Hungarian Heritage Review, 1989 (18. évfolyam, 1-9. szám)
1989-01-01 / 1. szám
A HUNGARIAN ORIENTALIST AND THE ENGLISH ALEXANDER CSOMA DE KOROS is the founder of European Tibetology, the author of the first dictionary and the first grammar book of the classical Tibetan language, published in Calcutta in 1834 under the auspices of the Asiatic Society of Bengal with the financial assistance of the British government of India. He is also the author of many erudite works on various aspects of Tibetan civilization, history, literature, geography, medicine, philosophy, and religion written during his residence in Calcutta, where he was assistant librarian, and edited the Journal of the Asiatic Society. The works lay the foundations of an entirely new branch of Orientalism. He was born in 1784 in a little village of Transylvania called Koros (hence his name), the son of a poor Hungarian peasant-soldier. He was sent in 1799 to the famous Protestant College of Nagyenyed by his parents who hoped he could become a minister of the Calvinist Church, the main Church in his native province. The first years of the 19th century were the time when the peoples of the Austrian empire began to awaken from a long state of lethargy. This period is comparable with the Italian “Risorgimento”. The Hungarians, chafing under the yoke, and recalling their glorious history, rediscovered their own identity, and therefore were eager to recover their national independence, to be a free nation again as at the time of Saint Stephen, John Hunyadi, or Matthias Corvin. An atmosphere of patriotic enthusiasm prevailed in all the intellectual circles of the kingdom, especially in Transylvania which always was the most active center of Hungarian nationalism. Under such circumstances it is obvious that the young Csorna could not be indifferent to the general movement issued both from the literary romanticism and from the ideas of the French revolution. Willing to have a part in the national revival but being somewhat eccentric, he wanted his part to be a very special one. He decided he would dedicate his life to the uncommon problem of the mysterious origin of the Hungarians. This is the reason why, instead of preparing to become a clergyman as he had intended to be in the beginning, he took steps to become not only an Orientalist, but also a traveler. He understood he must go to the almost totally unknown countries of high Asia where he thought the ancestors of his nation came from long ago, under the name of the Huns. To carry out his project under the best possible conditions, he learned a number of languages, both European and Oriental. Meanwhile, he trained himself to withstand heat and cold, fatigue and privations of any kind; in a word, he tried and succeeded in becoming a man of the purest ascetic temper, capable of leading the most austere life without complaint. Moreover, he spared every penny he could, renouncing all the joys of life, in order to be able to travel as far as the very heart of Asia without any official assistance. As he was very poor, he began to earn his way as a teacher in his own college, but being a studious pupil, in 1816 he received a scholarship to go on with his studies in a foreign university. It is worth noting that this scholarship came from funds given in the early 18th century by English Protestants to help the Hungarian Protestants of Transylvania, who suffered great disasters during the ‘ ‘war of Rákóczi”. So that Alexander Csorna de Koros was the first student of Nagyenyed to receive this English scholarship. The University of Gottingen, where he was sent, was a German school, it is true, but it had been founded by King George II of England who was also the dukeelector of Hannover. In Csoma’s time, King George III was still officially the “protector” of this famous school, so that Gottingen was regarded as an “English” university. For this reason Csorna began to learn the English language, though he thought he would never have a need for it. He had not intended to go to an Englishspeaking country and he did not foresee that he would live for several years in India. His English teachers were Georg Friedrich Benecke, professor of ancient German, and Johann Doiminik Fiorillo, professor of arts. From November 1819 to July 1822 he traveled to Asia with the intention of reaching Mongolia, but, being unable to cross the Russian Empire for lack of an official passport, he had to take a by-way through the Turkish Empire. Taking therefore a longer way by the south, he arrived in Baghdad in July 1820, where he was accommodated by an Austrian merchant of Czech origin Anton Swoboda, who was also “under British protection”, because the greatest part of his goods were coming from India on ships in British bottoms. Swoboda was in permanent relation with the British resident of the East India Company, Claudius James Rich. When he saw that his Hungarian guest was poor, he suggested that he write a letter to Rich explaining his difficulties, showing the scientific interest of his bold enterprise, and ask for some support. Csorna sent the letter, but Rich was not in Baghdad at the time, so that it was received by his private secretary Charles A. Bellino, an Orientalist and one — continued next page JANUARY 1989 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 17
