Eighty years ago, in 1938-1940, Hungary was changing. The peaceful territorial revisions seemed to break the shackles of Trianon, while at the same time the immediate neighbourhood and growing European influence of the Third Reich and later the outbreak of the Second World War increasingly threatened Hungary’s independence.

Thanks to the peaceful territorial revisions, in these three years major territories returned to the motherland on three occasions, whose population was predominantly Hungarian, but hundreds of thousands of people of other nationalities also became citizens of Hungary, whom the state welcomed with extensive linguistic, administrative and educational rights. This was the golden age of cafés and Hungarian films, when, during the commemorative year of St. Stephen and the World Eucharistic Congress, Hungarians proved that they were holding on to their Christian roots. At the same time, the first two Jewish laws were passed, and anti-Semitism was on the rise, while the problems of the rural society had yet to be solved.

The Hungarian society felt less of the dangers of the World War for the time being; most of the people believed that the devastation of the Great War was so vivid in the collective memory that another global conflagration could be avoided.

The studies in the volume take an informed approach to topics that are controversial, neglected or still relevant today. The authors – strictly applying the methodology of historiography – formulate their opinions on the basis of sources and a wide range of literature, without hiding behind the disguise of objectivity and value neutrality, as a result of which a scientifically sound, detailed and nuanced picture of the Horthy era emerges on the pages of the volume, both in terms of the topics and the value judgements.