Ópusztaszer is the home of one of Hungary's most beautiful paintings. The panorama depicts the arrival of the Hungarians to what is today their fatherland. It portrays fearsome nomads on horseback, under the leadership of Árpád, conquering a new country and fighting the locals – Slavs.
The surviving defenders will soon seek refuge in the mountains and after a few centuries their descendants will become the Slovaks. Thus, it might seem incomprehensible that us Poles, another Slav nation, fell in love with the savage and brutal Hungarians.
The initial contacts were by no means easy. However, Poland managed to avoid Magyar raids. How did that happen? Well, the young country by the banks of the Vistula did not attract the attention of the peoples living by the Danube. We sadly have to concede, that we were not sufficiently interesting (or rich enough) to warrant a raid. Statistics illustrate this tendency perfectly. Only 35 records pertaining to the descendants of Lech can be found in Hungarian sources. And only one of those refers to Poland's domestic history. On the other hand, the chroniclers of the Piasts write 75 times about the Hungarians. 18 of those records treat our future brothers to be in contexts not related to Poland.
The Hungarian Gesta Ungarorum chronicle, one of the primary sources of knowledge for the Árpád state elites of the period, mentions Poland three times. However, not within the scope of international relations but in a purely geographical sense. The first record is found in chapter XVIII, where an anonymous chronicler wrote about Bunger's military expedition and his founding of the Borsod fort to defend the border with Poland. Poles are mentioned for the second time in records pertaining to the war with Nitra, when fortifications were built in Zwoleń forest as protection against the Czechs and Lechites. The last mention once again refers to the border with Poland. However, it talks about a tribute allegedly paid by the Poles.
Whereas Szymon Kéza, a fourteenth century chronicler, ascertained that after the Huns (legendary ancestors of the Hungarians) left the Pannonian Plain, these lands were taken over by Marot, a Polish prince. However, he is thought to be a fictional figure and that he actually ruled Great Moravia and not lands inhabited by the Polans.
The same author mentions Poles on a number of occasions, usually in a negative light, as enemies who support Emperor Henry III or as peoples behind military interventions supporting pretenders to the Hungarian throne.
Nonetheless there is a common theme in the form of a story in the Hungarian - Polish chronicle, where legendary history of the Hungarians is laid out. As the story goes, circa 1000 AD, King Stephen, the later Saint, sent a mission to Rome with a request for the pope to confer the status of a kingdom upon his country and to present him with a crown. According to the chronicler, the Polish ruler, most probably mistakenly referred to as Mieszko, also sent his representatives with an analogous request at the same time. The Pope agreed to bequeath a "magnificently crafted" crown to the ruler of lands on the banks of the Vistula, especially made for him. However, that same night, St. Peter's successor had a dream, wherein an angel appeared and addressed him with the following words:
"Tomorrow at one o'clock you shall find out, that envoys of an unknown peoples from East Hungary will arrive, who, upon relinquishing their savage paganism, humbly bowing down will ask you for a royal crown for their prince Stephen together with the gift of an apostolic blessing. You shall then take the crown which you have made ready for the prince of the Poles, Mieszko, and give it without a fight to the Hungarian prince, just as his envoys are asking. Know that he deserves it, together with royal glory for the deeds he performed during his lifetime. Go forth and do as I bid!"
In the morning, the pope, obedient to God's command, gave the crown to the Hungarian envoys. However, seeing the saddened and dismayed faces of Mieszko's envoys, he decided to do justice to the Poles. That is why he bound the Poles and the Hungarians to eternal alliance and friendship between the two peoples under threat of excommunication, if one dared to initiate hostilities against the other or failed to aid its neighbour in need.
However, apart from the Hungarian - Polish chronicle, it is difficult to find records of accord towards the Poles in early Medieval Hungarian sources. At that stage its northern neighbour was inhabited by a peoples with whom politics typical for the Middle Ages are engaged in: wars, supporting the opposition and pretenders to the throne, sometimes dynastic marriages and temporary alliances are entered into.
The situation was further complicated by the domain's feudal division into provinces following Wrymouth's testament. It gave rise to a disproportion between the small, squabbling princedoms of the Piasts and the state of the Árpáds, whose rulers, despite internal quarrels, uninterruptedly maintained the royal status and presided over one of the biggest countries in the Middle Ages. Therefore Poland was not an equal partner for Hungary. Béla IV's letter to Pope Innocent IV perfectly depicts how Poland was perceived, wherein he expressed his grief that in conjunction with the Tatar threat he had to marry off his daughters, Hungarian princesses, "only" to minor dukes (Bolesław the Chaste for example).
Nonetheless, it was these marriages that sparked Hungarian interest in their northern neighbours, which ultimately led to much closer relationships between the two countries. Hungarian courtiers accompanied the princesses to the Piast domains. For example, these relations gave rise to the legend of Saint Kinga, still alive in the memory of both nations today.
One has to be aware that the miraculous move of the salt mine from Siedmiogród to Wieliczka belongs to the realm of fantasy. However, it is symbolic of how much we owe to the Hungarians. It is from Hungary, and the subsequent dynastic liaisons, that we obtained new ideas, concepts, technological solutions or methods for managing a country. Perhaps the fragmented Poland would never have become united without this essential know-how.
dr Adam Szabelski
Regional Centre for International Debate
in Poznań
Literature:
Felczak W., Historia Węgier, [The History of Hungary] Wrocław 1983.
Grzesik R., Polska Piastów i Węgry Arpadów we wzajemnej opinii (do 1320) [Poland of the Piasts and Hungary of the Árpáds - mutual opinion of one another (up to 1320)] , Warsaw 2003.
Grzesik R. (edit. by), Żywot Św. Stefana Króla Węgier, czyli kronika węgiersko-polska [The life of St. Stephen the king of Hungary or the Hungarian - Polish chronicle], Warsaw 2003.
Sroka A., Historia Węgier do 1526 [History of Hungary up to 1526], Bydgoszcz 2000.