Saber Fencing and the Remaking of the Hungarian State

In Hungary, fencing, especially saber fencing is considered as a national sport and an inherent part of the Hungarian national identity. Although Hungary, following France and Italy, was one of the pioneers in developing the fencing sport in the second half of the nineteenth century, only in the course of the first half of the twentieth century Hungary took the lead in developing new techniques, tactics and training methods for saber fencing. As a result, in the period between 1908 and 1964 Hungarian saber fencers dominated the international individual and team competitions. Almost all of the gold medals at the Olympic Games in saber fencing in that period were won by Hungarian athletes. In this paper, it will be argued that saber fencing was of major importance in the remaking of the Hungarian State which collapsed at the end of the First World War as a part of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (K. und k.) and had to be rebuilt as independent, sovereign nation after the First World War. The conditions for peace concluding the First World War for Hungary were laid down in the Treaty of Trianon (1920) that was perceived as a ‘dictate’ by the Hungarians. The state institutionalization of fencing, at that time already sport fencing growing out of war and duel fencing, took place in the framework of the Hungarian Army and was supported by the highest Hungarian authorities counterbalanced the impact of the Treaty of Trianon. Major driving forces in the remaking of the Hungarian state and reconstructing the Hungarian identity were due to internal and external factors. The internal factors include the establishment of institutes for military fencing and gymnastics education by the Hungarian authorities in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century and the efforts of outstanding fencing masters educated in the K. und k. Army, like Laszlo Borsody in the supervision of these institutes. Among the external factors was the active sports diplomacy of the Netherlands, a country that had remained neutral during the First World War bringing back the Hungarian fencing federation into the international fencing networks after Hungary was excluded from international sports competitions after the First World War due to the fact that Hungarian went into the First World War on the side of the Central Powers.