Baják László Ihász István: The Hungarian National Museum History Exhibition Guide 4 - The short century of survival (1900-1990) (Budapest, 2008)

Room 17. The Hungary of Trianon from the Election of the Regent to the Last Year of Peace (1920-1938). László Baják

obtained in 1924, to the tune of some 250 million gold crowns. 40% of the loan was put up by the Rothschild Bank in London, another 40% by American and the final 20% by Swiss and Czech interests. In return, and apart from establishing the National Bank, Hungary had to submit to two-and-a-half years of "League" financial control. The better part of the loan was used most expediently, and so by the end of the 1920s the Hungarian economy was showing a fair improvement. (In 1927 the now worthless home currency (korona) was replaced by the pengő.) The middle class became stronger through - among other things - increases in salaries for public servants, but the real wages of the workers and peasants hardly reached or only just passed their pre-war level. The normalisation of conditions made possible the spread of social security, which by the end of the decade resulted in about 8090% of the workers (around one million people) contributing the compulsory variety of this basic social protection. In 1928, as a symbol of liberalisation, the ethnic restrictions on university entrance (numerus clausus) were abolished that had been introduced, but in fact hardly ever been imposed, in 1920, under anti-Semitic pressure. After 1926 Bethlen could spend more time on his country estates, or more precisely in the house he rented in Inke in the county of Somogy. (He had lost his own estate following the Romanian occupation of Transylvania.) Later this house developed into a veritable political centre with a regular flow of guests. (All that remained of the furnishings subsequent to the requisition by the Soviet Army during the Second World War was one damaged table.) 1927, the year that brought an end to Allied control, delineated a new epoch in foreign policy. Bethlen regarded his primary objectives to be István Bethlen's ceremonial dress