APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110037-3
The Hungarians: Their Habitat and History (U/OU)
Hungary is endowed with a great natural resource, the vitality of the people. Sorely beset over the years, Hungarians have endured, and so has the nation. Not even the wet blanket of Soviet-imposed Communist rule has been able to dampen completely their fiery spirit. Eastern in origin and Western in outlook, they are inclined to consider themselves unique and even a trifle "superior." In short, they take pride in being Hungarian.
Ethnically, they are related to the Finns. Both trace their ancestry to the nomadic Finno-Ugric peoples who migrated from a region between the Volga and the Urals. About 93% of the 10.4 million Hungarians are classified as Magyar, with a scattering of Germans, Slovaks, Romanians, Serbo-Croats, and Gypsies (still partially untamed) constituting the remainder. Most of the Magyars, however, are actually of mixed blood through intermarriage which has gone on for centuries. Just as every Hungarian "has a cousin in the United States," every Hungarian has a German or Slavic grandparent. Another 4.6 million people of Hungarian ancestry dwell outside the homeland: nearly 2 million in Romania, nearly 700,000 in Czechoslovakia, half a million in Yugoslavia, and not quite 200,000 in the U.S.S.R. In the prideful tradition of this region, the Hungarian people harbor grudges over alleged "injustices" visited on its people by neighboring governments.
Hungary proper is a homogenous nation chiefly because Hungarians act as one people. The Magyars have assimilated large numbers of their one-time conquerors—Slavs, Austro-Germans, and Romanians—and in the process have obliterated any sort of textbook claim to racial purity. They are largely indistinguishable physically from other Europeans, although some Hungarians do possess the flattish concave nose of their Mongol ancestors or exhibit characteristics acquired through intermixture with the Turks.
What sets apart the Hungarian more immediately is his language, which is unrelated to any of the main European languages and is similar only to Finnish and Estonian. Linguistic isolation has contributed to a cultural tradition unusually free of foreign influences. During the centuries of Hungary's subjugation, national leaders have repeatedly evoked the popular yearning for freedom in the mother tongue, thus bringing forth a marriage between the word and the soul of the people. This insistence on use of Hungarian is one of the reasons Hungary exists as a separate nation today.
As the representative of an old and proud society, the Hungarian has developed a civilized and honest approach to life. He is not afraid to express his mood of the moment, whether it be rapturous joy or deep despair. He possessed the imagination and sensitivity of a poet, the intelligence and volubility of a lawyer. Renowned as a wit, he is an unsurpassed teller of jokes, which frequently turn out to be wry commentaries on life. As a host he displays courteous and gracious ways. With acquaintances he will be polite; with family (of which he is the ruler) and close friends, affectionate; with foes, argumentative or sullen. All in all, he is both hardheaded and romantic.
The Hungarian experience is perhaps best symbolized in the person of the peasant who has engaged in a never-ending struggle with wind, weather, rapacious landlords, and alien masters. Although somewhat lost sight of in the inevitable rush to urbanization, the country folk still represent
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110037-3
