The title of this post notwithstanding, the name of the town
where I currently live does not, in fact, rhyme with that most prominent and
imposing part of my physique. Will this homonym/homophone disconnect prevent me
from making future puns? Absolutely not. Will you grow increasingly annoyed
with me for doing so? Almost certainly. Do I care? Maybe a little. Enough to
stop? Probably not.
Obnoxiousness is clearly a familial trait, since my dad
seems to delight in refusing to pronounce the name of Pécs correctly, and so
far has yet to repeat himself, which is impressive. I’ve heard Peks, Pech, Pez,
Petz, Pesc, but never Paych, which is the proper way to say it; think of a
southern belle drawling “Peach” and you’ve got it. He would have been better
off sticking with the German name, Fünfkirchen (Five Churches), itself derived
from the older Latin name Quinque Basilicae/Ecclesiae. The etymology of the
current name is uncertain, but one theory is that it is related to “beş,” the Turkish word for five (thanks,
Wikipedia!).
While the current name dates to the 13th century,
the Turkish occupation would not occur until three hundred years later. Five
hundred years after that time, and the Turkish architectural influence is the
first striking feature one notices about Pécs. Actually, that’s not true; the
first thing one notices as the train pulls into the station is the
Communist-era TV tower perched atop the Mecsek Mountains:
More on this structure, the spectacular views from its
observation deck, and the less than spectacular amenities of its restaurant, in
a future post. The second thing one notices upon exiting the train is row upon
row of drab, gray, concrete apartment buildings, another relic of the socialist
years. But the THIRD thing one notices after a ten minute walk through the gray
gauntlet is Széchenyi Square and the Mosque of Pasha Qasim in its center:
The mosque has been returned to its original function as a
church, but deliberately restored to retain the characteristic Ottoman dome and
arabesque decor. Another mosque in town is a much better preserved monument to
the Turkish past, but this and other buildings will be discussed in a future
post.
As this abrupt jump between the 20th and 16th
centuries indicates, eclecticism is very much at the heart of Pécs’ identity.
Just around the corner from the town square we leap a further thousand years
back from the time of the Turks, to Roman ruins from the 4th
century:
From here we can walk a few minutes in any direction and
easily find churches, palaces, and other structures from virtually every era
and style of the past millennium: Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and
all the various “neo-“ historicist styles of the 19th century (neogothic, neobaroque, etc.). Girding it all
is the medieval wall, effective at keeping out Mongol hordes, less effective at
keeping out Turks or, well, Americans. My apartment looks out upon these walls and upon the city
cathedral, redesigned in neo-Romanesque style in the 19th century:
The above description makes it sound as if I first arrived
at my new home by traversing the city on foot, but I was in fact met at the
train station by my landlord, a young law professor, in a manner that suggested
we would soon become friends. Waving to me excitedly from his zippy Alfa Romeo,
he promptly drove over the curb, narrowly avoiding detaching both his bumper
and the head of a passerby. My kind of style, I thought. In the course of an
orientation tour of the town I learned that his family has lived here for
generations: his grandfather was a highly respected doctor who saved the lives
of many coal miners in the nearby town of Komlo, and eventually earned enough
money to build his house in 1938.
Timing is everything, and as that date suggests, Hungary was
about to receive some visitors who would make the Mongols and Turks seem downright cuddly by comparison. Between the war and communist seizure of private property, my
landlord’s grandfather never actually managed to live in the house he’d worked
so hard to build. Despite this, he remained positive, refusing to let external
circumstances dictate his life: He continued to work as a doctor, played the
piano, read, and took long walks. It’s clear my landlord views him as a sort of
hero, someone who didn’t succumb to the usual Magyar propensity for self-pity.
My landlord has also worked to shake this disposition, which
cannot be said of the administrators I met at the music department at the
university the next day. Lovely people all, but all too ready to indulge in
Hungarian defeatism and self-flagellation. In an hour-and-a-half orientation,
we accomplished little beyond reflecting on the dismal state of university
bureaucracy. As attempts to use one or another online resource failed, this or
that administrator replied with a shrug and comments such as, “What do you
expect? We’re in the eastern bloc.” Also notable were meandering tangents that
were undeniably entertaining, but hardly germane. As one admin—who shares both
the name and gift of prolixity with a certain prominent Humanist
writer—observed: “Hungary ranks number one in indigestion and poor health but
students still have to pay for the gym; cigarettes are free though.” When I
told him I was planning on studying Hungarian he said, “Why would you do that?
This is a manifestation of masochism.”
The point of this tangent about tangents is to refine my
superficial analysis of the Hungarian character from the last post. Pride and
shame seem to go hand in hand here: pride for what Hungary was and might have
been, shame for what it’s become. And there’s no middle ground here, either;
Hungary is either the best or the worst. In the case of the former, a
running joke has a certain Hungarian I know claiming credit for every notable
invention in human history. The fork? Hungarian. Indoor plumbing? Magyars
flushed with success. The ballpoint pen and Rubik’s cube? Ok, those last two
are actually Hungarian inventions.
Conversely, Hungary now is apparently in utter shambles. The country undoubtedly has its fair share of problems, and I will leave
it to people better informed in current affairs to detail what those are.
Suffice to say, the economy, government, and standard of living are far below
the post-communism hopes of many Hungarians. Still, to this naïve outsider it
doesn’t seem so bad, though I am admittedly the beneficiary of a very favorable
exchange rate. I don’t wish to diminish legitimate concerns over low salaries
and slow economic growth. I’m more interested in perceptions, and many
Hungarians seem to view the rest of the world through green-tinted glasses, and
themselves with unfairly harsh standards. A constant refrain is that Hungarians
are unfriendly, but I have not found that to be the case. Yes, they can be
gloomy, but they are always exceedingly polite and apologetic when recounting
the litany of abuses they’ve suffered at the hands of cruel Fortuna.
My perception
of a disconnect between Hungarian pessimism and a sunnier reality is also colored by
living in Pécs, undoubtedly the nicest small city in the country, and a beautiful
city by any standard. In 2010 it was the EU cultural capital, as a result of
which Pécs boasts a revitalized town square, a new concert hall, and amenities
that rival or surpass those of other comparably-sized European cities.
Untouched by the conflicts of the 20th century, the city feels a bit
magical; my neighbors refer to it as Hobbiton and the town clock even chimes
out this little Baroque ditty several times throughout the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jPwdVo5rxY
The denizens of Pécs hustle and bustle in rhythm to this
tune, going about their business in little Victorian waistcoats and top hats.
Or so it appears to me.
In future posts I’ll visit some of the historical sites I
touched upon above, detail the severe emotional trauma suffered during my piano
lessons, deconstruct the nightmare that is the Hungarian language, and
otherwise chronicle my picaresque exploits.
