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A Concise History of Hungary

The document provides a chronology of important events in Hungarian history from around 2000 BC to 1849 AD. Some key events include the Hungarian tribes migrating to the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century, Hungary being Christianized under King St Stephen in 1001, the Mongol invasion in 1241-1242, the Ottoman occupation of central Hungary from 1541-1699, and the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence against Austria from 1848-1849. The chronology covers political, cultural, and religious developments over nearly three millennia of Hungarian history.

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Gergely Vince Szalai

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A Concise History of Hungary

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CAMBRIDGE CONCISE HISTORIES

Titles in the series:

A Concise History of Australia
STUART MACINTYRE

A Concise History of Bolivia

HERBERT S. KLEIN

A Concise History of Brazil

B O R I S FA U S T O

A Concise History of Britain, 1707–1795

W. A . S P E C K

A Concise History of Bulgaria 2nd edition

R. J. CRAMPTON

A Concise History of Finland

D AV I D K I R B Y

A Concise History of France 2nd edition

ROGER PRICE

A Concise History of Germany 2nd edition

M A RY F U L B R O O K

A Concise History of Greece 2nd edition

RICHARD CLOGG

A Concise History of Hungary

M I K L Ó S M O L N Á R

A Concise History of India

BARBARA D. METCALF and THOMAS R. METCALF

A Concise History of Italy

CHRISTOPHER DUGGAN

A Concise History of Mexico

BRIAN R. HAMNETT

A Concise History of New Zealand

P H I L I P PA M E I N S M I T H

A Concise History of Poland

JERZY LUKOWSKI and HUBERT Z AWA D Z K I

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A Concise History of Portugal 2nd edition
D AV I D B I R M I N G H A M

A Concise History of South Africa

ROBERT ROSS

Other titles are in preparation

c. 2000 bc Separation of the Finno-Ugric languages in western Siberia

1000–500 bc Separation of the Ugrians, Magyar people group in the southern
Ural region (Bashkiria)
ad 500–800 Migration of the Hungarian tribes from the Urals to the Black
Sea region
862 Established at Etelköz, near the River Don, the Hungarians
venture into Frankish territories
895–900 Conquest of the Carpathian basin
899–970 Forays to the West and to the Balkans
900–1301 Reign of the House of Árpád
1001 Coronation of István I (St Stephen). Foundation of the state,
Christianisation, pagan revolts
1077–1116 László I (St Ladislas) and Kálmán I (Coloman) expand the inﬂu-
ence of the kingdom to the Balkans, Croatia and Dalmatia.
Advances in justice and culture
1172–96 Béla III strengthens the power of the state and the property of the
lay nobles
1192–5 The Pray Codex, containing the oldest Hungarian text
1222 The Golden Bull of András (Andrew) II; ﬁrst charter of equal
rights for the nobility
1241–2 Mongol-Tatar invasion, followed by Béla IV’s reconstruction
1301 Extinction of the dynasty of the House of Árpád
1310–82 Two Neapolitan Angevin kings, Charles-Robert and Louis I the
Great. Period of progress and expansion. Louis becomes King of
Poland in 1370
1367 Foundation of the University of Pécs
1387–1437 Sigismund I of Luxemburg, the future emperor. Half a century

of struggle with the barons. Withdrawal from the Balkans and

from Dalmatia
1416–56 The Ottoman Empire threatens Hungary
1456 János (John) Hunyadi, military leader, governor (1446–52) and
great commander, stops Turkish expansion at Nándorfehérvár
(Belgrade)
1458–90 Matthias I, Hunyadi’s son, reconstructs the kingdom and intro-
duces Renaissance culture
1514 The great peasant revolt under the leadership of György
(George) Dózsa. István Werböczi’s corpus of civil law
(Tripartitum) establishes the customary rights of the nobility to
the detriment of the peasants, who are reduced to servitude
1526 At Mohács, Suleiman I the Magniﬁcent annihilates the
Hungarian army. Two rival kings, János (John) Szápolyai and the
Habsburg Ferdinand I, divide the country between them
1541 The sultan occupies Buda, the Turks settle in the middle of the
country. The division of Hungary into three parts – the Turkish,
the Transylvanian and the western part under Habsburg rule –
lasts till the end of the seventeenth century
The Reformation reaches Hungary and contributes to literary
development as does the Counter-Reformation
Transylvania, under Ottoman rule, becomes a semi-independent
principality
1568 The Transylvanian Torda Diet proclaims religious freedom
1571 István (Stephen) Báthori, the future king of Poland, is elected
prince of Transylvania
1604–6 Uprising against the Habsburgs led by István (Stephen) Bocskai
1613–29 Transylvania’s golden age under Gábor Bethlen. War against the
Habsburgs
1657–1705 Leopold I, king of Hungary and emperor, introduces Habsburg
absolutism in Hungary
1686 Liberation of Buda, retreat of the Turks
1687 Transylvania falls under Viennese domination
1699 Peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire, the end of 158 years of
occupation
1703–11 War of liberation of Ferenc (Francis) Rákóczi II against the
Habsburgs
1722–3 The Hungarian Diet sanctions the succession to the throne of
the female line of the house of Habsburg. The nobility retain
their privileges
1740–80 The conciliatory and enlightened reign of Maria Theresa

1780–90 Joseph II, an enlightened absolute monarch, tries to impose

reforms but fails in the face of resistance by the nobility
1795 At Buda, execution of the leaders of the ‘Jacobin conspirators’
1800–48 The language reform movement. Flourishing of Hungarian lit-
erature
1830 Publication of the work Hitel (Credit) by Count István (Stephen)
Széchenyi, the initiator of modernisation and founder of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
1832–48 Period of reforms in the Diet. Lajos (Louis) Kossuth emerges as
leader of the liberal–radical opposition. The Diet committees
support national demands
The opening of the National Theatre at Pest. Suspension
bridge to link Pest and Buda. The ﬁrst railway line from Pest to
Vác
1848–9 Revolution at Pest (15 March). War of independence. King
Ferdinand V sanctions the ‘April law’ of constitutional transfor-
mation and abolition of serfdom. Hungarian government at Pest
War of liberation against Austria (September 1848–August
1849). Abdication of Emperor Ferdinand. The young Francis-
Joseph I is enthroned (2 December 1848)
After the victorious spring campaign the Hungarian (Honvéd)
army retreats. The National Assembly, transferred to Debrecen,
proclaims Hungary’s independence and the dethronement of the
Habsburgs (14 April 1849). Kossuth president–governor
In response to Francis-Joseph’s appeal, the army of Tsar
Nicholas I invades Hungary. The Hungarian army lays down its
arms in front of the Russians at Világos (15 August). Kossuth
goes into exile
1849–67 Executions and repression. Neo-absolutist regime, passive resis-
tance. Beginning of the reconciliation
1865 Ferenc (Francis) Deák embarks on talks with Vienna regarding
the restitution of constitutional freedoms
1866 The Austrian army is defeated by the Prussians at Sadowa
1867 Austro-Hungarian compromise based on mutual concessions.
The start of the 51-year period of dualism. Count Gyula (Julius)
Andrássy’s government
1868 The Hungarian Parliament adopts liberal laws regarding educa-
tion and the rights of the national minorities of the kingdom.
Hungarian–Croatian compromise
1871–9 Gyula Andrássy minister of foreign affairs of the dual monarchy

1873 Pest, Buda and Óbuda are united, Budapest is born

1875–90 Kálmán (Coloman) Tisza heads the liberal government, the
advocates of independence are in opposition
1896 Hungary’s millennium
1905 The Liberal Party loses the elections
1906–10 Coalition governments. Serious conﬂicts with the minorities,
with the trade union movement and with the Social Democratic
Party
1908 Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (2 million inhabitants) by
the monarchy
1910 Last census before the war. Hungary (without Croatia) has
18,246,000 inhabitants of whom 54.5 per cent are of Hungarian
mother tongue. More than 1.5 million Hungarian citizens have
emigrated to the United States
1912 General strike
1913 István (Stephen) Tisza’s government
1914 The assassination of the crown prince at Sarajevo. Outbreak of
the First World War
1916 The death of Francis Joseph I
1918 The defeat and disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy
(October). Democratic revolution. Abdication of King Charles IV.
Mihály (Michael) Károlyi president of the Republic
1919 The Republic of Councils and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The collapse of Béla Kun’s regime (1 August); Romanian occu-
pation. Admiral Miklós (Nicolas) Horthy and the national army
enter the capital
1920 Miklós Horthy elected regent of the kingdom
The Treaty of Trianon (4 June). Hungary loses, excluding
Croatia, two thirds of its territory and 10.5 million inhabitants,
among them more than 3 million Magyars
1921–31 Count István (Stephen) Bethlen president of the Council of
Ministers. Consolidation. Revisionist foreign policy
1927 Italian–Hungarian treaty
Monetary stabilisation. The new currency, the pengö, is worth
12,500 crowns
1931 Economic crisis. The departure of Bethlen
1932–6 The government of Gyula (Julius) Gömbös. Turn to the right
and rapprochement with Hitler
1938 The ﬁrst anti-Jewish law. Hitler’s arbitration at Vienna:
Hungary regains part of Upper Hungary (Slovakia)

1939 Hungary occupies Carpathian Ukraine

The second anti-Jewish law
Rise of the Hungarian Nazis, the Arrow-Cross, at the elections
1940 The second Vienna arbitration: northern Transylvania is
returned to Hungary
Adherence to the tripartite pact of Berlin–Rome–Tokyo
1941 Hungary attacks Yugoslavia. Suicide of Prime Minister Pál
(Paul) Teleki
Hungary enters the war against the Soviet Union (26 June)
1942–4 Miklós (Nicolas) Kállay appointed head of government. He
attempts overtures towards the Allies
1943 The Hungarian Second Army is annihilated at Voronezh on the
Don. Secret negotiations with Britain
1944 Germany occupies Hungary (19 March). The pro-German gov-
ernment of Döme Sztójay
The deportation of about 437,000 Jews from the provinces to
Nazi concentration camps
The Red Army crosses the Hungarian border
Horthy proclaims armistice on the radio (15 October). The
Germans occupy strategic points.
Horthy appoints the Nazi Ferenc (Francis) Szálasi as president of
the Council of Ministers
Bloody terror of the Arrow Cross. Assassination or deportation
of 105,000 Jews from the capital
National Assembly and provisional government at Debrecen (22
December). Three Communist ministers
1945 Armistice signed in Moscow
Yalta Conference (February)
The Soviet army liberates Budapest (13 February) and the whole
country (4 April). Allied Control Commission presided over by
Marshall Voroshilov
Legislative elections (4 November). Smallholders’ Party 57 per
cent, Communist Party 17 per cent. Coalition government,
including four communists
1946 Proclamation of the Republic. President Zoltán Tildy
New currency. One forint equals 400,000 quadrillion pengös
Nationalisation of the banks and of the iron and steel industry
1947 Three-year plan of reconstruction
Peace treaty signed in Paris. The Soviet army remains. Arrests
and processes aimed at the Smallholders’ Party. Deportation of

its general secretary Béla Kovács to the Soviet Union. Forced res-
ignation of the president of the Council of Ministers, Ferenc
(Francis) Nagy
1948 Forced fusion of the Social Democratic Party with the
Communist Party. The party’s name is changed, its general sec-
retary Mátyás (Matthias) Rákosi leads the country. Police regime
Further nationalisation of economic and educational institu-
tions (Roman Catholic and Protestant ones)
1949 The trials of Cardinal József Mindszenty and other Church dig-
nitaries
Elections: the Popular Front candidates achieve 96.27 per cent of
the suffrage
The trial and execution of László Rajk
1950–2 Total dictatorship of the Communist Party. Forced industrialisa-
tion, persecution of the kulaks, trials, executions. János Kádár
is arrested
1953–5 The death of Stalin. The reformer Imre Nagy becomes prime
minister. Mátyás Rákosi remains the leader of the party. Struggle
between reformists and Stalinists. Imre Nagy is ousted
(March–April 1955)
1956 The Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party
(February)
The opposition movement of Hungarian writers and of the
Petöfi Circle grows. The Russians oust Rákosi (18–21 July)
The solemn funeral of Rajk and other victims of Stalinist terror
(6 October)
Mass demonstration and insurrection in Budapest. The first
Soviet intervention. Imre Nagy president of the Council of
Ministers. Cabinet of democratic coalition and the establish-
ment of Workers’ Councils. Hungary withdraws from the
Warsaw Pact (23 October–3 November). The Soviet army
invades Hungary (4 November)
János Kádár takes over. Arrests. The exodus of 200,000
Hungarians
1957–63 Mass repression. The trial of Imre Nagy; five executions (16 June
1958). Trial of writers and freedom-fighters. Over 300 executions
1961 Recollectivisation of agriculture
1963 General amnesty. Political relaxation
1968 The launching of economic reforms
1972 The reform reaches an impasse

1985 The Kádár regime, reputed to have been prosperous and the
most liberal, runs out of steam. Heavy foreign debts
1987 Democratic opposition spreads. Decline in purchasing power
and consumption
1988 Kádár is eliminated from power
Foundation of democratic political parties
1989 The crisis of the regime deepens
National funeral for Imre Nagy and the other victims of repres-
sion
Round-table negotiations for a democratic transition
Proclamation of the Hungarian Republic (23 October)
1990 Legislative elections. The Democratic Forum forms a centre–
right coalition government, headed by József (Joseph) Antall
Árpád Göncz president of the Republic
1994 Legislative elections. The Socialist (ex-Communist) Party gets an
absolute majority. Gyula (Julius) Horn forms a coalition govern-
ment with the Liberal Democrats
1996 Commemoration of the eleventh centenary of Hungary

hungary before the hungarians: an overview of

the territory

From the conquest of 895 up until the First World War Hungary’s
history unfolded in the Carpathian basin; then it was confined within a
smaller territory, that of today’s Hungary. This is a land situated at the
same latitude as central France and the same longitude as its Slovak and
Slav neighbours to the north and the south. Its western boundaries
follow those of Austria, with present-day Ukraine to the north-east and
Romania further to the east.
The oldest known inhabitants date back 350,000 years and traces of
several successive prehistoric cultures have been found, from the Palae-
olithic to the Bronze and Iron ages. Among the most important civilisa-
tions to have crossed the Danube were the Celts. They dominated
Pannonia and a part of the plain which lies between the Danube and the
Tisza in the third century bc. Meanwhile, further east, the Dacians,
Thracians and Getians left behind their heritage in Transylvania as did
the Illyrians in the south.
In the middle of the first century bc, a Dacian empire, led by
Boirebistas, occupied vast expanses of the lower Danube region. This
power was probably at the root of Rome’s expansion towards Dacia and
Pannonia. Initially under Augustus and Tiberius, Roman conquest
brought civilisation and imperial forms of governance to the two prov-
inces for nearly four centuries. The first stone bridge across the Danube
was erected in 103 in what is today Turnu-Severin-Drobeta in Romania

(Szörény in Hungary). Hungarian Pannonia/Transdanubia (Savazia –

Pécs, Sophianum – Szombathely and Acquinicum at Budapest) are
dotted with rich remains of Roman settlements.
The two Danubian provinces – separated by the great plain – experi-
enced prosperity and relative peace throughout the reigns of Trajan,
Marcus Aurelius and Caracalla until the decline of Rome. But by the
second half of the fourth century, the rump of the Roman Empire was
under attack from a number of peoples: Sarmatians, Quadi and Goths.
The Roman army suffered a series of major defeats, the worst of them
at the hands of the Goths in 378 near Andrinopolis (Edirne), where they
were decimated. Within a few decades the Romanised ‘two Pannonias’,
along with the whole of the region south of the Danube, had become a
transit zone for new migrations and a collision point for warring
Germanic, Turkish and other peoples.
The Huns, a nomadic people from Asia, were to leave an indelible
mark on the collective European memory. Attila’s people invaded the
Balkans, the future Hungary (Attila’s headquarters), northern Italy and
Gaul. Following his death in 453, this empire would disappear, leaving
the way open to fresh invaders, among them the ancestors of present-
day Hungarians, the last and the only people to establish a state and to
fend off subsequent invasions. Before them, during the sixth century,
the Avars did succeed in establishing themselves for a relatively longer
period before being absorbed into the ethnic fringes of Charlemagne’s
oppressive Frankish Empire.
The origins of the Avars are relatively unknown. Probably Turks from
Central Asia, driven out by other Turks, they arrived in the lower
Danube around 562, and under the kagan, Baian (Bajan), fought the
Byzantine Empire. By 567 they had occupied a large part of the
Carpathian basin. Over the next 230 years, the Avars fought numerous
battles, but after the 620s, they began to suffer setbacks generally
inflicted by the Byzantine Empire that forced them to retreat into the
territories of future Hungary. Archaeological findings nonetheless
reveal a new cultural flowering during the years after 670. Among the
greatest finds is the fabulous Nagyszentmiklós treasure (named after
the place of its discovery in 1799), a collection of gold artefacts, twenty-
three of which are held in the Museum of Art History in Vienna. They
were probably buried around 796, just before the collapse of this
‘second Avar Empire’, under attacks by Kroum Khan’s Bulgars on its

Plate 1. Hungarian warrior (?) on the Nagyszentmiklós golden goblet.

south-eastern front and by Charlemagne from the west. From 796, the
Avars were forced to submit to the Frankish Empire’s occupation of
Western Pannonia. The entire eastern and Balkan part of their empire
was conquered by the Bulgars and further pressure came from the
Moravians under Prince Moimer and his successors.
Thus, by the second half of the ninth century, at the time of the
Magyar conquest, the country was a kind of crossroads of peoples and
military marches, divided between the eastern Franks, the Moravians,
the Bulgars and what was left of the Avars.
The territories encircled by the Carpathians were therefore neither
empty nor abandoned. They were soon to be repopulated with the
arrival of the new Magyar conquerors. Contrary to certain legends, the
‘last of the Avars’ were not ‘wiped out without a trace’ by the Franks.
A signiﬁcant Slav population also remained in the region with numer-
ous other tribes to the east and south-east under the feeble rule of a
declining Bulgar regime. The end of the ninth century, by contrast,
appears politically and militarily blank, despite frequent battles

between local armies – the Franks and the Moravian princes, in partic-
ular. The Hungarians, still established at Etelköz, were not entirely
unaware of the situation since, in 862, they had made forays as far as
the Frankish Empire, and in 894, just before leaving for their new home-
land, had fought alongside the Byzantine emperor, Leo the Philosopher,
against the Bulgar Tsar Simeon.
The Moravians, led by Svatopluk (replaced by Moimer II after his
death in 894), more than any of the peoples of the time, represented –
for a short period – a distinctive political and military identity called
Great Moravia. As for the land of future Hungary, it offered numerous
advantages to the steppe peoples from the Black Sea region and its envi-
ronment turned them from nomads into settlers. The climate, continen-
tal and moderate, had been traversing a mild cycle since the early
Middle Ages. The land, almost entirely covered with loess, was fertile
and richly endowed with fish-filled rivers and lakes. Hydrographic maps
show vast areas of intermittent flooding, covering more than one eighth
of the country’s surface. This was to be a key aspect in the eventual
occupation and settlement patterns of the new conquerors.
In the meantime, however, they were still on their way to this new des-
tination. It was the penultimate stage of a very long journey in both
time and space, which will need to be retraced before the history of
Hungary can begin.

distant ancestors: a linguistic aside

The prehistory of the Magyar peoples’ distant ancestors begins several

thousand kilometres further east and north of Hungary, in a time
beyond memory, when a people speaking a language called ‘Uralian’
inhabited a vast region that probably straddled both sides of the Urals.
It should be said at the outset that all we have is a hypothetical language
matrix and that nothing is actually known about those that supposedly
spoke it. Indeed, their geographical whereabouts also relies on hypoth-
eses. What is scientiﬁcally certain is the existence of a language group
originating in the area. Its evolution and diversiﬁcation constitutes a
golden thread tracing a path through history. It is important to point out
the distinctive nature of this primitive Uralian language, unrelated to
the Indo-European, Altaic, Semitic and other languages. Uralian consti-
tutes the origin of several linguistic families. Finno-Ugric, one of its

derivatives, is in turn the common base for twenty or so languages, of

which Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are the best known. The closest
linguistic relative to the latter is not, however, the Finno-Baltic branch
but the Ugrian one, that is, the languages of the Voguls (or Manysi-s)
and Ostyaks (or Hanti-s), small tribes that today inhabit western
Siberia, to the east of the Urals. Other descendants of the Finno-Ugrians
are to be found further south, on the other side of the mountains.
In contrast to the Germanic and Latin peoples of Europe, these
Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples were geographically scattered. Out of
the dozen or so that have been identiﬁed, all but the Hungarians and
those of the Baltic region live in Russia. These include, along with the
Voguls and Ostyaks already mentioned, the Komis and the Maris (or
Cheremisses). These family connections, and indeed the entire linguis-
tic network stretching back four thousand years, have been sketched out
by comparative linguists, who are also responsible for suggesting the
approximate period during which separation occurred. However, what
still remains a mystery is both the ethnic composition of the groups who
spoke these languages and the itinerary that was to lead them, on the
one hand to the Gulf of Finland, and on the other to the banks of the
Volga, the Ob and the Danube. Proto-Hungarians did not emerge from
the nebula as a distinctive entity until the middle of the ﬁrst millennium
bc and their itinerary is unknown until the middle of the following mil-
lennium. A temporal desert of a thousand years or more remains,
during which time the ancestors of the Hungarians, having parted
company with their ‘cousins’, became a distinctive people.

In the foothills of the Urals

To anticipate the course of history in a few lines, separation took place

in the mid- or southern Ural region, probably on the eastern side of the
mountains, in other words in western Siberia. In the period that followed
and during the ﬁrst centuries of the modern era, a number of factors
place the ancient Hungarians to the south of the Urals, in the region of
present-day Bashkiria, or perhaps nearer to the Volga itself. Having left
this region, they dropped south towards the Azov Sea, and then moved
on towards the Black Sea. Another split then occurred for reasons that
remain obscure. One of the Proto-Hungarian groups, the Savards, broke
away, heading towards the Caucasus, leaving the majority to pursue their

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Map 1. Migrations of the ancient Magyars

From the beginnings until 1301 7

nomadic existence in the steppes and then to push west, through the
lower Danube, ending up in the Carpathians and future Hungary. Map
1 traces these patterns of movement, diversions from them and settle-
ments founded throughout this long journey.
Such landmarks are approximate and remain so until the ninth
century. We must therefore turn to linguistic matters and to what little
other data exists in order to draw historical conclusions. As we have
seen, the linguistic thread enables us to follow these peoples through
their various separations. But when and where did they take place?
Historians believe that there is enough evidence to support cohabita-
tion until the beginning, perhaps the middle, of the first millennium bc.
As regards the geographical origins of these people, these are far more
uncertain. Were they Asiatic or European? Their most identifiable
cradle is in the vicinity of the Urals, but on which side?
To resolve these problems, scholars have turned to a number of sci-
ences other than linguistics: archaeology whenever possible, historical
geography, musicology too, since the pentatonic scale common to the
popular songs of some of the peoples in this family seems to indicate
certain mutual connections, though often rather tenuous ones. For
quite some time, scholars even took to following the flight of bees,
based upon the hypothesis – which turned out to be false – that bees, in
those faraway days, had not crossed the Urals into Siberia in pursuit of
plunder. And since the words ‘bee’ and ‘honey’ appeared in their basic
vocabulary, the deduction seemed logical: the origin of these peoples
was European. This anecdote illustrates just how difficult it is to follow
the geographical movements of a people without written evidence.
The other hypothesis situates these populations either in western
Siberia or in Europe, the only certainty being their transmigration to
Siberia. In any case, their descendants are found on both sides of the
Urals and nothing suggests that they have not been there since time
immemorial. Moreover, since the Urals are far from impassable moun-
tains, it would have been perfectly possible for them to move from one
place to another more than once, from east to west and back again.

In search of lost languages

Separated from the other Ugrians who travelled north, the Proto-
Hungarians were able to survive in western Siberia and for quite some

time (half a millennium?). While coming under the inﬂuence of other

neighbours, notably Iranians, they nonetheless took on the distinctive
characteristics of a people who were later to be known as the ‘Magyars’
and by the various other forms of the name ‘Hungarian’ (hongrois,
ungar, hungarus etc.) used by other language groups. And yet, apart
from the hypothesis concerning their having settled to the west of the
Urals, the thousand-year period that followed, until the appearance of
Hungarian tribes identified as such in the early Middle Ages, remains
blank. The only evidence of any continuity is language, but in order for
language to be useful in the generation of historical knowledge, the evo-
lution of the Finno-Ugric languages and the Ugric branch, to which
Hungarian belonged, required investigation. It was a task undertaken
by comparative Finno-Ugric linguistics, initially developed in Germany
(at the University of Göttingen), and from 1770 in Finland and
Hungary, linked to a publication by János Sajnovics on the relationship
between Hungarian and Lapp idiom. Then, in the middle of the nine-
teenth century, the Hungarian Antal Reguly and the Finn M. A. Castren
collected invaluable linguistic data in the field in Russia, in those regions
inhabited by the descendants of the Ugrians.
One of the basic linguistic propositions establishes the existence of a
grammatical structure particular to these languages. One of its charac-
teristics is agglutination, in other words suffixes are juxtaposed with the
root word. Seventy-five per cent of the words used in present-day spoken
Hungarian come from basic Finno-Ugric. This linguistic theory has,
however, been fiercely disputed. From the nineteenth century onwards,
Hungarian public opinion was reluctant to accept the family connec-
tions between their language and that of poor, primitive fishermen,
finding the possibility somewhat humiliating. Hungarians nurtured
more glorious dreams: some connection with Attila’s Huns or Sumero-
Babylonian culture would have been more acceptable, just like the
mythical Trojan origins of the French! Although such fantasies continue
to feed the collective imagination, the Finno-Ugric theory is unani-
mously accepted by scholars and is taught in schools.

country of origin: migrations from the urals to

the danube

And so the Proto-Hungarians, while subject to the inﬂuence of neigh-

bouring Scythian and Sarmatian cultures, became an autonomous

people of western Siberia. They discovered the use of iron and led the
lifestyle of horsemen, semi-nomadic shepherds and primitive farmers.
This is evidenced by the existence of Iranian loan-words from that time.
The Proto-Hungarians then reappear during the first millennium of our
era to the west of the Urals, close to Bashkiria, between the Kama and
the Volga Rivers. Was this due to climatic change? Or perhaps an assault
from Attila’s Huns, on the move at the time? We do not know. Written
sources, dated much later, support this approximate location. Between
1232 and 1237, King Béla IV of Hungary, upon hearing news of the
Tatar invasion of Russia, sent a number of Dominican monks in search
of those Hungarians who had remained in the ‘homeland of the ances-
tors’ when the other tribes had taken the road for the Carpathians. The
expedition is proof that the break-up of the ancient tribes, somewhere
in the steppes, remained in the collective memory. The Dominicans ini-
tially searched to the north of the Caucasus, on the site of one of the
ancient encampments established before the migration towards the
Danube and the Carpathians. Their search was fruitless. Following the
death of his companion, the monk Julianus eventually found the people
he was looking for, much further north, on the Volga. His narrative does
not locate what he called ‘Magna Hungaria’ with any precision, but he
talks about the River Etil (Volga) and about a nearby Turkish-Bulgar
town, thus confirming the site as being somewhere in the region of
Bashkiria.
The great trek south and then on to Hungary is thought to have
begun during the sixth century according to some historians, and
around 700 according to others. The Dominican’s ‘reunion’ with his
ancestors in Magna Hungaria thus took place after half a millennium
or more of separation. His findings may well be less than wholly reli-
able, but his account, written up by a fellow monk, was sealed and deliv-
ered to the papal chancellery. It then received added confirmation when
Julianus undertook a second journey in 1237. This time, Julianus also
brought back information about the Mongol-Tatars, successors to the
great Genghis Khan (d.1227), who would invade the entire Danube
region, including Hungary, in 1241–2.
As for the Hungarians who left their ancient land, they reappear in
the eighth and ninth centuries, much further south along the Volga,
then the Don, cohabiting with Turkish Bulgars, the Onogurs in partic-
ular, as well as having some kind of connection with the Khazars.
Relations with the Onogurs probably lasted two centuries or more, as

evidenced by more than two hundred Hungarian words which are

Turkic-Bulgar in origin, while other borrowings indicate the persistent
Iranian cultural–linguistic influence of the Sarmations and the Alains.
The importance of the Onogur influence begs questions about the
nature of their political and military ties: did the Hungarians and the
Onogurs (meaning ‘ten tribes’) belong to some form of confederation,
or did the latter rule over the Magyars? There are no answers. It must
be remembered that written sources come much later: the first mention
of the Magyars dates from 830.
Between the seventh and tenth centuries the Khazar Empire domi-
nated first the Caspian Sea region, then the steppes stretching from the
Don, the Dnieper and the Crimea. Apart from its military might, its
economic role was important, trading between Kievan Russia, the
Byzantine Empire and the Arabic Orient. Initially converted to Islam,
the Khazar princes adopted Judaism towards 740 and were eventually
converted to Christianity by St Cyril in the ninth century. The Onogurs,
along with many other peoples, including the Hungarians, were part of
this vast empire. The nature of their relationship is open to interpreta-
tion, of course, and in any case the fortunes of the army or force of
circumstance would have altered it at various times. Furthermore, and
at least twice, the Hungarian tribes undertook the journey through the
steppes from east to west, from north of the Caucasus to north of the
Black Sea, perhaps as far as the River Sereth at the foot of the
Carpathians. One of the countries they occupied was called Levedia,
the other, further to the west, was established as Etelköz by the ninth
century. In Etelköz, by around 850, the Hungarians were no longer
dependants of the Khazar Empire.
We have followed the trail of the ancient Hungarians far back into
the vaults of time, tracing thousands of kilometres. There is, however,
a quite different mythical journey to the new homeland, preserved in the
collective memory and documented in the Gesta Hungarorum, lost in
its original version but recorded in later chronicles. According to these,
Hunor and Magor (the sons of Gog and Magog, kings of the
Scythians), out hunting one day, caught a glimpse of a stag which they
set about following. They soon lost it in the Meotide swamps – ancient
name for the Azov Sea – and bewitched by the beauty of the landscape,
the abundance of herbs, wood, fish and game, they decided to stay. One
day, they again set off hunting, this time in search of women. They

found their future wives, the two daughters of Dula, prince of the
Alains, among the abducted women. From these unions came ‘the
famous and all powerful King Attila and, much later, Prince Álmos,
from whom descended the kings and princes of Hungary’. Later, so the
legend goes, their homeland became cramped and so the forefathers of
these peoples took to the road once more.
The authors of the ﬁrst Hungarian chronicles (gestae) written in
Latin, an ‘anonymous notary’ (Anonymus – around 1200) and Simon
Kézai (around 1280), were not historians who practised critical apprai-
sal of sources. The legend of the ‘miracle stag’ nonetheless fed the
Hungarian imagination, merging the very likely memory of an abode
near the Azov Sea with the improbable legend of a family connection
with Attila’s Huns.
A more reliable, if not totally trustworthy, source has survived on the
origins of the Hungarians and their settling of Hungary at the end of
that long journey. This information, a source dated after the event but
nonetheless of immense value, will be referred to extensively in this nar-
rative. It is On Imperial Administration, written around 950 by
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Byzantine emperor. Constantine,
son of Emperor Leo the Philosopher, himself a famous writer, obtained
his information from two Hungarian princes who came as ambassadors
to the court. He was also able to draw upon Arab and Persian sources,
as well as the writings of his father, who had already known and
described the Hungarians from before the conquest in his military
work, Tactics. Indeed, in 895, Leo the Philosopher had called the
Hungarians to his rescue against the Danubian Bulgars. Thanks to
these sources, the ninth century is well documented. The name Etelköz
undoubtedly meant ‘between the rivers’ but since at the time both the
Volga and the Don were known as Etel (or Etil) it is not easy conclu-
sively to locate this settlement. According to the historian István Fodor,
Arab sources have placed Etelköz between the Don and the lower
Danube. This immense area covers the steppes of Russia and of modern
southern Ukraine and suggests that whoever the occupants were, they
must have been militarily formidable. Another possibility is that the
Hungarians moved several times from east to west. An Arab traveller
visited them somewhere ‘between the rivers’ and described a semi-
nomadic and opulent lifestyle. The Hungarian warriors (who in 862
had already ventured to the borders of the eastern Frankish kingdom)

constituted a fearsome, mobile army. Meanwhile, they maintained

trading relations with Kiev as well as capturing Slavs and selling them
into slavery in the Byzantine ports.
During the last centuries before the Carpatho-Danubian conquest,
contact with the Turks left a deep impression: language, the organisa-
tion of tribal society and military fashion, as well as culture, testify to
their influence. Among the two hundred or so Hungarian words that are
of Turkic-Bulgar origin we find wheat (búza), barley (árpa), wine (bor)
and even the word plough (eke), no doubt referring to a far more sophis-
ticated tool than the araire used earlier. The names of domestic animals
and the words cheese (sajt), wool (gyapjú), enclosure (karám) are
perhaps evidence of an intermittently sedentary way of life. The word
for letter (betü) and the verb to write (ír) date from the same period, but
writing, if indeed it existed, was probably runic (in the form of
notches), surviving only as engravings on some objects. In any case, this
script had probably already been used by the Szeklers (székely in
Hungarian), an ethnic group that joined the Hungarians whose identity
and provenance remain enigmatic.
The same goes for the Kabar tribes, of Turkish origin, who probably
joined the Hungarians at the time of the conquest or just before, since
they appear alongside the seven known tribes. Further evidence of a sig-
nificant ‘Turkish connection’ lies in the tribal names. Of the seven, only
two, the Nyék and Megyer tribes bear Finno-Ugric names, the others
are all Turkish. The same is true for the names of the leaders. Were the
warlords Turkish (a kind of ‘ruling class’) or only ‘Turkified’ through
living in the Khazar Empire? The Emperor Constantine also referred to
the Magyars as ‘Turks’. However, this could be simply because their
military organisation followed the Turkish model. While different inter-
pretations abound, what is certain is that the Finno-Ugric roots of their
language was a key evolutionary factor. Another theory, put forward by
Gyula László, offers a rather original explanation. According to him,
the Hungarians of the conquest found a group of people who spoke
Finno-Ugric already living in the Carpathian basin, having arrived in
the Avar Empire two centuries earlier. This is the so-called ‘two-stage
conquest’ theory, very popular with lay opinion but rarely shared by the
specialists.
The Hungarian people and their culture are therefore the product of
a gradual accumulation: a prodigious collage of borrowings; a nation

of nearly 15 million men and women speaking a language from the

dawn of time, the largest of a linguistic family dispersed to the four
winds by the vagaries of history.

the conquest of hungary

Around 895, Hungarians, already settled in Etelköz, probably to the

west of the Dniester or even the Prut, suffered a lightning attack by the
Pechenegs who were themselves retreating from invasion by other
steppe tribes. The effects of this surprise attack must have been catas-
trophic, as most of the Hungarian armies were busy fighting elsewhere,
having been called upon to help Leo the Philosopher, the Byzantine
emperor, to ward off the Danubian Bulgars. The Hungarian tribes,
fleeing the Pechenegs, crossed the Carpathians through two or three
passes. The conquest began under the leadership of two chieftains,
Árpád and Kursan, leading the seven Magyar tribes and the Kabar
tribes of Turkish origin who joined the Hungarians. By 900, the occu-
pation of the basin was completed and in 902 the Hungarians turned
their attention to the Moravian principality of King Svatopluk’s sons
(the king died in 894). The Moravian Empire was in a state of collapse,
while the eastern kingdom of the Franks – ruled by the last Carolingian,
Louis the Infant – no longer exercised anything more than symbolic
authority over Pannonia, and the powerful empire of the Danubian
Bulgars had recently suffered a severe defeat. Conditions for occupation
were therefore favourable.
The tribes that had initially occupied the plain, choosing land with
easy access to water and pasture and then spreading progressively to
other areas, had already established a form of organisation. The tribal
leagues, following a Khazar model, recognised the authority of two
princes: a religious leader, the kende, and a military chief, the gyula. It
is not known which of the two roles was assigned to Árpád and which
to Kursan. According to legend, Árpád’s father Álmos was killed at the
time of the invasion, in accordance with the Khazar custom of sacrific-
ing the chieftain. This would suggest that he and his son were the suc-
cessive kende. Kursan, for his part, died in 904, when the custom of a
dual principality was abandoned. From this moment on, all sources
regard Árpád and his descendants as a single line of princes until the
extinction of the dynasty in 1301. The title of gyula did not, however,

disappear: the Transylvanian lords carried it and exercised quite exten-

sive local control, becoming increasingly independent of the princely
and then royal authority. The title eventually became the family name
Gyula. Árpád and his sons occupied the central area of the basin,
between the Tisza and the Danube. The Árpád residence was probably
situated not far from what became Budapest. Árpád and his sons would
therefore have assumed the titles and responsibilities originally assigned
to Kursan. In addition, the crown prince received an entire province as
ducal land. As for the tribal chieftains – the ‘seven Magyars’ as they are
still known colloquially – a few may have maintained control over their
respective tribes until central power was reinforced. Did this mean that
the tribal system had already disintegrated? In the final analysis, the
tribes were made up of individual clans, a large number of which –
about a hundred – survived long after the disintegration of the tribal
system.
In modern Hungarian, the words bö and böség mean ‘breadth’ and
‘abundance’, the word inség ‘poverty’, and the word jobbágy, ‘serf’. At
the time of settlement, each of these words had different meanings. The
lords, chieftains of the tribes and clans, were called bö (also úr),
members of the warrior class were the jobbágy while the poorest, down-
trodden tied labourers were known as the in. The latter were slaves who
had either arrived with the conquerors or were from the local popula-
tion, perhaps captured during looting and pillaging. There may have
been other classes: in particular those persons – or indeed entire villages
– assigned to practise certain trades, as indicated by place-names.
Cemeteries provide other clues: tombs, filled with weapons and jewels,
contain horses and harnesses belonging to the chieftains, who were
buried alone; warriors from the large free families (the future nobility)
were buried together; finally, the common cemeteries were reserved for
the lower orders.

forays to the west and the house of árpád

During the tenth century, the country of the Magyars frequently

appears in Western sources under the name of the Avar Empire.
Emperor Constantine, on the other hand, talks of the ‘country of the
Turks’. The uncertainties surrounding this ﬁrst century following the
conquest stem from contradictions between sources. Nonetheless, from

C a r
pire
vi an Em p
M ora a
895
t

E
PI R
Moravia h
za

M
Tis
NEA

i
900
ERM

Kursan's Castle
A

a
5
900 (Árpád) 900 89
AN G

n
Balaton
R OM

Szer

s
900
899 Incursions in Italy Ma 895
ros
900 Dr Olt
Bavaria av
a

Danube
Sava
AD

Hungarian advances
RI

Settlements of the first princes Presumed seat of the princes 895

Kabar ducal province settlements Presumed seat of Prince Árpád

SE
Prince Gyula’s settlement Hungary in the eighteenth century

Map 2. The conquest of the Carpathian basin

16 A Concise History of Hungary

this time onwards dozens of chroniclers from Fulda, Ratisbon

(Regensburg), Saint-Gall, Salzburg, even Cordoba – scholars, bishops
and kings – have left annals bearing witness to the Hungarians. Until
then practically unknown, these horsemen of the steppes found fame
through their devastating raids into Moravia, Bavaria, present-day
Austria, Italy, Saxony (Saxe), Lotharingia, Burgundy, Aquitaine and as
far as the Pyrenees and Spain. The desperate plea, ‘De sagittis
Hungarorum . . .’, asking God for protection from ‘the Hungarian
arrows’, echoed a Western world terrorised by what Hungarian
historiography rather indulgently calls ‘the age of adventures’.
The Hungarian tribes certainly benefited from disarray of a Western
Europe under attack from all sides. In the Germanic lands including
Saxony, Thuringia and Bavaria – and in Italy – rival factions were busy
tearing each other asunder. The France of the last Carolingians, under
attack by the Normans, the Saracens and the Hungarians, was disinte-
grating. Even the Byzantine Empire, despite its power throughout the
tenth century, thought it preferable to submit to a few Hungarian
affronts rather than to alienate this occasional (admittedly turbulent
but often useful) ally, particularly against Bulgaria.
Despite these circumstances, it is still astonishing that a semi-
nomadic cavalry was able to carry out around seventy incursions in just
fifty years with impunity. Often called upon to assist one or other side
of a conflict, these adventurers invariably took the opportunity to carry
out a bit of pillaging and ransacking for themselves. And yet, even
taking into account the vulnerable state of the European world, the
overall strength of the Hungarian forces seems insignificant. According
to Paul Bairoch’s calculations, in his book De Jéricho à Mexico, the
population of Europe excluding Russia was around 40 million.
Hungary consisted of 60,000 souls, and could raise around 20,000
horsemen, a considerable number at the time but very limited when
compared with the territory that had to be covered. The phenomenon
of their military success is all the more astonishing because these armed
bands were supported by a society that had yet to be fully organised.
The family of the first prince had carved out massive sections of the
territorial and military cake for itself. Árpád and his successors (in the
tenth century, succession sometimes passed to the eldest son of the
reigning prince and at other times to the eldest member of the family)
held the long line of the Danube – a strategic position if ever there was

one. Other prestigious and presumably wealthy sites were granted to

the heirs, whether brother or son, and to dignitaries like the gyula and
the harka. By what was known as the ‘grand ducal’ system, an entire
province could also be granted to one of the heirs. Such dukedoms,
received as privilege, usually consisted of territories settled by ‘auxil-
iary peoples’: the Kabars, for example, later called ‘Kalizes’, Muslim
warriors who had arrived with the Hungarian tribes, as well as
Pechenegs and Szeklers. Control over these military frontiers and buffer
zones meant that the dukes exercised considerable military power. One
of the first of them, Szabolcs, was the eldest of Árpád’s cousins and
therefore his heir.
We know the names (all Turkish, without exception) and, to an
extent, the respective roles, of five of Árpád’s sons. None of them
attained the rank of first prince and, apart from the supposed reign of
Szabolcs, the order of succession until around 950 is not known. At the
time, one of Árpád’s grandsons, called Fajsz, had been reigning for a
number of years. He was succeeded by Taksony (from 955? to 970?) who
decided to put an end to westerly incursions and to abolish accession
according to seniority in favour of accession through direct descent.
Decades of armed incursions coincided with struggles for succession
and with the obscure period between the disappearance of Árpád
around 907 and the rise of Fajsz, then Taksony around 955. During this
long period, the gyulas ruled over Transylvania and various other chief-
tains emerged, but the supremacy of the House of Árpád seems to have
remained unshaken.

Defeat at Augsburg, 955, and its consequences

Raids continued unabated until the Battle of Augsburg in 955: from

wars of plunder to expeditions undertaken in response to calls from
rival Germanic and French kings, or from the Byzantine emperors. The
astonishing military prowess of these Hungarian ‘light-horses’ left
towns and monasteries more or less defenceless and ripe for pillage. As
far as we know, these expeditions were never led by the ﬁrst prince in
person. Their main purpose was the collection of ransoms and tributes
destined for the ‘state’ coffers. Expeditions like these were obviously
fruitful, as evidenced by protection money paid to the Magyars for
many years by the Byzantine emperor and the Germanic kings.

The devastating defeat inﬂicted upon them by Henri l’Oiseleur at

Merseburg in 933 certainly changed things. In 945–55, however, in
response to King Otto’s rivals – including his son-in-law Conrad the
Redhead, duke of Lotharingia, Arnolphe of Regensburg and Otto’s son,
Liudolphe – the Magyars set off adventuring again. The conspirators
then switched allegiance but the Hungarian army made the mistake of
besieging Augsburg anyway. King Otto rushed to the rescue of Augsburg
at the head of an army that now included all the Germanic kings as well
as the conspirators back in his service. A catastrophic defeat ensued. The
Hungarian chieftains, led by the harka Bulcsu, were hanged at
Regensburg in Bavaria, the ancient eastern capital of the Carolingians.
Otto’s victory is considered a decisive turning point in his rise to the
imperial throne. In the aftermath of the defeat, the Hungarians had
little choice but to make peace with the Holy Roman Empire. As for the
Byzantine Empire, its rapport with the Hungarians, already long estab-
lished, was now set in stone with the accession of Taksony’s son, named
Géza, around 972. Hungarian conversion to Christianity had already
begun, through the Greek Church, during Byzantium’s apogee under
the Macedonian dynasty. Constantine, one of its emperors, had
received Bulcsu the harka, who was to be hanged seven years later at
Regensburg. It was in the interests of the Hungarians to maintain good
relations with Byzantium but, above all, they needed to re-establish
order at home. These tasks fell to Géza.
Though the honour of being the ‘founder of the state’ was attributed
to his son István – the future St Stephen – Prince Géza’s long reign
(972–97) undoubtedly paved the way. This was achieved through a
foreign policy aimed at establishing external stability between the two
empires, and a domestic policy aimed at centralising power and subtly
redirecting Christian conversion away from the Greek Church towards
Rome and the Holy Roman Empire.
By the time of Géza’s death, at the close of the century, decisive
changes had taken place all over Europe. The Capetians came to power
in France; England had been conquered by the Danes; the Kievan state
had been created in Russia; the Piast dynasty had been founded in
Poland and the Premysl dynasty in Bohemia. The successors of Otto –
conqueror of the Hungarians at Augsburg – and his Holy Roman
Empire controlled both Germany and Italy. The Byzantine Empire,
however, was also at the zenith of its power and its glory. The choice of

Roman Christianity was a political gesture and, as such, of the utmost

importance, all the more so because despite occasional conﬂicts with
Constantinople, the latter remained the central focus and source of
Christianity for Hungarians in the mid-tenth century. Following an
ambassadorial visit to Constantinople by Princes Bulcsu and Tormás in
948, the gyula, second great dignitary and lord of the eastern part of the
country, converted to the Greek religion and brought back with him
Bishop Hierotheos. Though the success of the latter’s evangelical
mission was limited, the Orthodox Church retained a presence until
and indeed beyond conversion to Roman Christianity favoured by St
Stephen. A Greek religious convent was in fact founded at Veszprém in
Transdanubia either by St Stephen himself or by his father, Géza, and
several Greek or Bulgarian Orthodox monasteries existed in various
other locations. Prince Gyula had remained faithful to his religion, yet
his daughter Sarolt married Prince Géza, who was baptised by the
Bishop of St-Gallese, Bruno (or Prunward), who was attached to the
imperial chapel and personally mandated by Emperor Otto II. The
advent of Bruno in the early years of Géza’s reign marked a nascent,
systematic and countrywide conversion to Christianity, along with a
reorientation of foreign policy towards the Holy Roman Empire. Géza
succeeded in stabilising the frontier zone, a no man’s land – gyepü in
Hungarian – situated between his country and Bavaria, which at the
time also included the Eastern March, Ostmarck, in other words the
future Austria.
Géza’s choice was essentially political and his methods more violent
than pious. He forced large numbers of lords and warriors to convert
whether they liked it or not and persecuted recalcitrant ‘shamans’ and
pagans. Whether dark legend or truth, he is said to have buried alive
Thonuzoba, chieftain of the Pecheneg tribes, who had arrived in
Hungary a few decades before. The chronicles speak alternately of his
devotion and of his cruelty. Whatever may have been the reality, Géza
was faced with numerous revolts, stemming either from attachments to
old beliefs or from resistance against his authority as prince. Géza
gained ground both physically and metaphorically. His military escort,
now established in the villages, became an embryonic royal army, and
he was able to count on the loyalty of the majority of lords. As for the
cohabitation of various ethnic groups – Magyars, Turks, Slavs – it does
not seem to have affected his domestic policy.

‘White’ and ‘black’ Hungarians

This ethnic cohabitation nevertheless raised historical problems. In

Géza’s time, there were supposedly two Hungarian countries: that of
the ‘white’ Hungarians and that of the ‘black’. The latter comprised
Szekler and Turkic tribes who had joined the Magyars as auxiliary sol-
diers, including the Kabars or the Pechenegs, whose descendants still
lived in the Transcarpathian region, at the heart of future Romania,
between Kievan Rus and the Bulgarian Empire. Most of the Hungarian
‘blacks’ were under ducal command but, towards the end of the tenth
century, small groups formed under the authority of great rebel lords
like the Transylvanian Gyula and his geographical neighbour, the chief-
tain Ajtony. On the other hand, similar or identical groups in the east
were under the authority of the prince. Were these ‘blacks’ really more
resistant to Christian conversion than the Hungarian ‘whites’ or were
they simply following their leaders? The fact is that once the rebellion
had broken out, it was fought under the banner of the Eastern Christian
leaders, like Gyula and Ajtony, the one baptised in Constantinople, the
other in the same town or in Bulgaria. Without minimising the pagan
character of many of the revolts, the Greek Orthodox faith underlying
the major conflicts suggests that there were more complex aspects to the
fight against the refractory lords. Roman Christianity had not yet
replaced the influence of Byzantium and of the Greek Church. Indeed,
circulation of currency and usage of Byzantine measures attest to the
continuing economic importance of these ties.
The final instalment of Géza’s struggles was intimately bound up
with preparations for the succession. Born c. 970 and originally named
Vajk, Stephen was baptised and brought up in the Roman religion. In
996 he married Gizella, daughter of Henry of Bavaria. This was the first
Hungarian dynastic marriage to a Western princess but in order to
secure Stephen’s succession, Géza, who was to die the following year,
was forced to take further measures. Pretender to the throne was one
Prince Koppány who owned the south-western ducal territory. Seniority
succession rights went hand in hand with a levirate which consisted in
marrying the prince’s widow thereby ousting the son – in this case the
heir-apparent, Vajk-Stephen. Géza arranged for Koppány’s domains to
be surrounded by Szeklers, Pechenegs and other Turkish soldiers and,
after his death, it was King Stephen who led them into battle.

st stephen’s hungarian state

Before he could be crowned king of Hungary in title and in fact, the

young Prince Stephen had to battle for three years to overcome rebel-
lious lords led by, among others, his relative and rival Koppány and his
uncle, Gyula. Stephen – with an army comprising his military escort,
soldiers from the ‘black’ settlements and Gizella’s Bavarian knights –
inflicted a devastating defeat upon Koppány. The corpse of his enemy
was quartered and the pieces sent to the main strongholds for public
display. As a ‘family warning’, one quarter of Koppány’s body was
delivered to Gyula at his Gyulafehérvár (Alba Julia) residence in
Transylvania. And not without reason. Gyula was in fact planning to
rebel against his nephew’s new order. Stephen set out to fight him but
the battle never took place: Gyula surrendered and was treated magnan-
imously. Stephen also had to face other rebellions, both before and after
coronation, by chieftains who either opposed the widespread conver-
sion to Christianity or the prince’s increased authority. The most pre-
stigious among them, Ajtony, seems to have maintained his grip on the
eastern region and even expanded his domains into Gyula’s territory.
His immense wealth and Byzantium’s powerful support, which at the
time extended to the Danube, ensured that the king tolerated his activ-
ities – until 1028.
Thus, despite his father’s legacy of centralisation, Stephen I was not
absolute master of his lands at the time of his coronation, thought to
have taken place in 1000 or 1001. He did enjoy the support of three suc-
cessive Frankish emperors, all named Otto. Furthermore, Otto III trans-
ferred his seat to Rome during Stephen’s reign and secured the election
of a Frenchman, Gerbert d’Aurillac, to the throne of St Peter. The young
Hungarian prince cultivated the support of this erudite pontiff,
Sylvester II, requesting that he send a crown and legate to enthrone him
as a consecrated king. Following his father’s example, Stephen avoided
vassal allegiance to the emperor as well as to the pope. Thus, the new
kingdom’s independence was established but at the same time firmly
bound to Western Christianity. The crown itself, along with the sceptre
and various insignias sent from Rome, together with other gifts from
the emperor, have disappeared. Relics attributed to the coronation in
fact date from a later period.
Conversion was pretty much completed during Stephen’s forty-year

Plate 2. Efﬁgy of St Stephen on the royal coronation robe

reign, though not painlessly or without conﬂict, as has already been

pointed out. The great lord Ajtony, left to enjoy his power as ‘prince of
the black Hungarians’ for thirty years, was attacked and killed by the
king in 1028, by which time the Church was well established. Two arch-
bishoprics, eight bishoprics and numerous monasteries had been
founded, endowed with large domains and the right to levy a tithe in the
dioceses. Legendary among the ﬁrst evangelists was Gerard, a
Benedictine from Venice, Bishop of Csanád and tutor to the royal heir,
Prince Imre (Emery). Both the latter, who was to die before his father,
and Gerard, killed during one of the last pagan revolts, were later can-
onised along with Stephen.
Architectural remains from this period indicate generally modest
dimensions of both new buildings and totally reconstructed ones, like
the Benedictine abbey of Pannonhalma – but the spiritual and cultural

Plate 3. St Stephen’s tomb at Székesfehérvár

inﬂuence of the Church was crucial in what may legitimately be called

a modernisation process. The first written documents appear in Latin –
thanks to donations – and four out of twenty survive. Religious and
legal texts were being written in the monasteries and even the king left
a literary legacy, the remarkable Exhortations, addressed to his heir,
Prince Imre.
The establishment of the Church, the consolidation of royal power
and legal order in keeping with the spirit of the times, attracted many
foreigners to the land: priests, knights and ordinary people in search of
fortune and security. The passage from Exhortations that preaches tol-
erance towards foreigners is often cited in this regard. As for Stephen’s
laws, they were certainly severe, but nothing suggests a reign any more
cruel than others of the time; rather, the laws protected property and
provided a degree of security. Social organisation was no longer based
upon the blood ties of the tribal system. Population distribution and
settlement were now conducted according to territorial principles along
county lines (comitatus in Latin). The Hungarian names of these coun-
ties in some way ‘relate’ their story. The word vármegye is made up of
vár, meaning fort, or fortified place, and megye (county) and indicates
the extent of the territory and the limits of the comitatus that was under
the protection of the fortress. The king set about creating about forty
counties attached to forts belonging to him. At the head of each of
these, he placed a governor (ispán/várispán), a trusted figure given

Plate 4. The portal of Esztergom Chapel (twelfth century)

charge of both the territory and its warriors, jobbágy and várjobbágy,
the two elements constituting the military profession. The name
jobbágy was not at this time associated in any way with serfs, bonded
peasants who worked the lord’s estates.
The king’s forts and their surrounding lands did not cover the entire
country. There were still large properties in the hands of more or less
independent lords and vast domains belonged (mainmorte) to the
Church. Bishoprics were also organised by the king, who divided the

country into ten (later twelve) dioceses under the authority of the arch-
bishop of Esztergom, who was later joined by a second archbishop at
Kalocsa.
Changes that took place under Stephen were merely a beginning.
Even so, they ushered in the notion of private property and social strat-
ification according to power, status, wealth and distribution of labour.
Beneath the ruling class (úr), a mixture of established lords, traditional
chieftains and the recently promoted, stood the free warriors, and on
the lowest rung, the common people. According to monastic data from
a later period, 200 out of 1,100 families belonging to these domains
enjoyed free warrior status; the rest were reduced to servitude. Records
from a town not far from Lake Balaton, with the unpronounceable
name Szentkirályszabadja (meaning ‘the free-men of the holy king’),
indicate how the freedom of the more fortunate or more deserving
could be preserved.
The king levied no less than two thirds of the county’s revenues,
leaving one third at the disposal of his lieutenants. For the first time it
is possible to speak of an administration in the real sense. It enabled the
king to fulfil his three main domestic objectives: the creation of a state
government, the establishment of the Church and, finally, regulation of
the rights and duties of property owners. At the head of the state, the
king reigned supreme, but his power was not absolute. He was sur-
rounded by a senate and a council comprising, among others, the
primate-Archbishop of Esztergom and the palatine (nádor). Though
undoubtedly more rudimentary than the states emerging from the
Carolingian Empire, this arrangement nonetheless secured integrity
and relative peace for the kingdom.

european integration of the kingdom: genghis’s

mongol-tatar invasion

Following the death of Stephen I in 1038, a further twenty-two kings

from the same house were to occupy the throne until the extinction of
the dynasty in 1301. For nearly three centuries, Hungary held an impor-
tant position on the European political chessboard, deﬁnitively inte-
grated into Roman Christianity and representing its last bastion on the
frontiers of Orthodox and pagan worlds. The schism of 1054 between

the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches, ﬁfteen years or so after

Stephen’s death, emphasised the importance of this choice without,
however, severing the kingdom’s links with a Byzantine Empire that
would border the lower Danube for some time to come. Hungary’s
economy and culture had developed enough to have caught up with its
Western neighbours, though a stubborn archaic element remained.
First and foremost, however, the kingdom still lacked political stabil-
ity. Though not the only kingdom to be torn apart by princely rivalries,
the ferocity of its struggles for succession were on the verge of compro-
mising its independence from the two neigbouring empires. The Holy
Roman Empire was undergoing rapid expansion at the time and
Byzantium, though on the decline, maintained its positions in the
Balkans. The rise of Boleslaw the Brave’s Poland threatened from the
north, Pechenegs and Cumans from the east. Without a direct heir fol-
lowing the death of his son, Stephen wanted to ensure the succession,
but not for the dynasty’s oldest prince, his cousin Vazul. The king there-
fore had Vazul’s eyes gouged out, his ears filled with lead and his sons
banished – a futile act indeed, since their descendants would later wear
the crown for two-and-a-half centuries. To replace Vazul’s line, Stephen
sent for Peter Orseolo, his sister’s Venetian son, and designated him
heir. A son and grandson of doges, from an already splendid and pow-
erful city, he had been driven out of Hungary after three years by
Stephen’s other nephew, Sámuel Aba. Despite enjoying the support of
chieftains dissatisfied with the Venetian, Sámuel was no luckier. In 1044,
Peter Orseolo deposed him and reclaimed the throne, with the far from
disinterested assistance of Emperor Henry IV, to whom Peter swore alle-
giance; Peter Orseolo’s second reign was not popular and ended in
catastrophe; in 1046, the great lords of the realm called back the exiled
sons of Vazul, the blinded prince; in 1047, the eldest András (Andrew)
was placed on the throne and remained there for fourteen years.
Instability nevertheless continued until 1077. These forty years of trou-
bles – there would be others – reflected the fragility of Hungarian inde-
pendence and that of the state.
Hungary did not have exclusive rights over fragility. At the time of
Stephen’s death, William the Conqueror was still far from the Battle of
Hastings while Capetians, forty years on, reigned over their heartland,
‘L’Ile de France’. Though the very notion of statehood has to be treated
with caution, the Hungarian troubles of the eleventh century were

distinctive in that their roots were archaic and stemmed from rather
particular circumstances, which today would be called ‘geopolitical’. In
addition to being under pressure from two empires, the country’s geo-
graphic situation rendered it isolated in a Slav environment of Czechs,
Moravians, Poles, Russians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Slovenians,
Serbians and others. In order to establish its authority in the region,
Hungary conducted wars, particularly in Dalmatia and the Balkans,
but also sought alliances and marriages. Six queens came from Slav
princely families, others from German, French and Byzantine dynasties.
The archaic element probably owed its survival to the incomplete
nature of the state. Even as the exiled princes were being called back
from Poland, the last great pagan revolt was taking place, accompanied
by the murders of bishops, priests and foreign knights. Prince András,
recalled by the insurgents, turned against the rebels and executed the
pagan chieftain, Vata, and yet he was unable to wipe out paganism and
ancestral ways entirely. Nor was he able to stamp out fratricides that
punctuated the century. Two brothers succeeded one another, after
defeating their cousin Salamon, protégé of Emperor Henry IV. King
Géza ruled from 1074 for the next three years, followed by his brother
László I, the future St Ladislas, who reigned for nearly twenty years. He
was in turn succeeded by his nephew Kálmán (Coloman) the Bibliophile
who died in 1116.

The knight and the scholar

Although both kings were venerated, the ﬁrst as the ﬁgurehead for chiv-
alry and Christianity, the second as the ideal of the learned sovereign,
neither was able to escape the spirit of the time. The future St Ladislas,
a great legislator, promulgated a number of very harsh laws against
theft: a stolen chicken, for example, could invoke the death penalty. His
erudite successor would soften these – yet he himself did not hesitate to
gouge out the eyes of a rebel brother and nephew, the future king Béla
the Blind. The legislation’s importance, however, lay not in the severity
of the 250 or so laws passed by László and Kálmán – explainable by the
sudden increase in poverty among members of certain social strata –
nor in the cruelty of the punishments, which were common at the time
and indeed are still practised today in certain countries. It was unique
in its coherence and in its embrace of religious and civic life in all its

Plate 5. Herm of St Ladislas (c. 1400)

aspects. Consolidating the spiritual and temporal power of the Church,

it outlawed pagan rites ‘near trees, springs and stones’ and authorised
the persecution of the táltos (the Hungarian name for shamans). A text
declaring that ghouls ‘did not exist’ is often cited since other sorcerers
were punishable by the Church. The ‘non-recognition’ of the category
of ghoul (sorcerers who, by night, turned into vampires or other flying
creatures) was in accordance with Church doctrine in these matters.
Other dispositions laid down by Kálmán’s laws included a mild punish-
ment for adultery when committed by the husband and the death
penalty for a woman caught in flagrante delicto, though in the case of
error, the husband was obliged to compensate his wife’s family. This
could cost him as much as fifty bullocks.

It is all too easy to extract these and other eccentricities from legisla-
tion over nine centuries old. Its importance lies in its concern to open
the way to heaven for believers, and to ensure the security of life and
property on earth. By fixing property boundaries and regulating dues,
the legislator wanted above all to ensure the good and loyal service of
the powerful as well as of the common people. The result was a more
consolidated kingdom, at least until Kálmán’s death in 1116. It was fol-
lowed by a new period of decline during which six successive kings tried
to preserve – more or less successfully – the Crown’s achievements, par-
ticularly in the fields of culture and administration
Under the learned king, remarkable progress was made in both legal
and literary culture. The use of writing spread to all areas to the point
where jugglers were replaced by chroniclers, authors of gestae and
codices who recounted the ancient history of Hungary and the tales of
its kings through words and pictures. As well as the doings and exploits
of its kings, most of all the canonised monarchs Stephen and László,
charters of ennoblement and gifts formed central themes within these
chronicles. They adopt the French style, learnt by Hungarian chroni-
clers at Paris University; István Hajnal’s work discusses the influence
they had on societal development. The tradition continued throughout
the reigns of Kálmán’s successors: around 50 charters survive from the
time of Béla III, 350 from the early thirteenth century and more than
2,000 that were written during the following decades. Chivalric culture
and the poetry of the troubadours were also flourishing. These were the
days of Peire Vidal and Gaucelm Faidit. One of the first poems in the
Hungarian language, the very beautiful Lament of Mary, was preserved
in a codex.
Another lasting achievement was the maintenance of royal authority
essentially intact, without succumbing to the ‘feudal temptation’ of
fragmenting power.

Territorial expansion

As for external achievements, Hungary remained, through its high and

low points, one of the largest and most respected kingdoms. László, the
holy king–knight, successfully defended his country against invasion by
Cumans, the Turkic-Kipchak people who had congregated on the

eastern frontiers and a branch of which was to settle in Hungary as

‘auxiliary people’ in the next century. But the most important expedi-
tions to be undertaken by László and Kálmán were towards the Balkans
and Dalmatia. Following in the footsteps of his uncle László, a great
warrior, Kálmán, despite being known as ‘half-blind, a hunchback,
crippled and a stutterer’, succeeded not only in conquering Croatia-
Slavonia (not to be confused with Slovenia or Slovakia) under the noses
of Byzantium and Venice, but also Dalmatia. The entire coast, with its
splendid towns of Spalato (Split), Zara and Ragusa (Dubrovnik), rec-
ognised his sovereignty with some relief. Among a dozen princely titles
held by the Hungarian kings were Halics (Galicia) and Ladomeri
(Volhinia) to the north, Croatia and Dalmatia to the south, not forget-
ting the phantom ‘kingdoms’ of the Cumans and Rama, in the centre
of Bosnia. The latter was at the time homeland to the Bogomils (or
Patarenes, a heretical sect originating from Milan). They were related
to the Cathars, the Valdenses (Vaudois) and other Albigenses who
marked history time and again over the centuries. Among the con-
quests, the incorporation of autonomous Croatia was perpetuated
throughout centuries of historical Hungary. Apart from its capital
Zagreb, elevated to the status of bishopric, the Hungarian Crown also
dominated the future Serbian capital, Belgrade, called Nándorfehérvár.
The equally long occupation of the Dalmatian coast ensured access to
the sea. Hungarian ambitions in ‘Russian’ and Polish lands, on the other
hand, turned out to be as ephemeral as they were futile.
While siding with the pope in his quarrel with the emperor, Hungary
maintained its autonomy vis-à-vis the Holy See. A number of episodes
illustrate this directly or indirectly, in particular the kingdom’s attitude
towards the Crusades. The best route to the Holy Land was via
Hungary, used for centuries, but apart from a rather half-hearted
crusade organised by András II in 1217–18, the Hungarian kings stayed
on the margins of a movement that was as destructive as it was pious.
King Kálmán welcomed Godefroi de Bouillon warmly on his entry into
Hungary and provided him with a well-armed escort as far as his exit.
As additional security, he kept Godefroi’s brother Baudoin, future king
of Jerusalem, guest–hostage at the palace.
The Árpád dynasty’s princely status survived through to the twelfth
century. Historians speak, if not of absolute royal power, of an almost
unshakeable hegemony. The extent of royal wealth and revenue was a

major factor, as was the prestige of its rank. Several less impressive suc-
cessors of the scholar–king would certainly need the latter, as new wars
hampered the country’s development after his death.
During the latter part of the twelfth century, the only king to distin-
guish himself was Béla III (1172–96), not only by virtue of his height
(1.90 metres) but also by his qualities as leader and organiser. The son
of Géza II (1141–62) and a Russian princess, Béla III was brought up at
the court of Manuel Comnene in Byzantium, where he became engaged
to the emperor’s daughter and saw himself as destined for the throne.
Béla lost his position as heir when a son was born to Manuel but
received instead the title of ‘kaiser’ and enjoyed considerable prestige.
On his return to Hungary in 1172, Béla III remained allied to Manuel
without renouncing Dalmatia and Sirmio, both coveted by Byzantium.
Concerned more with stability than with military adventure, Béla con-
ducted a policy which favoured the pope, maintaining friendly links
with the Holy Roman Empire. During the Third Crusade, he and his
second wife Margaret, daughter of Louis VII, received the Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa at their court. During his father’s reign, many
scholars studied at Paris University so that writings, records and diplo-
mas multiplied in his reorganised chancellery.

A country of contrasts

Mid-twelfth-century Hungary is described by travellers, such as Bishop

Otto de Freysing, as an opulent but none too civilised country. This
Cistercian did not ﬁnd the people to his taste: according to him, they
were ugly, small, in short, ‘human monsters’. Some historians attribute
these bad impressions to his itinerary: he probably only met Pechenegs.
Apart from an unattractive physiognomy, his Hungarian contemporar-
ies seem to have had enough to eat and enjoyed fairly wide common
freedoms. Their dwellings, on the other hand, were shabby, half-sunk
into the ground and covered in reeds or thatch. With the probable excep-
tion of bishoprics or towns inhabited by French, Walloon or German
immigrants, market towns were no more developed than villages. Stone
houses would begin to proliferate during the next century, after the
reconstruction that followed the Tatar invasion of 1241–2.
We will return to this period to discuss the composition of the pop-
ulation but it ought to be mentioned at this point that Hungary already

frequently welcomed settlers from the West, most of all from Germany,
who were attracted by a land that was fertile and less densely populated
than the lands to the west. Pechenegs, Cumans and other refugees from
various steppe invasions (during which one nomadic people would drive
out another) also arrived at this time. The majority of them were
Muslims converted to Catholicism but others maintained their Muslim
or pagan beliefs and at times suffered persecution. It was clearly a very
colourful tableau of peoples and mores. The Hungarian village, mean-
while, was already a stable place. Its population lived from cattle-
rearing, agriculture, ﬁshing, viticulture and, of course, crafts. As Ilona
Bolla argues in her book on the creation of the jobbágy class, legal and
economic social levels in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries numbered
at least a dozen, depending on whether one was noble, free, ‘semi-free’,
native, host or from another group. Social stratiﬁcation according to
‘the three orders’ (George Duby) came into being gradually and espe-
cially after the Tatar invasion, under pressure from the rich and the
weight of necessity.

The Golden Bull: a ‘Magna Carta’

At this time, the king was immensely wealthy due to the extent of his
inherited properties, though it was impossible to distinguish between
his ‘private’ fortune and domanial possessions. According to the histo-
rian Gyula Kristó, his patrimony represented 70 per cent of the
kingdom; the rest belonged to the Church, to the descendants of ancient
tribal and clan chieftains, to foreign knights and to the free warrior-
peasants. Donations by the king to various beneﬁciaries, monasteries,
bishoprics or individuals, had always existed in some form but increased
sharply under András II (1202–35), described by more than one witness
as a light-hearted and carefree monarch. Contemporaries and histo-
rians view his reign as marking the disintegration of St Stephen’s old
patrimonial order and the beginning of the seigniorial system.
Marxist historiography talks about feudalism in this regard – a
subject which we will return to. For now, it need only be said that the
widespread and generous distribution of property effected by András
to his faithful servants was permanent and hereditary, not given in ﬁef
and therefore not tied to the vassal system. These donations were instru-
mental in the growth of a new class of great barons and middle digni-

Plate 6. Efﬁgy of András II on the Golden Bull 1222

taries, without reciprocal obligations towards either the royal donor or

the people who became their dependants along with the land.
King András could not have been unaware of the impact of this ver-
itable social earthquake. Documents refer to these changes as ‘new
institutions’, and indeed they are, even at an administrative level.
Numerous castles, and their surrounding villages, even entire counties,
were bestowed upon the most deserving or the cleverest royal servants.
Among these were German knights who arrived with Queen Gertrude
of Meran. Gertrude was later murdered by a group of discontented
conspirators during a Russian campaign led by the king, and there were
other malcontents including high-ranking soldiers called the ‘king’s ser-
vants’, who wanted their status and privileges guaranteed. The king
also faced criticism for entrusting ﬁnancial affairs to Jews and
Ismaelites (Muslims). The malcontents formed a league and succeeded
in extracting a charter of freedoms from King András II. The Golden
Bull of 1222, like the English Magna Carta, enshrined the right to
disobey the sovereign if the latter contravened this ‘constitution of the
nobility’, before the term had been coined.

András’s successor, Béla IV, initially tried to backtrack in order to

undertake more fundamental and considered reforms than his father’s.
The event that changed his mind was the Mongol-Tatar invasion.
After Genghis’s death in 1227, his successor, the great Khan Ogoday,
sent Batu, chief of the Golden Horde, to conquer Russia. The immense
project achieved, Batu’s army penetrated Poland and Hungary. In 1241,
the Tatars defeated the Hungarians at Muhi, in the north-east of the
country, near the River Sajó. The following year, they crossed the
Danube. The king, along with a few faithful followers, set out for
Dalmatia and established himself at Trau (Trogir) while he awaited
‘Europe’s’ assistance. All he received were a few words of consolation
from the emperor, the pope, Louis IX, the Saint and other Christian
sovereigns.
It was at this point that the Mongol-Tatars, who had pursued the
king as far as the Dalmatian coast, suddenly left the country – whether
in response to the death of the great Khan Ogoday or for some
unknown motive. Béla IV set off for home, through a desolate land-
scape. Chronicles recount unprecedented levels of destruction and
cruelty, a country in ruins and a population decimated. According to
Abbot Hermann, from a German monastery, ‘Hungary had been wiped
out’ after 350 years of existence. Master Roger, an Italian who had
somehow miraculously escaped, found only ruins, corpses and desola-
tion in his path.
It was undoubtedly a severe catastrophe but a number of fortresses
were able to resist and part of the population, hidden in the woods and
marshes, survived: not more than 20 per cent according to old estimates,
50 per cent according to later sources. The ﬁnal balance is even less pes-
simistic: latest research suggests that most of the population survived.
The task that faced the king was nonetheless daunting and it was his
reconstruction project that opened the way to a new era.

reconstruction and the end of the house of árpád

Béla IV, who was thirty-six years old at the time, had twenty-eight years
ahead of him and plenty of food for thought and action. The might of
the Mongol Empire and Western Christianity’s lukewarm response in
the face of the Mongol threat made defeat the most likely outcome. The
problem was not just military. As viceroy, then prince–governor of

Transylvania, Béla had previously opposed his father’s policies and

defied him on a number of occasions. Above all, he had attempted to
reappropriate many domains granted to the kingdom’s grandees, and
to re-establish the system of counties and fortresses dismantled by his
father. Before his father’s ‘new institutions’ reform, some seventy comit-
ats (provincial administrative units) were ruled by the king, including a
number of castra or strongholds whose accompanying lands were not
as vast as that of the comitats. Yet there were many landowners, both
large and small, who administered their properties independently. On
what grounds? In his discussion about the village of Györ’s elevation to
the status of town, the historian Jenö Szücs writes about a population
whose legal status was based upon six different criteria. The number of
these criteria is equally impressive when it comes to the descendants of
ancient lineage, knights of foreign origin, castle warriors (jobbágy),
soldiers of the royal escort, and so on. Out of this mass of titled nobles
and free men, rather curiously called ‘quite noble’, emerged the vast
social class (una eademque nobilitas) that was the sprawling Hungarian
nobility.
One fact remains nonetheless certain. The county, or comitat,
became, in the words of the historian Gyula Kristó, the country’s oldest
and most enduring institution. Despite numerous changes, their
number remained at around seventy for centuries and many of them
retain their original names to this day.
But let us return to the king, galloping across a devastated land where
few of the old administrative structures remained intact. Béla IV, who
had to start from scratch, first reorganised his military capacity and
then state administration. He created a Christian state not unlike that
of St Stephen and his successors, though more political in the ‘modern’
thirteenth-century sense of the word; a so-called ‘feudal’ state, but with
particularities to which we will return.
As a first measure, Béla, who had no intention of re-establishing
quasi-absolute royal power based upon the old organisation of the
counties, delegated significant discretionary power to loyal barons. All
high governmental, legal, commanding and administrative offices in
large territorial units were entrusted to the barons and bishops of his
entourage. The result proved positive: thanks to this dedicated elite,
material, economic and military reconstruction put the country back
on its feet. Two or three generations later, descendants of these barons,

Plate 7. Church of the Benedictine Abbey of Ják (1256). Portal

like the famous Máté Csák (1260–1321), a veritable tyrant in his ‘private
kingdom’, would contribute to the weakening of the state, but during
this crucial period of renewal, Béla IV’s trust proved well placed.
From his Fehérvár seat (Székesfehérvár, half-way to Buda) he began
to reconstruct old fortiﬁed towns and to build new ones, combining mil-
itary defence with urbanisation and the promotion of civic privileges.

Fehérvár’s new municipal statute became a model for urban develop-

ment. Béla was also responsible for the foundation of Buda castle and
town, with its fortified enclosure. He moved the population of Pest
village, situated opposite, and turned Buda into the most important
trade centre of the country. Another twenty or so towns were built,
enjoying royal privileges, an ordered topology and enclosures. With
their few hundreds or thousands of inhabitants these towns could not
rival Venice or Paris, but the new churches, stone houses, markets,
municipalities and their inhabitants – many of them foreigners and
practising every conceivable trade – became pioneers of a civilisation
far more developed than before. These towns generated new wealth
both for their artisans and tradesmen and for the royal purse.
The king had a range of estates and royal revenues such as the mines,
salt, taxes and tolls at his disposal in addition to support for the upkeep
of his court. The ‘king’s table’ was at the time estimated at 2,000 cattle,
3,000 quintals of wheat and 1,800 hectolitres of wine. These resources
were not sufficient, however. What was needed was an increase in silver
revenues in order to consolidate them. As elsewhere, these incomes
came in part directly from the minting of coins. This reliable currency
(coins with a high silver content) stimulated economic and commercial
activities, and fiscal income via domestic taxes and duties. Hungary
exported beef, wine and salt and imported cloth, silk and spices from
Venice, Germany and Moravia. Taxes on around thirty articles were
fixed at the market. Royalties from the mines (silver, gold, salt) were
divided between the treasury, the new entrepreneurs – notably Germans
– and the mining towns’ burghers involved in their exploitation. These
economic activities generated as much if not more revenue than the old
taxes in kind. However, some regions still paid in weasel fur or cattle.
As for the Jews, they paid collectively, in silver. Few were exempt.
The development of sparsely populated or unpopulated peripheral
regions also revitalised the economy, in particular the vast, hitherto
unused tracts of land to the north, in present-day Slovakia. Exploitation
of forests, land and mines grew, and new towns and villages were
founded. In this kingdom of 2 million inhabitants, larger than Great
Britain or Italy, there was room for everybody. At the time, it included
the whole Carpathian chain along with Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia and
part of Bosnia. So much so that the origins of peoples ‘collected’ by
King Béla were extremely diverse: Germans, Walloons and other Latins,

‘refugees’ from the steppes, Pechenegs, Cumans, Iazigs, Jews and

Ismaelites, ‘Russian’ peasants from Galicia, Romanians from the other
side of the Carpathians, Poles, Moravians and other Slavs who had
come to settle alongside native Slavs. Hungary, having already assimi-
lated the ethnic groups who were settled there at the time of the con-
quest, became once more a mosaic of Christian, Muslim, Orthodox
and pagan peoples. Thanks to the great migration, Hungarian peasants
became mobile and freed from the landowners. One section of the free
‘servants of the king’, on the other hand, instead of rising like the others
into a nobility in the making, lost their social position.
The importance of the Church was already considerable, comparable
to its position in Western Europe. Since St Stephen, numerous laws and
donations in the form of estates and other revenues such as the tithe had
been bestowed upon the monasteries, bishoprics and chapters. In the
Middle Ages, the Catholic Church owned only around 15 per cent of
the entire country but, as the centuries passed, it became the single
largest landed property owner. Bishops also took on civil governance
over their estates and population, which included the ecclesiastical
nobility, the ‘predialists’ and soldiers established on their land by the
bishop. The bishops also had judiciary powers and sat on the Royal
Council. King Béla IV respected tradition while maintaining control
over nominations, retaining investiture for his faithful prelates. On
more than one occasion he evoked the time of the invasion when the
only payment he ever received from the pope was ‘mere words’.
The person responsible for tarnishing both the life and work of Béla
IV was his son, Stephen. Though he only reigned alone for two years,
from 1270 to 1272, he had previously been immensely powerful ﬁrstly
as prince–governor of Croatia when he was a child, then of Styria and
Transylvania. In 1262, and again in 1265, Stephen turned his weapons
against the king, his father, who was not much of a war leader. Stephen
ﬁnally defeated him and proclaimed himself ‘king-junior’ over the
eastern half of the country.
Who were those who sided with the impulsive king-junior against old
Béla who had given Hungary back its life blood? Several sources suggest
it was the Cumans. In order to understand this, one has to go back a bit.
These Turko-Kipchak warriors, pagan and nomadic, had been granted
entry into Hungary as military back-up against an imminent Mongol
invasion. However, in the panic generated by the Mongol attack,

rumour spread that these warriors were in fact in league with the assai-
lants, so the people of the village of Pest killed their chief. Furious, the
Cumans left Hungary to return two years later. In order to mollify these
40,000 or so Cumans – a considerable military force – King Béla settled
them on the vast north-east territory and even betrothed his seven-year-
old son, Stephen, to a Cuman princess. This marriage, and probably
also the grievances held by the Cuman tribes against the government,
explain why they rallied around the king-junior. Stephen could also rely
on his own faithful Transylvanians and, furthermore, he excelled in the
military arts. In contrast to his father, he successfully fought against
Ottokar, the Czech king (whom Béla had won over as an ally), and
against Bulgaria. He also contributed to the consolidation of the
Hungarian dominion as far as the Adriatic coast.
The remaining three decades, however, were not happy ones for the
House of Árpád. Stephen’s son, László IV (1272–90) was ten when he
succeeded his father. His reign was punctuated by baronial intrigue,
murders and chronic instability. The great men of the realm pursued
their private wars according to the rules of perfect feudal anarchy.
Twenty or so among them seized vast tracks of land, spoils and posi-
tions according to their weapons and coalitions. The name of Máté
Csák has already been mentioned as symbol of this rapacious and
unscrupulous aristocracy, who carved out veritable kingdoms within
the kingdom.
But let us return to the young king, son of King Stephen and his
Cuman wife, and very much attached to his mother’s people. This
might have been a beautiful story of love and brotherhood between
peoples if it had not turned into a drama – a melodrama, even.
Destabilised in his childhood by the barons, then slandered for his
‘pagan and revelling’ lifestyle in the company of the Cumans, László
(Ladislas) was nicknamed the ‘Cuman king’ and attracted the anger of
Pope Nicholas III. The sovereign pontiff sent a legate, Bishop Philip de
Fermo, to impose an anti-Cuman law. The king, who was not a stable
man, began by acquiescing, then rebelled against the legate’s demands
and ended up being excommunicated – referred to as a ‘Kulturkampf’
in reverse by one historian. Be that as it may, the tribulations of the
‘Cuman king’ had begun once more and were to last over ten years.
What had started as a love story turned into a soap opera punctuated
by intrigue, wars, murders, betrayals and reversals. His reign had its fair

Plate 8. Seal of the Esztergom ‘Latins’ (twelfth century)

share of scandals, too. Whether because of physical disgust, personal-

ity disorder or deﬁance, László refused to father an heir by his wife,
Isabelle of Anjou. He rejected her while at the same time showing off
with his Cuman mistresses. He is even said to have had intercourse with
one of them in the middle of a state Council. As a last straw or irony of
fate, László ended up being assassinated by two Cumans in the pay of
a baron.
Thus, the twenty-third and last member of the House of Árpád came
to the throne. Though his legitimacy was in doubt because of the sup-
posed or real inﬁdelity of his grandmother, an Este princess, András III
was eventually crowned in 1290. Raised at the Morosini palace in Venice
– his father having married Tomasina Morosini – Andrew ‘the
Venetian’, in contrast to László ‘the Cuman’, did not lack either
manners or intelligence. But the huge power of the barons proved
impossible to break. With his death in 1301, the lights of the House of
Árpád went out.
After the brief reigns of a Premyslid and a Wittelsbach, it was left to
the Angevins of Naples to give Hungary back its power and its bril-
liance.

the king from naples: an era of progress

When Charles-Robert of Anjou (1310–42) was crowned in 1310, follow-

ing the reigns of a Czech king, Vencel (Wenceslas) Premyslid, and of
Otto Wittelsbach of Bavaria, he had already considered himself king for
a number of years by virtue of his link with the dynasty of Árpád via
his grandmother. The latter, an Árpád princess, had married Charles II
of Anjou, king of Naples. The first Hungarian Angevin, Charles-
Robert, who was also called Carobert, was brought up in Naples at the
Angevin court, his family having been driven from Sicily and replaced
in 1282 by the House of Aragon, following the tragic ‘Sicilian Vespers’
massacre. Charles-Robert had been destined for the throne of Hungary
since birth. He was crowned for the first time in 1301, aged thirteen, but
was not to enjoy undisputed kingship until after his third coronation in
1310.
The young Angevin, then twenty-two years old, found his new
kingdom in a state of political turmoil. The international situation, on
the other hand, favoured his ambitions. The Byzantine Empire – in the
period leading up to its final fall in 1453 – remained preoccupied with
the affairs of the capital, Constantinople. The Holy Roman Empire had
been in decline since the death of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen in 1250.
Hungary’s immediate neighbour, Austria (the dukedom of the
Babenbergs until its annexation by Bohemia), had passed into the hands
of the Habsburgs in 1278. However, the slow expansion of this dynasty
did not yet represent a threat to the more powerful Hungarian kingdom.

