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Mini Hungarian language lesson: horticulture.
It isn't so much that "Bálint gazda", the nation's horticulturalist, was loved passionately (although he was well loved and respected), more like he was a constant, unchanging point in our world.
And now he isn't.
It isn't so much that "Bálint gazda", the nation's horticulturalist, was loved passionately (although he was well loved and respected), more like he was a constant, unchanging point in our world.
And now he isn't.
At the age of nearly 101, news of his death shouldn't have been that much of a shock but it still sent ripples through Hungarian society.
He was born György Braun, his father was an enterprising Jewish smallholder.
He was born György Braun, his father was an enterprising Jewish smallholder.
When exactly his family name was Hungarianised to "Bálint" I don't know, it certainly didn't save the freshly graduated György from being interned in Mauthausen concentration camp, where almost all of his family perished.
He survived though and on his return took charge of the family lands, only to be threatened with internment again, this time by the Communists.
If the pattern sounds familiar from previous biographies of Hungarian Jews I wrote about, you're correct: this was a common thing.
If the pattern sounds familiar from previous biographies of Hungarian Jews I wrote about, you're correct: this was a common thing.
Eventually he got away with all his lands being taken away and driven from his home. But at least he was allowed to work in academia as an expert in agriculture and horticulture, and later as editor of various agricultural journals.
National fame arrived for him in the 1980s, when he started to regularly feature on the TV consumer programme "Ablak" ("Window"), this is when he became the nation's "Bálint gazda" ("Farmer Bálint"), discussing and replying to viewer queries about gardening and farming.
After the 1990 political "system change" he joined the left-liberal SZDSZ party, and on the back of his personal popularity was elected an MP in 1994.
After a single term though, he decided to return to educating his nation about the wonders of the cultivated plant world.
After a single term though, he decided to return to educating his nation about the wonders of the cultivated plant world.
Almost uniquely, his political career didn't entirely alienate "the other side"; while there were some local right-wing councillors who were hell-bent on preventing him being honoured by the Budapest district he was living in, even they relented in this February.
One thing is for sure: in the 100 years allotted to him, from the end of WW1 to whatever this is today, he experienced several lifetimes' worth of change, and he took everything in his stride.
It's strange and sad to imagine a world without him: he's just always been there.
It's strange and sad to imagine a world without him: he's just always been there.
P.s.: If you're English and wonder what he might have been like, imagine Alan Titchmarsh but with Sir David Attenborough's demeanour.
