In the late nineties, you and Ajándok Eőry were pioneers in this country in healing the poor. Did the two of you go to the people in need?

Initially, Ajándok Eőry, then a biologist, started working as a naturopath among the poor and later joined the homeless care service of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta. When I met him, he had just started medical university as a family man. I started working with him as a medical student: we used to drive an old German ambulance, through the woods and squares of Buda, collecting people in crisis and taking them to hospitals. At that time my knowledge was fresh, and I had a much more plastic picture of medicine, I could deal with an internal medicine case more easily. Ophthalmology came into the mission later: as part of an academic initiative, we started to carry out medical examinations in small villages in Nógrád County, and we provided spectacles to the visually impaired. From there, we started our "Sight without Borders" program (“Látás határok nélkül”) in the areas beyond Hungary’s borders, as well as our "As far as the eye can see" („Látás határok nélkül” ) preventive medicine program inside the borders of Hungary. At that time we worked with the Maltese, but later we set up our own association. Today, we cannot even count the hundreds of thousands of people we have reached.

Your medical group brought together dedicated doctors from several specialties.

The Hajnalfény Medical Group is special in that nearly ten professions are represented with some regularity in the critical areas. We set up an inflatable tent where we carry out physical examinations and start the patient's journey with a targeted diagnosis. Today we have tools that go beyond the level of primary care. We took photos of patients' skin lesions with a mobile phone, and our colleague in Budapest would analyse the pictures. The identification rate was 70-80 percent, as was the therapeutic guidance, accordingly.

But for the team to really come together, tragedies such as the Asian earthquakes, the tsunami, and the war in Lebanon had to happen in the world.

We represented Hungary in these areas, in cooperation with civilians. It was interesting to see that in the Islamic world, the people who helped were mostly there through some kind of Christian organization.

These were temporary missions, but we realized there that there are similarly desperate situations at home, in Hungary, too, however, those cannot be measured on the Richter scale. From the very beginning, all our programs include eye examinations since identifying and supporting children with visual problems is essential to their studies and development.

Does social security not support access to glasses for children in need?

No, it doesn’t, and no decision-maker has yet managed to achieve this. We are the ones who must have these glasses made and delivered to the villages. Sometimes these are not financially wise decisions but we said that even if our mission is not profitable, we will do it. Like in the case of our last trip to Transylvania: we didn't even have enough company funding for fuel.

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One of the tents of the Hajnalfény Medical Group - Photo: Hajnalfény Medical Group Association's social media page

Can cheap reading glasses from drugstores be bad for your eyes?

The ones you get in a drugstore do not match your biometric data. The easiest way to understand this is to consider the asymmetry of our bodies as a law that pervades all life.

Our two eyes should be considered two separate organs.

So these ready-made glasses are not made for us, they are only good when you just grab them out of your packet to look at something but they can cause autonomic nervous system disorders with regular use. People in need select their frames and, based on biometric measurements, the lenses are made, put in the frames, and returned to them.

How quickly did the members of the Medical Group become reliable, equipped helpers?

Very quickly, because the core of the group remained the same from the beginning, thus it developed very quickly. There's a dynamic when a team comes together.

Are there young people joining the Group?

Interestingly enough, very few. Their attitude is very different from what ours used to be. This kind of charitable attitude is slowly disappearing from young people, people have become more egoistic. Today, a graduate student's vision includes a PhD, a career and money. It is difficult for them to see how this kind of charitable energy comes back to them in their work, but we see that it gives us a lot of strength back. We advertised for university members, but very few people applied. Maybe the university education is to blame too: narrow specialists are being trained, young people who think in algorithms, and thus have a weaker ability to solve problems and connect with people. As fresh graduates, we used to go to the slums without a background diagnostic park. It was deep water then, with deep dives: we were confronted with rare diseases that we had to understand and process there and then.

Have there been any dramatic incidents during the missions?

There always are, but the most harrowing experience was in Transylvania, in a home for the most severely disabled children in the area. Several of them were brought back from the dead several times. The only sign that they perceive that they are being cared for is the smile the nurses assume they have. It was moving to see those eleven or so little children full of cannulas.

There I felt that should those Transylvanian nurses give five minutes of their lives to each and every person living on the globe, the whole of humanity would be different.

I saw many desperate situations, but this was the most shocking.

Have you ever felt so sorry for anyone that you invited them to your doctor’s office in Budapest?

There have been many such cases. One of the important milestones in the development of our program was to take patients with serious conditions by hand and bring them into our own institutions. After screening for colon and rectal cancer, our abdominal surgeon operated on the patients who were screened at the National Institute of Oncology and saved them from death. Our dermatologists and cardiologists have also been in contact with those in need. These things still work like this, even today.

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Photo: Hajnalfény Medical Group Association's social medis page

Were you still a university student when you first went to Transylvania?

No. When I was a child I went with my parents. But what I remember most from those times ('70s) is the experience of deprivation.  Later, as a university student, I returned with a cultural hunger, and since then I've been going there with the medical group several times a year. In Transylvania, there are still communities that are even more disadvantaged than those in Hungary.

When we meet a patient, we need to give a general picture of their physical and mental condition, and then pass it on to the specialist care there, which can take the work forward locally. Such a health screening involves a lot of quick decisions. The team that I work with has mastered the philosophy of this way of working and is very used to making professional and rapid assessments and decisions.

You are, involuntarily, holding up a mirror to the professionals in the state health care system. Do your actions bother local doctors, is there a rivalry between you?

It’s true that our presence shows the shortcomings of primary and specialist care, but I always think that we can do better, even if we have to change our methodology. The fact that in many places in Hungary, blood pressure treatment works by prescribing drugs on the basis of a single measurement without laboratory control is not medical care to me.

The essence of healing is to look at the patient as a whole.

Vision control also means that a nearsighted child who gets minus 2 dioptres at the age of 4 and sees well with them will not see the same way later: if you don't follow them, they will get stuck with what you prescribed then and it won't meet their needs later.

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László Szalai – Photo: Zoltán Pitrolffy

Ajándok Eőry based his philosophy of helping on providence and the love of Jesus. What do you base it on?

This is what we all base it on. When I started this, I was first taken by the freedom of healing: to heal with the joy of freedom. Of course, there were drawbacks: I was on my own, and inevitably I had to be connected to the rigid, well-trodden paths of the healthcare system. Later, I was touched by the power of charity: you help and you get re-energized by it – we must make this good energy work in us.

What will you be when you grow up, Emil?

Emil Karáth Jr.: Some kind of biologist.

A marine biologist perhaps, like your father? Are you also attracted to the deep?

Jr.: My parents took me to swimming lessons from a very early age, later on, I learned to dive and passed the diving exam. I did my first open-water dive two years ago in the Maldives, so it is indeed possible that I would like to do marine biology.

Emil Karáth Sr.: When teaching him to swim diving wasn't the priority, but rather the water safety. Mostly because of a bad childhood experience I had, I wanted them to learn to swim as soon as possible.

When you were a little boy and accidentally got sucked down a drain in a pool and almost died...

Sr.: No, that’s a different story. When I was four, I fell out of the rubber ring in Lake Balaton, I could barely breathe, and I was drifting in the deep water, till I was pulled out. On the shore, I was turned upside down like in a cartoon to cough up the excess water. I didn't want that to happen to my children.

Do you think that maybe the trauma made you want to regain control of the water and this got you into marine biology?

Sr.: Maybe… Not consciously, that's for sure, but the fact is that I almost drowned twice. People thought that I would never even put my toe into the water again but in the end, it was not traumatic.

You have just returned from your first trip to Tanzania together, which you described as a trip about regenerative tourism. What does that mean?

Sr.: In the summer of 2021, while volunteering, I met a professor of biology who is setting up a coral gene bank in Tanzania.

For example, if a coral reef is destroyed for some reason on any coastline in East Africa, the gene bank can be used by experts to rebuild the reef.

We set up a coral nursery, which has been expanding ever since. The professor gave a presentation at a conference on, among other things, the development of a new kind of tourism. In the case of "classic tourism", we do not pay attention to how much trash we leave behind, or how much we damage our environment. With ecotourism, we pay more attention to our environment, to avoid leaving a big ecological footprint if possible. And the point of regenerative tourism is that when you go somewhere, you have a positive impact on the area you are visiting. The corals we strung up in the nursery will only become coral reefs decades from now, I won't even see them, but my children and their generation will. So I wanted them to get involved in this work.

Jr.: So during our ten-day trip, we contributed to the conservation of the underwater world around the small island by expanding the coral nursery, giving the tiny corals a chance to breed in a protected environment. Together with the kids, we cleaned up the stretch of beach near where we lived.

Did you know the people you went on the trip with before?

Jr.: The first time I met the boys was when we went to the dive shop to buy their equipment, and we became good friends on the plane. Four of us flew from Budapest and the others joined us in Dar Es Salaam. From there we flew together to Mafia Island. In total, there were five children and three adults. One of the boys was 14 years old like me, two 16-year-old boys and an 18-year-old girl were also with us.

How did they find your program?

Sr.: After our interview appeared on kepmas.hu, one of the mothers read the article about me. She contacted me because her son and his best friend used to go to a nature conservation kids camp but as they turned 16 they had "grown out of it". He found the program exciting. So the boys wanted to join us. But for those interested, all the information can be found on our association's website anyway.

How do you remember the arrival?

Jr.: We were travelling for a whole day.

Our first accommodation was in a baobab tree, where there was only electricity until 4 pm, and we had to light the kerosene burner with fire to have hot water for showers.

When we arrived on the island of Chole, we visited the nearby village and the local school. It was interesting to see that here the girls sat separately from the boys, as the coastal part of the country is Muslim. After that, an elderly woman took us to a muddy beach where she was rotting the coconut fibre that is used to make the rope for the coral nursery. She showed us the process that goes into making a rope. It was interesting to see how a coconut eventually becomes a thick rope.

Sr.: I wanted them to see this process before we go underwater so that they’d have an idea of how we are preparing for coral restoration. We will be attaching tiny but healthy pieces of coral to these ropes. It is important to us that the materials used in the coral nurseries are made from natural materials, but also that the women of the island have a job through this.

