Being Hungarian

Identity

Recently I had the idea to write a post titled Myths vs. Facts as a summary about my country/nationality in order to make things clear. Why? Because since I left for Australia I have been asked heaps of silly and embarrassing questions about Hungary. But as I don’t really want to spend any time on stuff that makes me bored and upset, I decided to let the problem go. So, instead of „Haha, is everybody hungry in Hungary, haha?” I’m trying to focus on something else called self-identity and pride. It’s neither about me as a person nor about Hungary as a country. It’s just an attempt to make a collection of images and a bunch of not-so-widely-recognized information that make ME (not every Hungarian) feel happy (or ashamed sometimes) when I’m thinking about myself as a Hungarian. Don’t think it’s easy without being a demagogue (so, you’ll see: more or less I am) especially that I’ve never done something like that before.

Ok. I decided to keep it simple at first. Topics of Hungarian inventions and Nobel-prizes are quite difficult and also controversial sometimes, so I may make mistakes. Just a few examples why I’m saying that: the head of a team is the one who we remember as the inventor; copyrights issues; stolen and restolen ideas; immigrant scientists, citizenship; research done abroad; brain-drain; core ideas without implementation, etc. I try to collect those ones which we usually mention as things given to the world by a Hungarian-born person or by someone who has/had Hungarian parents (the sources that I based this post on are Wikipedia; The spirit of Hungary: A Panorama of Hungarian History and Culture by Stephen Sisa and Hungarians in Australia by Béla J. Kardos). I don’t really want to redefine who’s Hungarian and who’s not. The main point is focusing on the heritage of the so called 'Hungarian genius'.

Hate it or not, this is a very important part of our history and also a core problem for us today: for different reasons, many-many people left the country (due to all of the shit that happened to Hungary during the twentieth century - the situation after world wars, dictatorships, etc.). But let’s try to forget about that now.

To be proud or not to be proud?

To be, definitely.

Inventions

Rubik’s cube (Ernő Rubik) Holography (Dénes Gábor) Safety matches (János Irinyi) Phonograph / Chess-playing machine (Farkas Kempelen) Non-Euclidian geometry (János Bólyai solved a 2000-year-old problem in mathematics) Television program transmitting system (Mihály Dénes) Computer (János Neumann) Atomic bomb (Ede Teller / Leó Szilárd / Jenő Wigner) Vitamin C (Albert Szent-Györgyi ) Helicopter (Oszkár Asbóth) Pulitzer Prize (József Pulitzer) Ballpoint pen (László Bíró) Ford Model T (leading designer József Galamb) Soda water / Electromotor / Dynamo (Ányos Jedlik) BMW diesel engine (Anisits Ferenc) Binocular (József Petzval) Transformer / Turbo (Ottó Bláthy) Supersonic flight (Tódor Kármán) Radar-astronomy (Zoltán Bay) Telephone-network (Tivadar Puskás) Electric trains (Kálmán Kandó) Water turbine (János András Segner) Jet engine (Albert Fonó)

It's the cube that I can solve in 90 secs not my life

Don’t forget about Ignác Semmelweis, "The Mothers' Savior" who discovered the cause of childbed fever and prescribed the absolute sterilization and cleanliness; Mihály Somogyi who developed the "Somogyi-test" for the diagnosis of diabetes; and Loránd Eötvös who developed the Eötvös unit of gravitation (roughly one-billionth of a gram).

Nobel Prizes

Let’s go on. Between 1905 and 2004, thirteen Hungarians won Nobel Prizes, and there would have been at least two more if were there a Nobel Prize for mathematics.

Fülöp Lénárd (physics, 1905, for cathode rays) Róbert Bárány (medicine, 1914, for vestibular apparatus of the ear) Richárd Zsigmondy (chemistry, 1925, for colloid chemistry) Albert Szent-Györgyi (medicine, 1937, Vitamin C) György Hevesy (chemistry, 1943, for new ways to use isotope tracers) György Békésy (medicine, 1961, for function of the cochlea) Jenő Wigner (physics, 1963, for neutron absorption) Dénes Gábor (physics, 1971, for holography) János Polányi (chemistry, 1986, for dynamics of basic chemical processes) János Harsányi (economics, 1994, for game theory) György Oláh (chemistry, 1994, reactivity of carbocations via superacids) Imre Kertész (literature, 2002, for Fateless) Ferenc Herskó (chemistry, 2004, for ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation)

