On the occasion of Australia's Foundation Day in January it is fitting to study the history of the Hungarian migrants in Australia.

The first Hungarians arrived in Australia about 150 years ago. A few more came after the defeat of the 1848-49 Freedom War seeking a country free of oppression. Some of the immigrants were former officers of the Hungarian National Army. (Some of these may have found an interest in Gold Mining in Victoria.)

Very few immigrants of Hungarian descent came around the turn of the century or in the twenties. Those who came were mostly unmarried young men, and they soon married Australian girls, integrating quickly into the Australian society.

The thirties and forties of this century saw the arrival of migrants who left Hungary because of the oppressive atmosphere in Hitler's Central Europe. They were mostly Jewish intellectuals and businessmen. Hard-working and ambitious, they soon became respected members of Australian society, some achieving fame as eminent businessmen, professionals and artists. They cherished their Hungarian culture and helped to dispel some misapprehensions about Hungary during World War 11. The Australians learned through them that Hungary was, during the Nazi oppression of Europe, the refuge of Jews.

About 15,000 Hungarians arrived in Australia as -displaced persons- after World War II The bulk of them were professional and middle-class people, most of them with families. Having met the earlier group of Hungarian refugees, the two groups found the common reason why they came to this country: to flee tyranny of one kind or another. The Hungarian migrant families kept their Magyar ethnic consciousness and their children learned to appreciate their ethnic heritage through Hungarian weekend schools, Scout activities, dance groups and other associations of cultural nature, without interfering with their harmonious integration into Australian culture. The Hungarians never formed cultural ghettos and always adopted Australian citizenship.

After the uprising of 1956 yet another 15,000 Hungarians came. After the sixties many immigrants of Hungarian descent came from Yugoslavia and Rumania. They came in family groups and kept their Hungarian identity.

It is estimated that in 1982 about 60,000 Australians have Hungarian ethnic origin.

Although only half of one percent of Australians are of Hungarian descent, the involvement of Hungarian-Australians in certain professions and occupations is well above that rate. They favour occupations in which independence, initiative and imagination prevail and hard work assures success.

There are, for instance, about 50 professors at various Australian Universities at the time of writing of this account. In art and music Australia lacked the attraction of some other countries, thus only a few well-known artists settled here, but many young artists of Hungarian origin have achieved success. The number of successful Hungarian businessmen has reached proverbial proportions. In sport, table tennis was made popular by Hungarians and soccer owes its rise in popularity, to a great extent, to Hungarians. The less spectacular sports of chess and bridge have been, at various periods, the preserve of Hungarian champions. Fencing, a popular Hungarian sport has reached a great degree of popularity, especially in Victoria, thanks to the Hungarian sportsmen there.

We may say that the Magyar immigrants have invaded the farthest corners of Australia: English with a characteristic Magyar accent is spoken in such distant places as the Birdsville Track in Queensland and the Australian Antarctic Territory. As false modesty is not one of the Hungarian national vices, they do not conceal their presence nor the fact that they are Magyars. In fact their vitality, industry and extrovert friendliness make them more conspicuous than population statistics would suggest.(Bodolai pages 9-10)

Without them the hot Australian sun would still rise, life, inflation and strikes would still go on, but the lights would be a little paler, music a little duller and Australia a little poorer.

Reference-"HUNGARICA" -Zoltán Bodolai, Hungarian Publishing Company Sydney- 1983, ISBN 0 9596873 5 1

ISBN 0 9596873 6 X (pbk.)