For centuries, the Hungarians wandered across the steppes of Eastern Europe before they came to the Carpathian Basin, the site of the former Avar empire, which was to become their homeland. Following the Hungarian Conquest in 896 under Prince Árpád, the Hungarians rapidly left behind their nomadic lifestyle, dominated by animal herding, for the cultivation of land. When the defeat at Augsburg in 955 at the hands of Otto the Great ( later Holy Roman Emperor) forced them to abandon their western forays, the Hungarians - this time on the initiative of Grand Prince Géza - began to turn towards the nations and cultura of Western Christendom. In 973, Géza, whom Western chroniclers referred to as king ( 'rex'), sent a high- ranking delegation to the German Estates at Quedlinburg; invited to his court St Adalbert, the bishop of Prague, who was later killed by pagan Prussians -members of a western Slavic tribe -on the Baltic coast; made a contri-bution to the founding of the Benedictine monastery in Pannonhalma, named after Saint Martin. Géza had himself christened, while at the same time maintaining existing pagan rites.
His son Vajk, who received the name of Stephen ( István) in Christendom, was brought up to be a Christian monarch, and Gizella, sister of Henry II, the King of Bavaria, was chosen as his bride-to-be. Stephen had himself crowned in 1000 with insignia of royalty granted by Pope Sylvester II, and completed the statebuilding process started by his father. Stephen founded ten episcopates and several monasteries, had churches built, set up the administration of royal counties, crushed those tribal leaders who were seeking to maintain paganism and opposed Europe-anisation, but also defended his country from attacks from the west.Stephen led his people to become a nation of Christian Europe and created the Kingdom of Hungary: his successor, King Ladislas ( László), made him - together with the early-deceased crown prince Imre and Bishop Gellért, who died as a martyr in the pagan uprising of 1046 - saints of the Cristian Church.
The birth of Hungarian natioal culture and literature, comprising both oral tradition and the earliest examples of written culture, is obscured by the shadows of antiqui-ty. A large number of historical legends has come down to us about the origin, wanderings, and conquests of the Hungarians. The beginnings of Hungarian written literature alsoprobably go back to an earlier date than surviving documents would suggest, because Hungarian church and court culture looks back on a history of nearly a thousand years. From the time Saint Stephen, the first Hungarian King, the number of scribes in monasteries, chapters, royal chancelleries increased steadily ( as was customary in Medieval Europe, they used primarily Latin, rather than the vernacular). At the same time, examples of ancient pagan runes carved in stone ( for instance, in some Transylvanian churches) have also survived. Hungarian texts in Latin script also appeared very early on. Following a number of sopradic examples, the first piece of Hungarian prose - the Funeral Oration, a Hungarian translation of a funeral sermon in Latin - dates from the mid-twelfth century.The first piece of Hungarian poetry, dating from nearly a century later, is the Lamentations of Mary, also written on the basis of a Latin original. These were followed by a number of Bible translations, legends about the lives of Hungarian saints, sermons and other religious texts. The language of secular writings, such as historiography and charters, continued to be Latin for a long time.
The Hungarians created their own national culture at the crossroads of two major cultures: they oroginated in the East, and originally derived their traditions from the archaic culture of the Eurasian steppes, while the true Christian devotion and acute political awareness of the first Hungarian kings led to the adoption of Western culture: only a century after their settlement in the Carpathian Basin did the Hun-Hungarians establish themselves among the nations of the Western world. Having said that, the Hungarian people developed into a Western nation in the fullest sense, a process which was completed by the highly educated and strong-handed successors of Saint Stephen: Saint Ladislas, Coloman the Booklover ( Könyves Kálmán), Béla III, and Béla IV. Monarchs of the Anjou Dynasty - Charles Robert ( Károly Róbert) and Louis the Great ( Nagy Lajos), who was also the Polish King and as such ruled over an enormous empire - played a similar role, and what is more, are credited for making medieval Hungary into an international power. Historical Hungary, which was once embraced by the Carpathian Mountains, was the borderline and last bastion of Western civilization: in the south it was bordered by the Byzantine Empire representing Eastern Christianity, and later the Mohammedan Turkish Empire which grew up on its ruins, while in the east lay the Mongol khanates, and later the Russian Empire. At this time, Hungary was a highly influential bastion of Western Christianity: the dynasty established by Árpád, the chieftain who spearheaded the Hungarian Conquest, gave more saints to the Church than any other Catholic dynasty; Hungarian knights and kings participated in the Crusades to the Holy Land and to a certain extent the country played the role of missionary and cultural mediator in relation to the aest and the south.
