Hungarians

Wow! So first we have Judit Polgár, the greatest female chess player in the world. Now we have another female Hungarian World's Champion - we have Nona - quite possibly the world's greatest female Beatboxer.

Well she is the World Champion to me, anyway. There are lots of good Beatbox gals out there, but Nona is the real deal - at only 17 years old, she is a true királynö of the Beatbox art. She gets the edge in my scorecard because of speed, versatility and skillful use of the left hand for balance and emphasis.

You have to check this S**t out!

Hungarians everywhere are buzzing about the hottest Hungarian athlete to come along since... well, since László Cseh gave Michael Phelps a run for his money at the 2008 Summer Games. That would be Overdose, the equine sensation that has gained the attention of the horse racing world for his improbable run of successes. It is said that this Hungarian ló is the greatest Central European horse to hit racing in over 100 years.

There are many similarities Overdose has with the immortal Seabiscuit. Like Seabiscuit, Overdose is an undersized runt that nobody in the world of horse breeding thought would worth anything on the race track, and was bought at a sale in Newmarket in the UK for next to nothing. But after some cultivating by trainer Sandor Ribarszki, he proceeded to mop the floor with the competition - winning his first 8 races by a total of 84 lengths!

Those who have seen Overdose in training say this horse runs like he's running from Death himself. "We can't let him go fast in training because he wants to run so hard, he'd drive himself into the ground," trainer Ribarszki has said. Word has it that this animal is so sensitive he has been known to cry for daddy if he so much as gets bit by a mosquito... but also runs with the same emotional intensity at the sound of the bell, making him a formidable foe for even the best thoroughbreds out there. Makes sense - a diva needs to be pampered.

Overdose could be the horse to do in the 21st century what Hungarian equestrian legend Kincsem did in the 19th. Place your bets!

Riding the rails on the Metro 2 Blue Line again and I am curious about the airbrushed mural at Dósza György Station.

Most of the other stations on this line are plain examples of 1960s modernism gone to seed. But Dósza György Station they seem to be experimenting with a different idea: Graffiti. It's not the most accomplished graffiti - you'll have to travel a few miles out of town on the train and cop a gander at the retaining walls for that - but it's a nice official nod to street artists.



And it's also a nice nod to the legendary peasant rebel Dósza György. He is Hungary's answer to Spartacus - a mistreated slave from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary who, as part of an impromptu uprising, led his people against their cruel and arrogant landlord masters.

A mercenary hero in military campaigns against the Ottomans, György was charged by Pope Leo X to train an army of mercenaries for a decisive crusade against the Turks. But the nobility treated this underequipped army like crap, and the hordes turned on their patrons with a vengeance.

After that it was party central in good old Hungary for a few months. The marauding ex-peasants had the rich on the run, taking many fortresses and threatened to overrun Buda. For the first half of 1514, many a medieval hedge fund trader and trust fund brat felt the pain of the broadsword cleaving their corrupt, conniving skulls.

But all good things must come to an end, and when Dósza György was captured at Temesvár his victorious captors executed him with an uncommon sadism. They put him on a flaming throne, made him hold a red-hot sceptre while wearing a red-hot iron crown of thorns on his head. Then as he burned, his starving followers were made to eat Dozsa's flesh as he died. Nice folks, those royals.

So now Dósza György has a mural in the Budapest Metro honoring his day in the sun, and in the flames. Hungarians know who their real heros are.

One of the thousands of cool things about Hungarians is that they are chess maniacs. And the best player in the country is Judit Polgár - the greatest female chess player of all time.

Greatest woman chess player of all time? Indubitably. I know this is a fact because it is plastered all over her home page banner:

POLGAR JUDIT - The greatest woman chess player of all time - OFFICIAL WEBSITE

In case you overlook the claim of greatness on the banner when visiting her website, you don't have to delve very deep to learn more about this self-appointed Reine d'Echeques. A glance at her bio page reviews the accomplishments of this high-IQ hottie in terms that know no modesty:

"I have been the world’s No. 1 woman chess player for nearly 20 years straight, since 1989. Among men, I was ranked 8th in 2005. I was awarded the Chess Oscar seven times, and was elected Woman Chess Player of the Century."

