Hungary

Multiviews of Hungary.

Sent by Lilla, a postcrosser from Hungary.

Hungary - Folkwear of Hungary

HUNGARIAN FOLKWEAR
Traditional clothes

Sent by Zoltán, a friend from Hungary.

Hungary - Szolnok

Images of Szolnok.

Sent by Andrea, a postcrosser from Szolnok in Hungary.

This is from Wikipedia : Szolnok (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈsolnok]) is the county seat of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county in central Hungary. Its location on the banks of the Tisza river, at the heart of the Great Hungarian Plain, has made it an important cultural and economic crossroads for centuries.

Szolnok is located in the heart of the Great Hungarian Plain, at the confluence of the Tisza and Zagyva rivers. It lies about 100 kilometres (62 mi) east-southeast from Budapest. The climate of the area is continental, with hot summers following relatively mild winters. The region is one of the sunniest in Europe; the average precipitation is about 490 millimetres (19 in) annually.

Szolnok was named for the first steward of the city, Szaunik or Zounok. The town was first officially mentioned under the name Zounok in 1075. In the following centuries it was recorded as Zounok, Saunic, Zounuc, and Zawnuch. The variety of spellings likely comes from phonetic discrepancies occurring when Hungarian sounds - originally written in runic Old Hungarian script - were recorded using the Latin alphabet. Another possibility revolves around speculation that the name Szaunik was not a personal name after all, but rather a title relating to the significant salt trade (salt, Hungarian: só) in the area.

In most other languages, the city's Hungarian name is used without derivation (for example French: Szolnok, Spanish: Szolnok). The city has its own name in a few languages (for example German: Sollnock or Zolnock, Romanian: Solnoca, Russian: Сольнок), deriving from these languages' historical relationship to the city.

Hungary - Millenary Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma and its Natural Environment

Greetings from Pannonhalma!
Multiviews of Pannonhalma. Part of Millenary Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma and its Natural Environment, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Hungary.

Sent by my best friend Antal from Szeged in Hungary.

Pannonhalma illustrates in an exceptional manner the structure and setting of an early Christian Monastery that has evolved over 1,000 years of continuous use. Its location and the early date of its foundation bear exceptional witness to the propagation and cvontinuity of Christianity in Eastern Europe.

When the monastery was created the area was occupied by Bavarian and Slav farmers, who came here in the wake of Charlemagne's armies. Benedictine monks came in 996 from Italy and the Bohemian and German lands to this sacred mountain in the former Roman province of Pannonia. They came to the aid of Prince Geza and his son Stephen I, the first king of Hungary, in their efforts to humanize the Hungarians, who were terrorizing the settled peoples of Europe and sacking the towns and monasteries of northern Italy, Bavaria, and Franconia. The Benedictine monastery set up here as the eastern bridgehead of medieval European culture retained that role for 1,000 years, with only brief interruptions. It exercised an Important cultural and juridical role in Hungary, and its abbots played a leading role in public life.

The first monastery is known only from records, as it was burned down at the beginning of the 12th century. Reconstruction took place slowly, until Uros became Abbot (1207-43). In 1472 the king took over the monastery and undertook an extensive renovation. The present cloister and other buildings with a religious function were built, and the monastery was fortified. However, monastic life became difficult; the monastery was badly damaged by fire and largely abandoned in 1575, to be occupied by the Turks in 1594. The Community returned in 1638, and the Baroque elements of the monastery, such as the refectory, were added. The 'Enlightenment' of the 18th century had its impact on the monastic communities, which were judged according to their contribution to the state. The order was re-established in 1802. In most cases the monks moved out into houses in neighbouring towns and the monastic buildings were turned over to education, but at Pannonhalma monastic life continued, with the school being incorporated into the monastery itself.

