All travellers and explorers have always had the desire and the ambition to discover, for different reasons and motivations, remote and unknown lands. Hungarian travellers and explorers are no ...exception here. Eminent Hungarian Orientalists, archaeologists, geographers, as well as anthropologists, geologists, zoologists and botanists, and other brave and adventurous scientists, have become justly recognised in recent centuries, even worldwide, for their oeuvres and their scientific achievements.
After 1945, travel opportunities in socialist Hungary became more limited, and Hungarian scientists and researchers could embark on their expeditions only with great difficulty, overcoming many obstacles and with scarce financial resources.
In this study, I introduce five such brave and determined Hungarian travellers: Dénes Balázs: geographer and karst researcher, János Balogh: biologist, ecologist and professor, Steve Bezuk: engineer and extreme sportsman, who lived in the United States, Ödön Jakabos: Transylvanian writer and “Székely pilgrim”, and finally, Tibor Székely: travel writer, museologist and Esperantist from Vojvodina.
They all – through their individual scientific achievements, discoveries, perseverance and human attitude – have become worthy heirs of the outstanding Hungarian explorers and travellers of the past centuries.
Gyula Germanus or Hajji Julius Abdul-Karim Germanus, Hungarian Muslim Orientalist Professor (1884-1979) was a well-known scholar and popular figure in Hungary from the turn of the century until late ...seventies. He was an Arabist, teacher, professor, writer, traveller, literary historian as well MP in Hungary (1958-1966) and member of many academies abroad. He converted to Islam in Delhi in 1930, and he was the first Hungarian to make a pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) in 1935. In this paper, I would like to describe in more detail his first major trip abroad, which took him to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the summer of 1902. The 17-year-old Germanus, a newly graduated, well-informed, educated, multilingual and already interested in Eastern culture, had a lifetime of experiences on his journey. Based partly on one of his memoirs and partly on a radio play he wrote and found in the Germanus bequest, I will outline in detail a chronicle of his days in Bosnia. First he travelled by train from Budapest to Banja Luka, where he visited the only Trappist monastery in the Balkans, and then he wrote a brief history of the Trappist order in his book. He then travelled with his companions by coach along a wild and scenic road carved into the valley of the Vrbas river towards Jajce. He noted that the Hungarian soldiers who invaded Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 had named the province “the land of curved mountains” for a reason. It is in Jajce that he had his greatest and most astonishing adventure, when he walked into a café in the evening, where he was greeted with great affection by the regular Bosniaks, especially after it turns out that he speaks Turkish. So he spends the evening in good company and is amply entertained. This first impression of the kindness and hospitality of the Muslim people of the East will stayed with him for the rest of his life. Jajca was followed by a journey by narrow-gauge railway to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. In addition to describing the city and its sights, Germanus also reported that he had made a new and very dear friend, the intelligent Ahmed Mustafa, a shariat law student. After meeting him, they talked about the Islamic religion, the Quran, shariat and visited the bazaar. Afterwards they had dinner and Germanus invited his new friend to visit Hungary, who accompanied him to Grazová and then to Raguza. They also discovered Raguza together and said goodbye to each other. From there Germanus travelled to Cattaro, then to Cetinje in Montenegro, where he had interesting and instructive adventures, and after a long and difficult ordeal, including two days of starvation, he arrived in Fiume, where he was helped by an acquaintance of his father’s, and was able to travel home in peace. In the conclusion, I will explain that six years after Germanus’ visit, the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Empire, and tensions between the peoples of the Balkans escalated, leading to the Sarajevo assassination attempt on 28 June 1914, which soon afterwards led to the outbreak of the First World War. Germanus never forgot his first trip and the positive experiences he had here. He had sympathy for the Bosniaks and helped them in Hungary when veteran soldiers and officers stranded in Hungary after the First World War founded an Islamic religious community in 1931 under the leadership of former Military Imam Husein Hilmi Durić . Germanus, who was already a Muslim, supported them, mobilised his network of contacts for them and took on the role of secretary-general of the so-called “Gül Baba Cultural Committee”. I believe that the teenager Germanus’ personality development was greatly influenced by his trip in 1902 and the friendly, welcoming atmosphere that surrounded him.
