pic #1 After 80 years the first time we have flags with crosses on the Parliament Building
pic #2 János Áder, President of Hungary, is talking boring stuff and unrelated daily politics mixed in historical references as predicted
pic #3 fresh officers of the Hungarian Defence Forces take their vows

>>25075
>Why the pisa tower cross?
Which version do you wanna hear?
Nevermind, I'll write what I can.

So.
We have no idea why does it stand askew, but many theories were created by both historians and the people. If one observes the Crown it will be apparent that not just the cross strange but the crosspiece and the rim are also seems to be deformed which can lead to the easy conclusion it was hit with large force from above.
Here are some ideas:
1. In 1301 the House of Árpád went extinct on the male line and three candidate from female line wanted the throne to himself. One of them, the Bavarian Otto acquired the Crown, and came into the country in 1305. He brought it with him:
a. The put it in a big wooden flask but during the road it fell off the horse at one point and they had to search for it. The drop damaged the Crown.
b. They put it in a small barrel but it was too small and when they put the lid on it pushed down the Crown.
This version is based on the story of the chronicle and the two version comes from the two possible translation of a Latin word. The chronicle doesn't say however that the Crown was harmed, so it is a speculation. Also this is one of the versions what usually was cited as a reason.
2. In 1849 the War of Independence was defeated and the governor, Kossuth, fled to Turkey. He had the Crown but didn't want to bring it with him to abroad. So they buried it at Orsova. I think it was underground for four years. Somehow it was damaged either when it was buried or when recovered. This is also a popular version.
3. In 1638 during the coronation of queen Mária Anna (first wife of king Ferdinand III.) they got the wrong key for the reinforced chest they guard the Crown in. They had to break this chest and had to use large force and they dun goofed. (Btw, during Habsburg times the queens were crowned with another crown, the Holy Crown was only used to touch their shoulders.) This version is fairly recent one.
4. This isn't the original cross, but a replacement which was mounted in the 16th century.
a. A version says that in 1551 queen Izabella break the original one down and gave it to his son, king János II (aka János Zsigmond), who wore it in his neck on a chain. They surrendered it to king Rudolf I. but it's further fate is unkown. The Habsburgs made a new one instead.
5. There was no cross originally, it was mounted later (for example in the 16th century).
6. It stands askew on purpose, this is how it was planned and made. - This version is preferred by some pseudo-scientific theoreticians.

>>25094
The next few are the products of folklore, however some details of the above might be similarly made up by the people.
7. In 1385 at the coronation of Károly II it fell from the pillow as a bad omen. He ruled for only two months.
8. When the angels brought it down they dropped it accidentally.
9. When István I (aka Saint Stephen) fought with the pagan rebel Vata, he slashed at the king with his sword and hit the cross.
10. When the House of Árpád went extinct it bent.
11. "Back then" three seas washed our shores but now the country is torn apart, this made the cross bend.
12. It bent due the election of Mátyás I.
a. The nobility chose the new king by throwing the crown up into the air and onto however's head it fell, he became the new king. During this process the crown was damaged.
b. Mátyás and a peasant tilled a field together when they heard the news of the election of a new king. The news also said who dines on an iron table him will be the new king. So Mátyás turned the plow sideways and ate his meal at it as if he was sitting at a table. His mate just laughed at him and said Mátyás will be king if his whip sprouted. So Mátyás shoved his whip into the ground and it sprouted. Then came two angels with the Crown to put it on his head but Mátyás was startled by them and hit toward them with the whip, then the dropped the Crown. This story is related to #8, but also has great many versions and not just in Hungarian folklore, Moravians, Northern Hungarians, Croats and even Slovenes has a version or two of it. One Czech myth connects this story to Saint Stephen.

I will close this with some facts:
- By the end of the 18th century it stood askew, one Austrian official made a note of it.
- A Hungarian writer, M.D. who wrote a book about the Crown about the same time also made a note of this.
- 19th century depictions show it with bent cross
- On older depictions the cross stands straight - I wouldn't consider this great importance, since older depictions aren't realistic, great many things were drawn very differently.
- It moves too, has a little wobble in it.
- I'm not sure how factual this data is, but I found it to be presented in such way: the screw what holds the cross wasn't driven into it straight with the axis, but with an angle to the axis.
- It is not for small hedas.
- It was used only during coronation. It wasn't for wearing it casually, the kings had their own crowns for that. When it needed to be used, a crown guard, who's job was especially this, took out the Crown, inspected it, if it was necessary he ordered repairs, then after the coronation he had to inspect it again, and order repairs if it was necessary, then put away into it's place.

>>25096
For steppe people all kinds of animals were parts of their mythology since their beliefs included totemic elements. Our Turul is the mythological progenitor of the House of Árpád - maybe will write more about this later. It's a specific predatory bird, the kerecsensólyom (Falco cherrug). Another important animal is deer (also in a totemist way), species not specified precisely.
Btw the eagle/falcon on that Hunnic crown is a bobblehead. Or so I heard.
>I guess you like to delve into your history don't you?
I already wrote about the Crown's cross I believe (or maybe I just wanted to? it is always asked why is it askew), I just re-skimmed the "sources" I gathered back then and drafted a new text.
>first one seems the most believable one
When I read about the third that also seemed plausible however it's not clear from the articles what are the hard facts and what is speculation.
Frankly, the supporting evidence for all the possibilities I listed are very weak.

>>25098
That depiction is as good as any, frankly more realistic than most. Tho the bend is too much in that cross, it's just about 23°, similar to Earth's axis tilt so it stands askew because the Crown represents the Earth in the universe.

>>25103
Will reply in depth later, but basically yes.

>>25104
Again, later will watch it. Last week I saw an article, they are searching for the exact place of the clash and what are the "results" (i.e. latest speculations).

Since this shitty weather forces me inside, it's time to do some constructive stuff here.

So let's talk about deers for a minute, as a backturn to this post: >>25118
Curious Turkic symbolism doesn't include deers since it was a fundamental part of the steppe folks art and spiritual culture at least up to the Huns and old Hungarian tradition is one of the links at the end of that chain.
Our word for deer is szarvas which means "horned one", a substitute peripharse instead an actual name to express it's sacral nature sames with wolf, farkas = "the one with tail".
One of our two origin myths includes the deer in it's "allegorical toolset", twice. First as a totemic progenitor: the mother of Hunor and Magor (Magyar) was called Enéh (Turkish: inek) which means female deer, doe, and it is still used in our language as ünő with same meaning. The second instance of the deer - this time a stag - in this story is a magical entity who leads the hunting brothers to west. The deer wears the Sun and the Moon and the stars on his antlers, it might be a transformed shaman or a godlike creature, maybe an allegory of the sky of some sort or our version of Tengri himself - if we had one.

>>25543
Old Hungarian art also features deer, although not in too great volume since artisans moved to an abstract direction from the steppe's animal style, with great more tendrils, palm leaves, curly plant shapes braided together. There is one peace which grabs exactly the moment of the transition from animal to plant. Maybe will try to find it.
Here are the examples.

>>25544
And now move to the Scytho-Hunnic era. These are all over on the related parts of Eurasia, as south as Pakistan. Their art features four species I believe, reindeer, elk, fallow and red. They were important to them for some reason. At Pazyryk they buried them masqueraded as deers. Sadly we don't know much of their stories, for some none at all.

I wanted to make a little review about the Hungarian crowning mantle not just because it's an amazing piece of artwork but it has some interesting anomalies. So I started to "research" the topic, especially wanted to find a book nowadays used as the standard description of the mantle and it's history - now I see I won't find it online tho -, and I came across an article by the same author where he talks about the other coronation insignias. He says some interesting things about the Crown, some of which might even sound heretical among historians who research the Crown, but it's very compelling what he wrote. But there is one detail which makes it impossible for me to believe...
So I'll return to the Crown for a little because it also has some more interesting details and anomalies, beside the very conspicuous slanty cross on the top.

Not sure when will I finish the whole thing.

