OCR
MY HUNGARY: IN HONOR OF KÁROLY BÁRD ——o— GEORGE P. FLETCHER? Before the treaty of Trianon in 1920, Hungary was an equal part of the AustroHungarian Empire. Its territory stretched from the Carpathian mountains to the Adriatic Sea. Both my father’s family and my mother’s family come from small towns in the ‘greater’ Hungary that existed before Trianon. Their stories are connected to the upheavals of the First World War and explain my subsequent efforts to teach in Budapest and incidentally become witness to the first major political struggles that have lasting significance. In the Hungary of my imagination, Jews and Christians respected each other. In the case of my father Miklés, neither religion appealed to him. He was a proud secular Jew. His father Fiilop had made money in the latter part of the 19th century. I’m not sure but he was regarded as foldbirtokos, or the owner of a large estate near Szécsény. On one of my many cycling trips in Hungary, I found his gravestone and have a picture of it now in my den. As contrasted to the religious Jews in the cemetery, he had a simple stone without Hebrew lettering. Asa result of my grandfather’s status, my father was inducted in the First World War as an Einjährig-Freiwillige, or ‘one year volunteer.’ My understanding of his rank is based on the opinion of Istvan Deak, the professor of Eastern European history at Columbia University. When I moved to New York in 1983, I had my Hungarian roots in mind and bought an apartment at 404 Riverside Drive — overlooking the statue of Lajos Kossuth. Due to the careful attention of Deak, this statute remained free of graffiti in the days when the would-be artists had taken over all the statues in that part of Riverside Drive. I soon discovered that as a result of Deäk’s influence, the neighbourhood bore a Hungarian influence, notably the Hungarian pastry shop at 111 and Amsterdam. The pastry shop is still there and the amazing thing so far as I know as authentic as the cukrdsda in Nagymihaly — the place where my material uncle Harry became addicted to krémes. Of course these are rich pastries ! Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia University School of Law. * 139 «