Ghosts In The Room – Transylvania In Hungary (The Lost Lands #6)

My first confrontation with the lost lands beyond Hungary’s borders concerned Transylvania. This confrontation did not take place high in the towering mountains, deep within dark forests, nor beside sparkling lakes. Instead, it occurred within the borders of Hungary. Any foreigner who spends more than a few weeks in Hungary will discover that Transylvania is all around them. A ghost that enters the room anytime there is a reference to Transylvania. The connections are unavoidable. The Treaty of Trianon could take Transylvania away from Hungary, but it could not take Transylvania out of Hungarians. I learned this from first-hand experience.

Mystical setting – King’s Pass in Transylvania

Deep Roots – Acts of Remembrance
One thing I have noticed while traveling in Hungary is the constant presence of Transylvania. Talk to a Hungarian about the Treaty of Trianon and Transylvania will be the first region in Historic Hungary mentioned, and likely the only one. This is just the beginning. In Debrecen’s train station as I perused the hardback picture books for sale, I noticed the photos were of cities, villages, castles, and historic sites in Transylvania. I would need an extra set of hands to count all the used bookstores in Budapest that feature the three volume Erdely Tortenete (History of Transylvania). Walking down the street, I notice a sticker affixed to a car with the outline of Historic Hungary. It makes apparent that the largest region lost due to Trianon was Transylvania. At the magnificent neo-Gothic Hungarian Parliament building, the Szekely flag flies beside the entrance. An intentional act of remembrance for the Hungarian speaking minority that still guards its autonomy in eastern Transylvania as fiercely as it guarded the Kingdom of Hungary’s borders beginning in the Middle Ages.

Walking through the bowels of Nyugati (Western) Station, I heard the Szekely anthem playing. Driving through the countryside of eastern Hungary I noticed numerous Trianon monuments, most of which mention Erdely (Transylvania). The obsession with Transylvania extends to literature and far beyond Hungary’s borders. While reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I learned that estate agent Jonathan Harker lands in a Budapest hospital after barely surviving the blood thirsty excesses of Count Dracula. Furthermore, the Count claims Szekely ancestry. During my first visit to Budapest in 2011, I noticed three thick volumes on the shelves of what would become my favorite bookstore in the world, Bestsellers. The books were the Transylvania Trilogy by Miklos Banffy, a Hungarian aristocrat who was heir to one of Transylvania’s most famous families. Banffy managed to outdo his ancestors in literary achievements. An incredible writer and storyteller, Banffy’s books have gained fame well beyond Hungary’s borders. They express the deep-rooted connections between Hungarians and Transylvania.

For the record – The three volume History of Transylvania

Paying Tribute – In The Grip of a Vision
In Kispest, one of Budapest’s downtrodden former industrial districts, I happened upon the Wekerle Estate, a Transylvanian inspired housing project. The estate was the work of architect Karoly Kos who was born in Timisoara (Temesvar) but spent much of his life in Transylvania. He brought the latter’s aesthetics with him to Kispest. The estate is prized property in an otherwise nondescript district. In Hungary, I have enjoyed meals of Koloszvari-layered sauerkraut, the name recalling Transylvania’s largest city. The dish originated in Oradea (Nagyvarad), rather than Koloszvar, but both cities were lost due to Trianon. Szekely inspired residents can be found both inside and outside the capital. A taste of Transylvania is never far away.

Even Romanians cannot escape from Transylvania in Hungary. For instance, Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) a name that lives in infamy to all but Romanians who view him as a national hero. While reading a biography of Tepes, I learned that his ferociousness did not intimidate Hungary’s most famous king Matthias Corvinus, who held Vlad under house arrest in Visegrad (along the Danube Bend north of Budapest) for a decade. Speaking of Corvinus, he was born in Koloszvar (Cluj). His exploits as King of Hungary from 1458 – 1490 gained him statues on both Castle Hill and Hero’s Square in Budapest. Corvinus is the most famous of a long list of Hungarian heroes who hailed from Transylvania. It is impossible to overstate the grip that Transylvania has on Hungary.

Some might call the Hungarian connection to Transylvania the product of historical roots, others a fetish, I would call it an obsession. One informed by passion, romanticism, sentimentalism, and depression. Hungary has a perpetual case of post-traumatic stress disorder arising from the Treaty of Trianon. Transylvania is one of the main causes, and certainly a consequence of that disorder. It is considered by far the greatest loss that Hungarians have suffered in modern history. Right up there with the Mongol Invasion (1241-1242) and the Battle of Mohacs (1526) as seminal national disasters. Unlike the older historical events, the loss of Transylvania is still playing out today. Anyone who has visited Transylvania knows why Hungarians feel its loss so acutely. Quite simply, there is no place like it in Europe. The landscape is stunning, and the history matches it. Much of that history involves Hungarians.

When the Ottoman Turks occupied Hungary for most of the 16^th and 17th centuries, and the Habsburgs imposed themselves on northern Hungary, Transylvania retained its autonomy. The principality paid an annual tribute to the Ottomans and was largely free to run its own affairs. This set off a Golden Age under the rule of Gabor Behlen, a renaissance in the land beyond the forest. For Hungarians, this preserved their essence at a time of great peril. In turn, this led to Hungarians viewing Transylvania as the purist part of their historic lands. An older book on Transylvania I have on my shelf sums this up in its title, “The Other Hungary.”

Flying high – Szekely flag at the Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest
(Credit: Derzsi Elekes Andor)

Misty Eyed – A Sentimental Journey
The deep sense of connection Hungarians have to Transylvania made its loss a national catastrophe. It was like losing a part of themselves. Discuss Transylvania with a Hungarian and their emotion is palpable. I recall one man who told me about his visit to a mountain top in Transylvania. As he contemplated the beauty before him and his Hungarian ethnicity, he became misty eyed. I found such sentimentality disconcerting. Transylvania is a life force in Hungary. No wonder the national psyche was traumatized by its loss.

Click here for: Standard Deviation – Demographic Discoveries In The Crisana (The Lost Lands #7)

Anecdotal Evidence – The Wrong Side of the Border in Historic Hungary (The Lost Cities #14b)

I rarely go back to where I grew up other than to visit my mother from time to time. Anytime I do go back, I feel like I am in the twilight zone of my life. Everything seems vaguely familiar and strangely different. I cannot put my finger on what exactly bothers me other than everything. I am a stranger in a place where I spent half my life. That life seems so distant that I have trouble believing it ever happened. Internal exile is an unsettling experience. It can also be an instructive one.

My visits back home are as close as I will ever get to understanding what it must have been like for millions of ethnic Hungarians who stayed in Transylvania, Banat, Vojvodina, southern Slovakia, and the Burgenland after the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated, and the Treaty of Trianon took effect a year and a half later. They went from first among unequals, to last among equals. They still inhabited the lost lands and cities of Historic Hungary. They had memories of a much more pleasant past and worries about an uncertain future.

