The
Origin of the Hungarians
Géza Radich
This short summary of
Hungarian history, especially the origin and early history of Hungarians,
departs from the officially held position suggesting that Hungarians belong in
the Finno-Ugric family of people, which is being taught in schools and which can be found in Encyclopedias. However, if one
looks a little deeper and examines the works of scholars specializing in this
particular part of history, one finds a great deal of discrepancy and
uncertainty. The hypothesis that the Hungarians are related to the Finno-Ugric
people is based strictly upon linguistic similarities and is not supported by
written or archaeological finds. Note the following quotations from two leading
Hungarian scholars offering excellent examples of the shaky ground on which this science really stands:
Dr. Ferenc Glatz, currently (year 2001) president
of the Hungarian Academy of Science, in his book
entitled: A magyarok krónikája
(Chronicle of the Hungarians, Officia Nova 1996.) writes: "Of the ancestors of Hungarians to 600 A. D., we can only speak in
the realm of possibilities, based upon research in language history,
archaeology and geographical flora."
Dr. István Fodor, was the director of
the Hungarian National Museum in
the early 1990's, states in his book entitled: Verecke híres útján… (Through the pass of Verecke… /North-Eastern
Carpathian Mountains./ Gondolat könyvkiadó, 1975): "The millennium of our early
history followed by the year 500 B. C. at this point almost completely blank
spot on the map of our early history. We have no written sources to rely upon,
or any archaeological finds that could be connected to ancient Hungarians
without any doubt."
So, if scholars of the
highest standing can only offer hypotheses regarding the origin and early
history of the Hungarians, wouldn't
it be reasonable to investigate other possibilities? Racially the Finno-Ugric
language group is just about as diverse as humanly possible. The small tribes
living east of the Ural Mountain are
Mongoloids, the Finns are of Northern European stock, and the Hungarians are
typical, Central-Europeans. Research in the 1940's indicated that among King Árpád's people, those that conquered the
Carpathian Basin
eleven hundred years ago in 895
A.D., the Finno-Ugric stock totaled just 12.5%. That accounted for only a small
percentage of the total population of the Carpathian Basin.
Therefore, other possibilities seem to have more to offer regarding the origin
of the Hungarians and their language. Let's investigate those, along with a
short recap of the official version of events.
Before we begin and as a reminder, Hungarians call themselves Magyar – a
name which appears often in the text.
Let us start with the
results of the latest genetic research. Between 1984 and 1989 the Hungarian and German Academies of Science jointly conducted a genetic research
project that resulted in the following findings:
"We have evaluated the deletion of the so called inter-genetic
9-bp, of which the presence or absence is a determining factor in establishing
racial relationships. The Asiatic origin of 9-bp is completely missing from the
Hungarian population. We have found the Asiatic M haplo-group in the Finns, the
Ezras and the Lapps, but we did not find it in a single Hungarian individual
tested." (The three-page summary of this study appeared in the
weekly publication of Élet és Tudomány/Life
and Science in an article by Dr. Judit Béres,
entitled: „Népességünk Genetikai
Rokonsága/Genetic Relations of our Population”, September 21, 2001).
Thus, the latest scientific
research refutes the claim that Hungarians
are genetically related to the Finn-Ugric peoples. This should call for the
revision of origin of the Hungarians.
Based on archaeological
evidence, we can safely say that humans have inhabited the Carpathian Basin for
the last several hundred thousand years. Fragments of a human skull were found
in 1963 at Vértesszőlős (Northwestern Hungary).
Radiocarbon dating suggests that this early man lived about 300 thousand years
ago. The remains and tools of the Neanderthals, and of course the Cro-Magnons,
have also been found in the Carpathian Basin.
(According to science, modern humans are the direct descendants of the
Cro-Magnons.) About 40,000 years ago, (in
North-Central Hungary) a
culture evolved that excelled to the highest levels of its time; the people of
this culture are famous for their fine stone tools and arrowheads. True works
of art, such fine tools dating from this period, have not been found anywhere else in the world. In a Bükk Mountain
cave, archaeologists also found a three-holed whistle made of bone; incredibly,
five notes can be played on it. It has been established that humans have
inhabited caves throughout the Carpathian Basin for
many thousands of years; artifacts of early man have even been found near a
warm water spring dating back to the Ice Age. Although the Carpathian Basin was
tundra during the last Ice Age, it was capable of supporting some population.
After the warm-up began some
12,000 years ago, large numbers of people came from the south. It seems the
original homeland of these early settlers was Anatolia,
today's Turkey.
Professor Grover S. Krantz,
anthropologist at Washington State University,
studied the origin of the European languages and publishing his findings in the
book entitled: Geographical Development
of European Languages (Peter Lang, 1988). Professor Krantz set up certain
guidelines, which he used diligently in his analysis, applying them uniformly to all European languages.
He structured and based these guidelines on human behaviors and life-sustaining
requirements such as climate, the length of the growing season, and the quality of land for herding or
agriculture, etc. In regard to the Hungarian language, he came to the following
conclusion. On page 11 he writes:
"It is usually stated that the Uralic Magyars moved into Hungary from an eastern source in the 9th
Century A.D. I find instead that all the other Uralic speakers expanded out of Hungary in the opposite direction, and at a much
earlier date."
Furthermore, on page 72 we
find the following observation:
"Given these objections the actual Uralic-speaking distributions
would allow only one alternative explanation - that the family originated in Hungary and spread out in the opposite direction. This
poses no serious problem if the time for this origin and dispersion is put at
the earliest Neolithic. If this is true it means that Hungarian (Magyar) is
actually the oldest in-place language in all of Europe."
Krantz believes that the
ancient shepherds of the Great Hungarian
Plains spoke the Proto-Hungarian tongue. Closer examination of this
question suggests that the early settlers from the south, shepherds and farmers
alike, spoke the same language.
The Neolithic cultures had
begun to evolve in Hungary
approximately eight thousand years ago. About seven thousand five hundred years
ago a distinct culture was flourishing in the lower region, between the river
Danube and the river Tisza, the lower region east of the Tisza, and in
Transylvania (belonging to Romania today). It is known as the Körös culture (Exhibit 1). People of
this culture lived in small tent-like or vertical wall houses. In Transylvania
they used stone to build houses with a fireplace at the center. Besides hunting
and gathering, these people provided for themselves by practicing
agriculture and by domesticating animals. The artifacts of this culture show a
close resemblance to the Mesopotamian culture. In 1963 at Alsótatárlaka (Transylvania) on
the river Maros, three clay tablets (Exhibit 2) were found with pictographs on
them. According to radiocarbon dating these tablets are close to seven thousand
(7,000) years old - though some archaeologists are still debating this -
suggesting that the cradle of writing may have been the Carpathian Basin.
The oldest Sumerian tablets are about 5,500 years old. It is an accepted fact
that the Mesopotamian Sumerian culture developed into the oldest, most
highly-developed culture, with their pictographs evolving into an intricate
cuneiform writing.
Early scholars in the middle
of the nineteenth century, while deciphering the Sumerian writings, recognized that
the Sumerians spoke an agglutinative language similar to Hungarian; hundreds of
Sumerian words still exist in the Hungarian language today. The French scholar, Francois Lenormant, spent some
time in Hungary in
order to achieve a a better understanding of the Hungarian language. Some believe the English scholar, A. H. Sayce did the same, because Hungarian proved to be a useful tool in
deciphering the ancient Sumerian language. In the field of deciphering the Sumerian cuneiforms, each of
the two pioneers, the Englishman, Henry C. Rawlinson
and the Frenchman, Jules Oppert, had Hungarian co-workers, Jácint
Rónay and Flórián Mátyás respectively. So, even today,
some believe that the Hungarian and the Sumerian
languages are closely related, others believe that they are one and the same.
The Körös culture was
followed by the Culture of the
Great-Plain (Alföldi vonaldíszes edények műveltsége) about a thousand
years later. Artifacts of this culture also closely resemble the Sumerian
artifacts. One of the widely known symbols from this period is the triangle,
which appears on many sacred artifacts, especially on the little idols (Exhibit
3) representing the goddess of fertility. The triangle is also used to
"write" or to represent the woman in the pictographs. From the
Culture of the Great Plain, there is a striking symbol that resembles the capital
M in the Latin alphabet. This symbol
first appeared about 5,500 years ago in the Carpathian Basin,
disappearing around three hundred years later. At about the same time, it also appeared in the Mesopotamian
Uruk culture, suggesting that there may have been some contact between the
people of these two regions. What is interesting about this mark is that no-one
knows the meaning of it. What follows is some speculative suggestion as to what
this symbol may mean and represent.
The symbol resembles the
capital M; thousands of years later it evolved into the capital M of the Latin
alphabet suggesting that it represented someone or something very important.
5,500 years ago the most significant driving force in social development was
the fertility culture that embodied the struggle for life - for one's own and
for mankind's very existence. It would be logical to look for an explanation
within that circle of thought and ideas. Mater
in Latin, Mutter in German, Mother in English and nagy-mama (grand-mother) in the Hungarian language
seem to indicate that the symbol in question represents motherhood: mother
goddess in the fertility culture. So it seems, that it
has a similar meaning to that of the triangle, which is internationally accepted. Question:
Why didn't scholars recognize this obvious possibility? Could it be that there
is another meaning behind that ancient symbol?
The Neolithic collection of
the Damjanich János Museum of Szolnok (Hungary)
includes an exhibit containing the neck of a large clay jar (Exhibit 4) that had
been used to store grain some 5,500 years ago. On this piece of pottery, the
capital M symbol is engraved in such
a way that it is also a part of the triangle. The V angle of the M forms the bottom lines of the triangle and,
enclosed by the decorative top line above, the two engraved, triangle-shaped
eyes, a horizontal mouth and nose shaped out of clay. Now, if the two symbols
represent the same thing, why did they use them in combination? Is it possible
that there is another logical explanation to this question? What could be the
significance behind the meaning of the capital M like symbol? It is a fact that
this ancient symbol resembles not only the capital M of the Latin alphabet, but
also looks very much like a letter M in the Hungarian runic writing. Hungarians
call themselves Magyar, a word also starting with the m sound. Could it be possible that behind this ancient symbol M, we
should look for the name Magyar? In this case, if we use the meaning Magyar (Hungarian) for the capital M,
and the meaning Istennő or Nagyasszony (goddess) for the triangle,
the combined reading would be Magyarok
Istennője or Magyarok
Nagyasszonya (Goddess of the Hungarians). It is interesting to note that those dot-like engravings falling out of
the triangle are like seeds falling out of the hand of the farmer while sowing
his fields. It can be stated with near certainty that the owner of the clay jar
was asking for the blessing of the goddess for a good harvest.
