JOHN HUNYADI: Hungary in American History Textbooks

Árpád's name never mentioned. Regarding Magyar conquest of the Carpathian basin in A.D. 896, Greaves provides a detailed accounting of the particulars that induced them to make the move. Others generally give the date only.

Saint Stephen and the other medieval kings of Hungary are usually unmentioned with few exceptions. Concerning the first 600 years of Hungary's history, all authors seem to agree that the defeat of a Magyar raiding party in 955 by the Lech river was a preeminent date. The Christianization of Hungary, beginning with the 973 Quedlinburg peace treaty between Otto the Great and Grand Prince Géza, and the coronation of his son, St. Stephen in A.D. 1,000 goes unmentioned. Later on Greaves, Kagan, and Kishlansky mentions St. Stephen's crown, but only in relation to the Habsburg successions, never mentioning who St. Stephen was. The Árpád dynasty, stretching from 996 to 1312, received only a single oblique reference; by Kishlansky who mentions that "Charles Robert of Anjou became king of Hungary after the extinction of the realm's ancient royal dynasty". Greaves takes note that the Angevins won the Hungarian crown but mentions no name. In fact, Charles Robert was maternally related to the House of Árpád. So did most royal dynasties of Europe. St. Margaret of Scotland, for instance, was the granddaughter of St. Stephen of Hungary. Kishlansky also mentions the name of the son of Charles Robert, Louis the Great, under whose reign Hungary has reached its zenith. The other authors made no such reference.

Hunyadi's name appears only once. Greaves mentions that the father of king Matthias Corvinus was "the great military leader János Hunyadi, who had successfully repulsed the Turks." Again, Greaves is the only one who writes about Matthias Corvinus, whose Renaissance court rivaled any in Europe.

The battle of Mohács is mentioned by all authors except Perry. The lack of military support from Christian powers in this cricial battle, that was caused by the conflict between Emperor Charles V and the holy alliance, France, Milan, Venice and Pope Clement (Treaty of Cognac, May 22, 1526) is unmentioned. No one describes the details, for instance the application of intense concentrated artillery fire in battle, which was perhaps a first in the Gunpowder Revolution. In Hungary's history this was the most cataclysmic event until the Trianon peace treaty in 1920.

Not one of the great leaders of Hungary's history named anywhere with the sole exception of Prince Ferenc Rákóczi who was mentioned by Greaves. Elsewhere, the Zrinyi-s, Bocskay, the Rákóczi-s, and Gabriel Bethlen are unmentioned. Hungarian leaders are impersonally referred to as "the Hungarian nobles" throughout these books. Greaves points out that Hungary's nobility was Protestant. "The nobles" are generally presented as being almost congenitally inclined toward revolting against their Habsburg kings. Greaves elsewhere mentions the spread of Protestantism into Hungary, Kagan dismisses it by referring to the "equally zealous Calvinism of the Magyar nobles" and goes on to mention that Leopold I "suppressed a long rebellion of his new Magyar subjects between 1703 and 1711." The name of the Hungarian leader, Prince Francis Rákóczi II, is not mentioned. Kishlansky mentions that after 1618 "fear of Ferdinand's policies led to Protestant uprising in Hungary". McNeill states that "in both Poland and Hungary, also, Calvinism had a considerable success" but qualifies in, incorrectly that it happened "mainly among the nobility". The facts were that behind the Ottoman border Calvinism spread freely among the common people, and that "the nobles" mentioned here were popular leaders of Hungary's version of the Thirty Years' War: Protestant Hungary against arch-Catholic Habsburgs. Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania, was a signatory to the Peace of Westphalia.

With regard to the Magyar nobility, one must recall that in Hungary an unusually large segment of the population were nobles. The whole nation of Szeklers received nobility in payment for their service in protecting the eastern borders. Nobility was inherited by all descendants, not only the first born son, as in England. Many of these nobles were poor. Kishlansky refers to them correctly as "sandaled nobility". At least, they enjoyed freedom from taxation. During the Turkish wars many noble titles, if not land grants, were given for military valor both in the kingdom of Hungary and in the Principality of Transylvania. (According to Captain John Smith, the Virginia colonist, he received a noble title in Transylvania for fighting against the Turks and "cutting the head off three of them". His crest of arms, according to him, pictured the heads, -a common practice at the time. He named a Virginia lake after "Three Turks Head" in commemoration.) It may be mentioned also that there was little strife between nobles and peasants in Hungary after the Dózsa revolt in 1514, which Kishlansky mentions. Nobles and peasants held together against the two enemies: Turks and Austrians. "Between two pagans, for a single country", as Miklós Zrinyi (the younger) wrote. Many peasants were known to pay rent to their escaped noble landlords during the Turkish occupation, who moved north to carry on the fight.

