Congeniality (Czartoryski Museum, Kraków) The saying – a 16th- or 18th-century coinage by Polish
szlachta (nobility) – reflects a long special relationship between Poland and Hungary. Poles and Hungarians considered themselves brothers in war and peace. They recognized that the two countries shared a similar political structure: a
nobles' republic (the Polish
Rzeczpospolita, the Hungarian
natio Hungarica) with a democratic parliamentary system in which the state and king were controlled by a non-aristocratic noble class. The Polish word
rokosz (a gathering to resist royal authority) derives from Hungary's '''', a field near
Pest which was the medieval venue for mass meetings of Hungarian nobility. The Poles recognized that both countries' noble classes had similar lifestyles, employed similar military tactics and weaponry, and shared common history, making them "brothers". When the Poles in 1576 elected the Hungarian
Stephen Báthory (prince of
Transylvania) king of Poland, he introduced military reforms, creating Poland's
hussars and importing Poland's first
saber-makers from Transylvania. In Poland, the
szabla became known as the
szabla węgierska ("Hungarian saber") or
batorówka after King Stephen Báthory; it was subsequently called the
zygmuntówka after Poland's King
Sigismund III Vasa and the
augustówka after King
Augustus III. The nobility of both countries enjoyed wine (imported to Poland primarily from Hungary during the Middle Ages), resulting in a similar temperament and lifestyle. In Hungary, the saying became widely known outside noble circles in the late 19th century. According to one source, the proverb's original Polish version was
Węgier, Polak dwa bratanki i do szabli i do szklanki. Oba zuchy, oba żwawi, niech im Pan Bóg błogosławi. The saying probably originated after the 1772 collapse of the
Bar Confederation (1768–72), which had been formed to defend the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from aggression by the
Russian Empire. According to
Julian Krzyżanowski, the saying was inspired by the
political asylum in
Szepesség,
Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Spiš, Slovakia), of the confederation's leaders. According to another source, it "comes from the period when the Generality of the Bar Confederation (the Confederation's supreme authority) took up residence in Eperjes (now
Prešov in eastern
Slovakia) between 1769 and 1772".
Common interests Future Polish King
Władysław I the Elbow-high, fighting the
Teutonic Order, found shelter at the courts of the Aba and Záh (
Nógrád Castle) clans in Hungary. His family was guarded by Záh knights. Władysław married a Polish-Byzantine-Hungarian princess,
Jadwiga of Kalisz. The daughter of Władysław and
Maria of Bytom,
Elżbieta, became queen of Hungary. Her son, Hungarian King
Louis the Great, was also king of Poland, 1370–1382, after the death of his uncle, Polish King
Casimir III the Great. After the death of
Louis the Great, his daughter
Jadwiga became ruler of Poland, crowned "king" in Poland's capital, Kraków, on 16 October 1384. In 1440–1444, the two countries shared the same king again, after King
Władysław III of Poland became also King of Hungary. At age twenty he was killed in the
Battle of Varna, in which a coalition of
Central and Eastern European countries led by Poland and Hungary was defeated by the
Turks. From 1490 to 1526, both countries were ruled by separate but closely related branches of the
Jagiellonian dynasty, after
Polish Prince Władysław, son of Polish King
Casimir IV Jagiellon, became King
Vladislaus II of Hungary. Polish-Hungarian relations became particularly close during the rule of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Poland and Hungary. The Polish historian , who analyzed Polish-Hungarian correspondence and personal encounters in the late 15th and the first half of the 16th century, concluded that with no other neighbour did the Poles have such "frequent and lively" contacts, which intensified with time and led to many strong friendships as well as mutual sociocultural, military, and legal influences. In the
1576 Polish–Lithuanian royal election, a Hungarian nobleman,
Stephen Báthory, was elected king of Poland. In 1657,
George II Rákóczi, the Prince of Transylvania, allied with Sweden and
joined the
invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, managing to occupy large parts of southern Poland before ultimately being forced to retreat. After the outbreak of the Polish
