Chaotic Conclusions – The Right Side of the Border in Historic Hungary (The Lost Cities #14a)

Sometimes the only place left to go is home. As my armchair travels around the lost cities beyond Hungary’s borders nears the end, I began to look for the way home. There was one problem, I had trouble finding my way home. Was home back inside Hungary’s borders in Budapest where my itinerary started? Or was home outside those borders in the lost cities that I found a source of endless fascination. In my imagination, I felt more at home in the lost cities because they were the places still fraught with tension. Places where history was palpable, and ghosts could be discovered in broad daylight. 

Standing tall – City Hall in Szeged

Going Home – Subotica To Szeged
When I started developing the lost cities’ itinerary, I planned on ending the journey where it first began at Keleti Station in Budapest. Something about that slowly came to seem not quite right. I had drifted to so many places beyond Hungary’s borders, that heading back into its heart did nothing to excite me. I wanted to stay on the fringes and walk along the edges. There were old frontiers still worth exploring both inside and outside Hungary’s current border. That is why I am choosing one of the cities that ended up on the right side of Hungary’s border as the final stop. Szeged is not far from my final stop in Subotica and manages to surpass it in architectural wonders. Subotica and Szeged are not far apart. Both cities suddenly found themselves on the frontier. They have much in common and are distinctly different. For Hungarians, Szeged is the dream, Subotica the reality. That sense of bipolarity was something that millions of ethnic Hungarians came to know all too well when the Treaty of Trianon went into effect.

Finding home on this journey was not only pertinent to me. It also recalled the lost cities’ history. I was following in the footsteps of ethnic Hungarians. Millions had suddenly found themselves outside the borders of Hungary after the Treaty of Trianon took effect. Their lives and livelihoods were in limbo. They were left with two choices between bad and worse. They could either leave the only life they had ever known behind, or they could stay and try to make the best of what would be a very difficult situation. Some of them went back to Hungary because they had little choice as ethnic Hungarians were threatened, attacked, or faced discriminatory policies. Others stuck it out and managed to keep their lives afloat in the turbulent years ahead. 

Trianon was not the start of problems for ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania, Banat, Vojvodina, and southern Slovakia. Their problems began as the worst conflict up to that point in world history was entering its most chaotic phase. World War I did not end in Eastern Europe the way it did in Western Europe. By the time the armistice was signed in France on November 11, 1918, Austria-Hungary had already disintegrated twelve days earlier. This led to an extension of the war, albeit on a smaller, but more chaotic scale. The front lines were blurred with civilians caught in the crossfire. Hungary battled Czechoslovak, Romanian and Serbian forces on different fronts. The Romanian Army fought its way to Budapest before the victorious powers forced them to leave. Adding to the chaos was a revolution in Hungary that brought a communist government to power for six months in 1919. This did nothing to endear the Hungarians to the victorious powers. Territory was up for grabs. The strongest military force often proved decisive. 

Flag waving = The Union of Transylvania with Romania is declared on December 1, 1918 (Credit: Samoila Marza)

Internal Exiles – Climate of Chaos
The Hungarian Army was in no condition during this time to take control of all the territory that historically had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary and administered as such during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For all its faults, the Treaty of Trianon brought order to this chaos, but that was not until it went into effect on June 4, 1920. By then hundreds of thousands of Hungarians had fled back to the core territory of Hungary (the nation as it exists today). These refugees were especially conspicuous in Budapest. Housing was in short supply. Many of them were forced to live in railroad boxcars. Fear, anger, and resentment were pervasive. When a counter-revolution was conducted by right-wing Hungarian forces, paramilitary justice against real and perceived communists was brutal.

It is hard to imagine just how chaotic the situation was in Europe during this time. It is just as hard to imagine the violent upheaval that took place across Eastern Europe. The political, military, and economic situation in Hungary was one of the epicenters of volatility. Ethnic Hungarian refugees who fled to the core of Hungary found that peace was precarious and prosperity non-existent. Only after the counterrevolution led by Admiral Miklos Horthy took power was a sense of order restored. Those who opposed the regime were lucky to escape with their lives. Many of them did not.

Horthy’s regime was not strong enough to do anything other than take control of core Hungary. The cities in what had been the Kingdom of Hungary were all but lost. Trianon would finalize facts on the ground. The refugees would not be going home anytime soon, if ever. Their resentment over what they had lost would be one of the defining factors in Hungarian politics during the interwar period. Regaining the lost lands would become a top priority for the Horthy regime. In that effort, they had the support of a populace seething with discontent towards socialists and Jews at home, and the successor states which took hold of Hungarian territory.

Cut off – Trianon memorial in Bekescsaba (Credit: Tobi85)

Traumatic Times – No Direction Home
Anyone who has ever suffered through a crisis in which they were forced to leave their home knows the psychological trauma and physical hardship it can cause. When there is no going back to the way things were and no clear path forward, people often turn inward on themselves. The same is true for nations. This happened to Hungary, as it did to the ethnic Hungarian refugees who fled there because they had no other place to go. Home had become a nebulous concept. In the lost cities and lands ethnic Hungarians were suffering much the same thing. The difference was that they had stayed put.

