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Robin Hoods of the Puszta, Part Two: Hungarian Betyars: Rebels Against Hapsburg Absolutism
| Article
# : |
19611 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1991 |
3,862 Words |
| Author
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Agnes and Steven Vardy
Agnes Vardy is associate professor of comparative literature
at Robert Morris College. Steven Vardy is professor of East
European history at Duquesne University. The first part,
looking at betyars as rebels against social oppression,
appeared in the September issue of The World & I. |
Nineteenth-century Hungarian betyars--the Robin Hoods of the Hungarian puszta (lowlands, prairies)--represented both a protest against social exploitation and a budding populist nationalism opposed to foreign rule. The betyars of the first half of the nineteenth century were primarily rebels against social oppression. Men like Bandi Angyal, Marci Zold, and Joska Sobri rose up from the ranks of the peasantry and exacted judgment upon their feudal oppressor in Robin Hood-like fashion. Legend followed these romantic figures, and folktales and songs told of their chivalry, cunning, and prowess with women.
Those betyars active during the revolution of 1848 and the age of Hapsburg absolutism (1849-1867) were a different breed of rebel, however; they were exponents of a new form of nationalism, and many were transformed in to fighters for the Hungarian national cause. Unlike their predecessors, this later generation of betyars stood more as heroes on the national stage than as outlaws seeking to right local wrongs.
Prince of the betyars
The first and most prominent of this new type of betyar--who combined social protest with a strong sense of patriotism--was Sandor Rozsa (1813--1878). He is by far the best known of all Hungarian peasant outlaws, and the only one among them who became a prominent participant in the revolution of 1848-49. For a while, he was hailed as a "freedom fighter" and mentioned in one breath with Italy's Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882). The defeat of the revolution, however, thrust him back into the ranks of the social outcasts; he was never able to extricate himself from that category.
Although most of his predecessors were suspected of being someone else, no one questioned Sandor Rozsa's identity. He was born into a family of cowherds in the agricultural town of Szeged, which straddles the Tisza River in the heart of the Hungarian lowlands. Marci Zold was then at the height of his career. When Rozsa became a betyar, in 1836, Joska Sobri was waging his final struggle against the holders of feudal power.
Like his predecessors, Rozsa was driven to outlawry by the widespread social exploitation in Hungary. In those times most of the landed nobility viewed their peasants as hardly more than domestic animals, calling them "sheep whose functions in life were only to be fleeced, milked, skinned, and then to be eaten."
Rozsa's
...
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