Bright and Splendid Hungary [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION This album by Péter Komiss, entitled Bright and Splendid Hungary, has been produced with the intention of showing Hungary through the eyes of a sensitive artist with an original way of seeing things. Although it captures moments, the pleasure it offers is not momentary. We can enjoy it whenever we choose to look through its pages. These photographs help us to see this country as beautiful, bright and brighter still for the very reason that we see it through the artist's loving eyes. It is especially topical to present an overview of Hungary at the time of the country's accession to the European Union. This album proceeds from east to west, following the direction of the historical change. We are shown the land, the rivers, the people, flowers and birds, past and present. A piece of Central Europe. Something beautiful. Otto von Habsburg ONE THOUSAND YEARS IN EUROPE The term 'Hungarian history' means the history both of the Magya?-, i.e. Hungarian, people and of the country. The two are not the same. The history of the Magyar people began in Asia and the history of Hungary is entwined with that of Europe. Our ancestors came from beyond the Urals or even further, from the foot of the Altai Mountains, at the beginning of the first millennium BC-the 'dark centuries' for the Greeks, when barbarian Doric tribes invaded Hellas. The foundations of Rome had not yet been laid, but the glorious Idngdom of David and Solomon had already been split in two in Palestine. The migi-ation was long. It took the Magyars across the steppe between the Caspian Sea and the Urals. On the way they mingled with Scytliians and Sarmatians, later with Huns and Avars. Magna Hungaria, i.e. "Great Old Hungary", already lay on the western side of the Urals, somewhere around present-day Bashkiria. From there the Magyars migrated further south-west, seven hundred years after Christ's birth, crossing the Volga on horseback and settling in Levedia on the periphery of the IChazar Empire, by the Sea of Azov. Around 840 AD they left for Etelköz, the vast plain between the River Don and the lower reaches of the Danube east of the Carpathians. The invasion of the Carpathian Basin—what later became Hungary—was completed by 896. The chronicles describe this area as a land of milk and honey Otto Babenberg, Bishop of Freising, who visited Hungary in 1147 wrote as follows: "The province has a great plain in the middle watered by rivers abounding in water, is rich in forests and game, and the beauty of the landscape is just as impressive as the richness of the soil. It nearly seems to be God's Paradise, just like the splendid Egypt of the Mamelukes." In the centuries before Christ. Celtic tribes had also come to the Carpathian Basin. Their rule did not last long, as Rome occupied present-day Transdanubia-the part of Hungary west of the Danube-in the first century AD. Later Dacians, Sarmatians, Huns, Gepids and Longobards followed each other, The empire of the Avars existed for two hundred years. When Charlemagne broke their rule around 800 AD, he had their treasures transported to Aachen and Paderborn. When the conquering Magyars crossed the Carpathian passes, they found here only fragments of the Avars and some Slav peoples surviving amid the ruins of Roman Pannónia, and Bulgarians coming to present-day southern Transylvania for salt and gold. A scholar of Boldiara, the Arab Dzaihani, wrote of the Magyars around 870 AD that they were a handsome people and "visibly wealthy". In outward appearance they resembled the semi-nomadic equestrian peoples of the Asian steppe, with their bracelets, earrings, hair ornaments, metal tips on felt caps, buttons, rosettes, and bells of silver and gold. Where did this wealth come from? From the booty taken during raids, and from the taxes on the countries systematically pillaged and forced Ancient tombstone fivm Szentendre, showing a Roman or Eraviscan couple mth child and a burial cart below. into alliance. They were not occasional forays, but thoroughly planned offensives prepared through painstaking espionage, backed up by agreements of alliance and executed with precision. They began around 860 and lasted until around 970 AD. This period was a stunning achievement of military skill and horsemanship. The host of Hungarian horsemen rode with ease and fought in Bavaria and Swabia, reached the North Sea in Saxony the Atlantic Ocean in Gaul and Attica in Greece. Their success lay in the quality of their harness and their bow, their strong eastern horses, their tactics and the lightning-fast and co-ordinated movement of their light cavalry divisions, They crossed the snow-capped ranges of the Pyrenees, rode up the Ebró valley to Asturia, and to the Moorish Córdoba in Andalusia. They besieged Venice, swimming on horseback. The Venetian fleet was deployed against them and the Canale Grande was cut off by a heavy chain. They raided Italy so regularly that the road they used across the Alps was called Via !mgherése even centuries later. In the late century Western Europe suffered attacks by the Moors and the Vikings. Then came the raiding Hungarians, too. 'A saggitis Hungnronnn libera nos, Domine!", i.e. "From the Hungarians' arrows save us, oh Lord!", went the prayer of the peoples of Europe, according to the testimony of contemporary prayer-books. But the Lord failed to help, so the affected counuies helped themselves, hi this way the fight against the marauding Hungarians contributed to the union of the dukes and princes there. The outlines of a new Europe began to be shaped by the barbarian Germanic tribes in the west, on die ruins of Rome in the late century AD, and the process was completed by the Hungarians in the east. The French historian George Duby wTites that in the early century marauders made repeated incursions into French territories. Danes, Saracens of North Africa and "those nomadic horsemen who reached Aquitania in tlie course of their raids and finally settled down in Hungary". By the end of the century the migrations of the nomadic peoples had subsided. It caused destruction but, at the same time, "fermented change and contributed to the rise of a new era". In the West the combination of die Roman heritage and the Frankish tradition gave rise to the new order of Christianity and feudalism into which we had to integrate if we did not want to go the way of the Sc)thians, Huns, and Avars.