Click here for: Anecdotal Evidence – The Wrong Side of the Border in Historic Hungary (The Lost Cities #14b)

Magic Act – Subotica’s Starring Role (The Lost Cities #12)

I felt depression beginning to descend upon me as I neared the end of developing my itinerary for the lost cities beyond Hungary’s borders. By the time I reached the final city, Subotica in northern Serbia, I should have been suffering full blown sadness. Instead, I began to feel radiant. Subotica can do that to me. My first visit to the city took place four years ago and it was spectacular. A bright winter day, cool and crisp beneath a sky that could not have been bluer. Subotica’s architecture matched the rays of light that shined down upon it. The City Hall was one of the most impressive buildings I have ever seen and that was without stepping inside. Subotica gave me everything and left me wanting more.

Lighting ceremony – Splendor in Subotica

Now Playing – City Of Survival
Sometimes for your own sanity, you need to let things go. Loved ones you have lost, first loves that faded, other romances that failed, human and otherwise. Love usually comes and goes. It is like a secret that gets passed around. Once in a great while, true love stays with you. And so it is with the lost cities. They continue to occupy my imagination. Perhaps that is because of the inherent drama in their history since the late nineteenth century. Any one of the lost cities would make a great play. My final stop in Subotica is grand theater. There are multiple acts (Austria-Hungary, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, wartime Hungary, communist Yugoslavia, Serbia), heroes (Art Nouveau architects) and villains (communists, fascists, and nationalists), romance (not just for individuals, but for the entire city) and tragedy (World Wars I and II, Treaty of Trianon, the Holocaust) suffering and loss (ethnic Hungarians, Jews, other minorities), survival and resurrection (the city center, synagogue). All the ingredients are there for tragedy and triumph.

Various iterations of the play have been running for over a century to dramatic effect. There are matinees and midnight showings. The current version features Subotica’s survival and resurrection. Art Nouveau architecture plays the leading role. The performance does not disappoint. The play opens with the main protagonist seeing the Raichle Palace just after arrival at the train station. The decorative floral patterns on the building are in full bloom. That opening catches the viewer’s attention, Subotica Synagogue captures it. The superlatives to describe this scene have not yet been invented. The play unfolds from there throughout the city center. Reviews fail to do it justice, but the scribes still try. I located the following review deep in my imagination:

The Subotica Synagogue is the closest thing to magic. For those who have trouble believing in God, seeing the fully restored synagogue will prove to be a revelation. Its architecture and aesthetics, symmetry and spirituality are inspired by a higher power. Eternity is preserved within those hallowed walls. The synagogue proves to be as astonishing as the history of the people who worshiped there is tragic. Nothing in the viewer’s experience can prepare them for such a setting,

Subotica’s survival is the counterpoint to all the hurt, all the anger, all the pain, that fell on this little corner of Eastern Europe after the First World War. The city suffers grievous wounds for many decades, but the cityscape survives as an expression of human creativity and ingenuity. Its most stunning pieces of architecture represent the highest levels of artistic achievement. For the play’s protagonist, Subotica’s city center is a stand in for all that is worth saving in the world. He finally realizes that he has entered the magic kingdom. The spiritual force of the structures is so real that the viewer, like the protagonist, can feel them. The hand of God which designed, crafted, and sculpted Subotica reaches out to touch the audience.

Heavenly ascent – Inside Subotica Synagogue

Transcendent Beauty – Desperate Tragedy
Subotica is an endless reel, a succession of spectacular images that keep playing in my head. Do all good things have to end? Maybe not since Subotica and all the other lost cities are still standing. The itinerary I developed will end, but the lost cities will go on. Someone, somewhere, right now is rediscovering them. They are seeing something of themselves in the transcendent beauty and desperate tragedy that stalks their squares and streets. The greatest discovery I made while developing my itinerary is that in the lost cities, I see the best and worst aspects of myself. In Eisenstadt, my frivolity is represented by the candy-colored Esterhazy Palace. In Bratislava’s Old Town, the walls I have built around myself to keep the rest of the world out. In Kosice’s towering St. Elisabeth’s Cathedral, a dream I will never reach. In Uzhhorod, the place where I fear to go. In Oradea, the best version of myself. În Timișoara, my ingratitude for the gift of life after the apocalypse. In Subotica, my belief that life is everlasting.

Each lost city feels like the first and last day on earth. I am sure many of those who suffered and survived in them felt the same. The Austro-Hungarian Empire could be just as bright and beautiful as those who built it. The empire could also be just as dark and decadent as those who destroyed it. All empires vanish, not a single one has managed to survive. That stark fact should be just as humbling to us as Austria-Hungary’s collapse was to its inhabitants. The true measure of an empire is not in its ascension and apex, nor in its decline and fall. The true measure of an empire is its legacy. What it leaves behind for others to build upon, to aspire, to protect, and preserve. In that regard, the legacy of Austria-Hungary is well served by the lost cities. There is still life in those ruins.

Lighting up the night – Subotica’s City Hall

Imperial Ways – Life Lessons
The lost cities are astonishing storehouses of art, architecture, and culture. They teach us lessons in history from which we can learn. They show how to prosper during good times and endure when all hope seems lost. They demonstrate the ability to bask in past glories, while stepping boldly into the future. They tell us to enjoy what we have because one day it will be gone. They demonstrate that nothing is inevitable, even if it seems that way.

Click here for: Obstacle Course – Navigating Trianon (The Lost Cities #13)