Béla Király
Encyclopedia
Dr. Béla Király was a Hungarian resistance fighter during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, as well as a military historian, author, and politician.

He was born in Kaposvár, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

. Commissioned as a second lieutenant of the Hungarian Army in 1935, he fought actively in World War II. Following the war, he joined the Hungarian Communist Party
Hungarian Communist Party
The Communist Party of Hungary , renamed Hungarian Communist Party in 1945, was founded on November 24, 1918, and was in power in Hungary briefly from March to August 1919 under Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The communist government was overthrown by the Romanian Army and driven...

, and rose to the rank of major general in the Hungarian army. In 1951, he was arrested on what many felt to be false charges and sentenced to death. On appeal, the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. In September 1956, however, he was released from prison.

United States

During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the military guard and military commander of Budapest. After the revolution, he fled to Austria and later the United States, where he attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. He received his doctorate in history in 1962 and taught Military History at Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

, where he held the title of Professor Emeritus. During his tenure at Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

 he served as director of the Society In Change Program on East Central Europe, supervised Brooklyn College Press (the College's Publishing House), and served as the advisor to the Brooklyn College Military History Club.

After the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, he eventually returned to Hungary, and from 1990 to 1994, became an independent member of the Hungarian Parliament. Since then, he assumed the role of government adviser. In 2004, he was made an associate member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Selected works

  • Király, Béla K. Hungary in the Late Eighteenth Century; The Decline of Enlightened Despotism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.
  • Király, Béla K. Basic History of Modern Hungary, 1867-1999. Malabar, Fla: Krieger Pub, 2001. ISBN 0-89464-950-7

External links

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