The Hungarian kingdom was important as a defensive bastion of Western Christen-dom during the Middle Ages, and indeed the country's eastern and southern bor-ders marked the borders of the Western world. This is well illustrated by the fact that Hungarian marked the boundary for Romanesque and Gothic church arcitectu-re: the Saint Martin Cathedral in Bratislava, the Cathedral of Saint Elisabeth in Kosice, the Church of Our Lady in Buda, the Saint Michael church in Cluj, and the Black Church in Brasov, continue to mark the eastern edge of Western civilization today. Medieval Hungarian architecture, painting, and sculpture were largely brought into being on the initiative of the Church, with the heavy involvement of monastic orders, such as the Benedictines and Cistercians. On the other hand, the monarchy also commissioned some magnificent architecture, landmarks of which have survived first of all in Esztergom, Székesfehérvár, and Buda.
Despite making overall progress, from time to time the medieval Hungarian state faced periods of serious decline, mostly as a result of the repeated destruction of previous achievements by hostile powers attackig Hungary from the east. In the middle of the thirteenth century, for example, the Mongol ( Tatar) tribes flooding the eastern parts of Europe - which in 1241 defeated the army of King Béla IV at the Battle of Muhi - laid Hungary waste, as a result of which the king himself had to flee. On his return he had to carry out virtually a 'Second Founding of the Home-land" (honalapítás). In the fifteenth century, however, a new and more dangerous enemy than ever before appeared at Hungary's borders: the Ottoman - Turkish Empire, with its great military might, was expanding rapidly at this time. This expansion was successfully curbed for a number of decades by the great Hungarian soldier Jáns Hunyadi, who in 1456 at Nándorfehérvár ( Belgrade) dealt an unprecedented defeat to a Turkish army. His victory, which ultimately saved Christian Europe from Turkish expansion for a longer period of time, made it possible for his son, Matthias, after his elevation to the Hungarian throne, to have to contend with only smaller-scale wars with the Turks, as a consequence of which he could concentrate his forces on building an empire in the West, and standing firm against the Ottoman Empire.
The Hungarian kingdom, firmly embedded in Western civilisation, rested on secure economic foundations: in the Middle Ages the country was a European centre of precious metal mining, and the revenues of the Hungarian king rivalled those of the English monarch. The foundations of the state were also secure and Hungary had a rich cultural life, as evidenced not only by the many magnificent creations of European level Hungarian level Hungarian Romanesque and Gothic architecture, painting, and sculpture, but also by the growth of mediaval Hungarian literature: the collection of codices written in Hungarian, which regrettably have been largely destroyed by wars over the centuries, constitute a 'virtual' library of great consequence. In the second half of the fifteenth century, during the glorious reign of King Matthias, the king's palaces in Buda and Visegrád emerged as influential centres of European Renaissance learning. The influence of the Italian Renaissance had reached Hungary a long time before the other countries of Central Europe. The gems of Matthias's library in Buda, the Corvinas, continue to be regarded as cherished examples of the Renaissance bookmaker's art.Hungary not only adopted the culture of Western Christianity, but also took on itself the defence of its values, at great self-sacrifice. This difficult struggle led, on several occasions, to defeat at the hands of enemies from the East. The most tragic development in the centuries-long history of the Turkish wars came in 1526, when the Turkish sultan won a vistory at the battle of Mohács, which was to prove disastrous for the Hungarian nation at the Battle. In 1541, the capital of the kingdom, Buda, was also taken by the Turks, leading to the division of the country into three parts: the Habsburg Dynasty took control of the western part, the centre of the country came under Turkish rule, while in the south-east, in Transylvania, an independent Hungarian principality emerged, marking the final outpost of national continuity. The Turkish occupation lasted for 150 years, and the state structure of the Hungarian kingdom was slowly restored only after the reoccupation of Buda in 1686. After a series of historic defeats, over long years, the Hungarian people managed to regain their vitality from Hungarian national culture, primarily literature. This vitality was also promoted by the Reformation of Luther and later Calvin, which led to the further development of learning in the Hungarian language - the same purpose was also served by the Catholic Counter Reformation, which also recognised the importance of national culture. The Protestant version of the complete Hungarian language Bible ( the Vizsolyi Bible), translated by Gáspár Károli, reformed preacher, was published in 1590. The Catholic version of the Bible, published in 1626 is related to György Káldi, Jesuit monk.
