Hungarian literature

by Emil Reich

CHAPTER V.

896-1520.

The history of Hungarian Literature is divided into four distinct periods. The first comprises the time from the advent of the Magyars in Hungary to the Reformation (896-1520); the second, from the Reformation to the peace of Szathmár, or the termination and failure of Hungary’s revolt from Austria (1520-1711); the third, from 1711 to 1772, or the period of stagnation; and finally from 1772 to our own days, or the period of the full development.

896-1520. The first period is exceedingly poor in written remains of literature. In fact, the first and thus the oldest literary relic of the Hungarian language is a short “Funeral Sermon” (Halotti Beszéd), dating from the first third of the thirteenth century; and for 200 years after that date, we meet, with the exception of a Hungarian glossary of the year 1400, recently discovered at Schlaegl, in Upper Austria, with no example of a Hungarian literary work of even slight extent. From the middle of the fifteenth century we possess a fragment, called after the town where it was discovered, by Dr. Julius Zacher in 1862, the “Königsberg (in Prussia) Fragment.” Thus, the number of extant, or hitherto discovered Hungarian works of even slight literary merit is, down to 1450 A.D., an almost negligible quantity. Mr. Szilády in his “Collection of Ancient Hungarian Poets” (Régi Magyar Költők Tára) has indeed communicated six and fifty mediæval Hungarian church-poems and other fragments; but of that number scarcely a dozen are original poems, the rest being mere translations of the then current church-poetry. The philologist may no doubt find much to glean from even this scant harvest of Hungarian Literature in the first period. For literature proper, it is of no account whatever. Yet it would be unfair to leave this period without even a passing mention of its oral literature, or epic and legendary stories, of which there must have been no small quantity in those agitated times.

The Hungarian naïve epic is lost. A glance at the habits of the Finns will, however, suffice to satisfy the inquirer that the Hungarians, like their cousins in Russia, must have cultivated the art of recitation and oral handing down of the glorious deeds of their ancestors, to no small extent. We now know that the immense epic of the Finns, the Kalevala, has been transmitted from generation to generation by bards who had treasured up in their memories the endless runot recording the deeds of Lemminkäinen, Väinämöinen, and Jlmarinen. The Hungarians, too, had their bards, called igrigeczek, or hegedősök (violinists); and at the manors of the nobles or the courts of the kings, old heroic songs were recited about Attila, King of the Huns; his brother, Bleda; the fearful battle on the Catalaunian fields (Chalons-sur-Marne, 451 A.D.); the building of the castle of Buda; the siege of Aquileia; and the last fatal wedding of the terrible Hun. These Hun epics were widely known and recited in mediæval Hungary, as witnessed by the chronicles of those times. The people firmly believed themselves to be the successors of Attila’s hordes, and this belief, although absolutely discountenanced by modern historians, is still lingering in the spinning-halls of Hungarian villages, and in lecture halls in England and America.

The circle of those oral epics comprised also the Magyar heroes proper. There were stories about Álmos, father of Árpád, the conqueror of Hungary; others about the “Seven Magyars” (Hét Magyar); the conquest of Transylvania by doughty Tuhutum, one of Árpád’s generals; the flight of King Zalán, defeated by Árpád; the exploits of valiant Botond, Lehel (the Hungarian Roland), Bölscü, and other paladins of Árpád’s times, etc. In the fragments from Priscus, the Byzantine rhetorician and historian; in the chronicles of Ekkehard, the monk of St. Gallen; and in the “Anonymus,” or one of the chief, but hitherto, fatherless chronicles of Hungary, the above and some more heroic stories and epical records may be found.

In addition to the heroic epic, the Hungarians, like all the rest of the Christian nations of the west, had a considerable tradition of legends and lives of saints. Fortunately for Hungary, it had become, by the end of the tenth century of our era, both the hierarchical and political interest of one of the most learned and most statesmanlike of the popes, Sylvester II., to detach Hungary completely from the Eastern, or Greek Church; and to adopt it, by sending a royal crown to Stephen, duke of the Hungarians, into the world of Roman Catholicism. Had Hungary joined the Eastern Church, it could never have withstood the ambition and supremacy of the German Emperors, aided by the Popes of Rome. Having, however, adopted the Roman, or progressive form of Christianity, Hungary was endowed with occidental or richer seedlings of civilization. St. Mary was made the patroness of Hungary; and all through the Middle Ages, she was adored and glorified in legends and songs. Some of these Hungarian legends about the Virgin Mary we still possess; likewise, the life of St. Margit, the daughter of King Béla IV.; the famous story of Josaphat and Barlaam, one of the most popular of mediæval Christian legends, taken originally from Indian (Buddhistic) sources; the life of St. Catherine of Alexandria, etc. The most characteristically Hungarian of these legends is, as to its subject, the life of St. Margit. As to its literary merits, it is, alas! a dry chronicle without any charm of form or diction at all. Nor did the Hungarians, as far as we know, succeed in throwing one or another of their crusading heroes into strong epic relief. The crusaders, in spite of their marvellous deeds, lent themselves far more to good chronicling than to epics. Their inherent poetic vice of being, or trying to be, saints rather than heroes rendered them unfit for real epics.