As I mentioned in this thread (>>25137) the Holy Crown was one important artifact of not only the medieval but modern Hungary too. It wasn't just considered the origin of sovereignty but a legal person in an abstract way too. No wonder it keeps engaged those who are busy solving it's mysteries. And one mystery is the main one: it's origin.
Traditionally it's tied to our first Christian king, Saint Stephen I. It is considered his crown which he was coronated back in 1000 (or 1001) with. As a source from the early 12th century says, he acquired crown and blessing from pope Sylvester II. It doesn't say however that this was The Crown and it even has the implication that there was no crown at all. Since at that time in many cases crowning meant more of anointing with oil and/or girdling with a sword than putting an actual crown on the head. So maybe our Crown never touched Stephen's locks.
So the grand question is who made the Crown and when. Just as many explanations were given as to the problem of the misaligned cross.

>>26890
If we look into the written sources we gain very little insight. Sadly depictions (paintings, drawings, statues, coins, etc.) aren't helpful either. Then the only source remains the Crown itself.
So researchers took a look at the Crown. It has 19 enamel icons depicting named persons in an obvious dual fashion: on the rim everything is written in Greek but on the cross straps the labels are in Latin. So quickly they "took apart" the crown and said: this is two crowns, a corona graeca and a corona latina as if there were such crown categories anywhere in the world. The two actually can be taken apart without damaging the relic itself, they are riveted together and not soldered.
This however created new problems - liek: without a rim, how the cross straps stood?; it had to have another rim, no?; where is this hypothetical rim?; were the cross straps really an independent crown?; etc. - first and foremost now they had to deal with not one but two crowns' origin, when they were made and by whom?
It is impossible to answer these with any level of certainty in case of the cross straps, because there is no information on it which could lead us to a date, the named figures are the apostles (8) and one image of Christ (Pantokrator). But recently they simplified this by figuring out: it is really possible that the cross straps were made so they can create the Crown in it's current form. It wasn't a previous crown but was an addition to the rim to create a new one out of the rim. For some weird reason they still can't stop calling the straps a "corona" tho.

>>26891
The lower part however - besides a Christ (Pantokrator), 2 archangels and 4 saints - contains three lay figures at the back who are more or less identifiable. One icon says: geobitzas pistos krales Tourkias; the other kon basileus romaion ot porphurogenntos; the third (which isn't on the surface but above the rim, just as well the Pantokrator in front): ikh mienikho pistos basileus romaiono, duk. The shit historians have to deal with.
Ok, so we have a king (krales) and two emperors (basileos). But who are they? The king is of Turks, Byzantian sources oftentimes called Hungarians Turks, that's no problem. The problem is his name, we know not one Hungarian ruler who was called "Geobitzas". Nada. But with a hussar trick this name can be resolved as Géza whom we had a couple, even the father of Stephen I was called Géza. This name however was misspelled in many forms, Geuso, Duso, Jesse, etc. but never Geobitzas.
The emperor on level with Géza is a purple born one, someone whose name starts with Kon. That would be Konstantios or Constantine, they had a few from the latter, the first one is more conspicuous.
The dude above them, certain Mienikho (on exclusion basis this has to be the name) which name is missing from all the lists of Roman emperors, is interpreted as Michael. There is liek a ton of this name too, but when they forgot how to spell Mikhael is beyond me, it's not even a foreign name as Géza (assuming actual Greek/Byzantine artisans made these enamel plates). This icon gives another clue: duk, 10 out of 10 historians says it's short for Doukas which pinpoints Michael VII from 1067-1078 as the subject of this portrait.
Historians were very happy, they got an exact date and to this date they can match a Géza and a Kon: that's Géza I (1074-1077) and either Constantine X Doukas (1059-1067) or Konstantios Doukas (1060-1078, junior emperor).
Awesome huh?

>>26892
But the enamel disk of Michael isn't fit into it's place. All the icons have a socket, especially made for the icon but his is bigger than the socket and it got riveted to the crown. Moreover even a dilettant like me can see it's differences in style compared to the other enamel plates. Conclusion: it's not original for this item. No?
How historians deal with this situation? They largely ignore it, they found a plausible explanation and call it a day. Not everyone tho. Ofc those who believe in some alternative origin - it was Attila's crown, or persian made - don't like this explanation; but there are other acknowledged researchers with legit background and published results (like the one whom I mentioned in the post here >>26844) who also see the Michael icon's secondary placement so they reached for other explanations.

>>26893
So now the lower crown, the rim, the "graeca" is considered an earlier product which was laying in the emprerors' treasury and at the time of Géza I, they slapped the Michael icon on it - to signal the donator - and sent it as a gift. As a part of a deal.
But this solution leads onto other rocky roads.
Sending a crown to someone meant you were the suzerain over him. Michael VII was barely suzerain over his own bowels not the Hungarian king. Also a suzerian's depiction is more fitting to the place where the Pantokrator is at the front, and not the back! This whole thing however can be sidestepped, since not just men can wear crowns, not exclusively but in the Byzantine court it was customary for women to wear ones. And Géza himself with the deal gained a wife, a Byzantine princess and the crown came with her. She was the one who was gifted with this present. It was a female crown anyway, sp researchers claim.
But it is a huge crown, just look at poor Charles here >>25095 and here >>26844 , even if his heda was small a female's head is small too. The rim without a top would just fall down to her neck. All right - says the researcher, it is exactly how it should be because it was made for the female hairdo and whatever plus headgear was worn beneath it. Now this is the world of pure speculation tho. What fucking kind of hairdo can hold up a kilo metal (2056 gram the whole Crown, let's say the rim is only 1000)? One can keep it on her head but it needs to rest on the head. And what hairdo
And frankly what kind of female crown for princesses can include the Pantokrator right up above the person's brow? The Pantokrator has a very specific palce in iconography, it means the almighty, the ruler, the one who judges. Back then they didn't just used this shit for decoration they used them for their meanings. The Pantokrator's place is where it is know, over the brow of a king. Or maybe it was the crown of an empress originally?
There are depictions of Byzantine female crowns however, somewhat really is similar what the rim should be in itself tho the Holy Crown looks similar how these pictures depict the emperor's crown., and those haircuts...

>>26895
But let's jump back a few steps. Let's say it's an earlier artifact compared to the addition of the Doukas plate (about 1074), but then the two other icons, of Géza and Constantine/Konstantios are also additions of that time since they lived about then. But it means the socket of theirs weren't made for them, they still could perfectly fit in but not the Doukas icon? And no they cannot be cut to size since this enamel if it's damaged it starts to crumble, this is why the Doukas plate wasn't cut to size either. Their socket also can't be altered more easier (if at all!) than poor Michael's. Moreover all the historians firmly agreed they are original for the crown many even say the Doukas icon is as well tho but that would mean those guys depicted aren't even Géza I. and Constantine X or Konstantios, since they were made when the crown, way before these guys' time.
All right they still can be grand prince Géza (~970-997), father of Stephan I, and Constantine VII (913-959) or VIII (1025-1028) who were really called Purple-borns unlike the other two "Kons" I mentioned above. This solution has two drawbacks. One, why would these two included together? The dates don't match either way. Two, why would a Hungarian ruler's imagery was used on a piece of item which was worn in the Byzantine court (especially if the user was 1. female; 2. empress)? Makes no sense.
But maybe it was sent to prince Géza, but then why would anyone from the Hungarian court order to put Doukas' icon onto it 70-100 years later (or even later anytime)? And who was in the now empty socket covered by Doukas? And why would anyone from the Byzantine court sent a crown to Géza when he pursued a pro-western politics (pope and emperor)?

>>26898
There are great many pitfalls and impossible questions in the "crown-research" as some call it, and I'm not surprised great many theories were given birth. Maybe I'll pull out a few, the more interesting or the ridiculous ones, or some claims about the crown (seen some reconstructions of the hypothetized "corona latina", they are really fun, maybe I can find them).
The history of the Holy Crown was investigated by many people - professionals and amateurs alike - both with great care and great fantasy. I wonder if other, foreign piece of artifacts was researched with such thoroughness? For example the Iron Crown of Lombardy as we now it today was really made and used by whom we think it was? I've never actually looked into it.

>>26903
I like the Russian crown.

>>26904

That's crown from pre-Petr times. In Empire another crown was used.

>>26919

That's "westernization". Thanks Petr.

Actually, there were widely circulated folk conspiracy stories of 18th century about Petr I. They say that proper czar was replaced by Dutch and Germans when he was in his long travel abroad (and then started westernization). People said that he had different height and face before, different habits etc. Some called him an "antichrist".

Different versions of story says that he was putted in stone wall in Riga and replaced by lookalike person, putted in barrel and send into sea by Dutch, jailed in Stockholm. Another series of stories say that he was replaced in child times by foreign kid.

