Description
Book SynopsisIn this important historical account of the role that religion played in defining the political life of a modern national society, Paul A. Hanebrink shows how Hungarian nationalists redefined Hungarya liberal society in the nineteenth centuryas a narrowly Christian nation in the aftermath of World War I. Drawing on impressive archival research, Hanebrink uncovers how political and religious leaders demanded that Christian values influence public life while insisting that religion should never be reduced to the status of a simple nationalist symbol.
In Defense of Christian Hungary also explores the emergence of the idea that a destructive Jewish spirit was the national enemy. In combining the historical study of antisemitism with more recent considerations of religion and nationalism, Hanebrink addresses an important question in Central European historiography: how nations that had been inclusive of Jews before World War I became rabidly antisemitic during the interwar p
Trade Review
Hanebrink in his excellent, well-researched study brings together important questions concerning nationalism, religion, and the ever-present issue of antisemitism.... The novel aspect of Hanebrink's work is to place religion at the center of the definition of nation and thereby connect it to the growth of antisemitism.
* Slavic Review *
