Arany János: Poet

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.

Holiday: October 23

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.

The Csángó

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. 

The Csango anthem:

Csángo Hungarian, Csángó Hungarian,

What have you become, Csángó Hungarian.

You are a bird fallen from a tree branch

Abandoned and forgotten.

   

O God, what will become of us?

Our children and we will be lost!

That which was kept by our fathers,

Our beautiful language is being killed.

   

You settled down on a plain,

Which you called a country.

But you have neither country nor home,

Only God takes care of you.

   

We have heard that Hungary still stands,

Lord, we ask your blessing upon it as well

Let them take pity upon us

And not give us up for lost.

We're oppressed by a foreign tongue

Italian priests stand upon your neck

You're unable to sing or make your confessions,

Unable to pray in your mother tongue.

   

Because we are Hungarians as well,

Split from Asia in our past.

O God, guide our fate,

Don’t let the Csángó Hungarian be lost

The Jasz

The Jasz are an Indo-Iranian ethnic group, who arrived, along with the Kuns, in Hungary starting in the 13th century.  Prior to settling in Hungary, they worked the earth and worked as mercenaries in the various clashes between nations in eastern Europe.  They tried (unsuccessfully) to defend the area from Mongol invaders, and also fought against Russians and Turks.   Large portions of the Jasz were wiped out during this stormy period of frequent fighting, but those who survived chose to settle in Hungary in the area known to this day as the "Jaszsag" region.

The symbol of the Lehel horn originated in these times.  Lehel's horn (Lehel kürtje) belonged to Lehel, a descendent of the ruler Arpad.  Lehel was an adventurous Magyar general.  According to one legend, Lehel was captured in a battle fought on the Lech field.  When he was led in front of the enemy leader known as Kaiser Conrad, Lehel struck him in the forehead with his horn, striking him dead.  An ornately carved ivory horn traditionally believed to be Lehel's horn remains housed to this day in the Jasz Museum in Jaszbereny.

By this time, the struggle to convert the Pagans of Europe to Christianity was underway, and the Jasz were among the groups targeted by missionaries.  Christianity was changing the landscape of Europe.  In a census taken in 1323, a little more than half of the Jasz were designated as Christians, while the other half retained their Pagan identities.  Amulets with horse designs were found at archeological sites dating from these times, among other Pagan religious symbols, and none of the people had Christianized their names, so it appears that even the Jasz Christians maintained many elements of their past culture.  (And the ones who were Christian were at this time influenced by the Byzantine tradition, not the more Western traditions.)

They Jasz retained their language and cultural identity through the time of King Matthias.  In 1474 the Franciscan monks were given orders to convert the Jasz to Catholicism, and to build a church and monastery in Jaszbereny.  Following their efforts, the Jasz assimilated further with the other Hungarians they were living near, and in the short span of a century their entire language died out as well.  To this day, the Jasz are known as devout Catholics with a strong Franciscan flavor of religion, maintaining a humble lifestyle and a strict adherence to various fasts throughout the liturgical year.

When the Turkish people conquered Hungary, the Jasz people suffered a great deal under their rule.  After the Turkish rule ended, there was an effort to repopulate the Alfold region of Hungary, whose population had been decimated in the time of war.  The Jasz people were directed to settle down in various areas, and most went to live in the region between the Duna and Tisza rivers, named Kiskunsag.  They organized their own governments named and chose their own leaders, independent from mainstream Hungarian rulers. 

This did not last a long while, however, because while during the late 17th century they gained a certain level of autonomy, the politicians soon clamped down on them.  They were promoting a feudalist state, and wanted taxation from the Jasz.  They resisted and argued they should be able to maintain their independence.  Finally, on May 6th of 1745, Queen Maria Theresa signed the "redemptio" document, granting them independence from taxation and having to serve in the military.

This lasted until 1848, when feudalism was abolished in Hungary.  With the end of the treaty, the Jasz finally had to cede to the state government and give up the measures of independence they had achieved.  Rivalries sprang up between Jasz cities and more progressive cities that promoted capitalism.  The Jasz simply couldn't compete, and they lost even more power.  Cities cultivated rivalries, and the Jasz way of thinking couldn't compete with the growing capitalist influence in the region, and they lost power once again.  By the turn of the 20th century, the Jasz had lost practically all political power.

However, they maintained their local customs.  They had nurtured independence for centuries, and it was hard for them to suddenly assimilate into a generalized Hungarian identity.  Jasz customs are still alive today, including in their music and dance, their culinary traditions, and their fine craftsmanship.

 

The Kingdom of Hungary (Nagymagyarorszag)



This map is the property of Hunmagyar.org .


The Kingdom of Hungary has existed for more than a thousand years, and through its existence, its borders were redefined repeatedly.  The most recent change took place during the Treaty of Trianon, at the end of World War I.  It left Hungary with only 28% of its pre-war territory; five of its ten major cities and two thirds of its population lived outside the new borders, and it was left without access to the sea.  The treaty also eliminated its navy, reduced the majority of its army, and wreaked havoc with its economy.  The intent of the Allies was to weaken the country of Hungary significantly, and eliminate it as a major player in Europe.  (For the large part, it worked.)

Some areas that were formerly a part of Hungary have Magyars as the ethnic majority, and many others see Hungarians as a very significant minority population.  Sadly, many of them live under persecution of their new governments, who sought to eradicate the Magyar culture from their lands.  Many Magyars were also deported, voluntarily immigrated to other countries (such as the new borders of Hungary, or to the United States, Australia, Canada, or to other European countries), or slowly assimilated with their new national identities.  However, others have held on to their ancestral heritage.  Today, there are still several million ethnic Hungarians living outside the current-day borders, many of whom preserve the language, culture, and national identity of their Magyar heritage.

Many people, especially those belonging to the older generations, are still bitter about the treaty and hope for a day when the older borders are restored, although this doesn't sound like a very realistic possibility.  Still, it never hurts to look back and see what contributions to the Magyar culture the people in these regions made.  HunMagyar.org is an awesome site, and its Regions and Folk Art section explores the different culture and folk art of all the different regions of Hungary, including those that are no longer a part of the official country.