Sankt-Peterburg was built with heavy human casualties, no one in sane mind would start building large european city in goddamn flooded swamp. Except maybe some crazy Dutch.

>>26923
>She doesn't even have a beard, befitting for proper Russians.

She was another German agent. She also conquered Crimea - it was start of long-term plan for sanctions. These Germans are evil.

You know what, Bernd? We already got to know the three lay figures, but who are the other guys? Let's see.

First the rim:
We already met with Christ the Ruler. Below him we can find two archangels.
On his right (our left) is Michael. Defeater of Satan, who throws him to the Earth; Leader of the army of God.
On his left is Gabriel. Herald of God, the Announcer of John the Baptist and Jesus.
Maybe noteworthy: they are the only two archangels named in the New Testament.

Let's move one row backward and not toward one side since these icons are paired up. So in the next row we can find Saint George (not the blue outline of his halo) and Saint Demetrius (of Thessaloniki) both of whom are military saints/martyrs.
The difference is that Saint George personally fought the Dragon - which in another thread (probably about Satanism) we "established" is Satan himself - just as the dude one row before him: Michael fought with Satan.
Saint Demetrios on the other hand often considered to fight against the enemy of Christianity via proxy: there's a story that one gladiator killed many Christians and Demetrios converted another gladiator, who - aided by his newfound faith - killed the heathen opponent. So he has an aspect that is in line with Gabriel's, both of them are the men of the Word.

The third line - now we are on the back half on the crown - is the twin brothers: Saint Cosmas and Saint Damain, physicians, martyrs. They healed with pure altruism. I don't think they have from that perceivable duality we can observe at the previous saints.

So for me the pictorial message of the lower part of the Crown is about the role of the king. He is a ruler, a judge, but the servant of God who is the only suzerain above him. He is responsible to spread Christianity by Arms and by Word, both as a leader of masses and as champion in person. He also has to care for his subject's well being, curing their physical and spiritual illnesses (maybe this role has something to do with the "royal touch", laying on hands).

I want to revisit the Doukas icon for a moment or two. I was wrong it isn't riveted to the Crown now, it is soldered with soft soldering (it should have been done by hard, or maybe brazing - not sure about the correct term, but I think gold hard soldering differs somewhat to brazing -, I read this type of soft soldering eats away that gold in humid conditions, so now the crown was put in a controlled environment to pause the process). But it was riveted there earlier.
This enamel plate also has other curiosities, that three holes above Emperor Michael's head. The one on our right a weird shaped one, like a pear, lightly touches the halo and it has a proper rim. Above that little to the left, that's punctured hole with jagged edges. To our left the third is right on the halo, but this one is really strange the outside edge has a rim but the inside doesn't, in fact it cracked the enamel.
We have older pictures of the crown, photos and drawings. Here's two which are more than 100 years old. You can see, that the hole on the left, it doesn't go into the halo, it's a half circle and has a rim where it touches the halo. So that whole was drilled through. And on the other side it went through Saint Thomas' icon behind the Doukas disk. You can see on pic #3 that the gold strap was punctured twice (the lower two holes) even the burr around them are observable. But the burr means they weren't even used!
And lastly, just to show how big is the Doukas icon... they had to remove the line of pearls below to fit it there. Apparently it's 26% bigger than the socket behind. It's obviously wasn't made for that, this size can't be a mistake. A millimeter or two maybe, but not this.

Now we should move on to the cross straps. Here the enamel covers the icons as a whole and the gold of the straps are finer.
On the top laying the Pantokrator, we met that picture already, so I won't linger here much, but I want to interject one thing. This depiction of the Pantokrator with two cypress on his sides are unique to these two icons on the Crown, art history doesn't know another.
But let's get started.

Six of the eight apostles are visible in their entirety.
On the left strap - on the right hand of the Pantokrator - above lays Peter. The label says SCSPETRVS. He has the key - two in fact - as usual. What else can we tell, we'll see later.
Below Andrew - SCSANDREAS - who was Peter's brother. While the pope sits on Peter's chair, the patriarch of Constantinople is the successor of Andrew. He holds a book, probably the Gospel since that his attribute.

On the right strap above they placed Paul, paired up with Peter basically. Labeled SCSPAVLUS. Now that's curious. Latins they used V instead of U. On every occurrence on these plates it's V and even the first one in Paulus it's V, just the second isn't. This guy is a special kind of apostle, isn't one from the original Twelve (or the revised Twelve), he is the example that even for the most wicked there is a salvation. He wasn't just a generic sinner but a persecutor of the disciples. If the whores and tax collectors are loved by God then him is loved even more. And frankly after Peter his was the most important role in the new religion.
Funky thing: traditionally depictions of Jesus with Peter and Paul on his side show the two apostles in reverse compared how they are placed onto the Crown. This led to the speculation that the arrangement of the apostles were changed.
Below Philip - SCSPHILIPVS. We saw why Andrew might have been placed where he was, but Philip apostle has no relation of any kind with Paul. This also looks like an anomaly. It gets a little weirder. We assume these are all apostles but the Crown doesn't say it in any way it says only that they are saints. And there is one Philip in Paul's life, the Evangelist who was visited by Paul. Maybe this Philip the one on the crown? Moreover sometimes the two Philips are mistaken with each other and/or thought to be the same. Accidents happen.

>>27050
To the front at the feet of Pantokrator John was planted. On the label SCSIOhS can be read. Sounds like a rough abbrevation. Strange tho, not spelling it with proper H. Or without an N despite the wide enough space. So wide in fact that the craftsman added two round blue thingy with a cross on them to fill it. On the other hand the back "leg" of that h protrudes kinda short, almost looks like an n. An h-n ligature perhaps?
To the back - at the head of Jesus - is Jacob, namely SCSIACOBVS. The twelve apostles include two Jacobs, he can be either but one of them is the previously named John's brother. They can also be paired up. On the other hand Jesus' brother was also James, a martyr. Both his and the younger's attribute is a club (among others), what the figure of the icon holds in his right hand can be called a club with a little stretch, no? And why he has dark hair as if he was young, while John looks old?

This also might be worthy to take a look. Who surrounds the closest Jesus? Three of those four who were recruited in the first round, the three who were with him at the Transfiguration - if we assume James of the Crown is the older. And the one who wasn't part of the Disciples but was called by Jesus himself from the Heavens. Why he's special I already described.

Now comes the one with less visibility - he is covered by Emperor Micheal at the back -, Thomas, according to the label: SCSTHOMAS. This one is also strange the T looks as if it was a t or a combination of a T and an L. The one who doubted Jesus' resurrection. But at least after he got his proofs he believed. This guy is a knower, he has to know before he believes. Anyway why is he on the Crown but not someone else? What's his role - beside to get tortured because Doucas just didn't want to remain his place? Kek, he had to poke Jesus' wound now he was poked with a drillbit and got wounded. Poetic. Am not saying he deserved it tho.

But good old Tom and Paul, they also hold a key. Figuratively. The aforementioned researcher, not the "pseudo-scientific" but the legit one (for now he is one, we'll see the future; in case a Hungarian reads this: it's Tóth Endre), who recognized the Doukas icon as a secondary addition, gives new perspecite for the dating of the cross strip. He says these atypical letters, the t in Thomas and u in Pavlus were actually not uncommon on Byzantine coins. Eastern Rome kept minting coins with Latin inscriptions which often contained these type of letters as long as about 1060, when they left Latin behind in favour of Greek. Previously they thought the cross straps were later works, maybe even from the 12th century and were made in western, Italian or German workshop, but it seems as the rim the "graeca" is older than 1074 and Byzantine creation, the straps are older than 1074 (1060) too, and Byzantine.
Thanks Thomas and Paulus!