Lost & found – Hungarian celebration in northern Transylvania after reoccupation in 1940
(Credit: Fortepan)

Place Settings – All Is Not Lost
There were still millions of ethnic Hungarians who stayed put in regions which overnight became part of Czechoslovakia, Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia), and Austria. While these lands were no longer controlled by Hungary, they were still home to 3.2 million ethnic Hungarians. They hoped that eventually Hungary would take back some or all this territory. That would happen in northern Transylvania, southern Slovakia, and the Vojvodina between 1939-41. All would be lost a few years later, along with the Second World War. The consequences for ethnic Hungarians would be dreadful. Considering the tumultuous history they endured, it seems remarkable that so many ethnic Hungarians decided to stay in the lost lands. On the other hand, their identities were tied to the places they called home. Language and culture were also defining factors. Despite all the consternation surrounding them, there are millions of ethnic Hungarians that still live in the territories ceded due to the Treaty of Trianon. For them, all is not lost.

During my travels in Hungary and the lands lost due to Trianon, I have heard some interesting anecdotes regarding ethnic Hungarians living in what amounts to a near abroad. Their situation is unique. Other minority ethnic communities in Eastern Europe such as ethnic Germans were expelled following World War II. Despite facing serious discrimination in postwar Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and even worse in Ceausescu-era Romania, ethnic Hungarians mostly stayed put. One sub-group of Hungarian speakers, the Szekely in Eastern Transylvania, have proven among the most resilient.

While visiting one of their historic fortified churches, a high school age girl guided me through the complex. Along the way, I asked her if any Romanians lived in the village. According to her there were none. Only a single Romanian police officer was stationed there. The villagers had no love lost for the Romanian government. The police officer was not trusted. His duties amounted to providing an official presence. According to the girl, he did not have much to do because no one in the village shared anything of importance to him. The village was an insular and isolated community. I doubt that any outsider, whether they happened to be Romanian or not, would have been accepted.

Timeless setting – Szekely village in eastern Transylvania

Innocence & Experience – Szekely Land & Slovakia
While visiting one of their historic fortified churches, a high school age girl guided me through the complex. Along the way, I asked her if any Romanians lived in the village. According to her there were none. Only a single Romanian police officer was stationed there. The villagers had no love lost for the Romanian government. The police officer was not trusted. His duties amounted to providing an official presence. According to the girl, he did not have much to do because no one in the village shared anything of importance to him. The village was an insular and isolated community. I doubt that any outsider, whether they happened to be Romanian or not, would have been accepted.

I was not surprised by the Szekely girl’s attitude. She lived in a world that was bound by traditions that had changed little over the centuries. In the grand scheme of Szekely Land, Trianon was very recent. What I did find surprising was the girl’s opinion of Hungary. She had spent some time there and did not find it to her liking. She said the people were “different” and “not very nice.” The humble, rural lifeways of the Szekely’s could not have been further from Budapest. Szekely’s and the land are inseparable. Trianon could not put a stop to that. If anything, the treaty only solidified it.

I came upon another surprising attitude from a Hungarian woman who had been born in Czechoslovakia, but now lived in Simontornya, an hour and a half south of Budapest. Her family was originally from southern Slovakia. They decided to move back to Hungary after Trianon. They had the option of staying in Czechoslovakia where life for the family had been pretty good, even after Hungary lost control of the territory. Uncertainty about what might happen in the future, drove her father to move the family back to Hungary.

When I asked the woman her opinion of Slovakia, she thought it was fine and still had family in the area. After the family moved to Hungary, she recalled hearing her mother say to her father, “I told you we should not have left.” Hungary during the interwar years was not a better place to be than Czechoslovakia. Starting a new life in a country riven with economic problems and seething with resentment over Trianon could not have been easy. That woman’s family story reflected the difficulties.

Divide & conquer – Trianon Monument in Batasszek, Hungary (Credit: Netpartisan)

The Way Things Were – The Way Things Are
Trianon is still an emotional subject in Hungary. Sometimes I believe it is more on the minds of those who live inside the country, than it is for ethnic Hungarians who live outside it. Finding a voice of reason can be difficult. Another Hungarian acquaintance who lives in Budapest and has traveled throughout the lost lands had a sensibly nuanced take on Trianon. He said that the resentment and revanchism during the interwar years was understandable. Emotions were running high, and many of those who wanted Hungary to regain the territory had suffered directly from Trianon. In his opinion, the Hungarian attitude should have changed after the Second World War. The retaking of territory lost to Trianon had only proved temporary. The result was more pain and suffering for ethnic Hungarians.

The terms of Trianon were never going to be revised. Hungary’s loss in the war decided that. In his opinion, it was past time for Hungarians to move on. Complaining about the situation was not going to make it better. Millions had learned to live with it. There was no use deluding oneself, the borders of Trianon were solidified after the war. There was not anything that would change that. Hungarians could live in the past, but what good would it do them? As the author Thomas Wolfe said, “you can never go home again.” For millions of ethnic Hungarians that will always be the case.

Going Off – Eternal Life In Transylvania (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #68)

Transylvania is as close as I’ll ever get to being a child again. Each day I have spent there brought me something new. My curiosity is stimulated to such an extent that it could never be satisfied, only inspired. I could spend my entire life on journeys of discovery across the region. A sense of wonder unlike anything I have ever felt before or since came upon me the first time I crossed over King’s Pass and entered Transylvania. This autumn procession led me into a land that glowed green and gold.

Windswept meadows, misty clouds, rugged hills, village spires reaching to the sky, all illuminated by a sun that resisted the slide toward winter. That feeling of awe I first felt returns to me each time I cross back over into the region. A succession of feelings so powerful that I carry them within me where I go. A kaleidoscopic series of images and experiences that memory has gifted me. This is when I feel most alive. The moments and memories often come back to me late in the evening. An uncontrollable human urge, an impulse so fierce and natural that I have little choice but to follow my heart back to Transylvania.

             Symmetry & beauty – View of Sibiu

Silent Tolerances – A Series of Observations
Transylvania is all those memories that mean so much to me. The eye-like eaves on Saxon houses, the dog sitting atop a house in Sibiu. the symmetry and beauty of that same city. The exquisite pottery sold in someone’s backyard, the countless bicyclists in Bontida. Dodging craters pockmarking the parking lot at Saschiz, hay bales climbing up hillsides high in the mountains, the menacing stoicism of a policeman patrolling the platform in Cluj, the sublime calmness of horse drawn wagon cart drivers on highways,

Romanian flags flying above police stations in Szekely Land Two tracks that run to little pieces of pastoral heaven, the teenage girl leading tours of a church in Darjiu, the antiquated and insular world of the Szekely. The rusticated colors of neglect on village houses, the clothes of old men who look like they have been wearing the same suit since the Second World War, the women with stares of sincerity, the roundtrip rail journey from Sibiu to Sighisoara that takes forever.

