Baják László Ihász István: The Hungarian National Museum History Exhibition Guide 4 - The short century of survival (1900-1990) (Budapest, 2008)

Room 17. The Hungary of Trianon from the Election of the Regent to the Last Year of Peace (1920-1938). László Baják

Horthy may not have been able to confer titles, but in its stead, in 1920, he established the ex-servicemen's "Vitéz" Organisation, later the Knightly Order of Vitéz. Its members were primarily chosen on the basis of wartime achievements. Initiated members of the order and their heirs could carry the heroic title, and if they did not already own land were entitled to receive it. (Later approximately 3,000 "Vitéz" plots of land came into existence.) According to the founding charter, a Vitéz was an exemplary citizen who despite every external and internal opposition stepped into action and supported every activity serving the national interest. The Vitézes were grouped into regional bodies which collectively formed the National Vitéz Seat, their Captain-General being Miklós Horthy. The institution was clearly designed as a support for the system which could be used against any revolutionary insurrection should the necessity arise. Bethlen's most outstanding and at the same time most permanent minister, Count Kuno Klebeisberg, Minister for Religion and Education, knew that the Hungarian nation would only have any chance of taking a leading role in the Carpathian Basin if their intellectual and cultural superiority were beyond dispute. "Today, it is principally through culture and not the sword that the Hungarian homeland can be maintained and made great again," he was to say in 1929. Klebelsberg wished through his grandiose conception to raise the cultural level of the poorest village dwellers while at the same time developing elite culture. The backbone of his creation was the total reform of the Hungarian education system. He began his modernisation of state education through the organisation of a modern primary- and nursery-school teacher training Honorary Citizen of the City" certificate made for Culture Minister Klebelsberg by the City of Sopron, 1926