Jr.: The next day, my dad and I got up earlier than the others because we went to a place where fishermen had blown up the reef earlier. We wanted to find usable, healthy pieces of coral for the nursery. When we got home, the others were having breakfast.

What did you eat?

Sr.: Seafood, fish, rice, fruit, vegetables, and we even tasted the fruit of the baobab tree – on top of the muesli. It doesn't have much taste, but it's rich in vitamins and minerals.

How did you start coral restoration?

Jr.: We broke the corals into pieces the size of a finger and placed them on the coconut rope a palm width from each other. We worked in teams, one holding the rope and measuring the distance, the other inserting the coral into the rope. Then we took them underwater and attached them to bamboo poles.

Sr.: The coral nursery actually looks like a huge underwater clothes rack.

What other programs have you participated in?

Jr.: For example, we went to the blue lagoon, which was a place where everything was determined by the tide. When we got there, the problem was that the water was still very shallow and the boat got stuck.

Sr.: We arrived 15 minutes before high tide. The kids jumped out, as they too had to push the not-so-small boat. It was an adventure!

Jr.: The next day we collected red "mangrove seeds" in waist-deep water.

Sr.: Mangrove is used by the locals as building material and fuel.

But what is very important is that this plant binds five times as much carbon dioxide as our forests, and if, say, a tsunami were to hit, the trees would slow the waves, so there would be less damage to the settlement.

Jr.: In the evenings, we listened to lectures where dad shared interesting information about the ecology of mangrove forests and their important role in the carbon cycle. It was interesting to learn that mangroves reproduce by dropping small plantlets into the mud where they grow roots. So we got involved in mangrove planting, too.

What was your best experience?

Jr.: It's hard to choose, but swimming with the whale sharks was special.

Is their migration route there?

Sr.: The world's largest marine fish spend their time there between September and March. Of course, they are not there by magic, the area is one of the stops on their migration route. Every time we went out, they were there.

Jr.: We were very lucky! On the first day, we saw some that were up to 15 meters long. They were very fast, but when Anna and I swam past the head of one of the whale sharks, it spotted us and slowed down so we could swim together. It was a really nice one! One time they surrounded dad, almost in a yin-yang formation, and it looked like they were so close they were about to squash him, but in reality, it was something completely different.

How do you swim with a whale shark?

Jr.: Not everyone knows the rules. You have to be at least 2 meters from it. On the first day, the professor told us how to behave when swimming with whale sharks.

Sr.: Unfortunately, not everyone abides by the ethics of swimming with whale sharks.

Jr.: The rule is that there can be a maximum of ten people around the animal because they are disturbed by the bustle.

You organized the programs within the recently formed Kids For The Oceans Association. What else does this organization do?

Sr.: Within the association, we would like to launch an educational program for primary and secondary school students entitled "Dive with us".

These one-lesson-long lectures would fill a gap, as children do not learn about these ecological processes at all in school.

We believe it is important that students have access to up-to-date information on sustainability and the environment. The 45-minute sessions will give children a unique insight into the world of the seas: they will be able to dive with us into the depths of the sea using VR glasses. This will allow many students who might not otherwise be able to do so to get up close and personal with marine life. We are currently working on purchasing VR goggles and are looking for donors.

How long have you been researching knight's castles?

I have always been interested in the Middle Ages, especially the 12th and 13th centuries, especially the castles. One of the reasons for this is that when we lived in Miskolc, my parents and I often walked to Diósgyőr Castle, near Miskolc. If you add the castles to the 12th-13th centuries, you soon get the result: the Gothic period, chivalric culture, and crusades. Growing up, I also realized where all this manifested itself most: the Middle East.

What were you the most interested in about the mixed, European-Levantine culture that had developed there?

Most of all the daily life of a European colony of about a quarter of a million people. For almost two hundred years, the four crusader states were home to soldiers and civilians, family members who had emigrated from the old continent.

Speaking of numbers, what was the proportion of the local population compared to the European population?

It is estimated to be about ten times higher.

The question arises: how have different cultures managed to coexist throughout the centuries of constant warfare, at least according to history books?

First of all, the Principality of Antioch and Tripoli County had predominantly Christian inhabitants, and at that time Islamization was far from advanced in those areas, but it was also slow in many other areas. When Saladin (1137-1193) conquered Egypt in 1171, about seventy percent of the population in the land of the former pharaohs was still Christian. Of course, Islam was already present in the region, especially in Palestine, in the Akko region, but in the holy places of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and around Jerusalem, Christians were in the majority, as in the northern part of modern-day Lebanon and in the Syrian coastal areas as well. In the north, we find mainly people of the Shiite denomination, who were often persecuted by Sunni Muslims.

All in all, Christians and non-Christians understood each other very well.

Even in spite of the wars?

As Foucher de Chartres, one of the first chroniclers of the Crusades, wrote, "we are slowly forgetting where we came from", meaning that Europeans were rapidly assimilating. What must be seen is that it is impossible to look at that period from a completely wrong perspective, influenced by our own time and ideology. Who can read Arab chronicles today? Who even wants to, when so many documentaries have been launched and so many books published on the subject? Most people believe that this modern literature - written by Europeans - is not wrong, which is why today's generation rarely studies the Latin and Arabic sources of the time. The horizons that Western scholars used to embrace are rapidly narrowing.

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Balázs Major during excavation - Photo: Balázs Major

Would the sources you mentioned paint a different picture than those published in the literature?

It is extremely important to be aware of all the sources because that makes it clear that we should not think of the Crusades as a constant day and night battle between the peoples living there, but sometimes twenty to forty years would pass in a given area without any military movement. Unlike in most parts of Europe. Going back to your original question, I was curious to know how the different Christian and Muslim denominations lived together since religion was the only thing that mattered then – and, let me add, still matters – in the region. Arab sources also show how peacefully European and Arab peoples of different religions lived together.

Could you give us an example?

Ibn Jubair, a Muslim official in Andalusia, who was terrified of traveling, drank alcohol once, despite his religion's teachings. Ashamed, he felt that only a pilgrimage to Mecca could atone for this mistake of his. How did he get from Andalusia to Mecca in the 12th century? By boat. The Mediterranean was then dominated by the Venetian and Genoese galleons, so if you wanted to travel cheaply and safely, you went to Alexandria on one of them, then by land, and then across the Red Sea to Mecca. In other words, a Muslim pilgrim to Mecca would get from one Muslim port to another by a Christian boat. But this is only the beginning. Although he did not like to travel, once in Mecca he decided to visit the surrounding sights. He went to Baghdad, Damascus, and from there back to Europe. On the way, he encountered Saladin's army returning from the north to Jerusalem with European prisoners and stolen treasure.

He was a little apprehensive about travelling further, as he had to pass through plundered Christian areas, but to his surprise, no one harassed him.

Again, the above-mentioned Arab traveler writes: when he stayed in a Sunni village, he was told by the locals that they were living peacefully under the Crusaders and had no problems with the Europeans. He even learned that foreigners collected fewer taxes than Muslims. They describe the Christian rulers there as just and good. Another thing: big European companies, mostly Italian, maintained depots in Aleppo throughout the war periods, including even the tiny town of San Gimignano, which monopolized the saffron trade in Europe. After driving out the Crusaders, the Genoese continued to have a colony in the city of Latakia for about 150 years and traded freely.

What motivated you in your research?

I like specific, tangible things, I am not the man to write a sixth book out of five. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't read or am not familiar with the relevant literature, I just want to emphasize the importance of my own field research. I was interested in how people lived in the past, how their everyday lives were, what memories have been preserved of their everyday lives, and where bridges, castles, and residential towers still stand. I was particularly moved by how people lived in the countryside. When I was a university student, I started to look for monuments in Syria, not only medieval ones but also Roman and Byzantine heritage. Unfortunately, the rate of destruction of monuments in the region is such that many remains are now only visible in my photographs.

If these structures have survived for over a thousand years, why are they disappearing in the 21st century?

On the one hand, many monuments were destroyed in the war, and most people care less about what happens to monuments when they have lost a family member or their home in the war. In peacetime, infrastructure development makes way for itself.

In Hungary, we are overjoyed with a knee-high castle wall, as most of our medieval monuments were destroyed by the Ottoman period at the latest, but in this region, even ancient monuments up to roof height are commonplace.

Where there are ten-story castles spread over several hectares, an investor rarely cares whether there is one more or one less residential tower left in the country, and where every square centimeter of farmland has a high value. We are past the twenty-fourth hour.

The Hungarian research you are leading is taking place in the castles of Margat and Crac des Chevaliers. Why are these Crusader castles significant?

By the 13th century, interest in the Holy Land had decreased at the European courts, but warfare had developed enormously and castles needed to be fortified. The crusaders sought to make up for the lack of manpower by improving fortifications. This was the era of the construction of these great fortresses, the like of which were not built in Europe at that time. The two forts mentioned are so large that they will keep researchers busy for decades to come.

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The fortress of Crac des Chevaliers - Photo: Balázs Major

What are the main results of the research programs?

I see their greatest significance in the fact that for fifteen years Hungarian experts have been working on the excavation of one of the world's most famous monuments. Even in Hungary, it would not be easy to maintain an excavation program for so long, let alone abroad. What's more, the work has led to the establishment of a university course. The success in Syria has led to the launch of an archaeology course at Pázmány University, which will make use of the professional knowledge and network of contacts we have built up over the years in Syria. Our former dean had explicitly requested that we incorporate this knowledge into the university's teaching. The Institute is up and running, with four departments. Half of our students are from abroad, mostly from Syria, through the Stipendium Hungaricum scholarship program. They will hopefully be re-employed later on in the protection of monuments and education in their own country.

What successes have Hungarian archaeologists achieved on the site?

We have fully mapped Margate, with only the inner Johannine castle covering one hectare, the settlement built within a defensive ring around it covering five hectares, and under the castle, we have identified an outer town with houses, churches, and a cemetery covering a further ten hectares.

The biggest achievement was to find out the function of almost all the rooms in the castle. This is not easy, even in the case of a small Hungarian castle, let alone a fortress system of this size.

