Hungary (Hung. Magyarország, Ger. Ungarn, Lat. Hungaria) is the eastern and larger half of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, covering an area of about 125,000 sq. m., between 44° 10' and 49° 35' N. lat., and between 14° 25' and 26° 25' E. long. Comprising Hungary proper, Transylvania, Croatia and Slavonia (nominally also Dalmatia), and Fiume, it forms the realm of the crown of St Stephen or Transleithania, which is a coequal factor with Austria or Cisleithania in the empire-kingdom ruled over by the Hapsburg dynasty. The two states form a union under one monarch for military, diplomatic, and customs purposes, but otherwise retain their distinct independence of each other. The form of its government as well as its geographical, industrial, and statistical features having been dealt with in the article AUSTRIA, it now remains only to give an account of the history, language, and literature of the country, or its chief and ruling inhabitants, the Magyars.
History.—But little is known of the history of the Hungarians previous to their appearance in Europe in 884. They are generally believed to be the descendants of the Scythians, and to have come from regions about the Caspian Sea. They first settled along the Middle Volga, but, having been pressed westwards, they in 889 crossed the Carpathian Mountains under Almos, and under the further leadership of his son Arpád they conquered the ancient Pannonia and Dacia of the Romans; and this, their new country, was in the year 1000 formed into a regular kingdom by Stephen. For his merits in Christianising his people Stephen was afterwards created a saint, and received from Pope Sylvester II. the title of 'apostolic king' and a crown, both of which have been worn by all the kings of Hungary to the present day. The Hungarians were at first an extremely warlike and even savage tribe; and, not content with subduing the various nationalities inhabiting the ancient Roman provinces, they made frequent expeditions into Germany and Italy, destroying the early results of Christian civilisation. All this, however, ceased on, and even before, the accession of Stephen, who turned his attention solely to the consolidation of Christianity and interior order and prosperity. He laid the foundation of many institutions surviving to the present day, such as the ecclesiastical organisation, the archbishoprics and bishoprics, the municipal and county councils, and even the national council, which eventually developed into the Diet of the States. Within two decades after his death (1038) two attempts were made to overthrow Christianity, and to re-establish Paganism, but only with very slight and temporary success. Under Béla I. (1061-63), Ladislaus the Saint (1077-95), and Coloman the Learned (1095-1114), the country made very marked progress. The reign of Andrew II. is remarkable on account of the nobles having extorted from him in 1222 the 'Golden Bull,' or Hungarian Magna Charta, the privileges of which were in 1231 extended to the clergy and lower nobility. The 'Golden Bull' conferred many personal and material advantages on the nobles, and also contained a guarantee for the annual convocation of the diet; it conceded the right of armed resistance to any illegal acts of the king. During the reign of Béla IV. (1235-70) Hungary was devastated by a terrible Mongol invasion. To replace part of the population cruelly massacred by the Asiatic savages, Béla introduced German colonists; hence the German-speaking communities in Hungary to the present day. By the death of Andrew III. in 1301 the House of Arpád became extinct, and the throne of Hungary became an object of rivalry between various foreign potentates. After many vicissitudes, Hungary was fortunate enough to find a worthy king in the person of Charles Robert of Anjou (1308-42), who did much to place his adopted country on a level with more civilised western nations. His son, Louis the Great, made Hungary the most powerful nation of the period in central Europe. After the death of Ladislaus Posthumus (1457), Matthias Corvinus, the son of Hunyady, the great anti-Turkish hero and regent during that king's minority, was elected king. Under his reign Hungary attained to the pinnacle of fame, prosperity, civilisation, and power. He waged successful wars against Podiebrad of Bohemia, and got himself crowned king of Bohemia and Moravia. He also defeated the Turks at Kenyérmező, and reconquered the southern provinces held by them. In 1485 he even took Vienna and made it the capital of his country, which was at that time more extended than ever before or after. But Matthias was not only a great general; he was also a great legislator, a munificent patron of art and sciences, and a great judge. His impartiality and love for the people were so generally recognised that to the present day there lives in Hungary the proverb: 'King Matthias is dead; there is no more justice.' Matthias having died without legitimate heirs, the throne of Hungary again became the object of fierce struggles between various pretenders, and the country underwent in consequence a period of rapid decay. Under Vladislaus (1490-1516) Hungary was the scene of a sanguinary peasant insurrection, known as the Dózsa revolt, which was ultimately suppressed, and led to a system of abject serfdom. Louis II.'s reign was still more disastrous. The Turks, under Soliman the Great, took advantage of the enfeebled condition of the country, invaded it with a gigantic army, annihilated the Hungarian forces at Mohács, pillaged whole districts, including Buda with the world-famous Bibliotheca Corvina, and carried off some 30,000 Hungarians as slaves. Louis II. himself lost his life in or after the battle of Mohács, and the Hungarian throne became once more the prize of contention between two claimants. One was John Zápolya, Woiwode of Transylvania, whom one section of the nobles proclaimed king, the other was Ferdinand of Austria, brother-in-law of Louis II. Zápolya was supported by the Turks, Ferdinand by the majority of the Hungarian nobles. Eventually Zápolya surrendered his claims to the whole kingdom, merely retaining Transylvania and the Trans-Tisza district of Hungary for life. Thus the Hapsburgs obtained at length a final footing in Hungary, and the country entered on a period of endless suffering and humiliations.
