Hungarian Conservative

Many examples of resistance to the Nazis were cited by the national committees after the Soviet occupation, in the people’s prosecutors cases and the people’s tribunal cases as well. These materials still need to be explored by Hungarian historians.

The Second Hungarian Army, during the autumn and winter of 1942, prepared to hold up the incoming Soviet offensive coming from the direction of Stalingrad. As the Germans lost the siege of the city in all but theory, it was practically sure that the Soviets would advance toward the River Don. Thus, the Hungarian troops were left to defend the bridgeheads from the Soviets, who outnumbered them seven to one.

The tragic fate and bravery of Gusztáv Jány, Commander of the Hungarian Second Army, mirror those of his troops, and, in many ways, of Hungary itself.

Hungary is a hospitable land with exceptionally friendly people, a country known for welcoming millions of tourists annually. That kindness, however, shall not be mistaken for weakness, as over the course of history, Hungary has proved it is a birthplace of warriors, valiancy, and engineering ingenuity that brought about effective military technologies.

‘Many Jewish citizens from European nations like Sweden are enduring levels of hostility that are non-existent in Hungary. In contrast, Yacov Hadas-Handelsman, the current Israeli ambassador to Hungary, earlier this year named Hungary as one of the safest nations for Jews to live in. Furthermore, the Jewish community in Hungary is not only thriving, but also one of the largest in Europe.’

16 November marks the day when Rear Admiral, and later Regent, Miklós Horthy marched into Budapest in 1919, symbolically ending the Hungarian Soviet Republic. This remains a controversial event to this very day: while on the one hand, it ended a period of chaos and dictatorship, on the other hand, it bolstered the so-called White Terror.

The Austro–Hungarian Empire was not a colonial empire in the traditional meaning of the word—however, there were a number of attempts on the part of the Dual Monarchy to establish overseas territories, some of which even had moderate success.

Pál Teleki, prime minister of Hungary in the interwar era, was probably one of the most tragic figures of twentieth century Hungarian history. He was torn between his conscience and geopolitical reality, a tension he could only resolve by ending his own life as a shocking act of protest.

On 15 October 1944, Horthy made an unsuccessful attempt to exit the Second World War. The operation failed due to a number of reasons: the resistance of some officers of the Royal Hungarian Army, organisational mistakes and pre-emptive actions by the Nazi secret service. Horthy was soon forced to resign.

Mazsihisz head Andor Grósz expressed his view to Minister Gulyás that some of the recent remarks about Regent Miklós Horthy made by Fidesz officials at the 30th anniversary of Horthy’s reburial do not fall in line with the government’s principle of zero tolerance of antisemitism.

Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya, former Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary, died in exile in Portugal in 1957 and was buried there. One of his last wishes, however, was for his ashes to be brought home once his beloved country was liberated from Soviet occupation.

‘Regardless of whether the outcome is positive or negative, I believe a historian’s duty is to try to reconstruct what happened through primary sources from the archives, as objectively as possible.’

‘Szekfű described “capitalism” as “having grown in size over time, becoming a more and more fearsome monster, creating factories and cramming hundreds of thousands and millions of people into the unhealthy, immoral air of smoky cities. And the longer the unrestricted freedom proclaimed by liberalism lasts, the more freely the capitalist big business devours the little ones, the more freely it exploits the economic weaklings, especially the workers.” Szekfű’s book Three Generations, in which he also called for extensive worker protection and the regulation of industrialists by law, bears a striking resemblance to the basic tenets of socialism.’

Reuven Hecht was a right-wing Zionist who worked with the revisionist movement’s founding father, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and after the founding of the state, became an Israeli entrepreneur and right-wing politician. Today, a museum and park in the Jewish state bear his name. After trying to help the Horthy family obtain a Swiss visa, he remained in correspondence with them until his death in 1993.

On 18 June 1868, 155 years ago today, Hungarian admiral Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was born in Kenderes, Austria-Hungary. One of the greatest Hungarian statesmen of the 20th century served as the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary between 1 March 1920 and 16 October 1944.

Bartha highlights that it is a painful phenomenon that the non-Communist Hungarian resisters ‘have been relegated to the no-man’s land in terms of memory politics in the 21st century.’ Hopefully, in the future, more attention will be devoted to the anti-Nazism not only of Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky or Lieutenant General János Kiss, but also that of István Lendvai, István Zadravecz or even Gyula Kornis.

Hungary is not the only country in East-Central Europe that sees unwanted commentary and meddling by Russia with regard to interpretations of its history. The periods the evaluation of which is the most frequently contested by Russia are the Cold War era and World War II. While Russia glorifies the USSR’s effort to defeat Nazi Germany, CEE countries, including Hungary, highlight the 45 years the Red Army spent in Central Europe as an occupying force after the end of World War II.

‘We try and keep the illusion awake in ourselves that we can cross to Nagyvárad or drop by to Nagyszalonta and then run from Makó to Arad, as it used to be—so natural, so self-evident. And then all of a sudden, we realise it is no longer possible.’