Hungary
The
Republic of Hungary is a
landlocked country in
Central Europe, bordered by
Austria,
Slovakia,
Ukraine,
Romania,
Serbia,
Croatia and
Slovenia. It is known locally as the
Country of the Magyars or
Magyarország.
History
Main article: History of Hungary
Tradition holds that Hungary was founded by
Árpád, who led the
Magyars into the
Pannonian plains at the end of the
9th century. The
Kingdom of Hungary was established in 1000 by King St. Stephen I. Initially the history of Hungary was developed in a triangle with that of
Poland and
Bohemia, with the many liaisons with Popes and Emperors of the
Holy Roman Empire. Hungary was partially demolished with a great loss of life in 1241-1242 by Mongol armies of the
Golden Horde.
Gradually Hungary turned into a large, independent kingdom which formed a distinct Central European culture with ties to greater West European civilisation.
Matthias Corvinus ruled Hungary from 1458 to 1490. He strengthened Hungary and its government. Under his rule, Hungary (notably the northern parts, some of which are in
Slovakia today) became an artistic and cultural center of Europe during the
Renaissance. Hungarian culture influenced others, for example the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Together with
Polish and
Czech lands, Hungary formed the
Visegrád group of nations. Today an alliance of the same name exists again with the Czech Republic,
Slovakia and
Poland.
Hungarian independence ended with the
Ottoman conquest at the beginning of the
16th century; the parts of Hungary that were not conquered by the Ottomans were annexed by
Austria (the rulers of which were Hungarian kings at the same time) in the West, and became the independent
Principality of Transylvania in the East, where thus Hungarian statedom was preserved. After 150 years,
Austria and her Christian allies retook also the territorry of today's Hungary by the end of the
17th century from the Ottoman Empire.
After the final defeat of the
Turkish, struggle began between the Hungarian nation and the
Habsburg kings for the protection of noblemens' rights (thus guarding the autonomy of Hungary). The fight against Austrian absolutism resulted in the unsuccessful popular freedom fight led by a Transsylvanian nobleman, Ferenc Rákóczi, between 1704-1711. The revolution and war of 1848-1849 eliminated serfdom and secured civil rights. The Austrians were finally able to prevail only with Russian help.
Thanks to the victories against Austria by the French-Italian coalition (the Battle of Solferino, 1859) and Prussia (Battle of Königgratz, 1866), Hungary would eventually, in 1867, manage to become an autonomous part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until that Empire's collapse following
World War I. Hungary separated from Austria on
October 31, 1918.
In March 1919 the communists joined the government, and in April,
Béla Kun proclaimed the
Hungarian Soviet Republic. This government proved to be short lived; the
Romanian army invaded, the communist forces were defeated and the Soviet Republic was toppled on
August 6, 1919. Rightist military forces, led by the former Austro-Hungarian Admiral
Miklós Horthy, entered Budapest in the wake of the Romanian army's depature and filled the the vacuum of state power. In January 1920, elections were held for a unicameral assembly, and Admiral Horthy was subsequently elected Regent. In June, the
Treaty of Trianon was signed, fixing Hungary's borders. Compared with the prewar Kingdom, the size and population of this new Hungary were reduced by about two-thirds.
Miklós Horthy ruled with dictatorial powers for most of the interwar period. Hungarian politics and culture of the era was saturated with irredentism and revisionism (the resurrection of pre-Trianon sized Hungary by whatever means it takes).
Horthy made an alliance with
Nazi Germany in the
1930s, in the hope of revising the territorial losses that had followed World War I. Hungary was rewarded by Germany with historical Hungarian territories belonging to
Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia and
Romania, and took an active part in
World War II. However, in October 1944, Hitler replaced Horthy with the Hungarian Nazi collaborator
Ferenc Szálasi and his
Arrow Cross Party in order to avert Hungary's defection to the Allied side. During the Holocaust more than 400,000
Jews and several tens of thousands of Gypsies perished in Hungary.
Following the fall of Nazi Germany, Hungary became part of the Soviet area of influence and was changed into a
communist state following a short period of democracy in 1946-1947. In 1956, a popular
revolt and announced withdrawal from the
Warsaw Pact were met with a military intervention by the
Soviet Union and led to the deposition and execution of the reform-minded communist prime minister
Imre Nagy. From the 1960's on to the late 1980's Hungary enjoyed a distinguished status of
the happiest barrack within the
Eastern Bloc, under the rule of late controversial communist leader
János Kádár. In the late
1980s, Hungary led the movement to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and shifted toward multiparty democracy and a market-oriented economy. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Hungary developed closer ties with Western Europe, joined
NATO in 1999 and joined the
European Union on
May 1, 2004.
