Hungary
| |
| National motto: ... | |
| Languages | |
| Official | Hungarian |
| Other | Slevanian, Ruthenian, Romanian, Serbian, Croatian, German |
| Capital | Budapest |
| Important Cities | Kolozsvár, Pozsóny, Szeged, Székesfehérvár, Eger |
| Head-of-State | Palatine-regent Sándor Rózsa |
| Head-of-Government | Prime Minister József Sobri |
| Area | 178,653 sq km |
| Population | 13,138,844 |
| Establishment | kingdom with vacant throne |
| Surrounding countries | clockwise from N Slevania, RTC, Romanian Federation, Croatia, Austria |
| Currency | 1 dinár = 30 fillér = 120 pengö pure suggestion |
| Religion | Reformed/Calvinist (26.5%), Lutheran Church in Hungary (12%), Catholic (Latin and Lutheran Ordinariate, Byzantine, & Armenian rites) (20.75%), Unitarian Church of Hungary (7%), Eastern Orthodox Church (8%), Judaism (Ashkenazi & Romaniote) (5.75%), Sunni Islam (Bektashi Suf, orthodox Hanafi) (12.5%), neopaganism (.01%), not religious or other (7.49%) |
Administrative Divisions
Hungary is divided into 45 castle-counties (vármegye, pl. vármegyék), which are further subdivided into ridings (járás, pl. járások). The following is a list of the 45 castle-counties (in CAPS), with their capital cities in brackets following; beneath each castle-county name is a list of the ridings in that county. Ridings are named after their capital city, unless the capital city is noted in brackets following the riding's name.
| # | Castle-county | Capital | Ridings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MOSON | Magyaróvár | Magyaróvár - Nezsider - Rajka |
| 2 | POZSONY | Pozsony | Dunaszerdahely - Galánta - Pozsony - Somorja - Szenc |
| 3 | NYITRA | Nyitra | Érsekújvár (Nagysurány) - Nyitra - Vágsellye |
| 4 | BARS | Léva | Léva - Verebély |
| 5 | GYÕR | Gyõr | Puszta (Gyõrszentmárton) - Sokoróalja (Tét) - Tószigetcsilizköz (Gyõr) |
| 6 | KOMÁROM | Komárom | Csallóköz (Nemesócsa) - Gesztes (Nagyigmánd) - Tata - Udvard (Ógyalla) |
| 7 | ESZTERGOM | Esztergom | Esztergom - Párkány |
| 8 | HONT | Ipolyság | Ipolynyék - Ipolyság - Szob - Vámosmikola |
| 9 | NÓGRÁD | Balassagyarmat | Balassagyarmat - Losonc - Nógrád (Rétság) - Salgótarján - Szécsény - Szirák |
| 10 | GÖMÖR-KISHONT | Rimaszombat | Feled - Rimaszombat |
| 11 | HEVES | Eger | Eger - Gyöngyös - Hatvan - Heves - Pétervására - Tiszafüred |
| 12 | BORSOD | Miskolc | Edelény - Mezõcsát - Mezõkövesd - Miskolc - Ózd - Sajószentpéter |
| 13 | ABAÚJ-TORNA | Abaújszántó | Cserehátt (Szepsi) - Gönc (Abaújszántó) - Szikszó - Torna |
| 14 | ZEMPLÉN | Sátoraljaújhely | Bodrogköz (Királyhelmec) - Sárospatak - Sátoraljaújhely - Tokaj - Szerencs |
| 15 | SZABOLCS | Nyíregyháza | Dadai alsó (Tiszalök) - Dadai felsõ (Gáva) - Kisvárda - Ligetalja (Nyíracsád) - Nagykalló - Nyírbakta - Nyírbátor - Nyírbogdány (Kemecse) - Tisza (Mándok) |
| 16 | SZATMÁR | Szatmárnémeti | Avas (Avasújváros) - Csenger - Erdõd - Fehérgyarmat - Mátészalka - Nagybánya - Nagykároly - Nagysomkút - Szatmárnémeti - Szinérváralja - Záhony |
| 17 | SZOLNOK-DOBOKA | Dés | Bethlen - Csákigorbó - Dés - Kápolnokmonostor - Kékes - Magyarlápos - Nagyilonda - Szamosújvár |
| 18 | SZILÁGY | Zilah | Kraszna - Szilágycseh - Szilágysomlyó - Tasnád - Zilah - Zsibó |
| 19 | KOLOZS | Kolozsvár | Bánffyhunyad - Gyalu - Hídalmás - Kolozsvár - Mezõörményes - Mocs - Nádasmenti (Magyarvista) - Nagysármás - Teke |
| 20 | MAROS-TORDA | Marosvásárhely | Marosi alsó (Marosvásárhely) - Marosi felsõ (Marosszentanna) - Nyárádszereda - Régeni alsó (Szászrégen) - Régeni felsõ (Magyarrégen) |
| 21 | CSÍK | Csíkszereda | Gyergyóremete - Felcsík (Csíkszereda) - Csíkszentsimon |
