Stephen I of Hungary

“ Stephen’s chief aim was to enhance the royal power by rendering it as independent as he possibly could of restrictions on the part of the nation, and to introduce such institutions as would prove most efficacious in the defence of the integrity and unity of nation and country. He left the nobility—the descendants of those who had taken possession of the soil at the conquest of Hungary—in the undisturbed enjoyment of their ancient privileges ”

“ Stephen, so called from one which had, in the year 1000, been presented by Pope Sylvester II to Stephen, the second Christian Duke, and first King of Hungary. A crown and a cross were given to him for his coronation, which took place in the Church of the Holy Virgin, at Alba Regale, also called in German Weissenburg, where thenceforth the kings of Hungary were anointed to begin their troubled reigns, and at the close of them were laid to rest beneath the pavement, where most of them might have used the same epitaph as the old Italian leader: "He rests here, who never rested before." ”

“ Sire, I repeat to you that Hungary is advancing either toward ruin or revolution. Like the Netherlanders, we will defend our constitution or die with it. Oh, your majesty, all can yet be remedied! Call a convention of the states—return the crown of St. Stephen, and come to Hungary to take the coronation oath. Then you will see how gladly we shall swear allegiance to our king, and how cheerfully we will die for him, as our fathers did before us, in defence of the empress-queen, his mother. ”

“ Shortly after, a war broke out between Denmark and Sweden, and Olaf, believing, perhaps, that the boys were unsafe in the North, where Knute’s power was so great, transferred them to Buda, to the care of Stephen, King of Hungary.
It was a happy home for them. Stephen, the first king of Hungary, was a most noble character, a conqueror and founder of a kingdom, humble, devout, pious, and so charitable that he would go about in disguise, seeking for distressed persons. ”

“ You see no grapes and hanging ribbons in Belgrade and Sofia. They will come there next year or in 1923. The Hungarian women are broad-faced and broad-bosomed, and talk more than they smile. City madam in elegant attire with languorous half-shut eyes and Hungarian drawl is a man's darling. Flesh-coloured stockings greatly abound. One is, however, strongly advised not to judge of Hungary by the people who spend four or five hours of the day sitting in the cafés of Budapest. The poor parts of the city present a different spectacle. ”

“ His father had married him while still a youth (c. 1255) to Elizabeth, daughter of the Rumanian chieftain Roteny, with a view to binding the Rumanians (who could put in the field 16,000 men; see Hungary: History) more closely to the dynasty in the then by no means improbable contingency of a second Tatar invasion. The lady was duly baptized and remained a Christian; but the adversaries of Stephen, especially Ottakar II. of Bohemia, affected to believe that Stephen was too great a friend of the Rumanians to be a true Catholic. ”

“ Silvester at the same time sent Stephen a consecrated crown, and approved of the erection of an independent Hungarian church, divided into the two provinces of Esztergom and Bacs. But the power of pagan Hungary could not be broken in a day. The focus of the movement was the Maros region, where the rebel Ajtony built the fortress of Marosvar. The struggle proceeded for more than twenty-five years, the difficulties of Stephen being materially increased by the assistance rendered to the rebels by the Greek emperors, his neighbours since their reconquest of Bulgaria. ”

“ If we have not the courage to do so now, let us be quiet, and not try to screen ourselves behind a petty squabble in the Austrian capital."
"I," said Rakoczy, in his musical voice, "am a Magyar of the Magyars. I fight against Ferdinand the emperor, who takes from us our privileges; but Ferdinand the king is the lawful ruler of Hungary, and when he restores our rights I shall hold that man a traitor who raises his voice against him."
"Well spoken!" cried Stephen.--"And now, Count Beula, President of the Committee and slaughterer of old men, you know what at least three Hungarians think." ”

“ They are quite implacable, and they are a fighting people. There is no good will. On the contrary, there is definite ill-will on the part of Hungary towards her neighbours. Austria is soft towards the new nations which have arisen on the ruins of her empire, but Hungary is hard.
To the Serb, the enmity of the Magyar is disconcerting. By crossing the Danube, Serbia has become genuinely part of Europe; she has turned her back on the Balkans and the eternal strife on barren empty hills. The new Serbia can afford to forget and forgive Bulgaria, now a remote sort of country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One feels that Hungary, however, is a rich country even as she stands to-day, and that the people have sterling qualities which make for the recuperation of the new State. There is still a love of work in the country, and that is comparatively a rare virtue in modern Europe. The working class, as in Germany, feels that it lost the war and cannot expect extra fine conditions. The Hungarian working man outworks and therefore undersells or can undersell the English working man. The nation whose working men are ready to do most work is the most fortunate in 1921. ”

“ Serbia becomes conscious of a European destiny, but Hungary avers that a large stretch of Hungarian territory has been torn from Europe and is being Balkanized, despoiled of the old comfort and civilization of the Austro-Hungarian State and made dirty and inefficient by Slavs.
Every one blames some one else in this part of the world. ”

“ If Hungary can avoid indemnities and export taxes she is likely to do well. The Government will no doubt undergo many changes, and most people believe that the King is bound to come back. By popular vote he probably would—just as Constantine did in the Greek elections. But external opposition is too great. If Czechs and Serbs quarrelled it would be different. International animosity and the general ill-will militate most against the peaceful development of the new Hungary. ”

“ So, my lads, you've come to join the army? Well, there's one thing; your father's sons will never show the men how to run away."
"One moment, general," said Stephen. "Can you tell me what we're supposed to be fighting for?"
Görgei looked from my brother to Rakoczy, who said,--
"In truth, general, things seem a little bit mixed. Over in Vienna they talk as if we wanted to set up a republic."
"A republic?" cried Görgei. "What stuff! Haven't they read history? Don't they know that Hungary is royalist to the core? ”

