Hungarians

“ The very existence of the Kingdom of Hungary, of our own person, of our children and our crown is now at stake. Forsaken by all, we place our sole resource in the fidelity, arms and long-tried valor of the Hungarians ”

“ It is too strange, its elements are too wild, to be the exclusive product of a thoughtful, wise, believing, practical and civilized people; but the Hungarians have understood this art—they have surrounded it with love and respect. Gaining new life, warmth and vigor from the welcoming applause of Hungary, it belongs to her by virtue of her admiration and sympathetic tears. ”

“ I mixed exclusively in Hungarian society during my stay at the baths of Tusnad. With Baron —— and Herr von —— I talked politics by the hour. The Hungarians have the natural gift of eloquence. They pour forth their words like the waters of a mill-race, no matter in what language. My principal companion at Tusnad spoke French. The true Magyar will always employ that language in preference to German when speaking with a foreigner; but as often as not the Hungarians of good society speak English perfectly well. ”

“ All that for centuries past has been guaranteed to us by our constitution; all that each king of Hungary, as he came to the throne, has sworn to preserve inviolate. Sire, we will not become an Austrian province; we are Hungarians, and are resolved to retain our nationality. ”

“ The Hungarians are a martial people, and are fond of reciting their exploits. Every old guide in Pesth will tell you, in a variegated English which will provoke your smiles, all the incidents of the Hungarian revolution, the events of 1848 and 1849—how the Austrians were driven across the great bridge over the Danube, etc.—with infinite gusto. The humblest wharf-laborer takes a vital interest in the welfare of his country, even if he is not intelligent enough to know from what quarter hostilities might be expected. ”

“ He enchants the children of Hungary by his fairy-tales, and as they grow up into men and women he implants within them a passion for their native land and a knowledge of its splendid history such as only his poetic and dramatic pen could engrave upon their memory. His versatility of talent—for, besides being the Hungarian poet-laureate, he is a novelist, playwright, historian, and orator—enables the Hungarians to see in him their Heine, their Byron, their Walter Scott, and their Victor Hugo. ”

“ The Hungarians, although menaced, in their very existence, by many enemies, by party strife, and religious dissensions, exhibited such rare moral courage, heroism, devotion, self-denial, and manliness, that the memory of the generations of that melancholy era will remain forever hallowed. ”

“ The tract of territory which, on our maps, we describe as Hungary, is peopled by two distinct races of men;—the Hungarians, who inhabit the great plain of the Danube, of which Cormorn may be regarded as the centre; and the Slavonians, by whom the mountain districts are occupied, as well in Carpatia and Transylvania, as in Croatia and the rugged districts that border upon Styria. Of these, the Hungarians are not considered to amount to more than four millions of souls at the utmost; whereas the numbers of the Slavonians fall not short of six millions. ”

“ As is the case elsewhere, however, so has it happened here; the political institutions of the few have been imposed with a strong hand on the many; for the laws that prevail, as well as the machinery created to enforce them, are alike Hungarian. Yet the Hungarians are, so to speak, mere strangers in the land, who owe their original settlement there to the edge of the sword, and by the edge of the sword were long compelled to maintain it. ”

“ At the sound of those few words, "In the King's name," the door of the Assembly House was immediately opened; the formula acted like magic.
There are two words which are often written down together, "Emperor" and "King," wherein the outer world sees little difference, but for Hungarians there is all the difference in the world. For the Magyar, the first means only the foreign yoke, and all that it stands for; but the second represents that rightful regal authority which in Hungary never fails to win the loyalty and love of those to whom it appeals. ”

“ In Hungary it would appear that public opinion is generously receptive of new impulses, and in this particular the Hungarians resemble us, as they claim to do in many things, calling themselves "the English of the East."
"It is curious," said Baroness B—— to me one day, "that with all our respect for British institutions, and everything that is English, that we fail to copy their straight good sense. We have too many talkers, too few workers. We are not yet a money-making nation; we have no idea of serious work, and our spirit for business is not yet developed. ”

