JOHN HUNYADI: Hungary in American History Textbooks

III. Kishlansky

This beautifully illustrated comprehensive text is probably a strong competitor compared to others reviewed. As the title indicates, it concentrates on the western civilizations. This would indicate that it may contain more details than, for example, Greaves' text, which is about the same length. In the introduction the writers claim that:

[xxi] with the help of a specialist reviewer, we worked to integrate more of the history of eastern Europe" ... "presented these regions as integral," ... "rather then peripheral to Western Civilization."

[220] Hungary first appear on a map captioned "The Crusades", being on the path of the 1096 and 1189 campaigns.

[221] Kingdom of Hungary is depicted on map captioned "The Ottoman Empire, ca. 1450".

[248] In the article entitled "A Tour of Europe in the Ninth Century" Magyars are located between the Dnestr and Dnieper Rivers.

[251] On map Magyars are shown to enter the Carpathian basin from the east "ca. 896" and the approximate boundaries of the "Magyar Kingdom" is drawn in with Visegrad shown. The text indicates that ""In 906 a new steppe people, the Magyars, or Hungarians, swept into Pannonia as had the Huns and Avars before them. These new invaders destroyed the Franks' puppet Moravian empire and split the Slavic world in two."

"The Magyar Kingdom proved a greater threat to the Franks than the Slavs or Avars. The Magyars not only conquered Pannonia as far as the Enns River, but they raided deep into the Carolingian empire. For fifty years swift bands of Magyar horsemen crossed the Alps and pillaged the Po Valley, terrorizing the eastern portions of the empire, and even striking as far west as modern Burgundy."

[252] "The frankish armies ... were too clumsy and slow to deal with the lightning raids of Northmen, Magyars, and Saracens."

[255] "Duke Henry of Saxony (919 - 36), who had proven his abilities fighting the Danes and Magyars. Henry's son Otto the Great (936 - 73), proved to be a strong ruler who subdued the other dukes and definitely crushed the Magyars."

[262] "In Hungary during the twelfth century free peasants and unfree servants merged to form a stratum of serf tied to the emerging landed aristocracy and the lesser nobility composed of free warriors." ... "The aristocracy rose on the backs of the peasantry."

[294] ..."descendants of Charles of Anjou" .. "Charles Robert secured election as king of Hungary in 1310. His son Louis (1342 - 82) added the crown of Poland (1370 - 82) to the Hungarian crown of St. Stephen."[57]

[295] ..."the Christian kingdoms of Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary beckoned different sorts of westerners. Newly opened silver and copper mines in Bohemia, Silesia, southern Poland and Hungarian Transylvania needed skilled miners and artisans. Many were recruited from the overpopulated regions of western Germany. East west trade routes developed to export these metals, giving new life to the Bohemian towns of Prague and Brno, the Polish cities of Cracow and Lwow, and Hungarian Buda and Bratislava."

"The wealth of eastern Europe, its abundant land, and its relative freedom attracted both peasants and merchants. The promise of profitable marriages with eastern royalty drew ambitious aristocrats.[58] Continually menaced by one another and by the aggressive German aristocracy to the west, the royal families of Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia were eager to make marriage alliances with powerful aristocratic families from farther afield. Through such marriage, for example, Charles Robert of Anjou became king of Hungary after the extinction of that realm's ancient royal dynasty. Similarly, Charles Robert's son Louis inherited the Polish crown in 1370 after the death of Casimir III, the last king of the Polish Piast dynasty. Nobles of the eastern European kingdoms were pleased to confirm the election of such outsiders. The election prevented powerful German nobles from claiming succession to the Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish thrones. At the same time, the families of the western European aristocracy did not have sufficiently strong local power bases to challenge the autonomy of the eastern nobility. For the outsiders, eastern alliances meant the expansion of family power and the promise of glory."

[296] Map showing "Eastern Europe, ca. 1378" identifies Buda as 'Ofen' and Pozsony as 'Bratislava'. (The former is German, the latter is Slovak equivalent.)

