Eager to find something new to read about Hungary’s history, today I spent some time in several bookstores in central Zagreb. And it did not take me long to come upon Bryan Cartledge’s The Will to Survive: A History of Hungary.[1] The Preface opens rather promisingly: “I began this book in order to satisfy my own curiosity about Hungary’s past. While serving as British ambassador to Hungary in the early 1980s, I was frequently struck by how little British visitors to Budapest, both official and private, knew of the country’s history.”[2] But the first sentence of the first chapter really got me: “Nations need myths.”[3] On the same page I spotted the first mention of Attila the Hun, one of my favorite historical characters. I grabbed the book and walked to the counter without further ado. Not only nations need myths, though. Individuals do, too. Even those of Venetian origins, I should add. And there is much that brings Venice and Hungary together across many centuries.

Footnotes

1. London: Hurst & Company, 2011 (first published in 2006).

2. Op. cit., p. xiv.

3. Op. cit., p. 3.