There has never been a time or a moment in the Hungarian saga when so much depended on the will of one individual, than a thousand years ago, after the death of the ruler Géza, when István was elected to take his place and was crowned king. Not just so much, but everything depended on him. If István did not want, what he wanted and did not do what he did, there would be no Magyars alive today. Géza already knew what had to be done, but he did not want it. He concluded that he could not be the one to want change. It was not his calling to want or initiate change, since he was too connected to the past. He was also arrogant: when his court priest reprimanded him for performing a pagan sacrifice, his response was, "I'm rich enough to worship two gods". But he knew that there is only one God. Not necessarily the god of his pagan wise man, the court táltos, and not necessarily the god of his court priest: only one omnipotent God, who can only be touched by our souls, but not by our intellect. A God who's infinite greatness can only partially be comprehended by our limited minds and described by our mortal words. From God's viewpoint it doesn't matter what and how much we understand of his greatness, since an infinite amount shall remain a mystery to us anyway. According to Géza, the god of his court táltos is not lesser or worse than the god of his court priest; how could he choose between them? Nevertheless he knew he had to make a decision, since the world at that time was not party to such philosophy (not to mention nowadays). The followers of the god of his court priest were more numerous, stronger and fiercer, and they trounced on the followers of his táltos' god, the people that he was chosen to lead by the one God. Someone needed to choose, and someone needed the will to do so. For this task he chose his son Vajk, known by his Christian name István, who was christened, sacrificed to the god of his court priest, and raised by priests. They injected into him the ruthless, rigorous, irrevocable, and unrelenting will to herd the people by all means necessary to the flock of the god of the priests. For good. After his father's death, István could have recognized that he was only intended as the executor of his father's plans, but he couldn't get himself to do so; he could have recognized and then deny his role as an instrument. He could have decided otherwise, or he could have procrastinated, thus missing an historic occasion. Then everything would have happened differently. Historic moments may or may not repeat themselves. Even if there had been another chance, there would not have been anyone left to lead into Christian Europe. However, István saw things just as clearly as Géza, but with one distinctive difference: he accepted the choice. He was different, because he was more humble with the one God: he took his calling upon himself. There are those that still regard him as a stubborn old reactionary (numerous portrayals allude to this, with a touch of goodness to tame the picture). But when he took the scepter into his hands, he was still young, and in society at that time he was a revolutionary. There are those that accuse him of using violence, force and mercenaries to drive the freee Magyar people under holy water. They feel the same result could have been accomplished using dialogue. There are those who feel he sold out to foreigners by bringing in the Germans and Italians, and by letting in the Böszörmény and the Jews. They forget that at the time there were no countries, only settlements. What eventually became a country was just being built, and was being built together. And the country is still standing today, albeit not necessarily on the same territory. It was standing when that territory was even smaller than it is today. Not according to the borders on the map, but more according to the borders defined by language and souls, surrounded by bastions that are constantly being rebuilt, and which to this day is still called: Magyarország, the land of the Magyars. Just like it was called at its inception in István's time. There are those who yearn for the days of the jurta tents, which offered very good temporary shelter during our nomad days. But we haven't been nomads for a thousand years. For a thousand years ago we have been building houses, cities, castles, and churches. The eastern border of our language matches the eastern border of the gothic, renaissance and baroque influence. There are those that pity the lost cultural values, such as ancient pagan religious songs, which were banned by István-type "Christian Course", and were lost forever. But they were not lost: they were visibly and discernibly blended into the Christian colored religious text of the people. Had we not survived as a people, which can be attributed to us becoming a Christian European nation, what would we have melted into? István obviously spent less time pondering over the nature of one god than Géza. Despite his strong Christian upbringing, humbleness and faith, he was not more religious than his father was, but more political. He dared to choose between two gods, and he dared to do so instead of and in the name of his people, with a validity of a thousand years. To his contemporaries and to those that followed it may have seemed that he made a decision between paganism and Christianity, or for the latter it may have been between east and west. But we know today, that his choice was to be, or not to be. József Kászoni |