[297] Charles IV's son ... "Sigismund, king of Germany (1410 - 37), of Bohemia (1419 - 37), of Hungary (1387 - 1437), and Holy Roman Emperor (1433 - 37)."

[349] "... the Ottomans had replaced the stagnant Byzantine rule with a virile and potent empire." ... "First they gobbled up the towns and cities in a wide arc around Constantinople. Then they fed upon the Balkans and the eastern kingdoms of Hungary and Poland. By 1400 they were a presence in all the territory that stretched from the Black Sea to the Aegean."

[366] By 1500, ..."A perilous frontier was established on the Balkan peninsula. There the principalities of Moldava, Wallachia, Transylvania, and Hungary held out against the Ottomans for another quarter century before being overrun."

"Poland-Lithuania ... their dynastic history was tied up with the nations of Bohemia and Hungary to their west and south. While Bohemia was increasingly drawn into the affairs of central Europe, Hungary remained more eastern in orientation. This was partly because the Bohemians gave nominal allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor and partly because the Ottoman conquests had engulfed a large part of Hungarian territories. At the end of the fifteenth century Poland, Lithuania, Bohemia, and Hungary were all ruled by the same family, the Jagiellons."

[373] "While the Polish-Lithuanian monarchs enjoyed longevity similar to that of the Muscovites, those who ruled Hungary and Bohemia were not so fortunate. By the sixteenth century a number of claimants to both crowns existed and competition was handled by diplomacy rather than war. The accession of Vladislav II, for example, by large concessions first to the Bohemian towns and later to the Hungarian nobility. "

"There were many reasons why a unified state did not appear in east central Europe. In the first place, external forces disrupted territorial and political arrangements. Wars with the Ottomans and the Russians absorbed resources. Second, the princes faced rivals to their crowns. Though Casimir IV was able to place his son on the thrones of both Bohemia and Hungary, he managed to do so against the powerful claims of the Habsburg princes, who continued to intrigue against the Jagellions. These contests for power necessitated concessions to leading citizens, which decreased the ability of the princes to centralize their kingdoms or to effect real unification among them. The nobility of Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland-Lithuania all developed strong local interests that increased over time."

[382] After the victory at Pavia in 1525 ... Charles V (of Habsburg) ..."Charles' position was much less secure that it appeared. The Ottomans threatened his Hungarian territories and the Protestants threatened his German lands." [59]

[383] "...Francis I (of France) entered into an alliance with the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent (1520 - 66), whose armies were pressing against the southeastern borders of the Holy Roman Empire. In the year following Pavia, the Ottomans secured an equally decisive triumph at Mohacs, which cut Hungary in two, and threatened Vienna, the eastern capital of Habsburg lands."

"The French were no more capable of dislodging the Habsburgs from Italy than were the Habsburgs of forcing the Ottomans out of Hungary." [60]

[408] "Anabaptists ... were driven to town to town ... from Germany to Swiss cities, from Switzerland into Bohemia and Hungary."

[422] In the sixteenth century. .."in Hungary and Bohemia, the great (cattle) breeding center of the continent, they were raised for export;..."

[423] "German and Hungarian peasants normally owed two or three days' labor on the lord's estate each week."

[437] "..vagrants in Hungary were sold into slavery."

[438] "A call for a crusade against Ottoman advances in 1514 provided opportunity for Hungarian peasants to revolt against their noble landlords. Thousands dropped their plowshares and grasped the sword for a holy war. But, in fact, war against the Ottomans did not materialize. Instead the mobilized peasants under the leadership of disaffected army officers and clergymen, issued grievances against the labor service that they owed to their lords as well as numerous violations of customary agricultural practices. Their revolt turned into a civil war and was crushed with great brutality."

[452] "Only Poland-Lithuania, Hungary, and a few German states experimented with religious toleration during the sixteenth century."

[457} "Lewis (II) of Hungary died at the battle of Mohács in 1526.."

