Hungarian Conservative

The crusader army numbering tens of thousands that St John of Capistrano recruited played an important role in the successful defence of the Fortress of Nándorfehérvár and in the battle that ended the siege. John Hunyadi would have been defeated at the fortress walls if Capistrano had not attacked the Ottoman camp with his crusaders on 21 July.

‘Their book collections were also incorporated into King Matthias’ library, now known as the Bibliotheca Corviniana. This can be considered the first royal library to be consciously established and developed. It began to flourish especially after Matthias’ marriage to Beatrix, daughter of the King of Naples (1476). The queens always had prayer books for personal use, the possession of which was part of being a pious queen. However, the educated Beatrix completely transformed the court of Buda, and in her wake came the great representatives of the Italian Renaissance.’

‘The first units of the First Crusade, and then the main army led by Godfrey of Bouillon, did cross the Hungarian Kingdom, but by then King Coloman was on the throne, the successor of Ladislaus. It was also well known that the only Hungarian-led crusade to the Holy Land was launched in 1217 under King Andrew II. Yet Hungarian medieval narrative sources record one more. They tell an interesting and controversial story about King Saint Ladislaus…Given the fact that the Hungarian king died on 29 July 1095, almost half a year before the first Crusade was announced at the Council of Clermont in November 1095, modern scholarship quickly lost confidence in the historicity of the account.’

Galambóc (Golubac in today’s Serbia), still an imposing fortress on the banks of the lower Danube section, first appears in the annals of history when Turkish invasions approached and even reached the former borders of Hungary. King Sigismund, however, is not usually praised in military historical literature for the siege of Galambóc, although he acted with great foresight and care.

Now that it is almost summertime when a cool beer can come in handy, we invite our readers to a brief journey through time to discover some fun facts about the past and present of beer brewing in Hungary.

‘On 10 March this year, the author of these lines has only one wish: that a miracle may happen in the modern, so-called democratic Romania, and it may become like it was in the 1950s, or even like in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, in the 13th and 16th centuries. Because, if that happened, it would give freedom and autonomy to Szeklerland as in a true 21st-century European—and a European Union—country…’

‘Before the corrosive spirit of purely rational analysis without synthesis became widespread, societies were conservative because they perceived the non-variable essence behind phenomena not only through their most eminent intellectuals but also collectively. The ‘‘men of the spirit’’ in each age had a particular connection with this spiritual essence, a relationship of a different quality than most of society. This is the origin of true priesthood and also of true ‘‘intellectuality’’.’

‘King Matthias of Hungary (r. 1458–1490) spent many years of his reign in the saddle. This was the case in 1463, 1467, and 1475, when he “celebrated” Christmas in Jajce in Bosnia, in Brașov after the Battle of Baia, and then in Belgrade after the siege of the Szabács Castle against the Ottomans.’

In the Hungarian memory, the Rákos assemblies have become a symbol of the freedom of the Hungarian nobility. The diets in Rákos, as well as the assemblies held in Pressburg (today’s Bratislava, Slovakia) after 1540, played no small role in ensuring that the unity of the country did not disappear after the Turkish rule and that the occupied parts of the country did not entirely break away from the Kingdom either.

The famous British unorthodox feminist, Mary Harrington recently visited Budapest to talk about ‘reactionary feminism’ and progress at a Danube Institute event.

The Mariazell Basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary is one of Austria’s most popular tourist attractions and a national pilgrimage site. Its foundation dates back to the mid-12th century, yet the construction and re-foundation of the present church in the 1370s was due to a generous donation from King Louis the Great of Hungary.

We are familiar with the phenomenon of Westerners embracing Eastern fighting traditions such as Wushu, Aikido, Japanese fencing, Filipino martial arts, and more. These people seek some rich traditions to connect to, and oftentimes romanticize them as being spiritually superior to the Western martial arts. Whereas there is nothing wrong with getting acquainted with other cultures, there’s no necessity to travel half of the globe in search of intricate, deep, and time-tested martial traditions spanning centuries.

