Krónika, 1944 (1. évfolyam, 2-12. szám)

1944-08-15 / 8. szám

6-IK OLDAL

"KRÓNIK A”

194t augusztus 15

Hungary and the Hungarians

By Francis Stuart Campbell (Reprinted from the May Issue of “Columbia"

Elisee Reclus, the famous French geographer, once affirmed that Hungary forms the most ideal geographical unit in Europe, and John Stuart Mill declared that it would "be criminal to carve up Hungary along ethnic lines. A glance at the physical map of the Old World will immediately reveal the contours of the Hungarian kingdom as it existed for 1,000 years. Yet, in spite of many protests, this venerable country was divided among its victorious neighbors. Rumania, which had shrewdly declared war a few hours before the official armistice, received the lion’s share and less chan a third of the original state vegetated as “Rump-Hungary” between the two wars.

Today, Hungary is officially an enemy of the United States. So far, not a single shot has been exchanged between Hungarians and the soldiers of the Englishspeaking nations. Only external circumstances forced Hungary as well as Finland, the two countries who faithfully paid their financial debt to the United States, to fight on the side of Axis. It is intteresting to nott that both nations consist predominantly of non- Europeans of mongoloid stock. Americans are used to thinking ot Austrians and Hungarians as kindred nations; yet, strange as it sounds, there is more similarity between the Austrian dialects and Hindustani, or Icelandic, than between the Viennese idiom and Magyar, which is closely related to Finnish and Esthonian and remotely linked to Turkish and Tartar.

' From the Fury of the Hungarians”

The history of the Magyars is indeed stranger than fiction. They must have come from Asia but we can trace them back only to Eastern Russia. In the 9th century, they crossed the Carpathians under the leadership of Arpad and occupied the Hungarian plains. They were a fierce, fighting people with oriental features, and a pagan religion; they were cruel and aggressive but had also great qualities; their sense of honor was highly developed, their morals were high and they respected the given world, old age and artistic talent. The structure of their society was patriarchal.

At first they became the terror of Europe. The litanies in the Christian Churches of the occident contained the supplication. ‘‘From the fury of the Hungarians, preserve us, oh Lord!” But a few courageous missionaries succeeded in converting some of the Magyars and even their duke Geza, a descendant of Arpad, was baptized-. He continued to sacrifice white horses to his pagan gods,

but his son Vajk, who at the age of 19 was given the name of Stephen in baptism, took the teachings of Christ seriously and thoroughly transformed the country. He received a royal crown from Pope Sylvester II, in 1001 A. D.. and thus became the first king of Hungary.

This ruler of great sanctity and wisdom, a true liberal except in religious matters, is the founder of the best political tradition in Hungary, which, it must be borne in mind, had already then within its borders a variety of nationalities. Before he died, St. Stephen said to his son: “A country of only one custom and one language is senseless and gragile.” (Unius linguae uniusque moris regnum imbecille et fragile est.) The arid modern trend of establishing •countries populated by a single race did not appeal to this great Catholic statesman. Soon a constant stream of new immigrants from neighboring nations filtered into Hungary, which had been designed by it founder to become a “regnum Marianum.” Even today, stamps and coins bear the image of Our Lady.

The dynasty founded by Ar.pmdjic^d. laxge—c-rsp—gfsaints. Besides St. Stephen himself, whose mummified right hand is carried annually in procession, there is his son St. Emeric, his successor St. Ladislas, Saint Margaret and, last but not least, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Christianization made rapid progress and intermarriage eliminated the mongoloid characteristics of the race. The Hungarian miracle consists primarily in the fact that the Magyars, although Turanians by origin, have become quickly more occidental than most of their Indo- European neighbors. It is true that the same thing can be said about the Finns, who are in spite on their “race,” more westernized than the Russians.

