-to-length ratio is 2 to 3. The tricolour flag of Hungary was officially adopted on October 12, 1957, after the abortive revolution in 1956. The colours are the same as those found in the traditional coat of arms of Hungary. The white is said to symbolize Hungary's rivers, the green its mountains, and the red the blood shed in its many battles. The three colours were mentioned in a 1608 coronation ceremony, but their association with the monarchs of Hungary may go back to the 13th century. The coat of arms also displays a double cross and St. Stephen's Crown, with its unique bent cross at the top. St. Stephen was Hungary's first Christian king and is generally considered the founder of the Hungarian state. Hungary spent much of its history under Turkish and then Austrian domination. A short-lived republic in 1848 restored the traditional arms and colours, by then usually displayed in tricolour form (possibly influenced by the French Tricolor). These became part of the Austrian merchant flag in 1869 after the two countries formed the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. In 1918, with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the tricolour became the national flag of an independent Hungary. The traditional coat of arms was displayed on some flags. The coat of arms was replaced in 1949 with a more Soviet-style symbol that appeared on the white stripe in the centre of the flag. During the revolution of 1956, this coat of arms was dropped and the traditional arms restored, but the following year, after the suppression of the revolution, the coat of arms was removed from the flag. A new coat of arms was created that also incorporated the national colours, but it was not added to the flag. Ever since, the national flag of Hungary has officially been the plain tricolour. In 1990 Hungary's National Assembly restored the traditional coat of arms but left the national flag as established in 1957. Whitney Smith History Revolution, counterrevolution, and the regency, 191845 On Oct. 31, 1918, when the defeat of the monarchy was imminent, Charles appointed Krolyi prime minister at the head of an improvised administration based on a left-wing National Council. After the monarchy had signed an armistice on November 3 and Charles had renounced participation in public affairs on the 13th, the National Council dissolved Parliament on the 16th and proclaimed Hungary an independent republic, with Krolyi as provisional president. The separation from Austria was popular, but all Krolyi's supposed friends disappointed him, and all his premises proved mistaken. Serb, Czech, and Romanian troops installed themselves in two-thirds of the helpless country, and, in the confusion, orderly social reform was impossible. The government steadily moved leftward, and in March 1919 Krolyi's government was replaced by a soviet republic, controlled by Bla Kun, who had promised Hungary Russian support against the Romanians. The help never arrived, and Kun's doctrinaire Bolshevism, resting on a Red terror, antagonized almost the entire population. On August 4 Kun and his associates fled Budapest, and two days later Romanian troops entered the city. Shadow counterrevolutionary governments had already formed themselves in Szeged (then occupied by French troops) and Vienna and pressed the Allies to entrust them with the new government. The Allies insisted on the formation of a provisional regime including democratic elements that would be required to hold elections on a wide, secret suffrage. The Romanians were, with difficulty, induced to retire across the Tisza River, and a government, under the presidency of Kroly Huszr, was formed in November 1919. Elections (for a single house) were held in January 1920. The new Parliament declared null and void all measures enacted by the Krolyi and Kun regimes as well as the legislation embodying the Compromise of 1867. The institution of the monarchy was thus restored, but its permanent reinstatement was predicated on the resolution of the differences between the nation and the dynasty, an issue that divided Hungarians. In the interim Admiral Mikls Horthy, who had organized the counterrevolutionary armed forces, was elected regent as provisional head of state (March 1, 1920). The Huszr government then resigned, and on March 14 a coalition government, composed of the two main parties in the Parliament (the Christian National Union and the Smallholders), took office under Sndor Simonyi-Semadam. The regency, 192045 The Treaty of Trianon The Allies had long had their peace terms for Hungary ready but had been unwilling to present them to an earlier regime. It was, thus, the Simonyi-Semadam government that was forced to sign the Treaty of Trianon (June 4, 1920). The Allies not only assumed without question that the country's non-Hungarian populations wished to leave Hungary but also allowed the successor states, especially Czechoslovakia, to annex large areas of ethnic Hungarian population. The final result was to leave Hungary with only 35,893 of the 125,641 square miles that had constituted the lands of the Hungarian crown. Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia took large fragments, while others went to Austria and even Poland and Italy. Of the population of 20,866,447 (1910 census), Hungary was left with 7,615,117. Romania received 5,257,467; Czechoslovakia, 3,517,568; Yugoslavia, 4,131,249; and Austria, 291,618. Of the 10,050,575 persons for whom Hungarian was the mother tongue, no fewer than 3,219,579 were allotted to the successor states: 1,704,851 to Romania, 1,063,020 to Czechoslovakia, 547,735 to Yugoslavia, and 26,183 to Austria. While the homes of some of thesee.g., the Szeklershad been in the remotest corners of historic Hungary, many were living immediately across the frontiers. In addition, the treaty required Hungary to pay in reparations an unspecified sum, which was to be the first charge upon all its assets and revenues, and limited its armed forces to 35,000, to be used exclusively for the maintenance of internal order and frontier defense. History Hungary came into existence when the Magyars, a Finno-Ugric people, occupied the middle basin of the Danube River in the late 9th century AD. Parts of its territory had formed the ancient Roman provinces of Pannonia and Dacia. When Rome lost control of Pannonia at the end of the 4th century, it was occupied first by Germanic tribes, then by Slavs. The subsequent history of Dacia is unrecorded. The central plains had formed the bases of nomadic immigrant peoples from the steppes north of the Black SeaHuns, Bulgars, Avarssome of whom extended their domination farther afield. The Avars, who dominated the basin in the 7th and 8th centuries, were crushed in about 800 by Charlemagne, whose successors organized the western half of the area in a chain of Slavic vassal dukedoms. One of these, Croatia, which extended as far north as the Sava River, made itself fully independent in 869, while another, Moravia, which then extended as far as the Gran (now Hron) River, had openly defied its Carolingian overlord for as long. The Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria exercised loose authority over the south and east of the area. The kingdom to 1526 The rpds In 892 the Carolingian emperor Arnulf, attempting to assert his authority over the Moravian duke Svatopluk, called in the help of the Magyars, whose early homes had been on the upper waters of the Volga and Kama rivers; unrecorded causes had driven them, at an uncertain date, southward into the steppes, where they had adopted the life of peripatetic herders. In the 9th century they were based on the lower Don, ranging over the steppes to the west of that river. They then comprised a federation of hordes, or tribes, each under a hereditary chieftain and each composed of a varying number of clans, the members of which shared a real or imagined blood kinship. All clan members were free, but the community included slaves taken in battle or in raids. There were seven Magyar hordes, but other elements were part of the federation, including three hordes of Turkic Khazars (the Kavars). Either because of this fact or perhaps because of a memory of earlier conditions, this federation was known to its neighbours as the On-Ogur (literally, Ten Arrows), from the Slavic pronunciation of which the name Hungarian is derived. In 889 attacks by a newly arrived people called the Pechenegs had driven the Magyars and their confederates to the western extremities of the steppes, where they were living when Arnulf's invitation arrived. The band sent to Arnulf reported back that the plains across the Carpathian Mountains would form a suitable new homeland that could be easily conquered and defended from the rear. Having elected as their chief rpd, the leader of their most powerful tribe, the Magyars crossed the Carpathians en masse, probably in 896, and easily subjugated the peoples of the sparsely inhabited central plain, their first place of settlement. They destroyed the Moravian empire in 906 and in the next year occupied Pannonia, having defeated a German force sent against them. They were then firmly established in the whole centre of the basin, over which their tribes and their associates distributed themselves, rpd taking the central area west of the Danube for his own tribe. The periphery was guarded by outposts, which were gradually pushed forward, chiefly to the north.