Transylvania's history during the Ottoman times is not mentioned by any of the authors. This, perhaps, is the greatest discrepancy between American and Hungarian historiography. The so called "Golden Age of Transylvania" is blanked out, certainly to the great distress of all Hungarian readers.

Kossuth received various treatments in the textbooks, but not the lionization he got during his celebrated American visit after the war. Kagan even includes a picture of him. His revolution, on the other hand, is not treated in an evenhanded matter. Greaves claims that the various minorities rapidly alienated on account of the Magyars attempt at racial hegemony.

Kagan believes that the "emancipated serf had little reason to support the revolutionary movement."[103] He also dismisses the war by stating that "the magyar nobles attempted one last revolt." In fact, the Emperor did grant the wishes of the Hungarian Diet; - an independent Government was authorized and set up, units of the army stationed in Hungary reported to the Hungarian Minister of Defense, the country peacefully adjusted to the changes until a Habsburg palace coup forced Emperor Ferdinand out of office, installed Francis Joseph in power, and the new regime attacked Hungary. In the beginning, imperial armies, all sworn to a king, fought each other. Kishlansky admits that the Magyars initially defeated the Habsburg troops, but does not mention Kossuth and his program. McNeill does not discuss the subject at all. Perry claims that "Magyars intended to incorporate lands inhabited by Serbs, Slovaks, and Rumanians into their kingdom", contrary to the fact, that the revolution was an internal affair of the kingdom of Hungary. The mentioned minorities have, with the possible exception of the Slovaks, immigrated into Hungarian territories long after the country has been established. Perry also makes a great issue of the Magyarization program, even quotes R. W. Seton-Watson,[104] which tells it all.

If the implications were true that Hungary's fight was lost on account of the resistance of its minorities to aggressive Magyarization, this would have been quite well known at the time. Kossuth would not have been invited to address the United States Congress on January 7, 1852, a honor accorded only to Lafayette before him. After his speech, Secretary of State Daniel Webster said: "Hungary stands out above her neighbors in all that respects free institutions, constitutional government and a hereditary love of liberty." Meanwhile, large scale colonization of Hungary by Germans was encouraged. Julian Chownitz wrote in his Handbook for Emigrants to Hungary[105]: "in the recent past Hungary was conquered by German arms. Germany is overpopulated. Masses emigrate to the United States. Instead, it is more advantageous to move to Hungary, because the Imperial Government grants benefits and complete freedom to immigrants. In the past Hungarians have received everything that is good from the Germans. Hungarians were still wandering around the Dniester when in the land of present Hungary German towns were already flourishing. Because of this, immigrating Germans should not consider themselves to be guests; the Hungarians should not be considered hosts, because they are simply backward natives." As a secret presidential emissary, well known American social reformer Charles Lornig Brace (1826-90) was sent to Hungary to establish contact with the freedomfighters in hiding. His report was published as a book: Hungary in 1951, New York, 1952. It depicted Hungary as the beacon of freedom, under despotic yoke. Almost fifty years of propaganda by the likes of Seton-Watson, Henry Wickham Steed, and Thomas Masaryk, was required to change this perception. These were discussed in the Introduction.

