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Just in:
4/25/2008
A very special thanks to our membership for the donation
toward the Peto Institute (Mozgássérültek Pető András Nevelőképző és
Nevelőintézete, Budapest, Villányi út 67.).
Our contribution supported the kids' awards and presents for this year's
folk tale and
poem competition.
Here are some pictures of the competition and the winners taken by the Peto
Institute's PR manager, Mr. Daniel Faber.
(Click on the
thumbnails to see a larger version.)
2/28/2008
Help Wanted:
we need a volunteer who wants to take over of the management of
our web site. Our current webmaster is retiring from this job. This could be
a great opportunity for someone to practice web design and web management.
Anyone who knows some MS Word, MS Front Page, and
minimal image editing should be able to have fun with it.
There will be a short training to help the new
webmaster to get familiar with our hosting server, web structure, and
software used.
Please contact:
webmaster@hacnm.org
9/11/2007
Albuquerque Museum
September 16, 2007
2:00 PM
2000
Mountain Rd. NW
Old Town
ALBUQUERQUE: A
TAPESTRY OF CULTURES
Join the Albuquerque Historical Society (AHS) on its
2007-2008 program journey featuring many of Albuquerque’s
cultural groups. Community boosters and tourism efforts have long focused on
the idea of the state’s “tri-cultural” identity, but each third Sunday of the
month a different community group will be featured that expands on Albuquerque’s intertwined “tapestry” of
cultures. Since the city’s founding in 1706, and especially with the NM statehood in 1912, Albuquerque
has been enriched by individuals who came to the United
States and the region seeking opportunity,
education, and political freedom.
Hungarian-American Club of
New Mexico
Come learn about the Hungarian culture which goes back
over 1,000 years. Topics to be covered include:
Panel
Moderator: Ann Powless.
·
Hungarian History & Language—Ann
Powless
·
Architecture--UNM Professor Steve Borbas
·
Music--Joan Shaw
·
Famous Hungarians--Eszter
Erdei
Next Meeting: Sunday October 21 THE
ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM TURNS
40 !
A new exhibit features the 40 year history of the Albuquerque
Museum and its connection to the
Albuquerque Historical Society which celebrated its 60th
anniversary this year. The presenter will be Deb Slaney,
Curator of History for the Museum.
Officers/Contact
Information: website:
www.albuqhistsoc.org
President Vice-President Treasurer Secretary
Jan Dodson Barnhart
Janet Saiers Steve
Eagan Joe Sabatini
271-0727 299-5019 889-3774 344-9212
Presentations are open to
the public. AHS, founded in 1947,
welcomes all who are interested in the history of our city to our monthly
programs, the 3rd Sunday of each month at 2:00 pm., normally held at the
Albuquerque
Museum, unless noted at another site.
Our next meeting
is October 21, 2007.
3/6/2007
Steve Borbas,
UNM campus planner, took part in the UNM Language Expo recently. He presented
a slide show of Budapest, provided a brief snapshot of Hungarian
contributions in the United States as well as giving the students an idea about the
Hungarian language. The expo participants were high school students from
around New Mexico who came to UNM to learn about the world's cultures
and languages.
 
02/20/2007
Kodály Concert at Keller Hall! 3/1/2007 8PM
Click here for
details (these are .pdf files, you'll need Adobe
Reader to open them):
1. Kodály cocert page 1
2. Kodály concert page 2
(You can go to http://www.adobe.com to download the
free Adobe Reader)
01/04/2007
The complete tour date
list for the fantastic 2007 Tour of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble:
click here
12/23/2006:
Karacsonyi lap Erdelybol:
Koszonjuk a tamogatast kedves magyar baratainknak...
(click
the image to enlarge it)
10/16/2006
There’s
more to nation than Gabors and goulash as a few Albuquerqueans remember 1956 revolt
BY TOBY SMITH Journal Staff Writer
An old gag: What do you get when you put three Hungarians
in a room together?
Five opinions.
On this recent night in the Northeast Heights, five Hungarians have
gathered. Opinions? A couple of dozen, at least.
Laughs? Many more.
Tears? Somewhere in between.
The Hungarians have come to eat and to drink — and to
opinionate, an exercise in which they’re considered world-class.
Much of the conversation this evening is about the
revolution of 1956, which shook the world 50 years ago this month.
A bloody revolt that claimed more than 2,500 lives and
forced 200,000 people into exile is not typically marked by celebratory
drinking and jokes.
But Hungarians are an emotional, sentimental lot and at
times it’s difficult to separate their laughter from their sadness.
