UNGHERIA

I. GEOGRAPHY

The present territory (93,011 sq. km.) is less than one-third of that of the Kingdom of Hungary before the First World War and represents the area where the Hungarians, a people of eastern origin (Magyars, Ugro-Finnic, mixed with Turkic-Mongols), originally nomadic, first appeared in Europe in the 9th century, then settled in the steppe, converted to Christianity, and decisively embraced European civilization; nonetheless, they remain distinctly differentiated from neighboring peoples, not least by their language (agglutinative).

The country corresponds to the basin of the middle Danube and its tributary the Tisza, and consists of a vast plain (Alföld = lowland), between the Danube and Transylvania, the bed of an ancient lake basin over which the rivers meander lazily in broad loops and which, to the east, merges into a true steppe, the puszta, due to increasing aridity. On the right bank of the river lies a hilly region (Transdanubia), which also opens into valleys and depressions, one of which contains Lake Balaton; a region not rich in water but fertile and agricultural in character.

Hungary is a country of rich and varied agriculture (cereals, potatoes, sugar beets, tobacco, vines, oil plants), with a thriving livestock industry (2 million head of cattle, 3 million pigs, and 65,000 horses, the latter renowned for speed and endurance). The products of both agriculture and livestock form the basis of an industry that, in the past, was severely constrained by a scarcity of energy sources. However, the intensive exploitation of known reserves (oil and coal) and, even more, the recent discovery of natural gas deposits have permitted further expansion, despite the limited quantity and variety of raw materials available (beyond agricultural products, only bauxite and iron ore). Today, this industry is of no small importance, particularly in certain sectors (textiles, chemicals, metallurgy, rubber, etc.) that allow for a surplus for export.

The population (9.3 million inhabitants, 10 per sq. km., as in 1941) is concentrated in rural centers; large urban agglomerations are few. Of these, the capital Budapest (1.1 million inhabitants, including suburbs) on the Danube, Szeged (135,000 inhabitants), and Debrecen (126,000 inhabitants) near the Yugoslav and Romanian borders, are the most significant.

Since 1946, Hungary has been a People’s Republic, now under direct Soviet control.

| Regions | Area in sq. km. | 1941 Census Population (in thousands) | Principal Centers (population in thousands) |
|--------------------|-----------------|----------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------|
| Transdanubia | 36,682 | 2,777.6 | Pécs (80) |
| Great Plain | 42,365 | 5,316.6 | Budapest (1,165) |
| Northern Hungary | 13,964 | 1,195.4 | Eger (32) |
| Hungary (territory 1948) | 93,011 | 9,289.6 | |

II. CIVIL HISTORY

The Danubian provinces of the ancient Roman Empire, first ravaged by the Goths, then traversed by the Huns in the 5th century and by the Avars in the 7th–8th centuries, and partly dominated by the Carolingians in their western portion, seemed toward the end of the 9th century to offer a field for the Slavs to establish a fixed dominion, when a group of Hungarian tribes (Magyars of Ugro-Finnic origin [v.]) burst in from the Carpathians. These tribes divided the northern Slavs from the southern, wedged themselves between them, destroyed the Moravian kingdom of Svatopluk, routed German resistance in the western Alpine region, and, through the southern Karst, penetrated Italy in 899. Exploiting the weakness and discord of the Italic kingdom, they repeatedly crossed the entire Po Valley, reaching as far as central Italy near Tuscany and even southern France.

Contemporaries left terrifying accounts of the ferocity of these barbarians, who fought on horseback and in their raids cared for nothing but plunder. They carried out similar devastations in Germany until King Henry I and later Otto I succeeded in confronting and finally repelling them toward the middle of the 10th century back into the Danubian territories. They were never seen again in Italy. Meanwhile, these tribes, initially led by occasional chieftains without unity or restraint and immersed in a rudimentary paganism that kept them distant from civilization, could not but come under the influence of the Slavs they dominated, of the Byzantine Empire, and of the religious and feudal organization of Germany and Italy. At their head appeared a descendant of Árpád, Prince Géza (973–97), who succeeded in uniting his people and orienting them toward Western civilization while maintaining peace with the Saxon dynasty, then the arbiter of Europe after its victories over the northern Slavs and the Italic kingdom. But it was St. Stephen (v.)—Géza’s son—who earned the credit for giving laws and organization to the people. By marrying Gisela, daughter of Emperor Henry II, he secured lasting peace with the West, overcame stubborn internal resistance, and welcomed missionaries who assisted him in converting his people to Christianity and in establishing a constitution that endured in its essential lines through the following centuries; as a pledge of his kingdom’s independence from other nations, he subjected his realm to the Apostolic See.

At his death in 1038, a fierce reaction by the rigorously pagan party endangered the institutions of St Stephen and gave rise to a period of internal discord, until with St Ladislaus ([v.] 1077–95) there was a recovery in the civil life of the kingdom, by which, after overcoming internal dangers, it was able to secure its dominion between the Drava and the Sava and the Danube in 1089, and then Croatia, torn by internal strife, in 1091. From then on this kingdom followed the fortunes of the Holy Roman Empire. Ladislaus’ merit was also to have defended the fate of his people in the battles to the east against the Besseni and the Cumans, barbarians and pagans. His successor Coloman completed Ladislaus’ work by subjecting the Dalmatian cities and islands, and this exposed his kingdom to the wars continually renewed for three centuries with Venice, with alternating fortunes. His concern was also to improve the institutions of the kingdom, which only slowly, because of recurring internal difficulties and wars of defence, evolved towards a higher form of civilisation. Nor were relations with the Church always easy in connection with the great struggles between Papacy and Empire. There is news of national Councils at Strigonia in 1103–1104 in defence of ecclesiastical power. Another Council was held in 1111 in the presence of the King and nobles by the archbishop of Spalato for the division of dioceses and to prevent laymen from conferring ecclesiastical offices. At the Council of Strigonia in 1114 Archbishop Lawrence had again to tolerate married priests, forbid pagan customs, prevent Christians from becoming servants of Jews, and prevent churches from being sold or compensated. He also recommended to the clergy the domestic use of the Latin language, which, until 1848, was also that of the court and the tribunals. A little later, in 1169, Archbishop Luke had to admonish Stephen III not to confer ecclesiastical offices through simony and not to usurp church goods. It was in the second half of that century that the struggle against the Byzantine Empire, which claimed to enslave Hungary, flared up more violently and only ended with the temporary establishment there of the Latin Empire.

Meanwhile the new fortunes of the Magyar people were maturing. King Andrew II (1205–35), who had led a crusade to Egypt (1217) in defence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, had to provide for the new internal needs of his kingdom, provoked by social difficulties and the movement of the classes. The strong immigrations of French, Saxons, Bohemians, Poles on one side, and Croats on the other, had led to the colonisation of new lands and to a change in the relations between the classes; in 1222 the King, with a Golden Bull, established the rights of the new nobles in relation to the ancient nobility, introduced a royal finance to meet the needs arising from the goods widely distributed among the supporters of the monarchy. But the progress of civil life seemed this time destined to be annihilated by the great Tartar invasion of 1241 under King Bela IV (1235–70), when the King himself, unable to resist, had to retreat into Dalmatia, leaving the country at the mercy of the invader. Fortunately the Tartars withdrew the following year, and it was a hard task for the King to reorganise the kingdom and repair the damage suffered. German, Flemish and Italian immigrants helped to repopulate the kingdom; Saxons settled in Transylvania.

With the death of Andrew III the dynasty of the Arpads came to an end (1301) and a troubled period of interregnum ensued in which the factions were free to vie with one another, and the internal weakness of the country was revealed, dominated as it was by an oligarchy of nobles who for some time had aimed at making themselves almost independent of the sovereign power, waging war on their own account both among themselves and with neighbouring foreign princes; until the cardinal legate Gentile of Montefiore succeeded in 1308 in having Charles Robert of Anjou, son of Charles Martel, son in turn of Charles II king of Naples (cf. Dante, *Parad.*, VIII, 58 ff.), recognised as sovereign. The Arpads had in fact repeatedly contracted matrimonial relations with the different ruling houses of the surrounding countries, and Charles II of Anjou had married a Magyar princess, Maria, sister of Ladislaus IV (d. 1290).

