Born September 8, 1850, died January 18, 1926. She was a Hungarian actress and singer, and was dubbed "the nation's nightingale."
Her father was an officer in the royal military. After his service, he became a traveling actor. Her mother traveled with him, and Louisa was born on the road, in a boot-maker's shop that her mother happened to be traveling near when she went into labor. They continued their traveling lifestyle, but Louisa's father succumbed in 1856 to cholera, dying in the middle of a performance. His widow remarried to a man who designed theater sets. Louisa went on stage throughout her childhood, her first performance taking place at the age of six.
When Louisa was 16, she married her first husband, a 37 year old conductor and soldier named John. He taught her to sing and gave her a musical formation. Although she would marry two more times after him, she kept his name throughout her life. She had two children, Sandor and Sarah.
After a tour in Austria, she was offered a permanent position in Vienna's performance halls, but she refused, saying that she wanted to be known as a Hungarian performer. She signed a contract back in Hungary and worked there regularly until 1901, after which her performances were sporadic. She became an avid supporter of her granddaughter, Gitta's, stage career.
From 1914 onwards, she lived a mostly secluded life with her sister and granddaughter, Mandy. She suffered from illnesses and became mostly homebound. Her last time on stage was in 1923, but she no longer sang. She never took a liking to the medium of films, and was especially disturbed by the silent movies of the era and the grotesque over-acting employed by actors of the time. She only made one appearance in front of the cameras, when at the age of 73 she accepted an award for the National Actor's Guild. On her 75th birthday in 1925, an orchestra serenaded her, but she tired quickly and retired to her apartment. She caught pneumonia, and "the Great Lady" died soon afterwards.
Arany János was born March 2, 1817 and died on Oct 22, 1882. He is one of the major literary figures of Hungary.
His parents were on the older side. Although his mother had given birth to ten children in all, only one sister and János made it past early childhood. At his birth, his only living sister was much older and already married, and he grew up in a quiet, peaceful home as an only child alongside his Protestant parents. He stood out early on for his academic achievements. By the time he entered school at six years old, he was an avid reader and knew Bible stories, songs, and was well-versed in popular literature. While he was still a student, he became known around the city for his poetry. To pay for his tuition costs he became an assistant to the teacher from a very young age.
At the age of 16 he moved to Debrecen to further studies to study poetry formally. However his money ran out and he had to drop out of school to go to work in the rectory of the Protestant church. He made friends with the bishop, who opened up his library to the young man. He read day and night and taught himself German, French, and Latin. He translated works into Hungarian and even tried to write poetry in those languages. After he saved up enough money, he returned to Debrecen to attend school once more. He impressed his teachers with his earnestness, and soon he was at the head of the class. To keep financially afloat he became a tutor, and even the nobles of the city wanted him to tutor their children.
Many assumed he would go on to become an academic, but he wanted something more exciting out of life and often said he wished to become a painter or sculptor. So, at the age of 19 he left the university. To the surprise of many, he joined an actor's guild briefly, and went on to tour with traveling actors, and saw some of the countryside through their journeys. However, he realized that many of the areas they were touring in were very impoversished. This left a strong impression on him.
One night, he had a disturbing dream about his mother, so he started off that day on foot towards his home. He learned much to his dismay that his father had gone blind, and two weeks before his mother had died of cholera. While he mourned their passing, his inner muse was silenced, and he did not create any art for a while. His parish and town felt sorry for his loss and gave him various positions including as a grammar school teacher, and various clerks' jobs at the town hall. While he did not write during this time, he still read avidly. During this time he favored Shakespeare and Homer as well as the works of various French poets. He also got married in 1840 to a young woman named Julianna, whom he had two children with. His son especially would follow in his father's footsteps and become a poet, and János was very proud of that.
In 1842, an old school friend, István, came to visit. He was surprised that János was no longer writing, and encouraged him to take it up again. János started translating various Greek tragedies into Hungarian, and learned English at this time as well, and started translating Shakespeare from the original texts as well. In 1845 he wrote a satirical piece that won him several awards. From this point on, he got further encouraged to write full-time, and went on to win many contests and became a popular figure among many. Famous writers and poets of the era wrote to him to welcome him into their circles. The famous Petőfi especially befriended him, and they started a lasting relationship which encouraged the man through dry periods. The poem "For my Friend" was written in 1847 and dedicated to Petőfi:
You're encouraging me to write more poetry And I wish I could obey your command But Pegasus is a wretched old nag It doesn't gallop, nay. It barely stumbles along.