[466] Map showing "Northeastern Europe, ca. 1550" depicts Hungary as a sliver adjoining Austria. Transylvania is not shown, it is absorbed into the Ottoman Empire on the map.

[467] "Poland was the only state in Europe where religious toleration was practiced as well as preached."

[468] On the family tree of the Jagellion monarchy "Barbara of Transylvania" shown to be the wife of Sigismund I (1506 - 48)

[473] After 1618, ..."Fear of Ferdinand's (religious) policies led to Protestant uprisings in Hungary as well as Bohemia."

[479] After the Peace of Westphalia (1648) ..."the Austro-Hungarian empire (was) at a beginning,"

[507] The maps of "Russia under Peter the Great" labels the Habsburg empire as "Austria".

[540] On the map Hungary is shown as part of the Grand Alliance during the war of the Spanish Succession (1702 -14).[61]

[552] "...in the middle of the seventeenth century ... the Ottomans made their last great thrust into the interior of Europe. They captured more of Hungary and threatened Leopold's hereditary lands. In 1683 the Ottomans besieged Vienna itself, and only the arrival of seventy thousand Polish-led troops saved it from falling. But from that time forward, Austrian forces scored stunning victories. By 1699 almost all of Hungary had been retaken by Austria; at the Treaty of Passarovitz in 1718 Austria gained the rest of Hungary and Serbia."[62]

[562] By the beginning of the eighteenth century..."The Austrian empire was composed of Austria and Bohemia, the Habsburg hereditary lands, and as much of Hungary as could be controlled."

[565] "Austrian forces recaptured a large part of Hungary from the Turks, thereby expanding their territory to the south and the east. Hereditary ruler of Austria, Bohemia, King of Hungary, and Holy Roman Emperor of the German nation, Charles VI (1711 - 40) was recognized as one of Europe's most potent rulers."

[566] "Maria Theresa (1740 - 80) quickly discovered what it was like to be a pregnant woman in a man's world. In 1740 Frederick of Prussia invaded the rich Austrian province of Silesia and attracted allies for an assault upon Vienna. Faced with Bavarian, Saxon, and Prussian armies, Maria Theresa might well have lost her inheritance had she not shown her remarkable capacities so early in her reign. She appeared before the Hungarian estates, accepted their crown, and persuaded them to provide her with an army capable of halting the allied advance. Though she was unable to reconquer Silesia, Hungarian aid helped her hold the line against her enemies, ..."

..."The efforts of Maria Theresa and Joseph II to overcome provincial autonomy worked better in Austria and Bohemia than in Hungary. The Hungarians declined to contribute at all to state revenues, and Joseph II took the unusual step of refusing to be crowned king of Hungary so that he would not have to make any concessions to Hungarian autonomy. He even imposed a tariff on Hungarian goods sold in Austria."[63]

[580] On the nobility: "Some of them were wealthy beyond description, like the Esterházy family of Hungary, who owned in excess of 10 million acres of land and controlled 700,000 peasants. But also considered part of the Hungarian nobility was the much larger number called the "sandaled nobility" because of their reputed inability to buy proper shoes[64]. While Prince Miklós Esterházy (1714 - 90) built himself a palace modeled on Versailles, most of the sandaled nobility lived in houses of clay roofed in reeds."

[581] In different parts of Europe the nobility used different methods to maintain their land-based wealth. In places like Britain, Spain, Austria, and Hungary forms of entail were the rule. Simply, the entail was a restriction prohibiting the breakup of a landed estate either through sale or inheritance."

[591] "By the end of the eighteenth century, .... by contrast, the Russian and Hungarian urban elites were less than 2 percent of the population..."

[597] About the significant growth of Europe's population: ... Russia and Hungary may have tripled in number."[65]

[598] "In the late eighteenth century the average age at marriage for Hungarian women had dropped to 18.6."

[599] The widespread practice of quarantine, especially in Hungary, which had been the crucial bridge between eastern and western epidemics, (i.e. the plague) went far to eradicate the scourge of centuries."

