“They’re not Slavs,” Caroline said. “In fact, Hungarians are linguistically and ethnically different from their Slavic neighbors. They first arrived in the Danuqbian area in the ninth century and were a nomadic people from Central Asia.

“They were your basic barbarians,” Caroline went on as she consulted her steno pad filled with notes. “They became the scourge of Europe. People heard them coming, they cried, ‘On ogur!’ Nice little phrase, huh?”

Ashley regarded her with a dry look. “I’ll remember it.”

“They marauded, pillaged, raped, took slaves—did what barbarians do, I guess. In the middle of the tenth century, they got their asses kicked by the Germans. By the year 1001, when the first Christian king, Stephen, was crowned, Hungary was ready to usher in an era of peace. The people were forcibly Christianized and their leaders identified theirs as a Western culture. The geographical location of their lands was tempting—not only were they largely flat and difficult to defend, but also fertile, easy to get to, and smack where East meets West.

“They have a long history of being conquered,” Caroline said.

“In 1241, the Mongols invaded and destroyed most of the city of Buda. Budapest was two cities then, Buda on one side of the Danube, Pest on the other.”

Ashley brought her fingers together in a pyramid and placed her elbows on her desk top. “I know that much, Caroline.”

She grinned. “I didn’t. I thought Budapest was the capital of Yugoslavia.”

“Liar,” Ashley said, laughing.

“No, seriously. All the history I took in college, and we never seemed to get to Eastern Europe. I always figured we’re talking fat peasants in bright-colored scarves. You know: Hungary has paprika, Poland has kielbasa, Rumania has gymnasts—unjust and inaccurate stereotypes. Hungary has produced some of the world’s greatest poets, composers, painters—”

“Now I know why you went into P.R.”

She resumed. “After the Mongols came the Turks and the Hapsburgs, each getting their own chunk of Hungary. Finally, in 1686, the Turks were kicked out—again Budapest was devastated—and the country came entirely under the rule of the Hapsburgs.

“In 1848,” Caroline said dramatically, “Hungary revolted.”

Ashley blinked. “I asked you to find out about 1956.”

She held up a silencing hand. “Any Hungarian will tell you that 1848 and 1956 have a lot in common. Both were revolts that were nationalistic in spirit: Hungarians wanted to run their own country without foreign interference, they wanted national determination and sovereignty—the usual good-guy political stuff. In 1849, the revolution was crushed by the Hapsburgs with the help of the Russians—which the Hungarians, of course, never forgot. These guys have long memories. And the heroes of the 1848 revolution—the patriot Lajos Kossuth, the martyred poet Sándor Petofi— were widely quoted during the 1956 uprising. They’re still national heroes.

“Following disaster in 1849, the Hungarians did eventually win some reforms from the Hapsburgs, and in 1867 the dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was formed. Thus, in World War I, the Hungarians again found themselves on the losing side. The country came out of the war one-third its original size, but in control of its own destiny.