Dan Snow's History Hit - Budapest: Between East and West

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

Almost at the centre of Europe, Budapest, is at the crossroads of geographical regions and of civilizations, at the intersection of ancient trade routes. Mountains that gradually slope into gentle hills converge on a great river, the Danube, and the regions of Buda and Pest sprang up on either side.Victor Sebestyen is a writer and historian. Victor joins Dan on the podcast to share the story of a tumultuous, often divided, but always fascinating city. They discuss how the city bears the scars of the rise and fall of multiple empires, two world wars, fascism, Nazi German occupation, and Soviet Communism.Produced by Hannah Ward and edited by Dougal PatmoreIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!Download History Hit app from the Google Play store.Download History Hit app from the Apple Store.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Hi folks, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. In April 2022, Viktor Orban in Hungary won a gigantic election victory.

To the surprise of many who hoped that events, further Easter film events in the Ukraine would undermine some of his nationalist pro-Putin messaging. But it wasn't to be. So I decided we're going to do a podcast on Hungary. Let's work out what's going on there. As ever, the answers, the explanation for the present lies in the past. I was very glad on this episode to be joined by Victor Sebestien. He was born in Hungary. He's from a Hungarian family. They're a family of Hungarian exiles living in London. He's been on the podcast before. He was talking about Lenin years ago. But now he's back. He's written a magnificent new book on the story of Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. We started off by

talking about the First World War, the catastrophe for Hungary, really, frankly, a series of catastrophes. The First World War in itself was appalling for Hungarian soldiers. The aftermath was a complete disaster. Hungary was stripped of well over half of its territory. Hungary threw its lot in with Hitler during the Second World War, and it was occupied by the Soviets after that. It wasn't a great 20th century. So, on this episode, we explore how that history continues to matter. It wasn't a great 20th century. So on this episode, we explore how that history continues to matter. It's fascinating stuff. Enjoy this episode with Victor Sebestien talking

about Hungary. Unite unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. Victor, good to have you back on the podcast after all these years. Thank you very much for asking me. You've been busy. You've been a busy man. This time you've written not about Lenin, about more personal, I suppose, it's a gigantic work of history, but there's a personal angle. First of all, tell me about your relationship with Budapest and Hungary more generally. I was born in Budapest. My family came to Britain as refugees in

1956 after the failed uprising against the Russians. I was only a baby at the time, six months old, but they came here with my two siblings. I hadn't actually lived in Hungary, but I'm steeped in folk memory and the history of Hungary from a very, very early age. So this is a personal book to some extent, although it is an objective view of history as well. And like all the best history books, it is stinging. It's absolutely resonating at the moment. I mean, you talk about the Russian

occupation of parts of Eastern Europe, we talk about Hungary, nationalism, Viktor Orban, goodness me, we're going to get into some or all of that. But I'd start you, if we may, at the beginning of the 20th century, people merrily talk about Austria-Hungary and all the big decisions being made in Vienna in 1914, but Hungary was a fairly equal partner. Talk to me about Hungary's place within that complicated empire in the summer of 1914. Well, it wasn't equal. It was called the dual monarchy, and it wasn't an equal empire. Hungary, for its size and for the size of its economy, it had comparatively much greater weight than Austria. And of course, then Hungary wasn't this landlocked small country.

It was a much, much bigger country. It lost all that as a result of the First World War. But the Hungarians were more enthusiastic about going to war than the Austrians were. They thought that it would strengthen their position within the empire, strengthen their position within the Balkans. And like everyone else, they thought the war would be over by Christmas and they'd end up with their chunk of the Slavic peoples in the Balkans

and no one was going to rebel against them. They were much more enthusiastic for the war. And yet, as it turned out, as we now know, they were the greatest losers in the war than any other countries. So what, it would give the Austro-Hungarian Empire a more Slavic complexion, thus boosting the kind of voice and role of Hungarians within it? Well, what was happening was that Hungary had, at that point, a third of Serbia, all of Croatia, Slovakia,

a third of what's present-day Romania. So it's always been a country within the Balkans. And there was growing nationalism within the Slavic peoples who were grossly underrepresented in Hungary during the 19th century, during the dual monarchy. The Hegelians always believed their nationalism against the Habsburgs earlier was a fine and noble thing, but they didn't understand the nationalisms of the Slavic peoples at all.

There were intermittent rebellions against Hungary. There was a lot of nationalist rhetoric amongst Romanians, Slovaks. And they thought that if they beat the Slavs clearly, and the Russians too, in war, that would put a stop to the nationalist demands in their own domains. And that is why they were so insistent upon going to war. So it was their nationalism that doomed their own nation, because as a result of that war, they lost almost everything. Well, talk to me about what they lost, because the army suffered.

