HUNGARY
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(Redirected from Constitution of Hungary)
'Hungary' (; ; ), officially in English the 'Republic of Hungary' (''Magyar Köztårsasåg'' , literally ''Magyar (Hungarian) Republic''), is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary has been a member state of the European Union since May 1 2004.
Main articles: History of Hungary
In the time of the Roman Empire, the region west of the Danube river was known as Pannonia. After the Western Roman Empire collapsed under the stress of the migration of Germanic tribes and Carpian pressure, the Migration Period continued bringing many invaders to Europe. Among the first to arrive were the Huns, who built up a powerful empire under Attila. It is currently believed that the origin of the name "Hungary" does not come from the Central Asian nomadic invaders called the Huns, but rather originated from a later, seventh century Bulgar alliance called On-Ogour, which in Old Turkish meant "(the) Ten Arrows"[3][4].
After Hunnish rule faded, the Ostrogoths then the Lombards ruled in Pannonia, and the Gepids ruled in the eastern part of the Carpathian Basin for about 100 years, during which the Slavic tribes began migrating into the region. In the 560s, the Slavs were supplanted by the Avars, who maintained their supremacy of the land for more than two centuries. The Franks under Charlemagne from the west and the Bulgars from the southeast managed to overthrow the Avars in the early ninth century. However, the Franks soon retreated, and the Slavonic kingdom of Great Moravia and the Balaton Principality assumed control of much of Pannonia until the end of the century. The Magyars migrated to Hungary in the late ninth century.
Magyar tradition holds that the Country of the Magyars (''MagyarorszĂĄg'') was founded by ĂrpĂĄd, who led the Magyars into the Pannonian plain in approximately 896 AD, and - according to the legend - was a distant relative to Attila. The "Ten Arrows" mentioned above referred to ten tribes, the alliance of which was the foundation of the army of the invading Magyars. The century between the Magyars' arrival from the eastern European plains and the consolidation of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1001 was dominated by pillaging campaigns across Europe, from Dania (Denmark) to the Iberian peninsula (Spain).[5]
The Kingdom of Hungary was established in 1000 by King Saint Stephen. Originally named Vajk, Stephen was a direct descendant of ĂrpĂĄd, and was baptised as a child. He married Giselle of Bavaria, the daughter of Henry II, Duke of Bavaria in 996, and after the death of his father Prince GĂ©za in 997, he assumed the mantle of ruler and became the first Christian king of Hungary.
St. Stephen I received his crown and the double cross from Pope Silvester II in 1000. As a Christian king, he established the Hungarian Church with ten dioceses and the royal administration of the country that was divided into counties (comitatus or ''vĂĄrmegye''). Hungary became a patrimonial kingdom where the majority of the land was the private property of the ruler. In 1083, he was canonized along with his son, Imre of Hungary.
Initially, Hungarian history and politics developed in close association with that of Poland and Bohemia, driven by the interventions of various Popes and Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. Between 1241–1242, under King BĂ©la IV, Hungary was devastated, suffering great loss of life at the hands of the Mongol (Tatar) armies of Batu Khan who defeated the Hungarians at the Battle of Muhi. A devastating Mongol invasion killed half of Hungary's population.[6] Despite the victory, the Mongols did not occupy Hungary, but withdrew shortly after upon the news of the death of Ăgedei Khan, leaving behind a country in ruins. Following the Mongol invasion, King BĂ©la IV invited 40 to 60 thousand Cumans and a smaller group of Jazyges to settle in depopulated areas of the Great Hungarian Plain that would become KunsĂĄg and Jazygia. An area between Szolnok and Debrecen became Greater Cumania while an area between Kalocsa and Szeged became Little Cumania.
Gradually, under the rule of the dynasty of the ĂrpĂĄds and even before it (since the ninth century), Hungary joined the greater West European civilizations. Ruled by the Angevins since 1308, the Kingdom of Hungary slowly lost control over territories later called Wallachia (1330) and Moldavia (1359).
Jånos Hunyadi, the Regent of Hungary, fought offensive-defensive wars - with intermittent success - against the aggressive Ottoman Empire mostly outside Hungary. The custom of sounding the noon bell is closely related to an important battle won against the Ottomans that took place on June 29, 1456, at Nåndorfehérvår.
JĂĄnos's son, King Matthias Corvinus, ruled the Kingdom of Hungary from 1458 to 1490. He newly strengthened Hungary and its government: under his rule, Hungary became an important artistic and cultural centre of Europe during the Renaissance. Matthias, whose wife was Italian, imported artisans from Italy and France. Likewise, Hungarian culture influenced others--for example, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However successful in many battles against the Ottomans he only postponed the final conflict with the strengthened Ottoman Empire
The forthcoming two centuries were dominated by constant warfare against the Ottoman Empire this time inside the Hungarian ethnic heartland. The Ottomans gained a decisive victory over the Hungarian army at the battle of MohĂĄcs in 1526. The next decades were characterised by political chaos; the divided Hungarian nobility elected two kings simultaneously, Ferdinand Habsburg (1526-1540) and JĂĄnos Szapolyai (1526-1540), whose armed conflicts with one another weakened the country further. After the conquest of Buda by the Ottomans in 1541, the Kingdom of Hungary came to be divided into three parts: one third of Hungary fell under Ottoman rule; one third (in the West) remained under Habsburg rule (see Kings of Hungary); and the third part, in the east (originally supporting JĂĄnos Szapolyai), remained independent (the Principality of Transylvania) and subsequently become a semi-independent, vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. It was only more than 150 years later, at the end of the seventeenth century, that Austria and its Christian allies regained the territories of the Kingdom from the Ottoman Empire. Centuries of Ottoman occupation, rebellion, and war had reduced Hungary's population by half, and large parts of the country's southern half were almost deserted.[7]
After the final retreat of the Ottomans, struggle began between the Hungarian nation and the Habsburg kings for the protection of noblemen' rights (thus guarding the autonomy of Hungary). The fight against Austrian absolutism resulted in an unsuccessful revolt for popular freedom between 1703 and 1711, led by a Transylvanian nobleman, Ferenc II RĂĄkĂłczi. The revolution and war of 1848–1849 eliminated serfdom and secured civil rights. The Austrians were finally able to prevail, but only with Russian help.
Thanks to the victories against Austria by the French-Italian coalition (the Battle of Solferino, 1859) and Prussia (Battle of KöniggrÀtz, 1866), Hungary would eventually, in 1867, manage to become a theoretically equal half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (see Ausgleich). Having achieved this, the Hungarian government made an effort to nationally unify the kingdom by Magyarization of the various other nationalities. The defeat suffered in World War I led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.
In March 1919, the Communists took power in Hungary. In April, BĂ©la Kun proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. But Kun's government, like its immediate predecessor, proved to be short-lived. This was despite some initial military successes against the Czechoslovakian Army.
On 13 June1919, the Versailles Peace Conference ordered Hungary to evacuate the northern territories and Romania to leave TiszĂĄntĂșl. Hungary fulfilled its part of the order by 30 June 1919. But the Romanian army refused to leave TiszĂĄntĂșl.
The ensuing war between Hungary and Romania led to the defeat of the Hungarian Red Army. By August 1919, more than half of present-day Hungary, including Budapest, was occupied by Romania. The Romanian occupation lasted until November 1919 when the Romanian army departed.
