The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat

Biblioteka Europy Środka #8

by Paul Lendvai, Ann Major (Translator)

An updated new edition of a classic history of the Hungarians from their earliest origins to todayIn this absorbing and comprehensive history, Paul Lendvai tells the fascinating story of how the Hungarians, despite a string of catastrophes and their linguistic and cultural isolation, have survived as a nation for more than one thousand years. Now with a new preface and a new chapter that brings the narrative up to the present, the book describes the evolution of Hungarian politics, culture, economics, and identity since the Magyars first arrived in the Carpathian Basin in 896. Through colorful anecdotes of heroes and traitors, victors and victims, revolutionaries and tyrants, Lendvai chronicles the way progressivism and economic modernization have competed with intolerance and narrow-minded nationalism. An unforgettable blend of skilled storytelling and scholarship, The Hungarians is an authoritative account of this enigmatic and important nation.

Genres: History, Hungary, Nonfiction, European History, Hungarian Literature

558 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Paul Lendvai is a Hungarian-born Austrian journalist who worked as a correspondent for the Financial Times for more than two decades. He is the author of Hungary: Between Democracy and Authoritarianism; Inside Austria: New Challenges, Old Demons; and Blacklisted: A Journalist's Life in Central Europe.

Reviews

[Horia Bura · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely well-documented synthesis of the history of the Hungarians and Hungary, written with talent and, most importantly, as objective as possible and, in some places, (self)critical.

The author's merit is all the greater because he is not a professional historian, but a journalist with a long history and, perhaps just as relevant, an expat, which, I think, allowed him to have a slightly more detached and impartial vision in relation to the sinuous history of its own people, a history that is often contradictory and paradoxical.

I consider that the leitmotif of this volume is the emphasis on the uniqueness of the destiny of the Hungarian people and their great loneliness, starting from the uniqueness of their language and reaching the most difficult moments in its history, in chronological order these being: the catastrophe of the Mohacs battle (1526), the failed revolution of 1848/49 (or the „fight for liberty”, as the author calls it) and the negative effects of the Treaty of Trianon (1920).

[Andrew Peters]

I won't endeavor to review a book that is essentially a history textbook. Not my area of expertise at all! But I'll share my impressions.

I inherited the book so to speak. My mom had bought it for my dad. My great grandparents emigrated from Hungary in 1913ish, and my paternal grandfather was born here in America shortly thereafter. My father is somewhat interested in that side of our family history, but though he won't admit it, my mom and I suspect he never read the book. I gladly took it off his hands because I've always been curious about our Hungarian heritage. It was hardly a strong cultural influence as my grandfather was pretty well Americanized (and his parents were perhaps pretty well Germanized before that). But somehow I've always been proud to say I'm part Hungarian. I guess there's something of a romantic mystery to it in comparison to my German and English roots.

I've also been working on a retold fairytale based on Andrew Lang's "The Boy Who Could Keep A Secret" from Hungarian lore so I was looking for some help capturing the medieval setting.

I greatly enjoyed the book for all those reasons. Yes, it's dense and intimidatingly comprehensive. I skimmed a few sections that were not of particular interest. There's a multitude of chronicles of political figures from the late 19th century through the 20th, plus a cataloging of scientists, cinema pioneers and artists. But overall, if you're wanting to better understand the evolution of Hungary as a political state, I'm fairly certain you'll be well-served by Lendvai's text.

He does a great job of recounting the environmental forces that have shaped the "Hungarian" identity, with the thesis there really is no one way to be Hungarian. For example, while it's true the peculiar non-Latin, non-Slavic Hungarian language defined a discrete ethnic grouping, many of the people who elevated the notion of a Hungarian state did not even speak Hungarian, or did so poorly; and their ancestry was German, Austrian, Croatian, etc.. They were Hungarian by choice. And so I suppose I continue that tradition. :)

All right, I'll weigh in with just a touch of academic criticism. I can claim some cred there from my background in the social sciences. This is a book that offers almost zero consideration of the histories of Hungarian women or the social-political movements concerning their issues. Some research there would have strengthened Lendvai's book as an historical resource. And, while he mentions Karl-Maria Kertbeny very briefly as a 19th century journalist, I had hoped Lendvai would have acknowledged that Kertbeny coined the term "homosexual" and was a pioneer in advocating for the social acceptance of LGBTs, influencing the Austrian-German psychoanalytic movement (including Freud) which originally took a broad view of human sexuality.