The area consists of the main group of monastic buildings, the Calvary and Chapel of Our Lady, the Millenary Monument, and the lands surrounding them. The present church, of 1224, is the third on the site; it contains remains of its predecessors. The elevated three-aisled choir, the oldest part of the building, overlies a three-aisled crypt, part of the earlier church. The nave aisle is formed of richly decorated columns, supporting sexpartite vaulting; the roof of the choir is decorated with stars, of late 15th-century work. The chapels and the baptistry, with its Renaissance door and window frames, date from the same period. This door gives access to the cloister, a typical square late Gothic ensemble built in 1486. The building contains a series of mural paintings by Antonio Fossati. The main Monastery consist of a group of buildings dating from the 13th-15th centuries that were originally single-storey but raised to two storeys in 1912, erected in part over the medieval cloister.

The Chapel of Our Lady, building of which began in 1714, is situated at the top of the southern hill. The nave is barrel-vaulted, and is joined to the Sanctuary by a large triumphal arch. Its original Baroque interior was restored in Romantic Style in 1865. The Millenary Monument is one of seven erected to commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of the conquest of Hungary in 896. It is located at the crest of the central hill, where it replaced the Calvary that is now located in front of the Chapel of our Lady. It consists of a single block, constructed in brick and limestone. The stone portico is formed of a tympanum bearing a symbolic relief, supported on two pairs of iconic columns.

The principal elements of the area around the monastic complex are the forest and the botanical garden. The forest, on the eastern slopes of the Pannonhalma landscape, is largely the traditional oak forest of this region. The flora of the botanical garden is composed of two groups: half forest trees and plants, of mixed age, and half hedgerow and park species, both native and exotic. Both the forest and the botanic garden are seen as illustrating the landscape value of the region as a whole and also to set off the aesthetic values of the man-made element represented by the buildings of the monastery. (Source)

Hungary - Elizabeth Bridge

Erzsébet híd or Elizabeth Bridge in Hungary.

Sent by my best friend Antal from Szeged in Hungary.

This is from Wikipedia : Elisabeth Bridge (Hungarian: Erzsébet híd) is the third newest bridge of Budapest, Hungary, connecting Buda and Pest across the River Danube. The bridge is situated at the narrowest part of the Danube in the Budapest area, spanning only 290 m. It is named after Queen Elisabeth, a popular queen and empress of Austria-Hungary, who was assassinated in 1898. Today, her large bronze statue sits by the bridge's Buda side connection in the middle of a small garden. (Read more)

Hungary - Early Christian Necropolis of Pécs (Sopianae)

Sent by Zoli, a friend from Hungary.

The burial chambers and memorial chapels of the Sopianae cemetery bear outstanding testimony to the strength and faith of the Christian communities of late Roman Europe, and well illustrate the unique early Christian sepulchral art and architecture of the northern and western Roman provinces.

The part of modern Hungary west of the Danube came into the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD, as part of the Roman province of Pannonia. The town of Sopianae was founded on the southern slope of the Mecsek massif in the 2nd century by colonists from western Pannonia and Italy, who intermarried with the indigenous Illyrian-Celtic peoples. Sopianae was especially prosperous in the 4th century because of its situation at the junction of several important trading and military routes. St István (King Stephen I), founder of the Hungarian state, established one of his ten bishoprics there.

The medieval town grew outside the walls of the episcopal castle complex, and it was in turn fortified in the 15th century as protection against the growing Turkish threat. The central part of the country was taken by the Ottomans in the mid-16th century and the episcopal castle of Pécs became the administrative centre of a sandjak . Most of the Hungarian inhabitants of the town fled, to be replaced by Muslims from Turkey or the Balkans, who demolished the churches and monasteries (with the exception of the cathedral) and used their stones for the construction of mosques and other Islamic buildings. Pécs was freed from Ottoman rule in 1686, becoming part of the Habsburg lands. The bishopric was re-established and the town was repopulated with Hungarians and German colonists. The mosques and other Muslim buildings were converted for Christian purposes, although the baths (hammams ) continued in use for a considerable time. The fortifications around the castle were demolished and the town began to take on a Baroque appearance.