Rightist Hungarian military forces, led by the former Austro-Hungarian Admiral MiklĂłs Horthy, entered Budapest in the wake of the Romanian army's departure and filled the vacuum of state power. In January 1920, elections were held for a unicameral assembly. Admiral Horthy was elected Regent, thereby formally restoring the monarchy to Hungary. However, there would be no more "Kings of Hungary" despite attempts by the former Habsburg ruler to return to his former seat of power. Horthy ruled as Regent until 16 October 1944. But, after 1932, autocratic tendencies gradually returned as a result of Nazi influence and the Great Depression.
On June 4, 1920, the Treaty of Trianon was signed, establishing Hungary's new borders. Hungary lost 71% of its territory and also 66% of its population. About one-third of the Magyar population became minorities in neighbouring countries. Hungary also lost its only sea port at Fiume (today Rijeka). As a result, Hungarian politics and culture of the interwar period was dominated by irredentism ( the restoration of historical Greater Hungary). Throughout this era the Hungarian Economy was severely unstable, becoming prosperous after the war, suffering greatly during and in the aftermath of the Great Depression, and stabilizing just before the start of World War II. The country moved closer to Germany and Italy in the 1930s in hopes of reversing some of the effects of the Treaty of Trianon. Some lost territories were returned to Hungary in the two Vienna Awards.
Main articles: Hungary during the Second World War
In 1941, Hungary participated in the invasion of Yugoslavia, gaining some territory but effectively joining the Axis powers in the process (showing his non-agreement, prime minister PĂĄl Teleki committed suicide). On 22 June 1941, while Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, Hungary declared war on 26 June, entering World War II. In late 1941, the Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front experienced success at the Battle of Uman. By 1943, after the Hungarian Second Army suffered extremely heavy losses at the river Don, the Hungarian government sought to negotiate a surrender with the Allies. On 19 March 1944, as a result of this duplicity, German troops quietly occupied Hungary in what was known as Operation Margarethe. But, by now it was clear that the Hungarians were Germany's "unwilling satellite". On 15 October 1944, Horthy made a weak effort to drive the country out of the war. This time the Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust and Horthy was replaced by a puppet government under the pro-German Prime Minister Ferenc SzĂĄlasi. SzĂĄlasi and his pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party remained loyal to the Germans until the end of the war. In late 1944, Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front again experienced success at the Battle of Debrecen. But this was followed immediately by the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Battle of Budapest. During the German occupation in May-June 1944, the Arrow Cross Party and Hungarian police deported nearly 440,000 Jews, mostly to Auschwitz.[8] Over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, as well as tens of thousands of Romani people. Hundreds of Hungarian people were also executed by the Arrow Cross Party for sheltering Jews. The war left Hungary devastated destroying over 60% of the economy and causing huge loss of life. On 13 February 1945, the Hungarian capital city surrendered unconditionally. On 8 May 1945, World War II in Europe officially ended.
Following the fall of Nazi Germany, Soviet troops occupied all of the country and through their influence Hungary gradually became a communist satellite state of the Soviet Union. After 1948, Communist leader MĂĄtyĂĄs RĂĄkosi established Stalinist rule in the country complete with forced collectivization and planned economy. The rule of the RĂĄkosi government was nearly unbearable for Hungary's war-torn citizens. This led to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Hungary's temporary withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets retaliated massively with military force, sending in over 150,000 troops and 2,500 tanks[9]. Nearly a quarter of a million people left the country during the brief time that the borders were open in 1956. From the 1960s through the late 1980s, Hungary was often satirically referred to as "the happiest barrack" within the Eastern bloc. This was under the autocratic rule of its controversial communist leader, JĂĄnos KĂĄdĂĄr. The last Soviet soldier left the country in 1991 thus ending Soviet military presence in Hungary. With the Soviet Union gone the transition to a market economy began.
In the late 1980s, Hungary led the movement to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and shifted toward multi-candidate democracy. This means that even though there were several candidates, the communist party, MSZMP, was not out for dispute. However, independent candidates were elected as protest against the party. At this time, there were increasing pressures for reform within the party. They also transitioned towards a market-oriented economy. On October 23 1989, Måtyås SzƱrös declared the Third Hungarian Republic and became interim President. Hungary's first free elections were held in 1990. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Hungary developed closer ties with Western Europe as well as with other Central European countries. It became a member of the Visegrad Group in 1991, joined NATO in 1999, and became a member of the European Union on May 1, 2004.
Main articles: Politics of Hungary
The President of the Republic, elected by the Parliament every five years, has a largely ceremonial role, choosing the dates of the parliamentary elections.
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 open hearings and must be formally approved by the President.
A unicameral, 386-member National Assembly (the ''OrszåggyƱlés'') is the highest organ of state authority and initiates and approves legislation sponsored by the Prime Minister. National Parliamentary elections are held every four years; the next are due to be held in 2010.
An 11-member Constitutional Court has power to challenge legislation on grounds of unconstitutionality.
Main articles: Counties of Hungary, Regions of Hungary, Subregions of Hungary
: ''See also List of historic counties of Hungary''
Administratively, Hungary is divided into 19 counties. In addition, the capital city (''fĆvĂĄros''), Budapest, is independent of any county government. The counties and the capital are the 20 NUTS third-level units of Hungary.
The counties are further subdivided into 167 subregions (''kistérségek''), and Budapest is comprised of its own subregion. Since 1996, the counties and City of Budapest have been grouped into 7 regions for statistical and development purposes. These seven regions constitute NUTS' second-level units of Hungary.
There are also 23 towns with county rights (singular ''megyei jogĂș vĂĄros''), sometimes known as "urban counties" in English (although there is no such term in Hungarian). The local authorities of these towns have extended powers, but these towns belong to the territory of the respective county instead of being independent territorial units.
★ Western Transdanubia
★ Southern Transdanubia
★ Central Transdanubia
★ Central Hungary
★ Northern Hungary
★ Northern Great Plain
★ Southern Great Plain
Main articles: Economy of Hungary
Hungary continues to demonstrate economic growth as one of the newest member countries of the European Union (since 2004). The private sector accounts for over 80% of GDP. Hungary gets nearly one third of all foreign direct investment flowing in to Central Europe. Foreign ownership of and investment in Hungarian firms are widespread, with cumulative foreign direct investment totalling more than US$23 billion since 1989. The Hungarian sovereign debt's credit rating is BBB+ as of July 2006, making Hungary the only other country in the EU apart from Poland not to enjoy an A grade score. Inflation and unemployment have been on the rise in the past few years, and they are expected to rise further. Foreign investors' trust in the Hungarian economy has declined, as they deem that the stringency measures planned in the second half of 2006 are not satisfactory, their focus being mainly on increasing the income side rather than curbing government spendings. Economic reform measures such as health care reform, tax reform, and local government financing are being addressed by the present government.
The Hungarian government has expressed a desire to adopt the euro currency between 2010 and 2014[10]. However, foreign analysts widely criticised that date (2010) as highly unrealistic given the current shape of the economy in relation to the Maastricht criteria; their assessments suggest that a date of 2013-2014 for Euro adoption is more realistic.
Main articles: Geography of Hungary
Approximately slightly more than one half of Hungary's landscape consists of flat to rolling plains of the Carpathian Basin: the most important plain regions include the Little Hungarian Plain in the west, and the Great Hungarian Plain in the southeast. The highest elevation above sea level on the latter is only 183 metres.