The Egyptian idol (Exhibit
5) also symbolizes the goddess of fertility. It is about 5,500 years old and is
made from the mud of the river Nile.
This statue, shaped like a seed, shows a figure raising its arms with closed
fingers suggesting that this goddess is saying something. There must be a
message behind that striking position of the arms. It is well-known that the
Egyptians in the hieroglyphics used animals, human body parts, tools - and so on - as symbols to relay messages. The head
of this statue is an eagle head. The eagle represents the letter A. In the book: Reading Egyptian Art by Richard H. Wilkinson we will find that the meaning of the arm is ka, i.e. kar, plural karok
(arms) in Hungarian. A hand with
closed fingers could have several meanings, among them khefa which means grasp,
or amem meaning seize. In the Hungarian language grasp = markol. If the
Egyptologists would learn Hungarian, like some Sumerologists did in the 19th.
century, perhaps it would help them to decipher the
Egyptian hieroglyphs, more
accurately reading the symbol in question: marok,
makol instead of khefa. This may
seem farfetched, but if we take a closer look at the Fragmentary Bull Palette
from the Predynastic Period of Egypt, one can see that the five hands "grasping" a rope, as
Wilkinson explains, is markol in
Hungarian. After having some clue to the meaning of the recognizable signs on
the idol, a possible reading could be attempted. However, keep in mind that in
interpreting the ancient pictographs and symbols, occasionally only part of the
word (a syllable) should be used for proper reading. The eagle head is A=the, the hand with closed fingers is ma-rkol=grasp, the raised arms are karok and the
statue itself is goddess, in Hungarian Istennő
or Nagyasszony. It reads: A makarok (Magyarok) Istennője, or
A Magyarok Nagyasszonya, i.e., The
Goddess of the Hungarians. This is exactly the same reading as on the clay
pottery of Szolnok
discussed previously. Both artifacts are 5,500 years old. Some scholars believe
that the people who established the Egyptian culture came from a river called Netra. It is possible that some small
creek or spring exists by this name (one not listed) however, the only river
listed in the World Atlas similar to this name is Nyitra in the Carpathian Basin.
Could it be - if the readings of these two
artifacts are correct, which is by no means certain -, that the people of the
Carpathian Basin already called themselves
Magyar 5,500 years ago and spoke an early form of the Hungarian tongue? One
thing that can be stated for certain is this: if we combine the meanings of the
signs and symbols, we find perfect Hungarian sentences.
In addition to the
previously discussed hypothesis, there is the third idol from Anatolia
(modern day Turkey),
which is equally striking. Numbers of these mother goddesses (Exhibit 6) have
been found at the Çatal Hüyük archaeological site. The
archaeologist James Mellaart
interprets the figurine: "woman giving birth". In
Hungarian: szülő asszony.
Surely, enough of a child's head is seen between the legs of the woman.
Mellaart failed to note the arches on the knees and on the belly of the woman.
The meaning of the triple mountain-like
symbol in pictographic writing is 'field'
or 'land'. In Hungarian: föld. Therefore, if the two words szülő and föld are combined, it results in the following reading: szülőföld, which is the precise
Hungarian expression for motherland. In addition, on the side of the idol,
photographed from an angle, the capital M
like symbol can also be seen. Just
because the leopard's sagging belly and the front and rear legs create the M
like shape, this may not be intentional. However, because the three arches were
engraved intentionally, and the leopard's belly is not a perfect reverse arch,
it has a break or an angle in it
that can only be intentional, and so is the symbol of the capital M. Thus, the
reading: Magyarok szülőföldje
(Motherland of Hungarians) cannot be ruled out.
Back in 1928, the British archaeologist Gordon Childe wrote in his book: The Danube in Prehistory that in the great triangle (Mesopotamia,
the island of
Crete,
and the Carpathian Basin), a similar culture existed
in the Neolithic. A similar culture does
not mean that these people spoke the same tongue, but, based on what the
previously deciphered artifacts suggest, this cannot be ruled out of the realm
of possibilities.
At the time of the culture
of the Great Plain, a separate society flourished west of the river Danube:
the Culture of Dunántúl (Dunántúli
vonaldíszes edények műveltsége). Artifacts from this culture have been found in Central
Europe as far west as the River Rhine. These
artifacts do not bear a striking resemblance to those of Mesopotamia
like the ones from east of the Danube River.
Nevertheless, they unmistakably bear the signs and meanings of the fertility
culture. This society built huge houses out of timber, cultivated land, and
domesticated animals. Later on, as time passed, the original three cultures in
the Carpathian Basin became
more colorful and distinct as localized characteristics began to appear on many
artifacts. Around four thousand (4,000) years ago, large numbers of immigrants arrived from the south. They were the
people of the Pécel culture. It seems
that their massive numbers were the final and determining factor in
establishing the Hungarian tongue in the Carpathian Basin. The population of the Carpathian Basin
became dense enough with these arrivals that future conquerors and immigrants,
though perhaps leaving their mark on the already dominant language, could not
completely change it. It is reasonable to conclude that this language was Hungarian or, shall we say, a prototype of it. This theory is
supported by ancient geographic and place names also found throughout the Carpathian Basin.
From the plain of the east (Ukraine),
around 900 B.C., the Cimmerians
invaded the Carpathian Basin.
The Scythians followed them in 500
B.C. Although the Scythians dominated the Carpathian Basin for
over 500 years, their settlers heavily populated only Transylvania and
the area surrounding Mount Mátra. Some Hungarians believe that they are of
Scythian origin and this obviously has some merit. Five hundred years could not
have passed without some mingling with the indigenous population. For example,
the headdress of the maidens living around Mount Mátra is
very similar in style to the headdress of the Scythian Queen (Exhibit 7). The
Celts, the Sarmatians, and then the Huns followed the Scythians. Some
Hungarians trace their ancestry back to these great conquerors, to the people
of King Attila. This is true in part only, because the early settlers are also
part of the equation. The Carpathian Basin was
under the control of the Huns for about seventy years, but only the last twenty
or so years (433-453 A.D.) saw Attila setting up his headquarters on the Great
Hungarian Plain. After the demise of the Hun Empire, some of the Huns returned
to their previous homeland north of the Black
Sea. It is possible that they are the ancestors of
Árpád's people, and of course, they
thought of themselves as the descendants of the Huns, and rightly so.
The Huns were followed by
the "early" Avars in 568 A.D., and under the
leadership of Baján kagán, they have
established an empire from the Western Alps,
the River Elb to the Caspian Sea.
These early Avars were heterogeneous in their ethnic composition. Some of them
were the descendant of the Jouan Jouan from the Xinjiang province of today's
northwest China.
Based on Chinese chronicles, the Jouna Jounas spoke the Turkish and Mongolian
languages. Others belonged to a Northern Iranian stock of people, and may have
been the descendant of the Parthians, mixed with small numbers of Huns. The
second wave of Avars appeared around 670 A.D. Some believe, because of their great
number, that they were the first large body of people in the Carpathian Basin
speaking the Hungarian language. However, the ethnic makeup of these peoples
just as diverse, as are the first wave of the Avars. It is very unlikely that
to establish the Hungarian language could be contributed to them.
Many scholars have noted the
uniqueness of the Hungarian language. It may take a while yet to unravel some
of the mysteries that surround it, so in the meantime we would like to offer
you the following: The English philologist, Sir John Bowring (1792-1872),
spoke many languages - Hungarian being one of them. He translated many
Hungarian poems into English and in 1830 he published a literary chrestomathy.
In its Foreword he wrote:
"The Magyar language stands afar off and alone. The study of other
tongues will be found of exceedingly little use toward its right understanding.
It is molded in a form essentially
its own, and its construction and composition may be safely referred to an
epoch when most of the living tongues of Europe either had no existence, or no
influence on the Hungarian region."
Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti of Italy,
the director of the Library of the Vatican,
like Bowring, spoke many languages, among them Hungarian. In 1836 he stated the
following to the Czech poet, Augustine Frankl:
"The Hungarians do not even know
what cultural treasure their language possesses." The good Cardinal
made this statement, because some Hungarian noble men visited Rome and
he looked them up, so he could chat with them in Hungarian. Mezzofanti quickly
discovered that this gentleman spoke perfect Latin, but very little Hungarian.
The
Sword of God
In the Schatzkammer section of the Art Museum of Vienna,
among many swords on display, there
is one that is thought to be Attila's. Actually it is a saber. If one were to
make a careful and close examination of the workmanship and the decorative
motifs, there is no doubt that one would
come to a conclusion; that saber is the typical
and unmistakable works of a Hungarian goldsmith from the IX-X. century A.D. On the handle there are three rings, which are
decorated with precious stones. It is very obvious that this saber was not made
for use in battle, or for everyday use of any kind. The handle covered by gold
plate shows no wear or tear whatsoever. Someone may have worn it on special
occasions, or used it at sacred ceremonies. The mother of King Salamon (1063-1074) gave it to Prince Otto Nordheim, which indicates that this
saber was in the possession of the Hungarian kings who inherited it from the earlier rulers.
Horsemen of the plains
dominated the vast area from the Carpathians to the Altai
Mountains and beyond for millennia. Their culture and
civilization were different from those of the western peoples, and throughout
the centuries they fought many wars. The people of the West became somewhat
soft, because of their sheltered life, while the people of the plains remained
rough and at one with nature. They
were the greatest warriors the world has ever known. Bravery was instilled in
them from childhood on, and was implanted in the depths of their soul. They
lived by the sword and they died by
the sword. It is no wonder that to
them the sword (saber) was a sacred object, which they revered and that they
were empowered by it.