Western Europe was a distant world, fully occupied with its own con-
flicts, notably France’s wars against the papacy and against England,
with which it was embroiled in the Hundred Years’ War (1339–1453).
The Black Death (1346–53) wiped out a third of the population in the
West and, in addition, Europe was undergoing a period of severe cold
and rain which brought intermittent periods of famine. Hungary seems
to have been less affected by these calamities. In the fourteenth century,
under the Angevins, its population reached around 3 million while the
rest of Europe, excluding Russia, probably amounted to some 80
million inhabitants before the great plague epidemics in mid-century,
and to 56 million after that. Under these generally favourable condi-
tions, the Angevins were able to consolidate their internal power and to
conduct an active foreign policy.
However, the priority of the first Angevin king, the young Charles-
Robert, was to put his own Hungarian house in order. Between 1301
and 1310, till the eve of his final coronation, about fifteen powerful mag-
nates ruled over the territory as a whole. Only a single region in the
centre of the country, a kind of ‘Hungarian island’, remained under the
direct authority of the king. Among these barons were the margraves
(bán in Hungarian) of the military marches (bánság in Hungarian) of
the south, a region that is today part of Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and
Romania.
The situation that Charles-Robert found himself facing was excep-
tional only in its gravity. Erosion of the state and conflict between kings
and feudal oligarchies characterised the history of all medieval coun-
tries, as did the emergence from the fourteenth century onwards of rep-
resentative assemblies, whether in the form of ‘states generals’,
parliaments or diets.
In France, the first states general was convened by Philip the Fair in
1302. In Hungary, where feudalism did not take the same forms or
evolve in the same way as in the West, relations between royalty and sub-
jects belonging to the three orders were organised differently. A pattern
of equal rights for all the nobility, una eademque nobilitas, took shape
instead. Thus, in principle, poorer nobles, later known as ‘nobles with
seven plum trees’, and rich barons constituted a single order with a large
membership, amounting to some 4 to 5 per cent of the population. In
reality, many of them lived in modest circumstances and were econom-
ically dependent on the magnates, owners of large estates and valuable

seigniorial rights. Members of the lesser nobility, descendants of ‘royal

servants’, jobbágy and other free soldiers, generally made up the
entourage of great lords and prelates, but swore allegiance only to the
king . At the same time, as nobles, they shared the prerogatives of sov-
ereignty with the king.
The lesser nobility’s struggle for equality with the higher nobility had
run as a constant theme through Hungary’s history since the Golden
Bull of 1222. Louis the Great would be the first king to confirm, in 1351,
the ‘constitution of the nobility’. This established that the inalienabil-
ity of inherited property in principle applied as much to the poor
noble’s plot ‘of seven plum trees’ as it did to the tens of thousands of
hectares belonging to the baron next door. All nobles were also given
equal status at the ‘comitat’ assemblies and at the Diet.
The Angevin kings of the fourteenth century therefore faced, on the
one hand, the enormous power of the prelates and the oligarchy and,
on the other, the lesser and middle nobility, fighting for full recognition
of their status, rights and privileges. Hungary was moving towards a
society of orders and states dominated by the nobility. When Charles-
Robert came to the throne he found, according to a contemporary doc-
ument, ‘practically the whole country against him’ and had first to
accommodate the oligarchies, whom he did not hesitate to fight soon
afterwards.
The most powerful lord at the time was Máté Csák. His estates are
said to have encompassed eighteen counties, around one fifth of the
country. He led the life of a prince, with his own private army, his own
chamberlain, squire, treasurer and judges. His father and his uncle had
occupied the highest offices and received extremely generous grants in
return for services rendered to the Crown after the Mongol invasion in
the middle of the previous century. He had refashioned both wealth and
power into a force capable of fracturing the state. The same transfor-
mation had occurred with other former royal followers, such as László
Kán, first ‘voïvode’ of Transylvania. A few great barons like the Köszegi
in Transdanubia (ancient Pannonia) and the Subic, ancestors of the leg-
endary Zrinyi in Croatia-Dalmatia, even minted coins and conducted
private wars abroad as well as at home. In this fragmented state,
anarchy reached a point at which no less than four lords simultaneously
claimed the title of palatine (nádor in Hungarian).
Charles-Robert had the sense to attack Csák, Kán and the Amadé

Plate 9. Charles-Robert of Anjou in the illustrated chronicle (fourteenth

century)

and Subic barons separately, one after the other. Sometimes luck was on
his side: the Kassa bourgeois disposed of the Amadé head, whereas
Csák and Kán granted him the enormous favour of dying unassisted. In
most cases, the kings of neighbouring countries preferred not to inter-
vene. Charles-Robert even succeeded in setting up a triple alliance
between the Polish, Czech and Hungarian kings – a Piast, a Luxemburg
and an Angevin – at Visegrád in 1335. This event was to be repeated 650
years later when the heads of state of the same countries, by then freed
of Communism, met at the same place.

Territorial conditions

Among Angevin assets, the initial support of the pope and of the
Hungarian clergy was particularly important. It was not easily won,
since restoration of order affected certain Church interests, notably the
expansion of a civil administration at the expense of the ecclesiastical
hierarchy. In addition, the king, taking advantage of the weakening of
papal authority, which had been transferred to Avignon, was expropri-
ating papal taxes. The growing authority of the Crown over that of the
Church can be measured by the grievances expressed by the latter. In
1338, the clergy sent the pope a thick volume of grievances protesting
against the suppression of numerous privileges. Most signiﬁcantly,
Charles-Robert assumed the right to bestow titles and ecclesiastical
prebends upon his own supporters, to the point of designating his ille-
gitimate son, Kálmán, Bishop of Györ.
Charles-Robert’s reign, which lasted more than three decades, was
not particularly marked by violence. He was a king who was able to
forgive, except for one rather confused episode which is worth recount-
ing. A wealthy noble called Zah (or Zács) burst into the royal dining-
room at the palace of Visegrád brandishing his sword and mortally
wounded Queen Elisabeth before being overwhelmed and cut down.
The motive for this act remains obscure: momentary madness, political
motivation or act of revenge for the rape of his daughter, supposedly
perpetrated by the queen’s brother? We do not know. Whatever the
motive, Charles-Robert’s revenge was terrible: every relative of the reg-
icide was sentenced to death and Zah’s unfortunate daughter was hor-
ribly mutilated and put on public display. Lastly, the family wealth was
conﬁscated ‘to the seventh degree of lineage’.

Though Charles-Robert may not have been particularly greedy, like

his Hungarian predecessors and other European monarchs he confis-
cated the possessions of deposed oligarchs – several of whom had taken
refuge abroad – on a massive scale. The Angevins – for his son Lajos
(Louis) pursued the same course – thus recovered many of the estates
lost to or ransacked by brigand magnates; they also retrieved about 150
fortified settlements (towns and castles), around half of the total, and
some 20 per cent of the land with, of course, their associated taxes and
revenues. In addition, the Angevins, who already had a huge personal
fortune, had discovered an unexpected Ali Baba’s cave in this land, the
recently discovered gold mines in the north along with silver, copper
and salt mines. These mines constituted a quite extraordinary source of
wealth, which, due to the prevailing situation at their accession to the
throne, was to prove extremely useful.
Because of the weakening of royal power and the considerable
increase in personal property held by the magnates (but also because of
the Mongol-Tatar invasion of 1241–2), royal revenues had been dimin-
ishing for over a century. According to a contemporary inventory of
ecclesiastical and royal revenues, Béla III (1172–92) disposed of the
annual equivalent of 31,000 kilogrammes of pure silver. After revision,
this sum has been reduced by historians to the more modest figure of
23,000 kilogrammes (when all revenues have been converted into pure
silver). Nonetheless, revenues on this scale were considerable by con-
temporary standards: they exceeded those of the French king Philippe-
Auguste (estimated at some 17,000 kilogrammes), and were double the
receipts of the English Crown. But this level of wealth was short-lived:
at the time, two thirds of the estates belonged to the king of Hungary;
a century later they would be reduced to one third.
Thus the Angevins had started out with very little. In 1320, Charles-
Robert possessed only 15,000 kilogrammes of pure silver. In compari-
son, Charles IV of France (1322–8), a contemporary of the young
Angevin, had the equivalent of 40,000 kilogrammes of pure silver.
This did not discourage increasing exploitation of the gold mines in
the north and in Transylvania, which continued into the middle of the
century (into the reign of Louis, son of Charles-Robert), when
Hungarian gold accounted for three-quarters of the entire output of
European mines. Coins minted in gold from the Körmöc mines were in
circulation all over the continent, at a time when high demand increased

its price. Since the content of refined gold remained stable at 23.75
carats, Hungarian florins could compete with Florentine and English
gold pieces; indeed, they flooded Italy, where they were spent generously
in pursuit of the Hungarian Angevins’ political ambitions. But designs
on Italy did not mature until the reign of Louis, and whereas Charles-
Robert never lost sight of his Italian ambitions, he concerned himself
primarily, and with tenacious pragmatism, with the consolidation of
his country and his power.
During the Angevin period as a whole, the area of the kingdom was
probably by the strictest criteria – in other words, leaving out tempo-
rary conquests and vassal dependencies – 300,000 square kilometres,
while the population is estimated at around 3 million people. There
were also 49 free royal towns, 638 market towns and smaller towns
which enjoyed chartered privileges, and around 21,000 villages. These
figures (Hóman) are certainly open to debate, since the Hungarian town
of the day rarely merited the name, and the average village seldom had
more than 100 to 120 residents. The vast majority of peasants were free;
only some 360–480,000, perhaps, would have been tied to serfdom, a
practice that was on the way out (Engel). These ratios would soon
change during the following centuries, but they indicate that the
Angevin peasantry experienced relatively comfortable living standards
with the more able and fortunate enjoying economic and social mobil-
ity.
Among the larger and medium-sized estates, freeholds were far more
widespread than in the medieval West and employed a primitive subsis-
tence farming system. Nevertheless, both large estates and the more
primitive tenanted holdings were starting to produce marketable sur-
pluses within a rapidly developing economic framework.
The increasing exploitation of the mines was matched at ground level
as agriculture, livestock farming, forestry and trade underwent signifi-
cant growth. There was no shortage of exploitable land in the time of
the Angevins. On the contrary, with 3 million inhabitants distributed
over a territory of around 300,000 square kilometres (the size of Italy
today), population density was far lower than in Europe’s more devel-
oped countries. The kingdom was therefore able to absorb, as ever, large
numbers of immigrants. Its peripheral regions attracted Romanians,
Moravians, Poles and Russians (Ruthenians). Among the Germans who
would later swell the ranks of ethnic groups already well rooted in

several regions, Saxons had established themselves in Transylvania as

early as the twelfth century.
Although urban development was under way, the number of towns
and their level of social organisation remained inferior to that of
Western Europe. A Hungarian town historian, György Granasztói,
quotes a French Dominican monk, who in 1308 – that is, before the
Angevin period – mentions ten genuinely urbanised towns, including
Buda, Esztergom and Györ. Yet the monk adds that despite the existence
of these and many other market towns, forts and castles, ‘the kingdom
looked empty’. It was a vast expanse dotted with very few urban settle-
ments, accounting for only 3 per cent of the population (against three
times that figure in France) and the very low level of urban development.
Generous legal privileges, especially for mining and commercial towns,
could not compensate for the lack of urban development which was
mainly restricted to ecclesiastical and military buildings, or to a simple
fortified wall. In essence, the medieval Hungarian town, with the excep-
tion of the future Budapest, offered little more than military security
and population control.
Buda underwent significant development during the Angevin century.
As the royal seat, next to Visegrád, it attracted increasing numbers of
artisans and rich German merchants who proceeded to rise to the top
of municipal circles. With the exception of Buda, one or two mining
towns and settlements close to the main trading routes, urban Hungary
was unable to play a role comparable to that of the great Italian, French
or Dutch centres. Around 1400, Buda and Pest together contained
15,000 inhabitants while 4,000 people lived in Sopron, close to the
Austrian border; the two large market towns of Debrecen and Szeged
housed as many if not more. Pozsony and the mining towns of Upper
Hungary and Transylvania were also growing. During the same period,
despite the depopulation of numerous towns due to the Black Death,
Europe numbered over two hundred towns of more than 10,000 inhab-
itants as well as metropolises of 100,000 souls or more. Nonetheless, on
balance it would be fair to see the Angevins’ overall contribution to the
development of towns, urban civilisation and commerce as substantial.
The first Angevin king, Charles-Robert, inherited a land in the grip of
anarchy and left behind an ordered, flourishing and well-governed state.
Most people benefited from the consolidation of royal power and
from social stability. Merchants and businessmen, as well as the simple

taxpayer, proﬁted from ﬁnancial stability (there were no fewer than

thirty-ﬁve currencies in circulation before the Angevin reforms), safe
travel by road and a coherent household tax which replaced an incon-
sistent and labyrinthine system. Administrative reforms went hand in
hand with a stable royal government, and with social change. Local
‘comitats’ increasingly turned into autonomous administrative units,
managed by the nobility and its representatives (dietines), in other
words by ‘the states’. Accordingly, half-way between the traditional
patrimonial system based upon blood ties and a very partially adopted
Western feudal model, a ‘states and orders’ system developed, based
upon a particular concept of civil rights. According to these principles,
the kingdom became the property of the Crown, an abstract moral
entity, while real political power was regulated by ‘contract’ between the
king and the noble estates.

The Neapolitan imbroglio

Restrained by internal problems, Charles-Robert can be counted among

those monarchs who had few expansionist tendencies. Through his
fourth wife, Elisabeth Lokietek, he maintained good relations with
Poland. Bohemia, too, was part of the ‘triple alliance’ of Visegrád
(1335) and Charles-Robert also formed ties with Austria. In the south
of the country, he succeeded in maintaining Hungarian predominance
over the Slav banates and over the Adriatic coast, in spite of Venetian
ambitions. At last, the long-cherished dream of the Hungarian
Angevins, to regain a foothold in Naples, seemed to be close to fulﬁl-
ment when in 1343 Charles-Robert’s youngest son, András, married
Jeanne, heiress to King Robert of Naples. But by then Charles-Robert
was dead and events failed to unfold in the way he had hoped and
planned. Even though Jeanne and András had been betrothed at the age
of six, and had consummated their marriage at the age of ﬁfteen, the
‘Neapolitan dream’ turned to farce soon after the honeymoon, if indeed
there had ever been any honey.
András was accepted only as prince consort, despite the mountains
of gold dealt out by his mother, the very ambitious Elisabeth Lokietek-
Piast (1300–80). Pope Clement VI did not want András to ascend to the
throne of Naples; Jeanne was even less enthusiastic. Furthermore, she
was hardly a model of virtue or marital tenderness. In 1345 she had

András (the ﬁrst of her four husbands) assassinated, thus triggering a

prolonged war of vendetta and reconquest against King Louis of
Hungary, the unfortunate András’s elder brother.

louis the great: a period of expansion (1342–1382)

Following the death of his father in 1342, it fell to the future Louis the
Great to lead the Hungarian side in policy towards Naples and wars
with it, among others. His forty-year reign is far more difficult to eval-
uate than that of his father. This Angevin’s greatness was undoubtedly
due to the unprecedented expansion of his kingdoms which, by the end
of his reign, encompassed a vast territory stretching from Poland to the
Adriatic. The legendary Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great,
and the chivalrous Hungarian, St Ladislas, were Louis’s chosen role
models. Some of his subjects recognised his greatness: those citizens
admitted to the judicial process, the prosperous bourgeois, members of
the middle nobility, all felt their views were now being taken into
account, as did those barons who shared his external ambitions.
However, his contribution to developments within his own borders
cannot be compared with that of Charles-Robert. True, climatic condi-
tions in mid-century had deteriorated and Hungary did not entirely
escape the Black Death, the plague; be that as it may, living standards
improved little under Louis the Great.
Art and culture flourished at the court, which resided in three sump-
tuous palaces; and yet even the royal towns of Buda and Visegrád did
not measure up to Charles IV’s Prague. A few great works of art have
survived, those of the sculptors the Kolozsvári brothers, for example.
Louis founded the first Hungarian university in Pécs, as well as several
churches and monasteries, but no cathedrals or grand stately castles
were built during his reign. There remained a wide cultural divide
between the kingdom of Hungary and those of Italy, France and
Flanders.

Balkan and Adriatic wars

After numerous twists and turns and despite two costly campaigns
(1347–8 and 1350), Louis’s Neapolitan adventures reached an impasse.
Although Louis had twice conquered Naples, the pope refused to

Plate 10. Console with woman’s head, 1365

depose Jeanne. Louis finally renounced the throne, not without some
slight consolation: his relative Charles the Younger, prince of Durazzo
(Durres, Albania), became master of the much-coveted kingdom and in
1382, with the support of the Roman Pope Urban VI and a significant
Hungarian army, had Jeanne, the old enemy, strangled. After forty years
of continuous conflict, Louis I finally tasted the bitter satisfaction of
revenge on his deathbed.
Another conflict, closer to Hungarian interests, ran through Louis’s
reign. Venice’s designs on Dalmatia had resulted in three long wars
against Hungary (1356–8, 1373 and 1378–81) as well as conflicts in the
Balkans, partly connected to the two warring parties, with a third

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A 10. Duchy of Bavaria
N 3 11. Austria
E A 12. Duchy of Silesia
N S E A 13. Margraviate of Brandenburg

Map 3. Europe at the time of Louis the Great

From the Angevins to the Battle of Mohács, 1301–1526 53

power, Genoa, joining in. The Serbian kingdom was also indirectly
involved, but Stephen Douchan’s ‘great Serbia’ ended by fragmenting
into several petty despotisms and then falling under Turkish rule after
the famous Battle of Kosovo (1389).
By then, King Louis was dead, but he had conducted an active policy
throughout the Balkan region, bitterly opposed by numerous ephemeral
principalities which came and went during the course of the fourteenth
century. The Bulgarian ‘second empire’ disintegrated, too. Between
1353 and 1391 a brief regional Bosnian hegemony emerged under
Stephen Tvartko I.
Relations between the king of Hungary and Bosnia, several times
severed and re-established, also depended upon his marriage to the
Bosnian, Elisabeth Kotromanic, and were inscribed within a policy
whose overall aim was to preserve Hungarian influence from the
Balkans to the Adriatic coast. Holding on to Croatia and Dalmatia in
face of both Serbian and Venetian opposition was crucial. Even six
hundred years after these events, Western Europe, a distant observer,
has found the complexities of this region impossible to understand.
King Louis managed to profit from the situation, but perhaps he could
not foresee, in the second half of the fourteenth century, the scale of the
Ottoman threat. Several historians have emphasised Louis’s piety and
proselytising activities among the partially pagan populations of neigh-
bouring regions where he waged war. Non-Catholics in his own
country, particularly the Orthodox Romanians called Wallachians,
were also the object of his aggressive proselytising. They grew to despise
the ‘Magyar religion’.
From the perspective of Venice’s history, the stakes involved in the
conflict seem less formidable than when seen through the eyes of the
Hungarian king. The merchant republic’s only interest in the Dalmatian
roads and hinterland was in terms of securing the Adriatic islands and
ports frequented by its galleons. Of greater importance was the need for
a land-based hinterland on the Italian peninsula, since there Venice had
powerful rivals, notably Genoa.
European trade routes did not cross Hungary but went through
Germany instead, reaching Basle, Strasbourg, Bruges and the markets
of Champagne. According to René Guerdan, Venice regarded the con-
flict with Hungary as little more than a ‘spice war’, whereas for the
Hungarian king, it was part of his war for influence in the Balkans and

Italy, as far as distant Naples. He set off to war practically every year
but though his sovereignty over Dalmatia was maintained, success
could only ever be limited. Hungarian domination in Dalmatia, as well
as in the ephemeral banates of Serbia, in Bulgaria, in Bosnia, advances
in Wallachia – and even for a brief moment, Moldavia – was unsustain-
able except in the short term. On the coast, a state without a real ﬂeet
to speak of had no chance against the maritime power of Venice, despite
an alliance with Genoa. In the end, it was the Ottoman Turks, in full
expansion, who were able to beneﬁt most.

On the Polish throne

Louis the Great is chiefly renowned for having acquired a second crown,
more prestigious than those of a handful of petty despotisms. In 1370,
Louis seized the Crown of Poland, succeeding Kasimir III the Great, his
uncle Lokietek-Piast, whom he had assisted on a number of occasions
against a powerful and expansionist pagan Lithuania. After Louis of
Anjou, the Jagiellons who originated in Lithuania occupied the throne
for two centuries. The Hungarian–Polish interlude, under Louis the
Great, lasted a mere twelve years with in addition a few during which
his daughter Hedwige (Jadwiga) was elected king in 1384 and married
a Jagiellon, Vladislas. The Hungarian–Polish union was in actual fact
a personal rather than a state union. The fiction of a Hungary that
included Poland exists only in the nationalist Hungarian imagination,
as does the myth that accompanies it, that of the ‘three Hungarian
seas’. Poland, before its union with Lithuania, had no more access to
the Baltic than Hungary did to the Black Sea, apart from a brief incur-
sion into Moldavia. The only coast to remain under Hungarian rule was
Adriatic Dalmatia, and that, too, was eventually lost during the next
century.
The country was plunged into yet another turbulent period of suc-
cession when, in 1382, Louis died without a direct male heir. One of the
three daughters born of his marriage to Elisabeth Kotromanic of
Bosnia, Mária (Mary), who was to marry Sigismund of Luxemburg,
had an eventful destiny. In 1386, aged 11, she was crowned in Hungary.
Despite fierce opposition, her mother governed in her stead with the
support of the Garai clan. In 1385, Mary married her fiancé Sigismund
(Zsigmond) but, meanwhile, one of the factions had called Charles the

Younger of Naples to the throne. The latter, a distant cousin of Louis,

was in turn deposed by another faction and assassinated after a reign
of thirty-nine days. Mary was on the throne once again, but not for
long. In 1386, Mary and her mother were made prisoners by one of the
clans, barons from the south of the country. The queen mother, whose
hands were tainted by Charles the Younger’s assassination, was in turn
strangled and her daughter kept prisoner in Dalmatia. The unfortunate
young woman was freed one year later thanks to the intervention of the
Venetian ﬂeet, but by then, her husband Sigismund, second son of
Charles IV of Luxemburg, German emperor and Czech king, legendary
builder of Prague, had already occupied the Hungarian throne. Mary
had to make do with the role of queen consort. Throughout these
years, Sigismund’s life was also ﬁlled with incident and reversals of
fortune.

half a century under sigismund, king and emperor

Everything in the life of this prince was complicated and controversial.

He ruled Hungary for no less than half a century, from 1387 to 1437.
He was to go down in history for his numerous princely titles, the many
setbacks that punctuated his reign and also for being the executioner of
Jan Huss, the heretic prelate condemned to the stake by Constance’s
council in 1415, despite having been assured safe conduct by the
emperor himself. In spite of his connection to Jean XXIII, the anti-pope
of Pisa, Sigismund played an important part in the work of the council
which ended the great western schism and led to the retirement or dep-
osition of three out of four popes, and the election of the remaining
one, Martin V. But these events took place at the height of the emperor’s
power. For most of his career, he was more often than not an anti-hero.
Deposed from the Hungarian throne, he was refused access to the
Bohemian one, imprisoned by Hungarian barons and so deep in debt
that he wagered everything from entire counties and towns down to the
silverware from his own table. Furthermore, in order to accede to the
Hungarian throne, Sigismund had to borrow the enormous sum of
565,263 gold ﬂorins from his family. He paid back this debt through a
series of ﬁnancial operations which eventually led to the sale-transfer of
his Brandenburg margraviate to Frederick Hohenzollern. This act in
recognition of services rendered by the latter, and which included the

title of elector, was an important one as it was the beginning of the

future Prussian power.
Sigismund was no more fortunate in his marriages. He loathed his
first wife, Queen Mary, and his second, Borbála (Barbara) Cillei, who
had a colossal fortune, had very little to do with him, leading her own
life instead. And yet Sigismund was a good-looking man, did not lack
talent and had a taste for ambitious projects.
Politically, Sigismund inherited a situation dominated by the oligar-
chy. The barons crushed by the Angevins had been replaced by a new
aristocracy: the Lackfi, the Garai, the Cillei and others. These barons,
internally divided, turned out to be as hard to please with regard to
weak rulers like Mary and Sigismund as they had been submissive to the
strong ones, Charles-Robert and Louis. Although Sigismund succeeded
in being crowned in 1387, he soon found himself hostage to the oligar-
chies who had formed a league. Despite internal divisions, the latter had
assumed all powers, including predominance in the Diet and tutelage
over the sovereign.
This state of dependence was to last, with its ups and downs, for
fifteen years. Heading the league, supported and kept by them, were two
men: János Kanizsai, a cunning and cultured prelate who had qualified
at Padua University, a bishop, who would subsequently become arch-
bishop of Esztergom and chief chancellor, with, by his side, for a time
at least, István Lackfi. Sigismund’s unfortunate expedition against the
Turks and his defeat in 1396 in the Battle of Nikápoly (Nicapolis) – of
which more later – reignited the flames of insurrection. Ladislas of
Naples and his party, supported by the Slavonian rebels, undertook
once more to depose Sigismund. This time, Lackfi himself was at the
head of the conspiracy, but the plot was foiled by the Garai–Kanizsai
league. Lackfi, his nephew and supporters perished, leaving the victors,
the Kanizsai clan, to pursue their goal which was none other than to
subjugate the king. When, in 1401, Sigismund refused the league’s
demand to dismiss his foreign advisors, he was thrown into prison. For
the first time in the history of the country, rebel barons did not content
themselves with deposing the king, but went further and seized power
– in the name of a symbol, the Holy Crown, a public legal entity, the
impersonal sovereign of the kingdom. Kanizsai made himself chancel-
lor of the Crown. The king was subsequently freed but, in 1402, the clan
went further still and for the fifth time, they called upon the Angevin

King of Naples. In 1403, however, the venture failed yet again. The tena-
cious Sigismund was not so easy to get rid of, despite the support his
adversaries enjoyed from the Holy See.
The plot was thwarted by the barons who had remained faithful to
Sigismund of Luxemburg, led by the Garai. Between 1404 and 1408,
royal power was consolidated, despite the king’s numerous absences
abroad, during which the palatine Miklós Garai, son of the old palatine
of the same name, exercised practically total power. He played a crucial
role in all political events as well as in legislation drawn up from 1405
onwards. Among numerous innovations introduced during this period
were the convocation of an assembly gathering together a hundred or
so autonomous municipalities; confirmation of their jurisdiction;
promulgation of peasants’ freedom of movement; unification of taxa-
tion; strengthening of security and protection of persons. A number of
economic measures favoured freedom of commerce. All this served the
interests of the lower classes and contributed to redressing the economic
situation. While not improving the financial affairs of the king, these
innovations helped consolidate his political authority.
Until then, the oligarchy had been forever underlining the fragility of
Sigismund’s claims to sovereignty. After all, the latter had gained recog-
nition and the crown only by virtue of his marriage to Queen Mary so
his legitimacy, purely contractual, was based upon the agreements
drawn up when he was elected in 1387. On several occasions, Sigismund
had ostensibly broken his pledges and carried out cruel acts of revenge
upon his opponents, to the extent that it was only the support of the
Garai, the Cillei from Styria, the Stibor of Polish origin, the Maróti, the
Kanizsai – until their disgrace – and a dozen other barons that kept him
on a faltering throne. Nonetheless, after being freed from captivity, in
1403–4, thanks largely to Miklós Garai, Sigismund succeeded in
shaking off the cumbersome tutelage of the league. From then on he
governed as sovereign.
In addition, in 1408 Sigismund created his own league, entitled the
Order of the Dragon, a kind of state council consisting of twenty-four
members, all loyal barons. The Order of the Dragon was an instrument
of power for Sigismund. Through patience and a sprinkling of oppor-
tunism, not to mention family connections, Zsigmond-Sigismund
became a prestigious emperor and a Hungarian king of calibre. Known
as the ‘Czech swine’ by his enemies in Hungary, he was detested by

Czechs and Moravians and his reputation in Germany also left much to
be desired. And yet, he ruled over five kingdoms. He remains the most
important sovereign of his era.
Where the economic situation was concerned, circumstances were far
from favourable; not that the king lacked financial acumen, but royal
patrimony was definitely a thing of the past and was being superseded
by a new order, based upon commercial production. His revenues were
never enough. On the other hand, being unscrupulous in financial
matters, he nearly always managed to come through. He sold, bought,
resold, confiscated and redistributed the most unlikely things: an
unprecedented number of towns, estates and strongholds were pawned
and leased. On one occasion, returning from England laden with expen-
sive gifts given to him by King Henry V and with the Order of the
Garter, he sent Windecke, his man of business, to Bruges the moment
he reached Calais, in order to pawn the lot. Nothing was ever kept in
the royal treasury: jewellery, horses, objets d’art . . . Sigismund was
always short of money and would either sell or pawn them. If there was
money to be made, he would make it, selling amnesties to the guilty and
the innocent victims they had robbed. Pipo Ozorai, his Florentine ‘min-
ister’ of finance, governor of Temesvár and an efficient war chief, was a
great help to him. At the same time, Queen Barbara, born a Cillei, had
her fair share of business sense and strong family loyalties. Not only
was her father, Hermann, the king’s right hand man, but she managed
to secure her family the title of prince of the empire and in 1414 suc-
ceeded in being crowned queen of Germany. Her ambitious and adven-
turous life earned her the nickname ‘Loose Woman’; apart from a
considerable collection of lovers, she also amassed a sizeable fortune
with which she came to her husband’s rescue in his moments of crisis,
thus earning his forgiveness.
Among the many achievements historiography has attributed to
Sigismund are: the professionalism of his administration, organised to
the detriment of the barons, the instigation of levying soldiers and the
creation of units called battalions. He encouraged trade and towns
thrived under his rule. Meanwhile, however, new large fortunes were
being accumulated and power was becoming concentrated into the
hands of the future titled aristocracy, separate from the ordinary
nobility.
Faced with the Ottoman threat, Sigismund enjoyed a reprieve thanks

to Tamerlane (1370–1405), the legendary great emir who beat the

Ottomans and captured Sultan Bayezid. The pace of Turkish advance
slowed down as a result, leaving Sigismund to pursue his grand German
and imperial policy, without having to worry too much about the
Hungarian borders. He spent long periods of time abroad, in various
European countries, leaving Hungary in the hands of Garai, Eberhard
and other lords of the Order of the Dragon, which continued to expand
since Sigismund began to recruit knights from the middle and lower
nobility. The latter therefore owed him their promotion, upheld his
authority and, like the lords, carried the title of ‘magniﬁcus’, more or
less equivalent to ‘his excellency’.

A not very glorious war leader

The majority of Sigismund’s military endeavours took place in the

outer reaches of Hungary. While many were unnecessary and unprofit-
able and carried out solely in pursuit of glory, equally frequent were
exploits that were necessary but brought no glory. Whether in Croatia,
Dalmatia, the Balkans or against the Hussites, the number of battles
lost far outweighed the victories. Descriptions of Sigismund as an
incompetent and cowardly war leader, a ferocious beast and a clown are
probably exaggerated. Even a figure more stable than this gifted if light-
weight man would have attracted a few pejorative adjectives during the
course of a fifty-year-long reign over five kingdoms. The same can be
said for his defeats in the face of such formidable enemies: the Hussites
driven by faith and fanaticism; Venice, queen of the seas; and the unpre-
dictable, seemingly inexhaustible, Ottoman power.
Venice, as ever, continued to dispute Dalmatia. After several attempts
at resistance, Hungary finally gave it up, this time for good and simi-
larly its sovereignty over Bosnia. Elsewhere, Sigismund met Hussite
attacks from Bohemia. The spiritual heirs of those that Sigismund left
to burn on Constance’s stakes were in no way beaten. The Hussite
movement set the region ablaze.
It is difficult to ascertain Sigismund’s feelings towards the Hussites.
Unlike Louis d’Anjou, Sigismund was not especially attached to his
role as Christian sovereign. His fight against the Hussites had a politi-
cal and military motivation rather than a spiritual one. For years he
fought against Jan Žižka (d.1424) and Prokop’s ‘Taborite’ Hussites.

This energetic movement, originating in the country’s ‘backwaters’,

found in Žižka a war leader of genius (he invented light armoured
wagons, precursors of tanks), and did not give up easily. The end of the
Hussite wars in 1434 came about not through any military defeat but
because of internal conﬂicts between two camps, the radical Taborites
and the more moderate Hussites of the ‘chalice’.

The Turks in the Balkans

The Ottomans continued to advance in the Balkans. Sigismund, deter-

mined to stop them, retaliated. In 1396 at Nikápoly (Nicapolis,
Bulgaria), at the head of an army consisting among others of French
knights led by Fearless John, heir of Burgundy, Sigismund confronted
the Turks. As has already been said, catastrophe ensued and was not to
be the last either. Sigismund had other conflicts to contend with else-
where and, in addition, the military organisation of the Ottoman
Empire was far more efficient than that of European armies. The king
did win a few battles; Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) was saved provision-
ally, as was Jajce in Bosnia, though not for long. Then, in 1428,
Sigismund was again defeated, this time seriously, at Galambóc
(Golubac, Serbia), thus putting a definitive end to Hungary’s hegemony
in the Balkans.

the rise of the ottoman threat

Once more, the country entered a period of turmoil, punctuated by
struggles for the throne and social conﬂict. Problems had already begun
during Sigismund’s lifetime, with a peasant insurrection in Transylvania
under the leadership of the nobleman Antal Budai Nagy. The rebels
obtained a few short-lived concessions. After the death of the ‘Czech
swine’, the noble order took over and was only willing to elect Albert of
Habsburg, the ﬁrst of his successors, on condition that the reforms be
annulled.
Between 1437, the year of Sigismund’s death, and 1457 three kings
ruled the country. Albert Habsburg, prince of Austria and husband of
Sigismund’s daughter, bore the crown for less than three years. At his
death, Ulászló I (Vladislas), a Jagiellon, became king (1440–4) but
Albert’s posthumous son, László, crowned before he was weaned, also

carried the royal title and had the support of the Garai and Cillei as well
as of Jan Jiskra, a new and important figure, a Czech condottiere of
sorts who controlled all of Upper Hungary – currently Slovakia – and
parts of Czech and Moravian lands.
Thus, partisans of the Polish alliance did not wait for the birth of the
king’s heir. Instead, they put the sixteen-year-old king of Poland,
Ulászló–Vladislas Jagiellon, on the throne. From 1440, therefore,
Hungary had two kings: Vladislas, the Jagiellon, until his premature
death in 1444 and the Habsburg, Ladislas–László, until 1457. Yet
another fight for succession between opposing clans followed. Though
the Habsburgs and the king’s mother continued to fight for their cause,
the Habsburg infant’s chances were slighter than the Jagiellon’s.
Vladislas was older and, according to his contemporaries, had a bright
future. Moreover, he was elected by the nobility, for whom an elected
royalty was important. The nobility’s right to freely elect a ‘competent’
sovereign, in other words a king to their liking, was connected to an
evolving concept of public ownership, known as the doctrine of the
Holy Crown. It posited the country as belonging to the nation, embod-
ied by the nobility and represented by the Crown as symbol rather than
physical object. The king exercised his powers purely through the latter.
Both mystical and legal, the doctrine stipulated the representational
nature of royal power and placed the source of sovereignty within the
body of the nation’s nobility.
Its raison d’être is not hard to guess. Most barons and nobles under-
stood that the fight against the Ottoman threat was a priority and were
looking for a sovereign who could rise to the challenge. The young
Jagiellon did not disappoint them. Accompanied by János Hunyadi, his
most famous general, he went on to conduct numerous campaigns.
Hunyadi’s career as war leader spanned three reigns: those of
Sigismund, Vladislas Jagiellon and Ladislas–László of Habsburg.
Hunyadi was one of a number of leaders in the middle of the fifteenth
century who was of humble birth. His family came from Wallachia,
probably of Romanian or Slav descent, had settled in Transylvania and
put down roots there. The first known document, dated 1409, witnesses
the giving of Hunyad castle (Hunedoara in Romania) to Vajk, János
Hunyadi’s father. Another document, dated 1434, already refers to
‘Vajk, beacon of Hunyad’ and to his son ‘János the Wallachian’. As an
aside: the document was a recognition of a loan of 1,200 gold florins

that the aforementioned János had made to the king, short of cash as
usual, and who had put up a rather handsome property as security.
Other loans were made to the king and thus further properties passed
through the hands of the Hunyadis, whose fortune grew steadily.
János Hunyadi, born around 1407, became a valiant soldier under
Sigismund. He accompanied him to Italy and then Bohemia, partici-
pated in the Czech wars and led the campaign against the Turks. By the
time of Sigismund’s death in 1437, he was not just an unknown noble
from Wallachia, but neither was he in the oligarchy of large and
extremely rich families. Though he occupied a high military rank under
Sigismund, his rise to the top of the state took place afterwards, during
the reign of Vladislas Jagiellon and then under the rule of Ladislas of
Habsburg, the child king.
Hunyadi’s professional qualities as statesman and military leader,
along with his personal attributes, played a determining role in his
career. His wealth was also a contributing factor: Hunyadi became the
richest property-owner in Hungary. He owned close to 2.3 million hec-
tares of land, 28 fortresses, 57 towns and 1,000 villages, according to the
historian Bálint Hóman, although recent research has reduced these
ﬁgures – 22 fortresses rather than 28, for example. Even these more
modest estimates indicate a sizeable fortune. In addition, Hunyadi
could count on the support of numerous lords faithful to his cause and
an incalculable number of friends among the ordinary noble ranks. The
lands owned by Hunyadi and his allies are said to have represented half
of the national patrimony, well in excess of royal property.
His multiple roles conferred upon him exceptional powers. Head of
a single banate to begin with, Hunyadi was named voïvode of
Transylvania in 1441 and then acceded to the role of governor between
1446 and 1452, while László–Ladislas V was still under age. He gave up
this title when the king came of age and was named captain general and
captain of Nándorfehérvár and then count of Temes. Each of these
titles instantly placed him among the ‘baron ministers’, called the ‘true
barons’, then the ‘banneret lords’ – and he was in possession of at least
half a dozen of them.
Hungarian patriotic historiography has perhaps a tendency to over-
emphasise his virtues, but it is true that Hunyadi was not known to have
committed any acts of cruelty or to have been involved in any scandals.
His courage as a soldier was legendary and he was undoubtedly guided

as much by his vision of himself as servant of the state as he was by per-

sonal interest – no small claim.
Hunyadi’s leadership qualities took on historic dimensions in the
wars against the Ottoman Empire, in Hungary’s and indeed Europe’s
buttress, the Balkans. Hunyadi had already fought a number of battles
in the 1440s against the Sultan Murad. However, for a number of
reasons, it is his ‘long campaign’ of 1442–4 that is best known. The king
– still Vladislas Jagiellon at this point – and Hunyadi won several
battles, enough to reignite the hope of driving back the Turks. Even the
future Pope Pius II, the very pessimistic Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini,
expressed his confidence in success. But although his confidence was
justified, the adverse winter conditions – and the mountains – proved
too challenging in the end. The army turned around and went back to
Belgrade, its departure point. It was not the victory they had hoped for.
They would have to start out again.
Nevertheless, the Turks were busy suppressing the revolt of the
Karaman emirate in Asia Minor and so, following the 1442–4 defeats,
Murad was keen to make peace in the Balkans and with Hungary. The
young Jagiellon king began by accepting and signing the agreement. But
in the summer of 1444, he changed his mind, went back on his word and
set out for war and towards his death. Going back on one’s word given
to an infidel was not considered a betrayal. In addition, Cardinal Julian
Cesarini, the pope’s legatee, had assured the king of the papal navy’s
support and that of several powers.
Apart from the risk involved in any battle, there was also the Balkan
countries’ reluctance to exchange a relatively secure peace for an uncer-
tain war which, in the case of defeat, could lead to the loss of the rest
of their territory. For Georges Brankovic, Serbia’s despot since 1427, it
was a persuasive argument. The events that followed proved that his
fears were well founded. The Christian fleet was too weak to block the
straits from the Ottoman armies. In addition, Genoa’s galleons were in
the service of the sultan while Brankovic’s Serbia abstained. Murad had
united an army superior to the Christian forces and fate played against
the latter: on 10 November 1444 at Varna, the impetuous young king
launched a premature attack against the janissary and was killed. The
battle became an exodus.
Hunyadi’s role in the venture is unclear, but his authority suffered
little from the defeat. Upon his return to Hungary, on the other hand,

he was faced with the conflicts, intrigues and disorders that character-
ised difficult periods of succession. The division between those loyal to
the child Ladislas V and to Vladislas Jagiellon lost political fuel after
the death of the latter, but underlying private interests remained. Each
clan wanted to take advantage of the power vacuum. Though Hunyadi,
until then a ‘Jagiellonian’, chose Ladislas V – a choice dictated by
common sense – he had to keep an eye on the manoeuvres of the
Cillei–Garai clan and the machinations of Emperor Frederick III, the
child’s tutor. In the end, Ladislas did not become king until 1452, eight
years after the Jagiellon’s death.
Despite the intrigues of some great lords, it would be unfair to
shower the ruling class with the usual accusations of selfishness and
petty quarrels. Many of the great barons supported Hunyadi in his
efforts to consolidate the internal situation and to concentrate the
country’s resources against the Turkish invasion. The same spirit dom-
inated the increasingly frequent meetings of the Diet, which, with the
added participation of town delegates, came to resemble states gener-
al. These assemblies demanded their part in state legislation and
government as a counterbalance to the prerogative of the king and the
Council of barons. The reservations put forward by the historian
Zsuzsa Teke are undoubtedly true: the great lords’ noble ‘friends’ rep-
resented their own interests and the townsmen, those of their respective
towns, though the latter did not carry much weight in these delibera-
tions. Nonetheless, during these years of a vacant throne, the Diets did
their best to re-establish order, stability and military power in the
kingdom and to reorganise the judiciary system in favour of the nobil-
ity and urban dwellers.
This same spirit of order and equity presided over the nomination of
six, then seven, captains entrusted with interim government and the
election in 1446 of Hunyadi as governor. Hunyadi’s prerogatives
remained inferior to those of a ‘lord protector’, but the eastern part of
the kingdom remained his and, through his wealth and authority, he put
the country back on its feet so that preparations for a new war on the
Turkish front could begin. He was also able to secure the nomination of
his candidate, János Vitéz, to the bishopric of Várad. Future archbishop
of Esztergom and chancellor, János Vitéz was a precocious Renaissance
man, a refined scholar typical of the ‘urban class’ of his time.
Hunyadi found a faithful and invaluable ally in the famous Albanian

hero George Castriota, called Skanderbeg (1405–68) and, with encour-

agement from the Holy See and European promises, chances for
another campaign against the Ottoman Empire seemed promising. In
1448, Hunyadi decided to go into battle against Murad II. The latter
forced him into a confrontation at Kosovo, where, in 1389, the Serbian
kingdom had been annihilated by Murad I. Kosovo, the Field of
Blackbirds, was to be once more fatal to the Christian armies.
Skanderbeg was unable to reach his ally. Hunyadi was beaten and
imprisoned by the Serbian despot, Georges Brankovic, who proceeded
to demand a 100,000-florin ransom, the restitution of his confiscated
lands in Hungary and finally the engagement of the governor’s eldest
son and his daughter.
Hunyadi had to deal with another formidable man, Jan Jiskra, one
of the seven captains and a real ‘warlord’ in the north-east. He also
managed to get rid of Vlad Dracula, the unmanageable Wallachian
voïvode, and to get on with the fickle Serbian despot and with the
Bosnian king. These diplomatic successes helped create conditions con-
ducive to another military campaign. Meanwhile, Pope Nicholas V
announced a crusade.
The fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453 undoubtedly contributed
to spiritual mobilisation, though less so to the loosening of the purse
strings. It incited the pope to declare the Crusade, but his promise of
20,000 men on the warpath was to be a nuisance to his successor, the
Borgia Calixtus III (1455–8). As for Charles VII, king of France, he was
more concerned with the battle he was fighting against the English at
Castillon, which was to put an end to the Hundred Years’ War, than
with the fall of Constantinople. The Diet of the German Empire was
certainly moved and promised to supply 10,000 horsemen and 32,000
foot soldiers, but time passed: the Crusade was put off until the summer
of 1456. This delay proved useful as it gave the pope time to harangue
Christian forces more energetically and to mobilise the Franciscans into
inflaming the crowds. A young under-age monk, the fervent John
Capestrano, would arouse enthusiasm for the Crusades but that was
some time later. Preparations continued apace both in the Italian states
and in the faraway duchy of Burgundy, where Philip the Good was
getting ready to participate in the war, as were Serbia and other neigh-
bouring countries.
To return to the preparations being made in Hungary, both initiator

of and decisive factor in the campaign. The 1454 Diet had ratified the
law reorganising the military system, which had become outdated and
was falling apart. Hunyadi had to create a united and efficient military
structure out of these assorted troops, scattered between the battalions
of the barons, bishops, comitats and local ethnic groups. Among
others, he recruited a fair number of mercenaries, especially from the
old Taborites, and borrowed both their mobile tactics and their famous
assault ‘proto-tanks’. His other main concern was the financing of an
army of 100,000 men. Four times the king of Hungary’s annual revenue,
1,140,000 gold florins, were needed at once. So as an exception, the Diet
voted for extremely heavy war taxes.
While not all promises were kept, Hunyadi’s army nonetheless con-
stituted a formidable force. Allied troops made it to the rendezvous and
the fleet, though late, sailed up the Danube. At midday – as every day
since – the bells rang out, reminding each Christian of his duty to fight
the ‘infidel’. For once, despite everything, Europe was ready to fight.
In July 1456, war was in full swing. Sultan Mohamed II carried out
the siege of Nándorfehérvár with an army estimated at 150,000 men,
300 canons and 200 ships on the Danube. The fortress was defended by
Mihály Szilágyi (Hunyadi’s brother-in-law) along with 7,000 soldiers.
The great captain himself arrived under the walls to rescue the besieged
town with 40–45,000 men and the crusaders of Capestrano–Kapisztrán,
the Franciscan. The latter were peasants but among them were also 600
students from Vienna. Though the balance of power is probably impos-
sible to quantify exactly, due to the usual exaggerations of the day, the
Turkish forces are more than likely to have been superior, both in terms
of numbers and technical quality of their artillery. And yet they lost this
huge battle. The pope, the emperor, Venice, the whole of Europe joined
together to honour the victors, who were keen to pursue the campaign
as far as Constantinople. But the two heroes, the architects of victory,
Hunyadi and Capestrano, died one after the other, probably taken by
an epidemic. Constantinople–Istanbul remained Turkish. The defeat
may have left a deep impression upon the Ottoman Empire but its
expansion continued regardless. The invasion of Hungary was none-
theless postponed for another seventy years.
With János Hunyadi gone, Hungary, now leaderless and governed by
a young unstable king who was to die a year later, faced fresh trials. It was
to be a year ravaged by disastrous events. László, Hunyadi’s ambitious

son, had Ulrik Cillei, their old enemy, assassinated . One year later, by a
reversal of fortune, he was in turn captured along with his brother by the
opposing party and held in Buda. Ladislas V condemned and beheaded
László, taking Mátyás with him to Prague. Hunyadi’s party nonetheless
continued to enjoy enormous popularity. After the execution of László,
a rebellion broke out led by János Hunyadi’s widow and his brother-in-
law Mihály Szilágyi. What was at stake now for the young Mátyás
Hunyadi was St Stephen’s Crown.

matthias rex (1458–1490)

In 1458, after a dozen Premyslids, Angevins and other Jagiellons,

Mátyás became, as Matthias, the ﬁrst national king since the extinction
of the House of Árpád in 1301; a Hungarian king elected according to
the wishes of the nobility. Matthias was seventeen or eighteen years old.
He was still detained in Prague by order of Ladislas V, who had just
died, at the house of the governor Georg Podĕbrady, his future father-
in-law. In the eyes of the oligarchy in power, Matthias seemed the ideal
ruler – under Podĕbrady’s tutelage. Everything was arranged between
Podĕbrady, János Hunyadi’s widow, the magnates and the nobles led by
old Szilágyi, uncle of the future king. It is estimated that around 40,000
nobles gathered in Buda to elect Matthias. And while the high council
was deliberating in his favour, he was already being proclaimed the new
king by the crowds gathered outside on the ice of the frozen Danube.
Upon his return from Prague, Matthias was immediately put on the
throne without being crowned, as the crown was still in the hands of the
Emperor Frederick, eternal pretender to the throne. But the hour of the
Habsburgs had not yet arrived. In his inaugural oath, Matthias prom-
ised to satisfy everyone: barons, prelates, nobles and even town-
dwellers. The Diet named Szilágyi as governor; Garai kept his rank of
palatine. There were no upheavals and everyone felt vindicated. But, as
elsewhere in Europe at the close of the Middle Ages, equilibrium
between royalty and oligarchy depended not so much on the laws voted
in at the diets or the promises solemnly proclaimed by the king, but on
the ratio of power. One of the factors in the equation resided in the per-
sonality of the sovereign who, in this case, was called upon to play a
dominant role throughout his thirty-two-year reign.
Intelligent, cultivated, energetic and willing, Matthias was certainly

well equipped to achieve his ambitions. Apart from his determination

to impose his royal authority, he had a broad vision and an appetite for
conquest – Bohemia, Austria and even the imperial crown figured on his
horizon.
‘And why not?’, the historian Gyula Szekfü writes in this regard.
While admitting that such a choice of direction relegated war against
the Ottoman Empire to second place, Szekfü considers it in keeping
with the situation and Matthias’s personality. The king may well have
reasoned that Hungary alone had no hope of success, while a king
wearing several crowns opened up possibilities. Did Matthias really
adopt this line of thinking? It is difficult to answer, since interpretations
by various court biographers on generous stipends, like Antonio Bonfini
or Marzio Galeotto, tended to mingle facts with anecdotes and stories.
It is also pointless to judge the policies of all the kings of Hungary
solely in relation to the Ottoman threat. The danger was certainly there,
but invasion seemed no more imminent than a hundred years previously.
Why should Matthias not have pursued his ambitions? Apart from
his personal qualities, he was after all sovereign of the largest kingdom
in Europe, alongside Louis XI’s France, Charles de Téméraire’s
Burgundy, the Habsburg emperor without an empire and the Jagiellons’
Poland–Lithuania. Most importantly, was he not made of the stuff of a
great Renaissance prince, educated from a tender age by humanist
tutors?
But to return to the seventeen-year-old Matthias. Having delivered
his sermon in Buda’s Notre-Dame Church, which would thereafter
carry his name, his first concern was to get rid of his cumbersome
tutors, with the exception of his mother. He instantly decided to marry
Catherine, the daughter of Podĕbrady, rather than the daughter of one
of his brother’s murderers, the palatine Garai, soon dismissed from his
functions along with other barons from his clan. He even discharged his
own uncle Szilágyi, who, rebuffed, joined the Garai–Ujlaki clan’s plot.
These twenty or so barons had elected Emperor Frederick as king but
their conspiracy failed when Matthias sent thirty-six barons and twelve
prelates to overpower them.
Matthias’s other major asset was his own roots in the country. The
Hunyadis were solidly entrenched on both sides of the ‘political class’:
the barons and the simple nobility. János Hunyadi’s extensive proper-
ties and high titles placed his son within the aristocracy but his modest

Plate 11. Efﬁgy of King Matthias Hunyadi on tiled stove

origins and his political outlook were those of the lower nobility. The
bulk of the clergy was also behind him. Thus, on top of being a
Hungarian king, he enjoyed a solid social base. So much so that from
the early years of his reign he was able to assert himself within the
country and establish amicable relationships abroad. The emperor
returned the Crown along with a few occupied towns – although he
asked for 80,000 florins in exchange. Jiskra, Czech captain of the mer-
cenaries, submitted to his authority – for 40,000 florins and an annual
allowance. Finally, his marriage to Catherine Podĕbrady normalised his
relationship with Bohemia, though not for long.
Towards 1464–5, Hungarian policy in the Balkans took a number of
different turns, whether voluntary or due to circumstances. In 1463, an
Ottoman army attacked Bosnia, took Jajce and beheaded Prince
Tomasevic, thus opening up the route to Croatia, Friule and the region
of Venice. Aided by Pope Pius II Piccolomini – poet, historian and ener-
getic defender of the Christian faith – Matthias rushed to Belgrade,
seized Bosnia and pushed back the Turks. Soon after, under the aegis of
the pope, a grand alliance was formed comprising the empire, Venice,
Philip the Good’s Burgundy and Hungary. The Crusade was to be led
by Pius II himself – but it never took place. In 1464, the pope died at
Ancona. Hungary, now alone, would not go into battle again during
Matthias’s lifetime. Its fortified frontiers seemed secure, especially since
the Turks were now directing their expansionist energies towards Asia
Minor and the Crimea.
The other political turnabout occurred with regard to Bohemia. In
1465, Queen Catherine died. The king had already been planning to
oust her father, Georg Podĕbrady, who had been crowned in Prague but
who had since fallen foul of the Holy See for being a ‘Hussite’ heretic.
The anti-Podĕbrady campaign had not begun yet. In the meantime,
Matthias, supporting the veteran leader of the Hussite war, Jiskra,
attacked the ‘Hussite Brothers’ of Upper Hungary. The Brothers were
defeated and 150 of them ended up on the gallows. The king profited
further from this ‘pacification’ exercise: following his father’s example,
he took into his service his old enemies. These mercenaries became the
nub of the Hungarian army, the future ‘black army’. With its 20,000
men, including a powerful cavalry, it became the most efficient military
force of its time.
The Bohemian throne was occupied by Georg Podĕbrady, Matthias’s

K
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Kingdom of Bohemia L
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Map 4. Hungary at the time of King Matthias Hunyadi

72 A Concise History of Hungary

jailor, rival, enemy then father-in-law and ally in turn. A number of sim-
ilarities have been drawn between the two men. The Czech historian,
Josef Macek, talks of a ‘national monarchy’ with regard to Podĕbrady’s
reign – just as Hungarian historians describe that of Matthias. Under
both these kings, political, economic and cultural life began to flourish.
The Bohemian ‘spring’ would continue after the deaths of both
Podĕbrady in 1471 and the other principal artisan of the reforms, Jan
Rokycana, archbishop of Prague (who died just before him). As for the
Hungarian renaissance, it would be crushed twenty years later.
In some respects, then, the two neighbouring ‘national monarchies’
(the label should not be treated as historically accurate) did present
certain similarities and matured at the same time, although unlike
Hungary, Bohemia belonged to the Holy Roman Empire and its bur-
ghers played a more important role. A difference which was to have
more serious consequences was that while in Hungary religious minor-
ities were of little consequence against an all-pervasive Roman Catholic
Church, Bohemia–Moravia–Silesia–Lusatia were, since Jan Huss
(burned in 1415) in the grip of internal and external religious wars.
Podĕbrady, together with Rokycana, other bishops and lords, skilfully
succeeded in ending the conflicts between moderate Hussites and
Caliztains-Utraquistes on the one hand and the radical old Taborites on
the other. Reconciliation with Catholics faithful to the mother church
of Rome – a majority in Silesia and considerable in other provinces too
– proved more difficult. In particular, the Utraquist compromise (con-
sisting in communion being offered in both), did nothing to appease
Rome.
Thus, in attacking his father-in-law Podĕbrady and then his successor
Vladislas, the king of Hungary had the support of Rome as well as that
of the Bohemian and Silesian Catholics. Ironically, he also had to rely on
the loyalty of his army, which consisted almost entirely of mercenary
Hussites. He eventually conquered Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia and was
crowned king of Bohemia, leaving Vladislas Czech Bohemia’s lands and
Crown. Thus, two Czech kings shared the kingdom’s territory.
Czech and Austrian wars were to occupy Matthias for two decades
and at regular intervals, punctuated by a few moments of crisis. During
the 1470s, he was faced with a powerful coalition put together by
Emperor Frederick and led onto the battlefield by Kasimir and

Vladislas, Jagiellon father and son. Though the Polish army was far
superior in numbers, it was bitterly defeated at Breslau. Matthias’s
‘black army’, composed of disciplined mercenaries well versed in mili-
tary art, proved its superiority over the disparate noble battalions.
The Treaty of Olomuc of 1479 sanctioned the Breslau victory and
enabled Matthias to intensify his struggle for the possession of Austria.
This other interminable war was unique in that Austria did not in fact
exist. At the time, it consisted of a conglomeration of provinces (Tyrol,
Styria, Lower Austria and others) ruled by Habsburg princes under the
high authority of Emperor Frederick. It was only under Frederick’s son,
Maximilian, that the House of Austria formed a united state. In addi-
tion, Austrian territory was riddled with independent fiefdoms and
bishoprics. The war consequently moved from one castle to another and
consisted of a series of sieges, battles and voluntary surrenders. In 1485,
Matthias seized Vienna. With its 25,000 inhabitants, the town was
nothing like the Vienna of the grande époque. The emperor let it go.
Matthias was left master of the house in Lower Austria and there his
conquests ended. He died in Vienna in 1490 without having completed
his mission.
In the meantime, he had to fight against Turkish incursions and
against Venice, eating away at Hungarian positions in Dalmatia. But
Matthias was above all a diplomat and he deployed all his talent and
diplomatic wiles. For example, he managed to neutralise the Swiss with
the aid of allowances paid to a few mayors and other ‘landammans’.
Those of Zurich and Lucerne went as far as to demand what was due
to them from Matthias’s successor.
Hungarian diplomats were no longer great lords or prelates. From
Matthias’s time, they came from among scholars, of modest back-
grounds. Literary men or lawyers, mainly trained at Italian universities,
they formed the first, dare one say, professional diplomatic corps. The
most important transactions were conducted by the king himself, in
particular those with the emperor, his great adversary, and Maximilian,
his son. In 1476, Matthias married for a second time. His bride-to-be,
Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon, king of Naples, was
received with grand pomp along with her retinue, firstly at the d’Este
palace in Ferrara, then at Matthias’s splendid court. According to the
chronicler Hans Seybolt, Beatrice was ‘swept off her feet’ by her ardent

33-year-old husband straight after the wedding celebrations and their

relationship remained intimate long afterwards.
As was customary, the queen had her own court and retinue, received
vast properties and had great influence over the king. Through her
efforts, her seven-year-old nephew, Hyppolite d’Este, was appointed to
the Esztergom bishopric. For Matthias, the marriage fuelled his designs
on Italy, Milan especially, behind Venice. The repercussions of
Beatrice’s arrival in Hungary, however, were cultural rather than politi-
cal.
It is difficult and in a sense pointless to try and draw up a balance of
Matthias’s foreign policy. One historian refers to wars and to ‘inextri-
cable’ diplomacy and analyses his actions, adopting a rather vague ‘psy-
chological’ approach reserved for ‘great men’. According to him,
Matthias was a great Renaissance man, the greatest, even, of his time,
his qualities a more satisfactory way of explaining his rationale than an
appraisal of his deeds or their long-term legacy. In short, he is a monu-
ment. Viewed from this height, the goal of the sovereign’s policies was
to fulfil his desire for glory, as was the case with so many other princes
of his time. But if this grandeur, steeped in the Renaissance, had no
other goal than that of royal glory, could the king still be said to rule a
‘national monarchy’? It would be fairly reasonable to assume not. If one
compares Matthias Rex with the French model of the time (Louis XI
was king between 1461 and 1483), the argument falters. Comparing him
to the Habsburg power does not seem very pertinent either. The
Hunyadis’ House of Hungary was too flawed for them to have got the
better of the House of Austria. European concepts and actions attrib-
uted to Matthias can only be defended at a regional level and perhaps
Hungary’s failure to become a major power derives from its weakness
on the Balkan fronts.
But in order to appreciate this undoubtedly brilliant monarch, it is
probably better to evaluate his domestic policy. The historian cited
above has described him as brilliant and intelligent, ‘Machiavellian
before Machiavelli’. The author of The Prince wrote his works after
Matthias’s death, but the latter had as inspiration Lorenzo the
Magnificent, Sforza or other princes, who were also Machiavellian
before the term was coined. He achieved this without the need to
employ hitmen or poisoners. In addition to the art of trickery, pretence
and diplomatic doublespeak, his mind had been trained by masters of

humanist thought, many having found their way to his court, as well as
by lawyers and scholars, capable of reforming the state machinery.
As we have seen, the first stage of the reform aimed at manipulating
the powers of opposition, as befitted any sovereign wishing to keep hold
of the reins of power. Matthias also filled command posts in the
banates, bishoprics, army and counties with new men. He nominated
ecclesiastics loyal to him, thus depriving the Holy See of this right.
Among the first were the learned János Vitéz and his poet nephew, Janus
Pannonius. But the real innovation introduced by Matthias was, rela-
tively speaking, the professionalisation of diplomacy and administra-
tion. Archbishop Vitéz was nominated chief chancellor, until his
disgrace in 1472 when the mentor, dissatisfied with his pupil’s Czech
policy, became involved in a conspiracy. Having put down the rebellion,
Matthias did not hesitate to throw him into prison. Professionalisation
also extended to the less prestigious offices of the administration.
Chancellery secretaries and competent graduates took over affairs of
state from the barons and prelates. The number of people gravitating
around the king has been estimated at three to four hundred. Tamás
(Thomas) Bakócz, of modest background, is often cited as an example
of these new careerists. Initially personal secretary to the king, he was
appointed archbishop then cardinal and even rose to be Leo II de
Medici’s rival for the pontifical crown.
The territorial government also underwent restructuring. The ‘comi-
tats’ (states general) were transformed into administrative units headed
by county chiefs, prefects of a kind, chosen for the most part from
among the captains of castles (comes castri). Many of them had been
nominated for life with the title of count, a title which was now hered-
itary. The result of these changes was that seigniorial power no longer
went hand in hand with administrative powers and serving the state
became independent of the wealthy barons.
These reforms and their effects on society should nonetheless be put
into perspective. As with all his predecessors since the end of the patri-
monial kingdom, Matthias tried everything to rein in the magnates and
yet at the same time he could not do without them. Despite the king’s
large family fortune, at least half the national patrimony was in the
hands of the great barons. True, these calculations are based solely on
the castles and their adjacent properties, manors of sorts, but then all
the power and wealth were concentrated precisely in these 360 or so

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Plate 12. Buda at the time of King Matthias Hunyadi. Wood engraving. Hartmann Schedel’s Chronicle, 1493
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From the Angevins to the Battle of Mohács, 1301–1526 77

castles. By the time of Matthias’s death in 1490, the king, queen and the
heir-apparent owned far less than under Sigismund, despite the latter’s
reputation for being weak and ‘destitute’. Indeed, 67 castles belonged
to them, fewer than 20 per cent. The distribution of towns was more
favourable to the king. Along with the queen and Prince János Corvin,
he was lord of 68 out of the 138 important towns and market towns, the
equivalent of close to 50 per cent, against the 30 per cent owned by the
barons, 17 per cent by the Church and 3 per cent by foreigners.

‘Matthias the Just’

It is not known when ‘Matthias the Just’ entered into popular legend.
According to Gáspár Heltai, a Protestant chronicler writing about him
in 1577, he was cursed during his lifetime but ‘as soon as he was dead,
everybody down there started to praise him, to the extent of saying that
if he could only live again’, they would be willing to pay taxes seven
times a year. During Matthias’s reign, the country enjoyed a security it
had never known before and has never known since. His reforms,
coupled with the stamping out of private violence of the strong against
the weak, put an end to the arbitrariness and insecurity that had dom-
inated until then and to the practice of ‘dispossession’ carried out to the
detriment of a neighbour or a defenceless relative. ‘Dispossession’ was
in actual fact a form of banditry, the only difference being that it could
be practised under ‘legal’ pretexts, as for example in contesting an
inheritance. Under Matthias, a better-structured legal system was put
in place through the establishment of tribunals of the states general at
the local level. At a higher level, an appeal court, the Royal Table, and
a cassation court, the Curie, were created. These high courts were
placed under a magistrate, a ‘procurator’ and deliberations carried out
with permanent judges and legally trained clerks. Finally, individual
towns gained in legal autonomy, retaining ﬂexibility according to dif-
ferent judicial systems, for example, the German one.
The state was far from being a constitutional monarchy but at least
its institutions were more organised. Could it be this effort to favour the
protection of the individual that earned the king the name ‘Matthias the
Just’ which was to go down in the annals of history? Or was it a desire
to honour a sovereign who had granted justice to the poor and the
humble? Then again, perhaps exalting the last ‘national king’ was a

posthumous expression of a nostalgia for better times. Opinions

diverge. Some historians – and popular legend – portray Matthias as a
kind of Harun Al-Rachid from A Thousand and One Nights, wander-
ing around the hamlets in disguise, protecting widows and orphans.
Others see him as an implacable prince, oppressing his subjects whether
they be peasants, town-dwellers, Jews or other misera plebs contri-
buens.
What is certain is that Matthias’s revenues were high, but he always
needed more to finance his wars and sustain his sumptuous court.
Estimates vary between 600,000 and 900,000 florins, in other words,
nearly a million a year. This is a considerable sum but undoubtedly less
than the French and English kings’ revenues. Louis XI had a revenue of
5 million pounds. Matthias imposed ‘exceptional-subsidiary’ taxes,
thus adding to the burden shouldered by the Hungarian population.
Some say that this additional tax brought overall taxes to six times those
paid out under Sigismund, but this seems an unlikely claim.
A little more is known about the general conditions of the peasantry.
The majority of labourers still enjoyed the liberties they had either
inherited from their status as free men or had acquired in the previous
century. They were the jobbágy, in the ancient meaning of the term. The
proportion of bonded serfs (the inquilini) was smaller than before, in
some places barely 10 per cent of labourers. The standard of living was
reputedly decent or sufficient, according to written sources, however no
other details or comparisons are given. On the other hand, evidence of
a political commitment to protecting peasants from abuse is clear:
numerous judgements were passed in favour of ‘fugitives’ or peasants
forcibly bonded to the land.

Matthias and the Hungarian Renaissance

Today the art lover ﬁnds neither ﬁne churches nor sumptuous castles of
the Renaissance style in Hungary. The vestiges of splendour at Visegrád
Castle, the great halls of Gothic buildings or the frescoes, ceramics and
ornaments are all the more impressive. Renaissance humanism and art
had already entered Hungary before Matthias and then during his
childhood, notably at Várad (Nagyvárad, or Oradea, its Romanian
name), the bishopric of János Vitéz. The king followed an existing tra-
dition which was then given new life by his marriage to Beatrice of

Aragon. The royal courts, both at Buda and Visegrád, attracted schol-
ars, historians and celebrated artists, such as Antonio Bonfini and
Marzio Galeotto, even if severe judgement could deem them to be
‘second order’. The neo-platonic school of Florence also entered the
court through the work of the brilliant Marsilius Ficinus. The king was
probably quite partial to provocative minds, having little truck himself
with pieties, and was doubtless receptive to the irreverence and licen-
tiousness of the sophisticated scholars at his court. Combining the
splendour of Italian style with contemporary wit, Matthias’s court was
unquestionably among the most brilliant in Europe. All the arts were
practised and the great writers of antiquity and the contemporary era
were read. A Hungarian bishop waiting in the antechamber would be
busy reading Cicero while in the workshops other texts from antiquity,
destined for the royal library, were being worked on.
The Bibliotheca Corviniana was certainly Renaissance Hungary’s
prize jewel. The name derives from the latinised version of the king’s
name. In effect, Matthias Rex, son of János Hunyadi from Walachia,
had graciously agreed to the fabrication of a mythical genealogy
according to which he descended from the Roman Valerius Corvinus,
who himself in turn was born of the seed of Jupiter. This artificial gran-
diosity perhaps encouraged the king to give himself more fully to his
passion for patronage and particularly to his library. Numerous copy-
ists and miniaturists worked for him in Italy and Hungary. In Buda
alone, around thirty men were involved in the production of the
Corviniana in the scriptoria of the palace. The library contained close
to 2,500 manuscript volumes, artistic masterpieces. There were not
many incunabula, despite a printing house already functioning in Buda
(belonging to András Hess) which produced, among others, the first
printed Hungarian chronicle, Chronica Hungarorum, in 1473.
In the town of Pozsony the humanist prelate Vitéz founded a univer-
sity, the Academia Istropolitana, which did not last much beyond his
lifetime. His nephew János Csezmicei, the celebrated humanist called
Janus Pannonius, on the other hand, was to enjoy eternal glory. He was
and remains one of the greatest neo-Latin poets. Hungarian culture at
the time was essentially Latin. Nearly a century would pass before the
emergence of a literature in the Hungarian language.
For some, the Hungarian Renaissance was a bright star and
Matthias, its truly Renaissance king. For others, this Corvinian culture

was a mere ‘greenhouse plant’ and a ‘chancery humanism’ – artiﬁcial,

limited to the court and with no long-term prospects. These judgements
are both true and false. During the ﬁve centuries that preceded
Matthias, Hungarian culture had created artistic treasures and adopted
others. But its heritage could not rival the creators of cathedrals, castles
and towns, nor the art and literature of the great European civilisations.
Despite repeated attempts to catch up with what was most up to date
in culture, law, urban development, habits and customs, a certain gap
remained. The cultural explosion of a precocious Hungarian
Renaissance never succeeded in bridging that gap. As for a possible
future for this culture, it faced two obstacles at least. Firstly, there were
few lords rich and receptive enough to carry it through and, secondly,
external circumstances were hardly favourable, with the kingdom soon
plummeting under Ottoman attack. Caught between insufﬁcient past
resources and imminent catastrophe, the Hungarian Renaissance was
doomed to being no more than a splendid interlude.

from the decline of the kingdom to the mohács

catastrophe in 1526

After the death of Matthias, the ﬁght for the Crown between all the inter-
ested parties broke out once more. Matthias did his utmost to pass it to
John Corvin, his son, a love-child born in 1473, but the designated heir
was not recognised as such. His mother, daughter of a Breslau burgher,
whose name, Barbara Edelpöck, is all we have, led an inconspicuous life
at the palace, though envied by Queen Beatrice who was never able to
conceive. With no heir apparent, the queen herself coveted the throne
and ﬁercely opposed the election of the dead king’s illegitimate son.
Other pretenders to the throne entered the fray, among them the future
Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg and two sons of the Polish House of
Jagiellon. In the end it was one of them, Vladislas II (1490–1516), who
won the day. Maximilian was thwarted by the anti-Habsburg element
among the nobility. John Corvin, on the other hand, while relatively
popular with the middle nobility, was far less so among the barons. In
Vladislas, the oligarchy had found the weak king they wanted.
So Vladislas Jagiellon was duly elected king of Hungary by the Diet.
Described as a handsome young man, a womaniser of mild tempera-
ment, the new monarch was totally indifferent to state affairs in his

Czech and Hungarian kingdoms. The nickname ‘Dobze’, ‘Yes, All

Right’, was bestowed upon him, as he approved of anything suggested
by the barons who had hoisted him on the throne. Vladislas II Dobze
seems to have spent twenty-six years saying ‘Yes, yes’ to unbelievable
waste and to impoverishment of the state, not to mention decay in his
own court. An anecdotal but revelatory fact: in 1503, during the carni-
val, Queen Anne de Candale from the House of Count Foix descended
to her lower courtyard to find that there were only eight chickens with
which to treat her guests. Sometimes, the royal couple had to rely upon
the goodwill of the great lords even for their daily meals and without
financial contributions from the Holy See and from Venice, the
Hungarian state would have been unable to pay the soldiers on the mil-
itary frontiers exposed to Turkish attack. The celebrated ‘black army’,
now unpaid, were driven to exactions. Pál Kinizsi, the great com-
mander, had had enough and the destruction of the glorious army
ensued. Perhaps, too, this army posed a threat to the oligarchs.
Thus the oligarchical phenomenon re-emerged, if under different
names. The country was once more under the rule of potentats, lay and
ecclesiastical lords. So it was that the poverty-stricken population, now
without a protector and at the mercy of the lords, great and small, tem-
poral and ecclesiastical, began to venerate the memory of Matthias the
Just. For the lords all agreed on one point: the burden of public contri-
butions was to be wholly discharged onto the shoulders of the peasants
and burghers – accompanied by an increase in dues of all kinds. Being
tied to the land became common practice. Peasants who had enjoyed
liberties in the past found themselves driven back into serfdom, into the
new or ‘second’ servitude. Pressure was applied more or less indiscrim-
inately on the whole of the non-noble population: serfs, emancipated,
free peasants and even townspeople and burghers, who until then had
enjoyed royal privileges. Social classes that had begun to rise found
themselves sinking back, and the whole country sank with them.
Archbishop Thomas Bakócz, Báthory, Kinizsi, Szápolyai are but a
few names among the hundred or so influential lords and prelates of the
day. Their seizure of power led to the destabilisation of the political
order. A necessary though not sufficient explanation for this is that
since power had been shared by king and noble until then, the arrival of
the weak and ineffectual Vladislas II was bound to create an imbalance.
But there is also a connection, which is not yet clearly understood,

between industrial and commercial development in Western Europe in

the 1500s and the regression of the other Europe, agricultural produc-
ers like Poland and Hungary. As Hungarian historian Pál Zsigmond
Pach points out, in the wake of the discovery of America and new cur-
rents in world commerce, producers who were suppliers of basic com-
modities had benefited in various ways but, in terms of modernisation,
had remained unchanged. Since cattle-rearing was a lucrative trade for
the rich – and even the less rich – landowners, the spirit of innovation
did not feature on the Magyar horizon. During the centuries that fol-
lowed, the gap continued to widen.
In 1514, Hungary witnessed a peasant revolt unprecedented in size.
Vladislas II ‘Yes, All Right’ was still on the throne but decisions were
now, more than ever, being taken by the thirty-nine barons of the Royal
Council. The ordinary nobles, meanwhile, were trying, without much
success, to organise themselves into a kind of national party under the
very popular leader, János Szápolyai, destined to become ‘national
king’. The immediate cause for the revolt, however, was elsewhere. In
1513, Pope Leo X issued an edict calling for a crusade and Archbishop
Thomas Bakócz was entrusted with organising it. In April 1514, 40,000
peasants assembled, mainly in Pest, to depart to war. Others were to
join them in Transylvania. A leader emerged, one György Dózsa, with
the Franciscan priest Lörinc by his side. Their conflicts with the nobles
began to look like a peasant war, similar to those that would occur in
Germany. Retaliation was not long in coming. Led by the voïvode
Szápolyai, an army of 20,000 men descended upon the bulk of Dózsa’s
army on the walls of Temesvár.
Exhausted, the crusaders laid down their arms. Dózsa was captured
and the repression that ensued was merciless, though the number of
rebels put to death did not exceed ‘reasonable’ limits for the simple
reason that the landowners needed their labour. The main deterrent, an
event that was to become legendary, was the execution of Dózsa, just as
in Germany, ten years later, Thomas Münzer’s similar fate would go
down in history. Not without reason: the victors placed a crown of iron
heated until it was white on the head of the rebel, then forced his com-
rades in misfortune to mutilate and eat his flesh while he was still alive.
The historian Ferenc Szakály points out that, despite the extent of the
revolt, 1514 was not a turning point in Hungary’s history. The peasantry
from the boroughs and villages, who made up the majority of the rebels,

was subdued. Urban-dwellers instantly distanced themselves. Peace

descended once more upon the country. The October Diet implemented
retaliatory measures.
One of the principal architects of the Diet’s decisions was the lawyer
István Werböczi, future palatine. That year, he put together a body of
laws intended to encompass all political and social spheres, a code
called Tripartitum. Werböczi published it in Vienna, three years later:
though it was never promulgated, the impact of Tripartitum was con-
siderable. Cornerstone and yardstick of a particular image of the feudal
nobility’s Hungary, it became the charter of common law for three cen-
turies. Experts and public opinion are very divided in their appreciation
of the Tripartitum. Even after the fall of Communism, there have been
as many attempts at condemning Werböczi as there have been at reha-
bilitating him. In the 1930s, Gyula Szekfü, despite being a conservative
historian, recognised his undoubted qualities but was on the whole
severely critical. Szekfü considered that the Tripartitum, in its common-
law section, sealed the unity of national community by elaborating the
doctrine of the Holy Crown, merging the Crown, the sovereign’s person
and the nobility into one and indivisible whole. He added that the
effects were long-lasting and withstood the trend towards attrition.
However, while it held the political nation together, it tore the popula-
tion in two. Szekfü’s judgement on this point is crucial and radical. The
Tripartitum erected an ‘iron curtain’ between Hungarians and
Hungarians, until 1848 – the revolution which abolished serfdom. Up
to that point, the historian argues, serfs were subject to a ruthless yoke,
a state of total lack of liberty. In his opinion, nothing and nobody had
ever had such a dramatic effect on the life of the nation.

‘The three Europes’

‘After 1500, a new dividing line appears in Europe in terms of economic

and social structure. The eastern part, by far the largest, was the terri-
tory of the “second serfdom” and indeed this line reproduced with
astounding accuracy the frontier of 800 formed by the Elbe and the
Lajta.’ This is one of the most quoted statements from Jenö Szücs’s
minor classic on the ‘three Europes’. The author adds that ‘500 years
later, Europe was to be divided into two “camps” along a line that was
almost identical, as though Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt had, on

what was the 1130th anniversary of the emperor’s death, carefully

studied the status quo during the Charlemagne period’.
The primary import of this thesis (only the most visible part of the
immense erudition of its author) cannot be overestimated. It highlights
the line of demarcation separating the history and civilisation of
Western Europe on the one hand and that of Eastern Europe on the
other and then marks the other split, this time to the east, separating
‘East–Central Europe’ from the Russian and Orthodox world. Europe
remains Europe, but within it, ‘these three universes hold their positions
and reinforce each other, approaching one another and then moving
apart, deﬁning themselves against one another’ writes Fernand Braudel
in his preface to the French edition. And, he adds, while the West opened
towards the immensity of the Atlantic (it ‘got’ America), Russia turned
towards the immensity of Asia. Between the two, ‘middle Europe’ took
shape.
It is important to bear in mind this distinction when trying to under-
stand the particularities of this ‘middle’ region’s historical develop-
ment. There have already been a number of examples pertaining to
Hungary: its particular brand of feudalism; its relationships with ‘the
distant West’; the fact that Hungary was never a part of the Holy
Roman Empire; its socio-economic structures; and ﬁnally, urban under-
development coupled with an ‘overdeveloped’ nobility. Though the ple-
beian town-dwellers had not lost their privileges entirely, civil society
became rigid and from then on the country moved inexorably towards
the ‘second serfdom’. Somewhere around 1500, what Szücs rightly calls
a ‘regression’ began to take place.