Transdanubia is a primarily hilly region with a terrain varied by low mountains. These include the very eastern stretch of the Alps, Alpokalja, in the west of the country, the Transdanubian Medium Mountains, in the central region of Transdanubia, and the Mecsek Mountains and VillĂĄny Mountains in the south. The highest point of the area is the Ărott-kĆ in the Alps, at 882 metres.
The highest mountains of the country are located in the Carpathians: these lie in the northern parts, in a wide band along the Slovakian border (highest point: the KĂ©kes at 1,014 m (3327 ft)).
Hungary is divided in two by its main waterway, the Danube (Duna); other large rivers include the Tisza and DrĂĄva, while Transdanubia contains Lake Balaton, a major body of water. The largest thermal lake in the world, Lake HĂ©vĂz (HĂ©vĂz Spa), is located in Hungary. The second largest lake in the Carpathian Basin is the artificial Lake Tisza (''Tisza-tĂł'').
Hungary has a continental climate, with cold, cloudy, humid winters and warm to hot summers. Average annual temperature is 9.7 °C (49.5 °F). Temperature extremes are about 42 °C (110 °F) in the summer and â29 °C (â20 °F) in the winter. Average temperature in the summer is 27 to 35 °C (81 to 95 °F), and in the winter it is 0 to â15 °C (32 to 5 °F). The average yearly rainfall is approximately 600 millimetres (24 in). A small, southern region of the country near PĂ©cs enjoys a reputation for a Mediterranean climate, but in reality it is only slightly warmer than the rest of the country and still receives snow during the winter.
Main articles: Demographics of Hungary
For 95% of the population, mostly Hungarians, the mother tongue is Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language unrelated to any neighbouring language and distantly related to Finnish and Estonian. Several ethnic minorities exist: Roma (2.1%), Germans (1.2%), Slovaks (0.4%), Croats (0.2%), Romanians (0.1%), Ukrainians (0.1%), and Serbs (0.1%).[11]
Main articles: Romani people
The real number of Roma people, known colloquially as "Gypsies", in Hungary is a disputed question. In the 2001 census, only 190,000 people called themselves Roma, but experts and Roma organisations estimate that there are between 450,000 and 600,000 Roma living in Hungary.[12] Since World War II, the size of the Roma population has increased rapidly. Today every fifth or sixth newborn Hungarian child belongs to the Roma minority. Estimates based on current demographic trends claim that in 2050 15-20 percent of the population (1.2 million people) will be Roma.[13]
Romas (called ''cigĂĄnyok'' or ''romĂĄk'' in Hungarian) suffer particular problems in Hungary. Rampant poverty and a subsequent lack of education are the main origin of the bad position of the Romas. Racial prejudice compounds the issue, and further makes the schooling and integration of Roma children into civil society an increasingly uphill struggle. As a result, school segregation is especially acute, with many Roma children sent to classes for pupils with learning disabilities. Currently slightly more than 80% of Roma children complete primary education, but only one third continue studies into the intermediate (secondary) level. This is far lower than the more than 90% proportion of children of non-Roma families who continue studies at an intermediate level. The situation is made still worse by the fact that a large proportion of young Roma are qualified in subjects that provide them only limited chances for employment. Less than 1% of Roma hold higher educational certificates. Their low status on the job market and higher unemployment rates cause poverty, widespread social problems and crime.[14]
For historical reasons (see Treaty of Trianon), significant Hungarian minority populations can be found in the surrounding countries, notably in Romania (in Transylvania), Slovakia, Serbia (in Vojvodina), Ukraine (in Transcarpathia), Croatia (mainly Slavonia) and Austria (in Burgenland); Slovenia is also host to a number of ethnic Magyars, where Hungarian language has an official status.
The majority of Hungarian people became Christian in the 10th century. Hungary's first king, Saint Stephen, took up Western Christianity, although his mother, ''Sarolt'', was baptized in the eastern rite. Hungary remained predominantly Catholic until the 16th century, when the Reformation took place and, as a result, first Lutheranism, then soon afterwards Calvinism became the religion of almost the entire population. In the second half of the 16th century, however, Jesuits led a successful campaign of counterreformation among the Hungarians. Jesuits founded educational institutions, including the oldest university that still exists in Hungary (Péter Påzmåny), but they organized so-called ''missions'' too in order to promote popular piety. By the 17th century, once again, Hungary became predominantly Catholic. The eastern parts of the country, however, especially around Debrecen ("the Calvinist Vatican") and Transylvania (except the majority of the Székelys), remained predominantly Protestant.
Orthodox Christianity in Hungary has been the religion mainly of some national minorities in the country, notably, Romanians, Rusyns and Ukrainians, Serbs.
Hungary has been the home of a sizable Armenian community as well. They still worship according to the Armenian liturgical rite, but they have reunited with the Church of Rome (Armenian Catholics) under the primacy of the Pope. According to the same pattern, a significant number of Byzantine Rite Christians became re-united with the rest of the Catholic world (Greek Catholics).
Hungary has been the home of a significant number of Jews since the Early Middle Ages, in fact, the largest synagogue in Europe is in Budapest. However, even Hungarian Jews did not escape the Holocaust during World War II, and hundreds of thousands of them were either deported to concentration camps or simply executed.
According to the last official census (2001), about three quarters of the citizens of Hungary (74.6%) claimed to belong to a particular religious denomination.[15] Most of the Hungarians professed to be Catholics (54.5%), whereas among the numerous Protestant confessions Calvinism (15.9%) and Lutheranism (3%) are the most populous. It is remarkable, however, the number of those who did not wish to give a straight answer regarding religious affiliation (10.1%). This phenomenon goes back probably to the turbulent religious history of the country, when citizens were persecuted on basis of their religious background, notably, the substantial Jewish community during World War II., and also the faithful Christians during communism.
The number of non-religious people in Hungary is 14.5%, which corresponds, approximately, to the proportion of non-religious people in other European countries. This does not mean, however, that the rest of the population consists of frequent churchgoers. Frequent religious attendance, that is to say, going to the church at least once a week, is about 12% in Hungary, which is, again, very much the European average.
Main articles: Culture of Hungary
The music of Hungary consists mainly of traditional Hungarian folk music and music by prominent composers such as Franz Liszt, Béla Bartók and Zoltån Kodåly. Hungarian traditional music tends to have a strong dactylic rhythm, as the language is invariably stressed on the first syllable of each word. Hungary also has a number of internationally renowned composers of contemporary classical music, György Ligeti, György Kurtåg, Péter Eötvös and Zoltån Jeney among them.
Hungarian cuisine is also a prominent feature of Hungarian culture, with traditional dishes such as goulash (''gulyås'' or ''gulyåsleves'') a main feature of the Hungarian diet. Dishes are often flavoured with paprika. Stews are often to be found with typical elements such as pork or beef, for example as used in pörkölt.There are also many desserts that are usually flavoured with fruit and pastry based(rétes).Food is a big part of the Hungarian culture and it is viewed often as rude to not accept it when offered.
Hungary is famous for its excellent mathematics education which has trained numerous outstanding scientists. Famous Hungarian mathematicians include Paul ErdĆs, famed for publishing in over forty languages and whose ErdĆs numbers are still tracked; JĂĄnos (John) Bolyai, designer of non-Euclidean (or "absolute") geometry in 1831;[16]
and John von Neumann, a pioneer of digital computing. Many Hungarian Jewish scientists, including ErdĆs, von Neumann, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner, fled rising anti-Semitism in Europe and made their most famous contributions in the United States.