The Roma sitting in a pasture by the railroad tracks just after dawn, the night trains reminding of the way things were, the border control reminding of the ways things are. The listless look of people walking to work. The low prices, the even lower wages. The villages without anyone in their twenties. The peaked caps, scruffy beards, and frosty mustaches. The worn faces, wrinkled clothes, and dark hands. The chatter that sounds like Latin has come back to life, the laughter that is its own language. The kindness of Romanians, the seriousness of Hungarians, the vanishing of Saxons, the stubbornness of the Szekely, the exoticism of the Roma. The legacy of Trianon that hangs over everyone and everything. The ancient enmities, and silent tolerances of all involved. The way people look past each other, the way people look into one another.

        Shadow & light – Side entry to a church in Transylvania

Inside Out – Life Among The Transylvanians
The speeding vehicles on rural roads, the melancholy of the villages, the suspicious stares at outsiders. Garden plots growing for centuries, the broken fences still standing, the rhythm of life everlasting. The plastic shopping bags on handlebars, the habits of pensioners, the indifference of stray dogs. The beautiful and lifeless town halls, the amount of cigarettes being smoked, the endless conversations in cafes and restaurants.

The symmetry and beauty of Sibiu, the absence of Dracula, the violence of Vlad Tepes, the castles slowly collapsing, the manor houses hollowed out. The flaking of early 20^th century paint, the pretty pastel townhouses, the blood red politics of the past. The trains that never arrive on time, the buses that never leave on time, the people who learned to tolerate it. The random towers that still stand along city walls, the doors that should have fallen off long ago, the houses where no one has been home in years.

The people walking without purpose, the wait for no one in particular. Those who could really care less and those who care too much. The dated splendor of a city center, the odor of a woman sniffing glue, the harmlessly belligerent drunks, the barely standing bus station, five days in Brasov. The modern tractor in one field and the horse drawn plow in the other. The benign look of rural poverty, the frightening look of urban depravity, the buildings that look like they should not be left standing.

The dog that bit my pants on the run to Deva Castle and the apology from its owner. The autumn storm sweeping over a giant meadow, the corruption that will not sweep the streets. The smell of public places, toxic indifference. The idea that nothing will ever change. The people waiting for a handout, the people wanting out. The modesty of beggars, the pride of professionals, the frustration of the working class, the successful failures. The beautiful women who look unapproachable and lonely, the handsome men who look arrogant and insecure.

          Keeping watch – Dog on a rooftop in Sibiu

Running In Place – A Step Behind The Times
The university students who make conversation and never war, the peasants who make a life and never money. The unseen elites who rule, run, and own everything. Those who do not have much and want for nothing. The women selling flowers whose smiles are worth so much more. The sturdy wooden doors and drawn curtains that an entire world lives behind. The empty side streets and crowded sidewalks. The pace of life, forever falling a step behind the times.

The romance of elderly couples and the lust of university students. The adults who are full of ambition and headed for immigration. The Banffys, the Telekis, and all the other aristocrats that can never be brought back. The grand facades and less grand interiors. The palaces that look like nothing of the sort. The churches that preserve tradition, the silence within them that is their perpetual condition. The graffiti on a ruined wall at Banffy Kastely asking “are you the solution or the problem.” The quiet voice that could never bring itself to answer the question.

Click here for: Night At The Opera – A Transylvanian Tale In Cluj (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #69)

Greater Truths – Beyond The Façade: Biertan Fortified Church

I made a mistake in Biertan, one that I am likely to repeat again in the future due to time constraints and that never ending challenge to a traveler’s itinerary, trying to do too much with too little time. I was able to visit Biertan Fortified Church, spending about an hour there. This was not nearly enough time to do the church justice. Five hundred years of architectural, ethnic, and religious history deserves more than an hour. Divining the secrets that the church has stored up over the centuries takes scrutiny. Skimming the surface left me with indelible impressions, but my experience was lacking in depth. Only later did I discover just how much I had missed.

         In depth – Exploring Biertan Fortified Church

Visions of Biertan – Reality & Reputation
The Biertan Fortified Church had been a personal infatuation for me ever since I set foot in Transylvania on this trip. For several evenings I sat in a hotel room in Szekelyudvarhely staring at photos of the church I had found online. I read and reread my guidebook’s writeup on Biertan. Seeing the church had become an obsession after I visited the Darjiu Fortified Church during my first day in Transylvania. That church was also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Fortified churches were a Szekely and Saxon specialty. Visiting another one that lived up to the standards of Darjiu was possible. The one in Biertan happened to be the most accessible. It was just a matter of fitting the church into my itinerary. Biertan was a half hour side trip off the highway that would eventually take me to Timisoara. I made it to Biertan, but my visit was brief.

I should have known better than to spend so little time at a major historical attraction. I knew prior to visiting Biertan that its fortified church was lauded as one of the best in Transylvania and of world historical importance. There was no doubt in my mind of the church’s structural greatness after I caught sight of its exterior. Reality matched reputation. But this was only the church’s façade. Religion is an internal affair, and the most spiritual part of any church is found within the interior. This is where the heart and soul of a sacral structure is to be found. Spiritualism is more than skin deep. I stepped inside the church to further investigate.

The interior of the Biertan Fortified Church was airy, austere, and humbling. I had been to similar sized Gothic Hall churches in Brasov and Cluj, but those two are in the center of cities. They form part of those cityscapes and are inseparable from their surroundings. The fortified church at Biertan rose above its surroundings. The church was reaching for the heavens. This powerfully provocative work of architecture communicated to me just how important the Protestant faith was to the Saxon community. From 1572 to 1867, the church was the bishopric for the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the most prominent spiritual force in the life of Transylvania’s Saxons. Power was centered here. So were many secrets.

 Safe & secure – Lock on Sacristy door at Biertan Fortified Church (Credit: wuppertaler)

Marital Therapy – Learning To Live Together
In another part of the complex lies an even greater source of fascination. The church is rightfully famous for its three concentric rings of fortifications, rising one after another. Besides the church, the fortified walls are the complex’s most noticeable architectural feature. I spent part of my visit walking along the walls, getting a feel for their size and scale. Along the way, I may have passed by what is known as the marital prison. It is no secret that prior to the latter half of the 20^th century, divorce was frowned upon in Europe. Marriage was an unbreakable pact according to the church. This did not stop those who yearned to be free of marital bonds. Lutheran Saxons had a unique way of dealing with this issue. When a couple wanted to divorce, they were sent to the marital prison for months long therapy with each other.