The Roman cemetery was found by archaeological excavations, which began two centuries ago, in the area now immediately in front of the cathedral, which had been terraced in antiquity. The World Heritage site consists of 16 funerary monuments, of which the most outstanding are:

• Burial chamber I (Peter-Paul): discovered in 1782, this late 4th-century chamber consists of an above-ground chapel, the subterranean burial chamber proper, with religious wall paintings, and a small vestibule leading to the burial chamber. It is cut into the slope of the Mecsek hills.
• Burial chamber II (Wine Pitcher Chamber): a two-storey structure, with limestone walls and brick vaulting. On the wall of the niche carved above the sarcophagus there is a painting of a wine pitcher and glass, symbolizing the thirst of the soul journeying to the netherworld.
• The Cella Trichora: this elaborate chapel has a rectangular central space with three apses and a southern vestibule (narthex); the eastern apse has a raised floor and was probably an altar.
• The Cella Septichora, a sepulchral building with a unique floor plan with seven apses; it was not used for burial purposes. It dates from the end of the Roman period, in the 430s.
• The Early Christian Mausoleum, a subterranean burial chamber entered from a vestibule or narthex surmounted by a single-nave church with an apse at its east end. The northern, eastern and southern walls are all decorated with mural paintings of biblical subjects.
• The Early Christian Burial Chapel was used solely as a chapel. There is a cluster of more than 100 graves from the late 4th and early 5th centuries around it.
• The Painted Twin Grave: a gabled double grave contains wall paintings of Christian symbols in red, carmine and yellow on a white background.
• Communal burial containing fourteen graves, separated from one another by stones and bricks. Stone and brick fragments bear names, presumed to be members of a single family. (Source)

Hungary - Hortobágy National Park - the Puszta

Sent by my great friend Antal from Hungary. It shows Hortobágy National Park (or the Puszta), a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The landscape of the Hungarian Puszta , an outstanding example of a cultural landscape shaped by a pastoral human society, preserves intact and visible the evidence of its traditional use over more than two millennia and represents the harmonious interaction between human beings and nature. The Puszta consists of a vast area of plains and wetlands in eastern Hungary. Traditional forms of land use, such as the grazing of domestic animals, have been present in this pastoral society for more than two millennia.

The Hortobágy National Park is part of the Tisza plain of eastern Hungary. It is surrounded by settlements to the south, east and west. The two main settlements are Tiszafüred on the Tisza River and the city of Debrecen. The two are linked by the main historic communication ridge route.

Numerous peoples migrated from the east into the Carpathian Basin in prehistory. The nomadic group who arrived around 2000 BC at the end of the Bronze Age were the first to leave their imprint on the natural landscape in the form of many burial mounds (kurgans ). Their dimensions are variable - 5-10 m high and 20-50 m in diameter - and they are generally conical or hemispherical. They are always to be found on dry land, but located near a source of water. They were often used for secondary burials by later peoples, and in some cases Christian churches were built on them by the Hungarians. Also to found in the park are the low mounds (tells) that mark the sites of ancient settlements, now disappeared. Settlement in the Middle Ages followed the Debrecen-Tiszafüred route. The main group was in the area defined by the existing settlements of Hortobágy, Naghegyes, Náduvdar and Nagyiván. Documentary records have shown that many of these had churches.

The Hungarians arrived in what is now Hungary at the end of the 9th century under their leader, Arpád. As the area was ideal for animal husbandry, they occupied the lands around the Tisza River in the 10th and 11th centuries, and by the early 13th century there was a dense network of settlements, whose economic base was pastoralism, in the Hortobágy, the main axis of which was the trading route from Buda through Tiszafúred and Debrecen into Transylvania.