Hungarians are very proud of their inventions. These include the noiseless match (JĂĄnos Irinyi), Rubik's cube (ErnĆ Rubik), and the krypton electric bulb (Imre BrĂłdy). A number of other important inventions, including holography (Dennis Gabor), the ballpoint pen (LĂĄszlĂł BĂrĂł), the theory of the hydrogen bomb (Edward Teller), and the BASIC programming language (John Kemeny, with Thomas E. Kurtz), were invented by Hungarians who fled the country prior to World War II.
Hungarian physicist as ZoltĂĄn Bay, he was the first person to observe radar echoes from the Moon, and one of his most important achievement the development of the electron multiplier, which he had started in Hungary in 1938.
Hungarian literature has recently gained some renown outside the borders of Hungary (mostly through translations into German, French and English). Some modern Hungarian authors became increasingly popular in Germany and Italy especially Såndor Mårai, Péter Esterhåzy, Péter Nådas and Imre Kertész. The latter is a contemporary Jewish writer who survived the Holocaust and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002.
The older classics of Hungarian literature and Hungarian poetry remained almost totally unknown outside Hungary. JĂĄnos Arany, a famous nineteenth century Hungarian poet is still much loved in Hungary (especially his collection of Ballads), among several other "true classics" like SĂĄndor PetĆfi, the poet of the Revolution of 1848, Endre Ady, MihĂĄly Babits, DezsĆ KosztolĂĄnyi, Attila JĂłzsef and JĂĄnos Pilinszky. Other well-known Hungarian authors are Zsigmond MĂłricz, Gyula IllyĂ©s, Albert Wass, and Magda SzabĂł.
One of the most famous Hungarians is the footballer Ferenc PuskĂĄs (1927 â 2006). He scored 84 goals in 85 internationals for Hungary, and 511 goals in 533 matches in the Hungarian and Spanish leagues. PuskĂĄs played the 1954 World Cup final against West Germany. In 1958, after the Hungarian Revolution, he emigrated to Spain where he played in the legendary Real Madrid team that also included Alfredo Di StĂ©fano, and Francisco Gento.
Hungarians are also known for their prowess at water sports, mainly swimming, water polo and canoeing; this can be said to be surprising at first, due to Hungary being landlocked. On the other hand, the presence of two major rivers (the Duna and the Tisza) and a major lake (Balaton) give excellent opportunities to practice these sports. Some of the world's best sabre fencing athletes have historically hailed from Hungary.
★ List of cities in Hungary
★ List of Hungarians
★ List of Hungarian rulers
★ List of Hungarian writers
★ List of colleges in Hungary
★ List of universities in Hungary
★ Common Hungarian surnames
★ Eastern name order used in Hungarian personal names
1. Hungarian Central Statistical Office Retrieved 2007-05-23
2. IMF report retrieved 2007-06-18
3. OSZK.
4. Hungary, EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica.
5. The Magyars
(650-997 AD)
6. Welcome to EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica's Guide to History
7. Hungarian Studies Review, 2000
8. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Holocaust Encyclopedia
9. Findley, Carter V., and John Rothney. Twentieth Century World. sixth ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 278.
10. "GyurcsĂĄny modifies date", VilĂĄggazdasĂĄg
11. [1]
12. [2]
13. See, for instance, Romani World, where a high estimate of 19.62% is given for 2050.
14. See an abstract of Poverty and Ethnicity: A Cross-Country Study of Roma Poverty in Central Europe. by the World Bank for an overview.
15. [3]
16. ''The Contribution of Hungarians to Universal Culture'' (includes inventors), Embassy of the Republic of Hungary, Damascus, Syria, 2006.
★ Official site of the National Assembly
★ Official site of the President of Hungary
★ Official site of the Prime Minister of Hungary
★ History of Hungary: Primary Documents
★ History of Hungary – The Corvinus Library
★ In The Land of Hagar - The Jews of Hungary – A Virtual Exhibition
★ Budapest Photos
★ Aerial photography: Hungary
★ Artistic photos of Hungary
★ Translation of Hungarian literary works - a database
★ 1100 photos about the Hungarian countryside - along the long distance path "Countrywide Blue Tour"
★
★ An online gallery of photographs - Szeged, KĆszeg, ...
'Hungary' (; ; ), officially in English the 'Republic of Hungary' (''Magyar Köztårsasåg'' , literally ''Magyar (Hungarian) Republic''), is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary has been a member state of the European Union since May 1 2004.
History
The arrival of the Magyars in the Carpathian Basin.
Tarsoly-plate, the ancient treasures of the Hungarians.
Main articles: History of Hungary
In the time of the Roman Empire, the region west of the Danube river was known as Pannonia. After the Western Roman Empire collapsed under the stress of the migration of Germanic tribes and Carpian pressure, the Migration Period continued bringing many invaders to Europe. Among the first to arrive were the Huns, who built up a powerful empire under Attila. It is currently believed that the origin of the name "Hungary" does not come from the Central Asian nomadic invaders called the Huns, but rather originated from a later, seventh century Bulgar alliance called On-Ogour, which in Old Turkish meant "(the) Ten Arrows"[3][4].
After Hunnish rule faded, the Ostrogoths then the Lombards ruled in Pannonia, and the Gepids ruled in the eastern part of the Carpathian Basin for about 100 years, during which the Slavic tribes began migrating into the region. In the 560s, the Slavs were supplanted by the Avars, who maintained their supremacy of the land for more than two centuries. The Franks under Charlemagne from the west and the Bulgars from the southeast managed to overthrow the Avars in the early ninth century. However, the Franks soon retreated, and the Slavonic kingdom of Great Moravia and the Balaton Principality assumed control of much of Pannonia until the end of the century. The Magyars migrated to Hungary in the late ninth century.
Medieval Hungary (896 – 1526)
Magyar tradition holds that the Country of the Magyars (''MagyarorszĂĄg'') was founded by ĂrpĂĄd, who led the Magyars into the Pannonian plain in approximately 896 AD, and - according to the legend - was a distant relative to Attila. The "Ten Arrows" mentioned above referred to ten tribes, the alliance of which was the foundation of the army of the invading Magyars. The century between the Magyars' arrival from the eastern European plains and the consolidation of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1001 was dominated by pillaging campaigns across Europe, from Dania (Denmark) to the Iberian peninsula (Spain).[5]
The Kingdom of Hungary was established in 1000 by King Saint Stephen. Originally named Vajk, Stephen was a direct descendant of ĂrpĂĄd, and was baptised as a child. He married Giselle of Bavaria, the daughter of Henry II, Duke of Bavaria in 996, and after the death of his father Prince GĂ©za in 997, he assumed the mantle of ruler and became the first Christian king of Hungary.
The Hungarian Holy Crown of Saint Stephen.
Hungary in the 14th century
St. Stephen I received his crown and the double cross from Pope Silvester II in 1000. As a Christian king, he established the Hungarian Church with ten dioceses and the royal administration of the country that was divided into counties (comitatus or ''vĂĄrmegye''). Hungary became a patrimonial kingdom where the majority of the land was the private property of the ruler. In 1083, he was canonized along with his son, Imre of Hungary.
