É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.

ORMOS, István: Goldziher's Mother Tongue: A Contribution to the Study of the Language Situation in Hungary in the Nineteenth Century

ISTVÁN ORMOS marriage, is also in Hungarian: "Szegény mama tépte le! "'[Poor mother tore it off!]'

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2 The testimony of a relative The prolific essayist, literary and cultural historian Géza Hegedűs (1912-1999), a relative of Goldziher's,

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" who may have seen him a few times as a child,

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4 said, l

7" Goldziher, Tagebuch.... 90. 17

1 His great grandfather was the brother of Goldziher's father: his maternal grandmother, Szidónia Goldzieher, was the daughter of Mihály (Michael) Goldzieher. Mihály Goldzieher (d. 1871) had four children: Géza (b. 1861), Szidónia (b. 1862), Gyula (b. 1866) and Emil (b. 1870). Szidónia was also the cousin of Ignaz Goldziher; she married David Sonnenfeld in 1882. The bridegroom was thirty and the bride twenty. Hegediis, Előjátékok... 40, 137; Id.. Egy jól nevelt fiatalember..., 233. On the Goldziher/Goldzieher family cf. id., Előjátékok.., 137-215. It is not possible to trace this line in the type-written draft of the family chronicle: The Diaspora of a Hungarian Family: The Goldziehers. Draft, Washington 1998. Hegediis relates many interesting details of the history of the Goldziher/Goldzieher family - how reliable his facts are, is another question. Thus, for instance, he traces the origins of the family back to Fernando Torquedor/Turquedor, a Spanish Dominican friar, who came to Altona in 1570 to fight the Protestant heresy in Germany, but was in due course converted to Lutheranism. A devout and ardent theologian, he moved to Switzerland, where he in turn became converted to Calvinism. As a Calvinist he went to Transylvania in Hungary, where, under the Latin name of Ferdinandus Aurifex, he became an ardent follower of Unitarianism. One of his sons, Gersonius Aurifex, himself an ardent theologian, converted to Sabbatarianism in Transylvania - the dividing lines between this branch of extreme Protestantism and Judaism are sometimes blurred. When Sabbatarianism became subject to persecution following the death of Prince Gábor Bethlen (1629), the Aurifex family fled to Holland, resuming their old Spanish name, Torquedor. One of their descendants then moved to Germany and translated the family name to Goldziher. Hegediis, Előjátékok..., 138-140. A somewhat different version of this story is current in another branch of the family. It runs: "Their [= our ancestors'] name was Tiradoro, and they were Sephardic Jews who lived in Toledo, Spain, in the late fifteenth century. Esperanza was the dueiia (governess) of the infantes, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella's children. Her relatives made the gold filaments for the region's famous filigree jewelry, sword hilts, and other objets d'art. When the persecution of the Jews started, one of Esperanza's brothers converted to Roman Catholicism and was ordained priest. With his help some family members escaped from Spain. They migrated to Germany, where they translated their name to Goldzieher, and started our extraordinary family. Esperanza's name runs through generations of the Hamburg branch. Those who stayed behind became marahos, practicing Catholicism in public while observing Jewish religious traditions in private. Because they failed to contribute large sums to the royal coffers, they were denounced to the Inquisition. The priest was put to death, and the rest of the family fled from Spain." The Diaspora of a 240