Budapest

03-08-07

I arrived in Budapest to visit cousins of my mother around 6 PM on a rainy, overcast day. Hungary needed the rain as they had about 500 people die last week due to extremely hot weather.

The largest and arguably most splendid synagogue in Europe is the Great Synagogue in Budapest where I attended part of their Sabbath services. It was constructed in a Byzantine-Moorish style by the Viennese architect Ludwig Forster around 1854-1859. The veneer is composed of white and red bricks with intricately planned ceramic friezes; the central ornamentation is an enormous rose window situated between two onion domed towers that are elaborately decorated. Underneath the rose window is a Hebrew inscription from Exodus.

The Great Synagogue has elements of reform and the traditional Orthodox Judaism. A powerful organ provides music for the service – it was the reform movement’s attempt to emulate the Catholic Church. Yet the service is done in Hebrew instead of Hungarian with the Orthodox mode of praying; the women are separated from the men to avoid the temptation of flirting.

I had my first taste of vintage, Hungarian food for dinner at my relatives’ apartment. The cauliflower soup was the highlight of the meal. Like Viennese, Hungarians relish sweet pastries for desert and this meal was no exception with some excellent chocolate marzipan cake with a generous portion of icing.

Budapest, like Vienna, dates back to the Romans with the establishment of the town of Aquincum. The Roman reign ended in the 5^th century with the fall of Rome and the region came under the autonomy of Attila the Hun. The area was ruled by various tribes over the following four centuries, most noticeably the Avars. The Magyars migrated from the Urals in 896 under the helm of Prince Arpad whose dynasty would have sovereignty up to the 13^th Century. A turning point in Hungarian history was at the beginning of the new millennium, when St. Istvan established Christianity as the state religion in Hungary. Istvan was the first crowned king of Hungary and laid the foundation for a modern state.

Bela IV moved the capital of Hungary to Buda after Mongol invasion in 1247, but Turks would rule the region in the 15^th and 16^th century until the country was liberated by Christian militants and placed under the jurisdiction of the Habsburgs. Buda and Pest received modernization contributions through Empress Maria Theresa and Archduke Joseph, but the snail’s pace of reformation led to brutal uprisings in 1848 that were put down by Franz Joseph I. A compromise was reached in 1867 that led to the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the unification of Buda and Pest in 1873, thus the city was now called Budapest. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was defeated in World War I and the empire was dissolved. As a result, Hungary had to give up two-thirds of its land. This would provide the motivation for supporting Germany during World War II in the hopes of reclaiming its former territories.

Budapest was seized by Soviet troops following World War II with much of the city being demolished. In 1956, a nationalist uprising against communism occurred, but it was infamously suppressed by Soviets tanks. Hungary would become a sovereign nation in 1989 with the fall of communism resulting in the withdrawal of the Soviets in 1991. In 2004, Hungary joined the European Union.