Hungary

Origins

The Magyars (known as Hungarians in most western languages, including English) were a nomadic people from the Eurasian plains until the ninth century, when they settled in the plains around the middle Danube river, the area that is now Hungary. The Hungarians established a kingdom under I. (Szent) István, who was crowned in 1000 AD. He was a descendant of Arpad, the Magyar leader who conquered the territory in the ninth century.

By February 1949, all opposition parties had been forced to merge with the MKP to form the Hungarian Workers' Party. In 1949, the communists held a single-list election and adopted a Soviet-style constitution which created the Hungarian People's Republic. Rakosi became Prime Minister in 1952. Between 1948 and 1953, the Hungarian economy was reorganized according to the Soviet model. In 1949, the country joined the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA, or Comecon), a Soviet-bloc economic organization. All private industrial firms with more than 10 employees were nationalized. Freedom of the press, religion, and assembly were strictly curtailed. The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Forced industrialization and land collectivization soon led to serious economic difficulties, which reached crisis proportions by mid-1953, the year Stalin died. The new Soviet leaders blamed Rakosi for Hungary's economic situation and began a more flexible policy called the "New Course." Imre Nagy replaced Rakosi as prime minister in 1953 and repudiated much of Rakosi's economic program of forced collectivization and heavy industry. He also ended political purges and freed thousands of political prisoners. However, the economic situation continued to deteriorate, and Rakosi succeeded in disrupting the reforms and in forcing Nagy from power in 1955 for "right-wing revisionism." Hungary joined the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact Treaty Organization the same year. Rakosi's attempt to restore Stalinist orthodoxy then foundered as increasing opposition developed within the party and among students and other organizations after Khrushchev's 1956 denunciation of Stalin. Fearing revolution, Moscow replaced Rakosi with his deputy, Erno Gero, in order to contain growing ideological and political ferment.

In 1988, Kadar was replaced as General Secretary of the Communist Party, and reform communist leader Imre Pozsgay was admitted to the Politburo. That same year, the Parliament adopted a "democracy package," which included trade union pluralism; freedom of association, assembly, and the press; a new electoral law; and a radical revision of the constitution, among others. Since then, Hungary has tried to reform its economy and increase its connections with western Europe, hoping to become a member of the European Union as soon as possible. A Central Committee plenum in February 1989 endorsed in principle the multiparty political system and the characterization of the October 1956 revolution as a "popular uprising," in the words of Pozsgay, whose reform movement had been gathering strength as Communist Party membership declined dramatically. Kadar's major political rivals then cooperated to move the country gradually to democracy. The Soviet Union reduced its involvement by signing an agreement in April 1989 to withdraw Soviet forces by June 1991.

National unity culminated in June 1989 as the country reburied Imre Nagy, his associates, and, symbolically, all other victims of the 1956 revolution. A national roundtable, comprising representatives of the new parties and some recreated old parties--such as the Smallholders and Social Democrats--the Communist Party, and different social groups, met in the late summer of 1989 to discuss major changes to the Hungarian constitution in preparation for free elections and the transition to a fully free and democratic political system.

In October 1989, the communist party convened its last congress and re-established itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP). In a historic session on October 16 - October 20, 1989, the Parliament adopted legislation providing for multiparty parliamentary elections and a direct presidential election. The legislation transformed Hungary from a people's republic into the Republic of Hungary, guaranteed human and civil rights, and created an institutional structure that ensures separation of powers among the judicial, executive, and legislative branches of government. But because the national roundtable agreement was the result of a compromise between communist and noncommunist parties and societal forces, the revised constitution still retained vestiges of the old order. It championed the "values of bourgeois democracy and democratic socialism" and gave equal status to public and private property. Such provisions were erased in 1990 as the need for compromise solutions was obviated by the poor performance of the MSZP in the first free elections.

In May 1994, the socialists came back to win a plurality of votes and 54% of the seats after an election campaign focused largely on economic issues and the substantial decline in living standards since 1990. A heavy turnout of voters swept away the right-of-center coalition but soundly rejected extremists on both right and left. Despite its neocommunist pedigree, the MSZP continued economic reforms and privatization, adopting a painful but necessary policy of fiscal austerity (the "Bokros plan") in 1995. The government pursued a foreign policy of integration with Euro-Atlantic institutions and reconciliation with neighboring countries. But neither an invitation to join NATO nor improving economic indicators guaranteed the MSZP's re-election; dissatisfaction with the pace of economic recovery, rising crime, and cases of government corruption convinced voters to propel center-right parties into power following national elections in May 1998. The Federation of Young Democrats (renamed Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party (MPP) in 1995) captured a plurality of parliamentary seats and forged a coalition with the Smallholders and the Democratic Forum. The new government, headed by 35-year-old Prime Minister Viktor Orban, promised to stimulate faster growth, curb inflation, and lower taxes. Although the Orban administration also pledged continuity in foreign policy, and has continued to pursue Euro-Atlantic integration as its first priority, it has been a more vocal advocate of minority rights for ethnic Hungarians abroad than the previous government. In 2002 it was decided that Hungary, together with 9 other countries was to join the European Union on January 1, 2004.