The reign of Charles Robert (1308–42) and that of his son Louis (1342–82) mark a glorious period in the history of Hungary. The former knew how with great skill and energy to subdue the recalcitrant nobility and re-establish sovereign authority, reorganise the army and maintain Hungarian hegemony against the Habsburgs of Austria and against Serbia; the latter, whom the Hungarians called “the Great” and who was proclaimed king of Poland in 1370, continued the reforms begun by his father, regulating internal law on the basis of a landed feudalism distributed among the Orders which, together with the sovereign, constituted the Holy Crown of Hungary. He took care to develop culture in the kingdom and founded in 1367 the University of Five Churches (Pécs), imposed Hungarian sovereignty over Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Wallachia and Moldavia, and subjected Halics and Lodomiria. With expeditions against the kingdom of Naples he avenged the death of his younger brother Andrew, killed in 1345 with the complicity of Queen Joanna of whom he was the husband; he then interfered in the disputes of Venice and took part together with Genoa in the struggle against Venice to secure the disputed dominion over Dalmatia. But his death rekindled internal controversies: his daughter Mary succeeded to the throne under the regency of her mother Elizabeth; an attempt by Charles III of Durazzo (also an Angevin) in 1385 to win the throne of Hungary ended with his murder in Buda (27 Feb. 1386); until in 1387 the government of the kingdom passed into the hands of Mary’s husband, Sigismund of Luxemburg, who on 21 July 1410 was elected king of Germany and then succeeded in 1419 to his brother Wenceslas in the kingdom of Bohemia. These events, and moreover the wars in northern Italy at the beginning of the 15th century and the subsequent cares for the Council of Constance and the ending of the schism and the ensuing war against the Hussites, distracted Sigismund from the direct government of Hungary, precisely at a decisive moment in its history. The Turks had crossed the Bosphorus and left Constantinople behind, penetrating the Balkans, establishing themselves in 1363 at Philippopolis and then at Adrianople, constituting a new and very grave danger on the southern flank to Magyar supremacy. Sigismund, who marched against them with the aid of the best European knights, was defeated at Nicopolis in 1396 and, although he equally re-established his authority in Bosnia and other southern provinces, was forced about 1420 to leave to Venice possession of the Dalmatian cities and was never able to prevent Turks and renegade Christians from repeatedly raiding along the Drava and the Sava even into the Austrian duchies and against Bosnia.

At the death of Sigismund and after the brief reign of Albert of Austria (1437–39) Hungary passed to Ladislaus Jagellon king of Poland in 1440. Meanwhile one of the most deserving Hungarian lords, John Hunyadi, had been conducting victorious expeditions against the Turks since 1439, but in 1444 on the field of Varna King Ladislaus fell with Cardinal Julian Cesarini, papal legate, and the flower of the Hungarian troops; a similar defeat was suffered in 1448 at Kossovo. But the papal intervention in aid of Hunyadi, now regent of the kingdom, led to the victories of 1454 in Serbian territory and in 1456 under Belgrade. The death of Hunyadi and of King Ladislaus the Posthumous in 1457 decided the Hungarian nobility to offer the crown in 1458 to Matthias Corvinus ([v.]

Under the Hunyadi dynasty, Hungary enjoyed a long period of splendor marked above all by the advancement of Humanistic culture, the patronage of books and the arts, and the contacts between the most distinguished minds and Italian humanists, a situation not unrelated to the marriage of the King to Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Naples. But in the end Matthias was induced to declare war against Poland, against George Podreby, the Hussite King of Bohemia, and finally against Emperor Frederick III, which in 1495 led him to occupy Vienna. Thus, after his death in 1490, Ladislaus II of Poland, who succeeded him, was forced to renounce Matthias’s conquests, unable to overcome the disorganization of the kingdom, which was again exacerbated by the disputes between the greater and lesser nobility. To these was added in 1514 the revolt—also with social overtones—of the "Crusaders," who were meant to defend the kingdom against the Turks. Louis II, who succeeded his father in 1516, could not prevent the Turks from conquering Belgrade in 1521, and in 1526 he himself fell, along with much of the nobility and clergy, on the plains of Mohács, marking the end of Hungarian independence, the Turkish predominance in the Danubian plain, and the humiliation and servitude of a people abandoned to its fate. Louis had married Mary, granddaughter of Maximilian, King of the Romans, so the kingdom would have passed to his grandson Ferdinand of Habsburg; but the right of free election of the king was not to be relinquished, and the anti-German party, never extinguished, supported John Zápolya, Prince of Transylvania (1526–40), who quickly placed himself under Turkish protection. The Turks thus had a good opportunity to march against Vienna in 1529 and 1532, and in 1541 they succeeded in taking Buda and definitively dominating the conquered land, ruling it harshly. Hungary was thus divided into three dominions: that of the Turks, that of the Habsburgs, and Transylvania. This last region, reorganized by the Polish friar George Martinuzzi, created cardinal in 1551, and later governed from 1571 by the Báthory family, under Stephen Bocskay resumed its alliance with the Turks, waging war against Emperor Rudolph, who was forced to conclude peace treaties (1606). These discordant elements, exacerbated by religious dissensions, made relations even more difficult during the Thirty Years’ War, when the uprisings of the Transylvanian princes Gabriel Bethlen and George Rákóczi I, allied with the enemies of the Empire, prevented the Habsburg sovereigns from attending to their Hungarian kingdom, which, moreover, was being reduced to its last ruin by the oppressive tyranny of the Turks. A first sign of recovery came when the Austrian general Montecuccoli defeated the Turks on the Raab in 1664; but

in Latin in administration, coming into conflict on this point with the Croats. The national democratic agitation of Lajos Kossuth (q.v.) led in 1848 to greater reforms, to demands for greater independence with the creation of a Hungarian parliament, and finally to breaking the link with Austria by declaring the Austrian dynasty deposed. But in 1849 the insurrection was suppressed by Austro-Russian troops, and the concessions just granted were withdrawn; Croatia was separated from Hungary and subjected directly to the Empire of Austria, as was Dalmatia. However, after the defeat at Königgrätz in 1866, Austria felt the need to draw closer to Hungary, and through negotiations with the Hungarian liberal leader Francis Deák, there came the establishment of what was called the dual monarchy, with two distinct states and two parliaments under a single sovereign, while the ministries for Foreign Affairs, War, and Common Affairs—especially concerning the division of expenses—remained joint. Transylvania remained incorporated into Hungary without special arrangements, while with Croatia, a quasi-autonomous state, special agreements were established. After this, Francis Joseph could be crowned King of Hungary according to the ancient ceremonial on 8 June 1867. The peace that followed offered Hungary the opportunity for truly remarkable cultural and economic development but did not resolve the nationalities question; at the end of the war of 1914–18, Hungary emerged as a republic (31 Oct. 1918), followed on 21 March 1919 by the Bolshevik revolution led by the Jew Béla Kun, which brought ruin but lasted only until 31 July.

Admiral Nicholas Horthy, however, succeeded with the help of the peasantry in reconstituting the kingdom, of which he himself was proclaimed regent, though the victors excluded the Habsburgs from II. The Treaty of Trianon of 4 July 1920 sealed Hungary’s fate, depriving it of 71.5% of its territory and two-thirds of its former population.

At the outbreak of the war of 1939, the Regent sided with the Axis powers of Germany and Italy to secure their support for Hungarian territorial claims; but when in the spring of 1944 Soviet troops were at the gates of Romania, the Regent was summoned to Hitler’s headquarters on 19 March, and on the 21st the Germans occupied Hungary. On 31 October, after an attempt at an armistice, he was accused of treason by the Germans and interned in Bavaria; Hungary, invaded by Soviet troops, was subjected to the worst abuses and included in the Soviet sphere of influence according to the agreements concluded among the Allies, thus being forced to accept a communist government.

III. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AND RELATIONS WITH THE HOLY SEE

The Hungarian Church traces its origins to King St. Stephen, for of the institutions of ancient Christianity nothing remained in the country, nor had those sketched by St. Methodius survived the invasion; his disciples had indeed abandoned his work and departed for Bulgaria.

The hierarchical organization remained substantially as it had been established and generously endowed by the King, assisted by German and Italian missionaries; while an integral part of it was formed by the Benedictine monasteries that were then founded, particularly that of St. Martin on Mount Pannoniae (Pannonhalma), the birthplace of St. Martin, not far from Győr, which assumed the leadership of Hungarian monasticism. The Archbishop of Strigonia always held a real primacy within the nation, even after the metropolitan see of Colocza was established. Given these premises, it is not surprising that a sense of particular dependence developed within the Hungarian episcopate toward the sovereign, as toward a patron from whom came the appointments to various offices, and that this episcopate formed a compact body with the nation in which it constituted the first state alongside the abbots and provosts of the collegiate churches.

Religious legislation conformed to the ancient canons of the Church and to those prescriptions that had been added through the work of the Frankish capitularies and the German councils. However, there was never in Hungary the investiture with ring and crozier; nonetheless, throughout the centuries there were no lack of complaints regarding the excessive interference of the sovereigns in ecclesiastical affairs. In any case, it is certain that the frequent discord over the succession to the throne during the reign of the Árpáds and the numerous wars against external enemies often had a baneful influence on religious life and ecclesiastical discipline. The very conversion of the Cumans, repeatedly attempted, was thereby impeded, so that it was only under King Louis that it could be considered complete. In the 13th century, Ugrin, Bishop of Colocza, led a crusade against the Bogomils who sought to extend their influence into Hungary from Bosnia.

