The saying addresses the long, special relationship between Poland and Hungary. Poles and Hungarians consider themselves brothers in war and peace, and the saying was a 16th (or 18th)-century creation of the Polish middle and minor nobility. They recognized that the countries had the same political structure: a nobles' republic (Polish "Rzeczpospolita", Hungarian "natio Hungarica"), a democratic parliamentary system in which the state and king were controlled by a non-aristocratic noble class. The Polish word "rokosz" (a gathering to resist royal authority) derives Hungary's "", a field near Pest which was the medieval venue for mass meetings of Hungarian middle and minor nobility.