Summer Olympic Games

In that pinnacle of athletic contests, the Olympic Games, Hungary has been consistently near the top ranking, out-performing many nations with far greater populations or far more developed economies. Hungary is in 8th place in all-time Summer Olympic Games medal table (by number of gold medals and total medal number, as well) beaten only by the USA, the non-existing Soviet Union, Germany, Great-Britain, France, Italy and China (that’s in case of gold medals, and it’s quite the same by total medals: change China to Sweden). So, yeah, I’m pretty proud if I deeply rethink this fact: we have won more medals than Australia, Japan, Russia, Finland, Poland, Canada, Netherlands, South Corea, Cuba, Norway, Spain, Brasil… and so on. And I’m even prouder if I remember the shameful possibilities and tiny amount of money that’s „pumped” into the sport by our governments… Nevertheless, have you heard about the Hungarian water-polo team? Yep, the guys who just cannot be beaten for the last three Summer Olympic Games… and won also several titles before (9 gold, 3 silver, 3 bronze)! Wahoooo! Fortunately I could have mentioned pentathlon, swimming, kayaking and canoeing, handball and many other arts of sport, in which we are traditionally exceptional. I dedicate our national anthem to all of these guys (including coach Dénes Kemény – yep, the name might be familiar for those who visited or passed Bondi’s well-known shop, the Kemeny’s – accidentally, it was opened by a Hungarian bloke…).



What else? Ok, have a break: the English word "coach" derives from the Hungarian „kocsi”, meaning "from Kócs." The first coach was, in fact, constructed by the blacksmith of the Hungarian village of Kócs at the beginning of the 15th century. The Germans called it "Kutsche," in English it became "coach," in French "coche." Even if that’s all the effects we have had on languages used around the world today, it’s still more than nothing...

What if I said Hollywood was established by Hungarians? Yep mate, that’s basically true. It can be said that the birth of the American film industry was made possible through the efforts of such Hungarian film pioneers as Adolph Cukor and William Fox. It was Cukor who produced the first American-made full length film, The Prisoner of Zenda. He went on to produce many others through the studio he founded, Paramount Pictures. William Fox, born in the Hungarian village of Tolcsva, brought the products of Hollywood close to the people through the Fox theatre-chain. But there was Sir Alexander Korda who achieved world-wide fame in developing the film industry in Britain. Staying for a while by the topic of movies there are further unexpected facts: actor Bela Lugosi who became famous as Dracula and the star of many classic horror movies, was a Hungarian.

And we’re still there, I mean in Hollywood. Nowadays Hungarians are represented by Andy Vajna (producer of blockbusters like Terminators, Rambos), Vilmos Zsigmond (Oscar-winning cinematographer of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Deer Hunter), Joe Esterhaz (screenwriter of Basic Instict), Gabor Csupo (executive animation producer of The Simpsons and Immigrants), and there’s Nimrod Antal, a director of the next generation with A-category movies like Vacancy, Armored and Predators.

Anyway, we don’t have to live in California to get an Oscar or to get close to win it: one year after Ferenc Rofusz won the Academy Award in the category of Best Animated Short Film in 1981 with The Fly, Istvan Szabo (who I was fortunate enough to work with) brought home the golden statue with Mephisto (Best Foreign Language Film). By the way, Hungarian animation is still of the highest quality, as shown by several nominations including Géza M. Tóth’s Maestro.





Would you have thought that names like Marcel Breuer (architect, designer), Robert Capa (photographer), Charles Simonyi (the father of Excel and Word), Alexander Brody (businessman), André Kosztolanyi (businessman), George Soros (stock exchange tycoon), Uri Geller (illusionist), Victor Vasarely (artist), Cicciolina (porn star – sorry for mentioning her right here…), Milton Friedman (economist), Paul Simon (musician), Calvin Klein (fashion guru), Estée Lauder (cosmetics), Harry Houdini (illusionist), Johnny Weissmüller (Tarzan itself) and actors like Tony Curtis, Peter Falk (Columbo) and Zsa Zsa Gabor all used to be Hungarians or are the children of Hungarian parents?