We have also explored the castle's water management system, making it the only one of its kind in the Middle East.

Why is this last result particularly important?

We are in the Middle East, in a fortress built on a volcanic cone. We could dig, but we'd find no water. The entire fortress, the soldiers, the civilian population, the animals, and the baths, were supplied with collected and purified winter rainwater for a whole year.

You mentioned baths. It is widely believed that people rarely used to bathe in the "dark" Middle Ages.

We also discovered four baths for crusaders in Margat. The castle hill was full of drilled cisterns, where rainwater draining from the flat roofs was led by an elaborate collection system. Moreover, this system can be reused today, after eight hundred years. In today's world, what is more precious than water in the Middle East? When we were asked to find a way to drain the wastewater from tourist toilets, we found old sewers that we could clean and reuse by laying modern pipes. Among the results, I would also mention the discovery of the aforementioned ten hectares of outer town, where a complete bathhouse was also located.

Is there no mention of it in the written records?

Unfortunately, there are hardly any sources about the huge Crusader fortresses, and the few sentences about Margat that do exist, do not mention the outer city. While surveying the hillside, we discovered human bones sticking out of the bush-covered wall. Looking further afield, we came across fragments of Crusader pottery, and then a silver denarius from Tripoli and a fragment of a fresco. All these suggested that the site had been a funerary chapel, so this was high on the excavation agenda for the following year. We found a complete cemetery from the Crusader period, the remains of the chapel and twelve dwellings. Another summer I noticed a white arch spire, also emerging from the bush a few hundred meters away. Here we were able to identify a two-bay church and uncovered the remains of elaborate wall paintings.

Was there a discovery that you considered to be a "worldwide " success?

All of the above, but the one that made it into the New York Times is a huge fresco that our restorers uncovered in the church of the Margat Castle. The church wall had been researched before, but in 1980, American-British experts concluded that the geometric lines they had discovered could only have been part of an underpainting. This led to a study that suggested that the appearance of Saladin in the Middle Ages may have caused the work to stop. Well, it did not.

We brought Hungarian experts there, who found huge frescoes in the first summer, and in the apse, they also discovered that there were several layers of wall paintings on top of each other. This is how we discovered the largest Crusader mural cycle in the Holy Land, the largest part of which depicts Hell in three registers.

A very large arsenal of weapons was also found, probably gathered by the Muslims after the siege of 1285. All this proves that Hungarian experts can achieve the same results as their Western colleagues.

Little Amrita, whose Hungarian first name was Dalma, was born in Budapest in 1913. With her black eyes, thick dark hair, and laugh, she immediately swept her father, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, an Indian Sikh aristocrat, polymath, contemplative scholar, and amateur photographer off his feet. Her mother, Gottesmann Marie-Antoinette, had a completely different temperament: she was a sociable aspiring opera singer, born into a Hungarian-Austrian-French-Jewish noble family. The parents agreed to baptize the girl Catholic, although they did not believe in any particular religion. A year later, in 1914, their second daughter Indira was born. From the very beginning, they took great care to develop the talents of their two daughters: in addition to Hungarian, they spoke French, English and Punjabi at home, the girls received a culturally focused international education, and the parents noticed Amrita's talent for drawing early on. It was her uncle, Ervin Baktay (Gottesmann), a painter and Indologist - to whom we owe the Hungarian translation of the Kama Sutra - who noticed her, and it was at his suggestion that the parents hired a drawing teacher for Amrita. The vegetarian family lived in Budapest, in 4 Szilágyi Dezső Square, and at that time no one could have guessed what an adventurous life Amrita would lead, nor that she would become one of the most influential figures in 20th-century modern Indian painting.

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Amrita Shér-Gil with three of her paintings - archive photo

Beautiful, headstrong, and rebellious

The Sher-Gil family first moved from the capital to Dunaharaszti, where Amrita first experimented with Plein air painting, and in the summer her uncle Ervin Baktay gave her technical advice. Decades later, local residents still talked about the Indian maharajah who hid in their village, walking with his little girls along the banks of the Danube. After the end of the First World War, in 1921, they moved to India, where the young girl witnessed an Indian girl of her age being forced into marriage by her parents. Anger gripped her, and in an attempt to relieve some of her anger, she turned to her canvas and painted what she saw. Bride - the title of the painting, one of his most famous. Amrita grew up to be a beautiful young woman with original talent, who was also a fan of the works of Hungarian poet Endre Ady and loved Hungarian traditions.

She painted like a European but felt like an Indian.

There was however one small "problem" with her: she was very headstrong. At the age of eleven, she was expelled from a school in Florence because her rebellious spirit made her unable to conform to the rigid mentality of the Catholic school. She moved to Florence with her mother to study painting, but this was probably partly due to the love affair between her mother and the Italian-born art teacher who taught Amrita to draw. Wherever life took her, she sought inspiration. She was most influenced by Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin, and her great empathy soon led her to turn her artistic interest to the marginalized servants and oppressed classes, whose representatives she portrayed with poignant power.

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Bride's Toilet - Wikipedia

Parisian decay, nude painting, and the search for identity

At 16, she already dressed and behaved like a grown-up woman, with a passion for fancy jewellery and full of vitality. In Paris, she became familiar with the rules of European painting: the visual proportions defined by the figure and structure, and compositional solutions. Her work was already a success at student exhibitions: her painting Young Girls won Paris's most prestigious prize, the gold medal of the Grand Salon de Paris. Later, she rented a studio with her girlfriend, where she lived a bohemian and adventurous life with her friends, independently of her parents, by spending nights out, painting nudes (of women), and advocating free love. She often depicts female figures in erotic situations or in conversation, which art historians believe expresses her own search for identity and her constant outsider status. While she was acclaimed in Paris, her erotic paintings and love affairs caused outrage in contemporary India.

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Amrita Shér-Gil in an archive photo and in a self portrait - Wikipedia

Irreconcilable mother-daughter conflict

The reason Amrita almost never painted men, art historians say, may have been because in her family women were more dominant. Her mother, nicknamed Mici, had a definite idea of how Amrita should live her life, marrying well for financial gain, so when she learned of her daughter's impulsive life, she became furious. It only added fuel to the fire that she refused to marry the rich Indian man she had chosen, but at the age of 25 announced that she would marry her cousin, Dr. Viktor Egan, a doctor with whom she had grown up in Dunaharaszti as a child and had fallen in love. And because he agreed to live in an open marriage with her.

Viktor did not want to limit Amrita's artistic or personal freedom.

The couple initially lived in Hungary, where Amrita's painting was inspired by rural peasant life, and she painted one of her best-known paintings, The Rural Market there. They travelled to India to escape the impending Second World War and settled in Lahore, where Viktor opened a surgery. Amrita painted a lot, went into a depressive creative crisis, and then regained her strength. Inspired by reality and Rajput miniatures, she used her own Indian colours in all her works. By 1937, all the painterly knowledge she had acquired in Europe and India became condensed in her painting, and this was intertwined with her sense of mission and personal sensitivity.

Did poisoning, abortion, or murder end her life?

By her early twenties, Amrita had become very rich, but she preferred to live the life of a poor bohemian. She was mentally unstable, living life to the fullest, unable to find her balance and secure attachments. She had planned a major exhibition for December 1941 but died unexpectedly a few days before the opening. She fell ill after a dinner at a neighbour's house and two days later fell into a coma, while unconsciously speaking Hungarian. Shortly afterwards her heart stopped beating. She was only 28 years old. The official explanation for her death is that it was caused by a stomach infection, but to this day there are those who believe that she was killed by her mother (all we know for sure is that her father became depressed after her daughter's death, her mother blamed her son-in-law and committed suicide seven years later) or that she died of peritonitis following a botched abortion. Her body was cremated the next day after her death and her ashes were scattered in the Ravi River, as is Indian custom, so we will never know exactly what caused her death. 

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Amrita Shér-Gil's self-portrait, segment - Image: Wikipedia

The Hungarian public saw her art in all its greatness too late

In 2001, a collection exhibition of her works was held at the Ernst Museum in Budapest, and it was then that the Hungarian art-loving public first really came face to face with the fact of what a great artist this young woman had been. In 2013, on the 100th anniversary of her birth, Hungarian and Indian history met under the trees of the Budapest Museum Garden in the form of images entitled In The Footsteps of Amrita Sher-Gil. Visitors were able to follow Amrita's life and work on 50 150×150 cm banners stretched along the museum's fence. The exhibition material came from the Ferenc Hopp East Asian Art Collection, Indian legacies and individuals in Hungary.

Millions of dollars are now paid for a single painting

Also known as 'India's Frida Kahlo', she is credited with renewing  Indian painting, and many believe she fought for women to go to school and pursue a career as an artist in India.

A street in New Delhi bears her name, and her paintings sell for astronomical prices, with even a pencil sketch she had drawn on paper when she was ten years old fetching $71,000. Her paintings in India are housed in the Modern Museum in New Delhi. They are considered national treasure and none of her works are allowed to leave the country.

"Amrita has profoundly shaken up Indian art. Her determination, knowledge, resolve and commitment to both art and the future of India have made her a household name. She was a clear-thinking, energetic young woman who created modern art in India through her paintings, a passionate and beautiful woman who upheld the ideal of the universality of art, who influenced women's equality through her art, who was a follower of post-impressionism and who was outraged by the strict caste system and the exclusion of women from social life. She was a bridge between West and East. Her paintings link the post-impressionist style with the traditional art of India," said Széchenyi Prize-winning art historian Katalin Keserű.

Literature:
Balla Jácint. Egy szenvedély története, 2020. (jelen.media.hu)
Ferenc Hopp East Asian Art Collection
https://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Umrao_Singh_Majithia
https://corvinakiado.hu/media/kiadok/pdf/139450453.pdf

Staying afloat

He started training again in June after a six-month break due to a serious ankle injury. Due to the complicated category system of swimming and a childhood misdiagnosis, Tamás Kertész competes in the non-disabled category but has also competed in some events in para-swimming. The athlete of the Special Education Methodology Center's Sports Association  (MDSE) had already set his sights on the 2016 Rio Olympics, but the A-level time and thus the qualification at the age of fifteen remained a dream. Having resumed his training, he now believes that if his rehabilitation and preparation go well, he has a chance of qualifying for the Paris Olympics.

