Ármin Vámbéry

“ From the dawn of day to late in the night lasted the bloody engagement which ended with the complete annihilation of the Hungarian army. On the fated battle-field perished the chief prelates of the church, the highest dignitaries of the state taken from the ranks of the best patriots, thousands of the gentry, and the hope and last prop of the nation, her only army. Only few amongst those who did not fall amidst the shock of battle could escape with their lives. ”

“ Heroes arose on every side, and the struggle, sustained by the nation for nearly a century and a half against the oppressive power of the Turks, reminds one, in many of its features, of the protracted contest between the Spaniards and the Moors, and, like it, abounds in poetry, romance, and those noble examples of patriotism and loftiness of soul which kindle the human heart, arouse the sympathies of the poet, and are treasured up by the piety of after-ages as glorious relics of the past. ”

“ While Hungarian blood was thus shed by the Hungarians themselves, their proud neighbor, Sultan Selim, the mighty ruler of the Turkish empire, had registered a vow before Allah, in case he would vouchsafe victory to his armies over Persia, to build for his worship three magnificent mosques—one in Jerusalem, another in Buda, and a third in Rome. The sultan vanquished the Persians, but was prevented by death from fulfilling his vow. In Hungary they made merry, drinking death to the Turks, and little dreaming that the new sultan was destined to inflict upon them soon a most deadly blow. ”

“ He had equal regard for the interests of all classes, from the lord to the peasant, and thus strove, while yet surrounded by the antiquated order of things, to awaken the people to a sense of national consciousness, and to promote the recognition of the solidarity of interests between all the classes of the nation. His busy brain embraced every public interest, and he exerted every social and economical agency to ripen in the nation the notions of modern European civilization. ”

“ On one of the most picturesque positions in Buda-Pesth, on the left bank of the majestic Danube, stands the bronze statue of Stephen Széchenyi, the greatest Hungarian of this century. The piety of the nation has placed it in the midst of her most conspicuous creations. At its feet rolls the mighty river whose regulation was commenced by Széchenyi, who made it a line of communication in the commercial system of Europe ”

“ The magnates of the country deserted in the piping times of peace their eagle’s nests on the rocky crests of the hills and descended into the smiling valleys below, building there palaces for themselves after foreign patterns. Life in those rural abodes, owing to the lack of pastimes and refinement, soon became dull to the great lords, and, as there was no national capital to offer distraction, they went abroad, and soon came to like the foreign mode of life better than the lawlessness of their country homes. ”

“ Alexander Petöfi, the great Hungarian poet, in one of his beautiful poems, sings thus of his native land:
“If the earth be God’s crown
Our country is its fairest jewel.”
And truly were we able to ascend the airy heights and obtain a bird’s-eye view of Hungary, we would fain admit that it is one of the fairest and most blessed spots on the face of the earth.
In the Northwest of Hungary, on the banks of the Danube, begins the mountainous region known under the name of the Carpathian range, which for beauty is not surpassed by the Alps, and in extent fairly rivals them. ”

“ Béla and his family occupy a conspicuous place in the history of the first century of the Hungarian kingdom. He himself, two of his sons, and one of his grandsons were destined to successfully defend the country, to pacify the nation, and, pursuing the work of Stephen, to complete the creations of that great king. They were all endowed with eminent qualities befitting the great task allotted to them. The heroism, devotion, and wisdom of the father descended to the children, in whose character the inherited virtues shone out with even a brighter and purer light. ”

“ The country between that river and the Danube belonged to the Bulgarian prince, Zalán, whilst the region on the left bank of the Theiss, as far as the river Szamos, was in the possession of Marót, the prince of the Khazars. The conquest of Hungary was evidently a task of no great difficulty for a warlike nation like the Hungarians, whose strange physiognomy and superior weapons, brought from the Caucasus, struck terror, at the very outset, into the breasts of the inhabitants. The invaders appeared with their small, sturdy, and hardy horses, quick as lightning and strong as iron. ”

“ When the storm subsided only the weak ones were found to have suffered, the strong ones came out of the nation’s calamity more powerful than ever. The national misfortunes only served to advance the interests of the oligarchs, who, about this time, began more frequently to surround the crests of the mountains with stone walls, and, dwelling in their rocky nests, defied royalty with increasing boldness, and oppressed the people with greater impunity than ever. ”

“ The aim of the Viennese government became daily more evident, to put the Austrian rule in the place of the Turkish, and to ignore altogether the Hungarian national aspirations. The nation herself seemed to the government too much enfeebled and trodden down to give any ground for apprehending any resistance in defence of her rights, but to make assurance doubly sure every effort was made to crush the national spirit. ”

“ A secret society was formed in Pesth, the centre of the political life of the country. This league of Hungarian Jacobins had but a confused idea of its own aims, and of the means of achieving them. They produce, at this distance of time, the impression of an organization, indulging in crude, exaggerated, and even thoughtless visions, but theirs, nevertheless, is the credit of having been the first society of the kind in the country, and of thus furnishing a link in the political development of the public spirit in Hungary. ”

“ From his earliest childhood he worshipped heroes, and nothing delighted him more than the ballads, legends, and heroic songs glorifying the gallant deeds and wonderful performances of such leaders of men, as Attila, Alexander the Great, Roland, the French Knight, or his own father. He could listen to these stories all day long, forgetting both hunger and thirst. As he grew to manhood and became king, he had opportunity himself to perform the great deeds he had admired in others. ”

