Today I finished putting together a lesson plan for my modern Hungarian history class, focusing on the Aster Revolution of 1918. The lesson belongs to the thematic unit Hungarian History 1918–1939, and the main goal is to help students understand the background and consequences of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Since the topic sits at the turning point between war, revolution, and state formation, I wanted the class to go beyond memorizing dates and actually think about why historical decisions were made — and what other paths might have been possible.
The students already know the Dualist Era, so the lesson builds on that knowledge. I’m working from the Történelem 11 textbook (NAT 2020), and the competencies I want to develop include text comprehension, summarizing, forming opinions, historical orientation in time and space, and communication and social skills. The format mixes frontal teaching, pair work, group discussion, and source analysis, so the class doesn’t stay passive for long.
We begin with a short warm-up to activate prior knowledge, followed by a quick presentation and note-taking on the creation of the Hungarian National Council and the early steps that led to the revolutionary situation. After that, students get a set of reflective “What if?” questions, like whether Hungary could have avoided entering World War I, whether Charles IV might have saved the monarchy, or whether Károlyi’s pacifist policies had any real chance in postwar chaos. Students choose one question in pairs and prepare a short response, which we then discuss together. The aim here is not to reach a single “correct” answer, but to let them test historical arguments against each other.
Next comes a source analysis task based on the 1918 proclamation of the Magyar Nemzeti Tanács. Students interpret key points — ending the war, national self-determination, political freedoms, land reform — and decide how realistic or idealistic these demands were. This links nicely to the next structured input section, where I present the key events of the revolution itself: the demonstrations in Budapest, the soldiers siding with the National Council, the symbolic white carnation, the assassination of Tisza István, and finally the proclamation of the Hungarian People’s Republic.
After this, students move into small groups to debate a set of deliberately provocative statements, for example: “The 1918 revolution was more a collapse of power than a true popular uprising,” “Károlyi was an idealist, not a capable leader,” or “Hungary’s independence in 1918 came too easily to be sustainable.” Each group chooses one claim and argues for or against it using what they’ve learned so far. This part is often the most engaging, because students begin to see how history is built from interpretation, not just facts.
Before the lesson ends, we look at Bíró Mihály’s anti-war poster and discuss how propaganda shaped public mood and political identity in 1918. A quick closing recap and homework assignment finish the class.
Writing this plan reminded me how turbulent those months were — war, revolution, state collapse, and hopeful reform all compressed into a few weeks. Even though the topic is over a century old, the questions it raises about legitimacy, political responsibility, and national survival still feel uncomfortably current.