The Discrediting of Myths

Christianity has taught, from the beginning, that there is neither "Greek nor Jew" in Christ, there are only Christians. The Catholic Churches - Greek and Roman - did their best to destroy so-called "pagan" myths, but they did strive to satisfy the need for identification with national symbols, among other things by elevating members of various nations (let me refrain from using the often pejorative term "ethnic group") to sainthood and by the establishment of holy places.

The Magyars were given saints for the most part from members of the Árpád dynasty: István and László were kings, Imre a crown prince, Margit, Erzsébet, Kinga and Hedvig princesses. Emese was largely forgotten - until the 19th century, when a romantic nationalism rediscovered her and the chronicles where she had resided. (As to holy places, let's just take Csíksomlyó [cheek-showm-yowe] in Transylvania, which has become a national place of pilgrimage every summer, and not just for Catholics.)

This "modern," romantic nationalism was blatantly used by political-military alliances in nearly all European countries as propaganda in support of their megalomaniac "right wing" policies. Look at the monuments that governments built to celebrate themselves - you will find them in Paris and in Rome, in Berlin and Vienna - and even in Budapest. The superman-sized statues of national heroes on Hősök tere (Heroes' Square) are certainly not congruent with Hungarian military history since, say, 1301, when the last Árpád ruler "laid down his spoon".

World War I should have taught Europe a lesson, but not all were willing to learn it. In particular the German and the Italian governments (Hitler and Mussolini) exploited mythical ideas to further their ends.

But let's stay with Hungary. To make a long story short, Hungary lost both world wars. After the second loss came 44 years of Soviet occupation and a Communist regime that was not at all tolerant regarding national symbols of any kind. (There had been a brief Bolshevik government in 1919 as well.) The Communists pursued a conscious demythologization of Hungarian history and literature, with the result that two generations grew up before 1989 (the year of Communism's collapse in Hungary) without a familiarity with Emese and related symbols.

With the newly found freedom we are now witnessing a renewal of interest in the old national symbols. Unfortunately, there is no lack of dilettantes who take them literally, and respectable intellectuals will therefore have nothing to do with them.

Yet the symbols are a fountain of Magyar culture; used responsibly, they preserve and fructify.