Long miles at dawn, multiple training sessions a day... we can imagine the superhuman work that goes into an Olympic quota. But

someone who lifts not only weights every day but also his disabled brother has strength other than that of a top athlete.

Tamás and his seven-years older half-brother Roland Horváth were brought up in the Károlyi István Children's Center in Fót after their mother gave them up when Tamás was six. The brothers were orphaned a few years after moving to the center. The Children's Center is often thought of as a 'compulsory' stop in the life of a kid whose life went off the tracks, but for Tamás it was not an insurmountable handicap, but rather a refuge. "I don't like to call it an institution, because we went home there. We were brought up, loved, and taught to stand our ground. There is no substitute for normal family circumstances, but part of the void was filled by the fact that we were looked after. The care I received helped me to accept that I don’t have parents."

Casting for love

His disabled half-brother was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at an early age, and although he can do many things independently, he needs a wheelchair and constant assistance. Initially, Tamás was suspected of having a similar diagnosis, but this was not confirmed either at subsequent reviews or at the time of the athlete's classification. The brothers' "roles" were set early on:

Tamás became his brother's physical support while Roland was the one who helped his brother through when he was overwhelmed by life.

As schoolchildren, they got in touch with the Duchenne Hungary Foundation through Roland. The foundation supports children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and their families, organizing community events and summer camps. Tamás also participated in these as a personal assistant to his brother. Soon other campers began to count on him too, and he became a volunteer you could count on in every task: lifting, bathing, accompanying those who need help, or even helping them to get dressed, but mostly he helped his brother and his brother's best friend. Sometimes, not only during the camps but also for a few hours on weekdays, he helps friends he got to know at the Foundation.

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Photo: Jácint Jónás

"Actually, Roli raised me. It's funny because, on the other hand, he's dependent on me. My brother gave me a lot, he taught me to accept others and to use my time well." And no doubt: Tamás’s time management could be called the sixth love language. He completes ten to twelve training sessions a week on an individual basis, following a prescribed training plan. At a university in Budapest, he studies logistics by correspondence and photography and graphic design in the evening. In addition to his studies, which he is completing with excellent results, he spends his weekends swimming, meeting his girlfriend, or volunteering at the Foundation - and he does it all by constantly rearranging his schedule to suit Roland's needs. "The most important is that we're always on our phones, always available for each other. I usually sleep in Fót, but if my brother is sick, I spend the night at their place. If I get permission at the times of competitions, I come home to help him, but if we really can't manage because I have to travel to the countryside or abroad, we ask our friends in the area for help."

If there’s a bond do you have to help?

Until his graduation, Tamás can still be a resident at the center in Fót, in the so-called aftercare unit but he spends most of his time at the home of Roland and his wheelchair-bound wife in Budapest so he can help out whenever he needs. The physical need for Tamás' service can hardly be overestimated. He does not deny this, but he does not see it as a tragedy either. "My brother's weight is one and a half to two times mine, and sometimes when I have to lift him a lot, I feel it's too much. But I love him and I love that I can help him. It's a joy for me that he always thanks me for whatever I do."

Sometimes it is difficult to identify love when it takes the form of a sense of duty. When Tamás says that "I help him because I have to" it is simply the truth and not something forced. He never felt that his brother was a burden and although it pains him to be abandoned, he would never be able to say of his parents that he had not loved them: if he had not loved them, he could not love Roli. "They gave me up, well…. okay. But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up on my brother."

Tamás is a good example of the fact that even if we find ourselves in a situation without being asked we can still participate in it freely.

"If someone needs help, especially twenty-four-hour help, it really requires sacrifice and leaves minimal free time for the helper. Travelling is something you really have to think through and there are some things that you have to let go of - for example, I’m in my twenties and I've never been to a party. But you spend your free time with the people you love anyway."

Tamás wears a memento of one of their most cherished moments together: a tattoo of the Colosseum on his right forearm. "My brother had never flown before but thanks to sports competitions and an Erasmus program, I had been to Italy many times. In 2019 the two of us went to Rome from all my scholarship savings. The city is full of cobbled streets and hills, so for five days I had to push Roli on two wheels almost the whole time - now that was tiring. But it was worth it because it made me happy." Roland got married this spring and they went on a honeymoon to the Eternal City. There were three of them, of course, because they took Tamás, his best man with them.

A man in the background

The younger brother is the support of the body and the older one is the support of the soul. According to Tamás, there is no reason to change the established setup. The intimate relationship between brothers would not be possible with a professional helper whose work they could not afford anyway. When planning his own family Tamás wants to be close enough to help but not always at arm's length. He seems to have found a supportive partner in his girlfriend. As he says with a smile, "Oh, she has our lives mapped out!"

"I never promote myself, I don’t let the world know what I do, and I don't like to post on social media. I sometimes think about what it would be like to live in a normal family with loving parents, what it would be like if Roli wasn’t sick but I've never thought about being the center of attention. I'm fine in the background," says Tamás, who also thinks that having a good heart is the main criterion for becoming a role model. "Outside the world of sport, my brother is the only role model for me: he has always been there for me. He helped me through the separation from my parents and kept me going when I was going through a rough patch at the beginning of my high school years. Adam Peaty is the swimmer I look up to the most. He's not like, hey, I'm a top athlete, now everybody, look up to me! He's very supportive and does a lot of charity work. He also gets his family involved in the sport. I like his attitude."

When asked to highlight his most important goals Tamás does not start with following the footsteps of the multiple Olympic and world champion Peaty, not even with the Paris Olympics. The young man's ambition now is to get his degree, and he wants to continue his studies, first at master's level and then even higher. Equally important, he wants to continue helping as many people as possible. "To do that, I need to stay healthy. My health is more important than getting to the Olympics." 

You were the first Secretary of State who left their position to give birth to your child. But now, when you have two small ones, you have agreed to take up a new position as Secretary of State. Did it take a lot of courage to make these two decisions?

It’s true, there has never been a Secretary of State before me who’d leave to have a child because it is more common for women to build a career at an older age when they have older children. I was Secretary of State for Finance at the Ministry of Finance between 2015 and 2018, and I loved my job. But I came to a point when I felt it was time to start a family, and that became my priority. My return to work was like a folk tale: as a mother of two small children, I had planned to come back a little later, but I was asked several times, and finally, I could not say no, because it was a very honourable task and mission. I am happy to be Secretary of State for Families after the birth of my children because it makes me more empathetic to the needs, problems, and joys of families. It’s true, it mothers with young children do need to have courage if they want to return to the labour market earlier, but it is important that the decision is taken freely and within the family.

In your experience, why is it important to have more women in decision-making positions and political leadership?

In my work in the Ministry of Finance, I have observed that although finance is a technocratic field, men make decisions differently because they have different dynamics and different ways of thinking than women.

I believe that in order to make good decisions in all areas of life, we need both men and women.

It is not a stereotype, but a fact of experience that men who make decisions think in big steps, with ambitious goals, and we women pay much more attention to detail, which is also important, because we would not be able to make big steps without paying attention to the small details. In addition, we women - with respect to the men exceptions - have greater empathy, and we tend to be more able to utilize our emotional intelligence in our work. This is important because when we make laws, it is important to see the problem behind the legislation that we are trying to solve or the situation of the individual that we are trying to alleviate. You also have to consult with a lot of people involved, which you cannot do without empathy. That is why I hope that we will see more and more women in government and in leadership positions, where decisions that affect our lives are made because I believe that really good decisions can be made by women and men working together.

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Photo: Gábor Bodó / Ministry of Culture and Innovation

Who can you turn to for help and how do you balance work and family life?

My husband takes a lot off my shoulders, I couldn't do this kind of work without him, and I can talk everything through with him and we make decisions together. The support of my family is a huge help. My older is fortunately happily settled in a small group at a nursery nearby which he started in September, while my younger child is still in daycare. As Secretary of State for Family Affairs, I am lucky to be invited to many events where my family is welcome too, so even if it is at weekend or after working hours, it is still a time when we’re together so it is much easier.

You mentioned how good it is to be able to be in this position as a mother of two. What new skills and insights have raising children and having a family given you?

I have much more patience now since having children. I've learned to explain things to my four-year-old very simply or in completely different ways and by using a lot of examples. I find this very useful in everyday life.

Do you have role models or certain kinds of patterns from your childhood and early career that help you cope in difficult situations?

I am grateful that my brother and I grew up in a close-knit, loving family. One of my great role models is my father, who is a model of diligence and perseverance.

In all my jobs - in the business sector, in government, in Brussels, and in Hungary - I've had the opportunity to work with fantastic people and I’ve learnt a lot from them.

As much as I know, sport used to play a big part in your life. Do you still have time to do some exercise or go to the gym? Do you want your children to play sports?

Unfortunately, I have very little time for exercise nowadays, but in the past, when I was studying or later working, I always made time for sports. I tried many sports and triathlon ended up being my favourite. It is a monotonous, hard and complex sport. I find it relaxing when I do the miles in the pool because I can get to a relaxed state of mind where I can start to rebuild, and it's very healthy, too. Swimming has always been my favourite, but I enjoy running and cycling too. I really want my children to play sports, and we already started to introduce different kinds of sports to my son but we want him to be able to choose what he wants to do. He said he would like to do fencing, probably because he likes playing with his toy sword. I've never tried it, but I think it's a very good idea.

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Photo: László Katona

I think it is not easy to be the Secretary of State for Families in this difficult economic climate. What is family policy about today?

I think it is important to make it clear that the state's ability to help families financially is only one aspect of family policy. For the government, the pro-family turn 12 years ago meant a change of attitude in the country: for us, families are a priority, they are the foundation of the nation, and we want to help them to thrive in every situation. To do this, the government has set out three main objectives: one is to help people have children. We will of course provide financial support for those who have children, but we can also help them by, for example, encouraging maternity wards to become family-friendly or by expanding the network of district nurses. The second is financial support that we provide for those getting married, having a child, or setting up a home, but also we give them tax allowance or make it possible financially for grandparents to help the young couple. And our third goal is the balance between work and family life.

