The Eighth Tribe, 1978 (5. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1978-11-01 / 11. szám
November, 1978 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page 9 Our Heritage in America Column Editor: Joseph Széplaki HUNGARIANS IN AMERICA (continued from previous issues) Reprinted from: The Hungarians in America 1583-1974; by Joseph Széplaki. The book can be ordered from the editor. 1941 January 7. The American Hungarian Federation sent a declaration to the president before the United States entered the Second World War. The purpose of the announcement was to start a movement for the preservation of an independent and free Hungary. The American Hungarian Federation started submitting memoranda to the president and the secretary of state. By 1949, ten of them had been submitted. In these memoranda the American Hungarian Federation sought to safeguard the interests of the people of the Old Country and those living in the United States who had not yet declared their intent to become citizens of the United States and received their first papers. 1943 During the Second World War, there were thousands of Hungarians who served in the United States Armed Forces. Mrs. John Hegedűs received from the mayor of Cleveland a banner honoring her seven sons who served in the military. 1944 The First Hungarian Evangelistic Reformed Church of Detroit published a memorial volume on its fortieth anniversary. It contained the names of 1,053 adult members, of which 127 were in military service during the Second World War. These soldiers represented approximately 12 percent of THE MAGYARS IN HISTORY by S. B. Vardy, Ph.D. Professor of History — continued — Throughout the eleventh and the twelfth centuries, the control of Hungary’s economic life was largely in the hands of the Ismaelites and the Jews. The former were various Moslem peoples of the East, including Volga Bulgars, Khazars, Khwarizmian Turks (Káliz), as well as Arabs. Some of the “Jews” may also have been of Khazar — and therefore of Turkic — background. Both of these groups were made up of able traders, and few of the Magyars seemed to compete with them. In the course of the eleventh century, however, a number of clergymen also became involved in business activities. But this trend was strongly disapproved of by the Church, and various church councils in the twelfth century tried to put an end to it. During the same period we also encounter some royal decrees that tried to regulate trade, as well as the use of credit. The Rise of the Hungarian Towns (“Mezőváros”) and Trade Routes The twelfth century, which saw a rapid increase of trade and manufacturing in Hungary, also witnessed some attempts at road restorations, as well as the rise of two different types of towns. One of these was the already mentioned walled city built by Western settlers and functioning as a separate entity (Royal Free Borough) within the country. The other one was the so-called “agricultural town” (mezőváros) — a typical Hungarian phenomenon — that reflected the rural roots of the Magyars. Most of these “agricultural towns” were really only administrative centers that grew up around fortresses and important market places. But a number of them grew into real cities with all the amenities of contemporary urban life. While our knowledge about twelfth-century Hungarian urban life is most minimal, we do have a few contemporary narrative and descriptive sources. The Moslem author, Abu Hamid al-Andalusi, who traveled through Hungary in the middle of that century, for example, claims that there were 78 such towns. Of these he only saw a few personally. Thus we can presume that he was referring to the seats of the royal counties, which must have numbered about that many in that period. Some of these may have been no more than larger villages, while others were undoubtedly true towns of considerable proportions. Abu Hamid’s information about contemporary Hungarian town life is counter-balanced by the observations of the outspokenly anti-Hungarian Otto of Freising, a relative of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, 118
