Magyar Hírek, 1987 (40. évfolyam, 1-23. szám)
1987-11-03 / 21. szám
Two thousand years of the history of Villány wines On the Southern slope of the West- East line of Siklós range of hills, where the hills merge into the Drava valley, a highway divides the slopes from the flat land. Villány is situated there where vines there grown already thousand years ago. The Mediterranean climate of these southerly slopes already prompted the Romans to plant vines. According to the chronicles this was done during the reign of Emperor Probus. In the course of the centuries the district figured under several names thus, for instance, around 1300 as Viliam, then Vykam and still later as Wylyan. It is also possible, however, that the town was named after the land-owner family of Villjanis, who settled there in the 1360s. Wine figures prominently in the story. The Turks for instance, whose religion made taking a drop a sin, allowed Serbs to settle there to help boost revenues in the 16th — 17th centuries during their occupancy. The highest title paid by the people of Villány and the neighbouring communities amounted to eight hundred Hungarian pints. Even if little is known of the quality of the wines in that period the size of the tax suggests that the red wine of Villány was in demand. After the Turkish rule a new town was built to replace the old destroyed Villány. This was higher up on the hill where is still is. % The vintage at Villány is a great event every year, even if the severe hail damage suffered this year does not allow one to look forward to it with unalloyed joy. People flock to the vinyards of the district not only from various parts of Hungary, but many come to see the spectacular event from abroad. King Matthias Corvinus is said to have imported the red grapes from Burgundy. In the 19th century the phylloxera destroyed the vines of Hungary, but they were soon replanted. Presently the Pannon - vin enterprise markets most of the wines of district, but many small privately owned vineyards also produce considerable quantities. Some of these market red wines of excellent quality under their own label. In spite of considerable mechanization wine production is hard work even today and it is carried on mostly by wine growers, who inherited the art from their parents and grandparents. In the old days the town crier announced the start of the vintage by beating his drum. Nowadays town council sends written notice to the wine growers asking that as many as possible should open their cellars to visitors: “. . . we would be pleased if everyone would do his share in receiving guests for the common cause, the principal objective of which is to further the reputation of Villány wines. About 1,500 — 2,000 guests are expected to come to our town, therefore the wine growers should be sure that they have suitable quantities of glasses and other necessary things for the wine tasting. Let us honour with a cheerful reception those, who would like to know about our customs, and who therefore honour us with their attention...” LÁSZLÓ KÁCS0R FROM MUD DOMES TO CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE Some people use mud only for slinging; others just wave their hand with contempt at the sight of the whitewashed adobe walls of our predecessors even though many of them would gladly have them as a week-end cottage. There would also be people, who would prefer to put the documents collected by László Kunkovács into the boxcoffins of museum stores amongst the thousands of fading photographs and slides. Luckily, this movingly beautiful collection of photographs travels from exhibition to exhibition fulfilling its mission. It is an eye-opener and a bridge between bygone days and the present. It teaches history and is a source of pride, inspiring action. Most of the old homes Kunkovács photographed had only a single room, a small dome. They could not compete with the dome of the sky, yet were still its terrestrial likeness. These ancient homes were small-scale models of the visible world on spacecraft Earth. Eternal basic forms, simple, primeval shapes, dominate László Kunkovács’s collection, some arching in two directions, others conical, or resembling combinations of complicated shellstructures. The oldest Hungarian homes were portable felt tents of light structure. Herodot described such tents, later Huns dwelt in them, and so did Avars, Cumans and Tartars. The first homes, indeed even the first round churches, of the land-taking Hungarians were most likely also such yurts made permanent and immovable using earth as a building material. The order of Saint Stephen the King that churches must be built of stone or brick could not be carried out overnight. The first churches as well as homes in that age were probably built of rushes. The roof beams fixed onto the circular wall arched over the family hearth. They were bent to form a dome, covered with rushes and daubing. Using the technique of bent rods homes of 6 - 10 meter diameter could be built without internal support. This structural feats deserves credit even today. Why they disappeared nobody knows. Perhaps it was an undesirable remembrance of pagan days. The memory of this ingenious, material saving dome construction later survived only as the building method of large earthenware ovens and round pigstyes. And it also survived in the mud dome interiors of kitchens without chimneys. The flames of family fires danced under dome-shaped sleeve chimneys made of rushes and daub, opening onto the sky. The bread was also baked in domeshaped ovens, either inside the house or in the yard. If one placed small, round buildings around a dome-shaped oven the result would be a model of a village in the age of Saint Stephen the King: a church at the centre surrounded by the domes of homes. History? No. Much more than that. Young people, architecture students, draw in the exhibition room. Their first works, models of small week — and cottages, suggest that they have been touched by something of the message of the hitherto slighted courtyards of homesteads in the Plains. Living past T That is a hackneyed commonplace. Living reality! After so many years it seems that Hungarian architecture is getting back its heart. That is not possible without journeys of discovery, without Kunkovács and hislike, without real experience. I wonder how many generations will have to set out still, the way ethnographers, ethnomusicologists and architects set out on their field trips around 1900, in order to make all of us aware that we are the harbingers of eternal values, of laws, that are valid for all time, including those built into simple mud domes - which return defying decay. GYÖRGY CSETE PHOTO: LÁSZLÓ KUNKOVACS 31
