Haar, Alfréd

- Pottery. Pottery is called dish handcraft in this region. The preferred basic colors of plates and dishes are white and blue with ornaments. Pottery is very important in craftwork; in Mezőtúr, pottery is called “dish handcraft”.

- Shepherd Art. This reached a high level in the Alföld, with decorative objects made of horn and plaited leather wears.

- Cifraszűr – the richly decorated mantle was the formal clothing of peasants. The decorations are the following: roses, tulips, carnations and lilies. An essential object for peasants was the water flask. It was made of wood and covered with pony-skin.

- Wall Painting. This is unique in Europe. The women from Kalocsa paint white walls freehand, without pre-drawing, using the same patterns as in their embroidery,

Their oldest churches were built in Marosszék about the year 1200, and in Aranyosszék in the 13th century. These early churches generally had two expanses with a semi-circular sanctuary attached to the nave. In Transylvania, churches rarely had the popular straight-wall type of sanctuary closing, such as found in Ikafalva (Icefalâu) and Nyárádszentmárton (Mitreşty). Churches, having a quatrefoil center plan, as in Gyergyószentmiklós (Gheorheni) and Székelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc), were rare. The simple carved decorations of the smaller churches were either on the semi-circular arched entrances, as in Csíksomlyó (Sumuleu Ciuc) and Gyergyófalva (Joseni), or the distinct feature of the inwardly narrowed stone window frames as in Marosszentkirály (Sâncraiu de Mureş). From the 13th century the church interiors were richly painted. The figurative painter’s favorite subject was the Legend of King St. László (St. Ladislaus, 1077-1095) depicting the Szekler military organization. These wall paintings were found in small Transylvanian churches.

The important market towns came to existence in the 14th-15th centuries, such as Marosvásárhely with its large single-nave Franciscan cathedral. The tower designs of the village churches probably originated in this cathedral tower, with its great Gothic windows and in the already rebuilt, but originally Gothic Franciscan church of Csíksomlyó. The fortress church of Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfântu Gheorghe), the towered churches of Gyergyószentmiklós and Székelyudvarhely (demolished in the 18th century) testify to the once central characteristics of these towns.

The second wave of religious village architecture flourished in the 15th century, when the churches were expanded, often with towers on their western corner. The threat of Turkish danger prompted the construction of fortress churches, as in Csík and Háromszék. Their carved decorations reflect a refined and varied Gothic style. These churches are found all over Szeklerland, especially in Csíkdelne (Delniţa), Csíkrákos (Racu), Kövend (Plăiesţi), Nyárádszentlászló (Sânvăsii) and Zabola (Zăbala).

From the 15th century, the internal church decor became much richer. Besides the late Gothic wall paintings at Derzs (Dârjiu), Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureş), Székelydálya (Daia), the winged altars decorated with paintings, and statues, made of painted wood, appeared, for example: in Csíksomlyó, Csíkszentimre (Sântimbru), Csíkszentlélek (Leliceni) and the individual Gothic wooden statues such as the Madonna of Csíkménaság (Armăşeni), the patron picture of Csíksomlyó and the Madonna of Szenttamás. In spite of their Saxon origin, the winged altars quickly became part of the local culture.

The stone baptisteries, with their varied dynamic folk decorations, also became popular in the Gothic era. The finest examples are found at Miklósvár (Micloşoara), Nagykászon (Plăieşii de Jos) and Nyárádszentháromság (Troita).

The influence of the Renaissance and its blend with Gothic elements was evident throughout the beginning of the 16th century. The most favoured and most beautiful genre was the painted wooden and the coffered ceilings. In the 17th and 18th centuries, these ceilings, richly decorated with flowers and geometric designs, were often the works of well-known village artists. Such is the case of Felsőboldogfalva (Feliceni) and Gyalakuta (Fântânele).

The onset of the secular art began in the 15-16th centuries. Due to the small number of aristocratic landlords among the Szeklers, initially only a handful of fortresses were built, such as Bálványosvár (Cetatea Bálványos), erected by the Apor family. The fortress of Udvarhely was built at the end of the 15th century, while the fort of Csíkszereda was constructed at the beginning of the 17th century. Szárhegy (Lăzarea), and Castle Lázár, both decorated with friezes, are the only examples of a greater scale in Transylvania. Smaller country houses were most popular in the 17-18th centuries.