| 22 | UDVARHELY | Székelyudvarhely | Homoród (Okland) - Parajd - Székelykeresztúr - Udvarhely (Székelyudvarhely) |
| 23 | HÁROMSZÉK | Sepsiszentgyörgy | Miklósvár (Nagyajta) - Sepsi (Sepsiszentgyörgy) |
| 24 | BRASSÓ-FOGARAS | Földvár | Alvidék (Földvár) - Sárkány |
| 25 | NAGY-KÜKÜLLÕ | Segesvár | Kõhalom - Medgyes - Nagysink - Segesvár - Szentágota |
| 26 | KIS-KÜKÜLLÕ | Dicsõszentmárton | Dicsõszentmárton - Erzsébetváros - Hosszúaszó - Radnót |
| 27 | ALSÓ-FEHÉR | Nagyenyed | Abrudbánya - Vízakna - Gyulafehérvár - Alvinc - Balázsfalva - Kisenyed - Magyarigen - Marosújvár - Nagyenyed - Tövis - Verespatak |
| 28 | TORDA-ARANYOS | Torda | Alsójára - Felvinc - Marosludas - Topánfalva - Torda - Torockó |
| 29 | HUNYAD | Brád | Algyógy (Algyógyalfalu) - Brád - Déva (Marossolymos) - Körösbánya |
| 30 | ARAD | Új Arad [ex-Mikelaka] | Arad (Új Arad) - Borossebes - Elek - Kisjenõ - Nagyhalma - Világos - Csermõ - Bokszeg |
| 31 | BIHAR | Nagyvárad | Berettyóújfalu - Biharkeresztes - Cséffa - Derecske - Nagyszalonta - Sárrét - Belényes - Bél - Élesd - Érmihályfalva - Központ (Nagyvárad) - Magyarcséke - Margitta - Szalárd - Székelyhíd - Tenke - Vaskoh |
| 32 | HAJDÚ | Debrecen | Hajdúböszörmény - Hajdúszoboszló - Központ (Debrecen) |
| 33 | JÁSZ-NAGYKUN-SZOLNOK | Jászberény | Jászsági alsó (Jászapáti) - Jászsági felsõ (Jászberény) - Tiszai alsó (Tiszaföldvár) - Tiszai felsõ (Kunhegyes) - Tiszai közép (Törökszentmiklós) |
| 34 | BÉKÉS | Gyula | Békéscsaba - Békés - Gyoma - Gyula - Orosháza - Szarvas - Szeghalom |
| 35 | CSANÁD | Makó | Battonya - Központ (Makó) - Mezõkovácsháza - Nagylak |
| 36 | CSONGRÁD | Hódmezõvásárhely | Csongrád - Tiszántúl (Szentes) - Tiszáninnen (Kiskundorozsma) |
| 37 | FEJÉR | Székesfehérvár | Adony - Mór - Sárbogárd - Székesfehérvár - Vál |
| 38 | PEST-PILIS-SOLT-KISKUN | Budapest | Abony - Alsódabas - Aszód - Bia - Dunavecse - Gödöllõ - Kalocsa - Kiskörös - Kiskunfélegyháza - Kispest - Kunszentmiklós - Monor - Nagykáta - Pomáz - Ráckeve - Vác - Kiskunhalas - Kecskemét - Nagykörös - Cegléd - Újpest - Szentendre |
| 39 | TOLNA | Szekszárd | Dombóvár - Dunaföldvár (Paks) - Központ (Szekszárd) - Simontornya - Tamási |
| 40 | SOMOGY | Kaposvár | Barcs - Csurgó - Igal - Lengyeltót - Marcali - Nagyatád - Szigetvar - Tab |
| 41 | VARASD-KÖRÖS-VERÕCZE | Varasd | Varasd - Ludbreg - Szentgyörgy - Kapronca - Körös - Verõce |
| 42 | ZALA | Zalaegerszeg | Alsolendva - Balatonfüred - Csáktornya - Keszthely - Letenye - Nagykanizsa - Nova - Pacsa - Perlak - Sümeg - Tapolca - Zalaegerszeg - Zalaszentgrót |
| 43 | VESZPRÉM | Veszprém | Devecsér - Enying - Pápa - Veszprém - Zirc |
| 44 | VAS | Szombathely | Celldömölk - Felsõõr - Körmend - Kõszeg - Muraszombat - Németújvár - Sárvár - Szentgotthárd - Szombathely - Vasvár |
| 45 | SOPRON | Sopron | Csepreg - Csorna - Felsõpulya - Kapuvár - Kismarton - Nagymarton - Sopron |
History
The Beginning
The Hungarians - seven tribes made up of some eighty-odd clans of nomadic and pastoral people, numbering perhaps 100 to 200 thousand in all - had by 900 EC occupied all of the sparsely populated Carpathian Basin, where they had arrived in 895 led by Árpád, son of Álmos (and great-grandfather of Géza), whom they had elected supreme chief before setting out to cross the Carpathians from the east by the Verecke Pass. Until duke Géza took them in hand, the Hungarians had been given to a lifestyle that combined agriculture and animal husbandry with Viking-style raiding campaigns conducted on horses towards more settled lands to their west and south. In the first half of the 10th cc they had regularly raided westwards as far afield as today's France, until they suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Otto the Great near Augsburg in 955. Raids towards Byzantine lands only ceased after 970.
