Hungary is a landlocked country in central Europe. It borders Austria in the west, Czechoslovakia in the north, the \TUSSR\t in the northeast, Romania in the east, and Yugoslavia in the south. Although mineral-poor, since World War II Hungary has been transformed into an industrialized state. Until 1918 it was part of Austria-Hungary, and was three and one-half times its present size, including sections of present-day Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Ukraine. Hungary was a one-party Communist state from 1948 to 1989, when it adopted a multiparty, democratic form of government. LAND AND RESOURCES Topographically, Hungary is divided into three regions: Transdanubia (Dunantul) in the west, consisting mostly of low, undulating mountains and lowlands that include the Little Plain (Kis Alfold); the North-Central Mountain region (Eszaki Kozephegyseg) adjacent to the Slovak highlands; and the Great Plain (Nagy Alfold), which lies east of the Danube River. The highest elevation is Kekes Mountain (1,015 m/3,093 ft). Drainage The principal rivers are the Danube (Duna) and the Tisza. The Danube's most important tributaries are the Raba and the Drava; the Tisza's confluents include the Bodrog, Hernad, and Zagya rivers on its right bank, and the Koros and Maros on its left. Lake Balaton (598 sq km/231 sq mi) in western Hungary is the largest lake in central Europe. Soils Hungary's soil was silted by the primeval Danube and other early rivers, and then changes due to vegetation, water, and wind erosion resulted in heavy loess deposits. The main types of soil are: forest (41%), skeletal (26%), black-earth, or chernozem (25%), alkali (6%), and moorlands (2%). The loess-covered regions are well suited for agriculture, while the hill districts with their volcanic deposits are excellent for viniculture. Climate Hungary's climate, influenced by Mediterranean, oceanic, and continental systems, is variable but moderate. During the 1980s the mean annual temperature was 10.8 C (51.4 F). The temperature in January averages -1.2 C (29.8 F); in July, 21.7 C (71 F). The average yearly precipitation is 630 mm (25 in), the wettest area being western Transdanubia. Most rainfall occurs from May through July, which is good for agriculture. Flora and Fauna Over the centuries much of Hungary's vegetation and wildlife has been destroyed. Some deer and wild boar still live in the hills; hares, pheasants, partridges, waterfowl and other aquatic animals survive in the lowlands and nature preserves. About two-thirds of the land is under cultivation. About 18% of the remainder is deciduous forest. Natural Resources Modern Hungary is extremely poor in non-agricultural resources. It does have some bauxite, coal, iron, uranium, oil, and gas deposits, but these are insufficient even for domestic needs. PEOPLE Hungarians (Magyars) constitute 96.1% of the population. The remainder are ethnic Germans, Slovaks, South Slavs, Romanians, and Gypsies. More than 2 million additional Magyars live in Romania, another million in the United States, 700,000 in Czechoslovakia, and 500,000 in Yugoslavia. Religion According to the 1941 census (the last to consider religion), 65.6% of Hungarians were Roman Catholic, 26.8% Protestant, 4.3% Jewish, and 2.5% Eastern Rite Catholic. Today a significant percentage of the population does not practice religion, but the above ratio is preserved. The only exception is the Jews, who were decimated by the Holocaust. Their number is about 80,000-90,000 (0.8%), most of whom live in Budapest. Demography Hungary has the lowest birthrate in Eastern Europe, and its population declined slightly between 1980 and 1990. Twenty percent of all Hungarians live in Budapest, the country's capital, 35% in 165 other cities and towns, and 45% in 2,892 villages. After Budapest, Hungary's largest cities are \TDebrecen\t, \TMiskolc\t, \TSzeged\t, \TPecs\t, and \TGyor\t. Education Hungarian education began a process of transformation with the political changes of 1989. After four decades of Marxist control, the system was restructured along more traditional lines. Primary education is free and compulsory. Secondary education is conducted in classical, technical, and vocational schools. Hungary has four comprehensive universities (Budapest, Debrecen, Pecs, and Szeged), 15 specialized universities, and 42 specialized colleges. Health Hungary has a comprehensive, state-financed health-care system. Medical help is readily available, and although the quality of service is not up to Western standards, significant progress has been made in recent decades. Most communicable diseases have been eradicated, and life expectancy increased significantly since 1941. Hungarian Creativity Beginning in the 19th century, Hungary has produced a large number of world-famous figures in the arts and sciences. These include such painters as Mihaly Munkacsy and Gyula Benczur, the painter-sculptor-photographer Laszlo \TMoholy-Nagy\t, architect Marcel \TBreuer\t, composers Franz \TLiszt\t, Bela \TBartok\t, and Zoltan \TKodaly\t, conductors Fritz Reiner, Georg \TSzell\t, Eugene \TOrmandy\t, and Sir Georg \TSolti\t, physicians Ignaz Philipp \TSemmelweis\t and Albert von \TSzent-Gyorgyi\t, and scientists Lorant \TEotvos\t, Theodore von \TKarman\t, Leo \TSzilard\t, John \Tvon Neumann\t, Eugene Paul \TWigner\t, and Edward \TTeller\t. ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES In 1949, Hungary's Communist-controlled government undertook an ambitious plan to industrialize the country's economy, but without regard for its resources and capabilities. Emphasis on heavy industry stifled production of consumer goods and inflicted much ecological damage. Having come face to face with its mistakes, in 1968 the government introduced the New Economic Mechanism (NEM), a partially market-oriented restructuring of the economy. Combined with billions of dollars in foreign loans, the NEM was initially successful. By the late 1980s, however, it had run out of fuel. A major economic crisis resulted, which helped to topple the whole socialist system. With the dismantling of the Communist regime in 1989, Hungary began the process of moving from socialism to a market-oriented economy. Industry Hungary's per capita \TGNP\t makes it a country of medium-level development. In the 1980s about 96% of the national income was produced by the socialist sector, and only 4% by the private sector, but the situation has changed considerably since then. Manufacturing and construction produced nearly three-fifths of this income. The engineering and chemicals industries, especially pharmaceuticals, are of major importance. Fossil fuels provide most of the country's energy. Agriculture Farm products provide nearly 15% of the national income, and in the early 1990s accounted for about 19% of employment. In addition to highly diversified crop-livestock farming, Hungarian farms produce maize (corn), sugar beets, wheat, potatoes, and grapes; livestock includes hogs, cattle, and poultry. Milk and egg production is also significant, as is wine. Transportation and Communications The Danube is the principal waterway, but most freight is carried by rail and trucks. All larger cities have efficient local transportation systems. Hungary has little domestic air service, but the national airline (MALEV) serves most of Europe and the Middle East, and has regular flights between New York and Budapest. Hungary's postal, telegraph, and telephone services are part of the international network, and are undergoing technological modernization. Until 1989 the press, radio, and television were under government control. With the relaxation of censorship, hundreds of new periodicals and scores of new publishing houses were founded. Foreign Trade Hungary's principal import commodities are crude oil, natural gas, minerals, synthetic fibers, semifinished goods, trucks, and passenger cars; its export commodities include precision instruments, buses, pharmaceuticals, ready-made garments, leather footwear, canned and raw meat products, canned vegetables, fruits, and wine. In the early 1990s some 43% of the total was with the Soviet Union. GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS For more than four decades after World War II, Hungary was a one-party state and a Soviet satellite, dominated by the Hungarian Socialist (Communist) Workers' Party (HSWP). The president and prime minister were subordinate to the first secretary of the Communist party, who between 1956 and 1988 was Janos \TKadar\t. Impelled by the Soviet campaign for \Tperestroika\t and by their own economic crisis, Hungary's Reform Communists--led by Imre Pozsgay and Miklos Nemeth--transformed the country into a multiparty parliamentary state. In October 1989 the HSWP became the Hungarian Socialist party (HSP) and discarded the Communist name Hungarian People's Republic in favor of the Republic of Hungary. These changes were approved by a plebiscite a month later. Despite these attempts at reform, the HSP was defeated when elections were held in March and April 1990. A new democratic government led by the Hungarian Democratic Forum (HDF) and its allies, the Independent Smallholders' party (ISHP) and the Christian Democratic People's party (CDPP), took office in May. This right-center coalition gained 60% of the vote and 230 seats in the 386-member National Assembly. Led by Jozsef Antal of the HDF, it has a program emphasizing personal and political freedom, human rights, a social protective net, and Hungary's desire to leave the Warsaw Pact and become a member of the European Community. The HDF's most important rival parties are the Federation of Free Democrats (FFD), which favors even more rapid westernization, and the HSP, which hopes to preserve some aspects of socialism. The FFD won 23.6% of the vote and 91 seats, and the HSP, 8.5% and 33 seats. HISTORY The territory of modern Hungary was occupied in ancient times by the Roman provinces of Pannonia and Dacia. The Magyars migrated there from the shores of the Black Sea under their leader Prince Arpad in the 9th century. After several decades of forays into western Europe, they were defeated by the German king Otto I at the Battle of the Lechfeld (955). Hungary's first king, \TStephen I\t (r.997-1038, known as Saint Stephen), united the country, Christianized it, and integrated it into the European community of nations. Medieval Hungary During the two centuries that followed, the Magyars expanded their rule into the area of present-day Yugoslavia. In 1091, \TLadislas I\t acquired Croatia (which remained part of the Kingdom of Hungary until 1918). During the 12th century the Hungarian kings gained suzerainty over Dalmatia and Bosnia. Royal power declined under the inept rule (1205-35) of \TAndrew II\t. The nobles rebelled against Andrew, forcing him to issue the Golden Bull (1222), an agreement similar to England's Magna Carta. The Golden Bull defined the rights of the nobility and compelled