Budapest: A Brief History

I realized I'm making all these posts about Budapest but many people probably don't know much about the city or the context of any of this stuff, like myself before I'd traveled there.  And...it's interesting.  Knowing some history is good for you.  And fun!  Which I didn't realize 'til I moved here.

So...this is a quick Budapest History of the 20th Century: According to Lauren.  

So at the beginning of the 20th century, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one big relatively happy place.  (The Empire had been around from 1867 until 1918.  They were a big deal.)

World War I started, for many reasons (but also because an Austro-Hungarian prince, Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by some independence-seeking Serb), and at the end, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was on the losing side and disappeared along with a bunch of other empires and countries. A lot of new countries were formed and borders were redrawn, and Hungary lost out big in the settlement.

Enter: the Nazis. The Nazis started gaining power in the 1930s and Hungary fell increasingly under the influence of Germany.  When Germany began to annex, conquer, and redraw boundaries in Europe, Hungary was like "hey, maybe we should get in on this and join them and at least we'll be able to get some of our lost territory back. And it's probably safer to be with the Nazis than against them so let's DO THIS." This isn't a direct quote, per se, but I'm sure it's relatively accurate.

Then World War II happened.  Yikes. Throughout the war, Hungary maintained its own government and what not, until in 1944 they realized again they were on the losing side again and tried to bail out. But those freakin Nazis TURNED on them like they did on everyone else, installed their own government in 1944, the Arrow Cross, deported and murdered a ton of Hungarian Jews, and ruined everything even further!  As per usual.

Enter the Soviets. [During this trip, I (obviously) had another big history lesson and realized that Russia and the United States were Allies.  (You know you learn these things, but they never really register until...they do?  Yeah, that.)  I often wondered why Russia and the States were in on this together, considering the USA and Russia have hated each other for decades, but my brother reminded me of the saying "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."  Russia hated the Nazis and we hated the Nazis so we were in this together. The original frenemies?]

SO, thankfully, the Soviets swept in and liberated Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe from the Nazis! Yay! Happy days! NOT.  The Soviets forgot to leave and instead moved in and took over the entire country, turning it into a communist reign of terror that lasted until 1989, despite some uprisings (namely one in 1956 that was immensely important but also not, because it didn't work.  Dangit.)  Freakin 1989 I tell you!  This was within my lifetime!  

The Soviets and their Hungarian puppet regime were terrible horrible sick people with no souls who did really terrible things to innocent Hungarian people in order to maintain power.  Which I realized on this trip.  And while the Hungarian people basically had one of the worst centuries imaginable, Hungary peacefully regained its freedom about twenty years ago, and the new century has given its people new hope that it can join in the peaceful happy party that is a united Europe today.

Budapest really displays the scars of the past century, but the city also displays a resilience and bustling life that is pretty darn impressive, considering how far they've come in 20 years.  

So that's it.  That actually wasn't so quick.  Sorry.  But hopefully you learned something and for that I am NOT sorry!

(Thanks to my bro for some history notes as well.)