HUNGARIAN STUDIES 14. No. 2. Nemzetközi Magyar Filológiai Társaság. Akadémiai Kiadó Budapest [2000]

Denis Sinor: The First Change of Regime in Hungarian History

THE FIRST CHANGE OF REGIME IN HUNGARIAN HISTORY DENIS SINOR Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA The fabric of history is almost seamless even though those who weave it may want it differently. Hitler proclaimed to lay the foundations of a new, a Third, Reich, one to last for a thousand years, but - though his actions affected the lives of countless millions all over the world - he built but a house of cards that stood only for a dozen of years. It was an event rather than an epoch in German history. The First, Second, and Third German Reichs - and I am ready to add to them the Federal German Republic - represent but a continuum of German history. The situation is not very dissimilar in neighboring France now living under her Fifth Republic. Years ago the billboards in the Paris Metro - pasted there by the manu­facturer of a wall-paint - could justifiably declare that Les Républiques passent mais la peinture Soudée reste. Yes, the republics come and go, and to use again a French saying, plus cela change, plus c 'est la même chose. In the course of history significant caesurae are few and rare between, and are seldom the works of any one individual. There is considerable difference between pre- and post-Napoleonic Europe but, as I see it, it was but a new game on the old chessboard. In European history, I submit, the rules of the game were changed for example by the Reforma­tion, or the French Revolution, in Japan, the Meiji Restoration may have marked a decisively new epoch in the country's history. To the question whether the French Revolution had succeeded, Zhou Enlai is said to have replied "It's too soon to tell." Only time will show whether, on a world scale, the Leninist Russian revolu­tion was really the watershed Lenin and Stalin wanted it to be. Yet I have no doubt about its significance for Russian history. This paper would like to express some thoughts on a change of regime which, while it may have had little effect on European history, constitutes, without any doubt, the decisive watershed in the history of Hungary. Without it, it is safe to say, there would be no Hungary today. In this millennial year of 2000, Hungary is celebrating another millennium: that of the founding of the Hungarian state. A few years ago, in 1989, Hungarians were proudly remembering the eleven-hundredth anniversary of the Conquest of their land (though, for reasons of political correctness the term was seldom used in texts destined for foreign readers). Thus, apparently 111 years were needed to Hungarian Studies 14/2 (2000) 0236-6568/2000/S5.00 © 2000 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest

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