Order of Vitéz
Order of Vitéz (Vitézi Rend in Hungarian) (frequently spelled in English as 'Vitez') was a Hungarian order of merit which was founded in 1920.[1] It was awarded as a state honour from 1920 to 1944. The Order of Vitéz survives today and is recognised as an "Institution of Chivalric Character" by the International Commission on Orders of Chivalry (ICOC[2]).
Name
The Hungarian word Vitéz is of medieval Slavic origins and means "valiant", "gallant soldier" or "knight". The "Vitézi Rend" (Order of Valiants) should not be confused with the 17th Century Vitézlő Rend (Fighting Estate), which refers to an estate of society which was formed from former peasants and craftsmen whose homes had been destroyed by the Turks. These men took up arms and formed an estate within society which had received charters, rights and privileges over the centuries, mainly from Princes of Transylvania,[3] but which were eventually recognised by the Habsburg Kings of Hungary.
The Order of Vitéz as a State Order
Following the Peace Treaty of Trianon,[4] which banished the ruling Habsburg house from Hungary, a Constitutional Assembly decided to return to the monarchical form of government and replace the current regent, Archuke Joseph August of Habsburg, with Vice-Admiral Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya. It was mainly his idea to help re-build the shattered country by giving land to soldiers who had proven themselves on the battlefield. This way, the poverty brought on by the war could begin to be alleviated and soldiers could be rewarded.
The Vitéz Order was created by Prime Ministerial Decree number 6650 of 1920 (6650/1920 M.E. in Hungarian usage) and was included as paragraph no 77 in the land reform act (Law XXXVI of 1920, the original [5] l can be seen here). The legislation gave those qualifying as members of the Order in need a grant of land and/or a house.
The title of "vitéz" was to serve as an award in the Hungary.[6] The "vitéz"-title was official.
Admittance into the Order was exclusively on military merit shown by medals won. It worked on a system depending on rank, where privates or junior NCOs had to prove lesser awards of bravery, while officers and generals had to prove more in World War I.
Members received a badge and were entitled to use the designation vitéz as a prefix to their names. Admission into the Order also carried with it a land grant of 40 cadastral holds to an officer, 8 cadastral holds to other ranks based on need[7] (1 cadastral hold = c. 1.43 acres). The honour of Vitéz become hereditary, and the grants (title, badge and land grant) were to be passed on by the recipient to his eldest son.[6] Miklós Horthy was the first to be admitted into the Order and was also the Order' Captain General (Főkapitány). In 1920 Archduke Joseph August of Austria became the first knight of the Order of Vitéz. New appointments to the Order ceased with the end of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1946.
World War II
In the years leading up to World War II, the Horthy government adopted a strongly pro-German policy, and formally entered the war as an Axis Power on 26 June 1941. When the Hungarian government made efforts to disengage from the war, German troops ousted Horthy and installed a puppet government under Ferenc Szálasi's fascist Arrow Cross Party[8] During the war, Hungary participated in the Holocaust, including the deportation of some 440,000 Jews in May-June 1944, mainly to Auschwitz. Nearly all of these were murdered.[9] The majority of the real estate owned by deported Jews went to members of the Vitézi Rend and other supporters of the collaborationist regime.[10] Along with the Arrow Cross Party and other contemporaneous Hungarian organizations, the Order of Vitéz is listed in the U. S. State Department Foreign Affairs Manual and Handbook amongst "Organizations Under the Direction of the Nazi Government of Germany," membership in which is potential grounds for visa ineligibility.[11]
Postwar period
After the end of World War II, veterans' groups including members of the Vitéz Order appointed by Horthy began work on re-establishing the Order in exile. By 1953 General vitéz Hugó Sónyi had begun to re-establish the Vitéz Order as an order of chivalry according to traditional statutes. Since 1983 the Vitéz Order has been awarded to individuals who have been defenders of Hungarian national interests and culture. The Captains General of the extant order have been:
- HIRH Field Marshal Archduke vitéz József von Habsburg (1959–62)
- Colonel General vitéz Kisbarnaki Ferenc Farkas (resigning at age 85)
- HIRH Archduke vitéz Joseph Árpád von Habsburg (appointed 1977)
References
- ^ Rend, Vitezi. "SHORT HISTORY". Vitézi Rend. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
- ^ Chivalry, International Commission on. "Other Institutions of Chivalric Character". Register of ICOC. ICOC. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
- ^ Index, Oxford. "The Principality of Transylvania". Oxford Publishers. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
- ^ Britannica, Encyclopaedia. "Treaty of Trianon". Britannica. Encylopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
- ^ Törvények, Magyar. "1920 évi XXXVI tc". 1000 év törvényei (Laws through 1000 years). Complex Kiadó. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
- ^ a b Naberhuis, Erik (2005). "The Hungarian Vitéz Order". Austro-Hungarian Land Forces 1848-1918. Glenn Jewison & Jörg C. Steiner. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
- ^ Macartney, C.A. October Fifteenth, a history of modern Hungary, Edinburgh University Press, (1956) vol.1, pp. 30-31
- ^ J. Lee Ready (1995), World War Two. Nation by Nation, London, Cassell, page 130. ISBN 1-85409-290-1
- ^ "The Holocaust in Hungary". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Holocaust Encyclopedia.
- ^ Clifton, Eli (12 February 2017). "Why Is Trump Adviser Wearing Medal of Nazi Collaborators?". LobeLog. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
- ^ "9 FAM 302.7 (U) Ineligibility based on Human rights violations". U. S. State Department Foreign Affairs Manual and Handbook. U. S. State Department.
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