The iconic Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer

The Falling Soldier by Robert Capa

A Vasarely

Other celebrities with a Hungarian parent: Mariska Hargitay, Adrian Brody, Drew Barrymore, Goldie Hawn, Rachel Weiss, Gene Simmons (from KISS), George Pataki (former governor of State New York), Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) and even Nicholas Sarkozy (President of France). The list is not over but my patience and space are…

What else? I’m proud of one of the best players Real Madrid ever had: Ferenc Puskás. Forgive me boy that I’m not for Barcelona. I’m also happy to live among women widely recognised as the most beautiful ones in the world (like topmodel Enikő Mihalik).

Another funny piece of information is that Scorpions didn't really care about copyrights when they stole the song Gyöngyhajú lány from Hungarian band Omega (yeah, that’s proved and can't be that funny for songwriter Hungarian music genius Gábor Presser) and got on the top of hitlists with White dove worldwide. Ok, things like that happen sometimes - and I'm proud every time I hear it. Compare just for fun…





Never mind.

Known as Zwack abroad

As long as we have dogs like the wonderful and highly intelligent Hungarian vizsla (love you forever my darling, Flóra...), as long as we can drink Unicum, pálinka (the ultimate Hungarian shots) and Tokaji Aszú (more than just a wine), and also can listen to music composed by Zagar (Balázs Zságer) and Yonderboi (László Fogarasi), there’s nothing to worry about (sorry for not detailing the topic of Hungarian fine arts and classical music, I reckon what I wrote is more than enough - for me it is).



G'day Australia

Have you known that Westfield was established by Hungarians? In the register of the 100 richest men in Australia (all multi-millionaires) ten of those listed, making up 10% of the total, are Hungarians. Any examples? Corporate business leaders Sir Peter Abeles of Ansett and TNT and Larry Adler of FAI Insurance Co., founders of Stocks and Holdings (E. Graf), Westfield Corporation (F. Lövy and J. Saunders) and Parkes Development (Sir Paul and V. Strasser). They were shopping center developers and builders of apartment blocks. They employed mainly Hungarian architects. Béla Szabolcs was the chief architect of Westfield Corporation. The consulting engineering firm Mátéffy, Perl & Nagy was engaged in most of the construction engineering work in Sydney. There are Hungarian established companies dealing with building materials, such as Gippsland Cement Co. (I. Gottlieb) and White River Corporation (Nick Greiner), while in oil exploration Bridge Oil of Cooper Basin also had Hungarian beginnings. While the intellectuals wrote and talked about a more sophisticated ways of living, the Hungarian businessmen decided to do something about it. They became trend-setters, and in the process most became rich, and quite a number very, very rich. They provided the largest infusion of Hungarian ideas into Australia since Ganz and Co. revolutionised flour milling and took part in the electrification of Australian towns, mines and factories. Read more.

So, what is it like being "just" a Hungarian? Pretty good mate. As I read through my post it's getting even better. :)

I cannot know

by Miklós Radnóti

I cannot know how other people feel about

this flame-surrounded little country; out

of this I grew as from strong trunks weak branches grow.

It is my native land, my childhood's world; I know

and hope my body will be buried in this soil.

I am at home. When sometimes bushes start to coil

around my feet, I know them and their flower's name,

I know him, too, who walks the road, from whence he came

and also know the meaning of the purple woe

which drips from house-walls in the summer's evening glow.

It is a map for him who flies across this landscape's belt,

he does not know where Michael Vörösmarty dwelt -

What does his map reveal? A barrack, factory?

These are grasshoppers, oxen, steeples, towns for me;

his fieldglass shows him workshops, farms which upward lurk:

I see that worker too who fears to lose his work

and see the forests, whistling orchards, vineyards, graves,

a sobbing aged woman, too, among the graves;

above, he sees a passing train, a factory,

below, a railroad worker signals and I see

a red flag in his hand and children all around,

inside the spacious yards dogs roll upon the ground;

I see footsteps of bygone loves there, on the street,

the kisses' flavor, in my mouth, is bitter, sweet;

walking into the school when I was all alone

I stepped (to pass examinations) on a stone;

well, here's the stone but from above, it's very flat,

there are no instruments which ever could show that.

We are as guilty as the others are; we now

well realize when we have sinned and where and how;

yet workers, poets live here, too, without a fault,

and babies in whom an understanding will exult

and light in them; they save it hidden in the dark

till fingers of a peace can signal us a spark

and answer on our stifled words with words aloud...

Cover us with your large wings, night's watchful cloud!

Yep. That’s it.