Magyar Hírek, 1988 (41. évfolyam, 1-22. szám)

1988-01-22 / 2. szám

ABOUT THIS ISSUE AND THE PREVIOUS ONE

The previous issue of our journal contained articles on two important periods of the Hungarian past. One of these, discussing the Hungarian conquest, or landtaking, is republished in English in this supplement; the other - also by László Pusztaszeri — describes Visegrád, an ancient seat of Hungarian kings, on the basis of archeological findings and historic documents. Allow me to add an anecdote to Pusztaszerit story, something I discovered when I was assembling material for my book on the history of Hungarian archeology. The 15th century palace of King Matthias Corvinus was so thoroughly destroyed under the Turks that even its memoryfaded. Many people looked on the description by Miklós Oláh, who had seen it, when in exile in Brussels as a figment of his imagination. Only one man in modern times, really believed that Archbishop Oláh told the truth: János Schulek, the archeologist. For a long time, however, he searched in vain. He could not find any trace of a building covered by soil. But one day two Visegrád school-boys told the professor that they had seen the remains of some very old walls in a local winecellar. The secret, which the wine grower had successfully concealed, fearing the picks and spades of the archeologists, was out. This happened Christinas 19112, but János Schulek still had to overcome much resistance before he could start digging for the Renaissance Palace. Indeed the Palace, one of the most beautiful historic monuments in Hungary, was only excavated in earnest in recent decades.

The history of Visegrád did not begin with the building of this Palace, but that of the castle towering on the hill above the village. It was built using her own money, by Mária, the Queen Consort of King Béla IV. She sold her jewellery to establish this bastion against a possible repetition of the Mongolian invasion. The castle was a royal seat in the time of the Anjou kings. The famous meeting of three kings in 1335, Caroberto of Himgary, John of Bohemia and Casimir of Poland there settled the disputes between their countries. The Visegrád castle was also the place of birth of King Louis I, the Great.

The altar of the Pittsburgh Church

The palace built at the foot of the hill was a magnificent royal centre of European fame in the reign of King Matthias Corvinus. The great king held court there surrounded by scholars and the magnates of the realm. The Popa’8 legate dated his report to Rome from “Visegrád”, this Paradise on “Earth” admiring the fountains, the tropical flora of the magnificent gardens, the statues, frescoes, and splendid furnishings of the palace.

Jubilee of

the Pittsburgh Church

The Hungarian Greek Catholics consecrated their Pittsburgh church, a symbol of the togetherness of Hungarian emigrants from the Counties Ung, Borsod and Zemplén, seventy-five years ago on the 2nd of December 1902. The Church has ever since been the religious and spiritual centre of Hungarians in the Pittsburgh region. The accurately kept chronicle of the church registered not only religious events, but also the concerts, dances and other social functions that have taken place during the past decades under the sponsorship of the Hungarian Greek Catholic Church. Endre Fazekas, the painter, restored and restored the church in 1979: with the assistance of the mosaic studio of the Vatican and with European and American help he produced a new altar-piece and a suspended St Stephen crown above the sanctuary, the consecration of which was the high point of the celebrations of the seventy-fifth jubilee. The festivities of the jubilee year took place in the spirit of the motto: “Remember the past — build the future!”

A Hungarian ecologist in Brasil

This is the title given by Lajos Kutasi-Kovács to an article about Ildikó Dona, who lives in Brazil. The author was amazed and moved to deep sympathy by the solitary, yet eventually successful, struggle by —as he wrote — “a descendant of ancient Székely frontiersmen” against a Brazilian mommothenterprise in the defence of natural environment. The story started when Ildikó Dona and her husband, Dr Károly Kögl, bought a sitio, a medium-size property in a valley 1000 m above sea level in 1976. They established a lemon orchard, began to grow fruit and vegetables, but also took care to re-establish native plants and animals, which had already perished in that region. Last year the giant Centralia Electricas Furnas wanted to build a high voltage electrical line across the valley that would have resulted in the destruction of the native forest and its fauna. Ildikó Dona mobilised the press, the botany and zoology departments of universities, ]X>liticians and eventually succeeded in preventing the planned destruction of the environment. Itatuba was saved. As the Brazilian press commented: the example of Ildikó Dona is an encouragement to BraBrosilion Paradise

zilians helping them to realize a style of living that establishes harmony between man and Nature.

From Tanganyika to Balatonederics

It was a long way and an eventful life for Dr Endre Nagy from Nemesvita and Balatonederics to Tanganyika and back, and he managed to travel that road keeping a warm place in his heart for his second, African, homeland as well. László Garami interviewed him in his Balatonederics home which is a museum in every sense of the term. Endre Nagy obtained a license from the Tanzanian authorities to export his most valuable collection of hunting trophies, ethnographical material also collected in Africa, and sundry pieces of sculpture. He is prepared to make a gift of it all to the Museum of Natural History.

As Endre Nagy mentioned the great and [jermanent passion of his life was hunting and shooting. He indulged in it whenever he could, first as a local government official, later as an officer of the Hungarian Gendarmerie, on service in the Great Plain, right up to the time when history interfered. Endre Nagy, though an officer of the Gendarmerie, courted a Baronesse Hatvány. They were engaged, and later married, and thus he found himself up against the race laws, his wife, as a Hatvany, being of Jewish origin. Following dangerous adventures and at the risk of his life he managed to save his wife’s life. At the end of the war he at last obtained a job really to his liking, as an Inspector of Gamekeepers. When, however, in 1952, attempts were made to relocate his wife and daughter, as members of the Hatvany baronial family, he sought refuge with them in a hunting lodge in the Bakony Forest and then, travelling along secret paths, he left the country.

Endre Nagy then studied forestry >n Düsseldorf and established himself as an authority on game preservation. He helped organize the Düsseldorf World Exhibition of Hunting. Later he was commissioned by West German natural history museums to travel to Africa and replace some of their specimens which had been destroyed during the Second World War. He took such a liking to Africa that he decided to settle in Tanzania. He founded a zoo, a game reserve, anil lodges equipped with all modern conveniences where big game hunters can stay. A hundred and fifty antelopes range the game reserve. True they are fenced in, but the fences are invisible and the snows of Kilimanjoro loom in the background. “It is all so ravishing you can’t put it into words”, Dr Endre Nagy said, who all the same these days spends some of the year in Hungary. Around the middle of November, he travels home to Hungary, and in March he once again returns home, from Hungary, to Tanzania.

ZOLTÁN HALÁSZ

Endre Nagy in Tanzania