THE PEOPLE
A very interesting race is that of the Magyars who people Hungary. The
word Hungary is of course derived from the Huns, who are described
in their earliest descent into Europe from Central Asia as a “fierce
Tartar people of dwarfish figure, great strength and ugly beardless
faces.” They penetrated far, under their great leader Attila, but his
defeat and death in 453 broke their dominion, and they retreated again,
leaving only traces of their influence on the nations of modern Europe.
The Magyars came over from the direction of the Ural Mountains in the
ninth century; their chief, Arpad, founded a dynasty, of which St.
Stephen was the first king. Arpad bears a name comparable with Attila
and other great chiefs of bygone days. Mr. Whitman, in his book _The
Realm of the Habsburgs_, says:
The first authentic mention of the dominant race in the Hungary
of to-day, the Magyars, dates from the year 836, when the Greek
writer, Leo Grammaticus, styles them successively by the three
distinct names of “Hungarians,” “Turks” and “Huns.” They are
then referred to as encamped on the banks of the Lower Danube.
Their origin and early history are alike shrouded in mystery.
Nothing is more difficult than to describe the exact type
of the Magyar race. In fact there is no exact type, the
Magyars of the present type being a conglomeration of all the
numerous tribes that came into the land at the time of the
wars of the “home-making.” Several types exist, but which is
the true Magyar it would be difficult to say. If there were
a clue to this it would be known with absolute certainty
whether the Hungarians were descended from the Fin-Ugor or
Turko-Tartaric races. Among the different types there is the
somewhat round head, very broad cheek bones and square jaw of
the Mongol type--mostly to be found in the southern and midland
districts--called purely Hungarian. Then again, there are other
types which have a resemblance to the Kirgiz living in Asia
to this day. The majority are not tall--rather under middle
size--especially in the working classes. They are very broad
in the chest, square-shouldered, long of body, short of limb,
very active, with sinews of steel--the true horsy race, the
greater part of their life having been spent on horseback in
olden times. The language is a mixture of the Turko-Tartaric
and the Fin-Ugor, but much changed by time. They are seldom
very dark, brown from the lightest shade to the darkest being
the prevailing colour, with dark or brown eyes; but blue eyes
are often to be seen. Red, yellow, or flaxen hair is not a
Hungarian type. A fighting nation _par excellence_, who,
through circumstances, had to give up war, sought and seek to
fight in other ways; the great predisposition for duels even at
the present day has its origin in the ever-existing and only
half-dormant desire to fight.
The Magyars are one of the few peoples in Europe who do not belong to
the Aryan race. Among the others are the Finns and Lapps, the Basques
and the Turks. To the Finns the Magyars are closely related by speech
as well as blood.
The old song says:--
Eyes of neither grey nor blue
But of tawny velvet hue,
Head with nut-brown tresses laden
Is the real Magyar maiden.
[Illustration: A PAPRIKA-SELLER, KALOCSA]
Warlike the Magyar still is, and proud as Lucifer, yet with a strange
mingling of Oriental calm. None others are so philosophic as the
dwellers in the great plain of Hungary, the Alföld, where they follow
their occupations as shepherds or wheat-growers. They take the good
with the bad and are resigned to evils they cannot cure. We have
already noted the special characteristics of the Alfölder in connection
with his boundless home. But others of the nation share some of his
qualities. Those who have been most among the Hungarians speak of their
simplicity; they are in all things natural. If when at table with them
you want more food, you must ask for it; they will not force it on you.
It is there; they take for granted that you know they are only too
glad for you to have it. If therefore you want it you have only to say
so; anything else is affectation. Their hospitality is proverbial and
resembles that of the East. Never is any one allowed to pass without
being fed or lodged if need be, and however lowly the accommodation
there are no pretended apologies; this is the best they have and they
give it you, and they don’t consider that it needs any apology. In the
words of another traveller, “You are made to feel that your presence
among them is a genuine piece of good luck.”
Though much alive and of an artistic and musical temperament, and ready
to go half-mad when worked up in the national dance, the _csardas_, the
Magyar is generally quiet and philosophic. Dancing is the favourite
pastime all over the land, and every man, woman, and child can dance to
admiration.
