Austria-Hungary

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 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:—

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:

Or:

TO THE STORK

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:

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:

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.

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.