Vajdahunyad Castle was built between I896 and 1908 its various parts illustrate the different styles of Hungarian architecture. It was designed by Ignác Alpár, and derived its name from the wing facing the lake, which is an imitation of the Castle of Vajdahunyad in Transylvania, the family castle of János Hunyadi, the hero of the Turkish wars, which was built in its present form in the fifteenth century (today Hunedoara, Romania).
This will be another must see site for the Polgar Budapest Chess and Cultural Tour.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Thankyou for the stunning visual tour of Budapest Susan! and the glimpses of a fascinating life!
Vajdahunyad… name reminds me of Hunyadi Janos. Is there the connection between the two? I know though that different centuries are in question. Janos Hunyadi was a great guy, he very bravely defended Belgrade in 1455.
silly me, I didn’t read it all, and you had already explained the connection between the name and the castle. I agree, Janos Hunyadi (interesting thing is that we in Serbia call him Sibinjanin Janko, and internationally he is known as John Hunyadi) was a very, very, great hero!
id love to see the inside…….wow
this reminds me…..you all can vote for the new “seven wonders of the world”. you have to register. its all free of course but you can look at pictures of the various sites that are possibilities and vote for the 7 that you feel are worthy. here’s the site for more info……. http://www.new7wonders.com/index.php
Small error: In background one sees the picine Szécsényi, and not the Vajdahunyad castle! : -)
piscine* (swimming pool)
thermal
It’s the same Janos Hunyadi who led the last crusade in 1444 together with the Polish Wladislaw Warnenczik, the latter falling as a hero in the Battle of Varna, near the Black Sea.
Wasn’t he called Janko Segedinac in Serbia? Or that may be another person? My knowledge of Serbian history getting rusty.
No, in serbian epic poetry he is known as Sibinjanin Janko. You can look in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunyadi
under Names in other languages, so you will see there names of that hero in different languages.
As for Segedinac, you are probably refering to Pera Segedinac(1655-1736) who is another person. Pera led peasants’ riot when he was 80 years old in 1735.
I wouldn’t say that your serbian history knowledge is getting rusty. To be quite frank with you, I did not know about Pera Segedinac at all, so now I searched internet to find facts about him. Serbian well known writer Laza Kostic described in his drama Pera Segedinac destiny of that hero.
When I was younger I used to think that history is boring, but now my opinion is that it is very important to know history of the world, and also history of literature, music, arts, and why not sports and chess – if we do not know world heritage and if we do not find joy in knowing different cultures of the world, then in the future we will be lost in negative side effects of globalization. And globalization has also positive side effects, such as internet and Susan’s blog.
I wonder how many people know that pioneers of making computer play chess are Dr. Claude Shannon (father of telecommunication science) and Dr. Alan Turing (father of computer science, and hero from Bletchley Park in WWII who did great part of job to decipher Enigma). I find this fact very, very interesting.
Greetings from Serbia!
You are perfectly right, Dejane. It was Pera Segedinac – another person and another time. I was interested in Serbian and Montenegran history when younger, say 20 years ago. Very interesting persons and events there – heroism and trachery, some being alternately heros and traitors. Interesting names too – check, for instance Vuk Ognjeni Zmaj (Wolf Fiery Dragon) and Lazni Petar (False Petar), the latter claiming to be the Russian Tsar Petar III.
BTW, I have the original paper of Shannon and Turing on computer chess. Many of their ideas are still not implemented in modern chess programs.
My friend, thanks for interest in serbian history, but what can be compared to greatness of russian history and heritage! I suffer so much that I do not speak Russian, otherwise I would be able to enjoy in golden mine of russian science, and sites like http://www.lib.ru
As for serbian science, I will be quite satisfied if people around the world understand that it was Nikola Tesla who invented radio, and not Marconi – as it is still widely believed despite the decision of the Supreme Court of United States from 1943 which credited Tesla as inventor of radio. And of course, Nikola Tesla was the guy who invented alternating currents, and therefore made basis for everything in modern world. Interesting thing is that he invented rotating magnetic field (while reciting Goethe’s Faust in one park in Budapest in 1882) which was considered perpetuum mobile until then. This year we celebrate 150 years of Tesla’s birth (1856-2006)
And as for Alan Turing, I wonder what would have happened in WWII if he hadn’t made that machine for deciphering Enigma. Perhaps Allies would have lost the war, it is difficult when you cannot read the code. So, I think world should show more gratitude to Dr. Alan Turing.
Nice that you opened the word about Nikola Tesla, my friend Dejan. He is my most favorite hero. Several years ago, I found his autobiography and also the biography by O’Neil in this treasure-trove for Serbian history – the Rastko site. I was enchanted by the way he lived his life – it was like a fairy-tale for a magician. And yet it is a true story. Fascinating.
Lantonov my friend, you can already guess who was my childhood hero – of course mr. Tesla. Since this is a chess blog, it would be nice to say something about Tesla’s chess skills, but I unfortunately have no such information. I heard that he was the best player of billiards in Budapest at that time, and that he liked to play cards very much. Searching the net I found that Bora Kostic met Tesla in 1915 while Bora was the chess teacher to the famous tenor singer Enrico Caruso. Perhaps Kostic and Tesla played chess together, but I don’t know.