Hungarian History 3

1867 to today
 Dualism
• 1867: compromise btw. AUS and HU
• Name: Austro-Hungarian Empire
• Monarch: Emperor Francis Joseph, also king of
HU
• Dualism: two power centers: AUS and HU
• Common affairs: finance, military, foreign
• Results: economic prosperity: industrial
revolution BUT political debates: 1848 or 1867?
• ”Magyarization” and emigration to the US:
ethnic and minority conflicts
• Ended by the World War and the break-up of
the Monarchy
 World War I, 1914-18: the outbreak
• Francis Ferdinand, the Habsburg heir, assassinated in
Sarajevo by the Black Hand
• Austrian ultimatum on Serbia, rejected => declaration
of war
• Conflict: Entente Cordiale (West) vs. The Central
Powers (Germany, Austria and allies)
• Key:
• Will the lesser European powers join the Allies?
• Will the US enter, and if so, on which side?
 The End of World War I
• Hungary largely left out of the war zone, but
Hungarian soldiers fought on the Russian, Italian,
Serbian front and against Romania
• Defeat of the Central Powers: Fall 1918 – What now?
• October-November 1918: Revolutions, Hungary
becomes independent, but successor states created
out of Austria-Hungary
 Hungary: revolutions, 1918-1919
• October 1918: the Frostflower Revolution:
democratic revolution, republic declared
• March 1919: the Hungarian Soviet Republic (Red Terror)
• August 1919: The ”Counterrevolution”:
nationalist forces not involved in the two
revolutions: HU restoration, protection of territories
from Successor States’ attacks (White Terror or
legal persecution for crimes against humanity?)
Political turmoil mixed w. RUM occupation
(August to November 1919) => HU invited to the
peace conference for 1920
 Paris and Trianon, 1919-1920
Paris Peace Conference (1919-20):
victors without the defeated: GER, AUS,
HU, BUL and TR treaties (1919-21)
HU invited in late 1919: not to negotiate,
but to sign; delegation led by Ct.
Apponyi wins no concessions despite
professional preparations to present the
HU argument
Trianon treaty: June 4, 1920: HU loses
2/3 of territory and population =>
revisionism: treaty revision along more
just lines
Revisionist imagery
 The Horthy Era, 1920-44
• Conservative, Christian nationalist period
• HU: kingdom w/o a king, Regent Ct. Nicholas Horthy (Gróf
Horthy Miklós)
• Challenges: communists and various fascist organizations:
both pursued and banned
• Hungarian Soviet Republic (March-August 1919): red terror
=> anticommunism
• Jews involved in the red terror => selective anti-Semitism
• Great depression, 1930s: right wing movements get stronger,
continue to blame the Jews => anti-Semitic laws (like in Nazi
Germany)
• Revisionism: Trianon: 2/3 of Hungary lost to successor states:
HU wants territories back: peaceful revision does not work =>
HU joins Nazi Germany for territorial revision
• German alliance takes HU into World War II
 Hungary in World War II, 1939-45
• HU: German alliance: the two Vienna Awards (1938,
1941)returned many of the territories lost at Trianon
• 1941: HU joins the war: attacks Yugoslavia and the
Soviet Union
• 1943: HUs negotiate armistice with Allies secretly: if
Allies land in HU before the Soviets, HU surrenders =>
• March 19, 1944: Nazi Germany occupies HU; October
15: Germans capture Horthy and install a fascist (Arrow-
Cross) regime under Ferenc Szálasi
• 1944-45: the SU army liberates HU from German
occupation
• Wartime diplomacy: HU would be part of the Soviet
sphere of influence: Yalta agreements
Hungary in World War II - Losses
• HU’s losses: over 1.2m people
out of 9.7m
• Holocaust: 450,000 Jews killed (a
total of 600,000 deported);
• Gulag: Russians took 600,000 for
„malenkij robot” (a little work)
out of which 200,000 died
Hungary after World War II, 1945-56
• 1945-47: HU under SU occupation; gradual communist
takeover
• 1947: second Treaty of Trianon: even more territorial losses:
SU entrance into HU via the Ukraine
• 1949-56: Stalinist communism: collectivization of the
economy, show trials, persecution of Churches and religions,
HU becomes a Soviet colony
• HU leader: Mátyás Rákosi (the HU Stalin)
• 1953: Stalin’s death => power struggle in the Kremlin =>
changes in the satellites => Imre Nagy
• 1953: East German uprising, strikes in BUL and CZ
• 1956: Polish October => Hungarian Revolution => Soviet
intervention followed by bloodbath
 The Hungarian Revolution and War of
Independence of 1956
• 1956: Reform movements after the 20th Congress of the CPSU
• October 23: students organize demonstrations in support of Polish workers
=> commies fire into the crowds => revolution. Imre Nagy
• 1st Soviet attack defeated, Soviets negotiate
• November 1: Nagy announces HU neutrality
• November 4- December 15: second SU attack, 200,000 people flee
• János Kádár takes over as new SU puppet (1956-88): the ”Kádár era”
• Imre Nagy executed after a secret trial, people executed, mock trials
• Official interpretation: fascist counterrevolution incited by the USA;
criminals committing treason and conspiracy against the state, etc.
Nagy Imre and Kádár János
 1989: The Kádár Era
• 1956-89: the Kádár era or Goulash communism
• between government and people: ”If you are not
against us, you are with us.”
• In order to keep power: raise living standard
• Foreign loans
• 1982/1984: HU becomes member of the IMF and
the World Bank, but loans go to the Soviet
military budget in Afghanistan
• 1988: Kádár’s mental collapse: Károly Grósz takes
over
1989: The Year of Miracles
• 1989: 1956 becomes a ”popular
uprising” (from counterrevolution); Imre
Nagy is reburied, Kádár dies, East
German refugees are allowed into AUS
by HU, HU becomes a republic on
October 23 (cf. 1956), and the Wall
comes down in Berlin in November: the
Soviet bloc falls apart in a single year
• First democratic elections, Soviets
retreat, fall of the Soviet Union
• Since 1989: HU becomes a NATO then
EU member