The prison consists of a small room located along one of the fortification walls. The couple would be put in this confined space together for up to six weeks. Those that proved they could work out their differences were set free after two weeks. Those who did not had to spend several more weeks together. The furnishings in the room were limited to only one bed, one chair, one table, one plate, and one spoon. The couple was forced to share. Whether this system worked or not, I have no idea, but I would not have bet against it. Many couples likely agreed to mend their differences to get freed from these close quarters. The Saxons were nothing, if not austere. Ironically, the only ostentatious thing I saw in Biertan was the fortified church and its interior was devoid of the florid religiosity found in churches and cathedrals of the Catholic faith.

   Heart and soul – Interior of Biertan Fortified Church (Credit: wuppertaler)

Making Time – A Lifelong Pursuit
The mysteries of Saxon life and spirituality can be found within the walls of Biertan Fortified Church by those who devote enough time to explore the entire complex. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of rushing through it. I regretted my haste at the time and that regret only grew when I learned more. I should have spent more time in Biertan and Transylvania. Days, weeks, months, or the rest of my life. Any of those are a good start.  

The Transylvanian Effect – Romance of a Lifetime (Eastern Europe & Me #6b)

The deepest love annihilates everything except for the object of affection. This is the way I feel about Transylvania. I count myself fortunate to have fallen in love with it. The region’s infinite charms are so intensely seductive that I could think of no other place while I was there. Even now, when separated by several years since my last visit, an indescribable feeling comes over me when my thoughts turn to Transylvania. Sometimes the trigger is a memory, other times an image. Today I found a photo I took of the Nagy-Küküllő River (Tarnava Mare) flowing through Szekelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc) on an August morning. This served to remind me of the ecstasy I felt when seeing the sunlight illuminate the river. The purity, power, and promise of nature, the feeling of something you know to be so true that it is beyond question. It was like falling in love for the first time all over again. I never believed life could be this beautiful and knew that I would somehow have to learn to live without it.

Day of Creation – Dawn along the Nagy-Kukullo River (Tarnava Mare) in Transylvania

Nirvanas of Nowhere – The Timeless Land
When I was in Transylvania the rest of the world ceased to exist. Time has no meaning in a timeless land. No other travels, even in my most beloved spots in Eastern Europe, could ever be held comparable. The integration of history and nature so dazzling, the rural and the urban so quaint, the beauty and the romance so spectacular, that I lost track of time, that I lost all inhibitions, that I lost and found myself in moments of immortality. I could not stop the seduction of lost highways, the darkness of forests, the village architecture that looks as natural as the land surrounding it, the small cities full of cultured rusticity, the faces of villagers weathered like the land, the Snuffleupagus like haystacks, the horse drawn wagon carts that outnumber cars, the bicycles which outnumber horse drawn wagon carts, the forest roads that lead to endless nirvanas of nowhere, the smoke that hangs over villages like eternity, the fields of wildflowers covering mountain meadows, the monuments that look older than the history they commemorate, the rhythm of life in lockstep with nature.

To taste the purity of Transylvanian air as it pours into the passenger car as the train surmounts Kings Pass, to watch the medieval world rematerialize as your eyes scan the stones that form the Saxon church of St. Michael’s in Cluj, to sit along the edge of the forest adjacent to the old town of Brasov and look down upon centuries of history that the excesses of man could not defeat, to walk in that shadowy world where the seeing eye eaves of Saxon houses stare at you in Sibiu, to gaze in puzzled astonishment at the bands of Roma randomly wandering in the countryside, to be mesmerized by the myth that informs the frescoes on the church walls at Szekelyderzs (Darjiu), to step off the train and into a candy colored station that seems to have been waiting for your arrival a century since its construction. This my Transylvania, the impossible dream of eternal romance finally achieved.

Powerful Presence – Hilltop Chapel at Csikracos (Racu) in eastern Transylvania

Arrivals & Departures – Getting The Better of Me
There are people who spend their lives trying to figure out how mankind can travel to another planet. They have no idea that another planet is located just a few flights and a train ride twenty-four hours away. At least it is for me. Accessing Transylvania through travel, is accessing the imagination.  Transylvania has that quality of all great works of art, it creates a universe all its own. The usual rules no longer apply, because it has set a standard scarcely imaginable except for those who experience it. Magic has a way of altering the mind, redefining belief and creating a greater level of consciousness. This is the Transylvanian effect. For instance, though I have always traveled to Transylvania by way of Hungary, the latter ceased to exist when the road or railway climbed over King’s Pass. I had suddenly landed on another planet. One that stood outside all my other travels in Eastern Europe. I always realized this when upon arrival or departure. Speaking of the latter, I felt a deep and abiding sadness that a secret love had been taken from me upon departure from Transylvania. A loss impossible for others to understand unless they have suffered from it.

There is a deep grief that comes from an inability to remain in Transylvania. The kind of grief akin to losing a loved one. Imagine the loss of someone so close to your heart that it is painful to so much as speak of them. I remember arriving for an overnight stay in Timisoara after departing from Transylvania. Timisoara has many things to recommend it, eclectic architecture, fascinating history, and a clutch of astonishing churches. And yet, my post-Transylvania withdrawal was so acute that I could hardly stand Timisoara. The thought that I was just a half day’s drive away from Transylvania and would spend the night in Timisoara made for a morose and restless evening. The next morning, I could not wait to leave. I should have felt shame for giving Timisoara the cold shoulder, but all I felt was relief. The excruciatingly painful urge of immediately traveling back to Transylvania nearly got the better of me. I did not know when or if I would return. Just the idea of that nearly defeated me.

The Grand Entrance – Catherine’s Gate in Brasov

Dark Charm – Enchanting Prospects
I am not the only one, real or unreal to suffer this affliction. I have often thought how cruel it was for Jonathan Harker to survive his encounter with Count Dracula in Transylvania only to be nursed back to health in Budapest. No wonder his imagination was so fevered as he talked of unspeakable things that no one wanted to believe. Of course, Harker’s crazed words were not just caused by his encounter with Count Dracula, they were the byproduct of his visit to Transylvania. Dracula’s character would count (no pun intended) for nothing if not for the landscape that surrounds his crumbling castle. They are one and the same. Seductive, supernatural, and sublime. Even the sinister in that part of the novel has a beauty about it. The dark charm of enchantment. That is the essence of the Transylvanian effect. It keeps me coming back for more.

Click here for: Magnetic Attraction – All Too Human In Prague (Eastern Europe & Me #7)

A Trip to Everywhere – Balazs Orban: An Encyclopedic Life (Part Two)

To really appreciate one’s homeland perhaps it is best to leave it all behind and then return many years later to see it with a fresh perspective. As the poet T.S. Eliot rhapsodized, “the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” The meaning of those words would have been familiar to Balazs Orban though they were written a half-century after his death. For it was Orban who spent thirteen formative years away from his homeland, Szekelyland in eastern Transylvania, before he returned with fresh eyes and an entirely different perspective. Those years away for Orban were spent traveling, writing, doing researching and in exile. In 1859, with tensions between the Hungarians and Habsburgs subsiding, Orban returned to his homeland on the far eastern frontier of the Hungarian Kingdom. A land of remarkable landscapes, full of untamed mountain wilderness, bucolic valleys and pristine lakes. This was where Orban’s life began in 1829. Thirty years later it was about to begin all over again as Orban set out on a historic journey to expose the heart and soul of his homeland.

