EMERIC SZABAD'S HUNGARY PAST AND PRESENT. * UNLESS the influence of
a nation upon the progress of the world is so obvious as to interest from association alone, let its acts and actors be treated how they may, every history ought to illustrate some social or political principle. If it do not read a lesson some way or other, the events connected with it, instead of a series, be- come a number of disjointed incidents, striking possibly in them- selves, but without attraction to distant readers, at least in the form of history. " Brave men lived before Agamemnon "; but they have been forgotten, not so much because they had no poet, as be- cause they did not deserve to have one. Their exploits were result- less as regards the world at large, the deeds those of a tribe rather than a people.
Something of this feeling is produced by the work before us, and by most of the histories of Hungary that we have seen. With one or two brilliant exceptions, probably exaggerated after the fashion of traditions that carry a people from a mournful present to a golden past, Hungarian story is a scene of violence and con- tention for a thousand years. Her first century, from A.D. 889 to A.D. 1000, was perhaps the most vigorous of the whole. The energy which carried the Magyars or Mongul Tartars across the steppes of Asia and the difficult country between the Caucasus and the Car- pathians, was not exhausted by the conquest of the region they settled in. The invaders proceeded North and West to ravage if not subdue ; favoured as much, however, by the degraded and weakened condition of Europe as by their own power, till they were fatally defeated by Otho the Great, A.D. 995, under the walls of Augsburg. The eleventh century opened with the accession of Stephen, the Alfred of Hungary, the elevation of the Duke of Hungary to the rank of King by the authority of the Pope, and the so-called conversion of the people to Christianity. This was the traditional golden age of Hungary; but it passed away alto- gether, if not with Stephen, with his son Ladislaus, who died in 1095. To the internal confusion arising from the unsettled state of society, an imperfect amalgamation of races, and the power of a nobility feudal in fact if not in form, were added the disorders that sprang from the Crusades. With the opening of the fourteenth century began the accession of foreign dynasties to the crown of Hungary ; which, with a short interval, has continued for more than five centuries. For nearly a hundred and fifty years (from 1301 to 1444) a scion of the house of Anjou occupied the throne ; for eighty-two years more the native dynasty of the Hunyadis ruled the country, or at least such portion of it as the Turks had not occupied. With 1526 began the attempts and then the rule of the house of Hapsburg, which has continued to our time.
Throughout this long period, the mind seeks in vain for some leading or satisfactory principle, to account for the subordinate position which a gallant people like the Hungarians have so long filled, and the long struggle they have made to establish their na- tionality. Great inferiority of strength does not explain it. The Hungarians with the Transylvanians are a numerous people ; Hungary, though generally flat, is defensible by its marshes and woods, Transylvania by its mountains. Hungary was stronger than Scotland, both absolutely in itself and in comparison with its neighbours ; and certainly no monarch of the house of Anjou or of Hapsburg can compare with Edward the First or several of his successors, who tried by policy or force to bend Scotland to their purposes : yet, while Hungarian independence was casual, Scottish freedom was continuous. An allowance must be made for the Turks hanging on the Hungarian rear—more for a country not thoroughly subdued, perhaps, by its original invaders, with two races that are not even yet amalgamated, and religious dissension. Still there is a want of unity of subject as well as of a " satisfying reason," which, though perhaps discoverable in original authorities, is not found in any compiled history of Hungary, or indeed of any of the adjacent countries we have met with, except Ranke's Servia. Though Emeric Szabad's volume is deficient in explanatory cir- cumstances as it were, it is a very clear, succinct, and even inte- resting narrative of the events of Hungarian history ; and in this sense it may be safely recommended, at least up to the commence- ment of the late troubles. The author skilfully arranges his sub- ject into its leading divisions ; he selects those events which are characteristic of the period, as well as influential upon the future; his sketches of character, like his judgment upon events, is tinged,
• Hungary Past and Present: embracing its History from the Magyar Conquest to the Present Time. With a Sketch of Hungarian Literature. By Emeric Szabad, late Secretary under the Hungarian National Government of 1849. Published by Blacks, Edinburgh. of course, with national feelings, but he is more free to admit de- fects in his own people than virtues in their enemies. The narra- tive of the late insurrection is the fullest, but the least able portion of the book. The feelings of the partisan are too obvious, and pushed to an extreme. Whatever judgment may be passed upon the conduct of Gorgey in the last campaign, when the whole avail- able strength of Russia and Austria was thrown upon Hungary, it is absurd to depreciate his early energy or to deny his military merits. An incapable commander could not have baffled the Aus- trians as he did; and all tales of wonderful subordinates winning battles in spite of their commanders must be received with caution.
