History of
Hungary
Budapest city (1990 population 2,016,100) is the capital and largest city of Hungary on both banks of the Danube River. One of the capitals of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the city was formed in 1873 by the union of Buda and Óbuda, on the right bank of the Danube, with Pest, on the left bank. The area may have been settled in the Neolithic era. Under Roman rule from the 1st century AD, the cities were destroyed by the Mongols in 1241. Buda became the capital of Hungary in 1361 and fell to the Turks in 1541. From 1686 to 1918 the cities were under Hapsburg rule; after World War I Budapest became the capital of independent Hungary. During World War II Budapest was occupied (1944-45) by the Germans and was largely destroyed during a 14-week siege by Soviet troops. In 1956 it was the center of an unsuccessful uprising against the Communist government.
Most of the area that is now Hungary and Transylvania was conquered in the late 9th century AD by the Magyars, a Finno-Ugric people from beyond the Urals; Christianization was completed by St. Stephen (r.1001-38), first king of Hungary. A feudal society developed, controlled by a few powerful nobles, the magnates. Hungary was ruled after 1308 by the Angevin dynasty and after 1386 by other foreign houses. In 1526 the Ottoman Turks defeated the Hungarians at the battle of Mohács. In the long wars that followed, the Turks dominated most of Hungary, while Transylvania was ruled by noble families. By 1711, however, all Hungary had fallen under Hapsburg control. A short-lived independent Hungarian republic (1849) under Louis Kossuth was overthrown by Austrian and Russian troops, and in 1867 the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was established, in which Austria and Hungary were nearly equal partners. After the collapse of the Dual Monarchy in World War I, Hungary was proclaimed (1918) an independent republic and was drastically reduced in area and population by the Treaty of Trianon (1920).
The Communist dictatorship (1919) of Béla Kun was put down by Romanian intervention, and in 1920 Adm. Nicholas Horthy De Nagybánya became regent of a kingless Hungarian kingdom. In World War II Hungary joined (1941) the Axis and was invaded (1944) by the USSR. A republican constitution was adopted in 1946, but a Communist coup d'etat in 1948 set up a totalitarian people's republic in 1949. In 1956 a popular anti-Communist revolution, led by former premier Imre Nagy, was suppressed by Soviet forces. However, the Soviet-supported counter-government of János Kádár, one of Nagy's ministers, slowly liberalized the country's economic, political, andcultural life. Goulash communism made Hungary the most prosperous Soviet-bloc nation, but economic stagnation and decline set in during the 1970s and 80s. In 1988 Kádár was replaced as party leader by a moderate reformer. In 1990 the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (HDF) and its allies won a parliamentary majority. József Antall became prime minister, and Árpád Göncz, a writer and former dissident, was elected president. The new government embarked on the privatization of Hungary's state enterprises, selling interests in more than half of such businesses by 1993. Antall died in 1993 and was succeeded as prime minister by Péter Boross. Parliamentary elections in 1994 returned the Socialists (former Communists), led by Gyula Horn, to power.