Men and women both marry young, and the unmarried of either sex are
almost unknown; marriage is as natural and universal an act as birth or
death.
Like all proud high-spirited races, who allow for other people’s
dignity as well as their own, the Magyars have excellent natural
manners; it has been said of them that they are a nation of gentlemen.
A very strange being indeed is the Magyar peasant, mysterious as his
country’s history; he has sympathy with gloom and melancholy reveries,
and is fond of brooding in a seeming lethargy when his heart is ready
to kindle with all the fire of a crusader. When free from his daily
labour, in his happiest moments, he is marked by sudden transitions.
Apparently happy, he quickly becomes sad, soon to burst forth into
exultation, only to plunge again into grief, which always marks the
end of his frolicsome episodes. He is not easy to cheer by incitements
which put heart into other people, for he does not readily respond to
this sort of thing. There is a saying that the “Hungarian enjoys life
with weeping eyes,” just as the Britishers are supposed to take their
pleasures sadly, and it is true that a vein of melancholy runs through
the folk-songs and ballads of Hungary. The gipsy who wants to rouse the
Hungarian peasant has to begin plaintively and rise into gaiety if he
wishes to catch his attention.
As is perhaps natural considering that his life was passed fighting for
his country’s nationality, Petöfi’s poems strike mostly a wailing note
such as:
A cloud o’er my country there hangs,
That tells of a storm approaching;
My soul in foreboding its pangs
Gains strength to resist its encroaching.
The harp of my fingers is weary,
Too long have I struck it with pain;
Well knows it my heart has been dreary,
In wearing its strings out in vain.
Or:
TO THE STORK
The winter time is over and the fields are growing green,
And thou once more art here, bird so good,
To build thy nest again where it before hath been,
To hatch therein again thy feathery fledgling brood.
Away! Away! Be cheated not
By the sunbeam’s glittering quiver,
By the babbling of the river;
Away! Spring comes not to the spot,
Life is benumbed and frozen up for ever.
Oh! walk not through the fields, there is nothing there but graves;
Oh! roam not by the lake-side, blood-crimsoned are its waves;
Oh! fly not to the house-tops, all there that thou shalt find
Are but the reeking embers that ruin left behind.
* * * * *
We are dying--
We are scattered far and wide
Like a sheaf by storm untied.
Some lie within the tomb,
Some in the prison’s gloom,
Others wander in their sadness dumb with woe.
Some with a start arise,
Terror gleaming in their eyes,
To seek another fatherland beyond the Atlantic’s flow.
It is of course difficult to give any idea of originals when they are
translated into a tongue alien from that in which they were written,
and especially is it impossible to judge of the pathos of these
national songs without the wild melancholy tunes to which they are sung.
In spite of his tendency to melancholy the Magyar can be cheerful
enough and is a good fellow; he makes a particularly good husband and
father.
The women are treated well and take their full share in all that goes
on. Hungary has from time immemorial given women equal rights with men
in regard to property. If a woman marries she is entitled to half her
husband’s property in addition to her own, and in case of divorce takes
it with her. A man must, by law, leave half his property to his wife.
Ten years ago it was unusual to find any girl of good class working
for her living, but now the universal receipt for happiness is allowed
freely to women as well as men. In the universities all courses are
open to them except theology and law, the last with a reason maybe, as
law is one of the requirements expected from a man entering the public
service. Medicine, however, is thrown open, and there are even women
doctors employed by the State.
Almost all Hungarian women are excellent cooks, and make an abundance
of the highly seasoned tasty dishes in which their nation delights. The
little strips of bacon, rolled in the national paprika or red pepper,
are universally enjoyed. Strangers find the Hungarian cooking a little
too rich for their taste, as a rule.
Black coffee and tea made with tepid water are to be met everywhere;
buffalo milk is preferred by the peasants, when they use any, to cow’s
milk, which is considered thin. Sheep’s milk cheese is to be met with
in almost every cottage, and bread sprinkled with carraway seeds is
as ubiquitous as in Germany. Otherwise mutton and pork are generally
procurable, beef less frequently, and skinny chickens if demanded.