The year 1526

Upon the death of Vladislas II, his son aged ten, Lajos (Louis) II,
acceded to the Czech and Hungarian thrones (1516–26). Surrounded by
two crowned tutors, Emperor Maximilian and King Sigismund of
Poland, and the most influential barons, the young king did not have a
voice in the assembly until he came of age in 1521. In the same year, two
strategic fortified towns, Sabac on the River Sava and Belgrade (former
Nándorfehérvár), fell. The young king was not blind to the fact that
now the country was open to invaders by both land and river. Instead of
building up the defences of the fortified castles, the Hungarian Diet was

busy building what the apostolic nuncio called ‘castles in the air’.
Fortresses surrendered one after the other.
Nonetheless, in 1526 in an extreme situation – Hungary was under
attack from Suleiman the Magnificent’s army – a defence was organised.
Pál Tomori, archbishop of Kalocsa and grand commander of Lower
Hungary, took charge, aided by János Szápolyai, voïvode of
Transylvania, in his absence represented by his nephew. In August after a
good deal of procrastination, an army of 25,000 men was assembled. A
smaller army, led by Szápolyai, failed to reach the royal army. Despite the
disorder, disagreements and illnesses, a spirit of triumphalism reigned
over the Hungarian camp. Tomori, the soul of the struggle, seemed to be
right when he said to the king: ‘No one reigns here any longer but the
emperor. The devil take him!’ But Suleiman the Magnificent had not
come to meet the devil. We now know fairly accurately that his army,
though numerically superior, was not more than double the size of the
Hungarian army: 50,000 men against 25,000. Had the Hungarian armies
got together, they would have been an equal match. But, contrary to the
boasts of numerous Hungarian dignitaries, the sultan’s army was also
technically and strategically superior. As for Europe, it was more or less
absent from the battlefield. Emperor Charles V was building the founda-
tions of his world empire between the Pavia battle against Francis I and
the sack of Rome. Hungary had been left to its own devices.
After a number of preliminary skirmishes, the decisive battle took
place on the field of Mohács, not far from the Danube, on what is a
frontier of the much-reduced Hungary of today. It was 29 August 1526.
Despite Tomori’s initial successes, luck was with the Ottoman army.
Within the space of two hours the Hungarian army had been dislodged
and then annihilated. Among the dead were 28 barons, 7 prelates – Pál
Tomori was one of them, the only leader to have risen above the rest.
King Louis II also perished, drowned in a river.
The Battle of Mohács has gone down in history as Hungary’s great-
est national tragedy. It was without a doubt one of them. For the follow-
ing 150 years, Hungary was divided into three. The Ottoman Empire
occupied the Great Plain in the middle, a part of Transdanubia and the
capital Buda. Transylvania became a vassal principality of the Sublime
Porte (the Turkish government), though it maintained a degree of
autonomy. Meanwhile, in the north and in western Transdanubia, the
kingdom lived on under the Habsburg Crown.

The causes of defeat have been the subject of animated debate and
historical controversy right up until the present day. Communist
historiography has favoured the social explanation, in other words, the
ruthless suppression of the peasant revolt in 1514 along with the blind
and egotistical behaviour of the ruling class. While this argument is well
founded, it is rather inadequate and so in the preceding pages we have
preferred to add other explanatory factors. A short conclusion is appro-
priate here.
Though on the occasion of this or that battle, the Hungarian barons
and war chiefs certainly underestimated the Ottoman strength – or
overestimated their own – they were nonetheless fully aware of the
danger. A sense of the precarious situation of the kingdom had been
widespread for some time. It went hand in hand with the desire to place
the country’s destiny into the hands of a national king capable of
staving off the Ottoman Empire. The Hunyadis had undoubtedly met
this need and in effect had stabilised the southern front along the Sava
and Danube lines as far as Belgrade. But this had been a mere respite
from Ottoman expansion. Hungary, which in the past had dominated
the region, was already on the defensive faced with this stronger adver-
sary that was pushing forward inexorably towards its frontiers, having
seized the Balkan ‘buffer states’. The Hungarian state, still strong after
King Matthias, had even gone through an economically prosperous
phase. But it had neither the size, the resources nor a national leader nor
even the European aid needed to tackle the situation. Weak kings and a
new unscrupulous oligarchy had only exacerbated the malaise. By the
time of the confrontation with Suleiman’s empire at Mohács, a con-
junction of unfavourable factors had left the country more vulnerable
than ever. Hungary lost more than a battle: the state disintegrated and
lost its capacity for action.
In order to tell the story of the 150 years after Mohács, the vicissi-
tudes of the division and particular evolution of each of the three parts
will have to be examined.

after mohács

Suleiman I the Magniﬁcent (1520–66), victor on the battleﬁeld of

Mohács, did not immediately set about exploiting his victory. During
his long reign he extended his empire in the East, in Algeria and in
Tripolitania. He was also a great legislator. His imperial ambitions
focused on Austria and Europe as well as on Hungary but he conducted
his wars according to flexible policies and concepts and spread them out
in time and space. His successors, Selim II (1566–74) and Murad III
(1574–95) would follow suit.
After Mohács, Suleiman went to Buda, then left the capital, and in
October left Hungary, but kept a firm hold on strategic forts in the
south. The capital had surrendered without resistance. It was a dead
city, empty, abandoned. According to György Szerémi, a priest–
chronicler, the only people left were ‘the poor, the crippled, the blind
and the simpletons’. He soon joined the German burghers fleeing the
pillaging Magyars, taking St János’s golden urn with him.
Far from the battlefield, the palatine, Báthori, was in his turn busy pil-
laging the royal treasury, while the commander of Esztergom – seat of the
bishopric – aided by his men, plundered the queen’s boats and her ladies
in waiting. Queen Marie of Habsburg, meanwhile, in fear of the Magyars
– whose first reaction appears to have been to celebrate having rid them-
selves of the royal couple rather than to mourn Mohács – fled to Pozsony
and then on towards the lands of her brother, the emperor.
János Szápolyai’s star seemed to be on the rise. He had remained far

from Mohács, his Transylvanian army intact, and now it seemed his old
dream was about to come true. On 11 November 1526, János I
Szápolyai (1526–40) was elected king by his numerous loyal followers at
the Székesfehérvár Diet. Shortly after, in December, a handful of barons
met at the Pozsony Diet and elected a second king to the throne,
Ferdinand I, King of Bohemia and Hungary (1526–64), Emperor
Charles V’s younger brother, in accordance with the dynastic agreement
which the Habsburgs considered the foundation of their legitimacy in
Hungary.
After Mohács and the death of Lajos II Jagiellon, therefore, the
Hungarians had two rival kings: János, a national king, and Ferdinand,
a German king – and there was the sultan, too. The former had wealth
and popularity in his favour – and a country adrift, ravaged here, there
and everywhere. The latter was backed by his brother the emperor, king
of Spain, master of half of America and numerous towns and counties.
Charles V passed the Austrian provinces to his younger brother
Ferdinand, and upon retiring to a convent in 1556, gave him the impe-
rial crown too, putting his son Phillip II on the Spanish throne. In 1526,
however, the Habsburgs still had some way to go. True, Ferdinand held
all the trump cards and wielded enormous power compared with the
national king. But this power was only potential; he did not have access
to Charles V’s huge resources and Austria occupied a marginal place
both in Europe and in the empire, with its centre at Toledo. In these
circumstances, Turkish support accorded to King János–John I and,
later, to his successors in Transylvania, counterbalanced any advantages
the Habsburgs might have had for a long time to come.

Two rival kings, 1526–1540

We must return now to the mainstream of events, beginning with the

ﬁfteen-year period that followed Mohács and ending with the death of
János I in 1540 and the Turkish occupation of Buda in 1541. Some his-
torians do not consider the Mohács catastrophe as the end of the
Hungarian state and of hopes for its reuniﬁcation. In effect these hopes,
kept alive under the sceptre of the two rival kings, proved to be illusory.
True, Suleiman had left the country, but he occupied its approaches –
in other words, forts along the Sava, Drava and lower Danube. The
seizure of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) in 1521 had already secured him

the strategic key to Hungary. After Mohács, Suleiman was thus able to
carry out a number of devastating campaigns and, in 1529 and 1532, to
cross the country in order to seize Vienna – unsuccessfully.
As regards the kingdom of John I, on the other hand, Suleiman
adopted what was at the very least a strategy of ‘patience’. His support
enabled John, thrust aside by Ferdinand and forced to ﬂee to Poland, to
take back Buda in 1529. The all-powerful minister in John’s kingdom
was one of the Porte’s liegemen, the Venetian Lodovico Gritti, an adven-
turer assassinated in 1534. Militarily and politically, the Great Turk was
present with all his weight and would remain so for 150 years. In addi-
tion, by 1528, John had already become the sultan’s ally. The following
year, even before he had repossessed Buda, he presented his humble
tribute to the padishah at the very place of the Mohács defeat of 1526.
He also lost his ﬁnancial independence: the fabulous wealth of the
Szápolyai was sinking fast as his properties fell into the hands of his
Habsburg rival. Was he simply a Turkish government vassal just like
numerous Balkan voïvodes, or merely their ‘protégé’ who maintained
some independence in his internal affairs? The question remains open.
What is certain is that he was dependent whilst enjoying autonomy
within his kingdom. Instead of occupying the country, the Porte pro-
tected this part of the kingdom – soon to be reduced to the principality
of Transylvania – against the Habsburgs.
John I Szápolyai, an indecisive man torn between dependence on the
Turkish Empire and a desire to reunite a country in shreds, nonetheless
attempted a volte-face on a number of occasions and sought an
arrangement with Ferdinand. In 1535, he offered peace based upon par-
tition and in 1538, by the secret treaty of Várad, he pledged the trans-
fer of his titles and possessions after his death, in return for certain
compensations in favour of his eventual successor. The future heir, John
II, later called John Sigismund (1540–71), was born of Szápolyai’s mar-
riage to Isabelle Jagiellon, daughter of the king of Poland. John imme-
diately forgot the secret treaty with Ferdinand and turned to Istanbul
for recognition of the infant’s right to succession.
Meanwhile, after a number of attempts, Ferdinand also sought an
agreement with the sultan. John I Szápolyai had by then only ten days
left to live, but his plan succeeded. By the logic of his policy, Suleiman
refused to favour the Habsburgs and took the widow and her son under
his protection instead. By this time, Szápolyai’s affairs were already in

KINGDOM O
F PO The Ottoman Empire in 1521
Suleiman's campaigns LA
Siege: Turkish victory N Turkish conquests in 1520
Siege: Turkish defeat Eperjes
Besztercebánya Suleiman’s conquests in 1526
Battle won by the Turks Körmöcbánya Kassa
Nagyszombat Selmecbánya
Vienna Pozsony
D O F

E
an
ub H
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e M Szam
PI Sopron 15
29 U os
O D
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Buda N

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1541
vin

Köszeg D 1541
AN

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1532
Pro

Fehérvár G

LD
Várad

Su 526 15 41
rian

,1541
RM

AV
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1541
Balaton

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ust

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1526,
AN

Szeged Y LV
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TRANS
Here

15 1541 Maros
32 Mohács
ROM

Y
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Agram 1526 Baja Szabadka

A D 1541 1541
I ra Temesvár Szeben
N va Zombor Brassó
E 1541
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Petervárad
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9,1 1526
O Turkish conquests in the
A

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,15 Nándorfehervár Sava and Drava regions
T

T 41 1521
AD

T Orsova
I A

Turkish conquests in the 1530s

O
R I SEA

M Szörény
Jajce A The Ottoman Empire in 1541
AT

N E M
1527 P I R E
IC

Map 5. Hungary until 1541.

A country under three crowns, 1526–1711 91

the hands of a man of modest origins from Croatia, György (Georges)

Fráter Utiesenic, mistakenly called Martinuzzi (1482–1551). His name
will come up again, but in the 1540 succession affair, János I the father,
played the decisive role.

The fall of Buda

To return to matters in hand, however: widow and orphan now resided

in Buda along with the entire government, including the jurist István
Werböczi as chancellor. The immediate enemy was in Vienna and on the
Austrian border. In spring 1541, Ferdinand entrusted General Wilhelm
von Roggendorff to take Buda. The general proceeded to besiege the
capital but the Turkish armies came to the rescue and Roggendorff was
defeated. On 29 August, fifteen years to the day after the Battle of
Mohács (the sultan was very attached to the symbolic significance of
this date), Suleiman staged a dramatic turn of events, which would be
immortalised in the Hungarian imagination by the saying: ‘There’s still
black soup left to drink’, in other words, coffee, as it was to be known
a hundred years later, by which time the Hungarians were familiar with
the brew. The event was the abduction of military chiefs who had trav-
elled all the way from Buda to the sumptuous tent of the padishah for
the purpose of negotiations. ‘Black soup’ was their arrest.
Suleiman thus succeeded in taking Buda without bloodshed and once
the capital became the first Turkish vilaïet in Hungary – a kind of
general lieutenancy placed under a pasha – proceeded to lay down its
laws. The sultan took other steps; the most important concerned the
king and his mother, who were sent back to Transylvania with György
Fráter. Partition was complete. Ferdinand reigned in the west, Suleiman
in the centre and the Szápolyai child, with his mother, in the future prin-
cipality of Transylvania. The tripartite structure was not yet set in stone
but its outlines were drawn. For ten years the child king (John II still
carried the royal title) and his mother, Isabelle, stayed in Transylvania,
governed by the bishop–governor–chancellor Fráter, then he abdicated
in favour of Ferdinand, left for Silesia and went on to Poland, the
kingdom of Isabelle’s father Sigismund Jagiellon. He returned in 1556
under circumstances which will be revealed later.
As for the mid-sixteenth-century partition, Ferdinand’s Hungarian
kingdom numbered as many states general as John Sigismund’s, the rest

having been transformed into Turkish administrative units. The latter

would become larger, but for the moment, the two royal parts, more or
less equal, together comprised an area of 250,000 square kilometres, the
size of the present-day United Kingdom. It was quite a vast area, with
two of everything: two kings, two capitals (Ferdinand’s Pozsony, John
Sigismund’s Gyulafehérvár), two courts, two palatines or chancellors,
two armies, two fiscal administrations – and none of it was permanent.
Numerous about-turns and much confusion ensued. Magnates and
Hungarian soldiers fought one another; rifts widened, partly because
of personal interests, but also because it was often difficult to determine
just where these interests lay – and remained so for some time. How
could the battle be fought on two fronts, against two empires? Would it
be best to seek the protection of the Ottoman Empire or to rely on the
Habsburgs to drive out the Turks? It was a case of trying to square a
circle.
Ferdinand attempted to recapture Buda in 1542, but his army, despite
being 55,000 strong, suffered a ‘shameful’ defeat, according to
Ferdinand himself. Another ten years were to pass before he relaunched
the offensive – this time with General Giovanni Castaldo’s army – to
conquer Transylvania. With the great sultan occupied in the East at the
time, the moment was right. Isabelle handed the Crown over to
Ferdinand’s general and is supposed to have left for Poland. A series of
conflicts and repeated ups and downs involving all the political protag-
onists – the queen, the lords torn between the Habsburgs and the
Sublime Porte, and György Fráter himself – went on behind this seem-
ingly clear and straightforward sequence of events.
Fráter at the time favoured the Habsburg solution and secretly
opened a route for Ferdinand’s army while at the same time sending the
annual tribute to Istanbul in return for its protection. One of
Ferdinand’s condottieri wrote the following comment to Vienna: ‘Rest
assured, Majesty, that even a superhuman mind would be incapable of
scrutinising the character of this man. He laughs and cries, promises
reforms and refuses them in the same breath.’ He was, of course, talking
about György Fráter.
The year was 1551. Transylvania was now ‘nearly’ reintegrated into
the kingdom. But that year it had to contend with the Porte’s reaction
and with a dramatic event: the assassination of György Fráter by
General Castaldo’s hired assassins at the order of King Ferdinand.

Political assassinations were far from rare and in this century of Borgias
and other Medicis, hardly a regional phenomenon. And yet, the death
of this influential man of state sent shock-waves as far as the Vatican.
The murder was all the more perplexing as Fráter had just been made
cardinal and had received the title of voïvode of Transylvania from the
same royal hand that gave the order to kill him. Why the titles? As a
reward for his policies which had enabled Ferdinand to incorporate
(very briefly) the kingdom of John II Szápolyai into his own? Why the
murder? Because of his dealings with the Ottoman pashas?
Whatever the reason, these events symbolise the ambivalence of his
policies (Fráter was nearly seventy when he died). Eminence grise or
official minister, he remained at the centre of the action for half a
century. Accused of duplicity by some and hailed as a genius by others,
György Fráter’s political abilities, though no doubt dictated by the
necessity, in an inextricable situation, of finding the lesser evil, were
exceptional. Without the Habsburgs, the idea of some day pushing the
Great Turk over the borders was but a pipe-dream. Without the support
of the Porte, John I’s kingdom and that of his son would not have lasted
more than a day.
Indeed, in 1556, after five years in semi-voluntary exile in Poland,
Queen Isabelle and John Sigismund returned to Transylvania, accord-
ing to the express wishes of Suleiman (stated in his Aleppo edict dated
1554) and thanks to the Transylvanian Diet’s support. The latter had
already notified Ferdinand of its position: either he defended it against
the sultan or Transylvania would no longer be part of his kingdom. And
so it was. With John Sigismund, first prince of Transylvania (he would
later renounce his royal title over Hungary), a new page in the country’s
history began.

on the ramparts of christian europe

In the middle of the sixteenth century, in the eyes of Europe,

Transylvania was just a distant, unknown province and Hungary, a
country adrift. Up until then, Charles V had been busy building his
empire, upon which ‘the sun never set’. He occupied his part of
America, divided by the Holy See between Spain and Portugal. True, he
fought Ottoman encroachment in the Mediterranean (Tunisia, Algeria)
but he never gave his brother the wherewithall to achieve his ambitions

of conquering the country at the foot of the Carpathians – Hungary. In

addition, in 1547 the Habsburgs signed a five-year peace treaty with the
Porte – just at a time when the Persian wars (1548–50 and 1554) had
slowed his expansion into Hungary. In France, Francis I’s successors had
worn themselves out warring against the Habsburgs and England as
well as in the religious wars. Indeed, the whole of Europe had concerns
other than that of uniting their forces to halt Ottoman expansion,
which was instead accepted as a fait accompli. In 1453, Constantinople
fell; in 1521, it was Belgrade’s turn; in 1526, Hungary was defeated at
Mohács – not to mention the hundreds of other Ottoman conquests
over two centuries. There was, it seems, some consternation in
Christian Europe when Buda fell in 1541, but no action came of it.
The neglect of the Hungarian–Turkish front can be partly explained
by indifference on the part of the other powers. Poland, at its apogee
during the last Jagiellons, Sigismund I (1506–48) and Sigismund II
(1548–72), had been expanding continuously and had ignored the
Turkish wars, which it could have easily contained. Fused with
Lithuania, it was the greatest of the Eastern European powers and was
already looking towards Russia. Muscovy was undergoing the begin-
nings of expansion at the time and was more or less untouched by the
Ottoman Empire. Ivan IV had taken the title of tsar and by conquering
the Khaganat Tatars, had laid down the foundations of future Greater
Russia.
On the other side of Europe, a great world power was being born.
Henry VIII (1509–47) founded the Church of England and beheaded his
fifth wife, Catherine Howard, as the Muslim Empire was installing itself
in Hungary. His daughter Elizabeth followed, inaugurating what was to
be a prestigious reign.
To return to the European landscape in the middle of the century, at
the time of the fall of Buda: John Calvin moved to Geneva where he
would base his reformed religion, while in 1541, in Rome, Michelangelo
finished The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.
One could list ad infinitum the political events and cultural symbols
marking the distance between Renaissance Europe, on one hand, with
its scientific, political and trade revolutions and Hungary, on the other,
becoming increasingly marginalised. The gulf was to grow ever wider
throughout the sixteenth century. Isolated instances already mentioned
hide more long-term historical processes which divided the two sides

even more. Fernand Braudel’s great work The Material Civilisation of

the Economy and of Capitalism, from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth
Century is a good example. Braudel dedicates twenty times more space
to Holland than to Hungary, Bohemia and Poland put together.
Observations about Hungary, when not reduced to the export of cattle
or the production of barley, underline the growing distance between
Europe and its peripheral regions beyond the Elbe.
In the West, ‘the structures of daily life’ and ‘bartering’ were shaping
modernity. In Hungary and neighbouring countries, meanwhile, the
peasant’s lot, trade and urban life were steadily deteriorating, if not in
the sixteenth century then certainly in the seventeenth.
The fact that the price of bread was progressively lower as one moved
from England towards Hungary certainly saved many from famine, but
it was hardly a mark of progress – more a sign of underdevelopment, in
fact. On the periphery, ‘Hungary was pretty much at the bottom of the
ladder’, unless one went further, as the Hungarian Martin Szepsi
Csombor did in 1618, to Tobolsk in Siberia. But to return, with Braudel,
to Central Europe, he observes that whereas in 1500 bonded labour was
insignificant, it increased to two days a week and by 1600, had risen to
three or more, thus holding back development of a more profitable agri-
culture.
In order to hold out, Hungary had to adopt a ‘survival strategy’,
which consisted in fighting incessantly on its borders, adjusting its
economy to the circumstances and being receptive in terms of religion
and culture. Only an approximation of conditions during that century
and a half is possible, starting with the balance of losses and gains.

partition, population and society

The demographic balance-sheet of two centuries of devastation remains

open to debate. Most historians talk of catastrophic depopulation: basi-
cally, the net loss of 1 million inhabitants. However, other estimates
produce a zero balance: according to these calculations, the population
at the end of the ﬁfteenth century was between 3.5 and 4 million and was
the same by the end of the seventeenth century. Loss of human life was
compensated by immigration. Though evidence is slight, even accord-
ing to the more optimistic estimates, the deﬁcit remains enormous, espe-
cially for a period marked by strong demographic growth. According to

Bairoch, Europe, without Russia, had around 76 million inhabitants in

1500, 102 million in 1700: an increase of a third. At that rate, Hungary’s
population could have risen to 5 million – the population of England in
1688.
Apart from war, epidemics, the plague and possibly a ‘mini ice age’
in the sixteenth century had a severe impact on a population labouring
under constant harassment and deprivation, so that Hungary emerged
from a long period of adversity with a diminished population.
Literature would later call this period ‘the withering of the Magyars’.
Though immigration in itself was cause for celebration, its conse-
quences were momentous; while compensating for losses to some
extent, it also profoundly changed the ethnic composition of the
country. The Turks installed Serbs in the territories they occupied. As
for the other two parts of the country, scarce demographic data makes
it difficult to ascertain the impact of both spontaneous immigration
that took place during the wars and subsequent colonisation controlled
by Vienna to fill the gaps. Large numbers of different ethnic groups –
Slavs, Romanians and others – probably came in search of more secure
and favourable places like Transylvania and Transdanubian Hungary.
This was not a new phenomenon; Hungary had always been a country
of immigration, welcoming numerous waves of migrants or ethnic
groups fleeing invaders, and assimilation had been more or less unprob-
lematic. This was to change. The Magyar population formed during
preceding centuries was now in a minority.
The disintegration of the kingdom was accompanied by inevitable
fragmentation of power at all levels and in all domains. At the top, royal
authority had already lost much of its prestige and power and the
schism compounded its erosion, particularly in John Szápolyai’s case:
from wealthiest lord, John I became a poor king. His son John
Sigismund succeeded in consolidating power in Transylvania. As for
Ferdinand, he had neither family nor personal estates, so frontiers
between the two sovereigns changed frequently, not only according to
the fortunes of war and Turkish encroachment, but also according to
the whim of large numbers of rallying and dissenting magnates. Mining
and trading towns of the north, meanwhile, belonged to the Habsburg
kingdom – but on paper only, and the arrangement was short-lived:
indeed, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, Upper Hungary
even became the site of anti-Habsburg insurrections.

Throughout these decades, the states general, dominated by the high

nobility, both lay and ecclesiastical, demonstrated their power, in par-
ticular at the dozens of diets that met at various places. Some historians
refer to these events as a return to government by estates and orders.
Royal prestige and authority were certainly contested, but the nature of
the counter-authority of the nobility should not be overstated; confu-
sion would be a more apt description of the country during this period.

A society dammed: the power of the noble estates

The most widespread social trend during these centuries was the
increasing enslavement of the peasantry. The gulf between the ‘nation
of nobles’ and the jobbágy was ever widening – to the extent that the
latter became known as the ‘second serfdom’ and the term jobbágy
became synonymous with serf. The supremacy of the nobility mani-
fested itself in politics and in the turbulent relationship between the
estates and the king. This phenomenon – of states and orders, referred
to earlier – was not new: conﬂicts between royalty and the nobility were
a recurring feature throughout feudal Europe. Beyond the Elbe,
however, the society that was emerging was increasingly different from
that of Western countries: from the sixteenth century onwards, a kind
of ‘late feudalism’ was being created, or, to quote the historian Jenö
Szücs, a type of intermediate society, somewhere between the Western
and Eastern ‘models’. A more detailed look at the role of the higher,
ordinary, ecclesiastical and lay nobility is needed in order to describe
this particular society.
The repercussions of the existence of a large nobility class had
already arisen in Hungary and Poland in previous centuries. It appeared
very early in the case of Hungary – in the thirteenth century – under
András II of the House of Árpád, coinciding with the weakening and
impoverishment of the king. Since then, interrupted by short-lived
recoveries, royal authority had been in decline and the oligarchy had
acquired substantial and often preponderant political, economic and
military power. The power of the great lords was further bolstered by
the support of the noble’s ‘retainers’ (not always from the nobility),
their retinue of soldiers, palace servants and owners of small and
medium-sized estates attached to the main seigniory.
Ties between the seigniorial baron and his retainers varied according

to period and circumstance. They were often established by force,

through the small being dispossessed by the large or by the need of the
weak for personal protection and security of their possessions. It should
be stressed that these ties were based on private agreements and did not
entail the vassal ties of Western feudalism. Ties were made and broken,
always leaving the noble a free man. And yet, after the Middle Ages, the
common nobility’s economic dependency increased. In the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, the latifundia grew steadily, swallowing up a
large proportion of noble property, including people and possessions.
Economic decay among the lesser nobility was also caused by the acces-
sion rights of aviticitas, which kept ancestral land within the clan while
ensuring that the inheritance was divided among all legitimate descen-
dants. This led to basic possessions being divided up and absorbed. In
the ﬁfteenth century, according to sources, there were 540 landowners
in the county of Baranya; by the eighteenth century, there were only six
large estates (four of which were Church-owned) and eighteen medium-
sized properties. This explains why many lesser nobles became artisans
– cobblers, blacksmiths – or tutors and, increasingly, civil servants.
These ‘gentlemen in sandals’ (squireens), however, had not lost their
patent of nobility or their political importance. The traditional legal
principle of una eademque nobilitas endured the passage of time, the
hegemony of the magnates and economic constraints. Though poor,
the nobles proliferated; their presence was felt both at a national level
and even more so at the level of the county dietines. While in Western
Europe the nobility was crumbling and shrinking, in Central Europe the
proportion of nobles was on the increase, reaching 4 to 5 per cent of the
population in Poland and Hungary and 8 per cent in Transylvania.
This was partly due to the proliferation of traditional titles acquired
by descendants of free warriors and other servants of the king and the
Church – ennobling ordinary soldiers and emancipated peasants in
reward for more recent merits and services. The vast majority of this
class lived under economic conditions that were barely above those of
the peasants – the ‘nobles with seven plum trees’ have already been men-
tioned. Their social status, on the other hand, remained stable. Once
acquired, writes the historian Maksay, the coats of arms were never lost,
even if the parchment remained a gentleman’s only property. Unlike in
England or France, the established nobility did not reject the poor or
those who practised a trade considered below a nobleman’s dignity. A

permanent state of war is certainly one explanation as was the higher

and lesser nobility’s shared common interest, that of constituting a
counter-power against royal prerogative.
While elsewhere in Europe, royal absolutism was in the ascendancy,
here the very complicated relationship between the nation of nobles and
the sovereign seated at the Hofburg of Vienna and the particular nature
of the ‘system of states and orders’, was to last throughout almost four
centuries of Austrian rule and was probably one of the key factors – if
not the factor – which led to a weak middle class. The German word
Standestaat, a ‘State of states’, approximately corresponds to the
Hungarian expression rendá állam or rendiség, used in historiography
as shorthand for this particularity, designating either the supremacy of
the noble estates over the sovereign or the duality of the two.
This was not without social repercussions, which compounded the
already complex relationship between the nobility exalted as nation and
the crowned king. While under the great European monarchies Western
society was heading towards a nascent capitalism and a middle-class
society, Hungary was stuck in a ‘system of states’ which perpetuated the
dominance of the nobility and led to what has been called ‘late feudal-
ism’, or ‘second serfdom’. Social conditions that could only obstruct the
development of capitalism were exacerbated by the fact that a large pro-
portion of the very small middle class was foreign, mainly German.
The power of the nobility, therefore, as expressed through a system
of states, comprised two distinctive yet interdependent facets, one social
and the other political. A class of half a million privileged dominated
the 8 or 9 millions condemned to servitude – an eternal servitude,
according to the famous legal statute, Tripartitum, dating from the
early fourteenth century – and claimed to be the sole embodiment of
nation and Crown. But although socially and economically backward,
the system proved to be a political force vis-à-vis Habsburg absolutism.
In effect, the eternal disagreement between king and Diet took the form
of resistance against foreign domination and the defence of public
rights of the Hungarian state, its uniqueness and ‘personality’, so to
speak. Thus the historic role of a dominant nobility was inherently
ambivalent: by defending its privileges, the nobility also sustained
Hungarian identity. The dominant classes and their particular institu-
tions maintained the status quo up until the nineteenth century and yet,
by preserving the nation, they also hampered its progress.

As society became increasingly polarised between nobility and

peasant serfs and as these relationships became fixed, the development
of a middle class slowed down, which in turn impacted strongly on
urbanisation. Trading and artisanal towns existed – Pest and Buda – but
they were inferior both numerically and in terms of urbanisation levels
compared with their Western European counterparts. In 1700, there
were a mere dozen towns of 5,000 inhabitants in the entire country,
against 800 in Europe. Only Buda and Pest together (though not united)
numbered more than 20,000 inhabitants, compared with 130 equivalent-
sized towns in the West. Metropolises of 100,000 inhabitants or more
just did not exist.
The Turkish war and dilapidated social structures, as well as the shift
in international trade towards the Atlantic, explain this situation. In
addition, the influx of industrial products from Western countries had
a detrimental effect on agrarian economies. These ‘poor relations’ of
the new prosperity, on the other hand, benefited from the favourable
circumstances as suppliers of mining products and foodstuffs in high
demand. Fernand Braudel’s examples suggest that the ratio between
agricultural prices and industrial goods was being turned on its head:
imported industrial products like textiles or ironware were cheaper,
while in the East, landowners who were in a position to sell for export,
especially peasant stockbreeders and cattle merchants, could get good
prices in European markets. Hence the development of flourishing agri-
cultural market towns, so much so that in the sixteenth century, in the
middle of a war, Hungary was the major world exporter of meat:
200,000 cattle in 1580. Skins, leather, wine and cereals were also
exported in considerable quantities. The Fifteen Years’ War at the end
of the century, and the worsening situation in the following century, put
a stop to this relative prosperity which in any case only deepened the
abyss between Hungary and a trading, manufacturing Europe.

a country divided

The kingdom of Hungary covered some 283,000 square kilometres, with

Croatia, 325,000 (excluding its medieval possessions in the Balkans).
Despite frontier changes – due to Turkish conquests, some re-conquests
and wars between the principality of Transylvania and the kingdom –
each crown owned more or less one third of national territories.

KING DOM
OF
Bártfa PO
LA
E Löcse N
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IR
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M
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Zólyom

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Pozsony U z a
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PI
AN
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H
an R

EM
ub T

M
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F
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RG Györ

D
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AV
Buda Pest

M
BU

Pápa

IA
Beszterce
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Fehérvár PA Várad
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G
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VILAÏET
T E R R I T O RY O C C U P I E D AND THE ‘P ARTIUM’
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Szigetvár
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Map 6. Hungary divided (late sixteenth century)

102 A Concise History of Hungary

According to this map, the kingdom under the Habsburg Crown

curved like a crescent, from Dalmatia and Western Croatia to present-
day Slovakia and the Subcarpathian, cutting ancient Pannonia,
Transdanubia, in a diagonal line passing near Lake Balaton. Turkish
vilaïets occupied the Great Plain in the centre of the country compris-
ing a part of Transylvania and Buda along with some of the eastern and
south-eastern states general. Beyond these were Transylvania and
adjoining counties, the Partium.
Population distribution (between 3,500,000 and 4,000,000 inhabi-
tants) was as follows: 1,500,000 in the Kingdom of Hungary; just under
1,000,000 in Transylvania; about the same number under Turkish occu-
pation; and over 500,000 ‘floaters’. The latter were ‘displaced’ people
who had left their homes or, conversely, found themselves – at times
together with the entire population of a county – under one adminis-
tration and then under another.
The Ottomans introduced a fairly ordered administration, so that in
the sixteenth century, damage was still limited. Nonetheless, ‘the
century of Magyar decay’ – as the great commander–writer Miklós
Zrinyi (1620–64), great grandson of the Szigetvár hero, called it – had
well and truly begun. The largest expansion of occupied territory took
place a century later, in 1664. It was divided into five vilaïets, in turn
divided into sandjaks. This ‘Turkish world in Hungary’, to quote a
nineteenth-century novel, is primarily synonymous with war, pillage,
kidnap (captured children were ‘re-educated’ and became the famous
janissaries) and abandoned lands. As for the depopulation of thousands
of villages and hamlets – a Western European phenomenon as well –
this came about most obviously through war but also through a number
of economic adjustments. Pastureland was extended in order to develop
cattle-rearing, more profitable than the cultivation of cereals. As vil-
lages were abandoned, new rural agglomerations appeared; thriving
trading and market towns, on their way to becoming urbanised centres,
multiplied and became a common feature of the country and its land-
scape. The effects of these changes were double-edged: conversion of
previously cultivated land to wild pasture certainly benefited animal
husbandry but nevertheless hindered development. The frontier of civ-
ilisation continued to recede.
It was not in the Porte’s interests to pursue a policy based solely on
plunder. Hungary, in the sultan’s overall plan, was a base from which to

expand towards Europe. Istanbul envisaged a great Muslim Euro-Afro-

Asiatic empire. It was a dream broken by the Hungarian kingdom’s and
the Transylvanian principality’s defence lines comprising 100 fortifica-
tions. The line was certainly pushed back considerably but it was never
broken down to the point of opening the door to the invasion of
Europe. The ramparts of Christianity held fast and paid the usual price
of endemic warfare.
The conquering Turks, therefore, had no interest in destroying their
most advanced province in Europe; it was a matter of profiting from it
as much as possible. This objective is one explanation for the Turks’
religious tolerance. The same is true for their administrative methods:
they had to be flexible to ensure co-operation from the population while
being efficient enough to exploit its economic capacity to the limit – but
no further. Essentially, this consisted in the exaction of taxes, tributes,
and ransoms. Besides the pashas – commander–administrators and
supreme judges – it was the tax collectors, civil servants of the office of
the defter (office of finances – at times compared with a tax inspecto-
rate), who held the most important positions.
The word ‘condominium’ is often used when referring to the Turkish
occupation, under which serfs were subjected to taxation by two lords,
one Ottoman, the other Hungarian. In practice, the Turks governed the
conquered lands, no longer under Hungarian state authority, but did
not totally overturn habits and customs.
For the taxpayer – peasant, craftsman, tradesman, landlord – life had
to go on. Indeed, towns and market towns maintained municipal auton-
omy. Justice was administered by Hungarian judges – initially in con-
junction with Turkish kadi but eventually the functions of the kadi were
confined to the Ottoman administration – and priests carried out their
ministry without discrimination. This explains why the Reformation
spread far more easily under Turkish rule – indifferent to Christian
denominational factions – than under the Habsburg Catholic kingdom.
The Turkish government did not proselytise its Muslim beliefs and,
therefore, renegades of Hungarian origin were few. In contrast to
certain Balkan countries, not many peasants converted to Islam in
Bosnia. The Porte did not pursue colonisation policies either. Some
agha and spahi received in usufruct a number of properties in order to
maintain the army of occupation – estimated at between 30,000 and
50,000 men in peacetime – but not as personal estates. Istanbul often

recalled its high government ofﬁcials: during a century and a half, 99

holders of the office of begler-bey passed through Buda. De facto, the
Hungarian lords retained rights over their serfs, at times even over
Turkish-controlled municipalities, giving rise to the concept of ‘condo-
minium’ found in history books. The victim of this state of affairs was,
of course, the misera plebs ontribuens who paid taxes to the Turks, the
Hungarians and sometimes even to Transylvanian landlords.
The occupied territory seems to have been barely integrated into the
Ottoman Empire. For Istanbul, it was simply a field of military opera-
tions and a country to fleece. Destruction was enormous, while the
Turkish contribution consisted mainly of foodstuffs such as rice, and
maize cultures, tobacco, perhaps paprika (their traces can also be found
in Hungarian folklore). A few pasha–governors became distinguished
by virtue of their work, like Sokoli Mustapha at the vilaïet of Buda who
left four djamiras (great mosques), six mosques, two schools and
sixteen baths, but the overall balance is indisputably disastrous. The
suggestion sometimes put forward, that 150 years of Turkish occupa-
tion was a ‘stroke of luck’, saving Hungary from the grip of the
Habsburgs, is entirely unfounded.
The most densely populated and richest part of Hungary, the north-
west, was under the Habsburg Crown. Ferdinand, who in 1556 acceded
to the imperial throne, was fairly scrupulous in his respect for constitu-
tional rights of the Hungarian orders and, in any case, avoided confron-
tation. This was in keeping with his character – he was considered fair
but also indecisive. Six princes from his family succeeded him during
the century and a half of Turkish wars: his son Maximilian I (1564–76),
then Rudolph I (1576–1608), who was mentally ill and had to abdicate
in favour of his brother Matthias II (1608–19), followed by Ferdinand II
(1619–37), Ferdinand III (1637–57) and Leopold I (1657–1705). Under
these kings – with the exception of Ferdinand III – the government
adopted an increasingly absolutist and intolerant attitude towards
Protestants. This trend had its limits but the turn of the century none-
theless marked a watershed. It was determined not solely by a genetic
whim of the Habsburgs but also by military, political and denomina-
tional changes that took place in the seventeenth century.
In the previous century, several factors had contributed to a spirit of
tolerance and mutual respect. The king and emperor had not imposed
Viennese administration nor had he challenged the independence of St
Stephen’s Crown. The Habsburgs wore it as kings elected according to

Hungarian public law and by virtue of their succession rights – in the

Habsburgs’ interpretation – but not in any sense as an absolute divine
right. Hungary did not belong to them but to the Holy Crown. Most of
the time, the country was governed by diets. Vienna, however, bore the
bulk of military expenses. Maintenance of the 20,000 or so soldiers
guarding in the region of a hundred fortifications along the length and
breadth of the military frontiers cost at least 2–3 million florins and this
was paid by Vienna with the assistance of the diets of the empire;
Hungarian contributions represented a mere tenth. It was therefore in
the interests of the nobility, jealous guardians of their privileges, partic-
ularly fiscal ones, to maintain the political status quo. The historian
Ferenc Szakály points out that it would be wrong to refer to anti-
Habsburg movements during this period.
As protector of a fledgling principality and its prince, the young John
Sigismund, the sultan had already imposed his political will in the 1550s
through his armies in Transylvania. Meanwhile, he continued to extend
his conquests and in 1566, undertook a new campaign on a grand scale
– the seventh and last that he conducted as sultan. Suleiman the
Magnificent died during the siege of Szigetvár, the fortified castle
defended by the legendary Miklós Zrinyi and his soldiers, who fought
to the last man. He was not the first commander, nor the last, to become
a legend: there was István Dobó, who held off the besiegers of his Eger
citadel, György Szondi and others. Dozens of fortresses nonetheless fell
during the campaigns carried out by Suleiman and his successors. Then,
in 1593, after two decades of relative calm following the 1568 peace
treaty signed by Maximilian and Selim II, war broke out once again and
lasted fifteen years. It was started by the Sultan Murad III (1574–95), but
the emperor and Habsburg king, Rudolph II, seized the opportunity to
launch a counter-attack. Pope Clement VIII (1592–1605) succeeded in
creating a Christian Holy League. Significantly, the previously cautious
Transylvania, but by then increasingly concerned with freeing itself
from its semi-vassal state, joined the Holy League, under the leadership
of Prince Sigismund Báthori, nephew of István Báthori, elected king of
Poland. Other participants were the Romanian voïvodes, Aron and
Stefan of Moldavia, and the celebrated Mihai Viteazul of Walachia.
The Christian armies won a number of battles. The retaking of Györ in
1598 was hailed as a great victory: the ‘gateway’ to Vienna had just been
barred against the Turks.
The military balance of the long and arduous Fifteen Years’ War was

by no means wholly positive: the Holy League collapsed and the

Ottoman conquest continued. Nonetheless, confidence was restored:
the Turks were not invincible after all! Even though it was to take
another century before they were thrown out altogether, their great
momentum seemed to have been broken. In 1571, the Ottoman Empire
had already undergone a serious naval defeat at Lepanto, followed by
setbacks in Persia, where Shah Abbas I won the war in 1603. It was the
beginning of a slow Ottoman decline.
Two major events plunged the entire country into turmoil. The first
was the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, bringing signifi-
cant cultural benefits. The second, equally consequential, was the
beginning of the prolonged struggle against Habsburg domination. In
both cases, Transylvania was to play a key role. The broad outlines of
this entangled history can only be understood by going back to the
onset of the Reformation and the development of the principality.

‘under the sign of the reformation’

The Reformation had made its mark in Hungary long before the esca-
lation of religious wars, that is, in middle of the sixteenth century.
Despite occupation, division and destruction, its political and cultural
repercussions were profound. The country witnessed a rebirth of
humanism and the Renaissance, was exposed to the spirit of Erasmus
and the teachings of the great German and Helvetic reformers, partici-
pated in the great debates of ideas, and, last but not least, experienced
the blossoming of literature. Under the Sign of the Reformation, a
history of literature written by János Horváth, and which has become
a classic, lists over 300 authors of different denominations who surfaced
during the space of half a century.
Protestant ideas had found a wide audience as early as 1525. They
were mainly popular among the German-speaking urban population
and in the court of Queen Marie (a Habsburg), wife of Louis II (a
Jagiellon). Among Hungarians, on the other hand, these ideas were
divisive. Some magnates adopted them while others fought against
them. In Transylvania, it was mainly Germans, called Saxons, who
adopted the Augsburg Creed.
From the 1540s, Magyars from all walks of life – magnates, nobles,
peasants, itinerants and the non-noble middle class of the market towns

– began to follow Helvetic Protestantism. In addition to the Geneva

version disseminated by Theodore Beza, Calvinism was propagated in
another form, by one Ulrich Zwingli and his successor Heinrich
Bullinger, from Zurich. Helvetic Protestantism was adapted to the
Hungarian context and fashioned by preachers of varying tempera-
ments: Mátyás Dévai Biró, who had previously been a Franciscan
monk, János Sylvester, András Szhárosi Horváth and Mihály
Szkhátosi, also ex-Franciscans, Márton Kálmánscehi Sánta, István
Szegedi Kis, the great poet and translator of psalms, Albert Szenczi
Molnár, and finally Péter Melius Juhász, who turned Debrecen into a
‘Calvinist Rome’. All of them developed their calling amidst the flames
of religious disputes. Theological disputes pertained to the Trinity and
transubstantiation, liturgy and morality as well as ecclesiastical organ-
isation. The education of each of these men was determined by the uni-
versity they attended, Wittenberg, Geneva or elsewhere, but practically
everyone was subject to influences from other horizons and added their
own personal touch.
The Reformation eventually won over the vast majority of
Hungarians. Most schools, print works and publications were either
Lutheran or Calvinist.
As everywhere in Europe where the Reformation had taken hold, the
purge of the Church, corrupted by its prelates, its wealth, the sale of the
famous letters of indulgence, all made a strong impression in Hungary.
So did the ‘purge’, in a material sense, of places of worship. Despite the
vandalous nature of the destruction of works of art, these ‘purges’
responded to a spiritual need for greater simplicity. The clergy was also
seduced by the abolition of the law forbidding priests to marry and by
the new ecclesiastical organisations which abolished hierarchical
systems and did away with submission to Rome. The adoption of the
mother tongue for prayer, the translations of the Bible and the psalms,
the theological debates and publications in Hungarian were also hugely
significant. It was not only churchmen who participated enthusiasti-
cally in these debates but the lay public, too. The strongest impact of
Protestantism’s social message, however, was on the market towns of
the ordinary middle classes.
Preachers primarily targeted the sins of the ‘papists’ but also extolled
hopes for deliverance from the Turkish yoke – through a purified ‘true
Christian faith’. The Protestants’ God had to deliver His Hungarian

people just as He had done the Jews held captive in Babylon and Egypt.
The Ottoman authorities continued to manifest a spirit of tolerance
according to their general policy – sometimes the bey even presided per-
sonally over disputes.
One reason for the staggering success of the new religions is to be
found in the material decadence of the Catholic Church, dating back
well before the Turkish occupation. The powerful and wealthy Church
of the Middle Ages was a thing of the past. Several sovereigns had
divested it of properties and traditional sources of revenue. Though
there had been no ‘Investiture disputes’ as such, a good many kings and
lords disposed of Church funds pretty much as they pleased, distribut-
ing them among their servants or simply expropriating the lot. The
aftermath of Mohács – where the vast majority of the prelates perished
– and of Turkish occupation had left most bishoprics empty. King
Ferdinand of Habsburg, together with a number of magnates, was
quick to take advantage of the situation and appropriated them. A
number of monasteries and opulent chapters also fell into lay hands –
or into the hands of improvised ‘prelates’ who quickly donned the
cassock, like one Mezölaki, nominated superior of an abbey, who then
transformed it into a brigand’s den, robbing tradesmen and exacting
ransoms from the peasants. The Reformation aggravated the situation.
Church treasures worth hundreds of thousands of ﬂorins were stolen or
destroyed. To illustrate the scale of the disaster, before 1526 there were
seventy Franciscan monasteries numbering 1,500 monks; by 1600, there
were only ﬁve left, with thirty monks (though some had been lost
through conversion to Protestantism).
Reformed churches proliferated throughout large towns and market
towns, among diligent and industrious people. The magnates and
nobles who had converted either to the Augsburg creed or to the
Reformed Church – both in their respective ‘Hungarianised’ and
‘mixed’ versions – nonetheless played an important role. These squires
are said to have used – and abused – their rights and powers, dragging
with them along their new road to salvation their entire entourage: rel-
atives, towndwellers and peasants. Vast estates and, by proxy, their
neighbours, along with entire regions, thus switched over en masse to
the Reformation, according to a practice called cujus regio, ejus religio
– ‘the religion of the prince is the religion of the country’ – in its
Hungarian version. Unlike in Germany, Hungary had no territorial
princes as such and so the practice was adapted to the squires.

The triumph of free choice in matters of faith in reality seemed to

apply only to the powerful, but the wind of liberation was nonetheless
both strong and fruitful. Disputes and conﬂicts did engender violence
and sometimes bloodshed, along with language outrageous in its vehe-
mence. Some Protestant preachers did not refrain from pouring biblical
curses upon their adversaries, calling them ‘damned papists’ and ‘the
pope’s monkeys’, accusing them of unspeakable crimes, of adoring
idols, of stinking like ‘carrion, farts, mud’. Often the same voices would
damn both the Catholic Church and the Turks; the pope’s followers, the
Germans and the Turks would be condemned in the same breath.
According to them, the only true champions of Christ were the
Hungarian Protestants.
The violence did not cause excessively irreparable damage, however,
and the spirit of tolerance survived. People had to learn to live together
for better or worse – the absolute domination of a single state Church
was no longer possible in Hungary. Religious freedom had indeed taken
a giant’s step forward in this second half of a century that was marked by
the night of St Bartholomew (1572), the assassination of Henry III, Duke
Albe’s terror in the Low Countries, the Inquisition and persecutions.
Catholicism, in a position of weakness up until the Council of Trent,
inaugurated in 1542 and activated after 1562, remained on the defensive
until the end of the sixteenth century. The Catholic Church threw itself
into the Counter-Reformation in Hungary with the arrival on the scene
of Péter Pázmány (1570–1637), future cardinal and archbishop of
Esztergom and great writer of his century. The wrath of the Protestant
preachers had meanwhile found a new enemy: the anti-Trinity
Unitarians established in Transylvania.
This controversy originates in the period between 1556 and 1571,
under János Szápolyai and János Zsigmond, early on in the life of the
principality resulting from the division of the kingdom. The episode,
though brief, was a signiﬁcant one. The young prince had converted to
Protestantism in its most radical form, the Unitarian Church, in other
words, founded by a Hungarian preacher, of Saxon origins, Ferenc
Dávid, in turn inspired by the doctrine of the Spaniard Michel Servet,
who was burnt at the stake by Calvin in Geneva in 1553. The prince’s
other spiritual guide was a doctor, like Servet, by the name of George
Blandrata. He was originally from Piedmont and had arrived at the
court of the prince in 1563, having been driven out of Poland for his
anti-Trinitarian radicalism.

Transylvania and the Gyulafehérvár court of the time were cross-

roads of languages, cultures and innovative ideas. The Sozzini brothers,
Leo and Fausto, were among its numerous scholars and by the end of
the century no fewer than 2,850 students had studied at foreign univer-
sities. Dávid, the founder of the Unitarian Church, studied at
Wittenberg, adopted the religion of Luther and Melanchthon before
becoming a Calvinist and ﬁnally an anti-Trinitarian in 1556. ‘God is
One’, Dávid preached. Thanks to his teachings and to the prince, the
majority of Transylvanian Hungarians adopted the new religion. When
István Báthori, future king of Poland, ascended to the throne, the
Unitarians found themselves under pressure from a new Catholic
prince. Dávid was persecuted and died in prison.
The legacy of the Unitarian interlude was an extraordinary event for
the period. In 1568, the Diet of Torda decreed religious freedom; every
preacher could ‘preach the Gospel according to his own understanding’.
This freedom was limited to the four recognised religions: Catholic,
Evangelical–Lutheran, Reformed Calvinist and Unitarian. The large
numbers of Orthodox Romanians were excluded as were the handful of
Jews and an even smaller number of Muslims. It is also worth mention-
ing that the preachers were chosen by the local administration and so
one cannot speak of individual liberty in the modern sense.
Nevertheless, the Diet’s act was unprecedented.
Tolerance was the keynote for that entire century in Central Europe.
According to the British historian, R. J. W. Evans, author of The
Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1570 (Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1979), the Catholic Church had disintegrated in Austria and
Bohemia, the court failed to uphold the Counter-Reformation of the
papacy, and lived out the spirit of humanism and the Renaissance.
‘Renaissance and Reformation combined in Central Europe to produce
a reasonably tolerant and uniform cultural climate’ (39).

A ﬂourishing literature

With the Reformed Churches, numbers of schools and publishing

houses increased. The Catholic Church, which had somewhat lost its
momentum, underwent a revival in the seventeenth century. Meanwhile,
Protestant colleges were set up in Transylvania, both in Saxon and
Hungarian areas, at Debrecen, Sárospatak and a dozen other towns.

Elementary schools flourished all over the place – there were almost 200
of them. In the sixteenth century, dozens of publishing houses produced
894 publications in just seventy years: translations of the Bible (the first
complete edition was by Gáspár Károlyi in 1590), prayers, psalms and
an extremely lively literature of polemics.
Secular writings made up around 40 per cent of literary output. As for
language, besides publications in Latin, books were now appearing in
Hungarian, either to propagate religious renewal or to instruct and
entertain. It was a literature marked by the Reformation but it showed
the first buds of a truly national literature. In some works by authors like
Gáspár Heltai or Péter Bornemissza, any attempt to separate the relig-
ious aspect from the secular one is to do injustice to what was a integrated
artistic whole, both in terms of language and richness of expression.
New literary genres were emerging alongside philosophical essays,
psalms of poignant beauty or flowery love poems. Among these new
forms was the recital of historic narrative poems, linked to the old tra-
dition of medieval verse chronicles. Péter Ilosvai Selymes recounted the
life story of a popular hero called Toldi, distinguished for his courage
and strength at the time of the Angevins; Sebestyén Tinódi, called the
Lutist, told Bible stories and heroic chronicles about warriors’ struggles
against the Turkish invader. Péter Bornemissza is one name that has
become a part of national literary history for his dramatic works,
among others, the virtuoso translation–adaptation of one of
Sophocles’ masterpieces. With its new title, Magyar Electra, the ancient
tragedy was transformed into a genuinely ‘Hungarian’ tragedy of the
day. The language used in these works is astoundingly modern as is that
used by an anonymous writer who related the adventures of one Balássi,
a squire–brigand who was responsible for nine betrayals.
A fully fledged lyrical poeticism, however, can be found in the work
of the brigand’s nephew, Bálint Balássi (1554–94), a bit of a brigand
himself. Hungarian poetry already had a well-established tradition
dating back seven centuries and there were major talents both among
Balássi’s predecessors and his contemporaries; but his work stands out
nonetheless. Balássi was a poet in the full sense of the word. He wrote
of love, of the valiant knight in border fortresses, of nature and of God.
A kind of Villon a hundred years after the French poet, Balássi was in
fact a contemporary of Ronsard and Malherbe. The unprecedented
intensity of feeling that flowed from his poems, the perfection of both

form and language, a language that remains vibrantly alive to this day,
heralded future golden ages of national literature.
The seventeenth century lived up to these promises: its literature is
marked by the epic poetry of István Gyöngyösi and the more forceful
Miklós Zrinyi (1620–64) of which more will be said later. The turn of
the century had also seen the ﬁrst encyclopaedia to be written in
Hungarian, by János Apáczai Csere. Lastly, this was the era of
Archbishop Péter Pázmány (1570–1637), the most important author of
the Counter-Reformation and of pro-Habsburg tendencies, who
opposed the policies of the Transylvanian princes. Among his most
important works is an apologist treatise of the Catholic faith. Pázmány
wrote both in Latin and Hungarian; the clarity and the style of his
writing place him among the great writers of Hungarian literature.

transylvania’s century of greatness

In the middle of the sixteenth century, Transylvania, the third region of

a now fragmented country – which included the borderland counties
called Partium – became a recognised state, distinct from the other two
regions. Administrative and cultural structures that emerged under
Prince János Zsigmond, continued to evolve during the reign of István
Báthori and his proxies, who governed the principality while he ruled
over Poland. After his death, the country experienced a series of inter-
nal troubles under Zsigmond Báthori, who abdicated ﬁve times only to
reclaim the throne each time. His frequent waverings were mirrored by
external mishaps. In 1598, the imperial general, Giorgio Basta, entered
Transylvania and instigated a reign of terror until 1604.
These events led to a key historical turning point, in the form of a
long series of religious and anti-Habsburg wars. The leader of the ﬁrst
of these wars in 1604 was István Bocskai. He began by forming an army
of free soldiers, called hajdu (haïduks), in the north-east of the country
and was then joined by Transylvania’s ‘three nations’. What followed
will be described later. Meanwhile, what were the resources and struc-
tures of this small principality, called upon to play a historic role that
far exceeded its capacity?
Wars, famine and natural calamities at the turn of the century had
caused demographic and economic disaster in the kingdom and the sit-
uation in Transylvania was not much better. Half of the population is

said to have disappeared and 90 per cent of property is thought to have

been damaged. These figures may seem exaggerated, but indicate the
extreme gravity of the situation. The country soon recovered, however.
Indeed, the seventeenth century came to be seen as its ‘Golden Age’. By
1660, the population had reached its end-of-century level, 955,000 being
the most accurate estimate. In reality, this figure comprised not three,
but six main nationalities (and several small ones). Magyars and
Szeklers constituted the majority (500,000), followed by the Romanians
– or Walachians (280,000), the Saxon people (90,000), Serbians – or
Rácz – Ukranians and others (85,000). Five languages were spoken and
six religions practised, excluding the Jewish faith and sects such as the
Sabbatarians or Abrahamites.
Magyar settlement dates back to the time of the conquest, when the
indigenous Slavs and a host of other populations had been submerged.
The bulk of the new conquerors left Transylvania in search of more
fertile land and pasture on the plain, but the region remained under
their military control. During the following centuries, it was resettled
by Hungarians and Szeklers. There were no Germans or Romanians at
the time in Transylvania, as evidenced by the exclusively Slav and
Hungarian inscriptions in the cemeteries.
The Szeklers – who arrived with the conquerors in 895, probably as
army auxiliaries – spoke Hungarian and are thought to be of Magyar
or Turkish origin. They initially settled in western Hungary and then
moved into Transylvania. Deployed to guard the eastern frontiers,
western and central Transylvania had, by the thirteenth century,
become their homeland and remains so to this day. The Szeklers consti-
tute a homogeneous and tightly knit community which has preserved its
own social and cultural characteristics. Traditionally, Szeklers were free
and equal men – there were neither servants nor nobles, and their mili-
tary leaders were chieftains. By the sixteenth century, the old military
and social structures were eroding but it was still a closed society,
fiercely protective of its freedoms, as proved by numerous uprisings.
They allied themselves with the two other Transylvanian nations, the
Magyars and the Saxons. Together, the three made up the Diet of
Transylvanian States which seized its independence from the Hungarian
Diet of the royal territory.
The origins of the Saxons in Transylvania date back to the early cen-
turies of the conquest. The first wave of German settlers in the twelfth

century, who came by invitation of King Géza III, was followed by many
others. There were very few ‘real Saxons’ among them – they were as
likely to come from Flanders, the Rhine region and Wallonia. Their first
royal privilege dates back to 1224 as does their independent administra-
tive and judiciary system. These settlers were highly civilised people
who brought with them advanced agricultural techniques and artisan-
ship and founded thriving urban centres such as Brassó (Kronstadt;
Brasov, in Romania), Beszterce (Bistritz; Bistrita), and Szeben
(Hermannstadt; Sibiu). They adopted the Lutheran and Melanchton
evangelical faiths as preached by the scholar Johannes Honterus. Saxon
churches and other Gothic buildings in towns and fortified villages are
among the country’s most beautiful monuments. Hardworking and
commercially prosperous, Saxons provided the economic base for the
seventeenth-century princes’ ‘golden age’ .
The Romanian people, more significant in numbers, did not enjoy the
same rights as the ‘three nations’, nor did their churches. The Orthodox
religion was tolerated but not recognised to the same extent as
Catholicism and Protestantism. Most Romanians, with the exception
of the village chiefs (kenéz) and the boyars, who were assimilated into
the Hungarian nobility, were serfs. Among the boyars was the Hunyadi
family and, in the sixteenth century, one of Hungarian culture’s most
brilliant minds: Miklós Oláh, writer, humanist, historian and
Archbishop of Esztergom.
Romanian settlements certainly existed in Transylvania around the
same time as the Szeklers and Saxons, but there is no evidence to suggest
any prior to the twelfth century. The issue divides Hungarian and
Romanian historians, reflecting national ideological differences and
seems likely to remain disputed for some time to come. What is at stake
is scientific, political and ideological. The thesis sustained by the
Romanian historians is not so much concerned with Romanian migra-
tions during the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries, which are
undisputed, but with a supposed unbroken ‘Dacian-Roman’ presence in
the region since the retreat of the Roman Empire in Dacia. The thesis,
while certainly of scientific interest, is clearly also political. It supports
a kind of ‘pre-emptive right’ over Transylvanian lands, declared ances-
tral home of the Romanian people.
Evidence to support this claim is as fragile as the pieces of ‘Dacian-
Roman’ pottery to be found scattered throughout eight centuries. It
may be that vestiges of a population existing in Roman and post-

Roman times have survived the centuries, but there is no trace in history
of an actual Dacian-Roman people. Over the course of this vast stretch
of time, possible survivors would have been assimilated with Slavs,
settled to the north of the Danube from the seventh century, and with
subsequent German and Turkish invaders. While a Slav presence is sup-
ported by numerous archaeological and linguistic discoveries, through
the study of place names, as well as written sources, there are no
Romanian place names, settlements or Dacian-Roman hills or rivers to
be found.
The controversy nonetheless points up important historical issues: a
henceforth large Romanian presence, deprived of political and religious
rights enjoyed by the constitutionally recognised nations, carried the
seeds of future ethnic conﬂicts, which would prove detrimental to the
dominant Hungarian-speaking population.
One of the statues surrounding Calvin, Beza, Farel and Knox on the
memorial to the Reformation in Geneva is that of Count István
Bocskai, a great commander in the service of the versatile Prince
Zsigmond Báthori. Born in 1557, Bocskai fought the Turks during the
Fifteen Years’ War and then turned on the Habsburgs. Between 1604
and 1606, he conducted a successful campaign against Rudolph II’s
army, and reached the gates of Vienna. But a reversal of fortune fol-
lowed almost immediately. Bocskai was forced to retreat and enter into
peace negotiations, leading to the Treaty of Vienna (1606), which guar-
anteed Transylvania’s independence and religious freedom. The treaty
was followed by a twenty-year tripartite peace treaty with the sultan.
Bocskai died that same year.
However he may be judged, his brief era was a historical turning
point. It ushered in a century of anti-Habsburg struggles, mainly led by
Transylvanian princes. Their objective was always the same: to unify the
country that had been torn apart under Hungarian sovereignty. The
dilemma, too, was the same: how to drive both Turks and Habsburgs
out of Hungary. Though weakened as a result of the Treaty of
Westphalia (1648), the Habsburgs still had an empire behind them. As
for the Ottoman Empire, it numbered 30 million subjects and possessed
an army that was reputedly invincible. Faced with these two giants,
Transylvania with its 1 million inhabitants and limited resources, was
not up to the confrontation, even though it did succeed more than once
in rallying the Habsburg kings’ Hungarian subjects.
Despite all this, a particularly happy period began for Transylvania.

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Plate 13. View of Kassa in 1617
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Plate 14. Prince István Bocskai among his haïduks, 1605. Etching by Wilhelm Peter Zimmermann
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118 A Concise History of Hungary

‘The Golden Age’

After some seven years of instability, the country found its brightest star
in Gábor Bethlen (1613–29). At thirty-three, Bethlen was no political or
military novice. He had played an important role under Bocskai and in
the struggles over succession. He initially supported the young Gábor
Báthori, but once the latter had succeeded in antagonising practically
everyone through his excesses, Bethlen distanced himself, seeking
instead the sultan’s assistance. In October 1613 he was elected prince in
particularly humiliating circumstances. The Diet was convened by the
Turkish commander and was ordered to elect Bethlen. In return for
Ottoman support, Bethlen had to suffer an additional humiliation:
Istanbul wanted the retrocession of Lippa (Lipova, Romania), a fortress
of great strategic importance. Bethlen was forced to besiege his own
castle, defended by his own soldiers, clear it out and hand it over to the
Turks. The incident did little to enhance his reputation, earning him the
nickname ‘Gábor, the Musulman’.
Thus the Golden Age got off to a bad start under his rule. He also
made a number of internal mistakes and blunders, notably against the
Saxon town Szeben, which he occupied by force; he later retracted his
hasty actions, adopting a wiser and more considered position. He real-
ised that the prosperity of his subjects was better for the treasury than
despoilment or irregular and unpredictable fiscal policies. His economic
policy proved fruitful; regulated foreign trade brought in revenues
which in turn flowed back into the economy, and everyone profited in
the end. The principality, though poorer than the kingdom, enjoyed
prosperity. Thanks to the outstanding intelligence of the sober, flexible
and tenacious Bethlen, for this small, rather backward and not very
wealthy country, it was truly a ‘Golden Age’. Urban centres developed
apace; Renaissance buildings sprung up, public education reached
unprecedented levels. Prince of the most easterly Protestant country –
back to back with the Habsburgs – he was soon drawn in to the Thirty
Years’ War, which began with a conflict between Czech orders and
Emperor Ferdinand II (1619–37), an implacable Counter-Reformer.
Bethlen, called upon by the Protestant barons, joined the Czechs and
crossed the entire territory of Upper Hungary, as far as the gates of
Vienna. In 1620, during his triumphant march, the Hungarian Diet
offered him the Crown, but the catastrophic Czech defeat at the Battle

of the White Mountain cut him short. Nonetheless, the emperor was in
a perilous position and Bethlen was quick to take advantage of this,
negotiating a very favourable compromise. Under the Treaty of
Nikolsburg (1621), he renounced the royal crown but maintained
control of seven counties in Upper Hungary. His sovereignty over
Transylvania was never questioned.
The prince attempted to launch his anti-Habsburg policy on two
occasions. During the ‘Danish period’ (1625–9) of the Thirty Years’
War, he found himself up against the legendary imperial general,
Albrecht Wenzel Wallenstein. Though the general was driven out of
Hungary, Bethlen failed to achieve his goal, which was unification. The
‘equation’ remained the same: the Habsburgs could only be driven out
with the support of the Ottoman Empire. But in order to get rid of the
latter, Bethlen would have to call upon the Habsburgs. In the end,
enthusiasm waned. Transylvanian orders were unwilling to mobilise in
support of a policy perceived as Bethlen’s personal ambition, while the
kingdom’s orders wanted to curb powers conferred upon him by his ele-
vation to royal status, which Bethlen had in any case turned down. He
was unwilling to submit to a ‘noble republic’, a Hungarian version of
the Polish Rzeczpospolita.
At a time when absolutism was taking hold in the well-rooted dynas-
ties of Europe, the authority of the Transylvanian princes was of a more
personal nature. None of them could claim birth status equal to the
Bourbon Capetians, their contemporaries, or to the Tudors and Stuarts,
any more than to the Habsburgs. Nor could they claim dynastic conti-
nuity. Gábor Bethlen and his brother István came from a Transylvanian
noble family; they had been preceded by princes from the Báthori
family, and would be followed by the Rákóczi family.
Several famous princes came from the two branches of the very old
Báthori family. One of them, István, had been king of Poland. The
family was extremely wealthy and left its mark on history. Some of its
members succeeded in being the subjects of lively gossip: Zsigmond,
who ascended to and subsequently lost the throne five times, was vilified
for his infidelities; the young and seductive Gábor was renowned for his
indiscretions. Their distant cousin Erzsébet (Elisabeth) Báthori, on the
other hand, caused a genuine scandal and her story reflects the morals
of the time in more ways than one. The handsome forty-year-old widow
of a great squire and war leader, Ferenc Nádasdy, she was arrested, tried

Plate 15. Gábor Bethlen, prince of Transylvania, 1620

and convicted of torturing and murdering several of her servants.

Legend goes further: she is then said to have bathed in the blood of her
numerous victims. She was related to, and allied to, half the individuals
figuring in the ‘Gotha’ Almanac – who between them possessed half the
wealth of the ‘two Hungarys’. Maximilian, the emperor and king of
Hungary, personally attended her marriage in 1575. Thirty-five years
later, the then bride was convicted of unspeakable crimes and incarcer-
ated, walled up in a room in her castle, where she died a few years later,
having gone completely mad.
The incident was enough for the accused to go down in history as the
monster of the century and to become the object of countless episto-
lary exchanges, documents, risqué books and, finally, ‘erotic’ films
which are still being made to this day. Two aspects of the trial, however,
relate to other domains, one political and the other economic. The trial
was ‘instructed’ – if one can use the term for this procedure – by the
palatine Thurzó himself. If Elisabeth had been found guilty and sen-
tenced to capital punishment, her enormous wealth, which would have
been confiscated as a result, could have gone to a number of powerful
barons. In the event, the sentence did not go the whole way: the ‘ogress’
was locked up and the family kept the fortune. On the other hand –
perhaps coincidentally – the trial compromised Gábor Bethlen, the
Transylvanian prince with royal aspirations, at the very time when
Palatine Thurzó had designs himself on the Transylvanian throne . . .
These intrigues shed light on the political and sexual morals of the day;
Elisabeth Báthori may well have committed the crimes she was accused
of – there is no real proof either way. Whatever came out of the so-called
trial – during which witnesses were horribly tortured, others terrorised,
and the accused deprived of the opportunity to defend herself – it was
certainly not the truth of what really happened. What the mass of
jumbled depositions and scripts do show is people’s fertile imagination:
Elisabeth was, according to various accounts, sadistic and lecherous, a
pervert and a lesbian; as for her deceased husband, he was said to be
homosexual, despite the couple having brought five children into the
world.
With Gábor Bethlen’s rise to power, the Báthori star faded and
another family, the Rákóczi, came to preside over the principality’s
destiny. In the sixteenth century, the family had risen from the ranks of
the common nobility thanks to Zsigmond, a valiant commander who

was skilled at amassing wealth. His son, György (George) Rákóczi I

(1630–48), managed the family fortune wisely and honourably, increas-
ing his personal wealth as well as the principality’s possessions in Upper
Hungary. Rákóczi was a prudent man: though well known for his devo-
tion – he was said to have read the Bible several dozen times over – and
for his perseverance in defending the Protestant faith, he had little time
for the Thirty Years’ War. It was by then in its third and fourth phases,
the ‘Swedish’ and the ‘Franco-Swedish’ ones, involving France at
Richelieu’s initiative. Rákóczi chose to withdraw three years before the
Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the year of his death. He left behind a
country that was well-governed, prosperous, and with an acquired habit
of religious tolerance.
His son György Rákóczi II (1648–60) nurtured larger ambitions,
though he turned out to be far less successful in his endeavours. He is
chiefly criticised for a foolhardy incursion into Poland, taking advan-
tage of the country being invaded from all sides. Rákóczi believed he
could exploit the situation but his plan failed. He never recovered from
the defeat and Transylvania’s star fell with him. Successors of little sig-
nificance followed and Transylvania’s Golden Age came to an end. It
was invaded by the Turks and later, in 1687, occupied by Leopold I’s
imperial army. György Rákóczi’s son, Ferenc Rákóczi I, was also elected
prince without actually being able to occupy the throne. Lastly, his heir,
Ferenc Rákóczi II, was called upon to fulfil a great destiny at the begin-
ning of the next century, but that particular episode belongs elsewhere
in the story. From the middle of the seventeenth century, as Ottoman
power declined, Hungary’s political centre of gravity moved to the
kingdom.

the kingdom of hungary and turkey until the

liberation of buda (1686)

More than any other, the seventeenth century in Hungary is riddled

with contradictions. Despite its misfortunes, Hungary remained
Europe’s last bastion against the Ottoman invasion. Amidst the wars
and ravages, new spiritual and cultural waves swept across the entire
country and even its economy managed to survive. Vital links between
the regions of this fragmented country remained intact. The ﬁrst
Hungarian Baroque writer, Péter Pázmány (1570–1637), the architect of

the Counter-Reformation, articulated the need for role-sharing

between the ‘two Hungarys’ in no uncertain terms: ‘He who would
incite you to break with the Turks, will be damned’, Pázmány wrote to
János Kemény, future prince of Transylvania. ‘Pay what you must to the
Porte’, he advised, ‘and keep your relations with the Christian sovereign
over here [in other words, the Habsburg] amicable. Because without a
flourishing Transylvania, he added, ‘the Germans will be spitting
behind our backs’.
The language is hardly episcopal, but the philosophical approach
expressed here would have certainly been echoed by Archbishop György
Fráter, murdered a century previously. Despite numerous conflicts
between the ‘two Hungarys’, a tacit contract united the Magyars, their
desire to liberate the entire country, though there was no consensus on
how to go about achieving this.
It is difficult to understand this period without knowledge of the
ambivalence of feelings, the splits, alliances and side-swapping that
characterised the political landscape of the time; and there were other
forces at work in this complex situation. Unlike the absolutism of
Spain, the Stuarts or the Bourbons, the Austrian Habsburgs had to
adopt a measured approach towards the various states that made up
their rather heterogeneous family empire. While Czech resistance was
easier to overcome, the legitimacy of the Hungarian state, defended by
a large and powerful nobility, was a hard nut to crack. Indeed, the
Hungarian states general did not cede to absolutism until the second
half of Leopold I’s long reign (1657–1705) – and even then only tempo-
rarily. Until that point, Vienna’s interventions had been limited, tending
to leave the task of governing – and the solving of domestic disputes –
to the palatines and the Diet.
For centuries, an aristocracy of rich and powerful barons had risen
from within a socially very differentiated nobility. Over time, through
titles and influence, they had become a superior class. The kings ruling
from Vienna wanted these magnates as allies and had therefore made
several of them counts, even hereditary princes, among them the Pálffy,
Nádasdy, Eszterházy, Wesselényi, Forgách and Csáky families. This new
upper class would later form the upper chamber of the Diet.
The Counter-Reformation had changed the cultural and political
landscape. Most squires returned, under duress or for convenience, to
Catholicism. The political impact of a great squire’s reconversion, such

as Prince Ferenc Rákóczi I, who abandoned the Reformed religion of his

ancestors under the influence of his mother, was likely to be consider-
able. Alliances and quarrels with either the Turks or the Habsburgs, as
well as differences in religious loyalties, had serious political repercus-
sions and were not easily overcome. Religious tolerance was far greater
in Transylvania than in the kingdom; nonetheless, the success of the
Counter-Reformation movement was not unequivocal: Hungary was
predominantly Catholic but remained a multi-faith country. For reasons
that were as much diplomatic as internal, Leopold I and his ministers
were forced to contain their zeal. Cultural pluralism survived despite
the Counter-Reformation campaign – through pressure, brutality and
physical violence – of confiscations, and the occupation of churches
and schools.
The cultural repercussions of these religious struggles were the re-
emergence of the Catholic Church and its political influence, as well as
their effect upon literature, education and the arts. Péter Pázmány
founded a university; the Jesuits, established since 1561, spearheaded
both religious propaganda and instruction. The Church and wealthy
magnates like Eszterházy were responsible for the spread of baroque art
and architecture in Hungary; Miklós Zrinyi had a sumptuous castle
built at a time when a kuria (country mansion) was not very different
from the home of a rich peasant. The devastated country awaited better
times to improve its material circumstances.
The Viennese court’s main preoccupation was to keep the peace both
at home and abroad, so it left the Hungarian nobility to its own devices
and did not interfere in its relationships with a peasantry now reduced
to serfdom. Only the most enterprising of the rural class succeeded in
escaping universal serfdom. As for the ephemeral and very relative pros-
perity of the sixteenth century, it soon disappeared due to unfavourable
conditions in Europe, engulfed by technological and social stagnation
and, most importantly, endemic and relentless warfare.
Trade and commerce were also adversely affected by Viennese policy.
The government had adopted a more interventionist approach vis-à-vis
trade than it did in political matters and one of its strategies had been the
creation of trade monopolies (a practice also adopted in the principal-
ity), mainly entrusted to foreigners. Among the latter were several Jewish
entrepreneurs, notably prosperous Viennese bankers Oppenheimer and
Wertheimer, who dealt in army supplies. Monopolies in the trade of

cattle, ore, glass and other products seriously reduced the scope for a free
market and the income of the proprietors. ‘Money, silver and gold left
the country by the cartload’, Zrinyi wrote. Only a handful of rich and
enterprising magnates threw themselves into ‘undigniﬁed’ commercial
activities.