During his travels away from Szekelyland, Orban had explored and written about many exotic locales in the Middle East. After returning to Hungary, he recognized that many of his fellow countrymen had as little idea about the Szekely people and the land they inhabited as they did about foreign lands. It might even be said that they knew even less. Orban yearned to combat this ignorance with knowledge. He planned on making Szekelyland accessible to all Hungarians, through an encyclopedic work that would cover such topics as ethnography, geography, history, culture, customs and architecture. The project was to be comprehensive in the extreme. No community would be left unvisited, no landscape uncharted, no castle, whether standing or in ruin, unstudied. The most impressive aspect of this undertaking was that Orban would be both the primary and only author of it. The project would put his formidable intellect along with his physical stamina to the test. Orban’s ambition and vision would be critical to its completion.

An Image Of The Past – The Fortified Church at Szekelyderzs from Balazs Orbans A Szekelyfold Leirasa

Research & Resourcefulness – The Journey Home
Balazs Orban was nothing if not thorough when it came to research and writing. This was especially true when he turned his attention to his native homeland. Orban spent several years visiting every Szekely settlement. This meant he traveled to over five hundred towns and villages, virtually every inhabited place. He did not limit his focus just to settlements either. Orban also documented anything of interest, from native flora and fauna to old ruins. His curiosity for all things Szekely was unmatched by anyone before or since. His field research was nothing short of incredible considering the difficulties of travel during this era.

Railroads had yet to arrive in Szekelyland. Travel by carriage meant traversing roads in all types of conditions, often dependent on the weather and season. Horseback was the best way to visit remote areas of which Szekelyland had a majority. Orban was extremely resourceful because he had to be. There was no other way to do his research, but through rigorous physical exertions. Whatever the situation demanded he was ready to make every sacrifice in pursuit of his goal to document Szekely life and customs for present and future generations.

The Greatest Szekely – Balazs Orbans grave in Szejkefurdo (Credit: Tamas Thaler)

For six years, from 1862 to 1868, Orban was in the field working on his project. The result was a six-volume work published over a five-year period beginning in 1868. Titled Székelyföld leírása, each volume dealt with a specific administrative unit of historical Szekelyland. Almost immediately the work became the go to source for all things Szekely. No other work, before or since comes close to its thorough, comprehensive treatment. It was and still is today the greatest work on Szekelyland. It would eventually result in Orban being known as The Greatest Szekely. More important to him at the time, Hungarians now had massive amounts of information about the Szekely at their fingertips. The work filled a gap in knowledge that had been sorely lacking. Not only was A Székelyföld leírása encyclopedic, it was also innovative.

The volumes contained many images reproduced from photographs that Orban had taken himself. His newfound photography skills, which he had learned from Victor Hugo’s sons while in exile on the Channel Islands, resulted in some of the first photographic images ever taken of Szekelyland. Considering the difficulty of travel logistics in the region, it is incredible that Orban was able to transport his photography equipment and put it to such good use. The images he took are now held in the archives of the Romanian State Archives in the city of Marosvasarhely (Targu Mures). In 2012, they were put on display at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest. This only seems right since Orban’s goal was to educate and enlighten Hungarians. The display of these photographs meant they were following the same path to recognition as A Székelyföld leírása, which was first published in Budapest. That same year Orban also moved to the city.

The Path Home – Szekely Gates on the trail to the grave of Balazs Orban (Credit: Christo)

The Visionary – An Essence Of Life
Balazs Orban passed the final days of his life far from his homeland. He would die in Budapest during the spring of 1890. At the time, there were more people living in the city than the entire population of Szekelyland. Budapest was the antithesis of Szekelyland’s rural, forested and mountainous landscape, but it had also been a large part of Orban’s later life. The publishing industry, as well as the Hungarian Parliament of which he was a long-standing member, were housed in the booming metropolis. Nonetheless, the true soul of Balazs Orban would always be with his people deep in the wilds of eastern Transylvania.

Fittingly, his remains would eventually be returned and interred back in his homeland. They were laid to rest in the spa town of Szejkefurdo (Baile Seiche), not far from the area where he had been born. The spa was the product of yet another of his visionary ideas. Orban had been instrumental in the construction of thermal baths from the hot springs that flowed out of the earth there. The resort boosted the local economy and brought tourists into the heart of Szekelyland. It was a small, but striking example of Orban giving back to the land and people he so passionately loved. At its very essence, that was the story of his life.

The Efforts Of Exile – Balazs Orban: Channeling The Intellect On Stormy Shores (Part One)

I never thought I would meet a Hungarian who spent time living on the island of Jersey in the English Channel. The chance meeting on a tour bus in Turkey was quite an unexpected coup. Prior to this meeting, I had never met a single person who had set foot on that small island most notably known as an off-shore tax haven. It is where mainland Brits and people from around the world hide their wealth. By one estimate three-quarters of the economy is based on financial services. The Hungarian I met was a young woman by the name of Agnes. She was travelling around Turkey on vacation with her Australian husband Andrew. His job in IT had taken them to Jersey on an extended stay that had just come to an end when I met them on that trip around Turkey. Agnes was elated they would not be returning to Jersey. She said the weather in winter was miserable, while social relations were as cold as the gusts of wind whipping off the sea. Loneliness was a constant companion during her time there. She made it sound like a pseudo-exile that had to be endured and hopefully never repeated. Her experience in Jersey rightly or wrongly framed my own image of the island for years to come. That was until something strange happened.

Years later while doing research on Szekelyland I came across another Hungarian speaker who spent an extended period on Jersey and its nearby sister island of Guernsey in the mid-19^th century. I now wish I could ask Agnes whether she was aware that the famed Szekely polymath, Balazs Orban, had spent a considerable amount of time on the Channel Islands while in exile. Perhaps this would have brightened her gloomy opinion of the island. Well I doubt it. At least Orban and Agnes have something in common. They both found something memorable on the island, specifically images that stayed with them. For Agnes, it was the greyness, chilling winter rains and howling winds. For Orban there were quite different images. The islands were where he first learned photography and spent time with one of the world’s greatest novelists. I now wish I could have mentioned this to Agnes.  It certainly would have made for an interesting conversation. It might also have led to a discussion of Balazs Orban, one of the most fascinating, if not famous, men of his time.