After all, the first thing we talked about in this interview was how important it is for mothers - and fathers too - to be able to go back to work if they want to, but if they want to stay at home, make it possible to spend their time with their children.

We made their return to work easier by tripling the number of villages or towns where day-care centers are available since 2010. And we're encouraging employers to see that if there is a balance in their employees’ work and personal lives it contributes to the efficiency of their business. Companies are now competing to win the Family Friendly Workplace Award.

Family policy is also very special because family life is a private matter in which we cannot interfere - but we can give support! We provide security and predictability for the whole family throughout their life – and that is the essence of our policy.

I appreciate the work that the government has invested in recent years in developing a network of institutions to help victims of relationship violence. Is there any way to continue to maintain and operate this?

Yes. Our aim is that everyone should be able to get help, no matter what kind of family they live in, and we should not lose those whose lives are not going as planned.

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Photo: László Katona

What tasks do you have in the near future?

I think it is important to raise awareness about breastfeeding and that mothers get the help they need about it. We plan to set up a national breast milk bank. We also want to help older people affected by dementia. All in all, the most important goal is to keep the achievements of Family Friendly Hungary, to keep this mentality going, and to ensure that families continue to enjoy the opportunities that have been created so far.

I work to help as many people as possible to experience the wonder of having children.

What are your plans for Christmas and New Year’s Eve?

I'm looking forward to Christmas, to being together with close and extended family and friends. I'd like to slow down a bit during the holidays... We will decorate our home nicely, but we're not planning on doing much because the most important thing is to be together.

Will the kids be allowed to have cookies, too?

I was very strict with my first child about not eating sweets, but I can see how difficult it is to keep this with the little one, when the older one can eat sweets now and then. Of course, we will have Christmas cookies.

It is a deep, dark night. My forty-second night in the African jungle. I lie on my back in a double sleeping bag in the tent. My hands on my chest, my eyes closed, only occasionally opening at a strange sound that pierces sharply into the night. Automatically, awakened, as if seeing it would remove the power of the unknown. But I see nothing but the tip of the tent pointing skyward. Many times I have been afraid, with the paralyzing power of fear, yet I have set out, even longed to be on this journey.

That night, as if I had lost my mind, I woke up and walked out of the camp as I was, into the engulfing darkness of the African jungle. I didn't want to be afraid anymore.

I didn't know then that fear protects, warns, and signals. It's like a guardian, swinging around and stopping you just before the abyss.

For a long time, I believed that fear was just a barrier and a pullback, that it was the reason I didn't dare, and I wanted to get rid of it. That night I could have died of my own free will. Not seeing what I was stepping on, what was coming towards me, what I was bumping into, where I was falling, or what would devour me. I think that's what Kundera would call "the unbearable lightness of being". And indeed, when you are on the verge of cessation, suddenly everything becomes simpler, slower, almost still, and beautiful. You become that too, for yourself. It was that very night that I learned that my fear is me. I was afraid of myself, for myself. Because what happens when I’ll no longer be here?

For years I wrote a diary because I was lonely. I went on many expeditions as a lone Hungarian, surrounded by people of many different nationalities, with whom I had no opportunity to talk deeply, understand or even share the spiritual processes, changes, and doubts that were going on inside me. The jungle is unpredictable and in this unpredictability, you can only count on yourself, on your own presence of mind.

On 3 January 2011, I said goodbye to my parents at Ferihegy airport in Budapest, and the flight to Paris took me with my meagre luggage to the French capital, where I was greeted by windy, cold weather. As I was heading for the tropics, I had brought no warm clothes other than a sweater I was wearing. The next morning, I took a shuttle to Orly airport, where after a short layover, I left for French Guiana. As we slowly reached the coast of the continent towards the end of the 10-hour flight, the canopies of huge, straight-edged trees peeking out of the tropical rainforest could be seen through the tiny windows, almost fighting for the scorching sunlight. I thought we were about to land in the middle of the jungle when the giant plane turned sluggishly and we glided down onto the concrete tarmac of Cayenne's airport. Soon after I had collected myself and my luggage, I stepped out into the lounge, where André appeared, who, by some fifth sense, found me in the crowd and greeted me. Later he told me that I was the only one who looked like a geologist.

As we stepped out of the airport, I was hit by the hot, balmy, humid air of the tropics. It was almost suffocating, yet I fell in love with it instantly.

Even the journey to the hostel was an indescribable experience. Everywhere you looked, there was vibrant greenery, exotic plants and birds bursting with life, and dazzling four-petalled and tiny jagged flowers. I took a short stroll around my bungalow and nearly ran over a good forty-centimeters lizard with a tail that was a garish shade of blue-green. Vultures were circling over the hills covered in lush vegetation. And the sounds! I’m going to record it once. I was expecting something similar, but not this variety. Buzzing, hissing, crackling all around, with a wide variety of rhythms, volumes, and timbres. Like the voice of angels, as if coming from the sky, enveloping and filling everything.

I've never been interested in tourist destinations, famous capitals, or popular sights, I always preferred unspoiled landscapes. I had a desire that followed me throughout my childhood: I wanted to go somewhere no one had ever been before. As a boy, I loved the books by Gábor Molnár, Zsigmond Széchenyi, and Gerard Durrell, who were the real adventurers in my eyes. They were the first to 'tell' me about endless savannahs, lions and elephants, musk oxen, and unforgettable hunting adventures. I always had a longing to tread the paths that my favorite hunter-writers had cut a hundred years ago in the African jungle.

I grew up in Kápolnásnyék, in a village on the shores of Lake Velencei, in a friendly house surrounded by solemn trees and a huge garden, where I was always greeted at the gate by my mother's embrace. I was loved. I am still loved, in a way I don't think I deserve. They watched over us and cared for us. Now it’s myself, my sister, and the grandchildren that mean everything to them.

I don't have many memories from my childhood, just a feeling that there is a place where it's good to be, where it's good to come home to.

I see my parents as good, more than good. They both have different attachments to us. While my mum is more of a cuddly type, my dad is less emotional, but I can count on him in every situation, he is my safe background. They've done everything they can to make life good for us. Maybe too much. They took care of everything for us, which is why later, when I was in a situation that was unknown to me, or when I had to do something on my own, I always doubted myself, I was unsure if I was able to cope.

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Photo: László Kupi

If we weren't with our parents, we were with our grandparents, especially during the time when our parents started building a house. The four grandparents also loved spending time together, they often got together. I saw in our family a sense of togetherness, of belonging together, the words of Dumas' famous novel were true for us: 'One for all, and all for one'. I know that sounds too good, but I consider myself really lucky to have been born into this family. But it is very difficult to live up to such an image of warmth and intimacy. I would say the bar is set high. I could never do as well as they did. But I try all the same. (smiles)

When I was ten, my mum and dad bought the neighboring property, which had a thatched-roof farmhouse and at the end of the garden a once-used blacksmith's shop with wooden doors, full of scrap iron and lifeless tools. Instead of tearing it all down, my father turned it into a museum. He turned the farmhouse into a museum-country house, where he collected objects of local history. This was the beginning of something that defined me. At the age of eleven, I started working here as a guide in the museum, which is still in operation today, and where, at my grandfather's initiative, we also exhibited a collection of minerals. He was the first in the family to get involved in mineral collecting. He was a short, stocky miner with tiny blue eyes, full of love. He was receptive to the beauty of minerals, and his work gave him access to a variety of stones. He had a passion for collecting and that seems to be in my genes, too. Whenever we were at their place, I would stop in front of Grandpa's cabinet and look at the stones, one by one, in their various shapes, but I would just look at them, not touch them. I watched his collection grow week by week. I had a close bond with my grandfather. He was the first one to give me a hammer and dared to take it under the ground or into the mountains. He took me to explore places that took my breath away.

Sometimes I wonder if he sees if he knows, what a mark he has left on me. That by taking my hand, which at that time was so small it was lost in his palm, with his big, charcoal-stained hands, he gave me passion and purpose. A purpose, to be the best mineral photographer possible?

That it is because of him that I see what is beautiful, what is good, what treasures are hidden in the depths, if you work hard for them if you are not afraid to get your hands dirty if you dare to get down on your knees?

At a very early age, at thirteen I left home to study at the boarding school in Pannonhalma. For the entrance exam into the six-year high school, I arrived with my father.  After the exam, we walked around to have a look at the abbey. Our guide was a senior student. At the end of the tour, I casually asked him what I should know about the high school if I was accepted, and what I should expect. "Well, there are classes here on Saturdays." Huhh, I thought, that's not so good. Then he continued, "You can only go home once a month, but sometimes even less often." Well, I say, this is getting worse. But the real shock came when he told me that "only boys study here"! Now that's a complete disaster. It took me years to come to terms with the situation. The first year was torture. I literally felt like a bird that has flown the nest but cannot yet fly. I was cold. Many evenings I wandered alone within the ancient walls of the abbey, surrounded by centuries-old paintings of the ancient abbots, archbishops, and other high religious officials, with their grim portraits looking back at me. They gave me the creeps. I was genuinely afraid of some of them. Their eyes were digging into me, almost looking into my soul, and I didn't want them to. I wanted understanding, not judgment.

When I graduated from high school, there was a national competition whereby the student with the best entry was automatically admitted to the ELTE Geology Department. I entered the competition and won. My parents disagreed because they wanted me to become a doctor, but I knew I was not the type. I became a geologist. At the same time as I graduated from college, I was involved in a research project in Northern Hungary, and as a result, I became fascinated by exploration geology and fieldwork. I first started working abroad in Turkey. I became an ore geologist, exploring gold. I'm looking for rocks from which certain metals can be extracted. There are companies that drill these rocks, take samples, and we geologists look at them, analyze their ore content, make 3D models of them and then calculate a stock. Anyone who has seen rocks that are two billion years old will probably know what it feels like to hold them in your hands.

