Interesting facts:
If it’s someone’s birthday, we greet them with a short rhyme: „Isten éltessen sokáig, füled érjen bokáig!” (God bless you—live so long that your ears reach your ankles!) And we pull their earlobes. There is no specific origin of this tradition; it is rather a biological curiosity. Our ears are one of the body parts that grow until the end of our lives – up to 0.22m. So, this short anecdote means that we wish them to live long.
Until the regime change, Hungarian women "lost" their maiden name and had to take their husband’s whole name with a "-né" (a married feminine derivative) added to it. For instance, if Kiss Anna married Nagy András, she would have to introduce herself as Nagy Andrásné from then on. This way everyone would know that the lady is no longer available. However, after the fall of socialism, women could eventually choose their names. Today, there are a dozen variations on the way women would like to take up their husbands’ names. Let’s stick to the above example and see what choices Anna has now:
Nagy Andrásné
Nagy Andrásné Kiss Anna
Nagyné Kiss Anna
Nagy-Kiss Anna (the most common form currently)
Kiss Anna (keep her maiden name)
Nagy Anna (leave her maiden surname for her husband’s) - this is how we use in our family.
One of the most characteristic pieces of folk clothing is the Atilla Jacket. The short, ornate, laced garment resembles the name of King Attila the Hun. It was considered an integral part of a Hungarian gentleman’s attire. The jacket – originally an equestrian jacket – was a basic piece of hussar clothing. Its slender, downward expanding fit made it easier to get off and up on the horse. Before the ancient folk garment was forgotten at the end of the 18th century, Hungarians took out their national costume in protest against the decrees of the then Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II. They wanted to annoy the emperor who tried to “Germanize” Hungarians and became more Hungarian in return. That is how the Atilla Jacket came back into focus again before it was finally forgotten for good.
Our ancestors who conquered the Carpathian Basin brought a pig from Szalonta, Asia. Although this breed of pig became extinct, its descendant, the Mangalica pig has stayed with us as an ancient Hungarian domestic animal. The meat of mangalica is low in cholesterol and extremely tasty due to its party free-range farming. It dominated the domestic meat market until the swine fever in 1895. During the 20 years of swine fever, 95% of the mangalica sheep died and drifted to the brink of extinction. Until WWII, it took serious effort to save the breed, but the war almost completely killed the breed again. Finally, from the early 1990s, the herd was increased again making it possible to put mangalica meat out on the market again. The finest Italian serrano hams are also made from Hungarian mangalica meat.
If you check out the lyrics of different nations’ national anthems, you will see that most of them are about glorifying those people and remembering their great deeds. However, the Hungarian Anthem is different. Ferenc Kölcsey’s poem, written in 1823, was originally entitled Hymnus, from the stormy centuries of the Hungarian nation. Even this makes it obvious that the poem is not about an easy topic. We pray to God through eight verses to alleviate our pain and give us a better future. While the anthem of the other nations consists of swirling melodies, the Hungarian anthem is the perfect reflection of our sad gloomy nature.
Most nations claim that their ladies are the most beautiful in the world. It is understandable since all hearts draw home. However, in the case of Hungarian girls, there is a bit of uniqueness: there is no particular characteristic. While girls of several nations can be recognized by the characteristics of the given nation (e.g. northern people have pale skin and blue eyes, southerners have dark hair and dark eyes), Hungarians have no specific features. Over the centuries, different groups of people put their foot on our land: either we fought the Turks, or Germans or Russians settled down here. We unintentionally came into contact with the children of other nations, creating a very diverse, mixed nation in the Carpathian Basin.
