Silver shines amid all the gloom

Shining di mly amid the harsh glare of the news, from men stuck between walls to Donald Trump Jr., far- right extremi sts, Chinese repression, wildfires and giggling singers, a small story about the return of “the family silver” to Hungary casts a softly pleasing light on the vexed question of heritage.

The Hungarian government just paid $31.9 million to complete the repatriation of 14 Roman-era silver trays, bowls and jugs smuggled out under mysterious circumstances 30- odd years ago that had already cost $ 20.7 million back in 2014. And Prime Minister Viktor Orban revealingly said “We have done our duty and gotten them back.”

This story, and the idea of “duty,” interests me because in almost every sense except geographic, Hungary was not “Hungary” in the late Roman period to which these “Sevso treasures” date. The place has seen a bewildering series of conquests, migrations and flights over the centuries, bringing massive demographic, linguistic, cultural and political changes. Yet somehow these artifacts matter.

In case you’re not from there, in fast forward, the Romans c onquered t he place under the very late Republic and early Empire, creating “Pannonia” by 9 BC. When Rome was coll apsing the Huns moved in, followed by Ostrogoths, Lombards and Gepids ( no, really) as well as Avars. In the 9th century alone it was ruled by “East Francia, the First Bulgarian Empire and Great Moravia” according to Wikipedia’s article “Where are they now?” No, sorry, “Hungary,” ethnically mostly Avar at the time.

Then Uralic- s peaking Magyars moved in, became “Hungarians,” and created first a Principality then a Kingdom that laid a series of severe beatings on the East Franks before taking a wallop themselves in 955, then converting to Christianity under Saint Stephen and switching to Latin, which might to be coming to the party a bit late but remained the official language down to 1844.

Hungary’s borders kept expanding and contracting including bagging Croatia and part of Transylvania. So even geographically “Hungary” is an elastic concept. Andrew II did issue the first constitution in continental Europe and a Parliament was evolving when the Mongols showed up and wiped out or drove off as much as half the people while Cumans and Jassics fled in and assimilated. After the Mongol tide ebbed, Hungary became a great power, fighting from Lithuania to Naples and grabbing Poland. Why not? Everybody else was.

Then the Otto mans showed up and aided by internal divisions took over the “Pashalik of Buda” while other bits went their own way. Eventually the sultans were driven off and Slavs moved into much of the south. Then came the Austro- Hungarian Empire, two world wars and a long grim period of Soviet domination.

Basically the place was a sort of “Loot- and- go,” like much of the globe through much of the past. And like much of the globe it kept undergoing massive ethnic changes amid all this turmoil.

It’s the sort of thing on which a great steaming pile of resentment could be built and in many ways was in Hungary as elsewhere. And a lot of people are worried about the current regime, for stereotypical leftist reasons but not entirely without foundation. Despite which there’s the matter of this silver.

It would be easy to despise the Romans and other now- beaten or assimilated interlopers, or seek to wipe the historical slate clean as communists were wont to do and present- day radicals seem determined to including in Canada. But it’s also possible to cherish even this turbulent history as a dynamic and exciting story, full of defeats, atrocities and repression but also of victories, triumphs over adversity, resilience and adaptability. And above all as the tale of how we got where we are. ( Including a good murder mystery; the amateur archeologist who supposedly found this silver in the mid1970s died in 1980 in a stillunsolved case).

I’ve often thought it must be odd to come from a nonAnglosphere nation, not least because your history is full of crushing defeats whereas the English- speaking peoples win all their important wars for liberty. Even when they fight one another, from the English Civil War to the American Revolution, t he War of 1812 and the U.S. Civil War, things generally come out right despite appalling carnage.

Not elsewhere. Hungarian history books have many chapters that end as dismally as most of what’s in a modern newspaper. Even t he 1956 uprising, exactly the sort of thing that should have happened in principle, ended horribly in practice.

The story of mankind is full of such things, complete with unspeakable deeds that can never be set right. And yet there are also periods of prosperity, peace and cultural flourishing that create the Sevso treasures and, later, a capacity to appreciate them and say yes, it’s our story, warts and all.

For me, that silver shines amid the gloom.

THE PLACE HAS SEEN A BEWILDERING SERIES OF CONQUESTS, MIGRATIONS AND FLIGHTS OVER THE CENTURIES.