Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Foreword to the New Edition vii
4. The Hungarians
5. Introduction 1
6. 1. “Heathen Barbarians” overrun Europe: Evidence from St Gallen 7
7. 2. Land Acquisition or Conquest? The Question of Hungarian Identity 12
8. 3. From Magyar Mayhem to the Christian Kingdom of the Árpáds 27
9. 4. The Struggle for Continuity and Freedom 38
10. 5. The Mongol Invasion of 1241 and its Consequences 49
11. 6. Hungary’s Rise to Great Power Status under Foreign Kings 62
12. 7. The Heroic Age of the Hunyadis and the Turkish Danger 75
13. 8. The Long Road to the Catastrophe of Mohács 86
14. 9. The Disaster of Ottoman Rule 94
15. 10. Transylvania—the Stronghold of Hungarian Sovereignty 106
16. 11. Gábor Bethlen—Vassal, Patriot and European 114
17. 12. Zrinyi or Zrinski? One Hero for Two Nations 126
18. 13. The Rebel Leader Thököly: Adventurer or Traitor 137
19. 14. Ferenc Rákóczi’s Fight for Freedom from the Habsburgs 145
20. 15. Myth and Historiography: an Idol through the Ages 155
21. 16. Hungary in the Habsburg Shadow 160
22. 17. The Fight against the “Hatted King” 177
23. 18. Abbot Martinovics and the Jacobin Plot: a Secret Agent as Revolutionary Martyr 183
24. 19. Count István Széchenyi and the “Reform Era”: Rise and Fall of the “Greatest Hungarian” 191
25. 20. Lajos Kossuth and Sándor Petöfi: Symbols of 1848 206
26. 21. Victories, Defeat and Collapse: The Lost War of Independence, 1849 222
27. 22. Kossuth the Hero versus “Judas” Görgey: “Good” and “Bad” in Sacrificial Mythology 242
28. 23. Who was Captain Gusev? Russian “Freedom Fighters” between Minsk and Budapest 260
29. 24. Elisabeth, Andrássy and Bismarck: Austria and Hungary on the Road to Reconciliation 266
30. 25. Victory in Defeat: The Compromise and the Consequences of Dualism 281
31. 26. Total Blindness: The Hungarian Sense of Mission and the Nationalities 299
32. 27. The “Golden Age” of the Millennium: Modernization with Drawbacks 310
33. 28. “Magyar Jew or Jewish Magyar?” A Unique Symbiosis 329
34. 29. “Will Hungary become German or Magyar?” The Germans’ Peculiar Role 348
35. 30. From the Great War to the “Dictatorship of Despair”: the Red Count and Lenin’s Agent 356
36. 31. The Admiral on a White Horse: Trianon and the Death Knell of St Stephen’s Realm 373
37. 32. Adventurers, Counterfeiters, Claimants to the Throne: Hungary as Troublemaker in the Danube Basin 389
38. 33. Marching in Step with Hitler: Triumph and Fall. From the Persecution of Jews to Mob Rule 406
39. 34. Victory in Defeat: 1945–1990 427
40. 35. The Failure of the Democratic Experiment 466
41. 36. Viktor Orbán’s “Führerdemocracy” 489
42. Notes 508
43. Index 534