Our second stop on our grand tour up the German rivers was Budapest, a six-hour bus ride from Prague, spanning four countries and three European capitals. No wonder there has been so much strife as these countries seem to be breathing down each other’s necks: the currencies, languages, and politics change rapidly. But all of them are of pride, different kinds of pride.
Budapest distinguished itself, for me, in the way it has absorbed the many cultures who crossed the Carpathian Plain and in the resilience of the people as each group has, in turn, put themselves in charge. Let’s start with how the horsemen got there, touch on how each new group has put on its stamp, and end thinking on how Budapest has repeatedly rebuilt itself.
Just Another Nomadic Tribe of Horsemen Archers
The Mongols got this far, back in 1242, sweeping all the way from the Eastern steppes and Gobi Desert across the great Russian expanse. No one stopped them, and, while they bypassed the mud and log settlement of Prague, they took out more than half of Hungary’s army. I read somewhere that they took out 90% of the Polish, Hungarian, Teutonic knighthood. Luckily, at least for Europe, Ogedei Khan died, and the leaders had to spend three years going back to Karakorum to vote in a new leader. They decided to stop expanding east.
Yet the fact that the Mongols did it points out that there was a kind of arrow pointing the way from the heights near the Gobi Desert and Lake Baikal down through this region. A stream of Scythians, Dacians, Celts, and so on, horsemen with weapons. Attila’s Huns came through here in the 400s. His brother Bleda furnished the name for half the city, says the legend. Another legend says Hungary comes from “Hun,” but that’s been discounted. The historians are fairly certain the dominant DNA is from the Magyars, which came from the Asian steppes.
Our guides told us that Hungary began in 896, when the Seven Tribes of Magyars arrived from those steppes. “Began” meaning “founded” by people skilled with weapons who told the people less skilled with weapons, i.e. farmers, that now taxes had to be paid to new guys. Same as it ever was.
Magyar is Hungarian for “Hungarian,” what they call themselves. Their language is not Slavic, like those of their neighbors, but a form of Finno-Ugric, which comes from east and north, again Northeast Asia, not the tongue of the nearby duchies. Both Hungarian tour guides were proud to tell us that their language has 44 letters (more than 26 hah!) with 14 vowels, which I gather are combinations of a, e, i, o, and u with umlauts and accents and whatnot. I apologize in advance that I’m not using all the accents and whatnot on their words. Mea culpa (Elnézést).
The people of the new tribes were skilled with sword, bow and arrow, and horses. It should not surprise you to learn that Hungarians are the world-dominators in that venerable Olympic sport: the modern pentathlon. (Riding, Fencing, Swimming, Shooting, and Running). Naturally, if your response is Who cares about the pentathlon? the answer is that is because Americans are terrible at it. The Hungarians do care. They have more pentathlon medals than the Russians.
They displayed all that skill in a horse show at Lajosmizse, where I oohed and aahed over the Lippizaners (gorgeous white horses, born black) as well as the trick riding and races. I have been on horses, but I ride about as well as a person thrown into the water who cannot swim. So I can appreciate the technique.
Influence
The culture of the steppes is in the genes and the skills, but Hungarians blended those roots with the medieval European culture that surrounded them. Key leaders converted to Christianity and built churches. Yet even the gorgeous church for King Matthias has an interior decorated with flowers, painted railings of hearts and abstract designs along the arches both Gothic and a little Arabic.
The castle, fisherman’s bastion, church and all of it are built on a hill, conveniently furnishing a tourist wonderland, complete with spectacular views of the city, photo-worth interiors, and pay-to-play views behind the paywall of cafes and stanchions in front of the stairs. (Don’t get me started even about the Dragon Lady at the bathrooms, who only accepts exact change.) As the guide says, it looks like “something out of Disneyland,” meaning that Disneyland surely stole these designs to build itself.
The two famous medieval kings here, Stephen and Matthias, had long-term visions, so built castles and administrative buildings, parks and resources for people. Rather than expanding and harassing the neighbors, they did things beloved of the people and the popes, so they are venerated as “geniuses,” and saints.
From the 16th century forward, the Habsburgs “inherited” the throne and ruled Hungary from Austria. Translated as some Hungarian prince or princess was married off to the stronger ruling group in Austria, and that incorporated Hungary into Austraia. The Habsburgs also put some money and effort into improving and protecting their new country. For a while, Hungary was simply named a province of Austria, until the 18th century when it was at least honored to be called the “Austria-Hungary Empire.”
The Losing Side
Part of the 1867 Compromise, wherein the Habsburgs let Hungary establish their own Kingdom, i.e. sub-kingdom of the empire, gave Hungary the opportunity to create their own government. They quickly built up a Parliament with its own spaectacular building along the hill, architecture that looks like a palace and church had a baby.
Austria-Hungary was on the side of WWI that lost (Axis? Allies? Comrades? I can never keep the sides straight between #1 and #2 wars). In losing, the empire broke up, and Hungary lost its luster and financial backing. Without detailing the history overmuch, they suffered a bit from their former “medieval glory days.”
When the Germans came along with their mighty army, Hungary thought it smart to align themselves with the folks with the weapons, so they allied themselves with Hitler. This turned out to be bad idea, in the sense that they lost again, and then things got very hard indeed. This, even after the Hungarians helpfully decided to help the war effort by sending 440,000 or half their Jewish population, to the camps–in two months in late 1944 as the war was winding down.
But hooray! the Hungarians were then liberated by the Soviets. In most of the late 40s and early 50s, it was not too bad. That is, the Hungarians under what was called “Goulash Communism” may not have seemed worse than under the Habsburgs or the Maygars or the Huns. As long as the folks sent food and other resources to Moscow, they got a little oil and enough resources to keep from starving. So they were relatively better off than the Czechs or Russians.
However, by 1956, the Hungarians were thinking that they didn’t have quite enough freedom, so they started chafing at the bonds, agitating with students and peaceful demonstrations. The Soviets ressonded with 2500 tanks and thousands of troops and an estimated 25,000 Hungarians died in the crackdown.
This was the autumn of 1956, right before the Melbourne Olympics, the setting for a famous incident. The Hungarian water polo, also best in the world, met the Soviets in a semi-final match and fistfighting ensued. The “Blood in the Water” match was won by the Hungarians but a punch to the face of the best Hungarian player kept him out of the game.
Always Bouncing Back
The transition of the Soviets in 1989 also helped the Hungarians, who got their own country back. This “regime change” led to a new flourish of democracy plus capitalism that created more building, modernization, influx of good times, and the rest. The Hungarians rebuilt several of their old buildings damaged in the war to look exactly the same, so the whole city looks modern and medieval simultaneously. Always resilient.
Twenty-first Hungarians were loving democracy the way they had appreciated St. Stephen and accepted the Habsburgs, so they just didn’t see autocracy coming when Victor Orban was elected to parliament in 2010. The guides got very quiet when they mentioned his name–rumors are that he’s re-instituted Soviet-style spying.
Today, Hungarians enjoy high, regressive taxes and low salaries. Income tax is a flat 15%, VAT (“sales tax”) is 27%, and salaries around $20,000 annually. Many are wistful of Goulash communism or even the wonderful days under Matthias and Stephen. Education is free, but one tour guide was a former doctor and the other had been a high school teacher and ran tours for decades. I think they liked their jobs, but perhaps were wiseful for other days. Still, whatever befalls Hungary, they will absorb it and bounce back, as they have so many times before.