When were there Khirgiz and Mongol troops oppressing Hungary? USSR maybe

[Orinsul]

Ok, So I've got this book, a detective novel that's not important.
but it's cover was repaired at some point with the scraps of other books.

And I'm fairly certain that it's a history book about the USSR. Communism gets a few mentions and some weird stuff about how hungarian protesters knew that Mongol and Khirgiz troops, being uncivilised would respond to violence and expected brutality against arrested civilians.

But there's no context, so I don't know what's going on.

Does anyone know cold-war era Hungarian history to know what this would have been about?
I'm guessing the Hungarian Revolution maybe, or maybe WW2?, as by the time of the fall of the USSR authors were on the whole less racist.

Quick searching finds nothing, but this is the history forum.
So where better for entirely unimportant queries about specific and irrelevant, details of the maybe conflicts of the past?

 

[Amallric]

I don't understand your situation at all but it was an important part of Nazi propaganda starting with 1942-43 that Soviet "Mongols" are going to come from Asia to rape and burn civilized Europe.

 

[Orinsul]

I don't understand your situation at all but it was an important part of Nazi propaganda starting with 1942-43 that Soviet "Mongols" are going to come from Asia to rape and burn civilized Europe.

I have a few scraps of what was probably one book glued in to re-inforce the cover of another book, and just no idea what it's about.
it's not important just curiosity got the better of me, hence the thread.

I'll copy out one of the excerpts if that'll help.

pared to accept their declaration that they were coming as friends and advisers, not as conquerors.
Later, however, the savage behaviour of the Russian Troops
in Budapest, and all over the country, the indiscriminate shoot-
ing parties, the looiting and the endless rape shocked the
population deeply. It was something they never forgot nor
forgave. But it was not only the behaviour of the troops that
appalled the Hungarians. Terrible as this was, people might
have understoof and even found forgiveness in their hearts.
after all, the

illegible for about a line

garians also knew that Khirgiz and
Mongol troops did not stand on a high level of civilisation and,
after some time had passed, they might have accepted these
things as 'regrettable excesses'. But the Russians and Com-
munists never allowed this to happen. It was, indeed, their
stupidity, inherent in the system, which, right from the begin-
ning, spoiled relations between the Russians and the Party on
one hand and the people on the other. No, there were no

end of scrap

There's another about mass arrests and beatings but names no names or even adjectives so is unhelpful.
and the thrid, mentions smallholders and stalinists.

 

[DarthJF]

I don't understand your situation at all but it was an important part of Nazi propaganda starting with 1942-43 that Soviet "Mongols" are going to come from Asia to rape and burn civilized Europe.

Yeah, "Asiatic hordes swarming to Europe" was a big theme in nazi propaganda at the time. Based on the propaganda lot of people in Eastern Germany and Europe in general also tought that any tanned or muddy faced Russian soldier was one of those dreaded Mongols. So I'm guessing it's a very racist depiction about Soviet troops reaching Hungary in WW2.

 

[Amallric]

The excerpts are in English? Very strange. This is obviously not Nazi propaganda. I would guess the text goes about justification of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 as something caused by the brutality of Soviet and Communist occupation. But for some reason it does re-use tropes that originate from Third Reich propaganda. Maybe the writer only had access to German sources(this is after all a common situation for all WWII scholarship in the West) and was influenced by them.

 

[Orinsul]

The excerpts are in English? Very strange. This is obviously not Nazi propaganda. I would guess the text goes about justification of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 as something caused by the brutality of Soviet and Communist occupation. But for some reason it does re-use tropes that originate from Third Reich propaganda. Maybe the writer only had access to German sources(this is after all a common situation for all WWII scholarship in the West) and was influenced by them.

It could be translated into english from a german, hungarian, etc author, probably not Hungarian though, the reason I doubt it's just Nazi propaganda is the use of the word Khirgiz.
Mongol is a good, association full, propaganda word, but naming a specific ethnicity, to me suggestions historian.
And it's not beyond plausibility that Khirgiz regiments might have been stationed by the Soviets in Hungary, and given the racist/old-fashioned tone I'd guess Mongol refers to the 'race' rather than actual people from mongolia, and alot of russians would fall under that, so it might not be tropes.

I'm guessing the uprising/revolution too, but as none of them contain dates or names there's enough of a question for to it to get stuck in my curiosity.

 

[Amallric]

There were no Kirghiz regiments in the Red army. There were some Kirghiz mobilised in the army, but they were not grouped in specific units and they were a small minority amongst the army. There were less than 1 million Kirghiz overall in the Soviet Union, so maybe 50.000 or so were drafted in the army out of a total of thirty-four millions. There are no Mongols in the Soviet Union, unless you count Buriats, and there were 224.000 Buriats in the Soviet Union in 1939. So I'm pretty sure this is either written by someone who genuinely believed the Nazi myth of Asiatic hordes invading Europe, or who was abused by the sources he had access to, and these would be wartime German sources. But the events described are pretty certainly Hungary right after WWII, yes.