Initially, Hungarian history and politics developed in close association with that of Poland and Bohemia, driven by the interventions of various Popes and Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. Between 1241–1242, under King BĂ©la IV, Hungary was devastated, suffering great loss of life at the hands of the Mongol (Tatar) armies of Batu Khan who defeated the Hungarians at the Battle of Muhi. A devastating Mongol invasion killed half of Hungary's population.[6] Despite the victory, the Mongols did not occupy Hungary, but withdrew shortly after upon the news of the death of Ăgedei Khan, leaving behind a country in ruins. Following the Mongol invasion, King BĂ©la IV invited 40 to 60 thousand Cumans and a smaller group of Jazyges to settle in depopulated areas of the Great Hungarian Plain that would become KunsĂĄg and Jazygia. An area between Szolnok and Debrecen became Greater Cumania while an area between Kalocsa and Szeged became Little Cumania.
Gradually, under the rule of the dynasty of the ĂrpĂĄds and even before it (since the ninth century), Hungary joined the greater West European civilizations. Ruled by the Angevins since 1308, the Kingdom of Hungary slowly lost control over territories later called Wallachia (1330) and Moldavia (1359).
Jånos Hunyadi, the Regent of Hungary, fought offensive-defensive wars - with intermittent success - against the aggressive Ottoman Empire mostly outside Hungary. The custom of sounding the noon bell is closely related to an important battle won against the Ottomans that took place on June 29, 1456, at Nåndorfehérvår.
JĂĄnos's son, King Matthias Corvinus, ruled the Kingdom of Hungary from 1458 to 1490. He newly strengthened Hungary and its government: under his rule, Hungary became an important artistic and cultural centre of Europe during the Renaissance. Matthias, whose wife was Italian, imported artisans from Italy and France. Likewise, Hungarian culture influenced others--for example, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However successful in many battles against the Ottomans he only postponed the final conflict with the strengthened Ottoman Empire
Ottoman occupation 1526-1686
The forthcoming two centuries were dominated by constant warfare against the Ottoman Empire this time inside the Hungarian ethnic heartland. The Ottomans gained a decisive victory over the Hungarian army at the battle of MohĂĄcs in 1526. The next decades were characterised by political chaos; the divided Hungarian nobility elected two kings simultaneously, Ferdinand Habsburg (1526-1540) and JĂĄnos Szapolyai (1526-1540), whose armed conflicts with one another weakened the country further. After the conquest of Buda by the Ottomans in 1541, the Kingdom of Hungary came to be divided into three parts: one third of Hungary fell under Ottoman rule; one third (in the West) remained under Habsburg rule (see Kings of Hungary); and the third part, in the east (originally supporting JĂĄnos Szapolyai), remained independent (the Principality of Transylvania) and subsequently become a semi-independent, vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. It was only more than 150 years later, at the end of the seventeenth century, that Austria and its Christian allies regained the territories of the Kingdom from the Ottoman Empire. Centuries of Ottoman occupation, rebellion, and war had reduced Hungary's population by half, and large parts of the country's southern half were almost deserted.[7]
Habsburgs and the Austro-Hungarian empire 1686-1918
Ferenc II RĂĄkĂłczi, painted by ĂdĂĄm MĂĄnyoki.
After the final retreat of the Ottomans, struggle began between the Hungarian nation and the Habsburg kings for the protection of noblemen' rights (thus guarding the autonomy of Hungary). The fight against Austrian absolutism resulted in an unsuccessful revolt for popular freedom between 1703 and 1711, led by a Transylvanian nobleman, Ferenc II RĂĄkĂłczi. The revolution and war of 1848–1849 eliminated serfdom and secured civil rights. The Austrians were finally able to prevail, but only with Russian help.
Map of the counties in the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen (the Kingdom of Hungary proper and Croatia-Slavonia), 1886-1918
Thanks to the victories against Austria by the French-Italian coalition (the Battle of Solferino, 1859) and Prussia (Battle of KöniggrÀtz, 1866), Hungary would eventually, in 1867, manage to become a theoretically equal half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (see Ausgleich). Having achieved this, the Hungarian government made an effort to nationally unify the kingdom by Magyarization of the various other nationalities. The defeat suffered in World War I led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.
Interwar 1918-1941
In March 1919, the Communists took power in Hungary. In April, BĂ©la Kun proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. But Kun's government, like its immediate predecessor, proved to be short-lived. This was despite some initial military successes against the Czechoslovakian Army.
On 13 June1919, the Versailles Peace Conference ordered Hungary to evacuate the northern territories and Romania to leave TiszĂĄntĂșl. Hungary fulfilled its part of the order by 30 June 1919. But the Romanian army refused to leave TiszĂĄntĂșl.
The ensuing war between Hungary and Romania led to the defeat of the Hungarian Red Army. By August 1919, more than half of present-day Hungary, including Budapest, was occupied by Romania. The Romanian occupation lasted until November 1919 when the Romanian army departed.
Difference between the borders of the Kingdom of Hungary within Austria-Hungary and independent Hungary after the Treaty of Trianon.
Rightist Hungarian military forces, led by the former Austro-Hungarian Admiral MiklĂłs Horthy, entered Budapest in the wake of the Romanian army's departure and filled the vacuum of state power. In January 1920, elections were held for a unicameral assembly. Admiral Horthy was elected Regent, thereby formally restoring the monarchy to Hungary. However, there would be no more "Kings of Hungary" despite attempts by the former Habsburg ruler to return to his former seat of power. Horthy ruled as Regent until 16 October 1944. But, after 1932, autocratic tendencies gradually returned as a result of Nazi influence and the Great Depression.
On June 4, 1920, the Treaty of Trianon was signed, establishing Hungary's new borders. Hungary lost 71% of its territory and also 66% of its population. About one-third of the Magyar population became minorities in neighbouring countries. Hungary also lost its only sea port at Fiume (today Rijeka). As a result, Hungarian politics and culture of the interwar period was dominated by irredentism ( the restoration of historical Greater Hungary). Throughout this era the Hungarian Economy was severely unstable, becoming prosperous after the war, suffering greatly during and in the aftermath of the Great Depression, and stabilizing just before the start of World War II. The country moved closer to Germany and Italy in the 1930s in hopes of reversing some of the effects of the Treaty of Trianon. Some lost territories were returned to Hungary in the two Vienna Awards.
Hungary in World War II 1941-1945
Main articles: Hungary during the Second World War
In 1941, Hungary participated in the invasion of Yugoslavia, gaining some territory but effectively joining the Axis powers in the process (showing his non-agreement, prime minister PĂĄl Teleki committed suicide). On 22 June 1941, while Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, Hungary declared war on 26 June, entering World War II. In late 1941, the Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front experienced success at the Battle of Uman. By 1943, after the Hungarian Second Army suffered extremely heavy losses at the river Don, the Hungarian government sought to negotiate a surrender with the Allies. On 19 March 1944, as a result of this duplicity, German troops quietly occupied Hungary in what was known as Operation Margarethe. But, by now it was clear that the Hungarians were Germany's "unwilling satellite". On 15 October 1944, Horthy made a weak effort to drive the country out of the war. This time the Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust and Horthy was replaced by a puppet government under the pro-German Prime Minister Ferenc SzĂĄlasi. SzĂĄlasi and his pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party remained loyal to the Germans until the end of the war. In late 1944, Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front again experienced success at the Battle of Debrecen. But this was followed immediately by the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Battle of Budapest. During the German occupation in May-June 1944, the Arrow Cross Party and Hungarian police deported nearly 440,000 Jews, mostly to Auschwitz.[8] Over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, as well as tens of thousands of Romani people. Hundreds of Hungarian people were also executed by the Arrow Cross Party for sheltering Jews. The war left Hungary devastated destroying over 60% of the economy and causing huge loss of life. On 13 February 1945, the Hungarian capital city surrendered unconditionally. On 8 May 1945, World War II in Europe officially ended.
