The Land and People of Romania, by Julian Hale, Lippincott, 1972. I borrowed this book from the library because (1) they didn’t have the Hungary of the series; and (2) I understand from what little my grandparents told me that when they went back to visit relatives at one point, the home village had been lost to Romania in a border move. I wanted to understand more about that, and more about the stress between the two peoples that I was introduced to in Realm of St. Stephen. This is an older children’s book – like 5th grade, though the … Continue reading Children’s books – 3

Young Hungary: Children of Hungary at work and at play, by Marianna Norris, 1970 This is my favorite of the three books I found in my local library.  It’s written as an explanation of a child’s world in 1970 Hungary – past, present, and what they can expect for their futures.  There’s a bit of history, as it pertains to myths: Hungarian Children love to hear stories about their ancestors, wild, free horsemen called the Magyars, who once roamed the plains of Asia (G: not the same as Huns – this is a Victorian revisionist mistake).  The Magyars could shoot … Continue reading Children’s books – 2

I found a few books on Hungary at my local library – which frankly, isn’t that great.  I’m amazed they were there, actually. Take a Trip to Hungary  – This is part of a huge series, which clearly advocates saving your carbon offsets and reading cold-war versions of the world (c. 1986) from your top bunk.  It’s a rather boring book that is meant for elementary school children, oh, maybe 2nd grade. Here’s a page view showing flax harvesting. (I know from other sources that part of those 2/3 used for cereals now used to be pastureland for herds, just … Continue reading Children’s books – 1

Behold, more new stuff on the right!  Scroll down. I’ve started a Photo Album for reference images.  I suspect I will need to divide these up somewhat in future – garb images and spinning images come first to mind.  But for now there’s only about six in there.  Including the only ‘Hungarian’ 15th-16th century artists that I could find on Web Gallery of Art , an amazing resource. I wonder if Typepad lets me link from a post to an image.  Well, I’ll be. Slick. Continue reading Period Images debut

It’s no longer customary to sprinkle our speech with references to higher powers guiding our paths.  Regardless of personal belief – the more I look into my Hungarian connections, the more I find. I was researching this dress, and generally having a lot of fun reading what Web Gallery of Art had to say about the various Durer portraits, when I stumbled upon this bit of personal info: The family name `Dürer’ originated from the name of the birthplace of Albrecht the Elder’s father, since the village of Ajtó where he came from means `door’ in Hungarian and this was … Continue reading Albrecht Durer