 

[Orinsul]

There were no Kirghiz regiments in the Red army. There were some Kirghiz mobilised in the army, but they were not grouped in specific units and they were a small minority amongst the army. There were less than 1 million Kirghiz overall in the Soviet Union, so maybe 50.000 or so were drafted in the army out of a total of thirty-four millions. There are no Mongols in the Soviet Union, unless you count Buriats, and there were 224.000 Buriats in the Soviet Union in 1939. So I'm pretty sure this is either written by someone who genuinely believed the Nazi myth of Asiatic hordes invading Europe, or who was abused by the sources he had access to, and these would be wartime German sources. But the events described are pretty certainly Hungary right after WWII, yes.

Thanks.
I'd guess 'mongols' would include all tartars, and really all central asians in general.
If it was written just after the war, only having german sources would make sense too.

 

[BRAVEn]

During the Soviet occupation of Budapest at the end of the Second World War, it is estimated that around fifty thousand women in Budapest were raped by soldiers from the Red Army. After Berlin, the women of Budapest suffered in greater numbers than those of any other Central or Eastern European capital.

(“Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944–1945,” Past & Present, August 2005, pp. 133–61.)

also: http://www.coldwar.hu/html/masodikaaSzerencsesKaroly.pdf

 

[Kovax]

Hungary had bad experiences with the Soviet Union even before WWII.

During Hungary's revolt against Austrian rule around the 1850's, when Hungary looked like it might actually break free, the Austrian Emperor called in his cousin, the Czar, to attack Hungary from the opposite side. The brutality and excesses in the eastern end of the country forced the Hungarians to break off much of the far more civil campaign in the western end, where they had already driven the Austrians across the border in several places, to deal with the new threat, and led to the collapse of the revolt.

The Soviets were widely acknowledged to have been directly responsible for funding and training members of the Bela Kun regime for its coup in Hungary, which led to a very anti-Communist stance in the country afterwards. The brutal murders and assassinations, followed by equally brutal and extreme reactions against the regime by ultra-right groups, shocked the country again in the 1920s.

There were numerous tales and accounts (some real, some exaggerated, and some fictional) from the "Russian Front" of brutality and mutilation of prisoners and bodies by the Soviets, and the past history of Soviet occupation made it even more frightening. With Germany on the decline, the threat of having the Soviets return, combined with the ongoing struggles to keep Hitler's involvement in Hungarian internal affairs to a minimum (largely dealing with certain minorities), led to Hungary seeking a change of sides during the latter part of WWII. That was rebuffed by the western Allies with the reply that they would need to "surrender to Stalin". That was unthinkable, and led to a few divisions of Hungarian troops continuing to resist Soviet occupation for several weeks after no longer having a country to defend.

The references to specific ethnic groups might trace not only from German propaganda, but from early Hungarian "myth" about its founding Magyar tribes being driven out of the east by various other nomadic tribes, as a way of making them seem even more like "perpetual" enemies.

 

[ap08]

There are no Mongols in the Soviet Union, unless you count Buriats, and there were 224.000 Buriats in the Soviet Union in 1939.

Kalmyks are essentially Mongols. They aren't numerous though, less than the Buriats.

 

[toroltao]

This is funny because the Magyars were described in the same vein during their reign in the Carpathian Basin.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Any chance of an image of this book?

 

[Kovax]

This is funny because the Magyars were described in the same vein during their reign in the Carpathian Basin.

I don't recall which, but one country even has a line in their national anthem [edit - not in the first verse ] about "God save us from the arrows of the Hungarians". The Magyars had a nasty reputation as raiders and mercenaries until they decided to settle permanently and convert into a legally recognized Christian kingdom in 1000 AD.

 

[ap08]

I don't recall which, but one country even has a line in their national anthem about "God save us from the arrows of the Hungarians". The Magyars had a nasty reputation as raiders and mercenaries until they decided to settle permanently and convert into a legally recognized Christian kingdom in 1000 AD.

Can't imagine any nation to be so cowardly. It's a prayer, not an anthem.

 

[Amallric]

There's that particular nation which starts its anthem with "We are not dead yet". How much of an anthem is that?

 

[ap08]

There's that particular nation which starts its anthem with "We are not dead yet". How much of an anthem is that?

After what their nation (Poland) has been through, it's not cowardice or anything, it's defiance.

 

[BRAVEn]

It's rather: Poland is not dead as long as we live. Bit different

 

[unmerged(652342)]

I don't recall which, but one country even has a line in their national anthem [edit - not in the first verse ] about "God save us from the arrows of the Hungarians". The Magyars had a nasty reputation as raiders and mercenaries until they decided to settle permanently and convert into a legally recognized Christian kingdom in 1000 AD.

- their reputation of raiders and mercenaries did not perished after conversion.

There's that particular nation which starts its anthem with "We are not dead yet". How much of an anthem is that?

- i know about two: poland and ukraine.