A la hussarde … A contribution to the history of the French hussar myth
The hussars appeared in the French Kingdom in the eighteenth century, with the coming of the emigrants of the Rákóczi uprising. At the beginning of the period it was strongly held that only Hungarians could be real hussars, and the image of the hussar was linked with Hungarian national stereotypes right from the beginnings. In the wake of the French revolution, the loyal hussar regiments of Hungarian origin were turned into French national regiments that evoked their Hungarian traits only in their outlook. The memory of the early Hungarian hussars, however, left a deeper imprint in the French language and mentality. In political discourse, the republican “black hussars" at the end of the nineteenth century conveyed a denotation significantly different from the one-time monarchist one. The career of the hussar myth in literature form Stendhal to a twentieth-century group of writers is also discussed.