Rich cream sauces, smoked sausages and red pepper form ingredients of a
large number of dishes. Eggs and butter are cheap, and boiled butter is
used largely as hair oil.
The Slavs, who form a full half of the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy, are of another race altogether. Whether or no their ancestors
were the original inhabitants of Eastern Europe is a disputed point,
but certainly they have peopled vast tracts of it; the whole of Russia
for instance, Bulgaria, Illyria, Poland, Silesia, Pomerania, Bohemia,
and Croatia are all occupied by Slav peoples to-day. They are held to
be a branch of the Aryan race, and are peaceful and agricultural in
their habits, not warlike as the Magyars are. In the north part of the
Empire they are usually fair, with blue eyes, and the children have a
bleached appearance. Those who live up in the mountains exist chiefly
on potatoes and cabbage or maize bread, and are often desperately poor.
They are generally Catholics, Roman Catholicism being the dynastic
religion of the Emperor. Numbers of the Slavs emigrate to America, in
the hope of making enough money to return to their wild fastnesses in
comfort.
Among the Slavonic races the Czechs are the most advanced, in spite of
their difficult and unpronounceable language. They have behind them a
national history, coherent and full of stirring incident. This tends
to give them racial self-respect, and though they have succumbed to
pressure and become an integral part of the Austrian Empire the spirit
of nationality is gaining rather than losing in vitality.
The Roumanians are numerically the next in order in the Empire, and
they are different again, having a touch of Latin blood, and being tall
and dark-eyed and generally possessing very black hair. They tend sheep
and work in the forests as their principal avocations. The Roumanians
of the Empire live chiefly in Transylvania adjoining their own country,
though separated from it by the Southern Carpathians.
Mr. Drage in _Austria-Hungary_ says:
The Slavonic races occupy an unfavourable geographical position
in Hungary, which, together with their internal feuds,
weakens their influence. The Slovak, who lives chiefly in the
north-west, is “poor, hard-working, honest and superstitious,”
full of curious beliefs; but the epithet “stupid” cannot
be applied to a race which, apart from Pan-Slavist writers
like Kollar and Stur, produced the great Magyar poet of the
revolution, Alexander Petöfi, and the great Magyar national
hero, Louis Kossuth. The Ruthenian also is poor and backward;
his holdings are minutely subdivided, and he lacks education.
Croat and Serb are on a somewhat higher plane, and in spite of
their intestinal quarrels they are by no means a factor to be
neglected. The Wallachs or Roumans again, in spite of their
numbers, are plunged into depths of ignorance and superstition,
from which their Popes are unable to rescue them owing to their
own ignorance and lack of moral influence over their flocks.
The Magyar looks down upon the Wallach with an amused contempt,
while the Saxons regard them very much as the Boers regard the
Kaffirs.
While speaking of the races of the Dual Monarchy we must not forget two
important, though scattered, divisions of the people to be found all
over Austria and Hungary. These are the gipsies and the Jews.
The gipsies, in Hungarian “csigany” or “tsigane,” are an integral part
of the nation, and the Hungarians would be hard put to it to know how
to do without them, as they appear at all festivities of a social kind
and play to the dancing or singing of the merry-makers. There is a
gipsy quarter in every village, and its inhabitants are generally very
poor, the children often running about without a strip of clothing on
their little bodies. Both men and women are very dark, with gleaming
white teeth and wild black hair. They are crafty, wheedling, and
dishonest, and not averse from horse-stealing, but passionately
fond of music. They are as a rule a fine upstanding race, and pride
themselves on their small hands and feet; they can endure great fatigue
and are practically weather-proof. Childishly light-hearted and vain,
quick-tempered and with their hand against every man, to them the races
who are not gipsies are dull and heavy-witted, stupid and slow, made
to be taken advantage of. The gipsies develop quickly, and grow old,
especially the women, before middle life, but the old gipsy crones seem
even more able to wile the money from the pockets of the Gentiles than
the younger members of the race, and their skill in fortune-telling is
certainly remarkable. Their origin is disputed, but the common idea
that they are somehow connected with Egypt is erroneous, though gipsies
are found in Egypt as well as in almost every other country in the
world, and they are there celebrated for their skill in snake-charming.
