Hungarian Heritage Review, 1987 (16. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1987-01-01 / 1. szám
^Mungartan-JVmertcatta EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article is reprinted from “The Sunday Tennessean” of Nashville, Tennessee. Written by Staff Writer, Louise Davis, it links Sándor Bodo’s presentation of a plaque commemorating the relatively unknown, but historic, meeting between President Andrew Jackson and Alexander (Sándor) Boloni-Farkas, the Hungarian who visited the United States in 1831 to study democracy in action and then wrote a book about what he had observed and learned (Journey in North America, 1834). Although his report preceded the one published by the Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, which has been and still is widely quoted by academicians, scholars, and politicos, the one by Boloni- Farkas has been generally ignored. But, with the publication of an English translation of the Hungarian’s account of his visit to America by the American Philosophical Society (see our Bookshop Section) and with the grand artistic gesture made by Sándor Bodo, interest in Alexander Boloni-Farkas and his “Journey in North America” has been kindled and, we hope, will continue to grow. PLAQUE LINKS U.S. PRESIDENT, HUNGARIAN PATRIOT-By- LOUISE DAVIS Staff Writer, The Sunday Tennessean In front of Hermitage, artist Sándor Bodo, center, presents plaque to Ann Wells, regent of Ladies Hermitage Association, to commemorate meeting of Hungarian patriot, Sándor Farkas, with Andrew Jackson in 1831. Guilford Dudley, left, former ambassador to Denmark, sponsored the gift. Andrew Jackson had, indirectly, a tremendous influence on Hungary in her long struggle for democracy. For one of her great patriots, Alexander Boloni Farkas, met the Tennessean when he was President, and to him Jackson was the embodiment of the land of the free. But Jackson scholars in this country have only recently heard of Farkas, the Hungarian nobleman who was so impressed by Jackson. It is only since Farkas’ book, Journey in North America, was translated from Hungarian to English in 1977 that his work has become known in this country. And a plaque commemorating that meeting between Farkas and Jackson, presented to the Ladies Hermitage Association last week by Nashville artist Sándor Bodo, a native of Hungary, will bring the message to Hermitage visitors for the first time. Farkas, the high-minded aristocrat who dreamed of freedom for his oppressed people, had traveled across much of Europe to appraise economic, political and social conditions there, and all of that was preliminary to achieving his lifelong goal: to study America with his own eyes and ears. He and three other Hungarian travelers were near the end of their American travels when they arrived in Washington one moonlit night in 1831 and saw for the first time the “magnificent Greek-styled Capitol, the largest and most beautiful building in the Union. ” They soon toured the city and discovered it was more a city of the future than one already accomplished. The District of Columbia had been laid out with grand avenues and circles for future growth, but at that moment it could not be compared to “the luxury of Paris and London or other major capitals of Europe, with the splendor of their royal courts, the pomp of the high officials, gaudy imperial guards, multitudes of servants, luxurious places of amusement of the aristocracy." Still Farkas admired Washington's capitol and its handsomely landscaped grounds, and next to that he ranked the “President’s House." “While it has no resemblance to the glitter of a princely palace, its simple Greek style has a charm of its own," Farkas wrote. And after he and his party had visited other outstanding buildings of the city, they decided to —continued next page JANUARY 1987 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 9
