clinging onto the past

The British haven't got too much to be shouting about. All that made it Great Britain - invention, war, occasional world cup wins - have all slowly seeped into sepia, replaced by binge drinking and X Factor. It's a shame, but history is history and most Brits can go a day without harking back to the good ole' days of stealing Johnny Foreigner's country - we have let go and moved on. Unfortunately the Hungarians are clinging on a little harder to their past glory.

Before 1914, Hungary was part of Austro-Hungary, a grand empire made up of bits of what is now Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Croatia Serbia and Romania. For hundreds of years the Austrian Hapsburgs ruled this massive kingdom from Vienna, sort of telling the Hungarians what's what. Fair enough, Hungary is a little fish in a big pond and needs a friend like the Austrians. All was going swimmingly.

Then all us Europeans got fed up with playing nice and decided to have a really really nasty war. And the Austro-Hungarians lost. Now, the Allies were a teeny tiny bit miffed about the whole thing, so in 1920 in Versailles the French split up the mighty empire at the Treaty of Trianon, and the Hungarians lost out big time - two thirds of their lands were given away. This was not good for Hungarians, some of whom suddenly woke up in 1921 to find they lived in Romania, or Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia. It wasn't nice, but it happened.

Fast-forward 87 years. Most people who were initially affected by said break-up are, if not very nearly dead, very actually dead. Land that was Hungary hasn't been for quite a while, and although many Hungarians live in these other countries now, it's been this way for long enough so as everyone should have got used to it, right? Oh no, no, no, no. They are still very pissed off with the whole thing.

Look at a map of Hungary. Quite a small country, surrounded by seven other European nations. That's not what Hungarians see. They still see the empire that they lost, the huge mass that ceased to be nearly 100 years ago and they are not happy. They talk about it EVERY day, they argue about it EVERY day and they are throughly pissed off about it EVERY day. And not just the octogenarians who still wear their war uniforms and speak with a slightly suspicious German accent - the kids have a problem with Trianon too. I have student wearing t-shirts to class with the map of the empire, students who are too young to shave have beef with a 87 year old treaty.

Every map in the school is old Hungary, every tourist map is old Hungary, every souvenir boasts old Hungary. Hungarians still look at the lost land as Hungary. See how far you get by calling Bratislava Bratislava, or Kosice Kosice. No, they are the 'new' names that are just crude replacements. 87 years new.

Now us Brits had it all and some around the same time. We got in our boats, loaded our rifles and took what was not rightfully ours. And we didn't stop; we literally went all the way round the world telling poor natives here on in we were the boss. One third of the globe was British for a bally long time. Now what do we have? Malta and Gibraltar. Rule Britannia indeed. 

And do we complain? Do we pine for the Empire? No, we just crack open another beer, turn Simon Cowell up and shout abuse at the TV.

The Hungarians need to wake up and smell the cheap sausage. It's gone and it's not coming back. Ever. If they want to move on as a nation, they need to stop with the t-shirts and the stupid maps and thank themselves lucky they only lost a bit of one continent, not five of them.

Still pissed, 87 years on.