“We do love our revolutions,” says Steve Borbas, an architect and planner at the University of New Mexico and host for this gettogether. “We’ve had several of them, you know.
Unfortunately, we’ve lost them all.”
Goulash, or gulyás, as Hungarians
know it, is naturally the main dish this night. There’s wine, too, lots of
it. And pastries for dessert.
The goulash is a stew made by Judith Balazs
from a recipe passed down by her grandmother in Transylvania. The wine is Bull’s
Blood, one of the most popular in Hungary. The pastries are from
Costco.
Tumultuous history
Before
October 1956, few people paid much attention to Hungary. To outsiders it was a
country known chiefly for its peculiar language and that goulash. Landlocked
in central Europe, about the size of Indiana, Hungary seldom made news —
except when Zsa Zsa Gabor got remarried.
To natives, though, Hungary was a land that gave
the world composer Franz Liszt, physicist Edward Teller and publisher Joseph Pulitzer,
among many other luminaries.
Achievements aside, the ’56 revolution didn’t just pop up.
Periodic unrest in the country — spurred first by the Nazi presence and then
by the Soviet Union — preceded the tumult by several years.
Intellectuals were imprisoned, restrictions placed
everywhere. By 1956, students in Budapest, fed up, held street
demonstrations, demanding independence and free elections.
Ostensibly, the Soviets had been pushing — from a distance
— their brand of communism since the end of World War II. For the most part,
they let the Hungarian military take care of any problems.
On Oct. 23, Hungarian soldiers and police fired into the
crowd of protesting students. The locals fought back and by Oct. 30, the
revolutionaries had triumphed.
Fearing that this turn might imperil the Soviet empire, on Nov. 1, 1956, fresh Russian troops descended into Budapest and the real battle
began.
By Nov. 4, 1956, heavy fighting
extended into other cities. Hungarians hoped for help from the West, but none
came.
The populist uprising was crushed and a new regime installed. The Iron Curtain prevailed as 80,000 Soviet troops
patrolled the capital. Life in Hungary went on as usual until
1989, when communism toppled across Europe.
But it’s that spirited period from late October through
early November 1956 that resonates five decades later. The Hungarian freedom
fighter was Time magazine’s Man of the Year for 1956. His courage and others
caused the first tangible crack in the Soviet bloc.
Regrettably, the ’56 revolution emptied a good deal of Hungary. At the same time, the
experience filled natives with an enormous pride that endures.
Fighting back
“We
had about two weeks of freedom,” says Attila Csanyi,
hoisting a glass of Bull’s Blood.
Now 71 and a resident of
Albuquerque’s South Valley, Csanyi on
Oct. 23, 1956, was on his way to a
history lecture in Budapest with his
girlfriend when he came upon the
student demonstrators.
“I said to my girlfriend, ‘Let’s forget
history. Let’s make it!’ ’’
They joined in the rally.
Soon, Csanyi was handed a rifle,
which he used. With a knife, he hacked out the Soviets’ hammer and sickle
logo from the center of Hungarian flags.
Setting down his wine glass, Csanyi
says, “As rousing as that time was, I saw a lot of friends killed.”
Anna Kormas Powless, who now
works for Intel, was 9 when the Russian tanks darkened Budapest.
“I knew nothing,” Powless says.
“I had to ask my mother what ‘revolution’ meant.”
Early on she remembers watching Hungarian soldiers rumble
by in trucks. “ ‘Don’t hurt the Hungarians!’ people
yelled.”
By the time the Soviets arrived, Powless
says many of those Hungarian soldiers joined the side of the revolutionaries.
But that didn’t take away the pain.
Says she: “There were whispers about the man across the
street being lynched by the AVO (Hungarian Secret Police).”
Steve Borbas was 11 and was
living in Pecs, a city southwest of Budapest, but he can still see
the destruction: “The walls of houses in Budapest were like Swiss
cheese.”
Borbas clearly recalls the ways
Hungarians fought back. “They threw
rocks or used slingshots. Little kids
would hand sandwiches to Soviets in
tanks. Sandwiches that were made with
rat poison.”
And then there were the cocktails.
Freedom fighters liked to touch
matches to rags protruding from
gasoline-filled bottles. They’d then
throw the bottles at the Russians, who
had invented the Molotov cocktail in
the first place.
Leaving Europe
Nearly
every Hungarian refugee has a “getting out” story. In late 1956, many
refugees sneaked across the border to Austria or Yugoslavia. There they were put
in contact with a sponsor, primarily in the United States or Canada.