>>27052
I left the first one (if we observe the crown from the front, he would be the first one to notice if not for Jesus) to the last because it's another anomaly which deserves a more detailed inspection.
The last apostle is Bartholomew, or in Latinized: Bartholomaeus. Or more than likely he is. Because we can't see this icon today. I tried hard to find a photograph with google online, and elsewhere in articles, and in books which shows at least a few letters at the corners, but no avail.
So the Pantokrator at the front simply covers his icon. You can see how the ornaments on the rim bend a little inside. But maybe that wasn't the case all the time. At least two drawings of the Bartholomew icon were preserved from the 19th century, which means there had to had been some view in.
The first one is from exactly 1800. This is fairly unknown work and I had to take a screenshot of a modern book which has this picture in it. This drawing doesn't give us a full picture only the top of the head of the dude and the label: ARTHOLO. Granted the artist made some mistakes elsewhere, enough to compare his version of John with the real one we can say he wasn't the most accurate, but he gave back the inscription of John's precisely with the h-n ligature, the space filling motifs and all that, so I would assume the Artholo caption is precise too.
The problem with this drawing would be that it was published in a book of previously mentioned researcher who is considered to be "pseudo-scientific" and I don't think anyone else mentions this among the modern scholars. However other 19th century authors know about this "Artholo" inscription or at least the existence of this drawing - one article even mentions that the "SCSB" is missing due to a nail which was driven through and damaged it. I found another book of the same writer purchasable online but not what was published in 1800. So both the artist and the picture exists surely.
The next one was published in 1886. That says SCSBARTHOLO and depicts a full figured apostle. It's in a book of a renowned scientist of the Crown-research. His picture is used by everyone since then, but neither had the opportunity to personally take a look. He wasn't the drawer, but was part of the team - and probably the leader of it - which was allowed to inspect the crown. The artist however had very good eyes and reliable hands, that we can state. So since this picture was the basis of all later analysis' there was nothing new published about this Artholo since then. Noteworthy: his version still ends with -artholo, and doesn't have the -VS ending the other saints have.

>>27053
But in 1945 the National Socialist government left the country, fled to the west with the Germans and they took the Crown with themselves. From them the Americans confiscated it and sent it to the US. They gave it back in 1978. Then, a few years later (I think in 1983) a group of goldsmiths (actually 3 electric engineers, a mechanical engineer and a metallurgist) was allowed to study and examine the crown. The whole process was recorded on film by the "royal" television. I haven't seen a second of the footage sadly I dunno if it's available to anyone.
They looked behind the Pantokrator with the help of strong lamps, halogen lamps, fundus lens and laryngoscope. Two of them did it and both firmly stated: it reads ARTHOLO, the plate slid lower down in the socket and the icon is broken, most of it is missing. They also determined that the cross strap behind the icon is bent forward so it flexes to the broken plate and fixes it in place in the socket.
Later one dude from this group started to write about the crown a lot with wild ravings and frequently little basis so everyone started to take their findings less seriously. Also it is "found out" (as if it was a secret) their relation with the "pseudo-scientific" researcher (based on what I know about his works I think he has unusual ideas and great imagination but I wouldn't label them "pseudo" for this) and got attacked from the "officials". I think if they had just presented their findings, without adding any comments and making conclusions, it would have been better.
Another company of goldsmiths made an investigation in the early '90s (93-94 I think), and they are referred to frequently since, even Hungarian Wikipedia presents some of their findings and opinions. I couldn't get any of their reports from online source, probably with the help of libraries I could read them but that's just too much effort for our purpose (and probably money). Nevertheless the available material of theirs tells nothing about the Bartholomew icon.
I read however that the aforementioned Tóth Endre - the one who is considered legit - recognized the claim of the first group about Artholo as true.
What this means to us? Not much, but we can smile on the joke that he was flayed so his skin is missing from the Crown.

Just a quick post for today in this topic.
I gathered a handful of theory of how the hypothetical "corona latina" looked like. Most of them operates on the basis that there were 12 apostle icons originally. Some questions if those were on a crown at all before they were placed on the Holy Crown. Since today it seems sure it was never a crown in the first place and back in the day they recycled other items to create a new one it could have happened. But we have no actual evidence, so the icons may or may not were made specifically for the crown.
And since we're talking about the icons, in the previous posts about the apostles ( >>27050 and >>27052 ), look at their eyes, they all squinting. While the figures of the rim have directional looks, they look toward the front or stare back straight to anyone who looks at them (typically the two emperors) these ones on the top aren't. This squinting look might imply they doesn't watch this material world around them, but they look to the "other side", into heaven.

I won't post the head relic holder again, you can find it here >>26899
I think right now this is the post popular solution to a most likely nonexistent problem.

The next two peculiarities aren't with the Crown but the (Hungarian) Wikipee articles about the Crown.
I'm gonna take the simpler one first.

A Hungarian noble, certain Révay Péter, who hold an important office leading a county, was trusted as a Crown Guard at the dawn of the 17th century. He was there with Mathias II when he was crowned in 1608. This guy wrote a book about the Holy Crown, with the KC-tier title of De sacrae coronae regni Hungariae ortu, virtute, victoria, fortuna, annos ultra DC clarissimae brevis commentarius which was published in Augsburg, 1613. It was re-published a few times since proved to be a very popular work, I think on the Hungary only the Bible ranked more popular than this. The topic of this book is more of the spiritual and judicial work than an analysis of the Crown as an item or piece of art.
The book contains however a very concise description which became of the basis of certain speculations. "Official" researchers dismiss his book as a source since his description isn't clear and he seemed to made some mistakes. However his book came with an illustration, a depiction of the Crown which looks quite different from the real one.
Here's a screenshot of the Hungarian Wiki page which compares the drawing in the book and a later one from 1790. And the subtitle says: "Révay's drawing of the crown (above) and the depiction based on the official inspection of 1790 (below)"
The problem is that it isn't Révay's drawing. Originally it is an engraving made by a German artist, a certain Wolfgang Kilian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Kilian), who had never seen the crown, and only could use the little what Révay wrote.
Also there isn't just one but some (all?) later editions use another illustration which is very similar to the first one but still contain a few differing details.
So why the Wiki says it was made by Révay?

I'm liking your thread a lot OP. Please keep posting. Pretty much anything involving Eastern European and Slavic history is interesting to me.

Have you ever thought of making a pdf for download for this thread(minus the replies)?

On pic #1 it is fairly visible even to us that where the icons are placed into their sockets the gold plate has rectangular depressions. And here: >>26989 the "backside" of the Thomas icon is also a fair example. According to Wikipee similar depressions, or rather the outset of them were found by the goldsmiths on the end of the straps.
For us (the general public and not just us here in the thread) it would be nice to see actual photographs of these, sadly the article missing such.
I found an article in scientific journal however by the de facto leader of the Crown Committee (Lovag Zsuzsa) from 1986 where she published several photos of the cross strap pieces, two of them depict the lower parts which are joined to the rim. #2 and #3 this one is upside down are the photos in question. Granted they just black and white and not very good resolution, however we should see the signs of those initial depressions of the icons' sockets. There are none. The only observable unevenness is the result of the riveting process.
For reference #4 is a shot of a strap and the central piece (with the Pantokrator above), the depression is clearly visible on that.
The colored examples (#1 and the Thomas icon referenced above) also show no sign of such depressions tho it can be argued the angle makes it hard to recognize them.
It is possible that only one strap or maybe the two not published in the article - where I found the photos - have that feature, but that would mean only that one or those two had "extensions" and icons on them.
The members of the Crown Committee subscribe(d) to the hypotheses that say originally the cross straps contained the icons of all twelve apostles whatever it was (crown, relic holder etc.) before it was assembled with the rim, so maybe it was a wishful thinking on their part when they believed they saw those depressions, when they mistook random deformations with them. It was the verification of their own ideas so maybe they read more into them than they should had.
Or maybe the author of that article is in some monkey business - since the original reports can't be easily accessed. (In case a Hungarian reads this and has access to them: please share!)

National Holiday today. Made threads previously but don't want to open a new one now. Maybe should write something, an aspect of the thing or just about a detail. Will see.

It's national holiday time!
Since the related thread was lost (the one of October 6th and the Martyrs of Arad) I'll make the celebratory postenings here. I chew a little bigger than I could bite for one sitting, but it seems I've plenty of time in the near future to finish this topic.

>>35166
Or rather bit more than I can chew... but...