“ King Stephen led the Hungarian nation from the darkness of paganism into the light of Christianity, and from the disorders of barbarism into the safer path of western civilization. He induced his people to abandon the fierce independence of nomadic life, and assigned to them a place in the disciplined ranks of European society and of organized states. Under him, and through his exertions, the Hungarian people became a western nation. ”

“ The ruler who had founded the new empire, who for nearly twenty years had directed the destinies of the nation with so much wisdom and energy, and in whom the glory of great statesmanship and generalship was united, had ceased to be amongst the living. His body was, according to ancient custom, burned and his ashes buried near a brook flowing at that time in a pebbly bed towards Etzelburg, the Old-Buda of to-day. His grateful descendants, after the introduction of Christianity, erected on that spot a church, called the White Church of the Virgin, in commemoration of the immortal prince. ”

“ When Gustavus Adolphus made his appearance in the West, achieving victories for Protestantism, the great Transylvanian prince was no more amongst the living; he died in 1629. Bethlen was, no doubt, one of the most conspicuous figures in the history of Hungary. Through his exertions little Transylvania moved, in politics, abreast of the most powerful European nations, and under him she became rich, powerful, and greatly advanced in culture, and a strong prop to the rest of the Hungarian nation. ”

“ They laid particular stress upon the fact that the nation, whilst adhering to the religion and customs of its ancestors, had been independent, strong, and mighty, and had even made the whole of Europe tremble; but that now, since it had adopted the religion and customs of the West, the nation was weakened by internal dissensions, strangers had become her masters, foreign armies had penetrated into the very heart of the country—nay, Hungary had lost her independence and had become the vassal of a foreign power. ”

“ During the intervals of rest, he liked to mingle with his soldiers. He would joke and be full of mischief with them, and, especially in his younger days, would often eat and drink with them. He always had a kind word for the men in the ranks, just as, in civil life, he was anxious to impress people that he held the great lord, the poor noble, and the peasant in equal esteem, as long as they proved themselves worthy of it. ”

“ They were zealous guardians of their kingdom and devout Christians, and they were wedded, heart and soul, to their nation, which beheld in its kings with feelings of delight the embodiment of its own best qualities. The imagination of the people soars towards them after the lapse of so many centuries, and loves to make their lofty forms the heroes of fabulous legends. Hence it is that the events recorded of them in the pages of the chronicles are nearly choked up by the ever-gorgeous poetical creations of the imagination of the people. ”

“ Hunyadi at first refused, but finally yielded to Kemény’s entreaties and handed him over his military equipments.
But he built his plan of battle upon this ruse: He ordered five hundred distinguished soldiers to be stationed near the person of the devoted officer, and he himself withdrew with his reserve and took up a position in a remoter spot. The following day the two armies engaged in battle. Every Turkish warrior sought the famous Hungarian hero; all were eager for the glory of capturing and killing him, and anxious to secure the prize set on his head. ”

“ The press, too, was fettered by the government, and thus, by degrees, public life in Hungary became torpid and stagnant, the adherents of reform were reduced to silence, and innovations had to bide their time. The reactionary government achieved a complete victory. It banished from the high offices even the most moderate men, and filled every place of importance with persons who delighted in relentlessly repressing every democratic impulse in Hungary. ”

“ The Danube alone interfered with the further advance of the Mongols. Two thirds of the realm had already fallen a prey to the fierce rage, greed, and brutal passions of the enemy. Whilst the Mongol Khan was dividing one half of the country, as conquered territory, into hundredths and tenths, and the people, lured from their hiding-places, lowered their necks, terror-stricken under the new yoke, Béla collected anew an army in the western part of the realm, and despatched ambassadors to the rulers of the western states. ”

“ The Wallachs, smarting under abuses of long standing, buoyed up by exaggerated expectations consequent upon the emperor’s innovations, and stirred up by evil-minded agitators, took to arms and perpetrated the most outrageous atrocities against their Hungarian landlords. The ignorant common people were assured by their leaders, Hora and Kloska, that the emperor himself sided with them. The Wallach insurgents assassinated the government’s commissioners sent to them, destroyed 60 villages and 182 gentlemen’s mansions, and killed 4,000 Hungarians, before they could be checked in their bloody work. ”

“ The Turks were decidedly averse to any augmentation of the power of the Hapsburgs by the acquisition of the Hungarian throne. They desired to see Hungary under a separate king of her own, and to accomplish this the Turks shrank from no sacrifices, and succeeded in embroiling the unfortunate country in continual wars. Unhappy Hungary was placed between the hammer and the anvil. The Turks were unwilling to yield, and the Hapsburgs, quite as reluctant to give up the country, were, nevertheless, unable to defend it. ”

“ From the list of the annual revenues of one of the Árpáds, Béla III., and those of the country in the twelfth century, which was submitted by him when asking for the hand of the daughter of the French king, the civilized West learned with amazement of the enormous wealth of the king ruling near the eastern confines of the Western world. The king’s wealth was but a reflex of the prosperity of the people. During the era of the Árpáds Hungary surpassed many a Western country in power and wealth, and in the work of civilization either kept pace with them or faithfully followed in their footsteps. ”

“ Köszeg alone refused to do homage, and arrested the sultan’s triumphal march. Michael Juricsics was its commander; he was just about to remove his small garrison, consisting of twenty-eight hussars and ten cuirassiers, to Vienna, for whose defence all the available forces were being called in, when the Turks appeared beneath the walls of Köszeg. On beholding the approach of the immense Turkish army, Juricsics took a bold and noble resolution. He determined to hold the fortress, and to die rather than surrender it to the enemy. ”