In the second half of the 12th century, alongside the work of the early Benedictines, the Cistercians and the Premonstratensian canons—largely of French origin—began to develop. During the 13th century, and particularly after the Tatar invasion, the Dominicans and Franciscans carried out an effective apostolate. Of directly Hungarian origin were the monks of St. Paul the First Hermit (v.), who during the 14th century came to have more than 50 monasteries and extended their influence beyond Hungary, especially into Poland. In Rome, they had a church and monastery at St. Stephen in the Round. The Knights of St. John also held commanderies and possessions within the Kingdom of Hungary.

During the Great Schism of the West, Hungary sided with Pope Urban VI; it was King Sigismund who, having taken the side of John XXIII and then of the Council of Constance, drew Hungary along with him.

The German wars provoked by Lutheranism and the Turkish invasions provided an opportunity for the spread of Protestantism in Transylvania. This occurred with the complicity of the prince, who opposed the religious policy of the Habsburgs, allowing the establishment in 1542 of a well-organized Lutheran Church among the German immigrants, followed by a Calvinist Church that held its synods at Csenger in 1557 and at Dobrecen in 1567. A third, less widespread confession was established there by the Socinian Unitarians through the efforts of Giorgio Biandrata.

Calvinism took deep root among the Magyar nobility as well, facilitated by the sorry religious conditions of the country, so much so that at a certain time few noble families remained Catholic. The fanaticism characteristic of the Reformers, Cassovia (v.) in 1619, and their political collusion with the Turks—who sought to keep Christians divided—explains these successes well; while the Catholic hierarchy had lost its best elements in the wars of resistance (the Primate Ladislaus Szalkai had fallen at Mohács on 29 August 1526), and with them the ability to provide for the education of the clergy and the care of the regular clergy. Meanwhile, the Treaties of Vienna in 1606 and 1608 secured full freedom of worship and organization for the dissenters, which they exploited to commit violence against Catholics, feeling themselves supported by foreign princes and powers.

The Turkish occupation prevented the Primate Archbishop of Strigonia from remaining in his see, and the Chapter found refuge in Tirnovo (Nagyszombat) in Slovakia. Moreover, the see itself remained vacant for 23 years, from June 1573 to June 1596. Other sees in Hungary were in similar conditions. Meanwhile, in Tirnovo the Jesuits operated effectively in the college entrusted to them for the preservation of culture and the formation of the Hungarian clergy; and already the agriculturalist Ferenc Forgách (1607–16) and, above all, Pázmány (v.) prepared the Catholic revival in Hungary in opposition to the relentless Calvinist propaganda, which continued more or less intensely according to political circumstances. There were, however, few conversions to Islam in Hungary.

The progressive reconquest of the territory restored the Church’s jurisdictions to their former boundaries, bringing back the ancient religious orders and introducing the Jesuits and Piarists. This provoked reactions from the dissenters, who, feeling themselves in the minority—even after numerous conversions—feared that the violence they had once used to strengthen their position might now be turned against them. With the Peace of Szatmár in 1711, following the suppression of disturbances, religious freedom was recognized for them; but their ability to propagate their faith, which political circumstances had made almost unchecked, was no longer possible. The Carolina Resolution of 1731 clarified these relations further, particularly regarding changes of religion, mixed marriages, and the education of children. These issues were repeatedly agitated in the following years.

The revival of Catholicism was rapid and impressive, also thanks to the widespread movement toward union with Rome among the Byzantine-rite communities, particularly among the Ruthenians and Romanians of Transylvania, fostered by Archbishop Leopold Karl Kollonich (1695–1707); this led in 1721 to the establishment of the see of Făgăraș. Thanks to the interest of Queen Maria Theresa, the sees of Munkács (Mucachevo) in Subcarpathia were established in 1771, and for the Romanians of Transylvania that of Oradea Mare (Nagy-Várad) in 1777, while for the Croats that of Križevci (Kreutzer) was established in 1777. From the territory of Strigonia, the new sees of Rožňava (Roznavia), Spiš (Scepusio, Zips), and Banská Bystrica (Neosolio)—now in Czechoslovakia—were separated in 1776. There was also a need to increase the number of Hungarian dioceses by establishing in 1777, in the territory of Győr and Veszprém, the new dioceses of Szombathely (Sabaria) and Székesfehérvár (Alba Regia). In 1804, Francis I erected the two new dioceses of Košice (Cassovia, Kassa)—now in Czechoslovakia—and Satu Mare (Szatmár)—now in Romania—subjecting them to the new metropolitan see of Eger (Agria); in 1818, for the Ruthenians, he erected the diocese of Prešov (Fragopolitana, Prášev)—now in Czechoslovakia. Two other Eastern-rite dioceses were erected under Francis Joseph in 1853: those of Lugoj and of Cluj-Gherla (Claudiopoli-Armenopoli), subject to the new metropolitan see of Alba Iulia (Făgăraș). Later came Hajdúdorog in 1912 and Timișoara (Temesvár) in 1930.

The Concordat concluded in 1855 between Austria and the Holy See was considered valid for Hungary as well; however, with the

In 1868, when political freedom was granted to Hungary, a restrictive policy began to be pursued against the Church’s freedom in obedience precisely to that false liberalism which was then infesting Europe. It began with the schools and the children of mixed marriages, then moved on to the introduction of civil marriage (1869), the prohibition of publishing the papal bull on infallibility in 1870, and the requirement of government approval (*placet*). In this, the dominant sentiments in the Chancellery of Vienna were followed, as well as the influences deriving from the propaganda of the German *Kulturkampf*. Minister Alessandro Wekerle became notorious in 1894–95 for accepting the previous oppressive laws, introducing divorce, the official census of Jews in the Kingdom, and favoring Protestant churches. The Church responded by organizing its forces more effectively through appropriate popular and youth organizations and by demanding greater autonomy in the fields of education and administration.

A new adjustment of ecclesiastical districts, obtained following the Vienna Arbitration of November 1939 and August 1940, did not last long due to the Russian invasion of 1945. The Apostolic Nuncio was expelled, and the Hungarian Church in 1946 was again confined within the borders assigned to Hungary in 1920. The communist government installed in Hungary soon demonstrated its hostility toward the Church and attempted to subordinate it to its own interests: it declared that it would not recognize prelates not appointed with its approval, meaning those appointed by the Holy See; it condemned Cardinal Mindszenty, Archbishop of Esztergom, and Monsignor Grósz, Archbishop of Kalocsa, to life imprisonment; it appointed priests of its own choosing to the offices of vicar general and chancellor in episcopal curiae, imposing a lay commissioner in each, appointed by the state office for ecclesiastical affairs; under the pretext of agrarian reform, it stripped the Church of its forest properties and almost all of its agricultural lands, dissolved religious orders and congregations (with few exceptions), confiscating all their goods; it suppressed nearly all Catholic schools run by religious, restricted the number of seminaries and religious academies, and stifled Catholic publishing. In this way, an ecclesiastical regime was established that was practically directed toward the annihilation of all religious freedom and activity for the benefit of atheistic communism.

Ecclesiastical districts. In 1953, the Hungarian territory was divided into the following archdioceses: **AGRIA** (Eger, Erlau), which has as its suffragan dioceses those in Czechoslovakia; **COLOCOZA** (Kalocsa) with the suffragan of **CSANAD**; **STRIGONIA** (Esztergom, Gran) with the suffragan dioceses of **ALBAREALE** (Székesfehérvár), **CINQUECHIESE** (Pécs, Fünfkirchen), **GIAVARINO** (Győr), **HAJDUDOROG** (of the Byzantine rite), **SABARIA** (Szombathely, Steinamanger), **VACIA** (Vác), **VESZPRIMIA** (Veszprém); the **ABBAZIA NULLIUS DI S. MARTINO IN MONTE PANNONIAE** (Pannonhalma), head of the Hungarian Benedictine congregation; and the Apostolic Exarchate for the Byzantine-rite parishes of the Ruthenians in Miskolc.

IV. HUNGARIAN RITE

This is an ethnic branch of the Byzantine rite in its Ruthenian form. Its only distinguishing feature is the liturgical language, which, despite the apostolic constitution *Christifidelium* of June 8, 1912 (AAS, 4 [1912], pp. 432–33), is in fact Hungarian.

The following editions of liturgical books are known: Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Ungvár 1795; Debreczen 1882); Prayer and Hymn Book (ibid. 1862 and others); Selected Epistles and Gospels (Eger 1882; Ungvár 1902, more complete edition); Euchologion (Debreczen 1883; Ungvár 1907; Nyíregyháza 1927); Liturgy of St. Basil and of the Presanctified (ibid. 1889); Liturgicon (complete, Nyíregyháza 1920); Calendar with typicon notes (ibid. 1917); Anthologion for the feasts of September and October (Szatmár-Nemeti 1905); Horologion (the Great; 2 vols., Miskolc 1938); I. Boksay and F. Malinis, Collection of Liturgical Hymns with Musical Notation (Ungvár 1906).

