The Memory of the Mongol Invasion of the Hungarian Kingdom in the 13th Century among Contemporaries

Abstract

Between 1240 and 1242, a large Mongol invasion struck Central Europe, including the Hungarian Kingdom. This first invasion had a serious impact on the entire region, both militarily and politically, as well as psychologically. Contemporary memory attempted to process the topic and the psychological shock caused by the attack in various ways. The following article reviews how this Mongol campaign was reflected in 13th-century Hungarian memory and perception of time. The study examines contemporary literary works (a poem written during the Mongol invasion and a personal memoir written a few years later), the terminology used by the royal chancellery in documents issued in the 1240s and 1250s, contemporary references to the Mongol invasion as divine punishment, and the characteristic feature of the contemporary perception of time, whereby events unrelated to the invasion were often dated as ’before the Mongol invasion’ or ’after the Mongol invasion.’ This view of time was not only prevalent among the upper classes of society but also among the common people, and even among those who, due to their age, had no personal experience of the Mongol invasion. It can be showed that the experience of the Mongol invasion extended beyond its actual boundaries not only in space but also in time and served as a point of reference even for those who had only experienced it as children or not at all, but who were influenced by it as a kind of ’post-memory’ through the transmission of information from the older generation.