The Eighth Tribe, 1979 (6. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1979-11-01 / 11. szám
Page 4 THE EIGHTH TRIBE November, 1979 DR. GÉZA SZ. ÉLES: POLES AND HUNGARIANS Hand in Hand Through Centuries The encounter of Count Casimjr PulasJcv and Michael Kováts lg de Fabricy was not only a sejmhfc Jw& rendipity, it was determined by % 1 ® their destiny, even more by their national descent. The one was a Polish aristocrat, the other a Hungarian nobleman. The Pulaskys and Kovátses met through long centuries helping and fighting for each other in Central Europe being their countries wedged between East and West on the crossroad of nations. Yet at the end of the tenth century Bishop St. Adelbert having converted the Hungarian Prince Géza to Christianity, led his mission also to Poland. Tradition holds, that the first wife of Prince Géza was a Polish Princess. The blood of the Hungarian House of Árpáds and the Polish House of the Piasts united in numerous marriages. After the extinction of the House of Árpáds the Anjou Carobert of Hungary married Elizabeth, daughter of Vladislav IV. (Lokietek) King of Poland. When Casimir III. died, the son of Carobert, Louis the Great, Hungary’s King became the King of Poland, the two countries thus forming personal union. Later when Louis the Great died, his daughter Jadwiga was elected queen of Poland. The Polish-Hungarian symbiosis continued through the ensuing centuries. Vladislav III. (Jagiello) became the martir king of Hungary dying in the battle of Varna against the Turks. Sigismunds I., king of Poland married Borbála Szapolyai, the sister of John Szapolyai, the voivode of Transylvania, who became later king of Hungary. With Steven Báthory, prince of Transylvania, again a Hungarian sat on the Polish throne. It was Ferenc Kölcsey and Ferenc Deák, two deputies of the Hungarian diet, who demanded freedom and justice for Poland, after the defeat of the Polish uprising in 1831. In the Hungarian freedomfight of 1848-49, Bern and Dembinszky two Polish generals led successful campaigns against the Austrian army, together with the Wisozky battalion, a Legion of Polish volunteers fighting against Paskievich the Russian general, the bloody suppressor of the 1831 Polish uprising. In 1863, at the time of the last Polish insurrection, Louis Kossuth the champion of liberty, then living in exile, was willing to organize a Hungarian legion to support the cause of the Polish patriots. Louis the Great, King of Hugary and Poland: 1342—1382 Benes Censured In three successive partitions 1772, 1793 and 1795 Poland was divided among Russia, Prussia and Austria and re-emerged only as an independent state at the end of World War I. Soon, Soviet Russia launched a military offensive against Poland between February and May 1920. However, the Polish forces led by Pilsudski defeated the Red Army decisively crushing the Bolsheviks’ last chance to revolutionize Central and Western Europe. History records this battle as the “Miracle on the Vistula.” Notwithstanding the fact, that Hungary was mutilated at this time, having lost two third of her territory as a result of the unjust Trianon Peace Dictate, she was instrumental helping Poland with ammunition and with other war material, despite the opposition of Edward Benes. The French government expressed its gratitude to Hungary for helping Poland in her fight for survival. Maurice Paleolgue remarked in the Le Temps, that the Hungarians demonstrated their consummate statesmanship, while censuring Benes, who was not only unwilling to fight the Bolsheviks, but refused even to defend Czechoslovakia against them. Defying Hitler When nineteen years later Germany invaded Poland and the Slovak envoy in Budapest, to gain points in Berlin, asked the Hungarian government
