A Short History of Hungary

A Castle by the Danube | Visegrad, Hungary
Lucky Dippers

I'm reading Mission to Paris by Alan Furst. Towards the end of the book the movie company has gone to Hungary to film some scenes at an authentic Hungary castle. The castle, most of it a ruin, belongs to one Count Polanyi. Pleased to have the movie company using his castle he invites the cast and crew to a sumptuous dinner, and then we have this passage:

With the pears and local cheese, and having drunk more than his share of Echezeaux Burgundy, Polanyi became reflective. "My poor old battered castle," he said. It's the border of northern Hungary now - the treaty that followed the Great War turned the other side of the river into Czech territory. But for this castle, it was just one more war. It began life as a Roman fortification, was taken by the Hungarian Grand Duke Arpad in 895 -legend has it that the Milky Way was formed from the dust raised by his army's horses. Then it was destroyed in 1241 by the Mongolian Tartars - a costly invasion, half of the people of Hungary were murdered. Rebuilt it was besieged by the Turks in 1683, then recaptured by Charles of Lorraine in 1684. History has always been bloody in this part of the world, and is about to be once again. But, what can we do. Now we'll have to sign some sort of treaty with Hitler and his thugs and, once the British and French have dealt with them, oh how we shall suffer for that." He paused for a time, then said, "Well, here comes the brandy, would anyone care to join me for a cigar?"

I wanted a picture of a half-ruined castle to go with this post, and Google served up this video. It's a fair stand-in for the Count's castle. There were a bunch of famous people named Polanyi. This article seems especially relevant to our current situation.