The Hungarians : a thousand years of victory in defeat

609 Pages·2003·37.02 MB·English

by  Paul Lendvai

The Hungarians

PAUL LENDVAI
The Hungarians
A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat
TRANSLATED BY ANN MAJOR
Princeton University Press
Princeton, New Jersey
Published in North America, South America, and the Philippine Islands by
Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
English translation first published in the United Kingdom by
C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd, London
Originally published as Die Ungarn. Ein Jahrtausend Sieger in Niederlagen by
C. Bertelsmann Verlag, Munich, 1999
Copyright © 2003 by Paul Lendvai
All rights reserved.
The right of Paul Lendvai to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number 2002110218
ISBN 0-691-11406-4
This book has been composed in Bembo by Word Pro, Pondicherry, India
www.pupress.princeton.edu
Printed in Scotland
7 9 10 8 6
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-11969-4 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-691-11969-4 (pbk.)
Contents
Foreword to the English Edition page xi
Introduction 1
1. "Heathen Barbarians" overrun Europe: Evidence from
St Gallen 7
2. Land Acquisition or Conquest? The Question of
Hungarian Identity 12
3. From Magyar Mayhem to the Christian Kingdom of
the Arpads 27
4. The Struggle for Continuity and Freedom 38
5. The Mongol Invasion of 1241 and its Consequences 49
6. Hungary's Rise to Great Power Status under Foreign
Kings 62
7. The Heroic Age of the Hunyadis and the Turkish
Danger 75
8. The Long Road to the Catastrophe of Mohacs 86
9. The Disaster of Ottoman Rule 94
10. Transylvania—the Stronghold of Hungarian
Sovereignty 106
11. Gabor Bethlen—Vassal, Patriot and European 114
12. Zrinyi or Zrinski? One Hero for Two Nations 126
13. The Kuruc Leader Thokoly: Adventurer or Traitor? 137
14. Ferenc Rakoczi's Fight for Freedom from the Habsburgs 145
15. Myth and Historiography: an Idol through the Ages 155
16. Hungary in the Habsburg Shadow 160
17. The Fight Against the "Hatted King" 177
18. Abbot Martinovics and the Jacobin Plot 183
V
VI Contents
19. Count Istvan Szechenyi and the "Reform Era":
the "Greatest Hungarian" 191
20. Lajos Kossuth and Sandor Petofi: Symbols of 1848 206
21. Victories, Defeat and Collapse: the Lost War of
Independence, 1849 222
22. Kossuth the Hero versus "Judas" Gorgey: "Good"
and "Bad" in Sacrificial Mythology 242
23. Who was Captain Gusev? Russian "Freedom
Fighters" between Minsk and Budapest 260
24. Elisabeth, Andrassy and Bismarck: Austria and
Hungary on the Road to Reconciliation 266
25. Victory in Defeat: the Compromise and the
Consequences of Dualism 281
26. Total Blindness: The Hungarian Sense of Mission
and the Nationalities 299
27. The "Golden Age" of the Millennium: Modernization
with Drawbacks 310
28. "Magyar Jew or Jewish Magyar?"A Unique Symbiosis 329
29. "Will Hungary be German or Magyar?" The Germans'
Peculiar Role 348
30. From the Great War to the "Dictatorship of
Despair": the Red Count and Lenin's Agent 356
31. The Admiral on a White Horse: Trianon and the
Death Knell of St Stephen's Realm 373
32. Adventurers, Counterfeiters, Claimants to the
Throne: Hungary as Troublemaker in the Danube
Basin 389
33. Marching in Step with Hitler: Triumph and Fall.
From the Persecution of Jews to Mob Rule 406
34. Victory in Defeat: 1945-1990 427
35. "Everyone is a Hungarian": Geniuses and Artists 466
Summing-up 504
Notes 508
Chronology of Significant Events in Hungarian History 533
Index 557
Illustrations
Between pages 284 and 285
1. The Hungarians defeated by the Germans on the Lechfeld
near Augsburg, August 955
2. Triumphal arrival of Arpad at the "Conquest" (detail from
painting by Mihaly Munkacsy, 1893)
3. Janos Hunyadi
4. King Matyas I Corvinus
5. Torture and execution of Gyorgy Dozsa
6. Murder of the monk George Martinuzzi
7. Istvan Bocskai
8. GaborBethlen
9. Count Miklos Zrinyi
10. Imre Thokoly
11. Ferenc Rakoczi II
12. Count Istvan Szechenyi
13. Execution of Ignac Martinovics
14. SandorPetofi
15. Lajos Kossuth
16. Lajos Kossuth and Palatine Stephen welcomed in Vienna, March
1848
17. Execution of Count Lajos Batthyany
18. General Artur Gorgey
19. Ferenc Deak
20. Count Gyula Andrassy
21. Queen Elisabeth at the bier of Ferenc Deak (painting by Zichy,
1906)
vn
Vlll Illustrations
22. Emperor Franz Joseph crowned King of Hungary, 1867
23. Franz Joseph and Elisabeth in Budapest, 1897
24. Procession on the Margaret Bridge during the millennium
celebrations, 1896
25. Suspect handcuffed by gendarmes, 1896
26. Endre Ady
27. Sandor Wekerle
28. Baron Zsigmond Kornfeld
29. Group of Hungarian generals,1913, including the Jewish Baron
Samuel Hazai
30. Count Istvan Tisza
31. Count Mihaly Karolyi renouncing his landed estates, February
1919
32. Bela Kun addressing workers, April 1919
33. Admiral Horthy entering Budapest at the head of the National
Army, 16 November 1919
34. Prince Lajos Windischgratz leaving court in 1926
35. Count Istvan Bethlen arriving in London, 1930
36. The Austrian Chancellor Dolfuss and Hungarian Prime Min
ister Gombos with Mussolini in Rome, March 1934
37. Bela Bartok
38. Miklos Radnoti
39. Attilajozsef
40—43. Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln
44. The Czech, Italian, German and Hungarian Foreign Ministers
after the first Vienna Award, November 1938
45. Viscount Rothermere receiving an accolade in Budapest for
his pro-Hungarian stance
46. Rothermere with Admiral Horthy, November 1938
47. Admiral Horthy with Hitler on a state visit to Germany, August
1938
48. Ferenc Szalasi arriving at the Prime Minister's residence, Octo
ber 1944, after his putsch
Illustrations ix
49. Jewish deportees, summer 1944
50. Exhumation of Jewish massacre victims
51. Matyas Rakosi at a congress, 1951
52. Imre Nagy announcing the reform party line after Stalin's
death
53. Toppling and dismantling of the Stalin monument in Budapest,
October 1956
54. Soviet tank commandeered by freedom fighters in Budapest,
October 1956
55. Janos Kadar bids farewell to Brezhnev, Hungary, 1979