Hungary
Hungary (
Hungarian:
Magyarország ), officially the
Republic of Hungary (
Magyar Köztársaság ), is a
landlocked country in
Central Europe, bordered by
Austria,
Slovakia,
Ukraine,
Romania,
Serbia,
Croatia and
Slovenia. Hungary has been a member state of the
European Union since
May 1 2004.
|
The arrival of the Magyars at the Carpathian Basin |
In the time of the
Roman Empire, the region west of the
Danube river was known as
Pannonia. 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. It is presently believed that the origin of the name "Hungary" does not come from the Central Asian nomadic invaders called the
Huns, but rather originated from a later, 7th century
Turkic alliance called
On-Ogour, which in Old Turkish meant "(the) Ten Arrows."
After Hunnish rule faded, the
Lombards and the
Gepids ruled in Pannonia for about 100 years, during which the
Slavic tribes began migrating into the region. In the 560s, the Slavs were supplanted by the
Avars, who maintained their supremacy of the land for more than two centuries. The
Franks under
Charlemagne from the west and the
Bulgars from the southeast managed to overthrow the Avars in the early 9th century. However, the Franks soon retreated, and the Slavonic kingdom of
Great Moravia and the
Balaton Principality assumed control of much of Pannonia until the end of the century. The
Magyars migrated to Hungary in the late 9th century.
Maygar tradition holds that the Country of the Magyars (Magyarország) was founded by
Árpád, who led the
Magyars into the
Pannonian plain some time after 895. The "Ten Arrows" mentioned above referred to ten tribes, the alliance of which was the foundation of the army of the invading Magyars.
The
Kingdom of Hungary was established in 1000 by King
Saint Stephen. Stephen, a direct descendant of Árpád, was baptised as a child. He married
Giselle of Bavaria, the daughter of
Henry II, Duke of Bavaria in 996, and assumed the mantle of ruler in 997 after the death of his father,
Prince Géza.
St. Stephen I received his crown from
Pope Silvester II in 1000. As a Christian king, he established the Hungarian Church with ten dioceses and the royal administration of the country that was divided into counties (
comitatus or
vármegye). Hungary became a patrimonial kingdom where the majority of the land was the private property of the ruler.
Initially, Hungarian history and politics developed in close association with that of
Poland and
Bohemia, driven by the interventions of various Popes and Emperors of the
Holy Roman Empire. Between 1241–1242, under
King Béla IV. Hungary was devastated, suffering great loss of life at the hands of the
Mongol (
Tatar) armies of
Batu Khan who defeated the Hungarians at the
Battle of Muhi. Despite the victory, the Mongols did not occupy Hungary, but withdrew shortly after upon the news of the death of
Ghengis Khan, leaving behind a country in ruins.
Gradually Hungary, under the rule of the dynasty of the
Árpáds, joined the greater West European
civilizations. Ruled by the
Angevins since
1308, the Kingdom of Hungary slowly lost control over territories later called
Wallachia (
1330) and
Moldavia (
1359).
János Hunyadi, the Regent of Hungary fought defensive wars against the invading
Ottoman Empire. The custom of sounding the
noon bell is closely related to an important battle agaist the Ottomans that took place on
June 29,
1456, at
Nándorfehérvár.
His son, King
Matthias Corvinus, ruled the Kingdom of Hungary from
1458 to
1490. He strengthened Hungary and its government. Under his rule, Hungary became an important artistic and cultural centre of Europe during the
Renaissance. Matthias, whose wife was
Italian, imported artisans from Italy and France. Likewise, Hungarian culture influenced others, for example the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. King
Matthias Corvinus was also successful in many battles against the
Ottoman Empire.
After the death of Matthias, however, Hungarian independence soon ended. The Ottomans gained a decisive victory at the
battle of Mohács in
1526, and the old Kingdom of Hungary came to be divided into three parts: one third of Hungary fell under Ottoman rule; one third (in the West) was annexed by Austria (the
Habsburg rulers of which thus also became
Kings of Hungary); only the last third, in the East, remained "independent Hungary": the Principality of
Transylvania. It was only more than 150 years later, at the end of the
17th century, that Austria and its Christian allies regained the territories of the Kingdom from the Ottoman Empire.
