William Penn Life, 2004 (39. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2004-04-01 / 4. szám
Magyar Matters Hungarian Room Committee awards grant to young writer PITTSBURGH - Kristen Cosby, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, was recently chosen as the recipient of this year's Dr. Samuel C. Gomory Memorial Scholarship Award, presented by the university's Hungarian Room Committee. The award is presented each year to a University of Pittsburgh student planning to study in Hungary. Ms. Cosby, who is pursuing a master of fine arts degree in creative non-fiction, plans to use the award to help finance her return to Hungary where she will gather material for a book she is writing about her encounter with the Hungarian language and culture. "I would like to express my gratitude for having been chosen as this year's recipient of the Hungarian Room Committee scholarship," Ms. Cosby wrote the Committee. "I am extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity to return to Hungary as a researcher and student." Ms. Cosby is of Norwegian, Scottish and English descent, but said she has "always wanted to be" Hungarian. After spending her early childhood in New England, she moved to Hungary in 1989 at age nine when her father's business took him to Budapest. "I came to love my every from The Budapest Sun BUDAPEST -- Thousands of Hungarians attended various commemorations around Budapest and the countryside, celebrating the 156th anniversary of the 1848 Revolution and War of Independence. The official program started with the flag raising ceremony on Kossuth tér, followed by the central celebration in the garden of the National Museum and a concert in Millenáris Park. Education Minister Bálint Magyar, who delivered a speech outside the interaction with the city," she said. When she returned to the U.S. three years later at age 12, she "felt like an outsider. I was homesick for Budapest." Five years later, the now 17-year-old returned to Hungary on her own. "Budapest never looked so beautiful," she said. "I felt like I was being welcomed back; I knew I would have to return." She began to plan a life around becoming an ambassador or attaché to Hungary, but soon found politics was not to her liking. She then turned her focus to literature, art and cultural history, and returned to the U.S. to earn her undergraduate degree and began to study literature and writing. After graduating she moved back to Budapest to teach English and study Hungarian. Now, as she finishes working towards her masters degree, she again is returning to Budapest where she hopes to learn Hungarian "well enough [so] that the shopkeepers won't notice that I am American." National Museum, said being Hungarian was "a success story, albeit with lots of sacrifices." Magyar emphasized that Hungarians founded a state and managed to protect it despite repeated invasions by Tatars, the Ottomans, the Germans and the Russians. Magyar described the 1848 revolution as "the liberal breakthrough," because it earned Hungarians rights, dignity and freedom. It also gave way to independence, freedom of the press, and uniform taxation. In Brief ...... Three earn AHF service award NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ - The American Hungarian Foundation recently announced that three individuals will receive its 2004 Distinguished Service Award. The awards will be presented during the AHF’s 41st annual Carousel Ball to be held May I at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Brunswick. Those to be honored are: Marjorie Kler Freeman, a founder of East jersey Olde Towne; New Jersey State Senator Bob Smith; and Robert Yager, formerly of IBM’s International Division. For more information about the Carousel Ball, contact the AHF at 732-846- 5777. Roma riots break out in Slovakia from The Budapest Sun RIOTS broke out in eastern Slovakia following recent government measures to cut state benefits which directly affect Romani families, including Hungarian Rumungro citizens. Shops were looted during one disturbance. Events have since taken on a more serious tone as the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and the Center for Roma Rights Slovakia (CRRS) have alleged that approximately 240 police officers raided the Romani community in Trebisov (Tőketerebes) in the early morning hours of Feb. 24. Allegedly, officers indiscriminately entered Roma houses “without authorization and often kicked in doors”: assaulted Romani with truncheons: and used electric cattle prods on some, including minors. Hungarians gather to commemorate their nation’s founding fathers 11 Willi« Phi Life, April 2004