In the age of Turkish wars and the struggle for Reformation, the Hungarian creative spirit manifested itself in the works of Bálint Balassi, the outstanding figure of Hungarian Renaissance poetry; Péter Pázmány, university founder and excellent homilist, who spearheaded the Catholic Counter Reformation in Hungary; and Miklós Zrínyi, the successful military leader and author of the Baroque epic, The Peril of Sziget. During the Turkish Conquest, the Hansburg government viewed Hungary as a frontier zone of the Habsburg Empire, and therefore suppressed Hungarian attempts to gain independence from Austria. Independence was the principal policy of the Princes of Transylvania: István Bocskai, who waged war against the Habsburg monarchs, Gábor Bethlen, and, later, Ferenc Rákóczi II, who was chosen as their prince by the Hungarian estates.
Its dividedness and lack of independence prevented the fullscale development of the institutions of Western culture in Hungary. Unlike in previous centuries, Hun-gary had no royal court of its own, an institution which was a major driving force behind cultural development in all European countries. National culture found refuge at the court of the Transylvanian princes, and in the palaces of the high nobility, the courts of the bishops, church schools, monasteries and vicarages. The literary and national cause continued to be closely interwined: the learned Transylvanian encyclopeadist János Apáczai Csere launched a programme to promote schools teaching in the Hungarian language, and Transylvanian memoir writers gave a personal interpretation of historical events - for example, the memoirs of Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II give us an insight into the inner struggles of that monumental human being, while Kelemen Mikes, a reformer of Hungarian prose, enjoeyed the hospitality of the Prince's court and later accompanied his master into exile in Turkey.
When the Turkish wars and independence struggles died down, eighteenth-century Hungary enjoyed decades of relatively peaceful development. For this, great credit should be given to Queen Maria Theresa, whose tolerant policies and love of the people made her the first member of the Habsburg Dynasty to find her way into the hearts of Hungarians. The country was once again rebuilt from a state of devasta-tion: Hungary's skyline was for long time defined by the Baroque architectural ensembles built during this period. Palaces, cathedrals, libraries, and schools were built, and this was soon followed by the revival of literary culture. Young Hungarian guardsmen at the Viennese Court were the first to become acquainted with the ideas of the French and German Enlightenments, and they were to become the driving force behind the development of belles lettres and academic literature written in Hungarian. Altough Hungary was a kingdom with its own state admins-tration and self-government, as a part of the Habsburg Empire it did not have full independence.
The son of the highly popular Queen, Joseph II, sought to esatblish a centralised monarchy, and altough he introduced valuable reforms in the social and religious spheres, he brushed aside Hungarian endeavours to cultivate their own language and culture. His successor went on to cancel even the reforms started by Joseph II. Therefore, the republican movement, which was brought into being in Hungary under the influence of the French Enlightenment and the Revolution in Paris in 1789, sought to introduce very radical changes - without success - and it ended in the execution or imprisonment of its leaders. As a consequence, literary circles became the repository of national independence and social transformation, based on the ideas of Western European Enlightenment and liberalism. After being burdened with the heritage of 150 years of Turkish occupation, Hungarian culture once again returned to the current of Western cultural development. The same ideas were professed by Ferenc Kazinczy, once a prisoker, who saw his mission as reforming the Hungarian language into a modern language; Mihály Csokonai Vitéz, who died young and introduced the Rococo sentiment into Hungarian poetry; and Dániel Berzsenyi, whose classicist poetical forms were a reflection of the Romantic world view dominated by visions and philosophy.
