1,000 YEARS OF HUNGARY

Hungary's critical position can only be properly seen as part of what the author (whose reputation as a scholar is established) calls ""the fatal space"" -- that area between East and West (of which the Balkans are the explosive section) which could serve as a bridge but historically has been a barrier. He, therefore, rapidly reviews the formation of the region in its language, social character and political development, from the invasion of the Magyars into the Danubic area, through the East West Christian conflict, the Turkish invasions, European nationalization, the Hapsburg dynasty, the statecraft of Metternich, Count Szechenyi, the revolution of the masses, Kossuth, Count Andrassy, the dismemberment of Hungary after World War I, the Russian sweep into the region after Germany's World War II collapse- to that tragically inept October uprising. Just as the ""Magyars' ability to establish themselves in mid-Danubia was due to the existence of a twilight zone between the two embattled branches of Christianity in East and West"" Lengyel is not without hope that such a mechanism as a European common market may find its complement between the Baltic and the Aegean-in a neutral zone. A quietly written book, only briefly interpretive- demands more than a speaking acquaintance with European history.