Thus, his book is not such a great resource for understanding identities within identities outside of political categories like nationalist and reformist as well as the historical positionalities of Hungarian Jews (importantly).

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were clearly some editing/translating issues with the book. At the beginning, I would get confused by a sentence and then realize that it should have been part of the sentence which followed it. This happened multiple times. So, when I found the book confusing, I didn't entirely chalk it up to my ignorance. It was probably a combination of three factors:
1. Poor writing or editing or both.
2. Complex history with a lot of changing of allegiances.
3. My ignorance of the period(s) and of Hungarian history in general.
I think perhaps a beginner would be best off reading a shorter summary-type history before approaching this one.

[Tlaloc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not having read any previous works dedicated solely to the history of the Hungarian people, this book was a worthy first choice. Like most history books, it is mostly concerned about politics and who's-who rather than illuminating the lives of the average man. Still, it's informative about the earlier period of Hungarian history (during, and directly after, their migration) and the more modern day times (especially during the union with Austria), all without sounding biased or nationalistic. If anything it is humble and tends to show the multicultural origins of Hungary's historically tenacious desire to control its own fate.

[Róbert Šedivý · Rating 4 out of 5]

Výborná kniha od renomovaného autora. Nevedel som sa od nej odlepiť. Z môjho pohľadu vhodné skĺbenie faktov a literárnej zručnosti.

[Paulo Reimann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. I started out of a Brazilian-Hungarian curiosity. I have studied Hungarian history but mostly under my parents view. The book initially felt too scholarly but I progressed the 600 pages, became mesmerised by the view, quality and moreover, fun to read. A must read for Hungarians and semi - Hungarians to see how unique and tough was/is the Hungarian story.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In 150 years, ... Hungary had not paid so much to the turks as it had to pay now in two years to the Imperial armies." (147)

"It did not consist of an Austrian part and a Hungarian part that, as one might expect, complemented each other, but of a whole and a part, that is, of a Hungarian and an Austro-Hungarian sense of statehood, the latter to be found in Austria, which in a sense left the Austrian sense of statehood with no country of its own. The Austrian existed only in Hungary, and there as an object of dislike; at home he called himself a national of the kingdom and lands of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as represented in the Imperial Council, meaning that he was an Austrian plus a Hungarian minus that Hungarian; and he did this not with enthusiasm but only for the sake of a concept that was repugnant to him, because he could bear the Hungarians as little as they could bear him, which added still another complication to the whole combination." (283)

"In contrast to the stormy national struggle against the traditional leading position of German-Austrians, the history of national movements in uniformly Maygar-dominated Hungary proceeded seemingly far more smoothly. In reality, however the 'peace and quiet' in Hungry spelt far more danger than the noisy parliamentary upheavals in Vienna. Of the 413 deputies in the Hungarian parliament only eight represented the nationalities whereas, according to the population figures, there should have been 215 Hungarians and 198 representatives of the nationalities." (292)

"The Revolution and Trianon thus destroyed the historic pact between the ruling political class and Hungarian Jewry. ... Magyarization was no longer either needed or wanted, and nor was Jewish help in the fight against the nationalities -- hence the radical change in public opinion. All of a sudden there was no longer a large body of national minorities but a competing Jewish middle class; ... the ethnic bogeyman had been replaced by the Jewish bogeyman." (379)

[Matthew Warchal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good history though the absence of the Napoleonic era and the slight coverage of the French revolution is noticeable. Kendal and Decker are very effective at battering the national myths of the Magyars and how their is inextricably linked after the conquests of the Hungarian plains with the people they settled with. Germans are the main ethnic group the Magyars had a love hate relationship. As both a Czech /Slovak and having been aware of Hungarian history since I was a child, it waa also surprised how much a servant class the Slovaks were, despite being more numerous than the Magyars were in the north of their kingdom that rightfully went to Czechoslovakia and then to Slovakia. Even this was a bitter pill for the Magyars and one of many reasons they made horrible decisions and trusted Hitler to get these lands back. The servant relationship was also extended to Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and their bitter enemies the Romanians. They are a fascinating people, but their pride and occasionally closed mindset led to some terrible leaders who aided in the Holocaust despite the long alliance between Jews and the nobility. One other quibble was the nationalistic last chapter that extolled the impact of Hungarians, which is significant, but the chapter takes on the look of cheerleading as opposed to objective history like most of the rest of work followed.

