Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 2000 (17. évfolyam, 58-61. szám)

2000 / 58-61. szám

monograph on Wallenberg, Handler conducted research at the University of Miami Raoul Wallenberg Research and Study Center and at the Raoul Wallenberg Project of Oral History at Uppsala University in Sweden.

It is Handler’s contention that without the official and covert aid that was "activated and sustained by the various representatives of the Hungarian state apparatus whose cooperation Wallenberg regularly sought and often received” his efforts would have had little success. Of the 825,000 lews estimated to be living in Hungary in 1941, more than seventy percent perished. The German occupation on March 19^*, 1944 came late in the war, as the Soviet Army advanced. "The German occupation of Hungary trapped the last major, relatively intact lewish community in Europe.”

After Handler’s brief introductory remarks regarding the historical background to the Holocaust he discusses the WWII era. The first section covers the life of Wallenberg as it is woven on a tapestry of Hungarian events. The second major section of the book details the period from Wallenberg's last business trip to Hungary in Fall 1943 until his arrival there again on July 9, 1944 in his role as humanitarian rescuer. In the third segment, Handler provides information relating to the framework of Wallenberg’s rescue mission. As Handler states, there were "no schools of rescue Wallenberg could attend, no teachers to impart to him the principles of humanitarian life-saving, and no facilities in which he could practice them."

The fourth portion of the volume describes the Lakatos government. Handler asserts that “Wallenberg's activities were unaffected by the change of governments." The Lakatos era lasted just six weeks, from August 29 until October 15, when the Horthy regime was overthrown and replaced by the Arrow Cross rule of Ferenc Szálasi. Again, Wallenberg's activities are presented against a background of Hungarian history.

In the fifth chapter the author faces the task of separating myth from reality, against the historical backdrop of the Szálasi administration. Under the policies of the Szálasi government the 220,000 lews living in Budapest were on the threshold of annihilation. From October 15*-*1 until the arrival of Soviet troops in January 1945, the heroic multinational rescue work on behalf of the Hungarian Jews took place. In addition to the efforts of Wallenberg, Handler cites the activities of self-proclaimed Spanish charge d’affaires Giorgio Perlesca, Swiss Consul Charles Lutz, Papal Nuncio Angelo Rótta, and members of the Swedish Red Cross and Swedish diplomatic corps. Churches, monasteries, and cloisters provided refuge to some. Handler contends that none of the representatives of the neutral countries and foreign international organizations could have functioned unassisted. Additional information is provided regarding police officers, defense ministry officials, and others who in some way interacted with the humanitarian efforts.

In the bibliography, readers will find citations to work by Ranki, Lévai, Ember, Braham, Gostonyi, Romsics and Karsai, among others. Memoirs or documents pertaining to Horthy, Kallay, Nagybaczoni Nagy, Lakatos, Eichmann, Seredi and Bethlen are also cited. The volume will be especially valuable in college and university collections where scholars and students of political history can review the rescue work of Wallenberg and his collaborators during the last dark days of World War II.

Ruth G. Biro

BOOKS (Continued)

József Kovacsics. MAGYARORSZÁG TÖRÉNET1 DEMOGRÁFIÁJA

(896-1995) Budapest: Központi Statisztikai Hivatal, 1997. Pp. 417. 2400 Ft. Paperback. ISBN: 963-215-148-8.

The volume, Historical Demography of Hungary, consists of 27 papers delivered at a conference celebrating the llOO’-h anniversary of Hungarian settlement in Europe, along with English contents and the editor's summary. The summary attempts to give a balanced view of the papers, focusing on the size, growth and ethnic composition of the population. Unfortunately its brevity precludes representation of the richness of the material as to methods (for example L. Benkö's article on the role of place-names), ingenious use of scanty and inadequate sources for population estimates and the thorough critical review of the estimates in most of the historians’ papers.

There are three crucial points in the history of the population of Hungary before 1919 (when the Versailles treaties took away nearly three-quarters of its territory and more than two-thirds of its people): the size of the base population at the time of the 896 AD conquest; the devastation caused by the Mongol Tartar (1241-42), and the Turkish (after 1526) invasions.

In analyzing 16-17th century sources, G. Dávid points to the ideological bias that often distorts historic research. Thus the supposedly catastrophic consequences of the Turkish invasion became a truism in historiography, because it fitted the ideology of the pro- Habsburg and the anti-Habsburg vulgar Marxist historians as well. The influence of political or nationalistic ideology is even more obvious in cases of the ’’daco-roman’’ survival theory (Gy. Székely) as well as the Árpádian age (10-13th centuries) population. In the latter, the historians followed the lead of the chroniclers, who tried to glorify Árpád and his conquering Magyars and to ignore the role of the Avars. On the basis of an unreliable source, and assuming that the Avars perished in the Frankish wars, it was generally estimated that the incoming Hungarian population was about twice the number of the people who lived there. Partly due to the results of archaeological excavations, recent scholarship (e.g. Gy. Kristó and the editor, too) seems to accept that the remainder of the Avar-age population was at least double that of the Magyar conquerors. Gy. László even suggests that a "double conquest” occurred, the first being that of the Avars. Thus the date of the conquest may be 567 AD, when the Avars conquered the shortlived kingdom of the Gepides in Hungary. The theory suggests that the Avars included Magyar (Onogur; from which the Hungarian name is derived) peoples who spoke a language related to the Magyar. Indeed, the avars absorbed several steppe peoples, and Onogur-Hungarian fragments could have joined them either when they defeated the Onogur confederacy of tribes or arrived with one of the several waves of people admitted into Avaria.

In later medieval and early modern times, the sources of population history considerably increased along with problems of their interpretation. The situation is best described by A. Kubinyi, who declares that "the population of medieval Hungary cannot be determined" with certainty. This is a valid statement up to the end of the 18th century, when the census operations of 1784-7 roughly satisfied the principles of modern censuses and later registrations enabled the analysis of demographic parameters as demonstrated by D. Dányi and T. Faragó. For previous periods, however, agreement in population figures can be reached only, as V. Zimányi noted, if researchers build on each others' results, as no one source is in itself reliable and/or can be interpreted properly.

The last part of the book deals with the statistical era following the 1870 census. It is introduced by a concise description of the social and economic developments (T. Katona), followed by the analyses of census series (A. Klinger) and trends of fertility (F. Kamarás),

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NO. 58-61, WINTER/SPRING/SUMMER/AUTUMN 2000, HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER

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