Minorities in Hungary #5 – Poles

The first traces of Polish settlers in Hungary are from the early Medieval times. The relations of royal houses initiated the immigration: the Piaszts from Poland and Árpáds from Hungary. However, the beginning of the close connections between the two countries came with the Holy Roman threat from the West.

The imperial forces invaded the smaller diaspora Polish territories and Hungary’s western borders approximately at the same time. Even larger threat than the Holy Roman Empire, the Mongol hordes arrived at the beginning of the 13th century from the East. The pillaging armies that swept through Hungary between 1241 and 1242 also devastated some parts of the Polish territories as well. Both Poland and Hungary became the “defending bastions” of Europe.

This was the first time when the two nations realized that they share a common fate and they began to develop closer connections.

The Polish influence in the Hungarian royal court increased by the coronation of the Jagiello dynasty, which ruled Hungary mostly in the 15th and 16th century.  The two most significant monarchs in this sense were Wladislaw III (Ulászló I in Hungarian) and Wladislas II, who brought a vast number of soldiers and other Polish settlers into Hungary. The immigration further increased when Polish recruits began to fight in the army of János Hunyadi against the Ottoman expansion to the Northwest.

In 1660, the Polish Sejm decided to expel Unitarians from Poland, as they were blamed for the Swedish invasions between 1655 and 1660. This caused thousands of Unitarians to settle in Transylvania, seeking for shelter.  The Polish Unitarian immigrants established their own religious community in Bánffyhunyad and Betlen, but they were represented in large numbers in other parts of Transylvania as well like Kolozsvár (Cluj Napoca) and Torda (Turda).

The Polish army defeated the Ottomans on 12 September in Vienna and 7 October in Párkány (Stúrovo) in 1683, thus greatly contributing to Hungary’s liberation from the Ottoman rule.

The Poles helped to repopulate the country’s devastated areas in the North.

Polish volunteers fought once more for the freedom of Hungary after the revolution of Ferenc Rákóczi II (who was himself of Croatian origin) broke out in 1703. The freedom fight was defeated in 1711 by the Austrian forces, and many of the Polish soldiers fled to the caves of Aggtelek. They have found the Polish settlement of Derenk. The village existed until 1942, and its dwellers spoke archaic Polish. They lived in isolation, so they were not dependent on speaking other languages.

They remained proud Poles despite living the middle of Hungary, sometimes even marrying Hungarians.

When Poland ceased to exist for a period as an independent country (between 1795 and 1918), many Poles turned to immigration to Hungary again.  The situation was similar in November 1830 and January 1863, when large numbers of Polish people moved to Hungary after the suppressed revolutions.