Duke Géza had established peaceful relations with the Western Empire of Otto the Great (the hand of whose niece Gisella of Bavaria he obtained for his son Stephen) and ended hostilities with the Byzantine Empire. And he was the first to invite missionary priests, from Germany, to Hungary; yet, although he had his son baptised by them, he himself was not - he is said to have claimed to be mighty enough to worship as many gods as he liked.
His son Vajk, being baptised as István (St Stephen) had been the first Christian King of Hungary (997-1038). He built on the success of his father Duke Géza, the first ruler to impose firm central control over a people who, until then, had been more a confederation of clans - willing to cooperate in war, but little else - than a unified nation. Promptly, forcefully and with ruthless efficiency he asserted his supremacy over the nation and several obstreperous elder relatives, who disputed his right to the succession (supreme leadership had hitherto been elective by seniority within the ruling family, not by primogeniture). He then asked for and received a royal crown from Pope Sylvester II - by his choice of patron demonstrating his determination to keep Hungary independent of both the Western and the Byzantine Empires - and with it he was crowned the first King of Hungary in the year 1000.
Early Middle Age
The country has been swarmed by civil wars over the succession during the next four decades. In the course of those four decades Hungary had had no less than six Kings - brothers, cousins, uncles and nephews fighting one another for the throne - and had suffered a final and bloody anti-Christian uprising, supported by one of the claimants. During the same period, taking advantage of internal strife, the Western Empire tried, but failed, to establish its suzerainty over Hungary. This chaotic period had resulted from the untimely death, in a hunting accident in 1031, of prince Imre, only son and heir of István.
His uncle László I (1077-95), was monarch who gave Hungary order again, he sought to embody the ideal of preux chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. Canonised a century later, he is known in Hungarian history as St László. He fended off repeated incursions of the Cumans from the east. He conquered Slevania and Ruthenia.
(the first POD – he was not brother-in-law of Zvonimir, king of Croatia and Slavonia, since these lands belonged to Dalmatia)
King Coloman (1095-1116) - known as the Bookish since, of unimposing physique, he had originally been intended for the Church and was, doubtless, literate - who entertained Godfrey of Bouillon and his entourage on their way to the First Crusade and the capture of Jerusalem, while firmly curbing the initial excesses of the crusading rabble. He is mainly memorable for the extensive legislation of his reign - including a decree that forbade the persecution of witches quia strigiis non sunt.
(the second POD Coloman could not take the Croatian royal crown and incorporate Croatia into Hungary as it was part of Dalmatia)
On coming to the throne Béla III (1172-96) had thoroughly reorganised the country's government, in line with Byzantine administrative practice. In particular, he expanded the Royal Chancellery, upgraded the post of Chancellor, and made written documents compulsory in all dealings with the Crown, as well as in all contracts and legal proceedings between private individuals.