We are holding in our hands a time so long ago that we cannot even imagine its temporal dimension.

I am attracted to minerals because of their beauty. It sounds so simple, but it's almost an obsession, an addiction, an admiration. Some see them as art, like a painting, some as an investment, like real estate, and others believe in their healing powers. The pieces I like best are those I have collected myself. One of my favorite pieces is a garnet crystal I found in the Börzsöny, in the woods near Verőce.

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Minerals - Photo: László Kupi

Later on, we were asked by the Rwandan government to assess the country's raw material reserves. One of the projects on this expedition was sapphire exploration. My wife's wedding ring has one of these sapphire crystals cut into it, which I dug up there in Rwanda. I specialized in ore exploration because I felt that ores were somehow tangible, as opposed to, for example, oil. It's like mathematics for me. I was never any good at algebra because I couldn't grasp x2, but I really liked spatial geometry, which always got me out of trouble. If I can see something in three dimensions, I can understand the connections within.

I was thirty-four when my childhood dream seemed to come true because the company I worked for sent us to the desert in Africa to prospect for gold. I woke up there every morning feeling blessed to have been given this opportunity. We lived in simple tents and slept on small camp beds. There was nothing else in the tent except the bed, a small metal cupboard, a tiny desk, and a lamp that ran on a generator. The generator was switched off at 8 PM, and immediately our camp was plunged into darkness. Many summers I would pull out my bed in front of the tent, lie on my back and just look at the stars. The sky was clear, with an almost unimaginable number of stars shining in the sky for an eye used to the skies of big cities, and the constellations were clearly visible because there was no light pollution nearby. We lived among Bedouins who taught us all the tricks of making their famous spicy coffee. I was in awe of their incredible sense of direction as they unerringly found their way home in what seemed to me to be an endless and desolate desert.

It was in the African desert that I lived through the biggest storm of my life, and it was there I felt the coldest in my life, it was so cold then that even the pyramids were snowed in.

Although I was impressed by the unrelenting wildness of the rocky desert, I felt that it was not yet the real Africa. I wanted to see the face of the continent, the animals and people that Kittenberger had written about. And then it happened. I received an email from one of the world's most serious consultancies, whose research was taking place in the rainforest of Gabon: "We would love to welcome you to join our team as a geologist."

One time we were on an expedition in the Congo, where we had local guides walking barefoot in the wilderness. One of them stuck his toe into the elephant droppings littering the road and found that it was still warm, so the animals were close to us. We went after the elephants, I always had a camera with me, and I was determined to take pictures of them. Of course, our guides warned us to be careful with these animals, because although forest elephants are smaller than their savannah counterparts, they can be more aggressive. Especially when they are protecting their territory or their young. Heart pounding, we crawled closer and closer to the herd, finally, we were about ten meters away when they spotted us. Suddenly, fear surged through my veins, and for a moment I stood stunned at the sight. It was unbelievable, the way the ground shook with the thumping of the elephants, their trumpeting deafening, in a way that I could feel the vibrations in my stomach. Suddenly the elephants started to move, at first, we didn't know if they were running away from us or towards us, but then it turned out that most of the herd had run away, it was a male elephant that was coming towards us. Thanks to adrenaline, we were running faster and faster and managed to take cover. Then we saw that there was a smaller elephant footprint next to the big one, so we should have known that they were going to protect the little one that was with them. I was very scared while running, but from the moment you survive, these events all stick with you as adventures.

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Photo: László Kupi

When we were in the jungle at the top of a large mountain, after days of trudging through the dense jungle and swamp, with dense fog rolling in around us and our guide cutting his way ahead of us with his machete, we suddenly noticed him drop his machete, suddenly jump back holding his hand. It's very quiet. Only frightened looks. Two tiny wounds on his arm - we knew immediately it was a snake bite.

There is a set protocol to follow: sit the person down, use your satellite phone to call for help, and inform the center.

We have a so-called spot device that sends GPS signals to the rescue unit. But our guide’s condition was deteriorating rapidly, his mouth was trembling, and he was starting to go pale. We didn't have any vaccine because there is no antidote for all kinds of snake venom, but if we accidentally administer the wrong vaccine, it could kill the victim. Also, these vaccines require refrigeration, but we can't carry a cooler with us. Snakes like to rest undetected under huge tree trunks, and as soon as you step on the ground, you could easily be bitten on the ankle by a waiting animal. The most dangerous thing is what we can't see. If a mamba or a Gabon viper bites you, you have four to five hours at most if you don't get an antidote. This danger was part of our job, we had to live with it. We were in the Congolese wilderness, about four hours from our accommodation, which was also four hours from the base camp at the foot of the mountain. Two hours from the foothills was the nearest settlement, which was a twelve-hour drive from the nearest hospital. If you are bitten by a dangerous poisonous snake there, the time you have is only enough to call your family and say goodbye. That is if you are able to call them because satellite phones don't always work below the canopy layer. Sometimes my wife didn't hear from me for days because I simply couldn't make the call. After a snake attack, you have to take a photo of the animal to know what kind of snake bit the victim. I did manage to take a photo, while the other geologist in the team was trying to find reception, but it was very bad, so all they could hear in camp was that there had been a snake bite. When I got back from taking photos, I saw the victim throw up. There's nothing else to do, you start praying. Prayer brings relief and hope even in the jungle.

The guy used the tribal remedy for snakebite, which means that if you get bitten by a snake, you take a leaf, form a funnel, pee in it, and drink it.

Drinking his own urine on an empty stomach and the stress made the poor boy so sick that he started vomiting. Of course, this tribal "cure" did not live up to the hopes. But he survived because the snakebite was a so-called dry snakebite, so no poison got into the wound.

The lines from the movie Troy echo in my ears: "The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last.  Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed." My time in the jungle has contributed a lot to my personal development. There, you learn to manage your fears, face them, honor them and make peace with them. In the jungle you are vulnerable, nature is still the master, you have to play by nature's rules and understand: man, be humble! I have understood that we must never look outside ourselves for the source of our fears, but within ourselves, and that the biggest fear of a man is themselves, that they are left alone with their thoughts. I once wrote a diary because it helped me to organize my thoughts. Nowadays I don't write them down, but at the end of the day, I think about what happened to me on that day. I give thanks for the day I had, I give thanks even for the most obvious things. It helps me focus on the good, creates inner peace, and helps me through the difficult moments. There are many situations in human existence that bring us to our knees, and we need a handhold. As I stood there in the middle of the jungle, like a madman rushing to his doom, I realized that I was surrounded by a wonderful world. After a while, my eyes got used to the darkness and I began to see. I saw many small creatures glowing around me, different kinds of mushrooms, butterflies, and fireflies. Suddenly I saw the world around us as beautiful and magical as I had never seen it before. A sense of wholeness came over me.

On one occasion, our guides and I were knee-deep in a swamp, exhausted after a day's exploring, when the road suddenly ended in front of us, revealing a huge gorge with two waterfalls swelling with primeval power. Even our experienced guides were unfamiliar with the area, and it was a fantastic experience to find that no one had ever been there before, not even the locals.

I quickly named the waterfall after my wife. My goal was fulfilled: to go somewhere no one had ever been before.

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Photo: László Kupi

Since I have a daughter, I don't go on such dangerous and long trips. Today, the thought of death scares me, maybe because of her. There is so much I want to pass on and tell her. And I want to prove to myself, too. Since 2016 I have been very consciously building my career as a mineral photographer. It doesn’t feel like work for me, it recharges me, and gives me a sense of creation. Every photo I am proud of is feedback to me that I can do it, it's just a matter of practice. It is important for me that when I put a picture in front of the viewers, I know that I have put all my skills into it. If I feel that I haven't, then I try to photograph that piece again, and I start again. Sometimes it takes me an hour, sometimes a day to get a mineral photo. And although sometimes I still dream of the rainforest, sometimes I still think wistfully of returning, now I feel I've reached my goal. For now, I don't want to go to dangerous places, to disappear in the jungle for months. Maybe when my family says I've been home long enough. (laughs) My adventures in the jungle will always be my teachers, the ones that taught me who I am and helped me dare to fight the battles with myself.

The story was written by Emese Kosztin based on the memories of geologist László Kupi.

Fourth and fifth-generation descendants

On a weekday morning, the Benczúr Hotel in the City Park is a hive of activity, trying to get forty children in one room. We are at the Advent camp of the Diaspora Programme of the Rákóczi Association, where forty teenagers of Hungarian origin, mainly from South America, will spend 10 days between 11 and 20 December. The study trip gives them the opportunity to learn about the places their ancestors come from. The young people come from Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Australia and Northern Macedonia.

Liza Paulik is participating for the second time after a summer camp in 2019. She is one of the participants whose parents and grandparents are all Hungarian. Her parents moved to Australia four years ago for work, and her grandparents and cousins all live here. She tells me that there is a strong Hungarian community in Australia, and they try to keep the Hungarian traditions. "There is a Hungarian school, a Hungarian church, we go there with the family." Liza, 18, has already graduated from high school but has no plans to return to Hungary yet, as she will start university in March. When I ask her what the biggest experience of the camp has been so far, she names the boat trip.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, but living in São Paulo, 65-year-old Kati Zágon, who serves as a chaperon, and has long been active in the Brazilian Hungarian community translates to Portuguese for the children.

Many Hungarians emigrated to Brazil around 1932-33, and later in 1949 and '56. These are the largest Hungarian colonies in the South American country. "My mother is from Zemplén, my father is from Tata.

My parents left in 1949, after the Second World War, both Hungarians, but they met in Brazil. I have relatives here in Hungary on both my mother's and father's sides.

My father had six siblings, unfortunately, my parents are no longer alive, but my son moved here a few years ago, so I often come to visit," she says.

Kati has been teaching Hungarian for ten years, and she told me that the children in the programme, who come from Brazil, speak no or only a few words of Hungarian. "They are fourth- or fifth-generation descendants, so Hungarian is difficult for them.  Families try to keep the Hungarian customs, but there are many mixed marriages, sometimes neither parent speaks Hungarian, so they don't speak Hungarian at home anymore. They know a couple of words, for example, "szia". We teach them very playfully," she explains. The Hungarian schools and scouting are where they meet Hungarian words.

