J. Antall szerk.: Medical history in Hungary 1972. Presented to the XXIII. International Congress of the History of Medicine / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 6. (Budapest, 1972)

M. Vida : Serving two Nations: Tivadar Duka (1825—1908)

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2 Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist

. Artis Med. Suppl

. 6.) press and public for Csoma's eastern travels meant only support for his intention of finding the original Hungarian homeland, but later, seeing that Csoma was concerned mainly with oriental studies, the interest sagged. Duka in his introduction spoke not only about Wikon but mentioned Karl Huegel, an Austrian traveller, too, who had personally met Csoma and related their meeting in his book written on Kashmir.

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6 The memorial lecture delivered by József Eötvös was based on Huegel's data but Duka proved that Huegel's facts were erroneous.

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7 Consequently the biography written by Duka can be rightly described as the first detailed work based on correct data and original documents found in the archives of Bengal. On the basis of this archival evidence it was possible to solve the seemingly contradictory role attributed to Csoma by Hungarian patriotic feeling and pure orientalistic science, namely that in Csoma's mind the two tasks were one and the same. After Duka's death a letter was found written in 1832 by Körösi Csoma to the Austrian Ambassador in London, which shows that Duka was right in his conclusions. According to the letter Csoma's aim was "to find the original homes of the Hungarians, to collect historical data on their deeds and also to look into the analogies to he found between the various oriental languages and our tongue",

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8 Already in 1864 Duka presented a study on Körösi to the Academy which was discussed by the session of November 7 — 14 in the same year, thus calling the nation's attention once more to Csoma's personality. In the book Duka drew a detailed picture of Kőrösi's carreer. After speaking about the family, the birth, studies at Nagyenyed, Göttingen, Temesvár and Zagreb, Duka described Csoma's start in the last days of November 1819. After many vicissitudes and sufferings he crossed Turkey, Egypt, Persia, visited Buchara, then Kabul to reach Lahore and Kashmir. Unfortunately the biographer could not give a detailed description of this heroic undertaking, only enumerated the names, places and dates, as his only source was Csoma's official report prepared for the Government of India at the end of 1824 in Sabathu.

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9 We learn that the original intention of Körösi was to reach Chinese Turkestan, the innermost basin of Asia, through the Karakorum passes, where he hoped to find traces of the migration of the Hungarians and of the Huns, whom —following popular Székely tradition

—he considered to be the relatives of the Hungarians. But the anarchic and dangerous state of things prevalent in Central Asia twice forced him to turn back, so he did not forestall Sir Aurel Stein's archeological explorations. Duka proved that as a result of the forced turning 5

6 Huegel, Karl: Kaschmir und das Reich der Seik. Stuttgart, 1840/1848. Cf. Duka, (44), pp. 16-17. 6

7 Eötvös, József: Magyar írók és államférfiak. - emlékbeszédei. (Hungarian Authors and Statesmen. Memorial Lectures by —) Budapest, 1868. Sándor Körösi Csoma pp. 21-47. Cf. MTA Évkönyvei (MTA Yearbooks), 1844. VII. pp. 1-32. 5

8 Stein, Aurél: Op. cit. p. 24. — This important letter was found only after Duka's death and it supports the conclusions reached in the biography. It was in the possession of H. H. Wilson and was granted to the Hungarian Academy by the latter's grandson, A. H. Wilson, in 1909, 5

9 See note (50).