Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain Man
Hungarian history is a sizable gap in my knowledge bank. What happened? I know about the 20th-century stuff, but before that I just assumed that it was wolves and barbarians, with an occasional vampire or Turk wandering across the border.
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I mean, I can't point to event after event, but the Magyars were hit pretty damn hard by the Mongol invasions in the 1200s. There was a thriving kingdom that existed there, and half the people were either slaughtered or deported as slaves. Then you mix that in with a lovely little Bubonic Plague (which is no different than the rest of Europe, sure), which was immediately followed by some angry raging Turks that conquered the country and turned all the cathedrals into mosques with minarets sticking out instead of steeples. What little land that wasn't under Ottoman rule was claimed by the Habsburgs. Magyars didn't have a country basically until two centuries later when they drove out the Turks and made piece with the Austrians.
They then had some time of relative peace for about 100 years, thrived as a cultural and technological hot spot during the 19th century, became independent, and then lost the whole ****ing thing in WWI, WWII, and the insufferable rule of the Soviets in the second half of the 20th century.
Even as far as European countries are concerned, Hungary has had it pretty bad. What little progress that ever could get made and what little international pride could ever be had was almost always immediately followed by an invading force or a war that devastated the entire population. With the resiliency these people had, they should have been a teeming empire at least for a good portion of modern history, but could never quite get it going. Only way they could make that happen was by riding the coattails of a dying Habsburg Empire in the 19th century.