"I really enjoy that on these field trips I always learn something new and see something new. They're kids and they have a different mindset than we do, but they feel they belong to this community, they have their roots here," she says.

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Participants of the Diaspora Programme on a boat trip, back left Kati Zágon - Photo: Rákóczi Association

"We do Easter sprinkling at home"

My next interviewee is Camila Blahó from Argentina, who will write her name down when I ask her to. Although she has a strong accent, she seems to understand the language well. Her family history is hardly a straight line – which is not rare among the participants. She says her parents are both Hungarian, born in Argentina, but she was born here and returned to Argentina when she was eight months old.

"We speak Hungarian at home. We go to Hungarian scouts, we do Easter sprinkling, we paint eggs, we learn folk songs, folk dancing," she says.

Camila goes to a so-called Saturday Hungarian school, where she also takes exams in Hungarian History, Literature and Geography.

 ”Finding friends!” – she says when I ask her what she likes about this trip. Then she has to rush, as it's after 9am and today's programme starts.

The kids will first meet Csongor Csáky, President of the Rákóczi Association. After a short introduction, a film screening will follow, during which Kati, the chaperon, will translate into Portuguese, while Lívia Buhajla, the communication officer of the Rákóczi Association, will translate into English.

They are on a tight schedule, with a morning walk in the City Park, lunch and then a 300-kilometre journey ahead. After their experiences in Budapest, they will spend a few days in Sátoraljaújhely, in the Rákóczi camp, touring the nearby villages and getting a taste of the Advent preparations in the countryside. Tokaj, Cigánd and Sárospatak will also be among the places they visit. While the children and their chaperones gather and collect their suitcases, we sit down for a chat with Csongor Csáky and discuss the past and present of the Diaspora Programme.

A kid from Moldavia and one from Buenos Aires chat in Hungarian

"School holidays are at a different time in each country, in the southern hemisphere it's summer now, so many people from Argentina, Brazil and Australia could only come now. They come from summer to winter at this time of the year. They are immersed in a Christmas in winter, because they celebrate Advent and Christmas in the summer at home," he begins.

The Rákóczi Association launched the Diaspora Programme in 2016 with the support of the government. Although the trips had to be stopped for two years due to the coronavirus epidemic, they were restarted at the end of January this year.

This year, 443 young people from around thirty countries - including South Africa, Colombia, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina and Israel - have already participated in the programmes such as a pilgrimage to Csíksomlyó or summer camps.

Most of the campers were high schoolers and college students.  

"In the summer camps, 500 young people were together for a week, and it was a great experience to see how a kid from Moldavia talked to a kid from Buenos Aires in Hungarian", recalls the President of the Rákóczi Association. He stresses that these young people come here because one of their parents or grandparents is of Hungarian origin, which plays a decisive role in their idenInterestinglyw can they keep and live their Hungarian identity more than 10,000 kilometres from us? - I asked. "Interestingly enough, in South America, it is through Hungarian folk dance. In many cases, young people from Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil come here without knowing a word of Hungarian but dancing Hungarian folk dances which gives them a strong sense of Hungarian identity. They can dance, but they can't speak Hungarian, and they come and immerse themselves a little in Hungarian culture. It's interesting that those who come from the US or Australia cultivate the language more, while the those from Israel speak the language less, but they are more attached to Hungary," he explains.

At the beginning of the 20th century, even before the First World War, Hungarians emigrated to the New World, i.e. to the American continent, and then during and after the First and Second World Wars, and again in 1956. "Everyone has their own story of how they got where they are. It's a bit of a miracle that these communities have kept their language and culture," says Csongor Csáky.

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Participants of the programme at Heroes' Square (Kati Zágon on the left, David in the middle, Liza on the right, Camila in front) - Photo: Rákóczi Association

They return to university

Most of the children who come here go to Sunday school and belong to Hungarian scout groups and folk dance groups. To be able to participate in the trip, they had to ask for a recommendation from the Hungarian Diaspora Council that they are an active member of the local community.

"It is also an inspiration for them to return home and become more active there. Many fall in love with Hungary. It's very common that they come to Hungary as high schoolers, fall in love with the country, marvel at how beautiful it is, and come back later," explains Csáky Csongor.

Therefore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a special scholarship programme, the Hungarian Diaspora Scholarship, which is aimed at young Hungarians from the diaspora, with 70-80 young people applying every year.

From 36 degrees Celsius to winter

As soon as we finish talking, the organisers tell us it’s time to leave for Heroes' Square. It's well below zero outside, but everyone seems to have gotten used to the Hungarian winter in the last few days. This week they've been to the castle, the Parliament and even on a boat trip on the Danube.

The participants came to Hungary in separate groups from each country, led by their chaperones. The only exception is 14-year-old David, the only student from Colombia. As we walk, he tells me his own family story in English, sometimes in Hungarian. Born in Spain, his father is Colombian, and his mother is Hungarian, he was six when they moved to Colombia and they now live not far from the capital Bogota. However, David's grandparents still live in Csorna, in the county of Győr-Moson-Sopron, in western Hungary. The 14-year-old boy has been in Hungary with his mother since November, as not only do his grandparents live here, but also one of his brothers is studying here.

How good is your Hungarian? - I ask. "I understand what they say, but it's a bit difficult to write or speak," he replies in Hungarian, and we switch back to English. When I ask him what he likes most about Budapest, he mentions the Christmas decorations. "I've never seen anything like it anywhere else, it's beautiful," he adds.

After a few hundred metres of walking, the staff of the Rákóczi Association will give a short guided tour of Heroes' Square. The students learn about the Millennium Monument, the seven leaders, and that the subway they have been travelling on started in 1896 and is Europe's first metro line.

"Small in front, big behind", the organisers ask.

The group photo is being shot, and everyone shouts "Rákócziii" instead of "Cheese".

And of course, the inevitable selfies are taken. Meanwhile, the children from Argentina are looking remarkably happy despite the sub-zero temperatures, as if they were dancing. "For someone who came from 36 degrees Celsius, they're coping quite well with the cold," says one of the organisers. They are particularly happy because Argentina beat Croatia on Tuesday to reach the World Cup final. It was a great night of cheering, watching the game, and celebrating,- they say. Well, let’s see how they can celebrate if they win the World Cup...

The Advent camp ends on 20 December and everyone can spend Christmas at home. But for most of them, this was certainly not their last visit to Hungary.

In different centuries and different countries, Christmas has been celebrated with different traditions, and in our country, too, many different customs have coexisted. Christmas was celebrated differently in the capital and differently in the villages of different parts of the country.

They cleaned up, they reconciled

For the fasting of Christmas, on 24 December, people in villages carefully cleaned their houses and porches, even the stables of their cattle, as they awaited the most important guest in their homes: the baby who was about to be born. They also wanted to welcome the New Year clean and tidy, so they washed the furniture, put fresh straw in the bed, took a bath, and washed their hair. In many places, washing was accompanied by superstitions and beliefs. It was believed that on Christmas night (less often on New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, or Epiphany), water drawn from a well or river was golden water, good luck water, and that if you drank or washed in it, you would not get sick. It was also often given to animals to keep them strong and healthy.

Christmas was a time for fasting and for this reason, families tried to make not only their homes and bodies festive but also their hearts.

For the holiday, they tried to reconcile with whoever they held a grudge against and sent gifts to poorer relatives, and the family's regular workers.

Honey, walnut, and apple

In some villages, the most characteristic preparations for the holiday included covering the living room and the Christmas table with straw, and in other places, wheat, straw, and fodder were put in a basket under the table. The straw symbolized the stable in Bethlehem so that there would be room for the incoming Jesus, his parents, and their donkeys.

Christians prepared for every great feast, including Christmas, with a physical and spiritual cleansing, which included fasting. So on the 24th, the fasting day of Christmas, they ate no meat all day, and the meal was a simple one, beginning in many places with honey or garlic dipped in honey, to ward off evil and make the New Year sweet. In some regions, they also ate wafers flavored with honey, or racked walnuts, and those who had a nice, healthy nut in the shell had nothing to fear of any diseases in the coming year. Apples were an even more typical dish than walnuts on the Christmas menu, and their consumption was also associated with a wide variety of customs and beliefs. In Bátya, for example, the farmer would cut a beautiful red apple into as many pieces as there were people in the family so that the apple's power would keep them together in heaven. Pasta with poppy seed, poppy seed dough, and scones were common dishes.

When the water in the stream turned into wine...

In many families, Christmas Eve is an intimate evening with a festive dinner, when all the expectations of Advent are fulfilled, and it was no different a hundred or two hundred years ago. Families stayed up late, often playing cards after dinner, but the winner’s prize was not money but nuts. At midnight they went to mass, to which folklore also attached superstitions.

It was believed that at this time the newborn Jesus cast out the powers of darkness, the heavens would open, miracles would happen, such as the future being revealed, young people would know who their future spouse would be, and animals would speak in human tongue.

The water in the stream turns to wine, and the river flows with milk and honey. In his book, Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Sándor Bálint mentions an old German record from 1848, according to which the Lake Balaton came to be at the moment of Jesus' birth, "to the awe of all, as the people living there still tell us today".

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Nativity players in 1942 – Photo: Fortepan/Miklós Lajos

First Christmas trees

In Hungary, Christmas trees probably became popular in the 1820s among the nobility first. Countess Teréz Brunszvik, who founded Hungary’s first nursery, the “Angel Garden” in Buda, celebrated the birth of Jesus with the kids in her care beside the first Christmas tree in 1828. Toys and useful gifts were hung on the tree as decorations, which the Countess then distributed to the children of clerks, tradesmen, carters, and laundresses. Archduke Joseph's third wife, Mária Dorottya, also decorated a pine tree in the family’s palace, and Hungarian politician Baron Frigyes Podmaniczky also claimed that he remembered his mother putting up one of the first Christmas trees in Hungary.