Middle Ages
The third, main POD: On November 3rd 1527, János I. Szapolyai was approved by Hungarian High-Estates as a king of Hungary against Ferdinand of Habsburg with support of sultane Süleyman II. In the peace treaty of Varadin (February 24th 1538) between RTC, Hungary and Turkey it was approved again, later on also in 1547. János died 1548 and Hungary was invaded by Turks. That time Hungarian Palatine, Tamás Nádasdy, claimed his role of regent of the kingdom for János II. Zsigmond, son of János I. Szapolyai, and lead the defence against Turks. Unsuccessful campaign resulted in occupation of Buda. Out of the once mighty kingdom, only Felvidék/Slevania remained, rest was captured by Turks. After resignation of János II. Zsigmond, an agile Transylvanian ruler, István Báthory, claimed the Hungarian throne against his opponents in 1570 and being also elected as the RTC king 1575 against Maxmillian of Habsburg. He was able using combined forces of RTC and Hungary to stop temporarily Turks on southern borders of Slevania. He died 1586 and was last king of Hungarian origin; Hungary appeared after his death to be in personal union with RTC until 1669. That time, after an election of Venedian noble Michał Czyraz as a new king of RTC in 1669, Hungarians refused him and Estates voted for Rudolf IV. Habsburg as a new king of Hungary. Simultaneously, Ottomans launched an attack against Hungary, pressuming it would be weakend by intra-political fights. His successor, Abrecht III., partially stopped Turks in south Felvidék (Slevania) and was able to hold Hungarian crown till 1766.
In the same moment when Prussia invaded Bohemia in Silesia, 1766, following the secret agreement between Austro-Dalmatian Monarchy and Prussia, Austro-Dalmatians had invaded Hungary. Bohemo-Hungarian Army, struggeling for survival in nothern Bohemia, was not able to stop them. ADE in a short time conquerred all the Hungarian territory, which was not under Ottomans rule.
During the Congress of Vienna, Napoleon released Royal Hungary from the hold of Austro-Dalmatia; Hungary was then an independent kingdom under French supervision on the edge of Balkans, maintaining the peace, for the time.
Ottoman Occupation (1541-1869)
The Ottoman Turks forever changed the Pannonian Basin during their 328 years of rule. For one, they successfully prevented the Counter Reformation and Uniate subjugation of indigenous Orthodox Christians, thus saving the lives of many Hungarians and local minorities who would have refused to rejoin the Catholic Church. Protestant thought proliferated under their rule as the occupiers based in far-off, occupied Constantinople cared little for the theological beliefs of their non-Muslim subjects. Calvinists, Lutherans, and Unitarians came from all over Europe to relocate to Ottoman Hungary where they could preach what they want (as long as they stressed obedience to the sultan) and worship as they saw fit. The city of Debrecen (called "Debreçin" by the Turks) is called "The Calvinist Vatican" (Kálvinista Róma) for this reason. Italians, Veneds, Flemish, Helvetians, Germans, and French all mass-migrated to urban centers like Budin (Buda), Peşte (Pest), Estergon (Esztergom), and İstolni Belgrad (Székesfehérvár), or to start their own farms which fed the Ottoman war machine. During the Ottoman era, scholars estimate that 90% of the non-Orthodox Christian populace was Calvinist. Transylvania's demographics were a bit different.