The Greatest Szekely – Balazs Orban statue in Szekelyudvarhely (Credit: Laszlo Hunyadi)

The Greatest Szekely – A Life’s Work
Balazs Orban is known as the Greatest Szekely. Such an honorific is a quintessentially Hungarian creation. Case in point, a Greatest Hungarian also exists. In that case it is the reformer, politician, economic innovator and writer Istvan Szechenyi. Being known as the greatest in a field is a remarkable accomplishment. Being known as the greatest of an entire people is an historic achievement. Balazs Orban lives up to the title that has been bestowed upon him. Orban is one of those people whose work is difficult to describe succinctly. He was a writer, including the author of two six-volume sets. He was also a world traveler, an exile, the first Szekely photographer, an ethnographer, a politician, an entrepreneur and an aristocrat. Looking at the entire breadth of Orban’s life work is daunting. It is hard to imagine how anyone could have accomplished so much in one lifetime. Perhaps that is why will always be known as the Greatest among his people.

Balazs Orban was born in Lengyelfalva (Polonita Romania), a village in the Szekelyland region of eastern Transylvania in 1829. His father was of noble lineage. One side of his mother’s family came from a wealthy Greek merchant family who called Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) home. Just two years prior to the 1848 Hungarian Revolution, Orban was uprooted from his schooling as the family moved to Constantinople where they were to inhabit a castle built by his grandmother. Under strange circumstances, the grandmother would die not long after their arrival. Most of her fortune never went to the family. Orban turned this family crisis into an opportunity. He traveled deep into the Holy Land and climbed the Egyptian Pyramids. He later wrote a six-volume work about his journey, entitled “Oriental Travel.” It turned out to be a mere prelude to another multi-volume work that would later become his magnum opus.

A Man of Many Talents – Balazs Orban (Credit: Ede Ellinger Vasárnapi Ujság 1890/17)

Indelible Impressions – At Home Abroad
Following his Middle Eastern travels, Orban found his way to Greece where he spent time examining the ruins of classical civilization for himself. Nationalism soon swept over him. He became a fervent supporter of the Greeks gaining independence from the Ottoman Turks. It was also during this time that the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 broke out. Orban, whose father had been a Hungarian hussar, managed to raise a detachment that he planned to lead in assisting the cause. No sooner had the detachment begun heading up the Danube then they were informed of the Hungarian surrender. Orban would find himself back in Turkey once again, This time he assisted those in exile, including the famed revolutionary leader Lajos Kossuth. For his efforts, Orban was labeled persona non grata by the Habsburgs. His life was under threat if they ever managed to arrest him. Orban decided that a faraway exile was the better part of valor as he made his way to London.

His period in London allowed him time to do further research and writing for his volumes on the Orient. As a talented linguist, Orban was fluent in the English language as well as five other languages, including tongues as disparate as Turkish and Greek. Those who met him were highly impressed with his intellect and ideals. It was also during this period that he spent time on the Channel Islands with none other than Victor Hugo. The French writer was also in exile. in Hugo’s case, from the rule of Napoleon III. He inhabited a house on the Island of Guernsey. The meetings between the two men left Hugo with an indelible impression of Orban. He would state that if he had a cadre of men like Orban at his side he could overthrow Napoleon III. That would not happen, but for Orban something more important did. He acquired a new passion for photography. This skill was taught to him by Hugo’s sons. It would result in more indelible future impressions from Orban, not of the Channel Islands, but of Szekelyland.

Click here for: A Trip to Everywhere – Balazs Orban: An Encyclopedic Life (Part Two)

A Thing Of The Past – The Szekely Himnusz: “Don’t let Transylvania be lost, our God!” (Part Two)

The Szekely Himnusz began as a poem, one that could be read as a cry for help. The kind of help the poet, Gyorgy Csanady, had in mind for the Szekelys was probably not that of the musical variety, but this was exactly the treatment his poem soon received. Not long after it was written, the poem was set to music by Csanady’s close friend and associate Kaliman Mihalik. Mihalik had much in common with Csanady. His schooling had been interrupted by several years of service at the front during the First World War. By war’s end he had been forced to flee Transylvania for Hungary where he continued his education as a medical student. Like Csanady, Mihalik’s academic background was quite different from what he would end up being remembered for. Though he completed studies to become a physician, he had a passion for musical composition and autonomy for the Szekelys. Mihalik set Csanady’s poem to an original musical score he composed.

Opening Lines of the Szekely Himnusz

Life After Wartime – Yearning To Be Free
The finished work was publicly performed in the spring of 1922, less than a year after the poem had first been written by Csanady. It was met with a warm reception. Unfortunately, Mihalik had contracted typhus, which he would succumb to only a few months after his work’s inaugural performance. The physician turned musician had been unable to save himself, but his musical score left the Szekely nation with a lasting impression that would long outlive its creator. Just before his death, an article written by Mihalik and edited by Csanady retitled the work Szekely Himnusz, a name that has stuck with it ever since. In a fitting tribute at Mihalik’s funeral, his closest friends sung the Szekely Himunusz at the side of his grave. The poem’s lyrical sense of longing had been made much more emotionally expressive with the addition of Mihalik’s musical composition. It was little wonder that it soon caught on with Szekelys and Hungarians who yearned to be connected in the same state once again.

At the same time, the Himnusz made Romanian nationalists’ blood boil. Any hint of Szekely nationalism, self-determination or autonomy was viewed with extreme skepticism. A potential fifth column for Hungarian revisionist efforts that looked to change the borders set by Trianon. Romania was struggling politically and economically during the inter-war years, as were all the newly enlarged nations that had gained territory at Hungary’s expense. Hungary was not doing much better. Trianon had become a national self-obsession for Hungarians that must be reversed at any cost. Meanwhile, Szekely Land suffered under corrupt and inefficient administration. This was not much different than the rest of Romania, but the Szekelys were a distinct people who had historically enjoyed many freedoms even during more difficult times. Szekely freedom was now a thing of the past, autonomy like democracy a distance memory by the mid-1920’s.

Frozen out – Winter in Szekely Land (Credit: Albertistvan)

Acts of Oppression & Forms of Protest – The Szekelys Under Communism
The Szekelys waited and hoped to be rescued by their fellow ethnic kin further to the west. That is just what happened in 1940 when Hungary threatened war with Romania if they did not cede Transylvania. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi German government intervened to avert war between the two since both were German allies. The deal that was agreed upon handed northern Transylvania and Szekely Land back to Hungary. It was a deal with the devil, one that Hungarians and Szekelys would come to regret but one time and that would be continuously.  During World War II, the Szekely Himnusz enjoyed a resurgence. It became part of the mandatory curriculum in Hungarian schools. Ever so slowly, the Himnusz was gaining a popular following. This nationalistic turn did not last long, as the Soviet Red Army invaded and occupied Romania in 1944 while pursuing the Germans. Northern Transylvania was placed back under Romanian rule after the war ended and Romania was soon under communist rule, as was Hungary. This portended a worsening situation for the Szekelys.