“If you had a relative in the United States, even a distant one,”
says Borbas, “suddenly that person became the most
important human being in your life.”
In the heat of the revolution, Louis Magyari,
then 15, told his father one afternoon that he was going out to buy shoes. He
wound up in Venezuela.
The senior Magyari had told his
son about a long-lost cousin in that South American country.
“Venezuela?” says Louis Magyari, now retired from a printing career with
Albuquerque Publishing Co. “I didn’t know what Venezuela was. I thought it was
a fruit.”
Magyari did know he wanted to get
out. He had seen tanks blow apart every 10th house on his street. He had seen
Soviets shoot people in the head.
He had seen enough.
Before leaving, Magyari
surreptitiously scooped up some souvenir grenades and hid them in the attic
of his home.
From South America, Magyari
wrote to his parents and told them of the grenades in the attic. They wrote
back saying that they couldn’t find them. Eight years after fleeing Hungary, Louis Magyari went home for a visit and got the grenades out himself. “I thought they might blow up everybody I loved.”
Uneasy immigration
Anna Powless didn’t get out of Hungary until 1965. Her father
was a physician and, following much anguish, he had decided to stay. “The
fear of the unknown,” says his daughter.
Anna Powless got out legally, on
a visa used to visit her aunt in Los Angeles.
“Promise me you will come back,” said her mother.
“Promise me you will never come back,” said her father.
Powless eventually returned —
after 13 years in the United States. “Where did you get
that accent?” her friends asked. Attila Csanyi
didn’t return to Hungary for 30 years. Thirty
years of not seeing his parents. “I didn’t believe in that amnesty stuff,” he
says. “I was afraid.” Fear clung to Hungarian refugees for years, says Borbas, who fled to Rochester, N.Y., with his parents and
brother. “You always thought there was a border guard back there waiting for
you with a bullet that had your name on it.” Remaining in Hungary was not easy either.
The Secret Police knew which family members had slipped out. “My father was
taken in and beaten,” says Magyari. “There were
spies on every street.”
Proud and outspoken
In due
course, the number of Hungarians in New Mexico grew. Many found a
connection here — with other Hungarians. “It’s the language that holds us all
together,” says Balazs, president of the Hungarian-
American Club of New Mexico. “It carries our history and our culture.” “We
have a bunch of extra letters in our alphabet,” says Borbas.
Hungarians reach out for those who have shared experiences — in that
language. And they look for mutual similarities. “We are smart,” says Balazs. “Supersmart,” says Csanyi. “For me, it’s the music,” says Borbas. “Gypsy music especially.” “Waltzes on the Danube,” says Csanyi. “Singing and dancing makes us Hungarian,” says Balazs. “Swearing does it,” says Borbas.
“We all swear. The dirtier the better.” “We Hungarians are patient, but don’t
push us,” says Csanyi. “Great wine defines us,”
says Powless. “In Hungary, it’s hard to make a
bad wine.” “You’d think Hungary was a country of
drunkards,” says Borbas. “Well, it is,” says Powless, laughing. Of course, that’s only one opinion.
Elevenmonth-old Anna Balazs Tomasson gets a hug from
Steve Borbas. Borbas was
hosting a gathering to salute the 1956 Hungarian revolution.
DAVID LIENEMANN/JOURNAL Szervusz! say Albuquerque
Hungarians as they offer a toast to mark their homeland’s revolution 50 years
ago. Joining the toast are, from left, Judith Balazs,
Anna Kormas Powless, Attila Csanyi,
Louis Magyari and, partially, Steve Borbas.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hungarian rebels wave their country’s flag from atop a
Soviet tank captured in Budapest on Nov. 2, 1956. The uprising against the Soviet regime was
crushed later amid bitter fighting.
DAVID LIENEMANN/JOURNAL A
train pass that Louis Magyari kept from his youth
lies on a table as Magyari, background, talks about
his escape from communist Hungary 50 years ago.
8/26/2006
We would like
to let all Hungarians know that there will be a 3day long
Earth Changes Conference in Taos on October 8-9-10, 2006 at the Sagebrush
Inn. The state of the current warming trend will be discussed, but more
importantly an urgent warning : - there is an expected large solar Flare
eruption 'prophesized' for the summer of 2007. Astronomy, Earth's
geo-dynamo, Mayan Calendar ending of 2012, mythology, bible will be
discussed. There will be a good amount of Hungarian mythology and
linguistics - to prove that our language is more ancient than all others.
Info about the Conference is on the web page <www.celestialclock.com> .