“ The Hungarian people are distinct in language and history from all their neighbors. In fact, the Hungarians differ in many respects from all the other people of Europe, the inhabitants of Finland being their nearest kinspeople. Their early history is unknown, but they came from western Asia where the Mongolians, the Turks and the Finn-Ugrians struggled for mastery about the beginning of the Christian era. ”

“ HUNGARIAN TYPES.
The population of the country is composed of various nationalities. The conquering Hungarians did not oppress the ancient inhabitants of the land but13 left them undisturbed in the use of their native language, and, even in later days, their tolerance went so far as to actually favor foreign, and, more particularly, German immigrants, and to this exceptional forbearance alone must be traced the survival of so many nationalities, and the lack of assimilation, after so many centuries. ”

“ The memory of oppression suffered from governments should never be imparted to nations, and children should never be hated, despised, or punished, because their fathers have sinned. We Hungarians wrestled for centuries with Turkey, and now we are friends, true friends, and natural allies against a common enemy. Several of my own ancestors lost their lives in Turkish wars, or their property in ransom out of Turkish captivity; yet to me it is a Turkish Sultan who saved my life and gave bread to thousands of my countrymen, which no other power did on earth. ”

“ But Pozsony is Pressburg, though there is nothing but your guide-book to let you know it. At one time in Hungary names of streets, etc., were put up in the two languages; now the German is all taken down and Magyar reigns supreme.
No national movement in Europe has of late years made such tremendous strides as Magyarism. The Hungarians have Home Rule, and mean to stick to it. The Emperor of Austria reigns only as King of Hungary. Hungary has its own Parliament, makes its own laws, and has its own postage-stamps. ”

“ MAGYARS, the name of the dominant race in Hungary, or Hungarians proper. Though they have become physically assimilated to the western peoples, they belong in origin and language to the Finno-Ugrian (q.v.) division of the Ural-Altaic race. They form barely half of the population of Hungary, but are by far the largest and most compact of all its racial groups. ”

“ It was in the tenth century that the Hungarians came from Asia, founded their state, and embraced Christianity, and were thus brought into contact with the Europe of the Middle Ages, and shared in its civilisation. ”

“ Like Austria, Hungary contains a mélange of races and nationalities. The original Hungarians are the Magyars, and by the Magyar element attempt has been made always to preserve as against the affiliated German and Slavic peoples an absolute superiority of social, economic, and political power. ”

“ It is quite true that the seat of government should be in this division of the Empire, which is little less in area than all the other divisions put together. The Hungarians are a more progressive, enterprising, more modern race than the Austrian in certain respects; on the other hand, they still have much savagery in their blood; they have been so shut out from personal competition with the higher civilizations of Europe that they have too rich a soil for the seeds of degeneration. ”

“ Religious faith being always open to outside or foreign influence, it was but natural that the Hungarians, in that long march from the interior of Asia into Europe, should have borrowed many novel features from the religious life of the countries through which they passed. ”

“ The Slavonic populations in the north-west of the empire are parted asunder from those in the south-east by the Hungarians, who came in from the east, and are of a different stock, and who have succeeded in establishing the federated kingdom of Hungary. ”

“ The Magyars are the natives of Hungary. The chief population [146] of this country is composed of a people who came from Asia under the name of Magyars, and who were, it would seem, a tribe of the Huns. Hungary is believed to have been populated by some of the savage companions of Attila, the terrible king of the Huns, known as the “Scourge of God.”
63.—HUNGARIANS.
The Magyars are distinct from other people in their language and costumes. ”

“ For, the Hungarians always were, and to the present moment still are, the only nation on the continent who maintained an amount of political liberty and self·government quite unknown to the rest of continental Europe, particularly in the last two centuries. ”