V. LITERATURE

### 1. The Pagan Age (up to 1000) No written documents have survived from the pagan period regarding poetry, even though the Hungarians knew a form of carved writing on rods before adopting the Latin alphabet.

Heroic songs about the deeds of ancestors and the military exploits of great captains flourished, though they did not constitute a true epic poem. These were performed by minstrels in the first person, frequently employing alliteration and repetition of words and concepts. They formed two main cycles: the cycle of the Hun-Magyar saga and the cycle of the conquest of the homeland. There is also evidence of the existence of folk songs and traces of magical formulas that likely date back to shamanistic cults. These heroic songs, folk songs, and magical formulas were accompanied by monodic singing, sometimes instrumentally, based on the pentatonic scale.

### 2. The Middle Ages (up to the end of the 1400s)
With their conversion to Christianity, the Hungarians were integrated into the Christian community of Europe with the help of the Church and, more specifically, of religious orders—first the Benedictines, then the Dominicans and Franciscans. Throughout the Middle Ages, literature in Hungary was predominantly in Latin, cultivated in the 11th century mainly by foreign ecclesiastics. The beginning of this literature is marked by the *Deliberatio supra hymnum trium puerorum* by the Venetian Benedictine St. Gerard, who became Bishop of Csanád (d. 1046). Taking as his starting point the Book of Daniel (the fate of Daniel and his companions serving as a symbol for that of Christian missionaries among the pagan Hungarians), he used the harmony of the creatures to meditate on all creation and to offer neophyte Christians a complete Christian worldview.

The *Deliberatio* lays the foundations for that long flourishing period in Hungarian literary history known as the age of codices. These codices, written in Latin and often literally chained to the libraries of cathedrals and convents, contained the Holy Scriptures, the Sacraments, the lives of the saints, and later also collections of sacred prayers. They also contain the earliest traces of the vernacular: translations inserted into the original Latin codices, such as sermons that the priest had to interpret for Hungarian congregations or hymns to be sung in the vernacular. The first Hungarian literary text dates to the early 13th century and is a Funeral Oration. Despite certain difficulties, its language—primarily graceful rather than grammatically refined—remains comprehensible to modern Hungarians. The subsequent texts from the early 14th century include a *Mária-siralom* inspired by Geoffrey of Saint-Victor’s *Planctus Sanctae Mariae*; the Alba Iulia Glosses, translations of sermon outlines; the Königsberg Fragment, a prose version of a hymn to the Virgin; and other minor works. The Tartar invasion (1241) and the Turkish domination of the 16th and 17th centuries caused immense losses to Hungary’s literary heritage, yet even the few surviving examples reveal, when compared to their models, a vigor of expression and structural ingenuity that surpasses the originals.

Limiting our examination of Latin texts to those of specific Hungarian interest, we refer to a Latin tradition. The *Instituti morum ad Emericum ducem*, contemporary with the *Deliberatio* and attributed to St. Stephen, contains instruction for the heir apparent on the art of governance, in which political conduct is entirely grounded in Christian morality.

In 1070, with the *Legenda s. Zoerardi et s. Benedicti* by Bishop St. Mauro, the series of Hungarian saints’ *Vitae* begins.

During the period of the Árpád dynasty (1001–1301) and the Angevin kings (much of the 14th century), the chroniclers—official historiographers of the court—drew on pagan sagas, reshaped their material to suit dynastic interests, and blended it with Western motifs. The series of chronicles opens at the end of the 12th century with the *Gesta Hungarorum* by the anonymous chronicler Magister P., a Hungarian Benedictine trained in Paris, which recounts the conquest of the homeland. The chronicle of the same title by Simon Kézai (1284) introduces into Hungarian historiography the concept of a continuous Hunnic-Hungarian identity. The *Illustrated Chronicle of Vienna*, by Márk Kálti (1358), carries the narrative up to the reign of Charles Robert (1309–42), while János Küküllei (1390) devoted his work to the deeds of Louis the Great (1342–82).

Closely related to historiography are the *Epistola magistri Rogerii super destructionem regni Hungariae per Tartaros facta* (1244), by a Beneventan priest who witnessed the Tartar invasion and was held prisoner for a year, and the *Planctus destructionis regni Ungariae per Tartaros*, an anonymous elegy on the same event. Nor are there lacking, in the 14th century, hymns dedicated to Hungarian saints composed in Latin by anonymous Magyar poets.

The first entirely Hungarian codex belongs to the first half of the 15th century: the *Vita s. Francisci*, compiled from the *Actus beati Francisci*, the *Speculum perfectionis*, and St. Bonaventure’s *Life of St. Francis*. Around 1466, three codices also contain the first partial translations of the Bible, erroneously attributed to Hussite initiative: the Gospels, Psalms, and the books of Ruth, Judith, Esther, Baruch, Daniel, the twelve minor prophets, and Maccabees. In the second half of the century, the first Hungarian elegy appears: *Gergely deák énke Both fád-nord* (“Elegy of Deacon Gregory on John Both fád”). *Deák*, meaning deacon, signifies an erudite expert in Latin and the art of writing. The elegy was composed when the Boths, envoys of Matthias Corvinus to Constantinople, were detained by the sultan and disappeared. Also appearing is the first poem, *Szabács viadala* (“The Capture of Szabács,” 1476).

In the realm of popular poetry, the repertoire of minstrels—who had gradually absorbed the lives of Hungary’s saintly kings and the deeds of the Árpád dynasty—was enriched with motifs drawn from conflicts between the nation and its foreign-born rulers (Sigismund, Charles Robert), or during the glorious reign of Louis the Great, who had become fully assimilated to the nation. Thus arose the tales of Zách, Kont, Lőrinc Tar, and Miklós Toldi.

It was Latin literature that gave impetus to the first printing press established in Buda in 1473, its first product being a *Chronica Hungarorum*, a compilation by an unknown author based on earlier chronicles. Fifteen years later, in Brno, the *Chronicle* of Johannes Thuróczy appeared—the only medieval Hungarian chronicle not written by a cleric—and would later serve as a source for humanist Hungarian historiography by Bonfini.

Among the earliest printed works are also collections of sacred orations: in 1482, the *Sermones tredecim universales* of the Dominican Michael de Ungaria; in 1497–98, the three volumes of the *Biga salutis* by the Franciscan Osvát Laskai; and from 1487 to 1503, the collections of the Franciscan Pelbartus de Temesvár—*Stellarium*, *Pomerium*, *Sermones*, *Rosarium*, *Quadragesimales*, etc.—some of which reached 18–20 editions and enjoyed wide dissemination across Europe.

At the humanist court of Matthias Corvinus are owed, besides the magnificent *Bibliotheca Corvina*, the elegant epistles published under the king’s name, the *Rerum Hungaricarum decades* of the aforementioned Recanatese Bonfini, which carry the narrative of Hungarian history up to 1496 and for centuries remained the principal source for Hungarian historiography both at home and abroad; the elegant *libellus* of Galeotto Marzio, *De egregie, sapienter et jocose dictis ac factis Matthiae Ungariae regis*; and a series of political and encomiastic pamphlets by minor foreign humanists.

The Hungarian humanists—mostly high-ranking prelates—were no less active. With the assistance of Vespasiano da Bisticci, they assembled their own libraries: János Vitéz, archbishop of Esztergom and tutor to Matthias (1458–72); Péter Garázda, bishop of Vác; Miklós Báthori, bishop of Vác; and Péter Váradi, archbishop of Kalocsa—all of whom had studied in Italian universities and engaged extensively in epistolary and often poetic composition in Latin.

Foremost among them was Janus Pannonius (1434–1472), bishop of Pécs, who spent eleven years in Ferrara, Padua, and Rome. His surviving works include the elegant poem *Concentratio ventorum*, four panegyrics, 34 elegies, and over 400 epigrams; translations from Demosthenes, Plutarch, and Plotinus. The elegance of his Latin and the vigor of his poetic expression are especially admired in the poem, in some of the elegies, and in several epigrams, some of which are frankly licentious. His Neoplatonic ideas, interest in astrology, and preference for classical culture are more fully expressed in works such as *De rerum humanarum conditione*, *Ad Galeotum*, *De Stella*, and the panegyric for his teacher, Guarino da Verona.

3. The Lutheran Reformation and Catholic Restoration

The catastrophe of Mohács (1526) and the ensuing national discord over the choice of monarch led to a schism. This also undermined the unified development of literature, and the spread of the Protestant Reformation only deepened the division of minds already tormented by the peasant revolt of 1514 and its harsh suppression. The anguished *Preghiera alla Vergine* of András Vásárhelyi (1508) and the satirical *Cantilena* of Ferenc Apáti (1526) foresee and lament these evils, and even the first hexameter in Hungarian, from 1521, speaks of the decline of Rome.