The first half of the nineteenth century was a golden age in terms of both Hungarian history and Hungarian literature. The parliamentary sessions of those decades laid down the groundwork for social change: the emancipation of the serfs and the development of the civil socitey began; the Hungarian language was made the language of state administration; and Hungarian culture was able to catch up once again with the culture of Western nations. The work, which was done during the so-called 'Reform Age' to build up the country economically and politically, was spearheaded by Count István Széchenyi, a man of broad vision, and well educated in Western culture - he was also an excellent diarist -, whose thinking was strongly influenced by the British model. His selfless organising work led to the creation of the Hungarian Academy of Science, the construction of the Chain Bridge connecting Pest with Buda, the beginning of the construction of Hungary's railway network, and the regulation of the flow of the Danube and Tisza rivers. In the field of Hungarian literaure, writers in the style of National Romanticism recalled the country's heroic past, professed the ideal of freedom, and widened the Hungarian vision to include European horizons. The heroes of this age included Ferenc Köl-csey, poet, politician and author of the words of the Hungarian national anthem; József Katona, the father of Hungarian drama; Mihály Vörösmarty, the voice of the mythical poetry of classic European Romanticism; Miklós Jósika, the writer of popular historical novels; and József Eötvös who promoted the ideas of liberalism.
The longing for social and political reforms generated an interest in the culture and life of the peasantry, and poetry soon turned to the language and traditions of simple folklore for inspiration, and gave expression to their wishes ans aspirations. Sándor Petőfi and János Arany were the classical authors of this school of folk-inspired poetry, and even their personal biographies underline their poetic credo. Both played a role in the events of the revolution, which broke out on 15 March 1848 and was dedicated to bringing to Hungary the demands of the French Revolution of 1789 for liberty, equality and fraternity. The revolution aimed to accomplish the country's complete independence from the Austrian empire and to give its citizens equality under the law, in other words, to create a modern civil society in place of feudal estates.
This revolution was headed by Lajos Kossuth, outstanding political oartor and thinker of international reputation. A bloodless revolution was followed by a bloody war of independence: first the Viennese court incited some of Hungary's ethnic minorities against the Hungarian people, and then intervended militarily. Ultimately, however, it was able to crush the Hungarian people only in alliance with Tsarist Russia, the most autocratic state in contemporary Europe. Petőfi gave his life in this war of self-defence, and Arany's elegiac poetry portrays the painful memory of the crushed war of independence.
After this defeat it was once again the turn of national culture - primarily writers - to keep alive the Hungarian nation's will to live and to furnish ideals to a disillusioned nation: János Arany's epic poetry depicts some of the most glorious pages in Hungarian history; Mór Jókai's novels are really heroic epics of the love of freedom of the Hungarian people; Zsigmond Kemény's historical novels and political studies express the need for national self-knowledge and rational real-politik; while Imre Madách's drama The Tragedy of Man is a mythical vision of the history and future of the whole of humanity. National music played a similar role: Ferenc Erkel's operas and the music ( and personal role) of Ferenc Liszt also contributed to a stronger national identity.