The Sword of God had a magic
power. It was either inherited or especially made for great rulers such as
Attila or Álmos. According to some sources, the Scythians used iron from a meteor to make the Sword of God. After
the blacksmith made it, they put it on the top of a mound, standing it up like
a lightning rod and waited for the lightning to strike it. If this happened, it was the will of God,
which gave the sword a magical power. This power from the sword was transferred to its owner and was given
to him by God, so he ruled by the
will of God.
The saber of Vienna is
most likely one of the Swords of God, probably
the only one in the Western World that has never been buried
in the ground.
The Composite Bow
Hunters and warriors used
the bow for thousands of years. One of the most effective, the most feared, and
deadliest was the composite bow that was developed by the horsemen of
Central-Asia in the first millennium B.C. The Scythians, the
Huns, the Avars and the Magyars, just to mention a few, were masters in the
making and handling of this weapon. In comparison, the composite bow was
smaller and more powerful than other bows, therefore, more practical in hunting
or shooting from horseback. It was able to shoot an arrow about half a mile's
distance, was capable of piercing some light body armor, and was lethal at
about 300-400 yards. (Western bows had only about half the range.) The warriors
of the East were masters in handling these bows and they shot their arrows with
great accuracy from their galloping horses. Even in a retreat (real or
tactical), the stirrup enabled them to turn facing backwards on their horses, allowing for the very effective use of these weapons. Some A skilled
horseman in Hungary
demonstrated very convincingly that this could be done without the stirrup.
The composite bows were made
of wood, horn, sinew, and some fish-glue, and because the type of glue they
used, this weapon could be used only in dry
weather. It took a great deal of skill and a number of years to make just one.
In order to use these weapons effectively, one was trained from childhood to
develop the necessary skill and muscle.
The
Hungarian Dogs
The most famous and internationally known Hungarian
dogs are the Komondor, Kuvasz, Puli, and the Vizsla. The Vizsla is a hunting
dog with about five hundred years of documented history and is well known to
American hunters. The other three are excellent, if not the best guard dogs there are. Their origin has not been
satisfactorily determined, however, the names of these dogs have been found on
Sumerian clay tablets: Ku-Assa for
Kuvasz, Kumundur for Komondor and Puli for Puli. Furthermore, the
Sumerian word for dog is kudda; in
Hungarian it is kutya - suggesting
that these three dogs may have come with the ancient settlers out of Anatolia
into the Carpathian Basin.
They are probably the oldest domesticated dogs going back to about eight
thousand years. These dogs are easily trained, most discipline comes naturally to them.
The Conquest of King Árpád
In 1996 Hungarians throughout
the world celebrated the anniversary of the
establishment of their homeland in the Carpathian Basin in
A.D. 896. However, this date is incorrect due to the fact that this conquest
took place in 895. (The celebration of the millennium
was postponed a year due to the fact that Budapest's
first subway was under construction. It was completed in 1896.) It has been
extensively debated in the past one hundred fifty years, not only just what
exactly took place before, during and after the conquest, but who Árpád's
people really were: what their origin was, what language they spoke, whom they found in the Carpathian Basin and
how many tribes or nations took part in this bold undertaking and so forth. The
following may shed some light on some of these questions.
(The author is
aware of the discrepancies forwarded by the German historian, Heribert Illig regarding medieval history of Europe. Should Illig's proposition prove to
be true, than the dates in this study should be adjusted accordingly, and in
that case, Árpád's people may have conquered the Carpathian Basin 300 years
earlier.)
It seems that the year 895
or 896 is arbitrary because the conquest of the Carpathian Basin was
not an exclusive and singular military undertaking. According to some
researchers, it was a process - perhaps beginning in 892, but no later than 895, extending their rule over western Hungary (Pannonia,
today's Dunántúl). The year 899 marks the end of their
conquest. Thus, the year 895 seems the most realistic. In 894, Emperor Leo of
Byzantine established an alliance with King Árpád (or perhaps his father Álmos,
who had already been in alliance with Arnulf the Frankish emperor since 892)
against the Bulgarians. Byzantine ships carried some of Árpád's troops on the
lower Danube to the battlefield. The
decisive battle was fought outside of the southern Carpathian
Mountains, along the Danube River,
with heavy losses on both sides. It is not known whether Emperor Leo was aware
of Árpád's real intentions or not, but he made peace with the Bulgarians while
the fighting went on. After the Bulgarians were defeated, Árpád's people began
to move into the Carpathian Basin,
settling their families and livestock in the area.
Unfortunately, the origin of
Árpád's people has never been satisfactorily
resolved. Therefore, here is what is considered the most likely scenario: The
Khazar writings contain some mention of Árpád's people; the implication is that
around 820 A.D, Ügek (Árpád's grandfather) and his people were under their
rule. This is probably true to a certain extent because some of the
nations/tribes, but not all of them, were under Khazar rule. Indications are
that the federation was composed of two major ethnic groups of people; each may
have spoken a different tongue. The Sabir nations Megyer, Tarján, Jenő and the partial Gyarmat were believed to have spoken Hungarian. The two Onugor
nations, Kér and Keszi, and the partial Kök-Türk Kürt nation spoke Turkish, and most
likely did the Nyék nation to, which
had close ties with the Sabir nations (these nations in the second group may
have been under Khazar rule). It is not clear whether Álmos or Árpád married
the daughter of the leader of the Nyék nation, but it slowly pulled away from
the Khazar empire sometime after the marriage. If the Onugor nations were under Khazar rule,
they have no doubt pulled away by the time of the Vérszerződés (Covenant of Blood, Exhibit 7) which took place
between 888-891 A.D. The taking of this oath indicated that
they were getting ready for the conquest of the
Carpathian
Basin
.
The Vérszerződés was an
oath; two or more parties swear an oath in blood to each other, for instance,
that their friendship will never be broken or merging
into one nation. In the case of Árpád's people, the oath was taken by the
leaders of eight nations consisting of perhaps two major languages or ethnic
groups. This alliance was formed with the intention of conquering the Carpathian Basin.
This took place at a time when Árpád's father, Álmos, was still ruler,
indicating that the massive undertaking was planned in advance. They agreed to
the following:
As long as they and their
descendants were alive, they would elect a leader from the descendants of
Álmos.
They would all share equally
in the land and goods they acquired.
The leaders, having elected
Álmos to be their king, made the decision of their own free will. Furthermore,
neither they themselves nor their descendants should ever be excluded from the central ruling council and other
leadership positions in the country.
If anyone among their descendants were to become
unfaithful to the king, or conspire against him and his relatives, the blood of
the guilty should flow like theirs did in the oath they took to king Álmos.
If anyone among King Álmos'
and the other leaders' descendants were to violate the agreements which they
sealed with their oath, they should be cursed forever.
It seems like this agreement
was done in the name of Democracy.
Herodotus, the Greek
historian in the fifth century B.C. was probably the eyewitness to an
oath-taking much like the Vérszerződés, for he describes one such event in
great detail in his work on the Scythians. He wrote the following: "...a
large earthen bowl is filled with wine, and the parties to the oath, wounding
themselves slightly with a knife or an awl, drop some of their blood into the
wine; then they plunge into the mixture a scimitar, some arrows, a battle-axe,
and a javelin, all the while repeating prayers; lastly, the two contracting
parties drink each a drought from the bowl, as do also the chief men among
their followers."
The flag (Exhibit 8) from
the XI century displays four red and four white stripes, suggesting the
original eight horka (head of the nations) had made an alliance with one
another. These nations are represented by the eight stripes on the right side ( left side facing it) of the Hungarian Coat of Arms (Exhibit 10). Some researchers believe that
the number of nations which took part in the conquest may have been as many as
ten. If so, they must have joined later, after the oath-taking and were not
full-fledged participants in the undertaking.
The Sabir nations lived next
to the Khazar Empire, just north of the Azov Sea.
The first mention of them was in 839, when their troops appeared in the lower Danube
region. This was around the time of Árpád's birth and, within a couple of decades, in 862, the young prince would lead
the first military venture into Pannonia.
From this point onward, Árpád's people became a factor in European politics and
history.
According to some
historians, Árpád's people were forced out of their homeland, north of the Black
Sea, by
the advancing Patzinaks and lost a great number of their families and
livestock. This cannot be substantiated; furthermore, the string of successful
military ventures beginning in the year 899 convincingly refutes this theory.
Once they established firm
control over the newly acquired territory, Árpád's people held the first
national convention and divided the
land between themselves, according to their contract agreed
upon in the Vérszerződés. The Onugor tribes chose to settle on the borders
of the newly conquered homeland and were in close contact with their new
neighbors. These neighbors called the newcomers Ungar or Hungar, relating them
to the Huns. This is most likely where our Hungarian name
comes from.
The size of the total
population of the new alliance is still debated. In the past, it was believed
to have been between 200,000 and 500,000 people. Some put the figure much higher
than this. Based on recent research, their number most likely did not reach two
hundred thousand. There is a reason for the reevaluation. As the Hungarian
archaeologists excavated more and more cemeteries from the 9-11th
centuries, they realized that the numbers of the indigenous common people (the
farmers erroneously thought to be Slavs) were
far greater than they ever imagined. A scholar in 1959 came to the realization
that, if these people were Slavic
speakers, the language of Árpád would have dissolved into their language and
the people of Hungary would not be speaking Hungarian today.
The problem was, and still is, that the artifacts of these common people cannot
be traced back to southern Ukraine
where Árpád's people had come from (Exhibit 11).