It seems to me that yesterday I sat down to write But I only got to the point where I chewed up my pen But - crows tear apart an insubordinate horse - I couldn't encourage the words to giddy-up, move along.
Today I put on your kucsma [winter hat], so perhaps A little of your essence would stick to me I scratched a few "with" and "towards" down But the muse balks and chastises me: "Enough of this!"
Why am I even trying to bother with all of this effort When my heart is full of such turmoil? A guest has arrived at the house, and brought cares along. Every little feeling in me is fretting and fussing, obliged but unable to please.
Crazy windswept nation! The horses run without a goal And bump into one another constantly But it's no wonder, the guest of the heart is great And quite dear to it, because that guest is you.
During the 1848-49 revolution his themes turned more patriotic, and he wrote several speeches as well, and a few songs. The government founded a newspaper called the Nép Barátja (The Friend of the Nation) and asked him to be the editor of it. He turned the position down, however. He did contribute some poetry and political articles for it, but his heart wasn't in it. He put in military service briefly and then took various government posts. This provided him unwelcome political exposure however, and for a time he went into hiding, until officially giving up any association with public posts.
When the revolution failed, he went back to his passions of writing, translating, and teaching. In his early forties, his health began to fail, and he had frequent stomach problems. Despite these, he wrote prolifically. In 1865 his daughter passed away after a painful illness, and János was again plunged into grief. To make things worse, János and his wife adopted their grandchild, who also died at the age of 21 from illness. When he attempted to start writing poetry again, he stopped after the fourth line. He wrote in his journal that things were too painful and he couldn't write any more. For a decade onwards, the poet in him stayed silent, and his own health problems worsened. He continued teaching, writing, and directing various institutions.
Towards the end of his life, despite numerous painful health issues and the decline of his vision and hearing, the muse returned to him, and he wrote numerous poems and ballads, including some of his most famous works. Chronic bronchitis finally endangered his life. He caught a bad cold at the dedication of his friend Petőfi's memorial statue, and this turned into pneumonia. He died a few days later at the age of 65, after more than 40 years of marriage. His grave became a place of literary pilgrimage, and his likeness was memorialized in several works of art throughout the nation.
The city of Miskolc sits in a valley region on the eastern side of the Bukk mountain range. Miskolc is eastern Hungary's largest city, and the fourth largest in the nation. The population has been increased as several towns and villages outlying the city were joined to the city.
The region is beautiful and rich, one of the longest continuously populated sites in all of Europe - more than 70,000 years in all. There is archeological evidence that there were human settlements there from paleolithic times onwards. When the Hungarian settlers arrived here, there were already settled people in the region.
By the early Middle Ages, Miskolc was already an established town, having been given its name in the early 12th century by the Miskoc people who resided there. In 1356 it was declared a city by King Louie (Lajos) the First. Because it was located on important trade routes, it became an important center for trade. By the start of the 15th century, it had 2000 citizens - a decent size for the time. After the Turkish occupation it gained a reputation for being a center of viticulture, but more importantly, for industry, a reputation it kept through the centuries.
In its long history, Miskolc has faced its share of troubles and has always come back. In 1544, the Turkish forces burned much of the city down, and then what was left of the population had to submit to Turkish rule until the late 1600's. After a few decades of relative quiet, it was hit hard at the start of the 1700's, first by the stationing of Rakoczi's forces, and by the Austraians looting and again burning the city down in 1706. There were several cholera outbreaks through the centuries, killing vast percentages of its citizens. Floods destroyed many buildings, but they were rebuilt better than ever.
In 1724 the county decided to build the capital building there, and by the end of the 18th century there were more than 14,000 citizens. In the next centuries the city built various public buildings, such as a town hall, a stone theater, a synogogue, and numerous schools and churches. They were among the first cities in the country to install gaslights, telephones, and public transportation in the forms of trains and trolleys.
The World Wars seriously affected the population of Miskolc, as the population waxed and waned due to the deaths of the men who fought in the wars, the killing of much of the Jewish population in concentration camps, and various diseases brought on by poverty. On the other hand, the region had an influx of refugees from outlying regions of Hungary that were given to other countries by the treaty of Trianon. When the Communist regime took over, Miskolc retained its reputation as a center of industry through the centuries, when it reached its peak during the Soviet occupation, as did the population, which capped at about 200,000 people in the 1980's.
