For centuries, Hungary has been a historical and fellow neighbour of Poland, with whom Poles have been linked by ties of affection and solidarity. Probably every Polish citizen is familiar with the famous phrase “Polak, Węgier- dwa bratanki i do szabli i do szklanki” (Pole, Hungarian – two pals, to the sword and to the glass) in Hungarian “Lengyel, magyar, két jó barát, együtt harcol, s issza borát”. This is why the 23rd of March was established as the Polish-Hungarian Friendship Day in Poland and Hungary. It has survived even though Poland does not currently border Hungary.
The two nations have had a common history for centuries, giving each other support in times of crises. For eight centuries, Poland bordered Hungary; this extremely stable border ran along the Western and Eastern Carpathians.
Polish-Hungarian relations go back far into the Middle Ages. They were consolidated by marriages between kings and princes of both countries. King Bolesław the Bold received the Hungarian ruler Béla I and his wife and sons at his court, and twice assisted them in their retaliatory expeditions. On the other hand, Casimir the Great, the last ruler of Poland from the Piast dynasty, not wanting to allow internal struggles for the Polish throne, concluded a succession treaty with King Louis of Hungary in 1369 in Buda. Ludwig’s daughter, Jadwiga, became not only king of Poland, but also the wife of the Lithuanian prince Jagiello, from whom a new dynasty of Polish rulers, the Jagiellons, began.
The periods when the two peoples remained under the rule of a single dynasty and the Polish-Hungarian union under the sceptre of the Andegawens and Jagiellons in 1370-1382 and 1440-1444 were times of particularly close mutual contacts. Under the Jagiellons, both Poland and Hungary faced similar threats: these were primarily the threat of Turkish expansion and the rivalry for influence in Europe with the growing Habsburg dynasty. The death of the Polish and Hungarian king, Ladislaus III, in 1444 at the Battle of Varna against the Turkish army is etched in common memory.
In the 15th century, Polish-Hungarian relations grew in intensity. Contacts were made during this period by students and humanists from both countries. During their studies, for example, Chancellor Jan Zamoyski met the future King of Poland Stephan Bathory, who came from Transylvania. Hungarian students were eager to study at the Kraków Academy, and Kraków in the 16th century was also a major publishing centre where Hungarian books were printed.
The next Hungarian queen to the Polish throne after Jadwiga was the sister of the future Hungarian ruler János Zápolya, Barbara, who married King Sigismund I the Old. Among the most famous rulers in Polish history is Stephan Bathory, considered the best electoral king, revered for his triumphs in the war against Moscow.
After the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a new period in Polish-Hungarian contacts began. From then on, another unifying factor for the Polish and Hungarian peoples came into play – the struggle for independence. This solidarity is best exemplified by the Spring of Nations in 1848 and the friendship between the Polish general Józef Bem and his adjutant-poet Sándor Petőfi. Among the Slavic nations, only the Poles supported the Hungarians’ struggle against Austria for independence.
Another chapter of friendship is linked to the period of the First World War. At that time, Hungarians were famous for their sacrifice in defence of the fortress in Przemyśl and the civilian population there (20,000). Hungarians also fought in the Polish Legions, about which the Hungarian press also wrote. Polish-Hungarian friendship also existed in practice in 1918, when Poland received ammunition from Hungary, used in the battles for the borders of the Second Polish Republic. Similar aid, channeled to Poland from Hungary in the summer of 1920 during the Polish-Bolshevik War, largely contributed to the victory of the Polish army in the Battle of Warsaw and the saving of Polish independence. The Hungarians sent a transport of ammunition, which reached Poland by a circuitous route through Romania (Czechoslovakia refused to let the train pass through its territory). In addition, Poland was supported by several hundred Hungarian volunteers in the Polish Army.
The period of World War II was special in the history of contacts between the fraternal nations. Hungary became a kind of asylum for more than 140 thousand Polish civilian and military refugees. Although the Kingdom of Hungary cooperated with the Third Reich, it maintained a far-reaching neutrality in the Polish-German war, and the Hungarian people gave evidence of great sympathy and compassion towards the defending Poles. Hungary, despite pressure from the Third Reich, did not agree to the march of German troops through its territory to invade Poland. The Hungarian people began collecting money, clothing and food for the Poles. In 1941, a committee headed by Henryk Slawik took care of the Polish population. Together with the Hungarian government delegate József Antall, it looked after a group of 30,000 Polish refugees, among them about 5,000 Jews. The latter were saved from the Holocaust.
After 1945, both Poland and Hungary found themselves in the Soviet sphere of influence. When Poles revolted against communist rule in Poznan in June 1956, their uprising was bloodily suppressed, but it also inspired anti-communist demonstrations in Budapest in October 1956. The Red Army intervened, and Poles responded en masse by organising collections of blood, money and food for Hungarians.
When the Solidarity strikes were underway in Poland in 1980, Hungarians also realised the need for change in their country. There was clandestine cooperation between opposition and exile circles against the communist authorities. In 1987, the Polish-Hungarian Solidarity was established.
Since the 1990s, Poland has cooperated with Hungary as part of the Visegrad Group. Its name refers to the historic Visegrád congresses, i.e. meetings of the kings of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland in the 14th century at Visegrád Castle. Since joining NATO and the European Union, the two countries have also undertaken joint political and economic initiatives.