Soviet era 1945-1989
Following the fall of Nazi Germany, Soviet troops occupied all of the country and through their influence Hungary gradually became a communist satellite state of the Soviet Union. After 1948, Communist leader MĂĄtyĂĄs RĂĄkosi established Stalinist rule in the country complete with forced collectivization and planned economy. The rule of the RĂĄkosi government was nearly unbearable for Hungary's war-torn citizens. This led to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Hungary's temporary withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets retaliated massively with military force, sending in over 150,000 troops and 2,500 tanks[9]. Nearly a quarter of a million people left the country during the brief time that the borders were open in 1956. From the 1960s through the late 1980s, Hungary was often satirically referred to as "the happiest barrack" within the Eastern bloc. This was under the autocratic rule of its controversial communist leader, JĂĄnos KĂĄdĂĄr. The last Soviet soldier left the country in 1991 thus ending Soviet military presence in Hungary. With the Soviet Union gone the transition to a market economy began.
Hungarian Republic 1989-present
In the late 1980s, Hungary led the movement to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and shifted toward multi-candidate democracy. This means that even though there were several candidates, the communist party, MSZMP, was not out for dispute. However, independent candidates were elected as protest against the party. At this time, there were increasing pressures for reform within the party. They also transitioned towards a market-oriented economy. On October 23 1989, Måtyås SzƱrös declared the Third Hungarian Republic and became interim President. Hungary's first free elections were held in 1990. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Hungary developed closer ties with Western Europe as well as with other Central European countries. It became a member of the Visegrad Group in 1991, joined NATO in 1999, and became a member of the European Union on May 1, 2004.
Politics
The Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest.
Main articles: Politics of Hungary
The President of the Republic, elected by the Parliament every five years, has a largely ceremonial role, choosing the dates of the parliamentary elections.
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 open hearings and must be formally approved by the President.
A unicameral, 386-member National Assembly (the ''OrszåggyƱlés'') is the highest organ of state authority and initiates and approves legislation sponsored by the Prime Minister. National Parliamentary elections are held every four years; the next are due to be held in 2010.
An 11-member Constitutional Court has power to challenge legislation on grounds of unconstitutionality.
Regions, counties, and subregions
Counties of Hungary
Main articles: Counties of Hungary, Regions of Hungary, Subregions of Hungary
: ''See also List of historic counties of Hungary''
Administratively, Hungary is divided into 19 counties. In addition, the capital city (''fĆvĂĄros''), Budapest, is independent of any county government. The counties and the capital are the 20 NUTS third-level units of Hungary.
The counties are further subdivided into 167 subregions (''kistérségek''), and Budapest is comprised of its own subregion. Since 1996, the counties and City of Budapest have been grouped into 7 regions for statistical and development purposes. These seven regions constitute NUTS' second-level units of Hungary.
There are also 23 towns with county rights (singular ''megyei jogĂș vĂĄros''), sometimes known as "urban counties" in English (although there is no such term in Hungarian). The local authorities of these towns have extended powers, but these towns belong to the territory of the respective county instead of being independent territorial units.
| Counties (County Capital) | |
|---|---|
★ BĂĄcs-Kiskun (KecskemĂ©t) ★ Baranya (PĂ©cs) ★ BĂ©kĂ©s (BĂ©kĂ©scsaba) ★ Borsod-AbaĂșj-ZemplĂ©n (Miskolc) ★ CsongrĂĄd (Szeged) ★ FejĂ©r (SzĂ©kesfehĂ©rvĂĄr) ★ GyĆr-Moson-Sopron (GyĆr) ★ HajdĂș-Bihar (Debrecen) ★ Heves (Eger) ★ JĂĄsz-Nagykun-Szolnok (Szolnok) ★ KomĂĄrom-Esztergom (TatabĂĄnya) ★ NĂłgrĂĄd (SalgĂłtarjĂĄn) ★ Pest (Budapest) ★ Somogy (KaposvĂĄr) ★ Szabolcs-SzatmĂĄr-Bereg (NyĂregyhĂĄza) ★ Tolna (SzekszĂĄrd) ★ Vas (Szombathely) ★ VeszprĂ©m (VeszprĂ©m) ★ Zala (Zalaegerszeg) ★ Budapest, capital city |
| Regions |
|---|
★ Western Transdanubia
★ Southern Transdanubia
★ Central Transdanubia
★ Central Hungary
★ Northern Hungary
★ Northern Great Plain
★ Southern Great Plain
Economy
Planned general government net lending 2005-2010.
Hungarian Forint (obverse)
Main articles: Economy of Hungary
Hungary continues to demonstrate economic growth as one of the newest member countries of the European Union (since 2004). The private sector accounts for over 80% of GDP. Hungary gets nearly one third of all foreign direct investment flowing in to Central Europe. Foreign ownership of and investment in Hungarian firms are widespread, with cumulative foreign direct investment totalling more than US$23 billion since 1989. The Hungarian sovereign debt's credit rating is BBB+ as of July 2006, making Hungary the only other country in the EU apart from Poland not to enjoy an A grade score. Inflation and unemployment have been on the rise in the past few years, and they are expected to rise further. Foreign investors' trust in the Hungarian economy has declined, as they deem that the stringency measures planned in the second half of 2006 are not satisfactory, their focus being mainly on increasing the income side rather than curbing government spendings. Economic reform measures such as health care reform, tax reform, and local government financing are being addressed by the present government.
The Hungarian government has expressed a desire to adopt the euro currency between 2010 and 2014[10]. However, foreign analysts widely criticised that date (2010) as highly unrealistic given the current shape of the economy in relation to the Maastricht criteria; their assessments suggest that a date of 2013-2014 for Euro adoption is more realistic.
Geography
Main articles: Geography of Hungary
Topographic map of Hungary
Landscape
Approximately slightly more than one half of Hungary's landscape consists of flat to rolling plains of the Carpathian Basin: the most important plain regions include the Little Hungarian Plain in the west, and the Great Hungarian Plain in the southeast. The highest elevation above sea level on the latter is only 183 metres.
Transdanubia is a primarily hilly region with a terrain varied by low mountains. These include the very eastern stretch of the Alps, Alpokalja, in the west of the country, the Transdanubian Medium Mountains, in the central region of Transdanubia, and the Mecsek Mountains and VillĂĄny Mountains in the south. The highest point of the area is the Ărott-kĆ in the Alps, at 882 metres.
The highest mountains of the country are located in the Carpathians: these lie in the northern parts, in a wide band along the Slovakian border (highest point: the KĂ©kes at 1,014 m (3327 ft)).
Hungary is divided in two by its main waterway, the Danube (Duna); other large rivers include the Tisza and DrĂĄva, while Transdanubia contains Lake Balaton, a major body of water. The largest thermal lake in the world, Lake HĂ©vĂz (HĂ©vĂz Spa), is located in Hungary. The second largest lake in the Carpathian Basin is the artificial Lake Tisza (''Tisza-tĂł'').