Well, why not. When you've got it flaunt it.

In 1991, at the age of 15, Polgár became a grandmaster - the youngest in recorded history at that time. As a member of the Hungarian Men's team she won a silver medal in the 2002 Olympics, which compliments the two gold Women's Team medals she has displayed on the mantle of her nagyon fantasztikus 400 sq. meter Kodály Körönd apartment.

Her high-water mark in world chess came when she almost beat world champion Garry Kasparov at a 1994 tournament in Spain. She would have won but Kasparov cheated. On move 37, he made a bonehead play and then took his hand off the piece. Once his hand let go of the knight, the move should have counted; however, the officials either didn't see the gaffe or were too intimidated by his stature to force the issue. Polgár magnanimously let Kasparov replay the move, which saved the game for him. And so the path of history played out as metaphor on the black and white squares yet again as the cunning Russian stabbed the good Hungarian in the back. And a Hungarian woman, no less!

But Kasparov has marched in the streets of Moscow for democracy, so he gets a pass. Any guy who has been jailed by Putin can't be all bad. And anyway Polgár made up for this robbery in later years by beating every old warhorse the Russians could put in front of her - Spassky, Karpov, Topalov, the whole mob.

Enough about those old coots. This page is about Judit Polgár. I like the fact that she devotes a lot of time to teaching kids the fun and the challenge of the game she loves. I like that she puts her family first. And I find it too cool that the most beautiful female celebrity in Hungary is not a movie star or athlete, but a chess player. That's such a backwards state of things that it could only happen in Hungary.

In addition to being very good at chess and very cute, she also has managed to domesticate a real live lion and a dolphin, both of which she keeps as pets. Everyone loves Judit Polgár!

This is the first of a series of profiles of amazing Hungarians past and present. The content of these posts won't be anything new to folks here in Hungary of course, these profiles of people whose stories are well known to all Hungarians... But for the English-speaking non-Hungarian readers who are checking in from the outside, I will be profiling many magyars whose lives and/or bodies of work are unique and interesting.

Some time back I was at Alexandra bookstore in Debrecen, browsing the foreign language selections and cursing the dearth of english translations of great Hungarian literature in stores here. I did find one translated classic, however, and it was an important one - an english translation of János Vitéz by Hungary's finest lyric poet, Sándor Petőfi.

Sándor Petőfi is a heroic Hungarian figure for his martyrdom in the 1848 revolution, and for his contributions to popularizing the Hungarian language in an era when it was almost seditious to do so.

If I tell you that his János Vitéz is a long lyric poem, don't let bad memories of a dull English Lit class scare you away from it. It's a funny, surreal and fantastic story that has appeal to all ages. Seems that every native-born person here reads it when they are kids, and when I mention that I have read it I always see a little smile curling up at the edges of their mouths in remembrance.

János Vitéz reads like an account of Tom Sawyer let loose in the surreal landscape of the 1001 Arabian Nights. Told in quatrains, the action careens from earthy peasant life realities into wild romantic fantasy and back again. Even in an impossible translation, the story is unlike anything I've ever read in print. It is easy to understand why Hungarian kids grow up with the idea of Kukorica Jancsi, the hero of the tale, embedded in their heads.

The life and adventures of the fellow who wrote János Vitéz, Sándor Petőfi, is almost as amazing as his most memorable character. As a writer he was incredibly prolific, as a revolutionary he used his gift for writing to light a fire under his countrymen living under royalist repression, and as a soldier he laid down his life for his country in the failed war of independence of 1848.

He also wrote Talpra Magyar, a passionate poem of patriotism that is infinitely more powerful and "Hungarian" that the whimpering morass of cowering sentiment that serves as text to the the Hungarian national anthem ("Himnusz") of today.


More about Sándor Petőfi here.