The Dániel Castle in Vargyas (Vârghiş) shows some Baroque forms in its porch of three-centered arches, under a great mansard roof. The Salvator Chapel of Csíksomlyó is the earliest example of a Baroque interior. Carved Apostles decorate the wooden annular vaults of the nave. The renovated churches of old in Csík were often refurbished with Baroque altars, statues and furniture, in folk style. The churches of Csíkkozmás (Cozmeni) and Gyegyóalfalu (Joseni) are best examples of this. The Szekler art of woodcarving and wooden architecture molded and used the different historical styles to its taste. Szeklers mostly preferred the rich Renaissance forms and that preference lasted well into the 20th century. The oldest example of the richly carved Szekler gate, kept at the Museum of Ethnography of Mikháza (Călugăreni), belonged to the Franciscan Monastery, and it dates from 1673. It still has geometrical decorations, while later examples of the great or small Szekler gates are mostly decorated with traditional flower motives. – B: 1144, 1407, 1020, T: 3240, 1407, 7103.→Folk Art.

Hungarian Language – The history of the Hungarian language, as it has been developing independently from its related languages, may be divided into five phases or periods.

(1) Proto-Hungarian phase, with changes to consonants as p > f; interior-word t > z.

(2) Ancestral Hungarian phase, lasting till nearly 1000 AD. Many reserarcher believe that there are foreign (Bolgar and Slav) elements in Hungarian words and expressions. However, the results of the most recent Oriental research show that these elements date back to the time of the Huns, and it is more likely that they are of common origin. Not only the expressions referring to family or relatatiomnships, but also to religion, agriculture; and words referring to everyday life can be found among the Inner Asian peoples, which indicates the probability that there is a relationship between the Magyar and Scythian-Hun peoples who lived in that territory.

Words indicating family (apa anya, agg, öccs, nyanya, etc. = father, mother, old man or woman, younger brother, oldy lady, etc), and also those indicating the social order (türü-törvény; törzs; had; kóta, káta etc) are important expressions and, in addition to these, expressions relating to healing and animal husbandry indicate a relationship to Inner Asian peoples particularly. More and more linguists are beginning to accept the view that the Hun language was the basis for the Turkic and Mongol languages, so the Hungarian words that are deemed to be Ancient Turkic origin could have a Hun origin. In many research institutes, the research of the Scythian language is being undertaken. A few example of Hun words: (Ucsiraltu, 2008) Mongol: horda, Hun: ordu (palace), Russian: gorod (city) etc.; Hungarian: pecsét (seal), Hun: picsik, Monol: bicsik, Türk: bitig, Slav: pecsat.

(3) Old Hungarian period, the beginnings of writing, from 973 to 1350, with fragmentary and complete written records, such as the Funeral Oration and Prayer (Halotti beszéd és könyörgés of c. 1192-1195); and the Old Hungarian Maria-Lamentation (Ómagyar Mária-siralom), the earliest prose texts; and the first verse of the Planctus destructionis regni Hungariae per Tartaros (Lament for the Destruction of Hungary by the Tartars, written in 1242) diplaying an amazingly advanced technique. This period involved some important phonological changes and shifts in the language (the earlier preponderance of ü-sounds replaced by ö-sounds, lengthening of the vowels of root-words, disappearance of short open vowel at the end of words – characteristic of earliest extant texts) and the developing simplification of diphthongs.

(4) Middle-Hungarian period (1350-1600): marks the beginnings of secular literature, which had a strong unifying effect on the Hungarian language, the writings usually recorded in codices (e.g. the Jókai Codex of 1430, the first extant Hungarian book; as the other early texts, it shows more dipthongs and consonant groups, compared with present Hungarian), incomplete vowel harmony and fuller formations with suffixes. Printed texts appeared from 1527, and the Middle-Hungarian written language was becoming closer to the spoken language.

