Background Information
The Republic of Hungary is in south central Europe, bordered by Croatia, Slovenia Austria, Romania, and Serbia. It is a member of the European Union.
- Area: 93,030 sq. km., about the size of Indiana
- Population: 9,981,334; Budapest (the Capital) 2,000,000; Szeged 189,000
- Currency: Forint (HUF), 1 USD = 191.16 HUF as of August 2007
- Ethnic groups: Magyar 89.9%, Romany 4%, German 2.6%, Serb 2%
- Religions: Roman Catholic 68%, Calvinist 21%, Lutheran 4%, Jewish 1%
- Languages: Magyar 98.2%, other 1.8%
- Education: compulsory to age 16; Altalanos Iskola serves students from 6 to 14 years of age; there are academic, technical, comprehensive, and vocational secondary schools; there are 89 institutions of higher education, including the Foiskola (college) and Egyetem (university).
History
In the 5th Century, Hungarian tribes emigrated from the Ural area, eventually reaching the Carpathian Basin, expelling and absorbing the previous residents. In the 9th Century, Arpad established a ruling dynasty; a successor, King Stephen (1000-1038) converted the nation to Christianity, and was later canonized. King Matthias, another key figure in Hungarian history, presided over a time of economic and cultural bounty in the 15th Century. This was followed by defeat of the Hungarian army at Mohacs in 1526 and Turkish occupation for 150 years. After struggles with Turkish and Austrian Habsburg control, in 1867 a dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy was established and prospered until its defeat in World War I, when Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory and nearly as much of its population. There was a brief but bloody communist dictatorship and counterrevolution in 1919, followed by a 25-year regency under Adm. Miklos Horthy.
Although Hungary fought in most of World War II as a German ally, it fell under German military occupation following an unsuccessful attempt to switch sides in 1944. In January 1945, a provisional government concluded an armistice with the Soviet Union and established the Allied Control Commission, under which Soviet, American, and British representatives held complete sovereignty over the country. The commission chairman was a member of Stalin's inner circle and exercised absolute control. Postwar cooperation between the U.S.S.R. and the West collapsed, and the Cold War began. Moscow-trained Matyas Rakosi began to establish a communist dictatorship with Soviet support. By 1949, the communists had merged all opposition parties into the Hungarian Workers' Party, and adopted a Soviet-style constitution, which created the Hungarian People's Republic. Rakosi became Prime Minister in 1952, and the Hungarian economy was reorganized according to the Soviet model. Freedom of the press, religion, and assembly was strictly curtailed. The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Forced industrialization and land collectivization soon led to serious economic difficulties, which reached crisis proportions by mid-1953, the year Stalin died. The new Soviet leaders blamed Rakosi for Hungary's economic situation and began a more flexible policy. Imre Nagy, who replaced Rakosi as prime minister, repudiated much of Rakosi's economic program of forced collectivization and heavy industry. He also ended political purges and freed thousands of political prisoners. The economic situation, however, continued to deteriorate, and Rakosi succeeded in forcing Nagy from power in 1955. Rakosi's attempt to restore Stalinist orthodoxy then foundered, with increasing opposition after Khrushchev's 1956 denunciation of Stalin. Fearing revolution, Moscow replaced Rakosi with his deputy, Erno Gero. Pressure for change reached a climax on October 23, 1956, when security forces fired on Budapest students marching in support of Poland's confrontation with the Soviet Union. The ensuing battle quickly grew into a massive popular uprising. Gero called on Soviet troops to restore order, and fighting did not abate until the Central Committee re-named Nagy as prime minister; Janos Kadar replaced Gero as party first secretary. Nagy dissolved the state security police, abolished the one-party system, promised free elections, and negotiated with the U.S.S.R. to withdraw its troops.
Faced with reports of new Soviet troops pouring into Hungary despite Soviet Ambassador Andropov's assurances to the contrary, on November 1, 1956 Nagy announced Hungary's neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. He appealed to the United Nations and the Western powers for protection of its neutrality. Preoccupied with the Suez Crisis, the UN and the West failed to respond, and the Soviet Union launched a massive military attack on Hungary on November 3. Some 200,000 Hungarians fled to the West. Nagy and his colleagues took refuge in the Yugoslav Embassy. Kadar, after delivering an impassioned radio address on November 1 in support of "our glorious revolution" and vowing to fight the Russians with his bare hands if they attacked Hungary, defected from the Nagy cabinet. He fled to the Soviet Union, and, on November 4, announced the formation of a new government. He returned to Budapest and, with Soviet support, carried out severe reprisals; thousands of people were executed or imprisoned. Despite a guarantee of safe conduct, Nagy was arrested and deported to Romania. In June 1958, the government announced that Nagy and other former officials had been executed.
Over the next two decades of relative domestic quiet, Kadar's government responded to pressure for political and economic reform and to counter-pressures from reform opponents. By the early 1980s, it had achieved some lasting economic reforms and limited political liberalization and pursued a foreign policy that encouraged more trade with the West.
Hungary's transition to a Western-style parliamentary democracy was the first and the smoothest among the former Soviet bloc, inspired by a nationalism that long had encouraged Hungarians to control their own destiny. By 1987, civic activism had intensified to a level not seen since the 1956 revolution. The reform movement gathered strength as communist party membership declined dramatically, and in 1989 the Soviet Union signed an agreement to withdraw its forces by June 1991.