Meanwhile, the spread of printing did not slow the activity of translators, and in the first three decades of the 16th century numerous Marian legends, lives of the saints, the legends of Barlaam and Josaphat, and of St Alexander were translated from Latin; while that of the Blessed Margaret of Hungary was even composed in Hungarian (1510). This extensive activity also enriched poetry: thus with the long legend of St Catherine of Alexandria, over 400 octave verses with rhyming couplets, with the hymn to the Crucifix and the hymn to St Ladislaus the king, to cite only the most well-known examples. The translation of the Bible also continued; beginning with the followers of Erasmus, who prepared some partial versions with the commentary of their master. Benedek Komjáti translated the Epistles of St Paul in 1533, and Gábor Pesti the Gospels in 1536. János Sylvester, a Lutheran, translated the entire New Testament, prefacing it with a dedication to the reader in sonorous Hungarian distichs (1541). After numerous other partial translations, the Calvinist Gáspár Károli offered the first complete version (1590). The influence of this Hungarian Bible was great, especially in literature, and it can still be found among some modern poets.

In the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th, much of Hungarian printing concerned religious controversy; at first the Protestants prevailed, in their three currents—Lutheran, Calvinist, and Unitarian—until 1580; the action of the Bishop of Pécs, Miklós Telegdi, marked the beginning of the Catholic resurgence. The controversy was not limited to the discussion of dogmas but extended to the investigation of historical responsibility for the wretched conditions of the country. For the literary reflection of such controversies, the vernacular language became more refined and enriched, the personalities of writers became more distinct, preparing the ground for a flourishing of lyrical poetry, predominantly religious. The tones of such poetry were rather sombre: Calvinist predestination and Protestant preaching from the Old Testament were its cause, along with the sad conditions of the dismembered country. Another inspiration for poetry was the continual struggle of Hungarian soldiers, on the frontier territories, against the Turk. This field found its greatest exponent in the minstrel Sebestyén Tinódi (c. 1506–56), who published his collection of songs under the title *Chronica* in 1554. A third source was constituted by amorous verses, the so-called flower songs, which, because of the austerity of the times, could not reach the honours of print. He who was able to unite all three aspects in himself, becoming the first true Hungarian lyrical poet, was the Baron Valentino Balassi (1551–94). A soldier-poet of vast culture, knowledgeable in classical literatures, fluent in Italian, Czech, and Turkish, he led a very eventful life. Lutheran by birth, he converted to Catholicism. He died of a wound received in battle against the Turk, and in his last days translated the Psalms. His religious songs reached 42 editions over the centuries. His military and amorous songs spread in manuscript with great influence on the development of Hungarian poetry, also thanks to the new forms created by Balassi.

More than in the written lyric poetry of the 16th century, the sentiment of love prevailed in narrative. The verse novellas (*széphistóriák*, i.e. beautiful stories), except for two, were translations, particularly from Boccaccio, but through Latin versions. The same was true in prose narrative. The deeds of István Mankoczi, a kind of picaresque tale, is the only original work; all the others are translations from Latin or German. There also appears the first translation of a classical drama: the *Electra* by Péter Bornemissza (1558), to whom is attributed the dialogued satire on Treachery by Menyhárt Balassi (1569), five acts on the story of one of the most disreputable adventurers of the time. In pastoral drama there is only a fragment, *Credulus and Giulia*, on an Italian model, attributed to Bálint Balassi.

The Society of Jesus, introduced into Hungary in 1561, ran a printing press at Nagyszombat in 1577; in 1635 Pázmány (v.), following in its footsteps, founded the University there (which would later be transferred to Budapest): these were the people and the means that, under the guidance of Pázmány’s exceptional intellect, brought about the triumph of the Counter-Reformation in Hungary, transforming the country once more into a *Regnum Marianum*. Among Pázmány’s followers the Jesuit György Káldi excelled, being the first among Hungarian Catholics to produce a complete translation of the Bible (1626), still in use today. The canon Mihály Veresmarti (1572–1645) gave Hungarian literature its first work in the genre of conversion narratives. The Protestants too continued their translating activity. The *Psalterium Ungaricum* (1607), by Albert Szenczi Molnár, based on French and German versions and set to music by Goudimel, is still in use in Protestant worship. János Apácai Csere, also a Protestant, following in the footsteps of Descartes, wrote the first Hungarian philosophical compendium (*Magyar logikácska*), and with his *Magyar Encyclopedia* (1655), a vast compilation translated from Latin manuals, laid the foundations of scientific Hungarian. These two writers were active in the Principality of Transylvania, which remained the last bastion of Protestantism, thanks also to princes who collected Protestant religious songs and published them under the title *Graduale Maius* (1636), completing the previous collection, the *Little Gradual*, of 1592. The Transylvanian court contributed to the growth of literature with the autobiography of Prince János Kemény (1607–62) and that of the chancellor Miklós Bethlen (1642–1716). From the Catholic side, in 1651 the Jesuit Benedek Szőlősy published the collection *Cantus Catholici*, containing the finest Catholic songs.

Catholic religious poets, giving an example that would be followed in 1674 by the homonymous collection of Bishop Ferenc Szegedi, in 1676 by the *Cantionale catholicum* of the Franciscan János Kájoni, in 1693 by the *Salmi* of Canon István Illyés, and in 1695 by the *Lyra coelestis* of Canon György Náray. A second collection of verses was also published in 1651 by the poet-commander and statesman Miklós Zrinyi under the title: *Adriai tengernek Syrenaja*: “The Siren of the Adriatic,” which includes the *Szigeti veszedelem* (*Obsidio Szigetiana*), the first heroic-religious poem of Hungarian literature, whose subject is the siege of Sultan Süleyman in 1566 against the fortress of Szigetvár defended by an ancestor of the poet, where the historical element is organically fused with the miraculous through the poet’s living faith. Miklós Zrinyi (1620–64), a disciple of Pázmány, became Ban of Croatia at the age of 27. To complete his studies, Pázmány sent him to Italy, where Zrinyi deepened his knowledge of literature. In his politico-military works, all directed against Turkish domination, the influence of Machiavelli is discernible; in his pastorally inspired lyrics, that of Marino; while in the *Obsidio* the influence of Tasso is evident. In the form (stanzas of four dodecasyllabic rhymed verses) and style he created, László Listius sang the history of the Battle of Mohács under the title *Magyar Múrs* (1653).

The second great poet of the 17th century, István Gyöngyösi (1624–1704), narrows the scope of the heroic poem: in him religious sentiment is clothed in mythological decoration and loses intensity; historical events, instead of being national, are reduced to familial, and often even matrimonial, proportions, which gives him the pretext to shift poetic interest from the erotic to the amorous. Such are, for example, the poem *Márssal társalkodo Murányi Vénus* (*Venus of Murány conversing with Mars*) and the song on the marriage of Imre Thököly and Ilona Zrinyi, as well as part of the *Memoria of János Kemény*. Even more evident is the erotic intent beneath moralizing appearances in *Csalárd Cupido* (*Treacherous Cupid*). Not devoid of mythological contamination, but sincere and convincing, are his meditations on the Mysteries of the Rosary, *Rózsakoszoru*, rich in expressive means ranging from naive popular style to stark realism. As for technical skill in versification, Gyöngyösi’s art marks a significant advance over that of Zrinyi.

In the 17th century, narrative prose and drama did not move beyond translations or adaptations from foreign models. Artistic lyric poetry found among its practitioners some continuators of the Balassi tradition; among these, János Rimai, if he does not equal the model in lyrical power, is worthy of standing beside it for the variety of his inspiration. Péter Beniczky, who in his religious songs draws inspiration from Pázmány’s prayer book, and István Koháry, who writes most of his verses in prison, limit themselves instead to religious and patriotic poetry; Ferenc Barakonyi and Baroness Kata Szidónia Petróczi to amorous and religious poetry. Popular lyric poetry—or rather, due to unknown authors but by no means lacking in learning—continued to circulate in manuscript. A collection of erotic and satirical verses is the *Vásárhelyi daloskönyv* (*Songbook of Vásárhely*). Toward the end of the century there arose the *poetry of the kuruc*. The *kuruc* (from *crusc*: from the peasant revolt of 1514, originally recruited for a crusade against the Turks) were the insurgents against the Habsburgs, whether those persecuted after the discovery of the Wesselényi conspiracy, or the soldiers of Imre Thököly and Ferenc Rákóczi II. The themes of this poetry are hatred of the Germans, joy or sorrow for battles won or lost, concern for the fate of the fatherland often culminating in ardent prayers, and finally the expression of a long-repressed but exuberant vitality and cheerfulness in moments of respite. The poetry of the *kuruc* reached its greatest flowering in the first decade of the 18th century.

