Bányai Balázs - Kovács Eleonóra (szer.): A"Zichy-expedíció"- Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. A. sorozat 48. (Székesfehérvár, 2013)
The "Zichy Expedition"
THE SZENTMIHÁLY BRANCH, EARLY YEARS OF JENŐ ZICHY 195 jor role in the building of railroads in Hungary and founded several monetary and insurance institutions in Vienna and Budapest. Among other things, he had interests in the Southern Railway Company, he built railways in his lands in Bihar for wood- and chalk-transport34 and was president of the directorate of the Anker Insurance Company.35 Beside his enterprises he was famous for his collection of Eastern arts in Vienna, in fact he became the founder of the “Oriental Museum”. Ödön (Edmund) Zichy was not only a collector, but a real scholar of art. He was one of the most well-known figures of musical and artistical movements in the Austrian capital, that is why he became member of the curatorium of the Kunstverein.36 Zichy initiated and strongly supported the Austro-Hungarian expedition to the North Pole, that started in 1872 with the goal of finding the northeastern passage to the Far East. They did not find the passage but they discovered a formerly unknown island group, which today bears the name “Franz Josef Land” and one of its islands was named after Zichy.37 The wide range of interest of the count can be seen in his many publications: he wrote and edited many books and studies about railway, big exhibitions, artistical life in Hungary, history, heraldry and sports.38 After his death in Vienna in 1894, his body was brought to Hungary, where it was “given over to eternal rest” in Zichyfalva.39 His son Jenő Zichy was born in 1837 in Szentmihály (today: Sárszentmihály) as the third son in the family.40 He finished his high school studies in the High School of the Cistercians in Székesfehérvár. After that he studied law in Germany.41Beside his travels in Western Europe, his curiosity towards the East was known from his early ages on. He was not even twenty years old when he travelled the Caucasus with the sons of István Széchenyi, Béla and Ödön.42 In 1858 he visited the Balcan countries and the Greek islands with Béla Széchenyi again. He returned to Hungary in 1860 and settled down in his birthhouse in Szentmihály. In 1865 the manor from the 18th century was expanded and connected with the chapel next to it, and another floor was added to it.43 The manor was expanded in 1865 because that year Jenő Zichy married countess Hermin Redern, born in Berlin.44 In the letters of the Count his house in Pest, in Szép street, is also mentioned. In 1860 Franz Josef released the October Diploma, which restarted the work of the constitutional institutions and so the law-enforcement, too. After that the young Jenő Zichy worked as a county judge in the Sármellék district. This office was soon replaced by a more important one: in the parlementai elections in 1861 he, with his 23 years, was elected an MP for the Bodajk district.45 His first office as a politician was cut short, however, by the violent dissolution of the National Assembly and the new age of dictatorship.