In the 19th century, Christmas on noble estates was not an intimate, small circle event, but was complex and ceremonial, where the family celebrated with the servants and the estate workers. In the Podmaniczky family manor house in Aszód, the servants would gather at 5 pm and the head of the family would present each of them with a gift, accompanied by a few affectionate words.

At six o'clock, the door to the head of the family's living room opened at the sound of three bells, and his five children were able to receive their presents. Each of them also got their own Christmas tree, which stood on a large table.

In the 1830s and '40s, decorating a Christmas tree became more widespread, and Christmas trees appeared in civic families’ homes, but in the countryside, it was not until later, at the end of the century or the beginning of the 20th century when they started decorating Christmas trees. At that time, evergreens were decorated with handicraft ornaments, sweets, apples, and nuts.

In 1864, Count Gyula Andrássy, who later became Prime Minister of Hungary, was celebrating New Year with his family at their estate in Tőketerebes (Trebiŝov, Slovakia), and decorated a huge black pine tree with paper roses, burning candles, gilded apples and walnuts. On Christmas Eve, they gave presents to the family, and on Christmas Day they celebrated with the estate workers and their children in the castle around the Christmas tree. Gyula Andrássy's wife Katinka presented the gifts, many of which she had made herself.

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Christmas engraving in the Vasárnapi Újság (Sunday Gazette) of 23 December 1854

Royal Christmases

Queen Elisabeth and Emperor Franz Joseph often spent Christmas in Hungary with their children, often in Gödöllő. Queen Elisabeth was born on 24 December, so she celebrated her birthday on the same day. A mass was held in the morning in the chapel of the castle, and in the afternoon they too had a Christmas tree and gave gifts. Elizabeth had several Christmas trees put up for the servants, staff, and their children and one for her own family. The pine trees were decorated with sweets from the court confectioner, Henrik Kugler, including coloured wax candles, ribbons, and roses, and the presents were placed on a table with a white tablecloth. After the presents were given, they played games, Mária Valéria, for example, loved to play blindfolds. A special Christmas tree was also set up for the children of Gödöllő, under which the students and the little ones could receive lots of sweets, new clothes, school equipment, and toys.

Mária Valéria made gifts for her loved ones herself, and one Christmas she made a coloured map of Hungary for her mother. She also greeted her on her birthday, always in Hungarian.

The holiday was not just about giving gifts. Mária Valéria was also called the Hungarian Princess, because her mother spoke only Hungarian to her from an early age and they spent a lot of time in Hungary. Her teacher was Bishop Jácint Rónay, who also recorded several Christmases. On one occasion, at six o'clock in the evening, they stood around a picture of the birth of Jesus, which had arrived from Vienna, and sang Christmas carols with the court, accompanied by Mária Valéria on the piano. The only light in the room was a small lamp behind the transparent picture, so it was only later that they noticed that the royal couple had entered. The carolers went silent with surprise, but the royal couple encouraged them to continue singing. On a later Christmas, the Bishop recalled, "we celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Her Majesty without a sound. At eleven o'clock I celebrated a silent mass for Their Majesties and the Archduchess. At six o'clock in the evening, in the hall of Her Majesty, a forest of burning candles and tiny flags fluttered on the giant Christmas tree, the branches of which, as if in homage, bowed low under the weight of the beautiful bonbons..."

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Children with a Christmas tree in 1942 – Photo: Fortepan/Rados Tamás

How the capital celebrated

During Christmas, Pest-Buda was a hive of activity. Shop windows were decorated, and tents selling gifts were set up on the banks of the Danube: gilded nuts, small toy musical organized, sugar dolls, lambs, and ornate sewing boxes. The women organised Christmas charity fairs and performances to raise money for the needy. Dóra Kovács, a tourist guide, writes in her book that at that time the heart of Pest was beating around the Parish Church in the city centre. The Church Square opened up into the Town Hall Square, where hundreds of pine trees were sold in the winter between stalls at the city's largest and busiest market.

Once when the Danube froze over, the pine fair was held on the ice scattered with sawdust.

Váci Street and Lipót Street were also bustling with shoppers. From the merchants you could buy Santa Clauses, ‘Krampuses’ (little devil-like figures accompanying Santa), wooden dolls, fruit cakes, dried pears, Greek raisins, almonds, oranges, pictures of various Saints, and bouquets of rosemary. In the last third of the 19th century, the urban scene changed, with gas-lit and then electrically lit shop windows offering Christmas gifts. Hand-made toys were joined by mass-produced goods: little trains with rails, and expensive dolls.

People of the cities spent the Christmas season not entirely at home: a wide range of activities throughout the city tempted them out, and about. Children were taken to the circus to see clowns, animals and fireworks, magicians from abroad dazzled audiences with their magic tricks, and for adults, there were concerts and exhibitions. From 1870 onwards, people could skate every winter on the ice of the lake that later became the City Park Ice Rink. At Christmas time, ladies and gentlemen glided on the ice to the sound of a military band.

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A couple in front of a Christmas tree in 1959 – Photo: Fortepan/Kieselbach Tamás

The poet Petőfi makes a star

Civic families celebrated not only in the family, but friends and relatives would often go over to each other's houses and decorate pine trees together, play cards after dinner, or make indoor fireworks by the fireplace, for which the tools could be bought in shops. Well-off families also organized dances and get-togethers for their friends. Dóra Kovács also quotes from the memoirs of Mária Csapó, who, in the early 1840s, was 13 years old when she and her mother went to a dance after the distribution of Christmas presents at home. It was here that she first danced with her future husband, Sándor Vachott. A few years later, she was celebrating Christmas as Mrs. Sándor Vachott in her own beautiful apartment with her husband and his writer friends. Among those invited was the young poet, Sándor Petőfi, who arrived when they were decorating the pine tree and helped his friend to hang colourful stars on it. Later, as is the old custom, they gathered around the tree and made a star for Mária’s sister Etelke.

It was a twenty-four-point star, with a man’s name on each vertex. Petőfi, who loved Etelke, wrote a short poem for her on one of the vertices.

Etelke had to put this star under her bed and cut off a vertex in the darkness at dawn. According to superstition, the name on the cut vertex told the girls who their future husband would be.

Resources:

• Bálint Sándor: Karácsony, húsvét, pünkösd; A nagyünnepek hazai és közép-európai hagyományvilágából, http://mek.niif.hu/04600/04645/html/index.htm
• Podhorányi Zsolt: Gyerekek a kastélyban, Kossuth Kiadó, 2019.
• Káli-Rozmis Barbara: Erzsébet királyné a születésnapját Gödöllőn ünnepelte/tumag.hu
• Rónay Jácint: Erzsébet királyné udvarában (1871-1883), sajtó alá rendezte Vér Eszter Virág és Borovi Dániel, Erdélyi Szalon Kiadó, 2022.
• Kovács Dóra: „A királyék megint itthon vannak!”, Álomgyár Kiadó, 2020.

What extra tasks does a Head of State have during Advent?

Many people may not know that the Head of State is the Commander-in-Chief of the Hungarian Army, so as Christmas approaches, it is my duty to visit Hungarian soldiers serving in Iraq who are away from their loved ones during the holidays. In addition to the official gifts, I also visit their families and personally "deliver" gifts made by their loved ones. Advent is first and foremost about waiting, about quieting down and helping each other to do so, beyond the family.

This is not a time to intensify things, but to create space in our hearts.

To reach out to those in need. I was able to light the first candle of the Advent wreath in the darkened street of Beregszász (Berehovo), in Transcarpathia, Ukraine, among the many people gathered to celebrate. We also collect donations these weeks for those in need. I try to help raise awareness and support good causes.

How can you quiet your soul down amidst the media noise?

I think it's entirely up to us. Although it is indeed difficult, it is difficult regardless of the position. It's not easy to understand in all this noise that Advent is not primarily about getting everything ready for the holidays and falling over ourselves to do so. In fact, we will be ready if we are able to let go of some of our to-do lists and really pay attention to what is important. We need to be present in our spiritual preparation.

What time do you want to get home to celebrate?

I always strive to be truly present where I am. If you long to be somewhere else or concentrate on the next thing or even the previous thing you did, there is not much point in what you are doing. Of course, I’d like to spend Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the first days of the holidays with my family, but that's not exclusive. Fortunately, the children are old enough now so we can coordinate family events well with office-related tasks. They often accompany me and want to understand why something is important. For example, bringing presents to people who are in need at Christmas time.

We encourage our children to prepare something, to offer something at this time of the year, to experience what it feels like to help others.

Is there a family tradition that there is no Christmas without?

We don't stick rigidly to traditions. I have found that inflexibility leads to tension. Of course, we have recurring habits, such as making Christmas candy or singing together, but there is no compulsory menu or set rule. Each year we give advent calendars to our children. It’s usually not a separate gift for each day, but something that adds up to create something whole, something special in the end. All this helps you to wait, and it is not even necessarily a material gift.

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Photo: Jácint Jónás

You will deliver your first New Year speech this year. How are you preparing for it? Do you think of something that is an important topic months in advance, or do you wait for what's going to be topical at that time?

The President of Hungary should speak out at highlighted moments. They should reflect on the general mood and condition of the people, they should express that they live with them, empathize with them, and are in the same community as them. Such highlighted occasions were my election, my inauguration, the national holiday on 20 August, and my speech at the UN General Assembly. On the last day of the year, like everyone else, I have to look back over the previous year and a little bit ahead to the next, but all in relation to the country, the nation. My New Year's speech can be a resource for those who listen, and that is what I will strive to do. I am constantly storing up certain impulses, experiences, and thoughts, but the current situation will be the determining factor. I will try to speak in a way that is both current and lasting.

Can we say that the coming year with this position also means the greatest possible professional freedom?

I have five years. I consider myself a sovereign person, and now I have been elected to a sovereign office. I can work for what I believe in. I am convinced that there are more things that unite us Hungarians than divide us, and there are highlighted moments when we feel this community. I look for these and try to show them to as many people as possible. This is how I work to show the unity of the nation.

I represent this country, and I want many people to see: Hungary is smiley and lovable.

It's a position I never aspired to, but I'm grateful for the opportunity that comes with it. It has come at a time in my life when I feel that I already have much to say and do and will have more.