Professor Gyula László, a
noted archaeologist, came up with a new theory. He presented the possibility
that, perhaps the second wave of Avars - who had moved into the Carpathian Basin
around 670 - were the first Hungarian speaking people. The problem, here again,
was that the artifacts of the Avars and the indigenous people in question were
dissimilar; they were not of the same stock biologically or culturally and the
indigenous people vastly outnumbered the combined population of the Avars and
Árpád's people. Furthermore, according to Chinese sources, the early Avars
spoke mainly the Turkish language, although they may also have had some
Mongolian speaking tribes. Some scholars believe that Árpád's people also spoke
Turkish. No doubt this has some truth to it as we see it. The question is then:
who spoke Hungarian? The three and a half nations of the Sabír people could not have been the language giver to all of the
people of the Carpathian Basin,
even if they had spoken Hungarian. The presence of the indigenous common
people, the ancient settlers with their overwhelming numbers, suggests that
they were speaking the Hungarian language. The language, or the languages of
the Avars and Árpád's people, made their mark on the Hungarian language, but
they could not ultimately change it.
Based on archaeological
evidence, it can be stated that in the
10th century A.D. there were three major groups of people in the Carpathian Basin: Árpád's people, the Avars and the common
people or ancient settlers. Modern Hungarians are, therefore, the composite of
these three major groups of people.
The culture, the clothing,
the structure of society, and the battle tactics of Árpád's people were
typically Hun in origin, similar to the Turkish (Exhibit 9) at the time of the
conquest. They were great warriors and magnificent organizers. They have
created a powerful nation, which for six hundred
years played a major role in European politics and history. Whether they spoke
Hungarian or not, whether the name Magyar could be attributed to them or not,
their accomplishment stands tall like a flag on the battlefield and their
memory is written in gold in Hungarian history. In 1996 all Hungarians bowed
their heads in respect and pride to the people of King Árpád! The time has come
for the revision of Hungarian history, especially in regard to the origin of
the Hungarians.
In 955 A.D. the German
Emperor's (
Otto
I.) son and son-in-law
(Ludolf and Conrad the Red) revolted against the Emperor, inviting the
Hungarians to help. The Hungarians accepted the invitation. By the time they
reached Augsburg (Germany),
unknowns to the Hungarians, Ludolf and Conrad had made peace with Otto. The
combined German forces turned against the
Hungarian forces and gained the upper hand. After the Hungarians agreed to lay
down their arms, they were massacred, some were buried alive. The leader of the
Hungarian campaign was Bulcsú, one of the greatest leaders and military
tacticians of the X century. He lost
his life in the Augsburg
battle. This defeat marked the shift in Hungarian foreign policy toward the West. From this point onward,
western military ventures ended; they continued eastward towards Byzantine up
until 970. Contrary to the belief still held by many, looting and pillaging
were not the major objectives of these Hungarian military campaigns. They were
politically motivated and 94% of them were carried out in alliance with some inviting party.
In 972, Géza became the Hungarian King. At this time, there were some
ideological conflicts within the Christian Church. This conflict led to the
break up of the Church in 1054 into the eastern orthodox Byzantine, and the
western faction's Roman Catholic Church. Géza became the supporter of the
politically and western oriented Roman Catholic Church. He sent for western priests
to enter Hungary,
and most likely, his children were educated by one of them. In order to
establish a firm western alliance, Géza's son István (Saint Stephen) married Gizella
in 995, the sister of the Bavarian prince Henrich,
who later became the German emperor Henrich
II.
Géza died in 997, and István inherited the Hungarian throne. He continued his
father's westward-leaning policy with great enthusiasm and determination.
István brought German Knights into the country, to whom he appropriated a great
deal of lands, riches and special privileges. His policy to exclude and intimidate
the old power structure from leadership, in violation of the Vérszerződés,
led to his heavy reliance on these Knights for protection. When pope Sylvester II. ordered
the confiscation and destruction of the objects
written in the traditional Hungarian runic
writings, forbidding its use, the old power structure of leaders took
exception to that. It was an attack on the Hungarian culture, and was the
beginning of the conflict between the old and new. Koppány of Dunántúl in 999, Gyula
of Transylvania
in1002, and Ajtony of southern Hungary in
1003, took up arms not to defend the old way of life, but to defend the culture. These revolts were
put down by István with the help of the foreign Knights. These revolts have
been characterized as "anti-Christian",
which is total nonsense. On the contrary, by this time the Hungarian nobility
was Christian, and they were very tolerant of religious differences.
Hungarian Runic Writing
Ancient forms of writing
began with numerical and seasonal notations, than came
the pictographs. These symbols in Mesopotamia
evolved into cuneiform writing, and
in Egypt
developed into the high art of hieroglyphics.
The runic writing taught to came later and was
believed to be the descendant of these two ancient forms of writing. A Hungarian researcher,
Csaba Varga believes that the runic
writhing actually goes back some 30,000 years, and developed on it's own. After all, it is highly unlikely, that simpler
form of writing like runic, would evolve into a more intricate form of writing
such as the cuneiforms or the hieroglyphics. So, the reexamination
or perhaps the revision of present day
knowledge, regarding the origin of writhing, should be in order.
Many people used runes,
among them Hungarians. Some historians believe that the Hungarian runes are of
Khazar-Turkish origin. Comparative studies, however, suggest otherwise. The
Hungarian runic characters show a 28.6% resemblance to the Turkish, while
showing a 43.4% resemblance to the Etruscan and 50.0% to the Phoenician. Many
Hungarian runic letters show close resemblance to some of the Egyptian
hieroglyphics also.
There are 34 letters in the
Hungarian runes, one for each basic sound in the Hungarian language. In order
to shorten the writing, these letters have been used in the manner of ligature
(combining of multiple letters). Some two hundred years ago the runes were
still in use in Transylvania.
The numbers of runic
writings that remand from the early Christian era are few and far between. The
reason for this is twofold. For one, they used wood for to ró (write) on, and as we know wood is
highly perishable. The second is that in the year 999 or 1000 Pope Sylvester
II. ordered the "pagan"
writing of the Hungarians to be destroyed. (The Viking runic writing suffered
the same fate.) This has provoked a revolt against the Roman Catholic Church,
which is characterized as anti Christian "pagan"
uprising. It would be far more accurate to say that the two culture
- the Christian and the Hungarian - collided head-on. The nobility at this time
were all Christians, and they would not lead a revolt against the Church for
religious reason.
The Holy (Saint) Crown of Hungary
Like most objects from the
ancient past - treasures or archaeological -, the Hungarian Holy Crown is
surrounded by intriguing mysteries, and this is true in respect to its material
history and its idealized concept of governing.
First, however, let's recap the official version of this Crown's unique
history.
According to the official
version, the top cross section of the Holy Crown was given to István (Stephen, declared "Saint" in 1083), the first
Christian king of Hungary in
the year 1000 A.D. by Pope Sylvester II.
The bottom band (hoop, rim) of the Crown was a present from the Byzantine
Emperor, Michael Ducas to another
Hungarian king, Géza I. who ruled Hungary between 1074-1077. Eventually someone combined the two
sections into one single crown.
Nearing
the end of the II. World War, the guards of the Crown, fleeing
from the advancing Soviet Armies, brought it to Austria and
buried it. At the end of the war they turned the Crown over to the American
occupation forces. In 1978 the Holy Crown was returned to Hungary. In
the early 1980s, some engineers and goldsmiths were given permission to make a
close examination of the Crown. These examinations brought about many new
discoveries and surprising results.
First the group of engineers
and the group of goldsmiths independently from each other came to the same
conclusion that there is no difference between the top cross section and the bottom
band as far as workmanship, material or any other aspect of it. The whole crown
was made in one workshop at the same time.
The second astonishing
discovery was, based on the comparison of workmanship and material of other
jewelry and similar objects, that the crown was made around the late 300's or
the early 400's A.D., east of the Back Sea and
south of the Caucasian Mountain
divide (Today's Georgia).
It is not determined for whom the
crown was made, or how it had arrived in Hungary.
Some suggest it may have been made for a Hun king - among others -, and after
the demise of the Hun Empire it wound up in the hands of the advancing Avars
from the East. They conquered the Carpathian Basin
around 560 A.D. Charlemagne had
conquered the Avars of western Hungary in
795-96 and some believe that the crown fell into his hands. According to
legend, Pope Leo III crowned
Charlemagne with it on Christmas day in the year 800. The Emperor ordered his
subjects to bury him with this crown.
This came to pass in 814.
In
the year 1000 A.D., upon the insistence of Pope Sylvester II., the German Emperor Otto
III. was ordered to open
Charlemagne's tomb and recover the crown. The Pope promised it to the Polish
king Boleslo. The Hungarians must
have known something about this crown; they probably demanded that the crown
should be returned to them. So, Pope Sylvester in his dream received a message
from God, to give this Holy Crown to the Hungarian King for his services to the
Catholic Church and for his good deeds to God. Hungary was
a powerful country at this time, and if the Hungarians declared that the crown
belonged to them, then it was their crown.
On Christmas day in 1000 A.D., Saint István (Stephen) was crowned with
the same crown that Charlemagne was crowned with two hundred years earlier.
This story seems pretty
farfetched and unbelievable, but a German Canon informed a Hungarian priest,
István Szigeti about it. And whatever
it's worth there is a painting by Fredrich Kaulbach
of the coronation of Charlemagne, ordered by the Bavarian governor, Maximilian II in 1850. The crown in the
Pope's hands shows a very close resemblance to the Hungarian Holy Crown. Could
it be mere coincidence? Or did influential
people in the West know something about it and perhaps still do? However, if
the results of the German historian, Heribert Illig's research is correct, then Charlemagne may have never existed. And in that
case this story has no basis
to it at all.
The history of the idealized
concept by this Crown is no less amazing or singular than the material one.
Originally there were 4 martyr saints, 4 archangels, 8 apostles, God, Jesus
and the Virgin Mary, altogether 19
enamel pictures on the crown. Four of the original ones are
missing, two archangels, Apostle Bartholomew
and the Virgin Mary.
God's picture
is on the top, under the tilted cross; on
the front is the image of Jesus, and across from it on the
back was a picture of Virgin Mary. At the top of Mary's
frame were a tulip,
which represented the Holy Spirit. (This tulip was broken
off by the wife of King Szapolyai,
when she turned the Crown over to King Ferginand
in 1541.) With the pictures
positioned in this manner,
Christianity's basic doctrine the Holy
Trinity manifests itself in the display. On Jesus' side are the military
saints (Demeter and George) and the archangels like Michael, carrying out judgment of God.
