Calvin Synod Herald, 1998 (98. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1998-01-01 / 1. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD- * -AMERIKAI MAGYAR REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA uuu HUNGARY! HISTORY! HOPE! To Be Magyar Means a Distinct Walk of Life BY THE EDITOR The most unjust of all post-war treaties of history was the Treaty of Trianon. The ancient Nation of Hungary, unwillingly compelled into a horrible war, was tom into pieces. Two-thirds of her land and one-third of Magyar people of her territories were forcefully transferred to the Succession States around, called 'new democratic' States. This odious Treaty till this day was never ratified by the United States Congress. In the mirror of most recent researches there are 16 million Magyars on earth today, which parallels the number of Jews on this globe. Eleven million Magyars live in the homeland and five million scattered outside of the nation. Out of the 16 million Jews, three-and-a-half million live in their homeland and twelve-and-a-half million are scattered in Diaspora. In sharp contrast, four million Magyars are forced to live under unwanted Succession State rule on territories, where their own forefathers lived for over one thousand years. Magyar migrations - indeed - have featured distinctive traits, dissimilar to any other in human history. Attila József, the great Hungarian poet, said in the beginning of the century: "One and a half million of our countrymen staggered out of the homeland into America". The phrase was rightfully chosen! We, Hungarians, have not really immigrated to the American Continent by choice like the Anglo-Saxons. We were driven out by compelling forces of history. We are dissimilar to the Anglo-Saxon majority. There were four mighty waves of migration of our history. First of them at the end of the last century. Simple working men were driven out of Hungary by the thousands into America because of the intolerable economic conditions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. All of them men, leaving their families behind. They were all intent on returning to their families after acquiring enough dollars in America to purchase a few acres of land back in Hungary. They are the ones who organized all our first churches and built our first church buildings here, starting in Cleveland in 1891. The end of World War 1 with Trianon brought on the second wave of migration. By that time, the drastically-changed historic events made those who staggered out with the first wave immigrants in the new land. They brought over their families to join them here, instead of going back themselves. Two-thirds of the Nation given to others around swelled the waves of those, who again 'staggered out' from the homeland. The end of World War II forced the Nation under Russian occupation and communistic rule. The third wave of migration brought thousands of "Displaced Persons" staggering through the Western European countries finally to America. Then in 1956, after the Russian armies crushed the glorious Hungarian Freedom- Fight, the fourth wave of migration staggered out and ended up here in America. Refugees came by the thousands, sponsored by our churches. We have become people living in Diaspora. Dispersed people, living so badly scattered, do develop a unique road of travelling, that is very distinct. Bennünk nagyságos erők várnak, Hogy életre ébredjenek, Bennünk egy szép ország rejtőzik. Tietek vagyok, mindegy most már, Hogy nem kellek, vagy kellek-e, Egy a Napunk, gyönyörű égen, Jaj, hogy elfed a Naptól néha A gonoszság fellege." Since our readers are bilingual we do not always bother with translations! OOQ AN EPOCHAL DAY IN HUNGARIAN HISTORY: MARCH 15, 1848 (from Sisa’s Spirit of Hungary) The most dramatic events of March 15th took place in Budapest while Louis Kossuth was in Vienna. The hero was not Kossuth, the main actor in the revolutionary drama, but an uninvited supporting actor in the person of the poet Sándor Petőfi. Among all the literary lights who illuminated Hungary at that time, Petőfi was the youngest and the most brilliant. If the others - including Ferenc Kazinczy, Daniel Berzsenyi, Joseph Katona and the two Kisfaludy brothers who had preceded him, and his contemporaries such as Mor Jókai, Janos Arany, Mihály Tompa and Mihály Vörösmarty - were like starts shining in the Hungarian firmament, Petőfi was a comet shooting across the sky with the radiance of his powerful poetry. Never were his words delivered with more dramatic effect than on March 15,1848, when they became the overture to revolution. On the morning of March 15th, Petőfi and his friend, Mor Jókai, addressed a group of young men who had assembled in the Cafe Pilvax and who would later become known as the Youth of March (a márciusi ifjak). Aroused by the clarion calls for the rebirth of the nation, they were ready to start freeing it from its chains. Jókai spoke first. He read a proclamation echoing Kossuth’s 12 points, and thunderous applause followed each one. But this was only a prelude to the ecstasy created when Petőfi stepped forward and declaimed his Nemzeti Dal (National Song): Talpra magyar, hi a haza! Itt az idő, most vagy soha! Rabok legyünk, vagy szabadok? Ez a kérdés, válasszatok! A magyarok Istenére Esküszünk, Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább Nem leszünk! Magyars, rise, your country calls you! Meet this hour, whatever befalls you! Shall we freemen be, or slaves? Choose the lot your spirit craves! By Hungary? s holy God Do we swear, Do we swear, that servile chains We will no more bear! I
