The Perception of Milan Hodža During the Second World War in Hungary

Milan Hodža was a prominent figure in Czechoslovak emigration during the Second World War, having previously served as a member of the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies from 1905 to 1910 and as the first ethnic Slovak prime minister of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938. In the Hungarian public discourse, the personality, ideas, and activities of this Slovak politician have remained a topic of discussion to this day. The aim of this essay is to outline the opinions of individual Hungarian politicians, publicists, and journalists on Milan Hodža in various journals. The paper is divided into three sections (the perception of Hodža’s personality, the evaluation of his book Federation in Central Europe, and the reactions to the politician’s death) and aims to shed light on the image of Milan Hodža in Hungary during the Second World War, which often sought to act as a counterpoint to the perception of Edvard Beneš.