Since the end of the Communist rule, Miskolc has attempted to bolster its reputation as a cultural and tourist destination - and there are many sights to see, from thermal baths located in a cave (Barlangfurdo) to castles and palaces, theaters, parks, and historic buildings. It is also located in an extremely scenic, mountainous region of the country. There is a zoo which orginated in 1355 by King Louis. (It went through many incarnations into the zoo it is today, which opened in 1983, when volunteers took it upon themselves to build it within 100 days.) The University of Miskolc is one of the few universities in the country to be located on a distinct campus instead of in buildigns scattered through the town. It is also a center for sports, and has many new facilities and teams, including soccer, basketball, ice hockey, and American football.
In 2011, the census recorded slightly under 168 thousand citizens, 95% of which were Hungarian, 2% Roma, and the rest of other ethnic backgrounds.
Once there was a man, maybe sixty or seventy years old, who lived with his wife. But they weren't a very happy couple, no. They were very poor, and they were always fighting because of it. They fought morning and evening, winter and summer. One day, in the middle of an argument, the woman asked her husband, "Tell me old man, when you were young, didn't you ever go to school?" And he replied that he never had. So she got very angry with him and told him, "Then in the morning you will gather your things and go down to the school!"
So the next morning the man set off early in the morning and arrived at the school. The teacher saw him, and said, "What are you doing here? Do you have a child you want to send here?"
"I have no child, I have nothing!"
"Then what are you looking for here?"
"I've come to school! I want to be in the class!"
"Oh, Lord," the teacher replied. "It's too late for you to have come now. There's no use to it."
So the poor man went back out the door and started home, but without much spirit. He hung his head as he walked down the road. As soon as he went through his front gate into their small front yard, his wife stood in front of him. "Why did you come home? I thought I told you to go to school!"
"I went there, I did," protested the old man. "But the teacher sent me home; he said I came too late."
"Well, then you'll just have to go earlier tomorrow!" the wife decided.
And that's what happened. The old man woke up even earlier, put a biscuit in his carrying bag, and started off for the school. He was the first to arrive, but the teacher said to him again, "What are you doing here? I thought I told you yesterday - you're too late for school. Go home!"
And the old man got very annoyed at this, and decided that he wouldn't be too late the next day. Before night even set, he had already started back towards the school, and sat outside it all night long. But still, the teacher told him that he was again too late.
He started home, finally given up. He was very sad, and even his tears fell as he walked home. But between two sighs, he looked down and saw that there was something shining in his path. He bent down and found a bag. He opened it, and found that it was filled to the brim with gold coins. Oh, he was beyond happy.
He rushed home, and was met at the gate by his wife. "Look, woman! I went to school for only three days, and see what rewards I've gotten!" And from the gold they bought horses, cattle, a wagon, and a beautiful house. And they still live happily - unless they've since died. And that's the end, run away with it, to the top of the mountain!
On October 23rd, the Hungarians celebrate a national holiday for two reasons. First, it is a celebration of the foundation of the Republic of Hungary in 1989, when it declared independence from the Soviet Union. Second, it is the anniversary of the start of the world-famous revolution of 1956 when the Hungarian people revolted against the Stalin
dictatorship and attempted to overthrow the Soviet rulers. This was one
of the most significant events in modern Hungarian history.
On this day, college students in Budapest went on a peaceful march to protest the Stalin rule of their land. The communist party leaders sent their forces against the students, and shot into the crowd. That night, the people of Budapest took to weapons and began a crusade to overthrow the government. Several days later, the regime gave in to their demands, and the Soviets withdrew.
In the first few days of November, the Hungarian nationals attempted to restore democracy to their country, appointing new leadership with the ability to have multiple parties (instead of the solitary governmental party in the communist system). The new leadership withdrew from the Warsaw Pact and declare the country neutral. They asked for aid from the West, which had previously promised that it would aid any country who attempted to withdraw from the USSR. However, this aid never came, because the larger world community was wary of starting another world war.