Expectations following the Treaty of Westphalia (1648)

The great dignitaries loyal to the king had not forgotten their duty: that
of preparing for the decisive war against Turkish occupation, despite
the reticence of the Habsburgs. One of the architects of this policy of
resoluteness was the palatine, Miklós Eszterházy, and Count Pál Pálffy,
a stalwart supporter of Emperor–King Ferdinand III, followed in his
footsteps. The signiﬁcance of Pálffy’s election in 1649 was that this
Catholic and aulic was supported by none other than Transylvania’s
Protestant prince, György Rákóczi II, against candidates belonging to
his own faith. As baron and prince, Rákóczi had the inalienable right to
participate personally or via a representative at the Diet of the
kingdom. It was a sign of the times that Rákóczi, whose younger
brother Zsigmond was to play an important part in the political life of
the kingdom, was prepared to go to war on King Leopold’s side, against
the Turks.
The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) had raised hopes that Christian
forces could at last combine to drive out the sultan. But Mazarin, at
the head of the ‘Mazarins’, had other concerns, as had Spain, which was
in decline, and Lord Protector Cromwell, who had just beheaded
Charles I. As for Ferdinand III, bearing an imperial crown that had lost
all its substance, he was more interested in negotiating peace with the
Porte than in risking confrontation. Such evasion was not well received
in Hungary. Attempts to turn the situation around, to sway Ferdinand
– and then his successor Leopold – and to maintain a united anti-
Turkish front of the ‘two Hungarys’, persisted for over a decade.
Palatine Pálffy’s contribution was to maintain good rapport with Prince
Rákóczi and with his brother Zsigmond. The authority of the latter, a
brilliant statesman and audacious diplomat, was further strengthened
– provoking suspicion in Vienna – by his marriage to Henriette de Pfalz.
The nuptials were celebrated by Comenius, the celebrated Czech
humanist and priest of the Moravian order, who lived in Sárospatak at

the time, a Hungarian ﬁefdom belonging to the Rákóczis. The Swedish

ambassador also attended, bearing messages of goodwill from Queen
Christina.
A number of political players left the scene in the 1650s, a decade of
hopes and disappointments. Pálffy (who, in the meantime, had switched
sides) and Zsigmond were dead, but other patriots persevered in their
determination to fight against the Ottoman power, with all the national
and foreign means they could muster.
The most eminent among them was Count Miklós Zrinyi (1620–64),
poet and general, bán of Croatia. His literary contribution and his mil-
itary and political role earned him an extraordinary reputation in the
1650s. During the Turkish wars of the 1660s, he became the uncontested
leader of the nation.
After he had written a few minor works, Zrinyi’s literary career took
off. In the winter of 1645–6, the ‘Phoenix of the Century’ wrote an epic
poem which recounted and exalted the heroic fight and death of his
forefather commander of Szigetvár, who fell in 1566 under the attack of
Suleiman the Magnificent. The Siege of Sziget, considered a master-
piece by posterity, brought him far less acclaim at the time than his
numerous political and military treatises. This bold and passionate
epic, a historical fresco written in language ‘capable of moving moun-
tains’, was nonetheless the first significant landmark in his work and his
fate. He was to dedicate both his work and life to the struggle for
freedom.
I, who in times before, with youthful mind
my pleasure in the poems of sweet love would find,
and battled with Viola’s depriving cruelty
would sing this time a louder, martial poetry
of weapons and men, the might of Turks I sing,
of him, who bravely faced the Sultan, expecting
the wrath of the arms of the great ruler Suleiman,
who all over Europe held in terror the hearts of men.
From The Siege of Sziget or Obsidio Szigetiana, translated by Thomas
Kabdebo, in In Quest of the ‘Miracle Stag’: The Poetry of Hungary
(Budapest: Corvina Publishers, ISBN 963–13–4282–4)

Among his many prose publications, his Reﬂections of the Life of

King Matthias marked an important stage in his political thinking. In
evoking King Hunyadi, Zrinyi wanted to disseminate the idea of a

Plate 16. Portrait of Miklós Zrinyi, poet and general. Brass engraving by
Gerhard Bouttats from a painting by Johannes Thomas

national kingdom. The historical narrative was, in other words, barely

veiled anti-Habsburg propaganda, putting forward the idea that under
the leadership of a strong – even absolutist – national king, the Turks
could be driven out and the country reunited. Another essay, The
Antidote to Turkish Opium, is also an exhortation to awaken the slug-
gish spirit of the nation.
There was a saying at the time, attributed to the great genius in the
military arts, Raimondo Montecuccoli (who would later fight Turenne
on the Rhine), that the nerve centre of war was ‘money, money, money’.
By force of circumstances, Zrinyi professed a rather different philoso-
phy. His slogan, suitable for the light of purse was ‘weapons, weapons
and the determination of valiant men’.
In the 1660s, the war that Zrinyi had longed for finally arrived, in fits
and starts. It began with omens that did not bode well: the grand vizier,
Ahmed Küprülü, defeated Transylvania, then turned on the kingdom.
His troops besieged Ersekujvár (Nové Zámky), a stone’s throw from
Pozsony and only a little further from Vienna. Zrinyi nonetheless had
some successes during the 1663–4 winter campaign, as did
Montecuccoli – the commander-in-chief who replaced Zrinyi – crush-
ing the Turks at St Gotthard in August 1664. But to no avail: ten days
after the St Gotthard victory, Emperor–King Leopold signed a peace
treaty at Vásvár. Although Turkish power was by now on the decline,
its conquests in Hungary were at their peak. A ‘dynasty’ of grand
viziers, the Küprülüs, who had originated in Albania, had taken over the
government, the administration and the army. There was talk of a
‘Küprülü Renaissance’, extremely efficient on the military front, but it
was short-lived. After the Treaty of Vásvár, everyone’s hopes focused
more than ever on Zrinyi, the star of the nation. He was disapproved of
in Vienna, regarded as dangerous, influential and as having ambitions
that were a threat to the throne. But Zrinyi only had one hundred days
to live. In November 1664, in mysterious circumstances, he was killed
by a wild boar.
As far as the Viennese court was concerned, the boar was providen-
tial indeed, but it did not end agitation against Leopold’s and his min-
isters’ policy of appeasement. Public opinion was crying out for the
expulsion of the Turks, leading to the ‘Wesselényi conspiracy’. Count
Ferenc Wesselényi headed a group of barons who wanted to galvanise
the court’s fighting spirit and the ardour of a dissatisfied nobility, who

were, however, reluctant to make sacrifices. Miklós Zrinyi had been the
original leader of this movement, and his brother Péter Zrinyi followed
in his footsteps, as well as Wesselényi the palatine, and Ferenc Nádasdy,
who would succeed him as royal lieutenant general (the palatinate
having been suspended). Also taking part was Mihály Apafi, prince of
Transylvania. The conspirators’ plans were far-reaching, involving an
alliance with France – and even with the Porte itself – and an insurrec-
tion of the nobility. After Wesselényi’s death in 1667, the conspiracy lost
momentum. The Porte’s response was discouraging and France shied
away from any involvement. France’s military efforts had been, in any
case, very limited until then. The Very Christian King was mainly con-
cerned with ensuring that the emperor – whom he called ‘captain
general of a German Republic’ – did not derive any glory from a victory
over the infidels.
From 1667, the conspiracy nevertheless took off once again, this time
led by Rákóczi. An insurrection took place but was put down, partly
due to a lack of fighting men. The only ones to have joined the uprising
were offended nobles and harassed Protestants. The leaders ended up
on the scaffold, except for the untouchable Prince Rákóczi who, under
the protection of his devoutly Catholic mother, reconverted and ‘turned
against’ the other conspirators. The great fortunes confiscated in the
repression that ensued benefited Vienna handsomely. Common sense
dictated moderation – the government did not want to stoke the fire –
but absolutism was on the rise. Leopold I crossed another threshold
when he suspended the Hungarian Constitution. In 1674–5, persecu-
tion hit the Protestant preachers: they were condemned and forty-two
of them sold as slaves to the galleys.
Meanwhile, a new phenomenon was born: the kuruc movement (the
name derives from the word crusader) was the focus for all victims
fleeing persecution, called bujdosók (‘fugitives’), and thousands of sol-
diers who had been dismissed from the defence line fortresses and
replaced by imperial soldiers. The ‘fugitives’ found an ally in Mihály
Apafi, the last prince of Transylvania, and battles against the imperial
forces ensued. Finally, in 1677, Louis XIV granted the kuruc the sum of
100,000 thalers and sent 2,000 French soldiers to support them. A young
baron named Imre Thököly (1657–1705) became head of the movement
and was appointed general in 1680.
Thököly won numerous battles: he conquered almost the whole of

Upper Hungary. The Porte, which until then had tended to curb the
struggle against the kingdom, ended up supporting Thököly and even
bestowed upon him the royal title. In the same year, 1682, the brilliant
25-year-old commander married 39-year-old Ilona Zrinyi, niece of the
legendary Miklós Zrinyi and widow of Prince Ferenc Rákóczi. From
then on, Ilona Zrinyi governed the prince’s fabulous domain, Munkács
Castle. She became part of national mythology for fighting alongside
Thököly and for heroically defending Munkács against besieging impe-
rial troops. After three years of siege, Ilona Zrinyi surrendered, and was
taken to Vienna as a prisoner, separated from her children, one of them
the future Ferenc Rákóczi II. For the time being, however, the prince was
but a youngster and it is still his stepfather, Thököly, who concerns us
here.
The turbulent epic that was his life lasted until 1690, when he was
defeated by the imperial forces after a brief month on the Transylvanian
throne. Thököly – courageous, colourful and energetic – was the
embodiment of all the ambiguities and contradictions of his time. The
Transylvanian princes had tried on several occasions to unite the ‘two
Hungarys’ with the help, or consent, of the Ottoman government.
‘Turkophilia’ also took hold in the kingdom. After the disappointments
that followed the Treaty of Westphalia – or as Zrinyi put it, ‘the missed
opportunity’ – and in the aftermath of the 1664 Treaty of Vásvár, scores
of high dignitaries, palatines, seneschals and high commanders
appointed by the king were ready to offer the country to the sultan on
a plate.
Despite an abundance of historical documents, it is difficult to eval-
uate this ‘Turkophilia’ and to understand the thinking behind it.
Transylvania had no choice but to seek an alliance with the Porte. But
the fact remains that a Hungary under perennial Ottoman domination
in Europe is hard to imagine. Circumstances had changed, following the
Treaty of Westphalia. Habsburg ambitions had turned away from the
Holy Roman Empire towards Austria. Common sense dictated that
Hungary’s interests lay, for better or for worse, with the Habsburgs and
with Europe. Thököly’s headlong rush into the adventure of a war of
national liberation against Vienna, waving the flag of ‘independence
under the emblem of the crescent’, can only be seen as fuelled by the
vision of a rather dubious utopia.

The deliverance of Vienna and the liberation of Buda

In 1683, the sultan made an assault on Vienna, via Hungary. The

Turkish offensive had been predicted: diplomats and spies did not fail
to signal the signs of preparation. Whether he liked it or not, Emperor
Leopold was now forced to act and, in order to do so, had to win the
support of the German states. There were supposedly 300,000 men in
the Turkish camp and though research suggests that these figures, as
many others, are probably exaggerated, it was nonetheless a massive
offensive, comprising the Ottoman army supported by Tatars, the
Transylvanian Prince Mihály Apafi’s troops, who had been ordered to
join up, and – of course – Thököly. While the Turks pushed up towards
Vienna, on the right bank of the Danube, Thököly was responsible for
the left bank, and was joined by most Hungarians of the region, if not
inspired by the vision of a unified land then out of simple cowardice.
Whatever the reason, there were very few Hungarians on the ramparts
to defend Vienna from the Turks.
In July, the emperor suddenly withdrew to Linz, but the capital’s com-
mander, Ernst Rüdiger of Starhemberg, successfully defended the now
surrounded town. Major General Charles IV of Lorraine, meanwhile,
crushed Thököly before rushing to Vienna’s rescue. The famous and
decisive Battle of Kahlenberg took place on 12 September 1683. John
Sobieski, king of Poland, at fifty-four years of age, led the rescue army,
and set off on the attack, at the head of his formidable heavy cavalry.
The besieged, meanwhile, made a sortie, catching the Ottomans in a
pincer movement.
It was a great victory and was followed by the recapture of numerous
Hungarian towns and fortresses. The pasha of Buda held on to the town
for another three years. At the instigation of Pope Innocent XI, a new
Holy League was formed to continue the war, which cost tens of mil-
lions of florins per year. In 1686, an allied army set off towards Buda,
under the command of the duke of Lorraine, this time with a large
Hungarian contingent.
The siege began in June. The old pasha of Buda, Abdi Abdurrahman
– a Swiss renegade or an Albanian? – was well prepared, with 10,000
men, 400 canons, and with reliable sources of ammunition and supplies.
He was also counting on the arrival of the grand vizier with an army to
assist him. The siege lasted seventy-eight days, with an apocalyptic final

KINGDOM
OF
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SZOLNOK
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K I N G D O M O F
KRASZNA

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Balaton
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A R
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M
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Szeged D
AR A D
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A N
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O M Nándorfehérvár
O T T Belgrade
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Map 7. Hungary after the expulsion of the Turks

A country under three crowns, 1526–1711 133

scene. Eight hundred tonnes of gunpowder were ignited under the ram-
parts, making victory for the Christians seem an inevitability, but the
pasha put his trust in Allah, blocked up the holes, and continued to
resist till his dying moment, thus escaping the cord that the sultan
always sent to his beaten generals. The imperial forces did win in the
end and, on 2 September, Buda was liberated – the Turkish rescue army
did not even get the chance to join the battle.
According to the duke of Lorraine, there were 4,000 Turkish soldiers
dead and 6,000 prisoners. The town, already reduced to rubble, was
now on fire. An Italian colonel, who led the siege tactics according to
the Vauban technique, set about trying to rescue what he could of the
Corviniae volumes from King Matthias’s fabulous library from the
debris. He also made an inventory of Turkish buildings, mosques, baths
and schools.
The cruelty of the conquering soldiers was well on a par with that of
the Turks and the Tatars: as well as the usual pillaging, there was, as
throughout the entire war, much slaughter. Despite Charles de
Lorraine’s orders to save them, around five hundred Jews, half the com-
munity, were massacred. Turkish prisoners were tortured and killed,
their skins flayed to be dried and sold to apothecaries in Germany – the
powder that was produced from them was a sought-after remedy.
Christianity celebrated the symbolic liberation of Buda, but the war
was not over yet. Over the next two decades, each fortress, each town
had to be recaptured until the Ottomans left the country and, in 1699,
signed a peace treaty at Karlóca (Sremski Karlovci, Serbia). The legen-
dary Prince Eugene of Savoy was by then at the head of the imperial
army; Leopold I still reigned in Vienna; Louis XIV was at his peak at
Versailles; while Hungary, liberated but now subjected to Vienna, was
about to undergo further ordeals. Over a century and a half had gone
by – 173 years to be exact – since the Battle of Mohács. But a new insur-
rection was about to erupt.

‘recrudescunt vulnera’: the insurrection of ferenc

rákóczi ii
Prince Rákóczi’s insurrection, planned since 1700, set in motion in 1703
and terminated in 1711, was just one incident in a larger pattern of anti-
Habsburg movements and wars that had been going on, parallel to the

Turkish wars, ever since historical Hungary had split into three king-
doms. ‘Bearing in mind that no fewer than ﬁve wars were conducted
within a century, one could say that they were continuous’, wrote Prince
Ferenc Rákóczi in his Memoires, written in French during his exile in
France years later. The wars he refers to had been led by Transylvanian
princes, among them his own ancestors. His own war was the sixth. His
famous 1704 proclamation, intended to unite the nobility and the
people under his banner, begins: Recrudescunt diutina inclytae gentis
Hungariae vulnera – ‘Once again, the ancient wounds of the glorious
Hungarian nation are open.’
The future Ferenc Rákóczi II (he succeeded in being elected prince of
Transylvania in 1704 and of Hungary in 1705), son of Prince Ferenc
Rákóczi I and Ilona Zrinyi, was born in 1676, shortly before the death
of his father. When his mother was taken to Vienna in 1688, Ferenc
Rákóczi was separated from her and raised by Jesuits under the surveil-
lance of the imperial court and a tutor, Archbishop Léopold Kollonich.
The young Rákóczi eventually freed himself from his guardians,
married and returned to his lands in Upper Hungary. After his initial
refusal, Rákóczi associated himself with Miklós Bercsényi’s insurrec-
tionist projects. The latter became his closest friend and future general
of his armies.
It was now 1700. Rákóczi’s greatest hope was Louis XIV, who had
previously supported the kuruc movements. But initial contacts with
the king proved costly. Rákóczi’s correspondence with Versailles was
intercepted at Vienna and he was thrown into prison. He managed to
escape and ﬂed to Poland, to his relatives, the Sieniawski-Lubomirskis.
In 1703, he returned to Upper Hungary to lead the insurrection. From
that moment on, alliance with France became the cornerstone of his
policy. For France, caught up in the War of the Spanish Succession
(1701–16), an insurrection against the Habsburgs was potentially very
useful. So, the Very Christian King granted him an annual subsidy of
around 30,000 then 50,000 pounds until 1708, out of a French military
budget estimated at 1 million per year (Goubert). The king of France,
however, side-stepped the alliance, even though in 1707, Rákóczi, at the
king’s request, had directed the Onód Diet to proclaim the deposition
of the House of Austria.
Though conscious of the fact that he could not rely on France’s mil-
itary support, he had consented to the wishes of the king, following the

Plate 17. Portrait of Ferenc Rákóczi II. Painting by Ádám Mányoki, 1712

failure of peace negotiations with Emperor Joseph I (1705–11), who

was more benevolent than his father Leopold. As Rákóczi himself
wrote with considerable perceptiveness, the loss of the Battle of
Blenheim in 1704 (Marlborough’s victory) had shattered ‘my faith in the
help of foreign troops’, the one foundation upon which ‘I went into this

war’, hoping to link up with the elector of Bavaria, who was allied to
the French. Rákóczi nonetheless continued to wage war for a number of
years, until 1711, and his respect for Louis XIV would remain intact. It
was reciprocated right up until and beyond the insurrection: the exiled
prince was well received at Versailles.
Rákóczi was undoubtedly the more naive of the two protagonists and
the Sun King the more calculating. For the latter, Rákóczi was a poten-
tial ally, a back-up in a huge struggle involving 300,000 French soldiers
against a coalition led by Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy. In other
words, the prospects of the two sides were rather unequal. The same
was true for Rákóczi’s alliance with Tsar Peter I, before and after the
latter’s victory over Sweden at Poltava (1709).
The causes of the insurrection undoubtedly lay in Leopold I’s abso-
lutism – which did not go down well with the nobility – and extortion
of all kinds inflicted upon the population at large. Rákóczi was galvan-
ised into action for these reasons and others. He felt that it was God’s
will that he should lead the fight because of ‘the desire for Freedom in
the hearts of Youth’ and to ‘teach the kings of the House of Austria that
the Hungarian nation could not be led through servile fear, but would
willingly accept the yoke of paternal love’. He resented Leopold for
having replaced the elective kingdom with a hereditary one, and for
having ‘fleeced Trassilvania [sic] of a national prince’. In his Mémoires,
he also explains a number of contradictions – or ineluctable difficulties
– in his project. He denies having led a religious war, and rightly so,
since he was a Catholic prince with Protestant ancestors and had been
at the head of mainly Protestant nobles, of a Russian (Ruthenian)
peasant army, and other Slavs and haïduks. He may well have contrib-
uted to Hungary remaining a multi-ethnic and multi-denominational
country. A reading of the Mémoires also reveals his concern to recon-
cile the divergent interests of the various social classes who had gath-
ered under his banner. Being a prince, he would never have been able to
reconcile himself with leading a peasant insurrection, nor could he have
envisaged managing without noble officers and the political participa-
tion of the nobility. For him the nobility, along with the Constitution,
was indistinguishable from the nation that would win back its rights
and freedoms through insurrection. But in order to succeed in uniting
an army of 70,000 men at the height of the war, Rákóczi had to exhort
the people, the bare-foot serfs who made up the majority, badly

equipped, undisciplined – but present nevertheless. The prince–general

had exempted them not only from state but also seigneurial taxes, and
had promised that at the end of the war they would be granted ‘haïduk
freedoms’, knowing full well that this would antagonise the landown-
ers. In the end, it was one of his own serfs, the future brigadier, Tamás
Esze, who brought the ﬁrst peasant troops to him. What is striking in
the Mémoires is the prince’s obvious attachment to his soldiers, these
‘ragged kurucs’, these ‘tolpaches’ as they were known colloquially. The
name kuruc was immediately countered with labanc, the name given to
partisans of the imperial camp, an opposition that would remain in the
public domain right up until the political struggles of the nineteenth
century.
Despite the pessimism that Rákóczi had already felt by the second
year of the war, he fought on until 1711, we do not quite know why. It
is said that he felt a moral obligation towards the bare-foot serfs who
had pinned their hopes on him, while some historians explain his per-
severance as an obstinate desire to preserve Transylvania.
Whatever the reason, the war continued through its ups and downs.
The kuruc generals, the likes of Bercsényi, Tamás Esze, Károlyi,
Bottyán, won some battles and lost others, against an army that was for
the most part numerically smaller but technically superior, better
armed, organised and led. At its peak in 1707–8, the kuruc army held
most of the country, but was then beaten by the imperial general,
Siegbert Heiste, provoking the desertion of tens of thousands of sol-
diers. From then on, accompanied by numerous betrayals, the light of
the kuruc was on the wane.
To top it all, after Villars’s defeat against Marlborough and Prince
Eugene at Malplaquet, Louis XIV let it be known that he intended to
make peace with the Habsburgs. Any remaining hopes placed in an alli-
ance with Peter I also evaporated. The insurrection retreated into Upper
Hungary and was eventually forced to bow down before the new impe-
rial general-in-chief, Count János Pálffy. Rákóczi’s general, Count
Sándor Károlyi, ordered surrender and, backed by the Diet’s authorisa-
tion, signed the peace treaty on 30 September 1711 at Szatmár. Though
Rákóczi had discussed the matter with Pálffy, he was not present at the
occasion and accused Károlyi of betrayal. The judgement of history
tended to be less severe towards Károlyi, and considered the peace
clauses offered by Pálffy to be relatively fair. Emperor–King Joseph I,

eager for reconciliation with the Hungarians, granted the rebels total
amnesty, the restitution of their conﬁscated property, religious peace,
respect for the Constitution and the safeguard of tax exemptions for-
merly achieved: in short, he balanced the interests of everyone at all
levels. Unlike their experience under Leopold’s absolutist measures, the
orders found their powers consolidated by the will of King Joseph and
his successor Charles III (1711–40) – Charles VI as Holy Roman
emperor – who signed the treaty.
By then the insurrection was in any case a lost cause. The nobility was
divided, the peasantry exhausted and their foreign allies had abandoned
them. The long-suffering towns had now been subjected to war for two
centuries and the copper currency, called Pro Libertate, was worthless.
The insurrection had run out of steam. Gyula Szekfü, in his stern work
concerning Rákóczi in exile, writes that the Hungarian people, unlike
the émigrés, had no desire to ‘chase the past’, but simply wanted to
breathe freely again and look to the future. Prince Rákóczi, on the other
hand, despite the historian’s respect for him, is portrayed somewhat like
a sleepwalker, primarily obsessed with his Transylvanian principality
which, in face of the categoric refusal of the Viennese court, nobody,
not even the Sun King himself, could get back for him. By virtue of the
‘Leopold diploma’ the autonomy of the province was initially recog-
nised, but was then annexed to the Crown and subjected to Viennese
administration. It was under these auspices, a blend of uncertainty and
hopes, that Hungary entered, rather belatedly as usual, the eighteenth
century.

When in 1711 the insurrectional army laid down its weapons and Prince
Ferenc Rákóczi began his exile – first in Poland and then in France – a
century of momentous change was just dawning in Europe. Whereas
France had dominated the previous period, with the death of Louis XIV
its power was waning and England, ruler of the waves, was now becom-
ing preponderant. England’s main preoccupation was to establish an
equilibrium among the continental powers that at this time included a
few newcomers: the Prussia of Frederick William I, the ‘soldier-king’,
and of his son Frederick II, the Great (1740–86), with its modern and
formidable army and the Russia of Peter I, the Great (1682–1725),
which had emerged as a great power. Under the empress, Catherine II,
the Great (1762–96), the Russian Empire would later expand at the
expense of the Ottoman Empire and the three-part division of Poland.
As for the Habsburgs, their hold over Spain had been broken (1700),
their hold over Germany weakened, but they succeeded in constructing
Austria and their hereditary provinces, centre of the empire, at the fron-
tier of the Hungarian kingdom. King Charles III, Charles VI (1711–4o)
as Holy Roman emperor, and Maria Theresa (1740–80) made Vienna
the splendid capital of the monarchy. Viennese power was put to the test
by a series of crises triggered by Frederick the Great: the War of the
Austrian Succession (1740–8), the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), and the
last of the Turkish wars. Vienna withstood them all, until Napoleon
that is. This was the international context in which Hungary had to find
its new place within Europe and, more specifically, within the Habsburg
Empire.

towards a compromise with vienna

Peace with Vienna in 1711 rested on a tacit agreement: the nation, rep-
resented by the nobility-dominated estates, would lay down its arms
and the imperial winner, for his part, would negotiate an honourable
compromise. The latter was sketched out between the two opposing
generals at Szatmár – both kuruc and labanc belonged to the
Hungarian upper nobility – and validated by Joseph I’s successor,
Charles III. According to tradition, the king pledged his good will to the
Diet and promised to govern in keeping with its laws, in other words,
with the constitution that dated back to the Golden Bull of the thir-
teenth century, and with the codiﬁed and customised laws which
ensured the prerogatives of the states general.
Since 1608, prelates and barons had sat at the Table of the Diet with
the magnates and the 104 noble deputies of the ﬁfty-two counties, while
members of the lower clergy and of the towns and bourgs sat at the lower
Table. The Diet was far from being a representative assembly since, due
to the large number of towns and villages that were dependencies of the
nobility, it was essentially dominated by nobles. The estates formed
national and county diets, thus constituting for most of the time a
counterbalance to royal power – except during periods of absolutism.
This duality of royal and estates power remained in place after 1711
and especially subsequent to the 1722–3 Diet, despite the fact that a
number of decisions were taken by the Viennese administration and
that long holidays had to be taken by the Diet. The traditional army was
replaced by a permanent army and the Lieutenant Council, named by
the king, became a government organ. Maria Theresa did change some
of these arrangements, but the hour for structural modernisation via
absolutism had not yet struck.

The Pragmatic Sanction

In contrast to attempts at absolutism by his father Leopold, Charles III

was more interested in pacifying the dominant classes than in breaking
them. The latter, rather than continue to chase the mirage of total
national independence were, in any case, determined to proﬁt from the
compromise. The essential counterpart to the king’s conciliatory policy
was for the Diet to accept the Pragmatic Sanction, concerning succession

by the female branch of the Habsburgs, which had been in place in the
hereditary provinces since 1713. This the king achieved through the
1722–3 law. The Diet’s decision meant that the six-year-old Maria
Theresa’s path to the throne was now clear. Along with her future
husband, Francis of Lorraine, Maria Theresa founded the House of
Habsburg-Lorraine, which would reign until the dissolution of the
Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy at the end of the First World War.
Power-sharing between the king and the estates benefited both. The
nation maintained its status and identity, but without meeting the
demands of full sovereignty. However, the spanner that was put in the
works of absolutism also ended up thwarting modernisation. The ter-
ritorial integrity of historical Hungary was not entirely restored during
the time of Charles and Maria Theresa. Transylvania was administered
directly by a governor designated by the sovereign and receiving instruc-
tions from the Vienna chancellery. Romanian and Szekler territories
were separated and organised into military frontier defence regions (or
borders), called Militärgrenze in German. Such frontiers already
existed on the Serbian and Croatian borders in the country’s southern
banates, where frontier guards were to contain Turkish incursions. The
military regions were part of the lands belonging to the Hungarian
Crown, but were under the command of the Military Council of
Vienna. Austrian control over the administration of these regions
fuelled a constitutional conflict that would endure for over a hundred
years.
The setting-up of a permanent army was necessary both to ensure the
kingdom’s security and to support the successive wars that Maria
Theresa would conduct against Prussia. The old system of levying
troops, called ‘noble insurrection’, was becoming dated – the last one
would take place in 1809 against Napoleon. The permanent army of
around 300 to 400,000 men, one third Hungarian, was placed under the
leadership of the Viennese Military Council; its general officers and lan-
guage of command were German. All aspects of society, including army
organisation, civil administration, finances, education and religious
practice, were revised numerous times during the course of the century.
Maria Theresa’s absolutism was moderate. For example, she made a
number of concessions that favoured the Hungarian estates but it was
a fragile modus vivendi and the compromise required constant renego-
tiation.

maria theresa and the baroque

Maria Theresa (1740–80) was twenty-three years old when she acceded
to the archdukedom of Austria, then, in 1741, to the royal crown of
Hungary and Bohemia. By her side was her husband Francis of
Lorraine, whom she made prince consort in Austria and succeeded in
having elected Holy Roman emperor in 1745. Despite her multiple
crowns, Maria Theresa began her reign with bad omens. As soon as it
became known that her father was dead, Frederick II of Prussia started
the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–8) and invaded Silesia. He
was not the only one to covet the dismemberment of the Austrian states.
Charles-Albert of Bavaria also entered the fray, contesting the legiti-
macy of the Pragmatic Sanction and making claims upon the imperial
crown. France, meanwhile, recognised Maria Theresa’s Austrian rights,
but not her succession to the imperial title. So France also joined the
succession war.
Thus, Maria Theresa’s tribulations began from the moment she was
crowned at Pozsony and found herself in desperate need of the
Hungarian orders’ support. Almost all her possessions were at stake
and her powerful enemies, Prussia, Bavaria and France, no doubt
dreamt of sharing out the spoils. Hungarian loyalty remained a pre-
cious asset to her throughout the wars, even after she had succeeded in
consolidating the Austrian army, and state finances and administration.
The Hungarian Diet of 1741 did not disappoint her. The states
general responded to her requests with the cry: ‘Vitam et sanguinem pro
Rege nostro Maria Teresia’, offering her their lives and their blood.
According to an anecdote, probably an invented one, some lords sup-
posedly added under their breath: ‘sed avenam non’ – but no oats.
Indeed, in article 63 of the law, the Diet had also voted for ‘oats’, in
other words, the mass levying of troops from the nobles (‘the insurrec-
tion’) as well as setting up an army recruited by ‘porta’, that is of
bonded serfs. Serbian soldiers and the Transylvanian cavalry were also
mobilised. This would have provided an army of 100,000 men. In fact,
the estimate is closer to 60,000, perhaps even less to begin with. Figures
fluctuate later, doubling or even trebling according to wars and circum-
stances. Nonetheless, the Hungarian army of the 1740s, heterogeneous
and rather outdated though it was, saved the Habsburg-Lorraines. The
Hungarian regiments went on to fight in every single one of their

queen’s wars; among the most courageous of her generals in the Seven
Years’ War against Frederick II were Counts Ferenc Nádasdy and
András Hadik. In the final analysis, despite losing Silesia, the Austrian
Empire ended up stronger than before, not least due to two efficient
ministers, Friedrich Wilhelm Haugwitz and Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz.
Each in his own way contributed to the modernisation of the adminis-
tration and finances, but could not interfere with Hungarian affairs.
The scene of Maria Theresa’s coronation at Pozsony has been
immortalised in paintings, literature and history books as an alliance
between a chivalrous nation and a tearful queen forever grateful to
them. The queen, who underlined the particular state rights of the
kingdom through her diploma and who restored, for a while at least, the
palatine’s role, was indeed extremely benevolent towards the
Hungarians.
Before moving to a description of the situation at the time, which was
improving daily thanks to Maria Theresa’s reforms, an outline of her
contradictory personality is needed. That she was intelligent is beyond
any doubt, but she was culturally limited. Her German was restricted
to the Viennese dialect, which she spoke fluently; her French was medio-
cre, despite its being the lingua franca at court. The empress was both
a moderniser and strongly attached to conservative values, a profoundly
religious Catholic and yet quite tolerant towards Protestants – although
she supported the Counter-Reformation. She was devout, maternal,
and marked by the contrasting traits of ‘the spirit of the age’: the
baroque – a mixture of mysticism, pathos and glitter.
‘The Baroque – Gloom or Glory’, is the title of a chapter in a book
in French by Victor L.Tapié on the Danubian monarchy. The moot ques-
tion, without interrogation mark, finds an answer precisely in the
harmony of difference. In Maria Theresa charity, sensitivity and piety
were the undoubted foundation stone. A bishop present at her corona-
tion compared her governance to a building with many storeys: its foun-
dations were the queen’s sanctity; the first floor symbolised the
Hungarian nation and its freedoms; while the upper floors were the
Crown and a peaceful government; finally, the attic contained Jacob’s
ladder reaching up towards the sky and the Holy Virgin, symbolising
Hungary as the kingdom of its patron, Maria – Regnum Marianum.
This metaphor, however confused, gives an idea of what might be called
the baroque in politics. According to the Hungarian historian Szekfü,

Plate 18. Maria Theresa wearing the Hungarian crown

the dual political system donned baroque garb, in the sense that eternal
confrontation was replaced by a search for equilibrium and the illusion
of timelessness.
If the spirit of the baroque is hard to define in the political domain,
it is much easier to identify through architecture and in the wind of civ-
ilisation that blew through the century. A new landscape was being
drawn. At first, it appeared in churches, chapels and castles built in the
manner of the Italian baroque style of the previous century. Some mag-
nates like Miklós Zrinyi wrote, built and lived in the baroque style. But
the flourishing of the baroque is primarily attributable to a desire and
a need to rebuild a country from the ruins and neglect of the previous
centuries. Towns like Buda, Eger, Vác, Veszprém, and into Transylvania
(where the great Protestant Prince Gábor Bethlen’s legacy lived on),
bear the marks of this reconstruction. As for the Great Plain, there were
numerous flourishing peasant towns thanks to the sultans’ wisdom, but
there was also an extended wilderness of ruined market towns and vil-
lages which were now rebuilt in baroque style, to the extent that it is not
uncommon to see an Orthodox church in non-Magyar regions built in
this quintessentially Roman Catholic style.
Wealthier magnates, like Eszterházy, constructed the most sumptuous
castles at Kismarton (Eisenstadt, Austria) and Fertöd – previously called
Eszterháza. For thirty years, up until 1790, Joseph Haydn composed his
works and directed the great lord’s orchestra in these palaces. Count
Antal Grassalkovich’s, one of them at Gödöllö, were also famous. In all,
around 200 baroque castles were built countrywide, along with manor
houses, schools and public buildings. Some great artists like Georg
Raphäel Donner left marks of their genius not only in Prague and
Vienna, but in Hungary too. Donner was a sculptor at Archbishop Imre
Eszterházy’s court, of the town of Pozsony and the altar of St Paul’s
monastery. For a country still recovering, subjected to Turkish wars up
until the 1780s, and to the ravages of the plague and cholera, reconstruc-
tion efforts were remarkable even if Hungarian baroque remained less
widespread than its counterpart in Prague or Vienna.
Since the court was in Vienna, many Hungarian magnates had their
palaces built in the imperial city. It was a custom that gave rise to the
view that the eighteenth century was ‘aulic’ and ‘anti-national’. Be that
as it may, civilisation spread to all domains: town planning, public
instruction and literature.

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Plate 19. Eszterházy Castle at Fertöd, 1791
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Absolutism, reforms, revolution 1711–1848–9 147

With the decline of Protestantism, education was taken over by

government authorities and especially by the Jesuits. In 1773, when the
order was dissolved, there were seven Jesuit colleges and forty-one sec-
ondary schools as well as several university faculties at Nagyszombat
and at the Kassa and Kolzsvár Academies. The Jesuits were not the
only teaching order (the Piarists were teaching almost 2,000 pupils and
their role in education would later increase significantly) but they were
the most influential. After the Jesuits, Maria Theresa’s reforms gave
teaching new impetus, but the order left its mark on the written word,
notably through the hundreds of plays and thousands of school perfor-
mances, along with history and geography textbooks. The Piarists’
contribution was also considerable, as was the Protestants’, whose
scholastic and literary culture, despite having been curtailed by the
Counter-Reformation, remained a major element in the baroque
period. The tradition of attending Protestant universities abroad con-
tinued. Wittenberg, Jena and Halle’s spirit of devotion was dissemi-
nated through the hundreds of Hungarian Protestant students. The
greatest thinker of this school was Mátyás Bél, a Lutheran pastor,
geographer–historian and ethnologist, before the term existed. He
wrote his scientific work in Latin, his others in Hungarian, German
and Slovak.
Alongside Latin, Hungarian literature was also growing. Its period of
great expansion began around the 1780s, due in part to the evolution in
thinking and institutions and also to an original initiative by Maria
Theresa. In 1760, she founded the noble Hungarian Guard, targeting
120 Hungarian and Transylvanian officer-cadets. After five years of
study and service, the cadets could choose either to join the army or to
return home enriched with knowledge. The same went for the
Hungarian pupils of the Theresianum College, founded in 1749. One of
the guards’ officers, György Bessenyei, organised a Hungarian literary
circle and became its figurehead and pioneer of the new Hungarian lit-
erature inspired by the philosophy and the literature of the
Enlightenment. When Bessenyei donned the guards’ uniform in 1765,
however, such developments belonged to a distant future. Maria
Theresa and her son, co-ruler then King Joseph II, were to transform
the political and social landscape before a new era of national and lit-
erary revival began in Hungary.

economy, society and attitudes in the eighteenth

century: an overview

The first reliable census was carried out in 1784–7, on Joseph II’s orders.
The king’s states numbered 23.3 million souls, 9.5 million of whom
lived under the Hungarian Crown, that is to say, in historical Hungary,
comprising Transylvania and Croatia. By the beginning of the nine-
teenth century (1804), 9.5 had risen to 10.5 million, an important factor
both at the time and retrospectively. Once again, Hungarian demogra-
phy was level with England, as it had been prior to the Ottoman wars.
Forty-five per cent of all the peoples living under the Habsburgs lived in
Hungary and together with their more distant dependencies in
Belgium, Holland and Italy, the proportion was over half. In historical
terms, this demonstrates that Hungary carried some weight in the pol-
icies of the Viennese monarchs. It was only thanks to their Hungarian
dominions that towards the end of the eighteenth century the
Habsburgs were a great power, compared with France with 26 million
inhabitants and giant Russia with its 40–45 million. Europe without
Russia consisted of 200 million inhabitants. This meant that after the
break-up of Poland (1772, 1793 and 1795), Russia, France and Austria
with Hungary dominated the continent, both in terms of territorial
mass and their respective populations, while Prussia dominated militar-
ily and England ruled the waves. The sixth power, the Ottoman, was
still close but would become the ‘sick man’ of European politics.
Having resumed its historical size – which included Transylvania and
Croatia – Hungary held an important position in the new European
configuration, despite its limited sovereignty and its state of convales-
cence. To return to demographic data, previous estimates were
retrospectively revised: despite mass devastation, the number of inhab-
itants after the Turkish withdrawal is likely to have been closer to 5 than
to 3.5 million and reached 9.5 million in 1784–7. The last figure cer-
tainly includes long established non-Magyars and recent arrivals: Serbs
(called Rác) and Romanians (called Oláh). Their immigration began in
previous centuries and continued throughout the eighteenth century.
Under the Habsburgs, abandoned or sparsely populated territories were
systematically colonised by both old and new immigrants, including
1 million Germans who settled in various regions. The newcomers,
among them Walloons, French, Greeks and Armenians, were settled by

a special state committee set up by Maria Theresa or by the governors

of Transylvania, or again by large landowners in need of labourers.
Priority was given to skilled farmers and artisans. In exchange, they
received material (land, houses, equipment) and financial assistance. As
well as Serbs, numerous Slovaks and other Slavs joined older settlers,
together totalling some 3 million. With an estimated 1.5 million
Romanians, 5 million of the 9.5 inhabitants were non-Magyars. Ethnic
composition had been reversed.
The repercussions would be felt later. As Kosáry points out, ethnic
proportions were not an issue at the time, indeed, statistics did not take
them into account at all. Nonetheless, the new migration wave also
changed the religious make-up of the country. Alongside the Catholics
and Protestants, there were now large numbers of followers of
Orthodoxy and Greek Catholics (Uniates). The latter preserved the
Byzantine liturgy but recognised the primacy of the pope and Roman
Catholic dogmas and in 1771 founded their first bishopric, distinct from
the Orthodox, at Munkács. This was was followed by Romanian and
Serbian Uniate bishoprics. There were also Armenian Christians and a
small number of Jews, estimated at 10,000 at the beginning and at over
80,000 by the end of the eighteenth century. After the retreat of the
Ottoman Empire, Turks also remained in Hungary, but there is no trace
of any Muslims. As for the Protestants, they had been curtailed by the
Counter-Reformation. Despite churches and schools being restituted to
the Protestants, Catholic Reform was pursued with more flexible
methods. Joseph II’s Edict of Tolerance in 1781 ensured religious
freedom for all.
For the first time in centuries, under Maria Theresa, Hungary entered
a long period of relative peace and prosperity. There were still Turkish
incursions, and it was obliged to contribute to the war effort required;
it underwent social unrest and localised conflict, notably the Szekler
protest movement against violation of their freedoms (called the
‘Mádéfalva Peril’) which was violently suppressed in 1764; her reign was
also punctuated by Romanian and peasant revolts along with natural
calamities and epidemics. Yet society was able to pick itself up, despite
its cumbersome and archaic social structure which consisted of 80 per
cent peasants on the one hand and a dominant nobility on the other rep-
resenting approximately 5 per cent of the inhabitants. In between the
two was a weak bourgeoisie, soldiers and a mixed population of varied

status. Regional variations and status diversity make it impossible to

draw a faithful social tableau.
The magnates and prelates were at the top of the pyramid. The 200
castles erected within the space of a half a century corresponded grosso
modo to the 200 richest families. Among them were a number of foreign
families – like the Schönborns, Grassalkovichs, Brunswicks and
Harruckerns – ‘naturalised’ by the application of the indigenate (indi-
genatus). Like many before and after them, these foreign families inte-
grated with the Hungarian aristocracy. Through their immense
fortunes and elevated state offices, the latter instigated what Norbert
Elias calls a ‘civilisation process’. They enjoyed a scintillating, cosmo-
politan, European lifestyle in their castles, playing host to thinkers,
artists and men of letters, both foreign and Hungarian.
In this multilingual environment, the more cultivated were familiar
with Latin, French and German writers, while Hungarian books were
the preserve of the more patriotic. The spirit of the time embraced a
plethora of styles: baroque increasingly took over classical culture, and
the Enlightenment also became influential. Alongside small libraries,
there were the larger ones. Count Jószef Teleki’s collection amounted
to 25,000 volumes by the time he donated it to the Academy of Science
as the foundation of its collection. If a new work by Voltaire or Diderot
could not be found, there was always the chance that the minister of
state, Carl von Zinzendorf, would drop in on his way to his Trieste
governorate. He was in the habit of travelling in two carriages, carrying
an entire library so he could read en route, and would lend and borrow
books as he travelled to and from Paris, Vienna and Zagreb.
It was a lifestyle only of the rich. A mass of 400,000 nobles, on the
other hand, were literally and figuratively speaking stuck in the mud of
the past. Inequality between magnates and nobles and their relative
power over the 7–8 million peasants was huge. Some had just one
servant, while others owned several villages and others still lorded it
over vast estates comprising thousands of serfs.
Inequalities existed among the peasants, too, but were less differen-
tiated. The luckier or more enterprising among them inhabited a ‘com-
plete’ tenure of around twenty hectares or more, while the poorest lived
in a shack with a backyard. The more comfortably off sold their prod-
ucts on the market, settled in the market towns and escaped servitude.
Then there were those who swelled the ranks of agricultural labourers

(inquilini) of the latifundia. Liable to unlimited drudgery, labourers

were much in demand by landowners who enlarged their allodial estates
in order to increase production.
Peasant grievances over this ‘second servitude’ exploitation reached
the royal court and did not pass unnoticed. Numerous documents and
memoirs from that time testify Maria Theresa’s concern to improve
their lot. But vis-à-vis the nobility her hands were tied: she guaranteed
their seigniorial rights as set down in Hungarian state law and she
needed their support. It is worth remembering that the archduchess of
the Austrian hereditary counties would not have been a powerful
European monarch had she not been in the possession of the Czech and
Hungarian Crowns.
While the administration promulgated reforms in Austria and
Bohemia, it encountered resistance from the Hungarian orders and
counties, where the nobility enjoyed a system of self-rule and used it to
preserve its privileges. The queen’s government nevertheless succeeded
in regulating the urbarium, labour statute. The 1767 royal decree stated
that a tenure had to provide 104 days’ manual labour or 52 days’ animal-
assisted work. Between the lords and the peasants was the motley pop-
ulation of the towns and market towns: bourgeois, lower clergy, traders,
craftsmen, employees, policemen, soldiers, along with a slowly rising
number of literates. In the middle of the century, there were around
20,000 graduates, both nobles and commoners, the honoracior.
At the close of the eighteenth century there were more than 60 free
royal towns, of which half numbered in excess of 10,000 inhabitants,
along with 665 county and market towns and 15,000 villages. Debrecen
had 30,000 inhabitants, while Pest, Buda and Óbuda (future Budapest)
had altogether 50,000. The majority of free commoners lived in the
towns as did graduates. In all, urban dwellers numbered approximately
600,000, 7 per cent of the kingdom’s subjects, compared with France’s
12 per cent, Italy’s 15–18 per cent and Holland’s 30–36 per cent. Two
factors need to be added to the ﬁgures: ﬁrstly, urbanisation in Hungary
was just beginning, while in Western Europe it was stagnating or in
decline; furthermore, the status of Hungarian city-dwellers varied
greatly and very few of them belonged to a truly emancipated bourgeoi-
sie. They accounted for a mere 150,000 out of the 600,000 town and
market-town dwellers, that is, 1.5–2 per cent of the total population.
The ‘civilisation process’ was certainly under way, but Hungary was still

far from giving rise to a genuine urban class, made up of bourgeois, free
labourers and intellectuals.
Towns were improving, externally at least. Pest’s and Buda’s water
systems were reconstructed (with wooden and then lead pipes). The
first postmark dates from 1752 and the first post office opened in Buda
in 1762. The two towns were connected by bridges; the first street lamps
were lit in 1777, and Nagyszombat University moved to Buda, at the
royal palace. Numerous institutions, new churches, schools, a music
conservatory, hospitals, libraries, theatres (German), public parks, a
botanical garden and a veterinary school all saw the light of day, along
with a few factories. Over in Pest, on the left bank, 453 of the 1,146
houses existing in 1765 were constructed in stone, the rest in puddled
clay with thatched roofs.
This veritable revitalisation was also felt far from the capital, in
Transdanubian towns close to Austria and, to a lesser extent, in the vast
countryside. The landscape was becoming less harsh, woods were being
replanted, muddy tracks were improved in order to be more like roads.
Most importantly, there was a commitment to raising living standards
through education, health and taking care of the most deprived.
Until the Reformation, education at all levels had been in the hands
of the Catholic Church and then had been shared with the Protestant
churches, not without difficulties and quarrels between the faiths and
rivalry among the teaching orders. Though the eminence and confes-
sional pluralism of these schools resisted the reforms introduced by
Maria Theresa and Joseph II, the educational system was nonetheless
transformed. The first Ratio educationis in 1777 subjected education to
state directive and created a uniform system. If the manner in which the
Hungarian authorities implemented the decree left much to be desired,
progress was noticeable. Primary schools multiplied and literacy spread
to the villages, especially under Joseph II. Before these arrangements,
there were 4,421 school teachers for 8,726 small towns and villages (not
counting regions directly under Viennese administration) – larger towns
had better provision – with the addition of a small number of minis-
ter–teachers. The new decree required each village to set up a primary
school with at least one teacher. Inevitably, these plans were not consis-
tently carried out and actual school attendance was mostly confined to
the three winter months; but despite a certain lack of diligence,
improvement was indisputable though very relative. According to an

inventory, attendance in Vas, one of the more developed counties, was

1.86 per cent in 1781 compared to 2.5 per cent in Austria and 2 per cent
in Bohemia and Moravia. Conditions improved further, following
Joseph II’s Edict of Tolerance (1781), which encouraged the develop-
ment of Protestant, Orthodox and Uniate schooling.
At secondary level, there were 130 schools at the start of the Ratio
educationis: 79 were Catholic, 47 Protestant, 4 Orthodox and Uniate.
As for higher education, there was already talk of transferring
Nagyszombat University to Buda where it expanded to 14 faculties, 32
professors and 423 students. A high school for training mining engi-
neers and a medical faculty were also founded. Both Catholic and
Protestant professors were usually well-known scholars. István
Hatvani, for example, pastor, doctor and chemist, an exceptional and
flamboyant character, who was nicknamed ‘the Hungarian Doctor
Faustus’, taught at the Protestant college in Debrecen. Despite the
ravages of the Counter-Reformation and Metternich’s restrictions, the
great Protestant teaching tradition did not falter. Transylvania, true to
its tradition, produced exceptional talents, like Farkas Kempelen, inven-
tor of a chess automaton (1770) and scientists like Farkas Bolyai and his
mathematician son, János Bolyai, who discovered non-Euclidean geom-
etry.
Training for midwives and veterinary surgeons was also set up.
Charitable enterprises multiplied: the queen was concerned with
orphans, the poor and re-education for fallen girls. For the first time,
attempts were made to settle the gypsies and attend to educating their
children, even if it was within the context of peasant families. Justice
was dispensed according to the rules and it was now separate from the
administration. Maria Theresa more or less put an end to ‘witch’ trials;
the last malefica was carried out in 1777 and the last trial in 1784 ended
in acquittal. In any case, even before this date there had been far fewer
sorcery cases than elsewhere: 600 in the three centuries following the
appearance of Malleus maleficiarum, the book written by two
Dominicans, which triggered this religious hysteria among Christians.
Since there was no Inquisition in Hungary, trials were less fierce, pun-
ishment more tempered and acquittals more frequent. Witch trials in
Hungary, furthermore, originated more often in pre-Christian beliefs in
the supernatural than in ‘demon mania’ or Satanism.
Maria Theresa abolished torture in 1776. Freemasonry, not without

inﬂuence, had around 30 lodges and 900 members in 1780. In all

respects, a new civilisation was being born. There was no lack of books
being published in Hungary: 5,000 of them during the first six decades,
10,000 between 1765 and 1790. The first literary dictionary, by Péter
Bod, was published in 1766 and contained biographies of more than 500
Hungarian writers. These were astounding statistics for an economi-
cally underdeveloped country. The proportion of books published in
Latin decreased from 50 per cent to 36 per cent. Works in Hungarian
now made up more than a third, those in German, more than 23 per
cent. There was an increase in secular, literary, historical and scientific
works. The press, which began in 1705 with Prince Rákóczi’s Mercurius
Hungaricus, remained Latin and German until 1780 when Magyar
Hirmondó (Hungarian News), then Magyar Kurir (Hungarian
Courier) appeared, both published in Vienna, followed by a general
expansion. German newspapers and books addressed the German-
speaking bourgeoisie, while Latin publications were for the educated
public. Hungarian found a broad spectrum of readers, from the great
palaces to the ranks of graduates and scholars, to wealthy peasants who
could read and write and the lesser nobility, highly cultured but some of
whose wealth amounted to no more than their ancestral ‘seven plum
trees’.
The Hungarian economy, as everywhere at the time, was rural but
more markedly so than in Western Europe, where industrial capitalism
had created new wealth and had given rise to an embryonic working
class. In 1747, Pest had 464 artisans shared between 68 professional
guilds; Buda and Pest together had 1,039 in 1774. By 1800, there were
80,000 of them, including the ‘unlicensed’, unaffiliated to a corporation
or guild, jealously guarding their medieval privileges. Factories were
rare: in 1790–1800 there were something in the region of 125 factories
and small manufacturers.
Thus Hungary was more bound to the spiritual life of Europe than
to its industrial revolution. Its wealth basically came from the land, hus-
bandry and agriculture. Contributing to this state of affairs was
Viennese economic and customs policy, which discouraged industrial-
isation in Hungary. While in Austria and Bohemia industry was making
rapid progress, Hungary was forced to remain their supplier of meat,
cereals, potash and wine (exported to Poland as well). After the annex-
ation of Fiume in 1776–9, Hungarian wool, leather, pork, honey, wax

and tobacco crossed by sea towards other markets; indeed, it was

believed that exports would increase as a consequence of the
Hungarian Crown’s acquisition of Fiume as corpus separatum, but the
poor state of roads and waterways had not been taken into account.
Just as in the distant past, cattle-rearing headed exports, bringing in
1,630,000 florins in the 1730s; in second place was wine, making
620,000 florins, and cereals, 510,000. In the second half of the century,
developments in agriculture were inconsistent. The latifundia, while
still relying on the unpaid labour of the serfs, adopted slightly more
modern techniques, whereas the peasants on their tenures still practised
three-year rotation and worked with the most rudimentary tools.
However, the introduction of maize around 1700 and the very late
appearance of the potato (1769) did improve the peasant’s lot.
Agriculture was divided between an autarkic, subsistence economy of
small holdings on the one hand and farmland production for the
market, on the other. Vienna favoured a degree of land-use diversifica-
tion, like mulberry trees for the silkworm, flax and hemp, or tobacco
during the American War of Independence. Agriculture nonetheless
remained the single most widespread use of land and its methods, if not
archaic, lagged far behind in terms of techniques, management and
modern multiple rotation. The Geometric Institute, founded by Joseph
II in 1800, trained engineers for the construction of the Ferenc Canal
between the Tisza and the Danube. Until the large-scale construction
work undertaken in the nineteenth century, however, a quarter of the
plains, 6.7 million hectares, remained covered by lakes, marshes and
unmanaged rivers.
Tradition was shaken in more ways than one with the arrival of
Joseph II, an impatient and exceptionally brilliant reformer. He con-
tributed towards progress in both the economy and trade but Joseph’s
ten-year reign was too short and structural resistance too strong for any
real change to take place.

josephism

Among Maria Theresa’s and Francis of Lorraine’s numerous children,

three became historical celebrities: Marie Antoinette, who died on the
scaffold in 1793; Joseph, who succeeded his father as emperor in 1765,
and to the hereditary and Hungarian thrones of his mother in 1780, and

died in 1790; finally, his brother Leopold, grand duke of Tuscany, who
assumed all the crowns of Habsburg-Lorraine only to die two years
later. He was followed by his son Francis. Together, they witnessed a fin
de siècle marked by events and men that would change the world: the
Battle of Yorktown, Washington’s and Jefferson’s America, the French
Revolution, the Republic, Lavoisier, the Terror, the Directory, the
triumph of English industry, Watt’s steam engine, Adam Smith,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, romanticism, Catherine II’s Russia, the rise of
Prussia, the division of Poland, Kant, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, Haydn,
Bach, Mozart.
A single generation saw the triumph of science, enlightened absolut-
ism, philosophers, revolution, rococo, romanticism – all in preparation
for a new polyphonic modernity. States found themselves forced to run
their governments, economies and structures more efficiently.
It was this necessity rather than an inclination for new ideas which
led the traditionalist Maria Theresa to reform the administration, army,
finances, towns, countryside, schools and hospitals. Her son Joseph II
(1780–90) waited impatiently for his day to arrive. Historians attribute
his impatience to his temperament and to the divergences between his
views and those of his mother, if not a basic incompatibility. Maria
Theresa was certainly authoritarian and a reformer, but not to the point
of imposing her will without consideration for the interested parties.
And certainly not to the extent of alienating magnates and nobles and
their support for the Crown. Apart from her moderation and his impet-
uousness, this was probably the nub of their disagreement. Maria
Theresa instigated innovation only when it seemed to her absolutely
necessary in the interests of her people and in order to preserve royal
authority. Joseph, on the other hand, seemed driven by an ardent desire
for change for its own sake. The spirit in which he imposed his designs
was more modern and enlightened than his mother’s; he was undoubt-
edly more in tune with the times, but certainly not with his subjects.
Maria Theresa acted gently, tactfully and with poise. Joseph employed
all the unlimited means of an authoritarian monarch; with him,
enlightened absolutism reached its peak. Joseph wanted to transform
society immediately while strengthening Austria against other powers –
among them, the Prussia of Frederick II, that other enlightened and des-
potic prince, his peer, whom he envied and admired.

For a long time, Chancellor Kaunitz, a man with broad yet well-
balanced views, acted as intermediary between the queen and her son.
But the chancellor’s competence was exercised in Austria and Bohemia,
not in Hungary. On coming to power, Joseph II immediately set about
integrating Hungary into his conception of a unitary state. In so doing,
he attacked in one fell swoop the privileges of the nobility, the rights of
the state and Hungarian cultural identity.
Joseph initially refused coronation in order to avoid direct confron-
tation with that jealous guardian of Magyar particularity, the Diet. And
yet, a substantial number of decrees issued by this ‘king with a hat’ got
through without encountering much resistance. The relaxation of cen-
sorship was a notable case in point (Maria Theresa’s vigorous applica-
tion had included confiscation of works by Montesquieu and Voltaire
from foreign diplomats) as was the famous Edict of Religious Tolerance
in 1781. The Edict abolished most discriminations against Protestants,
Jews and the Orthodox. Joseph II subsequently suppressed congrega-
tions with the exception of teaching and hospital orders. In all his lands,
738 convents were closed down and turned into schools. Civil marriage
was introduced and the dioceses – like the counties – were reorganised
into new administrative units. In some respects, Josephism has been
compared to Gallicism, but Joseph II was looking well beyond the sub-
ordination of the Church: he wanted to be the architect of a modern
state, for the good of both his empire and his people.
These reforms would not have provoked such bitter resistance if they
had not affected the most sensitive interests of the nobility and indeed
of a large section of public opinion. In 1784, Joseph II decreed that
forthwith the official language in all the states was to be German. His
decision was not a result of petty German nationalism on the part of
the emperor. Rather, he wanted a single administrative language in
order to govern better. Latin could not fit into his conception of govern-
ing the entire nation since the vast majority of his subjects had no
knowledge of it. Hungarian could not be universally used beyond the
confines of the kingdom and not even within them, for the linguistic
minorities like Czech, Italian, Serbian or Romanian did not even come
into consideration. The only contender, then, was German, which, once
extended to education, could train the elite capable of managing a
modern state. Joseph allowed three years to execute the project.

Nothing, or very little, was to come of it, since in addition to provok-

ing ‘national’ resistance, the decree was impossible to implement.
In the same year, 1784, population and house censuses were intro-
duced as well as a cadastral survey – a move which brought fears of
future measures which would involve taxing the nobility. These fears
were well founded: the royal decree of 1789 ordered the introduction of
a unitary tax on lands belonging both to peasants and to the nobility,
set at 12.22 per cent of revenues. Peasants, who were no longer called
jobbágy nor, thanks to another decree, compelled to free labour duty,
paid an additional 17.25 per cent dues to their landlords. This included
the redemption – or ‘instalments’ – in lieu of fee labour, thus improv-
ing the peasant’s lot without abolishing serfdom altogether.
Even for the more enlightened landowners it was too much, all the
more so because, in 1785, the king had abolished the county system,
bastion of local self-rule and heavily dominated by the nobility. In its
place, there were now ten administrative departments in Hungary and
three in Transylvania. We should remember that the county diets, the
dietines, had enjoyed extensive power: they had implemented the laws
and decrees – or conversely, sabotaged them. Their abolition, therefore,
reversed the so-called ‘dual’ system, in other words, a government
shared between the sovereign and the orders. Unrealistic and inappli-
cable, Joseph II’s audacious reforms were doomed, resisted by the
classes he relied on to support his authority. The explanation for his
stubbornness or desperate relentlessness remains open to speculation.
The fact is that the Austrian Empire was cracking up in several places:
in Belgium, in Hungary and in Transylvania, where a powerful revolt of
Romanian peasants had to be put down. Joseph also faced defeats in
terms of foreign policy. Prussia thwarted his Bavarian ambitions, he
became embroiled in a useless war against the Turks and the monarchy
was deeply threatened by the French Revolution, the Constituent
Assembly and the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
In January 1790, on his deathbed, Joseph II had the moral courage to
admit defeat. He withdrew all his decrees, except for the Edict of
Tolerance and the decisions taken concerning the peasants.
His successor, Leopold II (1790–2), was reputed to be an enlightened
and efﬁcient prince in Tuscany. With the help of his own qualities and
the notable Chancellor Kaunitz, Leopold was able to appease the pas-
sions of a Hungary exasperated by his dead brother, before turning back

to authoritarianism. In faraway Belgium, he put an end to an insurrec-

tion that had already run out of steam and, in 1792, allied himself with
Prussia against France. During the long reign of his son who succeeded
him, the absolutist King Francis I (1792–1835) – Francis II as Holy
Roman emperor – all the problems of the old regime resurfaced.

absolutist immobility and national awakening

Francis I was no enlightened prince, except on the subject of despotism.

The page of the Habsburg reformers had been turned. The authoritar-
ian innovator had been replaced by a reactionary brute, in conﬂict with
revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
The inﬂuence of the Enlightenment and the Revolution may well have
been overestimated but was real nonetheless. Some counties actually
asked the king to re-establish national rights – by virtue of Rousseau’s
Social Contract. But these nobles held the Social Contract in one hand
and the 1517 Corpus juris in the other. In other words, as the historian
Kálmán Benda suggests, they had confused ‘Rousseau’s people’ with
‘Werböczi’s people’, the latter meaning the nobility as the incarnation
of the nation. He cites one deputy at the Diet who declared that sove-
reignty belonged to the ‘privileged people’.
A small minority of public opinion, however, was seduced by the
Revolution. Rousseau and Voltaire had been read in educated circles for
some time, often in German, so as to ‘escape detection’ according to one
conspirator, Sándor Szolártsik. Freemasons continued to frequent their
clandestine lodges, while a variety of seditious clubs and circles were
also established. In the eyes of the secret police and its numerous agents,
all these places, whether attended by nationalist reformers, Josephists,
Girondists or Freemasons, were basically Jacobin vipers’ nests. Both
conservative and communist historiography, from opposite angles, have
tended to corroborate this image. In reality, there were very few true
Jacobins, even though force of circumstance caused a certain amalgam
of different tendencies. ‘Hungary is overrun by spies. It’s easy to be
labelled a Jacobin. Priests especially pursue their old profession’, the
poet Batsányi wrote in February 1793 in a private letter. And he con-
cludes: ‘Revolution is inevitable in our land too and, since the light of
pure reason has not made any headway, revolution will come in the
fashion of Hora and Gloska.’

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Plate 20. Execution of Ignác Martinovics and his comrades, 20 May 1795
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Absolutism, reforms, revolution 1711–1848–9 161

In the event, it was not to be, but the allusion to the 1784 Romanian
peasant uprising led by Vasile Nicolas Horea/Ursu and by Juon Closca
points to a radicalisation among supporters of change and the fear this
tendency aroused amongst magnates, local squires and even industrial
city-dwellers. As the Jacobin movement became more radical, sympa-
thy for events in France dwindled by degrees. Nevertheless it went as far
as Danton – at a pinch – but if the Hungarian journal Magyar
Merkurius published in Vienna is to be believed, the fall of Robespierre
was greeted with pleasure rather than regret.
Heading the movement was a rather strange individual, one Abbot
Ignác Martinovics. Franciscan monk, then professor of science at the
University of Lemberg, Martinovics’s connections were at best suspect.
In 1791 he put himself in the service of Franz Gotthardi, chief of
Leopold II’s secret police. His denunciatory reports are preserved in the
archives. When his services under Francis I were no longer required,
Martinovics transferred his loyalties entirely, joining the patriotic
nobles. From being an agent provocateur he became a conspirator, while
continuing to denounce them. What might have been going on in the
depths of this tortured soul will no doubt remain unfathomable.
Most significant among his writings are two revolutionary cate-
chisms and a project for a republican constitution. The first, written in
spring 1794 for the Secret Reform Society (Catechismus occultae soci-
etatis reformatorum), was mainly intended for nobles open to social
change and to the construction of a federal republic of various nation-
alities. The second catechism, written at the same time, was even more
audacious, calling for ‘a holy insurrection against the kings, nobles and
priests’.
The Jacobin trials began before the Royal Table (court) at the end of
1794 and ended before the supreme court, called the Septemvirale
Table, following an extremely severe special procedure set up by the
king himself, which was in contempt of the law. Of the fifty-two charges
that ensued – with the odd acquittal – eighteen death penalties were
issued and seven executions carried out. Heavy prison sentences were
meted out to the others. Of the seven executed, five were beheaded on
20 May 1795, two others in June, on a meadow in Buda, later called the
Meadow of Blood. The trial’s social spectrum was broad: among the
condemned, which included both nobles and non-nobles, were a count,
lawyers, judges, parish priests, monks, students, stewards, doctors,

poets and even an actor. There were probably many more in the wider
circle of secret society members, estimated at between 200 and 300, but
the movement was for all that isolated, lacking in coherent ideas and a
social base. One must remember the ethnic composition of the country:
Slavs and Romanians made up half the population and were unwilling
to follow the Magyar conspirators.
While heads fell on a Buda meadow, a landowner in Upper Hungary
who belonged to the old nobility, and who was a lower-ranking civil
servant of the royal Lieutenant Council, retired to his estate in order to
dedicate himself to his studies and to the affairs of his Lutheran church.
Gergely Berzeviczy wanted to reform the economy and the condition of
the peasants in a manner that was worlds apart from that of both the
Jacobins and the nobles. Misunderstood by everyone, his efforts
wounded his contemporaries’ national self-esteem and pride, even the
most enlightened among them, like poets Ferenc Kazinczky and Daniel
Berzsenyi. ‘Berzeviczy is stupid and wicked’, wrote Berzsenyi. In actual
fact, Berzeviczy wished only to modernise the country and saw the
Austrian economy as a model worth emulating, though he also con-
demned Vienna’s colonialist policy which hindered the development of
Hungarian industry.
Until the Congress of Vienna (1815), Austrian foreign policy and that
of its ambassador in Paris, Metternich, sought above all to contain
France so as to protect the Habsburgs’ ‘kingdoms and provinces’. In
addition to this legitimate concern, Francis I was violently opposed to
and fought the ideas of French Enlightenment and the Revolution, fol-
lowing in his father Leopold’s footsteps. Austria suffered defeat after
defeat: following the Prussian rout at Dalmy in September 1792, it was
the Austrian army’s turn to be defeated at Jemmapes. A succession of
setbacks against Napoleon followed, at Lodi and Marengo on the
Rhine. As member of the third and then fourth coalition, in 1809
Austria lost all the important battles: Ulm, Austerlitz and Wagram. As
a result, it lost its possessions in Italy, Germany, then in Croatia and
even in Galicia. At the Treaty of Schönbrunn (1809), it was forced to
give up 150,000 square kilometres of its possessions, along with 3.5
million inhabitants, and had to pay 25 million in war reparations.
General Bonaparte, meanwhile, had been consecrated emperor of the
French and Francis became emperor of Austria in 1804. Two years later,

he left his position of Holy Roman emperor on tiptoes – the last to bear
the title.
To understand Hungary’s position, we have to backtrack. Hungary
had contributed to the Austrian war effort in return for the semblance
of a sovereign state. The 1809 insurrection against the emperor of the
French is one episode highlighted by the chronicles. Napoleon tried
unsuccessfully to turn the Hungarians against Vienna. In a proclama-
tion from his imperial quarters at Schönbrunn, Napoleon exhorted the
Hungarians to recover their national independence, appealing to their
‘ancient and illustrious origins’, their Constitution and freedoms – in
the plural. He also promised them ‘eternal peace, trade relations and
assured independence’. In a word, the re-establishment of the nobility’s
old Hungary.
Documents published by the archivist Károly Kecskeméti indicate
that French services had long been well-informed about the state of the
country, its economy and agriculture – and not just superﬁcially. They
knew which products were crossing the sea, or were stopped from doing
so due to the appalling condition of the port of Fiume and they also had
detailed military information. Reports by Colonel Gérard Lacouée and
by the citizen Marquis Adrien Lezay-Marnésia, addressed in (and after)
1802 to the First Consul Bonaparte, relate the situation and the general
mood in a detailed and perceptive manner. ‘Few Hungarians’, he writes,
‘do not hate the Austrians and hold the reigning House in contempt,
while the French armies are admired.’ But despite these attitudes, the
report continues, ‘I doubt very much that General Bonaparte could
instigate a revolution, popular or otherwise.’ If the peasants ‘could be
pushed to revolt’, it would be ‘in favour of the House of Austria that
protects them against the lords that oppress them’. ‘Austria is near,
France is far away.’ And: ‘The Rákóczis and Thökölys are no more.
Hungarians of today have learned to conduct their affairs according to
self-interest rather than be ruled by their passions’, and rumour had it
that potential leaders ‘are for the most part sold to the Crown’. But
what of the bourgeoisie? According to an unidentiﬁed extract: ‘The
bourgeoisie are not poor enough to be seditious but are too poor to
possess ambitions.’ And in conclusion: were France to invade Hungary,
it would encounter little support but equally little resistance.
This is exactly what happened near the town of Györ in 1809. The

‘insurrection’ of nobles was dispersed by Napoleon’s troops. The

emperor, however, did not exploit his easy victory by occupying the
country and such restraint may well have been due to being well
informed.

Linguistic and literary revival and its ‘dictator’

After his reformer predecessors, Francis I represented steadfast absolut-

ism while Hungary was far from immovable. The Hungarian elite were
drawn to the ideas of the Enlightenment which resonated with their
particular aspirations. At a crossroads of ideas, the only viable way
towards revival was within a secular, national and enlightened cultural
framework. Its precursor, through his writings and his Hungarian liter-
ary circle in Vienna, was György Bessenyei, followed by several others.
The ‘revival movement’ enjoyed a surge at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century thanks to the unceasing efforts of its organisers.
Bessenyei and his linguist friend, Miklós Révai, had already expressed
their belief that knowledge was the key to development, and language
the key to knowledge. The role of organising a movement inspired by
these ideas fell to Ferenc Kazinczky, who, in 1801, had just returned
from 2,387 days spent in an Austrian prison for having been implicated
in a Jacobin conspiracy. He withdrew to his estate and dedicated the
thirty years that were left of his life to the revival of the national lan-
guage and its literature. This endeavour almost completely overshad-
owed his own remarkable literary output, and his translations of
Helvetius, Rousseau, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Goethe and Lessing.
According to Antal Szerb, a writer of this century, however, Kazinczky
was ﬁrst and foremost the ‘dictator’ of literary life. According to
another, László Németh, he was its ‘telephone switchboard’. Kazinczky
clearly wanted all the ‘communication lines’ to go through his little
Széphalom manor, and he was a ruthless literary critic, imposing the
elevated classicist style stripped of linguistic frills.
The revival of the Hungarian language was the focus of his life. He
was the leader of the ‘neologists’, who want to reform grammar and
lighten and enrich the vocabulary so as to keep abreast with cultural and
technical developments in Europe. They created new words based upon
Hungarian roots, by borrowing foreign words and then Magyarising
them, or by image association. The word for ‘secretary’, for example,

titkár or titoknok was derived from the existing word for secret: titok.
The Hungarian name for theatre was created out of two ancient words.
The word for revolution derives from the verb ‘to boil’, forr in
Hungarian, which becomes forradalom, which more or less translates
as ‘on the boil’’. Almost half of the 8,000 words invented by the ‘neol-
ogists’ have become part of colloquial and literary language; those
which were too artiﬁcial were lost along the way. Reaction among their
opponents, called ‘orthologues’, was ﬁerce, but society at the time had
genuine and complex needs which the movement could meet.
The use of three languages created problems that had to be
addressed: Latin was the language of the Church, the law and political
life; German was used by the Viennese administration and Hungarian
was the language of the Magyar people and the new national elite.
Inevitably, the promotion of Hungarian did not please all the subjects
of this multinational and multilingual kingdom. The nineteenth
century was, after all, the high-water mark for their different political
and cultural aspirations. The promotion of Hungarian, language of the
dominant Magyars, was nonetheless a major objective and both a cul-
tural and political necessity.
Apart from the problems of trilingualism, the reforms also had to
overcome geographical, social and religious divisions among the
Magyars themselves. The division was between ‘two different types of
culture’, writes János Horváth, perhaps even between ‘two nations’, a
result of the protracted separation of the kingdom from Transylvania,
aggravated by the former being predominantly Catholic, while the latter
was mainly Protestant. The dislocating effect of social inequalities
between peasants, urban-dwellers, country squires and magnates, who
spoke the same words but not the same language, was an additional
threat to the unity of the nation.
Last but not least, the language had to adapt to modern life. How
could industry be forged without a word to describe it? How could
trade be promoted if there was no equivalent term in the Hungarian
language? How could a cultural revolution be brought to ‘the boil’, if
the only term that existed for it was in Latin? It was through modernisa-
tion and enrichment that the old language developed the astonishing
capacity to cement national identity. One thousand years bc, Finno-
Ugric had had no use for the word ‘revolution’ or ‘industry’. The polit-
ical class was soon on the heels of the writers.

an aside

For an entire generation, between the years 1790 and 1830, the literature
of the intelligentsia had acted as primary agent of progress and nation-
alism. The ‘spirit of the age’ and the princes of the Enlightenment had
also brought about progress in material civilisation and mores. Though
there was no sharp division between the great minds of the turn of the
century and the generation of the reform years between 1830 and 1840,
the starting point for the reform movement was nonetheless very spe-
ciﬁc, a new situation which carried with it ideas and political pro-
grammes both old and new.
Problems in relations between the sovereign and the noble estates, for
example, were hardly new. However, with the arrival of the Habsburgs,
the issues of dualism became more complex. The estates were not only
defending the interests – political, constitutional and economic – of the
privileged classes, but also national independence or, in other words,
the rights of the Hungarian state against an expansionist, tentacular
and centralist foreign dynasty. The Czech and Moravian states, crushed
in 1620 at the Battle of the White Mountain, had never recovered. The
Hungarians, on the other hand, due to the existence of the Magyar
principality of Transylvania and to the presence of the Turks, were in a
better position to stand up to the sovereigns of Vienna. After the depar-
ture of the Turks and the defeat of Prince Rákóczi’s 1711 national upris-
ing, dualism had re-established itself in the constitutional order of the
Pragmatic Sanction. Louis Eisenmann, a French historian of the 1867
Austro-Hungarian compromise, viewed the Pragmatic Sanction as the
premise for a future compromise which would lead 150 years later to the
Danubian dual monarchy. The ‘ﬁrst compromise’ dating back to
Charles III and Maria Theresa was subsequently broken on several
occasions, notably by Joseph II. Re-established by his successor,
Leopold II, it was once again crushed, this time by his son Francis,
crowned in 1792. In the midst of the revolutionary and Napoleonic
period, Francis was nevertheless forced to champ at the bit and moder-
ate his absolutism, since he needed the support of the nobility to
contain subversion, just as they needed to maintain good relations with
the king for the same reasons. The situation soon changed with the
arrival of Metternich at the head of government and the accumulation
of Hungarian grievances against absolutism.

Among the grievances were the so-called gravamina, the

Hungarian–Latin name for breaches of ‘fundamental laws’, in other
words violations of public law against the nation, its status, its state law
and the privileges of its noble political class. Gravamina protests were
building up at the county diets and in public political life to the point
where, in 1825, after a thirteen-year gap, the king was forced to call a
national Diet.
The gravamina issue dominated the Diet but other demands, of a
very different kind, emerged simultaneously: liberal, cultural and eco-
nomic concerns – premisses of a liberal and increasingly democratic
era. The era of reforms was the product of a generation marked by great
ﬁgures from the upper nobility, like Miklós Wesselényi and István
Széchenyi, by writers like Ferenc Kölcsey, as well as the up-and-coming
generation of Lajos Kossuth, József Eötvös and others. This era of
reform is situated between 1825 or 1832 and the last Diet of the states
general, on the eve of the 1848 revolution.

an era of reforms

Until 1815 the Diet continued to provide the emperor–king with sol-
diers and money for the war effort despite its national grievances. The
Congress of Vienna, the Holy Alliance and the European accord would
not have affected this none too cordial entente between Austria and
Hungary if fresh grievances had not aggravated the general discontent
over Francis I’s absolutism and that of his chancellor, Metternich,
appointed in 1821. In addition to constitutional gravamina, the devalu-
ation of paper money, together with mandatory payment of taxes in
silver pieces, arbitrary levying of recruits, and lastly, the prolonged
absence of the Diet, left the court with no choice but to appease the ten-
sions. The Diet was therefore ﬁnally summoned in 1825, but the all-
powerful chancellor retained his position, and his policy, as hostile
towards national grievances as it was towards social radicalism,
remained unswerving. The era of reform thus ran parallel to the
Metternich era of his camarilla, his spies and police interventions. The
chancellor’s position was weakened to some extent in 1826, when Franz
Anton Kolowrat was nominated to the state Council, but Metternich
lost none of his inﬂuence. The death of Francis I and accession to the
throne of a harmless idiot Ferdinand V (1835–48) brought little change.

Louis, the archduke-regent, Metternich and Kolowrat followed the well-

trodden path. The Hungarian national recovery, however, continued to
spread to all domains: politics, the economy, education, literature,
theatre and the arts and sciences. It underwent a demographic upsurge
too: in the 1830s, the population of the entire country had already
reached nearly 13 million (Great Britain had 16 million).
So, after a thirteen-year recess, the Diet of Hungary was finally con-
vened in 1825. The Transylvanian Diet had to wait another nine years.
The Hungarian Assembly, by contrast, now convened regularly every
three years, in sessions that sometimes lasted two years or more. The
laws voted in by the Diet in 1825–7 and sanctioned by the king – as was
the brief 1830 session – restored constitutional rights, abolished arbi-
trary levying of taxes and recruits and promoted the use of Hungarian
as official language but did not widen the debate of ideas and reforms.
This task was taken on by the county diets, by newspapers and books,
the writings of Baron Miklós Wesselényi and Count István Széchenyi,
before eventually reaching the benches of the 1832–6 Diet and subse-
quent ones.
Reform did not signify a complete break with the past. According to
the 1839 nobility statistics, the country comprised 680,000 persons of
noble status (135,000 families). According to other estimates, there were
less than 600,000 out of a total 12–13 million inhabitants. Whatever
their precise number, this class dominated the Diet, where only fifty-one
free royal towns were represented. The Diet led what was essentially a
‘national recrimination policy’ against Vienna’s anti-constitutional
measures and it defended the privileges of the nobility against ordinary
people. Moreover, preoccupied with its national demands, the Assem-
bly also rose against the Croatian deputies, who had their own grie-
vances and insisted on talking in Croatian. Social transformation, from
one session to another, was consequently slow and difficult. Any denun-
ciation of the old regime was punished: during the 1830s, Miklós
Wesselényi, Lajos Kossuth and several young liberals of their circle
received prison sentences.
Spearheading social and economic progress, the opposition nonethe-
less managed to extract from this two-faced Diet – reformist yet conser-
vative – numerous liberal laws on freedom of expression and on social
and fiscal matters. The ambiguity was inherent: by a ‘trick of history’,
it was up to the nobility, in the absence of a genuine middle class, to

fulfil the historic role of the latter by abolishing the very privileges they
had clung to so tenaciously.
The political classes at the Diets continued to pursue their activities,
as did society at large, an embryonic civil society, that is. This aspect of
the reform era is at times overshadowed by the spectacle of parliamen-
tary struggles and its key players. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the
entire country was a ‘building site’ for new ideas and initiatives. A build-
ing site in the real sense as regards infrastructure projects, industrialisa-
tion, urban development and railway construction. A recapitulation of
the situation on the eve of the 1848 revolution will demonstrate the
extent of this growth, but the signs were already visible in the 1830s.
Initially, a protectionist tendency still prevailed as a counterbalance to
Austrian protectionism. The doctrine of the German economist
Friedrich List (prioritising national industry, protectionist customs
taxes) was very influential. A genuine defence movement of Hungarian
products developed, led by Lajos Kossuth, attracting no fewer than
50,000 supporters in theory but far fewer in practice.
Another indicator of an evolving society was the increase in associa-
tions, clubs and citizens’ mutual aid societies. In the eighteenth century,
there were around fifty societies and brotherhoods. In 1840 there were
at least 250 of various persuasions. And it was only the beginning. It was
also the dawning of a golden age of art and literature. In the wake of a
revival of language and literature at the beginning of the century, a
second generation of writers and artists now embraced the national
cause fuelled by romanticism. Ferenc Kölcsey, deputy, political thinker
and poet, wrote the verses to the national anthem in 1823; Mihály
Vörösmarty wrote his Ode to the Nation in 1836. The perfection of his
metric versification and the emotional power of his tragic poems, his
translations of Shakespeare as well as his own dramatic works, made
Vörösmarty the leading literary figure among his contemporaries, until
the appearance of Sándor Petöfi’s generation. There were thirty-five
printing houses in 1817 (not including Transylvania), employing 251
workers; by the middle of the century their number had doubled, and
there were fifty or so newspapers and journals and 200 writers.
This was also the heroic age of Hungarian theatre, started in 1790
with tough competition from German theatre. From the beginning of
the century, itinerant troupes had travelled from one town to another,
with a repertoire which went from Shakespeare to Kotzebue. The diary

Plate 21. The actress Róza Széppataki-Déry. Print by Chladek-

Kohlmann from a drawing by Szathmáry

of the most famous actress, Mme Róza Déry, née Schenbach

(Magyarised to Széppataki), tells the moving story of these pilgrimages.
The ﬁrst permanent Hungarian theatre opened its doors in Pest, in 1837
– permanent companies already existed in Kolozsvár, Kassa and other
towns – and in 1839 staged Jozsef Katona’s masterpiece, Bánk bán, a
romantic tragedy imbued with nationalist and revolutionary fervour. As
an illustration of the contrasts that were characteristic of the times, here
is a review of the play from one of the great reformers, Count Széchenyi,
written in German in his journal: ‘Unbegreiﬂich, dass die Regierung . . .’