Although the injury of the Turkish wars and forays to Hun- garian independence was considerable, it should be observed that the Turk generally was more favourable to the cause of Hungarian independence than the Austrian ; possibly from political motives against the latter. The Sultan was also far more tolerant of Christianity than the Pope or the Emperor was of Protestantism.
"It would be improper here to pass over in silence the tolerant spirit of the zealous votaries of the Prophet, at a time when Popery, under the name of Christianity, sent forth in its defence such apostles as the Granvelles and the Alvas, and attempted to drown its adversaries in the blood of massacres like that of the Eve of St. Bartholomew. While the unsteady and ever- changing tolerance of Maximilian in Germany and in his hereditary domi- nions laid bare the false foundation on which it rested, the Mussulman governors in Hungary, with their watchword, 'There is no God but God, and Mehemet is his prophet,' looked down with a spirit of Oriental pride and magnanimity at the religious disputes of those who lay prostrate and broken under their arms. The pashas, though wanton in the extortion of taxes and provisions, referred the quarrels of Protestants and Catholics living in their districts to impartial tribunals, composed of Catholics and Protestants. The Gospel and the Koran were read in the same sanctuaries ; the same walls that heard the.name of Christ daily repeated resounded with the name of Allah ; and the churches became at last so crowded with the followers of the Prophet that some of the more sanguine Christians anticipated their speedy conversion."
Notwithstanding the cruelties practised by the Austrian generals after the late insurrection, and the oppression to which the Hun- garians have lately been subjected by Austrian officials, the treat- ment of the country seems to have improved. Of course the vio- lence and brutalities of the middle ages could not be ventured upon now; indeed, men could hardly be found in Germany to perpetrate them ; but the relative tyranny was greater, with less provo- cation.
"'Your Majesty's foreign auxiliaries,' say the States of the Diet of 1602, 'take possession of towns, villages, country-seats, and other private proper- ties, divide them among themselves, and, in addition, treat the natives as slaves on their own soil. Churches are broken open, tombs are searched, corpses disinterred and robbed of their funeral attire ; women and young maidens carried away by force from their husbands and parents, and only restored in consideration of heavy ransoms, after having been brutally de- filed. Hungary, once rich, brave, and strong, is now sunk into deep mourn- ing, not so much because of the Turks and Tartars, whose rule, though bit- ter, is endurable, but on account of the unpunished licentiousness and ex- tortions of your Majesty's auxiliaries.' Remembering that this language proceeded from the so-called Austrian party, a body numbering among its members many who owed their rank and titles of counts or magnates to the Hapsburgs, a fair estimate may be formed of the paternal rule of Rudolph, and his anxiety to free Hungary from the oppressive rule of the Otto- mans!"
In any speculation upon Hungarian history, it should always be borne in mind that Hungary, if she has " writ her annals true," had a constitution and a representative assembly two centuries be- fore Magna Charts, and a still longer period before the English Parliament was actually established. How much of this consti- tution may have been exaggerated by ignorance and tradition, or how far Stephen only shaped what was already existing, does not appear, and perhaps cannot be ascertained.
No sooner did the Apostolic crown arrive in Hungary, than Vaik wa4 crowned king, under the name of Stephen. The first care of this King was to continue his ecclesiastical organization ; which consisted in the establish- ment of the archbishopric of Gran, the nomination of other bishops, and the rapid building of churches and cloisters. As an Apostolic King, Stephen was the head of the Hungarian church, presiding over the synods, and deter- mining certain ecclesiastical usages. " Of much more importance were his political measures. The whole coun- try was divided into counties, each of them governed by a lord-lieutenant and a sheriff nominated by the crown—an arrangement which necessarily overthrew the power formerly enjoyed by the chiefs of the tribes. The office of viceroy was represented by a palatine, who served as a mediator between the king and the people. Stephen instituted also a state council, consisting of the barons, the high clergy, and the middle-class nobility or milites. These milites, similar to the English yeomanry, enjoyed their privileges in consequence of their military service, from which even the clergy were not exempt. The unprivileged class was called Jobbagiones; a term applied at a later period to the serfs, though at that time the slaves or serfs were an en- tirely distinct class. In the assembly of nobles convoked by the King in the year 1010, Hungary received its first written laws, known by the name of the Decrete of St. Stephen, and which consisted of civil, ecclesiastical, and criminal statutes. In regard to the latter, it will be enough to mention, that treason was pronounced the first of crimes, and punished with death or banishment. Perjury was sometimes punished with the loss of a hand, or a heavy fine in cattle; a circumstance sufficiently proving the scarcity of money, though coin was struck in the reign of this king."
Previous page