Despite Ottoman Hungary being a Protestant paradise, the real demographic change from migrating Near Easterners. The Ottomans moved more conquered peoples to Pannonia than they had anywhere else. Such a level of social-engineering had never before been enacted in the Ottoman Empire nor was it ever done again. The Turks realized that they had to keep their borderlands strong from a Catholic take back of Central Europe and since the Turkic onslaight in the 13th Century, they were always reticent to shake up the economic system of the lands of the former Roman Empire. Hungary had no such useful economic system in place and as such the Turks felt like they had to build their new frontier sanjaks from the ground up. New persecutions against Muslims in the Persian lands post-Mongol occupation sent numerous waves of Turkmen, Kurds, and Arabs fleeing westward. Although the Ottomans settled some in Anatolia to dilute the extreme majority of Orthodox Christians, more were sent to Hungary as nomadic raiders and commanded to guard the frontier on behalf of the sultan who oh-so graciously took them in. Unlike in Anatolia and the Thirteenth Century, the Ottomans didn't forbid local conversions to Islam for the first century of their rule. The former kingdom of Bosnia was always torn between Orthodox Constantinople and Latin Rome since its christianization in the Tenth Century. What's more is that it had networks of dualistic, Manichaean-influenced Christians who attacked both the Orthodox and Catholic Churches with equal zeal. Scholars are unsure if the Bosnian Church (Црква босанска/Crkva bosanska) was Paulician/Bogomil/Manichaean/dualist or merely a renegade Catholic group who broke commune with Rome not over theological reasons. Whatever it was, its followers went wholesale into Islam in numbers that Orthodox Christians and Catholics did not. These people stuck between the Romaic East and Franco-Latin West found a new way, a third path: Islam. This actually put them above their Orthodox and Catholic enemies. The lowest Muslim in the Dar al-Islam is higher up than the richest, most powerful Christian. Heretics and quite possibly agnostics in private or not, the Ottomans made no exceptions to this rule. The former members of the Bosnian Church as well as the Paulicians of Thrace and Macedonia all nominally joined Islam. The latter group stayed in remote exile and only made a show of being Muslims when the taxmen made their annual visits, but the former became the new elite and poured all over Anatolia and the Balkans. Slavic Muslims led the charge in colonizing the former Hungarian Crown's lands. They were the intermediaries for the Turks and the locals, many of whom knew a Slavic language if not natively then as a second language. For this reason, any of Hungary's Muslim community members (which have much larger numbers than any Balkan country save for the artificially-created Islamic Republic of Sanjak) might have no Anatolian ancestry. Their ancestors are most likely Crimean Tatars, Kypchaks, Kurds, Arabs, Slavs, Albanians, native Magyar and perhaps even some Muslim Greeks (not that there's literally any difference between Anatolian Turks and Greek converts to Islam, ha). The native Hungarian conversions to Islam cannot be understated. Almost all Hungarian converts to Islam came by way of the Unitarian Church—the rest, all opportunists who wanted a slice of the pie and to rule again. The elite have this magic way of staying the elite no matter who's in power. More Unitarians than not saw that the logical conclusion to throwing out the Holy Trinity and thousands of years of theological premises that had their origin in Ancient Israel was to join Islam. Islam spits on the very concept of a triune God and also doesn't believe in the divinity of Christ. It's the perfect fit for someone who might have been born Catholic, become a Lutheran, then a Calvinist, and then penultimately a Unitarian in one life time.
Independent again
1869, Hungary gained full independence from Turkey after a general uprising, and succeded in liberating all its historical territory. Hungary once again became an Eastern European power.
The First Great War
Hungary, as a member of Triple Entente, joined the Austrian Monarchy in the First Great War along with the Holy Roman Empire in April 1914 declaring war on Muntenia. Hungary and Austria were on fairly good terms before the war broke out and the Hungarians had always held designs on Muntenian territory, so this general war provided an excellent excuse for the Hungarians to make a move. Hungarians were forced to more or less withdraw from the southern front after the Oltenian rebellion in early 1916, and the start of the Russian invasion Hungary. Hungary sued with Austria for peace in November 1917, trying to preserve its pre-war extent. The Great War was disastrous for Hungary; not only did it not acquire Multenia as it wanted, but also lost Oltenia to revolutionaries.
The Second Great War
Hungary, out for revenge for its painful defeat in the First Great War, joined the Großartige Allianz in 1937. After its collapse, Hungary remained on the side of Germany and at the end it was invaded by Russia. Like the First Great War, the Second Great War also spelled disaster for Hungary; it lost Slevania and territory in Somogy and Baranya with the town of Pecs to the CSDS. Russia installed a SNORist regime.
Under SNOR
Magyar Népjóléti Pártja (MNP; Hungarian Peoples' Welfare Party) was a right-wing radical junta, ruling Hungary under the supervision of SNOR. This radical party thought to regain Pecs during a Russian attempt to crush the CSDS. But CSDS leader Josip Broz foresaw the impending invasion and had agents placed in Hungary to investigate possibilities of Hungarians revolting against the MNP and Russia. The White Council felt that the Hungarians and the other satellites were too unreliable to engage with them in a military operation against the CSDS - even if it was only Russian troops that were used. The Russian troops would have to fight through Hungary or Romania first, and was both too risky and costly. The Hungarians people were not eager to engage in a new war, remembering the great losses of the prior wars.