Like the Jews they are a race apart, and they preserve their own
characteristics in a most extraordinary way considering that they live
amidst alien peoples.
The women have a knack of wearing even rags in such a queenly style
that they appear more like draperies than made-up clothes, and they
have an almost royal carriage which seems to be natural to them.
Living in the midst of dirt and squalor, sometimes by preference,
yet when they come to the towns and villages to play the young men
get themselves up in dandyish fashion, and their command of their
instruments is marvellous. In most cases they play by ear and can pick
up anything.
The Jews are found all over Hungary also and are looked upon with
almost as much scorn as the gipsies, with the difference that they
are feared. The great distinction between Jew and gipsy lies in the
money-making and money-saving aptitude of the former, his reticence,
and the fact that he rarely lets himself go.
Taking Hungary by itself we find the races at the present day
number:--Magyars, 9,000,000; Wallachians, 3,000,000; Slovaks,
2,000,000; Germans, (including Saxons), 2,000,000; Serbo-Croatians,
1,700,000; Servians, 1,000,000; Ruthenians, 400,000. Besides these
there are Wends, Poles, Bulgarians, Armenians, Jews and gipsies, and
some Italians in and around Fiume.
The diversity of tongues in a comparatively small area is appalling,
and that they are tongues carrying their speakers nowhere out of their
own country is a hardship. Many men are met who speak German, Polish,
Hungarian, and Roumanian, and others with other varieties of speech.
Yet the Hungarians do not like you to address them in German; they
prefer French, which many of them understand imperfectly, or even
English. To begin in German is to imply that you classify them as
Austrian subjects and that is resented as a subtle insult. Latin used
to be the language for official and religious uses all over the country
until well into the nineteenth century. It took the place as the
general medium of communication for well-bred people that French played
in England in the Middle Ages.
Everywhere, as means of travel increase, the men and women of different
races tend to become more alike in their dress, and in so doing lose
much of their charm for other nations. When one travels one does not
want to see familiar clothing, dull and uniform as Western civilisation
can make it, but glowing pictures that stimulate the imagination and
carry one back to the Middle Ages. Peasants, however, quite naturally,
as they go into the towns from their quiet sheepfolds and hillsides
and valleys, consider it more “fashionable” to dress as the townsfolk
do, and the townsfolk who visit other countries soon drop anything
peculiar in their garb which marks them out for unpleasant notice,
and so the chain goes on. Only in far-away places, as a rule, with
few railway facilities and no civilised comforts, is the national
dress preserved in proud integrity. Of all the countries in Europe,
Hungary probably preserves the most singular and picturesque peasant
costumes, and as her railway system is excellent and her comforts for
travellers reasonable (in places first-rate), more and more do those
who want a complete change from their usual surroundings gravitate
there. The purity of the air in most parts still permits white to be
worn for daily use and in some districts the women, and even the men,
dress still almost completely in white. But this is not, and cannot
be, universal, though almost everywhere may be seen the “bishop’s
sleeves” of snowy muslin or linen coming out from a sleeveless jacket
richly embroidered. This jacket varies much in shape and size, most
often being like a zouave, and the embroidery work upon it is a joy to
behold, for every peasant woman, be she Magyar or Slav, can embroider
to perfection. It is not only her jacket of velvet or cloth or silk
that receives this tender attention but the waistcoats of her men-folk,
and more curious still, the top-boots of soft leather, often crimson,
without which at one time no Hungarian costume was considered
complete. They even appear in the peasant’s songs, such as:
With csarda hat set jauntily,
And decked with perfumed rosemary,
I’ll stroll adown the village street.
How all the girls will smile on me!
Wrinkled my top-boots are and long,
Upon their heels gilt spurs shine bright;
They’ll clank the time to dance and song.
How all the girls will smile to-night!