Hungary's loss ratio was even worse than the Austro-Hungarians as a whole. Yes, they were fighting principally amongst the Russians. The Eastern Front in the First World War, as we know, was as bloody as the Eastern Front in the Second World War. What they thought would be a quick victory and an offensive war turned within two months into a defensive war, which lasted for four years and grew incredibly unpopular quite quickly because they were getting just stuck. But the leaders, they made no overtures for a separate piece and it was utterly, utterly disastrous. Also, their armies were in the Balkans too

and they were getting just stuck there, not winning any victories at all. The Serbian campaign was a fiasco. It was an utter, utter fiasco. Yet, even in the autumn of 1918, they were saying, absolutely no autonomy rights for any of the Slavic peoples. No more freedoms than they had before the war. Well, and like the Ottomans, like the Habsburgs, like the Romanovs, and like the Hohenzollerns, the years that followed, everything those Hungarian leaders had hoped for in 1914 was

destroyed. You get Romanian invasion, you get dissolution. I mean, tell me a little bit about, I mean, it's super complicated, but the years following the armistice, what happens to Hungary? complicated, but the years following the armistice, what happens to Hungary? Well, the principal thing was at the peace conference, the follow-on to the Versailles conference called Trianon, the Hungarians lost nearly half their territory and a third of the Hungarian population. There's a rump of the country. They then had no seaports. They had no access to anything. They were occupied briefly by the Romanians, as you mentioned. Then they had a Soviet republic for three violent months where there was red terror on a massive scale.

In a small country, the red terror was worse than it had been in St Petersburg and Moscow, and it was really, really vicious. Then there was an authoritarian, Admiral Horthy took over in the military too. Briefly, there had been a democratic republic for about 200 days, Soviet republic for 100 days, and then an authoritarian regime that then lasted over 20 years. But that was brutal.

The white terror went on for a considerable time. Of course, he wasn't a fascist quite, but he was an authoritarian despot, the first of them. And they introduced the first of the anti-Semitic legislation immediately after the war was in 1920, when Hitler was still talking to a few bands of disaffected Germans in beer halls in Munich. So it was utterly chaotic. And the sense of loss, the trauma of this empire having lost so much, transformed it into a completely different country. And of course, what happened

is millions of refugees flowed in, Hungarian refugees from perhaps Albania, from Slovakia, from Lvovodina in Serbia, from Croatia. Budapest was a refugee camp for two and a half years. It was utterly chaotic. There was poverty, inflation. And of course, they were looking for someone to blame on Trianon and their loss and it was obvious who they were going to point to. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. Don't give up on us just yet, there's more coming. I'm Tristan Hughes, host of the Ancients from History hit, where twice a week, every week, we delve into our ancient past. I'm joined by leading experts, academics and authors

who share incredible stories from our distant history and shine a light on some of antiquity's great questions. Was the Oracle of Delphi really able to see into the future? What can be discovered from lost civilisations? And was King Arthur actually real? You can expect all of this and more from the Ancients on History hit wherever you get your podcasts. This is History's Heroes.

People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. So when Hitler comes along talking about overturning the post-World War I settlement and re-annexing, re-absorbing so-called Germanic slices of other countries, this is all very much in keeping with Hungary's nationalist agenda. Absolutely. I mean, the most important thing between the wars for Hungary was to reclaim the territories they lost under Trinom.

In schools, every school, in primary school in Hungary, every morning they would read out a testament that children would. It was our Christian right to these lands. It was just extraordinary. Everything was moving to the right and moving, you know, anti-Semitism was the sine qua non of everything. But it was moving totally into the orbit of Germany after 1933

and Hitler takes power. And they allied themselves with Hitler almost entirely. I mean, geography made it quite difficult to make yourself an enemy of Hitler, but their enthusiasm for an alliance with Hitler was extraordinary. And Hitler promised them Transylvania, Slovakia, promised them to return most of the territory that was taken away by the Western Allies at Trianon. And six months after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, Hungarian army units were with them. Unlike Poland or Czechoslovakia or other countries, which then would subsequently be taken over by the Red Army, the Hungarians were enemies of the

Soviets, which made it worse for them after the war. Yes, again, for the second time in 30 years. They're on the losing side. They're on the losing side and they bring about absolute destruction and conquest on their heads. And it was their extreme, almost irrational nationalism that more or less destroyed their nation. Hungary was the scene of much fighting. I mean, it was trashed by the Germans and the Soviets. The siege of Budapest was the longest of any capital city. It was longer than the siege of Berlin. It lasted three months. Berlin was more intense, but it didn't last as long.

