No / This article traces the changes in Anglo-Hungarian relations during the Second World War. Both official and clandestine dealings with the Horthy regime are explored, and put in the wider context of the shifting British attitude towards small states. It is argued that British officials came to endorse the fatalistic view of Sir Stafford Cripps that `smaller countries must fall under the sway of highly industrialised and rigidly controlled major powers¿. The Foreign Office was no longer willing to champion national causes in Central Europe; Horthy¿s Hungary was a case in point. Although Britain declared war on Hungary as late as December 1941, and only under strong Soviet pressure, from April 1941 the BBC was explicitly instructed to treat Hungary as an `enemy state¿. This hostile attitude changed in the spring of 1943, when the British government entered into secret negotiations with Regent Horthy and the Kállay government. Paradoxically, the Foreign Office was far more appreciative of any signs of independence and neutrality in Hungarian foreign policy than two years earlier, when such a policy held some promise. Hungary may have been branded as `an enemy country which will have to work her passage home¿, but British agents still played a pivotal role in the attempts by the Horthy regime to change sides in the war. A similar dichotomy can be detected in the British attitude towards the Soviet occupation of the country. Whilst the head of the British Military Mission was instructed to follow the Soviet lead in the Allied Control Commission in Hungary, he was also ordered `to resist any attempt by the Soviet authorities to encroach on Hungarian sovereignty or independence¿. This contradiction was the result of negative memories from the interwar years, when Britain failed to capitalise on her prestige and influence in Central and Eastern Europe.

No / This article traces the changes in Anglo-Hungarian relations during the Second World War. Both official and clandestine dealings with the Horthy regime are explored, and put in the wider context of the shifting British attitude towards small states. It is argued that British officials came to endorse the fatalistic view of Sir Stafford Cripps that `smaller countries must fall under the sway of highly industrialised and rigidly controlled major powers¿. The Foreign Office was no longer willing to champion national causes in Central Europe; Horthy¿s Hungary was a case in point. Although Britain declared war on Hungary as late as December 1941, and only under strong Soviet pressure, from April 1941 the BBC was explicitly instructed to treat Hungary as an `enemy state¿. This hostile attitude changed in the spring of 1943, when the British government entered into secret negotiations with Regent Horthy and the Kállay government. Paradoxically, the Foreign Office was far more appreciative of any signs of independence and neutrality in Hungarian foreign policy than two years earlier, when such a policy held some promise. Hungary may have been branded as `an enemy country which will have to work her passage home¿, but British agents still played a pivotal role in the attempts by the Horthy regime to change sides in the war. A similar dichotomy can be detected in the British attitude towards the Soviet occupation of the country. Whilst the head of the British Military Mission was instructed to follow the Soviet lead in the Allied Control Commission in Hungary, he was also ordered `to resist any attempt by the Soviet authorities to encroach on Hungarian sovereignty or independence¿. This contradiction was the result of negative memories from the interwar years, when Britain failed to capitalise on her prestige and influence in Central and Eastern Europe.

Yes / This article discusses the international consequences of the trial of British businessman and spy Edgar Sanders in Budapest at a critical juncture of the early Cold War. Convicted of espionage on the basis of a ‘confession’ in court, the defendant was sentenced to thirteen years in prison. The failed attempts to free the English prisoner led to a breakdown in bilateral relations and a British trade embargo. The related trial of American executive Robert Vogeler has received extensive coverage in Hungarian- and English-language sources. By comparison, the Sanders case has attracted little scholarly attention. This article is the first comprehensive treatment of the case.

In its evaluation of the main political and cultural-social tendencies of the Czechoslovak-Hungarian interwar relations, this dissertation aims to introduce a new approach to investigating the forms, shapes and perspectives of relations that in the crucial period between 1925 and 1932 reflected a sphere that was far more significant than the political and economic spheres (these only reflected the current interests of individual policies). This sphere, bringing an entirely new perspective on research of Czechoslovak-Hungarian relations, was the internal level of the Czechoslovak-Hungarian relationship - the relationship between Czechoslovak society and its internal policy regarding activities of the Hungarian minority. In this period, there was a diametric difference between these activities and official Hungarian policy. This dissertation attempts to point out that which has until now been ignored: in terms of internal organization and foreign policy goals, the two states were distinctly incompatible (during the whole period between 1918 and 1939), whereas the internal Czechoslovak-Hungarian relations (the evolving relationship between the majority and minority) indicated that there existed areas and population groups that could have allowed for gradual cultural and social convergence occurring...