Climate
Hungary has a continental climate, with cold, cloudy, humid winters and warm to hot summers. Average annual temperature is 9.7 °C (49.5 °F). Temperature extremes are about 42 °C (110 °F) in the summer and â29 °C (â20 °F) in the winter. Average temperature in the summer is 27 to 35 °C (81 to 95 °F), and in the winter it is 0 to â15 °C (32 to 5 °F). The average yearly rainfall is approximately 600 millimetres (24 in). A small, southern region of the country near PĂ©cs enjoys a reputation for a Mediterranean climate, but in reality it is only slightly warmer than the rest of the country and still receives snow during the winter.
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Hungary
Hungary's population by ethnicity
For 95% of the population, mostly Hungarians, the mother tongue is Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language unrelated to any neighbouring language and distantly related to Finnish and Estonian. Several ethnic minorities exist: Roma (2.1%), Germans (1.2%), Slovaks (0.4%), Croats (0.2%), Romanians (0.1%), Ukrainians (0.1%), and Serbs (0.1%).[11]
The Roma minority
Main articles: Romani people
The real number of Roma people, known colloquially as "Gypsies", in Hungary is a disputed question. In the 2001 census, only 190,000 people called themselves Roma, but experts and Roma organisations estimate that there are between 450,000 and 600,000 Roma living in Hungary.[12] Since World War II, the size of the Roma population has increased rapidly. Today every fifth or sixth newborn Hungarian child belongs to the Roma minority. Estimates based on current demographic trends claim that in 2050 15-20 percent of the population (1.2 million people) will be Roma.[13]
Romas (called ''cigĂĄnyok'' or ''romĂĄk'' in Hungarian) suffer particular problems in Hungary. Rampant poverty and a subsequent lack of education are the main origin of the bad position of the Romas. Racial prejudice compounds the issue, and further makes the schooling and integration of Roma children into civil society an increasingly uphill struggle. As a result, school segregation is especially acute, with many Roma children sent to classes for pupils with learning disabilities. Currently slightly more than 80% of Roma children complete primary education, but only one third continue studies into the intermediate (secondary) level. This is far lower than the more than 90% proportion of children of non-Roma families who continue studies at an intermediate level. The situation is made still worse by the fact that a large proportion of young Roma are qualified in subjects that provide them only limited chances for employment. Less than 1% of Roma hold higher educational certificates. Their low status on the job market and higher unemployment rates cause poverty, widespread social problems and crime.[14]
Ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries
For historical reasons (see Treaty of Trianon), significant Hungarian minority populations can be found in the surrounding countries, notably in Romania (in Transylvania), Slovakia, Serbia (in Vojvodina), Ukraine (in Transcarpathia), Croatia (mainly Slavonia) and Austria (in Burgenland); Slovenia is also host to a number of ethnic Magyars, where Hungarian language has an official status.
| Denominations | Population | % of total | 'Christianity' | '7,584,115' | '74.4' | Catholicism | 5,558,901 | 54.5 | ''Roman Catholics'' | ''5,289,521'' | ''51.9'' | ''Greek Catholics'' | ''268,935'' | ''2.6'' | Protestantism | 1,985,576 | 19.47 | ''Calvinists'' | ''1,622,796'' | ''15.9'' | ''Lutherans'' | ''304,705'' | ''3.0'' | ''Baptists'' | ''17,705 '' | ''0.2'' | ''Unitarians'' | ''6,541'' | ''0.1'' | ''Other Protestants'' | ''33,829'' | ''0.3'' | Orthodoxism | 15,298 | 0.1 | Other Christians | 24,340 | 0.2 | 'Judaism' | '12,871' | '0.1' | 'Other religions' | '13,567' | '0.1' | 'Total religions' | '7,610,553' | '74.6' | No religion | 1,483,369 | 14.5 | Did not wish to answer | 1,034,767 | 10.1 | Unknown | 69,566 | 0.7 | 'total' | '10,198,315' | '100.00' |
|---|
Religion in Hungary
In the past
Cathedral of Esztergom
Matthias Church in Budapest
The majority of Hungarian people became Christian in the 10th century. Hungary's first king, Saint Stephen, took up Western Christianity, although his mother, ''Sarolt'', was baptized in the eastern rite. Hungary remained predominantly Catholic until the 16th century, when the Reformation took place and, as a result, first Lutheranism, then soon afterwards Calvinism became the religion of almost the entire population. In the second half of the 16th century, however, Jesuits led a successful campaign of counterreformation among the Hungarians. Jesuits founded educational institutions, including the oldest university that still exists in Hungary (Péter Påzmåny), but they organized so-called ''missions'' too in order to promote popular piety. By the 17th century, once again, Hungary became predominantly Catholic. The eastern parts of the country, however, especially around Debrecen ("the Calvinist Vatican") and Transylvania (except the majority of the Székelys), remained predominantly Protestant.
Orthodox Christianity in Hungary has been the religion mainly of some national minorities in the country, notably, Romanians, Rusyns and Ukrainians, Serbs.
Hungary has been the home of a sizable Armenian community as well. They still worship according to the Armenian liturgical rite, but they have reunited with the Church of Rome (Armenian Catholics) under the primacy of the Pope. According to the same pattern, a significant number of Byzantine Rite Christians became re-united with the rest of the Catholic world (Greek Catholics).
Hungary has been the home of a significant number of Jews since the Early Middle Ages, in fact, the largest synagogue in Europe is in Budapest. However, even Hungarian Jews did not escape the Holocaust during World War II, and hundreds of thousands of them were either deported to concentration camps or simply executed.
Today
According to the last official census (2001), about three quarters of the citizens of Hungary (74.6%) claimed to belong to a particular religious denomination.[15] Most of the Hungarians professed to be Catholics (54.5%), whereas among the numerous Protestant confessions Calvinism (15.9%) and Lutheranism (3%) are the most populous. It is remarkable, however, the number of those who did not wish to give a straight answer regarding religious affiliation (10.1%). This phenomenon goes back probably to the turbulent religious history of the country, when citizens were persecuted on basis of their religious background, notably, the substantial Jewish community during World War II., and also the faithful Christians during communism.
The number of non-religious people in Hungary is 14.5%, which corresponds, approximately, to the proportion of non-religious people in other European countries. This does not mean, however, that the rest of the population consists of frequent churchgoers. Frequent religious attendance, that is to say, going to the church at least once a week, is about 12% in Hungary, which is, again, very much the European average.
Culture
Main articles: Culture of Hungary
Music
Ferenc Liszt (Franz Liszt), the prominent Hungarian composer, piano virtuoso and contemporary of Ferenc Erkel.
The music of Hungary consists mainly of traditional Hungarian folk music and music by prominent composers such as Franz Liszt, Béla Bartók and Zoltån Kodåly. Hungarian traditional music tends to have a strong dactylic rhythm, as the language is invariably stressed on the first syllable of each word. Hungary also has a number of internationally renowned composers of contemporary classical music, György Ligeti, György Kurtåg, Péter Eötvös and Zoltån Jeney among them.
Cuisine
Hungarian cuisine is also a prominent feature of Hungarian culture, with traditional dishes such as goulash (''gulyås'' or ''gulyåsleves'') a main feature of the Hungarian diet. Dishes are often flavoured with paprika. Stews are often to be found with typical elements such as pork or beef, for example as used in pörkölt.There are also many desserts that are usually flavoured with fruit and pastry based(rétes).Food is a big part of the Hungarian culture and it is viewed often as rude to not accept it when offered.