the king to share his powers with them in a national Diet, or assembly. This weakening of the monarchy was followed by the devastating Mongol invasion of 1241. Andrew's successor, Bela IV (r.1235-70), built fortresses for protection against the invaders, and in the chaotic period following the extinction (1301) of the Arpad dynasty, local lords used the fortresses to defy royal power and rule over the various provinces. In the 14th century the \TAngevin\t dynasty came to power in Hungary. Its worthiest representative, \TLouis I\t (r. 1342-82) extended Hungarian influence into Poland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Walachia, and as far away as Naples, the home of his dynasty. Louis's son-in-law, \TSigismund\t, king of Hungary (1387- 1437), and king of Germany and Holy Roman emperor (1410-37), was the first to face the threat of Ottoman Turkish expansion in Europe. For a while, Janos \THunyadi\t and his son, King \TMatthias Corvinus\t (r. 1458-90), were able to fend off this danger, but Matthias's kingdom disintegrated soon after his death, and then succumbed to the Turks after Hungary's defeat at the Battle of Mohacs (1526). Foreign Domination After Mohacs the country was divided into three parts: "Royal Hungary," in the west, was ruled by the Austrian Habsburgs; "Turkish Hungary" was under Ottoman rule; Transylvania was an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire under a Hungarian dynasty, in which the Magyar national spirit and language were preserved. In the late 17th century the Habsburgs conquered and reunited all of Hungary, but the harshness of their rule provoked a series of uprisings, culminating in the War of Liberation led by Ferenc Rakoczi. Rakoczi's rebellion ended with the compromise peace of Szatmar (1711), which confirmed Habsburg overlordship, but enabled Hungary to escape being relegated to the position of a province like the Czech kingdom of Bohemia. A Hungarian national revival began in the second half of the 18th century. By 1825 it had become a political movement with the goal of asserting Hungary's co-equality with Austria. It aroused Magyar national consciousness, but a new War of Liberation (1848-49) under the leadership of Lajos \TKossuth\t was defeated by Austria with Russian help. Passive resistance by the Magyars, combined with a series of domestic and foreign policy reverses in Germany and Italy, however, soon forced the Habsburgs to come to terms with Hungary. The result was the Austro-Hungarian Compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867, which created the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The five decades of the Dual Monarchy (1867-1918) constitute perhaps the most productive period in the history of the Hungarian nation. During those fifty years Budapest grew from a provincial town into a magnificent European metropolis, Hungarian cultural and intellectual life came to rival that of Vienna, and Hungarian society produced some of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century. The Modern Nation The Habsburg realm was dismembered by the victorious Allies after Austria-Hungary's defeat in World War II, and Hungary emerged as a shadow of its former self. The Treaty of Trianon (1920) stripped it of nearly three-quarters of its territory and reduced it aprroximately to its present size. Under the regency (1920-44) of Admiral Miklos \THorthy\t de Nagybanya, the Magyars devoted all their energies to recovering their former lands. In return for a partial and short lived revision of its frontiers (1939 and 1941), Hungary allied itself with Germany in World War II. At the end of the war the country was under Soviet occupation. After three years of coalition governments, the Communists established a one-party dictatorship and transformed Hungary into a "People's Democracy." Led by Matyas \TRakosi\t, they undertook forced collectivization and industrialization and introduced a reign of terror. The resulting discontent culminated in the \THungarian Revolution\t of 1956, which was put down by Soviet intervention. This was followed by a few years of repression, and then by a period of liberalization under Janos Kadar, who soon made Hungary the envy of the Soviet bloc. By the 1980s, however, the Kadar-initiated NEM began to flounder. In 1988 his regime was replaced by that of the Reform Communists, who instituted multi-party government in 1989 and were ousted by the Hungarian Democratic Forum in 1990. S. B. Vardy Bibliography: \TGeneral\t: Borsody, Stephen, ed., The Hungarians: A Divided Nation (1988); Hungary (annual, 1966- ); Statistical Pocketbook of Hungary (annual, 1958- ). \TSociety\t AND \Tculture\t: Czigany, Lorant, The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature (1984); Kampis, A., The History of Art in Hungary (1966); Lukacs, John, Budapest 1900 (1989); Vardy, Agnes and Steven, The Austro-Hungarian Mind (1989). \Teconomy\t: Berend, Ivan T., and Ranki, Gyorgy, The Hungarian Economy in the Twentieth Century (1985). \LPolitic\ls AND \Tgovernment\t: Batt, Judy, Reform and Political Change in Eastern Europe (1988); Kovrig, Bennett, Communism in Hungary (1979). \Thistory\t: Gati, Charles, Hungary and the Soviet Bloc (1986); Hoensch, Jorg, A History of Modern Hungary, 1867-1986 (1988); Macartney, C. A., Hungary: A Short History (1962); Vardy, Agnes and Steven, eds., Triumph in Adversity: Studies in Hungarian Civilization (1988); Volgyes, Ivan, Hungary: A Nation of Contradictions (1982).