And indeed, a Hungarian Revolution erupted on 23 October 1956; the direct reason were demonstrations of Hungarian students and workers in support of civic disobedience in Estonia, and it quickly grew into a large-scale revolution against the MNP. With Russian help, the latter managed to crush the demonstration. Possibly CSDS agents played a role in this revolution, although none of this has been proven.
In 1975, a minor ideological shift happened in the halls of government, when the old ruler Károly Kisfaludy died and was replaced by István Oros. While not truly more liberal, Oros was far more relaxed in his rule. He enjoyed life more and this enjoyment brought relaxation to Hungarian society as a whole. One of his more famous acts happened during a military parade, wherein he publicly expressed dislike to the roundel in use by the air force at the time, and he asked that the chevron be changed.
Recent History
After the fall of SNOR, Hungary emerged in 1990 as the most liberal of the countries formerly held under Russian domination. The new Palatine-regent Sándor Rózsa was appointed and Hungary became a Kingdom with a vacant throne.
The MNP was reformed into the Magyar Igazság Pártja (MIP; Party of Hungarian Justice). Presently, their platform demands the immediate return of the Felvidék (Hungarian name for Slevania) and the formerly Hungarian parts of Croatia (including Eszék/Osijek!!) by any means necessary.
The other major parties in Hungary are the Demokratikus Ifjúság Pártja (DIP; Party of Democratic Youth), Magyar Kisgazdák Pártja (MKP; Hungarian Smallholders' Party) and Sörivók Pártja (SP; Beer-drinkers' Party).
The DIP was the first party formed after the fall of the MNP, initially comprised mainly of university students. In the post-fall elections, DIP became the official opposition party. Their platform is one of economic conservatism and social liberalism.
The MKP is the party which won the post-fall elections; socially and economically conservative.
The SP is where the Dalmatian Beer Drinkers' Party got its name. This was created mostly as a joke, and ran in the first elections after the fall of the MNP on a platform containing all manner of bizarre points, including the requirement that all factories provide free beer to their workers during working hours, and an immediate declaration of war Russia for 40 years of illegal occupation. Needless to say, they have not met with any success in election, apart from a few handfuls of protest votes.
under SNOR rule I can understand this, though I'm certain there were more radical Hungarians who called for the retaking of Pecs. > Maybe Broz foresaw the impending invasion and had Directorate 1 agents in > place in Hungary instigate the revolution? This would be an interesting > thing to examine in detail too, since *there* there was no Polish > disobediance in support of which Hungarian students and workers would > demonstrate in support of; perhaps it was an Estonian disobediance, and the > Hungarians demonstrated in support of their Uralic brothers, AVH (or > disguised Dir.1 agents) opened fire on them, then the police and most of > the army present joined the demonstrators in kicking off the revolution? The non-Slavic countries received a more junta-like regime ŕ la Pinochet without any clear ideology, but completely obedient to Russia. The SNOR must have tried this in the RTC too, but failed. > I would think that after this any such plans would be discarded, as SNOR > would view the Hungarians and probably the other satellites too as > unreliable to engage in a military operation against the CSDS - even if > only Russian troops were used, they'd have to get through Hungary or the > Romanias first... Okay, it makes sense. I wonder what this party running Hungary would have been called? I think there may have been some sort of slight ideological change in 1975 in Hungary, or perhaps just the old ruler died and was replaced by the new one, and he didn't like the roundel in use by the air force at the time, and that's why it was changed from the roundel to the chevron in 1975... > > I think your radical Hungarians weren't any exception. > > Quite. I wonder if *there* anything came of it? Tension, a lot of tension. But let them Hungarians better be careful, because the international community hasn't forgotten GW2 yet. Hungary could have emerged into the most liberal of the countries under Russian domination (a bit like *here*). I wonder who became the new regent...