After the final retreat of the
Ottomans, struggle began between the Hungarian nation and the
Habsburg kings for the protection of noblemen's rights (thus guarding the autonomy of Hungary). The fight against Austrian absolutism resulted in the unsuccessful popular freedom fight led by a Transylvanian nobleman,
Ferenc II Rákóczi, between 1703 and 1711. The revolution and war of 1848–1849 eliminated
serfdom and secured civil rights. The Austrians were finally able to prevail only with Russian help.
Thanks to the victories against Austria by the French-Italian coalition (the
Battle of Solferino, 1859) and Prussia (
Battle of Königgrätz, 1866), Hungary would eventually, in 1867, manage to become an autonomous part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire (see
Ausgleich). Having achieved this, the Hungarian government made an effort to nationally unify the kingdom by
Magyarisation of the various other nationalities. This lasted until the end of
World War I, when the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed. On
November 16,
1918, an independent Hungarian Republic was proclaimed.
Following
World War One, Romania occupied Transylvania and Eastern Hungary,
Czechoslovakia Upper Hungary. The joint Serb and French army occupied Southern Hungary. The Entente backed the subsequent annexations of these territories.
In March 1919 the communists took power, and in April,
Béla Kun proclaimed the
Hungarian Soviet Republic. This government, like its predecessor, proved to be short-lived, despite some initial military successes against the Czechoslovak army.
On 13 June the Peace Conference in Versailles ordered the evacuation of the northern territories by Hungary together with the evacuation of the
Tiszántúl by Romania. Hungary fulfilled the request on
30 June but the Romanian army remained in the Tiszántúl.
The ensuing war between Hungary and Romania led to the defeat of the Hungarian Soviet army. By August more than half of present-day Hungary, including Budapest, was placed under Romanian occupation, which lasted until November. Rightist military forces, led by the former Austro-Hungarian Admiral
Miklós Horthy, entered Budapest in the wake of the Romanian army's departure and filled the vacuum of state power. In January 1920, elections were held for a unicameral assembly, and Admiral Horthy was subsequently elected Regent, thereby formally restoring Hungary to a kingdom, although there were no more Kings of Hungary, despite attempts by the former Habsburg king to return to power. Horthy continued to rule with autocratic powers until 1944.
On
June 4,
1920 the
Treaty of Trianon was signed, fixing Hungary's borders. Compared with the pre-war Kingdom, Hungary lost 71% of its territory,66% of its population, and with the new borders about one-third of the Magyar population became minorities in the neighbouring countries. Hungary also lost its only sea port in Fiume (today
Rijeka).Therefore, Hungarian politics and culture of the interwar period were saturated with
irredentism (the restoration of historical "
greater Hungary").
Horthy made an alliance with
Nazi Germany in the
1930s, in the hope of revising the territorial losses that had followed World War I. The alliance did lead to some territories being returned to Hungary in the two
Vienna Awards. Hungary then assisted the German occupation of the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia, occupying the
Banat right afterwards, and finally entered
World War II in 1941, fighting primarily against the Soviet Union. In October 1944,
Hitler replaced Horthy with the Hungarian Nazi collaborator
Ferenc Szálasi and his
Arrow Cross Party in order to avert Hungary's defection to the Allied side, which was constantly threatened since the Allied invasion of Italy.
Hungary passed a series of
anti-Semitic laws—named "numerus clausus" — throughout the 1920s and thirties, and some massacres of Jews by Hungarian forces took place in the early part of the Second World War, but Hungary initially resisted large scale deportation of its Jewish population. Ultimately, however, during the German occupation, the
Arrow Cross Party and government authorities participated in the
Holocaust: in May and June
1944, Hungarian police deported nearly 440,000 Jews in more than 145 trains, mostly to
Auschwitz [
1]. Ultimately, over 400,000 Jews in Hungary were killed during the
Holocaust, as well as tens of thousands of
Roma people. Hundreds of Hungarian people were also executed by the Arrow Cross Party because of sheltering Jews.Pope
Pius XII,
Raoul Wallenberg,
Carl Lutz and other foreign diplomats as well as some Hungarian citizens saved the life of many Jews in Hungary.
Jenő Lévai said
Pius XII "did more than anyone else to halt the dreadful crime and alleviate its consequences."