With the progressive depopulation of the region from the 14th century onwards, the settlements disappeared. The only manmade features in the wide plains of the Puszta were light temporary structures of reeds and branches, used to provide winter shelter for animals and men. The sole surviving structures from this time, which were public buildings built from stone, are the bridges and the csárdas . The Nine Arch Bridge at Hortobágy is the longest stone bridge in Hungary. A wooden bridge known to have been in existence as early as the 14th century was replaced in 1827-33 by the existing structure in classical style. The Zádor Bridge in the southern part of the National Park was built in 1809 with nine arches, but the two side piers were swept away by a flood on the Zádor River in 1830 and never replaced. The csárdas were provincial inns built in the 18th and 19th centuries to provide food and lodging for travellers.

The typical csárda consists of two buildings facing one another, both single-storeyed and thatched or, occasionally, roofed with shingles or tiles. A tavern was normally set up on the side of the road with a railed-off counter in a room that had access to the wine cellar. A few also had one or two guest rooms. On the opposite side of the road from the csárda was provision for horses and carriages. The best known of the csárdas are at Balmazújváros (18th century), Hortobágy (first built in 1699 and reconstructed on several occasions), Nagyhegyes (early 19th century), Nagyiván (mid-18th century), and Tiszafüred (c . 1770).

In the early 19th century, water regulation systems were set up, notably control over flooding of the Tisza River: this resulted in the draining of former wetlands, which were converted to arable farming. Reduction of the water available for the natural pastures decreased their fertility, which was the cause of serious overgrazing in the early part of the 20th century. Efforts were made to diversify the land use of the Hortobágy, the most successful of which was the creation of artificial fishponds between 1914 and 1918 and again in the 1950s. (Source)

Hungary - Traditional Costume of Kalocsa

Sent by my friend Antal from Hungary. It shows the national costume of Kalocsa.

This is from Wikipedia : Kalocsa (Croatian: Kaloča or Kalača, Serbian: Kaloča or Калоча, German Kollotschau) is a town in Bács-Kiskun county, Hungary. It lies 88 miles south of Budapest. It is situated in a marshy but highly productive district, near the left bank of the Danube River, and was once of far greater importance than at present.

Kalocsa is the Episcopal see of one of the four archbishops of Hungary. Amongst its buildings are a fine cathedral, the archiepiscopal palace, an astronomical observatory, a seminary for priests, and colleges for training of male and female teachers. The inhabitants of Kalocsa and its wide-spreading communal lands are chiefly employed in the cultivation of the vine, fruit, flax, hemp and cereals, in the capture of water-fowl and in fishing. Kalocsa is one of the oldest towns in Hungary. The present archbishopric, founded about 1135, is a development of a bishopric said to have been founded in the year 1000 by King Stephen the Saint. It suffered much during the 16th century from the hordes of Ottomans who then ravaged the country. A large part of the town was destroyed by a fire in 1875.

Hungary - Old Village of Hollókő and its Surroundings

The third postcard sent by Antal, a friend from Hungary. The postcard shows Hollókő, a Palóc ethnographic village in Hungary, part of the World Heritage. Its name means "Raven-stone" in Hungarian.

Hollókö is an exceptional example of a deliberately preserved traditional human settlement representative of a culture that has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change. This village, which developed mainly during the 17th and 18th centuries, is a living example of rural life before the agricultural revolution of the 20th century. Located about 100 km north-east of Budapest, Hollókö is a small rural community whose 126 houses and farm buildings, strip-field farming, orchards, vineyards, meadows and woods cover 141 ha. The village and the surrounding area are given the same protection as a historic monument such as the castle. Mentioned as early as 1310, this castle, whose ruins lie to the north-west of the village today, played a decisive part in the feudal wars of the Palocz and the Hussite wars. It served as protection for the village whose ruins have been found a little way from its walls.

At the end of the Ottoman occupation (1683) the castle and the village were finally abandoned and the present village grew up below. It developed gradually throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. As was customary in the region, the first generation of inhabitants settled on either side of the main street. In this one-street village, subsequent generations built their houses at the back of the narrow family plots, thus progressively enlarging the built-up area. The barns were built apart from the village, on the edges of the fields, according to Palocz custom.