[Adrian Fanaca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional book. As a Romanian, to learn about my Hungarian brothers history is an enlightening act. Paul Ledvai does a great job here, fantastic book. Some highlights I remained with, as I did not obviosuly know them, were: Hungarians were considered huge barbarians when they arrived in Europe, with the Western European abbots calling them various names and attributing them various attrocities like drinking blood and being cannibals; there was a huge rivalry of Hungarians and Germans since their arrival; the Hungarians split the Slavs in two parts, and apparently this is the main reason the Slavs have bad opinion of the Hungarian people till today; there was a huge disruption in the history of the Hungarians once the Mongols arrived, with the Hungarian plains being emptied; their biggest King, Mattyas, was a quarter Romanian; the Szekely who are mostly in Transylvania now and who consider themselves Hungarian are not related in blood with the Hungarians, being a Bulgarian-Turkic people; the Hungarian revolution of 1848 was made by young people as old as 25 years old as Petofi Sandor was at the time; Hungarian at one time had a huge territory, going to Italy, Croatian seaside, with a lot of Czech and Slovakia huge, huge territory and it was ruled from Bratislava not Budapest.

[Manuel Durazo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro muy completo que cubre la historia de Hungría desde su fundación hasta el final de la segunda guerra mundial.

El mensaje principal puede reducirse a el esfuerzo del pueblo húngaro por resistir numerosas invasiones y presiones extranjeras, así como su necesidad de establecer una identidad nacional tomando la bandera del magiarismo y el lenguaje como pilares fundamentales.

En forma biográfica el autor resalta las principales aportaciones de personajes clave en la historia de Hungría: la conquista de Árpad, el catolicismo de Esteban I, el genio militar de Juan Hunyadi, la consolidación y defensa de Matias Corvino, el pragmatismo de Ferenc Deak, el nacionalismo de Lajos Kossuth, entre otros.

"The Hungarians" refleja la voluntad de un pueblo por sobrevivir, es un libro que muestra los episodios más oscuros y gloriosos de la historia húngara, perfecto para entender su pasado y su capacidad para mantenerse de pie frente a cualquier adversidad.

[Ilona Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not enough overview, too much detail about the wrong things

I gave up after WWII. This book gets bogged down in small details about individuals and poorly reveals the overarching themes. I did pick up a few things about how Hungary under the Austrian empire was a place of many nationalities living together with the Magyars. How the language was not spoken by the aristocracy or in government and how speaking the language became the way to ensure Hungarianness. But Hungary is a country trapped between very powerful nations and at the same time the need to be Hungarian blinded them to the machinations of others. It was inspiring to read about the freedoms for Jews in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s which sadly meant many were known and killed. And how the partition after WWI was part of the impetus to ally with Germans before WWII. There must be a more readable history of Hungary. This one is just a blur of names and complicated political machinations.

[Caomhghain · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a really good coverage of Hungary's history. It concentrates on the areas of current Hungary and Transylvania by and large which is fair enough. The author obviously prescribes to the 'great man' theory of history as we get the history through a series of great lives, by and large, but it is lively and entertaining. He partly faces the semi-disaster that is nineteenth and twentieth century Hungarian history. The victim coloniser, the intermittently anti-Semite, the nationalism that could see noone else's nation, wanted to destroy them and to a limited degree succeeded in doing so. A great many non-'Magyars' Hungarianised, especially Jews and Germans. Little good it did them in the long run.

The chapter on the post-Second World War Hungary is something of a mess - perhaps the lack of an obvious 'great man' gives the author no handle.

[Frank Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

As described, this book seeks to cover a thousand years of the history of the Magyar, or the Hungarians. The book was long, and sometimes too detailed on items that were not of interest thus making the reading slow and difficult. As a history of the Hungarians, it was excellent and exactly what I hoped for. My understanding has increased exponentially as a result. The history reminds me somewhat of Irish history (I live in Ireland), in that the recent history is about foreign oppression followed by corrupt politicians. While the foreign parties are different, I can still empathise and relate. The earlier history is the more exciting part and provides those exciting stories that makes one proud. As a result, the earlier part of the book was the most enjoyable.

[Robbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay. Some chapters dragged on, and others flew by. Overall, it was an interesting and certainly impassioned narrative of Hungarian history.

My main gripe is that for the back third of the book (or maybe more), it felt like every chapter started with a tease of an event that then was then built up to or explained by looking at the years preceding it.

I don't mind this when used occasionally as it's a good way to generate enthusiasm to get into the topic, but it became predictable and, at times, had the opposite effect because i knew the end result. The political drama, for example, loses its edge a bit when this is done.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating tour through Hungarian history up to the late 19th into the 20th century where the author increasingly betrays his political opinions. His last major chapter on famous Hungarians is as thorough as it is revealing of his concluding thoughts at the end of the book (that Hungary’s future or even key to survival is in the EU). Nonetheless I am one of those “of Hungarian origin” who never learned the language, so I still think his question “What is a Hungarian? (Can one be Hungarian by choice?)” is a good one to ask. It was pretty surreal to read the high-level summary of 20th century / wartime events knowing I descend from those who lived it.

[Erik Champenois · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book together with "A Concise History of Hungary." While the latter was clearer and better organized, this book added more depth and color to the events of Hungarian history, particularly through focusing on the personalities involved in important historical events such as the 1848 revolution. The main drawbacks were the more episodic, impressionistic coverage of earlier Hungarian history, and the sometimes poor and convoluted writing structure, with several instances of periods being used when commas should have been used instead.

[Cristian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great if you are a Hungarian or if you want to become a big fan. Lots of propaganda and a permanent heroic and special view. If you read the preface, you know what is coming, a revisionist view without any connection to what was wrong, to correlate cause and effect, an imagined uniqueness about this nation. Only flaws are in relation with the 20th century, especially about those that had a negative behaviour towards Jews. At osmw point it mentions a hypothesis of Hungarians being extraterrestrials. The last part is chaotic,un structured. Still, I could extract some info on Hungarian history.

[James Spencer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing. Lendvai's writing is not good (although it could be the translation) and is very poor history. Bill Perrin's review above is spot on and I won't repeat it but I would note that rather than state historical fact with some valid source cites, Lendvai simply labels events and times with adjectives without any source and which are thus just his unfounded opinions. I do not have any disagreement with Lendvai about his views of Victor Orban and in fact share them but I read this hoping to learn of Hungary's history and feel in this he has failed utterly.

[Christian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a few hungarian friends and there was something strange about them, that i never understood. This book is so biased and with so much hungarian communist historic propaganda, that is hard to ignore. You need a lot of historic data from this part of Europe to properly understand this fairytale. If i have to describe the spirit of this book in a few words: lamentation and arrogance.

[Suleyman Sari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly regret having read this book so late, in my 7th year in Hungary. Learning about this somewhat brief account of all major events and personalities in Hungarian history, through this book alone, helps one understand, at least sheds light on, most of the current attitudes and conflicts in this unique country: so many things fall into their places.

[laurentiu]

0

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book written by Hungarian. It was a brutally honest run through of the history of Hungary. I loved it.

[Gennady Polonetsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first book I has found in English about Hungarian history.

[Linda Lindquist-Bishop · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was helpful to dive into on my way to Hungary seeking to understand the people and culture. -and ‘why’ of Hungary, Orban and their place in the world. Offered solid perspective.

[Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is excellent if you want a detailed account of a specific period of Hungarian history. It's not bad, but I think reading this Chapter by Chapter is rather dry.

[Chris Wares · Rating 5 out of 5]

At 500 pages it’s an epic account of the history of the Hungarians but very readable.

[Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Lendvai’s The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat, is a fine political survey of Hungary’s past millennium. The focus is largely upon rulers and political intrigues, of powerful men and their struggles, and little attention is given to women or social history, save except for the plight of Jews under frequent antisemitism. The last chapter is devoted to Hungarian scientists and artists, though most emigrated to the West and did their work in foreign lands.

