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It is a mistake to view the development of recreational walking in Hungary as a harmless pastime detached from history. The growth of walking clubs followed the same pattern as the rest of Europe, members of the professional classes, who had more leisure time, taking the lead. Hungary’s first club, Magyarországi Kárpát Egyesület (MKE), Hungarian Carpathian Association, was founded in 1873 and it played a major role in the exploration of the Tatras. During the 1880s its Budapest section decided to explore the Pilis and in 1891 seceded from the MKE and set up the Magyar Turista Egyesület (MTE), Hungarian Association of Walkers. During its first two years its members had waymarked 240km (148 miles) of trails, built refuges, cleared wells and springs, and founded a magazine, Turisták Lapja. The first of the workingclass clubs, the Munkás Testedzők Turista Egyesülete (MTTE), Hungarian Workers’ Sport Walkers Association, was set up in 1908. A group of printers created the Természetbarátok Turista Egyesülete (TTE), Association of the Friends of Nature, in 1910, and another important working-class club, the Magyar Turista Szövetsége (MTSZ), Union of Hungarian Walkers, was founded in 1913. Over the next 20 years there were other clubs, adding to the confusion of acronyms. Their aim was to promote class-consciousness, healthy living and temperance, and they maintained links with the Austrian Natur Freund clubs and the wider social democratic movement. Inevitably the political affiliations of many walking clubs led to splits and mergers. After much bitter infighting the MKE, MTE and TTE merged under the MTSZ. At the Treaty of Trianon after World War I, Hungary lost the Tatras to Czechoslovakia, but as if to compensate the walking movement in Hungary expanded. Ideology continued to play a part and many clubs were aligned with rightist or leftist causes.