Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2017 (29. évfolyam, 1-50. szám)
2017-12-01 / 46. szám
AMERICAN * If & Ä jppJF A Hungarian Journal w w~" EuTliSiiUüiiliSriUüBili Advent in Hungary Advent is the period before Christmas, the four week long preparation for the holidays, the start of the ecclesiastical year. It begins on November 30, or the closest Sunday to it, and goes on until Christmas Day. No loud merriments were held in the Advent period, but as every holiday, Advent has its own customs and superstitions. Worthy of mention are the various kinds of love magic. For example, if a girl who is about to marry tears out three pieces from the bell’s rope and put them into her hair, she can count on that she would be proposed to during the carnival time. The “Holy family searches for accommodation” ritual is repeated for 9 days before the Christmas holidays. For the compliment of the Holy family, nine families join together to give accommodation and prey to the picture of the holy family starting from December 15. The matins is another Hungarian tradition, which contsists of a daily mass every dawn from the first Sunday of Advent to the first day of Christmas. This mass is called angelic or golden mass. According to belief, witches were wandering around before the mass, so the hutches and barns had to be closed before the tolling. During Advent people also used to bury money, in the belief that the money will be cleansed this way.-The first Advent wreath was made by a pastor from Hamburg in the 1800s. He hung the candleornamented halo from the ceiling. Nowadays the Advent wreath is circle shaped, mainly made from pine branches and decorated by four candles. In Catholic homes the candles are usually purple, except for the one for the third Sunday, which is pink. The candles are lit on Sundays or the night before, one candle more each week. The increasing number of lighted up candles symbolizes the increasing light, which is given by God in Christmas. On the last Sunday all four candles are lit on the Advent wreath. The custom of using the Advent calendar formed around 1900. It was started by a German mother whose little son, Gerhard, was impatient about the long awaited usual Christmas presents. The mother devised an interesting and unique game for her son. She split up a piece of hard paper into 24 parts, pinned a little piece of chocolate onto each of them, and and let the little boy eat one chocolate every day. This custom is well known and alive these days too: kids still have one small chocolate or candy from the 24-piece Advent calendar in the days leading up to Christmas Day. itshungarian.com Dmitri Hvorostovsky, 6 the Elvis of Opera5, dies at 55 Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the Russian baritone known for his velvety voice, dashing looks and shock of flowing white hair, died Wednesday at a hospice near his home in London, several years after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He was 55. Called “the Elvis of Opera” and the “Siberian Express” by some, Hvorostovsky announced in June 2015 that he had been diagnosed with the tumor. He returned to New York’s Metropolitan Opera three months later to sing the Count di Luna in Verdi’s “II Trovatore” and was greeted with a loud and lengthy ovation that caused him to break character. Musicians in the orchestra threw white roses during the curtain calls. Despite his illness, he sang in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at London’s Royal Opera that December, in Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra” and “Un Ballo in Maschera “ at the Vienna State Opera the following spring and gave bis final four staged opera performances as Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in Vienna, the last on Nov. 29 last year. He announced the following month that balance issues had caused him to cancel future opera appearances: Hvorostovsky made a dramatic unscheduled appearance at the Met in May for a gala celebrating the 50th anniversary of the company’s move to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Walking stiffly, looking thin and with his cheekbones more pronounced, Hvorostovsky received a standing ovation and lit into Rigoletto’s second-act aria “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata.” Some in the audience had tears in their eyes. His last public concerts were June 22 and 23 at the Grafenegg Festival in Austria. In September, he was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland by Russia President Vladimir Putin for contributions to the nation’s art and culture. “Words cannot express my anguish that one of the greatest voices of our time has been silenced,” tenor Placido Domingo said. “Dmitri’s incomparably beautiful voice and peerless artistry touched the souls of millions of music lovers. His passing will be mourned by his countless admirers around the world and by those of us who were fortunate to know him.” The Met dedicated Friday’s performance of Verdi’s Requiem to Hvorostovsky while the Vienna State Opera scheduled a minute of silence before Wednesday’s performance of Strauss’ “Salome.” “It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that Dmitry Hvorostovsky has died,” LA Opera tweeted. “He will be greatly missed.” Hvorostovsky was born on Oct. 16, 1962, and grew up in Krasnoyarsk, in central Siberia. He started piano lessons when he was 7, only for his first piano teacher to tell him he was untalented. At Krasnoyarsk Pedagogical School and Krasnoyarsk High School of Arts, he thrived in music, boxing and soccer. “Apart from this, I was the worst pupil in school,” he said. He became a