The Hungarian people did not break under the yoke of oppression, and when in 1867 the joint efforts of the prudent reform politician Ferenc Deák, and of the Habsburg monarch, Francis Joseph I, who sought to make peace with the Hun-garian nation, and his wife, Queen Elisabeth, who felt a strong sympathy for the Hungarian people, culminated in the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, and the dual Austro-Hungarian Monarchy - with once centre in Vienna and one in Pest-Buda - another age of progress dawned in the turbulent history of the Hungarian people, leading to a gradual increase in the importance of Hungary within the Monarchy, until at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which was meant to regulate relations between Europe's leading powers, the Monarchy was represented by the former Hungarian revolutionary, Count Gyula Andrássy. Over the fifty years or so from the Compromise to the First World War, Hungary underwent a fundamental transformation: civil socitey grew stronger; industry and trade developed rapidly; the railway network increased in size; and the institutions of parliamentary constitutionality began to be put in place.At the same time Hungary also had to face a number of difficult problems. Nearly half of Hungary's population consisted of non-Hungarian ethnic minorities - Germans, Romanians, Slovakians, Serbs, and Ruthenians - nations which were calling for rights of autonomy, which the Hungarian government was unwilling to grant. At the same time, the country was in need of urgent social reforms: the system of large feudal estates ( latifundia) was still in existence, while large masses of poor peasantry, well organised industrial workers, and civic and intellectual social groups were growing in strength and calling for radical changes. However, conservative Hungarian governments consistently blocked all attempts at reform. The pessimistic poems of Gyula Reviczky and János Vajda, and the ironic novels of Kálmán Mikszáth provide a vivid account of this period, chracterised by both increasing wealth and conflicts.
The ideals of free development, compromise between nationalities, and democratic transformation had to be taken up once again by intellectuals. The circle of writers centred around the periodical Nyugat in the early twentieth century advocated national and cultural revival, a movement which gave fresh impetus to the traditionally Western orientation of Hungarian literature and gave birth to leading trends in the intellectual and artistic spheres at the turn of the century. The mythical poetry of Endre Ady, the work of Mihály Babits, dedicated to high moral ideals, Dezső Kosztolányi's European outlook, Árpád Tóth's cult of beauty, and Gyula Juhász's lyric poetry fraught with inner conflicts, all gave voice to a modernity which was both Hungarian and European at the same time, as were Zsigmond Móricz's realisticnovels and the dream world of Gyula Krúdy, whose approach to time was just as innovative as any of his prominent West European confreres.
Hungarian composers and artists also played their part in this spiritual revival, including Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, who introduced the traditions of Hungarian archaic and folk music into modern musical culture and József Rippl-Rónai, Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka and Lajos Gulácsy, who created original Hungarian works based on international ideals of Impressionism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau. This Hungarian school of painting formed an integral part of the history of European arts, and Budapest was the most imporant centre of Art Nouveau alongside Vienna.
The spiritual revival which took place in Hungary in the early twentieth century virtually marked the beginning of a new 'Reform Age'. Yet these reform plans were interrupted before they could come to fruition, by the outbreak of the First World War, in which the Hungarian people, along with other nations of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, fought and lost on the side of Imperial Germany. Losing this war prevented the modernisation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its trasformation into a federation. It also caused historical Hungary to fall apart. After the turbulence caused by the democratic changes in the autumn of 1918, which steered Hungary towards, the development of civil society - altough this was restricted mostly to Budapest - came the communist coup d'état of 1919, orchestrated by Béla Kun, and then the 'white' counterrevolution, led by Admiral Miklós Horthy.
The newly independent Hungary was thereafter reduced to only onethird of its former historical territory by the peace treaty signed at the Palace of Trianon, near Paris. In this way, Hungary lost over half of its former population, as every third ethnic Hungarian came under the administration of the government of another country, and thus became a minority. The Hungarian economy was badly hit by the damage caused in this way, and the political system introduced under the regency of Miklós Horthy did little to promote social modernisation. Even so, by the 1930s, some economic and cultural modernisation was unfolding, the latter being linked to the great Minister of Culture, Count Kunó Klebelsberg. However, the Hungarian political elite and the Hungarian people could not reconcile themselves to the injustices imposed by the Trianon Peace Treaty, and reacted with bitterness also to the oppression now suffered by the 3 million Hungarians who had become minorities. In place of social modernisation Hungarian politics was dominated by the grievances caused by Trianon and by territorial revisionism.