The successors of Ferdinand—viz. Maximilian, Rudolph, Ferdinand II., Ferdinand III., and Leopold I.—when they were not engaged with the Turks, concentrated their energies on the suppression of Protestantism in Hungary. The Protestants won several victories over the Imperialists, as in 1604-6 under Stephen Bocskay, in 1620-21 under Bethlen Gábor, in 1644 under George Rákóczy, thus forcing the government to show more toleration towards the followers of the new religion; but the kings being under Jesuit influences, all treaties and promises were broken on the first opportunity. Especially ruinous was the long reign of Leopold I. (1657-1705), who, with the most merciless determination, used all means at his disposal, as he himself said, to 'impoverish, enslave, and recatholicise' Hungary. Some of his own highest office-holders, although themselves Catholics, so much resented his terrible treatment of the Protestants that they began a conspiracy for the separation of Hungary from the Hapsburg dominions; but the plot having been detected, the ringleaders were put to death. For many years the scaffolds were at work in sus- pected districts, and thousands of valiant families, mostly Protestants, were exterminated. A Protestant rising, under Count Emeric Tököly, and supported by Kara Mustapha, proved very successful in 1683, and very nearly led to the capture of Vienna and the utter destruction of Austria; but at the last moment John Sobieski, king of Poland, saved Vienna and the Hapsburgs. After the retreat of the Turks from Vienna they gradually lost their hold on Hungary.
Leopold died in 1705 amidst the anxieties entailed upon him by another Hungarian rising, led by a second Francis Rákóczy, which did not end before 1711. Leopold succeeded in causing the diet to declare the throne hereditary in the House of Hapsburg, and Charles VI. (1711-40) received their adhesion to the Pragmatic Sanction, securing the right of succession in the female line. Nevertheless, his daughter Maria Theresa's claim to the throne was called in question by several German rulers and by France, her dominions were invaded, and she saved them and herself only through the magnanimous self-sacrifice of the Hungarians. She was the first Hapsburg ruler who showed herself grateful to the Hungarians, and who proved herself to understand the duties of a sovereign. She made several concessions to the Protestants, improved the condition of the peasants, and established schools. Her son and successor, Joseph II. (1780-90), does not strictly figure among Hungarian kings, as he had never himself been crowned in Hungary, but carried on his reign in violation of the Hungarian constitution as an autocratic emperor. He was an enlightened reformer, but did not reckon with national feelings, class idiosyncrasies, interests, and prejudices; he attempted to make Hungary part of a vast pan-Germanic bureaucracy; and many of his measures fostered the discontent to such a degree that at his deathbed he saw himself compelled to recall all his illegal edicts, with the exception of one—viz. that enjoining religious toleration. Leopold II. at once invoked the diet (the first for twenty-five years), and confirmed the rights and independence of the nation. His conciliatory reign lasted only two years, and he was succeeded by Francis I. (1792-1835), whose ambition it was to follow the example of his least reputable predecessors. As long as the Napoleonic wars lasted, and the Hungarians supported him with money and troops, he played at constitutionalism; but as soon as the Napoleonic dangers were passed he showed himself in his true character, discontinued the diets and levied troops and taxes at his pleasure till 1825, when he was driven by the general discontent and resistance to convocate the states.
