One Must Also Be Hungarian
By Adam Biro
4/5
()
About this ebook
The only country in the world with a line in its national anthem as desperate as “this people has already suffered for its past and its future,” Hungary is a nation defined by poverty, despair, and conflict. Its history, of course, took an even darker and more tragic turn during the Holocaust. But the story of the Jews in Hungary is also one of survival, heroism, and even humor—and that is the one acclaimed author Adam Biro sets out to recover in One Must Also Be Hungarian, an inspiring and altogether poignant look back at the lives of his family members over the past two hundred years.
A Hungarian refugee and celebrated novelist working in Paris, Biro recognizes the enormous sacrifices that his ancestors made to pave the way for his successes and the envious position he occupies as a writer in postwar Europe. Inspired, therefore, to share the story of his family members with his grandson, Biro draws some moving pictures of them here: witty and whimsical vignettes that convey not only their courageous sides, but also their inner fears, angers, jealousies, and weaknesses—traits that lend an indelible humanity to their portraiture. Spanning the turn of the nineteenth century, two destructive world wars, the dramatic rise of communism, and its equally astonishing fall, the stories here convey a particularly Jewish sense of humor and irony throughout—one that made possible their survival amid such enormous adversity possible.
Already published to much acclaim in France, One Must Also Be Hungarian is a wry and compulsively readable book that rescues from oblivion the stories of a long-suffering but likewise remarkable and deservedly proud people.
Related to One Must Also Be Hungarian
Related ebooks
Emancipation of the Polish Peasantry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCzech and Slovak Immigration to America: When, Where, Why and How Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShalom Uganda:A Jewish Community on the Equator Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBay Roberts: Not Your Typical Small Town Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMr. Selfridge's Romance of Commerce: An Abridged Version of the Classic Text on Business and Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Weight of Their Votes: Southern Women and Political Leverage in the 1920s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIt Runs in the Family: Understanding More About Your Ancestors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Parsonages Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreyhound Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South Charleston Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTracing Your Huguenot Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQueen of The Savoy: The Extraordinary Life of Helen D'Oyly Carte 1852-1913 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrue Miracles with Genealogy: Volume Two Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Jews with Czechoslovak Roots Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFictions of Conversion: Jews, Christians, and Cultures of Change in Early Modern England Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReporting Live: Articles and Letters from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJewish Ann Arbor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLigonier Valley Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Caledonia County Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBaltimore's Bygone Department Stores: Many Happy Returns Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWales since 1939 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJewish Philadelphia: A Guide to Its Sights & Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe American Family in the Colonial Period Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings202 Great Cover Letters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Terrace Builders of Nyanga Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAccelerated Testing and Validation Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The History of the Automobile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Historical Biographies For You
The Diary of Anne Frank (The Definitive Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Moveable Feast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frida Kahlo: An Illustrated Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twelve Years a Slave (Illustrated) (Two Pence books) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leonardo da Vinci Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Rediscovered Books): A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/518 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anne Frank Remembered Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare: The World as Stage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for One Must Also Be Hungarian
7 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perhaps one must also be Hungarian to truly understand Hungarian literature. Having read several books over the past eleven weeks from the pen of more than a half dozen different Hungarian authors whose work spans the era from the ebbing of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of the nineteenth century to the fall of Communism near the end of the twentieth century I cannot claim to have developed an understanding of the literature or the culture. But I have developed an appreciation for their literature -- both fiction and memoir. Adam Biro's own memoir, One Must Also Be Hungarian, displaying his family and ancestors, and more poetically titled Les Ancetres d'Ulysse in the original French, is a memorable collection of portraits of his family. Each portrait within it is like a snapshot capturing features of personality and character, illuminated by memories and episodes from family history and the author's own experience. His use of family photographs enhances the personal nature of the story by providing images to set beside his elegant but simple prose. While the elan and humor of his family is clearly delineated there remains an overarching melancholy tinged with sadness for those relatives whose lives were ended suddenly, sometimes due to the violence and hatred that swept Europe in the twentieth century. He shares the glories of Hungarians both within and outside of his family that permeate the zeitgeist of their existence. The stories of success as with Uncle Eugene Perlmuth and the tragic life of the artist, Uncle Jozsi, are just two of the portraits that moved me the most. Both the glories and the sadness are conflated to create an overall image that I found -- the humanity of the whole.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Adam Biro and I were both born in Hungary, that is all we have in common. Still, I felt as one with him. To be Hungarian seems to be more than education or background. I felt a strong bond with the emotions behind the words. That is the best I can say about what I felt as I read this memoir. The book is "One Must Also Be Hungarian" by Adam Biro