Bányai Balázs - Kovács Eleonóra (szer.): A"Zichy-expedíció"- Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. A. sorozat 48. (Székesfehérvár, 2013)

The "Zichy Expedition"

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THE “ZICHY EXPEDITION

FOLLOWING OUR ANCESTORS

The respect for Jenő Zichy increased steadily thanks to the press. His travels to Asia with the goal of finding the origin of the Hungarians received great publicity as well. At a young age, he travelled the Caucasus with István Széchenyit sons Béla and Ödön just for fun.164 His interest in knowing the ancestors of the Hungarians - and of the Zichy family - became decisive in the 1890s. Zichy had a large library of Hungarian and foreign books. The literature convinced him that the remnants of his ancestors could be found in the Caucasus or North of the Caspian Sea, near the river Ural, in Bashkir territory.165 To reach his goal he organized and financed scientific expeditions.166 He led his first expedition in the summer of 1895 and 1896.’67 He first ventured into the Caucasus and later Turkestan together with Mór Wosinszky, abbot-parson of Szekszárd and archeologist, Lajos Szádeczky-Kardoss, history teacher at the University of Kolozsvár (today: Cluj-Napoca, Romania), linguist Gábor Bálint, an interpreter, a painter and one of his foresters from Magaslak.168 They did research mostly in museums and libraries, they bought most of the archeological findings, ethnographical objects and photographs.169 The expedition was full of personal conflicts because it was hard for the scientists to focus on their work with such a

The members of the Zizianov family with Jenő Zichy (Jenő Zichy thought that he and the Zizianov family were the decendants of the same ancestors in the Caucasus), 1895, Vasárnapi Újság