The Glowing Past
May 26, 2008
. . . Let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been deposed; some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives; some sleeping kill’d.
- William Shakespeare, Richard II.
W. B. Forster Bovill: Hungary and the Hungarians, 1908 - CHAPTER I
THE GLOWING PAST
“The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes - and ships - and sealing wax -
Of cabbages - and kings.” -Lewis Carroll
The Magyar enjoys retrospect. The songs of today are unsung; the books of today remain unread; the men of today, save in the arena of politics, are unknown.
What Does it Mean to be Hungarian?
April 15, 2008
Because I could never feel inside of myself, what it means to be Hungarian, I have asked hundreds of Hungarians, in the East, West, North, and South, of the Country, “What does it mean to be Hungarian?” Read more »
Rebuilt, and Rebuilt Again
April 15, 2008
In the mid 70’s I had a colleague in university named Bill Dabas. He used to drink a certain ice tea that came in a green can (He used to collect the cans so we could say Dabas liked to collect the Doboz [Hungarian for can] as a little play on words). He would stack the cans against the wall of his dormitory room. Read more »
Hungarian Humanism
March 27, 2008
How does humanism reveal itself in Hungarian history and civilization?
Hungarians have always been known for their thirst for knowledge: an important humanistic attribute. Their attitude towards foreign cultures has always been that of sympathetic curiosity: they accepted their inspiration and adapted them to their own tastes. Read more »
Defenders of Christian Europe?
March 27, 2008
Hungarians like calling themselves the “Defenders of Christian Europe’ for having fought the eastern and southern pagan aggressors for a thousand years. Read more »
Attitude Toward Life
March 27, 2008
The proverbial Magyar dissension and lack of perseverance are probably the legacy of those Turkic tribes which frequently formed short-lived nomadic empires bent on the conquest of the world and soon in collapse for no apparent reason. The dreamy, unrealistic optimism, the expectation of miracles is, perhaps, a tradition handed over by the stargazing poets of Mesopotamia. Read more »
Origins of the Hungarian Ethos
March 22, 2008
The original tribal Hungarians developed a durable and strong national identity at the earliest stage of the Hungarian migrations. The original tribal group, which had set out on these migrations during the last millennium B.C., formed a viable nucleus for the future nation. Read more »
“Real” Hungarians Don’t Exist
March 22, 2008
The Hungarians who settled in the Carpathian basin represented a composite, multi-racial, multi-cultural and multilingual nation. This complexity was the result of prolonged contacts of varying intensity with many European and Asian races and cultures during the centuries of the Hungarian migrations. Read more »
Mile Posts of Hungarian History
January 26, 2006
Appetizer to Hungarian History
January 26, 2006
For half a century beginning in 899, the Magyars — the name Hungarians call themselves — ravaged Europe. Fierce horsemen from the East, they penetrated German lands, northern Italy and France. An ardent prayer of the time implores, “From the arrows of the Hungarians, O Lord, deliver us.” “La Chanson de Roland” calls them “breeds of Satan.” Read more »
Ethnicity
January 24, 2006
On the map Hungary appears as a non-Slavic wedge separating the southern Slavs (Bulgarians and the peoples of the former Yugoslavia) from those of the north - the Czechs, Slovaks and Poles. As a non-Slavic people surrounded mostly by Slavs, Hungarians sometimes feel like lonely outsiders. Read more »
Christian Heritage?
January 23, 2006
Christianity was first introduced to the Magyar people through a pact made by King István with the Vatican in 1000 AD. After officially declaring Hungary to be a Christian nation in order to form closer political ties to the growing West, people were given the choice to convert to Christianity or forfeit their lives.
Read more »
Budapest: a Cultural Island
January 23, 2006
The relationship of Hungarians to other people groups has been cordial since the political changes in 1989, yet Hungarians maintain a distinct separate identity culturally, historically and linguistically. Therefore, many Hungarians will say that they are a cultural “island” standing all alone in the middle of other European countries.
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Origin and Identity of Budapest People
January 23, 2006
The Hungarian people know themselves as the “Magyar” people. They call their country “Magyarország” - or the “country of the Magyar people.”
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Hungary: A Fascinating History in a Nutshell
January 23, 2006
Hungary has a fascinating history spanning several centuries and nearly two millenniums.
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Roots of Hungarian Character
January 23, 2006
The Hungarian Character
We shall find it easier to understand the history and civilization of the Hungarians, if we look at first at some interesting traits of their national character.
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Origins & Migrations of the Hungarians
January 23, 2006
The mystery of the origins of the Hungarians has been a question debated since the first appearance of the warlike nation in Central Europe. Hungarian linguists have indicated the cold, northern regions of what is Russia today as their possible birthplace. Read more »