The solution of the riddle lies partly in the fact that Magyars as well as Finns, unlike the Russians or even the Rumanians, received their Christian heritage from Rome and not from Byzantium. Neither should one forget the astounding capacity of assimilation diisplayed by these Turanian nations. The Magyars have, in addition, shed their blood repeatedly in defense of Western ideas and ideals and have thus become the defensive bastion of occidental civilization. Already, in 1241, they faced the onslaught of Mongols and Tartars and met a crushing defeat but recovered quickly. The battle of Mohi was Hungary’s first great catastrophe. The battle of Mohács, in 1526. which King Louis II lost against the Turks, sealed the fate of the country for 160 years. The rich

plains were occupied by the infidels, Transylvania retained some autonomy under the Sultan but became a center of intrigues and only the West and the Northwest enjoyed safety under the Habsburgs, who administrated “Imperial Hungary” from Vienna.

Hungary never entirely recovered from this blow and the ensuing fatal divisions, which had a strongly religious character. Warfare between the Sultan, the Transylvanian Princes and the Emperor was almost continuos. The noblemen supported the different rulers. There are even to-' day a few nations on the European continent more politically minded and imbued by a stronger political partisanship than the Magyars. Their tradition of representative government is very similar to that of England.

In 1222, only seven years after the issue of Magna Charta, the Hungarian noblemen extorted from their king an almost identical concession — the “Golden Bull.” It gave the nobility the right to resist their sovereign in arms. Like Magna Charta it laid the groundwork for a parliamentary constitution; like Magna Charta it is a liberal document granting privileges and freedoms; like Magna Charta it has nothing to do with democracy. And the Magyars have always been, like the English, a freedom-loving, independent and fundamentally aristocratic nation.

When Hungarian was finally freed by Austria from Turkish rule, in 1687, the problem of reconstruction remained. Serbs, Germans and Rumanians settled in the depopulated vastes of the South and thus decreased the percentage of Magyars within the realm. Yet, as long as Latin remained the official language, the ethnic differences, so highly cherished by St. Stephen, came not to the fore.

The Futile Revolution of 1848

The ideas of the French Revolution. provoked by ..Viennese centralism, plunged the country into a futile revolution in 1848. The issue was one of “staterights” or, in other words, the liberty of action Hungary should enjoy within the Austrian monarchy. The radicals, led by Louis Kossuth, gained the upper hand and started armed resistance, but Austria was victorious Thanks to the statesmanship of the moderate elements, a new charter was drawn up in 1867 giving equal rights to both parts of the empire and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was born. This modus vivendi proved on the whole to be successful. For the outside, Austria-Hungary formed a unity; money, customs, military and foreign

affairs were unified. For “inner consumption,” there were two states with different laws, citizenships, and parliaments. It was the dynasty, the Habsburgs, which held the two crowns together; the Emperor of Austria was the King of Hungary.

Less satisfactory was the situation of the minorities who amounted to half of the population of Hungary. Magyar became the official language and the population was divided between those who knew and those who had to learn the official language. Since the Magyar language does not differentiate between the word “Magyar" and the word “Hungarian” a forceful magyarization set in. The Magyar nationalists contended that a Slovak or a Transylvanian Rumanian was simply a “Magyar who ought to know his own language,” just as an American insists that a prospective citizen know English. But Europe is not America and resentment was widespread.

Part of this trouble was also due to the fact that people in the 19th century ceased to be patriotic and became nationalistic. The European sees in patriotism an enthusiasm directed ty" ‘Es mountains, rivers, histonrar’nfrncings and institutions of one’s country; he calls nationalism the inordinate desire for uniformity in speech, language and way of life among his fellow-citizens. This change of sentiment was at the roof of most calamities of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

With the military defeat of 1918 it became evident that some of the political spokesmen of the nationalities were illoyal to Hungary. The abolishment of the monarchy was another blow to the unity of the country. A short den^ ocratic interlude preceded bolshevism, which plunged the country into utter ruin. The Rumanians succeeded in occupying Budapest and the Communist regime collapsed. A year later “peace” was offered to Hungary by the Allies who had to wait for the formation of a stable regime. This treaty which Hungary was forced to sign in Trianon was the most brutal, unjust, unintelligent and sadistic dictate ever offered by supposedly Christian nations to a group of fellow men. It can only be compared to the partitions of Poland in the 18th and 20th centuries.

Hungary lost over night more than twothirds (70%) of her territory and 63% of her population. She was deprived of her access to the sea, of the communication between her two main rivers, Danube and Tisza, of all her mountains, forests, waterpower, iron ore, coal and precious metals. She lost her ancient coronation-