Following the fall of Nazi Germany, Hungary became part of the Soviet area of influence and was appropriated into a
communist state following a short period of democracy in 1946–1947. After 1948, Communist leader Mátyás Rákosi established a Stalinist rule in the country, which was hardly bearable for the war-torn country. This led to the
1956 Hungarian Revolution and an announced withdrawal from the
Warsaw Pact which were met with a massive military intervention by the
Soviet Union. Nearly a quarter of a million people left the country during the brief time that the borders were open in 1956. From the 1960s on to the late 1980s Hungary was sometimes satirically called "
the happiest barrack" within the
Eastern bloc, under the rule of late controversial communist leader
János Kádár, who exercised autocratic rule during this period. In the late
1980s, Hungary led the movement to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and shifted toward multiparty democracy and a market-oriented economy. On
October 23 1989,
Mátyás Szűrös declared the Third Hungarian Republic and became interim President of the Republic. The first free elections were held in 1990. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1991, Hungary developed closer ties with Western Europe, as well as with other Central European countries, becoming a member of the
Visegrad Group in
1991, and joined
NATO in 1999 and the
European Union on
May 1 2004.
See also: Kingdom of Hungary, Hungary before the Magyars |
Map of Hungary |
Hungary's landscape consists mostly of the flat to rolling plains of the
Carpathian Basin, with hills and lower mountains to the north along the
Slovakian border (highest point: the
Kékes at 3,327
ft; 1,014 m). Hungary is divided in two by its main waterway, the
Danube (
Duna); other large rivers include the
Tisza and
Dráva, while the western half contains
Lake Balaton, a major body of water. The largest thermal lake in the world,
Lake Hévíz (
Hévíz Spa), is located in Hungary. The second largest lake in the
Carpathian Basin is
Lake Theiss (
Tisza-tó).
Climate
Hungary has a
continental climate, with cold, cloudy, humid winters and warm to hot summers. Average annual temperature is 9.7 °
C (49.5 °
F). Temperature extremes are about 38 °C (100 °F) in the summer and −29 °C (−20 °F) in the winter. Average temperature in the summer is 27 to 32 °C (81 to 90 °F), and in the winter it is 0 to −15 °C (32 to 5 °F). The average yearly rainfall is approximately 600 millimetres (24
in). A small, southern region of the country near
Pécs reputedly enjoys a
Mediterranean climate however in reality is just a bit warmer than the rest of the country and still has snow in the winters.
The relative isolation of the Carpathian Basin makes it susceptible to
droughts and the effects of
global warming are already felt. According to popular opinion, and many scientists, in the latest decades the country became drier, as droughts are quite common. Summers became hotter and winters became milder. For these reasons snow has become much rarer than before. Popular opinion also states that the four-season system became a two-season system as
spring and
autumn are getting shorter and shorter, even vanishing some years. This supposed tendency unexpectedly reversed in 2006 when the two main rivers, the
Danube and the
Tisza flooded at the same time. It made hundreds of homes uninhabitable despite the hard work of the defenders who reinforced most sections of the rivers with sandbags (with the help of university students and the army of Hungary ("
Honvédség")).
Most of Hungary is covered by agricultural plains, there are but few remnants of its original forests, mainly in the mountain regions and national parks.
Historical
*
c. 900
AD " according to various sources 25,000"500,000
Magyars settled in the Pannonian plain, inhabited predominantly by Slavs
* 1222 " 2,000,000 at the time of
Golden Bull* 1242 " 1,200,000 after the Mongol-Tatars invasion
* 1370 " 2,500,000 at the time of
Angevin kings
* 1490 " 4,000,000 before the Ottoman conquest (3.2 million Magyars)
* 1699 " 3,300,000 at the time of
Treaty of Karlowitz (less than 2 million Magyars)
* 1711 " 3,000,000 at the end of
Kuruc War (1.6 million Magyars)
* 1790 " 8,000,000 (39% Magyars)
* 1828 " 11,495,536
* 1846 " 12,033,399
* 1880 " 13,749,603 (46% Magyars)
* 1900 " 16,838,255 (51.4% Magyars)
* 1910 " 18,264,533 (54.5% Magyars, 5%
Jews)
* 1920 " 7,516,000 after the
Treaty of Trianon (90% Magyars, 6.1% Jews)
* 1981 " 10,800,000 at the beginning of the demographic decline
* 2001 " 10,197,119 at the date of national census 1 February 2001
* 2005 " 10,090,330 at the 2005 microcensus [
2]
Present
For some 95% of the population, mostly
Hungarians, the mother tongue is
Hungarian, a
Finno-Ugric language unrelated to any neighbouring language. Several ethnic minorities exist:
Roma (5%),
Germans (1.2%),
Romanians (0.8%),
Slovaks (0.4%),
Croats (0.2%),
Serbs (0.2%) and
Ukrainians (0.1%).