(5) Modern Hungarian period is marked by the creation of a literary language, evolving the standard Hungarian (1600-1850 to the present) and forming the present literary language, adopting the northern Transdanubian dialect (between Lake Balaton and the Danube) as the standard, with preponderant use of e-sounds, as well as contributions from other dialects. The beginning of this period was marked by two outstanding figures, Gáspár Károli with his translation of the Bible into Hungarian for Protestants (1590), and Péter Pázmány (Rom. Cath. Cardinal and Jesuit) initiating a vast Catholic literature, including György Káldi’s Catholic Bible translation of 1626. The other significant development of the modern period was the language reform of the early 19th century, adding significantly to the Hungarian vocabulary, enriching and widening the scope of expression of the Hungarian language and by developing a pleasing, stylistically refined language. The leading reformer was Ferenc Kazinczy. Archaic words were re-introduced (e.g. hon = fatherland, and aggastyán = greybeard); adoption of words and phrases from the vernacular (e.g. bojtár = shepherd boy; burgonya = potato); formation of new words by abstraction, as well as compounding, e.g. érzelem = feeling, emotion; csend = silence; csapadék = precipitation; nyomor = privation; jármű = vehicle; esernyő = umbrella, etc. It is remarkable, however, that the phonological and morphological changes that occurred in the Hungarian language over the 800 years of its documented history, are relatively few; the earliest texts are quite comprehensible at present. Hungarian has remarkable flexibility and expressiveness and this may be attributed to some inherent characteristics. Vowel harmony is one of these, but so is the absence of grammatical gender, the division of the transitive verbs into two types of conjugation and, since it is an agglutinative language it uses suffixes extensively to indicate morphological variations: a noun can take up to 24 different case-suffixes in addition to signs for plural and possessive relation. There are 36 postpositions as well, with a similar function. In the richness and freedom of word-formation, Hungarian excels, while expressiveness, logic and conciseness are also among its strong points. Word order is extremely flexible and the stress in words falls invariably on the first syllable.

The Hungarian material and spiritual culture shows a strong similarity to that of the Inner Asian equestrian peoples and parallels can be found as far east as the Yellow River. The discovery of these parallels was begun by the early Hungarian researchers, Sándor (Alexander) Kőrösi Csoma, Gábor (Gabriel) Bálint from Szentkatolna and Aurél (Aurelius) Stein. Hungarian linguists today research the traces of the Magyars in the region of Ural Montains, and they research primarily the linguistic elements, which their state are unknown origin, although similarities can be clearly seen among the Turkish and Mongol peoples. In the first half of he 19th century, linguists were still talking of languages of many groups of Eurasian Scythhians. The Magyars probably arrived, together with the Huns in the foothills of the Caucasus, where they were known under several names and considered by many to belong among he Huns. – B: 1102, 7456, 1904, T: 7456.→Hungarians, Origin of; Finnish-Hungarian Language Relationship; Hun-Hungarian Language; Dialects, Hungarian; Etruscan-Hungarian Linguistic Relationship; Hungarian Language, Opinion on; Bible in Hungarian. Károli, Gáspár; Pázmány Péter; Káldi, György; Kazinczy, Ferenc.

- Giuseppe Mezzofanti (1774-1849) was an Italian Cardinal, a famed linguist and hyper polyglot, who understood 58 languages and spoke, among many others, four dialects of Hungarian, and who greeted the Hungarian bailiff, in Bologna with a very spirited Hungarian speech. It was he who wrote to the Czech linguist, Ágoston Frankl in 1836: “Do you know which language is equal to Latin and Greek in its structure and rhythmic harmony? It is the Hungarian language. I am familiar with the new Hungarian poets, whose verses are completely mesmerizing. Let us watch the future, for the poetic genius will have a sudden upswing, which will prove my statement to be true. It seems as if the Hungarians themselves do not realize what a treasure is hidden in their language”. Cardinal Mezzofanti was made an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Science in 1832.

- Jakob Grimm (1785-1836) German fairy-tale writer, the first to write a German Grammar and who helped to establish the science of folklore, stated that: “The Hungarian language is logical and its perfect structure supersedes all other languages”.

