History

Recent History

In April 2002, Hungarians tired of their right-wing government and its bullish nationalist rhetoric despite the strong economic growth it had managed to achieve, and voted the Socialists into power. Hungary joined NATO and became a full participant in the EU in 2004, with adoption of the euro not expected for some years to come. Two days before accession to the EU, the Budapest city council revoked Stalin's honorary citizenship of the city, granted in 1947 in recognition of his role in Hungary's liberation in WWII.

In June 2005 parliament elected László Sólyom, a law professor and founding member of the MDF, as the third president of the republic to succeed Ferenc Mádl.

Modern Day History

Austria-Hungary entered WWI as an ally of Germany - with disastrous results - and a republic was set up in Budapest immediately after the war. Hungarian Communists seized power, but were overthrown five months later by troops from Romania. In 1920, the Allies drew up a postwar settlement under the Treaty of Trianon which drastically reduced Hungarian territory. Hungary sought help from the fascist governments of Germany and Italy to recover its land and found itself again on the losing side in WWII. Budapest bore the brunt of Hungary's spilt blood, with the retreating Germans blowing up Buda Castle and every bridge spanning the Danube.

In 1947, rigged elections brought the Communists to power. There was bitter feuding within the Party, with purges and Stalinesque show trials the norm. The nation was then rocked irrevocably by the 1956 Uprising, an anti-Soviet revolution in Budapest, which left thousands dead after brutal Russian military retaliation. Many buildings around Pest to this day bear pockmarks and holes from the bloody showdown. This was followed by the worst reprisals in the country's history, and the consolidation of the regime, lead by János Kádár, who managed to transform himself from traitor and most hated man in the land to respected reformer. He embarked on a program of 'goulash' (consumer-oriented) Communism and by the mid-1970s, his reforms had successfully transformed Hungary into the most liberal, developed and richest nation in the region. However, continuing unemployment, a soaring inflation rate and mounting debt saw Kádár ousted in 1988. Following the collapse of Communism, the nation became the Republic of Hungary in 1989, paving the way for the first free elections in more than four decades.

Pre 20th Century History

Strictly speaking, the story of Budapest begins in 1873 when hilly, residential Buda and historic Óbuda on the western bank of the Danube River merged with flat, industrial Pest on the east to form what was at first called Pest-Buda. But Budapest's history is far more complicated than that.

The Carpathian Basin, in which Hungary lies, has been populated by successive peoples for hundreds of thousands of years. A parade of Celts, Romans, Huns, Mongols, Turks, Slovaks, Austrians and Germans, have re-forged and distilled Hungary's identity many times over.

Magyars, as Hungarians call themselves, are part of the Finno-Ugric group of peoples, who originated in western Siberia. It is believed that one group of Magyars, fleeing attack, established themselves on Csepel Island and Óbuda when Pest and Buda barely existed. Known for their equestrian skills, the greater Magyars raided far and wide, until they were stopped by the Germans in 955. This and subsequent defeats left them in disarray, and later forced them into an alliance with the Holy Roman Empire. In the year 1000, the Magyar prince Stephen was crowned 'Christian King' Stephen I (later canonised Saint Stephen), with a crown sent from Rome by the pope, and Hungary, the kingdom and the nation, was officially born.

The next two and a half centuries were marked by constant struggles between rival claimants to the throne, and land grabs by powerful neighbours, sending the kingdom into decline. A castle was built at Buda to arrest the slide and Pest was proclaimed a royal municipality. After the death in 1301 of Andrew III, the Árpád Dynasty's last in line, Hungary flourished with a succession of able rulers, beginning with Charles Robert, his son Louis the Great and then Sigismund of Luxembourg (who founded a university at Óbuda and erected the first pontoon bridge over the Danube). This period culminated in the golden reign of Matthias Corvinus ('The Raven'), who made the country one of Europe's leading powers and brought Buda into the nation's focus for the first time. In 1526, however, his successor was crushed inside two hours by the Ottoman Turks. This marked the end of a relatively prosperous and independent Hungary, sending the nation into a tailspin of partition, foreign domination and despair, the results of which are still evident in the ethnic mix today. Buda was sacked and burned before the Turks returned and took it for good in 1541. Resistance to Turkish rule forced the Turks out in 1699.

Under the rule of the Austrian Habsburg Empire Hungary blossomed economically and culturally, as did nationalism. Buda effectively became the German-speaking town of Ofen and by 1783 was the nation's administrative centre, while Pest began to outgrow the city walls. Pest later became an important commercial centre while Buda remained a royal garrison town. In 1849, under the rebel leadership of Lajos Kossuth, Hungary declared full independence. The Habsburgs were able to crush the revolution and instigated a series of brutal reprisals.

However, passive resistance among Hungarians and a couple of disastrous military defeats for the Habsburgs eventually led to the Compromise of 1867, creating the Dual Monarchy of Austria the empire and Hungary the kingdom. In 1873 Buda, Pest and Óbuda united to form Budapest. This 'Age of Dualism' instigated an unprecedented economic, cultural and intellectual rebirth. Much of what you see in Budapest today was built during this time - from the grand boulevards and eclectic-style apartment blocks to the Parliament building and Matthias Church in the Castle District.