Despite all the uncertainties, the chronicle written by Master P., or as he is known to many because of the obscurity of his person since its discovery, Anonymus, has been one of the most important documents of the search for Hungarian historical consciousness and identity.

The Habsburg Court regarded Protestantism simply as the ideological expression of the nobility, that is, the ‘spirit of rebellion’. In addition, it was part of the absolutist thinking of the era that only a mono-religious country could be politically united.

Surprisingly, the earliest royal secular knightly order in Europe was founded in 1326 in Hungary, a country just emerging from civil war, by King Charles I, in honour of St George, the patron saint of knights since the crusades.

Anastasia of Kiev married Hungarian King Andrew I around 1038, before he took the throne and while he was still in exile. She was later involved in the establishment of one of the most renowned monasteries of Hungary, the Tihany Abbey, and is also featured in one of the most famous Hungarian historical paintings.

‘The significance pilgrimages had in terms of building clerical and diplomatic relations cannot be overlooked either. A whole slew of abbots, bishops, future archbishops, historians, poets, theological thinkers, and monks later canonised as saints visited Hungary. They brought highly cherished relics, luxury items of the East, and—not least—news with them.’

The quest to find the ancestral homeland of Hungarians has inspired ventures into the far East for many centuries. The most famous ones were made by Friar Julian in the 13th century. How much of what he purported to have found has been backed up by modern science?

What is extraordinary about the image of Attila as a ‘Hungarian King’ is not that it has evolved, but rather that it has expanded into a system of arguments with daily political impact, and although it has undergone significant changes, it has survived the 21st century.

The purpose of Cum hiis superioribus annis, a papal bull issued by Pope Callixtus III in 1456, was to exhort Christians to pray, as the success of the Hungarian crusader army against the Turks was key for the future of Christian Europe at the time. To this day, the noon bell tolls every day to remind us that, as so many times in history, the Kingdom of Hungary stood up valiantly and proved itself one of the bulwarks of Christian Europe.

The Treaty of Vienna, ending the Bocskai uprising, known in Hungary as Bocskai’s War of Independence, was signed 417 years ago today, on 23 June 1606. The agreement ensured (at least in principle) the sovereignty of Transylvania against the Habsburgs in the long term and guaranteed the free religious practice of Protestants.

In the last decade, archaeological, archaeogenetic, and historical research into the prehistory and early history of the Magyars has produced results not seen in a long time. The Battle of Pressburg, which often provoked extreme reactions and became a real media event, also played a decisive role in this—of course, in a positive sense.

The idea of the holiday was brought to Hungary by a Mrs Pál Petri, who was the wife of a state secretary, who had seen it celebrated in the United States. The first Mother’s Day celebration in Hungary was held on 8 March 1925 in Budapest, for the children of workers at the MÁV machine factory. The leaders of the Red Cross Youth Hungary embraced the idea and lobbied for the introduction of Mother’s Day as a nationwide celebration. Finally, in 1928, a ministerial decree included Mother’s Day among the official school observances.

Sigismund of Luxembourg, the ruler who ascended the Hungarian throne in 1387, and whose first wife was the granddaughter of Charles I, could, of course, have heard of his predecessor’s order, and perhaps even followed his example when he himself founded the Order of the Dragon in 1408.

From the perspective of Europe, the Hungarians’ conversion to Christianity was by no means an unbroken continuation of their raids—the Hungarian people was still considered suspicious, barbaric, and prone to paganism for a long time.

From the time of the regime change to the present day, the solid community of Hungarians living in Romania has regularly requested, and is requesting, unfortunately so far without success, the right to autonomy, which should normally be enjoyed by all communities that claim it within the European Union.

Keeping the memory of St Ladislaus alive is a common cause. As the organisers of the erection of the equestrian statue of the Holy King said in response to critical comments: ‘The legacy of St Ladislaus is above all the courageous admission of the Christian faith, which is a universal value and part of our European identity.’

Today, law has taken on a legalistic attribute, consequently shunning the spirit of the law, or rather, Roman jurisprudence.