According to census data, the largest religion in Hungary is
Roman Catholicism (50% of the population [
3]), with a significant
Calvinist minority (16% of the population) and smaller
Lutheran (3%) and
Greek Catholic (3%) minorities. However, these census figures are representative of religious affiliation rather than practice; an estimated 10-14% of Hungarians attend religious services at least once a week and fewer than 50% at least once a year, while 30% of Hungarians do not believe in God [
4][
5].
For historical reasons, significant
Hungarian minority populations can be found in the surrounding countries, notably in
Ukraine (in
Transcarpathia),
Slovakia,
Romania (in
Transylvania), and
Serbia (in
Vojvodina).
Austria (in
Burgenland),
Croatia, and
Slovenia are also host to a number of ethnic Magyars.
The Roma minority
The real number of
Roma people, known colloquially as "gypsies", in Hungary is a disputed question. In the 2001 census only 190,000 people called themselves Roma, but experts and Roma organisations estimate that there are between 450,000 and 600,000 Roma living in Hungary [
6]. Since
World War II, the size of the Roma population has increased rapidly. Today every fifth or sixth newborn Hungarian child belongs to the Roma minority. Estimates based on current demographic trends claim that in 2050 15-20 percent of the population (1.2 million people) will be Roma.
Romas (called
cigányok or
romák in Hungarian) suffer particular problems in Hungary. School segregation is an especially acute one, with many Roma children sent to classes for pupils with learning disabilities. Currently slightly more than 80% of Roma children complete primary education, but only one third continue studies into the intermediate (secondary) level. This is far lower than the more than 90% proportion of children of non-Roma families who continue studies at an intermediate level. The situation is made still worse by the fact that a large proportion of young Roma are qualified in subjects that provide them only limited chances for employment. Less than 1% of Roma hold higher educational certificates. Their low status on the job market and higher unemployment rates cause poverty, widespread social problems and crime.
The
President of the Republic, elected by the
parliament every 5 years, has a largely ceremonial role, but powers also include appointing the
prime minister and choosing the dates of the parliamentary elections. The prime minister selects
cabinet ministers and has the exclusive right to dismiss them. Each cabinet nominee appears before one or more parliamentary committees in consultative open hearings and must be formally approved by the president.
The
unicameral, 386-member
National Assembly (the
Országgyűlés) is the highest organ of state authority and initiates and approves legislation sponsored by the prime minister. National parliamentary elections are held every 4 years (the next will be held probably in 2010). An 11-member Constitutional Court has power to challenge legislation on grounds of unconstitutionality.
Hungary is subdivided administratively into 19 counties, but since the admission to the European Union, Hungary has been subdivided into 7 euro-regions. In addition to these, there is one
capital city (
főváros):
Budapest. There are also 23 so-called urban counties (singular
megyei jogú város), These are:
See also: List of historic counties of HungaryHungary continues to demonstrate economic growth as one of the newest member countries of the European Union (since 2004). The private sector accounts for over 80% of
GDP. Hungary gets nearly one third of all foreign direct investment flowing in to Central Europe. Foreign ownership of and investment in Hungarian firms are widespread, with cumulative foreign direct investment totalling more than US$23 billion since 1989. The Hungarian sovereign debt's
credit rating is BBB+ as of July 2006, making Hungary the only other country in the EU apart from Poland not to enjoy an A grade score.
Inflation and
unemployment have been on the rise in the past few years, and they are expected to rise further. Foreign investors' trust in the Hungarian Economy has declined, as they deem that the stringency measures planned in the 2nd half of 2006 are not satisfactory, their focus being mainly on increasing the income side rather than curbing government spendings. Economic reform measures such as health care reform, tax reform, and local government financing have not yet been addressed by the present government.
The Hungarian government has expressed a desire to adopt the
euro currency in 2010. However, foreign analysts widely criticised that date as highly unrealistic given the current shape of the economy in relation to the
Maastricht criteria; their assessments suggest that a date of 2013-2014 for Euro adoption is more realistic. Some analysts even go as far as to suggest that would be EU members - Romania and Bulgaria - might beat Hungary to euro adoption.
[http://euobserver.com/9/22015]The
Music of Hungary consists mainly of traditional Hungarian
folk music and music by prominent composers such as
Franz Liszt,
Béla Bartók and
Zoltán Kodály. Hungarian traditional music tends to have a strong
dactylic rhythm, just as the language is invariably stressed on the first syllable of each word.
