Hungary: Difference between revisions

 

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* Hungarians arrived at the land which became Hungary at the end of the 9th century. They were like your typical nomad people, lots of horses and bowmanship etc.

* About 1000, King St. Stephen (''Szent István király'') founded a proper kingdom, because he realised that nomadic warfare was quite ineffective against western styled knights. The Tatar (actually Mongol, but Hungarians called Mongols Tatars) attacks of 1241-1242 showed that he was not completely right, they wiped out about half of the country. This kingdom lasted mostly independently until the 16th century.

* When the Turkish invasion tore Hungary into three parts, one controlled by the Ottoman Empire, one by Habsburg Austria, and Transylvania, a small country which was balancing between the other two, mainly to avoid destruction.

* During the 17th century the Ottomans were defeated by the Habsburgs who reunited the three parts under their rule (To say that the relationship between them and the Austrians has had its ups and downs is one way of putting it).

* After some intense peacemaking the Austro-Hungarian Empire was born. This was also thanks to the influence of Austrian Empress/Queen Consort of Hungary, Elisabeth of Wittelsbach aka Sisi, who adored Hungary so much that she spent more time in Hungarian lands than in Vienna itself. This lasted until the end of the [[First World War]], when about three-quarters of the country was divided between the neighbouring countries, leaving large ethnic Hungarian minorities there. This is known as the Treaty of Trianon and is the source of intense [[Flame War|Flamewars]] even in Hungary, not the mention some serious conflicts with the neighbours. Thing is, the Entente did the splitting ''intentionally'', with two goals: making Hungary unable to effectively go to war ever again and creating a solution that didn't satisfy ''anyone'' [[Divide and Conquer|in order to make them endlessly feud with each other instead of the West]].

* In that most people weren't too happy, which led to The Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Crushed by the Soviets.

* After 1956, at least, Hungary went through some more low-key reforms, and Hungary became ironically known as "the happiest barracks in the camp", under "Goulash Communism".

 

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* Hungarian language is a Finno-Ugric one, related only to the Finnish and Estonian ones in Europe, as well as several minority languages in the European part of Russia (in fact the two languages that are most closely related to Hungarian, Khanty and Mansi, are spoken in the Asian part of Russia). This makes it ideal for [[Fun with Foreign Languages]] or [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign]]. Check out [[Hu/Homepage|the homepage in Hungarian]].

* [[wikipedia:Ferenc Puskás|Puskás Öcsi]]: The single most famous Hungarian person ever. (Not counting Johnny von Neumann. And [[Bela Lugosi]]. And Edward Teller. And Franz Liszt)

* [[Stephen Colbert]]: The person who almost had one of the main bridges named after him on the Danube. Hell, everyone in the country voted for him in the online poll. ''1.7 times.''

** Hungarian Ambassador to the United States András Simonyi plays a mean guitar.

* Pole and Hungarian are two brothers, they fight and drink together. ;) There's even a Day of Polish-Hungarian friendship in both countries.

* Hungarian characters in foreign works rarely have authentic Hungarian names, the writers usually settle for Slavic or German cognates. The reason for this is partly that foreigners often find Hungarian writing/pronunciation very confusing, and partly that the writers [[Did Not Do the Research|Don't Do The Research]]. The first one is kinda ironic if you consider that Hungarian writing is almost perfectly phonetic.

* Reported incidents of [[Axis Powers Hetalia|seizing vital regions]] are somewhat exaggerated.

 

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[[Category:Useful Notes/Europe]]