Hungary

country in Central Europe

Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe, bordering the Balkan Peninsula. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The country's capital and largest city is Budapest. Hungary is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the Visegrád Group, and the Schengen Area. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe.

Hungary is a member of the Schengen Area and the EU single market.

QuotesEdit

  • Hungary is now a small country, but she is, as D. H. Lawrence said of Balzac, a gigantic dwarf, with an interest far beyond her size and the remoteness of her language.
  • Czechoslovakia and Hungary were the most developed of the countries the Red Army occupied after 1944. Before 1918, Hungary had been a key part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which dominated central Europe. During World War II, its authoritarian Right-wing government had allied itself with Nazi Germany, with disastrous consequences as the war ended. The Soviets shot their way through eastern Hungary to the capital, Budapest, which was then subjected to a devastating siege. When the Hungarian government tried to arrange a cease-fire, local Fascists rebelled and fought on alongside the Germans until the German surrender in May 1945. Even more than its neighbors, the Hungarians had got the short end of the stick: not only had the country been devastated by war, but its elites had not managed to change sides in time. As a result, Hungary was occupied not only by the Red Army, but by the Romanians, with whom the country had a number of overlapping territorial claims.
    • Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (2017)

External linksEdit

  Encyclopedic article on Hungary on Wikipedia