Today I want to introduce you Görgey (or Görgei) Artúr, a hero of the War of Independence, who could have been the Hungarian Napoleon, but his tragedy was that his many qualities didn't cover the field of politics, so he was cast aside and labeled as a traitor, especially after he had to play the ungrateful role of the capitulating leader.
He lived a long life (1818-1916) most of it in obscurity. He grew up in an impoverished noble family with his nine siblings. In his early teen years he enrolled into the Kaiser's army, studied at the sapper school at Tulln, served as infantryman then hussar (in the Kaiser's Leibgarde too). But being an officer in peacetime wasn't much of a career, he left to pursue his interests instead, learnt chemistry (his publications were widely acknowledged). After his fifteen minutes of fame during the War, he spent some time in prison, and then while he did a few valuable works (like helping the new Defense Force to form in 1868), his name faded into the background.
His knowledge in military sciences was fairly deep, and was complemented with his innate talent for them. He had the mathematical and technical knowledge of military engineering, got to know the inner working of a general staff, understood organization and training, had insights into the problems of logistics. During the war he put them in good use, and as importantly his performance on the battlefield was swell, he parried operational challenges, and made strategically sound decisions. His personal bravery and sense of duty didn't lack either. I don't like to use superlatives, but he really was a damned good officer.

He joined in the affair after the Revolution, in May. Enlisted to the military and Captain Görgey was entrusted with various organizational tasks, like recruiting, training, obtaining equipment and ammunition, and setting up the manufacturing of these. Right during these times he was noticed by Kossuth Lajos, minister of finance in the revolutionary government, then the prime minster/president of the second cabinet, and later governor himself, a great revolutionary, a central political figure, and who would deserve his own piece of discourse. Kossuth played an important part in Görgey's career arch and he became the source of blame which was shifted onto Görgey in the end. He probably both admired and feared the soldier's capabilities.
Then the first attack came on behalf of the Court, in 1848 September Jelacic, Croat Ban, moved against Budapest. Further to the East marched the troops of General Roth, whose job was to join Jelacic. Major Görgey commanded the vanguard of a unit entrusted to halt Roth and prevent the plan. First he forced to surrender Roth's vanguard, then helped to encircle Roth himself.
Jelacic was defeated and had to retreat toward Vienna moar liek Yellowcic amirite, where the October Revolution had just started. Colonel Görgey, attached to the main army, followed. On the occasion the Hungarian leadership committed a great blunder (well, it's more complicated than that, but it is out of our scope now). At the Austrian border our pursuing army was halted to lament if they have the right to enter. And by the time they decided that hell yeah we should help the Viennese revolutionaries, the uprising was quenched and the Kaiserlich troops could face the Hungarian army alone, on their terms, and from both quantitative and qualitative superiority. Here the fate of both Austria and Hungary could have been decided and the whole inconvenience stopped, but instead our host was defeated and the struggle got prolonged. The battle was at Schwechat (1848 October 30), where Major General Görgey was now in command on the centre or the army. The battle was hopeless, he could only cover the retreat of his infantry with his cavalry, preventing their total destruction.

>>35207
>it must've been well fortified on the outside.
Exactly. The imperial troops had to siege the city as rebels seized control (their military commander was Joseph Bem - or Uncle Bem as we call him - who was quite good at his job). Windisch-Grätz could have been caught with his pants down and beaten.

>>35209
>statues
Yes. More photos of picrel:
https://www.kozterkep.hu/1759/gorgey-artur#
>celebrated
Not really.
It's not easy to judge the case of Görgey. Both public opinion and historical view changed a lot with the winds throughout the past 170 years. Recently - for example - quite a few works were published which takes his side with suspiciously great enthusiasm and are sold as official view of authoritative scientists who gives us the true gold standard in the question (even in historical journals not just by the press and media in general). I wonder when the mantra will change again.
So I'm struggling with my source material, that's the reason I not yet finished his story.
>>some time in prison
I was mistaken, he was detained in Klagenfurt, he could move freely just couldn't leave.
>Why though?
That's part of the problem and I wish to explore that.
>Any books
Many. He even have his own, published during the internment of Klagenfurt: Mein Leben und Wirken in Ungarn in den Jahren 1848 und 1849. Was published in English as well, I post that too.
>movies about
I don't think so. But literary works was written, dramas, novels and such, so might one could be implemented I guess.

>>35169
Additional map for this, it's basically Western Hungary (Transdanubia).
Orange: imperials.
Green: Hungarians.
Red dots: battles.
So Jelacic came from the SE ("Horvátország"), take a rout south of Balaton Lake toward Pest-Buda, then got beaten at Pákozd, on Sept 29. From there he retreated to Vienna ("Bécs"). Meanwhile his reinforcement was beaten by Görgey and Perczel Mór (he was the senior at that time).
Jelacic's troops consisted regular imperial troops, Croat grenzers and other irregulars. At Győr the latter parts were detached and sent back to Croatia.
The Hungarian main force after Pákozd instead of pursue the imperials, was drawn back to a settlement to the east, and after then they followed. I'm not sure about that battle at Győr on the 7-8th October. Anyway the revolution in Vienna happened on October 6th, our army delayed to cross the Leitha to 28th. Then was beaten at Schwechat on the 30th by Windisch-Grätz.

Then came the problems.
Kossuth shifted one gear up, worked day and night to organize the defence, to build up a new army, to balance out the endeavors of the so called Peace Party who wished to seek an agreement with the Court. He tried to be everywhere, tried to control everything. He even tried to manually control Görgey, the new commander of the freshly beaten army, whom he had just appointed. Kossuth, led by his idealistic view on how things should happen, often gave contradictory or quickly changing orders to Görgey who on the other hand founded his own ideas onto the reality of the actual military situation he faced. He was on the scene and was in direct control of the troops. This was also a difference, Kossuth saw the larger scope of the conflict, Görgey - at that point, since that was his job - only could judge, based on his slice of the war, though he probably followed news from elsewhere. Their opinion clashed, Kossuth wanted him to hold as many land as possible, and encouraged him to undertake a battle to gain time and keep up the morale of the country, Görgey on the other hand avoided combat, since the opponent was way stronger, and retreated.
Meanwhile the front moved eastward again, a battle was lost by an other army led by General Perczel, which allowed the approach of the capital. The "neighbour" unit was Görgey's and the lack of help from him led Perczel to nurse a little grudge toward the hero of our story. As a result of the defeat the government and the legislation fled from Pest-Buda to Debrecen and the marshalling area of a new army, which could possibly confront Windisch-Grätz - the commander of the Emperor's army -. was rebased along the Tisza river. Görgey retreated again and Castle Buda was taken, with the city of Pest on the other side of the Danube. Görgey moved his army to a bit north along the great river to Vác.

The political situation wasn't clear. The legal ruler of the country was still Ferdinand, then Franz Joseph (tho he wasn't crowned yet, and was considered as a usurper by the Diet, ie. the parliament), but now the country found herself fighting them. This presented a dilemma for the officer corps of the Defense Forces, more precisely for those who took an oath for the king. This dilemma and the seemingly unavoidable defeat induced a mass desertion among the officers, about one third of them left the service. (Note: the Hungarian army consisted two main types of units: freshly organized national guards and "old" k.u.k. units with k.u.k. officers who chose to obey the Hungarian government for a reason or another, and were integrated into the body of the Defence Forces. Also I call units inaccurately as armies, they are brigades, divisions, and corps, I just don't want to add more pointless work to look up which was which.)
So in the early January of 1849 Görgey gave a proclamation. He shifted the blame onto the wartime government for the situation the army found itself in - he saves himself saying he takes the blame for following their faulty orders - then he collected his view into four points: the operation of the army should be based on the constitutional Laws of April (of 1848) signed by king Ferdinand V, he refuses and will fight any kind of republicanism, he only accepts commands from the legitimate minister of defence, he will only accept any deal with the enemy as legal if it is based and the constitution and saves the honor of the army (if it ensures they aren't committing treason with their struggle).
With this move he managed to stop the desertion of the officers (tho some argue that officers stopped leaving their units as well where they got to know about the proclamation much later), however it led to some tensions with the wartime government and kinda implied he won't obey to Kossuth's orders.