source: Dalmatesku:Balkans/Hungary
Demographics
Religion
Hungary, as the crossroads of both Eastern and Western Europe, is one of Europe's most religiously-diverse countries. A little over half (54%) of all citizens of the Kingdom of Hungary are Protestants, belonging for the most part to the Reformed Church in Hungary (Magyarországi Református Egyház), an episcopal polity with about 35% of the population. There are other Reformed denominations that have presbyterian or even congregational organizational-styles that have systematically broken off of the main Reformed denomination in the country. The Reformed Church, along with the Latin Rite Catholic Church, enjoys certain privileges with the state that many other denominations do not. The next largest Protestant denomination is the Lutheran Church of Hungary (Magyarországi Lutheránus Egyház), founded in the 16th Century and spread to ethnic Magyars through German preachers. With the ethnic shake-up of the Second Great War and the subsequent SNORist occupation, most Lutherans these days are Magyarized Germans who switched from German to Hungarian only in the 1950's-60's, although there are still numerous congregations that worship in the German tongue. The next largest Protestant denomination is the Unitarian Church of Hungary (Magyarországi Unitárius Egyház), founded in the year 1568 and made the official religion of Transylvania by its prince, Prince John II Sigismund Zápolya, under the auspices of the former Saxon Calvinist bishop turned anti-trinitarian, Franz David Hertel ('Ferenc Dávid' in Hungarian). The Unitarian Church was the first denomination in the area to throw its support behind the newest string of occupiers, the Ottomans, but this partnership backfired: many Unitarians, who had already roundly and wholeheartedly rejected the idea of the divinity of Christ and One God in three Divine Persons, culminated their religious dissent by declaring the shahada and joining Islam. To this day, Transylvania is the most Muslim region of Hungary: the Transylvanian Magyar and Saxons who were formerly Unitarian Christians formed the backbone of the native convert-populace in Ottoman Hungary. The next largest denomination in Hungary is the Catholic Church, which permits three distinct rites in the country: the Latin Rite (including its Lutheran Ordinariate of former Protestants to return to the Catholic fold with their own liturgy intact), Byzantine Rite, and Armenian Rite. The Catholic Church, through the brutal tactics of German missionaries during the 10th-13th Centuries, won out over the Rite of Constantinople brought to the Pannonian Basin by missionaries from the Eastern Roman Empire. It was the sole permitted denomination for much of Hungary's history, until the Ottoman conquest of the 16th Century, allied to the rebellious Protestant princes. Catholicism, during the Ottoman occupation, was nearly completely destroyed. It had been estimated that at the turn of the 16th Century in 1599 that nearly 85%-90% of the Hungarian population had turned Protestant. The Ottoman authorities did their absolute best to keep the Counter-Reformation out of the country, and for the most part, they did, but in the 1869, Napoleon III liberated the Magyars from Ottoman rule. With Napoleon's victory over the Turks, the Catholic Church came back with a vengeance, using overwhelming force to proselytize the Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, and Orthodox faithful of the lands of the Crown of St. Stephen. Now, almost all Germans in the north and northwestern regions of the country and all Slevanians in Hungary are Latin Rite Catholics. Almost all Byzantine Rite Catholics are Romanians, although there are many ethnically Magyar Uniates that fall under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitanate of Debrecen, chief see of the Hungarian Greek Catholic Church (Magyar Görögkatolikus Egyház). Perhaps because the Church Slavonic liturgical language of Uniates was intelligible to an extent with Hungarians that either knew or learned a Slavic language, or perhaps as a final act of defiance, many Hungarian Lutherans who felt pressured into Catholicism chose to do so through the Byzantine Rite. To this day, many Uniate Hungarians can trace their ancestry back to 19th Century Lutherans. The Uniates of Hungary worship in the modern Hungarian language: liturgical Romanian was forbidden by Latin Church authorities to be used as a tool to Magyarize the Romanian and Slavic populace. In an experimental set-up, some Roma are allowed to celebrate the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in their language. The Armenian Catholics of the country are the smallest of the Catholic groups, scarcely making up even half a percentage point of the population. As is the case in the RTC and Oltenia, the Armenian Catholics outnumber the Armenian Orthodox, a result of Armenian merchants in the 15th-18th Centuries content to submit themselves to Rome in order to stay in the area. However, unlike in the RTC and Oltenia, with the advent of the Ottoman occupation, Oriental Orthodox Armenians from across the Empire set up shop in Buda and Pest, free to stay loyal to the Armenian Patriarchate in Constantinople. The Eastern Orthodox Church (Magyar Ortodox Egyház) has been present on-and-off in Hungary since the 