Les relations entre la France et la Hongrie ont été, au fil de l’histoire, placées à la fois sous le signe de la complexité et celui de l’ambiguïté, souvent marquées par une certaine distance et parfois empreintes de ressentiments. Au cours de l'époque de l'époque moderne, l'occupation turque, puis la longue association de la Hongrie aux Habsbourgs ont contribué à dresser, entre les deux pays, des barrières, et à freiner le développement de liens plus conséquents. De manière similaire, au cours du XXe siècle, alors que beaucoup de facteurs géographiques, culturels ou humains auraient du conduire la France à nouer avec la Hongrie les mêmes rapports de confiance et d'amitié qu'avec les autres capitales d'Europe centre-orientale, les deux Guerres mondiales – et les périodes révisionnistes et communistes qui les ont suivis en Hongrie –, mais aussi la profonde blessure infligée aux Hongrois par le traité du Trianon, ont constamment rejeté les deux États dans des camps opposés et contribué à créer, dans un pays dont l'intelligentsia était pourtant historiquement prompte à « tourner son regard vers Paris », le mythe d'un « amour sans retour » envers la France. Longtemps considérée comme une zone d'influence germanique exclusive, la Hongrie ne représenta ainsi jamais réellement un partenaire privilégié pour la France à l'est du continent et les relations entre les deux pays demeurèrent très largement irrégulières et dissymétriques. Dans ces conditions, les bouleversements des années 1989-1990, tout en offrant l'occasion de redessiner un nouveau paysage européen tourné vers l'avenir, ont autorisé la possibilité d'un nouveau départ des rapports entre les deux États. En se plaçant dans la lignée des recherches réalisées sur les relations entre la France et la Hongrie au cours du XXe siècle, ce travail offre une première analyse du resserrement global des liens entre les deux États dans un contexte nouveau. En partant du constat que les relations franco-hongroises changent de dimension à partir de 1989 – une transformation qui est exposée et analysée – ce travail cherche à comprendre si cette mutation représente la marque d’une modification de la nature réelle de la politique française en Hongrie, alors même que celle-ci n’avait été jusqu’alors traitée que comme une périphérie globalisée dans le cadre d’une « politique de l’Est » très large, et d'autre part si la période marque la fin des absences de Marianne en Hongrie et de plus de « 300 ans d’amour impossible » entre les deux pays. Au crépuscule de la guerre froide et à l'aube de l'élargissement de l'UE, face à l'ampleur des rattrapages à effectuer et à la pesanteur des stéréotypes à surpasser, les années 1989-2004 marquent-elles la fin des relations ambiguës et asymétriques entre la France et la Hongrie et le commencement d'une nouvelle ère des relations franco-hongroises ? Le travail se décompose en quatre parties : une mise en perspective générale du sujet et une première analyse de l'idée de « nouveau départ », une étude de l'évolution des relations culturelles entre les deux États, un développement sur le renforcement des liens économiques bilatéraux, et enfin une étude des relations entre les deux pays à la lumière de la question de l'élargissement euroatlantique. / Throughout history, relations between France and Hungary have been complex and ambiguous, often characterized by a certain distance and sometimes marked by a genuine resentment. During the early modern period, the Turkish occupation and the long association of Hungary to the Habsburg Empire certainly contributed to building barriers between the two states and thus to slowing down the development of stronger ties. In a similar manner, during the 20th century, even though many factors  – geographical, cultural, as well as societal – should have led France to develop a similar relationship of confidence and friendship with Hungary as those it had with other central European capitals, the two World Wars – and the revisionist and communist periods that followed in Hungary – as well as the deep “injury” inflicted on the Hungarians by the Treaty of Trianon have constantly pushed both states into opposing camps. In a country where the intelligentsia was historically quick to “look towards Paris”, these factors and events contributed to creating the myth of an “impossible love” between the two countries. Considered for a very long time as a German zone of influence, Hungary never really represented a favored partner for France in the eastern part of the continent, and the relations between the countries remained largely irregular and asymmetrical. Under these conditions, the major upheavals of the years 1989-1990, while offering an opportunity to redesign a new Europe, also allowed a chance for a new start in French-Hungarian relations. This thesis provides the first analysis of the overall strengthening of French-Hungarian relations in this new historical context. Starting with the observation that French-Hungarian relations undergo a change of dimension from 1989 – a transformation that will be discussed and analyzed – our work tries to understand on the one hand whether this mutation represents a modification of the real nature of French foreign policy towards Hungary, given that the country was mostly treated until then as part of the global periphery; and, on the other hand, whether this period marks the end of an absent France in Hungary. At the twilight of the Cold War and the dawn of the EU's enlargement, does the period from 1989 to 2004 mark the end of an ambiguous and asymmetrical relationship between France and Hungary and the start of a new era for French-Hungarian relations? The thesis is divided into four main parts : the first part provides a general overview of the topic and tests the idea of a “new beginning” of French-Hungarian relations. The second part delivers an analysis of the evolution of cultural relations between the two countries from 1989 to 2004. The third part is dedicated to the strengthening of economic ties between the two states. Finally, the last part studies the evolution of the relations between the two countries throughout the process of the EU and NATO's enlargement.