Visitors who refer to Hungary as a
Balkan country risk getting a
lecture on how this small,
landlocked nation of just over ten
million people differs from
"all those Slavs". Hungary
was likened by the poet Ady to a
"river ferry, continually
travelling between East and West,
with always the sensation of not
going anywhere but of being on the
way back from the other bank";
and its people identify strongly
with the West while at the same time
displaying a fierce pride in
themselves as Magyars - a race that
transplanted itself from Central
Asia into the heart of Europe.
Any contradiction between
nationalism and cosmopolitanism is
resolved by what the Scottish
expatriate Charlie Coutts called the
Hungarian "genius for not
taking things to their logical
conclusion". Having embarked on
reforming state socialism long
before Gorbachev, Hungary made the
transition to multi-party democracy
without a shot being fired, while
the removal of the iron curtain
along its border set in motion the
events leading to the fall of the
Berlin Wall. The end of Communism
has hastened the spread of glossy
western capitalism, and on arrival
in Budapest your first impressions
will be of a fast-developing and
prosperous nation. However, there is
another side to post-Communist
Hungary, and beyond the capital and
Lake Balaton living standards have
fallen sharply amongst many people,
for whom the transition to democracy
has brought very mixed blessings
indeed.