At Mary's side are the medical saints (Kozma
and Damian) and the archangels, like Gabriel, bringing good news. The Apostles are: Peter, Andrew, John, Jacob, Thomas, Paul and Philip. Interestingly enough there are some ancient, so called "pagan" symbols like the sun
and the moon, that can also be found on the crown.
Gábor Pap, a Hungarian researcher believes that the construction of Holy
Crown was designed on the religious teaching of Persian prophet Manes. However,
the origin of this philosophy could be traced back to the Scythians, according
to Pap, which would also explain the so-called pagan symbols on the Holy Crown.
Recently Zsolt Mesterházy, another Hungarian researcher, recognized a parallel between an Etruscan wall painting and Jesus'
picture on the Holy Crown. On the Etruscan painting, there is a male (god)
figure holding an object between his thumb and his ring finger, and seemingly
offering it to the female (goddess) figure in front of him. The object itself
could be a ring, a pearl, or a seed of some sort. The meaning of it, in all
likelihood has some connection to the ancient fertility culture, which was a
guiding force of the social order in early civilizations. A pearl can seen between the same fingers of Jesus on the Hungarian
Crown. This probably symbolizes eternal life. The Eastern Orthodox Church has
many icons with a similar hand position, but none of them has a pearl
between the fingers. So it seems that this
is an additional proof that the Hungarian Holy Crown was made at the time and
place, when Christianity and the ancient cultures came into contact with each
other.
There are only assumptions
about just when and why the
Hungarian Crown became known as Holy, or in Hungarian: Szent. Even more intriguing is the question of when and why it
was personified, and ruled like a living person? One must understand that in
the Hungarian Kingdom
everything belonged to the Holy Crown, which possessed all the powers and the
king merely enforced the Crown's laws. This
was a highly idealistic form of governing. In the middle of the thirteenth
century, King Béla IV (1235-1270), in one of his letters called the Crown Holy, and separated the king's
power from the Crown's. Some suggest that this crown was made for Jesus, to
crown him at the time of His resurrection
as King of the World, and that is where its holiness came from. It is amazing
that such a thought could pop up in anyone's mind. But, that's just it.
Numerous unsolved mysteries surround the Hungarian Holy Crown.
Originally only the nobility
by birth enjoyed the protection of the Crown. Later those who acquired titles for service of the country were also included.
In 1848 all citizens of the Holy Crown were entitled to the same protections,
and charged with the same responsibilities.
The Hungarian Kingdom
To be formally
recognized as a Christian king, one had to ask to be crowned by the Pope or
another king, whom one accepted as one’s superior. Realizing this, in the year
1000 AD., instead of asking to be crowned by the German emperor, István asked Pope Sylvester II for a crown, according to the officially held version
of history. On the 25th of December of that same year, István was
crowned Hungary's Apostolic king. The Apostolic kings had special powers and
privileges, such as the power to
appoint bishops, regulate whether priest could marry on not, and so on. This
power and privilege, bestowed upon Hungarian kings, signifies the power and the
importance of the country in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church. After his
coronation, István began to lay down the foundation of a strong Roman Catholic
Church in his country. During his rule he established ten church districts -
two of which were archdioceses.
The brother-in-law of
István, Emperor Heinrich II, died in
1024. The good relationship between Hungary and
the West came to an abrupt halt, leading to István being forced in 1031 to
defend the western border against Konrad
II. In a fierce battle at the River
Rába south of Győr,
the Hungarians, led by Prince Imre
(declared Saint later) the son of
István, defeated the Germans. Unfortunately, shortly after the victory, Imre was assassinated. István
selected his half-nephew, Péter
Orseolo to be his heir (Péter had lived in the King's Court since 1027). But
the throne should have gone to Vászoly,
István's cousin, thus a struggle for
the throne began even before the King's death. In 1032, Vászoly was thrown in
jail, his eyes put out while his sons were forced into exile. András and Levente escaped to Kiev, Béla to Poland.
According to the Kálti Márk's Képes (Illustrated) Chronicle, Saint István actually helped
Vászoly's sons to escape. The German Knight, Vencelin was a force behind all of this,
he may even had a hand in the murder of Imre.
István died on August 15, 1038. Shortly after his death,
he became a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church for his services to the Church.
Péter followed him to the throne, but was chased out of the country in 1041.
The dethroned King escaped to the
German emperor, Heinrich III., who
was pleased with the opportunity to come to his aid. In 1044, Heinrich defeated
the Hungarian King, Aba Sámuel, and
restored Péter to the Hungarian throne as his vassal. Thus, Géza's and István's
westward oriented foreign policy came around in
a vengeance. Because of internal strife, Hungary's
enemies now succeeded in gaining the upper hand, something they could not have achieved on their own. Péter was dethroned for
the second time in 1046 and Hungary
refused to pay heavy taxes to the Emperor. Heinrich couldn't do a thing about
it, demonstrating ever so clearly the economic and military might of Hungary at
this time. The exiled princes - András, Levente and Béla - were called back and
András
was elected king. Yet, the situation did not stabilize completely because
András continued to carry out the policies of Géza and István, which was
detrimental to Hungarian culture. The strict laws and punishment of King
László (declared "Saint" later) (1077-1095) finally ended all internal
strife in the country. At this time, Croatia
became a province of
Hungary
under László’s rule. The Croatian king had died and his wife, Ilona (László's sister) turned to her
brother for help, so László took charge of Croatia.
László was followed
to the throne by King Kálmán
(1095-1116), the "Book Lover".
He was probably the most learned king of his time. He decreed: "witches do not exist", and
forbade witch hunts. He also relaxed cruel and unusual punishment for crimes
that did not warrant it. Yet, Kálmán was a firm and wise ruler. He became the
crowned King of Croatia and
Dalmatia, the territory which
later in that century was contested by Emperor Manuel of Byzantine. Manuel had no desire to confront Hungary, so
he had another plan to achieve his goal. Since he had no heirs, he offered the
Byzantine throne to Béla, the younger
brother of King István III of Hungary.
Béla did go to Byzantium to
live in the Court of the emperor; however, a son was born to Manuel, leading to
his revocation of his offer to Béla. Béla became King of Hungary and was looked
upon with some suspicion because he had adopted some of the Byzantine thinking
while away from home. Nevertheless, he kept Dalmatia
under the Hungarian Crown during his rule.
Taxation and other
excesses of government under the rule of King András II (1205-1235) created great dissatisfaction and the threat
of revolution loomed. He donated large portions of land to his supporters. This further weakened the King financially and fueled more strife. In
1222, András issued the Bill of Rights,
known as the Aranybulla (Golden
Bull. Similar to the British Magna Carta (1215) document.
Exhibit 11), in order to bring about calm and order.
The Aranybulla, unfortunately did not solve the
problems that existed, because András did not
remove the government which was the cause of the dissatisfaction in the first
place.
After the death of
András, his son inherited the throne as King Béla IV (1235-1270). His aim was to create a stable and powerful
government and bring about respect for the throne. In order to do this, he took
back the lands that had been given away by his father, levied new taxes, and
made friends with no-one. Obviously,
dissatisfaction became rampant throughout the country. At this time, in 1241,
news came that the Mongolian Armies of Batu
Khan were approaching Hungary. A
large number of Kuns along with their king, Kutten,
escaping from the advancing Mongolian Armies, were given permission to settle
in Hungary.
Béla hoped that they would be of great help in the upcoming struggle. King Béla
called the country to arms, but the
enraged and uncooperative aristocracy either did not respond or came up with
conditions. One of their demands was that the King turn
over Kutten to the Mongols. Batu sent his envoys to Béla with the same demand.
The King's enemies murdered the envoys, an unforgivable crime. They also
murdered Kutten, resulting in his warriors turning on the Hungarians in
revenge, and most of them fled the country. Béla suffered a crushing defeat
from the Mongolians at Muhi (eastern Hungary)
and barely escaped being captured. Thereafter, Béla's wife and the King's
treasury fell into the hands of Prince Friedrich
II of Austria. In
order to regain the freedom of his wife, the treasury had to be forfeited, along
with claims to three western counties while Friedrich joined the Mongols to
loot and rampage. The Mongols were cruel and merciless, not surprisingly,
avenging their murdered envoys. From Zagreb,
the escaping King Béla turned to the Pope, the French king, and the German
emperor for help; his requests were turned down. In the spring of 1442, the
Mongols left Hungary and
the King returned to begin the rebuilding of the country.
The last male in the
direct heir of the Árpád Dynasty,
King András III, died in 1301. The
grandchild of the daughter of King István
V, Robert Károly, was elected to
the throne in 1308. Robert Károly was to became one of
the greatest kings of Hungary.
His wise economic and foreign policy made the country rich again and regained
its old glory and respect. His son, Lajos
"The Great" (1342-1382), inherited a rich and powerful country. Lajos
was a peaceful and courageous man, but he did not have his father's leadership
qualities. His restless and ego-driven mother was the force steering his decisions.
They emptied the coffers of the treasury to wage war and bribed people to
further their goals. Lajos expanded the borders of his kingdom to the furthest
that would ever rich - this is why "The Great" was bestowed upon him
- and in the process bankrupted the
country yet again. In the meantime, Turkish armies were approaching from the
south reaching the borders of the Hungarian Kingdom in
1373.
After the death of
Lajos, Hungary
fell into feudal anarchy. Rich and powerful members of the aristocracy quarreled amongst themselves and ruined the country. They elected weak kings in order
that the kings serve them. Out of this chaos, the figure of the great military
leader, János Hunyadi, emerged as the
savior of the country. The decadent aristocracy
did not dare to confront him, so in 1446 he was elected to be the Governor of Hungary, most of the king's authority was delegated to him.
He resigned this post in 1452, so he could take
firm control of the military. King László
V appointed him to be General of the Armies and the caretaker of the King's
treasury.