On the surface things did not look so bad at first, as the Szekelys were given their own autonomous region, affording them the superficial trappings of freedom. The reality turned out be very different as Szekely Land was ruled by a thoroughly communist administration. The façade of autonomy was stripped away by Nicolae Ceauscesu in the late 1960’s. Soon, oppression of Szekelys based on their ethnic identity began. They made a convenient scapegoat for a communist government looking for someone to blame for a failing economy, wholesale shortages and a useful distraction from the sheer venality of Ceaucescu’s rule. During the long and increasingly tyrannical rule of the communists in Romania singing of the Szekely Himnusz was forbidden. Those caught singing it could be imprisoned and sentenced to hard labor in work camps. This ban had paradoxical consequences, with the Himnusz becoming more rather than less popular. It was an act of protest against the dictatorial Ceaucescu regime, a profession of both individual and collective identity by Szekelys.

Clouds on the horizon – Szekely Land (Credit: Laslovarga)

The Last Line – A Tragic Transylvanian Tale
The fall of Ceaucescu and communism in Romania at the end of 1989 meant the Szekely were free to sing the Himnusz once again in public, but this was seen by many as a subversive act against Romanian rule. Calls for Szekely autonomy have been met with skepticism, feeding fears that Hungary might try to regain Transylvania. While nationalist tensions have waxed and waned over the last three decades, the Himnusz has continued to grow in popularity. To the point, that in 2009 it was made the official anthem of Szekely Land by the Municipal Assembly in Szekelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Securisec). Many Hungarians, in faraway places such as Nyugati Station in Budapest where I first heard the Himnusz, know the anthem by heart. It speaks to the tragic history of the Szekelys and Historic Hungary.

A wound that can never be healed is soothed by those who sing the words to this song of sorrow. Such empathy is not shared by many Romanians who feel that what the Szekely are really seeking is independence. That singing the Himnusz is not an expression of ethnic pride, but another step on the slippery slope towards independence. It is highly doubtful that the Szekelys could ever regain independence, but that has never stopped them from yearning to be free in their ancient and historic homeland. They continue to remain ever faithful all the way to the Himnusz’s last line, “Don’t let Transylvania be lost, our God!”

 

Who Knows Where Destiny Takes Us – The Szekely Himnusz: An Anthem Without A Nation (Part One)

The bowels of Nyugati station in Budapest during the afternoon rush hour seem like a strange place to catch a whiff of Transylvania. The area where the metro line 3 escalators rise to one level below the surface is ringed with fast food dispensaries, newsstands and knick knack shops. During the late afternoon, the area is crowded with youth wasting time after school, stray weirdos who look worse than they smell and smiling, way to properly dressed Hungarian women (a rare and untrustworthy sight) promoting racks of evangelical religious literature. From time to time there are also busking musicians playing some strange instrument such as the accordion in a desperate effort to garner a handful of forints. On more than one occasion, I heard the strains of a heart wrenching tune playing on an invisible PA system wafting above this tumultuous den of humanity.

The song seemed to lower the usual clamor in this part of the station. While the song played I witnessed more than a few people singing the words to it. I would later discover the song was Szekely Himnusz, the national anthem for a people without a nation. The Szekelys are considered by many Hungarians to be the “true” or “original” Hungarians. Due to their remote homeland in southeastern Transylvania where they are an ethnic island surrounded by mountains and Romanians, they preserve a purity of culture that has been all but lost to most Hungarians. The Himnusz acts as a lyrical and musical reminder to all Hungarians of the Szekelys fight to hold onto their homeland and way of life.

Sorrowful Lamentations – Szekely Himnusz (Szekely National Anthem)

Post-Partition Depression  – A Sense Of Insecurity
The Hungarian tendency toward sadness and loss is legendary. These are a people who have been known to say, “I’m happy when I’m crying.”. A bitter sweetness has been the hallmark of many a Hungarian’s emotional state. This tends to manifest itself in sorrowful lamentations concerning Hungary’s fated history. To this end, the Szekely Himnusz is one of their most beloved tearjerkers. The anthem conjures up an obscure and beloved land on the far eastern frontiers of Transylvania. Due to the post World War I Treaty of Trianon it was lost and now looks to be gone forever. The failure to retain Szekely Land was especially wrenching for Hungarians, disconnecting the people they extol as proto-Hungarians from the mother country.

For Szekelys it was an even greater trauma. For over four hundred years, beginning in 1438, the Szekelys were part of the Union of Three Nations (along with the Hungarian nobility and Saxons) that were granted special privileges denied to the Vlachs (Romanians). During the latter half of the 19^th century, the Szekely were subsumed into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but as Hungarian speakers they still enjoyed rights that many other minority groups in the Hungarian portion of the empire could only dream about. That situation would be reversed by the first cataclysm of the 20^th century.

It is said that war changes everything. That was certainly true when it came to World War I’s effect on Transylvania and Szekely Land. The Hungarian ruling class was upended by a massive upheaval that rearranged the powers that be to Romania’s favor. Transylvania went from being ruled for the benefit of Hungarians, Saxons and Szekely, to a constituent part of the Romanian nation. This was a profound shock to the system of all three groups, but its most profound effect was on the Szekely. They were more isolated and thus more vulnerable than any of the other groups. Not only did they find themselves part of Romania, but unlike many other Hungarians who were “stranded” in Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the Szekely were nowhere near the actual land borders of Hungary. A deep-rooted sense of insecurity developed from this traumatic separation.

An Expression of Grief – The Aftermath of War
A new organization was formed in Hungary by Szekelys to boost their national consciousness and cultivate a feeling of togetherness. The group, known as the Association of Szekely University and College Students (Székely Egyetemista és Főiskolai Hallgatók Egyesülete; SZEFHE), was dedicated to helping young Szekely men and women who had fled their homeland in the aftermath of war. In a sad irony, most of the organization’s leading figures were now living abroad in Budapest. They were blessed with the energy and fervor often found among idealistic students. To this end, they did everything they could to promote the Szekely cause, including the creation of what would eventually come to be known as the Szekely Himnusz, an anthem expressing their grief at what fate had befallen their homeland.

The Szekely Himnusz did not start out as a national anthem, instead it was born as a neo-romantic, proto-nationalist lament, penned as a poem by Gyorgy Csanady. Though of a literary persuasion, Csanady’s education was interrupted by the First World War. He spent four years fighting at the front. For his services he ended up wounded and found his homeland severed from the much smaller Hungarian state born in its aftermath. Csanady, like so many other young Szekelys, fled to Budapest where he completed a degree at the Academy of Commerce, though business was not to be his calling in life. Csanady lived to write, whether it be poems, plays or stories. In 1921, at the tender age of twenty-six, bereft of his homeland and hardened by years spent at the battlefront, Csanady wrote sixteen lines of verse that expressed both the contemporary as well as the historical frustrations, fears and anguish of the Szekely people.