And then after the war, you get Soviet carpetbaggers coming in and there's an effective conquest here. Yes, it's Sovietized. baggers coming in and there's an effective conquest. Yes, it's Sovietized. The Soviet army, the Red Army, stays occupying Hungary for another 40 years. They didn't leave till 1990.

1956, when your family left, there was a brief moment of hope. That was the defining moment in modern Hungary. And to an extent, it changed the image of Hungary. That, in a sense, was a form of atonement, in a way. Because then they became this plucky nation, bravely fighting against tyranny. But before that, they had been the enemy nation and a bunch of fascists. The Holocaust in Hungary didn't start until 1944, when the Germans actually occupied, during the army occupied. But 700,000 Hungarian Jews were taken to the camps within four months. It was the most

deadly and inefficient. It was the briefest of the occupations. But its effect on the Jews was nearly all the Hungarian Jews outside Budapest were taken to the camps. About 80% of the Jews within Budapest survived the war because they didn't get round to it fast enough and Budapest was encircled before they could keep the transports moving. What does all this mean for Hungary now? Am I being a history geek? Am I looking at the deep history here and trying to explain what's going on at the moment? Or is all this very important in understanding exactly what's happening in that country? I think it's very important to understand what's happening in Hungary. Orban's shtick is Christian nationalism,

which was seen in Hungary time and time and time again. The anti-EU rhetoric, this is all part of very much of my theme of Hungary between East and West. It's an identity issue that they still want to be within Europe, but apart from Europe somehow. Orban's rhetoric refers back to plenty of rhetoric that was coming out in the 1880s under the jewel on monarchy. Orban is not a fascist, but he uses a lot of the same tropes, a lot of the same themes, a lot of the same dog whistle ideas of racism, although this time it's Muslims.

It goes deep within. I don't think of being a geek. I think anyone who sees Hungary now can see what's going on there. And you learn also from the communist years of how you effectively create a one-party state. Yeah, and we haven't even gone back and talked about the deep history in the 16th century. edge of where the Ottomans got to within Europe. They tried to get Vienna, they couldn't quite, that was the fault line. Hungary was, the main fault line was in Europe between Christendom and Islam. And Orban uses that for everything he's worth. What does it mean to be between East and West now? How do you define those two things? Well, I think we're seeing it every day in Ukraine, aren't we? I substitute Western European values for democratic values. That may be ahistorical in a way, but in contemporary terms, that's roughly what it means. and Catholic Western.

Hungary now does not want to embrace a lot of the democratic values embodied in most of, certainly most of the EU, but in Britain too. It wants to keep its own identity, which is fair enough, but it wants its cake and eat it. It doesn't want to accept a lot of the cultural values and democratic values of the Western idea, but it still claims that it's Western. It claims its Christian values are those that might have existed 300 years ago, as indeed Ukraine has tried to do.

I'm not entirely comparing Hungary with Ukraine. My history of 2,000 years of Hungary is very different to the history of Ukraine. But now we're seeing it quite sharply, what being between East and West is, in a way we would have done also 150 years ago. Well, thank you very much indeed. That was a tour de force. We managed not to talk about

Suleiman the Magnificent too much as well, which is a shame. Which is a shame. We didn't even mention the greatest thing about Budapest, which is a shame. Which is a shame. We didn't even mention the greatest thing about Budapest, which is the coffee house. The best invention of Habsburg. My book, it is a history book, but it's also a lot about the sound of Budapest and the music of Budapest and the atmosphere of Budapest, which I try and get across. And very much about the culture, even the food and the cuisine, the coffee house, which I try and get across, and very much about the culture, even the food and

the cuisine, the coffee house, which I try and get across. And even though I've been very, very critical of Hungary, I do actually love Budapest. I obviously, after, you know, scores of visits, I worked there a lot as a reporter, as a journalist in the 1980s. And I fall for its charm and beauty, even though quite a lot of that is faded in a kind of way, but it's rather magnificent. But I see its darkness and cruelty too. There's a lot of both in this book. There are lots of reasons for going to Budapest to see it for yourself. But I've tried to get beneath its skin, beneath the surface and beneath the gloss.

It becomes more frightening but also more fascinating. Well thank you very much for introducing us to that. The book is called? Budapest Between East and West. There you go. Well thank you so much Victor for coming on. Thank you very much, I enjoyed that. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say,

don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.