She was the daughter-in-law of Pál Teleki, and in her heart she remained Transylvanian to the very end. The untamed countess of Zabola—the eternal rebel—the story of Hanna Mikes.
‘Our heroine wanted to become an engineer from an early age and chose the least feminine of all disciplines—structural engineering. She drew up the plans for the reinforced concrete structures of the national swimming pool designed by Alfréd Hajós…and it was her task to reinforce the collapsed roof structure of the damaged National Theatre.’
‘In international studies, the Hungarian merchant is considered one of the discoverers of Tibetan art, as he recognized the cultural values of the Himalayan peoples early on…He is also considered the second founder of the Asian Art Museum, founded by Ferenc Hopp, as he donated so many, mainly Indian and Tibetan statues and scroll paintings, to the collection.’
‘According to Zsanett, it is time to let go of romantic notions about indigenous life. Many Amazonian communities no longer have a mystical connection to nature…It’s quite astonishing that the woman who once learned traditional knowledge from Don Fidel and the others is now the one teaching it to the village’s children and adults.’
We can learn about the incomprehensible tragedies of Baroness Laya Inkey’s life from her son Jenő Thassy Jr’s book. Serbs, Russians, murders, rape, deportation, emigration: these are the keywords that describe Laya’s ordeal. An empowering story about willpower and perseverance.
‘[Elvira Valentini] had always been interested in the flora of the Balkans…She thought that in Fiume, after teaching, she would explore the countryside and continue her scientific work. But that was not to be. A few months later, war broke out, and her family called Elvira home, asking her to stay there. The shot fired in Sarajevo thus marked not only the beginning of the First World War, but also the end of an ambitious Hungarian woman’s scientific career.’
‘Zsolnay was special because, in addition to its aristocratic and wealthy foreign customers, it always thought of the ordinary person, too. In the last century, there was hardly a household without at least one Zsolnay white bowl or a milk jug, wine bucket, or baking mould from the distinctive pink collection. Here, high quality was matched by an amazing quantity.’
András Berkesi wrote a multitude of spy stories and adventure novels, becoming one of the star authors of the era, and was also awarded the Attila József Prize. Officially, no one has ever held him accountable for torturing, humiliating, and handing over people to the Russians to be taken to the gulag.
‘It became common knowledge that Neumann was actually some kind of demigod masquerading as a human being for some reason. A Martian, a demigod, anything but this worldly being, who stands out from the rest…Contemporary scientists, the military, and the world of politics all used his skills, his brain, in exactly the same way we use computers today. It was not without reason that Albert Szent-Györgyi declared Neumann to have had the most brilliant human mind ever.’