But he deviated from the plans too. Instead of holding the line in front of the main attacking force of the Emperor, and backing toward the marshalling area, he chose to evade instead and started a march toward north east. While his move weakened the direct defense of the new center of rally it was quite unexpected for the imperial command. They sent a considerable force onto his chase, in case he breaks into Austrian lands, or threatens logistically important settlements and supply lines. Görgey basically stopped the enemy's advance at the region of the Danube just the same.
His part in the so called Winter Campaign was a mixed bag. While he and his subordinate commanders lost more battles than won, the strategical goal to distract troops, and then joining to the rest of the forming Hungarian force was successful. They achieved some feats, and did surprising moves (like re-digging a route through an unused mine from one side of a hill to the other, and then retreat through the tunnel), and in overall it was an adventure for sure, but while he went on this hike through the Highlands, Kossuth decided whom he appoints as the new commander-in-chief and that person wasn't the obvious choice Görgey, but - as a reaction for the Proclamation of Vác - a Polish revolutionary, General Henryk Dembinski. He had experience in that role but he was a brand new face around here which led to a couple of disagreements with a few key figures - among them Görgey -, and lost his first important battle against Windisch-Grätz (at Kápolna, on 1849 February 26-27, I have my suspicion that his failure was "helped" by those key figures just a little bit, but maybe I'm just too cynical). After the popular demand of the high ranking officers - sometimes called as a mutiny -, he was dismissed, but his "heir" commander-in-chief Görgey was also dismissed by Kossuth a couple of days later. Which was way less harsh treatment than the original plan that Görgey gets a bullet in his head for organizing and leading the mutiny instead of suppressing those who objected Dembinski's nomination as asked by Kossuth earlier. It turned out he just joined but not led and after personal meetings and discussions with Kossuth, their relation normalized and when the next commander-in-chief was resigned citing his illness finally Görgey got the position for good.

In the first map Bernd can find Görgey's and his junior commanders activity in the north western segment, also on the colored map.

>>35303
He was a Habsburg...
He suffered from some level of retardation, maybe he had hydrocephal or something.

>>35303
>>35303
>Is that a bad portrait or was This Island Earth a documentary?

Why that's just the Royals keeping the bloodline pure, bernd

Görgey was a swell choice for the commander-in-chief position. Units were concentrated, new were drafted and he used them well. He beat Windisch-Grätz at Isaszeg (April 6), and turned the tables. The Spring Campaign proved to be successful although the main imperial force managed to slip out of their hands. Nevertheless they pushed the front back to the western border, they broke the siege of Komárom - an important fortress at the Danube west from the capital -, liberated Pest and recaptured Buda Castle. The War of Independence reached it's peak, now most of the country was under the control of the Hungarian government. The Hungarian Defence Force proved it can be a match for the imperial army.
The new challenge was the political situation. In a previous thread (October 6th, commemoration of the Martyrs of Arad) I wrote that just before the Revolution our nation could take four possible ways to implement the reforms that finally would dismantle the feudal structures. These routs all had their proponents whom constantly argued about implementation. The paths:
1. Proceed in a very cautious fashion with the lead of the Habsburg Court, small steps without great trauma;
2. constitutional monarchy with the Habsburgs at the helm, but apply the changes without their lead, their role was of the passive consenter's;
3. constitutional monarchy without the Habsburgs, fuck them;
4. republic.

After the first path led to a dead end due to Metternich's reactionarism the Revolution started us with the second. The person of the king suited for this, since Ferdinand V wasn't much of ruler anyway. The aforementioned Laws of April was signed by him, providing a constitutional basis for the civic changes.
It was fine until the camarilla made Ferdinand to abdicate in favour of his nephew Franz Joseph, and launched the attack to end this little rebellion of ours. The problem was that maybe the Austrian Emperor could just put his crown down but not the Hungarian king. On the basis of the ancient law if you were Hungarian king then you were in it 4life, n keepin it real. A new king had to be elected first, even if it was a formality (it happened in the past that crowned kings elevated an elected king beside them, the heir apparent and they co-ruled), and then he had to be crowned with the Holy Crown during a ceremony with specific rules*.
So it was a possibility to elect Franz Joseph, and wait until Ferdinand dies, then crown F.J. But nor the government neither the Diet were willing to do such things, especially since F.J. and the Court did not want to hear anything about the Laws of April they wanted to restore absolutist rule. From Olmütz he imposed his own constitution on us in early March, which pretty much intended to abolish self-determination, and taking out the control from the hands of the Diet and the government**.
It made clear the Habsburgs won't let us get away with constitutional monarchy, no matter if they remained the titular rulers. So next month the Diet dethroned them and declared independence. Kossuth became the governor, and now we were on the third path. And the fourth. The Declaration of Independence didn't settle the form of government, actually it didn't settle anything. The Laws of April was considered still in effect which implied constitutional monarchy, but our Coat of Arms was changed to a Crownless one, the so called Kossuth CoA, which basically a republican CoA and we didn't have a monarch but a "civilian" at the helm of the country. Many officers were against the dethronement and many more felt aversion toward a republic - smelled too much jacobin and they hated that -, and as before in January this made a particular stratum of the officers and even soldiers feel as they were oathbreakers, and technically this could be held against them (and it was going to). By that time Görgey built up quite a reputation among the fellow officers, he was widely respected, so when he said it's okay, they followed.


*If we really want to be nitpicky we can judge that many Habsburg rulers of ours weren't actually our kings by those rules. Ferdinand V neither.
**On the other hand it implemented modern civic changes, so it can be viewed as path #1. On similar basis the Compromise of 1867 (which given birth to the dualist Austria-Hungary) can be interpreted as a midway between the first two routs, hence compromise.

New development was the Tsar's involvement in the War. The victorious spring triggered the Court to seek his help, however for the lack of precise information quite a few people (among them the Peace Party, and maybe Görgey, or even the members of the government) thought it was a reaction for the declaration of independence. The news arrived spring, the armies summer.
The plan was to face the Kaiser's and try diplomacy against the Tsar's. After the battles in the west didn't produce the results fast enough, the government decided to concentrate the armies near Szeged (in the south on the Great Plain) which was a silly plan since that allowed Haynau and Paskevich to join forces. Btw Haynau (the Hyena), he was freshly appointed to lead the imperial troops on Hungarian lands, after he was recalled from his Italian holiday mayhem. He was a tougher nut than Windisch-Grätz.
Görgey commuted between Pest and Komárom which served as the main base for the western operations. His division between his two office hindered him to serve optimally, finally his appointment as a minister was revoked (thanks for a mixup), he got a headwound which incapacitated him for a while, and they had to give up Transdanubia according to the new plan. They were late and a Russian unit stood already in their way. They had to evade which made their trip longer, and Russian envoys approached him but apparently they were just distractions to grant time for an encirclement. Görgey didn't let his army getting trapped but himself sent messages to Paskevich, in word and in letter. He prodded the Russian leadership if we could capitulate to them, and what would they think if they could place a Russian ruler above our country. Problem was he didn't have the authority to parley and the government didn't know about his diplomatic actions, they were informed after the fact.
Our armies had no time to unite. The main force was led instead of Arad to Temesvár by Dembinski, the place was in the hand of the enemy, and he managed to send the baggage train with the supplies elsewhere. For his failure he gave up the command, and Bem was trusted with that, he couldn't do much but went to battle against Haynau on the 9th of August, and our army got destroyed. Görgey stood at Arad where the same day he had a meeting with Kossuth. Kossuth reproached Görgey, but essentially they discussed the case if we lose the battle, Görgey raised the possibility of the capitulation.
Few hours later when the news arrived Görgey went to Kossuth and asked to give him the power, the Russians did't negotiate with the revolutionary government, only with the military. Kossuth resigned and Görgey assumed dictatorship. On 13th August at Világos he laid down the arms in front of a Russian general, Rüdiger.

Mopping up left for the invaders, the remnants of the military dispersed. Some tried to give themselves up some put the border into target and left, officials and even a few civilians did similarly. The Ottoman Empire was a first station, there they could gain asylum, few stayed, most left to west. Kossuth himself went to Paris, London, America, tried to drum up support for the cause of the Revolution, he lived the rest of his life for this. The Emigration made this for its profession, rekindling the resistance, renew the struggle. They tried to exploit every possibility, great opportunities were the unification of Italy and Germany. Veterans of the War of Independence fought in great numbers in Italy, some even in the American Civil War***.
At home the iron fist smashed down with brutality, Haynau made sure of that. Officers and officials whom they could arrest were executed by the hundreds others imprisoned for a long time. Simple soldiers were press-ganged into the imperial army. On 6th October, the thirteen martyr, 12 generals and a colonel was executed at Arad (Bernd might remember), the Prime Minister of the first government was shot at Pest.
It's an enigma how Görgey got away with being the most prominent general of the Defence Force. He was relocated to Klagenfurt where he lived till 1867 in relative freedom, although he couldn't leave and couldn't get a job and had to live on the bare minimum provided by the Habsburg state. The most recent version of the speculation is, that after he fell into Russian captivity the Tsar threatened the Emperor, that they will bring Görgey to Russia as a badge of their triumph if they don't give him amnesty. Or they wanted to use the young (he was 31!) and talented general against the Habsburgs in case of a war. I think historians give rationalizations of dubious value, but if he really wasn't a traitor or an agent of the Habsburg Court (probably wasn't either), it is very likely the Russians pressured Franz Joseph and Haynau to leave him alone.