There are also some short 'articles' to look at. Magyaroknak
meg tobb
'discount-ot' is tudunk ajanlani. Koszonettel,
Gaspar Vili es Eva
(Phone: 505-387-5816)
4/28/2006
4/8/2006
A card from the Laszlo Family:
(click to enlarge)
 
3/8/2006
Thank You letter from the Szekely
Magyar Kanadai Egyesulet.
(click to enlarge)
2/13/2006
2/9/2006
University planner Steve Borbas and Zsofia Drjenguszky attend a Hungarian Heritage Month event as
part of the City of Albuquerque’s Tricentennial. Borbas delivered a slide presentation on Hungarian
architecture and introduced Drjenguszky to the
local Hungarian community.
UNM trains Hungarian mediators
By Carolyn Gonzales, UNM Today
Not long after the Iron Curtain came down, Hungarians started arriving at UNM.
One at a time, they came as visiting research scholars to spend a semester
studying alternative dispute resolution, mediation and arbitration.
“Conflict is a component of the work place,” said Zsofia
Drjenguszky, a doctoral student in sociology from Budapest.
Drjenguszky is enrolled in human resources in the
public sector taught by Zane Reeves, professor in public administration. She
is also taking an introductory course on alternative dispute resolution and a
class in theory of conflict, both taught by School of Law Professor Scott
Hughes.
“I am also taking an intensive mediation training over two weekends. We work
with real mediators in small groups. Although the training is controlled, it
gives us real world experience,” Drjenguszky said.
Her semester also includes tagging along with Reeves to observe arbitration
in the courts.
The program got its start when Julius Rézler, a
professor emeritus from Loyola University, who relocated to Albuquerque and
to UNM. Rézler, an economist, sociologist and labor
arbitration specialist, became Reeves’ colleague.
“He became my mentor and encouraged me to become an arbitrator. It was his
dream to train arbitrators at UNM to go back and introduce the art of dispute
resolution in Hungary,” Reeves said.
Rézler, who died in 2001, established the Julius Rézler Foundation in 1995 to introduce and develop
dispute resolution and arbitration techniques in Hungary and Central Europe.
Of the students, Reeves said, “They are outstanding, eager and delightful
students. It is amazing to see how well they do when they go back.”
And they do quite well. Some former Rézler students
organized the Julius Rézler Mediation Institution
in Hungary.
“The purpose of this organization is to use the knowledge in Hungary that we
gained in the USA. So, we do mediation, we train and we conduct research in
the field of conflicts and conflict resolution. Our specialty is that the
members have the highest qualifications on ADR (alternative dispute
resolution) in Hungary and most of the people are working on Ph.D. in this
topic,” said Eszter Balogh,
who came to UNM in 2003 and now teaches conflict resolution at Corvinus University.
Many of the visiting researchers have been law students. Hughes became
acquainted with the program when one of the Hungarian students showed up in
his legal writing course about five years ago. “ADR was her real interest,
not legal writing. I fell in love with the students and with what they wanted
to do,” he said.
He added that his American students “adopt” the Hungarian students. “They
take them home, invite them places. They bring a broader worldview to New
Mexico. Our entire program is enriched by having these students here,” he
said.
Maria Kulisity, now a junior judge at the Capital
Labor Court of Hungary and labor and employment law instructor, attended UNM
in 2004. She said, “When I was in Albuquerque, I researched the
connection and interaction between the judicial system and alternative
dispute resolution. I gained lots of experience and knowledge, more that I
can even imagine. Nowadays in Hungary we are building an alternative dispute
resolution system because in the past for a long time we didn’t have any,”
she said.
She added that the Hungarians are also building an alternative dispute
resolution system connected with the courts in response to a European Union
directive.
Steve Borbas, university planner, is the students’
unofficial Hungarian “dad” in Albuquerque. Borbas
sets up living arrangements for the students with his next-door neighbor,
shuttles the students to and from campus and arranges cultural outings. “They
come over to do their laundry or just chat,” he said, adding that Hungarian
conversation helps him stay in touch with his own heritage.
“Every time when I think of New Mexico, I realize that it was one of my
happiest periods of my life and often I miss it very much. I can say on
behalf of the other scholars, too, that we all loved and enjoyed the time in
Albuquerque and got lots of professional and personal
experience. Somehow we all work with alternative dispute resolution and
the UNM program gave us the start and the determination for this,” said Kulisity.
Edward Teller, co-developer of the atom bomb in Los Alamos, was Hungarian.
New Mexico now hosts Hungarians with more peaceable goals.
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