Hungarians

To dispute the existence of Hungarians is just rude. According to common consensus, they are in the world to be at home in it. They’ve been telling themselves this for quite some time, but somehow they don’t want to believe it.

Hungarians indeed live all over the world, though many understand the world to mean Hungary. They are the Hungarian Hungarians, or the mother Hungarians. Then there are the non-Hungarian Hungarians, like the one I was born as, a Romanian citizen speaking Hungarian, or however the national-communist regime branded us. The non-Hungarian Hungarians hold to the homeland scattered about; for them, Hungary means, just to be contrary, the Carpathian homeland. For Hungarians, space is different and time is different, so neighboring peoples just stare when a Hungarian sets off to go home from home.

Now let’s look exclusively at the mother Hungarians. Mother Hungarians can be divided into three main groups. The loudest group lives in the capital. According to them, they know “everything,” while those Hungarians who don’t live in the capital know nothing. According capital dwellers, Hungarians not living in the capital believe all sorts of things without thinking, except what the Hungarians living in the capital would want to cram down their throats. Most Hungarians living in the capital, or at least their ancestors, weren’t born in the capital, but they forget this in a jiffy, then wonder why they can’t find common ground with their blood relatives. Being a Hungarian Hungarian living in the capital is not a matter of birth, but a state of mind.

Then there are those Hungarians who think Hungary doesn’t exist. Even if it’s there, it’s not, or it shouldn’t be. These Hungarians are a bit off in time; according to them, Hungary, or more precisely, the desirable non-existence of Hungary, is a future that’s already the present in Brussels (Vienna, London, etc.). They’re right that Brussels (Vienna, London, etc.) is not Hungary, but they haven’t yet given a sane explanation as to why Hungary should be Brussels (Vienna, London, and so on).

Hungarians not living in the capital indeed aren’t interested in what Hungarians living in the capital think of them. Hungarians not living in the capital know what they know, and this knowledge is just enough for them to navigate the matters of life.

For example, they know what those belonging to the previous two categories don’t want to acknowledge: that there’s no separate provinces and separate Budapest. There is one Hungarian reality, and we live it in Central Europe, with Budapest at its headquarters. And yes, Hungarians abroad and the diaspora are also part of the Hungarian reality; this is called a nation.

You can behave in Budapest as if you lived elsewhere (in Vienna, say), but you’re still not drinking your soy milk latte there. That’s why they don’t understand. In their heads and hearts, they’re elsewhere, but when it matters, reality slaps them in the face with a shovel. And they just stare blankly: how is this possible? Elsewhere, this wouldn’t have happened.

Why wasn’t I born a few hundred kilometers away? Kádár’s people are dreaming, for decades they’ve wished they were born elsewhere. We must leave this place. To where I should have been born, there.

When they say Budapest, they’re thinking of Vienna. When they say provinces, they’re thinking of it too. That’s why for them there’s no provinces, and that’s why there’s no Budapest either.

Because if they lived in Budapest (in their heads, especially in their hearts), they would understand that Budapest doesn’t exist without the provinces. Budapest is the center of the nation and Hungarian reality, look at the Parliament, or the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, gaze long at the Danube, crouching at Attila József’s feet.

Look through Saint Stephen’s eyes, see the Carpathian Basin as a whole. See its inhabitants, who can say of every square centimeter that this is their homeland.

We also tend to call it motherland. This is what needs to be understood.

And after that, but only after that, give advice on how to cultivate it.

Live here in your head, in your heart.

This is your home, your homeland, your birthplace.

This is you.

Look at yourself. You are as you are. Lovable. So love it.

Notes:

“Mother Hungarians” refers to Hungarians living in Hungary, as opposed to ethnic Hungarians living in other countries.

The text makes references to historical and cultural concepts, such as “Kádár’s people” (referring to the era of János Kádár, a communist leader in Hungary).

The text mentions several landmarks in Budapest (Parliament, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Danube, the statue of Attila József) that have cultural significance.