4. The 18th Century

Apart from its last decades, the 18th century is considered a period of decline in national literature. In reality, the centers generating literature were, at the beginning of the century, in the Rákóczi émigré community, and at the end of the century, in the Hungarian noble environment of the Viennese court; while intellectual interest shifted to some extent into the field of scientific literature.

In 1711, the Peace of Szatmár, ending the Rákóczi insurrection, marked the beginning of the emigration of Rákóczi and his followers, who after a first Polish period (1711–13) and Parisian period (1723–27) settled definitively in Rodostó, in Turkey. The most important literary products of the emigration are the memoirs, written in Latin, of Prince Rákóczi himself, and the *Letters from Turkey* of his chamberlain Kelemen Mikes, published posthumously in 1794. In these, addressed to an imaginary aunt, Mikes (1690–1761) collected all noteworthy events, added a rich store of anecdotes and tales, and wove over them the delicate fabric of a long unfulfilled love. Mikes also left a dozen translations from the French: all works of edification and religious history.

After the first attempts in the field of periodical printing, the *Ephemerides Latinae* of the Jesuit Márton Szentiványi (Nagyszombat, 1675–1710) and the *Mercurius* of Prince Rákóczi (1705–10), both directed at foreign public opinion, and after the first, more or less ephemeral initiatives to offer newspapers written in Latin or German for Hungarian readers—such as the *Nuova Posoniansa* (1721), the *Oferischer Mercurius* (1731), and the *Pressburger Zeitung* (1765)—Hungarian newspapers also emerged in the 18th century: the *Magyar Hírmondó* in Pozsony in 1780, which from 1787 onward also published a literary supplement, the *Magyar Mercurius* in Pest in 1787, the *Magyar-kurír* in Vienna in 1786, the *Erdélyi Magyar Hírívő* in Transylvania in 1790, etc.

The three major printing houses of the country—Nagyszombat, Budapest, Debrecen—printed a large quantity of scientific books, most in Latin, which helped make Hungarian history and legal life known abroad and integrated Hungary organically into the intellectual currents of Europe at the time. Comparative linguistics and literary history arose through the work of János Sajnovics and Dávid Cvittinger, while historiography continued to flourish: the Jesuit Gábor Hevenesy, with his collection of sources in 140 manuscript volumes, laid the foundations of Hungarian ecclesiastical history, while György Pray, also a Jesuit, completed, through archival research, the drafting of the *Annales veteres* and *Annales Regum Hungariae*. István Katona S.J.’s *Historia critica*, in 43 volumes, is the most substantial historiographical work known to Hungarian literature.

A bridge between scientific and literary prose is formed by the moral works of the Jesuit Ferenc Faludi (1704–1779), adaptations—through Italian, French, and German translations—of works by the Englishman Darell, the Spaniard Gracián, and others, each representing a step in a preventive struggle against Enlightenment thought. Anticipating even Herder, Faludi is the first scholar of popular poetry. While he introduces numerous Western forms into his lyrics (including the sonnet and other Italian forms—a result of his five-year stay in Rome as confessor to Hungarian pilgrims), he also employs neologisms to advance the linguistic renewal of the late century. Baron László Amadé (1703–64) is another lyric poet who enriches Hungarian poetry with his versatility, though his predominantly amorous and morally unserious output marks the first phenomenon of secularization in Hungarian literature. Pál Rádi, on the other hand, inaugurates a lyrical trend in his capacity as a poet of conjugal love, one that would later become traditional and find its highest expression in the poetry of Sándor Kisfaludy and Sándor Petőfi.

The Enlightenment current in Hungarian literature arose at the court of Maria Theresa, among the young nobles who served in the special bodyguard of the Queen in Vienna. The first figure in this movement was György Bessenyei, who imbued it with a nationalist direction, though his Enlightenment thought was not free from a profound tension between rationalist doubt and an inner need for religious faith. More of a cultural organizer than a creative artist, Bessenyei (1747–1811) nonetheless left lasting marks—in tragedy, comedy, epic and didactic poetry, political novels, and more—which would be followed in the 19th century by greater artists of the Enlightenment. Just as the leading statesmen of 19th-century Hungary abandoned the ancient and complete cultural initiatives that Bessenyei gradually pointed out in his numerous pamphlets, so too did the group of writers who took their name from Bessenyei and worked to realize his program—advancing the nation by cultivating the national language, especially through translations from French—soon gain a following at home. As this movement expanded, it preserved its nationalist program but lost its initial Enlightenment inspiration. The cause of this shift must also be sought in the bloody suppression of the Jacobin conspiracy led by the cleric Ignác Martinovics, in which numerous writers were implicated and consequently sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment.

From the seed sown by Bessenyei there arose various trends, depending on whether Hungarian or foreign, ancient or modern models were followed. Thus emerged the Latinizing trend, the Germanizing current, the conservative national school, and Italian influence, until all these streams converged in the more complex personalities of Kazinczy and Kölcsey.

The initiators of the Latinizing trend were the Jesuit Dávid Baróti (1739–1819), the sculptor Miklós Révai (1749–1807), and the Jesuit József Rájnis (1741–1812); the most accomplished continuator was the Pauline Benedek Virág; and the perfector and last representative of this school was the Lutheran Dániel Berzsenyi (1776–1836), a layman. The principal merit of the three precursors was to clarify, through polemical writings, the problems of Hungarian prosody; to translate faithfully a series of classical authors and sometimes even humanists; and to introduce definitively into Hungarian poetry all classical meters along with many forms of thought from the Greek and Roman worlds—both ancient and Baroque—thereby enriching the Hungarian poetic language. Virág placed ancient meters in the service of patriotic actuality, popularizing the Latinizing trend. From Berzsenyi, form, concision, and Horatian psychology are taken up and lived with deep Christian faith. The peaks of his religious and patriotic poetry are the odes *Fohászkodás* ("Prayer") and *A magyarokhoz* ("To the Hungarians").

Among the leading figures of the conservative national school stand out the sculptor András Dugonics (1704–1818), the general József Gvadányi of Italian origin (1725–1801), and the botanist Mihály Fazekas (1766–1828). Dugonics, "the father of the Hungarian novel," translated Homeric poems and the *Aeneid* into alexandrines and wrote a series of historical novels, of which *Etelka* was the first "bestseller" in Hungarian literature. Dugonics owed his great popularity to his ardent nationalism. Gvadányi, in a satirical-moralizing poem, *Egy falusi notárius budai utazása* ("The Journey to Buda of a Country Notary," 1790), praises the ancient national virtues and condemns the imitation of foreign fashions; in the poem *Rontó Pál* ("Paul the Scoundrel"), he tells the story of a popular adventurer. Mihály Fazekas, with the poem *Ludas Matyi* ("Matt the Gooseherd"), offers one of the first social impulses in Hungarian literature through the tale of a serf’s triple revenge against a large landowner.

Close to the national trend but surpassing its school limitations are Sándor Kisfaludy and Mihály Csonkoni Vitéz. Sándor Kisfaludy (1777–1844), an officer stationed in Milan and later a prisoner of war in Provence, came into contact with Petrarch’s poetry and wrote under the influence of the *Canzoniere* his two books *Himfy szerelmei* ("The Loves of Himfy: Love’s Lament and Happy Love"). In the first, Kisfaludy does not go beyond Petrarchan themes, while in the second he sings of conjugal love. A more complex, and tragically shorter-lived figure—always living in poverty and dying young—is Csonkoni (1773–1805), whose poetic personality ranges from the delicacy of songs to Lilla, the most airy and musical in Hungarian lyric poetry, through the humorous success of the mock-heroic poem *Dorottya* ("Dorothea, or the Ladies at Carnival"), to the philosophical depth of *A lélek halhatatlanságáról* ("On the Immortality of the Soul"). He translated works by Tasso, Metastasio, and Guarino.

In the Germanizing trend, the most prominent writers are Gedeon Ráday (1713–92), Gábor Dayka (1768–96), the Pauline Ferenc Verseghy (1775–1822), János Batsányi (1763–1845), and József Kármán (1769–95). In the poetry of Ráday and Verseghy, rhyme and meter appear paired for the first time; Dayka is the first melancholic-sentimental voice; Batsányi, initially a revolutionary poet and later a bitter pessimist, is the first theorist in Hungary of artistic translation; Kármán transplants into Hungarian literature, with Fanni hagyományai («The Memoirs of Fanni»), the sentimental novel. Literary life in the modern sense of the word begins in Hungary with the activity of Ferenc Kazinczy (1739–1831). Through the publication of literary journals and, above all, his correspondence with all Hungarian writers, poets, and scholars—later collected in 21 volumes—he became the organizer of Hungarian literary life. The controversy that arose from the activity of the Neologists, to which Kazinczy himself contributed greatly, especially through his translations from Sallust, Shakespeare, Molière, Goethe, and Lessing, only heightened the public’s interest in literature. Although Kazinczy’s poetic output takes second place to his organizational and innovative work, it is nonetheless marked by an extremely refined stylistic sense and sure taste. A companion of Kazinczy in linguistic renewal and his follower in poetic direction was Ferenc Kölcsey (1790–1838), a precursor of Hungarian literary criticism and a great political and academic orator, formed on the models of classical rhetoric. He is the author of the Hymnus (Hungarian national anthem), in which, as in his other civic poems, lyrical inspiration is united with a philosophical deepening of history.