- Sir John Bowring (1792-1872) was a renowned English philologist, who spoke many languages, among them Hungarian. In his Life and Work, vol. i (1838), he wrote about the Hungarian Language: “The Hungarian language is a one-piece boulder, the storms of time did not make even a scratch on it…the originality of Hungarian language is marvelous”. He translated many Hungarian poems into English. His Poetry of the Magyars was preceded by a review sketch of The Language and Literature of Hungary and Transylvania (Erdély, now in Romania). He wrote theses lines on the Hungarian language: “The Magyar language stands afar off and alone. The study of other tongues will be found of exceedingly little use towards its right understanding. It is moulded in a form essentially its own, and its construction and composition may be safely referred to an epoch when most of the living tongues of Europe either had no existence, or no influence on the Hungarian region. The roots of the Magyar are for the most part exceedingly simple and monosyllabic, but their ramifications are numerous, consistent, and beautiful. I know of no language which presents such a variety of elementary stamina, and none which lends itself so easily and gracefully to all the modifications growing out of its simple principles”.

- Wilhelm Schott (1794 -1865), an outstanding Austrian scientist stated: “In the Hungarian language, there is a fresh, childish, natural view and it cannot but be suspected that there is the possibility of development hidden in it like a bud. It contains many beautiful soft consonants and its vowels are more clearly pronounced than in German. It can be used for short statements and also for powerful oratory, in short, every type of prose. It is built on matching vowel sounds, pleasing rhymes, and its richness and resounding tones are well suited for poetry. This is demonstrated in every branch of poetry”.

- N. Erbesberg (19th century) a world renowned professor from Vienna, stated: “The structure of the Hungarian language is such that it appears that linguists could have created it with the purpose of incorporating in it every rule, conciseness, melody and clarity; and besides all this it avoided any commonness, difficulty in pronunciation and irregularities”.

- N. Simpson (1848): “Letters from the Banks of the Danube”. In this series of articles, he wrote about the Hungarian language in the exciting days of March (during the 1848-49 Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence against the Habsburgs). “The Hungarian language is very poetic, rich and spirited, . . . it is full of enthusiasm and strength and is suited to all kinds of poetical work. It is strong and yet gentle and very pleasing in sound. It is melodic and its expression is clear”.

- Grover Krantz (1931 - 2002) was Professor of Physical Anthropology at Washington State University. His research included all aspects of human evolution. His opinion was that “the primordial Hungarian language in Hungary…preceded the beginning of the New Stone Age…among the extant languages it is the most ancient”. (Translated from Hungarian, original unavailable.)

- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950). The world-renowned dramatist and Nobel Prize Laureate was not completely satisfied with the English language and he even wanted to create a new phonemic alphabet for it. In order to find a more suitable language of expression, he studied several languages, among them Hungarian, which he found the most suitable for poetic expression. In a radio interview to the Canadian CBC he expressed his high regard for it: “I frankly state that, after studying the Hungarian language for years, my conviction is that if Hungarian had been my mother tongue, my life-work could have been much more valuable. Simply because by this curious language, bulging with primeval power, can be described, with more precision, the tiny differences, the secret vibration of emotions. In the Hungarian language, instead of using prepositions, the word’s ending can be altered in huge variations. This exercise is able to reflect accurately the tiniest vibration of emotions”. (Translated from Hungarian, original unavailable.)

- Edward (Ede) Teller (1908-2003), a Hungarian born nuclear physicist, not long before his death said: “My new eminent discovery is that there is only one language and it is the Hungarian one”. – B: 0881, 1257, 0396, 1513, 2059, T: 7669, 7103.→Hungarians, Origin of; Finnish - Hungarian Language Relationship; Dialects, Hungarian; Etruscan-Hungarian Linguistic Relation; Hungarian Language; Bowring, Sir John; Teller, Ede.

The world of ancient Hungarians was divided into three spheres: the Upper World (Felső világ), the home of the gods and good souls; the Middle World (Középső világ), the place of humans and ghostly creatures; and the Underworld (Alsó Világ, Alvilág), the realm of “ghosts” and the souls of dead people who were bad; and the home of Evil (Ördög), the creator of insects that plague humans: fleas, lice, flies etc. In the center of the world, the World Tree (Világfa) stood, encompassing the three levels. It's foliage was the Upper World; the Middle World was located at its trunk, and the Underworld was around its roots. In some stories, its fruit were golden apples.