‘It is beyond comprehension why the government has allowed such non-
sense to be performed. A bad and dangerous trend.’
Lajos Kossuth (1802–94), an admirer and opponent of István
Széchenyi (1791–1860), attributed this epitaph to the man who had
marked the Age of Resurrection before the Age of Insurrection
exploded in 1848.
István’s father, Ferenc Széchenyi – like the Eszterházys or Count
György Festetics who founded the ﬁrst Agriculture Academy and the
Helikon literary festivals – belonged to the aristocratic patrons. He
founded the National Museum and the National Library, named after
him. Count István Széchenyi, ofﬁcer in the imperial army until 1826,
began by following the usual path towards innovation. He started
rearing thoroughbreds and then became founder of the Academy of
Sciences and Club of Magnates, promoted both navigation on the
Danube and industrial development. Concurrently, in his successive
books, he developed his ideas about banking, credit and industry, in
other words, all aspects of modernisation as he had come to know it
during his travels in England. He paid several visits there and in 1834
met King William, Wellington, Palmerston, Peel, Grey and Nathan
Rothschild, who was keen to make István his son-in-law with an
apanage of 2,000 pounds a year. Széchenyi discussed the idea of con-
structing a bridge in Budapest with Clark. But for the country to be
modernised, medieval succession rights had to be abolished and, ulti-
mately, seigniorial bondage. As soon as his book entitled Hitel (Credit)
appeared in 1830, he was attacked vociferously for his programme,
which advocated the dismantling of the feudal system. Széchenyi
answered back and, while dedicating more time to his construction pro-
jects and enterprises, defended the positions taken by the Diets of 1830
and 1840.
His grand projects, to mention but a few, included river regulation at
the Iron Gate to facilitate navigation of the lower Danube; the creation
of a steamboat company; the construction of a suspension bridge
between Pest and Buda. For Széchenyi, an ‘English-style’ reformer, this,
along with equalising civic duties and imposing taxes on the nobility,
was the way to progress, rather than social subversion or nationalist
demagogy. And yet Metternich, who was very close to the count, con-
sidered him a dangerous element, whom he needed to restrain and
protect at court. The count saw danger as coming from conservative

Plate 22. István Széchenyi. Lithograph by J. Kriehuber

magnates and nobles on the one hand and from those more radical than
himself, notably his friend Wesselényi, and especially Lajos Kossuth, on
the other.
Clashes between the moderate liberal reformer Széchenyi and the
vehemently radical Kossuth ﬁll an entire library and the debate on their
merits and shortcomings continues to this day. Given that jealousy
between the two men was matched by an equal mutual respect, and that
both advocated a national reform programme, it is impossible to sum-
marise their disagreements without over-simplifying them. When, in
1841, Széchenyi published an entire volume of work entitled People of
the East, which he claimed was not aimed at the core of Kossuth’s policy,

but only his ‘manner’, one reader, a well-informed man of letters by the
name of László Bártfai, asked in his diary what this expression actually
meant. But he soon managed to ‘see through the tangled web of the
debate’ and to understand that behind the padded words, were two con-
flicting notions; Széchenyi’s criticism against Kossuth was in fact a
warning cry: ‘Do not go any further as it would lead to revolution.’
In the mid-1840s Kossuth was no revolutionary and even in 1848 he
still wanted to avoid a break with the House of Habsburg. But
Széchenyi, in his premonitory warnings, saw in him the ‘demon’ and the
‘dangerous madman’ who, through revolution, would lead the country
to its ruin.
There was also a fierce argument between the two protagonists over
their respective positions on the nationality issue: Széchenyi believed
that assimilation would come about through the beneficial effects of
general progress; Kossuth hoped that Magyarisation would occur as a
result of Hungarian democracy, culture, education and administration.
Public opinion was closer to the latter, inflamed by its own national
demands against Austria, combined with its desire for preponderance
over Slav and Romanian minorities in this multinational kingdom.
Széchenyi’s fear that an alliance between clamorous Magyar national-
ism and the narrow-minded reactionary nobility, his worst nightmare,
would become reality, may have been exaggerated but was not
unfounded. Be that as it may, the count, once praised to the skies for
awakening the nation, lost his popularity, whereas Kossuth, the first to
have succeeded in conducting a policy which moved the masses, carried
the day and was propelled towards the role of nation leader.
Lajos (Lewis) Kossuth, who was born in the market town of Monok
in 1802, and who died in 1894, exiled in Trieste, was the son of a lesser
noble, a modest civil servant and lawyer, and Caroline Weber, daughter
of a district collector of taxes. Such details mean little, of course –
Kossuth’s dazzling career was due to his personal qualities; but his
family background did represent, if only symbolically, the social
stratum that would be called upon to play a rather extraordinary his-
torical role: a nobility that was forced by circumstances to stand in for
a bourgeoisie that missed the roll call due to weakness and its predom-
inantly German extraction. The task which was incumbent upon
Kossuth, through a combination of personal qualities, background and
circumstance, was no less than that of knitting together into a modern

Plate 23. Lajos Kossuth. Lithograph by Franz Eybl, 1841

European nation a land whose development had been curbed by exter-

nal misfortune. Both progress and national freedom had to be fought
for simultaneously.
To some, like the British Edward Crankshaw, Kossuth had been ‘a
new kind of demagogue, without scruples’ who awakened ‘the pride
and arrogance, the subterranean romanticism of Magyar nationalism’,
and at the end of the day was no more or less than the ‘precursor of
Hitler and Mussolini’. This pamphleteer judgement demonstrates how
inept retrospective applications of contemporary values are.
Nineteenth-century nationalism brought about a genuine people’s

spring; while the nationalism of twentieth-century dictators augured

totalitarianism.
The diatribes of this journalist–historian, therefore, need not be taken
seriously. Though Kossuth’s increasingly radical policy against the
Austrian Empire was not met with approval, he was a highly respected
figure in European public opinion and, after his defeat, received a hero’s
welcome from London to Washington, where his bust adorns the
Capitol to this day, alongside those of the heroes of liberty. True, many
would subsequently change their minds and denigrate him, as did Marx,
who at one time called him ‘Danton and Carnot rolled into one’. Deák,
Eötvös and many others involved in the events started out at his side, but
later became architects of the reconciliation with the Habsburgs.
We should not anticipate too much, however, the events and the
circumstances, especially the conflict of 1848–9, which transformed this
lawyer – propelled to state leadership – into the great hero of the nation
and also a symbol of failure, his name synonymous with a war of inde-
pendence and a liberal revolution. Kossuth’s ascent had only just begun.
Having recently completed a three-year prison sentence because of
his seditious Journal of Debate, in early 1841 Kossuth launched a
journal that was to be the focus of the entire opposition, Pesti Hírlap,
which became especially famous for its dazzling editorials. It was then
that Kossuth’s political genius really took off. He realised that the plat-
form of the Assembly could not on its own generate a sufficiently broad
change in public opinion. At the Diet, the gallery was already on his side
but in order to reach the masses, he needed the press. He knew that the
social foundation of his bold reform programme was the ‘middle
ground’, the ordinary nobility, the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie –
in other words, a middle class in the making. Among them, the sub-
group requiring the most delicate handling in order to be won over to
his cause was that of the local squires caught up in a ‘feudal’ situation
without feudalism, knights without horses, without land and without
a future. With infinite patience, Kossuth cajoled them into gradually
giving up some of their privileges and very tentatively introduced the
idea of a light property tax. Even this proposal failed in the 1843–4
county diets and the national Diet, during which there were violent out-
bursts against the liberals.
This was not enough to topple Kossuth, however, who had emerged
triumphant from his arguments with Count Széchenyi. The aristocrat

had been eclipsed by the lesser noble who was not, as he himself liked
to point out, ‘born with a silver spoon in his mouth’. Kossuth remained
leader of the nationalist–liberal trend throughout these pre-revolution-
ary years.

hungary on the eve of the 1848 revolution

On the eve of the 1848 Revolution, Hungary and Transylvania num-

bered over 14 million inhabitants, 600,000 of whom were nobles, only
120,000 of them wealthy nobles. The latter, together with one thousand
magnates and prelates made up the traditional upper class. But the new
middle class, composed of nobles – many of whom embraced the liberal
programme – as well as the intellectual professions (about 50,000
holders of honorary diplomas) and the bourgeoisie, constituted a con-
siderable political and economic force. It was a force that operated like
a kind of third estate, with the difference that the assorted city-dwellers
who were neither noble nor bourgeois (240,000 craftsmen and 25,000
workers and their families) and a large peasantry were mere spectators,
waiting for the outcome of the reforms, the abolition of serfdom and
the advent of democracy.
Agriculture was by far the dominant economic activity and unmod-
ernised save for a limited number of experimental farms. The majority
of landowners and tenured peasants continued to use old-fashioned
farming methods, had no money and lived in autarky. Industry was no
longer in its infancy: it had started from practically nothing at the turn
of the century; now, ﬁfty years later, there were a thousand factories;
and yet this was only a tenth of Austrian and Czech industries. In terms
of production and foreign trade, proportions were even worse, not to
mention a steam-engine park that consisted of two dozen or so com-
pared with that of the Habsburg Empire which was a hundred times
larger.
An analysis of trading agglomerations, employing the method of
multiple variables (clusterisation) used by the historian Vera Bácskai,
gives a precise picture of urbanisation in 1828. It is complex due to the
very speciﬁc development of divergent Hungarian towns: administra-
tive and diocesan centres, county seats, mining towns, commercial
market towns and peasant villages. This survey is more conclusive than
using the number of inhabitants as a sole criterion of urbanisation.

Population ﬁgures tell us nothing about urban development levels: for

example, a densely populated large town may revolve entirely around
agriculture, while others might be flourishing industrial and urban
centres with a relatively small population. Traditional classification,
moreover, according to royal privileges bestowed over the centuries, can
sometimes distort reality in terms of the importance of trade, crafts and
production, or wealth, taxation and housing conditions.
Bácskai’s study, using about twenty criteria, groups together 57 local-
ities as being the most important towns, a figure close to the existing 60-
odd royal free towns, but one which does not describe the same reality.
Only 22 of the royal free towns and 6 episcopal towns are included
among the most highly developed urban centres, against 29 rural
oppida, a specifically Hungarian development combining peasant, craft
and commercial activities. Pest-Buda comprised more than 86,000
inhabitants at the time; Szeged, Pozsony, Debrecen and Kesckemét had
over 30,000 and there were three other centres with more than 20,000
inhabitants. Trades practised in these towns numbered on average sixty;
in the future capital there were 150. In the largest towns there were more
than fifty artisans and ten shopkeepers per 1,000 inhabitants; Pest and
Buda counted approximately 400 literate taxpayers and other towns
were proportionally similar. Out of the 86,000 or so inhabitants that
made up Pest and Buda, 16,000 households paid tax and 3,000 enjoyed
the rights of the bourgeoisie. In all this, agriculture, viticulture and
small trade still played a very important role. Development continued
and the dusty towns grew and changed. By the time of the revolution,
Pest-Buda-Óbuda had a population of 120,000, a beautiful suspension
bridge designed by two English engineers, William Tierney Clark and
Adam Clark, a permanent theatre, new hospitals, schools and adminis-
trative buildings. And you could travel to the town of Vác by train on
the line inaugurated in 1846 and celebrated in a poem by Petöfi.
There was never a more Magyar poet than Sándor Petöfi, son of an
assimilated Serbian and a Slovak mother. Patriot, radical, revolutionary,
his attitude towards non-Magyar nationalities was enlightened
empathy, but he was no more concerned with them than were his
friends. In those pre-revolutionary years, the order of the day was
Hungary’s national independence and its transformation into a
modern, liberal and democratic state; a profound reform which for a
Széchenyi or a Kossuth would naturally lead to universal citizenship.

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Plate 24. The Suspension Bridge, Budapest. Nineteenth-century engraving
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Absolutism, reforms, revolution 1711–1848–9 179

Debate among liberal Hungarians focused upon the modalities and the
pace of change and not on the suitability of another policy. And yet,
alongside social and religious divisions, the issue of national minorities
was now high on the political agenda; and it was not limited to lan-
guages: there were legal, economic, educational and cultural aspects
too. The whole of Europe was in the grip of romantic nationalism.
With 14 million inhabitants now under the Hungarian Crown, the
demographic deficit of the post-Turkish era had been reversed, but
more than half of the population comprised non-Magyar ethnic
groups. In contrast to ancient times, their assimilation was practically
never spontaneous. Though no one yet spoke of national identity as
such, an often quite vague national awareness, diffused and mixed in
with the social and religious, had been awakened.
According to the 1850–1 census carried out in the Habsburg Empire,
out of the 11,600,000 subjects of the Hungarian Crown – excluding
Croatia and Fiume – approximate figures were as follows: 4,800,000
Magyars, 2,240,000 Romanians, 1,740,000 Slovaks, 1,350,000 Germans,
1,100,000 Ukrainians, Slovenians and Serbo-Croats and 250,000 Jews.
In percentage terms, Hungarians made up 41.4 per cent, Romanians
19.3 per cent, Slavs together 24.5 per cent, Germans 11.6 per cent.
Denominational composition, established twenty years later, adjusts
the Austrian figures, which tended to be prejudiced against the
Hungarian point of view. Catholics and Protestants (Magyars,
Germans, Slovaks and Croats) constituted 69 per cent of the popula-
tion, the Orthodox 15.2 per cent, the Uniates (Greek Catholics and a
large number of sub-Carpathian Ukrainians and Romanians) 11.7 per
cent and Jews 4 per cent.
However one chooses to interpret the figures, one thing is certain: the
1848 events took place in a country that was both multi-ethnic and
multidenominational, strongly influenced by cultural and political
nationalist awakenings. The Croats, subjects of the Crown but with
their own diet and enjoying considerable state autonomy, constituted a
particularly complex problem. In the 1840s, Croat nobility had severed
its traditional alliance with the Hungarian states and orders. The Croat
national party and the Illyrian movement, an outcome of Napoleon’s
Illyrian provinces created between 1809 and 1813, opposed the pro-
Hungarian Croats, incited by Ljudevit Gaj, writer and editor of Ilirske
Narodne Novini.

Equally strong cultural nationalist currents existed among the

Slovaks in Upper Hungary, the Serbs in the south and the Romanians in
Transylvania. To say that the intellectuals and patriots of these nation-
alities were unhappy about the introduction of Hungarian as the offi-
cial language – the concept of ‘one state, one nation’ – and the
Hungarian political class’s assimilationist policy would be an under-
statement. Nor were they received wholeheartedly by Hungarian liber-
als. As for the Viennese court, in accordance with its age-old tactic of
‘divide and rule’, it encouraged the minorities to pursue their demands.
In three-nation Transylvania (Magyar, Szekler and Saxon), the fourth
nation, the Romanians, had raised their heads, influenced by the intel-
lectual Balázsfalva circle and the journal Gazeta de Transilvania. The
journal was also read in Bucharest and among the Romanians of
Hungary. The latter did not manifest hostility towards the Magyars;
they were too preoccupied with their grievances against the Serbian
Orthodox clergy who dominated the regional Church. Serbian
demands had nonetheless made some headway, lead by Josip Rajačič,
bishop of Karlóca and future archbishop, and the writer Vuk Karadžič,
reformer of the Serbian language. The vision of a Greater Serbia as an
ideology was also upheld by the Serbian minister of the interior, Ilija
Garašanin. As for Serbians living within the kingdom of Hungary, their
most important journal, Serbske Narodne Novine, published in Pest,
leaned more towards Hungarian reformism.
In Upper Hungary, the ‘war of languages’ raged between Magyars
and Slovaks. Two high-flying intellectuals led the Slovak movement: Jan
Kollár and L’udovit Štúr, both opponents of Magyarisation. Kollár’s
profile illustrates well the complexity of the situation: he was a
Lutherian pastor living in Pest, wrote in Czech and adopted a pro-
Austrian and Austro-Slavist policy. Austro-Slavism as opposed to
Russian-Panslavism envisaged the union of the Slavs of the Habsburg
Empire, a vision dear to the great figure of Czech nationalism, František
Palacký, author of the famous phrase, ‘If Austria didn’t exist, it would
have to be invented.’ It was he who in June 1848 presided over the Prague
Panslavic Congress. Nevertheless, from the Hungarian perspective,
Austro-Slavism and the pro-Russian Panslavism that Miklós Wesselényi
had been the first to spot on the horizon, were indistinguishable in that
both of them threatened the integrity of the kingdom’s territory.
L’udovit Štúr, further to the left than Kollár, played the more important

role at the time. Writer and editor of a very influential Slovak journal,
Slovenskje Narodnje Noviny, Štúr became Slovak Slavism’s most
radical and democratic leader.
In this mosaic of nationalities and trends, the German minority –
with the exception of the Saxons – was the only one that did not express
hostility towards or make demands on the Hungarians. Most Germans
had settled many centuries previously, were scattered across several
regions, enjoyed old bourgeois privileges in towns and the status of free
peasants in the countryside. They were prosperous; cohabitation with
the Magyars did not cause them any hardship; they used their language
(in fact, a number of German dialects) without hindrance and many of
them had totally integrated with the Magyar population.
The direction taken by one nationality or another was also subject to
the combination of external events. In this period when great nations
were being shaped, two routes opened up: German-style integration of
state clusters, and unification Italian-style, led by Piedmont and involv-
ing wars of liberation. In both cases, a unifying state was the driving
force: Prussia and the kingdom of Sardinia. The third way, amalgama-
tion by secession, was only half-open due to the existence of gravita-
tional centres, like Serbia for the Serbians, Walachia and Moldavia for
the Romanians. But for the others, there was no adjacent ‘mother
nation-state’ to allure them. Czecho-Slovakia was a dormant idea;
Bismarck was more concerned with eliminating Austria than with
attracting any of the Germanic groups dispersed in the back of beyond.
The Serbian frontier guards who had risen up against the Pest-Buda
government wanted to create an autonomous voïvodina.
The Jewish minority constituted a special case; in the mid-nineteenth
century, there were some 250,000 Jews in Hungary, as opposed to 75,000
in 1785, about 1 per cent of the population. Due to a massive influx of
Jews from Bohemia and Moravia, followed by another from Galicia, no
other ethnic group or religion underwent such a dramatic increase in
numbers over a century. Despite some reservations and suspicions, even
contempt, these immigrants were on the whole well received. The accel-
eration of immigration as well as the favourable reception of Jews is
incomprehensible without a detour into much earlier history.
Countless documents from the Middle Ages and the modern age
attest to a Jewish presence in Hungary since the year of the conquest,
895. As with other Jews in Europe, they were dependent upon powerful

lords, the king first and foremost, from whom they received protection
in exchange for a collective Jewish tax for loans and other payments,
services or straightforward ransoms. They were subjected to the custo-
mary discriminations: the wearing of distinctive signs and clothes was
compulsory; there were restrictions concerning property and profes-
sion; cohabitation with Christians was forbidden – although this last
rule was not very strictly respected. And yet Hungary’s few thousand
Jews fared far better than those living in Spain, France, Germany or
England. They were spared from the massacres perpetrated during the
Crusades and, aside from a few isolated cases, were not subjected to
pogroms or mass expulsions.
One chronicle tells of an incident at the time of Matthias Corvinus’s
wedding with Beatrice of Aragon in 1476, when twenty-four Jews on
horseback and two hundred on foot, all sumptuously attired and with
swords drawn, came to salute the couple at the gates of Buda and placed
the Torah scroll in their hands. Such a scene, almost beyond imagina-
tion, would never occur again. Following the death of this Renaissance
king, Jews were attacked by all those jealous of their royal privileges.
The mainly German urban bourgeoisie let loose its fury upon these rival
foreigners who practised strange rites and often usury. Thus, alongside
religious anti-Judaism, a modern day competitive anti-Semitism
emerged. A sign of the times was the hysteria that characterised ‘ritual
murder’ trials that occurred in certain towns under certain lords: Count
de Bazin, for example, had thirty Jews burnt in 1529.
Nonetheless, the kingdom of Hungary had far less persecution and
offered a higher guarantee of security to Jews than other countries.
Religious tolerance in Turkish-occupied territories had attracted Jews
escaping persecution in several Christian countries.
In Transylvania, champion of tolerance, cases of anti-Judaism were
rare except in Saxon towns. The Helvetic Reformation tended to kindle
a certain affinity with the people of the Bible. Transylvania was also
birthplace to the Sabbatist sect, related to Judaism and founded by
Simon Péchi (1570–1642), who was later imprisoned and his sect out-
lawed. Conversion to Christianity, on the other hand, was for some Jews
the way to social integration and career openings, sometimes to the
highest offices of state or Church.
The era of the Habsburg kings, and Ferdinand III’s rule (1637–57) in
particular, was particularly difficult for the Jews: the Diet practically

outlawed them and a number of towns once again expelled them.

Leopold I (1657–1705) then imposed a special tax, called a tolerance
tax, which remained in force under Maria Theresa and Joseph II.
Taxation was not to be taken lightly; nonetheless, in 1783, Joseph II –
in keeping with his enlightened government – despite having no sympa-
thy whatsoever with this despised race, promulgated the ‘systematic
regulation’ of the Jews’ status. The regulation accorded them a number
of civic rights, among them, access to towns, participation in industry
and admission to Christian schools without having to wear any distinc-
tive sign.
Medieval anti-Judaism was fading, competitive anti-Semitism per-
sisted and the Jewish question was incorporated into a long and fertile
debate of ideas, throughout the periods of the Enlightenment and the
French Revolution, as well as during the extraordinary growth of
Hungarian ideas and collective attitudes. While the urban bourgeoisie
remained on the whole hostile, enlightened intellectuals and nobles
were in favour of Jewish emancipation and even of further immigra-
tion, though with some reservations, particularly with regard to the
Galicians, who were poor, ragged, spoke Yiddish and practised a kind
of social auto-exclusion. If legal and social integration did go ahead it
was because, unlike most minorities, the Jews were willing to change
their ways. Whether orthodox, faithful to their religion and particular
customs or, with greater reason, culturally assimilated, they adopted
the Magyar language, nationality and even patriotism. Their contribu-
tion was invaluable at a time when pressure from other national minor-
ities began to weigh upon the Magyars. Liberal leaders Széchenyi,
Kossuth, Ferenc Deák and József Eötvös all favoured emancipation.

the ides of march 1848: the revolution

During the year 1848, revolutions swept across Europe like a tidal wave:
it was the ‘springtime of the people’. Revolution broke out in Palermo
and Naples, then on 23 February, in Paris, leading to Guizot’s fall, Louis-
Philippe’s abdication and to the proclamation of the Second French
Republic. On 13 March, the revolutionary wave reached Austria:
Klemens von Metternich was driven out of ofﬁce; Emperor Ferdinand V,
under duress, promised Austria a free press and a constitution. Italy and
Germany were inﬂamed too, but it was the Paris and Vienna revolutions

Plate 25. Sándor Petöﬁ. Painting by Miklós Barabás, 1848

that ignited the Hungarian gunpowder. Nevertheless, no blood was

spilled in what the historian István Deák aptly described as a ‘legal rev-
olution’.
Carried along by the enthusiasm of a few groups of young intellec-
tuals, the ‘romantic revolution’ of the people of Pest coloured six
months of revolutionary political transformation as well as the war of
national liberation that followed from September 1848 to August 1849.
As soon as the news from Paris reached Hungary, Lajos Kossuth went
on the political offensive at the Pozsony Diet with his liberal–radical

programme, which was soon relayed to Pest. In the name of the

Opposition Circle, one of its leaders, József Irinyi, drafted the
‘Demands of the Hungarian nation’, the famous ‘Twelve Points’ para-
graph comprising the essence of Kossuth’s 3 March programme and
reflecting the ideas of the Pest radicals. They planned to present the list
of demands to the people eight days later, but news of the Viennese rev-
olution accelerated events. Gathering at the Café Pilvax on 14 March,
the young men of Pest took action instead. The 25-year-old poet,
Sándor Petöfi, drafted the famous and flamboyant ‘National Song’ and,
the following day, the young revolutionaries, escorted by an increasingly
large crowd, had the poem and the twelve demands printed without per-
mission from the censor. Events were precipitated forward: a meeting
was held in front of the National Museum, crowds gathered at the
Municipal Assembly, joining the opposition and its ‘Twelve Points’. The
crowds then freed the imprisoned Mihály Táncsics, an old plebeian
rebel. 15 March was the revolution of the radicals and of the streets in
Pest – in step with Kossuth and his opposition party at the Pozsony Diet.
After the young revolutionaries, the Hungarian men of state whose
thinking had been formed during the two reformist decades took
control of the political action that followed; but the heat generated on
the streets of Pest was fuelled by more than a momentary flame. Petöfi,
Irinyi, Pál Vasvári, Mór Jókai and their friends continued to push the
revolution forward, and the demands drafted on the Ides of March
determined the events that followed. The Twelve Points – comprising 69
words – gave expression to the will of the nation: freedom of the press;
abolition of censorship, the ministry in charge and National Assembly
in Buda-Pest; equality of civic and religious rights; equal and universal
contribution to public expenses; abolition of seigniorial taxes; a
national bank and national armed forces; freeing of political prisoners;
legal reforms; union with Transylvania.
Each demand entailed a conflict of interest with Vienna’s absolutist
institutions and administration. The revolution wanted to abolish the
restrictive and discriminatory laws, indeed, the entire political and eco-
nomic system – dominated by Vienna from outside and by the privi-
leged classes, their diets and dietines inside the country. Despite
numerous obstacles, pitfalls and reversals, the reform programme went
ahead: Hungary was on the home run towards national independence,
civic democracy and bourgeois liberalism. It fell to a rather divided

political class to conduct a double struggle: with the reaction from

Vienna and also with internal divisions. And then there was the nation-
ality problem. The freeing of the serfs had attracted mass support for
the revolution among the peasants, but the national minorities were
soon putting forward their own demands, thus intervening in the con-
flict between Austria and Hungary.
At the Pozsony Diet, conservatives in both chambers were swept aside
by Kossuth’s party, a victory due partially at least to scaremongering
among the wealthy: it was said that a peasant army led by Petöfi was
preparing to march on the Diet.
At the other cardinal point, in other words the imperial capital, the
March revolution succeeded because the government was weak and
psychologically destabilised. After Metternich’s dismissal, the feeble
king and the State Conference ratified the key laws of the Hungarian
Diet, the ‘April laws’: The promulgation of these laws meant that the
revolutionary achievements became legalised. Victory entailed the
installation of a Hungarian government accountable to the Assembly,
universal suffrage, the complete abolition of serfdom through the sup-
pression of tithes and dues, eventual indemnity of landowners under-
taken by the state and a general and universal tax. Despite subsequent
recriminations and reversals, there was no turning back for supporters
of the old regime. Seigniorial Hungary had had its day.
By April, therefore, the main national demands had been granted.
The king, under pressure and also through the mediation of the pala-
tine, István, son of Archduke József and sympathetic towards the
Hungarians, agreed to the formation of a Hungarian government under
the presidency of Count Lajos Batthyány. The cabinet included, among
others, Ferenc Deák, Bertalan Szemere, Gábor Kaluzál, Baron József
Eötvös as minister of public education, Kossuth as minister of finance
and Count Széchenyi. The latter, despite his old animosity towards
Kossuth and his reservations bordering at times on a phobia with regard
to the revolution, accepted the portfolio of public works and transport.
On 11 April, the Diet was dissolved – for ever. The ancient institution
was replaced by the National Assembly elected by direct suffrage con-
stituted by the nobles, the bourgeoisie and wealthy peasants. There
were more electors than were admitted by the British 1832 Reform Act.
Hungary was now a constitutional parliamentary monarchy, governed

by an accountable ministry, since the royal lieutenancy seated in Buda

along with the Hungarian chancellery of the Viennese court had been
abolished. The Austrian emperor, however, remained king of Hungary;
Hungarian sovereignty was not internationally recognised and there
was no foreign office minister in Pest. On the other hand, a national cur-
rency, the forint, was soon in circulation and the Hungarian national
guard and army were established. Finally, following a general election,
the first National Assembly of 415 deputies, mainly from the provincial
nobility, opened on 5 July. The radical stream represented by Petöfi’s
friends, and the poet himself, did not do well at the election: their only
deputy was József Irinyi, though among the liberal deputies, forty or so
were close to the young republican radicals.
Transylvania soon followed suit, proclaiming reunification with the
mother country on 30 May, a union which eventually gained the sanc-
tion of the king. The issue of military frontiers under Austrian rule,
having been the object of dispute for half a century, was also resolved
to the satisfaction of the Pest-Buda Hungarian government.
National minority demands, meanwhile, were listened to, placated
but basically refuted. As was the case in more than one European
country at the end of the twentieth century, the Hungarian liberals of
1848 were not ready to renounce the concept of a unitary state and to
concede autonomous territories to the different nationalities. They con-
sidered that liberating the serfs and ensuring equal civic rights to all cit-
izens, regardless of ethnicity or creed, would solve the minority
problem. Minorities were, after all, within the ‘constitutional bastion’.
And, indeed, there were plenty of ex-serfs who were more enthusiastic
about the social freedoms brought about by the Magyar revolution than
they were about the respective ethnic struggles for national freedoms.
Yet ethnic minorities were now increasingly aware of their identity, and
the national ideal continued to win hearts and minds. Throughout the
Austro-Hungarian conflict, the repercussions of the national Slovak
movement in Upper Hungary, Serbian bids for autonomy and
Romanian movements, spurred by the Balázsfalva meetings, were
keenly felt. Even the Transylvanian Saxons, better off than the
Romanians, opposed union with Hungary.
Croatia constituted a special case. It was part of the Hungarian
Crown lands, but enjoyed considerable autonomy and its own diet, the

Zagreb Sabor, while also dependent upon the authority of the bán, the
civil governor designated by the king of Hungary – and consequently, the
emperor–king since the Habsburgs had occupied the throne. Because of
this triangular constellation, the Austro-Hungarian compromise arrived
at twenty years later would have to include a Hungarian–Croatian com-
promise so as to respect Croatia’s state rights. The situation in 1848 was
more explosive than it would be in 1867–8. With the kingdom of Croatia
embedded in that of Hungary, in turn bound up with the Austrian
Empire of the Habsburgs, Zagreb was to play an important role. Neither
the bán, General Josip Jellačič, a strong national figure, nor the more
powerful section of the Croatian political class, wanted to march along-
side the Magyars. Against expressed prohibition by the king – who was
linked to the Hungarian constitution – Jellačič convened the Sabor and
refused to enter into negotiations with the palatine.
Vienna initially approved Hungary’s position with regard to the
national minorities, and went as far as recalling Jellačič – though the
gesture was more symbolic than anything else, and the Sabor, on its
part, did not hesitate to refuse its co-operation. This played into the
hands of Vienna. The Austrian government provided Zagreb with the
financial means to arm itself and, on 4 September, restored Jellačič to
office. The intention was obvious: the imperial government wanted to
put an end to the Hungarian revolution and its independence.
A great deal had changed in the meantime. Austria had never been
keen on Hungarian separation but had been unable to stop it.
Furthermore, it needed the Hungarian military contribution in its fight
against Charles-Albert, king of Sardinia and of Piedmont. But the
victory of the Austrian army, led by General Josef Radetzky at Custozza
on 25 July, followed by the reconquest of Milan in August, had restored
Austria’s confidence; all the more so, as order was already restored in
Prague where Prince Alfred Windischgrätz had crushed the 16 June
Czech uprising and in Paris the June barricades had fallen. The court
that had fled to Innsbruck on 15 May, returned to Vienna in August.
These dates explain the serenity that set in: the great European revolu-
tionary wave had been forestalled.
It was time for Vienna to play its Croatian card against Hungary.
Events turned drastically: after six months of peaceful revolution, war
broke out.

the war of independence

Since Austrian power had been strengthened, threats to the Hungarian

revolution increased dramatically. The Austrian government tried to
renege on the political concessions it had given away in its moment of
weakness and set about encouraging Croat separatism as well as the
other nationalist movements within Hungary. Serbian soldiers from one
military district embarked upon an armed revolt against the royal
forces, and armed Slovak groups were on the brink of rebellion. In the
face of danger, the Buda-Pest government speeded up its own prepara-
tions for war: a national army – known as Honvédség (the Hungarian
territorial army) – was set up, armament and equipment factories
bought, political and social rights were broadened and their patriotic
propaganda increased. ‘The fatherland is in danger’, a slogan launched
by Kossuth, minister and democratic leader, reverberated throughout
the land. His speech to the Assembly on 11 July led the deputies to vote
for 200,000 recruits and a military credit of 42 million.
War broke out on 11 September. On that day, General Jellačič’s army
crossed the Croat frontier and began the march towards Vienna, via
Transdanubia. Austria had not yet officially joined the conflict and was
in negotiation with Budapest; but Jellačič’s war was Vienna’s, and the
Austrian General Karl Roth had already joined in the hostilities. After
this manifest aggression, events accelerated: counterstroke and mobil-
isation in Hungary. Battyány’s attempt to form a second government
failed through royal refusal, leading to the resignation of the prime min-
ister on 2 October. The effective government of Hungary was taken over
by the Fatherland Defence Committee, which the Assembly held on 8
October, enlarged and vested with all the necessary powers. It was
Kossuth’s moment – his speeches, beginning with one he gave on 24
September in Cegléd, fanned the fires of patriotism and mobilised the
population.
The first large-scale battle took place on 29 September. The Honvéd
army stopped Jellačič at Pákozd, on the Transdanubian hills. Before
their next confrontation one month later, momentous political events
took place which hardened positions on both sides. On 28 September,
the people of Pest murdered General Franz Philippe Lamberg, sent to
take high command of the imperial army stationed in Hungary. He was

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Hungarian Diet
Transylvanian Diet
Liptószentmiklós Assembly
Assembly of nationalities
Da
nu Battle
be
Pozsony sza Siege
Schwechat Ti
Deposition
Komárom
Vác Place of surrender
Isaszeg Kapolna

C
Buda Debrecen
Pest
Pákozd

Balaton
Kolozsvár

ros
Ma
Szeged Világos Segesvár
Arad Balázsfalva
Agram Vizakna
Drav
a Piski Nagyszeben
Szenttamás Temesvár
Eszék
Sava
Danube
Karlóca Principal war zone
Transylvanian war zone
AD
R I EA

Guerilla activities
(Serb, Romanian, Slovak)
AT
S
I

Map 8. Hungary in 1848–9

Absolutism, reforms, revolution 1711–1848–9 191

replaced by Jellačič. At the same time the monarchy dissolved parlia-

ment and replaced Batthyány with another head of government; the
Hungarian Assembly declared these decisions null and void.
On 6 October, the people of Vienna came to the rescue: Count
Théodore Baillet de Latour, war minister, was hanged from a lamp post
by an insurgent crowd and appallingly mutilated. To escape this second
Viennese insurrection, the court escaped by train to Olmütz (Olomouc)
in Moravia.
It was then, on 8 October, that the Assembly in Pest nominated
Kossuth president of the Defence Committee. He proceeded to take on
leadership of the executive, endowed with almost dictatorial powers.
Austria was not slow to promote its own strong men: Alfred
Windischgrätz, the ‘Prague executioner’, was nominated commander-
in-chief, vested with full powers to suppress the Viennese and
Hungarian revolutions.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian army twice penetrated into Austria, and,
on 25 October, marched on Vienna in order to help the insurgents. The
plan foundered: on 30 October, Windischgrätz defeated the Hungarian,
General Móga, near Vienna, at Schwechat, and the Hungarian army
retreated back to Hungary. Having quelled the Viennese revolution,
Windischgrätz set about preparing for his Hungarian campaign which
in December took him to Györ, and then as far as Pest-Buda.
The political and military situation at the end of 1848 was therefore
hardly favourable for the Hungarians, the exception being
Transylvania. In Austria, another strong man, Prince Felix
Schwarzenberg – as it happens a relative of Windischgrätz – was
appointed prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, therefore, like
Metternich, controlling the two reins of government. Since 2 December,
Austria had had a new emperor: the good-natured Ferdinand V abdi-
cated in favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph I. The future beloved
patriarch King–Emperor Francis Joseph, eighteen years of age, soon
demonstrated an all-consuming ambition to re-establish absolute
authority at all costs and without compromises.
With Windischgrätz at the Pest-Buda gates on 31 December, the
Hungarian government decided to leave the capital and install itself 200
kilometres further east, at Debrecen. Meanwhile, back in November, a
legendary Polish general, Józef Bem, had offered his sword to Hungary
and taken command of the Transylvanian army. The war continued

throughout the winter on several fronts and without any decisive advan-
tage for either side, until spring 1849.
Having won the Battle of Kápolna on 26 February, Windischgrätz,
confident of an imminent and decisive victory, told the emperor that
Hungarian resistance was over. Vienna, greatly encouraged by the news,
promulgated a retrograde constitution in the form of a manifesto which
abolished the 1848 laws and subjected Hungary to the government of
the Austrian Empire. Though this was premature, the Hungarian
government faced serious dissent within its army and unrest in the
‘Peace Party’.
The latter comprised a number of parliamentary political currents all
opposed to the pursuit of war. From the very beginning of the revolu-
tion, several Hungarian figures, some aulic aristocrats but also nobles
and members of the bourgeoisie – not to mention the non-Magyar
nationalities – disapproved of Kossuth, opposed the radicalisation of
the revolution and, even more so, the war against Austria. Kossuth’s elo-
quence, ardent patriotism and sheer talent dazzled practically everyone.
His policies won over the peasantry of the Great Plain, inspired the
army, rallied the moderates and the undecided, but not the entire polit-
ical class. The Peace Party wanted him defeated, driven to capitulation
or persuaded to join their ranks. It could never compete with the char-
ismatic leader that was Kossuth to the extent of achieving its goals, but
it did not give up.
The big question of this war of independence remains unanswered:
would a compromise with Austria have been possible? Europe would
have no doubt wished it but Russia would not; as for Austria, it wanted
to pierce the abscess of Hungarian obsession. After the Monarchic
Constitution had been promulgated and granted in March 1849, there
was no longer any room for a ‘Hungarian exception’, as Austrian his-
torian Hugo Hantsch calls it. Be that as it may, in spring 1849, Kossuth
saw only two alternatives: either to fight until victory had been
achieved, which he still considered possible, or to capitulate without
any real chance of a compromise. In April, he chose the first option.
On 13 April 1849, despite refusal from the Defence Committee, pre-
dictable opposition from the Peace Party, and accusations of betrayal
and treachery, Kossuth, in a meeting behind closed doors put the Dec-
laration of Independence of the Hungarian state and the proclamation
of the deposition of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine before the

National Assembly. The bill prevailed and was unanimously approved

the following day at a public meeting of an enlarged Assembly – one
might say a plebiscite – at the Debrecen Temple. The Peace Party there-
fore rallied with Kossuth, who now had behind him not only the
majority of Parliament, but also he claimed, the loyalty of the army
and popular support. The break-up with Vienna and the king was
sealed.
Contrary to the proposal from the radical left, Hungary was not pro-
claimed a republic. The constitutional shape the Hungarian state was
to take would be decided later. For the moment it was left in abeyance.
Kossuth’s rise to supreme power was confirmed when he was immedi-
ately elected state president–governor. Contrary to the wishes of a very
small radical left, however, the Assembly did not confer full powers
upon him. Kossuth was more representative of the dominant middle
nobility in the Assembly than of the left or, indeed, the opposition
which favoured accommodation with Vienna. His principal objective
had been achieved: Hungary had become independent.
With Kossuth elected head of state, the executive was re-established.
On 1 May, Bertalan Szemere was appointed head of government and
minister of the interior; Count Kázmér Batthyány was minister of
foreign affairs and a few days later, Artur Görgey was appointed war
minister. Collaboration between the president–governor and several of
his ministers was not always smooth. Szemere’s sympathies leaned
towards the Peace Party and the relationship between Görgey and
Kossuth was, and continued to be, tempestuous.
When independence was declared on 14 April, the military situation
had already turned in Hungary’s favour. Political and personal disagree-
ments in the army had been temporarily overcome. Indeed, during the
winter, in the midst of a retreat before the Austrian army, the officers’
corps was divided and several of them left the army because of politi-
cal convictions. Loyal to their oath, they were willing to fight for the
1848 Constitution sanctioned by the sovereign but condemned the
‘unruly republican’ tendency. Commander General Görgey spoke to
that effect in January 1849 when he declared the army’s loyalty to the
April laws (and therefore to royal legality). In fact, like the entire polit-
ical class, the officers’ corps included a fair number of republicans. The
unprecedented situation of a constitutionally independent country,
which was at the same time under the authority of a king whose army

had invaded it, was bound have repercussions. The army, if not exactly
split, was certainly torn between its oath to the nation and loyalty to the
king: two allegiances that became increasingly irreconcilable.
Despite this friction, army unity was maintained through several per-
sonal and political conflicts, notably between Kossuth and Görgey. The
president–governor had even decided to appoint the old Polish general,
Henryk Dembiński, over Görgey, but soon changed his mind when
Görgey proved his military genius at the head of his army corps. In
March 1849, Görgey was at the heart of the army once again. The waltz
of the generals continued, but military operations were going well. In
early April, a spring campaign was launched on all fronts. The
Hungarians defeated the Austrian general Schlik at Hatvan, not far
from Pest, and Serbian resistance was suppressed in the south. Klapka
and Damjanich defeated Jellačič and Windischgrätz’s main army suf-
fered a serious defeat at Isaszeg.
The victorious advance of the Hungarian forces continued but the 14
April Declaration of Independence did nothing to improve relations
between Kossuth and Görgey. Their more or less relentless conflict
underlined the incompatibility of their personalities as well as the polit-
ical antagonism between those who wanted to go ‘all the way’ and the
moderates. When Görgey heard about the Debrecen declaration, he is
said to have remarked: ‘Another victory and Kossuth will be declaring
war on the Emperor of China.’ Was this simply a witty remark? In any
case it reveals the general’s state of mind and that of many others. The
Austrian emperor had meanwhile also changed his general commander-
in-chief. After his defeat, Windischgrätz was replaced by Ludwig von
Welden, who was soon also fighting a retreat and was forced to surren-
der Pest. After the bombing of Pest on the left bank of the Danube, its
twin town Buda fell on 21 May. Welden was in turn fired and the
emperor nominated Baron Julius von Haynau in his stead.
Kossuth and the government returned to the liberated capital in June
– but not for long. The war continued but Hungary’s days of indepen-
dence were numbered. Responding to his imperial cousin’s call, Tsar
Nicholas I soon sent his army in against the Hungarians. A handful of
Russian units had already penetrated Transylvania before the campaign
by the main army. Assistance provided by the tsar to Francis Joseph was
far from selfless. It was motivated by Russian interest in a large number
of Poles who had participated in the Hungarian War of Independence.

Furthermore, the tsar had some ideas of his own which will be discussed
later.
As soon as the bulk of the Russian army arrived, the Hungarians
found themselves caught in a stranglehold: on 15 June, General Ivan
Fyodorovich Paskievich, duke of Warsaw, invaded Hungary with his
troops, followed by a second Russian army which entered Transylvania.
Austrian and Russian superiority of forces was overwhelming: 370,000
soldiers and about 1,200 canons, compared to 152,000 Hungarians with
450 pieces of artillery.
Militarily, it was the beginning of the end. Politically, the end had
already begun well before.

Policy and diplomacy

The Hungarian state naturally concentrated on its military effort and

the tasks it entailed. It also continued to pursue its liberal democratic
legislation until the end. On 28 July, at its last refuge, Szeged, the
government and Parliament ratified a law emancipating ‘the inhabitants
of Moses’ faith’ born or legally settled in the country and legitimising
mixed marriages between Jews and Christians. The nationalities law
was promulgated on the same day. For the first time, Hungarian legisla-
tion gave minorities the freedom to use their mother tongue at the local
administrative level, at tribunals, in primary schools, in community life
and even within the national guard of non-Magyar councils. It was the
first law in Europe to recognise these minority rights and was based on
a ‘pacification plan’ drawn up by the Romanian democrat Nicolae
Bălcescu (1819–52) and Kossuth at a meeting in Szeged. All these
actions were too late to influence the unfolding of events in the two
weeks leading up to military defeat. It was also too late when, in exile,
Kossuth and a few liberals rethought their relationship with the minor-
ities and with neighbouring countries and went as far as to propose a
Danubian confederation.
The activities of Kossuth and of other émigrés in Turkey, England,
the United States and elsewhere belong to another chapter of history;
Kossuth himself died in Turin, having spent forty years tirelessly
defending the cause of independence and opposing reconciliation with
Austria. Among his companions in exile were most of the emissaries he
had previously sent abroad on diplomatic missions.

The Hungarian government of 1848, tied to Austrian diplomacy,

could not claim international recognition; nor did the 1849 government
born of the Declaration of Independence. Its emissaries nonetheless did
their best to win over to their cause influential men in France, England,
Italy and as far afield as the United States. In Germany, Hungarian del-
egates, historian László Szalay and Dénes Pázmándy, appeared at the
Frankfurt Parliament in 1848 – with the consent of the Austrian minis-
ter for foreign affairs – but without success. Hungary had to tread care-
fully within the labyrinthine Germany, which was divided into
thirty-nine states. A greater Germany that included Austria would have
excluded Hungary, since Austria would not have entered it with a non-
Germanic country. A smaller Germany without Austria would have
appealed to Hungary only on condition that the centre of the Austrian
Empire moved from Vienna to Pest. Austria refused to even consider
such a proposition and yet Kossuth entertained this last unrealistic idea
for as long as he continued to hope for an agreement with the
Habsburgs rather than a break-up. Once Austria became entrenched in
its position, Hungary was forced to abandon any hopes in that direc-
tion. Pázmándy returned to Hungary while Szalay went on several mis-
sions to other countries. Most important among them was his visit to
London, which came to nothing.
Arriving in London in December 1848, his request to be received by
the foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, was refused in no uncertain
terms. England had no sympathy with Austrian methods and later
received another Hungarian, Ferenc Polszky, but as an unofficial visitor.
Its position remained inflexible: it recognised Hungary ‘solely as part of
the Austrian Empire’ and any ‘internal quarrels’ between the two were
none of its concern. At most, England was willing to act as mediator in
order to reach some sort of agreement.
Kossuth and his diplomatic agents believed they could count on
British support because of Anglo-Russian rivalries, Hungary being
useful as a rampart against Muscovite expansion in Europe. However,
the argument backfired since a strong Austria represented a far more
effective barrier, even an Austria saved at the eleventh hour by the
Russians themselves. The British reiterated their position: there was to
be no ‘amputated Austria’. In its eyes, the Viennese monarchy remained
one of the essential pillars in the balance of power.
In Paris, Hungarian diplomacy encountered the same basic problems

as in London: namely, refusal of recognition owing to international law

and treaties, as well as the absence of political will. Furthermore, Count
László Teleki, government emissary and kingpin of its diplomatic activ-
ities, could not have chosen a worse moment when he arrived in Paris in
September 1848, only three months after the barricades of the June rev-
olution had fallen. The head of government, General Louis-Eugene
Cavaignac, refused to enter into discussions with the Hungarian dele-
gates. The minister for foreign affairs, Jules Bastide, Alphonse de
Lamartine’s successor, was more welcoming and he received Teleki cor-
dially, but the atmosphere changed overnight and Bastide’s promises
evaporated into thin air.
This sudden change of heart was partly due to pressure from the
Austrian chargé d’affaires, Ludwig Thorn. Bastide dropped Teleki in
order to avoid diplomatic complications. The outbreak of war between
Austria and Hungary within days of Teleki’s arrival in Paris made the
situation even more precarious. Pierre Renouvin in his Histoire des rela-
tions internationales (History of International Relations), sums it up in
a sentence that is more pertinent than many long commentaries: ‘self-
interest replaced ideology as the dominant force behind French policy’.
The new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexis de Tocqueville, who
according to Renouvin displayed a ‘melancholy interest’ in Hungary,
received Teleki privately, but not ofﬁcially. After all, the great liberal
writer had declared to his ambassadors, according to his own memoirs,
‘We do not get involved with what goes on at the other end of Europe,
in the Principalities, in Poland and in Hungary.’
Great powers certainly have an annoying tendency to rush to the
rescue of victors rather than to lost causes. The only way Hungary
could gain Europe’s support was to win the war. But was that still pos-
sible?

The débâcle

After the invasion of Hungary by the Tsar’s army in June 1849, hopes
of saving the country were slim if not impossible, consisting of divid-
ing the enemy, ﬁrstly defeating Austria, then confronting Russia and
asking it to grant Hungary an honourable exit. The plan was not
entirely illogical, since Austria’s appeal to Nicholas I for military assis-
tance had been very reluctant. However, the idea that Hungarian

manoeuvres could disunite these two enemies had no basis in political

reality. Whether Vienna’s appeal was reluctant or not, Russian aid was
vital. As for the tsar, contrary to what was often written, his decision
was taken before the Declaration of Independence. Violently hostile to
the revolution, to subversion and to progress, the tsar’s primary concern
was to crush the rebels. The participation of Polish generals and legion-
aries on the Hungarian side strengthened his resolve, as did the fear of
contagion.
The question then remains as to whether the Hungarian plan to fight
the two enemies separately was feasible in the field, a question that mil-
itary historians have been debating for the last 150 years. If one com-
pares the respective military capabilities, one can but be sceptical. The
Hungarian military plan consisted essentially in concentrating the main
army in the Komárom fortress, equidistant between Vienna and
Budapest, to be used as a base from which to make the decisive strike on
Haynau. The War Council accepted the plan and then immediately
abandoned it. At the end of June, Görgey received orders to withdraw
the bulk of his Komárom troops and to begin a retreat towards Szeged,
to eventually join the main army at Arad, commanded by Dembiński.
(General Klapka’s division was left to hold the fort, which it did success-
fully for many months.) A glance at the map is enough to understand
that this new military plan moved the centre of operations from the
north-west of the country to the south-east. To some, this looked more
like an ‘escape strategy’ – the army’s evacuation to Ottoman territory –
than a planned offensive.
Another of Kossuth’s decisions precipitated catastrophe. Once again
he dismissed Görgey and appointed Dembiński as commander-in-chief,
to the exasperation of the officers who worshipped their general and
had no faith in Dembiński. The waltz of the generals, sometimes
favouring incompetents, had already sapped army morale, though not
their loyalty, which remained firm, as did Görgey’s. He totally disagreed
with the plan but obeyed orders nonetheless whereas Dembiński, who
he was supposed to meet, failed to turn up. Instead of going to Arad,
the Pole retreated further south, to Temesvár, on the route towards
Turkey. Meanwhile, the Russians inflicted a major defeat on Bem at
Segesvár and then at Szenbenszék (6 August). The Honvéd army of
Transylvania was virtually wiped out. In the midst of this drama and
confusion, Bem took command of the main army, not knowing that

Dembiński had already withdrawn the artillery’s ammunition. Despite

the talent and heroism of Bem and his soldiers, the battle fought by
them at Temesvár in these desperate conditions ended in disaster. On 9
August, General Haynau beat and dispersed the main army. All that
remained was Görgey’s army at Arad, consisting of 30,000 exhausted
soldiers facing 370,000 men in the Austrian and Russian armies.
Kossuth abdicated, transferred all powers to Görgey and sought refuge
in Turkey. Three days later, on 13 August at Világos, the War Council
decided to surrender to the Russian general, Rüdiger.

Epilogue

The war ended and repression began. Görgey and the War Council sur-
rendered to the Russians and not the Austrians, to prove their resolve
had only been broken by the involvement of the Russians who, in fact,
behaved more honourably than the imperial forces. The tsar sent his son
to Vienna to persuade Francis Joseph to act with clemency. It was a
waste of time: Schwarzenberg – and Field-Marshal Haynau in Hungary
– ordered pitiless repression. The Austrians executed thirteen generals
along with the former president of the Council of Ministers, Count
Lajos Batthyány, and several other military and civil individuals. The
tsar was able to save only the life of Görgey. Of the rest, 120 were exe-
cuted following condemnation by war tribunals, others were simply
massacred and thousands were condemned to long prison sentences of
forced labour. Despite broad international indignation and protests
from the tsar, repression continued for a decade.
Petöfi did not live to bear the brunt of defeat and its aftermath. He
died two weeks before the end, fighting with Bem’s army in the Battle
of Segesvár in Transylvania. He was twenty-six years old. Count
Széchenyi fell into a depression in September 1848. His tortured soul
found a degree of tranquillity in Döbling, in a psychiatric establishment
near Vienna, where he continued to write and to receive friends – and
visits from the police, because one of his last writings was an unrelent-
ing indictment of absolutism. He took his own life in 1860. Other great
figures of 1848–9 followed Kossuth into exile or lived as best they could
in Hungary.
Contemporaries understood, long before the age of psychoanalysis,
that a lost cause needed its heroes and its scapegoats. The designated

target was the one who had laid down his arms at Világos, in other
words, Artur Görgey. Immediately after fleeing to Turkey, Kossuth pro-
ceeded to stigmatise him. Görgey was treated like a traitor and contin-
ued to be publicly reviled throughout his life and even after his death,
aged ninety-eight. True, Görgey was the only one to receive assurances
from Paskievich that his life would be spared, but he had not commit-
ted any act of treachery. Yet for Kossuth, and the majority of public
opinion, clinging to the tradition of the heroic fight, Görgey’s capitula-
tion provided a pretext: the scapegoat had to be sacrificed in order to
save the morale of the nation. Attempts were made to prove that the
general had no other choice but to surrender, but it was only 150 years
later, with the publication of Domokos Kosáry’s historical oeuvre, that
the witch-hunt finally ended.
A wounded Hungarian society now faced a new ordeal. After
Haynau’s cruel military repression, the civil administration of
Alexander von Bach descended upon them like a millstone.

For the next seventy years, Hungary’s ties with Austria were to be closer
than they had ever been before, ﬁrst under neo-absolutist constraints,
then in the wake of the 1867 compromise. This was also the era of the
balance of power on the continent, overseen by England and ‘read-
justed’ by several conﬂicts: the Crimean war (1854–5), Napoleon III’s
Italian war (1859), the Austro-Prussian war (1866), the Franco-German
war (1870–1) and others. The Austrian Empire, which emerged from the
1848–9 crisis unscathed, suffered defeat in Italy and was ousted from
Germany by Bismarck’s Prussia; its relations with Hungary were
shaped by these events. As Austria’s international position weakened,
Emperor Francis Joseph moved towards the 1867 compromise which
was to create the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy.

the bach system

After three years of crises, calm prevailed in the Habsburg kingdoms

and provinces. The young Francis Joseph succumbed to ‘the intoxica-
tion of power’ (Jean-Paul Bled) and opened a neo-absolutist ‘septennat’
not unlike enlightened despotism, but in conjunction with a rise in cler-
icalism. Francis Joseph assumed total control, to the point of presiding
over the Government Council in person. Pro-constitutional ministers
resigned one after another; Schwarzenberg held his post till his death
in 1851. Alexander von Bach, the minister of the interior, who was
already very inﬂuential, became the architect of the neo-absolutist turn
that began in 1850. With the decree of 31 December 1851, the emperor

abolished the final vestiges of the turbulent years, in other words the
Constitution of March 1849. This took place four weeks after Louis-
Napoleon Bonaparte’s 2 December coup d’état, a prelude to Napoleon
III’s authoritarian empire.
Alexander von Bach governed a now unified empire with a strong
bureaucracy. His officials, nicknamed ‘Bach’s Hussars’, administered
Hungary, replacing Marshal Haynau’s cruel military dictatorship. Like
all absolutist regimes, Bach’s stood out for its violations of laws and tra-
ditions. The government sliced the forty-six counties into five bureau-
cratic districts, administered Transylvania and Croatia separately from
the main kingdom, applied harsh censorship, suppressed civil associa-
tions and introduced foreign penal and civil codes. In other words, it
reduced the country to stunned silence.
However, some very important 1848 reforms also came into effect
under the Bach regime: the repurchase of peasant servitude, for
example, accompanied by an anti-feudal propaganda aimed at dividing
– unsuccessfully – nobility and peasantry. Indeed, the population’s state
of mind remained surprisingly united around the memory of the lost
war of independence. Kossuth the legend endured – everyone awaited
his return. Petöfi, who died on the battlefield fighting for freedom, was
now part of a new national mythology engendered by the 1848–9 upris-
ing. Epinal’s depiction of the poet, mortally wounded by a Cossack and
writing the word ‘liberty’ in the sand with his own blood, became part
of the patriotic decor in the humblest peasant houses. Throughout this
politically uncertain age and despite censorship, national literature con-
tinued to evolve towards a new golden age.
The most original feature of this decade of oppression was the
appearance of a new form of opposition to authority and to
Germanification: passive resistance, which became a way of life and an
ethical code. The government introduced a tobacco monopoly: ‘Well,
in that case, I’ll stop smoking’, was the response of a character in a novel
of the time, consigning his fine pipes to the ocean waves. His response
to having to pay tax on his own wine? ‘I’ll give up drinking.’ Tarot cards
carried a stamp duty. ‘In that case, I’ll give up cards.’ The novel, written
by Mór Jókai, friend of the deceased Petöfi and his comrade in the 1848
‘Ides of March’, was undoubtedly a romantic expression of passive
resistance but also witness to a certain collective mentality and social
behaviour. So too was a play written by Imre Madách, The Civiliser, less

Plate 26. Francis Joseph in ceremonial coronation robe

well known than the Tragedy of Man written in 1860 and marked by
post-revolutionary pessimism. The Civiliser (1859) was a direct and
violent attack on the Bach system. Wielding satire as the most powerful
weapon, Madách created the German ‘civiliser’ come to Germanise his
good-natured Magyar peasant host. And ﬁnally, the prince of poets
János Arany, upon being invited to greet Francis Joseph on his second
trip to Hungary in 1857, wrote a scathing poem disguised as an English
historical ballad, The Bards of Wales: ‘Five hundred went singing to die,
/ Five hundred in the blaze, / But none would sing to cheer the King, /
The loyal toast to raise’ (translation by Peter Zollman).

Plate 27. Queen Elisabeth, 1867

These are just a few examples to give a ﬂavour of a decade character-

ised by hatred and despair. This distress and genuine trauma was to be
the basis for the conciliation constructed by the architects of the com-
promise. But what about the role of the exiles?
After the defeat, several thousand people chose exile. This was a very
signiﬁcant number at a time when the only major emigration was that
of the Poles. Many refugees returned but one thousand or so exiled

Hungarians had dispersed to the four winds, to America, to Western

Europe or had remained in Turkey. The most active among them tried
to influence British, French, American and Italian public opinion.
Kossuth was warmly received at some 500 meetings organised for him
in England and America, but he did not succeed in translating public
sympathy into action on the part of politicians. Whereas for the
Hungarians under Austrian domination he continued to represent
hope, in the eyes of the political world of Europe he remained the heroic
representative of an honourable but hopeless cause.
A flicker of hope appeared with the French–Sardinian alliance of
1858. Emperor Napoleon III pledged his support for the liberation of
Northern Italy from the grasp of Austria. Prime minister and diplo-
matic leader of the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, Camillo Benso,
Count Cavour, tried for his part to involve Kossuth, who ended up
agreeing to Hungarian participation in Italy’s war and met with the
emperor in person. Russia remained neutral.
At the famous Battle of Solferino, 24 June 1859, Austria suffered a
crushing defeat but to the stupefaction of the Italians – and the
Hungarians – Napoleon III stopped the war. Austria nevertheless lost
Lombardy and unification of Italy continued in stages, without inflam-
ing Europe.
Was Hungary, therefore, the main loser in this affair, apart from
Austria? In any event, the former was a mere pawn on Napoleon III’s
political chessboard. Napoleon’s Italian policy was certainly designed
to change the European status quo but he did not want a Hungarian
insurrection. Austria was still an indispensable element in Europe’s
balance of power. No one, least of all England, wanted to see it weak-
ened. Thus, in 1859 the likelihood of Hungary regaining its liberty with
international assistance was even more remote than ten years previ-
ously. A solution, whatever it might be, could only be found within the
country itself.
Three historic dates represent three different approaches to a solu-
tion. 1847: traditional Hungary. 1848: a liberal constitutional Hungary
under the sceptre of the Habsburg king, who was also emperor of
Austria. And finally, the third date: 1849, the Hungary that declared its
independence and split with Vienna.
The first option was outmoded as far as Hungary and even Austria
were concerned. The idea of a return to the ancien régime was as

unpopular in Hungary as it was at a court intent upon imposing a neo-

absolutist monarchy, but not upon restoring feudal powers and privi-
leges. As for a return to the 1849 situation, Kossuth and his loyal
followers supported the idea, but the realists resigned themselves to its
impossibility given the international situation at the time. Finally, impe-
rial Austria that had crushed Hungary as the price for a war was
unlikely to concede independence around the negotiating table with the
rebels. There was, therefore, no solution acceptable to both parties
other than the constitutional model of 1848 as a means of creating a
new arrangement.
Thinkers and politicians in Hungary set about paving the way for this
compromise (which has divided opinion – and historians – ever since),
slowly, patiently and sporadically. As has been mentioned earlier, there
were many opponents to the extreme attitude that led to the April 1849
rupture. Baron Zsigmond Kemény, a novelist and statesman who had
initially been close to Kossuth, subsequently joined the Peace Party in
1849. Baron József Eötvös, also a writer of great novels, eminent polit-
ical thinker and former member of the 1848 constitutional government,
left both post and country because he disagreed with those striving for
independence. He lived in Vienna, then Munich, until 1853. It was
abroad that he wrote his principal political work, The Influence of
Dominant Nineteenth-century Ideas on the State. Another former 1848
minister, Ferenc Deák, also withdrew from political life after having
attempted in vain to come to an arrangement with the Austrians.
Finally, the most important political figure among those who distanced
themselves from the revolution before it reached the point of rupture
was Széchenyi. Though seriously ill, he was not to be silenced and crit-
icised the Bach system until his last breath.
The compromise’s intellectual breeding ground was therefore the
liberal moderate trend represented by these men, among whom Ferenc
Deák played the key role from 1860 to 1861 when Austria displayed the
first signs of a change of direction. In order to reach an entente, the
spirit of reconciliation had to mature in the imperial capital, too.
Setbacks also played a significant part. In response to the Solferino
defeat and internal rumblings of discontent, Francis Joseph reorganised
the government and his states though without giving in to aristocratic
constitutionalism and even less to liberalism. The 1860 October
Diploma and the 1861 February Bill (in any case contradictory rather

than complementary) were the ﬁrst steps towards a constitutional

regime of sorts, but the emperor’s state of mind demonstrated the
extent of their ambiguity: ‘We shall have a little parliamentarianism,
but power will remain in my hands and the whole thing will be adapted
to Austrian realities.’ As distrustful of the magnates as he was of the lib-
erals, Francis Joseph therefore imposed a centralising bill which took
into consideration the ‘individuality’ of the kingdoms that constituted
the monarchy without really giving them satisfaction. With the liberal
Anton von Schmerlig at the head of government, the Austrian political
system also developed, but not enough to dissipate ambiguity.
As a result, the Hungarian Assembly convened at last in 1860–1,
opposed the royal rescript by a respectful ‘petition to the king’ rather
than approaching him with a ‘resolution’ of the Assembly, as proposed
by the more intransigent. The nuance was significant: Deák’s petition
party was more moderate than the resolution party. The emperor,
however, rejected the petition and dissolved Parliament. Thus the idea
remained in limbo, but after a gradual maturing process, political life
re-emerged as a result of the celebrated 1865 ‘Easter article’ in which
Deák proposed a dual compromise with a joint Austro-Hungarian
administration for shared external and military affairs. At the 1866
National Assembly, matters became serious: the deputies elaborated a
project for a compromise. The decisive turning point came on 3 July
1866 when Prussia decimated Francis Joseph’s imperial army. The
Sadowa (Königgrätz) defeat was evidence both of Austrian failure in
Germany and of the need to reach an agreement with the Hungarians.
Another year had to pass before a definitive conclusion to the com-
promise laws – that did not bear the name of ‘compromise’ but were
entitled: ‘1867: article XII – pertaining to relations between the coun-
tries of the Hungarian Crown and the other countries under the reign
of His Majesty and to the methods of their administration.’ A homol-
ogous Austrian law was introduced. That year was full of international
complications since the European cabinets were concerned by Prussian
successes. Francis Joseph went as far as to nominate an anti-Prussian
Saxon Friedrich Ferdinand Beust as minister of the interior. In the end,
moderation prevailed all round. Bismarck took great care to accommo-
date Austrian sensitivities by allowing Austria the possibility of an ‘hon-
ourable exit’ from Germany without loss of face.
Francis Joseph’s wife Elisabeth is also seen to have been influential in

the emperor’s leniency towards the Hungarians and in his accepting the
royal crown in the country of former rebels. The empress ‘Sissi’ was
clearly sympathetic towards the Hungarians but the key factor in the
Ausgleich was political rather than sentimental. The judicious moder-
ation of Deák and his party in the aftermath of Sadowa reassured the
emperor that the Hungarians would stick to their position and not up
the stakes. And though Bismarck did secretly encourage the Magyars,
he also demonstrated his legendary ponderousness by discreetly
backing the compromise solution: the dual monarchy’s focal point
would be that much further from German affairs.
The great turnabout of 1867 can therefore only be explained by a web
of intertwined interests.

the significance of the 1867 agreements

Born of circumstantial constraints and under the sign of moderation on

the part of all concerned, the 1867 compromise was, like all political
accomplishments, both perfect and imperfect. It created a totally new
state system composed of two constitutionally distinct entities, but
united under the sovereign’s sceptre and sharing governmental institu-
tions – a characteristic that rendered it more than a personal union.
Dualism was, for the moment, the optimal solution for safeguarding
both the Magyars’ sense of identity and the dynastic sovereignty.
However, it would have required profound amendments. These were not
undertaken because the ambiguity, a result of the unity of the monar-
chy and diversity within the two contractual parties, was insuperable.
In fact, however paradoxical it may seem, it was necessary to preserve
the fragile framework. Hungarian law, Eisenmann points out, did not
mention the word ‘unity’ anywhere, but spoke rather of ‘community’.
It carefully avoided terms and measures which might suggest the super-
iority of the monarchy over the Hungarian side. Nearly ﬁfty years after
its creation, the dual monarchy was not able to withstand the storm of
1914. For the time being, it provoked a mixture of satisfaction, reserva-
tions and protests. The Reichsrat promulgated an analogous law for
Austria.
On balance, however, despite sporadic hostile reactions, the political
class and Hungarian public opinion were more satisﬁed than frustrated
– and not without reason. Compared with the Pragmatic Sanction of

1723, the 1867 law was far more favourable to the Magyars.
Transylvania was once more within the kingdom’s administration.
Hungary, along with the others, was under the king’s rule but was not
subject to the Austrian imperial government. Indeed, the latter was not
even mentioned in the compromise laws which prompted the Austrian
author Robert Musil to write the following famous ironic passage in his
novel Mann ohne Eigenschaften: ‘The Austrian calls himself citizen of
the Austro-Hungarian monarchy’s kingdoms and countries as repre-
sented at the Council of the Empire – which comes down to saying one
Austrian plus one Hungarian minus the self-same Hungarian.’
Irony aside, the identity of the Hungarian ‘half’ of the Habsburg
‘whole’ was far better defined than that of its other components.
Contrary to other minorities, the Magyar sense of identity was
respected. And yet the ingenious legal edifice of the compromise did not
reflect the economic correlation between a rich and powerful Austria
and a less-developed Hungary. A balance had to be redressed through a
quota system for maintaining the army. ‘When the time came to pay the
bill’, writes Eisenmann, ‘the unit principle enabled Austria to be
charged for roughly a third of the common army’s Hungarian contin-
gent. The equation of community and dualism was as follows: equal
rights, two thirds expenditure for Austria, three quarters influence for
Hungary.’ It was a witty remark. Hungary was heavily handicapped by
the economic gap. In addition, alongside its independence it was depen-
dent in domains which remained the preserve of the emperor–king:
foreign and military affairs. In terms of diplomacy, war and interna-
tional law, Hungarian national sovereignty was incorporated into
Austria–Hungary.
Within the legal structure of the compromise, its ambiguities were
elegantly camouflaged by the dispositions pertaining to common
affairs. Two equally representative delegations had to be elected by the
two parliaments, to deliberate on the financing of foreign and military
affairs, each managed by a common ministry. Thus the delegations had
no legislative power and their deliberations took place separately, com-
munication between the two conducted strictly by the written word.
So much so that, as was often jokingly said at the time, ‘The session
might as well have been conducted in the dark.’ It was all designed so
that the common parliament should be no such thing, just like the
‘common’ ministries that constituted the government. The Hungarians

had a particularly strong aversion to all legislative and executive insti-

tutions of the Gesamtmonarchie – an all-embracing monarchy which
included Hungary.
The system was complicated and vulnerable, to say the least. In the
fifty years of its existence it was the object of incessant controversy, par-
ticularly from the Hungarian nationalist left: the party of independence
formed under the flag of the great absent exile. It had a programme that
was less intransigent than Kossuth’s and indeed changed over time, as
did the name of the party. For half a century, political life was domi-
nated by the opposition between the party of 1848 and Deák’s great
liberal party merged with the moderate left. Until 1905, the latter
retained a three-quarter parliamentary majority or at least two thirds
of the seats. The opposition meanwhile wore itself out in legal argu-
ments over public rights. Kossuth’s prophecy concerning the catas-
trophic consequences of the compromise, expressed in his Cassandra
Letter in 1867, failed to occur. Fluctuat nec mergitur: though rocked by
the waves, the dual monarchy survived, its accomplishments pacified
the general mood and turned a reviled emperor into an accepted and
then even venerated sovereign.
Politically speaking, the real losers of the dual system were neither
the Hungarians nor the Austrians, but the other ‘nationalities’. During
the neo-absolutist 1850s, they had been in the same boat as the
Hungarians. As ironists of the day put it: ‘What the Magyars received
from Vienna as a punishment, they received as a gift’ – in other words,
the Bach system, centralisation and Germanisation. Under the dual
system, on the other hand, the minorities had to return to the fold of
the Hungarian Crown, and the Croats in 1868 had to settle for a com-
promise with the Budapest government, modelled essentially on the
Austro-Hungarian one. As for the other provinces and the kingdom of
Bohemia, they remained, as before, ‘countries represented at the
Council of the Empire’, the Reichsrat.
The dual monarchy thus settled into its new home with the promise
of a new era – but saddled with a heavy mortgage.
In his famous work Three Generations, Gyula Szekfü includes the lib-
erals of 1867, Deák, Andrássy and Eötvös – architects and executors of
the compromise – in the second generation. It is thanks to this legal and
political artefact that a Hungarian sense of identity was respected.
However, the age of duality was rocked by struggles between those in

favour of the compromise on the one hand – in other words the ‘second
generation’ liberals – and, on the other, partisans of complete indepen-
dence. The latter were also more intolerant towards non-Magyar
nationalities who, it should be borne in mind, constituted half the
kingdom’s population. Reconciling ‘patria and progress’ meant having
to navigate between stumbling blocks on both sides, indissoluble and
yet utterly contradictory. For the liberals also aspired to national inde-
pendence and the independents also wanted some progress – both
within the limits of a conservative ideology, to the point where the line
between nationalism and liberalism divided not only the parties but
members within the same party and probably also in individual hearts.
The liberal path was a narrow one and it was purely the genius of Deák
and Eötvös that enabled the creation of a national liberal state – not an
easy task. Waves of nationalism, of social and religious conflict, consid-
erably eroded its liberal foundations over the decades.
No one who thought about Hungarian liberalism in the nineteenth
century did so with as much insight as Baron József Eötvös, a Magyar
Tocqueville. Alongside him were: László Szalay – who belonged to the
generation of ’48 and died in 1864; Ágoston Trefort – the youngest;
Baron Zsigmond Kemény – the most conservative (he died in 1875, four
years after the death of Eötvös); and lastly, Ferenc Deák (1803–76) –
‘sage of the homeland’ – embodiment of all conciliations. Just as he had
conceived the suitable formula for the 1867 agreement, Deák was always
able to find the right word to eliminate discord and to ease through even
the most controversial laws, notably those which addressed problems of
minorities and schooling. The laws regarding institutions, churches, the
emancipation of Jews, education, the minorities, penal law, and indus-
try – partly promulgated after his death – also bore the stamp of
enlightened liberalism and were among the most progressive on the con-
tinent.
Eötvös’s ideas centred around personal freedom, cornerstone of civic
liberty and progress. He wanted to create a state that was sufficiently
centralised to adequately administer affairs and justice, at the same
time with competences limited enough to allow scope for the develop-
ment of citizenship. Undoubtedly inspired by Tocqueville, he envisaged
a system of local self-government and a powerful network of autono-
mous associations between state institutions and the individual. His
success in passing the minority and educational laws was certainly in

part due to Deák’s support, but also to his having understood that in
order to win, it was sometimes necessary to yield. He was able to ﬁnd
the middle road between the disadvantages of French-style centralism
and the anarchy of ‘Hungary’s ﬁfty-two anarchic self-governing coun-
ties’; between secular and Christian morality, between individualism
and collectivism, between a national unitary state and freedom for the
minorities.
As far as the minority issue was concerned, Eötvös’s initial concept
was unquestionably utopian to the point of being impossibly idealistic,
not only in Hungary, but anywhere in Europe. To give the half a dozen
minority languages equal status with that of the Magyars would have
transformed the unitary state into a federation. If the ‘third generation’
governments had not toughened the nationality and public instruction
laws, the model created by Eötvös’s and Deák’s generation would have
in fact remained an unparalleled example of wisdom and generosity.

Internal stability: Kálmán Tisza’s era

Until the end of the nineteenth century, the dual system and parliamen-
tarianism worked without major hitches and, despite the 1873 crisis,
liberalism favoured economic growth. With regard to the outside world,
Austria–Hungary’s prestige grew as much as its inﬂuence waned in
Germany, now a hegemony since the fall of the French Second Empire.
In this international context, Andrássy, head of the Hungarian
government, then minister of Austro-Hungarian foreign affairs from
1871 to 1879, played an important role. Together with Bismarck, he
worked towards strengthening the Austrian–German alliance, keeping
Russia at arm’s length and defending Austrian interests in the Balkans.
At the Berlin congress of 1878 he orchestrated the provisional occupa-
tion of Ottoman Bosnia-Herzegovina, which would be later annexed
(1908) and serve as the stage for the 1914 Sarajevo assassination. But
there was still some way to go.
Between 1867 and Francis Joseph’s death in 1916 – in the midst of war
– Hungary had seventeen successive cabinets – sometimes the same
ones. After Andrássy’s departure in 1871, there were a few short-term
governments, followed by Kálmán Tisza’s between 1875 and 1890.
Tisza’s era marked both the zenith of liberalism and the beginning of
its decline. Internal stability was assured thanks to the abilities of this

Plate 28. Count Gyula Andrássy

‘centre left’ prime minister and the preponderance of the liberal party,
which Tisza founded in 1875, merging his own moderate opposition
with Deák’s party. The liberal party was thus an amalgam which
managed to mix a small dose of ‘’48’ with a strong dose of ‘’67’. Thus
it went on to win elections for thirty years, taking between two thirds
and three quarters of parliamentary mandates.
Apart from a small conservative party and rather weak representa-
tion of non-Magyar nationalities, the opposition consisted of indepen-
dents who relied for support on a nostalgic provincial lesser nobility and
on the Magyar peasantry of the Great Plain, who had gained little from

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Plate 29. Kálmán Tisza’s Tarot Party. Painting by Artur Ferraris
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Rupture, compromise and the dual monarchy, 1849–1919 215

the development of an ascendant capitalism. Nor did the new tax-based

voting system work in their favour: only 24 per cent of the male adult
population had the right to vote (less than one million people); voting
rights based on noble titles remained in place. National policy con-
ducted in parliament now eclipsed an erstwhile dominant provincial
policy anchored in the counties. The latter were placed under a mixed
administration with a county chief (föïspán) representing king and state
and the vice-chief (alispán), elected by the local assembly, representing
the supremacy of the gentry and remaining the pillar of Magyar admin-
istration.
The workings of the ‘grand old liberal party’ no doubt favoured the
entangled interests of the well-to-do classes, landowners and middle
classes, who constituted the majority of both the electorate and the
political class. Indeed, alongside the magnates and nobles, the benches
of Parliament, of political clubs and casinos and the editorial boards of
newspapers, the management boards of banks and factories were ﬁlled
with the bourgeoisie and elected representatives of the liberal profes-
sions, mainly lawyers. The class element of liberal power – denounced
by historians of the left – is undeniable – as was the case elsewhere
around the world. It has also been called the ‘party of clubs’, and rightly
so, since political decisions matured in corridor conversations and, to
be more speciﬁc, in the corridors of the national Casino, the exclusive
preserve of the aristocracy, and in less exclusive clubs frequented by the
nobility and bourgeoisie. Kálmán Mikszáth, a great contemporary nov-
elist and serial writer, with an acidic pen, though a regular partner of
the prime minister at the card table, described his political style with as
much sarcastic humour as affectionate collusion. Decisions to build the
railways, carry out regional developments and other public works were
taken in between two games of tarot; policies regarding minorities were
shaped between pre- and post-prandial drinks.
The two liberal–conservative decades corresponded to a period of
unprecedented progress in terms of the economy, urbanisation and edu-
cation. The legal state was respected but the ever acute problems of
non-Magyar minorities and of social injustice also darkened its hori-
zons. Ethnic minorities were subjected to political and educational
pressure but the state did not interfere in their private affairs; the
various ethnic groups were free to pursue their economic activities, to
practise their respective religions and to develop a national conscience.

As for the social problems posed by the agrarian structure with its lati-
fundia, they remained as serious as ever. A vast proletarianised pea-
santry co-existed with the reverberations of rising capitalism: a new
industrial proletariat, the social democratic party and the struggle for
workers’ rights and the right to vote.
A self-assured political class lacked the audacity both to address new
conflicts and to resolve old ones. As the end of the century loomed,
Kálmán Tisza’s successors seemed even more inclined to consolidate
the gains of the wealthy to the detriment of society’s rejects. Sándor
Wekerle, the first president of the Council of middle-class origins (he
was the son of a bailiff), was an exceptional financial specialist. But in
this fin de siècle, Church issues, in particular that of the civil marriage
bill, occupied the political centre stage. Despite a clerical and aristo-
cratic counter-offensive, the liberal bill was passed – causing Wekerle’s
demise in 1895. The next government, presided over by Count Dezsö
Bánffy, excelled in repressive measures. It dealt harshly with any ‘sub-
version’: minority demands, the agrarian socialist movement, the social
democratic party, the Kossuth cult, which became widespread after the
death in 1894 of the exiled ‘father of the nation’ in Turin. ‘Rights, laws,
justice’ – despite this promising slogan, the successors of Bánffy, who
was ousted in 1899, did not stop the decline of liberalism any more than
the erosion of dualism and successive political crises.

‘millennium’ hungary and its entry into the

twentieth century

In 1896, Hungarians celebrated with great pomp and circumstance the

thousand-year anniversary of the conquest of their country by their
ancestors. Festivities, tricolour ﬂags, commemorative books, exhibi-
tions, a visit by the royal couple – no effort was spared. The stability of
the country seemed relatively secure, justifying the optimism and enthu-
siasm of the crowds, and its economic health was to last just into the
twentieth century. The Hungary of the triumphant ‘Millennium’
steered itself through buffeting storms.
In 1910, when the last general census was carried out within the mon-
archy, Hungary (without autonomous Croatia) had 18.3 million inhab-
itants, against 16.8 million in 1900. The Magyars, about 10 million,
made up 54.5 per cent of the inhabitants, compared with 51.4 per cent

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R
U
tu la S
Vis

Si
le
Bohemia

S
sia
Sil. Galicia

I
N
Da Moravia

A
nub

A
e

RM
Kassa
Lower a
Upper z
Tis

Bu
Pozsony Miskolc

ko
Austria Vienna

vi
Danube

na
SW

A
IT Györ Debrecen
ZE Salzburg Budapest
RL Styria Nagyvárad
Tyrol
Carinthia Kolozsvár
A
N

KINGDOM OF HUNGARY
D

Pécs Szeged Maros

Dra
Croatia va
Agram Temesvár
Po Sav I
Is
tr a Újvidék N
ia A
Danube
M
R O
I

BOSNIA
D
T

D
R

al Frontier of the dual monarchy

m
A

at
L

ia Frontier of the Hungarian state

T
I
Y

Provincial frontier
S
E
A

Territory of the Austrian Empire

Map 9. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy, c. 1910

218 A Concise History of Hungary

in 1900. Other nations, therefore, fell slightly, although Germans still

constituted 10.4 per cent of the overall population, Slovaks, 10.7 per
cent, Romanians, 16.1 per cent and Ruthenians, Serbs and others, more
than 8 per cent.
Nearly half the population was Roman Catholic, 22 per cent
Protestant, 23.8 per cent Greek Orthodox and Uniate (Greek Catholic).
At almost 1 million, Jews accounted for 5 per cent.
The impact of voluntary assimilation, notably, of large numbers of
Germans, along with a policy of ‘Magyarisation’, was far from insig-
nificant, as was the assimilation process of the Jews, who continued to
follow the Jewish faith, but adopted Hungarian as their mother tongue.
Indeed, Jewish emancipation, in progress since Joseph II, was com-
pleted under the liberal regime. For Slav and Romanian nationals, on
the other hand, the situation became more precarious, as nationalism
overshadowed liberalism.
What were the social structures? Feudal, seigniorial, pre-capitalist,
agro-industrial? Attempts to stick a label on such a complex reality fall
short. According to 1910 statistical data, in a simplified form, the
primary sector accounted for more than 60 per cent of the population;
industry, 18 per cent; services, not far off 22 per cent. Compare this with
figures for the ‘workshop of the world’, England, where the proportions
were 8 per cent for agriculture and 46 per cent for each of the other two
sectors. In the European table, Hungary was in the middle, just above
Italy.
In other respects, social divisions were far more marked, especially in
agriculture. About 5,000 of the biggest landowners, including members
of their families, had estates of more than 570 hectares (1,400 acres) and
together owned 8.7 million hectares, approximately 27 per cent of cul-
tivated land. Esterházy and other magnates, churches (primarily the
Catholic Church), a handful of rich nobles and members of the bour-
geoisie, who made up this land-owning class, were called the ‘thousand
acres’. Some 66,000 landowners, the gentry, wealthy peasantry and rich
tenant farmers, lived on lands covering areas of between 57 and 570 hec-
tares (between 140 and 1,400 acres) 950,000 on properties of 30 hec-
tares, and 3.5 million small peasants worked approximately 7–8
hectares. The mass of 7 million peasants owned less than 2.8 hectares,
of which two thirds owned less than 0.57 hectares. In other words, at

the top of the ladder was an extremely rich and very small stratum (0.3
per cent of the population) while at the bottom was a poverty-stricken
peasantry and agricultural workers (about 38 per cent of the popula-
tion). In between the two were the small and large landowners. There
were also 1,851,000 industrial workers and 600,000 in transport and
commerce (13.4 per cent of the population), about 2 million craftsmen
and shopkeepers (11 per cent), 1,100,000 employees, civil servants, ofﬁ-
cers, pensioners (6.1 per cent), half a million soldiers, servants and
others (2.7 per cent) – and 66,549 capitalists (0.4 per cent).
Taking national revenue per capita as a criterion, Austria and Italy
had marginally overtaken Hungary, while revenue in England was three
times higher, and in France and Germany more than double. While in
developed countries like France, Germany and Sweden an average of
three quarters of the revenue came from the industrial and tertiary
sectors (in England, it was 90 per cent), in Hungary these sectors pro-
vided only 56 per cent and agriculture close to 44 per cent. Nevertheless,
it is important to note that forty years previously, agriculture accounted
for 60 per cent; the secondary and tertiary sectors had therefore made
remarkable progress.
Agriculture, still dominant from an employment point of view,
showed signs of some technical progress, notably in the increased use of
agricultural machinery, crop rotation and growing yields per hectare.
Livestock was also on the increase: cattle went from approximately 5
million head in 1884 to more than 6 million in 1911; growth and
improvement of stock was especially apparent in the western part of the
country, due to intensive rearing which replaced free-range rearing. In
the east, on the other hand, techniques remained old-fashioned and
productivity was far lower than in the large pilot properties or peasant
farms in Transdanubia. Viticulture, which had ﬂourished for so long,
was seriously affected by phyloxera. Before 1885, wine production had
reached 4.5 million hectolitres; it dropped to 1,130,000 hectolitres and
then rose again to 3,190,000 by 1900.
Wealth, therefore, increasingly came from industry, industrialised
arts and crafts, transport and other services. After the late start of
industrial capitalism, the number of factories increased rapidly, from
2,500 at the end of the century to 5,000 in 1913, with a workforce which
also doubled: from 250,000 in 1901, to more than 474,000 in 1913.

