The latest nationalization plan: Dunaferr

Members of the Orbán government don’t like the word “nationalization.” To be precise, they don’t like the Hungarian word államosítás for nationalization. After all, they claim, the word államosítás can be used only for nationalization without compensation. As it happened after 1945 and especially after 1948. Today the state simply buys companies the government deems strategically important. Mind you, as usual the Orbán government doesn’t tell the whole truth about the recent nationalizations. After all, one of the first  moves of the Orbán government was the nationalization of public schools previously in the hands of the local communities. No one compensated them for their loss. The next step was the nationalization of hospitals. Again, no money exchanged hands.

This government seems to be enamored with the old socialist system of state ownership and centralization although they should be the first ones to realize its pitfalls, which eventually led to the total collapse of the socialist system. But I guess they think they can do better than those old party hacks. I don’t think that I’m alone in thinking that Orbán and his comrades are dead wrong.

I could go on and on listing companies, from MOL to E.ON and Rába, that have been taken over either in full or in part by the Hungarian state. E.ON cost the Hungarian taxpayers 870 million euros and MOL,1.88 billion euros. And now the Hungarian government has offered to buy the ISD DUNAFERR Company Group in Dunaújváros, which is one of the largest industrial firms in Hungary. The company is a diversified manufacturer of steel products. They produce hot rolled, pickled, cold rolled, galvanized strips and sheets, and hollow steel sections for engineering, automotive, and construction products as well as for the production of steel structures, household appliances, and other parts.

The company, owned early on by the Hungarian state, lost money year after year until the government managed to sell it to the Ukrainian Donbass Group in 2004. Later it was taken over by a Russian company. Eventually, the company became profitable but since the 2008-2009 financial crisis Dunaferr has suffered mightily. In an article that appeared on privatbankar.hu today one can see telling graphs of Dunaferr’s losses and debts.

A few days ago the company announced that because of its financial losses, it will have to let 1,500 workers go. Such a decision came at a very wrong time for the Orbán government. Dunaújváros plays a key role in the economy of Fejér County. We must also keep in mind that Viktor Orbán’s beloved Felcsút is also in Fejér County. Székesfehérvár, the first capital of Hungary, is the county seat and the city to which the Orbáns eventually moved and where the young Viktor went to high school. So, the whole issue has a personal aspect for Orbán as well.

On Monday morning Economics Minister Mihály Varga was dispatched to talk to the managers of Dunaferr in order to find a solution to the company’s problems. I assume Varga tried to convince the management of Dunaferr to postpone its decision to downsize its work force.  No buyout offer was discussed.

The decision to make an offer was reached hastily that same day during a cabinet meeting, which was conveniently and appropriately held in Székesfehérvár due to the August 20th celebrations.

Such quick decisions are typical of Viktor Orbán’s leadership style. I am certain that this particular decision, just like all the others, was the prime minister’s alone. Given the company’s dire financial straits it’s hard to imagine that no one in the cabinet raised doubts about the Hungarian state’s ability to take on another losing concern. But at these meetings Orbán is surrounded by yes-men; he doesn’t have to fear serious opposition. Perhaps at the meetings of the high brass of Fidesz there are men like László Kövér or even János Lázár who can have some influence over him, but such people don’t exist among the few ministers and the more numerous undersecretaries handpicked by the prime minister.

In the past it happened that the Hungarian state took over companies allegedly in order to prevent a loss of jobs and yet shortly after the nationalization the new owner, the Hungarian state, had to fire hundreds or even thousands of workers. In the case of Malév, the airline actually folded. It would be good to know whether the government has any business plan that would enable the company to continue employing its 7,500 workers and at the same time turn a profit.

I very much doubt that there is such a plan, so it is likely that sooner or later Dunaferr, this time as a concern owned by the Hungarian state, will have to let thousands of workers go. (Probably after the 2014 elections.) Meanwhile good money is being thrown after bad, as the saying goes. How long can all this go on, especially since only today I read that the deficit is on the rise again?

The Holy Right Hand of St. Stephen, King of Hungary

The Holy Right Hand is housed in the St. Stephen Basilica in Budapest and once a year, on August 20, it is carried in the Holy Right Hand ( Szent Jobb) procession.

The Basilica’s website tells a straightforward story that accepts without qualification that the mummified right hand once belonged to King Stephen, the first Hungarian king (1000-1038).

Here is their story in a nutshell. Stephen was buried in Székesfehérvár on August 15, 1038, in a sarcophagus that is  more or less intact although empty. The body was later reburied in the lower underground catacomb out of fear of possible disturbances of the grave. It was at that time that the hand was removed from the rest of the body because of its alleged miraculous properties. It was taken to the treasury of the basilica from where the man who was in charge of guarding the treasury stole it and hid it on his estate in the County of Bihar/Bihor, today Romania.

