The Role of Religious and Military Holidays in Shaping Community Identity during the Horthy Era

Abstract

This study examines the religious and military holidays during the Horthy-era in the context of the national trauma triggered by the Treaty of Trianon, seeking to answer how religious rites, military holidays and commemorations contributed to the reshaping of the collective identity. The drastic territorial and demographic losses resulting from the Treaty of Trianon, which particularly affected the organisational structures of the church and the armed forces, created a crisis in which a reinterpretation of national identity became inevitable. The analysis shows that the liturgical feasts of the historical churches and official military ceremonies associated with the army were intertwined, and how they provided a shared “Christian–national” interpretive framework for the losses of Trianon. The study states that church and military rites did not merely preserve the memory of the trauma, but played a decisive role in shaping the national self-image and collective identity of the Horthy era through their emphasis on communal sacrifice, heroism, and the hope for revision.