*** Here's a list of their names, saidly no English page:
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Az_amerikai_polg%C3%A1rh%C3%A1bor%C3%BA_magyar_r%C3%A9sztvev%C5%91inek_list%C3%A1ja
First seven are generals.

Now that we're talking about Polish generals...

So let's talk briefly about Polish-Hungarian relations, the possible sources the sympathy and friendship between the two nation.
Our history intertwines since the formation of our statehood. In the beginning it was on the level of foreign politics, the Piast and Árpád dynasties strengthened their relation via marriages. Very notable example is our king Saint Ladislaus (ruled: 1077-1095) whose mother was Polish princess. Due to the inner struggles of the House of Árpád, his father prince Béla with his brothers had to fled the country and found safe refuge in the Piast Court, he even led an army of theirs against Pomerania.
Back then the Hungarian dynastic politics had four chief partners: the HRE (with Bohemia), Poland, Kiev and Byzantium. There were other relations, and webs of marriages, but these were the main ones. With the decline of Byzantium, and the Mongol conquest this reduced to the first two, though important marriages were bargained with powers further to west, which helped the Anjou's onto the throne of Hungary after the House of Árpád died out ont he male line.
The strategical nature of our relation with the Polish Kingdom remained intact. First with Bohemia they created the V3 (Congress of Visegrád) which was an alliance and a commercial agreement between the three rulers. Then Anjou Louis I inherited the Kingdom of Poland, and our states formed a personal union. His daughter, Jadwiga followed on the throne (she was canonized recently, another saint of the Polish-Hungarian relations), and her marriage made possible for the Jagiellonians to acquire the kingship. They become not just important partners for the Hungarian rulers, but gave three kings for us as well, one died tragically on the battlefield of Mohács in the struggle against the Ottomans.

This struggle became a common cause of ours for the coming centuries from the appearance of the Ottomans on the Balkans. With our country torn three after the fall of Buda (1541) the Polish foreign politics dealt with two Hungarian states, the Kingdom with the Habsburgs, and the Principality of Transylvania with her changing ruling families. The relation of the Princes to the Sublime Porte varied during this era, some were more independent than others, some had better relation with the Habsburgs, some dreamed of winning the Kingdom for themselves. One however was approached by some representatives of the Sejm, they offered Anna Jagellion's hand in marriage to Stephen Báthory, and with her the power over of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After him, the Princes saw the relations with Poland even more important if it's possible, but more importantly the interactions between the two nations (if I'm allowed to write this term somewhat anachronistically) started to change, from high politics it moved onto lower levels as well.
Gonna continue from here.

>>35674
>northern by-pass
I will look into his memoirs about this. But.
I know there were considerable amount of reinforcement in the Highlands, and maybe even supplies. The towns were traditionally rich (originally Saxon - liek Zipsers - and Swabian settlers founded mining towns) and important industrial centers. At first Görgey wanted to break the siege of Lipótvár which was held by 1500 patriot against Simunich's 5000 men, from there they could have reached Pozsony easily (earlier the seat of the Diet, due to it's closeness to Vienna), or move to either Komárom or Győr, all three cases would landed them behind the imperials and on their supply lines.
The imperals also could hope for some popular support in the Highlands (or Upper Hungary), among the tót part of the Northern Hungarians those who speak Czech funny a priest named Hurban recruited irregular force against the Revolution this movement was way less considerable than today the Slavic nationalists of Northern Hungary try to imply, the main body of the tóts sided with the Hungarian revolutionary government.
So Görgey had to be kept in check. Windisch-Grätz sent a force from his troops, which made his army weaker. He also wanted to concentrate more units onto the Great Plain, most notably Schlick's, but at that moment when Görgey left, Simunich's too. I read that the imperial high command didn't have reliable intel nor about the strength of our forces neither their exact location this made W-G cautious (maybe even confused).

>And which other noble house could take the throne?
I dunno if they had any plans on that, or who wanted to elect whom. In practice Kossuth became governor and weren't much talk about coronation.
Our kingdom without a king can work fine. The Holy Crown is the embodiment of the kingship, and the source of royal power. During the middle ages a tradition formed which is now called Holy Crown Doctrine (I'm not aware an official translation of the name, it contains/contained both customary and written law) which treats the Crown basically both as an abstract idea (with notions such as the will of the people) and as a legal person (such as the owner of the crown lands - this part can be familiar). From 1446 in the absence of a king (during interregnums for example) a governor (gubernator) gets elected and rules instead the king, the legal basis and the practice of this rule was regulated on ad hoc basis, there weren't explicit guidelines for that I think, but generally were under the supervision of the Diet/legislation (as the will of the people and the will of the Crown).
The kingless kingdom works as a republic with a "civilian" at the helm. In case of Kossuth, he was called a governor-president - which probably made many peeps twitchy, projecting a republican turn. Anyway keeping the kingdom in our case is a question of tradition and the continuation of a thousand year old legitimacy.
As a nice touch, the Prime Minister of the first "responsible" government as they called it responsible to the Parliament not the king took an oath to the Holy Crown. They took it seriously.
Picrels: first and last governors.

>>35517
With Báthory quite a few Hungarians arrived to Poland, nobles, officials, priests, scientists, artists, chiefly to help him, but he also acted as a maecenas. It is a safe bet to assume with previous "exchanges" of rulers a certain amount of Hungarians went to Poland, and Poles arrived to here. But they were from the upper echelons of society can't really consider them as relation of the two people.
This relation started in the late 17th century, when a movement rose in our kingdom which simplistically can be called as anti-Habsburg. It had religious taint as well, but chiefly was a centralization-decentralization struggle. On one level the court pursued absolutist notions, on the other they wanted to integrate our kingdom into their empire, rule it via the empire's administration and not as a separate state. The background for all that was the receding Ottoman grip on the occupied third of the country. In the struggle the so called kuruc movement formed, and it culminated in the 1703-11 Rákóczi War of Independence, and the first dethronement of the Habsburgs (Rákóczi Ferenc II was offered the Crown by the Diet, he refused he was fine with the "dux et princeps" titles, interesting fact: as a foreshadow of 1848 and the disintegration of feudal ties, they also introduced universal taxation). Now the fighters of the kuruc side - from the lowly peasants to the highest nobility - often found refuge on Polish lands, where they were welcomed fairly and allowed to reorganize and put together new ventures.

Then in the 18th century, the dice turned, and Poles found themselves in the pickle. By the end of the century their state ceased to exist. The official political ties lost entirely between the two countries, but those who were persecuted in Poland, or on the ex-Polish lands could find safety in the Hungarian Kingdom. Hungarian intellectuals - especially those who were influenced by the new ideologies of the Enlightenment era - followed the events of the neighbour, articles and books were written about Polish topics, in poetry the motif of the Friendship appeared for the first time. Kościuszko was held in breddy high regards and after the failure of the Uprising he led, many rebel were hidden here.
During the November Uprising (1830) the Hungarian counties collected donations and offered monetary support. Some went to Poland and joined the military to actively participate. Our leading politicians and personalities of the Reform Era openly gave voice of their views on behalf of the Polish cause. When the end came, refugees of the Great Emigration were helped through the country so they could reach their western destinations. In '48-49 the veterans of this Uprising not just fought in our armies by the hundreds, but led them too. Until then they enjoyed safety in our country, despite Austria extradited Polish subversive elements to Russia, and they expected that Hungarian authorities arrest and deport such people. They didn't.