Modern factories, with less than half a million workers, produced twice
as much as the workshops of 2 million small artisan entrepreneurs. In
1910, industrial workers were distributed as follows:
per cent
Clothing and leather industry 26.2
Iron, metal, machinery and vehicles 20.5
Construction 12.5
Food products 12.4
Wood 9.1
Stone, earth, clay 5.0
Mines 4.3
Textiles 3.9
Paper and printing 2.8
Chemical products 1.5
Gas, water, electricity 0.7
The state contributed actively to industrial development, to the
expansion of the railways and large-scale hydraulic works. The results
of river management were dramatic: cultivable land increased by
4 million hectares.
Infrastructure developments and road building had been taking place
throughout the century, but the building of the railways won the prize.
In 1846, there was just one line running from Pest to Vác and the con-
struction of new lines was slow up until the dual monarchy (1867). The
pace then changed, especially between 1890 and the 1914 war, the
period of greatest expansion.
During this time, the network practically doubled in size, to total
nearly 22,000 kilometres. Hungary followed France, the front runner
with 130 kilometres per 100,000 inhabitants, ahead of Germany,
Austria and Spain. Croatia’s railway network was also more developed
than that of most European countries.
In 1890, there were 634 credit and banking establishments (not
including the co-operatives), 1,011 in 1900 and 1,842 in 1913, in addi-
tion to the Austro-Hungarian Bank’s 39 branches. Eight large banks
accounted for 37 per cent of all banking activities, including the
Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest and the Hungarian General
Credit Bank.
At this favourable conjuncture for Europe generally, growth in

Hungary was remarkable: 2.4 per cent increase in GDP per annum, or
3.2 per cent, calculated by national revenue (I. T. Berend and G. Ránki).
Growth was supported by rapid industrialisation, dynamic technical
innovation and significant modernisation of equipment and infrastruc-
ture. During the entire period of the dual monarchy, the revenue index
quadrupled: from 100 in 1867 it rose to 453 in 1913, the final year before
the outbreak of war.
What remains to discuss is the impact of these developments on edu-
cation, urbanisation and lifestyle, material and cultural civilisation.
There is a Hungarian word which encapsulates the development of
bourgeois civilisation: polgárosodás (from polgár, bourgeois and
citizen), the suffix implying the process itself. Attaining bourgeois
status and the movement towards bourgeois values, therefore, did not
have the same meaning at all.
Having covered economic aspects and the emergence of a bourgeois
society, we shall now turn to churches and schools, art and literature,
attitudes and lifestyles. The general level of culture increased consider-
ably, thanks to the law on compulsory state education. It was imple-
mented by Baron József Eötvös in 1868, who conceived the idea twenty
years earlier in 1848. Illiteracy rates dropped drastically: within thirty
years, two thirds of the male population had an elementary education.
The number of primary schools (four-year cycles) grew from 13,000 in
1867 to 30,000 in 1905, and a vast network of schools for working-class
children, ‘upper primaries’, and a system of apprenticeship provided
teaching beyond that of primary education. At secondary level, 200
schools served 44,000 pupils, not including students attending the
teacher training colleges and other specialised commercial, agricultural
and economic educational institutions.
A second university was established at Kolozsvár in 1872, and two
others were set up, one in Debrecen, the other in Pozsony, receiving their
first students in 1910. The Budapest School of Engineering was pro-
moted to university level and a large number of academies ensured the
training of an elite highly qualified in all the scientific disciplines as well
as in music, fine art and drama. In 1895, the Eötvös College was
founded, following in the footsteps of the Paris Ecole Normale
Supérieure.
Education at all levels was open to all, regardless of race or creed, in
keeping with the spirit of the minority laws conceived by Ferenc Deák

Ruthenians
Slovenians
Germans
Magyars

Slovaks
Croats

Serbs
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Rupture, compromise and the dual monarchy, 1849–1919 223

and József Eötvös, and adopted in 1868. Consequently, by the beginning

of the twentieth century, several thousand schools and secondary
schools provided education in minority mother tongues. There were
over 2,000 Romanian primary schools, five lyceums and a dozen high
schools and commercial colleges or colleges for young women.
Conflicts with the different nationalities nonetheless erupted through-
out the liberal age. In 1874–5, three Slovak lyceums were closed down
due to ‘pan-Slavic agitation’ – in other words, all of them. Numerous
other measures hit non-Magyar educational and cultural establish-
ments. Things were particularly strained under Dezsö Bánffy’s govern-
ment, at the end of the 1900s. The ‘lex Apponyi’, adopted in 1907,
introduced free primary education but also imposed ‘Magyarisation’,
provoking strong opposition from aggrieved minorities.
Apart from a deterioration in the climate as a whole, with the
upsurge of nationalism on every side, the roots of linguistic and cultu-
ral conflicts no doubt lay in the idea itself of the one and indivisible
Hungarian state. The 1868 nationalities law was ‘certainly a very liberal
law’ and ‘in its details was evidence of a genuine broad-mindedness and
a sincere desire for justice’, the French historian Louis Eisenmann
writes. It was a law that opened the way to assimilation, with no dis-
crimination. Similarly, citizens were granted the right to ‘be educated in
their mother tongue’ through to higher-education level. What the law
did not recognise was the collective, corporate right of nationalities to
cultural and administrative autonomy. Hungary constituted a single
political nation in which all citizens were equal without distinction, but
within the framework of a unitary state with Hungarian as the official
language. Non-Magyar languages had not been relegated to the privacy
of the home, however, since they were used in the classroom and, to a
limited degree, even as official languages, according to a clever blend of
freedoms and restrictions.
The idea of a unitary nation-state – along with an increasingly state-
run education system – was very much in keeping with the spirit of the
times, both in the monarchies and the Third French Republic. There was
no Breton state school in France, nor a French school in German-
annexed Alsace. The official language of administration and law was
everywhere the language of the dominant nation – except for Austria
and, to some extent, Hungary as well. As for the left, it applauded the
progress of the state in all domains. A Marx or an Engels had nothing

but contempt for regional identities and the demands of the ‘non-
historical nations’.
The Magyar liberals erred not in judgement or intelligence, but in
lacking a long-term perspective. It was unrealistic to count on the
assimilation of minorities living in a country in which they constituted
half the population. Furthermore, the ‘tough tactics’ deployed by poli-
ticians of the second generation in their attempt to ‘Magyarise’ the
minorities were completely counterproductive and only exacerbated
antagonisms.
The Jewish religious minority was, by reason of its size and circum-
stances, a special case. According to the 1735 census, there were 11,621
Jews in the country – historical Hungary – of which only 4,400 were
native, the others being immigrants. The growth rate progressively
increased: 75,000 in 1785, 240,000 in 1840, 540,000 in 1871. The popu-
lation at large, meanwhile – excluding Croatia – grew from 8 million in
1785 to 13 million in 1869. The proportion of Jews, therefore, increased
considerably, from 1 per cent to 4 per cent, and, by 1910, had reached 5
per cent. The character of the Jewish question then changed to become
a social problem. An ill-deﬁned generalised animosity spread alongside
more traditional anti-Judaism fostered by the clergy and what I have
called the ‘competitive’ economic anti-Semitism.
At the same time, the liberal nobility – the Hungarian ‘bourgeoisie’,
as it were – continued to pursue a policy of welcome and emancipation.
At a time when anti-Semitism was on the rise in the rest of Europe,
including Austria, and pogroms were rampant in Russia and Russian
Poland, their stance deserves to be noted. The industrial, ﬁnancial and
cultural activities propelled by enterprising Jews were viewed with
approval in this country, which was backward in many respects and with
a bourgeoisie of mainly German origin. The desire for assimilation was
also mutual. Even the old ‘Galicians’ were not averse to it, though they
often still spoke Yiddish, preserved their customs, and, it goes without
saying, their religion. They even adopted a zealous patriotism – a trend
that can be seen in obituaries, for example, praising the good Jew and
true Magyar patriot.
Assimilation was both voluntary and exemplary. It was reciprocal,
too; as despite being if not hated then at least despised within the dom-
inant public view, the assimilation of Jews was welcomed in a country
submerged by its ethnic and religious minorities. In the last general

census of 1910, 54.6 per cent declared themselves Magyars – among

them, the majority of the 900,000 Jews: a significant contribution to
‘Magyarness’ in this multinational kingdom.
Influenced by the pivotal national and economic role of the Jews,
anti-Semitism, whether of a religious, visceral, competitive or ethnic
kind, was therefore moderate. It manifested itself in some social dis-
course, in falsely jocular or openly contemptuous behaviour, and also
in social exclusion either invisible or tacitly accepted by the Jews them-
selves. The half-hearted auto-isolation of the most traditional played a
major part in creating the divide and particular cultural affinities not
shared by the Magyar public were noticeable even among educated
Jews. They did not frequent the same theatres, the same cafés, or read
the same newspapers; they would, however, often vote for the same
political party and mixed marriages became common as did the cele-
bration of Christmas, together with other national festivals and the
king’s birthday.
It would be wrong to paint an idyllic picture, but during the half a
century of the dual monarchy, peaceful co-existence brought about a
certain tolerance which seemed to bear the promise of a hopeful future.
Apart from some sporadic incidents, one outbreak of anti-Semitism
tainted the belle époque, the Tiszaeszlár affair. The village bearing this
name was shaken by a ‘ritual murder’ trial, with a peasant girl the sup-
posed victim. The trial ended in 1883 with the acquittal of the accused
Jews. In the immediate aftermath of the affair, a parliamentary group
formed a national anti-Semitic party, but it generated little interest, as
did the Popular Catholic Party founded in 1895. Until the First World
War, anti-Semitism gained little ground, either political or social.

Towards a bourgeois society?

Since the reform era of the 1830s, the most clear-sighted thinkers had
worked towards a modern, industrial and urbanised Hungarian society
and for the creation of a ‘multitude of educated men’ as Count
Széchenyi famously put it. National progress had to include the devel-
opment of economic and social structures and, of course, a bourgeoi-
sie. The liberal deputy Pál Nyári said in 1848 that the country might
have changed in its ideas but that among his peers at the Assembly, ‘all
the names were familiar ones’, in other words, aristocratic and noble.

The civil service was the preserve of the local squires and landed
gentry; impoverished and indebted nobles filled the administrative
posts. Since Kálmán Tisza, nearly half the deputies of the ruling liberal
party had been high-ranking civil servants. This combination of landed
gentry and high-ranking civil servants and the more distinguished com-
moners constituted a political class and a middle class that was not easy
to define, a class of worthies who would later call themselves ‘seignio-
rial Christian middle class’. The adjective ‘seigniorial’ is probably not a
good translation of the more modest Hungarian term, closer to ‘gen-
tlemen’, but it was a specifically Hungarian self-identification, very dif-
ferent from the bourgeoisie of other countries. Having said that, one
only has to read Balzac or Trollope (or Molière) to see that the phenom-
enon of a bourgeoisie aping the nobility was not unknown in these
countries either. The Hungarian middle class, despite lacking self-
confidence, had a strong tendency towards social posturing. Far from
being merely a matter of semantics, this particular characteristic was
also reflected in the attitudes and lifestyles of the nobility, whether
authentic or borrowed. The huge economic transformations brought
about by industrial and commercial progress, the increasing contribu-
tion of factories to the national revenue, along with other indicators of
development, were evidence that bourgeois society was in the ascen-
dant. A host of historians since the 1960s (György Ránki, Péter Hanák,
Iván T. Berend, László Katus, to name but a few) have described the
spectacular upsurge in the value of industrial production. From
175 million crowns in 1860, it rose to 1,400 million crowns in 1900, and
to 2,539 million in 1913. The industrial growth index soared to 1,450,
while the national revenue index climbed from 100 to 453. The state
played its part: whereas between 1880 and 1890, industrial subsidies
amounted to around 120 million, between 1900 and 1906, industry
received 2,300 million from the state, and during the seven years leading
up to the war, the amount trebled. Foreign investment was also consid-
erable, estimated at 50 per cent in the 1890s – mainly Austrian capital –
compared with only 25 per cent in the next decade. Once it had taken
off, domestic capital became the economy’s driving force – and a pow-
erful one: industry and commerce went full speed ahead, leaving the
primary sector far behind, its production value having only doubled
within the same fifty-year span. It nonetheless remained dominant if at
times backward.

Behind these ﬁgures, evidence of a developing capitalism, was a

society split in two; modern and dynamic on the one hand, and moving
at a snail’s pace on the other. These contrasts explain the disparate
judgements made about the country’s characteristics. Some underline
its outmoded – even feudal – structures, others highlight its scientific
and technical achievements, the expansion of urban centres, of civil
society, the arts and literature. Life in peasant villages had changed
little, whereas in the large towns – Budapest especially – it had risen to
the same level as the other European cities.
The capital was born in 1873 out of the unification of three separate
towns: Óbuda, an ancient settlement, Buda, the royal seat, and Pest, a
small town of peasants, craftsmen and fishermen. Pest had been of little
importance until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when, for the
first time, its number of inhabitants (35,000) superseded Buda’s
(25,000). A century later, in 1910, a unified Budapest had 881,600 inhab-
itants, nearly three quarters of them in Pest. The growth rate climbed
from 100 to 1,254 per cent in less than a century – the highest in Europe,
ahead of Berlin (998) and Vienna (578). Expansion and improvements
in historic Buda did not supplant its majestic ‘old town’ look. On the
left bank, Pest, industrial, commercial and bourgeois, exploded with
vitality in a disconcerting blend of styles. Everything – or nearly every-
thing – was ‘neo’: neo-Gothic, neo-baroque, neo-classical, Jugendstil
(secessionist), or simply of no particular style: the hundreds of thou-
sands who had come to town from the countryside to work in the fac-
tories had to be housed somewhere.
Apart from a few churches and houses (especially on Buda Castle),
there was not much left of the old towns. In Pest, the remains of the old
town were demolished, its walls razed to the ground or embedded with
houses in order to create a circular boulevard, a kind of Ringstrasse, and
later the grand boulevard where all the craftsmen set up shop, and
beyond that, the industrial zone. The boulevards and the town centre,
with the Opera, the neo-Gothic Parliament, the museums, schools and
theatres, the palatial banks, stock exchange, and well-to-do middle-
class houses were reminiscent of imperial Vienna, though less opulent.
The middle-class conquerors of Pest were less wealthy, so the town was
less splendid. Out of 1,000 houses, 543 were without an upper floor
(compared to 123 in Vienna and 64 in Paris) and were home to modest
artisans, minor employees and factory workers. Budapest became

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Plate 30. The Hungarian National Museum, c. 1890
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Rupture, compromise and the dual monarchy, 1849–1919 229

Hungarian at the same speed with which it became a modern urban

centre. In 1850, 56 per cent of its 178,000 inhabitants were German, 36
per cent Magyar, 5 per cent Slovak, and 3 per cent other. Thirty years
later, the figures had reversed and, in 1900, 85 per cent of the popula-
tion was Hungarian, with 9.4 per cent German. The change was
brought about by an influx of Hungarian workers, assimilated Jews and
the integration of the Germans. It was a spontaneous process, a result
of the culture and drive of a city in search of its identity. Family names
were ‘Magyarised’. Yesterday’s Germans and Jews changed their names
and became the thousand-year-old country’s most fervent patriots.
The establishment of a strong Jewish middle class in the capital did
not constitute a major problem until the aftermath of the First World
War. Though ‘ordinary anti-Semitism’ was in no way absent – Jewish
expansion in economic life and the sensitive domains of the press, pub-
lishing, theatre and the liberal professions did provoke resentment – it
never reached the level of Viennese anti-Semitism. In 1910, the Jewish
population represented about 7 per cent of the inhabitants in the
Austrian capital, compared with 23 per cent in Budapest. Despite this
three-fold expansion, Budapest did not experience the virulent rise of
anti-Semitism that occurred under Schönerer and Karl Lueger (the
seven times elected–resigned–re-elected mayor of the city, despite the
emperor’s disapproval).
Budapest was not the only triumphant symbol of urbanism and a
certain urbanity. Temesvár, Arad, Pozsony, Nagyvárad and several
other towns followed the example of the capital. In educated circles,
development in social mores – in Norbert Elias’s definition – was espe-
cially apparent. As with everything in this land of contrasts, social
graces stopped at the sometimes invisible threshhold of the higher
social ranks. Széchenyi, for example, tells a story, not too disapprov-
ingly, about his friend Wesselényi – a vehement man, it has to be said –
slapping a servant. Nearly a century later, this was still a common
occurrence. Servants and peasants were often subjected to humiliating
treatment but not the urban commoner, and the peasant with a certain
status in the village was respected by the big landowners, as were the
worker, post-office worker and railwayman and, of course, the educated
and middle classes. Social divides remained, but class barriers were col-
lapsing in favour of the middle classes. The new middle class was com-
posed of an ever widening social circle and of people from all kinds of

backgrounds; it was a Hungarian-style bourgeoisie in which all gradu-

ates were on first name terms. Though it did not expunge the insur-
mountable distinction between a noble of good birth and the son of a
commoner, the diploma did have a certain equalising effect, and
bestowed upon its beneficiaries some social status. A more democratic
space was therefore taking shape among the educated and wealthy
classes, though the lowest classes were excluded.
The progress of bourgeois society was also evidenced by a diversified
civil society. One indication of the new sociability was a proliferation of
associations of all kinds: religious, cultural (reading and singing
circles), economic, professional and local. This sociability, based on
new affinities and shared interests, comradeship or education, often
transcended social divisions.
In 1862, there were 579 associations in Hungary; in 1881, there were
4,000. In the absence of any other statistical data, an estimate based on
the 21,311 association statutes approved by the minister of the interior,
suggests that the associations, circles and clubs existing towards the end
of the dual monarchy numbered around half that figure. Among them
were ‘coalitions’ of workers consisting of over twenty members –
banned for so long in France – and trade unions. In 1904, there were 14
nationally organised trade unions with 408 groups and 17 local syndi-
cate societies. The first clubs and associations for women also appeared
and the very old mutual aid burial societies survived without being reg-
istered.
Freemasonry, already long established in the country, began to evolve
in a variety of milieus, notably among ex-combatants of the 1848 revo-
lution. Alongside the lodges which followed Scottish rituals were vete-
rans from Kossuth’s time, who organised the Great Oriental Lodge. The
two trends merged in 1886 under the name of Great Symbolic Lodge,
bringing together a number of eminent men.
Here too there were stark contrasts: the ‘civilising process’ in
Hungary which owed much to the liberal government had two distinct
limits: national minority societies were closely monitored, and socialist
movements, both industrial and rural, were controlled, suppressed and
even persecuted. The name ‘social democrat’ was forbidden and it was
not until 1890 that the Workers’ Party was able to operate under that
name. Its activities met with countless administrative obstacles followed

by brutal suppression in 1906. The government’s main target at the turn

of the century, however, was the vigorous and tenacious rural Socialist
movement.
As in previous centuries, developments in science, art and literature
were particularly dazzling during this period of contrasts and diversity.
Physicians, doctors, numerous natural and technical scientists contrib-
uted to progress in the sciences and to research and university teaching.
It is impossible to list all the scientific discoveries. The most significant
were in law, philosophy of law, history and sociology, because they
addressed issues related to contemporary society. Professors in philoso-
phy of law, like Ágost Pulsky, Gyula Pikler, Ignác Kuncz in Transylvania,
or Bódog Somló, were concerned with issues inextricably bound up
with nationhood, the state and citizenship. Once dominated by nation-
alist thinking, the law for the new generation had to conform to a
society based on philosophical and moral assumptions of individual
freedom and equality. Trends of thought evolved towards democracy
and led to the birth of sociology, thus breaking with the rigid discipli-
nary boundaries of the past. ‘Sociology was a word which synthesised
our aspirations in a new politics inspired by Bentham’s ideals of justice
and founded on the social sciences’, wrote Oszkár Jászi in a retrospec-
tive article. The Society for Social Sciences founded in 1901 became the
breeding ground for a radical democratic movement.
An expansion in historiography, dominated by national romanticism
but equally influenced by positivism, the critique of sources and
German historicism had already occurred.
Literature had long been dominated by the memories of 1848–9 and
by the divisions created by the 1867 compromise. Petöfi, the poet, died
as he had lived, fighting on the battlefield for freedom – and his national
romanticism still exerted a fascinating influence, even on conservative
writers, thanks to the magic and genius of his poetry. He was called by
some the Hungarian Béranger though he was a far better poet. Should
he in fact be seen as the Hungarian Victor Hugo or Heine’s brother, for
his romanticism and caustic wit, the clarity of his populist poetic lan-
guage? Every great poet is, in the end, his own universe.
Among his friends, János Arany reached the highest peaks in terms
of perfection of form, crystal clarity of language and his closeness to
the language of the people. He left a body of work more complex than

Petöfi’s, the fruit of his experience, but also the emotional traumas of
his time and his own leanings towards pessimism, melancholy and
mental suffering.
The Hungarian poetic tradition, which embraced seven centuries,
lived through a veritable golden age with Vörösmarty, Petöfi, Arany,
Vajda’s lyrical poetry and other contemporaries. The greatest among
them set about translating Shakespeare, seen as ‘half the universe’. The
nineteenth century was also outstanding for the wealth of its epic
genre, straddling romanticism and realism. József Eötvös wrote social
and moral novels, while his contemporary, Zsigmond Kemény, though
little read due to his heavy style, authored historical novels in which the
characters’ psychology is described to a degree that has yet to be sur-
passed in Hungarian prose. And of course, Mór Jókai, author of close
to one hundred adventure and fantasy novels, enjoyed unprecedented
popularity.
Kálmán Mikszáth inaugurated a period which it would be tempting to
label ‘critical realism’, were it not impossible to fit him into a cliché.
Short-story writer, novelist, author of devastating sketches, satires and
short newspaper articles, Mikszáth shone at everything. His finely
nuanced characters suggest parallels with Thackeray, Trollope or
Maupassant, his contemporaries. However, the world which inspired this
clear-sighted observer – that of his own class, the gentry, flamboyant, friv-
olous, charming, scheming and forever in debt – was coming to a end.
There was also an academic literature, more conservative in both its
politics and forms of expression, with reviews, publishers and literary
societies as well as a culture born of a cosmopolitan metropolis.
Though not the sole representatives, Jewish writers and journalists were
part of a rather particular breed whose lifestyle made its mark on the
capital’s bohemian element until the end of the monarchy and beyond:
the poet József Kiss, the novelist and short-story writer Sándor Bródy
and the youngest of them, Ferenc Molnár, internationally acclaimed
playwright, to name but a few. Budapest had half a dozen theatres, large
publishing houses and a press representing a variety of tendencies. Fine
arts flourished, notably the Nagybánya School, fuelled by the artistic
influences of Munich, Paris and Berlin. Pál Szinnyei Merse, Károly
Ferenczy, István Csók, Tivadar Csontvári Kosztka, József Rippl-Rónai
– it would be impossible to list them all. At the 1900 World Exhibition,
the Hungarian school presented in Paris was admired for its ‘bold and

brilliant virtuosity’, having no ‘particular characteristic’ if not a

‘certain exoticism’; Paris bestowed the same judgement on Gustav
Klimt’s and Egon Schiele’s Secessionism. True, the ﬁn-de-siècle of
Hungarian painting, like that of Viennese Art Nouveau, was only just
beginning. All things ‘modern’ remained suspect in the eyes of the edu-
cated majority in Hungary, who feared the dilution of national cultural
identity. Gustav Mahler, then Arthur Nikisch, directors of the Budapest
Opera for a time, were soon dismissed. Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály,
had just begun their research into folk music, which would later be
blended into their modernist music. For the time being, ‘Budapest
1900’, just like that of the previous century, cultivated a conservative
national art rather than the ﬁn-de-siècle art of Vienna, Berlin, Paris or
London.

from one crisis to another, 1904–1914

When the ‘Millennium’ fires of 1896 died out, Hungary was still living
under the fascination of its thousand-year-old past and bathed in self-
satisfaction over the success of the Austro-Hungarian compromise. An
unequivocal success, it was confirmed by progress in all domains and by
a better distribution of general well-being. Social tensions and the
problem of the minorities had not yet disturbed the peace. Hungary was
confident, had a clear conscience, and failed to notice the threatening
clouds gathering on the horizon. Until that point, Hungary succeeded
in discarding any reorganisation plan to move from a dual to a tripar-
tite monarchy or even a federation; anything that called into question
Magyar supremacy within the kingdom or its role, along with Austria,
in common affairs. And yet, the first crisis stemmed not from social ten-
sions or dissension among the minorities, but from the modalities of co-
existence with Austria, an as yet unresolved issue. It was sparked off by
the opposition of ‘left-wing’ independents in the conflict over military
contingency and the order of army command, one of the dual system’s
numerous bones of contention.
Francis Joseph, true to himself, behaved loyally towards his
Hungarian kingdom, scrupulously respecting the words and the spirit
of the compromise. He refused any involvement in internal affairs,
including the demands of the ethnic minorities. The two common
affairs, diplomacy and the army, formed part of his special domain and

he had no intention of acceding to the nationalist demands of the Inde-

pendence Party led by, among others, its president Gyula Justh and by
Ferenc Kossuth, son of the famous exile. They were unhappy with the
monopoly of German as the language of command, wanted the with-
drawal of Hungarian units serving outside the frontiers and their oath
to be made to the Hungarian Constitution. It was too much for Francis
Joseph: the unity of the imperial and royal army (Königliche und
Käiserliche), foundation of the dual monarchy, would have been com-
promised. To express his unswerving opposition, he made his cele-
brated order of the day at Chlopy in September 1903, amidst his
soldiers, during the Galicia manoeuvres. Standing fast against the
Hungarians was all the more necessary since the imperial army was, as
in Joseph Roth’s novels, the crucible of social and supranational inte-
gration of the people living under the monarchy, where individuals
could advance regardless of class or nationality.
Francis Joseph made a few concessions on minor issues and appointed
Count István Tisza, son of the old liberal leader, to form a new govern-
ment and to pass a law on the army in accordance with his ideas.
Growing opposition forced Tisza to call an election – which he lost. In
1905, for the ﬁrst time since the 1867 compromise, the liberal party lost
its overall majority and found itself relegated to second place, behind
the Independence Party. The imperial general began to consider military
intervention and suspension of the Hungarian Constitution. Francis
Joseph refused but nonetheless chose to take ﬁrm action. He gave
General Géza Fejérváry the task of forming an extra-parliamentary
government which was nicknamed ‘gendarme-government’ because
Fejérváry had been commander of the bodyguard.
The king had another weapon at his disposal: he threatened the
former opposition, now the majority, with the introduction of universal
suffrage, which would have certainly led to the Independence Party
losing the elections through the hostile votes of the minorities. The ploy
worked. After the dissolution of Parliament in 1906, opponents accepted
Francis Joseph’s conditions concerning the army and formed a coalition
government under the presidency of Sándor Wekerle, the former prime
minister, with the participation of politicians of all hues, including
Gyula Andrássy, son of the former foreign affairs minister, Ferenc
Kossuth, son of the venerated leader of the 1848–9 uprising, and Count
Albert Apponyi. The Wekerle government, despite its prime minister’s

liberal reputation, led a resolutely nationalistic and anti-socialist policy,

which provoked the opposition of the entire left, from the Social
Democratic Party to the National Agricultural Workers League, via the
middle-class radicals.
The nationalist and anti-democratic coalition government did not
last. At the 1910 elections, the former liberals, now the National
Workers’ Party, secured an absolute majority, under the aegis of István
Tisza who, without having been involved in government prior to 1913,
led the policy-making of a series of ephemeral governments. The
Workers’ Party had as little in common with erstwhile liberalism as
Tisza did with his father. His personal qualities – intelligence, steadi-
ness and courage – are undisputed but Tisza also represented an anti-
social, reactionary trend (the poet Ady called him a pit bull). As for the
nationality question, he energetically destroyed the independent
nationalist opposition which threatened the Austro-Hungarian edifice,
while being nonetheless a firm supporter of an exclusive nationalist
policy at the expense of the minorities.
Francis Joseph thus emerged victorious from the crisis, but then had
to face others. The Chamber of Deputies became the stage for noisy
confrontations and ludicrous scenes provoked by the opposition’s
obstruction tactics and an assassination attempt against Tisza. There
were also more serious signs of instability and brewing discontent. A
general strike and a large anti-Tisza demonstration were organised in
1912 by the Social Democratic Party. It was well attended and led to a
confrontation with the police, resulting in 6 dead, 182 wounded and 300
arrests. This ‘bloody Thursday’ entered the mythology of the workers’
movement. Agrarian Socialism, meanwhile, had taken off again, under
new leaders such as András Áchim, deputy in the Assembly, who pro-
moted the redistribution of large properties, and István Nagyatádi
Szabó, founder of a small farmers’ party, the future and important
Smallholders’ Party.
A variety of conflicts with national minorities continued, the latter
finding in Archduke Francis Ferdinand a powerful protector. Francis
Ferdinand, the emperor’s nephew, was heir to the throne since Francis
Joseph’s only son, Rudolph, had taken his own life, together with his
mistress, Baroness Maria Vetsera, at Meyerling Castle, in 1889. Unlike
Rudolph, Francis Ferdinand was known to be ‘anti-Magyar’, but in
reality he was first and foremost a Habsburg archduke, defender of the

Imperial House and of its power. He developed a strong aversion to the

Magyars, the main obstacles in his plans to reorganise the monarchy. At
the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, Francis Ferdinand set up a kind of
special cabinet, attended by individuals of various nationalities, where
the reorganisation of the monarchy along federal lines was discussed
and elaborated upon.
Political crises certainly did not help to consolidate the Hungarian
state or to advance towards a solution to the real national and social
problems. If despite everything dualism survived, it was thanks to the
liberal wing of the political class, conscious of its necessity, and to
Francis Joseph, who also believed that maintaining the precarious
balance based on the compromise was essential. Meanwhile, the mon-
archy had to face even more acute crises, this time from abroad.
In October 1908, Bosnia-Herzegovina, occupied since the Congress
of Berlin (1878), was annexed to the monarchy. The powers who had a
direct interest – Russia and Turkey, followed by Serbia – consented
reluctantly. Annexation was justified by ‘historical rights’ of the
Hungarian Crown dating back to the Middle Ages, but in fact the
Hungarians did not particularly want an increase of their Slav popula-
tion. Bosnia-Herzegovina was, in effect, governed as a territory shared
by the two states of the monarchy, without being made part of Hungary.
After a few conflicts with the local Muslim population, the Austro-
Hungarian administration, though not loved, came to be accepted.
Such was not the case for the Bosnian Serbs, however. The latter looked
to Serbia, where the policy had changed since the assassination of
Alexander Obrenovich by officers of the ‘Black Hand’ and the accession
of the Karageorgevich dynasty. A pro-Austrian position had been
replaced by the idea of a ‘Greater Serbia’, based on Russian support.
Nicola Pashich had already masterminded this project.
Hungary, meanwhile, was more immediately concerned with Serb
unrest in Croatia. In 1908, more than fifty members of the Serb
Autonomy Party (of Croatia) were arrested and brought before the
Zagreb tribunal, accused of Greater Serb propaganda. Thirty-one of
them were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to long periods
of imprisonment, but were later acquitted. Serb unrest in Croatia was
far from being the Magyars’ preoccupation. Among Croats themselves,
the movement supporting separation from the Hungarian Crown was
gaining ground.

Indeed, it was not long before the Balkan powder keg blew up: the
annexation of Bosnia in 1908 was just a time bomb waiting for the
1912–13 Balkan wars in order to go off. Following annexation, Russia
had – in the words of its minister Alexander Isvolski – ‘swallowed the
bitter pill’. The Serbs, forced to submit to Austrian and German pres-
sure, no doubt felt even more embittered. They were just biding their
time for the opportune moment for a renewed assault, this time against
Turkey, in alliance with other Christian countries in the peninsula and
with Russia (who appointed itself protector of their interests). Turkey
was beaten; the victors, however, immediately set off to fight for the par-
titioning of Macedonia, which had been liberated from the Ottoman
Empire and was coveted by Bulgaria. From here to the second, very
brief, Balkan war in which Serb, Greek and Romanian armies defeated
the Bulgarians.
The imbroglio that was the Balkans (a land of inextricably mixed
nationalities and languages under the eagle eye of Turkey, Russia, Italy,
Austria–Hungary and, behind it, Germany) was, after two Balkan wars,
far from being resolved. The results achieved by the two great rival
powers were limited: Russia had certainly consolidated its influence but
not its hegemony; in the face of Russia’s rising preponderance and Serb
expansion in the Balkans, Austria–Hungary won little more than a
reprieve. The plan of Vienna, to aid Bulgaria in creating a counter-
weight against the Russians and Serbs, had to be abandoned. Italy, its
ally, opposed the plan, while Germany, the Triple Alliance’s pivot, was
putting the brakes on Vienna in order to safeguard its relations with
Russia. Caution also prevailed in London and Paris. The degeneration
of the Balkan conflicts into a European war was thus avoided – but only
just, and without having resolved the tangled antagonisms that would
eventually be its root cause.
During the political crisis of the early twentieth century progressive
minds had drawn the contours of a radical transformation of society,
those of a ‘new Hungary’ and a democratic ‘counter-culture’, open to
the ideas of the century. The guiding light was the poet Endre Ady; the
breeding ground for these ideas were journals like Huszadik Század
(Twentieth Century 1900–19) and Nyugat (West, 1908–41), and associ-
ations like the Social Sciences Society. We have already come across the
leaders of this movement, notably Oszkár Jászi, famous for his clarity
and multivalent vision. Jászi raised and tackled a variety of issues

Plate 31. Cover of the journal Nyugat, 1912

including socialism, agrarian reform and the struggle for political

democracy. It was he who developed the modern democratic concept of
solving the nationality problems based upon cultural freedom for all
minorities, but without autonomy. He retained the concept of the inte-
gral and unitary Magyar state which he hoped to evolve towards a citi-
zens’ democracy. Like other exponents of radicalism, Jászi emigrated
after the collapse of the Károlyi regime, in which he was a minister, and
pursued a brilliant career as a sociologist–historian, first in Europe,
then in the United States until his death in 1957, without ever returning
to the public political life of his native land. Like his comrades, he was
held in contempt by the Horthy regime because of his radicalism, and,
later, by the Communist regime for his firm opposition to Bolshevism,
a position which also caused his breach with Count Károlyi.
Jászi’s itinerary is fairly typical of the fate of Hungarian radical
democrats under successive regimes over a period of nearly a century.
By the time they founded their association and the journal Huszadik
Század, the radicals amounted to a small, heterogeneous group of
essayists and professors of law, philosophy and the science that was
their guiding light to a just and free society – in other words, sociology.
Their radical social vision did not attract a very wide audience and its
social base was tenuous. In the absence of an established bourgeoisie,
their sphere of influence was limited to a handful of intellectuals and
half of those were Jewish. Furthermore, since their social ideas and a
degree of anti-capitalism set them apart from a burnt-out liberalism,
the radicals only appealed to some sections of the middle classes.
Though close to the social democrats, they distanced themselves from
the party, from the workers’ movement and from Marxism. The histo-
rian Miklós Szabó was correct to detect the inclination towards a ‘third
way’, that bright but narrow path which has so often bewitched high-
minded intellectuals, but which fails to impact upon reality.
Initially, the group advertised its political disinterestedness. It
included men with divergent perspectives: Count Gyula Andrássy was
president of the Social Science Society; the liberal journalist Gusztáv
Gratz edited the journal Huszadik Század until 1906, when their paths
diverged. The more radical elements among them focused on a pro-
gramme for the fundamental transformation of society and state. Many
of them joined the Galileo Circle, founded in 1908, which included
among its members a number of future Communists. The name ‘radical

democrat’ was certainly appropriate in the sense that the New Hungary
of their ideals entailed the abolition of feudalism, the establishment of
a lawful state, and a progressive modern democracy. With the old liberal
party led by the nationalist–conservative István Tisza, they wanted to
implement a revolutionary plan via the irresistible force of progress
rather than through violence. Their respective intellectual development
was, however, very different. In the beginning, positivism was an
ephemeral presence, together with that of Herbert Spencer. There were
traces of the sociology of Durkheim and Vilfredo Pareto and of
anarcho-syndicalism through Ervin Szabó. Also present were hints of
Marxism – treated with caution – and evolutionism. These eclectic
readings could not form a coherent ideology, but they were instrumen-
tal in the advent of a new political culture. The radicals had the courage
to sow the seeds without any real hope of reaping the benefits. The
almost total indifference of most radicals towards economics, both
theoretical and practical, further reduced the possibility that they might
influence society in any significant way. Fighting everyone was hard; one
ended up with a lot of enemies and few supporters.

sarajevo: war and defeat

When on 28 June 1914 Gavrilo Princip, a member of the ‘Black Hand’

secret society, assassinated the heir to the throne, Francis Ferdinand,
and his wife at Sarajevo, none of the powers foresaw the consequences
of this act. Yet the Sarajevo assassination was to trigger the deadly
Great War. For nearly a century now, historians have tried to unravel the
diplomatic entanglements which led to Francis Joseph’s ultimatum to
Serbia and, ﬁnally, to the declaration of war. The belief that Belgrade
was behind the ‘Black Hand’ organisation weighed heavily in the deci-
sion. Francis Joseph envisaged ﬁrst of all a punitive expedition against
the Serbs. It was a military solution, therefore, supported by his
Austrian prime minister, Karl von Stürgkh, by the chief of staff, Franz
Conrad von Hötzendorf, and the foreign minister, Count Leopold von
Berchtold. The latter supported the view that the monarchy must rise
to the challenge of Serbia. Assuming Russian intervention on the side
of the Serbs, the German chief of staff and chancellor Theobald von
Bethmann-Hollweg considered the situation rather favourable: Russia
was unprepared, the war would be brief and victory a foregone conclu-

sion. The cogs were set in motion. Only the Hungarian head of govern-
ment, Count István Tisza, was against the decision, fearing irreparable
consequences if Belgrade’s role in the Sarajevo assassination could not
be proven and if military and diplomatic conditions were not right.
Tisza finally relented under pressure from Austrian ministers and with
agreement from Berlin. He was then in the front line, concentrating all
his efforts on winning the war.
The population reacted enthusiastically at first. As in all other bellig-
erent countries, mobilisation and the soldiers’ departure to the front
took place in a wave of patriotic fervour. The Social Democratic Party,
after a brief pacifist response, gave up its opposition to the war. A
crucial factor for the multinational monarchy was that none of its
dozen or so ethnic minorities turned against it and defections were rare.
Unity seemed to have been renewed in an outburst of loyalty towards
the emperor. Enthusiasm did inevitably wane, but with its 53 million
inhabitants (France had 42 million), Austria–Hungary had at its dispo-
sal at any one time about 4 million soldiers and 8 million in all fought
in the war, half of this force being provided by the Hungarian Crown.
The Austro-Hungarian armies first engaged on the southern front
against Serbia, then, following the Russian offensive, on the northern
front and, finally, on a third front against Italy, collecting more defeats
than they did victories, despite the valiant efforts of the soldiers and the
officers’ corps. High command was partially responsible, but the main
causes were organisational weaknesses and lack of equipment and pro-
visions; the German army had to save the day more than once during
the long years of the Great War.
The monarchy’s losses were extremely heavy. Of the 3,800,000 sol-
diers mobilised in Hungary, 661,000 lost their lives, more than 700,000
were wounded and a similar number of them were made prisoners.
The final series of débâcles began in June 1918 on the Italian front.
Along the line of the River Piave, scene of Hemingway’s Farewell to
Arms, the army of the monarchy was almost annihilated. The counter-
offensive by the Entente began in July, with the Germans sustaining a
fatal defeat near the Somme. In September, the Bulgarians surrendered
to General Franchet d’Esperey’s Eastern French army at Salonika.
October saw the second catastrophe at Piave; on 3 November,
Austria–Hungary surrendered to the allied armies and signed the armis-
tice at Villa Giusti in Padua.

War diplomacy

Meanwhile, on 21 November 1916, Francis Joseph died at the age of

eighty-six, after a sixty-eight-year reign. His successor, as emperor of
Austria, was Charles I – Charles IV as king of Hungary. The death
of the old emperor was a heavy blow to the monarchy, but the
decline of the empire had already begun with the defeats and because
of serious economic deterioration in its rural hinterland. Consequently,
four months after his coronation, Charles initiated a separate peace
deal through his brothers-in-law, Princes Sixte and Xavier of Bourbon-
Parma, ofﬁcers of the French army. Sixte took Charles’s message to
President Poincaré, a rather vague message rejected by the French and,
moreover, not at all well received in Berlin.
Rather than embarking upon a serious course of diplomacy for a sep-
arate peace, the monarchy seems to have adopted those of its rivals and
of the emigrants. Its fate was not sealed on its own by the Alliance and
the United States until April 1918. Despite its military setbacks, deser-
tions, the formation of the Czech legion in Russia, mutinies, strikes and
agitation by the minorities, the destruction of Austria–Hungary was
not yet a foregone conclusion. President Wilson’s famous Fourteen
Points, to be declared on 8 January 1918, did not envisage it, nor was it
part of the Entente’s war aims. On the other hand, the Congress of the
Austro-Hungarian nationalities, which opened in Rome on 8 April 1918
and where bids for independence were made, turned out to be an unfa-
vourable turning point. At the end of May, the United States agreed to
the dismantling of Austria–Hungary. This was followed by a military
council of the Entente which ofﬁcially added the creation of Poland,
Czechoslovakia and a southern Slav state to the war aims – in other
words, the destruction of the dual monarchy. The recognition of the
Transylvanian Romanians’ right to self-determination was the last
stroke in the disintegration of the Hungarian part.
The end of Austria–Hungary, however, cannot be explained by ulti-
mate decisions; nor, indeed, the thesis of ‘fatality’ which had to be
reframed in the long term. The mutilation of the monarchy, if not its
total destruction, was foreseeable. Before recapitulating this long
process, it is helpful to discuss the short-term events, in so far as a
summary of the multiplicity of events punctuating the war years is in
fact possible.

While there was naturally no diplomatic presence in enemy cities and

therefore no one to plead the Austro-Hungarian cause in Paris or
London, there was an emigrant presence from the monarchy’s nation-
alities. Czech and Slovak emigrants played a decisive role in bringing
about a change in the politics of the Entente and the United States
towards Austria–Hungary. The aim to ‘destroy Austria’ (Austria
delenda) was propagated by leaders of the Czech emigration, primarily
two high-calibre statesmen, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937) and
Edvard Beneš (1884–1948). In Paris, Beneš worked tirelessly for the
Czechoslovak cause, winning the support of influential French intellec-
tuals, Slavist university professors, journalists, writers, mostly members
of a national Committee for Political and Social Studies and a Society
of Studies, both founded in 1916, comprising pacifists, anarchists and
freemasons. The historian Ernest Denis played a particularly important
role. The ‘Czechophile lobby’ also won the support of Stéphen Pichon
and Philippe Berthelot, minister and general secretary of foreign
affairs respectively. As for the head of government himself, Georges
Clemenceau, no convincing explanation has yet been put forward for
his violently anti-Austrian reversal in 1918–19 and his acrimony
towards the Hungarians.
An influential pressure group was also formed in England, led by
Professor Robert W. Seton-Watson, author of Racial Problems in
Hungary (1908), The Habsburg Monarchy and the South Slav Question
(1911) and editor of The New Europe Review from 1916, and Henry
Wickham Steed, correspondent of The Times. ‘The result was the crea-
tion of a powerful government lobby in support of a strong British com-
mitment to national self-determination in Eastern Europe’, writes
Thomas L. Sakmyster in a collective work dedicated to the war (War
and Society in East Central Europe, vol. vi (Social Science Monograph,
New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1982)).
At the peace conference, the Hungarians had to pay a heavy price for
the defeat. The Czechoslovak Republic, Romania and the Serb-Croat-
Slovene kingdom annexed vast territories where more than 3 million
Magyars cohabited with the ethnic relatives of the victorious side. The
Paris treaties satisfied the latter entirely, but did so by brutally carving
up territories, sacrificing millions of Magyars, including discrete groups
like the Szeklers and the Magyars living in border areas. ‘Another cloud-
less day’, writes Harold Nicolson, the British diplomat, in his Diary on

8 May 1919, after a decisive meeting between the foreign ministers of

the five powers, held at the Quai d’Orsay.
There (in that heavy tapestried room, under the simper of Marie de Medicis,
with the windows open upon the garden and the sound of water sprinkling
from a fountain and from a lawn hose) – the fate of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire is finally settled. Hungary is partitioned by these five distinguished gen-
tlemen – indolently, irresponsibly partitioned – while the water sprinkles on the
lilac outside – while the experts watch anxiously – while A.J.B., in the intervals
of dialectics on secondary points, relapses into somnolence – while Lansing
draws hobgoblins upon his writing pad – while Pichon crouching in his large
chair blinks owlishly as decision after decision is actually recorded – while
Sonnino, returned to Canossa, is rigidly polite – while Makino, inscrutable and
inarticulate, observes, observes, observes.

The fact that Nicolson was not particularly fond of the Magyars makes
his testimony all the more signiﬁcant.
Apart from Emperor–King Charles’s clumsy attempt and a few dip-
lomatic or private moves – by Count Michael Károlyi among others –
Vienna and Budapest did not have the means of inﬂuencing Allied
diplomacy or European and American public opinion. Hungarian
internal policy had not made any progress towards democracy that
would have changed the kingdom’s tarnished image. Successors of
István Tisza, head of government until 1917, maintained a ‘greater
Hungarian’ position, thereby leaving little room for any kind of agree-
ment with the minorities.

the end of historical hungary

The half a century of dual monarchy has been described, analysed and
judged in different ways by both Hungarian public opinion and histo-
rians. The enthused crowds who celebrated independence in the ﬁnal
days of October 1918 were followed by disappointed generations nos-
talgic for ‘the good old days’ of Francis Joseph, for peace, and, above
all, for the vanished grandeur of historical Hungary. Collective memory
certainly reserved a special place for the anti-Habsburg tradition, but
alongside remembrance of Rákóczi and Kossuth was also a veneration
of the good kings of the Austrian dynasty. The ‘legal’ world was as
divided as the ‘rural’ one. Hungary remained a kingdom under
Horthy’s regency, and the return of the crowned king, Charles IV, was
forbidden. Schools and streets displayed the tricolour roundel on 15

March, anniversary of the 1848 revolution, and a black ribbon on 6

October, in commemoration of the day thirteen generals were executed
during the War of Independence. However, teaching about the day in
April 1849 when Kossuth declared separation from the Habsburgs
remained discreet. Photographs of the old man of the Hofburg and the
old man who died in exile in Turin, gazed peacefully at each other on
the dressers of bourgeois apartments or in the ‘parlours’ of peasant cot-
tages. The predominantly Calvinist eastern region seems to have
remained more attached to the anti-Habsburg kuruc tradition than
Catholic Transdanubia. A similar split can be observed among the his-
torians of the inter-war period. Gyula Szekfü’s iconoclastic study of
Rákóczi in exile had already provoked a scandal when it appeared in
1913 because of the less than complimentary judgement he conferred
upon the prince, one of the symbols of national resistance. Yet the same
historian became an incontestable authority for his works which cast a
critical eye upon the turbulent noble estates, on Kossuth and his radical
policy as opposed to Deák, the wise architect of the 1867 compromise,
that ‘happy accomplishment of our modern history, the best solution to
an age-old problem’. Szekfü went as far as to declare that ‘in terms of
public rights, ’67 was the peak of 400 years of history’. Communist
historiography would later veto this. For twenty years, the notion of
Hungary’s ‘colonisation’ by Austria, and of the nation’s oppression by
the Habsburgs prevailed. In this ideological reading, Hungary’s ‘true’
history was nothing less than ‘400 years of struggle for independence’.
University professors, members of the Academy and respected lyceum
teachers were sacked for stating the contrary or for professing a more
nuanced point of view. Re-establishing the truth of the matter carried
risks for several historians from the Institute of History. György Ránki
and Iván T. Berend, in their studies of economic history, show that the
period of dualism, whilst penalising industrialisation through Austrian
customs pressures, was favourable to modernisation and growth. Péter
Hanák, author of several studies on cultural and political aspects of this
period, analyses societal progress, refusing dogmatic Communist theses
in which only the exploiting classes supported dualism. These historian
‘apologists for the monarchy’, the Communists retorted, were simply
renouncing the ideas of the democratic and socialist revolution.
Domokos Kosáry, one of the key representatives of scientiﬁc historiog-
raphy, did not bend to ideological demands and was ﬁred. Thanks to a

host of historians, the Hungarian position within dualism has also been
rectiﬁed: they have shown how, bearing in mind that total independence
was impossible, Hungary was able to ﬁnd security and an honourable
place in international relations. Without idealising the 1867 solution, its
detrimental effects on the economic and social structures and on the
petrifaction of the political system, the chiaroscuro light of reality is
thus shed on dualism. In the light of an otherwise glorious history, it
was an undoubtedly regrettable, in the true sense of the word, compro-
mise, but a fertile and creative one too.

Could the monarchy have survived?

On 16 October 1918, two weeks before the Padua armistice, Charles

declared the transformation of Austria (not Hungary) into a federal
state. It was too late. In a cascade of declarations, Czechs, Slovaks and
Southern Slavs proclaimed their separation. Austria declared itself a
republic, and Hungary separated itself belatedly from its king. Within
a matter of weeks, the Habsburg Empire, ten centuries old, collapsed.
Could it have survived? According to the most widespread opinion, the
‘worm-eaten ediﬁce’ was in any case condemned to demolition because
of its outmoded structures, its heavy and punctilious organisation, and
most of all its multi-ethnic composition. Every empire must perish . . .
However, the only worthwhile point is not to come up with rather short
theories on the ‘inexorable advance of the nationalities’ and the immi-
nent collapse of the multinational empire, but to ascertain whether or
not it had the capacity to rebuild itself on new foundations.
As has already been stated, in 1918 it was certainly too late. Emperor
Charles’s manifesto for the reorganisation of Austria, without touching
Hungary’s status, came at a time when independence – for all the coun-
tries of the empire – was within reach, and without a single shot being
ﬁred. One year earlier – let alone in the pre-war period – the desire for
independence was far weaker. Separatism was at that time fostered by
emigrants, especially the Czechs, rather than by the domestic political
class or public opinion. The federal solution seemed to meet Czech
desires; as for the Croats, they leaned towards an attachment to the
Austrian Empire in return for separation from the kingdom of Hungary
and union with Dalmatia. Other provinces, like Galicia, aspired to
autonomous status. Subject to a shift in the Hungarian position, the

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Hungary in 1914

C Z E C H O
Frontier established by the
S L O V
Treaty of Trianon (1920)
A K
Kassa
I A
Danube
Pozsony
Miskolc
S

a z
Tis
AUSTRIA Györ
Budapest Debrecen

H U N G A R Y Nagyvárad

Kolozsvár
A
I
Szeged N
A
D

Pécs Maro
ra

s
va

Zagreb
K

Temesvár M
IN

G
D Sa O
O va
M
OF Újvidék R
SE Territories acquired 1938–41
RB
S, C Da Frontiers after the
ROA nub
Treaty of Paris (1947)
TS, SLO e
VENIAN

Map 11. Frontiers of Hungary after the Treaties of Trianon (1920) and Paris (1947)
248 A Concise History of Hungary

federal solution was therefore viable – perhaps until 1918, certainly

before the war.
It can be deduced that without the war, the Austrian monarchy, trans-
formed into a federation, would not have been doomed. As Léo Valiani
points out in his authoritative work, it was the war, the trials endured,
emigrant activity, the hardening of the Allies and the final defeat which
turned the nationality movement into an irresistible force which led to
the eruption.
As for the Hungarian position – within the hypothesis of a solution
adopted before the crisis became irreversible – the essentials are known:
the Hungarians stuck firmly to their intransigent position, unwilling to
give away an inch of their constitutional prerogatives. In other words,
they rejected any trialism or federal project which placed the Austrian
Slavs on an equal footing with the Hungarians. Furthermore, apart
from the minorities of the Austrian Empire, there were Hungary’s
national minorities: Slovaks, Romanians, Germans, Croats, Serbs and
Ruthenians. To enter into a federation with all these peoples would have
been absolutely unthinkable for two reasons. Firstly, the other members
– Austrian Germans, Czechs, Poles and Italians – would have been
reduced to the smallest portion under the crushing weight of a Hungary
comprising 20 million inhabitants. Secondly, none of the nationalities
within the Hungarian kingdom would have been willing to be the left-
overs of a reorganisation of this kind.
The Hungarian statesmen were right: whatever the scenario, federal-
isation would have led to the disintegration of historical Hungary. It
would have entailed separation from Croatia, the loss of Upper
Hungary to be transformed into a federal Slovak state and the secession,
in one form or another, of the Transylvanian Romanians, not to
mention inevitable Serb demands, probable Ruthenian demands and
foreseeable Saxon ones.
All the last governments – of Tisza, Móric Eszterházy, Sándor
Wekerle and Count Hadik in the final instance – acted reactively: they
categorically opposed any agreement which threatened the sovereignty
of the Hungarian Crown over the entire territory of the kingdom.
Hungary was consequently the stumbling block in the reorganisation of
the monarchy: without Hungary’s agreement, the project could not be
carried out; without Hungary, the result would have been an Austro-

Czech–Dalmatian–Galician federal state reduced to half the dual mon-

archy. To add anything to this statement would be pure speculation.
Detractors of the Hungarian attitude were therefore not wrong either
when they observed that any solution which satisﬁed the ten or twelve
nationalities came up against Budapest’s refusal. An additional ques-
tion remains, however: how could Hungary have removed the obstacle
constituted by its internal multi-ethnicity? Heterogeneous Austria was
more easily reconciled. It had built itself up through the centuries, piece
by piece, into an empire where the hereditary provinces of the House of
Habsburg rubbed shoulders with Bohemia, conquests in Italy,
Dalmatia, Galicia and Bucovina. It was a mosaic of states and provinces
with a supranational character, headed by the shared sovereign in the
Hofburg, Vienna. Conversely, the Hungarian ‘mosaic’ was drawn upon
the canvas of a thousand-year-old historical Hungary, under the cupola
of the Crown. To renounce this unity, unless forced to do so, would have
been indubitably a generous act. In view of Magyar public opinion and
its political class, it would have been a suicidal one – an extraordinary
and historically unprecedented gesture.
Nonetheless, to defer the irreducible nationality problem from one
decade to another was equally suicidal. Without speculation as to what
could have happened ‘if’ the Hungarians had sought and found a modus
vivendi with the non-Magyars in the kingdom, one conclusion stands
out: it was never seriously envisaged. For reasons which run through the
centuries and are inextricably linked to the Magyars’ conception of the
nation-state, apart from a few rare and isolated individuals the idea was
beyond their horizons.

Historical Hungary was over. After the ‘long nineteenth century’, it

entered a Europe forged by the victors, a small, defeated country of less
than 8 million inhabitants. Even before the Treaty of Trianon (signed 4
June 1920) had set out the peace conditions, Hungary had lost more or
less two thirds of its territories and three ﬁfths of its inhabitants. As
soon as the monarchy collapsed, successor states occupied the most
coveted parts of the kingdom: to the north, Upper Hungary was
claimed by the Slovaks and Czechs; to the south, Serbs joined with
Croats and Slovenians and created a common kingdom; to the east,
Transylvanian Romanians opted to join Romania. Charles of Habsburg
abdicated and the declaration of the Republic of Austria sealed the end
of Austria–Hungary. From now on, Hungary had to face alone its
neighbours as well as the eastern army of the Entente – which had
already defeated the Bulgarians and was advancing from Salonika to its
southern borders.

post-war convulsions

Under attack on all sides, the country underwent a year of torment. We

must return to the last days of October in order to describe the internal
situation.
On 25 October 1918, three opposition parties – the Radicals, the
Social Democrats and Count Mihály Károlyi’s Independence Party –
created a National Council. On 30 October, the latter was swept to

power in a joyful revolution, by crowds of soldiers, men and women

wearing asters in their button holes. Count Károlyi formed a coalition
government with the approval of the king’s representative, Archduke
Joseph. When Charles abdicated on 16 November, Károlyi proclaimed
Hungary’s First Republic before an enthusiastic crowd. The new leader
was an exceptional individual: son of a great historic family who moved
to the left; a large landowner who distributed one of his domains among
the peasants; a pacifist who had fought valiantly in a regiment of
hussars. He was a pro-Entente liberal politician, a Wilsonian and a
patriot; an arch-rival of Tisza, and yet devastated when the latter was
murdered by marauding soldiers. A ‘republican royalist’, Károlyi was
the last statesman to swear allegiance to the absent king.
Full of goodwill, the Károlyi government, reshuffled several times –
notably on the occasion of the count being elected president – took
radical steps to democratise the country and to improve the lot of
workers and peasants. Too radical for the right and not radical enough
for the Communist left, for the former the ‘red count’, the ‘Hungarian
Kerenski’, was merely the harbinger of Bolshevik subversion. Indeed,
Károlyi would be later condemned (in 1923), in absentia, for high
treason. Despite his pro-Communist leanings, on the other hand, the
party always kept him at arm’s length, refusing to accept him within the
ranks. Károlyi, the eternal emigrant, played a role of little consequence
for his country, but represented a virtually democratic Hungary. During
his trial, Entente governments made appeals – at best half-hearted – to
the Budapest authorities, more for form’s sake than to support this
slightly eccentric man of the left who represented no one. During the
first months of the end of war and the post-war period, however,
Károlyi was the man of the moment, popular with the masses, hated by
his class more than anyone else.
Two accusations levelled against him and his short-lived government
are indicative of the situation. Károlyi was considered the gravedigger
of historical Hungary because of his anti-militarist propaganda and,
above all, his cowardice towards the ‘nationalities’ and the Entente. He
was, with the war minister Colonel Béla Linder, very probably respon-
sible for the disintegration of the army. Historical evidence does not,
however, support the other accusation levelled against him. True,
Károlyi and his friends, including Oszkár Jászi, did try for the first time

to come to an agreement with the minorities; but the latter were no

longer nationalities at the mercy of the Budapest government’s good-
will. Jászi’s dream of transforming Hungary into an ‘Eastern
Switzerland’ evaporated. The time for concessions, mean or magnani-
mous, was past: during those days – the end of October and beginning
of November – when Károlyi’s government became operational,
Czechoslovakia, the Serb–Croat–Slovene kingdom and the union of
Transylvania with Romania were already becoming an irreversible
reality. Hungary, with Austria and Germany – which surrendered on 11
November – lost the war and its army was in disarray. Interestingly, the
Communist regime which followed had a brief outburst of military
energy, but in different circumstances, to which we shall return.
In November 1918, the government had to ask the victors for an
armistice on the Balkan front with the Serbs and the Entente. This was
supposed to complete the previous armistice, signed at the Italian front
by the Austro-Hungarian representative at Padua. Consequently, a del-
egation led by Károlyi arrived in Belgrade on 7 November, met by
Franchet d’Esperey, general of the Eastern French (Danubian) army.
Contrary to legend, Franchet d’Esperey behaved courteously and, con-
trary to the other legend, Károlyi did not sell out historical Hungary.
He insisted on the territorial integrity of the kingdom (except for
Croatia), and wanted its frontiers guaranteed until the peace treaty.
A freeze-frame provides an insight into his chances at the Belgrade
negotiations. It shows Károlyi as evidently nurturing certain illusions,
whereas the Allies had to keep their promises to the Czechs, Slovaks,
Serbs and Romanians – to whom the Bucharest Treaty of 17 August
1916 guaranteed the cession of Transylvania and vast adjoining territo-
ries. In addition, military projects against Soviet Russia meant that
French designs for the region left the Hungarians with no room for
manoeuvre.
The lines ﬁnalised by the Belgrade military convention tightened the
victors’ stranglehold over the country. However, it was the extension of
these zones, in the months that followed, in favour of the Romanians
that brought about Károlyi’s downfall. In the meantime, Paris, acting
for the Entente, disclaimed Franchet d’Esperey, as evidenced by a mass
of archival memos. In one of these, Stéphen Pichon, Clemenceau’s
foreign affairs minister, sharply rebuked the general for having signed
an armistice with the representatives of the ‘so-called Hungarian state’

instead of dealing with Austria–Hungary – even though the latter had

ceased to exist. These notes are dated end of November 1918, demon-
strating that French policy was somewhat confused, and that it had cer-
tainly hardened towards Hungary.
Demarcation lines were pushed back to the advantage of the Czechs
and Romanians; western Ukraine gained Ruthenian land. Faced with an
unprepared Hungarian public opinion, Károlyi was unable to justify
these climb-downs. He would have preferred French occupation of the
country, including Budapest, rather than the advances of the successor
states’ armies.
On 20 March 1919 the chief of the Entente’s military mission,
Lieutenant Colonel Fernand Vix, handed the Hungarian president a
note from General De Lobit demanding yet another withdrawal,
namely, the evacuation of a new 100-kilometre zone, reaching almost to
the River Tisza. The ultimatum expired twenty-four hours later.
Károlyi and his prime minister, Dénes Berinkey, decided they could not
comply. The government resigned and Károlyi announced his intention
to designate a Social Democrat government. A proclamation signed by
him declares that the president would ‘pass power over to the prole-
tariat’. In the event, a government comprising the Social Democrats and
the Communist Party – they had merged the day before – proclaimed a
Soviet Republic on 21 March.
Did Károlyi deliberately hand over power to the Communists? This
was the second of the accusations which was to accompany him
throughout his life and even after his death, in 1955, during his second
long exile in France. The documents are in fact confused and contradic-
tory. The proclamation handing power over to the proletariat is a ‘true-
fake’: Károlyi did not write it, denied signing it and distributing it. And
perhaps he had not really understood the difference between Social
Democrats and Communists, just as he had not grasped the full
meaning of this power transfer. Unbeknown to him, as he dined at his
palace awaiting the call to designate a Socialist head of government, the
authors of the Socialist–Communist coup d’état had already removed
him as president. Károlyi, a rather naïve and confused idealist,
undoubtedly let himself be swept along by the events. According to his
biographer, Tibor Hajdu, he should have ﬂed to Paris and defended his
cause – or his dream – from there, rather than witness, powerless and
with wounded pride, everything going adrift.

The union pact of the two workers’ parties and the proclamation, in
the same document, of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
Republic of Councils, were clinched in strange circumstances. The Social
Democratic leaders, except for the most moderate, went to the prison to
sign it, where the Communist leaders were detained for subversive agita-
tion. This unique act brought together two parties with very different
histories. The Social Democratic Party was founded in 1878, had as its
basis qualiﬁed workers, on the German model, and was run by the
unions. Unlike the Communists, the Social Democratic Party had earned
respectability and several of its leaders were members of Károlyi’s
government. Others went over to the Communist Party instead.
Unlike other parties created from splits within the Social Democrats,
the Communist Party followed Bolshevik orders and was founded
during November 1918 from three initially distinct groups: left-wing
dissidents from the Social Democratic Party, disciples of the anarcho-
syndicalist theoretician, Ervin Szabó, and Communists returning from
Moscow. The ﬁrst Hungarian Communist cells were most certainly
organised among prisoners of war in Russia. The same applies to the
nub of leaders that later returned to Hungary. A militant close to Lenin,
the journalist Béla Kun, immediately took effective leadership of the
party and then, from 21 March 1919, that of the Soviet Republic, the
resulting fusion of the two workers’ parties.
Before summarising the principal events of the 133 days of the
Republic of Councils, it needs to be said that the war and the defeat had
increased the dissatisfaction of the masses along with ferment among
left-wing intellectuals and the lower middle classes. Their actions in
terms of a bourgeois democracy, however, had no solid social base, nor
did it have any real intellectual hold. Vilmos Böhm is probably close to
the truth when he writes that the success of the Communists’ higher bid
can be explained by the disarray among the unemployed, the wander-
ing demobilised soldiers, the war-wounded and by the demoralisation
of millions of poor, a Lumpenproletariat in Böhm’s terms. The coinage
mattered little: millions of people were in disarray and ready for the rev-
olutionary adventure. In addition, the brief proclamation of 21 March
‘against the Entente’s imperialism’ and announcing the intention of
concluding ‘a total and intimate alliance with the Soviet Russian gov-
ernment’ raised certain hopes among the crowd which it would be
wrong to judge with hindsight.

Be that as it may, the Revolutionary Governing Council as it was

called, comprising thirty or so people’s commissars, took power
without encountering the slightest resistance. Among these commissars
was the philosopher Georg Lukács, having recently allied himself to the
Communists, a presence which was to engender enduring myths and
considerable confusion.
Lukács, like the screen-writer Béla Balázs and others, in fact partici-
pated in a number of radical circles during and after the war (like the
Galileo Circle), several members of which ended up in the Communist
Party. Lukács (1885–1971), who ran the ‘Sunday Circle’, stood out from
the rest in breadth of knowledge and strength of personality. His is a
continuous presence throughout the history of the Communist Party, of
which he remained a life-long member, an illustrious and disruptive
element. The 33-year-old Lukács, who joined the party and was
instantly appointed people’s commissar for cultural affairs, did not,
however, allow his thinking to retain any trace of German philosophy
– except for Marx. It was Lenin, man of revolutionary action, who
seduced this contemplative individual with aspirations of rising above
the commonplace.
Despite the individuals drawn to these circles, it would be wrong to
consider them as the breeding ground for Hungarian Communism. The
free-thinkers, anti-militarists and sociologists belonging to the Social
Science Society or the Galileo Circle had more in common with the pre-
vious government. Communism, on the other hand, appeared suddenly,
without roots, in response to a particular situation. Jászi, Lovászy,
Károlyi – after a moment of hesitation – as well as the sociologist Karl
Mannheim, the Polányi brothers (Károly and Mihály) and several other
Social Democrat commissars would choose to emigrate to the West.
The Communists – among them Lukács, Béla Kun and the economist
Jenö Varga – chose Soviet Russia.
Hungarian cultural life as a whole, above and beyond the ephemeral
age of revolutions, engendered two men of genius. The death of one of
them, the poet Endre Ady (1877–1919), in January 1919, makes it nec-
essary to mention him again at this point. The other, Béla Bartók
(1881–1945) was at the height of his creativity. He had already made an
impact on the musical life of his native land with his early works, the
ballet, The Wooden Prince, his lyrical drama, Bluebeard’s Castle, piano
scores like L’Allegro barbaro and the pantomime, The Miraculous

Plate 32. The poet Endre Ady

Mandarin. His later work became part of the world’s heritage. Ady,
barely older than Bartók, revolutionised Hungarian poetry. His poetic
language, the audacity of his expression and his experiments with form
– his tormented inner self and that of his nation – made him the most
admired and the most hated (by conservatives) of poets.
21 March to 1 August marks the short life of the proletarian repub-
lic. Its revolutionary government took countless measures: enterprises,
banks, insurance companies, wholesale trade and apartment blocks
were nationalised; social decrees were passed in favour of women and
children; the press, cultural activities and liberal professions were sub-

Plate 33. Béla Bartók

jected to government control. Hardship, rationing and inﬂation soon

followed. The Hungarian crown, once on a par with the Swiss franc, fell
by 90 per cent; ‘blue’ bank notes, good ones, were replaced by ‘white
notes’ issued in Budapest and mistrusted by all. The gravest mistake was
to allocate lands conﬁscated from large landowners to co-operatives
rather than to the expectant peasants and agricultural workers.
The novelty effect soon turned to disillusionment among those who
had hoped for better days, and the conﬂict between the regime and its
increasingly numerous enemies rapidly turned into terror. Indeed, there
was no attempt to disguise its nature: the government set up a parallel

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Plate 34. Béla Kun addresses a factory crowd, April 1919
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Between the wars 259

police force, a special terror unit, colloquially known as ‘Lenin’s boys’,

referring to the great leader who encouraged his Hungarian comrades
in ruthlessly haranguing the enemies and traitors of the revolution,
including Social Democrats. ‘Shoot them’ – was Lenin’s telegraphed
message to Kun. Carrying out this order would have caused embarrass-
ment since the Social Democrats were in government. The ‘Lenin’s
boys’ did not ﬁnd themselves out of work, however. The exact number
of victims is unknown; estimates vary enormously from a few hundred
to a few thousand.
The dictatorship was run by the government and its ﬁve-member
Directorate. At closer quarters, Béla Kun behaved like a less ambitious
Lenin. A provincial journalist with some oratory and organising skills,
Kun had returned from Moscow with an informal mandate from Lenin.
When it came to diplomatic horse-trading, he also proved to be quite an
able negotiator. Kun would have happily accepted a ‘Brest-Litovsk
Hungary’ except that while Lenin had thousands of kilometres at his
disposal for a retreat, Kun did not have an inch. After the collapse of the
Hungarian Soviets, when he was once more in exile in Moscow, he
carried the accolade of having sustained a Soviet Republic in the heart
of Europe for 133 days. This unique experience subsequently placed
him at the top of the Communist International, until 1937, the year of
his downfall followed by his execution. Whilst recognising his merits,
Lenin had in fact already sharply criticised him for joining with the
party of Social Democrat traitors. Kun could only say – under his
breath – that without them, the miracle would never have taken place.
The extraordinary circumstances that allowed a Communist takeover
never occurred again. Everything – traditions, social structures, public
mentality – was against it. As Béla Kun revealingly confessed, in his
characteristically clumsy way, ‘The Hungarian proletariat betrayed us.’
By ‘us’ he meant the Communists. No confession could have better
illustrated the absence of any social basis for the project.
Considering the short duration of the regime, there was a great deal
of military and diplomatic activity. In April, Hungary came under
attack from the Czechoslovakian army, leading to mobilisation, the
creation of the Red Army and war on the Northern front, where the
Hungarian counter-offensive achieved considerable success.
The Allies were divided from the moment the Republic of Councils
was declared. Lloyd George opposed suppression by military means and

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Plate 35. Miklós Horthy enters Budapest on 16 November 1919
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Between the wars 261

the South African general Jan Christiaan Smuts was mandated by the
Council of Four to enter into negotiations with Béla Kun. ‘I am pre-
pared to meet with any rascal’, President Wilson said at the time, ‘if it
is useful.’ The Italians adopted the same position. Only the French,
Clemenceau and Pichon, remained intransigent towards ‘Lenin’s
accomplices’, the defeated Hungarian enemies. Nevertheless, Marshal
Foch’s proposal to send in the troops against Bolshevik Hungary was
rejected. The plan soon became obsolete as the Hungarian Red Army
suffered a decisive defeat on the Romanian front, bringing down the
regime on 1 August. In April, the Bolshevik revolutionary armies were
a mere 150 kilometres from the Hungarian frontier, but the meeting of
the two ‘Soviet sister republics’ did not take place.

trianon hungary

The Romanian offensive did not stop halfway. It advanced as far as

Budapest, pillaging and requisitioning along the way. The ephemeral
governments that succeeded the Councils were powerless. The Entente
finally managed to ensure Romanian retreat in mid-November – not
without difficulties. Meanwhile, several political parties were born, as
was a national army under the command of Miklós Horthy, which
entered the capital the day after the Romanians left, on 16 November
1919. The Entente delegate, Sir George Russel Clerk, for his part,
approved the creation of a new government under the presidency of
Károly Huszár.
Horthy’s national army was an essentially repressive force of law and
order, directed at Communists and their real or supposed accomplices.
Half a dozen military detachments held sway under various command-
ers and their victims included numerous Jews, freemasons, Socialists
and Democrats. An unprecedentedly large wave of anti-Semitism swept
over the country, undoubtedly tolerated or even encouraged by Miklós
Horthy, who did not distance himself from the military detachments
until after being elected regent in 1920. The White Terror was not
simply a reaction to the Red Terror, but had deep roots. Yet the Republic
of Councils undeniably contributed to the upsurge of anti-Semitism as
well as of virulent anti-Communism. As for the number of victims, esti-
mates vary (as they do for the Red Terror) between a few hundred and
several thousands. Ignác Romsics’s calculations put the figure at 1,500.

The Horthy regime was installed in 1920. On 1 March, a national

assembly elected Horthy regent of the kingdom, not without military
pressure. The new government that took office soon after had the task
of signing the Treaty of Trianon on 4 June.
The conditions imposed on Hungary by the Treaty of Trianon – a
follow-up to the Treaty of Versailles with Germany of 28 June 1919, and
the Saint-Germain-en-Laye Treaty of 19 September 1919 with Austria –
were more draconian than those imposed on Germany. Even Austria,
also severely punished, received a part of the Hungarian kingdom,
Burgenland, with 290,000 inhabitants, mainly Germans. Hungary’s
283,000 square kilometres without Croatia was reduced to 93,000 square
kilometres, its population dropped from 18.2 million to 7.6 million and
reached approximately 8 million by the end of 1920, when Hungarians
from annexed territories were repatriated. In all, 3,425,000 Magyars –
including sizeable homogeneous communities – found themselves separ-
ated from their motherland in territories given to the monarchy’s succes-
sor states. Romania received 101,000 square kilometres, a larger
territory than that of mutilated Hungary, with 5,265,000 inhabitants,
1,704,000 of them Magyars. The other main beneficiary of the treaty,
Czechoslovakia, was enlarged from Upper Hungary and Ruthenia with
a total of 3.5 million inhabitants, which included more than 1 million
Magyars. A further half a million found themselves in the
Serb–Croat–Slovene kingdom, 60,000 in Austria and 6,000 in Italy.
The consequences of a peace with such divisions were disastrous.
Though the principle measures of the treaty had been predictable since
1919, their breadth and the flagrant injustice traumatised the Magyars
within and beyond their new frontiers. Apart from the economic con-
sequences, the post-Trianon shock determined the Horthy regime’s
revisionist policies. It drove public opinion to nationalism and isolated
the country from its neighbours – the future Little Entente – who
mounted guard on its frontiers.
As for the Allies’ decision, a host of well-known historical elements
explain it, from Magyar domination over the minorities before the war
to the necessity of holding Hungary to account for its belligerence and
a number of outside factors in between, including the promises made
by the Entente to the successor states. The Hungarians were refused a
hearing at the peace conference – the treaty was a ‘diktat’. The princi-
ples that had earlier been outlined in Wilson’s Fourteen Points had been

perverted. While the old minorities of Greater Hungary were given

satisfaction, the treaty rode roughshod over the right of the Magyars to
self-determination.
Despite all rational explanations, therefore, there remains in the
Trianon verdict a deeply prejudiced, almost irrational element, largely
determined by the attitudes of Clemenceau and Pichon. Through their
policy, they created an unstable region, new centres ripe for ethnic con-
flict, not to mention frustration among the main victims of this unfor-
tunate and unjust peace deal – the Hungarians.
The decade of the 1920s began with a crisis and with the swearing in
of István Bethlen’s government, which followed that of Pál Teleki and
lasted ten years. The crisis was sparked off by two attempted coups
d’état in 1921 – clumsy and unbelievable – by King Charles IV. Ousted
in April, only to re-emerge in October, Charles launched into an adven-
ture which had no future, despite considerable support. In 1920 and
1921, French policy towards Central Europe oscillated between two
alternatives: the creation of a Danubian confederation, with Hungary
as ‘pivot’ (Renouvin), or the creation of a Czech–Romanian–Yugoslav
Little Entente encircling Hungary. Aristide Briand, the Council’s presi-
dent since January 1921, favoured the Danubian confederation option,
under the aegis of the Habsburgs. But his arguments were blurred, the
project was impossible and restoration of the Habsburgs, unrealistic.
The idea went no further.
The problem was that restoration lacked any real political support
even in Hungary, Well before these developments, just after the king’s
second coup d’état attempt, Parliament had declared the deposition of
the Habsburg dynasty – seventy-two years after it had first been deposed
by Kossuth. In these final days of 1921, Budapest had to opt for realism
on every level. Thus, under the impetus of the head of government Count
István Bethlen, who formed a second cabinet in December, a consolida-
tion policy both within the country and in its international relations was
implemented. Apart from the establishment of a legal state, negotiations
with neighbouring countries – notably concerning Burgenland which
had been given to Austria – and the appeasement of social tensions
through an agreement with the Social Democratic Party – the
Bethlen–Peyer pact – the prime minister’s priority was financial consoli-
dation and he set up borrowing procedures with the League of Nations.
In 1924, an agreement was signed for the loan of 250 million gold crowns.

the 1920s: the horthy regime

Hungary between the wars has been the subject of numerous labels:
Fascist, semi-Fascist, authoritarian, nationalistic, anti-Semitic, semi-
feudal, archaic. Reality was more complex and nuanced, but certain
traits of the regime do support these summary judgements. Horthy’s
arrival in power was accompanied by violence and an outburst of anti-
Semitism which provoked protest movements abroad and within the
Peace Conference. Two years later, Mussolini’s march on Rome and
Fascist violence invoked parallels with Hungary’s White Terror, the
summary judgement and assassination of Social-Democrat journalists.
Certain decisions taken in the beginning continued to tarnish the
country’s image. Hungary at the time was a champion of anti-
Semitism, introducing the numerus clausus to limit Jewish access to
university. Later, Bethlen’s government tried to curb the excesses and
Regent Horthy also distanced himself from the right-wing extremists,
if for no other reason than to obliterate the memory of his involvement
with the officer detachments and of his ‘march on Budapest’, ‘the guilty
city’. Under Bethlen, Hungary’s parliamentary system and legal state
were already established. The regime was no less anti-democratic,
however, and its reactionary ideology was evident throughout its
twenty-five year existence. The countryside – far more than the towns –
was in the iron grip of the gendarmes, its rural social structures
remained unchanged and the electoral system excluded in practice real
democratic alternation. This ultra-conservative regime, however, had
little in common with Mussolini’s populist and corporate Italian
Fascism, which was not anti-Semitic. The common denominator
between the two regimes was revisionism and it was this that brought
Budapest closer to Rome in the second half of the 1920s.
Another difference was that Horthy’s regime, unlike Mussolini’s, did
not look for support among the fasci and squadri, ex-combatants. It
looked instead to the wealthy classes and the aristocracy (back with a
vengeance), the middle strata of the impoverished ‘gentry’. The aristoc-
racy was therefore at the top of the pyramid (three counts led the first
four governments, from 1920 to 1932) flanked by landowners and a
nobility now converted to serving the state. More will be said about the
emergence and decidedly growing role of a new bourgeoisie, its ideol-
ogy and mentality, but initially the aristocratic characteristics of the

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Plate 36. Panorama of Budapest, c. 1930
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266 A Concise History of Hungary

nation’s higher echelons were transplanted from historical Hungary to

the mutilated one.
Irredentism was certainly the common denominator among all the
more or less well-off social strata. The injustice meted out to the nation
– territorial dismemberment and the exclusion of 3.5 million Magyars
– rallied the middle classes, if not under a common political banner
then at least that of erstwhile greatness and of lost ideals. This nostal-
gia for the past, as comprehensible as it was paralysing, was not shared
with equal fervour by the masses. Nonetheless, the policies of nearly
every government were coloured and steered by it.
Leading the revisionist line – its declared aim, the re-establishment of
the former frontiers – was a geographer, Pál Teleki. Count István
Bethlen, who succeeded him from 1921 to 1931, shared his views while
adapting to the imperatives of the time. He was the most broad-minded
Hungarian statesman of this quarter of a century (Ignác Romsics has
drawn a faithful portrait in his political biography). His policy at home
was a strange mixture of ultra-conservatism and liberalism: the
Communist Party was banned – not surprisingly – as was freemasonry.
The Bethlen–Peyer pact, on the other hand, enabled the Social
Democratic Party to pursue its activities and brought back some of its
leaders who had ﬂed abroad. As for the law, it came down heavily on
individuals belonging to the clandestine Communist Party and on some
extreme right-wing activists, though less harshly. Much to the latter’s
displeasure, the numerus clausus was toned down and lost its racist
anti-Semitic dimension. Despite the introduction of the ‘press offence’,
newspapers of all persuasions proliferated. Censorship was abolished
and radio, which began broadcasting in 1925, was able to maintain its
autonomy vis-à-vis the government.
As in politics, the economic prevalence of the upper nobility, owners
of immense latifundia, remained intact but without affecting the devel-
opment of state-supported ﬁnancial and industrial capitalism. On a
political level, the head of government tried to limit party fragmenta-
tion while at the same time exploiting the numerous splits and mergers
in order to gather the centre right in his camp, generally called the Unity
Party. After the scission of the Gömbös group, the party was able to
hold the balance, thanks to its overall majority in Parliament, until
Bethlen’s resignation in 1931. At the 1926 elections, the party secured

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Plate 37. István Bethlen’s ﬁrst government, 15 April 1921
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268 A Concise History of Hungary

170 mandates (70 per cent) out of 245, the National-Christian Party 35,
the Social Democrats 14, and the smaller groups shared the rest.
Bethlen himself, together with foreign affairs ministers like Count
Miklós Bánffy and the leading delegate to the League of Nations,
Count Albert Apponyi, was wholly committed to the idea of historical
Hungary and diplomatic efforts were entirely concentrated on seeking
rectiﬁcation of the Treaty of Trianon and on obtaining concessions for
Magyars separated from their motherland. Thanks to persistence at the
League of Nations, Magyars who opted for Hungarian citizenship
received partial compensation.
Bethlen was and remained attracted by the British model. He made
overtures to the Entente, but in the end had to make do with Italian
support, granted to him from 1927. True, the English expressed a degree
of goodwill but it never went further. As for France, it was pursuing its
pro-Little Entente line and Germany had lost interest in its former
Danubian ally. A spectacular action by Lord Rothermere, the British
press magnate, demanding ‘justice for Hungary’, made a certain
number of waves and fuelled Bethlen’s secret hope of some day assum-
ing St Stephen’s Crown.
Economically speaking, the Bethlen decade was modestly healthy.
The introduction of the new currency, the pengö, in 1927 – replacing the
crown which had been heavily devalued by inﬂation – concluded a con-
solidation programme to which we will return. We have to bear in mind
that the convalescing country was badly hit by the world crisis of the
early thirties and this was one of the causes for Bethlen’s departure in
1931. After Gyula Károlyi’s brief spell as head of government, Gyula
Gömbös led the country from 1932 until his death in 1936, followed by
two short-lived cabinets and then, in 1939, by Pál Teleki. But before we
turn the page, a summary of the state of the nation between 1930 and
1940 is necessary.

