Dear Szalai, I know this is "old hat" stuff, but Christmas to
Hungarians is NOT just a religious holiday.  I grew up in Hungary
under the rulers of Rakosi, Gero, Kadar in an officially anti-
religious and intolerant communist regime, I went from grade school
thru high school in this perod of time. However: we had christmas
trees set-up in the schools, we had Christmas holidays, our parents
had three(!) yes, three days off (24th., 25th., and the 26th.). I
managed to escape conscription, but friends of mine who were
inducted into the "people's army" told me, that even they had
"official" christmas trees set up.  A friend if mine did tell me an
amusing story concerning when he was ordered to be the "christmas
tree guard" in the barracks (this in 1966 to be precise).  I have
also clear recollection, of a christmas tree being set-up every
year in the Parliament, the "official seat of the (communist)
government".  This was not because the regime was "kind", but
because this holiday was so profoundly important in the culture of
the Hungarian people, that the government did not dare to clamp
down on it too hard.  In America we (americans) have not anything
comparable in holidays as profound importance, maybe Thanksgiving
comes close in emotional significance but even that is a fairly far
cry.  For example: can you imagine in a city of 1.7 million (no
suburbs yet) at the time, where perhaps one to two percent owned
automobiles (this is say in the early sixties) the public
transportation - trams, buses - stopping to run at 7:00 pm on
Christmas Eve?  I do not know if I can even begin to convey the
the astonishingly POWERFUL cultural significance of this holiday to
Hungarians.  So plese don't speak of it lightly based on your
AMERICAN cultural experience of this holiday.  Simply it is not the
same at all, in it's emotional significance, even if it seems
superficially the same.  Surprisingly perhaps, religion is not the
sole driving factor in this matter.  We do have freedom of speech,
yet it is considered ill form to berate America on the 4th of July,
or even mow the lawn, do outside house repairs, or god forbid, go
to work.  Holidays, whatever they are based on, have powerful
emotional significance in the culture of the people they are part
of.  I hope I managed to convey the idea.
Best Wishes: Victor

Interested  in Kun genealogy from area of Miskolc. New to Internet.
Interested  in resources available to help in search.

Louis,

       I have no specific info. on the Kuhn family, but here are
    some services that may be useful to you:

            Tibor Radvanyi and Gyorgy Eotvos
            Family Tree
            Budapest 1025
            Zoldlomb u. 16-18/b
            Tel.: 36-1-215-0696,
                       132-7905

            Dr. Sandor Harmath
            Hungarogens
            Budapest 1085,
            Jozsef krt 50/III/12
            Tel.: 36-1-114-0310

            Ilona Sardi
            Jewish Museum (specializing in Jewish heritage)
            Te.: 36-1-342-1350,
                      342-8949

       I hope this helps.
       Good luck,
                    Amos

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I was hoping that Nora would come up with her Slovak encyclopedia of towns
and villages and will be able to tell more about this village than any other
person on this list.

I don't want to start a huge discussion about the accuracy of the 1910
census--we all know about censuses--but I would not go so far as Nora does
when she says:

>It has a "reformed" church built in 1795, which would suggest Magyar
>inhabitant
>s
>more than Slovaks, though without such corroboratio the 1910 census is
>well known as undependable.

Of course, the Romanians, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Serbs, etc. all felt
that the Hungarian census grossly underestimated their numbers. But have you
ever actually seen the 1910 census? A long, long lines of data, and precise
numbers of people, speaking this or that language. Sometimes really
surprising details. Here is a village in southern Baranya, close to the
Croatian border today--it is my father's birthplace with a Reformed church.
The 1910 census gives details like this: 433 Hungarians, 6 Germans, 1 Slovak,
4 Croatians, 59 others (in this case, Gypsy). All could speak Hungarian. That
one Slovak, close to the Croatian border, was included in the total number of
Slovaks living in the territory of Hungary.

The main objection to the 1910 census is that the census takers did not
inquire about mother tongue but about language most easily spoken by the
individual. This way, especially when it came to the Slovaks, the number of
Slovaks were underestimated in the census because a lot of Slovaks,
especially the educated ones, most likely spoke Hungarian better than Slovak.
On the other hand, when it comes to "mother tongue" that concept is not an
easy one to define either. Petofi's mother--as we all know by now--was Slovak
and there is a very good possibility that Petofi's first language was Slovak.
But if it was, this fact became immaterial to him in his later life. People
should be free to change nationality and they do depending on the situation.
There are many, many families who can easily claim either nationality: Slovak
or Hungarian. If it was more advantageous to be Slovak, they were Slovak; if
it was more advantageous to be Hungarian, they were Hungarian.

But returning to Kisge'res. I am almost 100 percent sure that the data of the
1910 census is correct. Why? Because Kisge'res was situated in Bodrogko:zi
ja'ra's (a smaller administrative unit, in this case, with 43 villages). Out
of the 40,987 inhabitants of Bodrogko:zi ja'ra's 40,840!! were Hungarian
speaking. There is no way that in a case like that there is much hanky-panky
with the census figures. There is no need here for cheating. Or look at the
religious composition of the ja'ra's: half of the population was Hungarian
Reformed, 25% Catholic; 15% Greek-Catholic (Uniate); and only 64 persons were
Lutheran! According to the census only 26 people out of over 40,000 claimed
that they were Slovak speaking.

As far as the Slovak-language birth certificate is concerned: is it possible
that the birth certificate was a later copy--let's say, issued sometime after
1918, in Czechoslovakia? By the way, it would be useful to have Marianne's
ancestor's name in order to come up with the definitie nationality, but on
the face of it I suspect that she/he was Hungarian.

Eva Balogh

P.S. Martin's note reminded me that in 1910 Kisge'res was larger both in
territory and in population than Nagyge'res! Well, you see what can happen!

EB

Interesting article in the Financial Times of 6 January on the "Wild West of
China"- Xinjiang Province.  One theory is that Hungarians came from this area.
One quarter of the population of Urumqi, principal city, is still Uighur.
Uighurs are Muslims of Turkic descent and Caucasian appearance.  I believe the
folk music of these peoples is in the same 5-note scale as used in Hungarian
folk music- reference Bela Bartok's studies.  Speaking of Bela Bartok, I often
pass the building on West 57th Street in New

Richard Cline-  

Dear Eva,
I have some problem with your statistical sources concerning Bodrogkoz. The are
a
 was heavily populated with Orthodox Jews. They spoke Yiddish and Hungarian.
They are not part of your data-bank. Even if we consider them simply Hungarian
they should show up in religious groups.
Peter I. Hidas, Montreal

The Magyar tribes originated in Western Siberia. Their story can be followed
with the aid of linguistics. They spoke a Finno-Ugrian language. Relationship
is established with the help of grammar-similarities. The Hungarian language
is not Turkic. Ancient Hungarian music can relate to Turkic because of the
contact between Turkic peoples and the Hungarians between 500 B.C. and 900 A.D.
The Hungarians were actually Magyars but because they lived side-by-side with
the Onogurs for a couple of hundred years before the Conquest of 895 they
became known in the West as Hungarians (Ungarn etc).
Peter I. Hidas, Montreal