This diet marked the beginning of the new era in Hungary. The nation commenced to awaken to the consciousness of its many wants, intellectual and material; the desire for reforms was fast ripening. The majority of the delegates to the next diet (1832) were already bearers of radical instructions. The desired reforms, however, were slow in coming, owing to the narrow-minded policy of Metternich and the whole court party. The diet of 1832 counted among its members such men as Count Louis Batthányi, Baron Nicholas Wesselényi, Baron Joseph Eötvös, Francis Deák, and Louis Kossuth. The more important reforms passed by this and the subsequent diets of 1839 and 1843 were those regarding the official use of the Hungarian language, the eligibility of non-nobles to public offices, and the equal rights of Christian denominations. Outside parliament there was no less activity than inside. Kossuth's Pesti Hírlap (the first Hungarian political daily paper), which in enthusiastic language taught the masses how to demand their rights, rapidly spread all over the country. Kossuth advocated the abolition of serfdom, the equality of all citizens, the liability of nobles to taxation, and freedom of the press. He was returned to the diet of 1847 as senior member for the county of Pest, and it was on his motion that the House resolved in March 1848 to send a deputation to Vienna to demand all these and various other reforms. Ferdinand V., a weak-minded man, who had reigned since 1835, yielded after some hesitation, and the first Hungarian responsible ministry entrusted with the task of carrying the said measures was appointed. Count Louis Batthányi was prime-minister, Deák minister of justice, and Kossuth minister of finance. But the court party were secretly determined to frustrate all these reforms, which openly they did not dare to oppose. They therefore incited the Croats and other non-Hungarian nationalities to rise against Hungarian supremacy. Accordingly Croatia, Slavonia, the Servian Bánát, and eventually the Roumans of Transylvania took up arms against Hungarian rule; and when the central government in Vienna was appealed to it issued highly-worded proclamations against the rebels, but gave very scant help to subdue them, whilst secretly it supplied them with arms, ammunition, and money. The Hungarian government, so treacherously abandoned, proceeded to obtain from parliament the vote of a levy of 200,000 men and 42 million florins of money, but to these measures, unanimously decreed by parliament, the crown withheld its assent. Later on, September 6, when a deputation of 120 members waited on Ferdinand to urge him to oppose the Croatian invasion, the court again gave an evasive reply. But a few days later, having received good news respecting the army operating in Italy, the court threw aside the hypocritical mask hitherto worn, and declared open hostility to Hungary by ignoring the existing constitution and government, recalling the Palatine Archduke Stephen, and appointing Count Lamberg governor-general and royal commissioner for Hungary. Parliament declared these acts illegal, and Count Lamberg was murdered on his arrival by the enraged population of Budapest. The ministry now resigned, and a committee of national defence was appointed with Kossuth as president. A comparatively numerous army was rapidly equipped and sent to meet Jellachich, who was marching towards Budapest at the head of the Croats. He was completely beaten at Velenze, and during an armistice of three days, which was granted him by the victorious Hungarians, he fled ignominiously towards Vienna. Notwithstanding this defeat he was appointed commander-in-chief of all the forces and alter-ego of the emperor-king in Hungary; and all the decrees and resolutions of the Hungarian parliament were declared illegal.
On December 2 Ferdinand was compelled by a family council to abdicate in favour of his nephew, Francis-Joseph, who was then eighteen years of age. In his name the war began to be carried on bitterly against Hungary, all the more as the diet declared the succession unconstitutional. Up to the middle of January next fortune seemed to favour the Austrian arms; the Hungarians, though they fought valiantly and obtained some victories, had to retreat before the overwhelming numbers of the enemy; the whole trans-Danubian district and the north and south were lost to them; they had only the vast plains of the Alföld and Transylvania, where Bem entirely subdued the rebellious nationalities. Meanwhile the Russians were also coming to the aid of the Austrians, so that the Hungarians had fair reason to despair of their own position. It was only the inactivity of Windischgrätz, the new Austrian generalissimo, that saved the Hungarians. His aimless stay at Budapest gave Kossuth time to perambulate the country, and by his stirring eloquence and boundless energy to create a splendid though irregular army, which, under the various leadership of Dembinski, Vetter, Görgei, Klapka, and others, won so many victories over the Austrians within the next three months that by the end of April the country was almost entirely free from the enemy. The many defeats of the Austrian regular forces by the Hungarian irregulars so exasperated the Vienna court that, on March 4, 1849, it promulgated a decree abolishing the Hungarian constitution; to which the Hungarian diet replied by the declaration of independence, and the dethronement of the Hapsburg dynasty on April 14. No final form of government was decided