During the reign of King László I the Right Hand was discovered, but the king forgave the thief and in fact erected a monastery on the spot. The village today is called Szentjobb/Siniob. It was here that pilgrims came to pray in front of the king’s Right Hand, which was allegedly capable of performing miracles.

It was only in the fifteenth century that the Right Hand was moved  from Szentjobb/Siniob back to Székesfehérvár. During the Turkish occupation, however, around 1590, it ended up in Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and was held by Dominican friars. The official church story doesn’t divulge any details of its mysterious reappearance in Ragusa. As for the rest of the Hand’s history, I outlined it yesterday–that is, the purchase of the Right Hand by Queen Maria Theresa and her gift of it to her Hungarian subjects.

Today I would like tell the story that the Catholic Church ignored.

There are two chronicles that mention the burial and subsequent reburial of the body. Both report that the Right Hand was removed to the County of Bihor where it was found by King László on May 30, 1084. According to the chronicler Hartvik, bishop of Győr (1116), at that time the Hand had St. Stephen’s ring on it which definitely identified it as belonging to the saintly king.  The alleged Right Hand today has no ring on it or any sign that there ever was a ring it that was later removed.

There is another problem. All contemporary pictures show Stephen buried lying on his back, his hands alongside his body with open fists. Today’s Right Hand, as you can see on the picture, is tight-fisted. But that is not all. The official coat-of-arms of the town of Szentjobb/Siniob shows not just the hand but the whole arm bent at the elbow. Since the town came into being as a result of the presence of the Holy Right Hand, one must assume that the coat-of-arms is an accurate depiction of the actual state of the relic at the time.

And with that missing arm we come to Stephen’s body parts wandering around in central Europe and the Balkans. It is assumed that the upper arm was removed in 1370 when Louis the Great (Nagy Lajos) also became the King of Poland. It was customary to send important relics as symbols of steadfast friendship and devotion to men, country, or cause. The Franciscans of the city of Lviv (Lvov, Lemberg) hold that at one time they were the ones who were entrusted with guarding the holy relic of St. Stephen’s upper arm for which King Jan Kazimierz II ordered a jeweled case.

The lower arm was sent by King Sigismund (Zsigmond)  to Albert V at the time of his daughter’s marriage to the Prince (1411), sealing a personal union between Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire. For a while it was held in the St. Stephen Basilica in Vienna, named after St. Stephen the Martyr, and later was moved to the Schatzkammer of the Hofburg. But there is a bit of a problem with this lower arm. When the bone was sent to Hungary for the millennial celebrations in 2000 and was put on display, it was discovered that it is not part of an arm. Rather, it is the fibula of a right leg.

In addition, there are several small pieces of Stephen’s skull cap (calvarium) that are held in various places, including Székesfehérvár. No one has ever tried to find out whether these pieces of Stephen’s skeleton belong to the same man or not. Since the 1950s the Right Hand was examined three times but not scientifically. The first time the Right Hand seemed to have developed mildew which needed to be removed. The physician who attended to it added some conserving material to the rest of the hand and that was all.  In 1988 another physician examined it, but the only thing he came up with was that there was no sign of metal ever touching the hand because otherwise there should have been some observable discoloration. He also noticed that it was a relatively small hand. The third time it was Miklós Réthelyi, professor of anatomy and later minister in the second Orbán government, who took a look at it, but he came up with nothing new. A DNA examination would only make sense if we could find a descendant of Stephen, but even if that were possible I doubt that either the Hungarian Catholic Church or the current Hungarian government would be too keen on such a scientific investigation.

As for the  multiplication of St. Stephen relics. As late as 2004, a piece of Stephen’s upper arm that ended up in Poland was given by Franciszek Cardinal Macharski, Archbishop of Cracow, to the Hungarian chapel of the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Cracow. In 2009 Balázs Bábel, Archbishop of Kalocsa, gave a golden reliquary to Robert Bezák, Archbishop of Nagyszombat/Trnava, in which there is a very small bone of the Right Hand.  In the same year a small piece of St. Stephen’s skull was sent to a church in the Subcarpathian part of Ukraine.  In 2006, Cardinal Péter Erdő, the head of the Hungarian Catholic Church, gave a piece from St. Stephen’s rib to Alojz Tkáč.

What can we say state with certainty about the Holy Right Hand? “It is sure that it is the hand of a man,” to quote the title of a piece in 444.hu.

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In this summary I relied on Piroska Rácz’s article in Rubicon (2013/6) in addition to “The history of the Holy Right Hand” on the website of the St. Stephen Basilica in Budapest and on “Szent Jobb” in the Hungarian version of wikipedia.