November 1830 Uprising, Hungarians collected money for Polish insurgents and provided help and shelter to Polish refugees. Many of them also joined the ranks of the Polish rebels. and Polish General
Józef Bem became a national hero of both countries. During the
Polish–Soviet War of 1919–21, Hungary offered to send 30,000 cavalry to Poland's aid; however, the
Czechoslovak government refused them passage through the demilitarized zone which had existed between Czechoslovakia and Hungary since the
Hungarian–Czechoslovak War of several months earlier. The Romanian government took a similar stance, also refusing passage. When the Hungarians tried to send ammunition trains, Czechoslovakia again refused but Romania agreed, provided the Hungarians used their own trains. Hundreds of Hungarian volunteers fought on Poland's side in the war, and some stayed in Poland afterward. commemorating Hungarian aid to Poland during the
Polish–Soviet War of 1919–21 From the
Middle Ages into the 18th century, Poland and Hungary shared a border between Poland and
Carpathian Ruthenia (also known as Carpathian Rus, were part of several Hungarian states). After
World War I, the Allies transferred Carpathian Ruthenia from Hungary to
Czechoslovakia. Poland never ratified the
Treaty of Trianon. The treaty with Hungary was not signed until 4 June 1920, did not become effective until 26 July 1921, and was never published in Poland's Journal of Laws. After the 30 September 1938
Munich Agreement (which fatally wounded Czechoslovakia and, after the proclamation of the
First Slovak Republic, led to the remainder of the country being taken over by Germany), Poland and Hungary worked through
diplomatic and
paramilitary means to restore their common border by engineering the return of Carpathian Ruthenia to Hungary. A step toward this goal was realized with the 2 November 1938
First Vienna Award. Until mid-March 1939, Germany had considered a restored Hungarian-Polish frontier, for military reasons, undesirable. In March 1939, however, in response to Hungary's lobbying, Hitler changed his mind about a common Hungarian-Polish frontier and decided instead to betray Germany's ally, the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, who had begun organizing Ukrainian military units in 1938 in a
sich outside
Uzhhorod, the capital of
Subcarpathian Rus', which had been restyled
Carpatho-Ukraine. Hitler had been concerned that if a Ukrainian army, organized there, accompanied German forces invading the
Soviet Union, Ukrainian nationalists would insist on an independent Ukraine. Polish political and military authorities, for their part, had seen the
sich as an imminent danger to adjacent southeastern Poland, with its majority-Ukrainian population, and in October 1938 had launched paramilitary operations to assist Hungary in taking over the region, which Hungary had governed to the end of World War I. In March 1939,
Hungary took over the remainder of Carpathian Ruthenia. At least 43 Ukrainian POW's were executed by Polish and Hungarian forces. captain and six of his men, who fell fighting on the Polish side in the 1944
Warsaw Uprising In September 1939, Hitler asked Hungary to allow German forces to transit Hungarian territory in order to speed the German attack on eastern Poland; Hungary's Admiral
Miklós Horthy declined permission, on the ground that it would be incompatible with Hungarian honor. In June 1944, there were around 15,000 Polish refugees in Hungary. During the
1944 Warsaw Uprising, many Hungarian soldiers, sympathetic to the Polish cause, gave munitions, medical supplies, and rations for the Polish Underground, and some even defected to join their Polish brothers. Hungarian soldiers assisted in the evacuation of civilian families during the Uprising. During the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Poles demonstrated their support for the Hungarian insurgents by
donating blood. The blood banks had to work 24 hours a day because of how many people lined up to give blood for wounded Hungarians. By 3 November, 1,210 litres of blood and blood plasma had been delivered from Poland to Hungary, while by 12 November, 11,196 Poles had donated blood. The
Polish Red Cross sent 44 tons of medical supplies to Hungary by air, and larger amounts were sent by road and rail. In February 2021, Hungary returned to Poland the
Renaissance armor of Polish King
Sigismund II Augustus, which ended up in Hungary in the
interwar period as a result of a misunderstanding, as it was believed to be the armor of King
Louis II of Hungary. The gesture is perceived as another example of Polish-Hungarian friendship. ==Friendship Day==