“ Stephen’s munificence was not confined to his own realm, and numerous memorials of his beneficence and generosity are still preserved in foreign lands. As soon as Christianity had gained a firm foothold in the land, and the Hungarian people felt no more as strangers in the family of Christian nations, the natives, either singly or in larger numbers, began to journey to the revered cities of Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. ”

“ Rather let Hungary become an Austrian fief than that Magyar should destroy Magyar."
"The other side doesn't study that."
"All the more reason why we should. How would you like to help the Austrians burn down Pesth, because Louis Kossuth was inside it?"
Stephen turned away with a shudder. "It seems that we must tie our own hands," he remarked gloomily.
"You've hit it exactly; but we can untie them to fight against the enemy. By the way, our acquaintance, Baron von Arnstein, is dead." ”

“ The kingdom of Hungary is called the realm of St. Stephen to this day, the Hungarian kings are still crowned with the crown of St. Stephen, and the nation acknowledges only him to be its king whose temples have been touched by the sacred crown. The Catholic Church in Hungary although it no more occupies its former pre-eminent position in the state, still retains enough of power, wealth, and splendor to bear ample testimony to the lavish liberality of St. ”

“ Budapest no doubt will always win friends for the country of which it is the capital. Capitals can be of enormous service to states in the matter of silent propaganda. A handsome comfortable city of impressive buildings will always predispose foreigners in favour of the country itself. On the other hand, an inadequate capital will be a hindrance to a state. In this respect, Belgrade, as it is to-day, is a handicap to Jugo-Slavia. But Budapest will help Hungary enormously. ”

“ The brilliant successes so rapidly achieved by Stephen during the first years of his reign secured the triumph of Christianity and of the royal authority in the western half of the country only. The adherents of the ancient faith and liberty still remained in a majority in the eastern, more-thinly79 peopled regions beyond the Theiss and in Transylvania. Gyula, the duke of Transylvania, and the uncle of Stephen, was not slow in protesting against the new kingdom and the innovations coupled with it. The rebellion failed, as we have already seen. ”

“ Serbia and Hungary are not on good terms. The Hungarians will not forgive the loss to Serbia of territory over which they claim to have ruled for a thousand years. Hungary will not forgive the Czechs or the Roumanians either. They have been mightily despoiled by the nations. Roumania has doubled her original territory at old Hungary's expense. Czechoslovakia holds Pressburg, the ancient capital and coronation-city of the Hungarian kings, and calls it Bratislavl. ”

“ The German Church—except in the abortive attempt made by Bishop Pilgrin—had contributed but little to the conversion of the Hungarian people, and it could therefore lay no claim to exercise any authority over the Church of Hungary. Nor had the German kings done any thing to assist Geyza and Stephen in their attempts at conversion. Stephen had before him the example of his brother-in-law, Boleslas of Poland, who had but recently applied to the papal see for the bestowal of the royal crown, in order to secure the independence of his position as a ruler and that of the Church in his realm. ”

“ Stephen did all in his power to aid the work of the German missionaries; Hungary was divided into dioceses, and the originally eastern origin of the Hungarian Church, as well as the Sclavonic origin of the people, forgotten under the desire felt by the king to keep on a friendly footing with the German emperors and the Popes. ”

“ Hungary, however, would stand little chance against three combined. So with great zest the new combination was formed. Certainly the warmest national friendship in the Near East to-day is that between Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo-Slavia, and it has been called into being by the common danger of the Magyar.
Budapest is a handsome city with grand bridges spanning the bending Danube. The fashionable part climbs upwards on crags to the higher light, and the Danube flashes upward. The modern city is a first-class aggregation of business houses, cafés, and places of pleasure. There is pavement comfort. ”

“ He, however, still continued his operations, and levied an army for the invasion of Hungary, and a fierce and bloody war of races broke out, marked on both sides by the most fearful atrocities.
The Hungarian Diet was opened on the 5th of July, when the Palatine, Archduke Stephen, in the name of the king, solemnly denounced the conduct of the insurgent Croats. A few days after, Kossuth, in a speech in the Diet, set forth the perilous state of affairs, and concluded by asking for authority to raise an army of 200,000 men, and a large amount of money. ”

“ Stephen Széchenyi was born on the 21st of September, 1791. He was the scion of a family which had given many distinguished men to their country, and with whom patriotism was traditional. His father, Count Francis, was the founder of the greatest institute of Hungary, having public culture for its aim, the National Museum of Buda-Pesth, which is now reckoned one of the finest and richest of the kind in Europe. Count Francis clung with passionate devotion to the cause of his country. ”

“ His face became quite sad, his eyes were dim, and when he spoke his voice was husky.
"Hungary owes that, as she owes almost everything else in modern years, to as true a patriot as ever lived," he said softly. "You did not know Count Stephen Szechenyi?"
"Only by repute," I answered.
"No; his best work was done before your time. He was Hungary's great man, George. Kossuth, Batthiany, and Görgei have simply entered into the fruits of his labour. He built the foundations sure, and firm, and strong. It was in '25 that he rose in the Diet, and addressed the assembly in the Magyar tongue ”

“ The Slovaks of Hungary are not immigrants, and no authoritative historian has successfully disputed their claim to priority as one of the earliest inhabitants of the Kingdom of St. Stephen.
Down to the middle of the last century no one of the languages spoken by the different racial elements in Hungary acquired predominance. For the purposes of every-day life each race was free to use its mother tongue. ”