For generations, the heroic deeds of the defenders of the Eger Castle have given the Hungarian people strength and fortitude. Although the area under Ottoman occupation expanded and, in the following years, the Sultan managed to reassuringly stabilize his presence in the Carpathian Basin, our predecessors could draw strength from the example of Dobó and his army in later years.

The Habsburg Court regarded Protestantism simply as the ideological expression of the nobility, that is, the ‘spirit of rebellion’. In addition, it was part of the absolutist thinking of the era that only a mono-religious country could be politically united.

With culture and identity often taking centre stage in politics nowadays, economic issues are also increasingly looked at from a cultural point of view. In order to gain a better understanding of present-day social clashes, it is important to examine social changes in the past and their cultural fingerprint, including how literature later reflected on the painful transition to capitalism.

In 1869, the new statistical office of the capital was created, headed by Kőrösy. A few years later, he started to teach statistics in Budapest, the very first person to do so in Hungary. In 1896, he became a doctor of the University of Kolozsvár (today, Cluj in Romania), and was awarded nobility and the title of szántói, as well as the right to spell his name with a ‘y’ (indicating noble ancestry). The family never converted to Christianity, though, and the Kőrösy coat of arms included two stars of David.