The Hungarians

by Lendvai, Paul; Major, Ann

• ISBN13: 9780691119694
• ISBN10: 0691119694
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-07-19
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

The Hungariansis the most comprehensive, clear-sighted, and absorbing history ever of a legendarily proud and passionate but lonely people. Much of Europe once knew them as "child-devouring cannibals" and "bloodthirsty Huns." But it wasn't long before the Hungarians became steadfast defenders of the Christian West and fought heroic freedom struggles against the Tatars (1241), the Turks (16-18th centuries), and, among others, the Russians (1848-49 and 1956). Paul Lendvai tells the fascinating story of how the Hungarians, despite a string of catastrophes and their linguistic and cultural isolation, have survived as a nation-state for more than 1,000 years. Lendvai, who fled Hungary in 1957, traces Hungarian politics, culture, economics, and emotions from the Magyars' dramatic entry into the Carpathian Basin in 896 to the brink of the post-Cold War era. Hungarians are ever pondering what being Hungarian means and where they came from. Yet, argues Lendvai, Hungarian national identity is not only about ancestry or language but also an emotional sense of belonging. Hungary's famous poet-patriot, Saacute;ndor Petofi, was of Slovak descent, and Franz Liszt felt deeply Hungarian though he spoke only a few words of Hungarian. Through colorful anecdotes of heroes and traitors, victors and victims, geniuses and imposters, based in part on original archival research, Lendvai conveys the multifaceted interplay, on the grand stage of Hungarian history, of progressivism and economic modernization versus intolerance and narrow-minded nationalism. He movingly describes the national trauma inflicted by the transfer of the historic Hungarian heartland of Transylvania to Romania under the terms of the Treaty of Trianon in 1920--a trauma that the passing of years has by no means lessened. The horrors of Nazi and Soviet Communist domination were no less appalling, as Lendvai's restrained account makes clear, but are now part of history. An unforgettable blend of eminent readability, vibrant humor, and meticulous scholarship,The Hungariansis a book without taboos or prejudices that at the same time offers an authoritative key to understanding how and why this isolated corner of Europe produced such a galaxy of great scientists, artists, and entrepreneurs.

Author Biography

Paul Lendvai is a leading European journalist and a senior television commentator with ORF, the Austrian public broadcasting corporation. Since 1973 he has been editor in chief and copublisher of the Vienna-based international quarterly Europaische Rundschau

Table of Contents

Foreword to the English Edition	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
"Heathen Barbarians" overrun Europe: Evidence from St Gallen	p. 7
Land Acquisition or Conquest? The Question of Hungarian Identity	p. 12
From Magyar Mayhem to the Christian Kingdom of the Arpads	p. 27
The Struggle for Continuity and Freedom	p. 38
The Mongol Invasion of 1241 and its Consequences	p. 49
Hungary's Rise to Great Power Status under Foreign Kings	p. 62
The Heroic Age of the Hunyadis and the Turkish Danger	p. 75
The Long Road to the Catastrophe of Mohacs	p. 86
The Disaster of Ottoman Rule	p. 94
Transylvania--the Stronghold of Hungarian Sovereignty	p. 106
Gabor Bethlen--Vassal, Patriot and European	p. 114
Zrinyi or Zrinski? One Hero for Two Nations	p. 126
The Kuruc Leader Thokoly: Adventurer or Traitor?	p. 137
Ferenc Rakoczi's Fight for Freedom from the Habsburgs	p. 145
Myth and Historiography: an Idol through the Ages	p. 155
Hungary in the Habsburg Shadow	p. 160
The Fight Against the "Hatted King"	p. 177
Abbot Martinovics and the Jacobin Plot	p. 183
Count Istvan Szechenyi and the "Reform Era": the "Greatest Hungarian"	p. 191
Lajos Kossuth and Sandor Petofi: Symbols of 1848	p. 206
Victories, Defeat and Collapse: the Lost War of Independence, 1849	p. 222
Kossuth the Hero versus "Judas" Gorgey: "Good" and "Bad" in Sacrificial Mythology	p. 242
Who was Captain Gusev? Russian "Freedom Fighters" between Minsk and Budapest	p. 260
Elisabeth, Andrassy and Bismarck: Austria and Hungary on the Road to Reconciliation	p. 266
Victory in Defeat: the Compromise and the Consequences of Dualism	p. 281
Total Blindness: The Hungarian Sense of Mission and the Nationalities	p. 299
The "Golden Age" of the Millennium: Modernization with Drawbacks	p. 310
"Magyar Jew or Jewish Magyar?" A Unique Symbiosis	p. 329
"Will Hungary be German or Magyar?" The Germans' Peculiar Role	p. 348
From the Great War to the "Dictatorship of Despair": the Red Count and Lenin's Agent	p. 356
The Admiral on a White Horse: Trianon and the Death Knell of St Stephen's Realm	p. 373
Adventurers, Counterfeiters, Claimants to the Throne: Hungary as Troublemaker in the Danube Basin	p. 389
Marching in Step with Hitler: Triumph and Fall. From the Persecution of Jews to Mob Rule	p. 406
Victory in Defeat: 1945-1990	p. 427
"Everyone is a Hungarian": Geniuses and Artists	p. 466
Summing-up	p. 504
Notes	p. 508
Chronology of Significant Events in Hungarian History	p. 533
Index	p. 557
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