Hungarian Nationalism and Hungarian Pan-Turanism until the Beginning of the Second World War

Abstract After the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century, the development and spread of nationalism in Europe began to accelerate. The development of the national consciousness of the peoples living under the domination of the empires in Europe damaged the legitimacy of the empires in Europe and started to threaten the existence of the empires in Europe. These nationalist movements especially affected the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Tsardom, and these regions became areas of nationalist conflict.1 The word ‘Turan’, which is used to describe the Central Asian lands where Turkish tribes live, gained its ideological meaning in the 19th and 20th centuries. ‘Turanism’, which started to gain its ideological meaning in the second half of the 19th century in Hungary, which can be defined as an Asian country in the middle of Europe, has become an ideology identified with Hungarians, Hungarian nationalism and the Hungarian awakening. ‘Hungarian Turanism’, which has undergone many changes in its ideological depiction, was born and strengthened from the search for national identity among economic and social problems in Hungary, which is considered an ‘insecure’ society in Europe due to the threats of Slavic and Germanic elements. Hungarian nationalism and Hungarian identity, which were shaped in an ethnocultural context, evolved from a liberal/political basis to an ethnocultural and pan-nationalist practice. Especially at the beginning of the 20th century, the ‘Hungarian Turanism’ ideology, which started to strengthen with the Hungarian elites and intellectuals focusing on Hungarian national interests, culture and expansionist policies against external threats, led to the emergence of a new nationalism movement, Pan-Turanism. Hungarian nationalism and ‘Hungarian Turanism’ ideology, which started to develop and transform on different grounds, especially after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, became stronger in the interwar period after the First World War and became an important part of the fascist Hungarian parties supported by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.