Science
Hungary is famous for its excellent mathematics education which has trained numerous outstanding scientists. Famous Hungarian mathematicians include Paul ErdĆs, famed for publishing in over forty languages and whose ErdĆs numbers are still tracked; JĂĄnos (John) Bolyai, designer of non-Euclidean (or "absolute") geometry in 1831;[16]
and John von Neumann, a pioneer of digital computing. Many Hungarian Jewish scientists, including ErdĆs, von Neumann, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner, fled rising anti-Semitism in Europe and made their most famous contributions in the United States.
Hungarians are very proud of their inventions. These include the noiseless match (JĂĄnos Irinyi), Rubik's cube (ErnĆ Rubik), and the krypton electric bulb (Imre BrĂłdy). A number of other important inventions, including holography (Dennis Gabor), the ballpoint pen (LĂĄszlĂł BĂrĂł), the theory of the hydrogen bomb (Edward Teller), and the BASIC programming language (John Kemeny, with Thomas E. Kurtz), were invented by Hungarians who fled the country prior to World War II.
Hungarian physicist as ZoltĂĄn Bay, he was the first person to observe radar echoes from the Moon, and one of his most important achievement the development of the electron multiplier, which he had started in Hungary in 1938.
Literature
Ferenc Kölcsey, author of the lyrics of the Hungarian national anthem.
Hungarian literature has recently gained some renown outside the borders of Hungary (mostly through translations into German, French and English). Some modern Hungarian authors became increasingly popular in Germany and Italy especially Såndor Mårai, Péter Esterhåzy, Péter Nådas and Imre Kertész. The latter is a contemporary Jewish writer who survived the Holocaust and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002.
The older classics of Hungarian literature and Hungarian poetry remained almost totally unknown outside Hungary. JĂĄnos Arany, a famous nineteenth century Hungarian poet is still much loved in Hungary (especially his collection of Ballads), among several other "true classics" like SĂĄndor PetĆfi, the poet of the Revolution of 1848, Endre Ady, MihĂĄly Babits, DezsĆ KosztolĂĄnyi, Attila JĂłzsef and JĂĄnos Pilinszky. Other well-known Hungarian authors are Zsigmond MĂłricz, Gyula IllyĂ©s, Albert Wass, and Magda SzabĂł.
Sport
One of the most famous Hungarians is Ferenc PuskĂĄs
One of the most famous Hungarians is the footballer Ferenc PuskĂĄs (1927 â 2006). He scored 84 goals in 85 internationals for Hungary, and 511 goals in 533 matches in the Hungarian and Spanish leagues. PuskĂĄs played the 1954 World Cup final against West Germany. In 1958, after the Hungarian Revolution, he emigrated to Spain where he played in the legendary Real Madrid team that also included Alfredo Di StĂ©fano, and Francisco Gento.
Hungarians are also known for their prowess at water sports, mainly swimming, water polo and canoeing; this can be said to be surprising at first, due to Hungary being landlocked. On the other hand, the presence of two major rivers (the Duna and the Tisza) and a major lake (Balaton) give excellent opportunities to practice these sports. Some of the world's best sabre fencing athletes have historically hailed from Hungary.
See also
Lists
★ List of cities in Hungary
★ List of Hungarians
★ List of Hungarian rulers
★ List of Hungarian writers
★ List of colleges in Hungary
★ List of universities in Hungary
★ Common Hungarian surnames
★ Eastern name order used in Hungarian personal names
References
1. Hungarian Central Statistical Office Retrieved 2007-05-23
2. IMF report retrieved 2007-06-18
3. OSZK.
4. Hungary, EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica.
5. The Magyars
(650-997 AD)
6. Welcome to EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica's Guide to History
7. Hungarian Studies Review, 2000
8. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Holocaust Encyclopedia
9. Findley, Carter V., and John Rothney. Twentieth Century World. sixth ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 278.
10. "GyurcsĂĄny modifies date", VilĂĄggazdasĂĄg
11. [1]
12. [2]
13. See, for instance, Romani World, where a high estimate of 19.62% is given for 2050.
14. See an abstract of Poverty and Ethnicity: A Cross-Country Study of Roma Poverty in Central Europe. by the World Bank for an overview.
15. [3]
16. ''The Contribution of Hungarians to Universal Culture'' (includes inventors), Embassy of the Republic of Hungary, Damascus, Syria, 2006.
External links
★ Official site of the National Assembly
★ Official site of the President of Hungary
★ Official site of the Prime Minister of Hungary
★ History of Hungary: Primary Documents
★ History of Hungary – The Corvinus Library
★ In The Land of Hagar - The Jews of Hungary – A Virtual Exhibition
★ Budapest Photos
★ Aerial photography: Hungary
★ Artistic photos of Hungary
★ Translation of Hungarian literary works - a database
★ 1100 photos about the Hungarian countryside - along the long distance path "Countrywide Blue Tour"
★
★ An online gallery of photographs - Szeged, KĆszeg, ...
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| ''Magyar Köztårsasåg'' Republic of Hungary | |
| Common name | Hungary |
| Conventional long name | Republic of Hungary |
 | |
 | |
| National motto | none Historically ''Regnum Mariae Patronae Hungariae'' (Latin) "Kingdom of Mary the Patroness of Hungary" |
| National anthem | ''Himnusz'' ''("Isten, ĂĄldd meg a magyart")'' "Hymn" ("God, bless the Hungarians") |
 | |
| Capital | Budapest |
| Largest city | capital |
| Demonym | Hungarian |
| Official languages | Hungarian (''Magyar'') |
| Government type | Parliamentary republic |
| Government | |
| President | LĂĄszlĂł SĂłlyom |
| Prime minister | Ferenc GyurcsĂĄny |
| Sovereignty type | Foundation |
| Establishment | |
| Kingdom of Hungary | December 1000 |
| Area | |
| Area | 93,030 |
| Area rank | 109th |
| Area magnitude | 1 E10 |
| Percent water | 0.74% |
| Population | |
| Population estimate | 10,064,000 [1] |
| Population estimate year | 2007 |
| Population estimate rank | 79th |
| Population census | 10,198,315 |
| Population census year | 2001 |
| Population density | 109 |
| Population density rank | 92nd |
| GDP | |
| GDP PPP year | 2007 |
| GDP PPP | $208.157 billion[2] |
| GDP PPP rank | 48th |
| GDP PPP per capita | $20,7002 |
| GDP PPP per capita rank | 39th |
| HDI | |
| HDI year | 2004 |
| HDI | 0.869 |
| HDI rank | 35th |
| HDI category | high |
| Currency | |
| Currency | Forint |
| Currency code | HUF |
| Time zone | CET |
| Utc offset | +1 |
| Time zone DST | CEST |
| Utc offset DST | +2 |
| Internet TLD | .hu1 |
| Calling code | 36 |
| Footnote1 | Also .eu as part of the European Union. |
Hungary Videos
 | Budapest, Hungary |
 | Destination Unknown Budapest,Hungary |
 | Police vs Mitsubishi Lancer Evo in Hungary |
 | Hungary for Turkey |
 | Eurovision 2005 Hungary - Nox - Forogj Vilag |