900's. After the Latin West won over the hearts and minds of the Magyar people by force by the 1200's, the Orthodox Church was small but present in the Crown of St. Stephen thanks to Rusyns in the Carpathians as well as ethnic Vlachs in Transylvania. Although both groups were threatened with death and exile unless they submit to Rome, the native Orthodox were rescued from this ultimatum ironically by the Ottomans, who could've cared less what bishop their second-class citizens commemorated in their liturgies. Also with the Ottomans came entire villages of Serbs, Albanians, and Bulgarians that fled the forced Islamization of Albania, Raška, and Macedonia. Unfortunately, this newcomer populace of Slavs and Albanians was distrusted and resented both by the native Hungarians for simply being non-Hungarians, and by the Ottoman administration that distrusted non-Muslims. During Napoleon's liberation of Hungary in 1869, the descendants of these Balkaners were quick to hide and publicly declare themselves Hungarians. Although many Orthodox Christians not in Transylvania at this point have spoken Hungarian for centuries, their surnames usually betray their Slavic (and even rarely enough Albanian or Greek) origins. Hungary is unique in the Orthodox Church that Transylvania is under the jurisdiction of the Bucharest Patriarchate (Romanian Orthodox Church) while the rest of the country was under Moscow jurisdiction during the SNORist occupation but is now an autonomous Church under the Belgrade Patriarchate. The Orthodox Church is enjoying an upswing in members coming from Catholicism and Protestantism that are dissatisfied with what they believe to be rampant liturgical abuse in the former group and the lack of religious truth in the former. Church Slavonic can still be heard in plenty of Hungarian Orthodox parishes, although Hungarian is the more common liturgical language at this point. Romanian is used almost entirely in Transylvania, although like the Uniate Catholics, the Romanian Orthodox Church has a missionary program to preach to the region's Roma.
Hungary also has a rather large non-Christian population. Jews make up 7.5% of the country, one of the largest percentages in Europe. Almost all Jews are Ashkenazi (Yiddish-speaking), although several thousand Jews are Romaniotes, Greek-speakers who moved to Buda and Pest during the Ottoman takeover of Hungary. There are two Romaniote synagogues in Buda, three in Pest, and five other smaller ones scattered throughout the south and east of the state. Jews have suffered greatly from antisemitism at the hands of both their Christian and Muslim neighbors. Muslims make up over a fifth of Hungary (20.5%). Islam first came to Pannonia during the medieval era, when Ismaili Shia refugees petitioned the Crown for safe-haven, which was granted, but only when the community converted to Catholicism en-masse. It is unknown for how long crypto-Shiism remained amongst the people. The descendants of these refugees are known as Böszörmény. Islam returned in its Sunni incarnation when the Ottomans took over and flooded the region with colonists from all over the Empire: Dalmatians, Slavs, Albanians, Anatolian Turkified Greeks, even Arabs were sent to this border region. Conversion to Islam by the natives was not as large of a phenomenon as the authorities had hoped for, but it was large enough. The vast majority of Muslims fled south in 1869 as the Turkish authorities closed up shop and were forcibly kicked out by Napoleon III, although many remained, and the triumphant Catholics were the most brutal to them above even their rivals the Protestants. Nearly all the remaining Roma willingly accepted Catholicism under the Latin and Byzantine Rites, echoing what their ancestors did when the Ottomans asked them to convert to Sunni Islam in the 16th Century. To this day, some Catholic Hungarians have surnames ultimately of Turkish origin. However, despite the persecution of Muslims post liberation and again under the SNORist occupation, Hungary still has the largest population of Muslims in Europe by far. Almost all Muslims are monolingual Hungarian-speakers, a result of quasi-forced Magyarization, but they are still one of Hungary's most multiethnic and diverse religious groups.
There are approximately 1,313 neopagans in Hungary, a product of the post-SNOR liberalization and breakdown of the traditionally diehard reactionaryism in government and a subsequent upswing to progressivism. With help from kindred spirits in Armorica and Lithuania, this small band of neopagans has recreated best what it is believed the Magyar ethnic-religion looked like pre-Christianity in the 8th-9th Centuries, which they call the "Ősmagyar Vallás" (Magyar Arch-religion). There are small pockets of immigrant communities of Buddhists, Hindus, and Taoists coming from Asia, although almost all the rest of Hungary's people not registered to any faith, about 7.5% of the population, are atheists and agnostics. There is also a Mormon mission present in Buda.
13,138,844 Hungarians 3,481,794 Calvinists* (26.5%) 2,726,310 Catholics (20.75%) 1,642,356 Muslims (12.5%) 1,576,662 Lutherans* (12) 1,051,108 Orthodox Christians (8%) 984,100 not religious or other (7.49%) 919,720 Unitarians* (7%) 755,484 Jews (5.75%) 1,313 neopagans (.01%) (5,978,176 Protestants altogether, 45.5%)
