Csányi Marietta et al. (szerk.): Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 25. (Szolnok, 2016)

Történeti tanulmányok - Kasza Csaba: What happened to the hungarian merchant shipping?

Kasza Csaba

What happened to the Hungarian merchant shipping?1

„Navigare necesse est, Vivere non est necesse.’” (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus)1 2

Preface

Almost all the articles about shipping begin with this quotation above (To sail is necessary, to live is not necessary - Attributed by Plutarch to Pompeius, who, during a severe storm, commanded sailors to bring food from Africa to Rome). Perhaps this quotation seems banal - but it’s stillwise truth - nowadays even more, in our global, material world.

I don’t think that detailed explanation is needed to make the reader understand why the shipping is the cheapest and most effective way of the transport of (mass)goods - and many times this is the only way.

Let’s imagine the present day Europe without for example: banana, coffe bean, soy bean, spices, rice, sugar(cane) - or starving people in Russia without american, Canadian grain imported for decades from those countries to supply the home populations - or lack of raw materials, crude oil. Most probably the European economy would collapse at once - because all these items are coming from different continents, carried by ships and there is no other way of transport. (It makes no sense to take into consideration the airborn transport because it is extremely expensive.)

It is fact, if we consider the prime cost of water transport as one unit, in that case the railway transport is more than three times and the road transport is more than six times higher. Not to mention the respects of environmental protection. In this field also the shipping is far the best method. Regarding the volume of goods transported by vessels,3 it is incomparable to road - railway transport. Let us say a big container vessel can carry 15.000 TEU,4 but only 7.500 trucks (!) can carry the same quantity of container in the same time for much shorter distance. (Let’s think of C02 emission only.) And last but not least, we should mention the most important benefit of water transport - there is no need for waterway to build - it is given by nature.

There is one more very important fact: shipping is for thousand of years, it was before the steam, internal combustion engine and the electric motor. It was there conceivable not in the distant future, we’ll come back to sails and oars.

1 Merchant Shipping means in this context transport of goods by sea/river or rather the whole industry from shipbuilding to crewing, not to mix with forwarding.

2 Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (BC106-BC 48) Roman politician and general.

3 Vessel means big ocean-going ship.

4 TEU means Twenty Feet Unit of container, this is the worldstandard in the

container bussiness (8x8x20 feet = 2.4x2.4x9.6 m).

The first thousand year on rivers

When mankind invented and created the first raft, boat since then use it and sail. Our Hungarian ancestors did it so as well - since they lived along rivers, they fished in them and they crossed them - as the records of past ages refer to them. Or let’s consider our language - the words „hajó” (ship), „hal” (fish), „víz” (water) - all of them belong to our ancient words, derive from the Finno-Ugrian times.

After the Hungarian tribes take possession of the Carpatian Basin and settle down, the regular shipping commences on bigger rivers, first at fords and ferries traverse, later alongside. According to documents of the Abbey of Pannonhalma as early as the 11th century there was regular shipping between Vének, Almásfüzitő, Komárom on the upper Duna5 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 (Danube) and the salt-mines of the Maros region in Erdély (Transsylvania)!6 By the way, the water transportation of salt was always vital for Szolnok, from the foundation7 of the town to the 19lh century, even in the Turkish occupation of Hungary because Szolnok was not merely the most important crossing place of Tisza,8 but also the salt distribution center as the destination of the waterway coming from Dés, Erdély. We have early data about significant inland, merchant shipping on the Duna, Dráva and Tisza carrying mainly salt, grain, wine, using the current of water downstream and using draught animals upstream. Later on, our riverman ancestors launched the shipping in international relation, too. Among others, a diploma issued by king Zsigmond9 in 1409 tells us that ships of Szeged, a town lying on the bank of the river Tisza - loaded with wine - sailed to Regensburg upstream and returned home with western goods.10 The regular passenger shipping commenced in the 14th century and it still goes on between Bécs (Wienna) Pozsony (Bratislava), Komárom, Esztergom, Visegrád, Buda(Pest). Of all the Hungarian kings perhaps Matthias Hunyadi11 is the most illustrious and fortunately we know quite a lot about he and him reign. So we know his royal ship the Bucentaurus. This ship was big, spacious, splendid, having dining, sleeping room and a separated suite for the queen - all of them covered by coffered ceiling.12 When this Renaissance king passed away in Bécs his corpse was taken home to Buda by the Bucentaurus escorted by fifty other ships wrapped with black sheets. The Battle of Mohács in 1526 - marking beginning of the 160-year-long Turkish rule in Hungary - increased the importance of water transport because that was the safest way for both the people and the goods. After expelling the Turks from

5 The names are used in Hungarian intentionally.

6 ZOLNAY László 1978.379.

7 The first account of the town is from 1075.

8 Szolnok was born by the Tisza, because it lies in the middle of Tisza valley at the narrowing point of the huge tide lands what makes the crossing easier.

9 (Sigismund of Luxenburg) (1387-1437) king of Hungary.

10 ANTALFFY Gyula 1975.45.

11 Matthias Hunyadi (1458-1490)

12 BONFINI, Antonio 1959.302.

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