A Brief Introduction to Hungary

Today I saw the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble perform at Queensborough Community College. This inspired me to write a blog post about some of the history and culture of Hungary. In later posts, I plan to talk about some of the folk dance forms and musical styles.

History
The Hungarian culture is very interesting because it has an origin unlike any other European country. The Hungarians originated in Western Siberia. They invaded and raided the Pannonian Basin around 900 CE on horseback, much like the Huns or the Mongols. In 1000 CE, they formed the Kingdom of Hungary, with King Stephen as their Christian ruler (much to the relief of the other European nations!).

Some centuries later in the early 13th century, the Hungarians were attacked by the Mongols, who greatly weakened them. They recovered some, but from that forward, Hungary ceased to be ruled by Hungarians, and the monarchy passed through the hands of some French and German nobles. Still, Hungary continued to be an independent kingdom.

In the late 15th century, the Hungarians regained their strength, restored their monarchy, and even defeated the Austrians. Then they were defeated by the Ottoman Turks in 1526, and the country split into three sections. The central part was part of Ottoman rule, the western part joined with Austria under the Habsburg monarchy, and the eastern part (Transylvania) became an independent, Protestant, tributary state of the Ottomans.

The Habsburg gradually pushed back the Ottomans, and finally in 1699, they started pushing the Turks out of Hungary. The Turks were defeated, and all three parts of Hungary were united under the Habsburg monarchy, though the Hungarians wished to have their own autonomy. After some rebellions, an agreement was reached in 1867 in which a dual-monarchy was established as the Austrio-Hungarian Empire (or as many called it, just Austria).

World War I brought great misfortune to the Hungarians. The Habsburg monarchy split after their defeat, and Hungary lost more than half of its land and population in the Treaty of Trianon, thus making the country approximately the same size as the state of Indiana. Hungary allied with the Germans in World War II in hopes of getting their land back, but as you can assume, they failed to accomplish their goals.

Hungary fell under Soviet control after the the second World War. They attempted to drive the Soviets out in 1956, achieving only a brief success before the Soviets reconquered them. Once the Soviet Union fell apart, Hungary became an independent state and swiftly joined the EU and NATO.

Culture
Something to remember about Hungarian culture is that it is more culturally central European, not eastern European. That is, Hungary is more similar to the Czech Republic, Austria or Germany than Romania, Russia or Ukraine. Budapest is a major European city and culture capital, esteemed in all the arts such as classical music and design. Hungarians are quite well known for their math. In fact, the creator of the Rubik's cube was a Hungarian. In addition to the Rubik's cube, some other Hungarian influences on common culture include the compositions of Liszt and paprika.

Hungarians still take pride in their history as brave invaders, which makes them feel different from the other European nations, but still equally as cultured.

Hungarian Parliament Building (an icon of Budapest)

The language of Hungary is Uralic, which means it originated from the Ural mountains in Siberia. This is most evident in the language of Hungarian. Though the language is written in the Latin alphabet, its grammar system is pretty much unlike any other living language in the world. Though it is loosely similar to Finnish, there is no mutual intelligibility. That is why Hungarian is such a difficult language to learn and understand. There are some benefits though. In Hungarian, every letter and syllable is pronounced the same way.

Another thing worth mentioning is the idea of "Greater Hungary." As I mentioned earlier, Hungary lost a massive piece of its land after the treaty of Trianon. Though many of the people in its lands weren't Hungarian, they still believe the land is rightfully theirs.

Hungarians that don't live in Hungary still have a strong sense of Hungarian identity. This causes some confusion. For example, the region of Transylvania (the eastern part of the map) is now part of Romania, but it still has a considerable amount of Hungarians. The Hungarians from Hungary think that the Transylvania Hungarians aren't "true" Hungarians, while the Translyvanian Hungarians are simply fighting to keep their culture and be acknowledged. The Romanians have been trying to suppress the Transylvanian Hungarian culture because they believe the country should be "purely" Romanian. Add gypsies to the mix, and you have a big ethnic kerfuffle. Thus is Greater Hungary.

And there you have a brief summation of Hungary from the point of view of an American teenager. I apologize for stereotypes or slight inaccuracies but I hope that I've given a decent amount of information.

Also, one last fun fact. In continental Europe, you can buy Lays Paprika chips. They are extremely delicious and it greatly disappoints me that we cannot buy them in the US.

I WANT!