Crown-making workshop in Tordas, on the National Holiday 20th August

 

Patriot Riders - Saint Stephen King

Saint Stephen was the first Hungarian king, also known as state founder. He estabilished the Christianity as a state religion and execute all the pagan believers, including his uncle, Koppány. His body was cut in four pieces, which were sent to the four major strongholds of the Kingdom... 

In 1038 Stephen died, without any heir. So he offered the state to Holy Mary. He was canonized in 1083, as the first confessor king. His right hand, known as the Holy Right, is kept as a relic.  With which he had held the Holy Crown aloft from his deathbed when asking our Lady to be the Queen of the Hungarians... 

After many researches, we decided to build his life-size sculpture from bread. Why bread? 

In the past centuries, the myth of Stephen was always modified by the actual authorities. Maria Theresa after the long process how she could get back the Holy Right, she made a National Holiday of 20th of August (Stephen died on 15th of August, and offered the state to the Holy Virgin on the same day).  In the following 150 years the church and the politics built a serious cult around this day. In 1949 the Russian influence changed a bit on the rituals. The Catholic Church stepped out of the picture, the Holy Right stayed in the Basilica. But the Hungarian folk with unbroken enthusiasm celebrated the Constitution, the New Bread, and of course the newly formed People's Republic of Hungary.

And nowadays?

With the strengthening of the right wing, many-many "national emotional" citizen (how they call themselves) open their new shops like Hun Karate Club, Koppány butcher, etc. Some of them shows a complete chaos in mind, like a tradition-cocktail of the past 1011 or 2011 (if Jesus was Hungarian) of the Hungarian history...

And also we are so happy that we can celebrate a new Constitution sitting at the “THE CONSTITUTION’S TABLE” in every local government office, while we are waiting for our passport, or new ID card....

So we just made a human-sized body bread of the first Hungarian murderer-martyr king, and we ritually sliced him and eat his parts with fat and onion, together with many happy people on the central celebration of the small village, Tordas. An important part of the bread was the genital, which's size was concluded by the only remaining body part of the big king.

Bogyó Rezsőné, Hódi Csilla, Bogyó Virág, Annika Högner, Teresa Szepes, Orbán Veronika, Le Thanh Huyen, Kovács Zsófi, Nosek Mimma, Szabó Ágnes Anna, Lukács Viola, Fodor Emese