In June of 1456 the
Turkish sultan, Mohammed II, marched
his armies to capture Nándorfehérvár (today's Belgrade) on his way to conquer Europe.
With a massive army of some 150,000 foot soldiers, 300 cannons, and 200 ships,
the city was encircled. The defenders, under the leadership of Mihály Szilágyi (the brother-in-law of
Hunyadi), numbered only around 6,000. With the help of some 12,000 men, János
Hunyadi and John Capistrano, a
Franciscan monk, broke through the encirclement and established contact with
the defenders. More supplies and an additional 2,000 reinforcements were sent
in. The Pope ordered prayers and church bells to ring at noon for victory. By this time Hunyadi's forces in and outside the city numbered
about 25,000 strong. The Turks launched their final attack on the 21st
of July. Hunyadi, Szilágyi and Capistrano were able to beat back the Turks and
the next day they launched a counterattack and destroyed the Turkish forces. The ringing of the church bell at noon is still a reminder of this victory.
With this victory, Europe was
saved from Turkish invasion, although a plague broke out as a result of the
decomposing bodies in the great summer heat. In three weeks, Hunyadi fell victim to the plague. Kings, leaders, and soldiers of Europe
paid tribute to Hunyadi; even Muhammed II sent his condolences remarking, "The world has never seen such a
man". About two months later, Capistrano also fell
victim to the plague. He became a saint of the Roman Catholic Church; and in California, Capistrano Beach is
named after him.
The enemies of the
Hunyadis, under the leadership of Cillei
and Garai, used this opportunity and
captured Hunyadi's sons, László and Mátyás. They beheaded László and kept
Mátyás in captivity. The weak King László V, fearing for his life, escaped to Vienna and then to Prague taking Mátyás with him as a hostage. The
friends of the Hunyadis took great exception to this, and Szilágyi paid
40,000 pieces of gold in ransom to gain his release.
Mátyás (Exhibit 12)
was elected to the throne in 1458 and became one of Hungary's
wisest, most powerful and most beloved rulers. Mátyás enacted laws which were
evenhanded and just. There is a saying even today, "Mátyás the Just died, so did justice." There are
numerous legends surrounding him. He set up a well-trained Black Army (a mercenary force whose
uniforms were black) for the defense of the country. His campaign against the
Turks was as successful as his father's had been. However, more than once, he
had to buy peace from the Turks in order to defend the country from the West
and keep the internal enemies in check. Mátyás was one of the most learned
rulers of his time. His library was famous throughout Europe. He
ran a splendid court, which was the envy of Europe and
was visited by scholars and scientists from all over the continent. He died -
probably assassinated - at the age of 50, in 1490. He was the last great and
powerful King of Hungary. The anarchy among the aristocracy re-emerged,
worsening the internal conditions to the point that in 1541 the Turks marched
into Buda and took over the city without any resistance.
The explanation that
the demise of the powerful Hungarian Kingdom had
resulted from the defeat at the hands of the Turks in 1526 at Mohács is
inaccurate. That battle took place on August 29, 1526, with King Lajos II losing his life also. The
victorious Turkish troops wandered all over the country to loot and pillage.
They stumbled into heavy local resistance and by the mid October had left the
country; the Turks did not keep Hungary
under occupation, like the soviet did in 1945.
It can be stated,
unequivocally, that the demise of Hungary's
greatness was caused by the decadence of the Hungarian aristocracy. In
fairness, the point must be made that decadence is not unique to the Hungarian
aristocracy. It is the result of material riches and feeble human character,
demonstrable in the history of any nation or country. In the case of Hungary, it
became disastrous because during this time of grave external danger no
ironhanded leaders emerged (such as the Hunyadis had earlier) to save and
protect the country. Hungary at
that time had the economic and military power to stand up to the Turks -
especially, if she had not had to defend herself from the West at the same
time. Hungary has
an important geographic location, dividing Europe
into the western and eastern civilizations. Culturally, Hungary had
broken away from the East half a millennium earlier, yet was never fully accepted by
the West. In her struggle for survival, Hungary
defended not only herself from eastern invasions, but also defended the West.
The West watched this struggle indifferently, at times seizing the opportunity
and launching an attack on her.
The following is an
excellent case in point, an illustration as to what it takes to destroy a
nation or a great power -- any nation or any great power. After the tragic
battle at Mohács, on the 10th of November, a group of aristocrats
gathered at Székesfehérvár and elected János Szapolyai (1526-1540) to the throne. The aristocrats opposing
Szapolyai gathered at Pozsony on the 16th of December electing the
Habsburg Prince Ferdinand (1526-1564) to be King. (This event laid the foundation
of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, the Habsburgs keeping the Hungarian crown
for the next 400 years.) The primary goal of these
two kings for the next thirteen years was to gain the upper hand or, if
possible, destroy the other. In this struggle, Szapolyai more than once
acquired the help of the Turkish sultan, Suleiman
II. Ferdinand, of course, received help from Austria and
from the West. In 1538, they finally made peace. Szapolyai agreed that after
his death Ferdinand should become the sole king. Just as had happened with
Emperor Manuel many years earlier, a son was born to Szapolyai two weeks before
his death and he ordered his followers to elect the baby to be the new king.
Suleiman was made guardian of the Baby
King. On August
29, 1541, on the very day of the 15th
anniversary of Mohács, Suleiman marched into Buda under the pretense of
protecting the interest of the Baby King, and stayed.
The advancing Turkish
armies occupied the Great Plains and
most of Dunántúl (western Hungary). Transylvania had
purchased peace from the Sultan, thereby enabling it to keep its internal
"independence". A narrow strip of western Hungary,
along with the northern Carpathians, remained under Hungarian, that is,
Habsburg rule. The following 150 years was to be an era of valiant struggle to
free the country from Turkish occupation and Habsburg domination. We can take
the heroines of Eger
(Exhibit 13) or the defenders of Szigetvár as examples of this great effort.
In1552, the women of Eger
fought alongside their men against overwhelming odds. Some fought with swords
in their hands, others threw rocks or dumped boiling water on the invaders.
Their efforts led to an incredible victory over the besieging Turks.
Sadly, the heroes of
Szigetvár weren't quite so lucky. In 1566, some 2,500 Hungarians and Croatians
defended their city surrounded by some 90,000 Turks. In attack after attack
they repelled the Turkish charges, inflicting heavy casualties upon them. Some
25,000 Turks died at Szigetvár, but because of their large numbers, they persisted in their attack on the
city. With the number of defenders dwindling to about three hundred, their
supplies having been used up, further resistance looked hopeless. The wives and
daughters of the officers decided that they would rather die than fall into
Turkish hands and dragged into slavery. They were killed by their husbands and
fathers before the final counterattack. Count Miklós Zrinyi gathered his loyal troops and led the last brave and furious
charge. All but three of them died heroes' deaths.
Though encircled, Transylvania
enjoyed internal stability. History was made in 1568 when the Diet of Torda declared religious
freedom, giving each individual the right to choose his or her own religion,
further proving that Hungary was
in the forefront of social development in Europe. At
the very least, part of the country was able to exercise its domestic freedom.
The Turks were forced out of Hungary in
1699; only five years later the anti-Hungarian policy carried out by the
Habsburgs resulted in a War of Independence led by Count Ferenc Rákóczi
II. After the Turks had been expelled, the Hungarians moved back to reclaim their former properties. The
Habsburg armies chased them off and brought in foreign settlers in their place. This became the basis for the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. It would be
unfair to say that the Habsburgs alone were responsible for the dismemberment
of Hungary,
because the Hungarian nobility had done more than its share in this regard. In Transylvania,
they brought in large numbers of Rumanians for cheap labor. The grandfather of
Rákóczi II, György Rákóczi, translated the Bible into Rumanian, so they could
be educated and cultured, and of course the pay-off came in the first quarter
of the XX. Century. It is ironic that after the War of
Independence was put down in 1711, Rákóczi escaped to Turkey
where he died and was buried. One of his military leaders, Count Miklós Bercsényi, went to France and
organized the French cavalry into an effective fighting force. Out of this unit
came Colonel Mihály Kováts (Exhibit
14), who did the same to the American cavalry. He died at Charleston in
the American War of Independence in
1779, leading the cavalry charge
against the British. Interestingly enough, another Hungarian cavalryman,
Captain Károly Zágonyi, fought and
led the first victorious battle on the Union side of the 1863 American Civil
War.
The Turkish conquest
and Habsburg domination could not have come at a worse time in Hungarian
history. The Renaissance renewed and revitalized European cultural and
spiritual life. Universities and colleges had been built throughout Europe,
while Hungary in
the 1400's spent her economic fortune on defense against the Turks. Afterward
came 150 years of Turkish occupation resulting in one third of the country
being ravaged and depopulated. As devastating as the Turkish occupation, the
Habsburg domination, and the internal strife were, they weren't the only
reasons that Hungary
could not regain her independence. In the early or mid-1700's, a new social
order was in the making. This new order became the guiding force in social
life, sweeping away the old order first in France in
1789. In the old order, the guiding force was loyalty to the ruler. In the new
social order, the nation was elevated to an idealistic high. In light of the
new social ideal, the western nations rewrote their history books and this
ideal became the dominant force guiding their society, relentlessly and
mercilessly. It rolled over ethnic groups like a steamroller and, in the West,
most minorities disappeared overnight. In Hungary,
this new social design could have taken hold as a result of the sound economic
and social policies of Count István Széchenyi, but the War for National
Independence of 1848-49, led by Lajos Kossuth,
was put down and with it all social and economic advancement went up in flames.
Therefore, a true national identity never had the chance to take hold in the
minds and hearts of Hungarians as a firm social guiding force. Hungary at
the time of the birth of the new social order, was under foreign domination and still is to this day. As a result,
Hungarians never had an opportunity to write their own history in the best
interest of the nation. It is the written history that uplifts or destroys a
nation. It is written history in which the information is accumulated that is
necessary to build national self-respect and a sound future. If the written
history is negative and demeaning, it will destroy the spirit of a nation. Any nation.
One of the major
problems Europe
faced in the early 19th century was the question of equal taxation.