[602] In the 18'th century: "In Russia, Prussia, and Hungary hundreds of thousands of new acres came under the plow, though it must be admitted that some of it simply went to replace land that had been wastefully exhausted in previous generations."

[634] Map labels Hungary as "Austria", however on page -

[646] subsequently it is correctly labeled as "Habsburg empire".

[675] In the article entitled "The Lands That Time Forgot" lack of industrial development is caused by the fact that ... "Austria-Hungary and Spain, faced difficulties of transport and communications that could not easily to overcome." ...

"Two thirds of Austria-Hungary is either mountains or hills, a geographic feature that presented obstacles that not even the realroads could easily solve. But there was far more than natural disadvantage behind the failure of these parts of Europe to move in step with the industrializing states. Their social structure, agricultural organization, and commercial policies all hindered the adoption of new methods, machines and modes of production."

[676] "In Hungary, Poland, and Russia it was illegal for people to change occupations, and serfs who engaged in industrial activity paid their lords for the privilege."

[677] "In Austria-Hungary, for example, it was Hungary that was kept from industrializing, first by the continuation of the serf-based agriculture, then by the high internal tariffs that favored Austrian over Hungarian manufactures."

[682 through 686] Text uses "Austrian empire" thoughout, rather than "Habsburg empire".

[695] "Hungarian concert pianist Franz Liszt (1811 - 86), who composed symphonic poems and Hungarian rhapsodies."

[705] In the article entitled "The Revolutions of 1848": ......"Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia were shaken to their foundations. Switzerland, Denmark, and Romania experienced lesser upheavals."[66]

[708] "Liberal lawyers, teachers, and businessmen from Dublin to Budapest to Prague agitated for the separation from foreign rule. Austria, with an empire formed of numerous ethnic minorities, had the most to lose. Since 1815, Metternich had been ruthless in stamping out nationalist dissent. By the 1840's national claims were assuming a cultural legitimacy that was difficult to dismiss or ignore."

Map on this page, again, depicts the "Austrian empire."

[710] "Revolution in Austrian-dominated central Europe was concentrated in three places: Vienna ... ; Budapest, where the Magyars, the dominant ethnic group in Hungary, led a movement for national autonomy; and Prague, where the Czechs were attempting self rule. By April 1848, Metternich had fallen from power and the Viennese revolutionaries had set up a constituent assembly. In Budapest, the initials steps of patriot Lajos Kossuth (1802 - 94) toward establishing a separate Hungarian state seemed equally solid, as the Magyars defeated Habsburg troops. Habsburg armies were more successful in Prague, where they crushed the revolution in June, 1848."

[711] "By the fall of 1849, Austria had solved the problems in its own capital and with Italy and Hungary by military dominance. Emperor Ferdinand I (1835 - 48), whose authority had been weakened irreparably by the overthrow of Metternich, abdicated in favor of his eighteen-year-old nephew, Franz Josef I (1848 - 1916)."

[723] "In 1867, in response to pressures from the subject nationalities, the Habsburg Empire transformed itself to a dual monarchy of two independent and equal states under one ruler, who would be both the emperor of Austria, and the king of Hungary. In spite of the reorganization, the nationalities problem persisted, and the ethnic groups began to agitate for total independence from imperial rule."

[762] In the article entitled "Defeating Liberalism in Austria": "In the 1870s the liberal values of the bourgeoisie dominated the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Habsburg monarchy had adjusted to constitutional government, ..."

[789] "Even in autocratic states like Austria-Hungary , the opinion of the masses was a powerful political force that could destroy individual careers and dissolve governments."

[809] "In 1873 Bismarck joined the three most conservative powers of the Big Five - Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia - into the Three Emperors' League."

[810] "Austria-Hungary was Europe's second largest landed nation and the third largest in population. The same factors that had made it a great European power - its size and diversity - now threatened to destroy it. The ramshackle empire of Europe, it had no geographical unity. Its vulnerability came from within, from the centrifugal forces of linguistic and cultural diversity. Weakened by nationalities clamoring for independence and self-rule and by an unresponsive political system, Austria-Hungary remained backward agriculturally and unable to respond to the Western industrial challenge. It seemed most likely to collapse from social and political pressures."