“ This form of oath was for a long time a custom in Hungary. The union of the Hungarians was based upon the following five conditions:
1. As long as they and their progeny after them shall live, their duke and ruler shall be always taken from the house of Álmos.
2. Whatever should be acquired by the united strength of all must benefit all those who belonged to them.
3. The chiefs of the people having voluntarily elected Álmos for their ruler, they and their descendants shall always take part in the councils of the prince, and shall have their share in the honors of the empire. ”

“ The Hungarians are the descendants of one of those eastern hordes whom the Mongols, in their progress southward, drove from their homes; and who, breaking through Russia, and traversing a large extent of Poland, won a settlement for themselves late in the ninth century, near the sources of the Theiss. ”

“ In the choice of his subject the poet was influenced partly by family tradi­tions, and partly by the similarity of his own life to that of his hero.
The poem opens with a scene in Heaven. The Hungarians, through their civil dissensions, have roused the wrath of God, who resolves to chastise them by sending the Turks upon them. In the end, Zrinyi sacrifices himself for the Hungarians, and when he sees that the fortress cannot hold out any longer, sallies forth for one last fierce conflict, slays the Sultan, and dies with all his heroic comrades. ”

“ Fiercely as the Hungarians demand full play for their own nationality, yet they would stamp it out in the lesser races within their borders, who just as eagerly demand their own rights. Never was any country so split up and divided, and the difficulty is increased by the fact that the political boundaries are not coterminous with the national ones, but in many cases the frontiers run through the middle of the same race, so that half of it lies within and half without the territory owning Francis Joseph as sovereign! ”

“ The Poles and Hungarians have also sent their industrial productions to the Great Exhibition; cloth, lace, furniture, brooms, linens, woollens, and other articles. I dare say you have heard a good deal lately about the Hungarians, when they were fighting against the Austrians and Russians. The Hungarian peasants are very hard-working ”

“ The news of the ignominious defeat reached Sultan Murat at Adrianople; he was greatly incensed, and swore dire vengeance against the Hungarians. He summoned before him his brother-in-law, entrusted to his command eighty thousand men, and ordered him to invade Hungary, to lay every thing waste with fire and steel, and to annihilate Hunyadi and his army. The Turkish commander, letting201 loose his Tartars, entered Hungary quite suddenly through Wallachia. The frontier is here formed by gigantic mountains, and but narrow passes lead from one country into the other. ”

“ The various races that live within the confines of Austria proper are of mild and somewhat timid disposition, but the Hungarians are fierce and cruel.
Many peasants, who own considerable wealth in the shape of land, that has come down to them from their fathers, have never seen a gold coin, nor even possessed a 15s. banknote in their lives. Very little gold circulates in Austria or Hungary at any time, the people preferring notes. Apart from this, however, many peasants never handle money. ”

“ Fifteen thousand Hungarians202 were opposed, on that occasion, to eighty thousand Turks, inured to war, well trained, and accustomed to victory. The Turkish Janissaries, whose impenetrable line never broke, were annihilated; the cavalry, the far-famed Spahis, were scattered; and the whole Turkish army was in part massacred and in part put to disorderly flight. The meanest portion only saved themselves by running away; the best of the warriors perished, for the Turkish troops were by no means lacking in personal courage. ”

“ In no other poetry of the time is the note of love for the Fatherland so powerful and so fundamental. With other peoples the feeling of national unity was still lying dormant, while in Hungary it moved the heart of the nation with the unconscious but mighty force of an universal instinct. The fire of the Turkish wars only served to make this element in the Hungarian character as strong as iron; and the development, in the sixteenth century, of the feeling of nationality, was one of the most important phases of the evolution through which the nation's mind has passed. ”

“ Every European people has its own special gift. Greece and Italy have the gift of art; Rome has law England political liberty and the power of planting colonies; Germany has metaphysics and scientific method; while France is distinguished by good taste. Hungary's endowment was a strong sense of nationality, that is to say, the desire to found and to maintain a state which knitted the people into an organic whole. Simultaneously with the growth of the national spirit, and lending it strong support, arose the nation's literature. ”