In this way an enormous number of soldiers and even innocent civilians, men and women, were gathered up and at first kept in reception camps established in Hungary; the largest of these collecting camps was at Kistarcsa. The “dangerous” people, found guilty of “crimes against the state” were also kept in these camps, from where they were sent to transit camps in Romania (Foksány, Brassó, Temesvár, etc.) and finally, from there, they were transported in sealed railway wagons to the forced labor camps (Gulags) in Siberia, in the Soviet Union. In addition, many military personnel, who were evacuated at the end of the War to the West, were returned to Hungary after the War, fell into Soviet captivity at the Hungarian border, and were also transported to Gulag camps, having the same fate as the Soviet dissidents, Polish soldiers after 1939, and many others. After many years, only a fraction of these POWs could return to Hungary. They were warned by the Hungarian Secret Police not to speak about their experiences in the Soviet Union. Most of the prisoners of these labor camps died as a result of the hard labor, undernourishment, disease, harsh treatment and conditions. Hungary’s losses in World War II were the fourth largest in relation to its population size (after Poland, the Soviet Union and Germany).

In the Crimean Peninsula and the foothills of the Caucasus, lived Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns and Hun-Sabirs (from here the Magyars got their Greek-Byzantine name: Sabartoi-asfaloi). From the second half of the 5th century, the Magyars were called Onogurs (Hunnugurs) and Ogurs. In the sources, the name Ugor was used exclusively for the Magyars; but in the 19th century, the Indo-European linguists fabricated an artificial „Ugor” people. Many similarities can be found between the Magyars and the Bolgars, for both peoples declare that they are descended from Csaba (Irnek), the third son of Attila. Two of their tribes have the same name: Nyék and Kürt, and many of their aristocratic titles are the same. There are similar elements in their material and spiritual culture, which stem from their common Hun ancestry.

Already in the 1920’s, Géza Fehér noticed this close similarity. The Magyars also met with Slavs in the Eastern European plains, whom they sold as slaves. Therefore, the theory that the Magyars learned much from the Slavs cannot be supported, for the Slavs adopted elements of the culture and language of the Scythians and Sarmatians. The historical chronicles also record alliances between the Magyars and the Kazars. Some historians thought that the Magyars were subservient to the Kazars, although the historical sources do not support this theory. Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, a.k.a. Constantinos Porphyrogenitos (913-959), wrote in his work: “The Administration of the Empire” (De administrando imperio), about the alliance between these two peoples, that the Kazars occupied a part of the Magyar settlements after an attack by the “Pechenegs”. This must refer to an Arab invasion sometime in the 7th and 8th centuries. (Helilov-Nyitrai, 2008) This territory must have been the Eastern Caucasus region, today’s Dagastan. Later, Constantine reported that the Magyars and the Kazars fought each other for ten years. Then the Kazar kagan wanted to give his sister to Levedi, the Magyars’ first Vajda, for his wife, so that they could establish a strong connection; but Levedi rejected her. From this, it can be seen that it was the Kazars who wanted to become allies of the Magyars, who did not want this alliance.

The notes about the connection between the Magyars and the Avars are also important. Byzantine sources write that the Avars were really Huns, and that they were named after one of their leaders. Hungarian historians and archeologists believe that they spoke a Turkic language, although there is no proof of this. What is certain is that the majority of the Avars were White Huns (Hephthalites), as Gyula László and Éva Aradi have written. Defeated by the Turks, they fled from the Central Asian Empire toward the West around 550. The Magyars were in the Carpathian Basin before the Avars arrived there, because there were not only the Székelys (Szeklers), but also some Magyar tribes (Ungros) living there. According to some foreign historians, some Magyars tribes were already Christians in the Caucasus, belonging to the Eastern Church. Then, from the end of the 10th century, Western Christianity was spread under the influence of the intense missionary efforts of King István I. (St. Stephen). In spite of the fact that the Magyars, after their arrival in the Carpathian Basin at the end of the 9th century, encouraged close connections with the western peoples, (first Germans, then Slavs), they preserved the culture that they had brought with them from Asia.