[Illustration: WOMAN’S WORK-DAY COSTUME IN KALOCSA]
Pieces of metal are put upon the heels of the boots in order to make
them clank and attract attention. These top-boots, so valued and
well-cared for, are still seen far and wide. It has been said of them
by a Hungarian writer, “that they may be taken as the most distinctive
feature of Hungarian dress, the ornamentation of which, a veritable
flower-garden, embroidered with leather, braid and silk, is a treasure
of the Magyars unique of its kind.”
If this treasure was handed on from one generation to another
difficulties might occur, as, even in the same family, striking
discrepancies in the sizes of feet appear. The Hungarian girl, with
her smart top-boots, necessarily wears short skirts to show them off,
and if there is one feature which is observable in the peasants’
costumes, in widely-separated districts, it is the sensible short
skirt usually reaching just below the knees. Now when some of the
girls in the towns are finding it easier and more economical to wear
slippers and brilliantly-coloured stockings, leaving the top-boots
for special occasions, the shortness of the skirt has been slightly
modified, and it sometimes reaches even to the heels. The next point
is its voluminousness. It is made immensely full and pleated into the
waistband with as many pleats as it can be made to take. The more
skirts a girl can put on, one over another, the more is she to be
envied and admired of her companions. She sometimes bears a burden
of ten or twelve, which, all being trained to stand out as far as
possible, give her the appearance of a rather substantial ballet-girl.
It is in some of the towns of the Alföld such as Szeged that the
everyday peasant costumes can be seen best. Here slippers are to be
observed at every turn, for slipper-making is one of the most popular
industries of the busy town.
Imagine the peasant woman then with white sleeves, short sleeveless
coat, full skirts and soft top-boots, and you have the outlines.
But upon them what a variety of detail! The head may be tied up in
a handkerchief, or with a shawl sometimes of sombre colour, but in
certain districts certain hues seem to predominate; there is one where
a real vivid orange-yellow, the colour of a mandarin’s robe, appears
at every turn, here in a simple handkerchief, there in a shawl folded
crosswise over the bosom, and even in a pair of long stockings rising
in serene contrast from green or purple shoes.
The quaintest costumes of all are to be seen on high days in
the little town of Zsdjar, up in the Carpathians, not far from
Barlangliglet. The chief feature is a flat plaque of tomato-coloured
satin, fastened to the knot of hair at the back, and falling down like
a back-board set horizontally. It is fixed into the waist, and below
the waist comes out as three streamers hanging down the skirt. It must
be very uncomfortable, as, if loose enough to allow the head to bend,
it must push it forward when upright, and if tight when the owner is
erect, to bend must produce a strain on the already tightly drawn hair,
plastered with boiled butter to make it lie flat. The plaque is often
fastened by a brooch, and completely conceals all the hair except that
enveloping the head like a hood. When a number of girls so clad are
seen from the back on an open road, the effect is like a flock of odd
flamingoes, especially if the skirts are white. Gold and silver braid
and much ornamentation are displayed on the bodices.
At Toroczko in Transylvania some of the most elaborate and expensive
costumes are worn. The girls wear white many-pleated skirts bordered
with decorations of red and black silk or coloured thread, sometimes
embroidered with beads, and they have red top-boots. The men wear white
cloth trousers with stripes of red tape, Hungarian top-boots, overcoats
of foxskin and black felt hats.
The handkerchief or shawl is however only the simplest form of
headgear, and for more important occasions, jewelled embroidered
caps, which receive almost as much attention as the boots, are worn,
while every bit of finery a girl can pick up, incongruous or not, she
puts into her cap with the assiduity of a bower-bird adorning its
nest. Every girl makes her own bridal veil and the little cap she
is to wear with it on that great day, which, in a country where the
sexes are pretty equal in numbers, is sure to arrive if she is not too
particular. Some of the caps are only a groundwork for the curious and
elaborate head-dresses which rise from them--head-dresses with wings
of stiffened velvet or silk and carrying veils recalling the wimples
of the days of the English Edwards in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. The appearance of these is sometimes so grotesque when seen
in some far-away little church in a village among the mountains as to
suggest a fancy ball; and the trimming, which looks picturesque at a
distance and outside, seems tawdry when seen near at hand in a mass
within four walls.