See Also: Hungary: Pre-History and Early History
Politics
Main article: Politics of Hungary
The President of the Republic, elected by the
parliament every 5 years, has a largely ceremonial role, but powers also include appointing the prime minister. The prime minister selects
cabinet ministers and has the exclusive right to dismiss them. Each cabinet nominee appears before one or more parliamentary committees in consultative open hearings and must be formally approved by the president.
The unicameral, 386-member
National Assembly (the
Országgyűlés) is the highest organ of state authority and initiates and approves legislation sponsored by the prime minister. A party must win at least 5% of the national vote to form a parliamentary faction. National parliamentary elections are held every 4 years (the last was in April 2002). A 15-member Constitutional Court has power to challenge legislation on grounds of unconstitutionality.
Counties
Main article: Counties of Hungary
Hungary is subdivided administratively into 40 regions. Of these, 19 are
counties (''megyék'', singular -
megye) and 20 are so-called urban counties (singular -
megyei jogú város), in addition to which there is one
capital city (''főváros''):
Budapest. The other 39 are:
| Urban counties | Counties (County Capital) |
|---|
|
|
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See also: List of historic counties of Hungary
Map of Hungary
Geography
Main article: Geography of Hungary
Hungary's landscape consists mostly of the flat to rolling plains of the Carpathian Basin, with hills and lower mountains to the north along the
Slovakian border (highest point: the Kékes at 1,014 m). Hungary is divided in two by its main waterway, the
Danube (''Duna''); other large rivers include the
Tisza and Dráva, while the western half contains
Lake Balaton, a major body of water. The largest thermal lake in the world,
Lake Hévíz (
Hévíz Spa), is located in Hungary. The second largest lake in the Carpathian Basin (and probably the largest artificial lake in Europe) is Lake Tisza (''Tisza-tó'').
Climate
Hungary has
continental climate, with cold, cloudy, humid winters and warm to hot summers. Average annual temperature is 9.7 °C. Temperature extremes are app. 35 °C in the summer and -29 °C in the winter. Average temperature in the summer is 27-32 °C, in the winter it is 0 to -15 °C. Average yearly fall equals app. 600 milimeters of rain. A small, southern region of the country near
Pécs enjoys
mediterranean climate.
The relative isolation of the Carpathian Basin makes it susceptible to
droughts and the effects of
Global Warming are already felt. According to popular opinion, and many scientists in the latest decades the country became drier, as droughts are quite common; and summers became hotter, winters became milder. Because of these reasons snow has become much more rare in the area than before. Popular opinion also states that the four-season system became two-season system as
spring and
fall is getting shorter and shorter, even they can vanish some years.
Economy
Main article: Economy of Hungary
Hungary continues to demonstrate strong economic growth as one of the newest members of the
European Union (since 2004). The private sector accounts for over 80% of
GDP. Foreign ownership of and investment in Hungarian firms is widespread, with cumulative foreign direct investment totaling more than US$23 billion since 1989. Hungarian sovereign debt was upgraded in 2000 to the second-highest rating among all the Central European transition economies.
Inflation and
unemployment - both priority concerns in 2001 - have declined substantially. Economic reform measures such as health care reform, tax reform, and local government financing have not yet been addressed by the present government.
Demographics
Main article: Demographics of Hungary
For some 95% of the population, mostly Hungarians, the mother tongue is
Hungarian, a Finno Ugric language unrelated to any neighbouring language. Several ethnic minorities exist:
Roma (2%),
Germans (1.2%),
Romanians (0.8%),
Slovaks (0.4%),
Croats (0.2%),
Serbs (0.2%) and
Ukrainians (0.1%).
The largest religion in Hungary is
Catholicism -Roman and Greek- (approx two thirds of the population), with a Calvinist minority (around 20%) and Lutherans (5%). However, these are book values, as the hungarian population is not particularly religious, at most 25% practice their faith. Most of the country's
Jews (1%) live in Budapest.
Several large
Hungarian minorities exist across the border in neighbouring countries, notably in
Ukraine (in
Transcarpathia),
Slovakia,
Romania (in
Transylvania),
Serbia (in
Vojvodina) and a smaller ones in
Austria (in
Burgenland),
Croatia and
Slovenia.
Culture
Main article: Culture of Hungary
Miscellaneous topics
External links
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Category:European Union member states