The development of the village and the soil can be traced from various documents. In 1782 it was still a typical one-street village. Later, a second street developed to the east of the main street. A plan of 1885 shows the topography was already like that of the present-day plan: the amount of cultivated land had reached its maximum by the mid-19th century and the village could therefore grow no further. Some limited growth started again in 1960 and is now strictly controlled.

The inhabitants of Hollókö never heeded a 1783 decree prohibiting the use of wood for building, which considered it to be too inflammable. Consequently the village was periodically devastated by fire. The last of these fires dates back to 1909 but the houses were again built according to the traditional techniques of Palocz rural architecture: half-timbered houses on a stone base with roughcast white-washed walls, enhanced by high wooden pillared galleries and balconies on the street side protected by overhanging porch roofs. The church with its shingled tower is simply a transposition of this domestic architectural style.

Hollókö is a living community whose conservation not only includes farming activity but also ensures its success. It provides a certainly exceptional and maybe unique example of voluntary conservation of a traditional village with its soil. The plots that were modified by the regrouping of land were returned to their original strip shape. The vineyards, orchards and vegetable gardens have been recreated; the ecological balance has been restored, even in the forestry environment, taking infinite care to respect historical authenticity. Hollókö not only represents the Palocz subgroup within the Magyar entity, but also bears witness, for the whole of Central Europe, to the traditional forms of rural life, which were generally abolished by the agricultural revolution in the 20th century. (Source)

Hungary - Esztergom

This one sent by Zoli from Hungary. It shows Esztergom Basilica, the largest church in Hungary.

Hungary - National Costume of Mezőkövesd

This is one of the three postcards (first-round swap) sent by Antal (penpal) of Hungary. This one shows a national costume of a small town called Mezőkövesd in northern part of Hungary.

Hungary - Budapest

This is one the three postcards that Antal of Hungary promised to send. The third is currently on the way. This one shows a Széchenyi Chain Bridge in Budapest.

Budapest (pron.: /ˈbuːdəpɛʃt/, /ˈbuːdəpɛst/ or /ˈbʊdəpɛst/; Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈbudɒpɛʃt] ; names in other languages) is the capital and the largest city of Hungary, the largest in East-Central Europe and the seventh largest in theEuropean Union. It is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre, sometimes described as the primate city of Hungary. In 2011, according to the census, Budapest had 1.74 million inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2.1 million due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter Area is home to 3.3 million people. The city covers an area of 525 square kilometres (202.7 sq mi) within the city limits. Budapest became a single city occupying both banks of the river Danube with a unification on 17 November 1873 of west-bank Buda and Óbuda with east-bank Pest.

The history of Budapest began with Aquincum, originally a Celtic settlement that became the Roman capital of Lower Pannonia. Hungarians arrived in the territory in the 9th century. Their first settlement was pillaged by the Mongols in 1241–42. The re-established town became one of the centres of Renaissance humanist culture in the 15th century. Following the Battle of Mohács and nearly 150 years of Ottoman rule, the region entered a new age of prosperity in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Budapest became a global city after the 1873 unification. It also became the second capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a great power that dissolved in 1918, following World War I. Budapest was the focal point of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Hungarian Republic of Councils of 1919, Operation Panzerfaust in 1944, the Battle of Budapest in 1945, and the Revolution of 1956.

Cited as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, its extensive World Heritage Site includes the banks of the Danube, theBuda Castle Quarter, Andrássy Avenue, Heroes' Square and the Millennium Underground Railway, the second oldest in the world. Other highlights include a total of 80 geothermal springs, the world's largest thermal water cave system, second largest synagogue, and third largest Parliament building. The city attracts about 4.3 million tourists a year, making it the 25th most popular city in the world (and the 6th in Europe) according to Euromonitor. (read further)