soloist at the Krasnoyarsk Opera in 1986, won the Russian Glinka National Competition, then attracted attention by winning vocal contests at Toulouse, France, in 1988 and then Cardiff in 1989 — where he beat out Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel for the top prize. With long hair that turned prematurely silver before he was 35 and his arm tattoos, he was instantly recognizable. Hvorostovky’s public musical persona started with a rock ‘n’ roll band, when he was a teenage rebel under communism. “Ah! Freedom! So what could I do?” he remembered in a 1998 interview. “I had a few options - - to become a street fighter, or I could become a hero in front of my girlfriends.” He is survived by his wife, Florence Hvorostovsky; their son and daughter, Maxim and Nina; and twins, Alexandra and Daniel from his first marriage. latimes.com “Slavery In The 20th Century55: Hungary Corn-Prisoners Forced labor in Soviet gulag labor camps after WWII was nothing else but “slavery in the 20th century”, Bence Rétvári, state secretary for the Ministry of Human Resources, said, marking the Memorial Day of Hungarian political prisoners and forced laborers deported to the Soviet Union. By the autumn of 1944, 800,000 people, about one-twelfth of Hungary’s population, were taken from Hungary as prisoners of war or as interns for several years of forced labor for almost a quarter-century exile to the Soviet Union. According to Rétvári, this is an equivalent of today’s population of the largest cities of Hungary: Debrecen, Szeged, Pécs, Miskolc and Nyíregyháza combined. Hundreds of thousands of the deported prisoners died and never returned home, while their family members had been treated “as second-class citizens” in Hungary, said Rétvári at the central Budapest railway station, where a permanent memorial exhibition was opened in memory of the Forced labour of Hungarians in the Soviet Union, referred to as málenkij robot in Hungarian. The first group of survivors came home from the camps almost a decade later, on November 25, 1953. In 2012, this day was declared as Memorial Day for Hungarian political prisoners and forced laborers in the Soviet Union, hungarytoday.hu Open Letter November 15, 2017, Stamford The Honorable Rex Tillerson United State’s Secretary of State https://register.state.gov/contactus/contactusform Dear Mr. Tillerson, The US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DNL) announced (https://www.state.gOv/j/drl/p/ 275396.htm) that it is sending three-quarters of a million dollars to selected Hungarian media outlets to “increase citizens’ access to objective information about domestic and global issues in Hungary.” Dear Mr. Secretary, our government has no right to determine what news is “objective” in another country? Actually, Hungary has been a fully democratic country, - having several free elections since 1990 - and there is no need to attempt to influence their newspapers and broadcast media. We all know that Russia is conducting a major anti-NATO, anti-EU and anti-USA campaign in Hungary, using their hacking and other propaganda channels with the goal to discredit democracy itself. Yet, - even if we do such influencing openly, while they do it in secret -, it might still appear to some, that we are sinking to their level. No, we do not do that, we do not interfere in other nations’ internal politics. We are an example to the world, we stand for noble principles, we do not sink to the level of a former KGB officer! In a few months, the Hungarian voters will decide for themselves, if their media is sufficiently unbiased or if they need to improve their access to reliable and unbiased information? That decision is up to them! The Hungarian voters will also decide, if their government had a role in closing a newspaper or if it was turning friends into enemies by being too critical of the EU or America. They will also decide, if it is too subservient to the Russians, particularly in making Hungary energy dependent on the outdated and overly expensive Russian sources, instead of spending that money on R&D for energy independence and on developing modem technologies. We, Hungarian-Americans are particularly concerned, because there is no nation on earth, which shares the American ideals of freedom and independence to a greater extent, than the Hungarians. Remember, that it was Hungary that in 1956 mortally wounded the barbaric Communist empire and sacrificed the best 3% of her population in its attempt to gain freedom and independence. I am sure you understand, that in cases like this, we must defend the good name of our country of origin. We would be grateful, if your department would show its caring, not by trying to influence the Hungarian media, but by caring about the real concerns of the Hungarian people. For example, you could support the media and the native language education of the Hungarian minorities in the surrounding countries. That would be much appreciated by the Hungarian-American community and would leave the decision on the objectivity of the Hungarian media, to the Hungarian voters. Respectfully yours, Béla Lipták, Founder of the Hungarian Lobby Liptakbela@aol.com Kérem a Magyar Lobbi azon résztvevőit, akik egyetértenek alábbi levelemmel, hogy saját szavaikkal küldjenek, írjanak leveleket a külügyminiszter úrnak a következő címre: https://register.state.gov/contactus/contactusform A Magyar Lobbi résztvevőinek száma 1511. A lobbiba mindenki csak ÖNMAGA iratkozhat fel, más személy Önt, vagy Ön más személyt, fel nem irathat! Feliratkozni itt tud: https://groups.google.com/forum/lHforum/hungarian-lobby/join memorates Gulag December 1,2017