upon, but Kossuth was temporarily elected governor-president, and instead of the committee of national defence a new ministry was formed under the presidency of Bartholomew Szemere. Had Görgei not disregarded Kossuth's advice, had he forced his way to Vienna after so many victories, the whole war might have come to an end with glorious results for Hungary; but Görgei decided to first retake Budapest, and thereby enabled the united Russian and Austrian armies to invade the country at various points. These combined armies consisted of no less than 275,000 men, with 600 batteries, whilst the Hungarians numbered barely 135,000, with no artillery to speak of. In these circumstances the Hungarians had little chance of defending themselves with any measure of success, but they continued to fight with the greatest determination. Fortune still smiled on them here and there, but on the whole chances and events were against them. This decline of their fortunes was aggravated by the serious dissensions between Görgei and Kossuth, which grew daily in intensity till the latter thought it advisable, in order not to hamper the other's strategic activity, to abdicate in favour of Görgei on August 11, 1849. Once in the possession of the chief political and military power, Görgei no longer thought of continuing the struggle, but immediately and unconditionally surrendered himself to the Russians. This act on his part was defended by him as one imposed by necessity and a saving of further bloodshed; but examined in the light of his former conduct and of the fact that he induced, by empty and futile promises for the safety of their persons and their troops, thirteen other generals to follow his example, it is generally considered by the majority of his countrymen an act of unpardonable treason. Kossuth and several other military and political leaders fled to Turkey, whilst the others who remained behind and were captured were either sentenced to long terms of imprisonment or shot and hanged like mere criminals. Among the latter were Count Louis Batthányi and the thirteen generals betrayed by Görgei, including Count Charles Leiningen, a relative of the Queen of England. Görgei himself was sent to Klagenfurt, and kept there on a small pension. Hungary was incorporated into and governed as an hereditary province of Austria, the governor being General Haynau, who wielded his official power with extraordinary harshness and cruelty. Political prisoners were tortured, women publicly flogged, properties and rights confiscated. With the exception of the abolition of serfdom all the acts of the diet of 1848 were annulled, and Hungary was governed by a host of foreign officials according to Austrian laws and institutions. The country displayed no active resistance, nevertheless all the efforts of this centralising and Germanising system so completely failed that by 1857 the Vienna government began to see its futility and to offer some concessions.
After the disastrous Italian war in 1859 the old Hungarian chancellory, as it existed previous to 1848, was re-established, but failed to satisfy the Hungarians, whose passive resistance threatened with a final breakdown the Austrian state machinery. At length in 1861 the diet was once more convoked; but, as it demanded the full restitution of the constitution of 1848, it was quickly dissolved. Gradually, however, better counsels prevailed at the court of Vienna. Parliament was again summoned in 1865, and the demands of the Hungarians, as formulated by Deák and his party, were complied with, and resulted in the agreement described in detail in the article AUSTRIA. Francis-Joseph was crowned king of Hungary, June 7, 1867, and entered on the faithful discharge of his duties as constitutional monarch. There is still a numerous party in Hungary in favour of complete separation from Austria, but none are hostile to the sovereign. The renewal of this decennial financial arrangement (1897-98) led to very strained relations between the two sections, the Hungarians declining to raise their contributions from 31·4 to 42 per cent. of the common expenditure. Hungary made good use of the period of internal peace enjoyed after the coronation, and made rapid strides in the path of civilisation. It established an admirable system of elementary and higher education, built a magnificent net of railways (now largely in the hands of the state), improved its judicature, developed commerce and industry, and organised, in addition to the Austro-Hungarian common army, an effective system of national defence, the Honvéds. Budapest, its capital, equalled by few, surpassed by none among the great cities of Europe, is watched with as much envy by the Austrians as the growing influence of the Hungarians in the common councils of the monarchy. Lately the former heavy deficits have disappeared from the budget, and there is every hope of the kingdom soon being in a condition to reduce its heavy debts. The various nationalities in Hungary (Servians, Wallachs, Ruthens, Slovaks, Germans) enjoy the same rights as the native Magyars, which are considerably greater than in Austria; there is therefore comparatively little discontent prevailing among them, even though pan-slavistic missionaries strive to make mischief. Much of Hungary's steady progress is due to the fact that since the new era there have been few changes in its government. The thousand years of national existence was celebrated by a millennial exhibition, historical processions, &c. at Budapest in 1896.
