Hungary

The Republic of Hungary (Magyar Koztarsasag) is a nation of central Europe bounded by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and Croatia. It has an area of 35,919 square miles (93,030 sq km) and a population of 9.95 million (2007 est). The capital city is Budapest; other major centres include Debrecen, Miskolc, Pecs and Gyor. Hungary is landlocked and mainly forms a low-lying plain; it is crossed by the rivers Danube (Duna) and Tisza. The west of the country includes the large Lake Balaton, on the shores of which a number of resort towns are situated.

History

Hungary was united as a nation in 1001 under King Stephen I, the Magyar nation having migrated to the Danube basin from the east. It fell under Ottoman rule in the sixteenth century, and subsequently became part of the Habsburg Austrian Empire. In 1848 the Hungarian people rebelled against the Austrians to gain independence, a movement lked by Lajos Kossuth, but the rebellion was crushed with Russian aid. The creation of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867 gave Hungary a measure of equality with Austria within the empire; following the Austro-Hungarian collapse at the end of the First World War Hungary became an independent state, although by the Treaty of Trianon it was stripped of much of its territory. Slovakia went to the new state of Czechoslovakia, Ruthenia to Poland, Transylvania to Romania and the area around Novi Sad to Yugoslavia. A small area on the western border was ceded to Austria. In the 1920s around one-third of the Magyar people lived outside the new boundaries of Hungary.

Hungary sought revision of these treaty losses and allied itself (under the autocratic regent, Admiral Miklos Horthy (1868-1957)) with Germany. In the 1939 carve-up of Czechoslovakia, Hungary gained parts of Slovakia; following the defeat of Poland, it regained Ruthenia. In 1940 Hitler forced Romania to return much of Transylvania to Hungarian rule, and Hungary also regained territory from Yugoslavia following Germany's conquest of that country in 1941. As a quid pro quo, Hungarian troops fought with the Germans on the Eastern Front, and as the Germans retreated in 1944 and 1945 Hungary came under Soviet occupation; it was also stripped of all its gains between 1939 and 1945.

Under Soviet protection, the Hungarian communists, led by Matyas Rakosi (1892-1971) were able to seize control of the state by 'salami tactics' (picking off adversaries one by one). Once in power, Rakosi was a fierce Stalinist, even by the standards of the Soviet bloc; he was removed from office and exiled to the Soviet Union under Soviet pressure following the denouncing of Stalin by Nikita Krushchev in 1956.

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Democratic elections were held in 1990 and Hungary joined the European Union on May 1, 2004.