Conditions in a diminished Hungary

The population in 1930 had reached 8,688,000, of which 92 per cent

were Magyars and 5.5 per cent Germans. Denominational homogene-
ity had also increased. Catholics now constituted around two thirds,
Protestants 27 per cent, Uniates and Orthodox 2.8 per cent and Jews 5.1
per cent. Whereas before, Hungary had had to contend with national

minorities, it now found itself in a reverse situation: according to statis-

tics of the time, 3,227,000 Magyars lived in neighbouring countries. Ten
years later, birth rates and transmigrations had increased the number of
inhabitants living within the Trianon borders to 9,300,000 – excluding
the annexed territories, of which more later.
Economic adaptation to the country’s reduced geography was hard.
The Great Plain and Transdanubia (give or take a few borders) provided
the bulk of national product. Aside from a small quantity of coal, there
was no energy source or industrial raw materials. Waterways had been
cut at the new frontiers, as were roads and railway lines, which came to
dead ends. Furthermore, there were no more outlets to the Adriatic; the
forests belonged to the now distant and foreign Carpathians. The eco-
nomic consequences of peace were as disastrous as those of war.
Admittedly, there were also some not negligible advantages, such as
a more educated workforce, low rates of illiteracy, higher industrial
concentration and a slight decrease of the primary sector which, in
1930, nonetheless still employed 51.8 per cent of the workforce against
23 per cent in industry and the mines. According to statistical calcula-
tions, the proportion of workers increased to 26.7 per cent, somewhat
reducing agriculture’s share. Budapest had over 1 million inhabitants,
followed far behind by Szeged and Debrecen. The town of Sopron
remained Hungarian following a plebiscite. There were more kilome-
tres of railway track per person, more primary schools (7,000 with
30,000 teachers), gymnasiums (sixth-form colleges) and additional
faculties to add to the four universities and thirteen institutes of higher
education. There were also more newspapers, books, theatres and
doctors: 96 per 10,000 inhabitants in 1930 and ten years later 106, one
of the highest rates in the world.
All in all, the composition of society was a little more bourgeois than
before and the level of civilisation higher, though still behind the devel-
oped countries.
With an average growth rate of 1.5 per cent (Berend and Ránki), eco-
nomic performance remained one of the weakest in Europe and
achieved only half the average growth in the last decades of the dual
monarchy. Figures have been slightly revised and upgraded, but growth
was undoubtedly slow, the Treaty of Trianon having left the country in
a state of frailty. Obsolete agricultural structures were also responsible,
as was the world crisis, which hit agriculture particularly harshly.

Growth in industry and mining production, on the other hand, was con-
siderable. Compared with the pre-war period, coal extraction increased
by 30 per cent, discovery of rich bauxite deposits led to the birth of the
metal and aluminium industry, and electricity production quadrupled.
Mechanical industry thrived in some sectors, notably locomotives (the
Ganz factories), motorcycles, radios and a few other popular consumer
products. The electro-technical industry, light-bulb production and a
few chemical and optical products also flourished, but numerous tech-
nical discoveries, notably a mass-produced low-cost car, were neglected.
The textile industry, meanwhile, developed at an accelerated pace, com-
fortably overtaking traditional food industries. On the whole, com-
pared with the pre-war period, industrial output until 1938 increased by
28 per cent, the number of workers by 16 per cent and industry’s con-
tribution to the national revenue reached approximately 36 per cent and
peaked the year before the Second World War.
Industrialisation, some progress in urbanisation, health and educa-
tion, were measures of an increase in civilisation in this quarter of a
century. However, the performance of industry and construction could
not rescue the country from the slump in agriculture, transport, trade
and crafts which resulted from its diminished size, or from the world
crisis which followed, after a brief flurry.
Towards 1938, national revenue per capita reached 120 dollars, that
is, 70 per cent of the European average according to upgraded calcula-
tions. It was not much. Hungary remained, if not poor, then an under-
developed European country, as did the entire region when compared
with Western Europe. To add to the imbalance between a modern
industrial sector and a backward agrarian sector, financial circum-
stances also dragged the country down. The 250 million gold crown
loan accorded by the League of Nations assisted consolidation but trig-
gered a spiral of debt: further loans, finally reaching 4 billion pengös,
the equivalent of 800 million US dollars. Enterprises were also crippled
by debt, as were the landowners, including small farmers who were
most seriously affected. More than urban areas in the process of mod-
ernisation, it was the immense rural half of the country which contin-
ued to suffer from its semi-feudal past. Modernisation was nonetheless
on the horizon in some pilot areas, due to new industrial plants,
increased vegetable and fruit production and the canning industry.
Though the proportion of industrial workers rose from 23 per cent

to nearly 27 per cent in the 1930s, half the population still lived off the
land. The entire workforce in industry, transport and trade constituted
only 35 per cent; the rest of the population worked in the public sector,
in the army or the clergy, were members of the liberal professions, were
retired or pursued various trades. Social divisions crossed professional
frontiers, of course.
Excluding the aristocracy and the wealthy bourgeoisie who num-
bered a few thousand, the middle classes now occupied a higher rung
on the social ladder. An increased number of graduates – close to 30,000
– is one indication of this progress. Apart from the slow modernisation
process, the period’s richest legacy was university, intellectual, literary
and artistic life in all its diversity and richness . It was also a period
which engendered an immense sector of rural deprivation, however – a
veritable thorn in the nation’s side.

A thousand lords and three million beggars

The picture of a ‘feudal’ Hungary consisting of a thousand lords and

3 million beggars is probably exaggerated but undoubtedly contains an
element of truth. As we have seen, in between the two extremes, upward
mobility was taking place among some social strata: a section of the
peasantry, the future kulaks, rose to middle-class level; civil servants
who were reasonably well off and enjoyed some degree of prestige; the
urban proletariat, indubitably suffering poverty and bad housing, but
who could at least defend their social position acquired through work
and union struggles. If the latter featured very little, it is precisely
because of the 3 million at the bottom of the ladder who were, if
not beggars, then at best, rural paupers, half of them living in sub-
proletarian conditions. What cannot be stressed enough, towards
understanding this complex situation, is that there were two Hungarys:
one in the process of modernisation and of becoming a middle-class,
liberal society; the other stuck in the past.
Some statistical data concerning the labyrinthine property distribu-
tion give an idea of the rural social problem. In the mid-1930s, a
hundred or so families and the Catholic Church – about a thousand
landowners – owned almost one third of cultivated land. Beneath them,
some eleven thousand large landowners exploited 1,700,000 hectares.
Together, the two groups owned 48 per cent of the cultivated land,

Plate 38. Harvest on the Great Plain, c. 1940

comprising domains which ranged from 60 to 60,000 hectares or more

(Eszterházy, for example).
Halfway up the ladder, some 233,000 individuals (landowners and
their families) shared one third of property wealth, farms which ranged
on average between 8 to 40 or 50 hectares. These data, like those per-
taining to the large properties, demonstrate the inequality existing
among average-sized farms, but situate their owners above the poverty
line. The problem was far more serious for the rural population of
1,300,000 subsisting on plots of land averaging from 1 to 3 hectares.
Finally, right at the bottom of the ladder, were the ‘penniless’:
1.5 million seasonal agricultural labourers and one section of the agri-
cultural servants, not to mention the equally destitute domestic ser-
vants. Whichever way one adds it up, the ﬁgures come close to the
‘3 million beggars’ (one third of the population), destitute when
employed, starving in times of crisis.

Civil society and mentality

Gyula Szekfü’s ‘neo-baroque society’ is a singular label in that it

concurs with views held by its liberal opponents and even those on the

left. It targets society between the wars, its rigid economic and social
structures and the mentality of its political class. ‘Neo-baroque’ is first
and foremost the imitation of an erstwhile nobility’s lifestyle, without
the religious element, without the authentic patriotism and moral
values of the great mid-nineteenth-century generation of reformers:
Széchenyi, Kossuth, Deák and the like. Szekfü writes: ‘The “reform”
element was removed from Széchenyi’s reformist-conservatism.’
Indeed, the Széchenyi who wanted to modernise Hungary, without
having recourse to subversion, had been forgotten. Szekfü had little
respect for the post-war political class which was neither noble nor as
genuinely Christian as it claimed. Similar qualifiers appear in practi-
cally all the assessments of those sharing this point of view: false, flashy,
a farcical masquerade. For reformist conservatives like Szekfü, apart
from the state of the country post-Trianon, the moral degeneration and
social disintegration were largely responsible for this state of affairs: the
selfish mentality of the upper classes, their contempt for the ‘underdog’
combined with the latter’s deference towards those higher up, a system
based upon friendship and nepotism, and lastly, foreign, principally
Jewish, infiltration.
What is certain is that the narrow-mindedness that prevailed in neo-
baroque society, dressed up in National-Christian aristocratic costume,
hindered the adoption of civic values and the creation of a confident
middle class that would be industrious and mindful of the public good.
In other words, it prevented the formation of a nineteenth-century-style
bourgeois society, adapted to modernity. One of the obstacles to devel-
opment in this sense was the clergy, and primarily the Catholic Church.
At a time of declining liberal values in Europe as a whole, progress
would have posed considerable difficulties but the democratic deficit
was nonetheless evident.
Having said that, signs of change were not entirely absent. The
notion of straightforward honesty, the work ethic, the prestige accorded
to education, and urbanity in relationships, were evolving. Readers of
sentimental novels and the operetta public may have applauded the
‘Hussar officer’, the revelling, gambling charmer, but they also laughed
at his expense. Imitating the gentry was by then nothing more than a
superficial – and outmoded – fashion. Despite everything, a civil and
democratic European society was slowly taking shape, sometimes
treading on conservative, nationalist and anti-liberal sensibilities.

The ‘sinful’, ‘Jewiﬁed’ capital, certainly more cosmopolitan and friv-

olous but, above all, more bourgeois than the provinces, was the target
for both conservatives and the ‘populist’ trend. For some of the latter,
anti-capitalism went hand in hand with anti-Semitism, though they
failed to win over large sections of the general public. While anti-
Semitism had never appealed to the peasantry, the provincial middle
class was perhaps more drawn. As for the capital, though a degree of
relatively controlled anti-Semitism existed, until the end of the 1930s,
Budapest tended to favour integration rather than segregation for its
250,000 Jews – a quarter of its population.
Budapest’s Jewish middle class (writers, journalists, thespians, liberal
professionals) imprinted the town with a mocking, caustic wit and a
particular sense of humour, without provoking rejection by the major-
ity of the population. This was because city morality had changed for
better or worse, much to the reprobation of conservatives, the Church
and the anti-liberal press. The evolution of a bourgeois civilisation was
accompanied by increased tolerance and cultural diversity along with a
degree of profligacy; but it also led to a split between the well-off and
the underprivileged. The village ‘penniless’, workers on low wages and
in bad housing (often with no electricity or running water), not to
mention the army of unemployed, were not very receptive to National-
Christian ideology and culture – nor indeed to bourgeois culture.
However, to the extent that they could afford to consume cultural prod-
ucts, even if it was just a newspaper, a cheap paperback or a cinema
ticket, their choice tended towards the tastes of the petit bourgeois or
of the Socialists (less often) and, sometimes, instructive religious or
nationalist works. This assertion may appear to disregard those public
expressions which conformed to official ideology; but it would be a
mistake to use official propaganda, or the undeniable swing to the right
which occurred in the mid-thirties, in gauging the general mood. The
right’s audience increased, but not in its conservative version; it was the
Fascist movement which drew in a section of the working class and
aspiring ‘lower middle classes’.
In any event, the gulf between the ‘the legal’ and ‘rural’ worlds con-
tinued to widen, creating a blockage in the middle of the social ladder
– in other words, the path leading to a bourgeois lifestyle and outlook.
Bourgeois-style civil society continued to evolve regardless, however,
embracing the traditional forms of aristocratic social life, with its

exclusive clubs and hunting parties, along with middle-class associa-

tions, parties and social circles (already numerous under the monarchy).
Trade union organisations, sports and outdoor pursuit societies,
working-class choirs and, finally, reading circles and meeting places pro-
liferated in the villages too. Associative life was surprisingly popular:
there were 16,000 associations, almost as many as in the three times
larger, pre-1918 Hungary.
Despite a politically conservative climate, cultural life was both plu-
ralistic and creative. Alongside often monotonous publications by con-
formist historians, editorialists and writers, all the movements in ideas
and styles of the century in Europe were represented.
The unified ideas of National-Christianity certainly benefited from
state support and Church protection. Indeed, the Bethlen government’s
minister of religious affairs and education declared that ‘in Trianon
Hungary, the minister for religious affairs and education was also the
minister of defence’. Official propaganda was similarly inclined, advo-
cating moral rearmament against left-wing, cosmopolitan and liberal
individualist subversion. It was nonetheless the very same minister,
Count Kuno Klebelsberg, who was responsible for the expansion and
modernisation of state and university education. His successor in the
thirties, Bálint Hóman, co-authored a history of Hungary running to
several thousand pages, which remains to this day the most scholarly
reference. After 1945, Hóman was convicted as a war criminal, while his
co-author, Gyula Szekfü, became Hungary’s ambassador to Moscow.
Immediately after the war, a new way of thinking had emerged and,
by the thirties, had grown considerably. To call it ‘populism’ is at best
an inadequate translation; its theoreticians advocated for the most part
a kind of ‘third way’. An intellectual movement organised by writers
and ‘sociographers’, its focus was society’s most pressing problem, the
condition of the peasantry. The work of a highly talented writer, Dezsö
Szabó – his essays and especially his novel evocatively entitled A Village
Adrift – constituted a touchstone, though members were divided by the
author’s nationalist–racist ideology. His radical critique of the latifun-
dia system and his violently anti-German positioning, however, resist
simplistic political categorisation. Among disciples of this powerful
individual were László Németh and Géza Féja. Known as ‘village
explorers’, younger writers like Imre Kovács, Ferenc Erdei, Zoltán
Szabó and the poet Gyula Illyés gave ‘populism’ a new lustre in the

thirties and forties with their stirring accounts of a rural world crushed
by the system. A few populists lent their talent to extreme right-wing
movements and the versatile László Németh, essayist, playwright and
novelist, became the principal spokesperson – incisive, stimulating,
sometimes confused and tainted with anti-Semitism – of a young gen-
eration in search of a new vision.
Apart from a few exceptional individuals like Illés Mónus, editor of
the Social Democratic Party newspaper, this trend, tied to Viennese
Austrian-Marxism, was not noted for its originality. Lajos Kassák, an
independent-minded writer and painter, was Budapest’s answer to the
Berlin and Paris avant-garde and had a band of followers. The journal
Szép Szó (Fine Words), directed by Attila József, Ferenc Fejtö and Pál
Ignotus, represented an independent left-wing current and was
renowned for the high quality of its writing.
In addition, political and literary journals of all tendencies – bour-
geois, conservative, Catholic, populist and Communist – were features
of intellectual life. Communist thinking had little inﬂuence and its
writers did not receive much coverage, with the exception of Attila
József, who sang about the industrial suburbs, about the agony of man,
of the century, and of his own tormented soul. He was the most univer-
sal Hungarian poet since Endre Ady and indeed the Communist Party
did not hesitate in expelling him. He committed suicide in 1937.
Literary life comprised, apart from the committed writers, highly tal-
ented authors superior both in quantity and often quality, and dedi-
cated to their art. The vast and rich domain of ‘pure’ literature was
dominated by Mihály Babits, a gifted poet, an immensely literary
authority, a perfectionist of form. To be published in his journal Nyugat
(West) was the equivalent of canonisation. Worthy of mention also are
the poet Dezsö Kosztolányi, the novelist Zsigmond Móricz, and the
hugely talented humorist Frigyes Karinthy. Finally, there was the unclas-
siﬁable writer, Gyula Krudy, who – like his hero Sinbad – travelled in a
land of dreams, touching shores peopled by characters that derived
from his own phantoms. He created in his readers a nostalgia for the
land of the ‘never-never’.
Figurative art – more distanced from turbulence than literature – had
its fair share of exceptional painters and sculptors. In musical creation
and interpretation, a host of composers, conductors, pianists and
others became internationally renowned under the giant statures of

Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Bartók, admired by his public, was dis-
liked by official cultural leaders. His music, rooted in popular traditions
with its universal and cosmic dimension, was disturbing. The Opera
House rejected his Miraculous Mandarin, just as Communist cultural
policy would thirty years later. Bartók emigrated to the United States in
1940 and died there in 1945. Hungarian theatre between the wars
thrived and formed a strong identity, especially in Budapest, exporting
famous directors and actors to Berlin, London and Hollywood. Despite
the political turn inaugurated in the mid-thirties, art and literature
remained animated until the eve of the Second World War.
In spring 1931, Bethlen celebrated his tenth year in power – and with
no intention of giving it up. The circumstances that surrounded his
departure a few months later, shed light not only on this crucial
moment, but also on the transformation that had taken place within the
political ranks. In the middle of a world crisis, economic stabilisation
had run out of resources. Production fell, agricultural prices dropped
and the spiral of debt had led to the brink of bankruptcy. All this had
provoked increased opposition from all sides, both left and right,
including a revolt within the government itself.
Bethlen could not conceivably satisfy the conflicting demands of the
agrarians, the capitalists, a civil service threatened with dismissal while
pulling the rug out from under the feet of the Socialist agitators. At the
same time, his personality worked against his ability to move things on.
A singularly intelligent man – dry, not very communicative and incor-
ruptible (he supported his own expenses by getting into debt rather than
getting rich), Bethlen inspired admiration but not friendship. Despite
sharing the values of his class and being the pillar of the counter-
revolutionary and conservative system, he was criticised for his liberal,
pro-Jewish, even democratic, ‘weaknesses’. In fact, being excessively
democratic is the last criticism that could be levelled at him. He kept an
equal distance – metaphorically and indeed physically – from the village
peasant, the Jewish banker and the count, and his neighbour. It was his
authoritarian style of leadership and his haughtiness, rather than his
reformist ideas, that created such feelings of enmity towards him. After
his demise, he continued to exercise influence on political life and on
Horthy himself. His departure was nonetheless a great loss for Hungary.
Despite declaring himself as a ‘Greater Hungary’ faithful, Bethlen was
a realist; he would have wanted to integrate Hungary into the European

system, as set out at Versailles, to establish viable relations with neigh-

bouring Yugoslavia and economic links with Czechoslovakia. His suc-
cessors had more limited horizons.
Horthy’s attitude remained enigmatic. He appeared attached to the
count, an old friend, his superior in both intelligence and social posi-
tion. He even suggested a comeback: ‘Take power if you want, but let
Gyula be’ (he was referring to Count Gyula Károlyi, brieﬂy Bethlen’s
successor). But the role of the often indecisive Horthy was decidedly
ambiguous. He was implicated in Bethlen’s departure and after Károlyi,
in October 1932, entrusted the government to Gyula Gömbös.

a shift to the right

Gyula Gömbös, who came from a family of civil servants, was a career
ofﬁcer, founder, and member for some time of the Race Conservation
Party. He represented an entirely different social group from that of pol-
iticians coming from the upper nobility. He certainly shared a Greater
Magyar nationalism with them, but Gömbös’s target group was the
middle class. He favoured their economic aspirations rather than a more
dynamic policy, and sought dialogue with the populists and even with
the world of work. It must be said that the Social Democrats, who had
no desire for a strong-arm right-wing regime, contributed to Bethlen’s
downfall with an acrimonious campaign.
Gömbös’s ﬁrst government included individuals with very different
destinies. His interior minister, Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer, would later
distinguish himself for his anti-German stance; Béla Imrédy, at the
treasury and for a long time pro-British, became rabidly pro-German
and anti-Semitic; Miklós Kállay, responsible for agriculture, became
known as a pro-West prime minister; Bálint Hóman, like Gömbös,
opted for continuity, in the beginning at least.
In foreign policy, continuity meant pursuing friendship with the
Italians and Austrians and – after Hitler’s accession to power – rap-
prochement with Germany. Internally, Gömbös had only to hold to his
predecessors’ anti-Communist line.
Continuity also meant persisting with hostilities towards the Social
Democratic Party, trade unions, strikers and the Socialist press.
Gömbös immediately proclaimed a corporatism which would forge
‘a national unity between work, capital and intellectual talent’. He

presented a national work plan containing ninety-ﬁve points, also

aimed at national union. Gömbös, a conservative, with reformist and
populist undertones, was determined to create a government that would
play a more active role in getting out of the crisis and curbing the decline
in living standards, mass bankruptcy among small farmers, and social
conflict. In the same spirit, he rose up against ultra-conservatives in his
own party and distanced himself from the extreme right. All this inev-
itably seduced intellectual reformers to some extent as well as wider
public opinion. So much so, that in the 1935 elections, his party list,
called the Party for National Unity, took 170 mandates out of 245,
leaving 25 seats to the Smallholders’ Party, 14 to the Christian Socialists,
11 to the Social Democratic Party and the rest to the Liberals and the
right. This success was tainted by the pressure and violence being
exerted in rural constituencies, however, where from the outset of
Horthy’s regime, voting was by open ballot. In one village situated in
the so-called ‘stormy corner’ – a region of peasant revolts, in other
words – the police opened fire, leaving eight dead and fourteen
wounded.
The government leader proceeded to make a number of changes in
the administration and in the army leadership, pensioning off twenty-
two generals. His corporate project, on the other hand, failed to mate-
rialise: apart from Socialist and Liberal opposition, he came up against
opposition from Bethlen, from financial and industrial circles, includ-
ing the powerful National Association of Industrialists (GyOSZ).
Bethlen, with several friends, actually left the governing party and
Regent Horthy considered getting rid of his over-enterprising prime
minister. As for attempts at a rapprochement with Germany, they came
up against a very specific obstacle: the Austria of Dollfuss, then of
Schuschnigg. It must be remembered that a triangular relationship
existed between Hungary, Austria and Italy. The news of Chancellor
Dollfuss’s assassination in July 1934 led Mussolini to send four divi-
sions to the Brenner so as to warn Hitler against his Anschluss project.
The Italian–Ethiopian war and its consequences; collusion between an
isolated Mussolini and a Hitler who in 1936 began to remilitarise the
Rhine region; the Franco-Soviet pact of 1935; and, lastly, the Spanish
war triggered by Franco in July 1936 – all these elements led to a redis-
tribution around the card-table of international relations. Shortly
before the Berlin–Rome axis was formed, however, Gömbös died. After

a brief attempt at disengagement, his successors continued the political

slide towards Germany.
The arrival in office of Kálmán Darányi promised a change of direc-
tion but the new president of the Council found himself cornered by
Hitler, who insisted that Hungarian policy be aligned with that of the
Reich, now in a dominant position in the region. After the Anschluss of
12–13 March 1938, the Reich bordered with Hungary. Despite protests
not only from the left but from several conservatives, the direction –
strengthening links with Germany in the hopes that, with its support,
the Treaty of Trianon would be revised – was cast. The minister for
foreign affairs, Kálmán Kánya, who was somewhat hostile towards
Berlin, could only do a damage-limitation exercise.
Alignment included the adoption of state anti-Semitism. Kálmán
Darányi put before Parliament the first anti-Jewish law, which was sub-
sequently voted in by the Upper House, notably by representatives of
the Church, and ratified in May 1938. At that time, the next government
had already been formed by Béla Imrédy, former president of the
National Bank. Just like his predecessor Darányi, who was now dead,
Imrédy also tried unsuccessfully to get out of the Reich’s clutches. Berlin
made it clear that without Hungary’s alignment, there would be no
question of territorial revision. Imrédy surrounded himself with several
of his political friends of the right. In May 1939, the second anti-Jewish
law, this time racially based, came into effect; and a third was intro-
duced in 1941.
Meanwhile, Fascist movements organised into several parties had
begun to grow. At the 1939 elections, they won forty or so parliamen-
tary mandates. From then on, they became a formidable extremist polit-
ical force. Among their leaders was Kálmán Hubay and the future
Hungarian Führer, Ferenc Szálasi. Governmental party dissidents
formed a parliamentary group in defence of the Hungarian race. Party
plurality survived, but the number of Social Democratic deputies
dropped to five and the bourgeois parties along with the Smallholders’
Party – the nub of democratic opposition – were now weak. Nor was
plurality of the press abolished, but several hundred newspapers were
outlawed, censorship was gradually introduced and journalists, hit by
the race laws, were struck off from the profession.
In February 1939, Imrédy was forced to resign because the press dis-
covered a Jew among his ancestors. In reality, Bethlen, who was strongly

opposed to his pro-Nazi policies, precipitated his downfall. Pál Teleki’s

government which followed introduced a handful of energetic measures
against the extreme right without succeeding in stemming the Nazi tide.
The more the government gave in, the more Fascist pressure increased,
notwithstanding Count Teleki’s and Regent Horthy’s wholehearted
approval of the anti-Semitic measures, though they did not cross the
fateful line of deportation until 1944. By then, Teleki was no longer
alive and engagement alongside Hitler had reached a new turning point.
It is important to underline the crucial effect of the Munich agree-
ments of 29–30 September 1938 which implied, writes Horthy’s biogra-
pher Péter Sipos, that ‘Western Europe had abandoned the countries of
Eastern Europe.’ The historian adds that Horthy still wanted to keep a
distance from war preparations. In August, during a meeting with
Hitler in Kiel, he refused to participate in the attack on Czechoslovakia,
as did Imrédy and, less surprisingly, Teleki. The latter could clearly see
the outcome of Hitler’s policies, the already predictable war and its con-
sequences for his country. Munich nonetheless represented an auspi-
cious moment for Hungary to satisfy some of its territorial demands.
On 2 November, at the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, Hitler and
Mussolini’s arbitration assigned nearly 12,000 square kilometres of
Czechoslovakian land – with close to 870,000 inhabitants, 86.5 per cent
of whom were Magyars – to Hungary. In spring 1939, Hungary was able
to beneﬁt from the dismemberment of the Czechoslovakian state and to
occupy sub-Carpathian Ruthenia. The following year, on 30 August
1940, a second arbitration took place in Vienna, this time at Romania’s
expense: Hungary gained Northern Transylvania, Szekler country, the
towns of Nagyvárad and Kolozsvár, corresponding to 43,590 square
kilometres and 2,185,500 inhabitants, of whom 1,123,200 were
Magyars (51.4 per cent), 920,100 Romanians (42.1 per cent) and
approximately 142,000 Germans and other. Further annexations in
Yugoslavia – home to nearly 275,000 Magyars – ensued the following
year. By that point, the country’s territory had reached 172,000 square
kilometres, almost twice the 93,000 square kilometres agreed by the
Treaty of Trianon, but well below historical Hungary. Czechoslovakian
and Romanian statistics ascribe a proportionately smaller Magyar pop-
ulation than the Hungarian ﬁgures, but the usual arguments over
numbers do not change the essential point: approximately 2,300,000
Magyars from the separated territories now found themselves back on

Hungarian soil. The result was exhilarating: the most flagrant injustice
that was the Treaty of Trianon had been largely put right.
Before the Yugoslav conflict, Hungary had already paid a price by
allowing the Germans to move into Romania across its soil. On 20
November, a further step was taken: Teleki and his foreign affairs min-
ister, István Csáky, signed the Italian–German–Japanese tripartite
agreement with Ribbentrop, Ciano and the Japanese Kurusu, underlin-
ing the fact that Hungary was the first to join.
The danger of paying a truly high price, however, came when Italy
invaded Greece and Hitler decided to rush in to support his routed ally.
Not long before, Teleki had believed he could avoid involving his own
country through a treaty – a treaty pledging eternal friendship – with
Belgrade (29 February 1941). At first, Hitler had no objections – on the
contrary. Belgrade signed the tripartite pact, but on 27 March, a mili-
tary coup ousted the Regent Paul and brought to power an anti-German
government which rapidly signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet
Union. Hitler decided to invade Yugoslavia without delay and invited
Horthy to join the attack, promising a reward. On 2 April, however,
Hungary’s London ambassador, György Barcza, let him know that if
Hungary allowed the German army to cross its territory, Great Britain
would sever diplomatic relations with Budapest and, in the case of
Hungary’s military participation, intended to declare war. It was not
the first warning, but it made Teleki realise that he would have to
choose between a British alliance and a pro-German policy. A
Cornelian choice, if ever there was one. Breaking with Germany meant
abandoning the revisionist policy which Teleki had helped build.
Severing ties with England would lead to war with the Allies. Teleki put
an end to this intolerable conflict by shooting himself in the head. The
farewell letter he addressed to Miklós Horthy is both a confession: ‘I
am guilty’; and an accusation: ‘We have allied ourselves with villains.’
His act of despair changed nothing: on 11 April, the Hungarian army
entered Yugoslavia, and set about committing atrocities against Serbs
and Jews.
From May 1941, Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union was imminent.
Hungary’s military participation was not part of the Barbarossa plan,
but Germany was counting on Hungary and its new head of govern-
ment, László Bárdossy, was in favour. Pressure from high command did

the rest: its chief, Henrik Werth, and the majority of pro-German
general ofﬁcers were conﬁdent of victory and had long been in league
with the Germans.
On 24 June, two days after German invasion of Russia, Hungary
broke off diplomatic ties with Moscow, despite Molotov’s assurances
that the USSR’s intentions towards it were not hostile and that it had
not expressed any reprobation over Transylvania.

the war

The dispatch sent by Hungary’s ambassador in Moscow, József

Kristóffy, conveying Molotov’s message disappeared: Bárdossy did not
communicate it to Horthy or to the Council of Ministers, any more
than he did to Parliament. He was just waiting for Berlin to ask
Hungary to enter the war, whereas the Reich was trying to get the
Hungarians to volunteer – through the service door of the military. In
the end, on 26 June, planes purported to be Soviet but in fact uniden-
tiﬁed, bombed the town of Kassa (Kosice): it was the perfect casus belli.
Hungary attacked the Soviet Union.
Despite combined pressure from Germany and the Hungarian mili-
tary, Budapest was only willing to increase its military and economic
participation gradually, from autumn onwards. It was at this point that
Great Britain declared a state of war. Bárdossy, in turn, informed the
United States. Engagement had become a fait accompli. Through the
deployment of the Second Army in 1942, approximately 200,000
Hungarian soldiers found themselves in the Ukraine and on the Don,
with an additional 50,000 Jewish ‘auxiliaries’, unarmed and with no
winter equipment. More than 20,000 met their death.
With no other goal – apart from an anti-Communist crusade – than
that of further territorial gains in Yugoslavia, Romania and in a dis-
membered Czechoslovakia, Hungarians were rather reticent when
Germany demanded troops and supplies. Even Bárdossy, principal
architect of Hungary’s entry into the war, opposed the High Command,
who had already proposed increases before the Reich’s express request.
He complied in the end, for which he was dismissed in March 1942 by
the regent, under pressure from conservative circles, notably the immov-
able István Bethlen.

Plate 39. Teleki’s farewell letter. In the ‘postscript’ (right), he tenders his
resignation to the regent, should his suicide attempt fail

Plate 39 (cont.)

Plate 40. Hungarian soldiers in Kiev, February 1942

The appointment of Miklós Kállay to the post of prime minister is

often interpreted as a change of direction, since Berlin had far less con-
fidence in him than in Bárdossy. Indeed, the Hungarian historian
Gyula Juhász writes that, initially, Kállay persevered along the same
lines. On visiting Hitler and Ribbentrop, he reiterated previous prom-
ises and agreed to the recruitment of new Hungarian conscripts for the
Waffen SS.
The first tentative steps towards the Allies were taken after Rommel’s
rout at El-Alamein, and after the Allied landing in Africa (November
1942) aroused speculation that a similar action in the Balkans might
follow. Kállay envisaged the creation of a neutral bloc under the
Turkish aegis, in which Hungary would occupy a leadership position in
the Danubian basin. Henceforth, he adopted a more courageous atti-
tude. He turned down German demands concerning the ‘solution’ to
the Jewish problem – in other words, deportation. He selected the first
diplomats charged with secret missions to neutral states, like
Switzerland, Turkey, Sweden and the Vatican, as a way of contacting
the Anglo-Americans. It was the beginning of Kállay’s so-called
‘seesaw’ policy. After the destruction of the Hungarian Second Army at

Voronezh near the Don, and the Battle of Stalingrad, the policy began
to be pursued in earnest. The key idea was to get Hungary into a
‘neutral’ position, fighting Bolshevik Russia, but not the English and
Americans it wanted to befriend.
Experience was to teach Kállay and his friends the illusory nature of
this tactic, which aroused a degree of interest – as did any move likely
to weaken Germany – but no more. For the German secret service, on
the other hand, who suspected that Budapest was trying to extricate
itself from the war and even defect to the other side, Kállay’s intensive
secret diplomatic activities became something of a joke. Horthy had to
endure Hitler’s violent reproaches and warnings. During a visit by the
regent in 1943, he demanded Kállay’s head, more soldiers at the front
and . . . fewer Jews in the country. Horthy remained firm and Kállay kept
his job. The Battle of Kursk on the Russian Front, the Allied landing in
Sicily, Mussolini’s fall and arrest in July, followed by the Italian armis-
tice in September, encouraged resistance. All the more since one of
Kállay’s diplomatic agents in Istanbul, László Veress, received a message
from Eden (unsigned) regarding the conditions that Hungary would
have to meet in order to receive favourable treatment. British diplomatic
documents concerning the Istanbul negotiations do not really support
the idea that the British communiqué contained ‘pre-armistice condi-
tions’. The word ‘armistice’ does not figure and the basis of negotiation
remained unconditional capitulation, with a small, yet significant, dif-
ference: the Allies were not demanding immediate surrender, because
the latter, according to another Eden dispatch, could lead to the
‘enforced installation of a German Gauleiter or a super-Quisling’. On
the other hand, the British message – in agreement with the Americans
and a rather sour-faced, but eventually consenting Molotov – imposed
the preliminary condition that Hungary demonstrate through action its
commitment to a change in course. In fact, apart from hinting at disen-
gagement, the Hungarian government continued to procrastinate. On
29 September, three weeks after receiving the message, it recognised the
counter-government of Mussolini, who had been freed by an SS com-
mando, the very same commando of Otto Skorzeny who later kid-
napped Horthy’s son. British documentary references to Horthy and his
prime minister often express understanding, while noting their lack of
haste. The Tehran conference at the end of November 1943 put an end

to any Balkan intervention plan, focusing instead on an Atlantic

landing. Now, as the foreign ofﬁce under secretary Alexander Cadogan
commented: one cannot demand unconditional surrender from a
country that one is unable to defend against the Germans.
As Gyula Juhász has pointed out on a number of occasions, the polit-
ical ruling class was not only concerned about the country’s fragile posi-
tion but also with saving its own skin. Its project, which included the
preservation of a parliamentary but undemocratic system, an attach-
ment to the revisionist vision, continued alliance with Germany – if
only to stop a ‘Hungarian Quisling’ from taking power – and a move
over to the Allies but without calling a halt to the war with Russia, was
indeed a fragile structure and doomed to failure. The Wermacht’s occu-
pation of Italy and, on the other side, Russian advance towards its
future ‘zone of inﬂuence’ did not make reversal any easier for the
Hungarians or for the British, who would probably have welcomed it.
The latter, moreover, delayed bombarding Budapest until April 1944,
persisted with negotiations and dropped English parachutists with the
Hungarian government’s agreement. But the latter was ‘dragging its
heels’ and the British waited in vain for concrete evidence of its deter-
mination to ‘deserve better treatment than the Germans’. Another show
of strength from Hitler led matters hurtling towards a more tragic end.

German occupation and a leap in the dark

On 17 March 1944, Regent Horthy went to Klessheim-Obersaltzberg at

the explicit request of Hitler, who received him the following day.
Discussions were stormy. Hitler had already decided to occupy
Hungary and wanted Horthy’s approval. Horthy left the negotiation
table in anger and was about to break off the talks but Hitler ran after
him, and Horthy returned. At that point, preparations for occupation
and the political measures which went with it were well under way,
unbeknown to the regent. As far as the Germans were concerned,
Hungary’s bad faith was no longer in doubt and the aim of the invita-
tion extended to Horthy was to paralyse the Hungarian government.
Horthy was also subjected to similar pressure from Ribbentrop and by
his own entourage. Did he ﬁnally give in? He certainly refused to sign,
but, according to German sources, gave his verbal agreement late that
evening. Be that as it may, occupation took place as Hitler intended.

Plate 41. The German invasion of Hungary, 19 March 1944: Germans climb
to the castle

When the special train, which had been deliberately delayed, left
Salzburg station, the new, truly plenipotentiary, German minister,
Edmund Veesenmayer was already on his way and eight German divi-
sions had entered Hungary.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Kállay, Hitler’s scapegoat, tried to organ-
ise resistance but without success. On 19 March, several opponents fled
and an estimated 3,000 others – ministers, Communists, journalists and
deputies – were arrested by the Gestapo: only one of them, Endre
Bajcsy-Zsilinszky, fired his pistol before being carried off wounded.
Upon his return, Horthy accepted Kállay’s ‘resignation’ and replaced
him with Döme Sztójay who, in turn, formed a pro-German cabinet
after prolonged haggling with Horthy and Veesenmayer.
Measures in all domains commenced immediately: in the army, in the
counties, the press, even the Opera and National Theatre. The economy
was restructured and put into the service of the Reich’s war machine.
To prepare the ‘final solution’ for the Jews, Eichmann arrived with a
team of 200 collaborators. The presence of Horthy, however, and the
smooth running of the administration, army and national police forces
enabled Germany to reduce its occupation units to 50,000 men. The

Reich needed its soldiers at the fronts. In Russia, the First Hungarian
Army took over from the Second, crushed at Voronezh.
As for the ‘solution’ to the Jewish problem, Eichmann and his men
were ready to begin deportations in May. With the collaboration of the
Hungarian gendarmes, Jews were rounded up in ghettos and sent to
Auschwitz.
Summer 1944 was a military turning point: on 6 June, the Allies
landed in Normandy. In August, Warsaw, left to its own devices by a
Soviet army so near at hand, took to the streets. On 23 August, Romania
asked the Russians for an armistice and turned against the Germans. On
25 August, General De Gaulle entered a liberated Paris.
At this late hour, the beginning of the end, Miklós Horthy, pushed by
those close to him, finally decided to take things in hand. He bungled
them as always: even before acting, he informed the Germans of his
intention to get rid of Sztójay and to entrust the government to a general
of his choice. Despite repeated German protests, on 29 August, the four-
star general, Géza Lakatos, formed a ‘mixed’ cabinet, partially faithful
to the regent. Horthy believed that in this way he could re-establish a
kind of status quo ante, in other words, writes the historian György
Ránki, a return to performing acrobatics between the two warring
camps. It would be unrealistic to reproach him for wanting to buy time
before leaping into the dark. The British, too, while holding to their
demands, were understanding. But the Hungarians were forever one
war behind: in the months of August and September 1944, the country
was on the brink of becoming the theatre for Soviet army operations.
Yet in September, the Hungarian army set off to occupy southern
Transylvania where it fought against united Romanian and Soviet
forces, attempting to stop the offensive with the heroism of despair.
In fact, when the regent decided to send an armistice delegation
which, in contrast to a first attempt, reached Moscow and was received,
the Red Army had already set foot on Hungarian soil. Finally, on 15
October, Horthy announced on the radio that he had asked for an
armistice and issued the order for fighting to stop. Bethlen’s influence
again proved crucial, although this éminence grise, who was never really
listened to, held no office and even found himself underground in order
to escape the Gestapo. Indeed, everything was set up for failure. The
Germans, better informed than anyone, immediately took up strategic
positions and a commando kidnapped the regent’s son. Horthy, cor-

nered and broken, capitulated: he signed a paper nominating the

obscure Ferenc Szálasi, chief of the Hungarian Nazis – the ‘Arrow
Cross’ – to the post of prime minister.
There was undoubtedly a degree of confusion surrounding the order
of the day issued to the armies. According to the military historian,
Péter Gosztonyi, Colonel Lajos Nádas and the chief of staff, János
Vörös, issued a counter-order which overrode Horthy’s. The decisive
cause of the failure, however, was betrayal. Only a handful of generals
obeyed Horthy, among them the commander of the First Army on the
Russian front. The others fled towards the Germans. Consequently, the
bulk of the army loyal to the ‘supreme warlord’ took an oath to Szálasi.
The quarter-century of the Horthy regime and the personal role of
the regent, terminating in this disaster, remain controversial. In actual
fact, under Horthy, Hungarian politics and society traversed three
stages: consolidation under Bethlen, the slide towards Hitler and, lastly,
the fatal spiral which began in 1938 and led to war and to disaster. Some
historians consider that the continuity of conservative political and
social structures and the continuity represented by the person of the
regent amount to a period which, if not immobile, is at least sufficiently
consistent to be considered as a whole. Others see it as a ‘path under
duress’ interspersed by numerous attempts to find the country’s way
back into Europe. The often tormented events of these twenty-five years
seem to show the complementary nature of these two interpretations:
continuity through the persistence of a regressive political class and
ideology on the one hand, and the changes that resulted from efforts
towards recovery, modernisation and preservation of ties with the West,
on the other. Similarly conflicting was the desire to keep a distance from
Nazi Germany with the desire for its support even if it meant participat-
ing in the war. A more determined and clear-sighted policy would have
doubtlessly saved the country from this disaster, but then German retal-
iation would have been inevitable. In any event, each country is respon-
sible for its own fate and Hungary’s political class proved lacking in
clarity. The regent Horthy brought a degree of stability, which led to
some progress and enabled the country to adapt to the painful aftermath
of the First World War. However, despite proving sensitive both to the
values of his education under the monarchy and to a vaguely perceived
British model, while at the same time supporting National Christianity
and anti-Semitism, Horthy remained incapable of climbing out of the

rut. As for his periodic insights, to quote Thomas Sakmyster in his biog-
raphy Hungary’s Admiral on Horseback, Miklós Horthy, 1918–1944
(Boulder, 1994), p. 391: ‘skeptics might suggest that this merely demon-
strates the truth of the cliché that even a stopped clock is accurate twice
each day’. Far from having been a passive plaything of the main players,
he had considerable influence on the politics of that quarter of a century
and, through his decisions – or indecisions – he carries the responsibil-
ity for what can only be described as a massive failure.
With Szálasi and his ‘ministers’, power fell into the hands of the dregs
of society. The Hungarians, who already had at least 40,000 dead and
70,000 prisoners-of-war at the front, found themselves dragged into a
suicidal battle alongside a routed Wehrmacht. And as the Red Army
headed towards Budapest, the Arrow Cross indulged in terror. In
December, they captured the leaders of the military resistance and
ordered the executions of General János Kiss, Colonel Jenö Nagy and
Captain Vilmos Tartsay, followed by Bajcsy-Zsilinszky and scores of
other members of the civilian resistance, individuals of all persuasions.
Designated victims of Nazi terror, the fate of the Jews was atrocious.
To understand the scale of it, one has to go back to the Horthy regime.
After Hungary’s entry into the war in 1941, 63,000 Jews perished in
‘labour service’ on the Russian front or as ‘stateless persons’ deported
as such. Horthy, no doubt under the influence of his family and friends,
particularly Bethlen – and also, in all probability, out of personal repug-
nance – for three years withstood the Reich’s demands to implement the
Nazi ‘solution’. After the country’s occupation on 19 March 1944, he
nevertheless gave free rein to persecution. Added to the 100,000 ‘racial’
Jews (of Jewish origin or converts), there were then 762,000 Jews
(460,711 on Trianon territory) threatened with genocide. At this
moment in history, they represented the single largest Jewish commu-
nity in Europe. Between 435,000 and 437,000 of them were rounded up
in the ghettos and then deported between 15 May and 8 July 1944. A
few thousand escaped persecution and approximately 100,000 survived
the camps. The fate of those living in Budapest was suspended by force
of circumstances.
It was then that, on 8 July, Horthy succeeded in halting the deporta-
tions; again, this was in response to a number of influences, but also
because he was more concerned about the fate of the assimilated
Budapest Jews than about the provincial Jews and the ‘Galicians’. The

latter, victims of relentless discrimination, had a three-month reprieve,

until the Nazi advance on 15 October. After previous losses, there were
still 230,000 Jews in the capital.
But to return to 8 July 1944, when Regent Horthy stopped the depor-
tations which had already reached the Budapest suburbs: thanks to this
decision, more than half of the 230,000 persecuted were saved, 119,000
according to statistics. The merit was the regent’s, and those close to
him who had some decency and finer political values – his son Miklós,
for example; Countess Edelsheim-Gyulai, his other son István’s widow;
and a handful of loyal politicians, officers and collaborators. According
to some of their testimonies, the regent was forced to send troops to
keep the pro-Nazi gendarme units from the capital and to stop them
from getting at their designated victims. Indeed, under the benevolent
gaze of several ministers and army general officers, the unit was nothing
more than the executive branch of the German Nazis. It was also the
zealous and implacable organiser of extermination. After the pause,
genocide began again in October with the arrival of Szalási and the low-
lifes. For the next four months, during the liberation of the capital, Jews
endured unimaginable trials: the ghetto, or at best, houses under the
protection of neutral embassies, manhunts, torture for the captured,
famine, a bullet in the head on the shores of the Danube, which carried
away the bodies, and renewed deportations; scenes straight from hell.
Fresh victims in Budapest (excluding previous losses, therefore) are esti-
mated at more than 105,000, with 119,000 survivors and 25,000 survi-
vors of the camps and of slave labour. According to statistics, 144,000
Budapest Jews were saved in total.
Switzerland, Sweden and the International Red Cross were most
active in saving the persecuted, along with other neutral diplomats.
From a long list of International Committee delegates of the Geneva
Red Cross and diplomats, the best known is without a doubt the Swede,
Raoul Wallenberg, who later died in mysterious circumstances in a KGB
prison. But often forgotten are Hungarians in Budapest and in the prov-
inces – peasants, workers, priests, resistance workers or simply neigh-
bours who came to the rescue of the persecuted.
On Hitler’s orders, the Wehrmacht and the SS held the city, besieged
and kept in a pincer by Marshal R. J. Malinovsky’s and Marshal F. I.
Tolbukhin’s armies. The Germans’ relentless resistance transformed
Budapest into a pile of rubble and condemned its inhabitants to famine

Plate 42. The Suspension Bridge destroyed by the Germans. In the

background, the castle in ruins

in the midst of winter. Under siege and bombarded from all sides,
Budapest suffered huge human and material losses: at least 25,000 civil-
ians perished under the bombs, and 10,000 houses – a quarter of all
dwellings – were destroyed.
The left bank was liberated in mid-January. In mid-February, the last
of the SS, hanging on to the ruined Buda castle, were defeated. By 4
April, the entire country had been liberated from the German invader.
Meanwhile, in Debrecen – closely watched by the Soviets – a provi-
sional, national government was formed.

German occupation was over; Hungary now fell under Stalin’s ‘juris-
diction’. Contrary to a widely held belief, it was not the Yalta
Conference in February 1945 which determined its fate, but the conver-
gence of several previously existing factors. Among these were the bar-
gaining between Churchill and Stalin in October 1944 in Moscow over
zones of inﬂuence; President Roosevelt’s ‘informal’ consent; and last
but foremost, the belligerents’ respective positions in the theatre of war.
The Italian armistice in September 1943 created the precedent (see
works by Bruno Arcidiacono) for what Stalin would later explain
to Djilas: whosoever occupies a territory, imposes its system. Put
another way, according to the literary parable of a high-ranking British
civil servant, Stalin could emulate Mr Jorrocks (a character from a
nineteenth-century novel): ‘Wherever I eat, I lay my head.’ The Anglo-
Saxons took over the Peninsula and later Japan; the Soviets would claim
countries their army had occupied (vanquished enemy countries):
Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany and their zones in
Austria, at Vienna, and Berlin. Stalin would additionally secure friends
and allies, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
As for Hungary, the Allied Control Commission had to act accord-
ing to the principle of division: its president, Marshal Kliment
Voroshilov exercised the authority of occupation; the three other
members took back seats. They protested on several occasions against
violations of the armistice provisions, but in vain. Administratively, a
national democratic government took over, under Allied control, which
had to last until a peace treaty would restore full sovereignty.

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296 A Concise History of Hungary

a reprieve

For three years, Hungary lived in a limited and supervised democracy

under Soviet occupation.
Following a staged election, a provisional National Assembly had
been set up in Debrecen and on 22 December 1944 had appointed a pro-
visional government, presided over by General Béla Miklós de Dálnok.
Two of Horthy’s other former generals joined the ministers of the
National Independence Front, comprising the Communist, Social
Democratic, Peasant and Smallholders’ Parties. It was a skilful compo-
sition, constituted according to Moscow’s directives: the Independents,
originating from the Horthy regime, represented continuity, whereas
the former opposition parties and the Communists stood for discontin-
uance. In accordance with Stalin’s accommodating attitude towards the
Allies, the Communists were still a discreet minority, officially holding
two cabinet posts out of eleven, with the addition of a third, politically
unlabelled one, as well as one or two ‘crypto-’Communists.
The provisional government, first in Debrecen, then in Budapest,
remained in office for nearly a year. It signed the armistice, declared war
on Germany, set up a public administrative machinery, brought war
criminals to justice, outlawed Fascist organisations and revoked racial
laws. Life began again: supplies improved, people returned to work,
trains started to run again and children went back to school.
One of the laws that was promulgated brought about a genuine rev-
olution: the agrarian reform completely abolished the old system of
land ownership. Properties over 100 acres – 40.5 hectares – were confis-
cated and distributed to agricultural labourers and the poorest peas-
ants.
The provisional government – and subsequent ones – faced a pleth-
ora of economic problems. The Germans had blown up all the bridges
on the Danube, seized public and private property, locomotives,
wagons, carriages and horses. War damages were astronomical, the
equivalent of five years’ national product. The country had also had to
provide for the Soviet army of occupation and was subjected to looting
and to the abduction and rape of women by the soldiers. To cap it all,
it had to pay heavy reparations to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and
Yugoslavia – 300 million dollars altogether.
In November 1945, voters went to the ballot box in order to elect a

new National Assembly. These were free elections, the ﬁrst and last in
forty-ﬁve years of Soviet domination. Thanks to Moscow’s exceptional
decision, the results were a serious disappointment to the Communists.
While they took 17 per cent of the votes – as did the Social Democrats
– the overall winner was the Smallholders’ Party with 57 per cent of
mandates. Its leader, Zoltán Tildy, then formed a coalition government
out of the four National Independent Front parties, which consequently
included the Communists. The latter occupied a disproportionate
number of posts: four out of the eighteen ministerial seats; the Social
Democrats held the same, while the National Peasant Party, which was
close to the Communist Party, received one portfolio. Thus, the
Smallholders’ Party, which in principle could have governed alone,
found itself with only half of the ministries. This arrangement was
imposed by Marshal Voroshilov, president of the Allied Control
Commission, and the party holding an absolute majority was forced to
accept.

The party that came in from the cold

The Hungarian Communist Party’s brief moment of power in 1919

conferred upon it a particular and paradoxical destiny. After the fall of
the Republic of Councils, repression had decimated its cadres and
during twenty-ﬁve years of clandestine existence, several hundred mili-
tants had been arrested, some sentenced to death and executed, others
sufﬁciently intimidated to cut ties with the illegal party. The number of
victims in Hungary was considerably fewer than victims of Stalin.
Horthy’s jails were less dangerous than the Gulag. Several party leaders,
among them Mátyás Rákosi who served no less than sixteen years in
prison, came out alive and well.
Rákosi and his comrade in misfortune, Zoltán Vas, had been handed
over to the Soviets in 1940, in exchange for banners belonging to
Kossuth’s army carried off by Tsar Nicolas I’s general as trophies of
victory in 1849. In any case, the Hungarian Communist Party was com-
pletely marginalised and despite the courageous actions of a small
nucleus, had no popular base. The future great leader of the party,
János Kádár, secretary in 1943–4, recounts in an interview that after
successive waves of arrests and defections, the party had been literally
reduced to a handful of members.

In the USSR, on the other hand, Hungarian émigrés, probably the

single largest group, numbered several thousand people. Whereas
German, Austrian and Czech prisoners-of-war had returned home after
the war, thousands of Hungarians who had joined the Red Army
remained on Soviet soil. Political émigrés swelled these figures,
Communists who had fled to Moscow after the events of 1919, and also
exiles fleeing Nazi Germany.

‘Salami tactics’

Upon returning to Hungary, therefore, the Communist Party had to

start from scratch. Thanks to circumstances and organisational
methods, the party was back on its feet and, with Soviet support,
enjoyed a disproportionately high political profile, though not as high
as its ambitions. With the hand of cards distributed by Stalin, it was
forced to play a ‘moderate’ game. There was no question of ‘building
Socialism’. The dictatorship of the proletariat was banned from its
vocabulary and the memory of 1919 condemned to shameful silence.
The party had to make do with building a ‘popular democracy’,
without knowing – Rákosi himself admitted as much – what the term
actually meant.
While it waited to find out in 1948, the party, a pawn on Moscow’s
chessboard and caught up in Stalin’s larger game, played its game as
best it could. To the extent that any Communist Party had room for
manoeuvre, the Hungarian party was further restricted by Stalin’s
choice of lieutenants. Four Muscovite comrades – of Jewish origin –
were appointed to head the Hungarian party and were instantly
stripped of any authority in the country of St Stephen’s Crown.
No one knows, in fact, why Hungary received such mild treatment.
In Poland, democracy was bludgeoned to death from the beginning;
Romania was put in its place from the first hour, as was Bulgaria almost
as quickly. In allowing free elections to take place shortly after the
Potsdam conference, perhaps Stalin wanted to prove his good intentions
to President Truman and to Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Among
other explanations, one could also speculate that, just as with Beneš’s
consenting Czechoslovakia, the Kremlin, confident of winning in the
end, decided not to rush things. Hungary was not on the geopolitical
strategy line. The argument put forward by revisionist American

historians, however, that the cold war launched by the United States was
what drove these countries into the arms of the Soviet system, simply
does not stand up on the facts. Hungary’s popular democracy was a
system under surveillance and wired up, ready to explode at the appro-
priate moment. Its main device was the Soviet military and police pres-
ence, prolonged after the signing of the peace treaty in 1947.
The tactic was to plant mines – its methods and tools are well known.
The first step was infiltration; the Communists planted their moles in
other parties. In effect, several ministers under a bourgeois flag were
secret Communist Party members. Former agents, informers and indi-
viduals with a ‘slightly’ Fascist or otherwise compromising past were an
easy target. The Communist Party had them over a barrel. No wonder
the Soviet organs and Communist leaders rushed to the archives to
extract compromising files.
In the economic sphere, the Soviet Union, as well as receiving repar-
ations, had seized German properties, created ‘mixed companies’, req-
uisitioned factories and buildings. The list was long and the aim clear:
these actions not only resulted in a handsome profit but also constituted
a leverage of power.
Politically speaking, the Communist Party sliced up the opposition
parties – the famous ‘salami tactic’ – starting with the Smallholders’
Party. By inciting scissions, the Communist Party faced a fragmented
opposition at the 1947 election, and with a bit of fraud thrown in, was
able to secure a better result than in 1945: some 22 per cent of the votes.
In order to break the hegemony of the Smallholders’ Party Rakósi and
his comrades excelled not only at intimidation, but also at organising
demonstrations, and under the cover of a left wing which included
Socialists and peasants. Initially, the party humoured the Church,
despite the latter’s far from sympathetic attitude. Nonetheless, in 1948,
church schools were brought under state control and convents were shut
down; close on the heels of the campaign that preceded Cardinal
Mindszenty’s trial, 225 Catholic priests and monks were arrested and
sentenced. Two years later, the Churches, worried about being able to
pursue their mission, signed a concordat and various agreements with
the state, securing around fifteen gymnasia (sixth-form colleges). To
avoid further offending the faithful, the party alternated the carrot and
the stick. All this was coherent within a policy modelled on the Popular
Front.

The same was true for the economy. Capitalism on a small and
medium scale was left to function alongside nationalisation of banks,
mines and the giants of heavy industry. The introduction of the new
currency in August 1946 added to stability. One forint was worth
4 ⫻ 1027 pengös in circulation, in other words 400,000 quadrillion
pengös. Because of this staggering inflation, Hungarians literally
worked for nothing in the eighteen months preceding stabilisation of
the currency. For the state, the moment was ripe and a three-year recon-
struction plan was launched on 1 August 1947.
Finally, a word about the role of the political police, the AVO and
then AVH, the state security organisation. Modelled along the lines of
the NKVD-KGB, it was in fact ‘counselled’ by high-ranking officers
from Moscow. The Hungarian political police set to work immediately.
In keeping with the Republic’s international and legal obligations, its
activities initially focused on war criminals and other Fascists. However,
decisions about who fell into these categories were taken by themselves
– and the Communist Party leadership. Consequently, little by little,
‘enemies within’ and ‘suspects’ were in danger of falling into their
clutches. The AVO-AVH was fully operational from 1948. Among its
‘precocious’ actions, the discovery of a ‘Hungarian community con-
spiracy’ led to serious repercussions. Members of this undoubtedly
clandestine organisation – but with no subversive intent – were
recruited from a broad spectrum, partly from members or ex-members
of the Smallholders’ Party. The police put together an entirely fabri-
cated file of accusations, implicating Ferenc Nagy, president of the
Council (who succeeded Tildy, elected president of the Republic), and
Béla Kovács, two leaders of the Smallholders’ Party. The trial mounted
by the police was intended to compromise and break up this great party
and, ultimately, to drive Ferenc Nagy into resigning. The Soviet author-
ities gave their strong-arm support to the dismantling of their principal
adversary. Béla Kovács was arrested – in the street, since the National
Assembly refused to lift his parliamentary immunity.
On 25 February 1947, Kovács was taken to Russia. On 30 May, Ferenc
Nagy, travelling in Switzerland, announced his forced resignation and
party leaders who opposed the Communist takeover fled the country,
resigned one after another, or found themselves imprisoned. The par-
liamentary façade was maintained but, from 1947, the semi-democratic

regime had had its day. Should the beginning of Communist power be
taken from this date, from the following year, or from the elections of
15 May 1949, when 96.27 per cent of electors ‘obediently’ voted for the
candidates of an artificial Popular Front, nominated in reality by the
Communist Party? Or much earlier, in 1946, when Churchill declared
that the iron curtain had fallen? The question of the precise date has no
real importance; the process had started from the moment the new
regime began.
The free elections clearly demonstrated that at least 83 per cent of
Hungarians mistrusted the Communists and voted for bourgeois dem-
ocratic and Social Democratic parties. Indeed, despite Soviet occupa-
tion and Communist Party agitation, the new democracy did enjoy a
solid credibility, mixed with the precarious hope that it would last . . .
The people set to work; the reconstruction plan launched by the
Communists and supported by the other parties, was an undisputed
success. The country in ruins began to prosper: factories were running
again at full pelt, artisans and small traders ran their workshops and
businesses; intellectuals participated in a pluralist and lively cultural
life. As has already been stated, the distribution of large estates among
642,000 agricultural labourers and destitute farm workers in a country
like Hungary, which was 50 per cent agricultural, amounted to a revo-
lution and entirely changed the country’s profile. Not surprisingly, it
raised as many fears as it did hopes, but only if the optimists’ expecta-
tions were fulfilled, in other words, that the Soviets would withdraw
after signing the peace treaty in 1947. This did not happen, and transi-
tion to a single party system put an end to a relatively free and prosper-
ous era.

stalinism in action

History has perpetuated the term ‘popular democracy’ for the countries
of Central and Eastern Europe. However, when Hungary became a
single party state and proclaimed the dictatorship of the proletariat, it
became a Soviet state which did not speak its name. There were intima-
tions of this transformation at the Cominform meeting in September
1947 at Szlarska Poreba in Poland, when Zhdanov made his famous
speech about the irreducible division of the world into two opposing

camps. But Stalin’s secret order to act was received by the Hungarians
in late 1948, after a congress held in Warsaw. Despite at least two pre-
monitory events, namely, the Prague coup in February and the
Cominform’s split with Tito, the Hungarian leadership learnt with
utter astonishment that from now on, and even retrospectively, their
‘popular democracy’ was a dictatorship of the proletariat and a
Socialist state in construction.
Thus both down- and up-stream, the party line had to be revised and
Rákosi, Dimitrov and Bierut had to engage in self-criticism. The gro-
tesque nature of this ritual, however, did nothing to soften the hard facts
which followed at an accelerated pace: state control of the economy,
enforced industrialisation plans, collectivisation of agriculture.
Churches came under attack, there were mass purges and arrests, the
intellectuals were brought into line and a campaign was launched to
‘unmask traitors who have inﬁltrated the party’. Every possible method
was put to use.
In the political sphere, the transition to brutality affected everyone:
there were mass dismissals in the ministries, municipalities, army and
publishing houses. The imprisonment of several Social Democratic
leaders, added to the already numerous politicians and ofﬁcers in
prison, was an important stage. Via a range of manoeuvres the old
Workers’ Party had already been forced to merge with the Communist
Party. In practice, the Social Democratic Party had been swallowed up
by the Communist Party. In 1950, it was the turn of the collaborating
architects of this forced union to be arrested, including György
Marosán and Árpád Szakasits, head of state fallen from power into the
lair of the political police. There he joined, among many others, his pre-
decessor, Zoltán Tildy. Church men were also being expunged.
Protestant and Catholic bishops were condemned to long prison sen-
tences, including two archbishops, József Grösz and, before him, József
Mindszenty in 1949.
The trial and execution in September 1949 of László Rajk with
several other accused, and Communists, victims of trials in 1950 and
1951, ushered in a new phase of a different kind. Ordinary mortals were
not really interested in the fate of Communists busy destroying each
other. Tears were shed for a father, or a village neighbour taken away by
the AVO-AVH, for a local priest treated badly, or a son who had disap-
peared in the Soviet Union ten years previously as a prisoner-of-war,

never to be seen again. In any case, was not Rajk, former minister of
internal affairs, the oh so dreaded ‘right hand’ of the party? Rajk’s trial
was the concern of Stalin, Rákosi, Duclos or Togliatti, and of fellow
travellers of foreign Communist parties. It was also the concern of the
828,659 Hungarian members and candidate members (January 1950) of
the Hungarian party, the subtle difference being that this time, terror
had struck some of them too.
Rajk finally confessed to everything as pre-scripted by the secret
police, actively seconded by the KGB, and radio-controlled by the party
leader himself, Mátyás Rákosi. For Stalin, the main purpose of the trial
was to put Tito and his regime on the defensive. For Rákosi and his
peers, it was the perfect opportunity to get rid of Rajk, a potential
(though not real) rival, a former ‘native’ Communist (which he was, but
without ever contesting Moscow’s pre-eminence) and to eradicate the
slightest hint of non-conformism within the party (something Rajk
would have been the first to approve). The trial’s hidden agenda also tar-
geted the ‘populist–nationalist’ tendency within the party, a largely
benign trend created by the People’s College Movement, patronised by
Rajk until its dissolution.
Alongside the sinister Gábor Péter and one of the four supreme
leaders, Mihály Farkas, János Kádár also participated in the interroga-
tions that interspersed torture sessions. Rajk’s best friend, he also suc-
ceeded him as minister of the interior. In 1951, he was, in turn,
imprisoned, tortured and condemned for fictitious crimes. Kádár sur-
vived to fulfil the role for which he is known. But evidence of his role as
torturer remains in the form of an audio-tape of the Rajk interrogations
which Rákosi astutely had made and kept carefully in his safe. This was
his hold over Kádár. In the flood of trials following Rajk’s, Ferenc
Donáth, Géza Losonczy, Sándor Haraszti, Szilárd Ujhelyi and hundreds
of militants belonging to the clandestine party of the pre-war period,
underwent torture and prison.
The ordinary citizen witnessed the great trials with indifference: what
mattered was the ‘small ones’. In fact, Rákosi’s regime excelled in that
very area. The figures are staggering. In six years, between 1948 and 1953,
nearly 1,300,000 people came before the tribunals, which issued 695,623
condemnations ranging from a fine to capital punishment, an average of
116,000 per year. It is worth remembering that this was a country of
9.5 million inhabitants. In just one year, 1952, 77,000 detention sentences

were pronounced and thousands of people were interned on the basis of

administrative decisions. The number of political executions and polit-
ical prisoners incarcerated, beaten and tortured is not known.
One of the main victims of the ‘People’s State’ was precisely the
working class supposedly – as if in derision – the holders of power. They
were deprived of the Social Democratic Party, of genuine trade unions
and of decent working and living conditions. As badly paid and housed
as under the regime of the lords of old, they were subjected to the pres-
sures of ‘production norms’ and the harassment of factory cells when
it was not imprisonment for ‘sabotage’ or for stealing ﬁve metres of
wire.
As soon as the war was over, the nobility ‘as a class’ was liquidated.
The fate for its members was decline, unemployment or factory work;
for many of them, prison or internment camp. Women too were hit by
the repression, as were children and old people: class enemies – bour-
geois and noble – received orders to evacuate their homes in town and
to move into shabby dwellings in the country. The expropriation of
bourgeois property followed anti-capitalist laws, whether it were a
factory, a business, an artisan’s workshop or a private legal practice. A
handful of cobblers survived to repair shoes, as long as there was no
shortage of soles. Shortage was one thing there was plenty of. As econ-
omist János Kornai writes in his forceful analysis, 9 million Hungarians
queued – both physically and metaphorically – in front of the shops; the
factories in front of their suppliers; state enterprises in front of the
coffers of the self same state.
Food shortages were of course linked to collectivisation. The expro-
priation of kulaks – the fate of all those possessing more than 12 hec-
tares – was merely the tip of the iceberg. Both old and newly established
peasants (thanks to the smallholdings created by the 1945 Agricultural
Reform) were forced to abandon their ‘capitalist’ farms and to join the
co-operative, the kolkhoz. And yet the results of the campaign insti-
gated in 1949–50 were poor: it was the policing methods of collectivisa-
tion and its psychological and economic effects that created disruption
in society. As a consequence of the Agricultural Reform, there were
more peasants than ever before, 53.8 per cent of the active population
against 21.6 per cent working in industry. The collectivisation campaign
therefore affected more than half the population. Recalcitrants were
often beaten, incarcerated and taunted as a way of forcing them to sign

up as members of a co-operative. With or without kulaks, villages felt

violated. Despite the construction of ‘Houses of Culture’, cinemas and
libraries, an entire peasant tradition was under threat. Hence the signif-
icance, economically disastrous and politically counterproductive, of
collectivisation.
The Lukács affair highlighted another facet of the regime. György
(Georg) Lukács’s controversial personality and work (1885–1971)
spanned the century of Communism. Better known in Germany than in
Hungary for his early writings, he came into the public eye in 1919 as
one of the people’s commissars of the Republic of Councils and,
twenty-ﬁve years later, as the Communist ‘pope’ of literature. His book,
Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (1923), which was written in
German and which so delighted the French left who discovered it a half
a century later, was ignored by Hungarian readers. After 1945, on the
other hand, Lukács’s essays on Balzac, Stendhal, Zola and ‘great
realism’ found profound echoes in literary circles. This was primarily
because realism had solid roots in Hungarian tradition, but also
because the ‘subtext’ of the message was understood loud and clear.
Anything but Socialist realism, one read between the lines; do not trust
the example of glorious Soviet literature and Zhdanovism. For all that,
the ‘Lukács line’ rejected apolitical ‘art for art’s sake’ on the right, while
discarding both Stalinist–Zhdanovian literature and every strain of the
avant-garde on the left. The ‘Lukács debate’ of 1949–50 and the ‘Déry
debate’ of 1952 took place in the narrow cultural space which remained
practicable until the year of the turning point.
What these debates made crystal clear was that the era of tolerance
was over. Whosoever wished to be published would have to align them-
selves to the Soviet model. In his closing statement in the Lukács debate,
the chief ideologue, József Révai, revealed the hidden political nub that
lay hidden behind all the fuss. Lukács’s line, he said, was one war
behind: admissible before the watershed but not after. This was because
since before the turning point, it had represented the policy of the
Popular Front which – and this was the heart of the message – had been
no more than a ‘historical detour [underlined by Révai] which Fascism
compelled us to take’. Henceforth it is clear that the party headed
straight for its aim: dictatorship. The proof was in the criticism against
Déry, down to its minutest details. Arts and literature were now in the
line of ﬁre.

imre nagy: the 1953–1955 interlude

Stalin died on 5 March 1953. His heirs, the ten members of the Soviet
Party’s Central Committee Presidium, engaged in a war of succession
which cost the life of the formidable and ambitious Lavrenti Beria,
losing out to Georgi Malenkov initially, followed by Nikita Khrushchev.
The party’s new ‘collective leadership’ introduced a whole series of
initiatives aimed at lightening the burden of Stalinism and the tensions
in the popular democracies. The ‘thaw’ had begun; the title of Ilya
Ehrenburg’s celebrated novella became the symbol of an era. Hungary
was one of the first to be invited to rethink its position.
From 13–16 June 1953, Mátyás Rákosi, leader of the Hungarian
party and government, was summoned to Moscow, accompanied by
Ernö Gerö and a few other high officials. On their return, Rákosi,
though still general secretary, was no longer prime minister. Imre Nagy,
a little known member of the Politburo, had taken his place according
to instructions from the Moscow comrades. The reason behind this
choice has never been clear. Imre Nagy, though a Communist since his
youth and an erstwhile Red Army soldier in Russia, did not belong to
the core leadership of the Hungarian party in Moscow. He had also
fallen foul of the party and been turned down in 1948–9 because of his
opposition to forced collectivisation. But perhaps it was precisely this
that motivated his promotion, at a point when the agarian policy was
failing and an economic crisis was seriously shaking the stability of
Communist power. Furthermore, unlike the other four top leaders (two
of whom fell from grace during the reshuffles of the summer of 1953)
Nagy was not Jewish.
Nagy was given the task of implementing the orders from Moscow.
Confident about these orders, Nagy presented his government’s pro-
gramme to Parliament as well as introducing a new cabinet – relieved of
a few notorious Stalinists – on 4 July. Nagy’s programme and the tone
of his speech broadcast on radio emitted shock waves – of relief, after
so many years of terror and deprivation. The programme set out key
decisions which included the slowing down of frenetic industrialisation,
the lifting of constraining measures against peasants, permission to dis-
solve the kolkhozes and release of detainees from internment camps.
Nagy’s patriotic warmth and his speech – part professorial, part rural
– rendered him the first popular Communist politician. And since

Plate 43. Count Mihály Károlyi in Nice, with Imre Nagy and Mrs Nagy, 1949

promises were kept, he earned the trust of his compatriots and the
hatred of the party apparatus, Rákosi in particular.
The eighteen months under the ‘June programme’ were months of
relentless infighting between Rákosi’s clan and that of Nagy – a man
alone, rejected by party officials and without a governmental machinery
worthy of the name. Confident of his position, Nagy relied on the power
of the word and on public opinion. Until October 1954 he was able to
count on Khrushchev’s support, but the circumstances which until then
had favoured his ‘Communism with a human face’ (his expression, long
before the Prague Spring) had changed. The Paris Accords in October
1954 re-established the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany,
thus enabling it to join NATO. The Communist bloc, for its part, then
set up the Warsaw Pact. Preparations led to Malenkov’s demise, accused
of having weakened his country through restricting heavy industry and,
consequently, its military capability. For Khrushchev it was the ideal
excuse to push Malenkov out of his prime minister’s seat – on 8 February
1955 – and replace him with Nicolaï Bulganin.

between re-freeze and revolution

Malenkov’s dismissal – unlike Beria’s in 1953– was Imre Nagy’s coup de

grâce. His enemies had no difﬁculty in dealing the fatal blow to the
‘Hungarian Malenkov’. Nagy was ousted in April 1955. His refusal to
subject himself to the ritual of self-criticism cost him his party mem-
bership card. He nonetheless became a providential ﬁgure whose return
was eagerly awaited.
Nagy’s fall was the signal for a re-freeze. Rákosi now held exclusive
power. Though he could not entirely erase Nagy’s reforms, he took back
the reins and conducted a campaign of repression and intimidation on
a large scale, despite a spectacular about-turn in the Kremlin. On 26
May 1955, Khrushchev and Bulganin went to Yugoslavia to present
their apology to Tito, who had been excommunicated by the
Cominform seven years before. This unexpected and dramatic event
created a sensation all over the world and in Hungary relaunched the
‘Imre Nagyist’ opposition movement. Without delay, those close to the
deposed president of the Council – Miklós Gimes, György Fazekas and
Miklós Vásárhelyi – demanded the revision of the anti-Titoist policy
and of the Rajk trial in a public session.