In this study we present an important and interesting period in the history of Islam in Hungary in the 20th century, the past of the Islamic community in Budapest between the two world wars, which ...was mainly composed of Bosniaks. Special emphasis will be placed on the life of the community's imam, Husein Hilmi Durić, ‘Grand Mufti’ of Buda and former Military Imam, his domestic and international activities on behalf of the community, and the Hungarian supporters, friends and helpers of the Bosniaks. There is also a brief description of a few other members of the community. The Hungarian Islamic Community, founded in 1988 and still functioning as an established church3 in Hungary, claims as its legal predecessor the Independent Hungarian Autonomous Islamic Religious Community of Buda, named after Gül Baba, which operated de facto between 1931 and 1945. In our study, we describe in detail how Bosnian soldiers who fought valiantly in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy's army in the First World War found their way to Hungary after the war, how they found a new home, mostly in Budapest, how they started their lives again, choosing mostly Hungarian wives and quickly learning Hungarian language and customs. But soon the practice of Islam became indispensable for them, and that is why the first Islamic community in Hungary was founded in 1931. The adventurous life of the community's leader, Husein Hilmi Durić, is described in detail, along with his extensive activities in Hungary and his domestic and international contacts. Similarly, we describe the activities of influential Hungarian supporters of the community (e.g. Andor Medriczky, Gyula Germanus, István Bárczy) who selflessly helped Bosnian Muslims to practice their faith in Hungary. We look at the two major trips of the community leaders to the Middle East and India to strengthen Islam in Hungary and to raise funds for the planned mosque in Buda, which never materialised. Durić's special relationship with the Albanian King Zogu, his travels to Tirana and his programmes are also discussed in more detail. Nor can we ignore the unfortunate fact that in the 1930s and 1940s, during the Christian Nationalist Horthy era, many people did not look kindly on the activities of Bosnian Muslims living in Hungary. We then turn to the life and activities of another community leader, Mehmed Resulović, as a fencing master. We will also outline how an average Bosniak lived, what he did, how he spent his everyday life, how he dressed and how he entertained himself in Hungary in the 1930s and 1940s, far from his homeland. We also discuss, of course, how some of them became involved in Hungarian politics, as members of far-right organisations and movements, possibly because they were invited to join these circles by their former Hungarian officers and comrades in arms of First World War. Finally, we outline the life of an average Bosnian Muslim, Hasan Jamaković, who had a typical career in Hungary.
56-os magyar menekültek Szudánban Udvarvölgyi, Zsolt András
Afrika Tanulmányok / Hungarian Journal of African Studies,
12/2022, Volume:
16, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Open access
In my paper I briefly summarize the short history of the entry of Hungarian refugees into Africa in 1956, then I look at Sudan and briefly outline the main cornerstones of the establishment of ...Sudanese-Hungarian diplomatic relations. Next, I will describe in detail the reports of the Hungarian legation in Khartoum, dated 1956-1959, about the three Hungarian refugees emmigrated to Sudan. It is a remarkable and hitherto unknown fact that the politically unstable, struggling with numerous economic, socio-ethnic problems, with a harsh climate, a huge North-East African country virtually unknown in Hungary, became a host country - even if for a short time - to a few Hungarians. However, two of the three Hungarian refugees – presumably - soon left Sudan, and the further fate of the lady who remained in Khartoum is still unknown to me. It can be stated that the chargé d’affaires of the Hungarian legation kept an eye on the Hungarians arriving in Sudan and as an aspiring young diplomat, respectively as a „good comrade”, he followed the instructions of the established Kádár-regimé in everything. For the preparation of my writing, apart from diplomatic sources, I was inspired by Gábor Búr’s lecture of 11 November 2021 on the arrival of Hungarian refugees in Africa in 1956.
Írásomban Germanus Gyula (1884-1979) orientalista, író, nyelvész, irodalomtörténész, utazó, egyetemi tanár, országgyűlési képviselő (1958-1966) egyiptomi és szíriai utazásait és tevékenységét ...vizsgálom, a magyar külképviseletek által a Külügyminisztériumnak küldött jelentések és egyéb dokumentumok tükrében. Germanus egyiptomi és szíriai szerepléseiről, találkozóiról, a kiküldetések előkészítő munkálatairól és a professzor tevékenységének a fogadó országbeli visszhangjairól elsősorban a Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltárában fellelhető iratokat ismertetem. A diplomáciai jelentések és minisztériumi levelezések jól rávilágítanak az ötvenes-hatvanas évek Magyarországának külpolitikai helyzetére, a Kádár-korszak államigazgatásának belső felépítésére, sőt az emberi kapcsolatok komplexitására és sokszínűségére is.
In my study I describe a dark chapter in the history of Hungary in the 1950s, the tragic conditions in the Vác Penitentiary and Prison and the violence and cruelty of the authorities towards ...political prisoners. In 1948, communists took power in Hungary and the Stalinist dictatorship that had taken over the country put hundreds of thousands of innocent victims behind bars, interned them or deported them to forced accommodations. Vác, one of Hungary's largest prisons, it was a horror of a place until the 1956 revolution, with many dying behind bars because of torture and ill- treatment, but survivors carried the traumas of their experiences for the rest of their lives. At the end of this article, I will look at the former prisoners of Vác who are buried in the Vác prison cemetery, the events of the revolution in prison, and the re-imprisonments after the revolution was crushed, and the prisoners‟ hunger strike of 1960. The situation of political prisoners in Hungary was not different from that of political prisoners in other Eastern European countries belonging to the communist bloc (e.g. Poland, Czechoslovakia, GDR, Romania, Bulgaria).
Az írás röviden bemutatja a Váci Egyházmegye fenntartásában lévő Apor Vilmos Katolikus Főiskola csecsemő- és kisgyermeknevelő alapszakját, a 2016 szeptemberében indult képzés sajátosságait, az eddigi ...oktatási tapasztalatokat. Továbbá felvázolja a specifikumnak számító tárgyakat és a gyakorlati képzésből leszűrhető tanulságokat. Végezetül Gyimesi Ildikó szakmódszertant oktató tanár fogalmazza meg a bölcsődei nevelő munkáról alkotott hitvallását.
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