[812] "A second war broke out in 1913 over Serbian interests in Bulgaria. Russia backed Serbia against Austro-Hungarian support of Bulgaria. The Russians and Austrians prepared for war while the British and Germans urged peaceful resolution. Although hostilities ceased, Serbian resentment toward Austria-Hungary over its frustrated nationalism was greater then ever."

[819] Map entitled "Linguistic Groups in Austria-Hungary" is misleading.[67]

[821] "On Franz-Ferdinand's assassination: ..."A Habsburg noble, window dressing for a decaying monarchy, assassinated while he was performing the useless function of reviewing military exercises in a backwater province, hardly seemed a likely candidate to shatter the peace of Europe."

[839] Map shows "new and reconstituted nations" does not indicate "reconstituted Romania", as if Transylvania was never a part of Hungary.

Text: "Much time and energy were devoted to redrawing the map of Europe." ... "In eastern Europe territorial changes were extensive. New states were created out of the lands of three failed empires. Based on self-determination, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia were granted status as Nation-states. However, the rights of ethnic and cultural minorities were violated in some cases because of the impossibility of redrawing the map of Europe strictly according to the principle of self-determination. In spite of good intentions, every new nation had its own national minority, a situation that held the promise of future trouble."[68]

[852] "By 1921, revolutions had been brutally crushed in Berlin, Munich, and Budapest."

[853] "Austria and Hungary shriveled to small independent states, no longer part of the once great Habsburg empire." ... "Romania swelled, fed on a diet of settlement concessions."

[854] "Hungary, having lost the most territory in World War I, held the distinction of having the greatest number of territorial grievances against its neighbors - Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia."[69]

[874] "nazism, .. were just beginning in the late 1920s. In the same period, fascist movements were making their appearance in England, Hungary, Spain, and France."

[890] Map entitled "Europe: Types of Government" indicates that Hungary was a dictatorship "by 1938" just like the Soviet Union, Spain, or Germany, etc. Ireland, Great Britain, Sweden and Finland remain democratic by 1940.[70]

[913] Upon describing the Holocaust: ..."There were some heroes like Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden, who interceded for Hungarian Jews and provided Jews in the Budapest ghetto with food and protection."

[914] Table showing Jewish population losses between 1939 and 1945 shows that Hungary's Jewish population was reduced from 400,000 to 200,000. Probably correct figure.

[921] On Yalta: ..."Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, the Big Three decided, would have pro-Soviet governments."

[934] " With the support of local Communist parties,, Soviet-dominated governments were established in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania in 1947."

[935] "Hungarians followed suit with their demands for diversity and for the withdrawal of Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. On 23 October 1956, inspired by events in Poland, Hungarians rose up in anger against their old-guard Stalinist rulers. Imre Nagy (1896 - 1958), a liberal Communist, took control of the government, attempted to introduce democratic reforms, and relaxed economic controls. The Soviets, however, were unwilling to lose control of their sphere of influence in eastern Bloc nations and to jeopardize their system of defense in the Warsaw Pact. Moscow responded to liberal experimentation in Hungary by sending tanks and troops to Budapest. Brutal repression and purges followed. The Hungarian experience in 1956 made clear that too much change too quickly would not be tolerated by the Soviet rulers. "

[936] The correct spelling of the name is Mátyás Rákosi, not Rakoski on the picture's caption.

[960] "In September 1989 East German citizens flooded into Hungary at the rate of 300 people an hour with the hope of escaping to West Germany and political and economic freedom." [71]

[975] ""The barbed-wire fences on Hungary's Austrian border were dismantled; all of its borders to the West were opened in September 1989."

[991] "Nationalist feelings were intensifying within eastern Europe at the very moment of integration in the West. demands for autonomy lay behind the revolutionary events in Poland, the Baltic Soviet states, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania."

JOHN HUNYADI: Hungary in American History Textbooks