In order to understand the mechanism, we need to return brieﬂy to

1953, the beginning of the anti-Stalinist, ‘Imre Nagyist’ intellectual
movement. ‘The lone man’, who in the summer of 1953 had announced
a ‘new phase’ in party and government policy, found his first active fol-
lowers among writers and journalists. Meanwhile, a spirit of revolt had
overtaken most of the Communist intelligentsia: institutions of higher
education, scientific research institutes, publishing houses and theatres,
partly because reinforcements had arrived, straight from prison.
Thanks to the policy introduced in 1953, survivors of the Rajk trial, and
those that followed, were released and rehabilitated.
Unlike János Kádár and a few others, most survivors of the rigged
trials unhesitatingly aligned themselves with the reformists. After the
fall of Imre Nagy they formed a small circle of friends around him, and
were among the rare visitors to his villa under AVH surveillance. This
small group of determined individuals went on to lead the actions of
1955 and 1956 which ended up destabilising the regime.
All the more so, since the ‘thaw’ continued. During the Twentieth
Congress of the Soviet Party, 14–25 February 1956, Khrushchev deliv-
ered his celebrated speech concerning Stalin’s crimes and the damaging
effects of the ‘personality cult’. From then on, Rákosi and the party
apparatchiks were on the defensive against the accusations that rained
on the party leadership and, more specifically, on the organisers of the
rigged political trials. The Petöfi Circle, in full swing, organised debate
after debate on the most sensitive issues, such as the economy, historiog-
raphy, Marxist philosophy, the fate of the Spanish war volunteers who
had been decimated and, lastly, on the press. The debate on the latter
took place on 27 June 1956, with 7,000 participants who listened to the
speeches broadcast to the street over loud speakers. After this, events
gathered momentum.
The day after the meeting an entirely coincidental event took place,
as unfortunate for the party leadership as it was decisive in the events
that followed: the uprising of the Poznan workers. The intervention of
the Polish security forces left at least fifty dead which led to a slow
change of policy within the Polish Communist Party leadership.
Reverberations from the Twentieth Congress were still being felt.
Moscow interceded with the Hungarian party, which balked at the idea
of changing course. In mid-July, Anastas Mikoyan arrived in Budapest
to organise the dismissal of Rákosi, who subsequently had to go into

exile in the USSR. A reshuffle took place within the Central Committee.
The changes that ensued were far from radical, however, bringing to
power instead the party’s number two, Ernö Gerö, who during his last
three months at the summit of power attempted to implement a half-
hearted policy. A few AVH torturers went to prison, a few hundred of
their victims, including 132 Communists and 151 Social Democrats,
were rehabilitated. Archbishop Grösz and the Lutheran bishop Lajos
Ordass were released and Cardinal Mindszenty was transferred from
prison to house-arrest.
This entirely relative thaw did not appease the public mood. Anti-
Stalinist opposition renewed its attack with demands abhorrent to the
leadership: it wanted a state funeral for Rajk and the other trial victims
who had been secretly buried following their execution. For the first
time under a Communist regime, a crowd of 100,000 people demon-
strated in silence in the streets near the cemetery. As for the funeral, it
resembled a scene from Shakespeare’s Richard III at the National
Theatre. The public interrupted the performance regularly as they
relived the crimes. At the cemetery, party representatives rubbed shoul-
ders with surviving victims.
This surrealist and macabre event illustrates the collective mood.
Despite not having been at all popular, Rajk was now surrounded by
people, a message to those in power that enough was enough. But the
message failed to get through. Whereas the Polish party learnt the lessons
of Poznan, the Hungarian Communist leaders learnt nothing and had
forgotten nothing. Ernö Gerö, former KGB commissar at the time of the
Spanish war, top official of the Comintern and unshakeable Stalinist,
believed he could carry on as if nothing had happened. He merely pre-
sented his apologies to Tito whom he was supposed to meet in Belgrade.
The leadership no longer had anything or anyone behind it, apart from
the political police, the machinery’s last quadroon, and, as a last resort,
the Soviets. The spirit of contradiction penetrated everywhere, even into
the party apparatus, its training schools, the municipal police, military
academies, and it reached into a small group of the Central Committee.
The vast majority of 860,000 Communists wanted change.
As for the anti-Stalinist opposition, it already had a national audi-
ence, and its leader, Imre Nagy, enjoyed increased popularity, thanks to
his obstinate resistance. He was in actual fact one of the most moder-
ate of his political friends. During his internal exile in 1955–6, however,

he had written his memoirs speciﬁcally designed to defend his cause

before the party, but containing unorthodoxies and at times the voice of
a rebel. In it, he condemned the destruction of the democratic coalition
of 1945–8 and, consequently, the dictatorship of the one-party system.
He also reiterated his opposition to agricultural collectivisation and
elsewhere developed his ideas around the ‘ﬁve principles of Bandung’,
that charter for the non-committed. What distinguished him from his
peers was the patriotic cadence of a man of the land, attached to his
national culture.
Some members of his ‘group’ shared his attitude, while others, on the
contrary, chastised him for his narrow-minded ‘party spirit’ and his
refusal to act outside the legal institutional framework. In the eyes of
some European historians, the reformists were close to the Yugoslav
model, Tito’s ‘national Communism’, and his system of workers’ self-
management. In reality, there is no trace of any such tendencies. Titoism
never caught on in Hungary. The reformists nurtured hopes of a
‘Communism with a human face’ – as evidenced by one of Nagy’s
essays – but for them, the Yugoslav model did not seem to hold that
promise. Lastly, there were the most radical of the galaxy, headed by the
journalist Miklós Gimes, who did not believe (or no longer believed) in
a renewal of society without a decisive break with Communism. This
was also, undoubtedly, the general feeling among the Hungarian
people, who wanted above all to shake off Soviet domination, wanted a
better life and freedom.
Events in Warsaw gave new impetus to the Hungarians.

national uprising

On 19 October 1956, the Central Committee of the Polish Communist

Party (LEMP) co-opted the ‘dissidents’, who had been kept at arm’s
length, headed by Wladislaw Gomulka, the Kremlin’s bête noire.
Warsaw ignited Hungary’s gunpowder. On 23 October, students organ-
ised a demonstration in support of the Poles. The Petöfi Circle led the
cortège, which began at the feet of a bronze statue of Petöfi; writers
made speeches and an actor recited Petöfi’s poem, Rise, Magyar!, which
108 years previously had signalled the beginning of the 1848 democratic
revolution. Just as in Petöfi’s day, the crowd was able to read the twelve
points formulated by the students – or sixteen, to include the demands

of the day: national independence, Russian withdrawal, free elections,

Imre Nagy in power. The party leadership held a continuous session
throughout the morning. It banned the demonstration, refusing to
listen to reason. ‘And what if the people refuse to obey?’ asked one jour-
nalist. ‘We will give orders to open fire on the crowds,’ replied József
Révai. But he had neither the troops nor the courage to stop the dem-
onstration.
The procession moved off across the city and at every crossroads was
swelled with tens of thousands of workers. The number of demonstrators
has been estimated at 300,000, which would be equivalent to 1.5 million
protesters in Paris. The atmosphere was light-hearted; popular songs were
intoned, the ‘Marseillaise’, sometimes the ‘Internationale’. Slogans
encapsulating their demands were at times cruder than before. Similarly,
the Communist symbol was cut out of the tricolor flag.
Perhaps a simple gesture, a tiny concession by those in power, would
have sufficed to appease the public mood, as in Poland with Gomulka.
But no such response was forthcoming. During the night, the country
teetered on the verge of civil war – which was not a civil war since apart
from the party leadership shut away in its headquarters and a handful
of political police units, there was no one to fight for a regime that had
been so disastrously discredited. One section of the crowd laid siege to
the radio station, another, to the party newspaper, a third set about dis-
mantling the symbol of tyranny, the immense statue of Stalin. The night
had barely begun and the regime, armed to the teeth, collapsed like a
pack of cards.
Ernö Gerö and the president of the Council of Ministers, András
Hegedüs, then turned to the only force that could save them: the Soviet
army. Two divisions stationed close by arrived in the capital. An insur-
rectional army had been organised. It resisted and retaliated; Russian
tanks were blown up with ‘Molotov cocktails’; in the suburbs, a disar-
rayed Hungarian army was involved in a few skirmishes. For the rest,
soldiers and sometimes entire units joined the insurrection. It was the
beginning of a national revolution and uprising, supported by a civil
population. For five days, the battles raged in Budapest and provincial
towns.
The once one-million-strong party was reduced to a handful of
leaders in a state of panic. In the circumstances, they had no other
choice but to call upon Imre Nagy, who accepted, without conditions

and on the morning of 24 October formed a cabinet that was barely dif-
ferent from the previous one. Nor was his policy: the continued fight
against the insurrection. The only thing he refused to do was to sign an
official request the Russians demanded to legitimise their intervention.
Public disappointment was proportional to Nagy’s weakness. The day
after his investiture, however, he began to move. Gerö was fired and
replaced as general secretary of the party by János Kádár. Then, on 27
October, Nagy reshuffled the government. Among the twenty-five min-
isters were a dozen new faces, like Lukács, former president of the
Republic Tildy, and former general secretary of the Smallholders’ Party,
Béla Kovács, who had been arrested by the Soviets and had just returned
to his country after eight years in the gulag.
The tone of Nagy’s messages on the radio also shifted. He promised
amnesty to the insurgents if they laid down their arms, without realis-
ing that he was one war too late. For the fighting going on in the streets
of Budapest and major towns was no longer his own fight for a softer
Communism, but a fight for freedom. For the first time in a Communist
system, a revolution to end the regime was taking place. An anti-
totalitarian revolution, according to Raymond Aron. An unprecedented
revolution, too, because communication between the government and
other players took place via the mass media of the time – the radio
waves. In another respect, it was a nineteenth-century style revolution.
Barricades, armed civilian insurgents, the third estate on the move, tri-
color flags displaying liberty, equality, fraternity – and above all,
national independence.
After five days of hesitation, Imre Nagy finally understood – too late
for public opinion and the insurgents; with too much haste and zeal in
the eyes of the Stalinists. According to one correspondent, Nagy had
been held prisoner until then by the political police and forced, by
kalashnikovs, to keep to the Bolshevik line. Pia fraus. A venial lie to
restore his image tarnished by five days of procrastination. In reality,
Nagy was prisoner of himself, his militant past, his belief – against all
odds – in the possibility of reforming Communism without abandon-
ing it. On 28 October, however, the other side of his personality took
over. Forbidding the hard-line Stalinists from attempting another mili-
tary adventure, he declared a unilateral ceasefire and announced the
immediate abolition of the AVH security police, as well as the com-
mencement of negotiations for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and

other radical measures to bring an end to the ﬁghting. The Communist

Party disbanded; the most compromised members of the former lead-
ership fled to Moscow and a directorium of six members, which
included János Kádár (president), Imre Nagy and Ferenc Münnich,
took over, aided by a reduced cabinet formed on 30 October. A plural-
ist cabinet was formed and, within forty-eight hours, two other cru-
cially important decisions were announced by Nagy: the denunciation
of the Warsaw Pact and the proclamation of neutrality.
But let us return to the events of 28 and 29 October. From then on,
changes could not have been more radical: the multi-party system was
reinstated and the new power rallied to the revolution. The fighting
stopped immediately, but the insurgents demanded guarantees from the
head of government that promises would be kept. Who were they?
In a dozen provincial towns, heavy fighting had taken place; in
Budapest, a genuine insurrectional war had erupted between armed
groups and Soviet tanks who arrived without infantry. The urban guer-
rilla fought back with whatever was to hand, notably the famous
‘Molotov cocktails’ – often thrown by fifteen- and sixteen-year-old ado-
lescents – which immobilised the tanks. The hard core of the resistance
comprised half a dozen groups, barricaded at various points, the most
famous in a small square in front of a cinema, another in a barracks
where an army colonel, Pál Maléter, took command.
The groups of insurgents, who went on to become legendary, were
sometimes led by officers or sub-officers, more often by civilians from a
variety of professional backgrounds: the son of a former civil servant
who had lost his position; an ardent Communist foreman; or an ordi-
nary worker like ‘Uncle Szabó’. There were certainly ‘hooligans’ too,
rubbing shoulders with medical students and poets, but the fact remains
that the vast majority of insurgents treated in hospital for wounds were
workers.
Figures are only approximate: 2,000 according to some, two or three
times that number, according to others. Numbers were undoubtedly far
smaller during the fighting prior to the ceasefire than after 4 November,
when the Soviets intervened for the second time – of which more later.
Whether there were 2,000 or 4,000 during the first conflict, the fact
remains that this small urban-guerrilla band held off the Soviet units for
five days. In terms of defeating the most powerful army in Europe, it was
certainly not enough, but it sufficed to create a mood of intoxication

and, more curiously, to drive the Kremlin into withdrawing – or appear-

ing to be willing to withdraw and to seek a political solution.
For 150 hours – from the moment Imre Nagy announced the changes
on 28 October until the first Russian canon fire at dawn on 4 November
1956 – the Hungarians experienced the illusion of being free. Two
members of the Soviet Communist Party Presidium, Mikhaïl Suslov and
Anastas Mikoyan, in Budapest from 27–30 October, sanctioned the
decisions taken by Nagy and his colleagues, including the move to a
multi-party system. Notes relating to debates within the Party
Presidium concerning the Hungarian situation have recently been dis-
covered in Moscow archives. They attest to a state of indecision and
confusion which reigned for several days. Old Stalinists like Molotov
and Voroshilov would not hear of a withdrawal of troops and pushed
for military intervention. Others, on the other hand – initially even
Marshall Zhukov – favoured negotiations towards a political agreement
with Imre Nagy. Mikoyan, one of the emissaries just back from
Budapest, was the most conciliatory, while his colleague Suslov with-
drew into silence. On 30 October, the leadership supreme, despite
everything, made the celebrated declaration which acknowledged
Moscow’s errors vis-à-vis Hungary and the other people’s democracies.
The text, published in the columns of Pravda, announced that ‘the
Soviet government was ready to enter into negotiations’ concerning ‘the
presence of Soviet troops on Hungarian soil’. It was a huge step . . . but
did not mean approval of Hungary’s withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact
which Nagy announced the following day, on the afternoon of 31
October. At the time, it was believed that the Moscow emissaries,
Suslov and Mikoyan, had ratified these decisions, but eyewitness
accounts leave room for doubt. There is no conclusive documented evi-
dence and Nagy’s speech merely announced the beginning of negotia-
tions on this subject and his desire to see it through. At that moment,
the two Soviet emissaries back in Moscow were in discussions with their
colleagues in the Presidium. The fate of the Hungarian revolution was
settled in a reception room in the Kremlin where, this time, the Soviets
and visiting Chinese leaders opted for military intervention.
In any event, Imre Nagy left party headquarters on 29 October,
moved to the Parliament, to government offices, and fell increasingly
into line with the demands of the revolution. As for the latter, it organ-
ised a return to freedom with a speed and determination that were

probably unprecedented. In the space of 150 hours, a new political and

social system was born.
The forces of order, meanwhile, were also reorganised in a spirit of
‘continuity and discontinuance’: the army, the municipal police and
insurgents together ensured that order was maintained against all prov-
ocation because the forces of disorder were also present, and on both
sides of the barricades. In late October, security forces’ machine guns
fired into a peaceful crowd assembled in front of Parliament, leaving
two hundred dead and numerous wounded. A seriously bloody incident
also took place at the entrance to the Communist Party Budapest head-
quarters where Imre Mezö, secretary of the Central Committee, was
killed, as were the army officers who were just leaving a meeting with
him. Photographs of their appallingly mutilated bodies were splashed
across the pages of the American magazine Life, but despite numerous
inquests, the exact circumstances of the crime remain confused. Street
lynchings also took place – three or four AVH officers were hanged from
lamp posts.
From 1 November, however, the mixed army forces took the situation
in hand, and order was restored so that the inhabitants of Budapest and
of most other towns went back to their routines – but not to their work.
One of the unique characteristics of the change was the spontaneous
creation of self-governing bodies. Calling themselves national commit-
tees, revolutionary councils or workers’ councils, they sometimes took
on administrative tasks – especially in the small towns, sometimes the
management of institutions or factories. Foreign press correspondents
focused on the workers’ councils, which in Budapest were significant
both in number and importance. It would be incorrect, however, to look
upon these as workers’ self-management bodies and, therefore, the
events in Budapest as a revolution of councils. Several works present
this leftist romantic-revolutionary interpretation, despite it being belied
by the diversity of the forms of organisation and their agendas. For the
moment, councils were organising strikes rather than production. This
momentum was leading towards a pluralist and policed civil society. Of
course, no one had even heard of a civil society and yet, from the most
isolated village to the large factory, via associations of writers or believ-
ers, everyone seized a particle of the power that belonged to them as cit-
izens.

Among the forces involved, pride of place belonged to the Churches,

especially the Catholic Church and its prelate, József Mindszenty, Arch-
bishop of Esztergom. The cardinal, who had just been freed by a
Communist officer originally from the upper aristocracy, took up a
position against the current government (of the moment). That he
immediately demanded the restitution of huge Church properties is
untrue. He did, however, persist in referring to the government as ‘heirs
of a deposed regime’ and he articulated his own conservative vision of
society and of ‘cultural nationalism’. His speech was broadcast on 3
November at 20.00 hours. At dawn, two thousand Russian tanks
invaded the country. Free elections never took place. One can only spec-
ulate as to the future prospects of these ideas.
The same can be said for the various tendencies on the left and the
Democratic Socialist perspective. After a brief short-circuit, Imre Nagy
wins back his popularity and credibility. But for how long? In what
circumstances? Above the fray? At the head of a party? Which party?
There are any number of unanswered questions. It is extremely unlikely
that the Social Democratic Party would have accepted to march along-
side any Communist group so soon after having extracted its historic
leaders – among them the charismatic, loyal and inflexible Anna Kéthly
– from prison. As for the post-Stalinist party created during the revolu-
tion, it did not carry much weight. What about the workers’ councils?
We have already spoken of the uncertainties governing this new-born
movement. It should be said, however, that all things considered the
general trend was not moving towards the re-establishment of capital-
ism, but rather towards a ‘mixed’ regime, a kind of ‘third way’. It was
a way that had been discredited by the experience of the forty years after
the Hungarian revolution, but it seemed to correspond to the general
mood among a large section of the population – and to the geopolitical
circumstances of the time.
The initially small anti-Stalinist opposition was also part of this
trend. Contrary to impressions at the time, it was not swept away by the
wave of insurgents but identified with the revolution and held key posi-
tions throughout the revolution and afterwards. At the time of the
major trials under a restored Communism, its front ranks, led by Imre
Nagy, paid for their metamorphosis with their lives. What would have
become of them had the revolution taken a different turn? It is another

question that remains without an answer. In early November 1956, the

time for questions had not yet arrived.
On 1 November, Imre Nagy announced Hungary’s withdrawal from
the Warsaw Pact and proclaimed the country’s neutrality, soliciting the
protection of the four great powers, the United States, the United
Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. The second decision completed
the ﬁrst. Hungary declared its neutrality the moment it left the pact,
indicating that it had no intention of moving over to the Atlantic alli-
ance. The request for support from its Soviet neighbour for its neutral
status was intended as a reassurance of its loyalty to Moscow.
The Budapest government was driven to desperate measures. During
the night of 31 October, Soviet units which had left the capital turned
round and, reinforced with more troops, moved towards the heart of the
country – contrary to all assurances that had been given.
Moscow responded to pleas from Budapest – via its ambassador in
Budapest, future KGB boss and future ﬁrst secretary of the party, Yuri
Andropov – with the customary assurances that no threat was
intended. The last ten hours or so of freedom were spent in anguish.
Even at the very last hour, the Soviets pretended they had every inten-
tion of keeping within the agreements. They invited Imre Nagy to send
a political delegation to Warsaw in order to conclude the terms of the
agreement and for their part dispatched a military delegation respon-
sible for determining the modalities of withdrawal. In the afternoon of
3 November, after an apparently fruitful meeting, the Soviet generals
arranged to meet their Hungarian interlocutors, including General
Maléter, minister of defence, at the Russian headquarters at Tököl,
near Budapest, with a view to pursuing negotiations. It was an ambush:
the Hungarians were arrested by the KGB. Meanwhile, the noose of the
Soviet army tightened around the capital with preparations for a dawn
attack.
The events unfolding in Budapest made the front page in newspapers
worldwide throughout the entire thirteen days of the revolution. Public
opinion was moved, diplomatic bodies bewildered. Sympathy aside,
however, Hungary did not receive any political support, let alone mili-
tary aid. In the light of documents now available, the position of the
powers is absolutely clear. The United States, the only one with enough
muscle, immediately shied away. President Eisenhower’s position was

established in advance: basically, the status quo. The United States

would not act. Furthermore, to avoid any misunderstanding, they
charged the American ambassador in Moscow, Charles Bohlen, to
convey the message. The rest is history. The Soviets were reassured.
As for the British and the French, the Kremlin had nothing to fear:
without Washington, any action against the Soviet Union was unthink-
able. Besides, Paris and London had other worries, namely the tripar-
tite action with Israel, against President Nasser’s Egypt in the Suez
Canal Zone. The question as to whether the second Soviet aggression
in Hungary would have taken place if there had been no Suez crisis
is another of history’s unknowns. We can reasonably suppose the
answer to be yes. Be that as it may, the Suez affair served the interests of
the Soviets, just as the Budapest events were welcomed by the
French–English–Israeli allies. Deliberately or not, both parties used the
diversion offered by the other. As for the minutes of the secret tripartite
conference at Sèvres which put the final touches to the launch of the
Suez campaign, there is no trace of them in the archives.
Discussions at the UN Security Council could only reflect the posi-
tions of the five permanent members, the USSR, China, the USA, the
United Kingdom and France. The only procedure that would have
avoided a Soviet veto would have been to present Hungary’s case before
an extraordinary session of the General Assembly. Yet it was only from
the 5 November that the matter was fully discussed by the General
Assembly, and resolutions taken demanding the withdrawal of the
troops. It was in vain, of course. Having crushed the revolution on 4
November, the Russian army installed itself in Hungary and stayed for
thirty-five years.

The 4 November invasion

In the Communist world, the Hungarian cause was from the very begin-
ning a target for attacks from the German, Czechoslovak and Romanian
parties. The Poles were cautiously sympathetic, while the Chinese did a
volte-face. Peking’s initially benevolent attitude towards Poland and
Hungary changed on 31 October when Mao Tse-tung and Zhou Enlai
dropped Hungary, and incited Moscow to intervene.
The only possible ally that remained was, consequently, Tito’s

Plate 44. The 1956 Revolution: after the defeat

Yugoslavia. Understandably, the Belgrade leadership would have will-

ingly welcomed the fall of the Hungarian Stalinists and a move to
national Communism. Not, however, to political pluralism. So when
Khrushchev arrived unexpectedly at Brioni Island to persuade Tito to
co-operate, he found an interlocutor who was not only consenting but
zealous to boot. In changing sides, Tito dealt the Hungarians the death
blow.
On his return to Moscow, all that was left for Khrushchev to do was
to give the start of the invasion the green light. On 4 November at 4.00,
a huge Red Army swept across Hungary, with ‘the obvious intention of
overthrowing the legal government’, as the president of the Hungarian
Council declared in his last radio speech. In order to escape arrest, he
then went to the Yugoslav embassy, accompanied by close friends and

four other members of the party leadership. Meanwhile, the only min-
ister left in the Parliament building, István Bibó, wrote a brief aide-
memoire of the situation. A handful of broadcasters transmitted the
ﬁnal messages, while armed resistance continued in various places for a
few more days.

The victory of a defeat

Thus, ‘the ﬁrst anti-totalitarian revolution’ ended in a blood bath. The

free world did not lift a finger to stop it. In the scenario of a bipolarised
world, war against the Soviet Union would have been unthinkable in
any case and no sensible Hungarian would have wanted the country
transformed into the battlefield of the Third World War. Does this mean
that no other means of pressure existed besides military ones – diplo-
matic, multilateral, economic – to push Moscow into a reasonable com-
promise, and that consequently the cause was lost in advance? Nothing
is less certain: the claim that ‘what happened was meant to be’ is an idle
justification. Events could have unfolded differently.
Having said that, and God being on the side of the big battalions,
Hungary’s chances were indeed slim. To say, however, that the sacrifice
was not in vain was, in the circumstances, more than just a platitude.
The uprising was an affirmation of selfhood and provided Hungarians
with moral capital, though without dividends. National identity had
been rescued. Indeed, beyond its frontiers, this act of resistance,
however inordinate, demonstrated for the first time that totalitarianism
was not an empire destined to last for a thousand years. It is in this sense
that it is legitimate to talk of the victory of a defeat.

the kádár regime

The regime of János Kádár had a rather fantastical beginning. On 1

November, Kádár announced on the airwaves that ‘the uprising of the
Hungarian people has achieved freedom and independence’ . . . and
promptly left. A Polish correspondent described how ‘he disappeared
from the scene just as soon as he arrived’. In fact, Kádár went to the
Soviet ambassador in Budapest, Yuri Andropov, and from there, ﬂed to
Russia, returning on 7 November in a Red Army lorry as the head of a
puppet government.

The age of bargaining

Initially – and very brieﬂy – the new masters adopted chameleon tactics.
They presented themselves as upholders of the revolution whose only
purpose was to redress its mistakes. There was no talk of a ‘counter-
revolution’ or of punishing the guilty. The uprising was declared just
and the ‘old regime’ – in other words Rákosi and his co-responsibles –
were largely blamed for having provoked it. Kádár even declared that
Imre Nagy, who had taken refuge in the Yugoslav embassy, was free to
return to political life whenever he chose to. This overture was nothing
more than a sham and Nagy, with the approval of the other members of
the party’s executive body (rebaptised the Hungarian Socialist Workers’
Party, MSzMP), refused any compromise. Since Kádár was the only
member of the leadership who had his freedom, the situation was rather
embarrassing. What Kádár would have liked was not Nagy’s return to
political life but his approbation which would bestow a semblance of
legitimacy upon a puppet government. The Yugoslav hosts who had
granted him asylum also tried their best to extract an endorsement from
Nagy – who was unaware of the pact between Tito and Khrushchev (a
pact which was revealed in the Memories of the latter after his demise
and also by the Yugoslav ambassador Veljko Micunovic). The double-
dealing carried on for three weeks. The extradition of Hungarians pro-
tected by the right to asylum was negotiated between Belgrade’s
emissaries and Kádár; at the same time, the Hungarians were pushed by
Belgrade to relieve the embassy of their inopportune presence. To cover
themselves, the Yugoslav government obtained from Kádár a safe
conduct for the refugees.
The Kremlin cut the Gordian knot in its customary fashion. On 22
November, as Nagy and his friends, reassured of their safe-conduct, left
the embassy and stepped onto a bus which was to take them home, they
were kidnapped by the KGB and taken to Romania, where they were
forced to accept the hospitality of their new hosts. The deportees were
then subjected to continuous harassment in the place of their detention,
disguised as a holiday resort, ending up in Hungarian prisons, followed
by trials and executions of the principal defendants in 1958. For the rest
of the country, in a state of shock, the time for bargaining was over.
Serious matters were about to begin.

The age of repression

In a country overrun by tanks, resistance continued for many long

weeks. The Workers’ Councils upheld the order to strike and economic
life was paralysed. A committee in Györ presided over by Attila Szigethy
kept a ‘free zone’. In Budapest, associations of intellectuals, with
writers at the forefront, pursued their protests. On 21 November a rev-
olutionary council of intellectuals took over under the presidency of the
maestro, Kodály. Even journalists working at Népszabadság, the
Communist Party’s official organ, went on a protest strike; pamphlets
criticised the new regime; the journalist Miklós Gimes published a clan-
destine newspaper; there were also demonstrations in the street. In
other words, despite bans and increasingly frequent arrests, rearguard
action did not stop. On 9 December, the government dissolved the
Workers’ Councils and National Committees, and arrested their
leaders, thus cutting the last fictive tie with the revolutionary events. In
January 1957, associations – including that of the writers – despite
being entirely legal, suffered the same fate.
Among numerous attempts to stop the machine of repression and to
find a political solution, István Bibó’s were notable for the courage and
intelligence of their author. He wrote an essay putting forward propo-
sals for a compromise between the people and the masters in power and
also originated a memorandum in the same vein, addressed to the
Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Several other intellectuals par-
ticipated in the action, including the journalist Miklós Gimes and the
current president of the Republic, Árpád Göncz. The memorandum
was handed to Nehru’s emissary, ambassador K. P. S. Menon, but
created more smoke than fire. The great Indian statesman, no doubt
genuinely shocked by the Russian invasion of a small country, confined
himself to sending a complaint to Moscow, to which the response was
a simple niet.
The curtailment of a rebellious Hungary continued. The trial and
execution of Imre Nagy and four co-accused in June 1958 provoked new
waves of protests, notably in France where several Communist intellec-
tuals and fellow-travellers broke with the French Communist Party fol-
lowing Soviet intervention and persecutions. Free spirits such as Albert
Camus and François Fejtö fought a tireless campaign supporting the

triumph of truth, which had been distorted by Communist propa-

ganda. The Truth about the Nagy Affair, published in Paris in 1959,
edited by Pierre Kende and his collaborators with a preface by Albert
Camus, provides several trustworthy documents and a series of eyewit-
ness accounts: the book exposes the regime’s iniquitous procedures, the
extent of Kádár’s responsibility, and attempts made to distort it empha-
sising the pressure that was being exerted by the Chinese and the
Soviets. Most of all, it is Nagy’s personality which emerges from the
truth about the trial. He defended his ideas and actions with extraordi-
nary steadfastness, while refuting accusations which completely dis-
torted the truth and went to the scaffold without renouncing the
revolution in any way. Decades later, it came to light that at the time of
his emigration to Moscow, Imre Nagy had probably collaborated with
the KGB services of the time, under what constraints and for how long,
we do not know. For all that, he remains an admirable ﬁgure.
Trials against writers guilty of participating in the revolution caused
a general outcry. Tibor Déry, István Bibó, Gyula Háy, Domokos Kosáry,
and dozens of other writers, poets and scholars, spent long years in
prison. In 1959, the Tibor Déry Committee presided over by Jean
Cassou listed forty-six Hungarian intellectuals who had been executed,
had committed suicide, had disappeared or were imprisoned – six of
them were fortunately released. However, survivors had to wait for the
amnesties, ﬁrst partial then general, of the early 1960s, before they
could enjoy physical freedom. Besides, this was merely the tip of the
iceberg. Historian János M. Rainer compiled a register in 1986 of more
than 300 executions and 16,000 convictions. There were almost as many
executions following the 1956 revolution as the total in the three historic
years of repression, 1849, 1919 and 1945. After this sad record, the
Kádár regime undertook the change in direction which made it the
champion of Communist freedom in the Western press.

The age of consolidation

The general amnesty in 1963 closed the period of repression and marked
a phase of consolidation. Kádár, endowed with a sharp political mind
and the duplicity necessary to manipulate others, was capable of thwart-
ing political intrigue on all fronts. With the right broken or at least
muzzled, Kádár found himself up against the machinations of an exiled

Rákosi, as well as those plots being hatched within his own party’s
Central Committee. With the support of his powerful protector,
Khrushchev, he was able to overcome every obstacle – until the ousting
of the latter in 1964. The removal of Khrushchev undoubtedly left Kádár
in a difﬁcult position, though this did not stop him giving expression to
his bad mood when faced with Leonid Brezhnev. He was even known to
have ‘sulked’ at a congress and this certainly did not ﬁt his image as
Communist leader independent from the Kremlin. Be that as it may, his
position seems to have been solid. The Communist Party, re-christened
the Socialist Workers’ Party, had to build upon the ruins of its predeces-
sor: in late 1956 it had 37,800 members; in 1966, half a million.
Meanwhile, having eliminated his rivals and opponents, Kádár held all
the reins of power. As for the Soviet leaders, they no doubt appreciated
the fact that he had succeeded in pacifying a rebellious Hungary, even at
the price of discarding a few differences with the Soviet model.
One example was the re-collectivisation of agriculture. In the early
1960s, the regime again adopted old Stalinist methods, forcing recalci-
trant peasants into the kolkhoz. The venture was more successful this
time than in the Rákosi era, and only a few private farms remained:
practically all peasants joined a kolkhoz or worked in a state farm – a
sovkhoz. So far, there was nothing unusual; but after a brutal collectiv-
isation, co-operatives were given considerable managerial, productive
and commercial autonomy, so much so that former kulaks were admit-
ted, sometimes as managers, in order to utilise their experience. It
became the exception in the Socialist universe: the system worked, food
shortages disappeared and several kolkhozes could have displayed the
slogan, ‘Get rich!’

The age of reforms

The Kádár regime inherited a planned economy, modelled on Soviet

lines. Its predecessors had built up heavy industry without the technical
means, the know-how and the raw materials, and which was managed
by a central planning ofﬁce that was in turn subject to party political
directives. The brief reformist interlude under Imre Nagy attenuated
the immediate effects to some extent, but was unable to eliminate alto-
gether, in such a short time, its consequences for the general state of the
country and for the poverty of the population. Behind the spectacular

statistics concerning increases in steel, machinery or chemical fertiliser

production, real growth was minimal and purchasing power lower than
before the advent of the Communist regime. Shortages in consumer
goods brought about a familiar phenomenon under Communism: long
queues in front of shops. Food shortages dropped thanks to the agricul-
tural products market, but it was left to János Kádár’s government to
remedy inefficient industrial production and an almost non-existent
service sector. In the artisan sector, permission to reopen the ludicrously
nationalised workshops soon bore fruit. Restructuring large state enter-
prises proved a more complicated task and indeed was never achieved
during the two decades of Kádárism. Its beginnings were nonetheless
promising and crowned with appreciable successes.
The first attempts at economic reform date back to Nagy’s govern-
ment when he assembled experts to sketch out some projects. Ten years
went by before the experiment was renewed, this time inspired by the
Czechoslovakian example, but also due to the political will of the
Hungarian leadership and to the competence of a host of high-calibre
economists. It resulted in an ambitious restructuring plan which came
into force in 1968, cautiously called the ‘new economic mechanism’.
Such circumspection soon proved fitting since in August 1968, the
‘Prague Spring’ suffered the same fate as the Hungarian revolution
twelve years previously: it was crushed by tanks. Hungary participated
in the kill, albeit in low numbers and without enthusiasm. There was
nonetheless the fear that Hungary’s ‘new mechanism’ would founder,
along with Alexander Dubček’s reformist course. But in the end it
would seem that Brezhnev considered the stability of the Hungarian
regime more important than Budapest’s economic disparities. Thus the
reform was launched and pursued, though not without hitches, for four
years.
Its aim was simple: a profitable and competitive economy. But in
order to achieve this in an interventionist system, planning had to be
dismantled, structures decentralised, prices freed and enterprises given
a margin of autonomy enabling them to manage production, adminis-
tration, salaries and marketing, as close as possible to ‘market princi-
ples’. However, things never work in practice as they do in theory.
Theoretically, the new mechanism should have led to the dismantling of
‘industrial feudalism’ controlled by the ‘big barons’, in other words the
directors of the fifty largest state enterprises. The latter controlled

80 per cent of industrial production and had close ties with the party
leadership, thus constituting a very powerful lobby. The profit principle
could not be applied: the state coffers were forever rescuing enterprises
in difficulties.
The ‘mechanism’ nonetheless continued until around 1972, at which
time the ‘left-wing’ opposition within the party raised its head and
secured a slowing down of the process. In the opinion of several experts,
this marked the end of the reformist experiment before its partial
relaunch towards 1980. Be that as it may, the economy continued to
develop appreciably better than in other Socialist countries, with the
exception of East Germany due to its special relationship with Federal
Germany, and perhaps also thanks to the work ethos among German
workers. Progress in the private and semi-private sector, on the other
hand (where small contracted groups were self-employed within a state
company), was a unique feature of what was becoming known as the
‘Hungarian model’. Altogether, this sector comprised 200,000 people.
Adding the 150,000 artisans, the sector represented 7 per cent of the
active population, not counting private farming activities such as the
kolkhoz peasant with his plot of land worked for personal use, and the
hundreds and thousands of tiny allotments belonging to workers and
urban employees. According to some economists, up to 30 per cent of
domestic product came from these different sectors. Even if an exagger-
ated estimate, this very modest ‘capitalism’ contributed significantly to
the country’s development.
Economic expansion also depended on agriculture, the ‘successful
branch’, fiercely defended by the ‘green barons’ lobby against the indus-
trial barons. Conflicting interests led to a bargaining system over state
subsidies, import permits and supplies of materials. The Socialist
market economy was in fact neither Socialist nor market nor, argued
some, an economy worthy of the name. Apparent results, however,
belied these summary judgements. In twenty years, national revenue
doubled, the agricultural sector fell to 19 per cent to the advantage of
the industrial and service sectors, and real income per capita certainly
shot up (a phenomenon which will be discussed further). This idyllic
picture was soon overshadowed, however, first and foremost by the
single-party system which the Kádár government had no intention of
reforming, much less abandoning. The economy, therefore, came up
against insurmountable political limitations. The other shadow

hanging over the idyll was that of debts. By the mid-1980s, Hungary had
already overtaken Poland in terms of debt per capita, with 7 billion
dollars of foreign debt. Within five or six years, the net debt had trebled;
by the end of the regime (1990) it had reached the astronomical figure
of 20 billion 390 million US dollars. The leaders had resorted to this
dangerous palliative, with the agreement of János Kádár, whose main
concern was to preserve his much needed popularity, in order to com-
pensate for the slowing down of the economy. The index of real income
of wage earners, at 100 points in 1980, began a breathtaking fall: minus
5 points by 1984, minus 10 by 1990. Peasants’ real income fell even more
drastically: close to 20 per cent in ten years. The mountains of borrowed
dollars were used to stop up holes in the state budget and to slow down
the drop in private buying power. Regardless of the ratio between the
two, the loans did not go towards productive investments: between 1980
and 1990, the latter’s overall volume fell by 18 per cent, according to the
Office of Statistics. The least one can say is that a very high price was
paid to support the well-being of the ‘barracks’.

János Kádár: a brief portrait

It is extremely difﬁcult to sketch a portrait of a man belonging to the

party machinery, hauled to the summit of power by Moscow in 1956,
executor of a violent repression who, during the last twenty years of his
exclusive reign, became the most popular Communist leader. Born in
1912 at Fiume (Riyeka), an illegitimate child, self-taught worker, secre-
tary of the clandestine Communist Party 1943–4, one of Rajk’s tortur-
ers in 1949, imprisoned by Rákosi 1951–4, he climbed back in 1956 and
then changed sides overnight. Not a straightforward tale. But this indi-
vidual, who spent thirty-two years at the summit of power, is even more
elusive. No one, however lacking in objectivity, could deny his capacity
to choose the most appropriate course of action at the most opportune
moment. Getting rid of Rajk; betraying the revolution; having Imre
Nagy executed; maintaining a reign of terror and then granting an
amnesty at the right time; crushing the peasants and then cajoling them;
promoting an audacious reform, then withdrawing; loyally serving the
cause of international Communism while at the same time keeping his
distance: the entire list of his advances and retractions would be too
long. One very important element he can be given credit for is that

Plate 45. János Kádár

Kádár could have conﬁned himself within a static orthodoxy, like

Gomulka. Or he could have played a role similar to Gustáv Husák, who
restored the eternal order of the party after the crushing of the ‘Prague
Spring’. In contrast to his opposite numbers, Kádár was able to learn
from the lessons of 1956 and turn them to his advantage. In other words,
he applied a policy which was socially beneﬁcial and initiated moder-
nisation to enhance his personal power and image.
He successfully combined rigidity with apparent bonhomie and
loosened the reins when the party’s ultimate power interests were not
under threat. Thus, though basically anti-intellectual, he left the
control of literature to György Aczél, an opportunist like him, but

unlike him, a cultured one. Aczél steered the cultural boat with unde-
niable ability, ﬂattering some, punishing others when necessary, but
generally adopted a laissez-faire approach, within the relatively broad
limits of the regime. Indeed, the regime was corrupt through its own
duplicity. This is where János Kádár excelled. If he was able to forestall
any hint of opposition by using the – admittedly brilliant – slogan,
‘who is not against us is with us’, he also had to walk over the hot coals
of his past. There were too many skeletons in his cupboard. Astute as
ever, after having led the repression and the propaganda which
denounced the ‘counter-revolution’ of 1956, it was Kádár himself who,
one ﬁne day, announced that in his view it would be more appropriate
to speak of a ‘national tragedy’, thus enveloping torturers and victims
alike in the same mantle.

the reign ends

It may be that duplicity and pragmatism are the two virtues necessary
to succeed in a Communist regime. Kádár possessed both. But they
backﬁred. Pragmatic to an extreme, lacking in broadmindedness, when
the castle in the air that was his Socialist market economy collapsed, he
clung to his old recipes. Despising Gorbachev, an inﬂexible Kádár
refused to change any aspect of his policy. When in 1988 he was ousted
by the Young Turks of the party, he was left to drink the dregs of his
own betrayals.

Life in the Hungarian ‘barrack’

Political vicissitudes and statistics do not convey social realities and a

portrait of Kádár is not a reﬂection of the public mood. The ‘Kádár
generation’, though disillusioned, accorded the regime and its leader an
unarguable but elusive consensus. There were no free elections nor reli-
able opinion polls and the press was as servile as in other Communist
countries, until the system began to disintegrate. And yet, a regime ini-
tially held in contempt does not elicit the relative contentment that has
been observed in Hungary, and a leader as detested as Kádár does not
become popular for no reason. The peculiar phenomenon of ‘goulash
Communism’ can only be explained through its ambiguities and
contradictions.

To these peculiarities must be added the fact that during the regime’s
fifteen or twenty quite prosperous years, living in the Hungarian
‘barrack’ was not difficult. Life also provided satisfactions, material
pleasures and even the prospect of social promotion – if not for the
father, at least for the sons and daughters. The number of schools and
pupils increased appreciably at every level, the number of graduates rel-
atively so. In 1970, 61,760 secondary school students received their bac-
calaureate; in 1988, 69,760. Vocational courses multiplied. In higher
education, 18,220 students obtained degrees in 1970, nearly 24,000 in
1988. Though not an excessive figure for a country of 10 million inhab-
itants, the general level of education improved nonetheless, and in some
cultural domains such as publishing (7,562 books published in 1988,
including 970 literary works, against 4,793 in 1970, 670 of which liter-
ary), the country preserved its good traditions. Hungarians remained
avid readers.
Comparisons of living standards are always problematic; even signif-
icant statistics like the GNP per capita leave out so many imponderable
elements. In the 1970s, Hungarian living standards seem to have been
around 80–90 per cent of the European average. Compared with the
past, this figure represented considerable progress. Real income and
individual consumption tripled compared with the pre-war, as well as
Stalinist, periods. The average Hungarian had an income which allowed
him to satisfy dreams like buying a Trabant (in 1989 there were 164 vehi-
cles per 1,000 inhabitants, against 56 in the USSR and 403 in France);
building a ‘shack’, preferably on the shores of Lake Balaton, or travel-
ling to Italy or Paris. The physiognomy of villages changed: rustic
dwellings with thatched roofs, authentic, picturesque but without
modern comforts, were replaced by pretty brick houses, often with
bathrooms and enclosed with wrought iron fences. Towards the end of
the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, Hungarians were fairly satis-
fied with their living conditions. It was said that Hungary was the ‘most
cheerful barrack in the concentration-camp system of the Communist
world’ – all the more so since political constraints on individuals, their
private and social lives, had relaxed. No one feared being themselves –
nor did they fear saying so. It was not freedom, but it was far better than
the social and moral slavery of the past.
Opponents, however, argued that this result was obtained to the
detriment of national spirit and political participation. The regime

infantilised people, reduced them to vulgar consumers of material

goods. There is undoubtedly a lot of truth in these statements. A con-
sumer society – though a third-rate one – had developed under
‘Kádárism’, but who could blame the consumer for being happy to
consume? Improvements reflected on social composition. Large sec-
tions of the population rose from the level of proletariat in the classic
sense to become petit bourgeois. Hungary was in the process of becom-
ing a middle-class society, the regime’s expressed objective, and in this
it met the aspirations of the majority.
A Trabant or a house was no substitute for freedom; it only made
non-freedom more tolerable and the soft banality that had replaced
hard-line dictatorship less suffocating. The fragility of this ersatz liber-
alism soon became apparent as the first cracks began to show. Since the
much praised political stability and ‘consensus’ relied on increasing
purchasing power and the relaxation of constraints, rumbles of discon-
tent began at the first signs of a downward turn. The events that fol-
lowed showed that Hungarians had not lost their cultural identity nor
their desire for freedom or their civic aspirations.
The collapse of Communism in Hungary came about in a world
context which would require an analysis beyond the scope of this book.
Without the decline of Soviet economic and military power and the dis-
integration of its ideological foundations, the bipolar system and the
‘order of Yalta’ would perhaps have lasted a while longer. The author
of the present study, however, is convinced that the great tremor came
from the depths of the societies of ‘real Socialism’.
The year 1989 is engraved in memory: the entire Communist system
collapsed like dominoes. Analyses by specialists caught unawares were
singularly inapposite. The ‘Kremlinologists’, used to scrutinising
changes at the top of the Communist hierarchy without ever studying
the societies, could only endlessly repeat their astonishment. Others
confined themselves to attributing the changes entirely to Gorbachev –
and justly so, to the extent that, involuntarily, the general secretary had
undermined what remained of the system’s foundations. Predictions
that the empire would collapse because of the national factor on the
‘peripheries’, however, proved false: dismemberment came about as a
consequence of decay at the ‘centre’ of the system, which therefore
‘imploded’ – another recurring word which explains nothing if not the
relentless nature of the economic crisis.

The study of Hungary’s case does not provide answers either. It is too
small and too specific to deliver the key to the collapse of a gigantic and
– despite its apparent uniformity – diverse system. If the ‘Gorbachev
effect’ had not precipitated it, the end of the regime in Hungary would
certainly have been different, but the conditions for it had been in place
since at least 1985, not to mention congenital causes. Among the most
immediate factors, stark economic deterioration, which has already
been described, undoubtedly played a role, if only as detonator. This
explanation seems rather short, however – necessary but not sufficient.
The Hungary of 1989 was no more a stage for hunger marches or a ‘sub-
sistence crisis’ than the other popular democracies. What led to the final
crisis – slowly and by process of accumulation – was a transformation
in the mentality and behaviour both within the Communist elite and
across the country, in society as a whole – two parallel and inextricably
linked phenomena. It was the interrelationship between the authorities
and civil society that had changed over time, pushing the one to run
ahead and the other to augment the pressure till the system’s defences
blew up.
The most perspicacious observers of totalitarian systems, such as
Hannah Arendt and Raymond Aron, had already been struck by this
process. The moment Stalin fell from his pedestal, Arendt had warned
that the regime ‘could collapse [in a totalitarian system] at any time’.
Raymond Aron predicted that ‘the democratic spirit of compromise’
could ‘be mortally threatening’. In more concrete terms, the Kádár
regime’s transition to its ‘liberal’ phase already bore the seeds of this
‘corruption through liberty’, which ended up escaping control because
the controllers themselves became contaminated. Communism is only
Communism by remaining Communist. Since the ‘Hungarian model’
was not a genuine alternative, it only gnawed at the party from within
and allowed a civil society, awakened from hibernation, to flourish.
Interaction between the two changed the rules of the game. The auton-
omy acquired by so many figures in public life – in politics, the economy,
religious life, the media, publishing and in the party itself – rendered
governance within the framework of existing institutions impossible.
As for ideology, it was reduced to shreds. ‘Why didn’t they shoot?’ asked
Elemér Hankiss, the Hungarian sociologist who first developed the
concept of a ‘second society’ in opposition to the ‘first’, in other words
the powers that held the guns. In answer to this question, we quote

Miklós Németh, the last president of the defunct regime’s Council of

Ministers. ‘Very simply’, he said, ‘there was nothing we could do.’ The
exhausted regime could no longer ‘normalise’ in its traditional manner,
and its escape forward ended with ‘power being seized’ by a civil, multi-
farious society, inarticulate but united in the desire for change.
Among the many characteristics of the ‘second society’, it is impor-
tant to remember that it was no longer an underground society. Once it
had escaped control, the press no longer cared about the remaining
taboos – Soviet domination, the supremacy of the party, Marxist-
Leninism, the authority of a supposedly charismatic leader, embodied
by János Kádár, and, finally, the stigma of the ‘counter-revolution’
which had blackened the events of 1956 and its martyrs. As for the
economy, the failure of ‘Socialism’ was no longer a secret for anyone
and nor was the modest but conclusive success of private enterprise. In
literature, not one writer thought to put the heroes of the party on
stage. Historiography, which had been hijacked and held captive by a
historicising ideology, now calmly pursued its investigations and inter-
preted the evidence as truthfully as possible, according to individual
professional consciences. This last element was particularly important
precisely because of the stifled memory of the 1956 revolution. So much
so that the ‘rehabilitation’ of this event became a political stake even
within the party leadership.
After János Kádár was removed from power in 1988 (definitively con-
signed to the scrap heap of history one year later), the new general sec-
retary, Károly Grósz, tried to rescue the situation through a hardening
of tone and discipline. Then one of his rivals, Imre Pozsgay, set a cat
among the pigeons by declaring that the 1956 revolution had been a
popular uprising and not a counter-revolution. Grósz soon retaliated
and went as far as reiterating the position his party had always adopted,
according to which Imre Nagy’s referral to a tribunal had been justified.
This controversy among Communist leaders came at a time when
opposition to the regime had spread beyond the confines of semi-
clandestine groups. Indeed, for over a decade a group of anti-establish-
ment intellectuals had been fighting for their ideas, publishing samizdats
and mobilising sympathisers, while braving police intimidation. Among
them, philosophers János Kis and György Bence were at the forefront,
as was László Rajk – son of the executed Rajk – and Gábor Demsky –
who undertook samizdat publishing. The circle also included writers

like György Konrád, Miklós Haraszti and János Kenedi, who found
close allies among anti-establishment philosophers and sociologists like
Iván Szelényi, István Eörsi and Ágnes Heller, former disciples of György
Lukács and ex-collaborators of the former prime minister András
Hegedüs, now on the opposite side. Survivors of the repression against
Imre Nagy and his close friends were still active. Among the latter,
Ferenc Donáth and Miklós Vásárhelyi, who were in contact with all
shades of opposition, multiplied their efforts to give coherence to a
much larger movement, including the national-popular movement
called, as already mentioned, ‘populist’. Writers Sándor Csoóri and
István Csurka were the best known among them. As representatives of a
trend originating in a long tradition, they found allies and an audience
among the ‘reform-Communists’, notably in the person of Imre Pozsgay.
The activities of the opposition, all tendencies considered, did not run
smoothly nor without dissension. The populists, after having collabo-
rated with the others, separated themselves and met one memorable day
at Lakitelek where Pozsgay was also present. Nonetheless, the movement
as a whole had a national appeal and a decisive impact on the events
which precipitated the end of the regime. On 21 May 1989, the govern-
ment of Miklós Németh, with its foreign affairs minister Gyula Horn,
took the historic decision to dismantle the iron curtain between
Hungary and Austria. In September, they opened the route to German
dissidents on their way to West Germany via Austria. On 13 June, mean-
while, negotiations began between the party in power and opposition
representatives. The outcome of these round-table discussions was the
dissolution of the Communist Party, the introduction of a multi-party
system and the transition to democracy; but between May and October
another major event signalled the beginning of a new era: the rehabilita-
tion of Imre Nagy and the solemn funeral of the victims of repression.
The ‘Committee for Historic Justice’ which had been in full opera-
tion for over a year, its efforts focused on exposing the truth and extract-
ing a recognition of guilt from the authorities, organised the funeral. It
did so without letting the Communist Party exploit the memory of the
revolution to its own ends – a measure of its moral authority. So much
so that the party was not represented at the funeral. Its members,
including Imre Pozsgay, participated as private individuals or as repre-
sentatives of other institutions. The last belated tributes were made on
16 June 1989 in front of a crowd of close to 250,000 people.

Plate 46. The funeral ceremonies for Imre Nagy and other victims of the
1957–8 repression, 16 June 1989

Plate 47. Miklós Vásárhelyi, a close friend of Imre Nagy, speaking at the 1989
ceremonies

This event marked the second death of János Kádár who, having
sunk into dementia, was a few days away from his third – biological –
death. There is no doubt that he had been dropped by Moscow the day
of his political death in 1988. However, in this regard, the question often
arises as to Gorbachev’s attitude and that of his political allies to the
ﬁnal crisis of Communism in Hungary. Research so far suggests that the
Moscow leaders initially encouraged Kádár’s successors to hold out.
What seemed dominant was the hope that something could be salvaged
via ‘reform-Communism’ – an unrealistic idea as we now know. There
is no evidence, on the other hand, of any intention to use force in order
to preserve the status quo. The ‘velvet revolution’ thus occurred without
major conﬂicts. In the case of Hungary and Poland, it was also a ‘nego-
tiated revolution’. The Hungarian Republic was solemnly proclaimed
in Budapest, on 23 October, anniversary of the 1956 revolution. Miklós
Németh’s government carried on faithfully until spring 1990 when, on
25 March and 8 April, citizens decided their future, in complete
freedom, via the ballot box.

After forty-ﬁve years of Soviet domination, the election was essentially

– and predictably – a sanction against the former regime.

a changed landscape

What remained of the Communist Party’s (MSzMP) former electorate

was divided between its two successors: one list, donning a new skin
under the Socialist label (MSzP), took 10.89 per cent of the votes in the
ﬁrst round; the other preserved its old name and programme, taking
3.88 per cent, below the 4 per cent mark which would have allowed it to
enter Parliament. The Socialist Party’s position on the new landscape
was consequently modest, with thirty-three deputies in the National
Assembly. Attempts to revive the former Social Democratic Party more
or less failed, due to the absence of the old leaders and the blunders of
their successors. The party did not achieve the 4 per cent mark and has
failed so far to re-enter the scene, much to the satisfaction of the MSzP
post-Communists who have worn the Socialist label.
Among traditional parties existing prior to the Communist takeover
were the Christian Democrats, who obtained twenty-one mandates,
and the Smallholders’ Party with forty-four parliamentary seats. They
joined the overall winner of the election, the Democratic Forum, with
165 mandates out of a total 386. Apart from a small organisation and
independent candidates, the remaining votes went to the League of Free
Democrats (91) and their allies, the Young Democrats (21).
Four years later, new elections reversed this balance of power, but the

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1990, a new departure 339

parties who got through in 1990 still occupied the key positions, thus
ensuring stability within alternations.
The two liberal parties constituted a not insignificant opposition to
the governmental coalition. The Forum eventually made a pact with the
Free Democrats concerning election procedures (and indeed the person)
of the future president of the Republic as well as the principle of a two-
thirds majority for voting in any fundamental legislation. For the first
time in a century, the liberals became significant players on the political
chessboard. Their result was essentially neither a triumph nor a failure.
Thirty per cent of the electorate voted liberal (this included Young
Democrat votes), a mark of respect with regard to the struggle of the
Free Democrats against the former Communist regime. Their radical-
ism was a disadvantage, however, promising more upheaval than the
majority of citizens – who desired change, but also the preservation of
the social stability of the past – were prepared to support. The funda-
mental and intractable problem of the transition to democracy was
reflected in this election. Despite being unknown to most until the late
1980s (except for a few writers, Sándor Csoóri, for example), the
Forum, with its eclectic programme and composition, presented a more
reassuring image. Thus the Forum, who liked to think of itself as
national, Christian, liberal, social and anti-Communist, was invited to
lead the coalition government – barring accidents – for four years.
Hungary’s fifty-eighth government was led by a historian, József
Antall, who died of illness before his term was over, and portfolios were
distributed between the coalition parties.
In a closely fought referendum, the well-known and popular reform-
Communist leader Imre Pozsgay was marginally thwarted in his
attempt to be elected president of the Republic by popular suffrage by
the Free Democrats. In the end, a president was elected by the Assembly
and the highest office went to Árpád Göncz, to preside over the state for
five years. Trained as a lawyer, a practising writer and translator, Göncz
had spent five years in Kádár’s prisons. He became the country’s most
popular statesman and was re-elected in 1995 for a second mandate. A
constitution was drawn up to last until the creation of a new fundamen-
tal law. Without listing the institutions, it is safe to say that the
Republic’s foundations were now solid, based on the principle of a divi-
sion of powers. An additional and very important institution was
created, the Constitutional Court. Its role was to scrupulously monitor

respect for the letter and the spirit of the fundamental laws, and even
those of the ‘Invisible Constitution’, in the absence of a deﬁnitive
charter.
Local self-government completed the new state structure. The tradi-
tional county councils now played a less signiﬁcant role compared to the
past. The 3,000 or so rural councils, towns and villages, on the other
hand, were given substantial autonomy, while the activities of associa-
tions, important elements of a civil society, were less apparent.

political life

Hungarian democracy, now a solidly legal state, reached maturity

under József Antall’s government, the first to move from Socialism to
democracy and capitalism; in other words, in the opposite direction to
that of its predecessor. Its task was an arduous one, was undertaken
seriously, and delivered results as far as the consolidation of the institu-
tional system and respect for public and individual freedoms were con-
cerned. Its foreign policy, resolutely European in outlook, was far from
flawless, but one should distinguish between diplomatic conduct and
the rhetoric that accompanied it. In terms of conduct – low-profile
rather than hyper-active – there were blunders and hiccups, whereas the
rhetoric was responsible for serious errors. Of course, the distinction is
arbitrary since the state is one body, but in the circumstances, these
errors will have to be attributed to the national ideology professed by
the head of government – and shared by his minister – rather than those
of everyday business.
The difficulty in distinguishing between professional mistakes, and
those which were a consequence of excessive ideological intervention by
the first government and its leader, exists in all domains. Antall, cata-
pulted into his post by the leaders of the national–popular trend of the
Democratic Forum, had to perform a balancing act between the differ-
ent tendencies within his party and at the same time with the other com-
ponents of the government majority. Thus, under pressure from the
Smallholders, Antall undertook a double action to transform agricultu-
ral property structures in favour of a social class which had still to be
invented, that of independent farmers. This consisted in two measures;
firstly, the distribution of compensation coupons to enable former
farmers to buy land; secondly, the introduction of a policy aimed at

dismantling agricultural co-operatives. Both ended in failure.

Compensations, extended, and rightly so, to other injured parties, dis-
rupted the economy without really repairing the damage, and created
chaos in the villages. Compensation coupons were often bought up by
intermediaries, and few peasants were able to stay on properties
acquired in this way. Moreover, the kolkhozes suffered huge damages
without decreasing significantly in number: approximately 200 disap-
peared out of a total of 1,300. As for the net agricultural production
index, it fell from 101.6 points in 1990 to 76.2, according to the 1993 sta-
tistics. This reduction can undoubtedly be attributed to the drying up
of exports to the Soviet Union compounded by the financial burden of
– now surplus – manpower. The national–popular wing of the govern-
ing party, claiming to draw upon the tradition of ‘village explorer’
writers, did not speak out against the decline in peasant living standards
either.
Government action contributed to internal dissension in the
Democratic Forum. Though József Antall had surrounded himself with
trusted – and subordinate – ministers, the same compliance did not
exist in the rest of his heterogeneous party, with its aspirations to be a
rallying point. The right was far from being under his authority. One
could even say that the contrary was true: it demanded the government’s
submission. In any case, both words and deeds seemed to slide increas-
ingly towards authoritarianism. Profiting from its clear majority, the
government set about aligning society as a whole to its own ideas – the
media, culture, relationship with the Church, the fall in secularism, and
the rise of intolerance towards alternative points of view. The future
minister of the interior, Imre Kónya, adopted this position and a virtual
war of attrition ensued against the director of radio, Csaba Gombár,
and of television, Elemér Hankiss, to bring them into line – or boot
them out. President of the Republic Árpád Göncz refused to counter-
sign their letters of dismissal but, under pressure, the two men decided
to resign anyway. It was only the beginning of this particular war.
Antall’s successor, Péter Boross, redoubled his zeal: undesirable collab-
orators were dismissed and replaced by a group of journalists from the
former Communist regime converted to the extreme right’s nationalist
ideology.
To return to an earlier period, Antall found himself faced with the
Forum’s extreme right wing, especially its guiding force, the writer

István Csurka. The latter professed nationalist, anti-Semitic and anti-

liberal ideas, incompatible with the party’s national-liberal image and
the more moderate views of its majority. The prime minister took a long
time to distance himself and put his house in order, however, due to
political necessity and probably also to confused loyalties. Despite his
weaknesses, Antall was a sincere democrat and would never have
allowed his regime to be submerged by extremists. In the end, and
perhaps this was Antall’s best move, it was Csurka who, unable to get a
hold over the Forum, broke away in order to develop his own movement,
a Fascist party that would not speak its name.
The issue of punishment for those responsible for crimes committed
under the Communist regime also occupied political centre stage and
remained unresolved, perhaps unresolvable. The process hit legal obsta-
cles, the statute of limitations in most cases, difficulties with defining
the notion of crimes against humanity or simply the disappearance of
the guilty party from the land of the living. Indeed, the incriminating
facts dated back a long time and the men serving under the two decades
of the Kádár regime, however responsible and morally guilty, were
legally innocent. As in all post-Communist countries, the arm of justice
reached as far as accusing the handful of officers who gave the orders to
open fire on runaways or, in this case, 1956 demonstrators. Meanwhile
the real delinquents, if they were not dead, lived out their retirement
peacefully – secular justice could not touch them. As for settling scores
with the agents provocateurs and other informants of the political
police, neither the government nor the new security organisation ever
made their list public. This did not fail to arouse cross-party and there-
fore widespread indignation, tempered, however, by an absence of the
desire for revenge and softened by the passage of time or lenience. The
loud demands for justice faded away. In the end, the aim of their pro-
tests was less to do with justice being done than to exploit the issue
against their political opponents.
Another episode in this turbulent chapter was the war of attrition
conducted against the president of the Republic and the Constitutional
Court. Árpád Göncz enraged the head of government by refusing to
sign certain laws, decrees and nominations considered constitutionally
inadmissible. The Court often backed him, which in turn provoked a
general outcry among supporters of the strong-arm tactics, thwarted by
its judgements. Attacks against the president of the Republic went

further: he was accused of participating in an ‘International Jewish

plot’ against the nation.
Though such slander did not stop Parliament and government in
pursuing their generally positive legislative and administrative pro-
grammes, political life was perturbed, and sometimes poisoned, by
them. Parliamentary debates broadcast live on television often con-
sisted in rows, sometimes prolonged on the small screen by no less
edifying debates, interviews and commentaries. The seizure of the
mass media proved counter-productive; it discredited the authorities
rather than earning public approval. With the exception of a few news-
papers, a free press continued to support the opposition rather than
government action, engaging in generally justiﬁed criticism which,
however, was often personal and unfounded. This in turn provoked
lively responses from the people and parties affected, leading at times
to the denigration of the independent press and journalists. All this was
perhaps nothing more than froth on the surface of the sea; nonetheless,
the insinuations and manifest intolerance damaged the political class
as a whole.

old demons and new fears

This decline in public life nearly overshadowed more positive develop-

ments: the on the whole successful shift to a legal and democratic state
in four years. It also damaged Hungary’s image abroad, the reputation
and respect it had gained through the 1956 revolution and the no doubt
overrated but impressive ‘liberalism’ of recent decades. At the height of
the turbulence, Hungary almost came to be seen as a nationalist and
anti-Semitic country in the grip of its old demons. József Antall’s
ambiguity, and that of several ministers, compounded this impression
– an aspect we will return to. However, though it was more than a
storm in a teacup, the ripples made by a small group of right-wing
intellectuals were excessive. They tarnished the country’s image rather
than reﬂecting the public mood and people’s real concerns and fears.
Fast-forwarding slightly, the extreme right’s bitter defeat and the
Democratic Forum’s loss of credibility in the 1994 elections proves this
indisputably.
At the heart of the debate was a spurious problem, that of
‘Magyarity’: since society was broadly homogeneous and its relations

with small minorities, with the exception of the Gypsies, fairly unprob-
lematic, questions about ‘Magyarity’ clearly related to one group (the
Jews), one ideology (the alleged cosmopolitanism of those who were
‘not Magyar enough’), and one policy (economic liberalism). Lastly,
there was still the issue of Hungarians separated by frontiers.

Magyar minorities in neighbouring countries

This last issue, apart from its diplomatic aspects, had preoccupied three
generations of Hungarians since the Treaty of Trianon and it was no
different for the present one. Evidence of society’s unceasing concern
for them was everywhere: from the welcoming of refugees from
Transylvania and Serbian voïvode, to organised fundraising and espe-
cially the value attributed to the human and cultural heritage which
Hungarians on the other side of the frontier represented. The concern,
both legitimate and enduring, had also probably been reﬁned by expe-
rience. When it became apparent that the old frontiers would not be
restored, the political solution seemed to be for all the region’s countries
to move towards a Europe with permeable boundaries, good neighbour-
liness, cultural and if possible territorial autonomy for minorities, and
respect for individuals. It was a road that was long, full of obstacles and
required both patience and assiduity. It was this state of mind that was
troubled for some time by the ill-timed agitation on the part of the
nationalists, brandishing the painful memory of Trianon like the
banner of a crusade which, if not military, was certainly political and
spiritual. Moreover, the spectre of an irredentist Hungary appeared on
the horizon, inopportunely reinforced by certain actions and gestures
on the part of the government. What is more, the nationalist revival was
accompanied by an ideological campaign against the more moderate
ideas, immediately branded as anti-patriotic. Whoever disagreed was
denounced as not being a ‘true Magyar’ – one step away from being a
‘traitor’. In this artiﬁcially overheated environment, the ‘bad guys’
included Jews, freemasons, cosmopolitans and liberals. The true issue
became a political football.
It was to counter this instrumentalisation of reactionary ideologies
that intellectuals of high moral and cultural standing, like György
Konrád, Miklós Vásárhelyi, Miklós Mészöly and many others, created
the ‘Democratic Charter’. It became a vast movement of public opinion,

notably protesting against campaigns directed at the president of the

Republic or the liberal directors of radio and television. It was not only
extremist circles that wanted to silence the Charter but the government
too: the president of the National Bank, György Surányi, was ﬁred on
a false pretext but in fact for having signed the Charter.
Others taking part in this propaganda, apart from István Csurka,
were fellow national-popular writers, populist-demagogic journalists
of the radio and television, the World Society of Hungarians, presided
over by the poet Sándor Csoóri, including eminent ﬁgures like the
Protestant Bishop of Transylvania, László Tökés. Though a number of
criticisms can be levelled at the Society, its natural vocation, apart from
its cultural mission to converse with all Hungarians of the Diaspora,
was on the whole to watch over the fate of geographically separated
Hungarian minorities.

The problem of anti-Semitism

In the general cacophony, anti-Semitic voices were clearly audible

despite virtuous protestations to the contrary. If anti-Semitism was not
a social phenomenon it was to the credit of the Hungarians and not of
the nationalists, who did their utmost to fan the flames, not realising
perhaps the harm being caused to the nation. Rather than citing the dis-
tasteful remarks that were unfortunately aired by the international
press, it needs to be restated that the false debate about ‘Magyarity’ was
to do with questioning the Magyar identity of the Jews, a community
historically integrated into the Hungarian nation and its culture. For a
while, in the name of culture, the opposition between ‘populists’ and
‘urbanites’ was revived, clearly marked by anti-Semitism from the
beginning. The flames soon died out and common sense prevailed. Anti-
Semitism seems to be dying out; the bulk of the population are not
receptive to it, the younger generation even less so. Anxiety about the
future is undoubtedly a factor, but it is justified to believe that growing
tolerance, respect for others and openness to the world have also played
their part. It is this evolution, more than the law, which protects other-
ness, though legislation is also no doubt necessary in order to curb man-
ifestations of racism. Unlike France, however, Hungary does not need
to engage in court actions against aberrant ‘negationist’ university
theses and other expressions of universal stupidity. Society seems to

prefer dealing with extremist excesses through the effects of its politi-
cal culture and the civilisation of mores, rather than deferring them to
the penal system. Such an approach would in any case be as ineffectual
as it is in other countries of the world.

The Gypsies

Such optimism is belied, however, by Hungarians attitudes towards the

Gypsies. Whereas there is practically no discrimination towards Slav,
Romanian and German ethnic minorities, the Gypsies are often
despised and ill-treated. They are certainly by far the largest minority
group. Compared to 30,000 Germans, 10–12,000 Slovakians, equal
numbers of Romanians, a few thousand miscellaneous nationalities
and a Jewish community of around 80,000, Gypsies ofﬁcially number
142,000 according to 1990 statistics, though the real ﬁgure is probably
twice that if not more. Apart from the numbers, which is inevitably a
factor creating animosity, their way of life and customs contribute to
this discrimination, as does a high rate of delinquency and begging. In
this kind of situation everything explains all and nothing. The solution
can only be a long process of education and adaptation on the part of
the Gypsies, a process as lengthy as that of changing the public mental-
ity. In the meantime, Gypsy delinquency continues to arouse hostility
and sometimes violent racism. Conversely, the racist contempt dealt to
them does not facilitate Gypsy integration and the efforts of their polit-
ical and intellectual elite to achieve it. A vicious circle indeed.

józsef antall’s role

Upon his designation to the presidency of the Council of Ministers,

József Antall went from being an unknown ﬁgure to dominating the
cabinet which he formed in May 1990 and led for three years, until he
was struck by illness, then death. For some he was a high-calibre states-
man and a charismatic individual; for others, a mediocre politician
without exceptional qualities and an able manipulator, compulsively
self-important. His true nature is no doubt inscrutable, but if his words
and deeds are anything to go by, Antall believed his was a special voca-
tion and that he was chosen to fulﬁl the destiny which conjunction of
circumstance bestowed upon him: that of leading the transformation of

the system. He went about it with the courage of his convictions and
the narrow-mindedness that characterises missionaries of every age.

Modernity and anachronism

As soon as one tries to extract the meaning of his actions, one comes up
against a complex, diffuse and even confused picture. As the cliché puts
it, Antall wanted to be all things to all men: nationalist, Christian,
liberal, social, democratic, populist and elitist. Behind the cliché,
however, was the vague outline of a genuinely conservative and at the
same time nationalist society. To see a return to a ‘Horthy model’, as
some of Antall’s detractors did, is excessive. The prime minister’s poli-
tics, shaped, it is said, within the bosom of his family – his father was
a politician known for his enlightened attitudes – and his knowledge of
contemporary Europe makes such a mistaken perspective on his part
unlikely. Moreover, the social basis for such a turn did not exist and the
government leader’s resolutely pro-European stance would have made
an anachronism of this kind unthinkable. He initially seemed to brand
his governmental policies with a liberalism tempered by conservatism,
following the example of nineteenth-century Hungarian reformers.
André Reszler highlights his attachment to this tradition and the inspi-
ration he received from the writings of Wilhelm Röpke and the chancel-
lors of the revived Germany, Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. It
is nonetheless true that Antall did try to shape the country, subtly by
words and deeds, using an anachronistic and imaginary model, and
ignoring the reality of Europe and of Hungarian society. According to
Sándor Révész, he was the government leader of a ‘virtual society’.
The government has often been chastised for having burnt its bridges
in its otherwise legitimate haste to eliminate the vestiges of Soviet occu-
pation as soon as possible. This might well have lost them a market
impossible to quantify. In fact, nothing irreparable was done with
respect to Moscow and this huge eastern neighbour was soon no longer
Russia but the Ukraine, with which Budapest concluded its ﬁrst bilat-
eral state treaty in the region, apart from Austria, a friend from the
start. Less welcomed, on the other hand, was the ‘accompanying
speech’ which was aimed at the Soviet Union’s role, down to its role as
warmonger. Forgetting that Hungary had been Hitler’s ally and had
also been at war with America and England, Hungarian aggression was

dressed up as an anti-Bolshevik crusade in its political-ideological dis-

course. The purpose of the speech was certainly in part an attempt to
pay tribute to the soldiers who died at the front (which Sándor Sára had
already done through his films without resorting to political justifica-
tions). However, it was also a veiled bid to rehabilitate Hungarian par-
ticipation in the war. Hungary was entirely alone in attempting these
justifications, while at the same time protesting against being desig-
nated Nazi Germany’s last satellite. All the other countries, led by
Germany, aligned themselves with the new order of the victorious side.
This anti-Bolshevik and passé Don Quixotism would have gone unno-
ticed if other events had not inopportunely acted as reminders.
One such case was the repatriation of Horthy’s ashes, thirty-five
years after his death in exile, a humanely irreproachable act. However,
despite the family’s dignity and discretion, it was exploited by the right
in order to stage a political demonstration. Antall simply sent a wreath
but it was one wreath too many laid at Horthy’s feet. The right-wing
press paid homage and several cabinet members filed past his tomb –
avowedly as private citizens.

Ambiguous arguments

The same ambiguity characterised Antall’s attitude towards neighbour-

ing countries where 3 million Hungarians lived. It would not be saga-
cious to accuse Hungarian diplomacy and its leader, Géza Jeszenszky,
of professional errors – at worst, they committed a few gaffes. The
treaty with Ukraine had been prepared by diplomats, who were pre-
pared to bear the brunt of reactions to the clause which renounced ter-
ritorial demands, in accordance with the United Nations Charter. In
their relations with other neighbouring countries, the interests of the
Hungarian minorities were always at the centre of diplomatic concerns,
and indeed it was an issue strongly supported by public opinion, always
sensitive to the problem. The ‘accompanying speech’ with its national-
ist overtones, on the other hand, was rather more than society bar-
gained for, not to mention its damaging repercussions on nearby
countries and beyond. Hungary was certainly in a position to ask for
reparation for the wrongs committed against Hungarians in Romania,
Slovakia and Serbian voïvode and the failure to respect European regu-
lations. The noisy evocation of the injustice of Trianon, however,

tended to have the opposite effect, as did József Antall’s celebrated

speech in which he declared that in his soul he felt like the prime minis-
ter of 15 million Hungarians, 3 million of whom were, let it not be for-
gotten, Romanian, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian, Ukranian and even a few
Austrian citizens.
József Antall also misread the patriotic feelings of the majority and
adopted the image of a man of the past. The prime minister reinforced
this impression of being stuck in the past by giving moral and history
lessons at events commemorating the 1956 revolution and on other
occasions. The lessons were protracted, heavy and peremptory. A
people attached to their country, cultural identity and traditions do not
like being lectured. The message did not get through.
József Antall’s numerous qualities attenuate this judgement, of
course, but a certain arrogance coupled with anachronism were a con-
siderable impediment in Hungary’s progress towards Europe and mod-
ernity. An honest man, deeply attached to his values, Antall created in
his own mind ‘a particular idea of Hungary’ and perhaps missed the
opportunity of shaping an idea that was better adapted. As Miklós
Vásárhelyi has pointed out, in one respect, Antall remained above
reproach: a true democrat, the former prime minister left the ﬁeld open
to the voice of the people and for alternations of power. A putsch under
Antall? ‘Unthinkable’, states one of his biographers, hardly an indul-
gent critic in other respects.
After Antall’s death in December 1993, Péter Boross led the govern-
ment until the legislative elections in May 1994 and the formation of
another coalition under the presidency of the socialist Gyula Horn.

economic problems

When the Communist regime came to an end, Hungary was one of the
front runners. Despite the fall in its GNP and other negative indices, it
was considered the best prepared among Socialist countries for the tran-
sition towards a market economy. In reality, the glass was half full, half
empty; real progress existed alongside a good deal of sham. Superficial
flash was being financed without any provision for paying back the
debt: 21 billion dollars at the end of the Communist regime, 2,000
dollars per capita, including newborns. The fiction of full employment
was maintained; a dilapidated industry was kept afloat by subsidies as

was a ﬂourishing but expensive agriculture. The macro-economic

imbalance was nonetheless manageable, with sufficient reserves of hard
currency and, thanks to Hungary’s reputation, its credit rating was
intact. The importance of private enterprise is difficult to quantify, but
it constituted without a doubt a large and dynamic sector. So much for
the past.
From 1990, through an economic policy resolutely geared towards
the market, Hungary could have maintained its lead and come out of
the transformational throes at least as rapidly and as well as Poland. At
the outset, Antall’s government took the right direction with (insuffi-
cient) measures aimed at stabilising public finances, the launch of pri-
vatisation and other reforms which involved, certainly unpopular,
restrictions. On the other hand, its policies went against economic
objectives, notably because of reparation costs and a lack of courage in
tackling an over-developed social security system, bureaucracy and
state expenses. Timid measures to free prices met with predictable con-
sumer resistance, causing government to fear an explosion of discon-
tent and ensuing social instability. In other words, ‘classic’ problems of
transition arose. One well-publicised incident illustrates these hesita-
tions: during a strike by taxi drivers protesting against the rise in petrol
prices, the government, faced with traffic paralysis, panicked and
decided to use force, then changed its mind – subsequently reducing the
price increase.
Just as indecisive was their handling of privatisation and of foreign
debt. In four years, the Antall government had added 8 billion extra
dollars to this debt, bringing the total owed to more than 30 billion and
a huge budgetary deficit, almost 7 per cent of GNP. Privatisation cer-
tainly succeeded in attracting foreign capital – with an influx of 7 billion
dollars of direct investments, the best figure among former Socialist
countries. Here too, the glass was half full, half empty: state or council
ownership remained dominant. The state spent four out of every ten
forints, GNP fell 30 per cent, unemployment was at 12 per cent of the
population, inflation fluctuated at around 30 per cent.
Everywhere one looked, living conditions were deteriorating; enor-
mous sacrifices were demanded of the population, with no evidence
that the high price of transformation would lead to the state’s financial
recovery, to structural reform and, lastly, to growth. It would be errone-
ous to attribute all the responsibility to the government entirely. Apart

from the inherited burden, world recession was also a major contribu-
tory factor. It is also understandable for a government to try and navi-
gate between Scylla and Charybdis, in its best political interests: the
necessary restrictions and the threatening social crisis. If it did not take
draconian measures, it would soon be accused of being lax and popu-
list. If it did, it was accused of being a lackey of the International
Monetary Fund. The road from Socialism to capitalism had never been
explored before. As the most respectable economists pointed out, you
could make fish goulash out of an aquarium but no one had ever suc-
ceeded in doing the contrary.
It would have been difficult to do better than the first free govern-
ment. Its economic balance was nonetheless mixed until mid-term and
frankly negative during the last two years. Until c. 1993, exports kept
the economy afloat and the entry of foreign capital helped maintain a
balance. Furthermore, the dynamic development of the private sector
was full of promise. There was an apparent slowdown, however, and the
threat of insolvency hovered in the air. Then the landslide elections of
May 1994 changed the political landscape completely.

return of the socialists

The verdict of the ballot box was unequivocal, it was a vote of censure.
The discredited Democratic Forum lost more than half its electorate and
obtained only 38 mandates. Of the two other conservative parties in the
coalition, the Christian Democratic Party won an extra seat (22), while
the Smallholders (26) lost almost half of theirs. The semi-majority
system enabled the overall winners – the Socialists – to gain an absolute
majority in Parliament (209). The Free Democrats remained slightly
below the 20 per cent level of votes (69 seats) and their former allies, the
Young Democrats – for a long time ahead in the opinion polls – won 20
mandates. The extreme right and the Communist Workers’ Party were
literally swept aside, along with most of the smaller parties (two seats).
As in the 1990 election, the Social Democratic Party was practically
absent.
The fact that the same six parties shared the 384 seats in the Assembly
demonstrated a degree of stability, with one major difference: the
Socialist MSzP, with its absolute majority, could have governed alone.
Gyula Horn, its leader and future prime minister, decided otherwise.

The Free Democrats were invited into government by the Socialist Party,
if only in order to share responsibilities. This unnatural coalition of two
former mortal enemies was formed in June 1994. There was nothing
innovatory about the Horn government’s political programme. On the
other hand, its audacity in economic matters was, for a Socialist party,
astonishing. Its ‘hard and sharp’ stabilisation programme was rather
more liberal in tone than Socialist, despite being the brainchild of the
socialist László Békesi, finance minister. However, the Békesi pro-
gramme remained on paper. For eight months, no serious measures
were introduced. Gyula Horn even got rid of his finance minister, creat-
ing doubts as to his political commitment to recovery. Then, against all
expectations, the unenviable and vacant post of chancellor of the exche-
quer was filled by a neo-liberal economist called Lajos Bokros. At the
same time, another liberal, György Surányi, fired by Antall’s govern-
ment, returned to the presidency of the National Bank: it was a dra-
matic turn of events.
On 12 March 1995, the new finance minister presented a programme
of restrictions to Parliament called the ‘Bokros package’. For some, it
was the first time that the restoration of the budgetary balance had been
seriously addressed. Among the many measures was the reduction in
social loans from a providential state, soon provoking a general outcry,
and Bokros became, without a doubt, the most hated man in Hungary
for four decades. His ‘package’ had nonetheless been approved by
Parliament, with predictable reticence on the part of several Socialist
deputies and of the unions.
The Bokros package was duly carried out, going beyond even the
monetary measures prescribed by the IMF: a rehaul of the tax and
customs-duty systems; 11 per cent devaluation of the florin, with deval-
uation on a sliding scale; deregulation; reform of the health service and
pensions; plans for the reform of state finances. Considerable savings
were made but these measures weighed heavily on the population at
large: real income fell by 11 per cent, along with social benefits and pro-
visions. Dissatisfaction grew, as did a nostalgia for the ‘good old days’
or relative (and artificially maintained) prosperity under Kádár.
However, people did not take to the streets. From 1987, pensioners and
other underprivileged sections of society began to feel the benefits of
economic growth, a growth largely due to the dynamic privatised indus-
tries (80 per cent), to the hundreds of billions of florins gained from

Plate 48. President of the Republic Árpád Göncz (centre) at the ofﬁcial
formation of the new government, 8 July 1998, with, on the left, Prime
Minister Viktor Orbán and, on the right, President of the National Assembly
János Áder

privatisation, and to the influx of foreign capital. The state was able to
spend 8 billion DM on reorganising the economy and repaying foreign
debts. The foundations of growth were in place, but this did not allevi-
ate the poverty of about 20 per cent of the population, among them the
gypsies. And the none too rich, but satisfied, lower middle classes of the
Kádár era disappeared.
Social and national problems came into focus alongside the economic
reforms: anti-Semitism, corruption, public disorder. The capital, and
other cities to a lesser extent, became headquarters to the underworld.
In four years, 140 bomb explosions (allegedly perpetrated by the mafia)
remained unsolved. Public opinion accused the police of complicity.
Budapest, once known as a ‘safe’ city, was being taken over by organ-
ised crime imported from Russia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia.
The government’s four years in office were studded with corruption
scandals – obscure bank dealings, assignments of public funds, mafia
connections. Leading the opposition was FIDESZ (who would win the
1998 elections). FIDESZ represented a new force on the political stage.
Its image was national and bourgeois, tinged with anti-Semitism,
though throughout the ten years of change, the main instigators of
these tendencies was István Csurka’s extreme right-wing party, MIEP.
FIDESZ proceeded to exploit the weaknesses of the government, even
succeeding in turning the Socialist party’s few merits – its ideological
neutrality and economic pragmatism – to its disadvantage. In addition,
the already declining popularity of the SZDSZ was severely tarnished
by its involvement in a major scandal.
Though the Horn government fell at the 1998 elections, it lost only
part of its support: of 4.5 million votes it received 1.5 in the first round
and 1.9 in the second, nominally little more than FIDESZ. However, the
extremely complex, part proportional, part majority electoral system
went in favour of the latter. Of 388 mandates, FIDESZ gained 148, its
ally, the Smallholders’ Party 48. The rest of the parties preferred to
support FIDESZ in Parliament, including 14 MPs from the right-wing
MIEP, led by Csurka.

eleven hundred years on the banks of the danube

A country’s history has no conclusion but carries on. The sediment of

past centuries, however, goes with it. The Magyars came from the

steppes and settled on the great route of invaders from the east. The
armies of the Roman Empire passed through long ago and Pannonia
was subsequently the extreme eastern limit of the Carolingians, until
Hungary itself became the ramparts of the Roman Christian European
civilisation it had adopted. A country of armies and fronts, it paid a
high price in order to maintain its geopolitical position against the
winds and the tides.
Apart from the military and political consequences, demographic,
economic and social evolution in Hungary also bear the marks of
several centuries of struggle for independence and a national identity.
While being at the heart of geographical and cultural Europe, it missed
out on the extraordinary development of modern and contemporary
Western Europe. It adopted a particular social model, a kind of ‘third
Europe’ between the West and the East, so ingeniously described and
analysed by the historian, Jenö Szücs. Its struggles, followed by the close
links it wisely established with Austria, were not entirely to Hungary’s
advantage. Two great wars and their catastrophic consequences com-
pleted a history of ancient greatness and centuries of tribulations.
The Hungarians undoubtedly have a tendency to see all their misfor-
tunes as originating elsewhere – with some justiﬁcation. The catas-
trophes that descended upon the country have more than once broken
their prodigious capacity for facing adversity and making up for lost
time. But perhaps they too easily forget the shortcomings of their own
society, and of their collective mentality, which István Bibó called ‘dis-
torted Hungarian conformity, the impasse of Hungarian history’.
The author of this work has tried to trace sine ira et studio this long
history, omitting neither the troubles that came from elsewhere nor
those created by its own distortions. If he did so without hiding his feel-
ings of affection, then let he who is immune throw the ﬁrst stone.
In 1996 Hungary commemorated its eleven hundred years on the
banks of the Danube. Let us hope that this splendid anniversary will
turn out to have marked a truly new and auspicious beginning.

The second enlarged ﬁve-volume (seven-part) edition of a complete

history of Hungary was published in the 1930s (the last volume in 1936)
by two well-respected conservative historians: Bálint Hóman and Gyula
Szekfü, Magyar Történet (History of Hungary). Budapest, Királyi
Magyar Egyetemi Nyomda (Hungarian Royal University Press). It was
reprinted by Maecenas publishers in 1990 with a preface by Ferenc
Glatz.
In 1976, the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of
Science published Magyarország története (History of Hungary) in ten
volumes (several parts), edited by Pál Zsigmond Pach. Six volumes were
published by the Academy of Budapest, the ﬁnal one of them in 1985,
as was Jenö Szücs’s posthumous and uncompleted work on the last
Árpádians.
In 1990, a new national history of four volumes was undertaken enti-
tled Magyarók Európában (The Hungarians in Europe), with Háttér
publishers. The ﬁrst three have been published.
Pál Engel, Beilleszkedés Európába. A kezdetektöl 1940-ig
(Integration with Europe. From the beginnings until 1940), Budapest,
1990, 388pp.
Ferenc Szakály, Virágkor és hanyatlás, 1440–1711 (The Golden Age
and its decline, 1440–1711), Budapest, 1990, 368pp.
Domokos Kosáry, Ujjápités polgárosodás, 1711–1867
(Reconstruction and bourgeois civilisation), Budapest, 1990, 464pp.

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