If one is not familiar with the country, much of this book and its barrage of names, events, and places will prove cumbersome to attempt to internalize, especially as the work lacks many of the personal flavors which might ease a newcomer into the history. The Hungarian tongue is largely opaque to Western ears, as it shares little with either Romantic or Germanic languages, and so many of the names or places are that much more difficult to keep track of and remember. I was fortunate to spend part of a summer in Hungary, which certainly helped in my comprehension, and I still had to reread several passages to ensure I understood what was happening.

Comprehension and reading enjoyment are not helped, however, by the often shoddy editorial work. For the first half of the book hardly a page goes by without a spelling, grammatical, or punctuation error occurring and acting as a speed-bump in an otherwise smoothly written passage. I have a suspicion that not much editing was done after the translator’s work was submitted, to which Princeton University Press certainly should have paid more attention. By the second half of the book the errors are thankfully less frequent.

Nevertheless, The Hungarians does offer a nice general overview of Magyar history, and many of the insights which Lendvai offers ring true to my experiences in the country, often confirming many suspicions which I held. His scope and research are wide-reaching, and he generally remains as unbiased as he claims to be in his introduction. Overall it is a successful work.

[Paul Haspel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Lendvai's The Hungarians is the kind of history that can justly be called magisterial. This wonderfully thorough work of historical synthesis recounts the story of the Hungarian people from the earliest discernible beginnings of the Finno-Ugrian language group to political developments in contemporary Hungary since the successful 1988-89 revolution against communist rule. The book's subtitle -- A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat -- captures well a central paradox of Hungary's history: that while much of Hungarian history involves the trauma of defeat and occupation, by enemies from the Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the Hapsburgs to the Nazis to the Soviets, the Hungarian culture has remained wonderfully alive and vibrant throughout that often difficult history. I found particularly interesting those passages in which Lendvai, a distinguished journalist and author, relates Hungary's history to his own experience, as when he discusses the liberalization that occurred in socialist Hungary after the death of Stalin in 1953: "The promise to end police despotism, disband the internment camps, decree an amnesty and revoke deportations immediately enabled tens of thousands, including the author of this book, to return to normal life" (p. 446). It is not a fast read -- 507 densely packed pages -- but it is a very rewarding one, reminding me of Daniel Boorstin's three-volume The Americans in the way it interweaves the historical and cultural development of a people. Well-illustrated with engravings, portraits, and photographs, and with maps that show clearly how, over the course of its history, Hungary alternately grew and (especially after the 1920 Treaty of Trianon) shrank. For any reader with a serious interest in Hungary and its people, The Hungarians is essential.

[Bill Perrin · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want a good book of the pre-21st century history of Hungary; look somewhere else. Lend an doesn’t write as a historian, rather as a journalist with a talent for hiding his prejudices, and even at this task he is not able to hide his biases very well. In his story of early Hungary he exalts individuals and slips between definitions of what is a Hungarian to suit his rhetoric and continues this shabby trick through to the 1990s.
An example you ask. He treatment of the post Great War to the end of the Second World War his treads very softly and when he must mention something unsavoury about this period he adds something like. Not very nice these fascists in killing people (hundreds of thousands) with a reminder that the communists after the Second World War were also nasty without mentioning the scale of the repression under the communists did not results in hundreds of thousands of people dying. It is almost childish.
His penultimate chapter is a incredible nationalistic rant about famous Hungarians, continuing his second major trick of slip sliding with the question of what is a Hungarian.
Hungarian women don’t get a look in. Not in any field or in any era. I guess women are and we’re about 50 per cent of the population but Lend ai couldn’t find anything they did.
Reading wasn’t a complete waste of time but it is on the continuum of uselessness. Although in other more recent books he criticises Oban for various policies but in his history book he provides Oban with enough confected analysis for Oban to rule for another 20 years.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating detailed history of Hungary and the Hungarian people. I learned countless things for the first time, including about the person, Falk Miksa, for whom my home street in Budapest was named. Many of the things were not as complementary as I expected from my history lessons in 5th grade under communism in Budapest. It gave me a more balanced view of the good and the bad in our history. As I read about the 20th century, it made me sad that my mom and dad were no longer around for me to talk with them about it and their memories of living though those times. If you're Hungarian, you should take the time and read all 500 pages of this book.