Horthy's name evokes wide differences of opinion. Greaves goes as far as claiming that "the first nation to adopt dictatorial government was Hungary which turned to Admiral Miklós Horthy". In fact, it was a constitutional, parliamentary system in which the powers of the Regent, Horthy, were rather limited. Kagan, on the other hand mentions Horthy without any such slander. Kishlansky does not mention Horthy but describes Hungary's territorial grievances after W.W.I. McNeill does not mention Horthy either and he glances over the matter of Hungary's dismemberment with a statement that "rival nationalities disputed rights to nearly every territory and province". Perry provides a rather fair accounting of Horthy and his governments. Placed in a very difficult position as the constitutional leader of a defeated, mutilated country in total ecenomic ruin, Horthy and his government was a stellar economic success by the beginning of the Great Depression. But he had four groups of mortal enemies: First of all, were the emigrant leaders and sympathizers of the 1919 Soviet regime. Some of these came to the United States (e.g. Oscar Jaszi) and kept up the anti-Horthy propaganda. Others of the same ilk have gone to Moscow and became the leaders for the Soviet terror regime during the 1950's. (Namely: Rákosi, Gerö, Vas, Munnich, and others.) One of their publication, Horthy's Secret Documents, was a complete fabrication, yet it has found its way into American scholarly works[106]. Second, the official propagandists of the Successor States, who were worried about Hungary reclaiming her lost territories. They have maintained a constant propaganda barrage against Hungary, and her Regent. Thirdly, a significant share of Hungary's Jews turned bitter against Hungary as a result of the 1944 deportations to Auswitz, and they blamed Horthy, the leader. To document that this blame is misplaced one may quote Adolf Eichmann: "resistance [to the deportations] in Hungary was offered by Horthy and his close associates"[107]. Raoul Wallenberg wrote similarly: "His [Horthy's] position is illustrated by the very real fact that the deportations were canceled per his order, but also by a number of smaller interventions. Among them, two verified instances of trains loaded with prisoners being ordered to turn back just before reaching the border. That Horthy's power is a factor to be reckoned with is shown by the fact that while the above mentioned trainload of intellectuals was sent across the border, the entire Jewish Council was detained by the Gestapo, so that they would not be able to report the matter to the head of state, who was judged to have enough power to order the train to turn back." [108] Lastly, admirers the short-lived Hungarian Nazi regime, that deposed Horthy when his attempt at armistice failed in October, 1944, hated Horthy for turning against Hitler. The combined effects of these disparate groups' anti-Horthy brainwashing in the news media and Western academic publications are deep-rooted.

Summing it up, Hungary's 1,100 year history received a rather scanty coverage in the reviewed books. Using our improvised rating system based on the Columbia Encyclopedia quotations, none of the book rate six on a scale of twenty. One wonders, why?

Herodotus tells us that the Persians thought that they were the best, that those nations bordering on them were next best, that those nations bordering on the nations bordering on them were the third best, an so on, their worth declining as the concentric circles were farther from the Persian center. Did American history writers follow the rule of the ancient Persians? Or is British historian Norman Davies[109] right when he wrote that "Historians most given to thinking of themselves as from "the West" -notably from England, France, Germany, and North America- rarely see any necessity to describe Europe's past in its entirety. They see no more reason to consider the countries of Eastern Europe then to dwell on the more westerly parts of Western Europe." ... "In many such works there is no Portugal, no Ireland, Scotland or Wales, and no Scandinavia, just as there is no Poland, no Hungary, no Bohemia, ..." Davies goes on: "By taking transient contemporary divisions, such as the Iron Curtain, as a standing definition of `West' and `East', one is bound to distort any description of Europe in earlier periods. Poland is neatly excised from the Renaissance, Hungary from the Reformation, Bohemia from industrialization, Greece from the Ottoman experience. More seriously, one deprives a large part of Europe of its true historical personality, with immeasurable consequences in the miscalculations of diplomats, business people, and academics."

But Davies, in his 1365 page Europe scarcely gives more attention to the history of Hungary than any or the reviewed American authors. He would probably fail the test of the selected items from the Columbia Encyclopedia. True, he spends a whole page on the magnificence of King Matthias' renaissance library, the Corvina, and gives testimony to the stellar qualities of Tokay wine. But he claims (p. 934) that in 1919 the Hungarian national government requested that the Romanians occupy Hungary against the Communist government in Budapest. To begin with, the nationalist government came into being after the Romanian invasion. That the Hungarians asked for the looting or their country is about the same as saying that Sherman visited Georgia on an invitation by its inhabitants.

But let us turn back to Hunyadi. Davies, in his crusade to give equal treatment to the histories of the Poles, Hungarians, and Czechs, introduces him as follows (page 520): "Yet none deserves more attention than Matthias Hunyadi `Corvinus', King of Hungary (r. 1441-90). Corvinus -so called from the raven in his coat-of-arms- was a social upstart, the son of a Romanian crusader from Transylvania, Iancu of Hunedoara, who had made his name fighting the Turks. So much for John Hunyadi, for the bells pealing at noon for eternity, or even the swallows of Capistrano.

JOHN HUNYADI: Hungary in American History Textbooks