Language and Literature.—The Hungarians when they settled in their present land a thousand years ago brought their language ready with them, and this, although it has had since to borrow certain words from European languages to convey new ideas, has retained all its original features both as regards etymology and syntax. The origin of the Hungarian language can hardly be stated yet with certainty. Hungarian philologists are divided into two sections on the point, the 'Orientalists' maintaining its affinity with Turco-Tartaric languages, whilst the 'Finnists' contend, and for the present at least with far more general success, that it belongs to the Ugric branch of the Finnish group. By reason of the perfect harmony between vowels and consonants, and the very distinct articulation and pronunciation essential to it, Hungarian is considered a very musical language, particularly adapted to poetry and rhetoric. Its grammar, moreover, is so strikingly different from that of any other European language, and so rich in original characteristics, that it offers a very interesting field to students of comparative philology. It is acknowledged by them that it is well adapted to express ideas with the utmost clearness, owing to the distinctness and immense variety of endings and the originality and flexibility of its roots. Among its characteristics are that it has no genders, and declination and conjugation are effected by means of suffixes only; that the verbs possess objective and subjective forms (e.g. látok, 'I see'; látom, 'I see him or her or it'; látsz, 'thou seest'; látod, 'thou seest him or her or it,' &c.); that it invariably places the surname before the Christian name. It is also noteworthy that there are absolutely no dialects in the Hungarian language, and scarcely any difference of pronunciation in the various parts of the country.
From the date of the establishment of the Hungarian kingdom the use of the Hungarian language was so much restricted that a Hungarian literature can hardly be said to have existed before the close of the 18th century. The introduction of Christianity by Italian and German priests in the 11th century made Latin the official language and the medium of intercourse between the educated classes, and this remained so to a great, though gradually diminishing, extent up to the third and fourth decade of the 19th century. There was a slight reaction in favour of Hungarian after the Reformation, but the language was not taught in schools till the year 1790, and parliament did not discontinue Latin until 1825. The oldest Hungarian literary record extant is a funeral oration dating from the year 1171; there are also some religious songs and dramatic 'mysteries' from the 14th century. The first lay poet of real merit, Baron Valentine Balassa, lived in the second half of the 16th, the first great epic poet, Zrínyi, in the 17th century.
The revival of literature began to take place only towards the end of Maria Theresa's reign. Lyric poetry was cultivated by Anyos, Virág, Bacsányi, and by Alexander Kisfaludy (1772-1844), Daniel Berzsenyi (1776-1836), Francis Kazinczy (1759-1831), and others, who not only added to the valuable stock of literature, but also enriched the language with new words and forms—Kazinczy excelling so much in this respect as to obtain the appellation of 'the recreator of the language.' Kölcsey, orator, essayist, and poet, and Charles Kisfaludy (1788-1830), the founder of Hungarian drama, were the chief literary figures at the beginning of the 19th century. Hungarian poetry, however, cannot be said to have possessed much originality at this period; it was reserved to such men as Petőfi (1823-49), Vörösmarty (1800-55), Arany (1817-82), and Tompa (1819-68) to regenerate Hungarian poetry on national lines. This end was attained towards the period of the war of independence, since which Hungary has produced a number of minor poets, such as Sárosy, Szász, Vajda, Kiss, Reviczky, Abrányi, and Rudnyánszky. In dramatic literature Charles Kisfaludy was followed by Szligeti (1814-78), whose extreme fertility enriched it by many exceedingly successful plays. The classic tragedy Bánk Bán of Katona (1792-1830), and The Human Tragedy, a dramatic poem, by Madách (1823-64), on the lines of Goethe's Faust, but no less original, deserve especial mention. Amongst their successors there is only one great dramatist—Gregor Csiky. The Hungarian theatres rely mainly on products of foreign literature—French, English and German.
In prose literature Hungary has produced many standard works. The founder of the real Hungarian novel was Baron Nicholas Josika (1794-1865), whose historical and social novels on the model of Sir Walter Scott's works achieved great success and popularity. Baron Joseph Eötvös (1813-71) cultivated the sentimental novel, and the novel with a purpose. But among authors of fiction the highest rank is due to Maurice Jókai (q.v.), whose boundless imagination and profound humour have rendered him a favourite with readers in many countries beyond his own. Almost all his novels have been translated into German, many into Italian, French, English, and other languages. Beyond its own original productions it also possesses admirable translations of all the masterpieces in the world's literature, from the Bible, of which it possesses three versions, down through all ages and countries to Tennyson's poems. A collection of Shakespeare's plays is especially noteworthy, they having been translated by Hungary's greatest poets, including Petőfi (Coriolanus), Arany (Hamlet, Midsommer-Night's Dream, King John), Vörösmarty (King Lear), and others. It should be added that the best literary talent of the country is to a great extent connected with journalism.
See Fessler, Geschichte der Unyarn (new ed. by Klein, 1863-87); Majláth, Geschichte der Magyaren (2d ed. 1853); Sayous, Histoire des Hongrois (Par. 1876), and works by Horváth, Szalay, Toldy, &c.; also Vambéry, Story of Hungary (1886); Léger, History of Austro-Hungary (trans. by Mrs Birkbeck Hill, preface by Freeman, 1890); and Felbermann, Hungary and its People (1892).