The Writing On The Wall – Szekely Himnusz (Szekely National Anthem)

A Geopolitical Roller Coaster Ride –The Szekelys Tragic Century
Csanady’s lines started with “Who knows where destiny takes us/On a rough road on a dark night”. That dark night would continue throughout much of the 20^th century. When Csanady penned the lines, “Handful of Székely being crushed like the cliffs/On the sea storming from the battle of nations”, he was expressing uncanny foresight. Over the next seventy years, Szekely Land would be taken on a geopolitical roller coaster ride as the political pendulum swung from the rule of Greater Romania to Horthy’s irredentist Hungary to a bizarre autonomy within Stalinist Romania and then persecution under the vile Ceaucescu regime. The poem’s final line, “Don’t let Transylvania be lost, our God!” was a plea for divine intervention to save the Szekely. From 1918 through 1989 there was no divine intervention forthcoming.

Click here for: A Thing Of The Past – The Szekely Himnusz: “Don’t let Transylvania be lost, our God!” (Part Two)

The Dreams To Come – Sandor Korosi Csoma: A Transylvanian Discovers Tibet (Part Three)

The foundations of everything the western world has come to know about Tibet were built upon luck, chance and fate. Such were the circumstances of the first encounter between Sandor Korosi Csoma and the British explorer and officer of the East India Company, William Moorcroft. In 1822, three years into a journey that he hoped would lead to the discovery of the original Hungarian homeland, Csoma was a financially destitute Hungarian scholar/explorer with a proposed journey to East Turkestan (western China) stalled out. After spending three and a half weeks traveling up a route that he had hoped would take him over the Karkorum Mountains, Csoma was forced to turn around due to dangerous conditions, only part of which were due to the climate. On his way back to Lahore, Csoma had a chance encounter with Moorcroft in Kashmir that would transform both his journey and life. The two men were intrigued by one another. They would spend a month together in the ancient city of Leh, during which time Moorcroft would share the only book he or any other Brit had on Tibet at that time, a Tibetan dictionary. In that moment was the genesis of what would become the life’s work of Csoma. The encounter with Moorcroft eventually leading him down a path that eventually led to the creation of Tibetology.

Portrait of a Tibetologist – Sandor Korosi Csoma (Credit: Ágost Schöfft)

The Barest Of Necessities – Language Learning & The Lama
The opportunity to research and learn Tibetan, a language entirely unknown in the western world, was too good of an opportunity for Csoma to pass up. An intensive study might lead to sources that could shed light on the origins of the Hungarians, perhaps even lead Csoma to their original homeland. Through his many connections, Moorcroft arranged for Csoma to stay and study in the region. The British were expanding their influence in the area. Thus, language aptitude would be critical to understanding and influencing the local populace. A man with Csoma’s linguistic skills would be invaluable. Moorcroft arranged for Csoma to study the language with Sang-rgyas Phun-tsogs in the settlement of Zangla. Phun-tsogs, a local leader, would teach Csoma the language and introduce him to Tibetan literature. For over a year, in unbearable weather conditions while subsisting on the barest of necessities, Csoma was tutored in all aspects of Tibetan language and literature. His ability to withstand near total deprivation while remaining true to his cause made him the perfect student for Phun-tsogs, the man he would come to know as “the lama”.

By the time his first period of education had ended, Csoma was the world’s leading non-native authority on the Tibetan language. He did not stop there. Despite difficulties in obtaining the services of Phun-tsogs over the next several years, Csoma continued to further his education. Moorcroft recommended to the British authorities that Csoma be supported in his endeavors. His work was of interest to the British as they were establishing a colonial foothold in the region. This was the period of what has been termed “The Great Game” in Central Asia, when the British and Russians vied for control of the area. Csoma’s broad knowledge of languages was useful to furthering their interests. In turn, the British could provide him with nominal financial support and access to a culture which was off-limits to all but a chosen few. After some initial skepticism by the authorities, Csoma was approved for service to the British.

Mysterious mysticism – Phugtal Monastery (Credit: hamon jp)

Distant Memories – From Tibet To Transylvania
At a monastery in Phugtal, Csoma would reunite for his final and most fruitful period of study with Phun-tsogs. Over the next several years he completed what would become his most famous and lasting work, the Tibetan-English dictionary. It consisted of over 30,000 words while providing guidance on Tibetan grammar. In addition, Csoma assembled a massive amount of Tibetan literature. Future western scholars of Tibet would find Csoma’s work invaluable. It opened new avenues of study into a culture that had previously been closed off to the west. The study of Tibet, its language, culture and Buddhism could now proceed scientifically. As for Csoma’s search for the original Hungarian homeland, that had been temporarily set aside, but not forgotten. He still hoped his knowledge of Tibet and its language would lead him to sources that would point the way to Hungarian roots in East Turkestan.

During the 1830’s, Csoma was made an honorary member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. His ensuing work provided just enough in earnings to cultivate an increasingly austere lifestyle. He spent much of his time doing research, learning Sanskrit – a language he wrongly believed was distantly related to Hungarian – then returning again and again to his Tibetan studies. Amid these scholarly pursuits, he was still mindful of his native land. His countrymen remembered him as well. A collection had been taken up in Transylvania to support his work and sent to him. Csoma repaid this generosity by sending them twenty-five copies of his combined works. In addition, he returned the money that had been raised for him, along with a small sum he had been able to save during his travels. The money went to establish a foundation which would support students with elite academic credentials back in Hungary.

One of a kind – Tomb and Memorial of Alexander Csoma de Korosi at Darjeeling (Credit: Bodhisattwa)

Creature Comforts – A Blue Suit & A Library Full Of Books
As he grew older, Csoma withdrew into a hermetic existence. He never gave up on his dream of discovering the original homeland of the Hungarians, but he was possessed by a fevered passion for learning. His days of intrepid travel looked to be in the past. He lived with scarcely any material belongings, other than his collection of Tibetan books. Observers noted that he always wore the same blue suit of clothes. Csoma cared nothing for material comforts. His world was enriched by the wealth of knowledge he had managed to acquire over a lifetime of intensive study. One visitor who talked with Csoma said that the only thing which interested him later in life, besides Tibet, was continuing his search for the deepest ancestral roots of the Hungarians.

In 1842, twenty-three years after he first set out from Transylvania, Csoma renewed that search. His plan was, travel first to Lhasa and then make his way into East Turkestan. The first part of this journey was from Calcutta to Darjeeling through tropical jungle. Along the way Csoma contracted malaria. Overcome by fever and chills, the man who had walked halfway around the world in the pursuit of a dream died in Darjeeling at the age of fifty-eight. He never made it to East Turkestan or found the original Hungarian homeland. Instead, he found Tibet. In the process, his path breaking work helped the western world discover a mysterious and mystical world through Tibetan language and literature. In essence, Sandor Korosi Csoma laid the foundations for all the dreams to come from his discovery of Tibet.