Our Games – The Hungarian playing Cards
The Hungarian playing cards are a distinctive element of Hungarian culture, with a history spanning nearly 200 years. The deck consists of 32 (or 36) cards and features characters from Friedrich Schiller’s drama, arranged in a practical, mirrored design. Hungarian cards can be used for a wide variety of games, from strategic and reflex-based to social and solitaire: ulti, snapszer, lórum, Csapd le, csacsi!, or even zsírozás. Thanks to the initiative of the Pató Pál Party and the Hungarian Talon Foundation, December 29 has been declared the Day of the Hungarian Playing Cards.
The Journey of Playing Cards
Many consider Hungarian cards simply a card game, in fact they embody tradition, community, and entertainment. The origin of playing (and fortune-telling) cards is uncertain, but card games date back to the distant past of humanity.
Researchers believe they most likely originated in China, India, or regions where Eastern cultures met. The earliest playing cards appeared in medieval China, probably in the 9th–10th centuries, when papermaking and printing were already widespread. These early cards were made of paper and often depicted numbers or monetary units.
Merchants and pilgrims carried them along the Silk Road, and through the Crusades and Moorish mediation, they spread across Europe by the 14th century.
The Birth of the Hungarian Deck
In 19th-century Europe, shaped by growing bourgeois culture, card games played a central role in social life. In Hungary, playing cards initially spread among the royal court and nobility, as they were expensive, handcrafted objects. With the advancement of printing techniques, they became accessible to wider social groups. Card games were played everywhere: in casinos, cafés, clubs, elegant bourgeois salons, as well as in taverns, student lodgings, and military barracks.
Around 1835–36 in Pest, card maker József Schneider created the first examples of what became known as the “Hungarian,” “Tell,” “Helvetic,” “Doppeldeutsche,” or “Four Seasons” deck. These names refer to Swiss freedom heroes, the mirrored layout, and the symbolic imagery of the aces. It is the only card deck in the world inspired by a literary work: eight cards depict key characters from Friedrich Schiller’s 1804 drama William Tell.
The Cards
The suits carry traditional social symbolism: hearts represent the clergy, leaves the bourgeoisie, acorns the peasantry, and bells (pumpkins) the nobility.
The upper cards feature characters such as Hermann Gessler, the tyrannical Habsburg governor; Stüssi the hunter; Ulrich Rudenz, the Swiss nobleman who joins the rebels; and the folk hero William Tell himself.
The lower cards depict additional characters: Kuoni, a shepherd representing the common Swiss people; Itell Reding, a leader elected by the confederates; Walter Fürst, one of the founding figures of the Swiss Confederation; and Rudolf Harras, a servant of the Habsburg court.
The numbered cards also illustrate scenes from the story: Tell shooting Gessler, rowing a boat, bidding farewell to his wife, or the famous hat on the pole.
Several cards show stylized Swiss landscapes, while the aces display allegorical figures of the seasons. The kings are not historical individuals but stylized figures.
Hungarian Card Games
Some games played with Hungarian cards are considered national specialties, such as zsírozás (a trick-taking game), a Csapd le, csacsi! (a reflex-based game) és az ulti (a strategic game). Others resemble international games:huszonegy is similar to blackjack, ferbli to poker, and snapszerto the Austrian Schnapsen.
The “National” Deck
National identity also appeared explicitly in the so-called “dual national deck.” In 1874, Imre Kutasi commissioned a special pack in which Hungarian political figures were depicted on certain cards: Batthyány Lajos and Kossuth Lajos on the red ace, Mészáros Lázár and Szemere Bertalan on the acorn ace, Eötvös József and Klauzál Gábor on the bell ace, and Deák Ferenc and István Széchenyi on the leaf ace.
Casinos
In 1827, Count István Széchenyi founded the National Casino in Pest.
Inspired by English models, he aimed to create a closed social club where the aristocracy and bourgeoisie could meet and exchange ideas for the development of the nation and public culture. The institution also housed a library of 30,000 volumes.
Following its example, several casinos were established across Hungary. While they served social and cultural purposes, contemporary press often criticized them as “dens of idle gentlemen,” where “frenzied card playing” took place.
The operation of casinos was not always beyond reproach. Turn-of-the-century press often (and not without reason) described these institutions—originally intended by István Széchenyi to promote the nation’s advancement—as “card dens of frock-coated idlers,” where “frenzied gambling was underway.”
The Price of the Game
Playing cards are among the most popular games of all time, enjoyed not only in social settings but also alone; the best-known example of the latter is patience (solitaire). Commercial (social, strategic) games were generally more socially accepted. The strict rules were intended to reduce the role of chance, turning the game into more of an intellectual duel. Gambling games, by contrast, relied primarily on luck and were therefore often condemned or prohibited—yet for this very reason, they were often even more popular.
From our literary studies, as well as from family stories, we know how powerful—and at times extreme—the passion for gambling could be among millions of people, regardless of nationality, age, gender, or social and economic status. Such passion is vividly portrayed in works like Dostoevsky's The Gambler, Gogol's The Gamblers, and Pushkin's: The Queen of Spades. Zsigmond Móricz describes the downfall of the Hungarian gentry in his workKamaszok as follows: “I still remember that the card playing went on for seven days, ten days, even two weeks; no one slept there, except when someone grew weary and rested their head on their hand for a moment, dozing until they were shaken awake—then they continued (…) It was not music they wanted, I tell you, but a good tarokk player!”
The Day of the Hungarian Playing Cards
The initiative of the Pató Pál Party and the Hungarian Talon Foundation proved successful: December 29 was officially designated as the Day of the Hungarian Playing Cards. At their initiative, a commemorative plaque now marks the former workshop of card maker József Schneider in Budapest’s 7th district, on Kazinczy Street (on the site of the former No. 55 Kiskereszt Street), where one of the earliest examples of the Tell deck was produced. Since 2025, the card game ulti has also been included in the Hungarian National Values.
by Zs. V.
translated by L. G.
