The Holy Crown is perhaps the most important national symbol of Hungary, the token of Hungarian statehood, which has accompanied the country’s history, forming a defining part of it to this very day. Despite its immense importance, the Crown of Saint Stephen was stolen, hidden, lost, recovered throughout its existence, even having been taken abroad a total of eleven times. The last time the symbol of Hungarian statehood returned home from the United States was exactly forty-three years ago on January 6, 1978. On the illustrious anniversary of its return, we asked historian Tibor Glant about the thrilling 20th-century adventures of the Holy Crown. Glant has spent decades researching the subject, even having written a book about it.
What is the most interesting historical question surrounding the Holy Crown that people don’t know?
Probably the uncertainties around the origin of the Holy Crown, since we don’t even know exactly when and where it was created. Experts come up with sharply contradictory theories, and the details of the Crown’s creation could easily remain a mystery forever.
Is there a specific reason why there is no crown in history besides the Holy Crown that any nation would have honored as a holy object?
In fact, this is not the only crown that was deemed holy. What is rather surprising is that all this has remained a part of Hungarian culture for such a long time.
In addition, the Crown is also special in terms of its legal history, as it embodies the Hungarian nation as a whole, and all the territories inhabited by Hungarians in a legal sense. You cannot really see such a thing in other countries. This approach gained significant momentum after Trianon, when the Holy Crown symbolized all the lands inhabited by Hungarians, including those that were given to the successor states. It is for this reason that during his regency, Horthy elevated it to a kind of political ideology, which in my opinion was a logical move in the given situation: Hungarians at the time needed a common national narrative.
The adventurous 20th-century journey of the Holy Crown began with its burial by the crown guards in 1944 right after the takeover of the Hungarian Nazi ’Arrow Cross party’. Were such chaotic conditions prevailing that this was the only way to guarantee that the Crown would not fall into the wrong hands, or was there another reason for their decision?
At the end of 1944, the country was being bombed by the Allied forces, but the crown guardsmen buried the Crown to hide it from the leader of the Arrow Cross Party, Ferenc Szálasi. In late October, they decided to wrap up and bury the relic in a military food container in the coal cellar of their barracks. Soon after he came to power, however, Szálasi announced that he wanted to take his oath to the Holy Crown, so the coronation regalia had to be smuggled back.
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