Nicholas Roosevelt in Hungary, 1930–1933: Expectations and illusions

Abstract

Abstract Although a score of new studies have been published about the various aspects of the history of American–Hungarian relations in the past three decades, there are still a considerable number of uncovered chapters. The present article will introduce one of the American ministers who served in Hungary in the interwar years. Nicholas Roosevelt came from a well-known family that gave two presidents to the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, and the name helped him throughout his storied career. Since he had visited Hungary at the time of the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in March 1919, he had first-hand experience regarding his host country. His service as American minister (1930–1933) fell in the first years of the unfolding Great Depression, which defined the basic conditions for Hungary, as well for the United States and Europe. Nicholas Roosevelt was an avid writer, and he left behind a plethora of both private and official documents containing, among other things, his thoughts and opinions about Hungary and Hungarians. Building this as a primary source, along with a number of secondary sources, the article will bring closer the economically and politically shaky days of Hungary in the early 1930s through the eyes of the American minister posted in Budapest, thereby enriching our knowledge about the relations between the two countries.