5. The Nineteenth Century

This is the golden age of Hungarian literature. The initiatives in organization, linguistic renewal, and poetic creation that matured in the 1700s culminate in national Romanticism, which constitutes for Hungary a particularly propitious historical moment in which political and cultural factors inspire and reinforce each other. Nor is it possible in this period to draw a clear distinction between men of letters and statesmen, so thoroughly does the fervor of national revival engage the finest minds; already, for example, in the novelist and Minister of Education Eötvös, the man of letters cannot be separated from the statesman. This period runs from 1820 until Petőfi’s debut in 1844 and is dominated by the figures of the poet Vörösmarty, the playwright Kisfaludy, and the novelist Eötvös. A new social consciousness, from which there sprang in the national assemblies a series of economic and social reforms—initiated above all by Count Széchenyi but welcomed and accepted by a public opinion already prepared by the activities of writers under the influence of Kossuth—burst forth irresistibly toward complete national independence. While political progress, culminating in 1848 in the complete emancipation of the serfs and then in the War of Independence, which Austria won with Russian help, suffered a long setback during the period of absolutism (1849–67), literary life continued its course, dominated by the figures of the poets Arany and Tompa, the novelists Kemény and Jókai, and the critic Gyulai.

Only in the last two decades of the century did the creative effort of the national genius spread into epigonism, without, however, too much softening in the intimate atmosphere of the fin de siècle.

The literary activity of Count István Széchenyi (1791–1860), whom posterity ranks as “the greatest Hungarian,” ranges from a small practical pamphlet A lovakrul («On Horses») to the satirical Allucination against Vienna’s absolutism (Blick); his most important works are the volumes Hitel («Credit»), Világ («World»), and Stádium, and the controversy with Kossuth through the periodical press and the volume Kelet népe («People of the East»), while his diaries constitute a document of the highest value, revealing a soul and an era. Lajos Kossuth’s (v.) literary fame is bound up with his parliamentary and propagandistic speeches.

No less a precursor than he in historical foresight is Baron Miklós Wesselényi, who with his Szózat («Appell») drew the world’s attention as early as 1843 to the growing Slavic peril. The speeches and newspaper articles of Ferenc Deák, the “sage of the fatherland” and advocate of the Compromise with Austria, convey a sober and rational style. But the most philosophically profound political work of 19th-century Hungary remains Eötvös’s fundamental essay On the Influence of the Dominant Ideas of the 19th Century on the State, in Hungarian and German, in which the principles of the French Revolution and other political principles of the age (nationalism, centralism, regionalism, etc.) are analyzed and presented in their historical realization and future prospects with keen insight and foresight.

The role that the consciousness of ancient glory could play in shaping a new national mentality was secured for Hungarians by their greatest Romantic poet, Mihály Vörösmarty (1800–55). He renewed and almost re-created the Hungarian heroic poem with Zalán futása («The Flight of Zalán») and other minor epics; with his historical dramas he immersed the dawn of national history in a Shakespearean atmosphere and attained philosophical depth in the fairy-tale drama Csongor és Tünde; he diversified and intensified lyric poetry and, above all, ensured the definitive triumph of linguistic renewal. Less powerful in language but no less important in literary activity was the playwright Károly Kisfaludy (1788–1830), who, while in his historical dramas and social comedies he popularized the new aspects of national consciousness, also made the capital of the kingdom the center of literary life by founding the journal Aurora, the first truly widespread and widely read literary journal in Hungary. More talented as a tragedian was József Katona (1791–1830), who created with Bánk bán («Ban Bánk») the representative national tragedy, though fortune smiled on him only posthumously.

If the historical novel owes its great 19th-century popularity to the felicitous vein of Baron Miklós Jósika (1794–1865), it rises to national significance in the work of Baron József Eötvös (1813–71): his four novels A karthauszi («The Carthusian»), A falu jegyzője («The Village Notary»), Magyarország 1514-ben («Hungary in 1514»), and Nővérek («Sisters») are all thesis novels. The Carthusian, a psychological novel about the search for happiness, teaches that only selfishness fails to find happiness on earth. The Village Notary is a comprehensive indictment of the abuses of feudalism in local administration and argues the ineluctable necessity of centralization. In Hungary in 1514, the social man speaks to point to the nation, through the example of history, to another great ineluctable task: the liberation of the serfs. The last, Sisters, teaches through the differing fates of two equal beings the decisive importance of education: in it, Eötvös the Minister of Education imparts to his countrymen the most important lesson from his high chair.

The happiest moment of Hungarian literature, the national classicism, arises from the popularly tinged hymn on the trunk of Romanticism. Petőfi, Arany, Madách are universally recognized values, even if not well known. Sándor Petőfi (1823–49), the greatest Hungarian lyric poet, cultivated all genres of poetry: narrative and patriotic and family lyricism, but perhaps he is greatest as a landscape poet, because in this field he combines an impressionistic hypersensitivity with an almost primitive simplicity of tone. Imbued with a lively social sentiment and continually stirred by a revolutionary temperament, Petőfi is, at the same time, a man of great moral integrity, a naturally Christian soul. In this respect he is not unlike János Arany (1817–82), a notary and teacher in a modest agricultural village, later general secretary of the Hungarian Academy in the capital. He translated Tasso, Shakespeare, and all of Aristophanes, but did not write for the theatre; he was a lyric poet, but one of reflection rather than passion. He reached the highest peaks of his art in narrative poetry: in the heroic-popular trilogy Toldi, in poems on the dawn of Hungarian history such as Buda halála («The Death of Buda»), and in numerous ballads of Nordic type. Mihály Tompa (1817–68), an elegiac and allegorical poet, found his happiest accents in the years following the War of Independence, when his poems became a consolation to many patriots: A gólyához («To the Stork»), A madár fiahoz («To the Bird’s Children»). In the depressed years of absolutism, too, most of the literary activity of the novelist Baron Zsigmond Kemény (1814–75) unfolded. In his novels, which deal with episodes from Transylvanian history, he achieves a rare power in reviving the animating spirits of different past epochs. With his more than 100 volumes of novels and stories, Mór Jókai (1825–1904) is the most prolific, imaginative, and captivating Hungarian narrator, even if not the deepest or most solid in moral conception. Imre Madách (1823–64), with his historical-philosophical drama Az ember tragédiája («The Tragedy of Man»), resolves the search for meaning in history with Christian pessimism.

The creative work of Hungarian poets and writers in this golden period was effectively complemented by the critical work of József Bajza (1804–58) and Pál Gyulai (1825–1909), who were themselves poets.

6. The Twentieth Century

The writers who emerged in our century draw their origins from various currents: realism, naturalism, symbolism. In the 19th century, Hungarian literature had reached the intensity of Western literatures, and in the 20th it aligns itself completely with them in perfect simultaneity. Poetic translation becomes an extremely important national literary category without detracting from the originality of Hungarian writers. Numerous literary journals sprang up: conservative ones such as Új tők («New Times») and Napkelet («East»), the Catholic Élet («Life»), and progressive ones such as A Hét («The Week») and Nyugat («West»), on whose pages fierce but invigorating polemics flared between conservatives and Westernizers. The First World War did not cause too much damage to Hungarian literary life, because on the one hand it revived, through irredentism, the literary forms of patriotism, and on the other, thanks to the activity of writers gathered around the journal Erdélyi Helikon, it gave rise to a Transylvanian literature marked by a particular fervor.

Against the decline of taste, the most important literary journal, Nyugat, reacted; it was directed for decades by Mihály Babits, who gave Hungarians a beautiful translation of the *Divine Comedy* and of numerous medieval sacred hymns. Amateurs or immoralists are found only among the mediocre; the greatest, even if more or less distant from Christianity, are religious souls who reveal their inner struggle before the Divinity: this is the case of the Nietzschean-symbolist Endre Ady (1877–1937) and of Dezső Kosztolányi (1885–1937), who grew from crepuscular to modernist; or, in the younger generation, Attila József (1905–1937), who moved from a Marxist origin to become a singer of universal love, and Sándor Weöres (b. 1913), a surrealist whose struggle between Indo-European ideologies and Christianity is still ongoing.