The aristocracy paid no taxes (or
very little) and because of this, a heavy burden was placed on the people of
the lower echelon and on serfs. It created an internal unrest - revolution was
in the making. Western countries encountered similar situations. In early 1848,
revolution broke out in Paris, Vienna
shortly followed its lead. Hungary was
also ready for a revolution. The aristocracy were
certainly under great social pressure, but nonetheless, on the morning on March 15, 1848 the
Hungarian aristocracy became the only upper class in history to give up its
privileges of its own free will. With this step they averted revolution and
allowed the country to turn its attention and resources to the War of
Independence. The war was going well for the Hungarians, but when the Habsburgs
were able to reach an agreement with the Russian czar in 1849, sending some 200
thousand fresh eastern troops to the battlefields, the outcome was determined.
The war was lost and was followed by the terror of the Bach-regime from Vienna.
Hundreds of military leader and politicians were jailed or executed.
In 1867, an agreement
was signed between the Habsburgs and Hungary
that was to return the country to internal independence. During and after the
War of Independence, an oligarchy seized most of the economic wealth of the
country, and from behind the scenes applied heavy pressure on the government,
preventing it from solving the deep rooted national problems.
The First World War
broke out in 1914 and it was blamed on Hungary.
This was a malicious fabrication. One has to
know that Hungary at
this time was the part of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, and have had
no foreign policy of her own. The Prime Minister, Count István Tisza was the only member of the
Monarchy's government, and he was the only one to oppose declaring war on the Serbs after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo.
The war ended in 1918 in armistice, which was signed between Italy and
the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy on the 3rd of November. Up to that
day not a single enemy soldier set foot on Hungarian soil. However the French
did not recognized the armistice just signed, and kept moving their army toward Hungary,
encouraging the Czechs, the Romanians and the
Serbs to do the same. Anti-Hungarian elements seized the government, which
called upon the Hungarian troops to lay down their arms wherever they were.
Most of the Hungarian army disbanded and the remaining ones were totally disorganized. Hungary was
on the losing side and became occupied by enemy armies.
In 1920 the "Peace" Treaty of Trianon was
forced upon Hungary. As
a result historical Hungary was
dismembered (Exhibit 15). (It destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the
Habsburg Dynasty.) This was done in the "noble"
cause of "self-determination".
The newly drawn borders placed 3.5 million Hungarians under foreign rule
overnight. Of that number, 1.5 million resided along the new borders. In these
areas, the population was almost 100% Hungarian. There were 2 million
Hungarians in the expanded Rumania, 1
million in the newly created Czechoslovakia and
˝ million in the also newly created Yugoslavia,
amongst other nationalities. Therefore, Rumania and
the newly created countries were just as diverse ethnically as Historic Hungary
was. According to the "Peace" Treaty of Trianon the affected people
should have decided by referendum which country they wanted to belong to. This
was done in the case of Sopron,
the westernmost city in modern-day Hungary.
Originally, Sopron and
its vicinity had been given to Austria,
but the people voted to remain with Hungary.
Because of this result, no other village or city was given the chance for
self-determination. So much for the high-sounding principles and noble causes
put forth by the "Peace" Treaty.
This catastrophe
shocked the nation to the depths of her soul. A vibrant spiritual and cultural
renewal began to grow out of the ashes. Hungary
wanted to live again. In the late 1930's and the early 1940's, Hungary
regained some of her lost territories. This Renaissance, however, didn't last
long. It was buried by the Second World War. The war was followed by Soviet
occupation and Communist dictatorship.
In the second "Peace" Treaty
of 1947, this time in Paris, Hungary lost the regained territories and three
villages on the right bank of the Danube, because a Slovaks
wanted a foothold by the city of Pozsony (Bratislava). The nation rose once
more in 1956, but it was brutally suppressed. Some 200 thousand Hungarians
escaped to the west, tens of thousands were deported to the Soviet
Union, and thousands had been were jailed and executed in Hungary.
The Communist government introduced free abortion and, as a result, the
Hungarian population began to decline in the early 1980's.
It can be safely
stated that Hungary,
and the Hungarian people themselves, have never been in such grave danger in
history as they are today. No matter
how devastating the conditions of the past, the birth rate had never dropped
under replacement rate; the people and the country survived. More than forty
years of Communist rule extinguished the last glimmering flame of national
self-respect. Twelve years after the demise of communism,
one can witness some a awakening amongst the Hungarian youth.
HUNGARIAN
COAT OF ARMS
Hungary was
one of the most powerful countries of Europe for
over six hundred years. Her downturn began with the Turkish invasion in 1541.
Then through marriages, the Habsburg dynasty seized power. As a result Austria and
Hungary
became a dual Monarchy. Even so, Dalmatia, Slovenia, Croatia, Transylvania and
Fiume (a city and port on the Adriatic
Sea, now Rijeka)
remained parts of the Hungarian Kingdom
until the end of the First World War.
Through the centuries, the Hungarian kings used many
different coat of arms. In 1896, the use and the
components of the coat of arms became regulated by law. The small coat of arms
(exhibit ?) was used by government entities in Hungary,
and it is in use today since 1990. In the right half (facing left) there are
four red bars and four white bars. They represent the federation of eight
nations, which conquered the Carpathian Basin in
895 A.D, preceded by the Covenant of Blood,
Vérszövetség in Hungarian; the flag (exhibit ?) from
the XI. century underscores this interpretation, which
was the flag of this federation. The color red represents the hierarchy of
government, and the white the nobility, which means they have shared the power
to rule. In the left half (facing right), there are a cross, a crown and a
green triple peaked mountain. This combination of symbols has two possible
interpretations: 1. Apostolic Kingdom, in
this case the cross represents apostolic power, because it was bestowed on the
Hungarian kings, and the green triple mountain stands for country or kingdom.
2. God's
Country. In this case, based on ancient pictographs, the cross symbolizes God and the triple mountain stands for country. All three components are
ancient symbols used in pictographs like the cross in Egypt for
example. The Holy Crown of Hungary is on the top of the Coat of Arms.
The
large coat of arms (exhibit ?) represented the countries and territories of the
Hungarian Kingdom,
and it was used by the government ministries under which they functioned. Each
of these countries and territories were represented as follows: (facing the
coat of arms.) upper left, Dalmatia; lower left, Slovenia;
upper right, Croatia; lower right, Transylvania; bottom, Fiume; in the center,
Hungary and on the top it is the Hungarian Holy Crown.
1848: Revolution and The War of Independence…
Jenő Katona, Jr.
The year of 1848 was
a turning point in the political history of Europe in
general and that of the Hungarian nation in particular. Revolution after
revolution swept through the continent, upheaval beginning in Paris in
February, continuing in Italy, then followed by revolution
in Vienna in
the month of March.
Lajos Kossuth (a key figure in the war of
independence who spearheaded the movement toward reform), known to the Magyar
people as "Kossuth apánk"
(our father, Kossuth), delivered a speech to the Diet in Pozsony on the 3rd of March in which he
proclaimed the following sweeping reforms in 12 points:
1.
Freedom of the press and abolition of
censorship
2.
Appointment of a Hungarian Ministry
3.
An annual Diet elected by universal suffrage
4.
Equality of all in the eyes of the law
5.
Formation of a National Guard
6.
Taxation of the clergy and nobles
7.
Eliminate feudal rights
8.
Elected juries for criminal cases
9.
Creation of a National Bank
10. Creation
of a National Army
11. Liberation
of political prisoners
12. Unification
of Hungary and
Transylvania
On March 15th,
on the steps of the National Museum in Budapest,
the young poet Sándor Petőfi recited
his Nemzeti Dal (National Song) to a
patriotic crowd of 10,000. The words echoed here, calling for the rebirth of
the nation, were to become the overture to the revolution. With the approval of
Emperor-King Ferdinand V. from Vienna,
the Diet in Pozsony (Bratislava)
put the revolutionary reforms into effect within 3 short weeks, thereby laying
the foundation of a new Hungary as
a result of a bloodless, peaceful, and lawful revolution.
For the people of the
Carpathian Basin,
this promising new and happier era that seemed
to appear on the horizon was followed by a dark cloud in the form of a clique
in the Emperor's Court, that had already begun its
intrigues to undermine the reform work of the new Hungarian Ministry. Its main
weapon was the idea of the age: nationalism,
and as tools they used the nationalities. The fever of reform and equality that
swept through the Carpathian Basin
also aroused the various ethnic groups who were eager to carve out for
themselves a piece of Hungary
itself! Here I would like to make a significant note to the earlier thought,
that it was never, ever the "thousand year long dream" of these
"oppressed nationalities" to secede from Hungary,
thereby dismembering a thousand year old Hungarian Kingdom.
These nationalities had through the ages lived side-by-side with their Magyar
brothers and had shared the fate of
the country - in prosperity and famine, in peace and occupation.
The sinister plan of
inciting the nationalities against Hungary
worked. With the backing of the government of Vienna,
armed Croatian, Serbian and Rumanian peasants went on a rampage in the mainly
Magyar inhabited areas, looting, burning, and claiming thousands of innocent
Hungarian lives. While the Slovaks generally supported the Magyars, following Vienna's
call, that number dwindled to only a handful; the German and Ruthenian
nationalities did not take up arms against their Hungarian brothers.
On September 11th, the Croats, with an army of 40,000 troops under Ban (viceroy) Jossio Jellaschich,
crossed the Hungarian frontier and spearheaded an armed intrusion into Hungary,
marching against Buda-Pest from the south. The Serbs under their nationalist
leader Statimirovitch also invaded
from the South, while the Wallachians (Rumanians) rebelled and created havoc in
Transylvania.
The following months saw a well trained Imperial Austrian Army, helped by the
nationalities' movements, defeat and outmaneuver any resistance by the honvéds
(Hungarian Army) and the National Guard, who were still ill-equipped and lacked
battle experience. It was here again that Lajos Kossuth came and saved the day.