Despite the positive moves of the Fidesz they lost the next election in April 2002, where the MSZP's 51% won over FIDESZ 48% in a very fierce fight showing the loss of trust in Fidesz due to the corruption problems and lack of communication between the government and the other parties (and some strategically very bad connections to extreme right-wing parties while electional fights), and showing the doubt and memories of already mentioned problems with the socialist party's last government. The MSZP went on to continue social reforms while being more opened to cooperate to fight political and corruption problems.

On April 12 2003 Hungary voted for joining the European Union, where 83% of the votes said "Yes" to EU (45% of the population voted). Since the EU already accepted Hungary as a possible member, the 4 leader political parties (MSZP, FIDESZ, SZDSZ and MDF) are about to agree on establish the required prerequisites and policies and to work together to prepare the country for the join with the least possible harm to the economy and people while maximising the positive effects on the country.

Tradition holds that Hungary was founded by Árpád, who led the Magyars into the Pannonian plains in the 9th century. The kingdom of Hungary was established in 1000 by Saint-King Stephen the Great. Initially the history of Hungary was made in the triangle with Poland and Bohemia, with the many liasons with Popes and Emperrors of Holy Roman Empire.

Gradually Hungary turned in the big, independent kingdom, that formed tolerant Central European culture, as a part of European civilisation. The Hungarian culture influenced other, i.e. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The golden age ended with Ottoman conquest at the beginning of 16th century, when rest of Hungary came under Austrian and control in the 16th century, with Austria conquering all of Hungary by the end of the 17th century.

Under the Austrian Habsburg dynasty Hungary would eventually, in 1867, become an autonomous part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until its collapse following World War I. Hungary declared its full independence on October 31, 1918, though it lost most of its former territory and population to neighbouring nations. Internal and external conflicts ended with the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, after which Hungary became a kingdom without a king under the rightists regency of Miklós Horthy, leading to limited Hungary's alliance with Nazi Germany in the 1930s. In order to commit the holocaust in Hungary, Hitler had to replace Horthy with a Nazi collaborator.

The country fell under very cruel communist rule following World War II. In 1956, a revolt and announced withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact were met with a military intervention by the Soviet Union and the deposition and execution of prime minister Imre Nagy. 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 will join the European Union on May 1, 2004.

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 Országgyülés) 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.

Hungary is subdivided administratively into 40 regions. Of these, 19 are counties (megyék, singular - megye) and 20 are so-called urban counties (singular - megyei város), in addition to which there is one capital city (föváros): Budapest. The other 39 are:

Urban counties	Counties
Békéscsaba Debrecen Dunaújváros Eger Györ Hódmezövásárhely Kaposvár Kecskemét Miskolc Nagykanizsa Nyíregyhaza Pécs Sopron Szeged Székesfehérvár Szolnok Szombathely Tatabánya Veszprém Zalaegerszeg	Bács-Kiskun Baranya Békés Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén Csongrád Fejér Györ-Moson-Sopron Hajdú-Bihar Heves Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Komárom-Esztergom Nógrád Pest Somogy Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg Tolna Vas Veszprém Zala

Hungary's landscape consist 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 Theiss (Tisza) and Dráva, while the western half contains Lake Balaton, a major waterbody. The largest thermal lake in the world, Lake Hévíz (Hévíz Spa) is located in Hungary.

The local climate is temperate, with cold, cloudy, humid winters and warm summers, and the relative isolation of the Carpathian Basin makes it susceptible to droughts. Average annual temperature is 9.7° C.

Hungary continues to demonstrate strong economic growth and to work toward accession to the European Union. 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 $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.

Some 98% of the population speaks Hungarian, a Finno Ugric language unrelated to any neighbouring language. Several ethnic minorities exist, such as those of the Roma (4%), Germanss (2.6%), Serbs (2%), Slovaks (0.8%) and Romanians (0.7%), though most speak Hungarian. Several large Hungarian minorities exist across the border in neighbouring countries, notably in Slovakia, Romania (in Transylvania) and Serbia (in Vojvodina).

The largest religion in Hungary is Roman Catholicism (67.5%), with a sizable Calvinist minority (20%). Other smaller denominations include Lutherans (5%) and Jews (0.2%). The remainder adheres to very small religions or is unaffiliated.

• List of famous Hungarians
• List of Hungarian rulers
• Music of Hungary

Miscellaneous topics

• Communications in Hungary
• Transportation in Hungary
• Military of Hungary
• Foreign relations of Hungary

External links

• Count Lajos Batthyány: 17 March - 2 October 1848
• Baron Ádám Récsey: 3 October - 26 November 1848
• Lajos Kossuth: 26 November 1848 - 11 August 1849
• Bertalan Szemere: 11 August - 13 August 1849

Prime Ministers of Hungary, 1867-present