Even the babies wear caps, and the quaintest little objects they
sometimes are, with these glittering and fantastically worked
adornments constituting their sole clothing, their naked little bodies
looking almost too small for their millinery.
For smaller matters, every peasant woman loves jewellery, and no girl
is seen without a string of beads around her neck, and she often wears
several of different colours.
[Illustration: SUNDAY COSTUME, ZSDJAR]
The apron is a very important adjunct, and is not worn merely to
preserve the clothing but as an ornament in itself. There is generally
a plain one for the house and a decorated one for festivals and public
functions. It is seen of all sizes, materials and colours, from tiny
scraps of lace or silk to huge coloured ones, maybe purple with
orange stripes, or scarlet and black such as the Roumanians wear. The
Roumanians are peculiarly rich and choice in their dress, and some
of the most beautiful costumes of all are found in this part of the
country. The sleeve all made in one with the bodice, now so popular
in England under the name of “Magyar,” has been adopted from the
Hungarians.
The Wallach women living in Transylvania wear voluminous white
chemise-like garments, and their immense puffed sleeves are embroidered
in designs of red and blue. Their skirts may be a long piece of cloth
clasped by silver ornaments made in curious massive patterns, which
are repeated in their large earrings and in chains slung across their
chests, while often the scarlet corals at their necks carry out the
note of colour started in the crewel-work. The married women among them
wear a kind of turban, generally of white, wound around their heads,
while the younger ones as often as not go bareheaded, though they
sometimes wear a handkerchief. They age very quickly, and the peachlike
complexions and velvety dark eyes, which are most alluring, soon wither
and dim.
The men of Hungary are not far behind their gay mates. In certain
parts of the highlands they dress entirely in white, wearing short
jackets and trousers of white felt and huge brass-studded leather
belts. The felt and wool and linen in all the costumes was formerly
home-made, and warranted to stand any amount of wear. Alas! now cheap
imported cotton goods are quickly being substituted with disastrous
results.
The sleeveless waistcoat, with its fancy embroidery, and the top-boots
run parallel to these articles of the women’s attire, but one thing
peculiar to the Hungarian men is the curious habit of wearing a
top-coat without putting the arms into the sleeves. This is frequently
seen in widely different parts of the country. The coat _is_ a coat
and not a cloak, and why sleeves should be fashioned at all if never
for use is a problem that the Hungarian himself would find it hard to
solve. The adoption of this singular mode is to be seen in the uniform
of some of the British Hussar regiments. Possibly the custom has arisen
from the beloved and indispensable sheep-skin of the dweller in the
plains, which no Magyar shepherd would dream of going without. It is
just a great loose cover-all of sheep’s-wool, and it is worn skin side
out in fine weather and wool side out in the wet. It is the home,
the companion, the comforter of the Alfölder: when the sun scorches
down he makes a tent of it to shield him from the rays; when the icy
winds of winter roam like wolves howling over the plateau he snuggles
into it warm and safe. The skin side of this even does not escape
the attentions of the Magyar girl’s nimble fingers, and it is often
embroidered in elaborate and quaintly gay patterns.
Another curious feature of the costume of the men is found in the
extraordinarily wide and many-folded linen trousers, so full and ample
and short that they resemble a kilt and are the next step to the
well-known Albanian skirt of pleated linen. These end in top-boots and
make a very strange and noticeable item in the dress, especially when
many of the men are seen at work together in the cornfields.
The head-gear is various, but often takes the form of a felt hat with
saucer brim and ribbons not unlike that of the Breton peasant. This is
for summer; in winter a kind of cap of lamb-skin replaces it.
It must not, of course, be supposed that in such a town as Budapest
these gay costumes will be seen everywhere. It is necessary to get
out into the towns of the Alföld, to Temesvar or Debreczen, or into
Transylvania to see them, elsewhere up in the Carpathians far beyond
the well-known pleasure resorts of the High Tátra, and even then,
though the dress may be in essentials as described, it is only on high
days and holy days all the best materials, ribbons, laces, and gay
colours are to be seen in their glory.