In 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 Hungary―a liberal society in the nineteenth century―as 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 period. As he traces the crucial and complex legacy of religion's role in shaping exclusionary antisemitic politics in Hungary; Hanebrink follows the process from its origins in the 1890s to the Holocaust and beyond.More broadly; In Defense of Christian Hungary squarely addresses the relationship between antisemitic words and antisemitic violence and between religion and racial politics; deeply contested issues in the history of twentieth-century Europe. The Hungarian example is a chilling demonstration of how religious nationalism can find a home even within a pluralist and tolerant civil society.
#3586413 in Books Cornell University Press 2006-03-30Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.28 x .94 x 6.38l; 1.24 #File Name: 0801444349288 pages
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