Bethlen Naptár, 1951 (Ligonier)
William Toth: Our historical quest
210 BETHLEN NAPTÁR them. Hungarians in a sentimental mood like to identify this something with the high place they are destined to hold among the cultured nations of the world. Few of our second-generation Hungarians have seen the home and country which Hungarians found for themselves after crossing the Carpathians into the great Danubian basin. It has never been a large or very populous country. But Hungary as a country has not been a disappointment, to say the least, to any who have had the opportunity to visit there. For me several visits have left an indelible impression. Once the iron curtain is raised upon a free people again, I should like nothing more than to have the privilege of introducing my children to the land of their forefathers. Certainly they would thrill to the beauties of that gem city, Budapest, with its countless parks and baths, its brilliant cultural life, and its quaint and entirely distinctive setting along the Danube at a spot which for centuries prior to the coming of the Hungarians served as the crossroads of several civilizations of people who have long ago disappeared from history. I am sure they would be fascinated with the rolling plains of the Alföld, stretching over miles and miles that are broken only by a ranch here and there of the finest horses in the world, and unfolding a life that has upon it the color of a fairy tale. As we would chance upon an ancient castle here and there, I should like to be there to help conjure up from the patina of by-gone days some of the tales of Hungarian history that tell of gallant living and heroic deeds pro patria et Deo, for country and for God, for freedom and the high ends of living. Here is a land in which Magyars have been questing after the rich fruits of the human spirit, as though forever enchanted by nostalgia for the stag of Magor’s experience. The history of this nation has not been calm and uneventful. Page after page tells of storms and unprecedented stresses. There are brilliant triumphs and tragic defeats. All in all, however, Magyars have made a substantial contribution to what we style European civilization, and no son of Magor need be ashamed. I think, first of all, of a certain democratic tradition which came with the Magyar tribes from the vast sweeps of Asia. An interesting manifestation of this spirit is illustrated by the blood pact upon which the seven chieftains entered as they passed through the Pass of Vereczke. Under the shadow of the Carpathians where some of my own forebears lived and where I myself was born, Álmos, Előd, Kund, Ond, Tas, Huba and Töhötöm cut each other’s veins and, mixing their blood in a cup according to an ancient tribal custom, drank heartily,