In an unfavourable historical setting it was once again the turn of literature to advance the ideals of social reform and European progress. The circle of the periodical Nyugat - Mihály Babits, Dezső Kosztolányi, Frigyes Karinthy, Milán Füst, Jenő Tersánszky-Józsi - and the new generation of writers coming up alongside them - Lőrincz Szabó, Sándor Márai, Sándor Weöres, Miklós Radnóti, and Transylvanian writers Károly Kós, Sándor Reményik, Lajos Áprily, Jenő Dzsida and Zoltán Jékely - raised their voices against the barbarism of the period and represented European humanism against both extreme rightist and extreme leftist movements. The outstanding figure of the Hungarian avantgarde, Lajos Kassák, passionately demanded change, while Sándor Sík, who acted in the spirit of Catholicism, defended the universal values of Christianity. The literary left - Attila József, Lajos Nagy, and Tibor Déry - souht a new harmony of humanity in a community-oriented social order. One of the most powerful intellectual schools of the period was populism, committed to the interests of the peasantry: Gyula Illyés, László Németh, János Kodolányi, István Sínka, and Áron Tamási ( working in Transylvania, now annexed to Romania) linked the ideals of agrarian democracy and national revival with the poetics of a modernised literary realism.
Hoping for redress in respect of the grievances incurred as a result of the Trianon Treaty, Hungary moved slowly towards an alliance with Germany and Italy, and with their assistance was indeed able to regain control over some of its lost territories: the Hungarian populated section of the Felvidék in 1938, Kárpátalja in 1939, Northern Transylvania and Székelyföld in 1940, and the Bácska in 1941. However, these developments inevitably tied Hungary to the Axis powers, and so in 1941 Hungary became a belligerent. In the winter of 1942-43 its army was mostly destroyed in the fighting along the Don River. Neither the self-sacrificing Count Pál Teleki, nor Miklós Kállay after him, who pursued a very clear-headed and tactical political course, could save the country from zhe baneful consequences of war.
Hungarian intellectuals took a very clear stance against the pro-war lobby, calling for 'spiritual resistance'. The cream of Hungarian literature also condemned Hungary's occupation by Nazi Germany in spring 1944, which led, among other things, to the deportation or murder of Hungarian Jews. Hungarian literature condemned the violence of war and, as soon as peace came, its writers and poets could once again play a leading role in serving the country's spiritual and moral revival. During a short-lived period of democracy - lasting no more than three years - literature flourished, and the older generation was joined by a number of talented young writers: alongside the successors of the Nyugat movement came the poets János Pilinszky and Ágnes Nemes Nagy, and the prose writers Magda Szabó, Géza Ottlik, while the populist camp was joined by László Nagy, Ferenc Juhász and István Kormos.
The communist dictatorship intorduced into Hungary with Soviet assistance not only crushed the Hungarian people's desire for independence, but also put a stop to the freedom of thought.Ten of thousands of intellectuals were imprisoned or sent to labour camps, and the tyrannous rule of Mátyás Rákosi almost completely destroyed the intellectual foundations of Hungarian society.
This dictatorship was swept away for a few days by the Hungarian revolution of 23 Octobers 1956, to which Hungarian writers made a great contribution. The uprising started with a mass demonstration of university students, and was transformed into a freedom fight as a result of the intervention of special armed police units and, later, Soviet troops. The temporary success of the revolution allowed Imre Nagy to be istalled at the head of the government. He was the leader of the reform wing of the communist party and haertily supported the demands of the revolution. The revolutionary government restored democratic pluralism, shut down the State Security Authorities, the organization in charge of national security, and quit the Warsaw Pact, membership of which had been forced on Hungary by the Soviet Union. The Hungarian revolution and its fight for freedom against foreign invasion was crushed by Soviet military forces. A new government under János Kádár was installed by the Soviets. This government pursued a similar course to the initial communist dictatorship.
After the defeat of the revolution, many fled Hungary, and the new political rulers condemned hundreds to execution, while nearly fifty writers were imprisoned. The intelligentsia took a long time to recover, but by the late 1960s independent thought had re-emerged, and the general meetings of the Society of Hungarian Writers provided a platform for social critique with an opposition edge.
Hungarian literature has always promoted the continuity of national existence:even during the decades of dictatorship, it promoted European cultural values, and it also played a leading role in the democratic transformation process which started in the late 1980s.
