Revision and its modes: Hungary's attempts to overturn the Treaty of Trianon, 1931-1938

• Main Author: Weaver, Eric Beckett
• Published: University of Oxford 2007
• Subjects: 940
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.487150

Histories ofHungary in the interwar period invariably mention the economic, cultural, and political effects of the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, Hungary's Versailles treaty. Such histories point out that the prime goal of all Hungarian governments was to revise the treaty and regain lands taken from the country. Revision was the sine qua non of Hungarian politics. But revision was not a simple matter. There were significant differences between the revisionist propaganda presented to international audienOs, and that fed to the public in Hungary. Moreover, behind the fa9ade of this propaganda, Hungarian elites were engaged in bilious vibrant debate on the meaning and goals of revisionism. For revision took a variety forms related to individual political preferences. Some revisionists dreamt of a recreation of the Habsburg Monarchy, in one form or another. Others would have preferred the resurrection of greater Hungary without the entanglements of the old monarchy. Still others argued for a more modest revision of territory, based on ethnic, economic, and strategic considerations. And some dreamt of the establishment of a Hungarian empire, even larger than old Hun- @ary. This history is an attempt to describe all these aspects of Hungarian revisionism in the 1930s, a period when it became necessary to take policy decisions as the Versailles system was steadily weakened, and ultimately demolished.