The Soviets, seeing that Hungary did not have the aid necessary from the world community, changed its mind. On November 11th they took power back completely after several days of intense fighting. Documents released in 1993 showed that 2652 Hungarians and 720 Soviets died in the clashes. At this point, about a quarter million Hungarians left the country, escaping towards the West.
In 1957 January those who had participated in the revolution were jailed in masses and many of them were executed. Those who weren't executed were commonly brutally tortured - including women and minors. The UN and the world in general condemned the repression. It was forbidden in the decades following the revolution to talk about it unless you wanted to be branded a revolutionary and face persecution, jailing, or even death.
For the spiritual individual, all spaces are not created equal. It is fragmented and contains rifts; it possesses parts that are qualitatively different than other places. There exist spaces that, therefore, are more sacred than other spaces. They are charged with a different sort of energy. And then, there are spaces which are not sacred... (Mircea Eliade: "The Sacred and the Profane")
The concept of a "clean room" could be found, with minimal variations, through whichever region of rural Hungary we could have traveled through. The traditional rural commoner's house had two rooms. One of the rooms was used for everyday living. The second one, however, was rarely entered. It was considered a sacred sort of a space, closed off from mundane life. This room was called "the clean room" for reasons both literal and metaphysical.
The clean room mimicked the common room in what it contained, but everything was one step removed. Traditionally, there was a table in the middle of the room, with chairs around it. There were maybe two beds, and several cupboards and closets. There was typically a mirror (larger than that in the common room), and decorations, and containers of various sorts. But this room wasn't to be used for common, mundane activities. The beds were never slept in, and the table and chairs were never used to entertain house-guests. Men rarely entered into this room at all, and the women - who were in charge of keeping the house in order - only tended to go in there to get supplies in and out, or to clean - and never with shoes on. (Like its name implies, everything in the clean room had to be in immaculate condition.) The only two activities that traditionally took place here were laying a family member's body out for a funeral, and the "farewell" ceremony that took place before a bride was married off. Otherwise, the room was not used at all, even for important ceremonies such as christenings or weddings.
In a practical sense, the clean room held what was beautiful and pure. The beds were piled high with new sheets, blankets, quilts, down pillows, embroidered cushions, and dolls in traditional dresses. Closets held brand-new clothes - coats, pants, skirts, head-kerchiefs, underskirts, shirts -- as well as ceremonial outfits only worn for Sundays or special occasions. (On Sundays the women of the house would enter the room and reverently bring out the family's best clothes, to be worn to church, and then replace them at the end of the day.) Linen closets held towels, dish towels, and tablecloths. Cupboards held the fancy set of dishes only used once or twice a year for the "big" events like christenings, weddings, funerals, or family reunions. A girl and her mother could store her dowry here over the years before she was of marriageable age. Even the views into the room were kept pure, with curtains hung in front of the windows, and even wooden blinds or shutters covering those which faced towards the courtyard or the road. Every element in the room was well cared for, with dried flowers in vases and various richly embroidered cloths decorating the surfaces; on the walls hung crucifixes, paintings of saints, and in later times, wedding photographs.
In a purely religious sense, the clean room wasn't precisely a place of religion. For instance, despite its atmosphere of cultivated purity, it wasn't used traditionally as a room for prayer. Prayer took place in the village church, which was completely outside the mundane sphere. It was the center of the village, and in a slightly less religious but no less significant way, the clean room was the center of the homestead. It was a symbol of life itself. There was a space for every activity - and perhaps the most important space of all, the place where one kept the purest and most beautiful things, was a space that was nearly untouched, and not a part of practical life. It was a space reserved for what was most important. It was a place of rest, a place of zero, where everything was always in order.
The Csango people are a group of ethnic Hungarians living in Romania. While the origin of their name is debated, a popular theory is that it is derived from a word meaning "wanderer" or "one who became lost due to mischief." Their reputation amongst Hungarians does suggest that they had a streak of rebelliousness. One of the charges levied against the Csango people by outsiders was that they did not "respect the sanctity of marriage", for example. (Another explanation is that "chango-ing" is an onomatopoeia for making noise to frighten away enemies from the Hungarian border, and thus they were a group placed on the borders of the kingdom of Hungary proper.)
