Budapest: Between East and West

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2023

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Almost at the centre of Europe, Budapest, is at the crossroads of geographical regions and of civilizations, at the intersection of ancient trade routes. Mountains that gradually slope into gentle hills converge on a great river, the Danube, and the regions of Buda and Pest sprang up on either side.

Victor Sebestyen is a writer and historian. Victor joins Dan on the podcast to share the story of a tumultuous, often divided, but always fascinating city. They discuss how the city bears the scars of the rise and fall of multiple empires, two world wars, fascism, Nazi German occupation, and Soviet Communism.

Produced by Hannah Ward and edited by Dougal Patmore

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi folks, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit.
0:03.3	In April 2022, Victor Orban in Hungary won a gigantic election victory.
0:10.4	To the surprise of many who hoped that events, further east of him events in the Ukraine
0:15.2	would undermine some of his nationalist pro-Putin messaging.
0:19.6	But it wasn't to me.
0:21.2	So I decided we're going to do a podcast on Hungary.
0:23.6	Let's work out what's going on there.
0:25.3	As ever, the answers, the explanation for the present lies in the past.
0:29.5	I was very glad on this episode to be joined by Victor Sebastien.
0:34.5	He was born in Hungary.
0:35.9	He's from a Hungarian family.
0:37.1	There are family of Hungarian exiles living in London.
0:39.4	He's born in the podcast for which he talked about Lenin years ago.
0:42.4	But now he's back.
0:43.4	He's written a magnificent new book on the story of Budapest, the capital city of Hungary.
0:48.4	We started off by talking about the First World War, the catastrophe for Hungary.
0:52.4	Really, a series of catastrophes.
0:54.4	The First World War in itself was appalling for Hungarian soldiers.
0:58.2	The aftermath was a complete disaster.
1:00.8	Hungary was stripped of whatever half its territory.
1:03.8	Hungary threw its locce with Hitler during the Second World War.
1:06.5	It was occupied by the Soviets after that.
	...

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