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Modern Hungary had its beginnings in the eighth
century AD, when the area was settled by the Magyars, nomadic tribes
from central Volga. Their kingdom thrived and expanded. In the sixteenth
century the Turks seized the central part of Hungary and the northern
and western sections of the country accepted Austrian Hapsburg rule
rather than submit to Turkish domination. In 1699 the Turks were
driven out and the entire country came under Hapsburg rule. Continuing
unrest and the defeat of Austria by the Prussians in 1866 culminated
in the establishment of Austria-Hungary as a dual monarchy in 1867.
The defeat of Austria-Hungary in 1918 was followed by the establishment
of Hungarian nation, but with two-thirds of its former territory
and almost 60 percent of its former population ceded to the surrounding
states. In the Second World War Hungary sided with Germany against
the Soviet Union and was finally occupied by Soviet forces as they
pushed southward in 1945. In 1948 communists, with Soviet support,
again seized control, beginning 42 years of Soviet domination. A
popular anti-communist uprising in 1956 was brutally suppressed
by the Soviet Union. As the Soviet Union began to collapse a new
constitution in 1989 set the scene for Hungary's first multi-party
elections in 1990, where I was not present. I moved to San Diego
in the spring of 1988.
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