The important group of sociographers, through patient documentary work in literary form, has helped to bring about a national agrarian reform in public opinion. Their leading figure is the poet Gyula Illyés, but their spiritual derivation from the realist novelist Zsigmond Móricz (1879–1941) and from Dezső Szabó (1879–1945), a verist and romantic novelist, is undeniable. In contrast to the gradual secularization of Hungarian literature in the 19th century, the first half of the 20th is marked by a reverse process, both in the intensification of religious spirit and in the growing participation of ecclesiastics in intellectual and literary life. The apologist Ottokár Prohászka, bishop of Székesfehérvár (1858–1927), the orator Tihamér Tóth (1880–1936), and the dogmatic Antal Schütz, O.P. (b. 1886), exercised a decisive influence on the spiritual formation of the new Hungarian generations. The priest-poets Lajos Harsányi (b. 1883), Sándor Sik (b. 1889), and László Mécs (b. 1895) are at the forefront of 20th-century Hungarian poetry. All these moral values will one day help to heal the rupture that the Second World War produced in the development of Hungarian literature.

and the inscription «Invicto Constantino felici triumphantis». In one from Intercisa, now in the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin, besides the Good Shepherd there is the Emperor on horseback (G. Supka, *Frühchristliche Kästchenbeschläge aus Ungarn*, in *Römische Quartalschrift*, 27 [1913], pp. 162 ff.).

VII. ART

The artistic cultures that developed in the Danubian basin, later occupied by the Hungarians, before their arrival were those typical of the various peoples who had successively inhabited the region: Huns, Scythians, Avars, Lombards; cultures which, locally, had grafted onto the sediment of that developed in Dacia and Pannonia during the period of Roman rule.

It was St Stephen, first king of the Hungarians (997–1038), who, by converting his people to the Christian faith, also oriented their taste toward the West, as evidenced by the few surviving remains of buildings from his age at Alba Regia (Székesfehérvár) and Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia).

Then, during the Romanesque period between the 12th and 13th centuries, important churches were built, particularly in Pannonia in the ancient capital of Strigonia (Esztergom), of which more or less altered remains survive, testifying to the introduction into the territory of architectural elements of Lombard and French taste. But it was precisely at the beginning of the 13th century that Gothic forms also began to appear in Hungary. These were imported especially by the Cistercian, Benedictine, and Premonstratensian monks, who had large abbeys in the territory. Among the French architects then active in Hungary, Villars de Honnecourt should be particularly remembered, the author of the cathedral of St. Elizabeth in Kassa (Košice). Gothic forms were also used in churches built at that time in Buda, Pozsony (Presburg), Gyorke, Kasmark, Tyrnau, and Tranchín (13th–14th centuries), always of French derivation. Gothic forms are also seen in the cathedral of Rosenak and later in the chapel of St. Michael in Kassa.

The latter is in late Gothic (Flamboyant) style and dates to the 15th century, while the beautiful Episcopal Palace of Kuttemberg was built between 1470 and 1506.

Meanwhile, direct artistic relations with Italy were also intensifying. They began when the Angevin princes of Naples ruled over the Hungarians during the 14th century and then continued throughout the Renaissance. Nicola di Tommaso, a Florentine painter, worked in the 14th century in the Palatine Chapel of Esztergom, while the Museum of that city preserves painted panels by Tommaso di Kolozsvár (Cluj) — the leading exponent of Hungarian painting at the beginning of the 15th century — whose works show elements derived from Italian art, particularly from Gentile da Fabriano, who had among his pupils a Hungarian named Michele. It is also known that Masolino da Panicale worked in Hungary around 1430 and that, some time later, Michele Pannonio imported elements of Italian taste into Hungary from Ferrara. Subsequently, the Hungarian master who signs his works with the initials M. S. clearly shows strong Umbrian influences in the elements of his training. In any case, it is evident that during the 15th century, it was Italian Renaissance art that assumed a decisive pre-eminence in Hungary. This reflected the precise will of Matthias Corvinus, who reigned over the Hungarians from 1458 to 1490. In his time, great works were carried out throughout Hungary. While Pellegrino da Fermo and Benedetto da Majano worked on behalf of the King in the Buda Castle, other Italian artists, such as Aristotele Fioravanti, Camicia Ghimenti, and Baccio Cellini, also worked for him, who commissioned works in Florence from Verrocchio, Filippino Lippi (painters), Cristoforo Romano (sculptor), and Altavante and Gherardo (miniaturists).

The fashion for Renaissance forms continued in Hungary even after the death of King Matthias. This is evidenced by the chapel annexed to the Cathedral of Esztergom (Gran), built in 1507 for the Primate Thomas Bakócz by Frerucci da Fiesole.

At that time, Hungarian architects were already adapting imported Renaissance forms to their own taste. This is seen in buildings, even of lesser importance, in the territories of Szepes and Sáros, where stylistic forms echoing Italian Renaissance themes evolved into minor modes right into the 18th century.

The program then included compulsory and optional subjects, with the aim of leaving ample scope for choosing, alongside a unitary basic culture, those disciplines that had aroused the greatest interest in the students. However, in 1949, optional subjects were greatly reduced in hours and number; among those that disappeared were Latin and modern languages, while the study of the Russian language remained compulsory. In 1949, religious instruction also ceased to be compulsory in general education.

7. Secondary education

According to the program outlined by decree in 1948, secondary education comprises three main groups of schools, two of which are subdivided into various types of schools, tailored to the future directions of the students. a) The first group or "gimnázium" has a single type of school, both male and female, lasting 4 years, corresponding roughly to our high school, and divided into three parallel sections: 1) classical section, characterized by the study of Latin and one modern language; 2) modern languages section, without Latin but with two modern languages; 3) science section, without Latin, with one modern language and a broader development of scientific subjects. At the end of the fourth year, students take the matura examination before an internal commission; the diploma grants access, for the classical section, to all university faculties; for the science section, only to faculties of medicine, physics, chemistry, and higher technical studies. b) The second group includes the following types of schools: 1) 4-year industrial middle school, with two sections: mechanical and chemical; 2) 4-year commercial middle school; 3) 4-year agricultural middle school; 4) 4-year gardening middle school, with a program similar to that of the agricultural school but with special gardening subjects; 5) 5-year male and female teacher training middle school; 6) 3-year middle school for the training of kindergarten teachers, plus 1 year of internship; 7) 4-year male and female "liceum" with a practical orientation: knowledge of economics, domestic science, and basic notions of family and school education for children.

c) The third group, with an artistic orientation, was to include the following types: 1) fine arts lyceum; 2) middle school for the training of film artists; 3) middle school for the training of theater artists; 4) music middle school.

However, this overview of secondary education underwent several changes in 1949: a reduction in the program, deemed overloaded, an intensification of the study of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the struggle against clericalism and chauvinism. Moreover, all middle schools were to be called "ginnasi," and the same subjects were to be distributed differently.

Higher education. — According to the reform programmes of 1950 (which may still be subject to further partial reforms in individual branches), higher education comprises: universities and higher schools. a) Universities of technical sciences: 1) Technical University of Engineering in Budapest (with sections in mechanical, road, electrical, hydraulic, construction and chemical engineering); 2) University of Heavy Industry Sciences in Miskolc (with 3 sections: mining, metallurgy, machinery); 3) University of Technical Sciences in Sopron (with 2 sections: forestry and surveying); 4) University of Heavy Industrial Chemical Sciences (chemical engineering). b) Hungarian University of Economic Sciences, in Budapest (with specialisations in: industry, commerce, agricultural economics, general economics, teacher training for secondary schools). c) Universities of studies: 1) in Budapest (with 3 faculties: sciences, philosophy, law); 2) in Szeged (with 4 faculties: natural sciences, philosophy, law, medicine); 3) in Pécs (with 3 faculties: natural sciences, law, medicine); 4) in Debrecen (with 3 faculties: natural sciences, philosophy, medicine). d) University of Agricultural Sciences in Budapest (with 3 faculties: veterinary medicine, agricultural economics, fruit and vegetable growing). e) Higher schools: 1) of Business and Commerce, in Budapest (with 3 specialisations: business management, domestic and foreign trade); 2) of Technology, in Budapest (textile mechanics, coal mining, leather chemistry, etc.); 3) of Education in Budapest, Szeged, Eger, Pécs (languages, sciences, physical education, etc.); 4) of Fine Arts, in Budapest (painting, frescoes and graphic arts, sculpture, drawing); 5) of Decorative Arts in Budapest (interior decoration, ceramics, scenography, etc.); 6) of Music, in Budapest (composition, conducting, various instruments); 7) of Dramatic Arts, in Budapest (acting, theatre and film directing); 8) of Physical Education in Budapest.

Taken as a whole, universities and higher schools are valued above all for their practical aims.

Supporting institutions for the improvement of schools and, in general, of cultural education are the Institute for Popular Culture (1946) and the Institute for Popular Culture Films (1947), to which are gradually added scholarship grants, student welfare provisions and study facilities for workers. — See plates LXXVII–LXXVIII.