JOHN HUNYADI: Hungary in American History Textbooks

IV. McNeill

This book was written from the point of view of an anthropologist. Its main theme is change caused by interaction within the human community. The book analyzes the reasons why western civilization has spread over the world. Purposefully, it is short on local historical detail, offers just enough to understand the general concepts. Consequently, few references to Hungary were expected at the outset.

[275] "The Magyar and Viking Assaults"

"Fleeing from a defeat they had suffered on the Russian steppe, the Magyars crossed into Hungary in 895. From this base they soon began to raid western Europe, just as the Huns and the Avars had done before them. German foot soldiers could not oppose the mobile Magyar raiders effectively. " ...

"Where the Vikings did not penetrate, the Magyars usually did."

[276] Map shows Hungarian-settled areas (practically historic Hungary) and paths of raiding parties.

[281] ..."a new ruler, Otto I, the Great, claimed the imperial title in 962. He did so after defeating the Magyars in a great battle at Lechfeld in 955."

"The conversion of Poland in 966, and of both Hungary and Scandinavia in the year 1000, to the papal form of Christianity showed how attractive the new style of life emerging in western Europe had became."

"The westernmost portion of the steppe in Hungary had been Christianized too."

[306] "In 1241, for example, after subduing Russia, the Mongols started toward central Europe, where they defeated a Polish and German force in Silesia and overran all of Hungary. But the death of Ogadai called then home..." ..."and the Mongols never returned to Hungary."

[329] Around Europe's rim, however, larger kingdoms took form. In the east, Poland and Hungary stood guard against the steppe. Like the Scandinavians kingdoms, they were relatively poor and thinly inhabited."[72]

[335] "Mining also became big business in the late Middle Ages." ... " Prospectors opened up new bodies of ore in Bohemia and Hungary.

[383] "In the next generation, Sultan Suleiman the Lawgiver (ruled 1520 - 1566) brought the Ottoman empire to its peak. In 1526 he invaded Hungary, killed the king, and took control most of the land.[73] A claim to the Hungarian crown, however, has passed to Ferdinand of Hapsburg, who has married the sister of the Hungarian king. The Hapsburgs therefore took over the part of Hungary that escaped Turkish control. This meant that later Turkish campaigns against Christendom pitted the sultan's forces against Hapsburg imperial armies. In 1529, for example, Suleiman besieged Vienna but failed to capture it. Border warfare became normal, and every once in a while the sultan set forth with his field army to settle accounts with the Christians. Suleiman died on such an expedition in 1566."[74]

[389] Map showing "Europe in the Reformation" indicates religious affiliations in Hungary correctly.

[390] "In both Poland and Hungary, also, Calvinism had a considerable success, mainly among the nobility." ..."and in Hungary the majority also returned to Catholicism, although in the eastern parts of Hungary important Calvinist communities still survive."

[394] "Protestant heresy throughout a broad band of territory that reached from Italy northward across the Alps into Austrian, south German, Hungarian, and Polish lands. Only northern Germany and Scandinavia, together with the parts of Hungary under Turkish rule and areas of the Rhineland under Protestant German princes, escaped the force of this Catholic counteroffensive."

[396 -397] Map shows Transylvania as part of the Ottoman empire.[75]

[398] "In Poland and Hungary the nobles kept sovereign political and military power in their own hands, for elected kings of these two countries had no administrative machinery to make their will effective."

[410] Map showing "The Realm of Islam" notes "Hungary lost to the Ottoman Empire in 1699."

[411] "In 1683 the Turkish imperial army again besieged Vienna, as in the days of Suleiman the Lawgiver, and again failed to take the city. The long war that followed ended in 1699 with the first really serious defeat the Turks had ever suffered in Europe. By the treaty of Karlowitz, which ended the ar, the Turks had to yield most of Hungary to the Hapsburgs."

[445] On "The eastward Movement in Eurasia" ... The Hapsburgs, for example, conquered thinly settled lands along the Danube from the Turks in 1699; and for seventy-five years thereafter, the Austrian government and Hungarian nobles shared the task of planting settlers on the grasslands of central Hungary."[76]

[453] On map showing the partitions of Poland, Hungary is mislabeled as Austria, instead of Habsburg Empire.

[454] In a 20 line insert entitled: "Maria Theresa and the Hungarian Diet" the author explains in specific,- and correct-, detail king Charles VI's efforts with the Hungarian Diet to accept the Pragmatic Sanction:

..."According to their ancient constitution, the Diet had to approve a new king: how could they accept a woman as their ruler? A king was supposed to command in battle; no woman could do that." ...

..."An army had to be raised and Hungarian help was required. Maria Theresa journeyed to Pressburg (called Bratislava today), where the Hungarian Diet was meeting. She appeared before the assembled nobles, carrying her infant son in her arms, and appealed for help.

"In a sudden burst of enthusiasm, the Hungarians promised to fight for her cause and did in fact take the field against the invaders with considerable success." ...

..."For the rest of her long reign, Maria Theresa remained grateful to the Hungarians for coming to her rescue. She therefore did nothing to hurt the interests of the nobles or to alter the ancient Hungarian constitution that protected the nobles privileges."

[506 and 510] Maps label the Habsburg empire as "Empire of Austria".

[537] "the most important consequence of the Crimean war was the bitter feeling that arose between Austria and Russia." ... "The Russians felt that their help in 1849, when the Russian army had invaded Hungary to put down rebels against the Hapsburg authority, had been repaid with the basest ingratitude."

[559] ..." the Hapsburg emperor, Franz Josef I (reigned 1848 - 1916) ... agreed to an alliance with Germany. The major reason behind this move was that Austria suffered from internal frictions among the many different nationalities that made up the empire. In 1867 a constitutional settlement between the Hungarians and the rest of the empire sharpened the political appetites of Czechs and other Slavs who wanted similar privileges for themselves. But Austrian Germans and Hungarians were not willing to share their political privileges with Czechs and other Slavs. Resulting domestic confrontations meant that the Hapsburg monarch badly needed all outside support he could get, and the German alliance of 1879 served this purpose admirably."

[611] "In Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, on June 28, 1914, an angry young man named Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary."[77]

[620] After WW1: "But the victors were only partly in control of the situation. Throughout eastern Europe where the Austrian[78], Ottoman, and Russian governments had ruled before the war, confusion reigned. Socialists and nationalists collided, and rival nationalities disputed rights to nearly every territory and province."[79]

[633] After Yalta: ... "it soon became obvious that the sort of "friendly" governments the Russians wanted in eastern Europe were undemocratic and unacceptable by British and American standards."

[641] After WW2: "Recovery in eastern Europe involved greater hardships, since outside assistance was not forthcoming. Nevertheless, the planned economies of the Soviet Union and of its new satellite countries, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, made a remarkably rapid recovery, too, even though living standards remained far lower than in western Europe."

[643] ... "in 1989 the Warsaw Pact suddenly unraveled when first Poland and then the other countries of eastern Europe asserted their independence from the USSR by overthrowing communist governments that had been installed there by Russian bayonets after World War II."

[646] "A prominent feature of the breakdown of Communist party control in eastern Europe, 1989 - 1992, was the upsurge of nationalist feeling that accompanied a popular repudiation of communism. Where ready-made nation-states already existed -as in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary- new governments took over without special difficulty, but in several parts of Europe, nationalities and political boundaries did not match up accurately."

[655] In the section on postwar population history: "In some places, Hungary, for example, replacement of existing population became problematic."

JOHN HUNYADI: Hungary in American History Textbooks