Abstract
Between the two world wars Hungary was ruled by a series of conservative governments under the overall leadership of the Regent (the declared proxy of the nonexistent Hungarian King), Admiral Miklos Horthy. Hungarian society in this period was characterised by a rigid class system, an almost feudal backwardness in the countryside and staggering social inequalities. The vast majority of the population, peasants and workers, were socially and economically ostracised. Rural conditions in this largely agrarian society were deplorable. There were half a million landless peasants while 1 per cent of the land-owning population held 43 per cent of the land.
The initial research for this chapter was carried out by Elizabeth Kiss, graduate research student of Wolfson College, Oxford.
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Notes
Josef Revai, ‘On the Character of our People’s Democracy’, Tarsadalmi Szemle (Budapest, March–April 1949), reprinted in Foreign Affairs vol. 28 (1949) pp. 143–52.
Translated by Bill Lomax and published in English in Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, vol. 8, no. 1 (summer 1985) pp. 5–16.
Peter Kende (ed.), 1956 [vols 9–10 of Magyar Fuzetek (Hungarian Notebooks) Paris Dialogue Européens, 1981] p. i.
See Bennet Kovrig, Communist in Hungary: From Kun To Kadar (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1979) p. 318
Imre Kovacs (ed.), Facts about Hungary (New York: Hungarian Committee, 1958).
BBC, Daily Summary of World Broadcasts: BBC Monitoring, Part II Eastern Europe (hereafter BBC), EE 0455, 12 May 1989.
See Gabor Demszky, Hirmondo, no. 17 (May–June 1985),
translation printed in East European Reporter, vol. 1, no. 3 (Autumn 1985) pp. 23–5.
Amnesty International, Report 1989, p. 224; BBC, EE 0573, 28 September 1989.
Jan Krauze, ‘Hungary’s Political Balancing Act’, Guardian, 29 July 1984.
Timothy Garton Ash, ‘The Hungarian Lesson’, New York Review, 5 December 1984, p. 8.
J. V. Eibner, ‘Zoltan Kaldy: A New Way for the Church in Socialism’, Religion in Communist Lands, vol. 13, no. 1 (1985) pp. 37–40.
See also Jozsef Elias, ‘Egyhazak es Egyhaziak szabadsaga’ (The Freedom of Churches and Churchmen), an article which appeared first in the Bibo Emlekkonyv and then in Magyar Fuzatek, no. 14–15 (1984) pp. 108–9.
Gabor Ivanyi, ‘Declaration’, 24 April 1980. Ivanyi is a methodist pastor in Budapest. His declaration was reprinted in ‘Etre Chretien en Hongrie’, L’Alternative, no. 9 (March–April 1981) p. 11.
Bill Lomax, ‘Behind the Scenes’, New Statesman, 11 November 1983
Quoted by Timothy Ash, ‘The Hungarian Lesson’, New York Review, 5 December 1985.
Georges Schopflin, ‘Critical Currents in Hungary, 1968–1978’, in Rudolf L. Tókes (ed.), Opposition in Eastern Europe (London: Macmillan, 1979) p. 145.
Janos Kis, ‘Reflections on the Jewish Question in Hungary’, excerpted from Beszelo in East European Reporter, vol. 1, no. 3 (Autumn 1985) p. 29.
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© 1990 L. J. Macfarlane
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Macfarlane, L.J. (1990). Human Rights in Hungary. In: Human Rights: Realities and Possibilities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11602-7_5
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