Hungarian cuisine is also a prominent feature of Hungarian culture, with traditional dishes such as
goulash a main feature of the Hungarian
diet. Dishes are often flavoured with
paprika (also Hungarian for
pepper).
Stews are often to be found with typical elements such as
pork or
beef, for example as used in
pörkölt.
Hungary is famous for its excellent mathematics education which trained a lot of outstanding scientists. Famous Hungarian mathematicians include
Paul Erdős who is famous for publishing in over forty languages and whose
Erdős numbers are still tracked,
János Bolyai designer of
non-Euclidian geometry,
John von Neumann one of the pioneers in digital computing,
Eugene Wigner, and many others. Erdős, von Neumann, and Wigner, like other Hungarian Jewish scientists, fled rising anti-Semitism in Europe, and made their most famous contributions in the United States.
Hungarians are very proud of their inventions. These include the noiseless
match,
Rubik's cube and the aforementioned
non-Euclidian geometry. A number of other important inventions, including
holography, the
ballpoint pen (invented by
Bíró, who gave his name to the invention), the theory of the
hydrogen bomb, and the
BASIC programming language, were invented by Hungarians who fled the country prior to World War II.
|
Ferenc Kölcsey, author of the Hungarian National Anthem |
Hungarian literature has recently gained some renown outside the borders of Hungary (mostly through translations into German, French and English). Some modern Hungarian authors became increasingly popular in Germany and Italy especially
Sándor Márai,
Péter Esterházy,
Péter Nádas and
Imre Kertész. The later is a contemporary Jewish writer who survived the Holocaust and won the
Nobel Prize for literature in 2002.
The older classics of Hungarian literature and Hungarian poetry remained almost totally unknown outside Hungary.
János Arany, a famous 19th century Hungarian poet is still much loved in Hungary (especially his collection of
Ballads), among several other "true classics" like
Sándor Petőfi, the poet of the Revolution of 1848,
Endre Ady,
Mihály Babits,
Dezső Kosztolányi,
Attila József and
János Pilinszky. Other well-known Hungarian authors are
Zsigmond Móricz,
Gyula Illyés,
Albert Wass and
Magda Szabó.Hungarians are also known for their prowess at
water sports, mainly
swimming,
water polo and canoeing; this can be said to be surprising at first, due to Hungary being
landlocked. On the other hand, the presence of two major rivers (
Duna/
Tisza) and a major lake (
Balaton) gives excellent opportunities to practice those sports.
*
Hungarian WikipediaLists
*
List of cities in Hungary*
List of Hungarians*
List of Hungarian rulers*
List of Hungarian writers*
List of colleges in Hungary*
List of universities in Hungary*
Common Hungarian surnames*
Eastern name order used in Hungarian personal namesMiscellaneous topics
*
Communications in Hungary*
The Constitution of Hungary*
Curse of Turan*
Foreign relations of Hungary*
History of the Jews in Hungary*
Hungarian animals*
Hungarian cuisine*
Hungarian jokes*
Magyar Cserkészszövetség (Hungarian Scout Association)
*
Military of Hungary*
Music of Hungary*
Name days in Hungary*
Public holidays in Hungary*
Transportation in Hungary*
Old Hungarian scriptGeneral info
*
Encyclopaedia Britannica - Hungary Country Page*
Country Profile Hungary – tons of material and links
*
Official site of the National Assembly*
Hungarian Government Portal with comprehensive information
*
Official site of the President of Hungary*
Official site of the Prime Minister of Hungary*
Official site of the Visegrad Group*
Hungary for Visitors – Descriptions of the main regions for tourists
*
Hungary's Strategic Audit 2005 – Comprehensive analyses of Hungary's past 15 years and current state of development (click the
Union Jack to see the English language version)
History
*
History of Hungary: Primary Documents*
History of Hungary – The Corvinus Library*
History of Hungary – Chronological Survey: 2500 BC – AD 2004*
Hungarian History (Turanian Lands, Turanian Peoples)
*
In The Land of Hagar - The Jews of Hungary – A Virtual Exhibition
Images
*
Flickr Group: Hungary*
Aerial photography: Hungary*
Artistic photos of HungaryCulture
*
Hungarian Book Foundation*
Funds available for translators of Hungarian works - in Hungarian*
Translation of Hungarian literary works - a databasefiu-vro:Ungari