During 1848-49 Poles participated actively both in the Revolution and in the following War of Independence. Their emigration greeted it wholeheartedly, they saw a possibility to expand the revolution to Galicia and then who knows what could follow (this is a rare "what if", what would have happened if we had won?, maybe we could have helped the revolution in Vienna?, and then the Italian uprising?, helping Poland gaining independence?). They organized the Polish Legion (Legiony Polskie) and every unit and every men were directed to there, this unit was used independently. Quite a few soldiers left the imperial army (Poles from Galicia served there) and signed up at ours.
Then in the next Polish uprising in 1863 the Hungarian emigration helped as they could, the homeland still suffered the opression which folled the revolution.
The Dualist Monarchy (Austria-Hungary) meant peace, and Poles came to find work. Some settled here, but most was just seasonal. Polish civil organizations formed here, Polish subdivisions were added to already existing ones (e.g. in the Alliance of Hungarian Lawyers). An important institution was formed, the Hungarian-Polish Society which became a focal point of deepening relations and organizing events. Ofc, these groups weren't just cultural or friendly, they often actively supported the cause of Polish independence.

I would be interested if there was a closer camaraderie between Hungarian and Polish soldiers (who fought in the newly formed Polish Legion), but I've no data about it.
Trianon parted us, no more common frontier, Hungary became isolated, and our foreign politics concentrated on the revision of Trianon, while they tried to rebuild the destroyed and plundered country. Poland was a freshly restored state, it's land was a battlefield during the Great War, reorganizing, rebuilding was the chief immediate goals after the war.
As for foreign relations, it was friendly, both country held the other important in what-if scenarios. Poland generally pursued peaceful relations with their neighbours, tho it had conflicts with Czechoslovakia, just like us, in case of an open conflict we could regard each other as allies. Since Poland saw the threat in the Soviet Union, Romania was a potential ally on that front, so they tried to sooth our conflict with them.
There were quite a few loose federal concepts in the minds of some politicians when they thought about the future of the Central Eastern European countries (sometimes supplemented with Italy in their calculations), but these theories were closer to fantasy than reality.
By '39 Poland expressed concerns that Hungary got too close to Berlin, but after the first revision we got back the eastern parts of the lost Upper Hungary, the common joy of restoring a part of the thousand years old border won over the bad feelings. Our leadership furthermore told to both Polish and German diplomats that we won't participate in a war against Poland and won't allow German troops through our lands either - our politicians referred to the traditional friendship. In secret we also warned Poland about the German attack.
Civilian ties weren't severed either, the Hungarian-Polish organizations worked on during this period. And some provided a mean when Hungarian volunteers wished to fight on the Polish side, right after the war broke out.

Again the two countries were cut off form each other and the tourism in the following one and a half decade were basically non-existent, so beside politics there weren't much contact between the two nations. But the events of 1956 showed the living sympathy and camaraderie between us. For the similar societal background both nation reacted similarly to the forced stalinization, in '56 first the Poles had an uprising in Poznan, then for the popular demand a softer government was installed in Poland by the Soviet. Our protests in October were organized as a sympathy movement toward the Poles, and these protests turned into the Revolution and then and independence war. Polish reaction followed, they also held protests in solidarity.
From the 60s our economy became more free, here people even could buy certain western goods. The whole Block everyone came here to do their shopping, among them Poles. But Poland offered a more liberal cultural and intellectual atmosphere, displays of modern art and cinematography, so people went there on holidays, Poland meant a window to the world. By the '80s the "underground" opposition also had ties, risky documents and books were published in the other country, for example documents of '56 in Poland, but documents of Katyn in Hungary.
After the regime change we remained on the same course, NATO, EU. The V3 was resurrected again, and now it's V4. Tourists come and go, and our workers do their job together in Western factories if the choose to move there. We have streets named after Polish people and places, statues and monuments in commemoration of past events. We have this Friendship Day, and some official gestures always made (e.g. Orbán when won the election, as a PM he visited officially Warsaw first).

Not a national holiday, but a national day of mourning.
I wrote about them in longer so gonna pass on this one. Maybe in the evening about something related.

One thing that rarely gets mentioned in relation to the revolution of '56 is the Warsaw Pact and Hungary's place in the organization.
In 53 with Stalin's death and Khrushchev emergence meant some changing - in tiny steps - in Soviet politics, and their lackeys in Hungary had to practice self-criticism. In place of the Stalinist dictator, Rákosi Mátyás, Nagy Imre was placed who changed focus from the forced industrialization to the immediate needs of the population. But a year later with the threat of rearmament of Western Germany and her integration into the NATO the reigns - held in Moscow - tightened again, and now Nagy found himself as a target that he let the country onto the road of dangerous rightist deviations, instead of preserving the peace with the enhancement of armament production.
There was the question of Austria and her becoming neutral in the near future, when Red Army units have to leave the country. The ones stationed here were here because they had to secure the supply lines to the ones in Austria. If those leave, "ours" will lose the reason why they are here. It will be so nice to finally not be occupied.
But in late '54 Moscow gently nudged Czechoslovakia and us, to initiate a conference to discuss the matter of the safety of the Eastern Block, where the matter of setting up a new defense treaty can be discussed. After about half a year of preparation the Warsaw Pact was set up finally. By that time Nagy was out of office, and Rákosi was back in. Forced armament was restarted - they agreed on setting up an army in the size of 470 000 soldiers -, and after the leaders of country and the Hungarian People's Army expressed their fears that Hungary is defenceless without the protection of the great Red Army, an Air Army (actually one air division) and a mechanized infantry division from Austria was settled beside the already present mech. inf. division.
Our role in the Warsaw Pact wasn't that big, but might have been strategically important(-ish). First we had to establish an airbase for Soviet bombers which could target objectives in Southern Germany, Italy and Africa from there. During a war games they also simulated an offensive in the direction of Zagreb, Ljubljana and Trieste, which suggests our troops would have participated opening up a way to the Adria and toward Italy (at least in the plans of '55, later probably everything changed).
I have to interject here and note that during another joint army exercise the imagined situation was that the westerners would start with the aggression, using nuclear and chemical weapons as well, and the forces of the Eastern Block would disarm the attack and response with a counterattack, also with nuclear and chemical weapons beside the conventional ones. The containment of the entering enemy would happened in operational depth (not at the front), then would came the encirclement and their destruction.
But by the second half of '56, winds changed again, a thaw came in international politics, talks started between the US and the SU, armament and the army became less important again - the number of enlisted was determined in 115 000 men. Was that a promise of freedom again? Maybe. People could interpret it as such. But the reality was the Soviet Union couldn't let out of the line (or - Marx's forbid! - leave) one of the members of her Warsaw Pact just one year after of its formation.

>>42508
I concur it is impossible to imagine something that isn't based on our knowledge from the real world.

Yeah, that's the map I used to see (on imageboards). I've to problems with that:
1. Where did Tolkien get a map about Europe from 20-30 000 BC?
2. That big turd across the western part of Carpathian basin which is non-existent irl, and never was there.
The linked article says (from Google translate, but DeepL's translation is similar):
>The only exception to the rule on Byrd's maps was the continuation of the Scandinavian Mountains through Denmark to northwest Germany (to end up with Tolkien's Misty Ridge).
I guess it's about changing the geography of the ridge coming from Skandiland being the sole edit on the map. It is not.

I do agree creating a political statement that condemns the communism from the work of Tolkien is silly, maybe even ridiculous. But I can't agree with the conclusion, the explanation why would Tolkien equal Mordor with these parts is contrived.

Oh fugg, I forgot about this yesterday. Luckily I only slipped one day.
I hope it was nice for every Polish Bernd.

This was linked couple days ago.
A music video - playing on double speed or so - with the captions:
>HUNGARIANS EXPLAINING
>HOW ARE THEY EUROPEAN
posted by a person who appears to be a Northern Hungarian.
Shit is funny (ie humorous) on couple of levels.
1. Up to the late 19th century it was self-evident that we are Scythians.
2. Noone I ever met who tried to explain how we are Europeans, I don't think such conversational topic exist.
3. Turbo-Hungarians actually embrace the Turanic roots.
4. Politicians however fond of to cite European and Christian values as our core characteristics and our commitment to defend these for an European common good. One can hear similar from Orbán these days. But first these thoughts appeared in the 13th century after the Mongol Invasion in a letter from king Béla IV to the pope. Similar thoughts was put to paper by king Mathias I, this time due to the Ottoman danger, again addressed to the pope. Coincidentally just as Orbán does with EU, they also asked for monetary support from His Holiness.
5. Northern Hungarians are literally the same as us.
6. The same people who tell us we are Mongols also tell us we are Slavs.
7. Recently - this population genetic, haplogroup research - become popular to tell that Slavs are Scythians.

Tango Zulu's comments are real kc-tier. We might wanna invite him here.