Often, the constitution of a country stipulates which poem, or poetic lyrics, and which tune the given country accepts as its national anthem. In Hungary public opinion and daily practice have long considered the poem National Anthem written by Ferenc Kölcsey and set to music by Ferenc Erkel as its National Anthem. This fact, however, was included in the …
National Holidays
‘Notable days’ is a Hungarian expression for major holidays, indicated in red in the Hungarian calendar. Many of them are part of the Christian ecclesiastical year, a line of holidays from Christmas through Easter to Pentecost. Christian denominations commemorate other church holidays as well (Ascension Day, All Saints Day, Day of Reformation etc.). The beginning …
The Hungarian Coat of Arms and the National Colors
National coats of arms have their roots in the Middle Ages. At first they were the symbol of the knights’ right to bear arms. Later they became permanent differentiating symbols of families, clans and territories, and their usage was the privilege of the noble class. The national (state) coat of arms usually has its origins …
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National Symbols
The nation is sometimes referred to as a symbolic community of people. In other words, the nation is held together by the strength of its collectively accepted system of symbols: the stories, images and signs preserved by collective memory and passed down from generation to generation. The acquisition of this symbol-system is the prerequisite for …
The Nation And Its Characteristics
When we pose the question: who belongs to the group of people called Hungarians, and on what basis do these people belong to the same group, we are actually attempting to define a community by differentiating it from other communities. When defining who a Hungarian person is, or when looking for an answer to the …
Who Are The Hungarians?
When we speak of Hungarians as a people, whose members live all over the world today, we must first clarify who we can call ‘Hungarian’.Hungarians do not have precisely definable physical characteristics by which they can be distinguished from other European peoples. However, anthropologists have found evidence indicating that our forbearers were of Finno-Ugric origin, …
Hungary: A „Miniature Europe”
The quote is from the scholar and writer János Csaplovics, who wrote a book about Hungary in 1829. As a matter of fact, he personified the statement himself: he considered Hungary his home but never denied his Slovakian roots. In order to make the book accessible to a wider audience, he wrote it in German. …