The Csangos origins go back in history. By the middle of the 15th century Christian missionaries were already sending Hungarian editions of the New Testament into Moldavia. By the mid-1500's the Csangos were accepted as a recognized and established ethnic group in the region. During the course of the centuries they faced differing levels of acceptance and persecution. At times the rulers of the land ordered them to change their religion and took away their government; in other eras, they were given more freedoms. Because of their religion, they maintained a separation from the largely Greek Orthodox Romanian people around them. In time, certain ethnic Romanians converted to Roman Catholicism and thus took up some of the Csango culture, but most of them never affiliated themselves with the minority in other ways - most importantly, the language.
Most Csango speak a dialect based on Old Hungarian, even though most of them today mostly speak Romanian. The dialect is difficult to understand for many speakers of modern Hungarian because of their unique pronunciation of consonants and vowels alike that do not have counterparts in traditional Hungarian. They also have a significantly different vocabulary with unique words and sayings. The Hungarian language underwent major changes during the Age of Enlightenment, but the Csango dialect, due to the isolation of its speakers, did not. Rather, it was influenced by the language of the Romanian people they lived amongst.
The Csango were largely unschooled and illiterate, but possessed a rich folk culture of stories, dances, songs, and customs. Many of these customs were intertwined with their Roman Catholic religion, and their children grew up learning Hungarian as their native language, regardless of what the official language of the countryside was at the time. Csango music has many characteristics of Hungarian music, and the lyrics are in a Hungarian dialect as well. However, the Csango remained stuck in time in a way. Due to their isolation and lack of a nobility or intelligentsia, they never went through the various philosophical changes that Europe as a whole (including Hungary proper) underwent as the centuries advanced.
Traditionally the Csango territory encompasses around fifteen towns and their surrounding villages in western Moldovia. It is estimated that there are about 60,000 to 70,000 people who speak the distinct Csango dialect, but it is hard to pin the number of members of the Csango community down more accurately because there are different definitions of who is Csango and who is not, based on factors such as ethnicity, religion, and language. What is known is that in the 1850's, almost 40,000 individuals registered as Csango in the census. By 1900, the number dropped to about 25,000. In 1992, the number was down to slightly over 3,000, and in 2002, less than 1,500 people identified themselves as Csango on an official Romanian census. [Other sources suggest that roughly 4,300 people declared themselves Romanian Hungarians and not even 800 declared themselves Csango in that year.] However, the answer is not that clear. Some people might identify as primarily Romanian due to fear of governmental retribution. To complicate matters further, other sources have counted all Roman Catholics in the general region as belonging to the Csango group, and that number comes in at almost 120,000. However, most of this latter group consider themselves to be fully Romanian, and reject the Csango label.
The Council of Europe released statements regarding their concern over the treatment of the Csango minority by the Romanian people, and expressed that their unique culture is an asset to the landscape of European heritage. The Csango people have stated that they do not want to make political demands but rather wish to be recognized as a distinct culture and be allowed to educate their children in their native language. When parents petitioned the government in the 1990's to allow Hungarian lessons in the area's public schools, they were ignored or met with refusals, and in 2001 the Romanian government banned Hungarian lessons even in private houses, and tried to intimidate mothers from teaching their children Hungarian. When the Council of Europe protested, the government defended itself by saying that they wanted to prevent nationalistic ambitions from the local populace, who ought to consider themselves Romanian. When the European Commission appointed teachers to the area schools to teach Hungarian, many students did not show up and the teachers were banned from many towns, with the villagers showing hostility to them.
Religion has also been a big issue, with the Csangos wanting to go to church services in their native language. Between the world wars, the Romanian government attempted to force the Csangos to assimilate and give up their Hungarian loyalties. The Romanian Catholic Church in the area was afraid that if it didn't cooperate with the local authorities, they would be banned from the area, and all the people would be forced to convert to Greek Orthodox. As a result, the Roman Catholic Church stopped providing education or religious services in Hungarian. The Vatican has since expressed its support in reintroducing services in Hungarian to the Csangos. When the Romanian government refused, the Vatican sent missionaries to the area to convert the Romanian populace into Roman Catholics in hopes of increasing the Csango minority's numbers. (The missionaries, like the teachers, did not tend to be well-received by the locals.)
In 2006, Romania rejected communism and since then, the government has started trying to more objectively analyze the situation of the ethnic groups within its borders to see in what ways they might have been persecuted or oppressed, and also to analyze the effects of the historical involvement of the Roman Catholic church.
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