Origins of the Hungarian runic script are still being debated. There have been different theories put forward, such as ancient Sumerian, Scythian, Hun, Avar and Turkic, of which only the Sumerian and the Turkic writings are known. In all probability, it derived from the Phoenician, as did most of the scripts. However, runes were used to write many languages including, Gothic, German, Frisian, English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Russian, also Hebrew and other Semitic tongues. Sándor (Alexander) Forrai in his book Ancient Hungarian Runic Writing from Antiquity to the Present (Az ősi magyar rovásírás az ókortól napjainkig, 1994) even demonstrated similarities between Egyptian hieroglyphs and some of the Hungarian runes.

With the adoption of Christianity, runic writing became labelled as “pagan”; it was outlawed, and all texts had to be destroyed. The majority of the runic writings of significant value perished. András Vitéz, Canon of Rozsnyó, (high-ranking Judge and Magistrate of Counties Gömör and Kishont) translated a valuable document preserved in the Szilassy family’s archives:

An order elevated to statute, signed by the secret councillors of King István I (St. Stephen) (997-1038), which stated that “Domokos, Archbishop of Esztergom, ordered for future execution by the Hungarian Christian Church and upon the request of Pope Sylvester II, that the old Hungarian letterings and carvings, written from right to left, used by Hungarians, Szeklers and Cumans, as well as the Hungarian priests of the church, must cease and be replaced by Latin script. Hereby it is ordered that the clergy must be taught to use the Latin script and be forbidden the use and teaching of the pagan writing, subject to the penalty of forfeiting their clerical appointments and a fine of 20 golden coins. Further, it is ordered that all inscriptions and prayer books with pagan lettering, found in churches, be destroyed and substituted with Latin. Those who surrender old pagan writings or carvings shall be rewarded with a sum of 1 to 10 denars. The surrendered writings and carvings are to be destroyed by fire and sword, so that, with their annihilation, any remembrance or desire to restore the pagan religion be curtailed”. The document is signed: “Vatican 1000 IX.Cal.oct. Die festo Jac. Ap”.

As a result, only very few relics survived, mostly in Transylvania; most date from the 15th and 16th centuries. Among these the most significant are: the bone pin-case found in Szarvas in south-eastern Hungary, dating from the Avar-age (6th-8th c.). According to some linguists and historians, this is the first Hungarian written relic. However, opinions differ on its decipherment: one came up with a Hungarian reading, another with an Old Turkic one; but there is no trustworthy meaning to date. There is the runic alphabet found in Nikolsburg (now Mikulov, Czech Republic), dating from the 15th century; the alphabet of the Reformed College of Gyulafehérvár in Transylvania (now Alba Iulia, Romania) from 1655; the inscription in the Unitarian Church of Énlaka from 1680. The most extensive relic of runic writing is the calendar containing the copy of the notes of the Italian scholar, Luigi F. Marsigli (1658-1730), kept in the Library of the University of Bologna. Other relics include church inscriptions in Csíkszentmiklós of 1501; the Constantinople Inscription (Konstantinápolyi Felirat), inscribed on the wall of the Residence of the Ambassadors by Tamás (Thomas) Kedei Székely in 1515; also the late 16th century notes taken by István Szamosközy, and the alphabet of János (John) Kájoni of 1673. Then there is the 23-piece, 8th or 9th century Nagyszentmiklós Gold Treasure (Nagyszentmiklósi aranykincs), found in southern Hungary in 1799, several pieces of which display runic inscriptions. However, there is no consensus on their meaning to this day.

The Latin alphabet was not satisfactorily adapted to the characteristics of the Hungarian language for a long time due to the fact that most of the writing took place in Latin. Also, the Hungarian runic writing fits the characteristics of the language: all sounds correspond to a particular character in the Hungarian alphabet. At that time, in the Latin alphabet there were no corresponding letters for the vowels: á, é, ö, ü; and for the double consonants: cs, gy, ny, sz, ty, sz, zs. As a result, runic writing continued to exists, especially among the non-clerical literates and people in lower social positions. It was still used in some parts of Transylvania (Erdély, now in Romania) as late as the 1850s.