The Magyar »Conquest of Hungary«,End of the 9th Century

The Foundation of the Hungarian Nation and the Coronation of St. Stephen in 1001

At the end of the 9th century the Magyar chieftain Árpád led his people, who had been driven out of the area between the Don and the Dnieper, to settle in a new territory between the Danube and the Tisza. As portrayed by Mihály Munkácsy in his history painting for the Hungarian parliament, this event, which was adorned over the years with legendary episodes, was gradually transfigured in the 19th century from the »conquest and settlement of Hungary« to the national myth of origin of the Hungarian state.

The actual founding of the Hungarian kingdom took place in the course of the 10th century. It is primarily seen in the context of Stephen I. He carried on the work of his father, Grand Duke Géza, christianised the country, established an organised Church based on the Carolingian model, eliminated rivalling chieftains and integrated the country into the spiritual community of the Western world. In agreement with the emperor and pope Stephen accepted the insignia of royalty and was crowned the first king of Hungary on Christmas Day in the year 1001, bearing the so-called Saint Stephen’s Crown, which had been sent by Pope Sylvester II and has been venerated in Hungary as a relic ever since.

Hungarian history painting in the 19th century, even more so than the historical writing of the time, focused attention on the Christianisation of the country in the person of Stephen, as can be seen for example in Gyula Benczúr' s portrayal of the baptism of Hungary's patron saint, who converted to Christianity around the year 973.

Faith and War

The Death of Lajos II after the Battle of Mohács, 1526

The 29th of August 1526 entered Hungarian national memory and self-identity as a symbol of national self-destruction. And it served as a foil for all later national catastrophes, such as the abortive Revolution of 1848/49. The date represents the day on which the Ottoman forces under the sultan, Süleyman I the Magnificent, annihilated the Hungarian army in the Battle of Mohács. The greater part of Hungary, which had become unstable due to internal conflicts, fell under Ottoman rule for nearly a century and a half.

In the illustrations of the 19th century it was made to appear that the truly tragic symbolic figure for the collapse of Hungary was King Lajos II (Louis), who was left in the lurch by the nation and whose fate personifies that of Hungary, as it were. The young king, urged by his followers to flee during the battle, was drowned in a creek. In his popular painting from 1860, Bertalan Székely treats the death of Lajos II, showing a dramatic, idealised scene in which a small group of nobles and ordinary soldiers have just found the royal corpse, which is portrayed in the style of illustrations of the body of the anointed Christ.

Freedom

Sándor Petöfi's Death, 1849

The Revolution of 1848 was a European event. Its focal points were Paris, Milan, Berlin, Vienna, Prague and Budapest, but only in Hungary did it enter the collective memory as a national myth. Out of the March demands of the Hungarian Diet for reforms and for their own government came the call for national independence from Austria. Sándor Petöfi, the Hungarian national poet and leader of the »March Youth«, lend his voice to the cause like none other in poems, fairytales and epics. While his work belonged, and still belongs, to the canon of Hungarian national literature, the twenty-six-year-old poet himself was transfigured to a national myth by his heroic death in one of the last battles of the Hungarian war of independence. As his body was never found on the battlefield near Segesvár, it was as if he had been removed to immortality.

Painters took up this theme, portraying Petöfi’s lonely death in innumerable apotheoses. One of the most popular pictures is by Viktor Madarász.It shows Petöfi with his last ounce of strength, and evidently with his own blood, writing »Hazám« (my homeland) on a rock.