He became the heart and soul of the movement to accelerate the formation of the
Honvéd Army and his oratorical magic inspired an unprecedented patriotic fever,
which prompted students and teachers, factory workers and peasants by the tens
of thousands to march under his banner and report for the defense of the
country.
Following the first
chaotic months of the War of Independence, Kossuth succeeded in creating a
formidable Honvéd force. He appointed Josef Bem
(a legendary exiled Polish general) as commander in chief of military
operations in Transylvania. In
a series of battles, Bem defeated the Imperial Army and the Wallachian
insurgents, and drove the Austrian
troops across the Carpathians and out of Transylvania. To
the south, János Damjanich (A Serb by
birth, but whose love for
Hungary
made him the most ardent defender of the country) defeated the Imperial Army's
Cavalry troops in a surprise attack, forcing them to retreat back to the
Hungarian frontier. With three powerful army corps (under generals Görgy Klapka, János Damjanich and Lajos Aulich),
Arthur Görgey, who was to become one of the war’s greatest generals, gave the order to begin what is now known as
the Magyar Spring Offensive. Kossuth fueled the fighting man's spirit with the
famous "Kossuth Song" sung by the Honvéds as they marched into
battle. Victory upon glorious victory followed with the dashing "Hungarian Hussar" cavalrymen
serving as the cutting edge of the Magyar Army. The Magyar women also
contributed to the war effort offering their gold and jewelry so that the
Magyar soldiers could be provisioned with uniforms and guns.
On April 14th
in the city of Debrecen,
the Diet dethroned the Habsburg Dynasty and elected Kossuth as governing
"President of Hungary". The country's newly won freedom was to be
short-lived, however. The Emperor could not stand to be humiliated any longer,
so he sent Czar Nicholas an urgent request for an armed intervention against Hungary.
The Czar did not hesitate and in a few short weeks, the Russian attack began,
coming from the north and the east with 200,000 troops following almost the
same route the Mongols had used six centuries earlier. In June of 1849, a
combined Austrian-Russian offensive threw 370,000 men and 1,200 guns against Hungary's
152,000 Honvéds with only 450 guns. The rest of the War of Independence was a
hopeless fight, being fought by tens of thousands of patriotic, battle weary
and freedom loving people against the tyranny and subjugation-driven beliefs of
the Emperor and the Czar. Flashes of Magyar valor and unseen heroism were
commonplace all over the battlefield.
In the end, with the
number of wounded and dying quickly rising and to further spare his country and
his troops from any more senseless bloodshed, Arthur Görgey announced his
decision to surrender. On August 13th, his forces laid down their
arms before the Russians at Világos.
Many who could not believe and could not accept such a disastrous end to the
war that they had so vigorously and valiantly fought, simply shot themselves in
the head, while others with tears in their eyes looked on and followed. Others went
into hiding, but were soon hunted down and made to stand trial for their part
in the revolution. Still others sought refuge in foreign lands and continued to
fight on with their brilliant speeches and patriotic writings, the most famous
of these exiled leaders being Lajos Kossuth. Through his magnificent gift of
oratory, he obtained an enormous sympathy for the Hungarian cause.
With the surrender at
Világos, the age of dashing Hussar cavalrymen and glorious battles came to an
end, but a more sinister and darker era was just looming over the horizon. The
Viennese government unleashed the sadist General Haynau to exact retribution. His desire to wreak vengeance on the
Magyars was best demonstrated on October
6, 1849 in the city of Arad, by
the abominable act of executing 13 of the ablest generals of the Honvéd Army,
some by firing squad but most by the hangman's rope. This served as a warning
and preceded the mass of imprisonments and executions that followed.
To this day,
historians still ponder the question: Could the Hungarians have prevailed as
the victors of the War of Independence? According to the famous historian,
István Nemeskürthy, militarily the
Hungarian Army of 1849 was well equipped and drilled enough to secure itself a
victory on the battlefield. The mere fact of mustering such an impressive army
in such short notice (200,000 Honvéds) clearly showed the willingness and
sacrifice the nation was ready to make for the defense of the country. In
addition, the secret to the swift and sweeping successes on the battlefield lay
in the hands of the brilliant and experienced military generals (Damjanich,
Klapka, Görgey) and their knowledge of modern military
tactics. The tactics used during the war were to be fully understood and
imitated only well after the second half of the century. The Emperor knew very
well that without some sort of outside military intervention, Austria
would have to suspend its military campaign and suffer a humiliating defeat,
thereby recognizing Hungary's
independence. As we now know, the arrival of the well rested Russian troops
with their heavy guns proved to be too much for any of the generals to handle.
The further continuation of the war would have meant more bloodshed and
destruction to a country that had already suffered enough. Today, the people of
our nation are now beginning to understand General Görgey's controversial
decision to surrender and not continue the inevitable bloodletting.
Hungary, 1956
† László M. Mogyoróssy
Very few people can
claim in their lifetime to have witnessed an extraordinary event that came
close to alter the course of history. The 1956 Hungarian uprising for freedom
was just such an event. Therefore, on the eve of every anniversary, the
survivors of those glorious days feel obligated to recall that event and pay
homage to the fallen friends and comrades whose supreme sacrifice made it
possible for Hungary to
free herself from Russian oppression thirty-four years
later.
When the Soviet
dictator, Stalin died in 1953, it was
obvious to all of Russia
that whoever came to take control of
the vast Soviet empire would not follow in the footsteps of his predecessors
and would not allow the Soviet Union to
relinquish its leadership in the Eastern block. At the same time it was also
obvious that changes had to be made within the Soviet
Union as well as within the Eastern Block. Because of the
tarnished image of the Communist Party, its
leadership compelled to publicly confess its wrongdoing. They vowed to change its
course and work for a better future. The stage was set and the events began to
unfold rapidly.
On October 23rd, 1956,
students organized a huge rally and demonstrated in front of the statue of
General Bem (the hero of 1848) at the Polish Embassy, demanding reforms and
democracy. They marched to the state radio building and demanded to be heard
over the Budapest
radio. After the police tried to disperse the crowd by force, the peaceful
demonstration turned into a riot and martial law was declared. Soviet troops
were called in. In the meantime, the Communist Party's central committee
announced minor personnel changes in the Party's hierarchy: Imre Nagy replaced András Hegedüs as Premier, but Ernő Gerő remained First Secretary of
the Party. Then, fighting broke out between the Soviet troops
and the Hungarian people and spread to other cities such as Debrecen, Szolnok and Szeged. The Party's central committee was helpless and
totally disorganized. As a result, Ernő Gerő was relieved of his
position and replaced by János Kádár.
More changes were promised: reorganization of the government and negotiation
for withdrawal of Soviet troops, while the fighting went on. So, more and more
changes were promised: martial law was declared unconstitutional and complete
amnesty was promised to all participants if they laid down their arms. Nothing
seemed to work. As a result the formation of a new government was announced.
Non-communist Zoltán Tildy and Béla Kovács were appointed by Imre Nagy.
Negotiations with Soviet troop commanders continued, now on the local level as
well.
On October 28th,
the government announced a cease-fire. An emergency committee was formed to
assume temporary leadership of the Party. More promises were made. The most
important of these included: withdrawal of Soviet troops, political and
economic equality of relations between the Soviet Union and Hungary, revision
of the economy, democratization, changes in government organization and
personnel, dissolution of the secret police (ÁVO), protection of those taking
part in the revolution, withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, Hungarian neutrality,
and a call for free press, free election, speech, assembly, and worship. On
October 29th, some of the Soviet troops began their withdrawal from Budapest to
their bases outside of the city. At the same time, Premier Nagy announced
abolition of the one-party system, a return to the political conditions
prevailing after 1945, and negotiations for immediate withdrawal of all Soviet
forces from Hungary.
Cardinal Mindszenty was freed from
house arrest. The Hungarian Air Force threatened to bomb Soviet tanks unless
they left Budapest.
Two days later the Independent
Smallholders Party announced the formation of a new executive committee and
resumed control of its former newspaper, Kis
Újság. The Hungarian Social
Democratic Party reorganized in Budapest,
with Anna Kéthly as its president.
The high command of the Hungarian Army also reorganized, with István Nagy becoming
the new Chief of Staff. On October 31st, Premier Nagy announced Hungary's
withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, proclaiming Hungarian neutrality and asking
the United Nations to place the Hungarian question on its agenda. Kádár openly
criticized past leaders and policies of the Hungarian Communist Party,
announcing the reorganization of the Party under the name of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party. The
next day the Hungarian government officially entered a protest to the Soviet
Embassy regarding the re-entry of the Soviet troops onto Hungarian soil. In a
second official note within two days, the United Nations was then notified of
Soviet activities and was requested to appeal to the great powers of the world
to recognize Hungarian neutrality.*
All was in vain,
Soviet reinforcements and the movement of troops continued at an accelerated
pace. Russian tanks surrounded uranium mines at Pécs. On November 4th,
Premier Nagy announced a Soviet attack on Budapest,
while heavy fighting erupted in Budapest, Győr, Sopron,
Pécs, Csepel and Kőbánya. Russian forces took over most of the country:
airfields, highway junctions, bridges, and railways. Repeated Free Radio
broadcasts calling for Western help went unanswered. The heroic effort failed
and Hungary was
again an "unwilling satellite".
We, the survivors of
that historic event, profess with the immortal words of John F. Kennedy that "October 23, 1956, is a day that will forever live in the annals
of free men and free nations. It was a day of courage, conscience, and triumph.
No other day since history began has shown more clearly man's unquenchable and
eternal desire to be free, whatever the odds against success, whatever the
sacrifice required".
* (One of the most famed
Hungarian freedom fighter of 1956, Gergely Pongrátz
in his book titled Corvin köz 1956,
quotes from the Congressional Record (Volume106, Part 14, Eighty-sixth
Congress, Second Session. 31 August, 1960. 18783-18790.) by Congressman Michael
A. Feighan,
regarding a telegram sent by the US State Department to the Yugoslav dictator
Tito, on the 2nd of November, 1956, which states:
"The
Government of the United States does not look with favor upon governments
unfriendly to the Soviet
Union on
the border of the Soviet
Union.")